US08214885B2
Devices and methods for managing a communications network include using USB keys to provision and management components in the network by having the network component establish a connection to a network administrator device, such as a laptop, PDA, or desktop workstation. A first USB key is used to provision a network component so that it has the necessary security information to interact with a second USB key, used to enable actual management of the component. Once the component has the security information, the second USB key is inserted and certain callback data are made available to the component. It uses this data to make a “call” or connection to an administrator's device. The callback data may be an IP address of the device, an e-mail address, VoIP data, instant messaging data, dial-up data, and so on. Once the connection, initiated and established by the network component, is made the administrator can begin managing the component.
US08214884B2
A management server acts as a repository for a plurality of user certificates corresponding to a plurality of users. When a user wishes to access a remote computer such as a secure-enabled host requiring a secure credential, his/her computer sends a request message to the management server. The management server may perform its own validity checking. In response to a request and conditioned on the management server authorizing access to a computing resource that requires an authorization credential, the management server delivers the requested credential and executable code, the authorization credential comprising information that enables access to the computing resource and the delivered executable code manages the lifecycle of the delivered authorization credential by allowing only temporary storage without caching of the delivered authorization credential.
US08214877B1
Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for developing policies which govern entities and applying the developed policies against representations of entities, where the representations are contained in a repository. One embodiment of a method of the present invention includes obtaining a policy comprising a rule, wherein the rule comprises a condition associated with compliance to the rule, generating one or more filters according to the condition, applying the one or more filters to a plurality of representations in a repository, wherein each representation represents an entity and determining a set of entities compliant with the rule based on the application of the one or more filters to the plurality of representations.
US08214876B2
Routing and connectivity in the Internet is largely governed by the dynamics and configuration of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). A configuration analysis toolkit enables network operators to discover, analyze and diagnose their BGP configuration, policies and peering relationships. Statistical variance analysis in such a toolkit exploits the recurrence of policies in large networks for analysis. In a large network, policies that have similar functions are examined, e.g. all inbound route maps associated with customer autonomous systems. For n occurrences of similar policy P, it is possible to flag k deviant configurations, and evaluate the probability that the deviant configurations are in error. Analysis and policy visualization of implemented BGP configurations enable service providers to move from checking of low-level configuration to extracting analyzable BGP level policy information across a multitude of BGP routers in order to validate consistency of policies and operator intent across distributed BGP configurations using a flexible, customizable analysis engine.
US08214875B2
A packet traversing on the computer network is received; session information is generated from the packet with the session information including a client network address and a server network address; the packet is associated with at least one object attribute from the directory by using the session information; and a security policy defined for the network environment is enforced by using the session information and the object attribute(s) to determine whether the packet violates the security policy.
US08214867B2
Delivery of feedback information to a scheduling service to determine optimum broadcast times based upon client platform tuner contention is described. A usage pattern of an electronic media device is recorded. The usage pattern is communicated to a scheduling server. Media content is received during a time period selected by the scheduling server based upon the usage pattern.
US08214858B2
An audio and/or video generation apparatus comprises a recording processor which is operable to record audio and/or video signals on a recording medium, a meta data generation processor which is operable to generate meta data identifying the content of the audio/video signals, and a communications processor which arranged to communicate the meta data separately from the recording medium.Furthermore, the meta data generation processor may be operable to generate at least one sample image which is representative of a video image from the recorded video signals, and to associate the sample image with an address on the recording medium at which the video image is recorded. The video and/or audio generation apparatus provides an advantage in generating and utilising meta data to facilitate the generation of audio/video productions. Accordingly, a system for generating an audio and/or video production comprises an acquisition processor operable in use to receive instructions from a user which instructions are representative of a list of content items for the audio and/or video production. The audio and/or video generation apparatus is arranged in use to receive information representative of the list of content items, and to generate audio and/or video signals in accordance with the content items on the list. An ingestion processor may be provided to receive the list of content items, and the audio and/or video signals and to form the audio and/or video production by associating the audio and/or video signals with the list of content items.
US08214851B2
A method, system and apparatus for constructing dispatch tables match application program interface service routines. The invention includes reading a header file of the application program interface. The invention further includes generating a corresponding dispatch table for at least one device indicated in the header file, wherein the corresponding dispatch tables are generated based on information read from the header file. The invention further includes verifying that the information contained in the dispatch tables is consistent with current requirements of the application program interface.
US08214849B2
A system and methods are provided for loading device-specific functions into a device driver. Upon boot-up an operating system initiates a device driver to be loaded into kernel mode memory. Functions that are device independent are loaded into memory and form a first portion of the device driver. An identifier associated with a particular device being used is received. The device identifier is compared to a table of supported devices to identify a device-specific image from a plurality of executable image files. The identified device-specific image is then loaded to form a second portion of the device driver in kernel mode memory.
US08214848B2
A method of installing printer drivers of image forming apparatuses in an environment that employs a universal printer driver is provided. Accordingly, it is possible to provide an environment for using printer drivers of image forming apparatuses that is convenient to a user by deleting printer drivers of image forming apparatuses that were previously installed by using the universal printer driver and by installing printer drivers of image forming apparatuses corresponding to a predetermined standard.
US08214844B2
Systems and methods for adjusting the number of tasks that are accepted for processing in a computer based on processing resources required by the tasks, processing resources available in the computer system, and the time allowed to complete at least one of the tasks. The tasks that are accepted for processing can be scheduled to timeshare the processing resources available so that the task(s) complete within the time allowed.
US08214842B2
A method, system, and computer program product for visualization-centric performance-based volume allocation in a data storage system using a processor in communication with a memory device is provided. A unified resource graph representative of a global hierarchy of storage components in the data storage system, including each of a plurality of storage controllers, is generated. The unified resource graph includes a common root node and a plurality of subtree nodes corresponding to each of a plurality of nodes internal to the plurality of storage controllers. The common root node and the plurality of subtree nodes are ordered in a top-down orientation. Scalable volume provisioning of an existing or new workload amount by graphical manipulation of at least one of the storage components represented by the unified resource graph is performed based on an input.
US08214839B1
File resources that are most likely to be used on a target computer are proactively cached, so that the resources are available before they are needed. This greatly reduces or eliminates associated user wait times. It is determined which file resources are most likely to be used, the cost of transmitting them to the cache, the cost of storing them in the cache and the amount of cache space available. Based on a weighted balancing analysis of factors such as these, specific file resources are proactively streamed for use on the target computer. The determination as to which resources are most likely to be used can be based on a variety of factors, such as usage patterns, schedule based information, user and group based information, target computer and network information, etc.
US08214837B2
A method, apparatus, and system enable sequestered partitions on a device. A scheduler may allocate resources to each of the sequestered partitions and dynamically reallocate the resources from one partition to another, as necessary. In one embodiment, the scheduler may dedicate resources to an operating system in a first partition and dedicate resources to a digital video recorder in a second partition. Additionally, the scheduler may reallocate resources to the second partition in response to the resource requirements of the digital video recorder.
US08214836B1
A method for scheduling computing jobs in a scheduling event. A computing node is identified that is able to satisfy the required resource during a first time period. A second computing job is determined to have previously been scheduled to execute during a second time period, where the second time period overlaps a first time period. Execution of the second computing job is preempted if the first computing job's priority is greater than the second computing job's priority by at least a threshold amount, and if preempting the second job frees the required resource for use by the first computing job. Execution of the first computing job is scheduled to take place on a first computing node during the first time period, where a start time associated with the first time period is a time selected from the group consisting of a current time and a future time.
US08214834B2
A system for asynchronous process sleep or wake management and corresponding methods thereof are described. The system comprises a sleep queue hash table, a process, and a first sleep object and a second sleep object. The first and second sleep objects each comprise a sleep queue and each of the first and second sleep objects are associated with the process. The system further comprises one or more kernel-space processes arranged to perform at least one of associating the first sleep object with the sleep queue hash table and designating the second sleep object to be used for sleeping the process.
US08214830B2
Embodiments of apparatuses and methods for improving performance in a virtualization architecture are disclosed. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a processor and a processor abstraction layer. The processor abstraction layer includes instructions that, when executed by the processor, support techniques to improve the performance of the apparatus in a virtualization architecture.
US08214818B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for constructing a data dependency graph (DDG) for a loop to be transformed, performing statement shifting to transform the loop into a first transformed loop according to at least one of first and second algorithms, performing unimodular and echelon transformations of a selected one of the first or second transformed loops, partitioning the selected transformed loop to obtain maximum outer level parallelism (MOLP), and partitioning the selected transformed loop into multiple sub-loops. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08214817B2
A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for generating an optimization insensitive behavior profile. In one embodiment, a source identifier is assigned to each instruction in an original control flow graph representing a program code prior to optimization. The identifiers identify a basic block associated with the instruction or a group of basic blocks. A source identifier in the set of source identifiers is assigned to instructions in an optimized control flow graph representing the program code after optimizing the program code. The instructions in the optimized control flow graph are mapped to the original control flow graph using the set of source identifiers to form a mapping transformation. Behavior profile data associated with the optimized program code is moved to basic blocks in the original control flow graph using the mapping transformation to form the optimization insensitive behavior profile.
US08214816B2
A compiler implemented software cache in which non-aliased explicitly fetched data are excluded are provided. With the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments, a compiler uses a forward data flow analysis to prove that there is no alias between the cached data and explicitly fetched data. Explicitly fetched data that has no alias in the cached data are excluded from the software cache. Explicitly fetched data that has aliases in the cached data are allowed to be stored in the software cache. In this way, there is no runtime overhead to maintain the correctness of the two copies of data. Moreover, the number of lines of the software cache that must be protected from eviction is decreased. This leads to a decrease in the amount of computation cycles required by the cache miss handler when evicting cache lines during cache miss handling.
US08214815B2
The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for reducing the run-time cost of invoking a server page. The system can include a server page translation unit configured to translate a server page document into program code. The system also can include a program code compiler configured to compile the program code into a program object. Finally, the system can include an optimization processor programmed to modify the program code to permit direct invocation of the program object by external program objects bypassing a server engine typically used to invoke the server page. Notably, in a preferred aspect of the invention the server page can be a JSP. Similarly, the program code can be Java source code and the program object can be a Java class. Finally, the external program objects can be servlets.
US08214813B2
A method of optimizing code which invokes methods on a system across an interface is described. High level information relating to the system is accessed and this information is used in performing code transformations in order to optimize the code.
US08214799B2
A system-created variable object may expose a property of an object model to an internal object that does not have access to the object model directly. The system-created variable object may provide a mechanism for communicating the external state of an object model to an internal member (object) without exposing the object model to the internal object. This feature enables an object model object to be isolated, a concept that can be advantageously exploited.
US08214796B2
A system and method for creating a graphical program operable to asynchronously pass one or more trigger events to a statechart. The graphical program may include a first node which is operable to asynchronously send one or more trigger events to a statechart. For example, in some embodiments the first node may be operable to place the one or more trigger events in an event queue associated with the statechart. The statechart may receive and process events from the event queue asynchronously with respect to when the events are placed in the event queue.
US08214793B1
A selection of a layer is received from a plurality of layers of a composition. A tool type and one or more tool setting(s) are obtained based at least in part on the selected layer, where in the event the selected layer was previously selected at least once, the obtained tool type and tool setting(s) were in use a last time the selected layer was selected. A tool is automatically configured using the obtained tool type and tool setting(s), where the tool is associated with manipulating the composition.
US08214790B2
A semiconductor die includes: a clock distribution network that distributes a clock signal within the die. The clock distribution network includes: a clock tree corresponding to one or more metal layers of the die, a plurality of clock spines corresponding to a metal layer of the die, a plurality of clock wings corresponding to a metal layer of the die, a plurality of clock grid drivers placed in one or more gaps of a floorplan corresponding to the semiconductor layer of the die, a clock grid placed in the one or more gaps of the floorplan, a plurality of buffers placed in a local gain buffer pair configuration wherein the local gain buffer pair connects the clock grid to a shorting bar, and a plurality of conductors that connect the shorting bar to a plurality of loads.
US08214787B1
Methods reduce the number of newly created cells when creating new cells to optimize a design. Cells are created to optimize a design, but neighbor cells fitting a distribution of drive strengths and P/N ratios are used instead. This allows reducing the number of newly created cells to optimize the design, through uniquification of neighbor instances with respect to the distribution grid.
US08214778B2
A semiconductor chip is defined to include a logic block area having a first chip level in which layout features are placed according to a first virtual grate, and a second chip level in which layout features are placed according to a second virtual grate. A rational spatial relationship exists between the first and second virtual grates. A number of cells are placed within the logic block area. Each of the number of cells is defined according to an appropriate one of a number of cell phases. The appropriate one of the number of cell phases causes layout features in the first and second chip levels of a given placed cell to be aligned with the first and second virtual grates as positioned within the given placed cell.
US08214763B2
A computer-implemented method, system and computer program product for positioning a context menu on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) are presented. A cursor over a selected element on the GUI is clicked to display a context window. When scrolling to a chosen option within the context window occurs, the entire context menu moves, thus keeping the selected element aligned next to a scrolled-to option in the context window.
US08214759B2
A system and method for controlling media through a user interface integrated within a taskbar is described. This system and method enable a user to control media while a user interface of another application remains in perspective. Further, this system includes a taskbar media player, which can play media and enable a user to control the play of that media from within a taskbar.
US08214757B2
To execute a program, a computer opens a usage window of a user interface of the program when calling the program. Via the opened usage window, the computer receives usage commands for a usage part of the program from a user, the usage commands being presented during the input thereof in the usage window, or in a usage command window of the user interface. The computer executes a usage action corresponding with a usage command after validation of the usage command, and receives retrieval commands from the user to retrieve additional information. The retrieval commands are presented in a retrieval command window of the user interface during the input of said retrieval commands. Additional information is received from a web server after the validation of the respective retrieval command. The retrieval and output of the additional information is an action different from the usage action. The information window, the retrieval command window, the usage window and the usage command window are different windows.
US08214756B2
A user interface for display or editing of a three dimensional medical image is provided on a display and is responsive to user inputs in a medical imaging system. The user interface includes a framing tool for defining a region of interest on the medical image. An image matrix is then provided on the user interface, which includes a plurality of cross-sectional images each corresponding to a cross-section of the medical image at one of a plurality of cut planes within the region of interest. One or more reference views of the medical image are also displayed, which each include a plurality of reference indicia, each of which corresponds to a location of one of the plurality of cut planes.
US08214741B2
A system including a video stream and a data stream. The system synchronizes the data stream to different portions of the video stream.
US08214739B2
A screen ST1 of an LCD with which a digital camera is provided displays an icon of a folder F1 indicating that the folder F1 has been selected. Image files P11 and P12 are captured reproduced images. A display frame SC displays a currently captured picture of an object, files P11 and P12, and the icon of the folder F1. To switch the folder F1 to a folder F2, the user presses a down button of a cross key 27. When the user presses the down button on the screen ST1, the screen ST1 is switched to a screen ST3 through a screen ST2. On the screen ST2, the number denoted in the icon is changed. The screen ST2 displays a state of which the folders are being switched. An icon displayed on the screen ST3 indicates that the folder F1 was switched to the folder F2.
US08214735B2
Structured documents are processed by selecting a predetermined graphical template, analyzing the structure of the graphical template and identifying at least one content area and at least one common area. A first structured document is selected and analyzed so as to identify various structural components thereof. The predetermined structural template is applied to the first structured document so as to insert each particular structural component into a corresponding selected content area of the template and to include each common area of the template into the first structured document. A plurality of additional documents is then selected and the template is applied to each selected additional document by iteratively repeating each insertion until that insertion is valid from a structural viewpoint for each particular selected structural component of the corresponding additional document.
US08214729B2
A method for detecting and correcting errors in a memory having a read/write paradigm is presented. In these implementations, various approaches to detect errors on a per word or per group of words basis and correct errors on a per group of words or per page basis, respectively, in relation to a memory and its associated differing read/write operations, are provided. For instance, in one implementation, errors are detected on a per word basis and corrected on a per page basis for a NOR Flash Memory having differing read/write operations of reading on a per word basis and writing on a per page basis. Advantageously, benefits of the various implementations include reduced encoder/decoder complexities, reduced parity overhead requirements, and reduced performance degradation.
US08214720B2
Whether the comparison value of temporarily stored data which is read out from a flash memory by a host system exceeds a threshold value related to a bit error or not is checked, and if the comparison value exceeds the threshold value, the temporarily stored data which is read out is rewritten into the flash memory. If the temporarily stored data has an error, the error is corrected by an error correction part and then the data is rewritten. The threshold value includes, e.g., the number of readouts, the number of bit errors and the number of accumulated occurrences of bit errors. The present invention is suitable for prevention of bit errors due to read disturb and can recover the bit data which changes with time, and therefore makes it possible to improve the reliability of the flash memory by preventing occurrence of bit errors.
US08214714B2
A nonvolatile storage device includes a nonvolatile memory for storing data such as a flash memory, and a controller for controlling writing or reading of data to or from the nonvolatile memory. The nonvolatile memory stores control information (control program, control parameter) specifying a method of controlling writing or reading of data to or from the nonvolatile memory. The controller determines a type of the nonvolatile memory, and acquires the control information from the nonvolatile memory according to an acquisition procedure corresponding to the type of the nonvolatile memory, and stores (loads) the control information.
US08214711B2
A method and apparatus for a base station engaging in transmissions via at least a media access layer with a user entity are disclosed. The base station transmits data to the user entity over a high speed scheduling and packet data scheduling channels. The base station has a plurality of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) entities cooperating with a scheduler for transmitting frames from at least the base station to the user entity for a given HARQ process. Each HARQ entity receives either a not acknowledge or an acknowledge signal or detects a discontinuous transmission for a given HARQ process. The base station transmits a next data indicator to the user entity. The user entity has at least one buffer associated with a given HARQ process. The buffer stores and performs incremental combining of received data relating to data from the base station. The buffer is capable of being flushed.
US08214709B2
A communication apparatus includes an error detection unit conducting error detection on N packet data units received in N transmission processes; a first transmission unit transmitting an affirmative response signal or a first retransmission request signal depending on a result of the error detection; a storage unit storing an affirmatively responding packet for forwarding to an upper layer; a second transmission unit, if affirmatively responding packets are not consecutive, determining whether a missing packet must be retransmitted and transmitting a second retransmission request signal; and a forwarding unit reordering the packet data units and forwarding the packets in the storage unit to the upper layer.
US08214708B2
A video transmitting apparatus includes a providing unit configured to provide retransmission request information including information for retransmitting video information to be transmitted to a video receiving apparatus, a control unit configured to perform connection control for communication with the video receiving apparatus, a transmitting unit configured to transmit the retransmission request information provided by the providing unit and the video information to the video receiving apparatus, through communication for which connection control is performed by the control unit, a receiving unit configured to receive a retransmission request based on the retransmission request information, the retransmission request being transmitted from the video receiving apparatus, and a retransmitting unit configured to retransmit a specific part of the video information in accordance with the retransmission request received by the receiving unit.
US08214702B2
Apparatus and other embodiments associated with a distributed Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test bus controller (TBC) architecture are described. One example method includes providing first on-board scan programming (OSP) data to a first circuit board configured with a first TBC and located in a computer. The example method also includes providing second OSP data to a second circuit board configured with a second test bus controller and located in the same computer. The example method also includes controlling OSP to be performed at least partially in parallel on the first circuit board and the second circuit board.
US08214697B2
A deinterleaver for a wireless communication device is provided that is simple and inexpensive to implement. In particular, a deinterleaver for deinterleaving a stream of data bits representing a plurality of symbols that have been interleaved using a multi-stage interleaving scheme is provided, the deinterleaver comprising preprocessing means for ordering the data bits in the stream into pairs, such that the data bits in the pair are consecutive data bits from a symbol; at least one memory for storing the paired bits, such that each pair of data bits is stored in a respective location in the memory; and a read and write address generator for the at least one memory, the generator being adapted to determine the addresses in the at least one memory that pairs of data bits are to be stored, and to determine the addresses in the at least one memory that pairs of data bits are to be read from.
US08214693B2
Damage to a software stack accessed by multiple application programs can be detected by monitoring the rate of stack failures at the stack via a stack monitor and comparing the rate of stack failures with a time related threshold. An alarm is generated when the rate of stack failures exceeds the time related threshold.
US08214686B2
According to an aspect of the embodiment provides a method for controlling a processing device for distributing jobs among a plurality of job processing devices for executing the jobs, respectively. The method comprises the steps of: transmitting a job to one of the job processing devices to have the job executed by the one of the job processing devices; generating a procedure information for transmitting a continuation data from the one of the job processing devices before completion of execution of the job back to the processing device, the continuation data enabling another job processing device to continue execution of the job; and transmitting the procedure information to and receiving the continuation data from the one of the job processing devices.
US08214679B2
A multi-core processor system includes: a plurality of processor cores; a power supply unit that stops supplying or supplies power to each of the processor cores individually; and a thread queue that stores threads that the multi-core processor system causes the processor cores to execute. Each of the processor cores includes: a power-supply stopping unit that causes the power supply unit to stop power supply to an own processor core when a number of threads stored in the thread queue is equal to or smaller than a first threshold; and a power-supply resuming unit that causes the power supply unit to resume power supply to the other stopped processor cores when the number of threads stored in the thread queue exceeds a second value equal to or lager than the first threshold.
US08214675B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for computer system power management. A control module 602 is activated on a computer 200 in response to an event and enters 818 a standby state if the computer 200 is not already 814 in the standby state. A policy module 604 detects 904 a power source of a predetermined type connected to the computer 200 and dictates 908 one or more processors 302 of higher power consumption for a more abundant type of power source such as an AC adapter 314, or one or more processors 304 of lower power consumption for a less abundant type of power source such as a battery 318. A configuration module 606, activated by the control module 602, switches 1004 the computer 200 to one or more processors 302 and 304 of a predetermined power consumption as dictated and exits 1016 the standby state.
US08214672B2
Disclosed are methods and devices, among which is a device that includes a pattern-recognition processor. In some embodiments, the pattern-recognition processor includes a first block of feature cells coupled to a decoder via a first plurality of local input conductors, a first block-disabling circuit, and a plurality of global input conductors. The pattern-recognition processor further includes a second block of feature cells coupled to the decoder via a second plurality of local input conductors, a second block-disabling circuit, and the plurality of global input conductors.
US08214665B2
Aspects of a method and system for queue management for energy efficient networking are provided. In various embodiments of the invention a network device may determine whether to transition into or out-of an energy-saving mode of operation, and arm an EEN trigger by buffering the EEN trigger in a queue and/or setting one or more flags. The network device may transition into or out-of the energy-saving mode upon the EEN trigger being read from the queue or upon the queue becoming empty while the trigger is armed. Upon the occurrence of an event meeting one or more criteria prior to the EEN trigger being read from the queue or prior to the queue being empty, the EEN trigger may be disarmed. The network device may disarm the EEN trigger by deleting the EEN trigger from the queue and/or by resetting the flag.
US08214660B2
A design structure for a processor may be embodied in a machine readable medium for designing, manufacturing or testing a processor integrated circuit. The design structure may control heat generation in a multi-core processor. The design structure may specify that each processor core includes a temperature sensor that reports temperature information to a processor controller. The design structure may also specify that if a particular processor core exceeds a predetermined temperature, the processor controller disables that processor core to allow that processor core to cool. The design structure may also specify that the processor controller enables the previously disabled processor core when the previously disabled processor core cools sufficiently to a normal operating temperature. In this manner, a multi-core processor may avoid undesirable hot spots that impact processor life.
US08214659B2
A communication device includes a bus including a signal line supplied with a pull-up voltage Vp, a first power supply operating during both a standby state and a power-ON state, and supplies a source of a first predetermined voltage of 3.3V, a second power supply operating during only the power-ON state, and supplies a source of a second predetermined voltage of 5V, a first device driven by the first power supply, and capable of communicating via the bus when the pull-up voltage Vp is equal to either of 3.3V and 5V, a second device driven by the second power supply, and capable of communicating via the bus when the pull-up voltage Vp is equal to 5V, and a pull-up voltage supply circuit supplying the pull-up voltage Vp by the first power supply during the standby state, and supplying the pull-up voltage Vp by the second power supply during the power-ON state.
US08214657B2
A method, program product and apparatus include resistance structures positioned proximate security sensitive microchip circuitry. Alteration in the position, makeup or arrangement of the resistance structures may be detected and initiate an action for defending against a reverse engineering or other exploitation effort. The resistance structures may be automatically and selectively designated for monitoring. Some of the resistance structures may have different resistivities. The sensed resistance may be compared to an expected resistance, ratio or other resistance-related value. The structures may be intermingled with false structures, and may be overlapped or otherwise arranged relative to one another to further complicate unwelcome analysis.
US08214649B2
A system and method are provided for secure encryption via use of at least two different communication channels, such as the internet and a Short Message Service (SMS) channel, to transmit an authentication request and/or encryption information between at least one user device that is associated with a common user and a network entity. In this regard, an authentication request and/or the encryption information generated in response to an authentication request is separated into at least two portions and transmitted via different communication channels. Even if a third party accesses one of the communication channels and receives a portion of the authentication request and/or the resulting encryption information, the system and method effectively prevent the third party from receiving information sufficient to enable the third party to successfully interpret future communications between the parties since other portion(s) of the authentication request and/or the encryption information is transmitted via other channel(s).
US08214645B2
Embodiments of the systems, devices, and methods described herein generally facilitate the secure transmittal of security parameters. In accordance with at least one embodiment, a representation of first data comprising a password is generated at the first computing device as an image or audio signal. The image or audio signal is transmitted from the first computing device to the second computing device. The password is determined from the image or audio signal at the second computing device. A key exchange is performed between the first computing device and the second computing device wherein a key is derived at each of the first and second computing devices. In at least one embodiment, one or more security parameters (e.g. one or more public keys) are exchanged between the first and second computing devices, and techniques for securing the exchange of security parameters or authenticating exchanged security parameters are generally disclosed herein.
US08214643B2
An object is to provide a service providing method capable of curbing rise of cost A service providing method according to the present invention is one for providing services A and B, which authenticates a user of an authentication requesting terminal in order to make service A available to the user and which determines whether service B is available to the user, in a state in which the user is authenticated about service A. When service B is determined to be available, a permission message is stored and a permission response based on the permission message for utilization of service B is transmitted to the authentication requesting terminal. Then the permission message on which a utilization request message from a service utilizing terminal is based, is verified, and, if it is in an available status, the service utilizing terminal is permitted to utilize service B. The use of the authentication result on service A obviates a need for provision of a new authentication for service B, so as to lead to reduction of cost.
US08214642B2
The invention relates to a method for distribution of a set of credentials from a credential issuer to a credential user. The credential user is provided with a user device. A first channel and a second channel are provided for communication between the user device and the credential issuer. A shared key is distributed between the user device and the credential issuer by means of the second channel. A binary representation of the set of credentials with a predefined maximum level of deviation from a uniform distribution is generated. The binary representation of the set of credentials is encrypted by means of the shared key. The encrypted set of credentials is distributed via the first channel from the credential issuer to the user device. The encrypted set of credentials is decrypted by the user device by means of the shared key.
US08214631B2
Methods of building a host computer system. The methods may comprise the steps of discovering hardware components present at the host and determining whether the hardware components are certified. The methods may also comprise the step of determining whether a build of the host is requested. According to various embodiments, a profile may also be downloaded to the host. The profile may comprise an indication of an operating system, an indication of an application, and an indication of a configuration parameter. The methods may also comprise the steps of installing the operating system to the host; installing the application to the host; and configuring the host according to the configuration parameter.
US08214623B2
A method, an apparatus, and computer instructions are provided for extending operations of an application in a data processing system. A primary operation is executed. All extended operations of the primary operation are cached and pre and post operation identifiers are identified. For each pre operation identifier, a pre operation instance is created and executed. For each post operation identifier, a post operation instance is created and executed.
US08214622B2
Host page management assist functions are employed to manage storage of a pageable mode virtual environment. These functions enable storage to be managed by a processor of the environment absent intervention of a host of the environment. The functions include a resolve host page function; a pin function; and unpin functions.
US08214620B2
A computer-readable recording medium storing a data storage program, a method and a computer are provided. The computer includes a cache table including an address area for storing an address and a user data area for storing user data corresponding to the address, and executes an operation including, reading user data at a specified address from a recording medium, delta-decoding the read difference data, and determining the decompressed user data to be the read user data, and writing the read user data in the user data area of the cache table when a size of the user data read by the delta-decoding is equal to or less than a threshold value and writing an address corresponding to the read user data in the address area of the cache table, obtaining difference data between the user data requested to be written and the corresponding user data and writing the difference data.
US08214607B2
Method and apparatus for rapidly determining whether a particular subblock of data is present in a reduced-redundancy storage system. An aspect of the invention achieves this by hashing each subblock in the storage system into a bitfilter that contains a ‘1’ bit for each position to which at least one subblock hashes. This bitfilter provides an extremely fast way to determine whether a subblock is in the storage system. In a further aspect of the invention, index entries for new subblocks may be buffered in a subblock index write buffer so as to convert a large number of random access read and write operations into a single sequential read and a single sequential write operation. The combination of the bitfilter and the write buffer yields a reduced-redundancy storage system that uses significantly less high speed random access memory than is used by systems that store the entire subblock index in memory.
US08214603B2
A method for handling multiple memory requests within a multi-processor system is disclosed. A lock control section is initially assigned to a data block within a system memory. In response to a request for accessing the data block by a processing unit, a determination is made whether or not the lock control section of the data block has been set. If the lock control section has been set, another determination is made whether or not the requesting processing unit is located beyond a predetermined distance from a memory controller. If the requesting processing unit is located beyond a predetermined distance from the memory controller, the requesting processing unit is invited to perform other functions; otherwise, the number of the requesting processing unit is placed in a queue table. However, if the lock control section has not been set, the lock control section of the data block is set, and the access request is allowed.
US08214598B2
Systems, methods, and apparatus for performing the flushing of a plurality of cache lines and/or the invalidation of a plurality of translation look-aside buffer (TLB) entries is described. In one such method, for flushing a plurality of cache lines of a processor a single instruction including a first field that indicates that the plurality of cache lines of the processor are to be flushed and in response to the single instruction, flushing the plurality of cache lines of the processor.
US08214595B2
Provide is a storage system including one or more disk drives, and one or more cache memories for temporarily storing data read from the disk drives or data to be written to the disk drives, in which: the cache memories includes volatile first memories and non-volatile second memories; and the storage system receives a data write request, stores the requested data in the volatile first memories, selects one of memory areas of the volatile first memories if a total capacity of free memory areas contained in the volatile first memories is less than a predetermined threshold, write data stored in the selected memory area in the non-volatile second memories, and changes the selected memory area to a free memory area. Accordingly, there can be realized capacity enlarging of the cache memory using a non-volatile memory device while realizing a high speed similar to that of a volatile memory device.
US08214589B2
Data storage systems are provided. Some embodiments of data storage systems include a storage device controller and a plurality of storage devices. The plurality of storage devices are illustratively in a redundancy scheme and the storage device controller receives from the plurality of storage devices a plurality of symbols. In one embodiment, each of the plurality of symbols is representative of data in the redundancy scheme, and the storage device controller verifies the consistency of the redundancy scheme based at least in part on the plurality of symbols.
US08214579B2
In a case where at least one of physical blocks composing the virtual block becomes a defective block, use of the virtual block to which the defective block belongs is forbidden and the virtual block of which use is forbidden is managed as a defective virtual block. Replacing the defective block with a normal block is performed among the defective virtual blocks so as to generate the virtual block to which the defective block does not belong. Then use of the virtual block generated is allowed.
US08214571B2
A new simple serial interface method and device based on this method, which reduces the complexity of the existing universal serial bus (USB) interface, and allows fast and efficient data exchange, and quick development of hardware and software for this device.The method allows equal exchange of information between 2 participants wherein: each participant can initiate sending of information, the data exchange can occur at any time, with no wait or a reference in a ‘frame’. The device based on the method implemented as: separate UTMI or wireless interface chip and separate control chip, single chip which includes UTMI or wireless part, and control part, special mode included in the existing—USB host, USB device, USB OTG chips.
US08214563B2
According to one embodiment, the host controller includes a transmission circuit that encodes transmission data, according to a serial transfer format, a reception circuit that decodes received data, according to the serial transfer format, a variable frequency clock generator that generates a card clock and a transfer clock, a card clock output unit that outputs the card clock to the memory card, an interface unit includes a transmission interface that transfers the transmission data from the transmission circuit to the memory card in synchronization with the transfer clock, and a reception interface that transfers received data from the memory card to the reception circuit in synchronization with the transfer clock, and a setting register circuit that holds setting information concerning an input/output method of the memory card, and controls frequency of the transfer clock generated by the variable frequency clock generator, based on the setting information.
