US08214963B2
A mop includes a spinning device, a shank fixed to a first end of the spinning device, an operation rod having a first end connected to a second end of the spinning device, and a mop head connected to a second end of the operation rod. When a force is applied in a first direction making the operation rod and the spinning device move relatively in an axial direction, the mechanism in the spinning device drives the operation rod and the mop head to spin in the same direction simultaneously so as to generate a centrifugal force to remove the water from the mop head. When the force stops, the spring and the clutch structure in the spinning device make the operation rod back to the original position under a condition that the operation rod does not spin.
US08214939B2
A splash guard for installation on a washing basin having a faucet assembly mounted proximate an edge of said basin, said splash guard comprising a one piece, generally concave shell having a floor portion with one or more openings for water supply plumbing to said faucet assembly and an upwardly curved rear wall portion integral therewith for directing splashed material impinging thereon into said washing basin.
US08214937B2
A foot spa tub includes a tub basin, a first magnetic drive member rotatably coupled to a drive motor, and a first casing supporting the magnetic drive member. The first casing is disposed against an exterior surface of a sidewall of the basin. A second magnetic drive member is rotatably coupled to a blade. The first and second magnetic drive members are magnetically coupled to each other so that the blade is drivingly coupled to the drive motor. A nozzle houses the second magnetic drive member and the blade. The nozzle is detachably securable to an interior surface of the sidewall by a magnetic attraction force between the first and second magnetic drive members. A method of circulating liquid in a foot tub spa is also provided.
US08214934B2
The sink drain assembly (3-5) comprises a downwardly extending drain sleeve (3) integrally formed on the sink (1); a resilient, generally cylindrical mounting member (5) formed with an upper annular section (7) adapted to releasably engage the drain sleeve (3) and with a lower annular section (13) adapted to releasably receive an upper portion (12) of a garbage disposer (8,9); a clamp (14) removably attachable to the mounting member (5) in overlying relation to the upper (7) and lower (13) annular sections, and a strainer (64) having a radially outwardly extending gasket (63) adapted to establish a generally water tight seal between the strainer (64) and a splashguard (66) mounted on the upper portion (12) of the garbage disposer (8,9).
US08214927B1
Garments designed to be worn in conjunction with conventional chaps to protect the lower abdomen of the wearer and upper legs of a wearer are described herein. Also described are garments that replace conventional chaps.
US08214926B2
A garment adapted to be worn by a wearer. The garment includes a main body portion that is configured to be worn over at least a portion of the wearer's lumbo-pelvic region, hips and at least a portion of the legs, wherein the main body portion includes first and second leg portions that each define an axis. The garment also includes a strap system that includes a plurality of leg straps releasably affixed to the main body portion. Each of the leg straps includes at least one connector for affixing the leg strap to the main body portion. Each of the leg straps overlies a grip layer that is adapted to contact the wearer's skin when the garment is worn.
US08220068B2
Monolithic high aspect ratio nano-size scanning probe microscope (SPM) tip formed by nanowire growth
A scanning probe where the micromachined pyramid tip is extended by the growth of an epitaxial nanowire from the top portion of the tip is disclosed. A metallic particle, such as gold, may terminate the nanowire to realize an apertureless near-field optical microscope probe.
US08220063B2
In one aspect, the invention relates to generating a trusted communication channel with a client. An agent module is provided at the client along with a task set including one or more tasks. One or more client components needed to complete each of the tasks of the task set is determined, and it is further determined whether each of the needed client components is trustworthy. An equivalent component for components determined to be untrustworthy may be provided.
US08220061B2
Contents can be made public or private, when to be switched so, by designating a common file identifier before and after the switching. An information providing system reads a second file identifier related to a first file identifier, from a storage device (S25). The information providing system moves, in case it receives a request for making the contents public, the contents corresponding to the second file identifier read, to a public area, and moves, in case it receives a request for making the contents private, the same to a private area (S30). According to the stored place of the contents moved, the information providing system changes the second file identifier, and stores the same in the storage device in a correlation between the first file identifier received and the second file identifier changed