US08214556B2
A terminal device 100 to and from which a removal storage medium 200 is attached and removed includes a display 130 and a writer 150. The display 130 displays an action-command input region and an execution-subject input region, the action-command input region being used for inputting an action command to execute a certain action, the execution-subject input region being used for inputting an execution subject for the execution of the action command. The writer 150 writes the action command inputted in the action-command input region and the execution subject inputted in the execution-subject input region, into the removable storage medium.
US08214555B2
A communication control device in an audio visual device system has disconnection detection unit for detecting that an audio visual device is disconnected from the audio visual device system, device detection unit for detecting an audio visual device which has not acquired a logical address according to a device type, and control unit for performing control for causing the audio visual device without a logical address to acquire a logical address, when disconnection of a audio visual device is detected by the disconnection detection unit. With this configuration, in an audio visual device system in which an upper limit is set to the number of logical addresses according to a device type, it is possible to cause an audio visual device which cannot acquire a logical address according to the device type to acquire a logical address when it is made available.
US08214550B2
A method for controlling icon display corresponding to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) Mass Storage is provided. The USB Mass Storage is electrically connected to a USB port of a personal computer. The method includes: when it is detected that there is nothing inserted into any memory card slot of the USB Mass Storage, preventing the USB Mass Storage from triggering a specific icon to be displayed, wherein the specific icon is selectively utilized for indicating that at least one USB device is electrically connected to the personal computer; and when it is detected that a memory card is inserted into any of at least one memory card slot of the USB Mass Storage, allowing the specific icon to be displayed. An associated personal computer and a storage medium storing an associated USB Mass Storage driver for controlling icon display corresponding to the USB Mass Storage are further provided.
US08214549B2
A method according to an aspect of the present invention includes receiving a communication from a patient through an interactive voice response (IVR) system; providing a guided voice prompt from the interactive voice response system to the patient; receiving a response of the patient to the guided voice prompt through the interactive voice response system; analyzing the response of the patient to the guided voice prompt; determining, based on the response of the patient, whether a command should be transmitted; and transmitting a command to a device controlled by the patient after a determination that the command should be transmitted. This method can be practiced automatically to allow a medical device for a patient or other subject to be monitored without requiring the patient to manually enter information.
US08214547B2
An image processing device includes a memory unit that stores plural sets of user information and a plurality of modes in correspondence with each other so as to specify correspondence between a plurality of users and the plurality of modes, and a plurality of control units that execute a function on image data in one of the plurality of modes corresponding to one of the plurality of users having a predetermined relationship with a current user.
US08214546B2
Mode switching may be provided. A selection of a non-native mode for a first input device may be received having a native mode. Then the use of the first input device may be enabled in the selected non-native mode. Next, a switch may be detected from the first input device to a second input device and then a switch back to the first input device may be detected. The use of the first input device may be enabled in the native mode in response to detecting the switch back to the first input device.
US08214545B2
The present invention describes a multi-module USB system consisting of a multi-function USB apparatus and associated USB cap. The multi-function USB apparatus operates as a USB host as well as a USB client. The USB cap houses a rechargeable battery pack and when docked with the multi-function USB apparatus provides power to the multi-function USB apparatus. The multi-function USB apparatus and USB cap can also operate independently. The USB system is a multi-functional device having modes that embody, including recording, sharing, playback, storage, and charging battery of USB based portable media devices. Further, the USB system configures itself automatically for the various modes based on use of its interfaces with no specific settings required from the user.
US08214542B2
A USB host is provided which can connect to a USB device via a USB hub, the USB host including, a combination storage unit that stores an upgrade allowable combination, for which upgrading of the USB device is allowed, among a combination of hub identification information for identifying the USB hub and device identification information for identifying the USB device; an identification information acquisition unit acquires hub identification information from the USB hub in compliance with USB standards when the USB hub is connected and acquires device identification information from the USB device in compliance with USB standards when the USB device is in connected to the USB hub; and a command transmission unit that transmits an upgrade command to the USB device when a combination of the acquired hub identification information and the acquired device identification information is identical to the combination stored in the combination storage unit.
US08214539B1
Command mapping systems that provide extended command functions to input devices in addition to translating between multiple APIs to provide compatibility between a user-selected input device and a user-selected program.
US08214535B2
A method and system for substantially avoiding loss of data and enabling continuing connection to the application during an MTU size changing operation in an active network computing device. Logic is added to the device driver, which logic provides several enhancements to the MTU size changing operation/process. Among these enhancements are: (1) logic for temporarily pausing the data coming in from the linked partner while changing the MTU size; (2) logic for returning a “device busy” status to higher-protocol transmit requests during the MTU size changing process. This second logic prevents the application from issuing new requests until the busy signal is removed; and (3) logic for enabling resumption of both flows when the MTU size change is completed. With this new logic, the device driver/adapter does not have any transmit and receive packets to process for a short period of time, while the MTU size change is ongoing.
US08214527B2
A plurality of landmarks selected from a source weighed graph on which a path search is performed; and the shortest path lengths between landmarks, and the shortest path lengths from vertices to landmarks adjacent to the respective vertices are calculated, and are stored in a memory device so as to be later referable. Routines for calculating upper and lower limits of the shortest path length corresponding to two vertices v and w are prepared by using expressions derived from quadrangle inequalities formed of the two vertices v and w as well as two landmarks adjacent to the respective vertices v and w. In response to a call from an A* search program, these routines return the upper limit or the lower limit of the shortest path length corresponding to v and w by referring to the shortest path lengths between landmarks, and the shortest path lengths from vertices to landmarks adjacent to the respective vertices, which have been previously stored in the memory device.
US08214526B2
Context-based routing in multi-hop networks involves using a context-based routing metric. In a described implementation, respective path values are calculated for respective ones of multiple paths using the context-based routing metric. A path is selected from the multiple paths responsive to the calculated path values. Data is transmitted over at least one link of the selected path. In an example embodiment, the context-based routing metric is ascertained responsive to an estimated service interval (ESI) of a bottleneck link of each path of the multiple paths. In another example embodiment, the context-based routing metric is ascertained responsive to an expected resource consumption (ERC) metric. In an example embodiment of path selection, the path is selected using a context-based path pruning (CPP) technique that involves maintaining multiple local contexts at each intermediate node, with each local context representing at least one partial path.
US08214516B2
Systems and methods provide for dynamic generation of media content at the point that content is served. The system and method work within the bounds of simple, existing, open protocols and the media files served are playable by standard media playback clients. The method is driven by a request for media content from a client specifying an edit list. The server opens one or more source files and selects portions of one or more files to transmit based on edit list instructions, and sequentially writes those portions to an output for serving to the client. The method allows for various modifications of the content before serving.
US08214514B2
Development tooling receives the extended Web services description language with call flow interactions. The development tooling allows the user to select trivial message exchanges in the call flow. The development tooling may generate servlets for the selected message exchanges automatically to form a template form of the application that will execute in the converged application engine. Alternatively, the development tooling may generate a template form of the application that may be interpreted in an interpretive engine. The user may then drop in higher level business logic. The automatically generated servlets, or template form of the application to be interpreted, are configured to pass to the Web services information, including the last message contents.
US08214505B2
The present application presents systems and methods for handling by an HTTP virtual server (HTTPVS), connections via which non-HTTP data is transmitted between clients and servers. HTTPVS intercepts a request from a client to establish first transport layer connection (TLC) with a server. HTTPVS establishes second TLC with the servers in response to receiving an acknowledgment from a client to establish the first TLC. HTTPVS determines if a first network packet transmitted via first TLC comprises an HTTP payload or non-HTTP payload. If HTTPVP the first network packet includes HTTP payload, HTTPVS may process all transmissions from the first TLC in accordance with connection tracking and forward the processed transmissions to the server via the second TLC. If HTTPVS determines that the first network packet does not include an HTTP payload, HTTPVS may link the first TLC and the second TLC so the client and server exchange non-HTTP communication without interruption.
US08214503B2
Systems, methods, and machine-readable media are disclosed for providing session control and media exchange control that can include and combine, for example, call control and voice access concepts such as dialog (voice dialog, prompts and DTMF) or web/GUI elements. In one embodiment, a method of controlling a media session can comprise establishing a call via a signaling protocol, maintaining control of the call, and passing control of aspects of the call other than call control to a separate media processing module. The media processing module can comprise, for example, a dialog manager. In some implementations a voice access enabler providing a an abstract interface for accessing functions of the dialog controller.
US08214500B2
The present invention relates to a resource allocation and data receiving method. A resource allocation message for allocating a resource for an uplink dedicated channel is transmitted to a relay station, a receipt check message on the resource allocation message is received from the relay station, and successful resource allocation is checked.
US08214499B2
A system and method for enabling software applications as a service in a non-intrusive manner in isolated user groups (IUGs) is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a user request from one of the plurality of IUGs to access application functionality of one of plurality of software applications, identifying the one of the plurality of IUGs, locating one of the plurality of service modules by a service gateway based on a request sent by one of the plurality of service adapters, providing an appropriate access to the one of the plurality of IUGs, obtaining configuration data associated with the one of the plurality of IUGs, forwarding the configuration data and the user request to the one of the plurality of software applications, and generating an appropriate response associated with the application functionality and returning the generated appropriate response to the one of the plurality of IUGs.
US08214498B2
A method and apparatus for managing a peer of a peer-to-peer network to search for an available resource includes organizing peers of the peer-to-peer network in a hierarchical structure based upon locality of the peers. A request for the available resource is received at a parent from a peer as a request bit string. An aggregate availability bit string representing an aggregate of resources available at all children associated with the parent is accessed to determine if one or more children of the parent are able to fulfill the resource request. The determination is by performing a logical operation with bits of the request bit string and bits of aggregate availability bit string. When more than one child of the parent is able to provide the requested resource, a child with available resource that is closest to the peer requesting the resource is identified. The available resource of the identified child is used to satisfy the resource request of the peer.
US08214490B1
The reputations of content sources are tracked as running rates of content origination. Information concerning content origination from multiple sources is received and aggregated. The aggregated information is used to calculate running rates of content origination. An initial running rate of content origination can be calculated based on the number of detections of originations from a given source over a period of time. Running rates can be updated based on additional detections from the source since the last update. As incoming electronic content is received from specific sources, the running rates from given sources are used to determine whether to block or allow the incoming content. Reputation characterization percentages can be calculated based on the running rates, and incoming content from a specific source can be blocked if a reputation characterization percentage is above a given threshold.
US08214481B2
The inventive communications management systems manage access to a local area network or network content by external users, applications, and devices. The systems and methods are implemented on a network appliance to manage content within the network and facilitate content transmission through a firewall that separates the network from a larger networking environment, such as the World Wide Web. Other applications operating on the network appliance are made firewall aware so that existing network appliance identity schemes can be used to also control gate access to and from the network, to and from applications that run on the network appliance, and to and from other applications that run on the local network. Because the firewall is integrated closely with other application on the network appliance, after the external user is granted access to the network, network applications can control and terminate access through the firewall as desired.
US08214476B2
A method, system, and network for interfacing the work-flow monitoring and reporting of a host computer, a local network of information technology devices, a community of network users, and a global information technology community. This includes the processes and system features for initiating an inventory of a plurality of information technology devices associated with the local network of information technology devices. The present disclosure further includes determining needs of the local network of information technology and associating the needs to similar needs of the community of network users, and solution product and services of the global information technology community. The system directs the host computer to research and purchase resources similar in temperament of the needs of the local network of the information technology devices, and drive the global information technology community advertisements of the needs of the local network to the user of the host computer.
US08214475B1
Managing content interest data using peer-to-peer logical mesh networks. Instructions may be processor-executable to implement a given logical node of a logical mesh network that includes a number of such nodes. The given logical node may be configured to store identifying information of its peer nodes. In response to detecting a message-passing event, the given logical node may be configured to generate and convey an outgoing message, which may correspond to respective network-based content and may include indicia of the content, to its peer nodes. The given logical node may not convey the outgoing message to any node that is not a peer. Dependent upon indicia of network-based content included in an incoming message received from a given one of its peer nodes, the given logical node may be further configured to update its identifying information to add or delete a particular node as a peer node.
US08214471B2
A system for enabling control and managing the assets by synchronizing information between a host system server and a mobile client device is disclosed. Control of the mobile client devices from remote locations enables an administrator to provide specific profiles for the mobile devices. These profiles are consistent and ensure that the user can perform all of the required tasks. The system also includes a multi-level security mechanism. The security provision maintains control of the hardware (mobile device) and the information stored thereon. The administrator also controls the distribution of applications and services to the mobile device, including restoring information which may have become lost.
US08214468B2
A system and method for configuring devices for wireless communication are disclosed. A method may include detecting one or more available wireless access points. The method may also include accessing filtering information including at least one of (a) factory default information identifying one or more factory defaults for each available wireless access point and (b) a secured status of each available wireless access point. The method may also include filtering the available wireless access points based on at least the accessed filtering information. The method may further include selecting one of the filtered wireless access points as an associated wireless access point to be associated with an information handling system based on at least one of (a) a signal strength of each filtered available wireless access points and (b) a user input.
US08214457B2
Multimedia content is featured on user pages of an online social network using embed codes that are generated using a configuration file associated with the source ID for the multimedia content and a content ID for the multimedia content. The configuration file, the source ID and the content ID are stored locally by the online social network so that any changes to the embed codes can be made by changing the configuration file associated with the source and regenerating the embed codes. By managing multimedia content in this manner, greater control can be exercised by the online social network over the multimedia content that are featured on its user pages.
US08214451B2
Network service version management techniques are disclosed. Service access information, which is associated with access to a network service by a network service user, may be destined for a particular version of the network service. A determination is made as to whether a different version of the network service is accessible by the network service user. If so, then a further determination is made as to whether to select the different version of the network service to process the service access information. Any inconsistency between versions of the network service, such as different information requirements, can be handled by transforming received service access information. A replay function may also be provided, to have service access information again processed by the same or a different version of a network service. This function may be useful, for example, where a version of a service is rolled back or for debugging.
US08214437B1
In general, a two or more stage spam filtering system is used to filter spam in an e-mail system. One stage includes a global e-mail classifier that classifies e-mail as it enters the e-mail system. The parameters of the global e-mail classifier generally may be determined by the policies of e-mail system owner and generally are set to only classify as spam those e-mails that are likely to be considered spam by a significant number of users of the e-mail system. Another stage includes personal e-mail classifiers at the individual mailboxes of the e-mail system users. The parameters of the personal e-mail classifiers generally are set by the users through retraining, such that the personal e-mail classifiers are refined to track the subjective perceptions of their respective user as to what e-mails are spam e-mails. Retraining data for the personal e-mail classifiers may be aggregated and a subset of the aggregate may be chosen for use in retraining the global e-mail classifier.
US08214436B2
An application for a system for providing a digital yearbook includes a server, a terminal and a database. The database is interfaced to the server and yearbook data is captured at the terminal, transferred to the server and stored in the database. The yearbook data is filtered and formatted based upon user profiles, creating customized views (subsets) of the yearbook for each of the users, including formatting and organizing the customized views for a desired viewing device of each user.
US08214432B2
Differential dynamic content delivery including providing a session document for a presentation, wherein the session document includes a session grammar and a session structured document; identifying a recording period within a presentation session; recording, during the recording period, a presentation control instruction; selecting from the session structured document a classified structural element in dependence upon the recorded presentation control instruction and in dependence upon user classifications of a user participant in the presentation; and presenting the selected structural element to the user.
US08214417B2
In an embodiment, a floating point unit (FPU) comprises an adder configured to add a first mantissa and a second mantissa and an operand adjust unit coupled to provide at least the first mantissa to the adder. The operand adjust unit is coupled to receive a first operand and a second operand for a floating point add operation, and is configured to: right shift at least one mantissa corresponding to one of the first and second operands responsive to a shift count generated from exponent portions of the first and second operands; to detect whether or not neither, one, or both of the first and second operands are subnormal numbers in parallel with at least a portion of the right shifting; and to left shift by one bit the right shifted mantissa responsive to only one of the first and second operands being a subnormal floating point number.
US08214415B2
An interpolator for a system, such as a motion control system, where a stream of values of at least a first command signal is communicated across a communications medium according to a predefined update rate. The integrator is configured to calculate at a higher rate relative to the update rate to generate at least one interpolated prediction of the first command signal.
US08214412B2
A playlist editing apparatus includes a management unit 11 that manages a playlist, a playlist name input unit 12 for newly setting a playlist name, a determination unit 13 that determines whether conversion of a character code of a playlist name set for an existing playlist is required, based on a relationship with a character code of a set playlist name, a changing unit 14 that changes a character code flag of the existing playlist to a flag corresponding to a character code to be converted to, when it is determined that character code conversion is required, a character code conversion unit 15 that converts a character string targeted for conversion to a designated character code, in response to changing of the character code flag, and a playlist name setting unit 16 that sets the converted character string as the playlist name. This enables a playlist to be edited so that inconsistency in character codes throughout the playlist and the disk does not occur.
US08214404B2
A storage system comprises a plurality of vdisks, with each vdisk containing a plurality of storage segments, and each segment providing a specific class of service (CoS). Each vdisk stores files with data and meta data distributed among its storage segments. A storage system comprises a memory having multiple classes of service. The system comprises an interface for storing a file as blocks of data associated with a class of service in the memory. The interface chooses the class of service for a block on a block by block basis. A file system for storing a file comprises a plurality of vdisks, with each vdisk having a plurality of inodes. Each inode of each vdisk stores data on one or more segments, with each segment having a different class of service. The system comprises a controller which stores data of a file in an inode of a vdisk, in one or more segments of that vdisk. A file system for storing a file comprises a plurality of vdisks, and each vdisk having a plurality of inodes. The system comprises a controller including a plurality of processors, with each processor serving one or more of the vdisks. A file system for storing comprises a plurality of vdisks, with each vdisk having a plurality of inodes, a plurality of inodes of at least one vdisk storing data on a plurality of segments, each segment having a different class of service. The system comprises a controller which stores data of the file in one or more segments of one vdisk. A method for storing a file.
US08214400B2
Systems and methods are disclosed that provide an indexing data structure. In one embodiment, the indexing data structure is mirrored index tree where the copies of the nodes of the tree are stored across devices in a distributed system. In one embodiment, nodes that are stored on an offline device are restored, and an offline device that comes back online is merged into the distributed system and given access to the current indexing data structure. In one embodiment, the indexing data structure is traversed to locate and restore nodes that are stored on offline devices of the distributed system.
US08214395B2
A method and system for tracking and editing a resource in a real-time collaborative session is provided. A collaboration system provides real-time collaborative sessions between participants. When a participant in a collaboration session uploads a non-editable copy of a resource for viewing in the collaborative session, the collaboration system records the participant who uploaded the non-editable copy of the resource as the owner of an original copy of the resource and the location of the resource on that participant's machine. When the same or another participant attempts to edit the non-editable copy of the resource during the collaborative session, the collaboration system locates the original copy of the resource and starts the sharing of the resource in an editable form in the collaborative session.
US08214394B2
A flexible and extensible architecture allows for secure searching across an enterprise. Such an architecture can provide a simple Internet-like search experience to users searching secure content inside (and outside) the enterprise. The architecture allows for the crawling and searching of a variety or sources across an enterprise, regardless of whether any of these sources conform to a conventional user role model. The architecture further allows for security attributes to be submitted at query time, for example, in order to provide real-time secure access to enterprise resources. The user query also can be transformed to provide for dynamic querying that provides for a more current result list than can be obtained for static queries.
US08214387B2
A system, apparatus and method for enhancing documents, including using a graphical capture device, are described herein.
US08214384B2
A computer implemented method of recording user activity in a knowledge archival and recollection system, comprising: initiating a network browser plug-in on detecting that a network browser has been opened; providing at least one file to a user from the network; transmitting and storing at least one file to a file archive using a file transfer protocol; gathering user activity data for each said at least one file accessed; associating user activity data to each related file; transmitting and storing user activity data to a database server using a database connection protocol; and indexing each file.
US08214383B2
Embodiments of the present invention allow verification of query language by providing a natural language description for the query language. A natural language description is generated for each query component along with selectable text representing the query component. Upon selection of the selectable text, the query component is rendered for editing.
US08214370B1
A system, a method and a computer readable storage medium for pre-processing data collected from one or more data sources more accurately summarize data. During the pre-processing, multiple raw data are summarized into a pre-processed datum. By using the pre-processed data entries, more accurate trend data may be generated. Alternatively, data entries are indexed and selectively retrieved based on indices. Decimation of data points are performed based on the indices without retrieving all the data sets from the database, reducing the data access time for returning a query result. Additional data sets may also be retrieved efficiently from the database using the indices.
US08214360B2
A mechanism is provided for context based search disambiguation using existing category taxonomy. A client provides additional cues for search term disambiguation through the context of the specific user's browser. A bookmark or favorites data structure is sent along with the search term(s) to be disambiguated. The bookmark data structure acts as pre-existing category taxonomy for a clustering search engine to classify the results of the search. A viewed content history may also be sent along with the search terms to be disambiguated. The viewed content history acts as a cue to a clustering search engine to display as more relevant the results that are classified in the same category as the pages sent along with the search terms.
US08214358B2
A method for determining documents to display on a web page may be utilized for adaptive scheduling of references to documents. A popularity or selection weight of a document may be monitored. The popularity or selection weight may be used to determine when to display that document and may be updated based on further monitoring.
US08214356B1
A database management system implemented in a cloud computing environment. Operational nodes are assigned as groups of controller-nodes, compute-nodes or storage-nodes. Queries specify one or more tables for an associated database operation, with each table being assigned to respective storage nodegroup(s). The number of nodes executing a given query may change, by (a) changing the compute-nodes associated with a connection, or (b) adding or removing nodes associated with a connection; and/or distributing data to a storage nodegroup based on a Distribution Method which may be either data dependent or data independent. A controller node further executes a Dynamic Query Planner (DQP) process that develops a query plan.
US08214349B2
A method and apparatus are disclosed which automatically build a database by automatically assigning links to an expert, pushing content to an expert, providing expert annotation, and linking the content to an annotation database. A term is selected by applying rules, such as, the term not previously existing in the database, an unusually high frequency of the term, the term is an article or the term is an unusual part of speech. An advertiser can sponsor the term, for example, by having a banner ad automatically pop-up on a keyword search. Content windows can be attached to the term, the content window containing information such as definitions, related products or services, sponsorship information, information from content syndicators, translations and reference works. A utility is available to the expert that allows the expert to analyze the term in context by extending or reducing the sentence or paragraph the word is contained in. Data objects that represent the contents of the database and templates are syndicated to remote servers running a processing engine. The processing engine uses these data objects to execute linking rules without requiring a connection to the database.
US08214345B2
The Facet Navigator permits users to set custom constraints for searching databases by facet, displays facets representing fields in a database, and provides a manipulator for each facet. The manipulator may be a slider bar, or a drop-down menu, or some other interactive device known to persons skilled in the art. When a user sets constraints for a facet with the manipulator, the Facet Navigator searches the database based on the constraints and displays a list of items in the database that satisfy the constraints. The Facet Navigator displays a preview of interim results whenever a cursor is moved over an active region of the manipulator, where the preview includes details of database items meeting a search criteria based on the location of the cursor on the manipulator.
US08214343B2
Storage devices can maintain metadata on a per-block basis, enabling the storage device, the file system, or other higher-level software to store and obtain information about individual blocks of data. A handshake between the storage device and a computing device can include an exchange of feature tables, whereby a commonly supported set of features and attributes can be selected and agreed upon. Such features and attributes can include access pattern specification in the per-block metadata, frequency of access or importance designations and specifications of the longevity of temporary data. The per-block metadata can either be provided by an application or the file system, or it can be generated by the storage device itself. Likewise, per-block metadata can be utilized by the storage device, either on its own or at the behest of an application or the file system, or it can be utilized directly by the application or file system.
US08214335B2
Described herein are processes and devices that control and use virtual universe wish lists. One of the devices described is a virtual wish list device. The virtual wish list device determines an item in a virtual universe that is a desired by an avatar. The virtual wish list device designates the item as a desired item in a wish list. The wish list may be stored in the avatar's virtual universe inventory. The wish list device determines details about the desired item, such as whether the item is desired in the virtual universe or in the real world. The wish list device stores the details about the desired item in the wish list. The virtual wish list device may use the details to conduct transactions related to the desired item.
US08214320B2
The litigation cost management system (FIG. 1) provides modules for outlining the process of litigation (12), establishing pricing variables to each step of the litigation (14), all at the outset of the case. A case budget (16) is then generated and the case is managed by outside counsel based upon the agreed upon budget and process. When exceptions occur during the course of litigation, outside counsel electronically submits requests for new work to corporate counsel, which in turn can be approved or denied. Point and click billing allows immediate simplistic invoicing which requires no review by corporate counsel as the work performed has already been approved. Statistical reporting provides corporate counsel with real time analysis of all the cases that are in the system.
US08214308B2
Computer-implemented systems and methods for updating champion predictive models that operate within a production environment. A system and method can include evaluating the predictive model performance of a champion predictive model. Based upon an indication of decay of predictive model performance of the champion predictive model, a corrective action is performed to correct the performance of the champion predictive model.
US08214307B2
A processing device having one or more objectives is provided. The processing device comprises a probabilistic learning module having a learning automaton configured for learning a plurality of processor actions in response to a plurality of actions performed by a plurality of users, and an intuition module configured for modifying a functionality of said probabilistic learning module based on said one or more objectives.
US08214306B2
A computer game and a method of providing learning capability thereto are provided. The computer game has an objective of matching a skill level of the computer game with a skill level of a game player. A move performed by the game player is identified, one of a plurality of game moves is selected based on a game move probability distribution comprising a plurality of probability values corresponding to the plurality of game moves, an outcome of the selected game move relative to the identified player move is determined, the game move probability distribution is updated based on the outcome, and one or more of the game move selection, the outcome determination, and the game move probability distribution update is modified based on the objective.
US08214305B1
A data stream search system can include a plurality of search data inputs logically divided into at least M+N sets. The sets have a logical order with respect to one another, each set providing more than one bit value. A key application circuit can comprise a plurality of data paths that each couple a different group of at least M data input sets to a corresponding content addressable memory (CAM) section. Each different group of at least M data input sets can be contiguous with respect to the logical order, and shifted in bit order from one another by at least two bits.
US08214302B2
A system and method for authenticating a physical address submitted in an online communication is disclosed. An online communication comprising a physical address to be verified is received. A verification identification (VID) is requested and received. A transaction verification document (TVD) comprising an indicia indicative of the VID is generated. An electronic copy of the TVD is transmitted. Verification data produced in response to dispatch of a physical embodiment of the TVD is received, wherein the physical embodiment is generated from the electronic copy. The physical address is authenticated based at least in part on the verification data.
US08214300B2
A social networking apparatus includes a first project involvement module, a second project involvement module, and a relationship determination module. The first project involvement module determines a first degree of involvement with a project for a first person. The second project involvement module determines a second degree of involvement with the project for a second person. The relationship determination module determines a social relationship between the first and second person based on the first and second degree of involvement. A combined project involvement module may also determine a combined degree of involvement that takes into account the contributions of substantially all project participants, which combined degree of involvement may be further employed when determining the social relationship. In this manner, social relationships may be determined in a more efficient manner.
US08214299B2
A system and method for conducting electronic commerce are disclosed. In various embodiments, the electronic transaction is a purchase transaction. A user is provided with an intelligent token, such as a smartcard containing a digital certificate. The intelligent token suitably authenticates with a server on a network that conducts all or portions of the transaction on behalf of the user. In various embodiments a wallet server interacts with a security server to provide enhanced reliability and confidence in the transaction. In various embodiments, the wallet server includes a toolbar. In various embodiments, the digital wallet pre-fills forms. Forms may be pre-filled using an auto-remember component.
US08214292B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and system for enabling a financial institution to communicate with a merchant regarding post-authorization processing of a financial transaction. The merchant assesses feasibility of the financial transaction after receiving an authorization from the financial institution for the financial transaction and accordingly processes the financial transaction based on the feasibility assessment. The processing of the financial transaction may either result in fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the financial transaction depending on the feasibility assessment. Finally, the merchant provides the financial institution details related to the processing of the financial institution in real-time following the authorization.
US08214286B1
Systems, computer program products, and computer-implemented methods apply or otherwise make available new credit or additional credit to demand deposit accounts, prepaid cards, and existing lines of credit of a customer based on expected tax refund amounts. A computerized estimate of the tax refund available from a tax return of the customer is formed. A portion of the computerized estimate of the tax refund which can be made available as the line of credit is then determined. The existing line of credit is then adjusted based on the expected refund determined to be available, which will serve as an additional source of repayment for the line of credit. One or more of several adjustments may then be made to an existing line of credit. The invention may be implemented as a computerized process, a computer system or a computer program product.
US08214282B2
An automated securities order execution system includes order entering means for a client to enter an order and at least one filtering means for determining whether the order can be automatically executed. Routing means are used for routing the order to a destination based upon the determination made by each of the filtering means. After the order has been properly routed, the order is executed and the result of the order execution is reported to the client.
US08214280B2
The present embodiments include methods, systems, and computer program products that provide tools for use in any type of electronic trading environment. In one aspect, leaning manager includes software that can be implemented on any type of computer device for tracking and/or coordinating the buying and selling of available market quantities by multiple automated or semi-automated trading tools. For instance, if more than one automated or semi-automated trading tool is leaning on the same tradeable object then the leaning manager may track and/or coordinate such action. The trading tools can use the tracked information and/or the allocated quantities and their prices to enhance their trading strategies.
US08214279B2
A method of computerized monitoring of investment trading includes providing historic trading data for a specific trader, selecting a plurality of trading parameters for the specific trader and obtaining current information regarding the selected parameters, and/or providing historic trading data and applying rules to the current information and/or historic trading data to determine if a rules violation has occurred. The system may be employed to monitor whether market timing of mutual fund investments has occurred. A corresponding computerized system is disclosed.
US08214268B2
A system for resolving demand and supply imbalances includes a supply liability reduction process (SLRP) executable upon identifying an excess component inventory liability. The SLRP includes: a procurement and development assessment sub-process that represents a greatest magnitude of liability; a liability council assessment sub-process that represents a magnitude of liability less than that of the procurement and development assessment sub-process; a sales activities sub-process that represents a magnitude of liability less than that of the liability council assessment sub-process; and a liability write-off sub-process that represents a magnitude of liability less than that of the sales activities sub-process. The SLRP performs one or more sub-processes in an order of the magnitude of liability. The sub-process reduces the excess component inventory liability by: determining alternative end products that use components identified in the excess component inventory liability; and executing for enticing sales of alternative end products.
US08214263B2
Systems, methods, and devices for the automated, community-based exchange of procurement documents. In some embodiments, there may be different sets of rules for each of a number of different communities of trading partners. Each set of rules may be made up of rules data for the automated exchange of procurement documents in respective communities. By way of example, a host trading partner may select the rules for exchange of procurement documents for a community. Invited trading partners may register for the community, and rules for the community may then be distributed to the registered trading partners.
US08214261B2
Systems and methods for promoting user generation of content are disclosed. More particularly, embodiments of systems and methods to facilitate the generation of content by users are disclosed. Specifically, in one embodiment, in order to drive generation of desired content, the generation of content by a user may be linked to an opportunity to generate additional content (where the two types of content may be the same or different). In particular, in certain embodiments when a user has generated a first type of content the opportunity to generate a second type of content may be presented to that user.
US08214259B2
A method of presenting real estate data is provided. A plurality of property listings can be presented, and a selection of one of the presented property listings may be received from a user. The user may be associated with a financial profile, which may be specified via user input. In response to receiving the selection by the user, at least one loan offer corresponding to the property listing may be automatically presented, for example, together with the property listing. The loan offer may be at least partially based on the financial profile, and may also be based on a property corresponding to the selected property listing. For example, the property listing and the financial profile may be automatically transmitted to one or more loan providers in response to receiving the selection by the user of the property listing, and in response loan offers may be received from some of the loan providers.
US08214257B1
Financial transaction capabilities and roles may be delegated by one user to another user allowing a user to act as a proxy for the other user. Allowing one user to conduct transactions on behalf of another may increase efficiency by reducing potential downtime due to transporting funds, setting up and other time consuming tasks. In one or more configurations, a user may conduct transaction on behalf of another user without requiring explicit permission by the other user. The user conducting the transaction may be allowed to do so by virtue of his or her role or position. According to another aspect, roles may be delegated such that one employee may assume the role of another employee in a business. A role may include a set of transaction capabilities, authorizations, responsibilities and the like.
US08214256B2
The present invention is directed to systems and methods for creating a program for delivery to a client in a video time shifting architecture. The system of the present comprises an advertisement selection system (ADS) operative to select one or more advertisements and transmit one or more identifiers that uniquely identify the selected advertisements and an advertisement management system (AMS) operative to generate a playlist that identifies content. The playlist includes a user requested time shifted program and the one or more selected advertisements. A video server is operative to interpret the playlist and deliver the content to the user.
US08214249B2
Embodiments of systems, methods, and software associated with the development of a resource or production plan within an enterprise's integration system are described in the present disclosure. In one of many embodiments, a method is described. Upon obtaining a master planning schedule, the method includes evaluating an inventory of resource associated with the master planning schedule. A production schedule associated with the master planning schedule is evaluated. Also, the method includes estimating carbon emission information associated with the master planning schedule.
US08214229B2
A method and system is provided for creating a network of medical image reading professionals who are highly skilled and proficient at reading and interpreting medical images. By creating such a network of medical image reading professionals, misdiagnoses can be dramatically reduced, thereby improving patient outcomes, reducing patient suffering and anxiety, reducing costs, and reducing the overall burden on the healthcare system.
US08214227B2
Systems, methods, and graphical user interfaces are provided for identifying, analyzing, and adopting opportunities for optimizing clinical processes within clinical facilities. An optimized practice process model may be defined for a particular clinical procedure, setting forth an optimal clinical process. In addition, critical levers may be identified within the optimal clinical process, representing the activities that have the greatest impact on outcomes. Clinical facilities may collect current measures for the critical levers, and the current measures may be compared against an optimal, benchmark, and/or target measure. Based on the comparison, opportunities for clinical process optimization may be identified. Those opportunities may then be analyzed and prioritized for adoption into a facility's current practice. Clinical processes within healthcare facilities may be further improved by continuously monitoring facility data and identifying further opportunities of optimization. Further, collected data may be used to refine the optimized practice process model, allowing for further optimization.
US08214205B2
A speech enhancement apparatus and method and a computer-readable recording medium having a program recorded thereon execute a speech enhancement method. The speech enhancement apparatus includes a spectrum subtraction unit generating a subtracted spectrum by subtracting an estimated noise spectrum from a received speech spectrum, a correction function modeling unit generating a correction function to minimize a noise spectrum using variation of a noise spectrum included in training data, and a spectrum correction unit generating a corrected spectrum by correcting the subtracted spectrum using the correction function.
US08214203B2
A method and an apparatus for recovering a line spectrum pair (LSP) parameter of a spectrum region when frame loss occurs during speech decoding and a speech decoding apparatus adopting the same are provided. The method of recovering an LSP parameter in speech decoding includes: if it is determined that a received speech packet has an erased frame, converting an LSP parameter of a previous good frame (PGF) of the erased frame or LSP parameters of the PGF and a next good frame (NGF) of the erased frame into a spectrum region and obtaining a spectrum envelope of the PGF or spectrum envelopes of the PGF and NGF; recovering a spectrum envelope of the erased frame using the spectrum envelope of the PGF or the spectrum envelopes of the PGF and NGF; and converting the recovered spectrum envelope of the erased frame into an LSP parameter of the erased frame. The method and apparatus can improve the quality of a recovered speech signal, be applied to a variety of technologies, and provide a method of recovering an LSP parameter for development of an algorithm for speech decoding.
US08214199B2
A method and computer system for translating sentences between languages from an intermediate language-independent semantic representation is provided. On the basis of comprehensive understanding about languages and semantics, exhaustive linguistic descriptions are used to analyze sentences, to build syntactic structures and language independent semantic structures and representations, and to synthesize one or more sentences in a natural or artificial language. A computer system is also provided to analyze and synthesize various linguistic structures and to perform translation of a wide spectrum of various sentence types. As result, a generalized data structure, such as a semantic structure, is generated from a sentence of an input language and can be transformed into a natural sentence expressing its meaning correctly in an output language. The method and computer system can be applied to in automated abstracting, machine translation, natural language processing, control systems, Internet information retrieval, etc.
US08214186B2
A method for performing oilfield operations for an oilfield. The method includes receiving modeling data and user instructions from a graphical user interface, selectively adjusting at least a portion of the modeling data to generate adjusted modeling data, obtaining an oilfield model based on the user instructions, instantiating first and second simulator instances based on the user instructions for performing a simulation using the adjusted modeling data and the oilfield model, passing interim simulation results between the first and second simulator instances for performing the simulation, displaying a result of the simulation using the graphical user interface, and performing the oilfield operations based on the result of the simulation. Further, the oilfield operations include a gas lift operation of the oilfield and the graphical user interface is configured to emulate the gas lift operation using a wellbore simulator.
US08214177B2
Apparatus and method for detecting micro-calcifications in mammograms using novel algorithms and stochastic resonance noise is provided, where a suitable dose of noise is added to the abnormal mammograms such that the performance of a suboptimal lesion detector is improved without altering the detector's parameters. A stochastic resonance noise-based detection approach is presented to improve suboptimal detectors which suffer from model mismatch due to the Gaussian assumption. Furthermore, a stochastic resonance noise-based detection enhancement framework is presented to deal with more general model mismatch cases.
US08214170B2
A method for test pattern compression generates a first test pattern comprising a plurality of bits. The method identifies bits comprising a don't-care bit value in the first test pattern and replaces the identified bit values with random bit values, to generate a second test pattern. The method determines a fault coverage level of the second test pattern. In the event the determined fault coverage level of the second test pattern exceeds a predetermined individual test pattern fault coverage level, for at least one bit position in the second test pattern corresponding to a replaced identified bit value and detecting at least one fault, the method exchanges the don't care value in the bit position in the first test pattern with the bit value in the corresponding bit position in the second test pattern. The method merges subsequent test patterns that increase fault coverage with the second test pattern.
US08214169B2
Circuits and methods for measuring and characterizing random variations in device characteristics of semiconductor integrated circuit devices, which enable circuit designers to accurately measure and characterize random variations in device characteristics (such as transistor threshold voltage) between neighboring devices resulting from random sources such as dopant fluctuations and line edge roughness, for purposes of integrated circuit design and analysis. In one aspect, a method for characterizing random variations in device mismatch (e.g., threshold voltage mismatch) between a pair of device (e.g., transistors) is performed by obtaining subthreshold DC voltage characteristic data for the device pair, and then determining a distribution in voltage threshold mismatch for the device pair directly from the corresponding subthreshold DC voltage characteristic data. The voltage threshold mismatch distributions of different device pairs of a given circuit design can then be used to determine voltage threshold variations of the constituent circuit devices. The voltage threshold variation of the devices can be used to characterize the random variations of the given circuit.
US08214168B2
A sensor probe provides a pair of unique signal paths through a test material, wherein one configuration of the probe provides identical external portions of the signal paths such that a selected parameter of a measuring signal passing along at least two of the unique signal paths is measured. From these measurements, a method is provided for calculating at least one parameter of the test material, wherein the parameter can include an intrinsic parameter as well as a condition of state.
US08214163B2
A time domain measurement method and apparatus are provided. The method comprises the steps of acquiring a burst signal and determining a plurality of min/max values of the burst signal. The determined min values are connected to generate a lower floor outline. The determined max values are connected to generate an upper roof outline. The burst signal is displayed along with the lower and upper outlines.
US08214152B2
A method of estimating at least one of stress and pore fluid pressure in an earth formation is disclosed. The method includes: discretizing a domain including at least a portion of the earth formation into a plurality of cells, each cell including a respective density value; dividing the domain into a first region and a second region, the first region including a surface of the earth formation; vertically integrating the respective density values in the first region; and estimating the total vertical stress for each cell in the first region and the second region by estimating a point load based on the respective density value.
US08214150B2
When an operation mode (a latest cooperation mode) immediately before removal of a portable navigation device and an operation mode (a latest independence mode) immediately before re-mounting of the portable navigation device are the same, an MPU performs processing using processing data in the latest independence mode and takes over a route-guidance operation or a content-playback operation that was independently performed by the portable navigation device. On the other hand, when the latest cooperation mode and the latest independence mode are different from each other, the MPU performs processing using processing data in the latest cooperation mode and takes over a route-guidance operation or a content-playback operation that was performed by an in-vehicle apparatus and the portable navigation device in cooperation with each other.
US08214149B2
A positioning method for a navigation apparatus and the navigation apparatus are provided. The positioning method includes steps of receiving a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal; reading a previous position-velocity-time (PVT) data; reading a previous map matching (MMT) result; and computing current PVT data according to at least one of the previous PVT data and the previous MMT result.
US08214143B2
Navigation devices, methods, and programs obtain information indicating a route of a host vehicle, obtain information indicating a position of the host vehicle, and obtain information indicating a form of a number (N) of successive curves (where N is an integer of 2 or more) in front of the host vehicle position on the route. The devices, methods, and programs excite a vibrator provided at a position where contact with a driver of the host vehicle is possible in a vibration mode corresponding to the form of the N successive curves when the host vehicle reaches a position at a predetermined distance from the closest curve among the N successive curves.
US08214138B2
Destination information, which includes as a retrieval condition an address of a destination spot, is received externally. Under the received retrieval condition of the address, a spot retrieval is performed with reference to own map data to thereby acquire a specified spot and second coordinates data indicating the specified spot. When the received destination information includes first coordinates data indicating the destination spot, it is determined whether a direct distance between a first spot indicated by the first coordinates data and a second spot indicated by the second coordinates data is equal to or less than a threshold value. When the direct distance is equal or less than the threshold value, the second spot is displayed as a destination on a map. When the direct distance is greater than the threshold value, the first spot is displayed as a destination on a map.
US08214136B2
The invention relates to assistance in the navigation of an aircraft in the cruising phase, particularly in an emergency rerouting situation. The invention relates to a method of assisting in the choice of rerouting airports for an aircraft having a position P and a speed V.: generating A first list LAC—1 of airport names Ai is generated. The first list LAC—1 has N airport names, with i being an index between 1 and N which uniquely identifies an airport that an organization operating the aircraft chooses as a relevant destination. A number m is determined which is a minimum between a predefined number M and the number N. M airport names are presented from the first list LAC—1 to an operator of the aircraft in a predefined order.
US08214132B2
An efficient control wave form is utilized to actuate the solenoids of a fuel system to reduce boost power/energy consumption. The solenoid is initially energized by applying a boost voltage from an electronic controller across a solenoid coil circuit. The electronic controller monitors the current level in the solenoid coil circuit, and changes to a reduced battery voltage when the current level in the solenoid coil circuit reaches a predetermined trigger current. The controller then maintains a pull-in current based upon battery voltage for a pull-in duration that initiates movement of the solenoid armature from an initial air gap position toward a final air gap position. After the pull-in duration, the current level is dropped to a hold in level for the remaining duration of the actuation event. The solenoid may be used for fuel injector control and/or pump control, such as to control fuel injection and pumping events respectively.
US08214131B2
A method for controlling an internal combustion engine with a common-rail system, in which a fuel quantity is computed from a measured fuel pressure distribution and in which the computed fuel quantity is set as the controlling value for controlling an injection. The fuel quantity is computed by measuring the pressure distribution (pE) of an individual accumulator, reproducing a modeled pressure distribution (pEMOD) according to the measured pressure distribution (pE) using a hydraulic model, and computing the fuel quantity from the hydraulic model.
US08214130B2
A hybrid vehicle propulsion system and method of operation have been provided. As one example, the system comprises an internal combustion engine including at least a combustion chamber configured to propel the vehicle via at least a drive wheel, a motor configured to propel the vehicle via at least a drive wheel, an energy storage device configured to store energy that is usable by the motor to propel the vehicle, a fuel system configured to deliver gasoline and alcohol to the combustion chamber in varying relative amounts, a control system configured to operate the motor to propel the vehicle and to vary the relative amounts of the gasoline and alcohol provided to the combustion chamber in response to an output of the motor.
US08214125B2
A vehicle speed setting of cruise control is changed based on an operation by a driver. At this time, it is determined whether the vehicle is traveling in a passing lane or a traveling lane (S202). If the vehicle is traveling in a passing lane, the speed at which the vehicle speed setting is changed is increased (S206). If a blinker on the passing lane side of the vehicle is on (S205), the speed at which the vehicle speed setting is changed is also increased (S206) even if the vehicle is traveling in the traveling lane.
US08214120B2
A powertrain includes an electromechanical transmission operative to transmit torque between an input member and an electric machine and an output member to transmit tractive torque. The electric machine is electrically connected to an inverter device which is electrically connected to an energy storage device. A method for operating the powertrain includes detecting a shutdown event, commanding the transmission to neutral, commanding the electric machine to cease operating in a torque generating mode, and electrically disconnecting the energy storage device from the inverter device.
US08214118B2
A control apparatus for an automatic transmission including an automatic speed change mechanism that has an input shaft connected to a drive source, an output shaft connected to driving wheels, and a plurality of friction engagement elements, and that performs a shifting operation among a plurality of shift speeds by changing engagement/disengagement states of the plurality of friction engagement elements.
US08214117B2
A driving force controlling apparatus includes a driving force controller configured to determine a state of a road surface. A driving force controller is configured to control a driving force of a vehicle based on the road surface state. A rear-wheel speed sensor is configured to detect a rear-wheel speed. A low-friction-coefficient road surface determining device is configured to determine whether the road surface is a low-friction-coefficient road surface using the rear-wheel speed on a predetermined condition. A determination prohibition device is configured to prohibit the low-friction-coefficient road surface determining device from determining whether the road surface is a low-friction-coefficient road surface, if (a) the rear-wheel speed sensor is abnormal, or if (b) a predetermined time has elapsed from when a shift range is changed from a reverse range to a drive range and/or (c) a gear position has become greater than or equal to a predetermined gear position.
US08214116B2
A method reduces a time delay or lag between a commanded upshift and a resultant upshift event in vehicle. The method detects the commanded upshift, calculates a scheduled engine torque reduction torque value as a function of an unmanaged torque, and reduces an input torque value from the engine using the calculated scheduled torque. A powertain includes an engine, a transmission, a torque converter, clutches that are selectively engageable to provide at least six forward speed ratios, a reverse speed ratio, and a neutral condition, and a controller. The controller has an algorithm controlling an operation of an off-going clutch and the on-coming clutch during a speed ratio change representing an upshift event. The algorithm calculates a scheduled torque value as a percentage of an unmanaged torque level of the engine, and controls the off-going and on-coming clutch through the speed ratio change using the calculated scheduled torque value.
US08214104B2
In an abnormal noise inspection method for an anti-vibration device for vehicle use, it is determined whether, during travel of a vehicle in which a supported member is supported to the vehicle body by an anti-vibration device, abnormal noise occurs or not in the passenger compartment owing to the anti-vibration device. The method includes: an input step of mounting to a shaker the anti-vibration device before it is assembled into the vehicle and then inputting vibrations in a predetermined pattern to a supported member-side mounting part of the anti-vibration device; a measurement step of measuring, during the inputting of vibrations, a transmission force output from a vehicle body-side mounting part of the anti-vibration device; an analysis step of frequency analyzing time-series data on the measured transmission force to obtain a power spectrum of the transmission force; and a determination step of estimating, based on the power spectrum of the transmission force and according to a predetermined evaluation criterion, whether a vehicle produces abnormal noise in the passenger compartment when it runs with the anti-vibration device mounted thereon.
US08214100B2
The invention provides a method for monitoring a vehicle that features the steps of: 1) generating a data packet including vehicle data retrieved from the vehicle using a wireless appliance; 2) transmitting the data packet over an airlink with the wireless appliance so that the data packet passes through a network and to a host computer system; 3) processing the data packet with the host computer system to generate a set of data; and 4) displaying the set of data on a web page hosted on the internet.
US08214097B2
A hybrid vehicle comprises an internal combustion engine, a traction motor, a starter motor, and a battery bank, all controlled by a microprocessor in accordance with the vehicle's instantaneous torque demands so that the engine is run only under conditions of high efficiency, typically only when the load is at least equal to 30% of the engine's maximum torque output. In some embodiments, a turbocharger may be provided, activated only when the load exceeds the engine's maximum torque output for an extended period; a two-speed transmission may further be provided, to further broaden the vehicle's load range. A hybrid brake system provides regenerative braking, with mechanical braking available in the event the battery bank is fully charged, in emergencies, or at rest; a control mechanism is provided to control the brake system to provide linear brake feel under varying circumstances.
US08214093B2
A powertrain includes an electro-mechanical transmission mechanically-operatively coupled to an internal combustion engine and an electric machine adapted to selectively transmit mechanical power to an output member. A method for controlling the powertrain includes operating the transmission in an operating range state wherein input speed can operate independent of output speed and wherein a reactive torque is transmitted through the transmission. The method further includes monitoring commands affecting a requested output torque, monitoring a calculated output torque, and prioritizing between an input acceleration of the transmission and an output torque of the transmission based upon whether operating the transmission in the operating range state is in transient operation or stable operation.
US08214092B2
A distributed interlocking device, architecture and process are disclosed, and are based on segregating the vital logic for a signal installation by type of signal equipment. A plurality of intelligent signal devices is disclosed, wherein each intelligent signal device is used to control a basic signal unit. In turn, a signal unit includes a set of signal apparatuses that are geographically and logically interrelated. An intelligent signal device receives data related to the states of other signal devices, determines and controls its own operational states, and communicates its own operational states to other devices.A generic intelligent signal device is also disclosed, and is based on a parameterization approach that incorporates a plurality of vital parameters into the vital logic of the device. The device is then customized to a site specific location by activating the appropriate parameters for that location. In addition, a plurality of new concepts, and signal control functions are provided, and include a vital change management process, and a failure recovery scheme based on dynamic reconfiguration of home and distant control functions.
US08214081B2
A wall climbing robot using an Indoor Global Positioning System (IGPS) provided in a room is disclosed. The wall climbing robot includes a navigation receiver configured to receive rotating fan beams emitted from one or more navigation transmitters of the indoor global positioning system, and recognize the rotating fan beams as IGPS signals; a robot frame provided with the navigation receiver mounted; a mobile controller configured to be installed on the robot frame, and to recognize and determine its own position using the IGPS signals; and a drive mechanism configured to travel along the surfaces of the room under control of the mobile controller. The mobile controller includes a central processing unit, an input/output unit, a motion control unit, a drive control unit, a navigation control unit, a sensor signal processor, an emergency processing unit, and an alarm generator.
US08214079B2
A central information processing system for a service robot. The system includes a broker unit including a plurality of interfaces for analyzing an information request from a corresponding service robot, transforming a format of the requested information, and transmitting the transformed information to the service robot, a spatial information manager for hierarchically composing and storing spatial information according to a recognition/reasoning level, searching spatial information, and returning the searched spatial information, an object information manager for hierarchically composing and storing object information about objects according to a recognition/reasoning level, searching object information, and returning the searched object information, and a space and object reasoning unit for searching and reasoning upper layer information about the object or space using lower layer information obtained from real environment or object, or searching and reasoning lower layer information to be used for comprehension of the object or space from upper layer information.
US08214078B1
A kiosk and a method for dispensing items therefrom. In various embodiments, the kiosk comprises a shelf system for holding items to be dispensed from the kiosk and a gripper capable of transporting items from the shelf system to a dispenser. The shelf system preferably comprises a series of parallel shelves, each shelf capable of holding one dispensable item. When not in operation, the shelves of the shelf system remain in an inclined position, thereby preventing the items situated thereon from falling off the shelves. To dispense an item, the shelves are rotated into a substantially horizontal position so the gripper may engage the selected item and transport the item to a dispenser.
US08214076B2
An alignment adjusting apparatus of a robot to execute conveying operations of putting and taking an object to be conveyed in and out of an accommodating shelf includes at least two reference flags to be installed in the accommodating shelf; a flag measuring unit to measure the reference flags on the robot positioned at the reference flags; and an alignment adjusting unit to adjust an alignment shift of the robot corresponding to an inclination of the robot, the inclination being obtained from a variation of a measured value of each of the reference flags by the flag measuring unit.
US08214072B2
In an apparatus for monitoring and securing danger zones on power-driven textile machines, in particular spinning room preparatory machines, having movable machine parts, an optical monitoring device monitors a movable danger zone to form a movable protection zone, such that a person and/or an object intruding into the danger zone triggers a switching operation. To produce an apparatus that allows guarding of danger zones in a simple and reliable manner, stationary monitoring device is present, which is selectively activatable and forms a dynamically movable protection zone around the movable danger zone.
US08214071B2
A method includes steps of: expressing changes of velocity components of a paper material at an exit of a slice lip by using a mathematical model, wherein the changes of velocity components are caused by manipulating an edge flow adjustment means (or a side bleed adjustment means) of a headbox when supplying the paper material on a wire; without changing a velocity component of a flow of the paper material in the mathematical model, setting the mathematical model based on an assumption in which a velocity component orthogonally crossing a flow direction of the paper material is proportionally changed by changes of an edge flow (or a side bleed) of a certain response width from the exit of the slice lip; and conducting a forecasting calculation of changes of a fiber orientation profile in a cross direction by using the mathematical model.
US08214068B2
The invention relates to a collaborative automation system (PS), comprising devices providing divided production and control services (D) such as transport and processing machines (M) with associated device agents (ST-AG, MA-AG), products with associated product agents (WP-AG), and a coordination unit (CO) providing a communication platform (SKP); the invention further relates to a method for the control of such a system. In order to obtain a dynamic detection and calling of processes in a loosely coupled production structure and infrastructure, the invention provides for devices (ST, MA, WP) providing the production and control services to be associated with a DPWS-based web service (ST-WS; MA-WS), wherein device functions are implemented into the DPWS-based web service as device service and agent functions. The communication platform (SKP) is designed as a uniform, DPWS-oriented SOA platform. The devices (ST, MA, WP) providing production and control services communicate via an integrated DPWS-based web service (ST-WS; MA-WS) and via a single communication platform (SKP), wherein device functions are implemented as device services (ST-WS; MA-WS) and agent functions describing device agents (ST-AG; MA-AG; WP-AG) as agent services in the DPWS-based web service. The communication platform is used as a uniform, DPWS-oriented SOA platform.
US08214066B1
A system for processing a digital audio signal that includes a plurality of samples is disclosed. The system comprises a magnitude determination module, a windowing module, a summing module and a comparison module. The magnitude determination module determines a magnitude of each of the plurality of samples of the digital audio signal. The windowing module selects a subset of the plurality of samples, which are summed by the summing module to obtain a subset sum. The comparison module compares the subset sum to a threshold, and generates a silence indicating signal based on the comparison of the subset sum to the threshold. The silence indicating signal is indicative of a period of silence in the digital audio signal.
US08214065B2
In a digital mixer, a standard mode or a switched mode of an input patch is selectable. When shifting from the standard mode to the switched mode is selected, input port information in input patch data stored in a current memory is converted according to a port correspondence relation indicated by conversion data. When shifting from the switched mode to the standard mode is selected, the input port information in the input patch data stored in the current memory is reversely converted to original information according to the port correspondence relation indicated by the conversion data.
US08214062B2
The plant control system has a measurement signal data database, a model to estimate the value of measurement signal data used at a time when an operation signal is given to the plant, and an operation signal learning unit to learn a method of generating a model input, which is equivalent to an operation signal, so that a model output, which is equivalent to the measurement signal data, attains a target value. The plant control system also has an evaluation function calculating unit to calculate an evaluation function value from the model output obtained as a result of an operation carried out by the operation signal learning unit for the model, and an evaluation function adjusting unit to adjust evaluation function parameters used in calculation of an evaluation function.
US08214058B2
Exemplary lead assemblies include a lead body having a plurality of conductor wires embedded therein, a plurality of electrode contacts at least partially disposed on an outer surface of the lead body, and a plurality of switching networks each configured to control an operation of one or more of the plurality of electrode contacts.
US08214057B2
Paddle lead electrodes that are capable of performing peripheral nerve stimulation, thereby modulating, controlling and/or reducing neuropathic pain in a patient, that are also surgically implantable, and that will remain fixed in place at the site of implantation when in use are provided. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the electrodes are capable of being surgically implanted underneath a sheath of protective connective tissue that covers electrically excitable tissues and are adapted to electrically stimulate those tissues. Electrodes contemplated by some embodiments are particularly well suited for perineurial implantation. Some embodiments include methods of use associated with the electrodes.
US08214051B2
A distributed system comprises a programming device and a remotely located server. During a programming session, the programming device transmits programs and rating information associated with the programs to the server. The server presents the rating information to a clinician to assist the clinician in selecting from among programs tested during the programming session. The programming device may also transmit patient information and device configuration information to the server for storage with selected programs and rating information within a database as part of a patient record. Programs and information received from a plurality of programming devices and for a plurality of patients may be stored in the database and analyzed by the server to provide responses to user queries made by clinicians via programming devices.
US08214047B2
The present invention involves a method and a system for using electrical stimulation to treat gastrointestinal and/or eating disorders. More particularly, the method comprises surgically implanting an electrical stimulation lead that is in communication with predetermined thoracic vertebral segments to cause spinal nervous tissue stimulation, thus treating a wide variety of gastrointestinal disorders.
US08214042B2
Disclosed are charging algorithms implementable in an external charger for controlling the charging of both an external battery in the external charger and an implant battery in an implantable medical device. Because full-powered simultaneous charging of both batteries can generate excessive heat in the external charger, the various charging algorithms are designed to ensure that both batteries are ultimately charged, but in a manner considerate of heat generation. In some embodiments, the charging algorithms prevent simultaneous charging of both batteries by arbitrating which battery is given charging precedence at a given point in time. In other embodiments, the charging algorithms allow for simultaneous charging of both batteries, but with at least one of the batteries being only weakly charged at low power levels. In other embodiments, the temperature generated in the external charger is monitored and used to control the charging algorithm. In these embodiments, if a safe temperature is exceeded, then the charging algorithms change to new temperature-reducing schemes which still allow for both batteries to be ultimately charged.
US08214022B2
A single device is provided for performing hysterography and intrauterine venography having a marker that aids in positioning the device within the patient, having a bulb-tip to seal the cervix, having a bulb-tip opening to allow an image enhancing medium to be discharged from a needle and injected into the uterus to perform the hysterography, having a needle to discharge and inject an image enhancing medium into the fundal myometrium to perform the intrauterine venography, and having a needle securing mechanism to secure the needle to prevent patient injury during transcervical introduction of the device.
US08214014B2
A method of determining the size and/or placement of screws or other instruments in pedicles during surgery in a selected spinal area, comprising generating a dimensionally true three-dimensional image of the bony spine in the selected spinal area; hollowing out the vertebra in the three-dimensional image with cortical wall thicknesses selected by a surgeon performing the surgery; determining the narrowest cross section (isthmus) within each pedicle; generating a straight line starting at the center of the isthmus and extending inwardly to a point centered within the anterior cortex so that it is positioned concentrically within the pedicle without touching the walls thereof, the line terminating inside the vertebral body a predetermined distance from the anterior inner cortical wall and extending outwardly in the opposite direction to penetrate the posterior pedicle cortex; expanding the line concentrically and radially to a cross sectional size that is less than that of the isthmus, the line being expanded into a cylinder that stops growing when any portion thereof contacts the inner cortical wall of the hollowed out vertebral body, with the exception of the posterior pedicle cortex; and calculating the ideal pedicle screw or instrument diameter, length and/or trajectory based on the dimensions and trajectory of the cylinder generated for each pedicle. Also, a new and improved method for providing access to the interior of a pedicle for a desired transpedicular procedure, and a new and improved pedicle cannula construction are disclosed herein.
US08214012B2
Critical needs for MRI patient instruction, testing, comfort, motion control, and speech communication are provided for better imaging which leads to more effective medical care. An MRI Digital Video Projection System is disclosed which provides better quality display to the patient to better inform, instruct, test, and comfort the patient plus the potential to stimulate the brain with microsecond onset times to better diagnose brain function. An MRI Motion Tracker and Patient Augmented Visual Feedback System enables monitoring patient body part motion, providing real time feedback to the patient and/or technician to substantially improve diagnostic yield of scanning sessions, particularly for children and mentally challenged individuals. An MR Forward Predictive Noise Canceling Microphone System removes the intense MRI acoustic noise improving patient communication, patient safety and enabling coding of speech output. These systems can be used individually but maximum benefit is from providing all three.
US08214008B2
Textile-based electrodes include a fabric portion having stretch-recovery non-conductive yarns and an electrically conductive region having stretch-recovery electrically conductive yarn filaments. The electrodes can further include float yarns and can be configured in a textured or ribbed construction. When incorporated into a garment, the electrodes can be used to monitor biophysical characteristics, such as the garment wearer's heart rate. In addition, two garments with textile based electrodes are disclosed. First, a wrist band for use with a cardiac patient remote monitoring system includes two fabric layers with integral textile-based electrodes. The skin contacting surface of the band includes a conductive region formed as a continuous ring or stripe. A connector links the conductive region to a lead to a device. Second, an infant garment includes textile based electrodes at the torso region and optionally at other regions in order to monitor the infant's biophysical characteristics as the garment is worn.
US08214005B2
A method is specified for operation of an arrangement having at least one superconducting cable, which is surrounded by a cryostat which consists of two metallic tubes, which are arranged concentrically with respect to one another and enclose vacuum insulation between them. The cryostat surrounds not only the cable but also a cavity for a pressurized coolant to pass through. A reservoir area, which is connected to the cryostat, for the coolant is arranged at least at one end of the cryostat and a pump is used which forces the coolant into the cryostat during operation of the arrangement. A valve is arranged at least in the supply path of the coolant from the reservoir area to the cryostat, which valve is open during operation of the arrangement, is connected to at least one unit monitoring the soundness of the cryostat and is blocked when a signal which corresponds to a fault message is present from the monitoring unit, in order to interrupt the supply of the coolant to the cryostat.
US08213998B2
A battery pack is configured to reduce weight, enhance battery identification, ensure proper placement of a lid retaining the battery, and facilitate battery pack removal. The battery pack has one or more cells that lack an outer coverage except for a polymer sheathing. The battery pack includes a mating notch on a terminal plate and may include a fingernail notch and/or one or more guide rails. The fingernail notch may be a single depression formed to allow a fingernail to slip onto the battery pack, may be a single depression and a ledge that are side-by-side, or may be formed of multiple ledges and/or depressions. There may be a single guide rail or multiple guide rails. Each guide rail preferably has a hollow interior section that is crossed by one or more ribs or segments.
US08213991B2
A mobile terminal and its associated storage devices and various methods of controlling and using them are discussed. According to an embodiment, a method for launching an application for a mobile terminal, includes receiving, by a first storage device connected to the mobile terminal, information on a second storage device after the second storage device is connected to the mobile terminal; and accessing, by the first storage device, a content stored in the second storage device based on at least the received information on the second storage device.
US08213990B2
A system for providing a remote subscriber identity card to a mobile station is provided. The system includes a subscriber identity card, a Bluetooth module and a controller. The Bluetooth module establishes a Bluetooth connection to the mobile station. The controller accesses the subscriber identity card to obtain identity information and provides the obtained information to the mobile station via the Bluetooth connection such that the mobile station camps on a cell according to the obtained information.
US08213989B2
A method for transmitting mobile originated requests by a mobile station with a first subscriber identity card and a second subscriber identity card, executed by a processor, is provided. It is determined whether a preference setting has been enabled. A preferred subscriber identity card is obtained from the first subscriber identity card and the second subscriber identity card when the preference setting has been enabled. The mobile originated request is issued to a called party via the preferred subscriber identity card when the preference setting has been enabled.
US08213988B2
An information processing apparatus including an IC chip receiving, by communicating with a reader/writer, service data corresponding to a service provided via the reader/writer and processing the received service data, a SIM card holding section holding a SIM card which includes a card internal memory storing information and to which a unique number for identifying a subscriber is added and a control section storing in the card internal memory of the SIM card the service data processed by the IC chip in the communication with the reader/writer, reading the service data stored in the card internal memory of the SIM card and making the IC chip process the service data.
US08213971B2
A method and system for remote activation of computer based applications uses Simple Message Service (SMS) messages to inform a remote computer that an application should be activated. The SMS message may be sent by a cell phone or from a computer. The remote computer receives the SMS message, parses the message to determine the application to be started, and starts the indicated application. If the remote computer is turned off, the SMS message can be received by an SMS receiver within a modem which can be configured to start the computer so the application can be activated.
US08213969B2
The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal that supports a text chatting function by using a short message service, and a text chatting service method. For this purpose, the present invention provides a mobile communication terminal including a program memory, a data storage unit, a key input unit, a display, and a microprocessor. The program memory stores a text chatting program for the text chatting service and a program that performs additional functions executed in the text chatting service. The data storage unit stores a text chatting message transmitted/received through the text chatting service. The key input unit includes a key button for generating the text chatting message. The display displays the transmitted/received text chatting message on a chatting window. The microprocessor executes the text chatting program and performs a control function to display text chatting messages communicated with a mobile communication terminal of a chatting contact on the chatting window. Herein, the text chatting message is transmitted/received by using a short message service. According to the present invention, a text chatting service using a short message service can be realized by simply changing a user interface of the mobile communication terminal so that a user can check a transmitted/received short message through one screen window, and provide a cost reduction by using a less expensive short message service than a data charge.
US08213968B1
A method and system for distributing messages to mobile stations operating in a picocell network that is communicatively coupled to a macrocell network. In one example, the macrocell network may receive a message that includes an identifier of the picocell network and send the message to the picocell network. In turn, the picocell network may receive the message, responsively identify each mobile station operating in the picocell network, and then send a given instance of the message to the identified mobile stations. In another example, a macrocell network may maintain data indicating an identifier of each mobile station operating in the picocell network, receive a message that includes an identifier of the picocell network, use the maintained data to identify each mobile station operating in the picocell network, and send a given instance of the message to the identified mobile stations via the picocell network.
US08213964B2
A communication system for mobile and stationary devices has at least one transmitter/receiver unit provided for the mobile and stationary devices and covering a defined transmission/reception range, and is formed so that at least partial overlap of the transmission/reception ranges of the mobile and/or stationary devices results in accidental communication between the mobile and/or stationary devices, and this accidental communication changes to a targeted communication.
US08213952B2
A communication system includes a main communication unit, a subcommunication unit that communicates with the main communication unit by using first wireless channels, and an external communication unit that communicates with the main communication unit by using second wireless channels. The subcommunication unit includes a state detection unit that detects a use state of the second wireless channels. The main communication unit includes a state acquisition unit that acquires the use state of the second wireless channels, a selection unit that selects a predetermined number of the first wireless channels with the less effect of radio wave interaction in the wireless communications based on the use state, a channel determination unit that determines one of the predetermined number of the first wireless channels, and a first wireless communication unit that communicates with the subcommunication unit using the one of the predetermined number of the first wireless channels.
US08213944B2
The invention relates to a method for a mobile communications, a mobile communication device (1), a node (N1, N2) in a mobile communications network (RAN, CN). The method comprises the step of sending a service request (307) from a mobile communication device (1) to a mobile communications network (RAN, CN), and in the method, the following steps are carried out before sending the service request (307): detecting an activity (301) related to the mobile communication device (1), and performing (304), in response to the detection (301) of the activity, at least one measurement of at least one candidate for serving a communication session.
US08213942B2
A method for cognitive neighbor selection in 4G networks describes a mechanism for automatic self-learning selection of neighboring base stations for the purpose of providing seamless handoffs in a dense deployment of pico and macro base stations. When a 4G network is modified by adding new base stations, the optimum handoff thresholds and advertised base station neighbors are automatically recalculated in a manner that reduces the number of unnecessary handoffs in a dense network with large number of pico and macro base stations.
US08213939B2
In a mobile communication method according to the present invention includes the steps of: transmitting, from a handover source radio base station to a switching center, a handover request including an NCC, a PCI and a KeNB*; changing, at the switching center, the NCC, changing, at the switching center, the KeNB* on the basis of the PCI, and transmitting, from the switching center to the handover target radio base station, the handover request including the changed NCC and the changed KeNB*; generating, at the handover target radio base station, a first key on the basis of the KeNB*; and generating, at the mobile station, the first key on the basis of the NCC and the PCI included in a handover command.
US08213935B2
To register a mobile device located in a first network with a packet-switched services network, a registration request is received from an aggregation device in the first network. The registration request contains an identifier of the aggregation device and identification information of the mobile device, where the identification information is previously unknown to the packet-switched services network. A globally unique identifier of the mobile device is dynamically created based on the identifier of the aggregation device and the identification information of the mobile device, wherein the globally unique identifier is used for uniquely identifying the mobile device in the packet-switched services network.
US08213933B2
System and method for wirelessly communicating between a base station and a mobile device. The base station wirelessly sends a first one or more overhead messages to the mobile device. The first one or more overhead messages may include at least one parameter. The mobile device may wirelessly receive the first one or more overhead messages from the base station, including the at least one parameter. The base station may wirelessly send a second one or more messages to the mobile device according to a schedule based on the at least one parameter. The mobile device may wirelessly receive the second one or more messages according to the schedule based on the at least one parameter. The mobile device may schedule a sleep cycle based on the at least one parameter, which may reduce battery consumption in the mobile device. The second one or more messages may be sent less frequently than the first one or more overhead messages.
US08213929B2
A method, satellite and system utilizes non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) frequency spectrum in geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) satellite communication in a non-interfering manner. A ground station transmits signals to a GSO satellite using a GSO frequency band and an extended frequency spectrum including the an NGSO frequency band whenever a noninterference situation exists, i.e., when an NGSO satellite is not in-line between the earth terminal and the GSO satellite or when the NGSO satellite is not utilizing the NGSO band of interest. A command module is provided to instruct the ground station to transmit signals to the GSO satellite using the GSO frequency band and the extended frequency spectrum.
US08213926B2
An approach is provided for a multiservice tester. A connection over an access link providing a customer premise with connectivity to a plurality of telecommunication services provided over a data network is established at a test device. Testing the plurality of telecommunication services is initiated by either physically connecting to one or more end devices or invoking an emulation application for emulating the one or more end devices. The plurality of telecommunication services are verified based on performance of the connection. A secure connection may be established with a provisioning system maintained by a service provider of the plurality of telecommunication services, wherein the secure connection may be established via the access link or via one or more wireless network access links. The provisioning system may facilitate verification of the plurality of telecommunication services and/or troubleshooting the plurality of telecommunication services.
US08213922B2
A system and method are disclosed for scanning services with a multimode communication device. A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a communication device (102) having a controller (206) for managing operations of a user interface (UI) (204), and a wireless transceiver (202). The UI conveys messages to an end user and facilitates manipulating operations of the communication device. The wireless transceiver supports software defined radio (SDR) communications and communications on at least one other access technology. The controller is programmed to scan (312, 314) for services in a television (TV) spectrum and at least one among a cellular spectrum, an ultra wideband (UWB) spectrum, a WiFi spectrum and a WiMax spectrum, detect (316) one or more services, and present (318) one or more of the detected services to the end user. Additional embodiments are disclosed.
US08213915B1
A method, system, and computer readable media are provided for maintaining a mobile session. A session identifier and an associated idle time period are created by the gateway as part of a session header between a wireless device and a content source. When an interruption occurs before a session request for information or data has been completed, the partially transferred information or data is buffered on the gateway, along with its associated session identifier. When the wireless device reconnects, using the associated session identifier header, then the buffered information or data is transferred from the gateway, to the wireless device. The resumed transfer of information or data occurs at the point where the partial transfer stopped, when the interruption occurred. The information or data is completely transferred from the content source to the wireless device, via the gateway.
US08213914B2
A mobile terminal capable of providing a web-browsing function and a method of controlling the mobile terminal are provided. According to the mobile terminal and the method of controlling the mobile terminal, it is possible to display a text-input area included in a webpage in a certain part of a display region of the mobile terminal in response to the manipulation of a key or the movement of the mobile terminal. In addition, it is possible to sequentially enlarge or highlight one or more text-input areas displayed in the display region of the mobile terminal. Therefore, it is possible to quickly input text into an address window, an identifier (ID)/password input window or an address window included in a webpage without the need to scroll through the webpage.
US08213910B2
A system of connection between computers. First and second computers are connected over a network. The network preferably uses an existing channel, such as a wireless connection or a telephone line. The first computer may be a PDA or a cell phone. One aspect may take speech into the telephone, send it over the network connection to the second computer, where it is recognized, and return the recognized speech to the first computer.
US08213901B2
There is disclosed a method for verifying a first identity and a second identity of an entity, said method comprising: receiving a first and second identity of said entity at a checking entity; sending information relating to at least one of the first and second identities to a home subscriber entity; and verifying that said first and second identities both belong to the entity from which said first and second identities have been received.
US08213900B2
A method for setting up a data link including the steps of requesting an identity of an IP network node by a registration module; transmitting an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) stored on a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card of the IP network node to the registration module, storing the received IMSI in a user database of the registration module, complementing an IP data channel to form signal and data channels of a GSM network by a signaling gateway module, using the complemented IP data channel having GSM data as a basis for generating the necessary SS7/MAP functions for authenticating the IP network node, authenticating the IP network node by using the IMSI of the SIM card of the IP network node, receiving an appropriate entry in the user database of the registration module upon successful authentication, and setting up a data link to the at least some of the network nodes by the control module of the central connecting unit.
US08213893B2
A quadrature connected passive mixer arrangement for frequency converting analog signals from a first to a second frequency. The arrangement comprises two parallel connected mixers provided as transistors. First and second LO signals and their inverse signals having separated phases are provided for driving the transistors. Signal path switches are provided between the RF terminals and the mixer transistors. The switches are driven by signals having a different phase than the signal driving the corresponding mixer transistor. Thus, any short circuit between IF terminals of the arrangement may be eliminated.
US08213884B2
A baseband-derived RF predistortion system using a lookup table having coefficients extracted at baseband and then applied at RF by means of a vector modulator. The architecture combines the narrowband advantage of envelope predistortion with the accuracy of baseband predistortion, and including compensation for memory effects. A polynomial-based alternative is also described.
US08213879B2
The radio-frequency signal reception and/or transmission device includes an antenna (8) for picking up or transmitting radio-frequency signals, a bandpass filter (9), at least one low noise amplifier (11) for amplifying the filtered signals, an oscillator stage (1) for generating first high frequency signals (SVCO), at least one frequency divider (14) for dividing by M the frequency of the first signals in order to generate second high frequency signals (SD), where M is an integer number greater than 1, at least a first mixer unit (12) for mixing the filtered and amplified radio-frequency signals (SR) with the first high frequency signals (SVCO), and at least a second mixer unit (13) for mixing the intermediate signals supplied by the first mixer unit with the second high frequency signals in order to produce baseband signals (IR, QR). The stage oscillator (1) is configured to generate first high frequency signals (SVCO), whose frequency is outside the frequency band of the bandpass filter and higher than the frequency of the received radio-frequency signals by a factor M/N comprised between 1 and 2, where N is an integer number greater than 1.
US08213866B2
A first apparatus includes a first communication section 18 for performing either data transmission or data reception by using a first short-distance wireless communication scheme. A second apparatus includes a second communication section 26 for performing either data transmission or data reception by using a second short-distance wireless communication scheme. A third apparatus includes a third communication section 39 and a fourth communication section 38. The third communication section performs either data transmission or data reception by using the first short-distance wireless communication scheme. The fourth communication section performs either data transmission or data reception by using the second short-distance wireless communication scheme. The third apparatus transmits data, which is received from the first apparatus by using the third communication section, to the second apparatus by using the fourth communication section.
US08213856B2
A hardware and software implemented, standardize testing, scoring and reporting system has a network interface, being either LAN or the Internet. A test is selected from a library, assigned to a group of examinees, and a record is made of the assignment. The test is available on-line, or downloaded, or both. Downloaded tests are saved as PDF files and printed into booklets. Examinees record answers on bubble sheets, which are scanned at the customer site or shipped to a processing plant. Individual scanned answer sheets provided data for individual scanned records. Scanning software performs an initial auto-correct and then performs an initial check for errors in scanned records. Tests are batched for later inspection. Scanned records with errors are classified as invalid and the test papers are separated. Prompts are generated for a human test paper inspection and scanned record editing. Accepted batches of scanned records are sent to a scanned records server where a second scanned records error check is performed. Prompts are sent to the appropriate scanning station for further human editing of invalid scanned records. Once all records are valid they are scored and the test results stored in a database, which is accessed by a reporting subsystem associated with an on-line server.
US08213855B2
A drive unit for changing the driving rate of paper ejection rollers for ejecting sheets of paper after fixing is installed, and an image forming apparatus has an option, and when ejecting the sheets of paper to an intra-body paper ejection unit, after the sheets of paper pass a fixing device, the paper ejection rate of paper ejection rollers 24 is increased, and the ejection force of the sheets of paper P is increased, and paper jamming at the time of paper ejection to the intra-body paper ejection unit is prevented.
US08213851B2
A first longitudinal registration correcting unit corrects a misalignment of a recording medium in its conveying direction. A lateral registration correcting unit corrects a misalignment of the recording medium in its width direction after the misalignment in the conveying direction is corrected by the first longitudinal registration correcting unit. A second longitudinal registration correcting unit corrects the misalignment of the recording medium in the conveying direction again after the misalignment in the width direction is corrected by the lateral registration correcting unit.
US08213845B2
An intermediate transfer member substrate with an overcoat and a process for preparing the intermediate transfer member substrate with an overcoat layer by application of corona treatment to the surface of the intermediate transfer member substrate to enhance the interfacial adhesion between the overcoat and intermediate transfer member substrate.
US08213844B2
A developing device for an image forming apparatus of a non-magnetic one-component type. The developing device has a developing roller having a body and a shaft. Bearings for supporting the shaft have a groove made in a contact surface that is in contact with the shaft, and grease is pooled in the groove. The contact surface of the shaft has a surface roughness from 0.2 to 0.5, and the grease has consistency from 265 to 385 ( 1/10 mm·20° C.).
US08213842B2
A toner cartridge, and a process unit and image forming apparatus using the same. Toner contained in an outer chamber is scooped with a toner scooping member by rotation of a toner container and slides down toward a communication port along an upper surface of a partition, and falls down to an inner chamber from the communication port. Then, the toner that has fallen down into the inner chamber from the communication port slides down toward a toner discharging port along the inner surface of the partition, and is discharged from the toner discharging port. Furthermore, toner discharged form the toner discharging port is discharged from a toner through hole provided in a toner container supporting member to the outside of the toner cartridge.
US08213841B2
A container includes: a container body that is to be inserted into the device, and that has a port; and a pair of support members arranged so that the support members face each other across the port, that supports a cover for covering the port, the cover including: a covering portion that covers the port; a pair of supported members that are supported by the support members; and a pair of connecting portions arranged so that the connecting portions face each other, that connects the covering portion and the supported members, and at least one of the connecting members being configured so that the connecting member becomes narrow as an outside surface of the connecting member tapers towards its inside surface at an end of the container body inserted into the device.
US08213837B2
This is an auger shaft seal used in an electrophotographic marking system. The seal is made up of alternating raised and depressed pie-shaped sections, each having edges that force developer away from auger bearings. The seal of this invention can be used on bi-directional augers and will protect the bearing when the auger moves in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. The seal is used with a magnetic seal to add additional protection for the bearings.
US08213836B2
The present invention provides a developing device and an image forming apparatus capable of preventing a developer from being discharged excessively using simple configurations in the case that a trickle developing device that uses a two-component developer is in a tilted state. The developing device having stirring members for conveying and stirring a developer and a developer holder, comprises a developer replenishing tank for replenishing the developer to a developer tank and a trickle discharging mechanism, wherein the conveying passages thereof include an upper conveying passage, a lower conveying passage, a first communicating passage for connecting the downstream side of the upper conveying passage to the upstream side of the lower conveying passage, and a second communicating passage for connecting the downstream side of the lower conveying passage to the upstream side of the upper conveying passage, and also include a circulation passage through which the developer circulates using the upper conveying passage, the first communicating passage, the lower conveying passage and the second communicating passage; the discharging mechanism is disposed in the downstream end section of the upper conveying passage; the bottom face on the downstream side of the upper conveying passage is positioned above the bottom face on the upstream side of the lower conveying passage; and the first communicating passage is disposed obliquely downward with respect to the horizontal plane.
US08213832B2
An image forming apparatus has an apparatus main assembly; an image forming unit; a fixing unit which has a pressure applying mechanism and a cam member; an opening and closing member which is attached to the apparatus main assembly to be capable of being opened and closed; a first gear which is provided at the apparatus main assembly; a second gear which is provided at the fixing unit; and a connection gear which connects the first gear and the second gear. The connection gear is configured to be detachable from between the first gear and the second gear and to be attachable being engaged with both the first gear and the second gear only in a case that the first gear and the second gear are respectively at a predetermined phase.
US08213830B2
An image forming apparatus includes an apparatus body, and a process cartridge removably mounted to the apparatus body. The process cartridge includes a photosensitive cartridge including a photosensitive member, and a developing cartridge including a developer carrying member, which is contactable with the photosensitive member, and which carries developer. The image forming apparatus further includes a first pressing member that presses the photosensitive cartridge in a first direction with respect to a positioning portion that is provided on the apparatus body, and a separating member that includes a second pressing member that acts in a second direction and thereby causes the developer carrying member to separate from the photosensitive member. The first direction and the second direction are substantially the same.
US08213825B2
A cartridge set in a main body of an image forming apparatus including a developer roller positioned opposite a photosensitive member and a frame including the developer roller and in contact with an urging unit, wherein the urging unit is structured to urged the developer roller towards the photosensitive member, also the urging unit is structured to transfer a voltage from a power supply unit to the developer roller.
US08213823B2
In a power supply that outputs a high voltage by driving a piezoelectric element, a switching-on time period of a switching element in an initial frequency range when the piezoelectric element starts to be driven is set to a smaller value.
US08213822B2
A system for delivering desired magnitudes of AC power to a load. A three-cycle power mode includes a 1st and 3rd cycle in which either no AC power, or full power, is delivered to the load, and a 2nd cycle in which an AC switch is triggered at a desired phase angle to deliver the desired increments of AC power during the 2nd cycle. AC power is delivered in each cycle in a manner to provide a net zero DC offset in the AC current delivered to the load. A two-cycle mode can be achieved by using the 1st and 2nd cycle, or by using the 2nd and 3rd cycles to optimize power delivery performance. A multi-cycle power delivery system can employ both the three-cycle and the two-cycle modes together to minimize the harmonic content during delivery of various power levels.
US08213806B2
A method of transmitting a plurality n data streams comprises modulating an optical carrier using differential M-ary phase shift key (DMPSK) signalling in which M=2n. Advantageously the method comprises using differential quaternary phase shift keying in which n=2. A particular advantage of the method of the present invention is that since the data is differentially encoded in the form of phase changes rather than absolute phase values this enables the modulated optical carrier to be demodulated using direct detection without requiring a phase-locked local optical oscillator. The invention is particularly applicable to WDM communication systems.
US08213805B2
According to halt of a Raman pumping light source, a transmitting light power of a first light which is subject to receive a Raman gain is controlled to increase. In this state, a first input/output light power for a first light of an optical transmission line is measured, the first input/output light power being used for determining a reference of loss characteristic of the optical transmission line. A second input/output light power for a second light of the optical transmission line is measured, the second light not being subject to receive the Raman gain, the second input/output light power being used for determining a fluctuation of the reference.
US08213804B2
In one embodiment, a gain medium for an external cavity diode laser (ECDL) includes a gain section to provide a gain operation on optical energy in the ECDL that is controlled by a first electrical signal, a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) section disposed adjacent to the gain section to amplify the gained optical energy responsive to a second electrical signal, and a trench disposed between the gain section and the SOA section to act as an integrated mirror. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08213800B1
A wireless communication network system includes a central office network, a plurality of cell sites, each for communicating wirelessly with external cellular phones within its transmission range, and a passive optical network (PON)-based wireless backhaul system that transfers communication information between the cell sites and the central office network. The PON-based wireless backhaul system further includes at least a source optical network terminal (ONT), an optical line terminal (OLT), and a quality of service (QoS) converter in each of the source ONT and OLT to allow for quality of service-enabled communication between the cell sites and the central office network via the PON-based wireless backhaul system.
US08213798B2
An optical transmission apparatus for suppressing deterioration of transmission quality due to XPM in a wavelength division multiplexing optical communication system in which an intensity modulation optical signal and a phase modulation optical signal exist in a mixed form. The apparatus has an intensity inversion signal light output section which outputs light having an intensity pattern obtained by inverting intensity changes of the intensity modulation optical signal near a wavelength of the intensity modulation optical signal in arrangement on wavelength axis of optical wavelengths that can be multiplexed as a wavelength division multiplexed signal as intensity inversion signal light, and a wavelength division multiplexed optical signal output unit which wavelength-division-multiplexes the intensity modulation optical signal, the phase modulation optical signal and light from the intensity inversion signal light output section and outputs a wavelength division multiplexed optical signal.
US08213792B2
A system, method and computer readable medium comprising instructions for sending a message from an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) to an Optical Line Terminal (OLT), if the ONT does not receive an expected OLT action or an expected OLT response to the message within a period, considering the non-receipt of the expected OLT action or the expected OLT response a failure, and if a certain number of consecutive failures have occurred, considering by the ONT that it has entered an uncontrolled state.
US08213781B2
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus, a data processing method, a program, a program recording medium, a data recording medium, and a data structure that enable reading of coded video data in access units without analyzing the coded video data. In step S211, a private_stream—2 packet is searched for, which is used for decoding coded video data, and which is located immediately prior to each of one or more decode startable points in coded video data in the access units. In addition, in step S216, based on an AU_length which is included in the private_stream—2 packet, and which represents the size of each of access units located from the private_stream—2 packet to the next private_stream—2 packet, the coded video data is read in the access units. The present invention can be applied to, for example, game machine using DVDs, etc.
US08213774B2
Spotlighting and other special effects are applied by processing circuitry in real time to received video streams. Effects tracking may be applied to fixed regions or moving regions or objects of interest. Viewers interact via conventional remote controls and other user interfaces to set effect parameters. Other special effects employed include zooming, masking, etc. and can be used to enhance one or more spotlight effects. Televisions, set top boxes and media players house the underlying circuitry. Effects are applied to layered and non-layered video streams to form layered and combined video stream output. Video outputs also deliver effect parameters such as region of interest location along with a video stream. Such effect parameters assist in the downstream application of dynamic effects.
US08213773B1
This invention relates to an apparatus and method for presenting zoom-able video via the Internet.
US08213761B2
A terminal for mounting to a fiber distribution cable includes a housing having a base and a cover. The cover is connectedly engaged with the base. The terminal further includes a plurality of adapters disposed on the cover. A fiber routing tray having a top panel and a bottom panel is disposed in an interior cavity. The fiber routing tray includes a storage space defined between the top and bottom panels for storing a length of optical fiber. A method for installing a terminal includes providing a terminal having a housing defining an interior cavity. A cable is pulled from the interior cavity of the housing. The cable is spliced to a fiber distribution cable with a splice. The cable is inserted back into the interior cavity. A spliced end of the cable, a spliced end of the fiber distribution cable and the splice are inserted in a retention device.
US08213760B2
A fiber optic enclosure includes an enclosure having a base and a cover connected to the base. The base and the cover cooperate to define an interior region. The enclosure includes a tray mount disposed in the interior region. A plurality of fiber optic cable ports is mounted to the enclosure. A tray stack is mounted within the interior region of the enclosure. The tray stack includes a tray mounting plate assembly that is pivotally connected to the tray mount of the enclosure. The tray mounting plate assembly includes a tray mounting plate and a detent that engages the tray mount to selectively retain the tray stack in an opening position and a closed position. The tray stack further includes a plurality of trays mounted to the tray mounting plate.
US08213756B2
A breathable downhole fiber optic cable is provided having an outer protective tube; a fiber optic tube having a plurality of optical fibers contained therein; at least one annulus disposed between the outer protective tube and the fiber optic tube; and at least one path, extending through the length of the fiber optic cable, which provides a channel for a purge gas to flow for removing a second gas, such as hydrogen, from the fiber optic cable.
US08213752B2
A coherent planar lightwave circuit (PLC) optical mixer chip is described comprising a matched pair of symmetrical four-coupler interferometers for in-phase and in-quadrature detection of two polarization components of light using a polarization diversity arrangement. The waveguide structure of the chip is symmetrical about two orthogonal central axes of the chip, whereby the effect of temperature gradients on the mixer is reduced. A light traveling from an input to an output of any of the two interferometers is cross-coupled by one of the two couplers it passes through, and is bar-coupled by the other of the two couplers, so as to compensate for polarization, wavelength, and manufacturing process dependence of bar-coupling with that of cross-coupling.
US08213747B2
In accordance with one or more aspects, a variable resolution image is displayed at an initial resolution. The variable resolution image has multiple portions, at least two of which have different resolutions. A request to display one of the multiple portions of the variable resolution image at a higher resolution is received, and a check is made as to whether a higher resolution version of the one portion is available. The higher resolution version of the one portion is displayed if available, otherwise the one portion at the initial resolution is displayed.
US08213746B2
A method for iterative derivation of a master image from sampled images of non-identical, at least partially overlapping, regions of a scene. The method includes defining a transformation operator mapping positions within the master image to corresponding positions in the sampled image; a distortion operator simulating a modulation transfer function associated with an imaging sensor from which the sampled image was generated; and a sampling operator for reducing an image from the output resolution to the resolution of the sampled image. For each sampled image the transformation operator, distortion operator and sampling operator are applied to a current master image hypothesis to generate a predicted image A difference image is calculated which has pixel values corresponding to the difference in corresponding pixel values between the sampled image and the predicted image. A back-projection of each of the difference images is performed to generate a correction image for the current master image hypothesis. Finally, the correction images are employed to perform a correction to the current master image hypothesis to generate a new master image hypothesis. The correction to the current master image hypothesis includes combining the correction images by deriving a weighted average of values of corresponding pixels in the correction images. The weight of each pixel in each correction image is calculated as a function of a distance as measured in the sampled image between: a point in the sampled image to which the pixel in the correction image is mapped by the transformation operator, and at least one pixel centroid proximal to that point.
US08213738B2
A method for eliminating noise from an image generated by an image sensor, includes: setting a group of pixels arranged in a square matrix and including a central pixel intended to eliminate the noise in the image and peripheral pixels arranged around the central pixel; obtaining absolute difference values between a luminance value of the central pixel and a luminance value of the peripheral pixels according to directionalities of the peripheral pixels about the central pixel; comparing the obtained absolute difference values with first critical values to determine a region to which the central pixel belongs; when the determined region is the contour region, eliminating noise of the group of the pixels according to directionality of the contour; and when the determined region is the noise region, eliminating the noise of the group of the pixels according to a noise level of the group of the pixels.
US08213737B2
A digital image processing technique detects and corrects visual imperfections using a reference image. A main image and one or more reference images having a temporal and/or spatial overlap and/or proximity with the original image are captured. Device information, image data and/or meta data are analyzed of the one or more reference images relating to a defect in the main image. The device corrects the defect based on the information, image data and/or meta-data to create an enhanced version of the main image.
US08213731B2
An information processing device includes: a synthesis filter processing unit to subject image data to analysis filtering for dividing the frequency components of the image data into highband components and lowband components hierarchically, and subject the frequency components of the image data divided into a plurality of frequency components to synthesis filtering for mutually synthesizing the frequency components of the frequency band of the same division level recursively; a frequency component holding unit to hold frequency components of a division level one order lower, generated by the synthesis filtering performed by the synthesis filter processing unit; and a control unit to cause the synthesis filter processing unit to recursively perform the synthesis filtering processing on each frequency component held in the frequency component holding unit, in an order whereby the image data is restored in order from the top of the image, a plurality of lines at a time.
US08213729B2
The invention losslessly encodes multidimensional data such as a color lookup table in which neighboring elements in a space have high correlations, by a simple arrangement at a high compression ratio. To this end, a multidimensional data input unit inputs data of an X-Y plane in an order of Z=0, 1, 2, . . . from a lookup table expressed by three-dimensional X-, Y-, and Z-coordinates. An inter-plane difference generation unit calculates differences D between elements of two neighboring planes, and outputs the calculation result as two-dimensional inter-plane differences. A prediction error generation unit considers data Di of interest in the inter-plane differences D as an element of two-dimensional data, and outputs a difference e from a predicted value p, which is obtained with reference to already encoded data, to a prediction error encoding unit. The prediction error encoding unit generates and outputs a codeword from the inputted difference e.
US08213726B2
Multi-scale processing may be used to reduce the memory and computational requirements of optimization algorithms for image labeling, for example, for object segmentation, 3D reconstruction, stereo correspondence, optical flow and other applications. For example, in order to label a large image (or 3D volume) a multi-scale process first solves the problem at a low resolution, obtaining a coarse labeling of an original high resolution problem. This labeling is refined by solving another optimization on a subset of the image elements. In examples, an energy function for a coarse level version of an input image is formed directly from an energy function of the input image. In examples, the subset of image elements may be selected using a measure of confidence in the labeling.
US08213720B2
Automatic detection of chin positions is enabled from within digital images regardless of the facing directions of the faces. Faces having skin color are detected from input color images. Reference lines from center positions between eyes and center positions of mouths, which are included in faces are calculated, based on the faces detected by the face detecting section. Data that indicates statistical positional relationships among center positions between eyes, center positions of mouths, and chins therein are obtained. Probabilities that the reference lines calculated by the reference line calculating section include the positions of chins, based on the data that indicates the statistical positional relationships and the reference lines are calculated. Probabilities of skin colored pixels being present on the reference line are calculated. Rates of brightness variations along the reference line are calculated. Positions of chins are calculated based on combinations of the above the results of calculation.
US08213719B2
A natural input system is described for creating and editing complex structures in a typeset application. The natural input system receives a typeset representation of an object and converts the typeset format to generate a standard digital ink representation. The natural input system provides the generated ink representation to a natural input application where can be manipulated by the user with a rich set of correction and editing features provided by the natural input application. Once the end user is satisfied with the recognition result in the natural input application, the natural input system receives the recognition result based on the modified digital ink representation. The natural input system may convert the received recognition result to the typeset application format and provides the modified typeset representation to the typeset application for merging into the document the user is editing.
US08213717B2
A document processing apparatus includes a marking detection part that detects a marking written on the form from data read by a first reading part, an attribute name extraction part that extracts a character string described beforehand within or near a marking area of the detected marking as an attribute name, an attribute name detection part that detects the attribute name, extracted by the attribute name extraction part, stored in an attribute information memory and specifies the descriptive position of the detected attribute name from the data read by a second reading part that reads the form on which the attribute values are entered, and an attribute value extraction part that extracts the character string around the detection position of the attribute name detected from the read data, and registers the extracted character string as the attribute value of the attribute associated with the attribute name in the attribute information memory.
US08213716B2
A method of gathering statistics of gray distribution of an image in an image processing device is provided. The method includes determining gray information of a plurality of data of an input image, wherein each piece of information corresponds to a count value. In addition, a fixed value is sequentially added to the corresponding count value according to the gray information of the data. When the count value exceeds a predetermined value, the count value is reset and the gray distribution of the image is updated. The count value of each piece of gray information is accumulated and when the accumulated value exceeds a predetermined value, the gray distribution of the image is updated to simplify the flow of process of the method of gathering statistics of gray distribution of an image.
US08213714B1
A method for performing a color gamut based white balancing of a digital image, the method includes: determining at least one filtering parameter based upon a relationship between candidates and color gamuts that are associated with different illumination conditions; wherein each candidate represents a pixel area; selecting selected candidates by filtering the candidates; wherein the filtering is responsive to at least one filtering parameter; calculating at least one white balance compensation parameter in response to pixel information of the selected pixel areas; and providing a compensated digital image by applying at least one white balance compensated parameter.
US08213710B2
An image processing system interpolates image data of an image array by ascertaining shift invariant points and non-shift invariant points within the array. The average illumination and the second order derivative are determined for the shift invariant locations. The second order derivative and the intensity at the non-shift invariant locations for each of the non-shift invariant points are estimated. The color data for each color element is determined from the image data and second order derivative. The second order derivative is multiplied by a scaling factor for selectively smoothing and sharpening the second order derivative. The color data values of adjacent color element to enhance a resolution of the image data.
US08213704B2
Computer-implemented methods and systems for detecting defects in a reticle design pattern are provided. One computer-implemented method includes acquiring images of the reticle design pattern using a sensor disposed on a substrate arranged proximate to an image plane of an exposure system configured to perform a wafer printing process using the reticle design pattern. The images illustrate how the reticle design pattern will be projected on a wafer by the exposure system at different values of one or more parameters of the wafer printing process. The method also includes detecting defects in the reticle design pattern based on a comparison of two or more of the images corresponding to two or more of the different values.
US08213699B2
A medical image processing apparatus comprises: an acquiring part configured to acquire a morphological image that is formed by a first apparatus and shows the morphology of an organ of an object, and a functional image that is formed by a second apparatus different from the first apparatus and shows the state of the organ; a display; and a processor configured to cause the display to display a synthetic image based on the morphological image and the functional image.
US08213698B2
Systems and methods are provided for environment change sensing corresponding to the capsule camera entering the colon from the small intestine. In the environment change sensing mode, the capsule camera is operated in a very low power mode by configuring the image sensor to use a small region of interest or a high sub-sampling ratio. Image data is processed to estimate the light level. The variation of light level is used to detect environment change corresponding to entering the colon from the small intestine. Alternatively, the motion metric for a current frame and a reference frame is evaluated. The characteristic of the motion metric is extracted and used to detect environment change. In another configuration, the system determines environment change based on a combination of the variation of light intensity and the characteristic of the motion metric. Upon the detection of capsule camera entrance into the colon from the small intestine, control signals are provided to the image sensor and the light source.
US08213696B2
A method for obtaining a tissue volume, includes inputting a dataset including a plurality of voxels; initializing a tissue probability volume for the plurality of voxels to a pre-determined value; updating, by one of increasing or decreasing the tissue probability volume of each of the plurality of voxels, based on corresponding intensity values of each of the plurality of voxels; and generating the tissue volume by combining the updated tissue probability volume and the inputted dataset.
US08213691B2
A method identifies an unknown face in an input image using reference images of known faces. A Haar-like feature vector is extracted from each image. The vectors are compressed. An L1 norm is determined between the compressed feature vector of the input image and each compressed feature vector from the set of reference images to determine a most similar reference image. The identity of the face associated with the most similar reference image is assigned as the identity of the unknown face in the input image.
US08213688B2
A method for controlling operating processes or measuring processes in connection with a printed image applied to a printing material, includes acquiring image information from the printed image on the printing material with a camera device. The data acquired by the camera is compared in a computer with digital image data of the printed image. Operating processes or measuring processes are triggered by the computer on the basis of the identified printed image on the printing material. The printing material is displayed on a desk, the camera device detects objects or persons covering the printing material and specific operating, processes or measuring processes are triggered on the basis thereof. An apparatus for carrying out the method is also provided.
US08213684B2
A motion estimating device first detects mobile objects Oi and Oi′ in continuous image frames T and T′, and acquires image areas Ri and Ri′ corresponding to the mobile objects Oi and Oi′. Then, the motion estimating device removes the image areas Ri and Ri′ corresponding to the mobile objects Oi and Oi′ in the image frames T and T′, extracts corresponding point pairs Pj of feature points between the image frames T and T′ from the image areas having removed the image areas Ri and Ri′, and carries out the motion estimation of the autonomous mobile machine between the image frames T and T′ on the basis of the positional relationship of the corresponding point pairs Pj of feature points.
US08213668B2
An in-ear earphone includes a shell and a sound output device. The shell has a first engaging portion. The sound output device has a sound tunnel, a second engaging portion and a speaker. The speaker is disposed between the sound tunnel and the second engaging portion coaxially with the sound tunnel. The second engaging portion is movably engaged with the first engaging portion. The angle between the shell and the sound output device is adjustable so that the sound tunnel can be suitably plugged into individual user's ear canals.
US08213666B2
A set of headphones is configured with an integrated accessory receiving space and a device connector that interface with a variety of different interchangeable accessories. The accessories can range from a personal media player that can render audio, such as MP3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group, MPEG-1, audio layer 3) content, to rechargeable battery packs, storage devices, and modules that can support wireless communication between the headphones and other devices such as media centers, game consoles, and personal computers (“PCs”). A user can pick an accessory and snap it into the receiving space of the headphones. When so installed, the accessory becomes physically and functionally embedded so that its functionality becomes seamlessly integrated with operation of the headphones.
US08213664B2
A method and apparatus for providing a shape-adaptable surface for an audio port of a device includes an audio port, a shape-adaptable surface having a plurality of portions, a plurality of sensors coupled to the shape-adaptable surface, wherein the plurality of sensors are operative to sense a plurality of distances between the object and the shape-adaptable surface, and a processor operatively coupled to the shape-adaptable surface and the plurality of sensors, said processor configured to control some of the plurality of portions of the shape-adaptable surface to adjust the plurality of distances and to provide a channel between a sound receiver of the object and the audio port. An improved audio coupling is formed by adjusting the distances between the shape-adaptable surface and the object, thereby transmitting sounds directly from the audio port of the device to a sound receiver of the object.
US08213660B2
A shielded microphone, and method for shielding a microphone, are provided for use in a communications device having a circuit board and a microphone, especially where the device also has an antenna in close proximity to the microphone. The microphone is provided in an electromagnetic shield (e.g. formed as a shielding can) and a resilient separator (e.g. o-ring or disk) is provided over the shield. The device housing is stacked over the separator and shield, while the latter are stacked over the circuit board so that the separator and shield, with microphone there under, are sandwiched between the housing and the circuit board. By this sandwiching the separator is loaded onto the shield to drive the shield directly against the circuit board to make an electrical ground connection therewith, the microphone also being electrically connected to the printed circuit board. The microphone is thereby enclosed between the circuit board and the shield, such that the shield shields the microphone against electromagnetic energy radiated by the proximate antenna. The resilience of the separator accommodates the variation in the stacking of the components.
US08213655B2
For individual coloring of the housing of the hearing device, a hearing device containing electromechanical and/or electronic components is provided. The components are accommodated in a divided housing, with the housing being constructed from an upper shell, a first lower shell and a second lower shell which can be releasably fastened to the first lower shell.
US08213651B2
The invention specifies a hearing device, which has at least one contact means which can be flush with the hearing device housing. The contact means contacts an external unit, for instance a battery charging unit, when in an extended or folded-out position. The unit has a corresponding opening for receiving the contact means. As a result, a reliable connection can be established between the hearing device and the charging device when charging a rechargeable battery of the hearing device for instance. The contact means can comprise first and second contact elements, and third contact elements which correspond to the external unit.
US08213645B2
A bone conduction assembly can include at least a microphone, an assembly stem, an ear cushion, and a microphone channel. The microphone can include an acoustic-to-electric transducer. The assembly stem can house the microphone and can be shaped for insertion into an ear canal of a user. The ear cushion can have an inner surface surrounding an outer surface of the assembly stem and an outer, contiguous, annular surface configured to maintain contact with an ear canal of a user when worn. The microphone channel can be shaped to channel vibrations resulting from bone conduction from the ear canal through the assembly stem to the microphone. In one embodiment, the bone conduction assembly can include a speaker having a speaker channel that is acoustically isolated from the microphone channel.
US08213644B2
A vibration speaker with facial plate has developed for delivering sound in a form of vibrational movement to a user's skin. The vibration speaker includes a voice coil to generate a magnetic force in response to application of a sound signal from an exterior, a magnet having a predetermined magnetic force to interact with the magnetic force from the voice coil, a basket to receive the magnet, a face plate to deliver upward and downward movement of the voice coil or the magnet to the user's skin, and a rear cover coupled to the face plate to constitute an appearance of the vibration speaker. The face plate is provided with a plate-shaped tensioner providing a predetermined tension for maintaining the face plate in a horizontal state to control upward and downward vibrational movement delivered from the vibration speaker.
US08213642B2
A slide manipulation device is mountable in a manipulator panel and includes a manipulator, a frame configured to slidably support the manipulator, and a circuit board. The frame has an opposing part facing the inside of the manipulation panel when the frame is mounted to the manipulation panel, the frame extending in a direction intersecting the opposing part and extending in a slide direction of the manipulator. The manipulator extends outward from the interior of the frame and is slidable in the slide direction to indicate a parameter for use in an electronic equipment. The circuit board is disposed at the outside of the frame along the extending direction of the frame, and is mounted to the frame for carrying out overall control to signalize a parameter set by the manipulator and to transmit the signalized parameter to the electronic equipment, and otherwise to receive the parameter from the electronic equipment and to slide the manipulator in response to the received parameter.
US08213636B2
The method comprises the steps of: filtering the audio signal by means of a lowpass filter (101) with a cutoff frequency substantially equal to said cutoff frequency (F0) of the sound playback device; determining a fundamental frequency for reconstituting from the lowpass filtered audio signal; and generating a harmonic signal (Sharm) associated with said fundamental frequency to be reconstituted. It also comprises the steps of: detecting a time envelope (env(t)) of the lowpass filtered audio signal; adapting the dynamic range of said time envelope (env(t)) as a function of the frequency band under consideration; and reinjecting said harmonic signal in phase into said audio signal by addition after multiplying said harmonic signal (Sharm) with the adapted time envelope (envadapt(t)). The adaptation is performed by compression/expansion of the time envelope with feedback loop control that is adjusted automatically on the value of the envelope as a function of the mean energy of the input signal to a value that maximizes said energy within a defined limit.
US08213631B2
A sound system that may be used for a vehicle is provided. The system includes a head unit configured for generating an electrical signal, and a relay is configured to receive an electrical signal from the head unit. An interior speaker is carried by the vehicle and is configured for receiving an electrical signal from the relay in order to produce sound. An exterior speaker is carried by the vehicle and is configured for receiving an electrical signal from the relay in order to produce sound. A switch is configured to be opened and closed in order to trip the relay between a first state in which the interior speaker produces sound and the exterior speaker does not produce sound and a second state in which the interior speaker does not produce sound and the exterior speaker produces sound. A method of controlling a sound system is also provided.
US08213626B2
The size of measuring boxes for hearing apparatuses and in particular for hearing devices is to be reduced, with the efficiency of the measuring box in respect of attenuating interference noises being maintained or improved. A measuring box is thus proposed, which comprises an interference signal recording facility for recording an interference signal. Furthermore, provision is made in the measuring box for a signal generating facility to generate a compensation signal which is phase-opposed to the recorded interference signal, so that the interference signal can be compensated for by the compensation signal. The interference noise attenuation is thus achieved here by an electronic active part, so that the quality demands on the measurement space can be reduced and its size thereby decreased as well.
US08213622B2
This invention is a method for binaural localization using a cascade of resonators and anti-resonators to implement an HRTF (head-related transfer function). The spectrum of the cascade reproduces the magnitude spectrum of a desired HRTF. The proposed method provides a considerably more computationally efficient implementation of HRTF filters with no detectable deterioration of output quality while saving memory when storing a large quantity of HRTFs due to the parameterization of its resonators and anti-resonators. Finally, the method offers additional flexibility since the resonators and anti-resonators can be manipulated individually during the design process, making it possible to interpolate smoothly between HRTFs, reduce spectral coloring or achieve higher accuracy at perceptually relevant frequency regions. These HRTF are useful in stereo enhancement and multi-channel virtual surround simulation.
US08213617B1
A method can be implemented in a portable device operating in a wireless communication network. The method is for securely reporting an indication of a current geographic location of the portable device to a server without revealing the current geographic location of the portable device to the server, where the server is communicatively coupled to the communication network. The method includes generating a pseudo-random value using a signal from an environment in which the portable device operates, generating a location descriptor based on the current geographic location of the portable device, applying a cryptographic function to a combination of the pseudo-random value and the location descriptor to generate a secure location indicator for the portable device, and causing the secure location indicator to be electronically transmitted to the server via the communication network.
US08213612B2
Software can be downloaded securely using a multi-encryption method, where the decryption is completed when the software is executed. In one aspect, a multi-encrypted data item is received. One or more of the encryptions on the multi-encrypted data item is decrypted, yielding a partially decrypted data item. The partially decrypted data item is stored in a reserved portion of a storage medium. The partially decrypted data item is fetched from the storage medium and decrypted to yield the data item. The decryption can be performed using one or more circuits that implement multiple decryption processes, including multiple algorithm-key combinations.
US08213607B2
A stream stretcher is provided for securely expanding a key stream to match the length of a data block to be encrypted and/or decrypted. A key stream is obtained having a length of LZ bits. A length LD corresponding to a data block to be encrypted/decrypted is obtained, where LD>LZ. LD−LZ new bits are recursively generated by combining at least two bits of the key stream. The LD−LZ new bits are appended to the key stream to generate a stretched key stream. The data block may then be encrypted/decrypted with the stretched key stream. The at least two bits are selected to have offsets that form a full positive difference set.
US08213604B2
Embodiments include a method and a system for signcrypting data based on elliptic curve cryptography. In a head-end system data is encrypted using a random point R and digitally signed using the random point R. Only the x-coordinate Rx of the random point R and only the signature component ssignature of the signature are added to the data after signcrypting the data. In a smartcard the signcrypted data is verified using the random point R and decrypted using the random point R.
US08213601B2
This invention improves upon the existing art by implementing encryption at the “font level,” thereby, in affect, protecting each independent small portion of a text file or image file. Such a capability offers enormous advantages, including the protection of subparts of a data file from the remainder of the information to be protected, such that a would-be hacker able to decode one of the constructs of the font level would not be able to unscramble the entire text file or image file. In the preferred embodiment, the font encryption system is provided as a plug-in improvement to the existing operating system, thereby facilitating streaming encryption on the fly in a manner which is transparent to the end user. That is to say, in contrast to existing modalities, use of the improved technique would not require deep “hooks” into the computer file system or file-sharing system. Overall, the improvement permits full digital rights management control over each device interface to the font-level encryption capability, allowing operatings such as click and drag, cut and paste, and so forth, to take advantage of the added security while maintaining a streamlined and easy to use user interface.
US08213592B2
A telephone call management system first receives a call over a telephone network from a calling device. The calling device is connected to a first called device by a first connection through the telephone network. A first call management message is received at a call routing engine, the first call management message to cause the engine to initiate establishment of a second connection among the calling device, the first called device, and a second called device. The engine issues, in response to the first call management message, a second call management message specifying a DTMF sequence for provision to the telephone network to cause the telephone network to establish the second connection. The telephone network may be a public switched telephone network.
US08213586B2
Methods, systems, and devices for allocating communications-related charges are disclosed. In an exemplary method, a communications device receives notification of an uncompleted incoming call attempt, the notification including a calling a party identifier. The communication device retrieves a call attempt descriptor associated with the uncompleted incoming call, the call attempt descriptor comprising charge-back data. In response to the initiation of a return call to the calling party, the communication device sends a charge-back message, comprising all or part of the charge-back data, to a charge allocation server for use in allocating charges relating to the return call. An exemplary system, including a charge allocation server, for implementing the disclosed methods is also disclosed.
US08213585B2
In certain embodiments, a system for automated distribution and indexing of prepaid calling card information comprises a central terminal operable to receive a request to purchase prepaid telephone services from an initiating terminal. The request comprises an identifier of a financial account to be used to purchase the prepaid telephone services. The central terminal is operable to electronically seek authorization for the request, initiate electronic debiting of the financial account using the identifier, and log a transaction indicating a purchase of prepaid telephone services in response to receipt of the authorization. The central terminal is operable to initiate electronic transmission, according to purchaser contact information, of calling card information from the central terminal to at least one electronic storage medium for access by a purchaser. The calling card information provides access to the prepaid telephone services instead of using a telephone card or printed receipt to obtain the prepaid telephone services.
US08213582B2
A system and method for processing a communication signal from a wireline is provided. The system comprises a coupling unit and signal processing circuitry. The coupling unit comprises at least one transformer and is configured to receive the communication signal from the wireline. The coupling unit is also configured to generate a first signal based on amplifying the communication signal according to a first winding ratio of the at least one transformer and a second signal based on attenuating the communication signal according to a second winding ratio of the transformer. The signal processing circuitry is configured to process the first signal and the second signal. The wireline is optionally a powerline.
US08213569B2
An X-ray diagnosis apparatus and a method for controlling an X-ray irradiation region that can appropriately narrow down an X-ray radiation aperture so as to fit a configuration of a region of interest during acquisition of X-ray projection data for reconstructing tomography images of an object.Based on a plurality of 2D image data acquired through a preliminarily X-ray imaging, a 3D region of interest is set up on an examination target portion having a strong directionality. X-ray imaging of the 3D region of interest is performed by sliding and rotating a plurality of aperture blades in an X-ray collimator based on a projected figure of the 3D region of interest along successively renewed imaging directions around a periphery of an object.
US08213561B2
A delay locked loop operates over a wide range of frequencies and has high accuracy, small silicon area usage, low power consumption and a short lock time. The DLL combines an analog domain and a digital domain. The digital domain is responsible for initial lock and operational point stability and is frozen after the lock is reached. The analog domain is responsible for normal operation after lock is reached and provides high accuracy using smaller silicon area and low power.
US08213558B2
The method and system of digital timing correction in a digital baseband communication system is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving samples at a predetermined time interval based on a current clock signal of a receiver clock, reading in a prompt sample of the received samples and a successor sample of the received samples based on a control signal, interpolating a projected sample based on the prompt sample, the successor sample and a predetermined time offset, determining the time offset for interpolation, by accumulating sampling frequency offset between the receiver clock and a reference clock, relative to a sample timing of the prompt sample, resulting in an interpolated data sample rate reduced by an integer multiple factor compared to a received sample rate and receiving a next sample of the received samples based on the current clock signal of the receiver clock.
US08213557B2
A filtering apparatus including: first and second filters used to filter inputted packets; a connection information register disposed in correspondence with the first filter; a condition storage portion configured to store a filter condition for identifying a packet associated to the second filter; a reference number register configured to allocate any one of the numbers of the second filters as a reference number for each number of the first filter and to store the reference numbers; and a determination portion configured to determine the number of the second filter to be used to filter packets filtered using the first filter based on the reference number and on a value of the connection information register corresponding to the first filter.
US08213544B2
A digital broadcast receiver includes a tuner receiving a digital television (DTV) signal which includes a first data group including mobile service data, and the DTV signal has been processed by generating the first data group by interleaving a second data group by a DTV transmitter.
US08213541B2
A weight vector computing unit derives amounts of phase rotation for a plurality of multicarrier signals, respectively, and rotates the phase of a weight vector. A combining unit weights respectively a plurality of multicarrier signals with the phase-rotated weight vector, combines weighting results, and determines a combined result. A receiving weight vector computing unit remodulates the determined result and derives a first phase difference between the plurality of multicarrier signals and a result of the remodulation. The receiving weight vector computing unit remodulates the values of pilot signals and derives a second phase difference between the plurality of multicarrier signals and a result of the remodulation. Further, the receiving weight vector derives phase rotation amounts based on the first phase difference and the second phase difference.
US08213538B2
Methods and apparatus for improving the utilization of air link resources in a wireless communications system, e.g., an OFDM MIMO system, including a base station with multiple transmit antennas are described. Superposition signaling in the downlink is employed. The superimposed signal includes a first transform result signal and a second lower power signal. The first transform result signal is generated from a first signal, which uses position modulation, e.g., including null components and high power non-null components. Different components of the first transform result signal are directed to different transmit antennas. The first transform result signal communicates information to a first wireless terminal, e.g., a weak receiver. The non-null received elements of the first transform result signal are utilized by a second wireless terminal, e.g., a superior receiver, as pilots to determine a channel estimate. The second wireless terminal uses the determined channel estimate to demodulate received second signals.
US08213537B2
An exemplary apparatus includes a modulator configured to modulate a data signal onto a carrier signal to generate a modulated signal having a transmit frequency within a predefined frequency range adjacent to and within a boundary of an uplink frequency band, a filter configured to at least partially remove a carrier frequency component from the modulated signal to produce a filtered modulated signal, and an antenna configured to transmit the filtered modulated signal.
US08213533B2
A Distributed Antenna System employs a downlink transmission method that requires limited channel information feedback and less coherency between signals than is required for information broadcast. Distributed antennas are treated as diversity antennas with a given power allocation. Each antenna can transmit to multiple UEs by transmitting a weighed sum of their signals, and multiple antennas can transmit to one UE by transmitting weighed space-time (or space-frequency) coded signals. The power allocation weights are determined as an optimum power allocation policy with per-antenna power constraints.
US08213532B2
In a provided information processing device, a first information processing module, within its transmission time segment, transmits an encoded signal in which mutually distinct first and second bit values are respectively expressed by pluralities of mutually distinct first amplitude values and second amplitude values, the same amplitude value not occurring consecutively and the amplitude value polarity being inverted with each cycle. Within a transmission time segment for a second information processing module, the first information processing module transmits a clock signal that corresponds to the cycle at which the polarity is inverted. The second information processing module extracts the clock signal by detecting the polarity inversions in the encoded signal, decodes the first and second bit values from the encoded signal using the clock signal, generates a transmission signal by controlling the amplitude values of the clock signal, and transmits the transmission signal in synchronization with the clock signal.
US08213519B2
Methods of operating a portable media device 100 including two onboard hardware media decoders (124, 128) operative to decode a given digital content item 148 are disclosed. In some embodiments, one of the onboard hardware media decoders 128 has a relatively high power consumption and produces a relatively ‘high quality’ media signal, and the other of the onboard hardware media decoder 124 has a relatively low power consumption and produces a relatively ‘low quality’ media signal. In one non-limiting use case: (i) when no external power is available, the relatively ‘low power’ hardware media decoder 124 may generate a relatively ‘low quality’ media signal which is presented on an onboard display screen 140a and/or onboard speaker 140b; and (ii) when external power is available, the relatively ‘high power’ hardware media decoder 128 may generate a relatively ‘high quality’ media signal which is exported out of the portable media device 100 via one or more media ports, and presented on an external host presentation device 160 (for example, a large-screen television).
US08213516B2
An image processing apparatus that compresses moving-picture data includes an image converter configured to decimate pixels in individual blocks that are defined by dividing moving-picture frames, the image converter being configured to generate a plurality of layer signals using different sampled pixels corresponding to representative pixels in pixel decimation; and an encoder configured to receive input of the plurality of layer signals generated by the image converter and to generate encoded data based on the layer signals.
US08213514B1
A video frame arithmetical context adaptive encoding and decoding scheme is presented which is based on the finding, that, for sake of a better definition of neighborhood between blocks of picture samples, i.e. the neighboring block which the syntax element to be coded or decoded relates to and the current block based on the attribute of which the assignment of a context model is conducted, and when the neighboring block lies beyond the borders or circumference of the current macroblock containing the current block, it is important to make the determination of the macroblock containing the neighboring block dependent upon as to whether the current macroblock pair region containing the current block is of a first or a second distribution type, i.e., frame or field coded.
US08213512B2
Included are embodiments for determining an intermediate image. At least one embodiment includes receiving data associated with a first motion vector and receiving data associated with a second motion vector, wherein the first motion vector and the second motion vector define a first image and a second image. Some embodiments include determining a single set of potential pixel values for an intermediate image, the single set of pixel values being determined from the first motion vector and the second motion vector and creating the intermediate image from the single set of potential pixel values.
US08213510B2
A motion vector coding method and apparatus that improves efficiency of coding motion vectors when a current block is coded using a plurality of motion vectors. The apparatus includes a motion vector coding unit that codes a motion vector inputted from a motion vector detecting unit. A motion vector for each current block is coded based on a difference between the motion vector and a predicted vector obtained from motion vectors for previously coded neighboring blocks. The predicted vector is generated by one of the following processes: (A) the motion vectors which refer to the same picture are selected from among the motion vectors for the neighboring blocks so as to generate the predicted vector; (B) the motion vectors for the respective neighboring blocks are ordered in the predetermined order, and the motion vectors of the same order rank are selected from the ordered motion vectors so as to generate the predicted vector; and (C) the predicted vector for the second motion vector of the current block shall be the first motion vector, and if the second motion vector and the first motion vector refer to different pictures, the first motion vector is scaled according to the temporal distance between the pictures so as to generate the predicted vector.
US08213508B2
A video decoder, a video decoding method, a video encoder and a video encoding method are disclosed. A video decoder for decoding a video bitstream for an image block includes a motion vector resolution reducer and a motion compensator. The motion vector resolution reducer is for receiving decoded high resolution motion vectors included in the video bitstream and for reducing an accuracy of the high resolution motion vectors to correspond to a low resolution. The motion compensator, in signal communication with the motion vector resolution reducer, is for forming a motion compensated high resolution prediction using the reduced accuracy motion vectors. The video encoder for encoding scalable video comprises a motion compensator for forming a motion compensated full resolution prediction and combining the motion compensated full resolution prediction from an image block to form a prediction residual. The prediction residual is downsampled to form a low resolution downsampled prediction residual and then coded.
US08213507B2
Coding techniques for a video image compression system involve improving an image quality of a sequence of two or more bi-directionally predicted intermediate frames, where each of the frames includes multiple pixels. One method involves determining a brightness value of at least one pixel of each bi-directionally predicted intermediate frame in the sequence as an equal average of brightness values of pixels in non-bidirectionally predicted frames bracketing the sequence of bi-directionally predicted intermediate frames. The brightness values of the pixels in at least one of the non-bidirectionally predicted frames is converted from a non-linear representation.
US08213499B2
A method for high/low usage is provided. The method receives a macroblock data structure and a syntax element at a digital signal processing engine. Further, the method classifies the syntax element as high use or low use. In addition, the method sends the syntax element from the digital signal processing engine to a logic unit, distinct from the digital processing engine, for binarization if the syntax element is high use.
US08213498B2
This disclosure describes techniques for encoding data to compress image data to a reduced size. The techniques may be particularly effective in transcoding an image to a reduced size for transmission. An encoding device may transcode an image to an acceptable file size using bitrate control techniques that affect the entire image uniformly to transcode the image. For example, the encoding device may modify one or more quantization tables as a function of the near linear relationship between bitrate (R) and the number of zero-valued quantized transform coefficients to reduce the file size uniformly over the entire image. Alternatively, or additionally, the encoding device may transcode the image using bitrate control techniques that affect only specific localized regions of the image.
US08213496B2
A motion-vector-setting section (31) sets a motion vector in units of pixel in a target image. Based on the motion vector, a target-pixel-setting section (35) sets a target pixel for each image in plural images to be processed. A motion-blur-amount-setting section (33) sets a motion blur amount in units of pixel based on the motion vector and the exposure-time ratio set in units of image in the exposure-time-ratio-setting section (32). A processing-region-setting section (36) sets processing regions corresponding to the target pixel for each of the plural images based on the motion blur amount. A processing-coefficient-setting section (37) sets processing coefficients based on the motion blur amount. A pixel-value-generating section (38) generates motion-blur-removed pixel values that correspond to the target pixel by linear combination of pixel values corresponding to pixels in the processing region and the processing coefficients, so that they can be output from an integration section (39) as one pixel value. By utilizing any time-directional information significantly, motion-blur-removing processing can be accurately performed.
US08213494B2
In one embodiment, a system includes one or more digital feedback equalizers (DFEs) that include one or more residual intersymbol interference (ISI) detectors, one or more column balancers, and one or more weight selectors. The residual ISI detectors produce a first output signal indicating whether the residual ISI of a received input signal has a positive sign or a negative sign. The column balancers select one of the first output signals to produce a second output signal. The weight selectors access one of the weight values. The weight value corresponds to the column balancer that produced the second output signal and the residual ISI detector that produced the first output signal, and has a magnitude that is substantially independent of the sign of the residual ISI. The weight selectors produce a third output signal based on the weight value and the sign of the residual ISI.
US08213493B2
A normalized least means square (NLMS) equalizer including two equalizer filters is disclosed. In one embodiment, a single correction term generator is used to generate correction terms for tap coefficient updates of each of the equalizer filters based on a pilot signal. In another embodiment, two different correction term generators are used to generate correction terms for each of the equalizer filters, whereby one of the correction term generators uses data received from a hard decision unit at the output of one of the equalizer filters to generate correction terms for both of the equalizer filters.
US08213484B2
A wireless communication network supports 802.11b/g and a range extension mode, which supports at least one data rate lower than the lowest data rate in 802.11b/g. A transmitting station (which may be an access point or a user terminal) includes first and second processors. The first processor performs differential modulation and spectral spreading for a first set of at least one data rate (e.g., 1 and 2 Mbps) supported by 802.11b/g. The second processor performs forward error correction (FEC) encoding, symbol mapping, and spectral spreading for a second set of at least one data rate (e.g., 250, 500, and 1000 Kbps) supported by the range extension mode. The transmitting station can send a transmission at a data rate supported by either 802.11b/g or the range extension mode, e.g., depending on the desired coverage range for the transmission. A receiving station performs the complementary processing to recover the transmission.
US08213483B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate defining and utilizing hopping patterns to transmit broadband pilot signals in a wireless communications network. Portions of bandwidth can be dedicated to transmitting the broadband pilot data, and patterns can be utilized to hop across frequencies in given time periods to effectively utilize the entire dedicated bandwidth. Moreover, the periodicity for transmitting the data is configurable to allow devices requiring additional scheduling (e.g., high activity devices) to transmit the broadband pilot data more frequently. The hopping patterns can also hop across cyclic shifts of the patterns to provide optimum diversity for transmitting broadband pilot signals.
US08213480B2
An extended cavity surface emitting laser has a first laser die with a first cavity and a first gain element and a second laser die with a second cavity and a second gain element. The first and second gain elements are in series to provide optical gain and optical feedback in an extended optical cavity configuration. The first and second gain elements provide optical gain and optical feedback in a common extended cavity with the first and second gain elements operating serially as a common extended cavity optical mode.
US08213474B2
An optical device for improving conduction and reflectivity and minimizing absorption. The optical device includes a first mirror comprising a first plurality of mirror periods designed to reflect an optical field at a predetermined wavelength, where the optical field has peaks and nulls. Each of the plurality of mirror periods includes a first layer of having a high carrier mobility, a second layer having lower carrier mobility, and a first compositional ramp between the first and second layers. The thicknesses of the first and second layers for at least a portion of the first plurality of mirror periods are established such that the nulls of the optical field occur within the first layer and not within the compositional ramp. At least the portion of the first layers within the first plurality of mirror periods include elevated doping concentrations at locations of the nulls of the optical field.
US08213470B2
A method for making a microchip laser includes preparing a laser-cavity chip assembly comprising a gain media, a first substantially flat surface, and a second substantially flat surface parallel to the first substantially flat surface. The method also includes forming a first reflective film on the first substantially flat surface to form a first cavity mirror, forming a second reflective film on the second substantially flat surface to form a second cavity mirror, and patterning at least one of the first reflective film or the second reflective film by removing at least a portion of the reflective film in the outer portion to form a center reflective portion in the one of the first reflective film or the second reflective film. The first cavity mirror and the second cavity mirror can suppress higher order transverse modes and produce a single TEM00 mode in the lasing light.
US08213469B2
A linear-cavity all-fiber-based ultra short pulse laser system is provided. The all-fiber-based ultra short pulse laser system includes a pulse pump light source, a gain fiber, a first fiber signal pump combining unit, a broadband optical isolator, a fiber saturable absorber, an assistant light source, a second fiber signal pump combining unit, and a light coupling output. A broadband amplified spontaneous emission, emitted by the first fiber signal pump combining unit, which is connected to the pulse pump light source and the gain fiber, passes through the broadband optical isolator. The second fiber signal pump combining unit is connected to the assistant light source and the fiber saturable absorber. An ASE signal actively provides passive mode locking of the cavity, and the light coupling output partially outputs the laser. A dispersion fiber controls the temporal width.
US08213468B2
A compressively-encoding-resultant video signal resulting from compressively encoding a video signal, a first compressively-encoding-resultant audio signal resulting from compressively encoding a first audio signal having a synchronized relation with the video signal, a reference clock information signal relating to synchronization between the compressively-encoding-resultant video signal and the first compressively-encoding-resultant audio signal, and an indication timing information signal designating an indication timing of the video signal are multiplexed to get an AV multiplexing-resultant signal. A second audio signal is compressively encoded to get a second compressively-encoding-resultant audio signal. A sound-production-timing information signal is added to the second compressively-encoding-resultant audio signal to get a substitution playback audio signal. During playback, the substitution playback audio signal can be reproduced instead of the first audio signal while being synchronous with the video signal. The sound-production-timing information signal responds to the reference clock information signal, and relates to synchronization with the video signal.
US08213467B2
A system comprises an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) adapted for use in a plurality of circuit configurations. The circuit configurations provide for different numbers of signal channels for further processing using same circuitry of said application specific integrated circuit.
US08213453B1
A network device implements automatic configuration of Quality of Service (QoS) parameters in response to operator specification of a relatively few and easily understandable “high level” parameters such as, for example, latency requirements or an acceptable rate of packet drops. In one implementation, a network device may receive user preference information that relates to a Quality of Service (QoS) for network traffic passing through the network device and may measure traffic patterns through the network device. The device further generates a configuration template based on the measured traffic patterns and on the user preference information transmit the data in an order of transmission that is prioritized according to a bandwidth allocation policy defined by the configuration template.
US08213451B2
To provide a wireless communication terminal enabling to reduce the load on a mobile communication network and saving upstream wireless resources.In step A1, an establishment request message for an individual channel is transmitted from a cell phone 10 to a mobile communication network NW. In step A2, determination is made as to whether an rrc Connection Setup Complete (individual channel establishment completion message) has been retransmitted at the establishment of the individual channel at the time of the previous communication. When the retransmission has been done (YES), it proceeds to step A3. In step A3, a predetermined delay time T1 is added to transmission timing with the individual channel, and transmission begins along the individual channel (DPDCH) at timing of parameters [PC Preamble+SRB delay]+delay time T1. As a result, after that, an individual channel establishment completion message will not be retransmitted.
US08213450B2
A CR/CMP layer sets up isochronous channels, the number of which is that of data streams to be transferred, and sets channel numbers associated with the isochronous channels in IT packet processing units of IT processing units of bus control LSI units connected to data streams of AV devices. The IT processing units of the bus control LSI units are caused to perform transmission/reception of isochronous packets using isochronous channels having the set channel numbers. The IT packet processing unit of the IT processing unit of each stealth bus control LSI unit sets, in an SID field of the CIP header of an isochronous packet to be transmitted, the node ID of the representative bus control LSI unit instead of its own node ID.
US08213441B2
A method for handling connections of a first node located in a first network having a private address space is described. The method comprises receiving a service query for requesting a service concerning the first node from a second node, the service query comprising a global identifier of the first node, obtaining a local identifier of the first node for identifying the first node in the first network, sending the local identifier of the first node to a network element providing a connection to the first node, receiving a public identifier of the network element, and sending the public identifier of the network element to the second node. In this way, global reachability of nodes also in private networks can be achieved.
US08213434B2
A method and device for QoS control for presence servers and a presence system supporting QoS control. The method for providing QoS capability for a presence server includes the steps of: receiving SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) messages; classifying said SIP messages based on a QoS policy; and delivering the classified SIP messages after a predetermined time corresponding to the QoS policy.
US08213427B1
A method of operating intelligent network interface circuitry facilitates the tunneling of packets between at least one process, executing on a host computer, and a peer via a network, via the network interface circuitry. Packets are received from the process executing on the host computer. Modulation event tokens are managed, including receiving and providing modulation event tokens. Modulation events are processed. It is decided whether to transmit the received packets out to the network in association with modulation event processing, and the received packets are transmitted out to the network based on the deciding step. Based on a result of the modulation events processing step, modulation event tokens are caused to be fed back for receipt by the modulation event tokens managing step. As a result, the packets are tunneled through the network interface circuitry and the transmission of the packets is modulated out to the network.
US08213425B2
A method for matching initial request messages in the IP multimedia subsystem service triggering process comprises: before the S-CSCF forwards an initial request message to the AS, generating a trigger request identifier uniquely and inserting the identifier into the initial request message; then forwarding the initial request message to the AS; and then the AS copies the trigger request identifier in the received message into the initial request message to be sent back; finally, the S-CSCF determines whether a received initial request message is the response to the initial request message sent to the AS by the S-CSCF previously based on the trigger request identifier, determines the corresponding relationship, and then performs the subsequent service control process. With the present invention, the requirement that the S-CSCF must correctly match the initial request message with the one sent back can be satisfied, thus guarantee the normal performance of service triggering.
US08213419B2
An interworking network element, an interworking system between the CSI terminal and the IMS terminal and the method thereof, which relate to the communication technology, enable the CSI terminal and the IMS terminal to interwork and the effective bearing link to be established according to the actual requirement. The interworking network element CSI-IW is added at the network of the called side between the CSI terminal and the IMS terminal. The network element receives the session request from the IMS terminal, determines whether there is need to separate the IMS session including the real time media request and non-real time media request into the two IMS sessions including the real time media request and non-real time media request respectively, and chooses the CS domain or the IMS domain to end the call according to the attribute information of the session, the ability for accessing the network, the ability of the terminal etc, so that the real time session can be borne by the CS domain as possible as it can.
US08213418B2
A packet-based multimedia service is provided to a terminal in a network. A packet signaling connection is established between the terminal and the network. Signaling information for the multimedia service is transferred via the packet signaling connection using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) or a similar protocol. A circuit bearer connection is also established with the terminal. Data for the multimedia service is transferred via the circuit bearer connection. This allows the data to be carried across networks which do not support the required QoS functionality for the packet-based service, or which cannot efficiently carry packet-based data. The circuit bearer connection can be established by a network entity or by the terminal. The circuit bearer can be interworked to a packet-switched bearer at some point in the network, such as at a gateway, so as to provide a remote party with the appearance that a fully packet-switched connection is being used.
US08213410B2
A transport adapter layer interface (TALI) includes messages, processes, and packet structures for sending and receiving SS7 information over a stream-oriented connection, such as a TCP/IP connection. For example, the TALI interface includes test messages for testing the status of a connection and allow and prohibit messages for enabling and disabling service data communications without invoking a TCP handshaking procedure. The TALI interface also includes SYNC and LENGTH fields for facilitating extraction of individual message packets over a stream-oriented connection.
US08213402B2
A communication system includes a plurality of nodes forming a wireless mesh network. A plurality of wireless communication links connect the nodes together. Each node is formed as a communications device having a physical layer and a media access control (MAC) layer in accordance with the Open System Interconnect (OSI) model and operative for transmitting and receiving communications packets to and from other nodes via the wireless communication links in an Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) mode. The physical layer monitors channel parameters of the wireless communications link when in an ARQ mode and, based on the channel parameters, communicates to the MAC layer over-the-air (OTA) parameters used for transmitting packets.
US08213401B2
Systems and methods for IP communication over a distributed antenna system transport are provided. In one embodiment, a method for providing Ethernet connectivity over a distributed antenna system comprises receiving internet protocol (IP) formatted data from an internet protocol device coupled to a remote unit of a distributed antenna system; sampling wireless radio frequency (RF) signals received at the remote unit to produce digitized RF samples; generating a serial data stream for output to a host unit of the distributed antenna system, the serial data stream further comprising a multiple-timeslot communication frame providing a first partition of bandwidth for transporting the digitized RF samples and a second partition of bandwidth for implementing an Ethernet pipe for transporting the IP formatted data.
US08213400B2
Provided is a beacon scheduling method based on a distributed address assignment scheme that schedules a beacon and minimizes data delay using non-collision of addresses in a network, such as a ZigBee network, that provides a distributed address system. In the method, a time offset Tn between beacon reception from a parent device and beacon transmission of a device in a wireless network system having a tree structure may be obtained from Tn=SD×(1+On×Bd) according to an address of the device determined by a distributed address assignment mechanism to create a beacon transmission schedule, where SD denotes a super-frame duration, On denotes a value for determining which child among sibling devices in the network the device corresponds to, and Bd denotes a maximum number of router devices that a sub-network having a depth d in a tree can have.
US08213395B2
Aspects of a method and system for dual mode operation in wireless networks are presented. Aspects of the system include a communicating device that selects an RF channel and a physical layer type. The communicating device may process signals received via the selected RF channel based on the selected physical layer type. The communicating device may determine whether a beacon frame has been detected base on the signals that were received via the selected RF channel and processed based on the selected physical layer type. When a frame is not detected, the communicating device may determine a signal energy level for the received signals. The communicating device may establish an association with an existing network based on detection of the beacon frame or the communicating device may transmit an originating beacon frame based on the determined signal energy level.
US08213388B2
The network communication system includes a wireless interface to exchange wireless signals during at least one network connection, and a handover controller that uses a route profile identifying access points distributed over a given route or region that are capable of supporting the network connection, and to handover the network connection between access points as the device travels along the given route or through a region according to the route profile.
US08213386B2
A method and system for carrying out a handover between base stations of a telecommunication network. Each mobile terminal is in communication with a set of base stations including at least a first and a second base stations, the first base station receiving downlink data to be transmitted within data packets bearing a downlink sequence number to a first mobile terminal from an access gateway of the telecommunication network. The method includes determining a downlink sequence number, sending a handover request message to the second base station comprising the determined downlink sequence number and information related to the set of base station, requesting the second base station to receive data to be transmitted to the first mobile terminal from the access gateway, and stopping building data packets if the built data packets would bear a sequence number equal or higher than the determined downlink sequence number.
US08213381B2
A mobile communication system in which a plurality of base stations and a plurality of core network nodes are distributed in a plurality of areas, wherein a source base station or a mobile station in a handover procedure of the mobile station transmits information for selecting a core network node to a target base station.
US08213380B2
A method for packet-switched transmission of data. A first base station associated with a first radio cell is used to at least partially transmit data packets in a second sequence to at least one subscriber station by at least one first radio channel. The at least one subscriber station sorts out the received data packets into a first sequence in an intermediate storage unit and the base station associated with the first radio cell is used to derive and/or represent status information relating to the content of the intermediate storage unit in a status memory unit. Transmission of the data packets is relayed from the first to the second radio cell and data packets are transmitted by a base station associated with the second radio cell to the at least one subscriber station by at least one other radio channel. The status information is transferred from the base station associated with the first radio cell to the base station associated with the second radio cell.
US08213373B2
The present invention discloses a method for supporting extended parameter(s) in a REFER message, applied in a system comprising a parameter proxy server that can receive and forward the REFER message; upon receiving the REFER message including the extended parameter(s), the parameter proxy server performing the following processing: storing said extended parameter(s); sending the REFER message to the indicated party of the message; upon receiving a third party message sent by said indicated party and indicated by the method parameter in the REFER message, adding the extended parameter(s) stored into the third party message; sending the third party message to said third party. With the present invention, those IMS intelligent terminals that do not support the extended parameter(s) in the REFER message can more fully utilize the REFER message to use the abundant services provided by NGN.
US08213367B2
Embodiments of the invention provide methods for optimizing the spectral efficiency of control channel transmissions carrying scheduling assignments from a serving Node B to user equipments. This is accomplished by adjusting the control channel size between successive transmission time intervals according to the number of user equipments having scheduling assignments and possibly according to the modulation and coding scheme used for the transmission of each scheduling assignments.
US08213361B1
Air interface protocols under the numerous wireless communication standards allow use of a quick-paging channel (QPCH) to expedite paging and call setup. When a hybrid mobile device is engaged in wireless communications under a first air interface protocol, it may periodically switch over to a second air interface protocol to check for pages on the slower standard paging channel (PCH). To increase throughput under the first air interface protocol, it would be useful to employ the QPCH under the second air interface protocol, to reduce time spent by hybrid device checking for pages under the second air interface protocol. However, the QPCH uses resources under the second air interface protocol, so it would be best to not have the QPCH activated at all times. According to the invention, the system would activate the QPCH under the second air interface protocol in response to there being more than an upper threshold number of hybrid devices active under the first air interface protocol. In turn, the system may deactivate the QPCH under the second air interface protocol in response to there being some lower threshold number of hybrid devices active under the first air interface protocol.
US08213357B2
A method of routing in a network includes dividing a time corresponding to a predetermined maximum registration age of a first node registered with a second node into a number of first time intervals and second time intervals. The first time intervals each have a predetermined duration and the second time intervals each have a duration greater than the predetermined duration of the first time intervals. Each of the first and second time intervals are assigned a metric designating a cost associated with a path between the first node and the second node. The metric increases in value for each of the first and second time intervals as registration age increases. The second node sends a message including the metric associated with the time interval during which it is transmitted.
US08213352B2
A set-N table (110) is a table holding information regarding other wireless communication devices that can be reached from a wireless communication device (a node) in one hop. A set-N2 table (120) is a table holding information regarding other wireless communication devices that can be reached from a wireless communication device (100) in two hops. A set-F table (170) is a table holding information regarding nodes whose reachability of flooding from the wireless communication device (100) has not been verified. An MPR setting unit (160) sets optimal MPR nodes with consideration of communication states of links in a wireless ad hoc network by selecting, with consideration of communication states of links between individual nodes, the communication states of links being held in the set-N table (110) and the set-N2 table (120), MPR nodes and setting the MPR nodes in an MPR table (180) while deleting nodes whose reachability of flooding has been verified from the set-F table (170).
US08213350B2
A radiocommunication network includes at least one communication station (GW) adapted to exchange data by radio with radiocommunication terminals (T1-T5). This network is adapted to use a data transmission method wherein, each time a source radiocommunication terminal (T1) wishes to transmit data to its communication station (GW), the identifier of at least one active neighbor relay communication terminal (T2, T3) is determined in the source terminal (T1) in order to transmit signals representing the data to be transmitted by radio to each relay terminal so determined so that it relays them to the communication station (GW).
US08213346B2
In order to provide non-confusing information on supported media types in a group to group members, information on messages indicating supported media types are cross-checked with usable media types in the group.
US08213333B2
Systems and methods for identifying and resolving problems in wireless device configurations in a wireless network. In one example embodiment, a method for resolving wireless device configuration problems includes various acts including identifying all wireless devices that are wired to a network, retrieving configuration information from each wireless device, retrieving wireless device incompatibility information and corresponding configuration solutions for each wireless device, attempting to contact each wireless device over one or more wireless communication channels in order to determine if one or more wireless capabilities of each wireless device are functioning properly, and determining that the incompatibility information of one of the wireless devices with a malfunctioning wireless capability conflicts with the configuration information of one or more of the wireless devices.
US08213328B2
The present invention provides a communication information acquisition creation system 50 used for evaluating a network switch 4 which includes multiple communication ports 41. The communication information acquisition creation system 50 acquires first communication information input to a first communication port and second communication information input to a second communication port, then acquires from the first and the second communication information time information 1011 which is the time when each information has been acquired, transmitting source information 1012 which shows each transmitting source, and destination information 1013 which shows each destination, stores the communication data in which each piece of the above-mentioned information corresponds with each other, creates communication information for evaluation to be input to the communication port 41 of the network switch 4 with reference to the stored communication information, and transmits the created communication information for evaluation to the communication ports 41 specified by the transmitting source information and the destination information in the order shown by the time information.
US08213320B2
The invention provides a method and switching device for configuring stack ports. A switching device in a stacking system searches in the neighbor information table to determine whether the neighbor ID carried in a stack link negotiation packet is contained in the table after it receives the stack link negotiation packet on one of its physical ports that is enabled with the stacking function. If the neighbor ID is contained in the table, the switching device adds the physical port to the stack port corresponding to the neighbor ID in the neighbor information table; if it is not contained in the table, the switching device creates a stack port not in use, creates a binding between the neighbor ID and the stack port, and adds the physical port to the stack port. The present invention can automatically configure stack ports, greatly reducing the configuration work of administrators, and avoiding stacking device faults caused by manual configuration errors at the same time.
US08213319B2
Each node in a hierarchical network regularly checks to determine whether its network connection is intact. If not, it autonomously communicates with other nodes in the physical neighborhood, using wireless capability also included at each node. It first searches for a wireless path to its immediate neighbors in the hierarchy attempting to reach a working node connected to the same distribution point. The nodes collect, store and exchange connectivity data on neighboring nodes. One member of a group of nodes that have exchanged connectivity information is selected to transmit a connectivity report to network control center. If not itself connected to the hierarchical network, the selected node can use the connection to the closest working node and its broadband connection to the network control center to inform the network operator of the fault and its likely location.
US08213315B2
A method of communication includes receiving, in a network interface device, first and second requests from an initiator process running on an initiator host to transmit, respectively, first and second data to first and second target processes running on one or more target nodes, via a packet network. A single dynamically-connected initiator context is allocated for serving both the first and second requests. A first connect packet referencing the dynamically-connected (DC) initiator context is directed to the first target process so as to open a first dynamic connection with the first target process, followed by transmission of the first data over the first dynamic connection. The first dynamic connection is closed after the transmission of the first data, and a second connect packet is transmitted so as to open a second dynamic connection with the second target process, followed by transmission of the second data.
US08213314B2
A method for transmitting data in a wireless network includes wirelessly transmitting data from a base station to a plurality of spatially separated relay stations. The data is correlated according to space-time block coding (STBC) for transmission over multiple antennas. The STBC correlated data are wirelessly transmitted from the plurality of spatially separated relay stations to a mobile station. The plurality of spatially separated relay stations cooperate to provide a single multiple antenna transmission.
US08213308B2
In one embodiment, a processor-readable medium can store code representing instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to receive a value representing a congestion level of a receive queue and a value representing a state of a transmit queue. At least a portion of the transmit queue can be defined by a plurality of packets addressed to the receive queue. A rate value for the transmit queue can be defined based on the value representing the congestion level of the receive queue and the value representing the state of the transmit queue. The processor-readable medium can store code representing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to define a suspension time value for the transmit queue based on the value representing the congestion level of the receive queue and the value representing the state of the transmit queue.
US08213302B2
The disclosure describes a system for active channel management in a wireless network. The system may include spectrum monitoring in order to determine channel usage within a wireless network and/or to provide a projected transmission quality for each available channel. Another aspect of the system concerns allowing nodes in a wireless network to exchange spectrum usage data. The system may include renegotiation and handover of data transmission between channels and/or different wireless technologies.
US08213300B1
A node comprises a first communications interface to a customer network element, where the first communications interface is part of a group of communications interfaces to the customer network element to provide failover support. The node further includes a network interface to communicate over a trunk group to other nodes, where the trunk group includes a primary trunk and a secondary trunk. Just one of the primary and secondary trunks is active for communicating data units.
US08213294B2
A computer implemented method, apparatus and mechanism for recovery of an I/O fabric that has become terminally congested or deadlocked due to a failure which causes buffers/queues to fill and thereby causes the root complexes to lose access to their I/O subsystems. Upon detection of a terminally congested or deadlocked transmit queue, access to such queue by other root complexes is suspended while each item in the queue is examined and processed accordingly. Store requests and DMA read reply packets in the queue are discarded, and load requests in the queue are processed by returning a special completion package. Access to the queue by the root complexes is then resumed.
US08213290B2
In a multilayer optical disc having information layers conforming to a plurality of different optical disc standards, because the type of each information layer is not recorded in the other information layers, in read and write operations by a compatible optical disc device conforming to a plurality of optical disc standards, every time the information layer being accessed changes, it has been necessary to read the type of the information layer and select a method of generating a tracking error signal adapted to the type of information layer, so access has taken time. In order to solve the above problem, in the optical multilayer disc according to the present invention, having information layers conforming to a plurality of different optical disc standards, in an area in one of the information layers, information about the other information layers is recorded. The time required to access the other information layers can be reduced by using this information to select a tracking error signal generating method.
US08213288B2
A deterioration of reproduction light is occurred by a laser drive current on which a high-frequency current is superimposed. The present invention, for example, is an optical information reproducing apparatus which irradiates a laser beam to an optical disc 1 and reads an information, the optical information reproducing apparatus includes a semiconductor laser 6 which generates the laser beam, a laser drive unit 7 which supplies a drive current on which a high-frequency current are superimposed to the semiconductor laser 6, a spindle motor 2 which drives the optical disc 1 and a control unit 5 which controls the laser drive unit 7 and the spindle motor 2, and the control unit 5 determines a parameter of the high-frequency current based on magnitude of a current on which the high-frequency current is to be superimposed.
US08213285B2
A recording apparatus having a reproduction means to play digital data from a recording medium recorded with that digital data and retrieval information, a recording means to write the digital data reproduced by the reproduction means and record the retrieval information on a control table, and a control circuit to search the control table by using the retrieval information when the digital data from the reproduction means is written by the recording means, to permit the writing of digital data recorded on the medium with the recording means when the retrieval information is not recorded on the control table, and to prohibit the writing of digital data recorded on the medium with the recording means when the retrieval information is already recorded on the control table, and also prevent the mistaken duplicate copying of the digital data with the recording means.
US08213284B2
A recording apparatus performs recording on an optical disc recording medium which has a plurality of recording layers and is capable of having data rewritten thereon. The recording apparatus includes recording means for performing data recording on each recording layer of the recording medium and recording controlling means for controlling the recording means so that, among the plurality of recording layers, recording of dummy data is performed preferentially starting from a recording layer intended for the final user data recording operation.
US08213279B2
An optical recording medium including recording and reading layers and a servo layer increases the recording capacity thereof. In the optical recording medium including the plurality of recording and reading layers and the servo layer, the servo layer has a groove and a land that can be used to perform tracking control with a long-wavelength servo beam. Information is recorded on the recording and reading layers with a recording and reading beam having a wavelength shorter than the wavelength of the servo beam. Recording marks are formed on the recording and reading layers while both the groove and land are tracked.
US08213278B2
The optical disc comprises a substrate layer and a data layer disposed on the substrate layer, the data layer having a mark/space data structure arranged in tracks which are arranged in groups being separated each by a land section. The tracks of the groups are each arranged as a spiral, and the start of a track of a consecutive group begins at a position corresponding with the end of a track of a preceding group. A group comprises advantageously an inner track, a center track and an outer track. The optical disc comprises in a preferred embodiment a nonlinear layer with a super-resolution structure and the track pitch between neighboring tracks within a group is below the diffraction limit of a corresponding pickup for reading of data. Further, a tracking method is described which does not rely on tracking offsets to detect the inner and outer tracks of a group.
US08213272B2
A waveguide is provided, in which the optical coupling efficiency to a light source is sufficiently high, and the light-emitting spot center is stably provided at the intended position. The waveguide comprises a multilayered structure in which refractive indexes of layers having a surface contact with each other are different from each other. The multilayered structure is divided into a plurality of groups, and the length from the light-receiving end surface to the light-emitting end surface of one group is different from that of the neighboring group, and the protruded light-emitting end surface of the first group defined as a group that has the largest length includes a center of the light-emitting spot. In this waveguide, the state in which the light-emitting spot center is positioned within the light-emitting end surface does not easily be changed, even when the light-receiving spot center within the light-receiving end surface is rather displaced.
US08213268B2
Disclosed is a chronograph timepiece in which it is possible to prevent a non-rotation state at the time of first driving when chronograph measuring operation is reset during motor drive and restarting is effected. When a resetting operation is performed on a reset button during the driving of a motor and a rotation detection circuit detects non-rotation, a drive control unit controls a drive pulse generation circuit such that the control is completed without reversing the polarity of a motor drive pulse output from the drive pulse generation circuit, and that the motor is driven by a drive pulse of the same polarity as that at the time of the previous resetting in response to a starting operation performed on a start/stop button, driving the motor by the drive pulse of the same polarity at the time of restarting after the resetting.
US08213267B2
A day clock has day, hour, and minute hands revolving continuously around a common center. It has a time adjustment knob and a day adjustment knob. When the day adjustment knob is pulled out, a set of gears are disengaged, allowing the day hand to be adjusted with that knob without affecting the other hands. Then, when the set of gears are reengaged, the time adjustment knob can be utilized to set the time of day. In order to set the day and time accurately, the user may first set the time to midnight with the time adjustment knob, pull out the day adjustment knob, set the day to a clock face line between days with that knob, push that knob back in, and then set the time to the correct time with the time adjustment knob.
US08213266B2
An electronic timepiece, comprises a timing section to perform timing of time based on an oscillation signal; an electric wave receiving section to receive an electric wave; a voltage detecting section to detect a power source voltage supplied from a power source section; and a stop control section to stop a receiving function of the electric wave receiving section and continue a timing operation of the timing section when the voltage detecting section detects that the power source voltage becomes lower than a first level range, and then to stop the timing operation of the timing section when a warning period for urging a user to perform the power generation by the power generating section elapsed in a state where the power source voltage is lower than the first level range without changing to a lower level than a second level range lower than the first level range.
US08213254B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes a memory cell array with a matrix of nonvolatile memory cells. The nonvolatile memory cells may store data using variable resistive elements. A plurality of bitlines are coupled to a plurality of nonvolatile memory cell arrays in the memory cell array. A column selection circuit selects among the bitlines in response to a column selection signal. A controller regulates a level of the column selection signal in response to a temperature signal from a temperature sensor. The temperature sensor may be configured to measure temperature outside the nonvolatile memory device to generate the temperature signal.
US08213253B2
A regular capacitor is saturated by an electric charge of a regular memory cell holding a high logic level and is not saturated by an electric charge from the regular memory cell holding a low logic level. A reference capacitor is saturated by the electric charge from a reference memory cell holding the high logic level. A differential sense amplifier differentially amplifies a difference between a regular read voltage read from the regular capacitor and a voltage which is lower by a first voltage than a reference read voltage being a saturation voltage read from the reference capacitor, and generates logic of data held in the memory cell. Accordingly, a difference between the reference voltage and the read voltage corresponding to the low logic level can be made relatively large. As a result, it is possible to improve a read margin.
US08213236B1
This disclosure describes techniques for using environmental variables to improve calibration of flash memory by adapting to changing threshold-voltage distributions. These techniques effectively increase the speed and/or accuracy at which flash memory can be written or read.
US08213232B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory includes: a memory cell unit including a plurality of memory cells having an electric charge accumulation layer and a control electrode, said memory cells being electrically connected in series; a plurality of word lines, each of which is electrically connected to said control electrode of said plurality of memory cells; a source line electrically connected to said memory cells at one end of said memory cell unit; a bit line electrically connected to said memory cells at the other end of said memory cell unit; and a control signal generation circuit, which during a data readout operation staggers a timing for selecting the word line connected to said memory cells of said memory cell unit from a timing for selecting a non-selected word line connected to a non-selected memory.
US08213229B2
Flash memory devices and associated methods are described for controlling data errors in the devices through various forms of decoding, error correction, and wear concentration. To this end, a flash memory device may be partitioned into a plurality of sectors. Data may then be received from, for example, a host processor for storage within the flash memory device. Storage durations of the data are then estimated and the data is stored in the data sectors based on those estimated storage durations.
US08213223B2
The present invention provides a multi-level memory device and method of operating the same. The device comprises a memory structure in which a distribution density of resistance levels around its minimum value is higher than that around its maximum value.
US08213215B2
Resistive memory calibration for self-reference read methods are described. One method of self-reference reading a resistive memory unit includes setting a plurality of resistive memory units to a first resistive data state. The resistive memory units forms a memory array. Reading a sensed resistive data state for each resistive memory unit by applying a first read current and a second read current through each resistive memory unit and then comparing voltages formed by the first read current and the second read current to determine the sensed resistive data state for each resistive memory unit. Then the method includes adjusting the first or the second read current, read voltages, or storage device capacitance for each resistive memory unit where the sensed resistive data state was not the same as the first resistive data state until the sensed resistive data state is the same as the first resistive data state.
US08213211B2
A method and system for improving reliability of OTP memories, and in particular anti-fuse memories, by storing one bit of data in at least two OTP memory cells. Therefore each bit of data is read out by accessing the at least two OTP memory cells at the same time in a multi-cell per bit mode. By storing one bit of data in at least two OTP memory cells, defective cells or weakly programmable cells are compensated for since the additional cell or cells provide inherent redundancy. Program reliability is ensured by programming the data one bit at a time, and verifying all programmed bits in a single-ended read mode, prior to normal operation where the data is read out in the multi-cell per bit mode. Programming and verification is achieved at high speed and with minimal power consumption using a novel program/verify algorithm for anti-fuse memory. In addition to improved reliability, read margin and read speed are improved over single cell per bit memories.
US08213207B2
A system may include a first connector housing, a magnetic data storage device mechanically coupled to the first connector housing, a second connector housing configured to be mechanically engaged with the first connector housing, and a permanent magnet mechanically coupled to the second cavity. In some examples, relative motion between the magnetic data storage device and the permanent magnetic causes data stored on the magnetic data storage device to be modified. In one example, the system further includes a printed board assembly mechanically coupled to one of the first or second connector housings and a master interconnect board mechanically coupled to the other one of the first or connector housings. Modification to the data stored on the magnetic data storage device may indicate relative movement between the first and second connector housings.
US08213205B2
Large capacity memory systems are constructed using stacked memory integrated circuits or chips. The stacked memory chips are constructed in such a way that eliminates problems such as signal integrity while still meeting current and future memory standards.
US08213204B2
A modular power adapter and method for using the same which increases the ease of a user's travel with portable electronic devices. The modular power adapter includes an output module which may be interchangeably and detachably coupled to DC input module or an AC input module. The output module and the input module are provided in separate housing structures thereby effectively spreading the heat dissipated from the modular power adapter.
US08213195B2
A PWM step wave and sine wave driving device is provided. The driving device includes an ADC unit, an input processing unit, a first pulse width calculation unit, a register unit, a first output unit, a zero point detecting unit, a second pulse width calculation unit, a second output unit, and a multiplexer output unit. The driving device receives input signals, and output desired step wave or sine wave driving signals for driving an external electric device. The driving device detects a point of zero voltage of the system power supply by the zero point detecting unit. When the system power supply is abnormal, the first output unit outputs predetermined PWM step wave output signals, or the second output unit outputs predetermined PWM sine wave output signals. In such a way, the external electric device can be maintained for regular operation, so that the malfunction or breakdown thereof is prevented.
US08213192B2
A switching voltage regulator samples signals corresponding to a flyback voltage on an auxiliary winding on a primary side of the switching voltage regulator. The flyback voltage functions as feedback from the output voltage on the secondary side. On detection of presence of the flyback voltage, samples corresponding to the flyback voltage are stored until the flyback voltage falls below a threshold voltage. A history of N samples of the flyback voltage is thus maintained. A sample older than the most recently stored sample is used to generate control for generation of the output voltage of the switching voltage regulator. Use of the older sample ensures that the flyback voltage sample used is one that is close to, but before the current in the secondary winding goes to zero.
US08213186B2
A retaining assembly for retaining a first member with a second member is provided. The retaining assembly is capable of retaining the first member. The retaining assembly includes a body and at least one retaining device retained to the body. Each retaining device includes a supporting member and a latching member corresponding to the supporting member. The supporting member and the latching member cooperatively define a space for receiving the second member, and further cooperatively secure the member after the member is retained in space. An apparatus using the retaining assembly are also provided.
US08213184B2
A method of testing integrated circuit chips. The method includes: attaching integrated circuit chips to an interposer of a temporary carrier, the carrier comprising: a substrate, a first interconnects on a bottom surface and a second array of interconnects on a top surface of the substrate, corresponding first and second interconnects electrically connected by wires in the substrate; the interposer, first pads on a top surface and a second pads on a bottom surface of the interposer, corresponding first and second pads electrically connected by wires in the interposer, and the second pads in physical and electrical contact with corresponding second interconnects; and the interposer including an interposer substrate comprising a same material as a substrate of the integrated circuit chip; connecting interconnects of the first array of interconnects to a tester; and testing the one or more integrated circuit chips.
US08213180B2
A printed circuit board (PCB) assembly is provided that includes a PCB, an integrated circuit package, an electromagnetic interference (EMI) shield ring, and a heat sink lid. A first surface of the package is mounted to a first surface of the PCB. The EMI shield ring is mounted to the first surface of the PCB in a ring around the package. A first surface of the heat sink lid includes a recessed region and first and second supporting portions separated by the recessed region. The heat sink lid is mated with the EMI shield ring such that the package is positioned in an enclosure formed by the EMI shield ring and the recessed region of the heat sink lid. A second surface of the package may interface with a surface of the recessed region.
US08213179B2
A semiconductor element cooling structure includes a plurality of semiconductor elements, and electrode structure, which has cooling medium channels therein and is electrically connected to the plurality of semiconductor elements. The electrode structure includes an alternating current electrode having the semiconductor elements on each of opposite surfaces, and a plurality of direct current electrodes holding therebetween the alternating current electrode and the semiconductor elements respectively mounted on the opposite surfaces of the alternating current electrode. Each of the alternating current electrode and the direct current electrodes has the cooling medium channels therein.
US08213168B2
A portable computing device is disclosed. The portable computing device can take many forms such as a laptop computer, a tablet computer, and so on. The portable computing device can include a single piece housing and a display module. The display module can include a protective top glass cover that is bonded to a plastic display frame and surrounded by a seal frame. The display module can also include a display panel and its associated circuitry suspended from the display frame below the protective glass cover. The display module is coupled to the single piece housing mounting clips in a manner that allows the display module to move relative to the single piece housing during an impact event. The plastic display frame can include inserts that provide structural support near openings in the single piece housing.
US08213164B2
A mounting system comprising a base and a media module for mounting and dismounting of storage media is disclosed herein. In general, the mounting system allows one or more media modules to be rapidly mounted and dismounted to and from various devices. The media module may comprise an enclosure for storing the storage media and a rotatable cap with an open portion to accept the enclosure. The enclosure may have one or more media guides and the cap may have one or more locking guides. The media guides may engage one or more pins of the base to align the enclosure with the base. This allows a communications connection to be formed between the storage media and a device. The locking guides may engage the pins to mount the enclosure to the base as the cap is rotated.
US08213163B2
A tilting portable electronic device includes a housing, a cover, at least one supporting rod and at least one telescoping bar. The at least one supporting rod rotatably connects to the housing and the cover; the at least one telescoping bar rotatably connects to the housing and the cover. The telescoping bar includes at least two bushing sections, the two bushing sections retractably connect each other. When the cover is opened relative to the housing, the telescoping bar expands and rotates and the supporting rod rotates until the telescoping bar and the supporting rod cooperatively support one end of the cover.
US08213156B2
A coated electrode is provided for use in energy storage devices. The coated electrode comprises a dry fibrillized polymer that is fibrillized with no processing additives.
US08213154B2
A nickel oxide that is co-doped with a first alkali metal dopant and a second metal dopant may be used, for example, to form a dielectric material in an electronic device. The dielectric material may be used, for example, in a capacitor. The second metal dopant of the nickel oxide may be, for example, tin, antimony, indium, tungsten, iridium, scandium, gallium, vanadium, chromium, gold, yttrium, lanthanum, ruthenium, rhodium, molybdenum or niobium.
US08213145B2
Embodiments of an output driver comprising a switching module configured to multiplex a protection transistor between a protection mode and a current mirror mode are disclosed herein. The output driver may operate at high speed with voltages above a maximum threshold voltage specification for the output driver. Additional variants and embodiments may also be disclosed and claimed.
US08213143B2
A circuit arrangement for protecting an electronic device from damage upon a fault. The circuit arrangement includes at least one first terminal, at least one second terminal, a first interface and a second interface, a fault detection circuit region, a fault signal processing circuit region, and a disconnection circuit region. The at least one first terminal is coupled to the at least one second terminal in a fault-free state, the fault detection circuit region is coupled to the fault signal processing circuit region, the fault signal processing circuit region is coupled to the disconnection circuit region, the disconnection circuit region is configured to disconnect at least one of the at least one first terminal and the at least one second terminal, and the fault detection circuit region, the first and second interfaces, and the disconnection circuit region are configured to be compatible with another different fault signal processing circuit region.
US08213141B2
A Power over Ethernet electrostatic discharge protection circuit has a first diode with an anode coupled to a positive power port and a cathode coupled to an ESD protection port. A second diode has an anode coupled to ground and a cathode coupled to the positive power port. A third diode has an anode coupled to a negative power port and a cathode coupled to the ESD protection port.
US08213129B2
A magnetoresistive element includes at least three metallic magnetic layers, at least two connection layers provided between the at least three metallic magnetic layers, each having an insulating layer and current confined paths including a metallic magnetic material penetrating the insulating layer, and electrodes which supply a current perpendicularly to a plane of a stacked film of the metallic magnetic layers and the connection layers.
US08213128B2
A head-gimbal assembly (HGA). The HGA includes a deformable plate affixed to a load beam, a piezoelectric element affixed to the deformable plate, and a base plate affixed to the deformable plate. The deformable plate includes: a hole; a first section in front of the hole and affixed to the load beam; a second section behind the hole and affixed to the base plate; and, first and second spring members that join the first section and the second section, can deform in a front-back direction, and are positioned to sandwich the hole in a left-right direction. The piezoelectric element is affixed between the first section and the second section. The base plate includes projection members on a front edge of the plate and projecting out toward the first section. The front edges of the projection member are positioned further to a front edge than a back edge of the hole.
US08213126B1
A support arm for use in a disc drive suspension includes an asymmetry that creates a vertical coupling in the support arm, i.e., a slight lateral movement of the support arm distal end to which a load beam is mounted in response to vibration-induced bending of the support arm. The vertical coupling in the support arm at least partially cancels out during arm bending any vertical coupling which has been designed into the coupling between the load beam and the support arm to reduce track misregistration during flow-induced vibrations of the disc surface. In this way, track misregistration during both flow-induced vibrations and during arm bending is reduced. In a preferred embodiment the asymmetry is created by at least one of a first notch along an inside top edge of the arm, and a second notch along a bottom outside edge of the arm.
US08213122B1
A disk drive head suspension includes a load beam designed for damping of torsion and sway resonance modes. The load beam includes a proximal end portion and a distal end portion, and the proximal end portion includes a proximal edge. The load beam also includes a strain-inducing feature that is formed into an upper planar surface of the load beam and extends from the proximal edge of the load beam. A flexure is attached to and supported by the load beam for carrying a magnetic head slider. A hinge attached to the load beam and to the base mounting structure, the latter of which is for coupling the head suspension to a disk drive actuation system. A damping element is on the load beam at the proximal end portion that spans across the strain-inducing feature and is adjacent to the proximal edge of the load beam.
US08213118B2
A discrete track-type magnetic recording medium (30) includes a nonmagnetic substrate (1), a magnetic recording track and a servo signal pattern which are provided on at least one side of the nonmagnetic substrate, and a nonmagnetic part (4) consisting of a nonmagnetic alloy containing Si for physically separating the magnetic recording track and the servo signal pattern. A magnetic recording and reproducing device comprising, in combination, the magnetic recording medium (30), a driving part (26) serving to drive the magnetic recording medium in a direction of recording, a magnetic head (27) composed of a recording part and a reproducing part, a device (28) to impart motion to the magnetic head relative to the magnetic recording medium, and a recording and reproducing signal processing device (29) for entering a signal into the magnetic head and reproducing an output signal from the magnetic head.
US08213116B2
A magnetic layer for writing incorporates: a pole layer having an end face located in a medium facing surface; and an upper yoke layer. A first magnetic layer for flux concentration is connected to the pole layer at a location away from the medium facing surface, and passes a magnetic flux corresponding to a magnetic field generated by a first coil. A second magnetic layer for flux concentration is connected to the upper yoke layer at a location away from the medium facing surface, and passes a magnetic flux corresponding to a magnetic field generated by a second coil. A nonmagnetic layer is disposed between the pole layer and the upper yoke layer. The upper yoke layer is connected to the pole layer at a location closer to the medium facing surface than the nonmagnetic layer.
US08213102B2
A method for using magnetic tape having damaged areas is disclosed. The method may include writing data to streaming magnetic tape, determining if the data write was successful, and responding to an unsuccessful data write by interrupting the data writing and advancing the magnetic tape forward a predetermined distance. Additionally, the method may include attempting to write data at the next location on the magnetic tape and determining if the data write was successful. The method may further include repeating the steps of advancing the tape, attempting to write, and determining whether the data write was successful following any determination that an attempted data write was not successful. The method may include further include resuming writing data to streaming magnetic tape at a location where a data write is determined to be successful.
US08213098B2
A method for driving a lens and a lens driving apparatus, the lens driving apparatus including a base in which a guide member is disposed; a lens support member comprising an installation unit disposed on one side thereof to slidingly move along the guide member, wherein at least one lens is mounted in the lens support member; a driving structure configured to move the lens support member and comprising a lead screw; a working member having one portion contacting the driving structure and another portion contacting one side of the installation unit; an elastic member for providing the installation unit with an elastic force; and wherein a predetermined space is disposed between the installation unit and the base, and wherein the installation unit is configured to be moved to the base by a means other than the driving structure.
US08213095B2
Disclosed are a projection lens that has a small size, a simple inner focus structure, a high optical performance, and a wide angle of view of about 75 degrees or more, and a projection display device.A projection lens includes a first lens group having a negative refractive power, a second lens group having a positive refractive power, and a third lens group having a positive refractive power arranged in this order from a magnification side. A fifth lens arranged closest to a reduction side in the first lens group is moved along an optical axis to adjust focus. The projection lens satisfies the following conditional expression: 3.0
US08213093B2
Provided is a lens. The lens may include a lens body having a convex top surface having a first recessed part at a central portion thereof and a flat surface at a circumference thereof and a flat bottom surface having a second recessed part at a central portion thereof, and a plurality of lens supports on the bottom surface of the lens body.
US08213091B2
A wide-angle projection zoom lens includes: a first negative lens group for focus adjustment that is fixed when power varies; a second positive lens group, a third negative lens group, and a fourth positive lens group that are moved when power varies; and a fifth positive lens group that is fixed when power varies. The first to fifth lens groups are arranged in this order from a magnification side. The first lens group includes a first negative lens, which is an aspheric lens made of plastic, a second negative lens, a third negative lens, and a fourth positive lens which are arranged in this order from the magnification side. The wide-angle projection zoom lens is configured so as to satisfy four predetermined conditional expressions.
US08213087B2
A device, system and method integrating forward and panoramic fields is disclosed, comprising: a primary reflector, comprising a convex surface in relation to the forward field, reflective on at least part of the convex surface; a secondary reflector, forward of the primary reflector relative to the forward field, reflective on at least part a surface thereof facing rearward toward the primary reflector; a primary reflector hole in the primary reflector, substantially centered about an optical axis of the apparatus; and a secondary reflector hole in the secondary reflector, substantially centered about the optical axis.
US08213071B2
Display device is based on layer break up or layer displacement having at least two different states, in which one of the fluids, e.g., oil in a first state, adjoins at least a first support plate and, in the second state, the other fluid at least partly adjoins the first support plate. In one embodiment, a picture element corresponds to a substantially closed space and, in the first state, the other fluid layer substantially completely adjoins both support plates and is divided in two sub-layers. This makes it possible, on the one hand, to use lower voltages to make displacement occur. On the other hand, this opens the opportunity to color displays.
US08213067B2
A temperature of a scanning optical system is different from a temperature of a light source when an optical scanning device is in operation, and when the both temperatures are assumed to be equal, a diffractive surface of a diffractive optical element is set according to a magnitude relationship between both temperatures when the optical scanning device is in operation such that a deviation amount of an in-focus position of the light flux by the diffractive optical element becomes larger or smaller than a deviation amount for canceling a deviation amount of an in-focus position of the light flux by the scanning optical system.
US08213065B2
An image display device includes an image forming device, collimating optical system, and optical device, with the optical device including a light guide plate, first diffraction grating member and second diffraction grating member which are made up of a volume hologram diffraction grating, and with central light emitted from the pixel of the center of the image forming device and passed through the center of the collimating optical system being input to the light guide plate from the near side of the second diffraction grating member with a certain angle. Thus, the image display device capable of preventing occurrence of color irregularities, despite the simple configuration, can be provided.
US08213056B2
An image processing apparatus is provided with a line pair identification unit that includes: a binarization portion that binarizes image data generated by a reading unit reading a document; a detection portion that detects, in an image based on the binarized image data, a line screen pattern in a first direction and a line screen pattern in a second direction that is orthogonal to the first direction; a determination portion that determines the periodicity of the line screen pattern in the first direction; and an identification portion that identifies whether or not a line pair pattern is present in the image data based on the difference in the number between the two line screen patterns as detected by the detection portion and the results of the determination performed by the determination portion.
US08213046B2
A print method and apparatus for minimizing effects of error in repositioning during printing process may include generating successive scans of a recording head, wherein the scans may partially overlap to account for the error in repositioning. As an example, after the recording head makes one scan across the document being printed, the document (or the head) may be repositioned for the next scan so that several print elements of the recording head are aligned to lie between certain rows of dots printed in the previous scan, resulting in a higher number of rows in the overlapping portion of the scans. Additional features may include varying the row/column arrangement of dots in the overlap portion, or performing error diffusion and correction for different areas of resolution in the scans.
US08213042B2
In order to maintain consistency between stored data and an image formed on a recording medium, an MFP includes an HDD to store data, a data designation portion to designate target data to be an output target from the data stored in the HDD, a prohibition portion to prohibit modification or deletion of the target data, and an image forming portion to generate a composite image by combining the target data with positional information indicating a position in the HDD where the target data is stored and to form the composite image on a sheet of paper.
US08213041B2
An image forming apparatus is provided with a processor, a storage unit for storing a program and data, a function unit for performing functional operations; and an interactive input/output unit. The storage unit includes first storage areas, second storage areas, and third storage areas, which are hierarchized. The program causes the processor to display specified information allotted to the first storage areas on the interactive input/output unit. If one first storage area is selected, information of the second storage areas related to the selected first storage area is displayed on the interactive input/output unit. If one second storage area is selected, information of files in the third storage areas included in the selected second storage area and the names of processes to be performed to the files are displayed on the interactive input/output unit. If the file and process are selected, the process is performed to this file.
US08213024B2
A system, method and computer readable medium for reticle evaluation, the method includes: (i) obtaining, during an imaging process, multiple images of the reticle under different polarization and optionally interferometric conditions; and (ii) generating an output aerial image in response to (i) the multiple images and (ii) differences between the imaging process and an exposure process; wherein during the exposure process an image of the reticle is projected onto a wafer.
US08213023B2
A beam of light or other electromagnetic field is emitted and received in a vacuum, all within an apparatus in motion. The nature of light permits the beam of light to retain the characteristics of its motion in vacuum, regardless of motion of the apparatus in which the emitted light propagates. The light beam retains its position in space relative to the direction of motion of the apparatus. Since both entities, light beam and apparatus, are disposed in the same frame of reference, characteristics of their motion can be compared. The result of this comparison represents the vector of velocity V of the apparatus which is utilized in navigation of the apparatus.
US08213016B2
A turbidity measuring device having a four-beam, alternating light arrangement for registering turbidity of a measured medium includes first and second light sources L1, L2; and first and second receivers R1, R2. The direct measuring paths extend from light sources Li, through a measured medium, to receivers Ri, and indirect measuring paths extend from light sources Li, through the measured medium, to second receivers Rj; wherein i≠j; wherein turbidity can be ascertained as a function of a quotient A/B by means of an evaluating circuit; wherein A and B are functions at least of signals registered via the direct or indirect measuring paths; wherein at least a first monitor signal, which depends on the first light source, enters into one of the two terms A or B; wherein the light reaches the monitor from the first light source without interaction with the measured medium; and wherein the monitor signal is added to at least one of the signals registered via the measuring paths and entering into the term A or B.
US08213009B2
Disclosed herein is a microparticles measuring apparatus including: an optical detecting section configured to direct a laser beam toward microparticles passing through a flow channel, detect light emanating from the microparticles, and convert the detected light into electrical signals; and a controlling unit configured to calculate the speed of the microparticles passing through the flow channel according to the electrical signals and suspend the supply of solution containing the microparticles when the calculated speed exceeds a prescribed limit.
US08213008B2
Systems and methods for performing spectral-spatial mapping in (one and two dimensions) and coded spectroscopy are described. At least one embodiment includes a system for performing spectral-spatial mapping and coded spectroscopy comprising a cylindrical beam volume hologram (CBVH), the CBVH configured to receive input beams and generate diffracted beams in a first direction to perform spectral-spatial mapping, the CBVH further configured to allow input beams to pass in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction unaffected. The system further comprises a first lens configured to receive the diffracted beams and perform a Fourier transform on the input beams in the first direction, a second lens configured to receive the diffracted beams and focus the beams in the second direction to generate output beams, and a charged coupled device (CCD) configured to receive the outputs beams, the output beams used to provide spectral analysis of the input beams.
US08212995B2
Embodiments of a laser imaging system with uniform line illumination and method for generating images are generally described herein. In some embodiments, the laser imaging system includes a polarizer beam splitter to angularly separate an input laser beam into a pair of overlapping cross-polarized beams having a first angular separation therebetween, and a diffraction optic beamlet generator to generate a plurality of beamlets of alternating polarization states with a second angular separation therebetween. The laser imaging system may also include a focal-plane array (FPA) having a field-of-view (FOV) to be illuminated by the plurality of beamlets.
US08212994B2
The present invention discloses a distance detecting sensor, comprising: a casing, focusing lenses, a circuit board mounted with several electronic elements, and an emitting device emitting infrared light and a receiving device receiving and sensing a reflected infrared light. Wherein, the casing comprises a main body and two round openings on the top surface of the main body. The lenses comprise an emitting lens and a receiving lens arranged at the openings of the casing. The circuit board is mounted in the main body of the casing; the emitting device is an infrared emitting diode (LED), emitting infrared light toward the emitting lens. The receiving device is a distance detecting sensor module, which senses the reflected light focused by the receiving lens. The distance detecting sensor further comprises an emitting light guide unit arranged between the emitting lens and the emitting device, and the emitting light guide unit comprises small round holes at the emitting tube core of the emitting device. The present invention has higher detection accuracy and improves the overall detection performance of the sensor.
US08212991B2
An optical system of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus contains a module, which can be fitted in the optical system and removed from it as a unit. The module contains a cavity which can be completely filled with a liquid and hermetically sealed, and a concavely curved optical surface which bounds the cavity at the top during operation of the projection exposure apparatus. This makes it possible to fill the module outside the optical system. The module can be tilted there so that no air bubble, which prevents complete filling, can form below the concavely curved optical surface.
US08212985B2
Disclosed herein is a liquid crystal display element in which a liquid crystal layer is interposed between a pair of substrates laminated to each other by a sealing material such that alignment films are opposed to each other with a predetermined gap between the alignment films, wherein a range of dielectric anisotropy Δε of a material for the liquid crystal layer at a measured temperature of 70° C. is −4.5 to less than zero.
US08212979B2
The present invention provides a method of manufacturing a spacer for a liquid crystal display device that includes a step a) of forming a spacer body on a substrate body and a step b) forming a passivation film on the spacer body, a substrate for a liquid crystal display device having the spacer manufactured by the method, and a liquid crystal display device having the substrate for the liquid crystal display device.
US08212978B2
A liquid crystal apparatus includes: a liquid crystal panel having a pair of substrates; a liquid crystal layer arranged between the pair of substrates and driven by an electric field having a component parallel to the substrates; a first polarizing plate and a second polarizing plate arranged with the liquid crystal panel interposed therebetween; and a retardation film arranged between the first polarizing plate and the liquid crystal panel or between the second polarizing plate and the liquid crystal panel, in which the first polarizing plate and the second polarizing plate each include a polarizer and translucent protection films which interpose the polarizer, an in-plane phase difference Re1 of the protection film satisfies 0 nm≦Re1≦5 nm, a thickness direction phase difference Rth of the protection film satisfies 0 nm≦Rth≦20 nm, an in-plane phase difference Re2 of the retardation film satisfies 200 nm≦Re2≦300 nm, an Nz value of the retardation film satisfies 0.4
US08212975B2
A liquid crystal display device according to the invention includes a first substrate, on a surface of which are formed: a first color film which has a color other than black, and one portion of which configures a first pixel; a second color film, one portion of which configures a second pixel adjacent to the first pixel; a third color film, at least one portion of which configures a third pixel; and a fourth color film, a second substrate, and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the first substrate and second substrate, wherein the first color film and second color film have a first overlapping portion in which they overlap each other in the boundary between the first pixel and second pixel, and the fourth color film, being formed on the first overlapping portion, configures a post spacer which defines the space between the first substrate and second substrate.
US08212973B2
A liquid crystal display is provided which includes a color-filter substrate, an active matrix substrate, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between them. The active matrix substrate includes a first transparent substrate and includes a plurality of switching elements and a plurality of pixel electrodes formed on the first transparent substrate. Each switching element is electrically connected one of the pixel electrodes. The color-filter substrate defines a plurality of pixel areas. Each pixel area is suitable for corresponding to one of the pixel electrodes, includes a second transparent substrate, a first and second transparent conducting layers and a dielectric layer. The first transparent conducting layer is interposed between the second transparent substrate and the second transparent conducting layer, and the dielectric layer is interposed between the first and second transparent conducting layers. The second transparent conducting layer in each pixel area defines a hole.
US08212967B2
A backlight unit includes a cover bottom having a plurality of light source groups each with a plurality of light sources thereon, wherein the light sources with the higher brightness are arranged in the light source group closer to a center portion of the cover bottom, and the light sources with the lower brightness are arranged in the light source group closer to a periphery of the cover bottom.
US08212965B2
The present invention provides a liquid crystal display device which can reduce the number of cables so as to prevent the occurrence of the brightness irregularities. The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel and a backlight. The backlight includes an LED substrate on which a plurality of LEDs are mounted, a reflection sheet which is arranged on the LED substrate, a diffusion plate which is arranged in a spaced-apart manner from the LED substrate, side supports which support the diffusion plate at end portions of the LED substrate, connectors which are provided for electrical connection with an external device, and electronic parts which are electrically connected with at least one of these LEDs. The connectors and the electronic parts are mounted on the LED substrate below the side supports. The side supports exhibit higher light reflectance than the connectors and the electronic parts.
US08212963B2
Liquid crystal display device comprising a diffuser board which includes a plurality of micro lenses
An object of the present invention is to provide a liquid-crystal display device which includes a diffuser board that does not produce striped mura on the surface of a liquid crystal panel even if point light sources are used as light sources of a backlight.A backlight apparatus 103 is provided with a diffuser board 103b having diffusion portions 103b1. At each of the diffusion portions 103b1, the light L emitted by a LED module 104 included in a light source unit 103a is reflected by prism patterns P and diffused around the LED module 104. Then, the diffused light is reflected again by a reflecting surface formed on the inner surface of a housing 103c and emitted from the backlight apparatus 103, thereby achieving illuminating light without mura.
US08212960B2
In a display apparatus including: a display panel; a backlight unit disposed on the rear side of the display panel; a circuit board disposed on a side of the backlight unit which is different from the display panel side; and a brightness sensor for measuring brightness of light from the backlight unit, the brightness sensor is supported on a side of the circuit board which is different from the backlight unit side.
US08212945B2
A calibration image including dots and scale points is projected at first and second display surfaces. A location of a scale point may be modified. A location for a registration point is determined and the registration point is added to the calibration image. The projected calibration image is captured. A location of the captured registration point and locations captured scale points are identified. Captured dots that are projected onto the first display surface and their locations are identified. Each of the captured dots identified as being projected onto the first display surface are mapped to a corresponding dot of the calibration image. Dots of the calibration image that are not projected onto the first display surface are identified, locations of each of the identified dots are determined, and a synthetic dot is added to the captured image for each identified dot. The captured image may be provided as input to a process for determining one or more inverse offsets.
US08212943B2
A television tuner employs a triple-conversion architecture to translate VHF/UHF TV signals to various standard IF frequencies. The television tuner includes a harmonic rejection mixer, a first image rejection mixer and a second image rejection mixer. The television tuner receives a television signal. The harmonic rejection mixer up-converts the television signal into a first IF signal according to a first reference signal with a fixed frequency. The first image rejection mixer further up-converts the first IF signal into a second IF signal according to a second reference signal with a tunable frequency. The second image rejection mixer down-converts the second IF signal into a third IF signal according to a third reference signal with a tunable frequency.
US08212939B2
According to the described method, interframe similarities s(i) are calculated for the frames of the video sequence, each interframe similarity s(i) being indicative of the similarity of two consecutive frames i−1, i. As it has been found, an analysis of the interframe similarities allows to determine various parameters that are characteristic for the mean opinion score MOS, such as the downsampling rate, pausing, or a noise-dependence of the interframe similarity at the keyframes. An objective mean opinion score MOSo being a value close to the mean opinion score is derived as a value linear in the pausing parameter, a keyframe distance parameter and further quality parameters measured in the spatial domain, corrected by a second value being an exponential model in the downsampling rate.
US08212938B2
A sync signal acquisition device is disclosed which comprises a transistor, a resistor, a clamper, an analog multiplexer and a comparator. While operating in a composite HS mode, prior to the generation of the sync signal HS, the invention uses a conventional circuit to extract a composite sync signal at start-up, thereby allowing related circuits to generate the sync signal HS and a clamping signal. Then, a mode selecting signal is used to disable the automatic clamping mode and switch the analog multiplexer to a forced clamping mode. At this point, the output voltage of the damper is set by a user instead of process; accordingly, the DC voltage level is more controllable, but not subject to drift due to process changes or temperature changes.
US08212925B2
A sync separation circuit separates a synchronizing signal from a video signal containing the synchronizing signal. A minimum level detecting section detects a minimum level of a video signal. A sync tip level detecting section detects a sync tip level in the video signal. A pedestal level detecting section detects a pedestal level in the video signal. Based on both the sync tip level detected by the sync tip level detecting section and the pedestal level control by the pedestal level detecting section, a slice level setting section sets a slice level corresponding to an intermediate value between the sync tip level and the pedestal level. The slice level control section sets the slice level based on the minimum level detected by the minimum level detecting section if the slice level set based on the sync tip level and the pedestal level is inappropriate.
US08212923B2
SECAM line identification in an analog television includes an accumulator that accumulates a FM demodulated output corresponding to a color reference tone for each SECAM line; a first leakage average filter receiving a first result from the accumulator; a second leakage average filter receiving a second result from the accumulator; and a line decision block comparing the first result and the second result. An apparatus for soft-decision based PAL switch detection in an analog television includes a burst locked oscillator (BLO) receiving a composite video signal as input and producing an instantaneous PAL switch signal for each line; a leakage average filter receiving the PAL switch signal and filtering noise from an output received from the BLO; and a switch detection block receiving a filtered output from the leakage average filter, and making a decision based on a sign of the filtered output of the leakage average filter.
US08212915B1
A relay lens assembly (100) for use with a microscope (1400), telescope or binocular (1500), comprises a lens element (300) that is responsive to commands, conveyed from a control unit (400), via a conduit (410) between the control unit and the lens element. A computing device (810) controls operation of the lens assembly and a digital camera (805) that has an image sensor (125). The control unit causes the lens assembly to assume any of a plurality of predetermined focal lengths so that different depths of an object being imaged can be rendered in-focus on the sensor. A series of images can be taken at predetermined, computer-controlled focal depths. These images can be processed in order to create a photomontage that is in focus at a plurality of predetermined depths in a process commonly called focus-stacking. The addition of a plurality of data input and analysis units (1105) and a combiner (1115) makes rapid processing of individual images possible for photomontage at video rates.
US08212893B2
A digital imaging system is described that provides techniques for reducing the amount of processing power required by a given digital camera device and for reducing the bandwidth required for transmitting image information to a target platform. The system defers and/or distributes the processing between the digital imager (i.e., digital camera itself) and the target platform that the digital imager will ultimately be connected to. In this manner, the system is able to decrease the actual computation that occurs at the digital imager. Instead, the system only performs a partial computation at the digital imager device and completes the computation somewhere else, such as at a target computing device (e.g., desktop computer) where time and size are not an issue (relative to the imager). By deferring resource-intensive computations, the present invention substantially reduces the processor requirements and concomitant battery requirements for digital cameras. Further, by adopting an image strategy optimized for compression (compressed luminosity record), the present invention decreases the bandwidth requirements for transmitting images, thereby facilitating the wireless transmission of digital camera images.
US08212889B2
The invention concerns a method for activating a function by using a measurement taken from at least one digital image (10) having at least two colors (195, 196) and originating from an image-capturing apparatus, the method including measuring the relative sharpness (190) between at least two colors in at least one region R of the image, and Controlling at least one action (191) depending on the measured relative sharpness.
US08212877B2
Visible light image capturing is performed at appropriate timing that corresponds to the action of a subject. An image capturing system includes: an infrared light image capturing section that successively captures a plurality of infrared light images of a subject, using infrared light; a timing predicting section that predicts timing at which the subject included in the plurality of infrared light images matches a predetermined condition, based on timing at which each of the plurality of infrared light images is captured and image content of the plurality of infrared light images; and a visible light image capturing section that captures a visible light image by using visible light at the timing predicted by the timing predicting section.
US08212863B2
A signal output board includes: a drive signal generation section configured to generate a drive signal for a CCD; an inverse signal generation section configured to generate an inverse signal by inverting a phase of the drive signal from the drive signal generation section; a first signal transmission line portion configured to transmit the drive signal from the drive signal generation section; a second signal transmission line portion configured to transmit the inverse signal from the inverse signal generation section, at least part of the second signal transmission line portion being arranged in parallel to and adjacent to the first signal transmission line portion; an output end portion configured to output the drive signal transmitted by the first signal transmission line portion, to the outside; and an equivalent load section including a load equivalent to a transmission path for the drive signal from the output end portion to the electronic device, the equivalent load section being connected to an end portion of the second signal transmission line portion.
US08212858B2
Stereoscopic device including an image directing assembly, an image differentiator and an image detector, the image directing assembly having a first light inlet for receiving a first image and a second light inlet for receiving a second image, the first light inlet being spaced apart from the second light inlet, the image differentiator differentiating between the first image and the second image, wherein the image directing assembly directs the first image to the image detector via a common path, and wherein the image directing assembly directs the second image to the image detector via the common path.
US08212856B2
Methods, media, and devices for providing visual resources of video conference participants are provided. In some embodiments, methods for providing a visual resource of a participant to a video conference comprise: determining that the participant is joining or departing the video conference; accessing a visual resource that identifies the participant; and presenting the visual resource to at least one other participant to the video conference.
US08212850B2
A recording apparatus including a printing unit that contacts or separates a thermal head with or from a platen using the driving force of a UD motor, one or more sheet feed units that include sheet feed rollers which are rotated forward or backward by the driving force of an LF motor transmitted through a transport gear group and pressure rollers which are supported between a pair of roller supporting members and are urged by elastic members to come into pressure contact with the sheet feed rollers, and are provided on an upstream side and a downstream side of the printing unit in a transport path of a recording sheet, a pressure release mechanism including a cam shaft that is rotatably provided so as to tilt the pair of roller supporting members of the sheet feed units against the urging force of the elastic members and separates the pressure rollers from the sheet feed rollers, and a pressure release gear group that transmits the driving force of the LF motor to the cam shaft of the pressure release mechanism, the driving force of the LF motor being transmitted to the pressure release gear group and the transport gear group.
US08212848B2
A method for printing a stereograph includes manufacturing a lenticular lens structure on a surface of a protecting region of a ribbon wherein the ribbon includes a plurality of dye regions and the protecting region, receiving a target image data, conveying a print medium, transferring the plurality of dye regions of the ribbon onto the print medium respectively according to the target image data when conveying the print medium, and transferring the protecting region of the ribbon onto the print medium after transferring the plurality of dye regions of the ribbon onto the print medium.
US08212844B2
A method and a device for encoding the video level of a pixel of a picture into a subfield code word in a display device using a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) technology and subfields for displaying video picture. The bits of the subfield code word are computed recursively one after the other from the bit having the most significant weight to the bit having the least significant weight. In determining the state of a bit of the subfield code word, a first threshold and a second threshold is associated with the bit, the second threshold being greater than the first threshold, and the video level to be encoded by this bit and its following bits in the subfield code word are compared to the first and second thresholds. A state is allocated to the bit based on the comparison.
US08212839B2
In an image creating device (201) for creating an image viewably showing the distribution of environment parameters in a virtual space, a parameter acquiring unit (202) acquires environment parameters at a predetermined plurality of places in a virtual space, and an image creating unit (203) creates an image based on the acquired environment parameter. The image creating unit (203) creates, for each of the predetermined plurality of places in the virtual space, an image showing a graphic drawn at a position within the image, the position being associated with the place and associated with the environment at the place.
US08212838B2
A system and method for improved antialiasing in video processing is described herein. Embodiments include multiple video processors (VPUs) in a system. Each VPU performs some combination of pixel sampling and pixel center sampling (also referred to as multisampling and supersampling). Each VPU performs sampling on the same pixels or pixel centers, but each VPU creates samples positioned differently from the other VPUs corresponding samples. The VPUs each output frame data that has been multisampled and/or supersampled into a compositor that composites the frame data to produce an antialiased rendered frame. The antialiased rendered frame has an effectively doubled antialiasing factor.
US08212831B1
A system and method for remapping and redirecting accesses to a memory space shared between graphics devices permits a single device driver to interface between an application program and multiple graphics devices. Each graphics device provides configuration information to the BIOS (basic input/output system), particularly memory space requirements for prefetchable and non-prefetchable memory spaces. A memory space allocation for the graphics devices is determined based on the configuration information. A switch device, interfacing between a host processor and each graphics device, is programmed to redirect accesses to a portion of the allocated memory space to only one of the graphics devices. Accesses to another portion of the allocated memory space may be remapped to all of the graphics devices or a subset of the graphics devices.
US08212827B2
Mode conversion methods and display apparatuses thereof are provided. The method converts to a second mode in which the display apparatus displays an image inputted from a second source, if there is no input of an image signal from a first source during the display apparatus operates in a first mode in which the display apparatus displays the image inputted from the first source. According to the present invention, it is possible to convert a mode automatically based on the external input status. A user may be provided two modes conveniently using the conversion method.
US08212819B2
When a list of file names is to be displayed on a display device, a comparison is made between a necessary display width of each of the file names and a width of a display area of the display device. For each of the file names having a necessary display width greater than the width of the display area, it is checked whether the file name contains a particular character string portion of a predetermined type, and, if so, the file name is displayed in the list in a partly-omitted display style where a leading end portion, particular character string portion and extension of the file name are left in the list with the other part of the character string omitted. The particular character string portion can function as an important element for identifying the data item in question.
US08212815B2
A drawing apparatus has dividing unit for dividing a rectangle frame circumscribing a triangle displayed on a display screen into a plurality of rectangle segments. A determining unit sequentially determines whether each rectangle segment included in the rectangle frame overlaps the triangle in a predetermined direction and outputs a determination result of overlap or nonoverlap. The sequential determination of overlap or nonoverlap is stopped in the predetermined direction, if a determination result output from the determining unit changes from the overlap to the nonoverlap. A drawing process is performed on the rectangle segment determined to overlap the triangle.
US08212805B1
A system and method for the aesthetic design of a modular assemblage, comprising means for providing a client graphic user interface for receiving an input for defining parameters of the modular assemblage, and for presenting an image of the defined modular assemblage; communicating a code to a server representing the defined parameters; at the server, in dependence on the communicated code, defining a set of graphic elements corresponding to the defined modular assemblage; communicating the graphic elements from the server to the client; and displaying, at the client, the graphic elements received from the server to represent the defined modular assemblage.
US08212804B2
An integrated circuit for controlling a display module and a first circuit module with a shared pin includes: a shared pin, a display control module, a first control module, and a pin-sharing management module. The display control module is for controlling operations of the display module, wherein the display module is externally coupled to the integrated circuit via the shared pin. The display control module generates a pin-sharing control signal according to its operating status. The first control module is for controlling operations of the first circuit module, wherein the first circuit module is externally coupled to the integrated circuit via the shared pin. The pin-sharing management module is coupled to the display control module, the first control module and the shared pin and grants one of the display and first control modules access to the shared pin according to the pin-sharing control signal.
US08212801B2
The present invention provides a display device which is used in a miniaturized portable information device, wherein the display device requires a small mounting area for a driving circuit thus realizing free mounting of the driving circuit and also can perform driving thereof with a low-voltage power source such as a battery. In a display device which includes a display panel and a driving circuit on the same substrate, a booster circuit is formed on one side of a display panel together with the driving circuit and is formed by steps substantially equal to steps for pixel transistors. The booster circuit includes a circuit which compensates for the lowering of voltage of a switching element used in the booster circuit attributed to a threshold value of a switching element.
US08212794B2
A user input device includes an optical element comprising a finger interface surface, a light source in optical communication with the finger interface surface and configured to provide light from the light source to the finger interface surface, a sensor array configured to detect light reflected from the finger interface surface in response to contact between a finger and the finger interface surface, a navigation engine coupled to the sensor array, the navigation engine configured to generate lateral movement information, which is indicative of lateral movement of the finger relative to the sensor array, in response to the detected light, wherein the lateral movement information comprises first and second orthogonal components, and a quantization engine coupled to the navigation engine, the quantization engine configured to compare the first orthogonal component to the second orthogonal component and to generate first and second quantized orthogonal components in response to the comparison.
US08212792B2
A cover sheet assembly is provided for a touchscreen system. The cover sheet assembly includes an insulating layer having a surface configured to be disposed over an electrically conductive area of a substrate of the touchscreen system. An electrically conductive material is disposed on at least a portion of the insulating layer surface. The electrically conductive material includes a plurality of microscopic linear conductive elements arranged in a pattern that is oriented with respect to a first direction of a first polarization of light such that the electrically conductive material is more transparent to the first polarization of light than to a second polarization of light that is polarized in a second direction that is perpendicular to the first direction.
US08212789B2
A portable electronic apparatus whose keyboard and display are switchable is provided. The apparatus comprises a main part and a detachable part that can be assembled to the main part. The main part includes a first display, a keyboard interface, and a display interface. One face of the detachable part is a keyboard, and an opposite face of the detachable part is a second display. The detachable part includes a display plug and a keyboard plug. When the keyboard plug of the detachable part is plugged into the keyboard interface of the main part the keyboard is enable to use. When the display plug of the detachable part is plugged into the display interface of the main part, the second display is enabled to use.
US08212781B2
An electronic device includes a bezel feature, a connector and a processor. The bezel feature is rotatable amongst a plurality of positions on an arc length that defines a path of motion for the bezel feature. The plurality of positions are distributed along the entire arc length of the path of motion. An interface or connector couples the bezel feature to the processor of the electronic device.
US08212775B2
A computer input apparatus is disclosed which has improved safety control. Computer input devices with coherent light sources are popular. However, coherent light sources may cause serious and unrecoverable injuries to human eyes. Accordingly, there are several safety specifications defined by manufacturers and governments. Therefore, an improved device is disclosed that includes a calibration circuit and a fault detection circuit to control the operation current of a coherent light source to be within the safety specifications range, and to monitor for fault conditions. Furthermore, a computer input apparatus with coherent light source can be operated without the traditional optical lens.
US08212770B2
A joystick assembly that provides enhanced operator control and stability during rough operation by being primarily rotatable about a vertical axis of a clockspring. The joystick assembly also includes a palm support that is associated with the clockspring via a clamp in the lower housing of the palm support. Further, the joystick assembly has an interface device that includes at least one input device that is conveniently actuated by an operator's thumb.
US08212766B2
The embodiments provide a backlight unit including a bottom cover, a plurality of light emitting device assembly each having a light emitting device module including at least one light emitting device, the light emitting device assembly arranged on the bottom cover adjacent to one another, a power supply unit for supplying power to the light emitting device module in each of the light emitting device assembly, and a control unit for controlling the power supply unit such that, of the light emitting device modules of the light emitting device assembly, intensity of current supplied to a light emission device positioned at an edge region of each of the light emitting device assembly is different from the intensity of current supplied to the light emission device positioned at a middle region of each of the light emitting device assembly.
US08212764B2
In one embodiment, a driving method for a liquid crystal display device having a backlight is provided. Input digital video data is analyzed and an adaptive brightness control signal is generated based on a brightness analysis of the input digital video data. An external brightness control signal is received via a user interface. A plurality of brightness control voltages is generated based on the adaptive brightness control signal. The plurality of brightness control voltages represents different brightness levels. One of the brightness control voltages is selected in response to the external brightness control signal. The backlight operates according to the selected brightness control voltage.
US08212760B2
A liquid crystal display (LCD) with a driver IC and an LCD panel having source and gate lines. A gate driver is disposed in the LCD panel for sequentially supplying scan signals to the gate lines of the panel. A source driver in the driver IC converts pixel data into an analog source signal and supplies the signal to the source lines. A lookup table is stored with a mapping of possible luminance values for pixels of the LCD panel onto at least one luminance control parameter. The source driver converts the pixel data so that a voltage of the analog source signal increases during a gate scan period depending on the luminance control parameter in such a way that at the end of the gate scan period a voltage at a corresponding pixel electrode is equal to an analog value corresponding to the pixel data.
US08212756B2
In a display panel driving apparatus which generates, based on an input gray scale, a gray scale of a first sub-frame and a gray scale of a second sub-frame so as to display the input gray scale as a result of a summation of respective display corresponding to the first sub-frame and the second sub-frame into which one frame is divided, and the gray scale of the second sub-frame being greater than the gray scale of the first sub-frame, for a response in which (i) the input gray scale of a subsequent frame is greater than an input gray scale of a previous frame and (ii) the input gray scale of the subsequent frame is not less than a first threshold gray scale, a gray scale of the first sub-frame in the subsequent frame is set not more than a second threshold gray scale, regardless of input gray scale of the subsequent frame. Thus, it is possible to reduce jaggy in an edge of a moving image in time-division driving.
US08212743B2
An image display apparatus which is capable of optimizing the image quality of a plurality of display devices having different optical characteristics when carrying out processing of an image signal supplied to the display devices, without providing a dedicated display driving circuit for each display device. The image display apparatus comprises a plurality of liquid crystal display panels (10, 11) having different optical characteristics. A liquid crystal driving circuit (2) processes an image signal outputted to the liquid crystal display panels (10, 11). Operative states of the liquid crystal display panels (10, 11) are detected. At least one processing characteristic of the liquid crystal driving circuit (2) is changed according to the detected operative states.
US08212741B2
A dual display device for displaying an input image includes first and second displays. The first display is arranged for modulating an image from the second display. The dual display device further includes a processor having an image splitter which splits the input image into illumination and reflection images according to a retinex algorithm. The reflection image is displayed on the first display and the illumination image is displayed on the second display. Due to the series arrangement of the two displays, the input image is substantially recreated. The illumination image typically is a spatially low-resolution image derived from the input image.
US08212734B1
An antenna system comprises a first reflector and a second reflector including one or more radiating elements disposed on a side of the second reflector facing the first reflector. The one or more radiating elements are configured to illuminate the first reflector. The antenna system further comprises a dual reflector feed configured to illuminate the second reflector. The antenna system may further include a beamforming network configured to feed the radiating elements, and to provide amplitude weighting and/or phase control to the antenna system.
US08212727B2
An antenna and a wireless transceiver are provided. The antenna includes: a substrate having first and second surfaces with circuits thereon; and two shield boxes located on the first and second surfaces for covering the circuits thereon. The shield boxes each comprise an antenna section and a shield section. The antenna sections are disposed at one side of the shield section and aligned with a margin of the substrate, and include signal ends electrically connected to the circuits and grounding ends electrically connected to the shield sections. The first antenna section is disposed on a diagonal opposite of the second antenna section flush with substrate margin or aligned with the substrate margin, thereby maximizing the distance between the two antennas disposed on the substrate, and preventing the two antennas from electromagnetic interference. The antennas are disposed on sides of the shield sections flush with substrate margins and thereby are space-saving.
US08212717B2
A detection system and method. The inventive system includes an arrangement for receiving a frame of image data; an arrangement for performing a variance calculation with respect to at least one pixel in the frame of image data; and an arrangement for comparing the calculated variance with a predetermined threshold to provide output data. In the illustrative embodiment, the frame of image data includes a range/Doppler matrix of N down range samples and M cross range samples. In this embodiment, the arrangement for performing a variance calculation includes an arrangement for calculating a variance over an N×M window within the range/Doppler matrix. The arrangement for performing a variance calculation includes an arrangement for identifying a change in a standard deviation of a small, localized sampling of cells. In accordance with the invention, the arrangement for performing a variance calculation outputs a variance pixel map.
US08212704B2
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to floating point timers and counters that are used in a variety of contexts. In some implementations, a floating point counter can be used to generate a wave form made up of a series of pulses with different pulse lengths. An array of these floating point counters can be used to implement a pool of delays. In other implementations, an array of floating point counters can be used to analyze waveforms on a number of different communication channels. Analysis of such waveforms may be useful in automotive applications, such as in wheel speed measurement for example, as well as other applications.
US08212696B2
A context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) decoding device and a coding method thereof are provided. The device comprises: a context memory address calculator, calculating an address identifying a memory location in a context model memory for storage of a context model in next cycle; a mixed context memory, in which the context model of the context memory address calculator is stored and from which the context model is read; a two-bin context adaptive binary arithmetic decoder, outputting several parameters for updating the range and offset of the context model, based on the context model of the mixed context memory and deciding several bins; and a binary syntax element comparator, judging whether a current binary sequence corresponds to the value of syntax elements, based on the bins so as to select a correct memory address.
US08212693B2
A method, medium, and apparatus hierarchically coding/decoding audio data, such as bit sliced arithmetic coding (BSAC), such that payloads of audio data and extension data can be grouped and interleaved according to priority so that some groups of the payloads are dropped, and the remainder of groups are transmitted. Therefore, extension data that is more important than a top layer of audio data, in terms of reproducing of original sounds, can be transmitted with priority.
US08212691B2
A method for controlling location-based services for a vehicle that includes establishing a user-selected location-based service preference for a vehicle, linking a portable privacy key to the vehicle, communicating the presence of the portable privacy key from the vehicle to a call center, sending the user-selected location-based service preference from the call center to the vehicle, and activating at least one location-based service in response to linking of the portable privacy key to the vehicle.
US08212684B2
An electrometer for use in measuring current is provided. The electrometer includes an enclosure capable of containing various components of the electrometer. A pre-amplifier is present and is one of the components of the electrometer. The pre-amplifier is contained by the enclosure. The pre-amplifier has a pre-amplifier enclosure that contains the pre-amplifier and provides radio frequency shielding and magnetic shielding to the pre-amplifier.
US08212680B2
Methods and systems of tagging objects and reading tags coupled to objects. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are systems comprising a reading antenna, a tag reader coupled to the reading antenna, and a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag comprising a tag antenna electromagnetically coupled to the reading antenna. The RFID tag couples to an object such as the body of a living organism or a metallic article. Moreover, the tag antenna has a far-field radiation pattern in a direction away from the object that is substantially unaffected by proximity of the RFID tag to the object, and substantially unaffected by which surface of the RFID tag faces the object.
US08212672B2
The invention relates to a device (1) for protecting articles (2), especially displayed goods, from theft. Said device comprises a sensor, connected to a control and alarm device (4) for triggering an alarm when the sensor (3) responds, and to be secured to the article (2) to be protected. The device (1) also comprises a device for detecting if a person gets closer to the displayed article (2) or when the article (2) is removed but not taken. For this purpose, a sensor (7) responds when a person gets closer or when the article (2) is removed and is control-connected to the control and alarm device (4). The control and alarm device (4) is connected to a product information device (13) for presenting the displayed article (2).
US08212667B2
Embodiments of the present invention are generally directed to automotive diagnostic data monitoring systems and methods. An exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides an automotive diagnostic data monitoring system comprising an automotive transceiver integrated with a vehicle diagnostics data bus, a first local transceiver, and a gateway connected to a wide area network. The automotive transceiver can be configured to transmit and receive information to and from the first local transceiver. The first local transceiver can be configured to transmit and receive information to and from the gateway. The automotive transceiver can be located about an automobile. The vehicle diagnostic data bus can contain diagnostic information related to an automobile. Other aspects, features, and embodiments are also claimed and described.
US08212664B2
A data communication device includes: an antenna resonance circuit; a detection circuit; an arithmetic processing device; and a first switch. The antenna resonance circuit receives a signal in the ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying) format. The detection circuit demodulates a digital baseband signal based on the reception signal. The arithmetic processing device detects an appearance time of an edge in the demodulated digital baseband signal based on a preamble part of the reception signal. The first switch short-circuits both end of the antenna resonance circuit at first timing in synchronization with the appearance time of the edge.
US08212657B2
A vibrating device for portable electronic device includes a frame, a main circuit board, a motor and a secondary circuit board. The frame defines a recess and a receiving hole. The main circuit board is fixed in the recess of the frame. The motor is fixed in the receiving hole of the frame. The secondary circuit board electronically connects the main circuit board and the motor.
US08212652B2
A biometric authentication system 10 includes an IC card 100 including a reading unit 110 sending generation information back to a terminal and a writing unit 111 writing biometric information in a storage area indicated in a write instruction, and a terminal 200 including a card generation acquisition unit 210 receiving from the IC card the generation information, a device generation acquisition unit 211 receiving from a biometric authentication device the generation information, a biometric information acquisition unit 212 receiving biometric information from the biometric authentication device 300, a first write instruction unit 213 identifying a storage area of the same generation as the generation of the biometric authentication device and transmitting a write instruction of the biometric information to the IC card, and a second write instruction unit 214 transmitting a write instruction for a storage area of the oldest generation to the IC card.
US08212650B2
A self-configuring wearable electronic data and communication device comprising a self-contained module comprising means for self-configuring based on a user's activity and context an operational mode in a plurality of operational modes, wherein the self contained module further comprises intelligent situational awareness derived from at least one of pre-programmed criteria, a sensing ability, a user-specified lifestyle theme, a communication functionality, an accessory, and a user motion pattern. The self-contained module further comprises a display, a processor, a memory, and a battery, and is capable of configuring itself according to an accessory to which it is attached or connected.
US08212648B2
A variable attenuator, including at least a one-stage attenuator circuit, including at least a signal input end, a signal output end, a common grounded end, a first serial resistor, a first parallel resistor, a first parallel switch, and a first serial switch. The first serial resistor is disposed between the signal input and the signal output end. The signal input end, the signal output end, and the first serial resistor form a main signal circuit. The first parallel resistor is connected between the main signal circuit and the common grounded end. The first parallel switch is connected in parallel with the first serial resistor, and the first serial switch is connected in series with the first parallel resistor. During operation of the variable attenuator, as the parallel switch is switched on to eliminate attenuation, the serial switch is switched off. This prevents the parallel resistor from affecting the main signal circuit and ensures stable attenuation with a higher degree of precision and a wider frequency range.
US08212647B2
The present invention relates to a device having at least one PCT resistor and having at least one AC voltage source connected to the PTC resistor, with the PTC resistor being dimensioned such that the voltage drop over the PTC resistor does not exceed the value of 40 V/mm.
US08212645B2
A method for producing a transformer core with layers of core laminations includes forming at least one core lamination of at least two segmental laminations. An end region of a first segmental lamination has a straight crosscut edge. The straight crosscut edge of the first segmental lamination together with a corresponding straight crosscut edge of an end region of a second segmental lamination forms a form-locking straight abutting edge. The straight abutting edge is at an angle relative to the longitudinal direction of the end region of one of the segmental laminations of the first core lamination. Using core laminations having different angular orientations of the abutting edges, avoids magnetic losses such as those occurring when using conventional layering techniques. Simultaneously, an intermediate space created by conventional layering techniques between individual core lamination packs can be minimized, and thereby susceptibility to corrosion can likewise be reduced or completely avoided.
US08212644B2
The present invention relates to a transformer assembly (1) and a process for manufacturing same. The transformer (1) comprises a primary winding (5) wound on a PCB (9) and a secondary winding (7) mounted adjacent to the primary winding. The primary winding comprises a spiral coil, for example of wire or insulated wire, wound on the PCB. Gate drive windings (31, 33) are incorporated in the PCB (9) and there is therefore very close coupling between the primary winding and the gate drive windings. Furthermore, the secondary winding (7) is a center-tapped secondary having two halves. A flux balance winding (13) is provided to connect the two halves of the center-tapped secondary winding (7) and minimize leakage inductance thereby reducing power loss and spiking effects and obviating the need for complex control arrangements.
US08212640B1
A magnetically driven tool includes a shaft having a bottom application end including a contacting surface, at least one support around a portion of the shaft for supporting components positioned outside the shaft that float with respect to the shaft. A first magnet is affixed to the shaft. An electromagnet secured to the support is positioned outside the shaft and floats with respect to the shaft above the first magnet. At least one bearing is provided for sliding the shaft in an axial direction and optionally rotating the shaft. For pushing operations, the direction of current through the electromagnet is applied so that like poles relative to the first magnet face one another to provide a repulsive force, while for pulling operations unlike poles face one another. The magnitude of the current sets a force applied by the contacting surface to a workpiece.
US08212634B2
An on-chip vertical coplanar waveguide with tunable characteristic impedance, a design structure, and a method of making the same. An on-chip transmission line includes a signal line, an upper ground line spaced apart from and above the signal line, and a lower ground line spaced apart from and below the signal line. The signal line, the upper ground line and the lower ground line are substantially vertically aligned in a dielectric material.
US08212608B2
A circuit for providing a reference voltage can be widely used in audio applications. However, at startup an abrupt start in the reference signal can cause undesirable audible artifacts. A circuit employing feedback of a reference voltage to control the charging of a capacitor which provides the reference voltage can be used to provide a smooth startup to the reference voltage. The circuit contains a differential pair for steering a fixed current source from one path to another as the reference voltage increases. The steered current can then be mirrored into one or more current mirrors where the newly mirrored current can be squeezed to zero when the difference between a desired reference voltage and the reference voltage approaches zero. This newly mirrored current can be used to charge a capacitor which is used to provide the reference voltage.
US08212604B2
An analog T switch is disclosed which has high isolation in the off state. The analog T switch can include series-connected NMOS transistors having separate gate control. The gates of the NMOS transistors can be isolated from one another to improve off state isolation of the analog T switch. The analog switch can include series-connected PMOS transistors having separate gate control. The gates of the PMOS transistors can be isolated from one another to improve off state isolation of the analog T switch. The analog T switch can include a substrate voltage control circuit that controls the voltage of the substrate regions in which the PMOS transistors are formed. The substrate voltage control circuit can isolate the substrate regions of the PMOS transistors from one another in the off state to improve off state isolation of the analog T switch.
US08212602B2
A system and method for signal mixing using high-order harmonics of a local oscillation (LO) signal. In a radio frequency (RF) system, the input RF signal is converted to a lower frequency signal such as an intermediate frequency (IF) signal or a baseband signal for further processing. A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is often used to generate a VCO signal which is then divided down to provide the needed LO signals for down conversion. The present invention discloses a system and method for generating a composite harmonic signal based on a linear combination of divided down LO signals with specific phase shifts. Consequently a VCO signal with lower frequency can be used to conserve power. The composite harmonic signal is mixed with the input RF signal to generate a series of mixed signal including one associated with a high-order harmonic of the divided down LO signal. Systems to implement the high order harmonic mixing is also disclosed which comprises a plurality of mixer sections with configurable weighting factors. A combination circuit is used to combine the weighted mixed signals which contains a term corresponding the mixing of the input RF signal with a high order LO harmonic.
US08212592B2
Techniques for generating quadrature signals from a local oscillator signal, wherein the generated quadrature signals have a frequency half of the local oscillator frequency. In an exemplary embodiment, two oscillators, e.g., injection locked oscillators, are provided, each oscillator having a load, a cross-coupled transistor pair, an integrating capacitor, and current injection transistors. A differential pair is coupled to the leads of each of the integrating capacitors, and the drains of the differential pair are coupled to the outputs of the other oscillator to help increase the slew rate of the output voltages of the other oscillator. The inputs to the differential pair may be first amplified to improve the gain of the differential pair. In another exemplary embodiment, the power consumption of the differential pair may be reduced by operating them in a discontinuous mode, e.g., by coupling the source voltages of the differential pair to corresponding delayed versions of the drain voltages.
US08212587B2
A redriver chip is inserted between a transmitter chip and a receiver chip and re-drives differential signals from the transmitter chip to the receiver chip. The redriver chip has switched output termination that switches to a high value to detect far-end termination at the receiver chip, and to a low value for signaling. An output detector detects when the receiver chip has termination to ground and enables switched input termination to provide termination to ground on the lines back to the transmitter chip so that the far-end termination on the receiver chip is mirrored back to the transmitter chip, hiding the redriver chip. An input signal detector detects when the transmitter chip begins signaling and enables an equalizer, limiter, pre-driver, and output stage to re-drive the signals to the receiver chip. The input signal detector also causes the switched output termination to switch to the low value termination for signaling.
US08212579B2
A fixing apparatus for fixing a probe card to a holder includes a screw fixed to the holder and binding the probe card onto the holder in a vertical direction, a first bearing member intervening between a head of the screw and the probe card and allowing expansion and contraction of the probe card with respect to the screw in a horizontal direction, and a second bearing member intervening between the probe card and the holder and allowing expansion and contraction of the probe card with respect to the holder in the horizontal direction.
US08212572B2
Provided for in some embodiments is, a method of electromagnetic compatibility multi-carrier immunity testing. The method includes generating a first carrier frequency set including a first plurality of carrier frequencies simultaneously such that a device under test is subjected to the first plurality of carrier frequencies simultaneously. One or more of the first plurality of carrier frequencies is substantially different from other ones of the first plurality of carrier frequencies such that the first plurality of carrier frequencies do not interfere with one another when they are generated simultaneously, and intermodulation products of the first plurality of carrier frequencies are not significant relative to the first plurality of carrier frequencies when the first plurality of carrier frequencies are generated simultaneously.
US08212568B2
An apparatus and method for minimizing the effects of a common mode voltage signal in downhole logging tools utilized to determine the resistivity of an adjacent portion of a borehole wall. Two current electrodes are energized by an excitation source to create an oscillatory electric field in a borehole wall. A voltage drop across a segment of the borehole wall is measured by two voltage electrodes, and the differential voltage is used in combination with a measured current flow to determine a resistivity value for the borehole wall. A common mode voltage in front of the two voltage electrodes is measured and minimized by controlling the excitation source, thereby reducing the resistivity measurement error.
US08212566B2
A sensor for sensing an angular position of an instrument relative to a static magnetic field includes a flexible beam, an electromagnetic device, and a measuring device. The beam at one end may be coupled to the instrument, and lies along a sensor axis when the beam is in a non -flexed state. The electromagnetic device is coupled to the beam and is configured for generating a magnetic sensor field aligned with the sensor axis. The measuring device communicates with the beam and is configured for measuring a property of the beam related to an amount of flexure of the beam. The sensor may be utilized to set the instrument at a desired angle prior to operating the instrument, and to determine whether the instrument has deviated from the desired angle during operation. The instrument may include a probe spinning module such as may be utilized in magnetic resonance experiments.
US08212561B2
Referenceless techniques for flow imaging are described that exploit a refocusing property of balanced steady state free precession (“SSFP”) magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”), and achieve up to approximately a 50% reduction in total scan time. With the echo time set to one half of the sequence repetition time (TE=TR/2), non-flow-related image phase tends to vary smoothly across the field-of-view, and can be estimated from static tissue regions to produce a phase reference for nearby voxels containing flowing blood. These approaches produce accurate in vivo one-dimensional velocity estimates in half the scan time compared with conventional balanced SSFP phase-contrast methods. The feasibility of referenceless time-resolved 3D flow imaging (called “7D” flow) is demonstrated for a carotid bifurcation application from just three acquisitions. Related systems are also described. Other attributes such as blood acceleration can also be imaged with such techniques.
US08212560B2
This document discloses, among other things, a method for removing a bullseye artifact from a radial image generated using magnetic resonance and using a swept frequency pulse.
US08212547B2
An apparatus and method for measuring the duty cycle of a clock signal, the apparatus having a first multi-tap delay module, a second multi-tap delay module, and a multi-element detecting module, the input terminal of the first multi-tap delay module and the input terminal of the second multi-tap delay module coupled to an input node IN, the first multi-tap delay module receiving the clock signal and then providing it a first constant incremental delay at each tap, the second multi-tap delay module receiving the same clock signal CLK and then providing it a second constant incremental delay at each tap, and the multi-element detecting module determining the ratio of the number of outputs of the multi-element detecting module in which the sampled clock level is high with respect to the total number of steps covering one complete clock cycle.
US08212545B2
In order to realize a reference voltage circuit that operates with lower current consumption while maintaining an operation at lower voltage without causing deterioration of a power supply rejection ratio, provided is a reference voltage circuit in which a depletion transistor of an ED type reference voltage circuit is constituted of a plurality of depletion transistors connected in series, and in which a gate terminal of a cascode depletion transistor is connected to a connection point between the depletion transistors of the ED type reference voltage circuit.
US08212544B2
A semiconductor integrated circuit can include a reference voltage pad that can be configured to receive an external reference voltage and supply the external reference voltage to the inside of the semiconductor integrated circuit, an internal reference voltage generator that can be configured to generate an internal reference voltage by voltage dividing, a selector that can be configured to select and output one of the external reference voltage and the internal reference voltage in response to a selection signal, and a voltage trimming block that can be configured to regulate the level of the output voltage from the selector in response to trimming signals and outputs the level-regulated voltage as a reference voltage.
US08212542B2
Embodiments disclosed herein include a power monitor and controller which are used to control the operation of a voltage regulator depending on an operating mode or state of a load device, such as a hard disk drive. By controlling the voltage regulator in this manner, voltage regulator efficiency may be improved for any load condition, thus reducing power losses in the system.
US08212541B2
A converter circuit and related technique for providing high power density power conversion includes a reconfigurable switched capacitor transformation stage coupled to a magnetic converter (or regulation) stage. The circuits and techniques achieve high performance over a wide input voltage range or a wide output voltage range. The converter can be used, for example, to power logic devices in portable battery operated devices.
US08212534B2
Described is a method for starting up a system for generating electrical power. The system includes a turbine that is mechanically connected to a generator, while the generator is electrically connected via a converter to a load, in particular to a power supply grid. The generator includes a total number of windings. With at least one embodiment of the method, a number of generator windings are combined at low rotational speeds of the turbine, wherein the combined number of windings is less than the total number of windings.
US08212533B2
Systems and methods for charging a battery of a robot are provided. In one embodiment, a method includes providing a robot battery charging apparatus having a plurality of charging terminals, providing a robot having a plurality of battery terminals, and moving the robot into an engagement position with the robot battery charging apparatus such that the plurality of battery charging terminals contact the plurality of charging terminals. The method further includes detecting whether each battery terminal contacts the corresponding charging terminal in accordance with a first, second and third terminal contact condition. The method further includes providing power to the battery from the robot battery charging apparatus through one or more of the battery and charging terminals upon a verification that all of the battery terminals contacted the corresponding charging terminals in accordance with at least two of the first, second and third terminal contact conditions.
US08212523B2
A protection device for an assembled cell including battery modules connected in series includes protection units each of which is configured to operate using a corresponding battery module as a power supply and a management unit connected to the protection units in common, the protection unit includes a measuring unit configured to measure its own consumption current to obtain measurement data, a communication unit which transmits the measurement data to a management unit and receives setting data from the management unit, a discharging unit which discharges the corresponding battery module, and a control unit configured to control the discharging unit based on the measurement data and the setting data so that a total of the consumption current and a discharging current by the discharging unit is of a constant value among the protection units.
US08212511B2
A method (100) is provided for controlling torque of an electric motor (12) including the step (106) of supplying drive current to drive the electric motor. The speed of the electric motor is monitored (108) and from the monitored speed, it is determined (110) when the motor has reached a steady state condition. The supply current is turned off (118) if the monitored torque of the electric motor exceeds a predetermined value (114) after the electric motor has reached the steady state condition.
US08212509B2
The invention relates to a method for positional recognition of a rotor of an electronically commutated electric machine, in particular an electric motor, in which a zero crossover of a voltage induced in a coil section of the rotor or stator is used for positional recognition. According to the invention, to determine the zero crossover the coil section is briefly powered down. A rotor/stator is used, comprising at least two coil sections, one of which has a lower inductance relative to the other one, and preferably only the coil section with the lower inductance is used for the positional recognition.
US08212508B2
In a three phase BLDC motor the rotor position is monitored by detecting the zero crossing points of the induced back EMF signals BEMF_U, BEMF_V, BEMF_W in the phase windings U, V, W. As they are illustrated, the back EMF signals are substantially sinusoidal but they may in other situations be substantially trapezoidal. The three back EMF signals are 120° out of phase with each other. In order to accurately monitor the back EMF in a phase winding, the driving waveform for each phase U, V, W includes an undriven period P close to the expected zero crossing point. The period P can be a preset part of the driving waveform or can be an interruption of the normal driving waveform in response to suitable interrupt signals. In order to determine the zero crossing points of each back EMF signal, two (or more) samples of the back EMF are taken during the undriven period P and used to interpolate the back EMF signal to determine the zero crossing point.
US08212507B2
The present invention relates to a method and a control system for driving a three-strand brushless, electronically commutated electric motor (2), wherein a line AC voltage (UN) is rectified and fed via a slim DC link (8) with minimum DC link reactance as a DC link voltage (UZ) to an inverter (10) that can be driven to supply and commutate the electric motor (2). A pulsating DC voltage (UG) initially generated by rectifying the line AC voltage (UN) is dynamically increased with respect to its instantaneous values by a step-up chopper (18) in such a manner that the resulting DC link voltage (UZ) with a reduced ripple always lies above a defined limit voltage (U18/U1) over time. The control system consists of a network rectifier (6), a downstream slim DC link (8) with minimum DC link reactance and a controllable inverter (10) that can be supplied via the DC link and driven to commutate the electric motor (2). A step-up chopper (18) is integrated therein with a controller (20) designed in such a manner that, the pulsating DC voltage (UG) rectified by the network rectifier (6) is dynamically increased with respect to its instantaneous values in such a manner that the resulting DC link voltage (UZ) with a reduced ripple always lies above a defined limit voltage (U20/U1) over time. Stray inductances (Ls1-Ls3) of the motor winding heads present in the electric motor (2) are used as inductor (L) for the step-up chopper (18).
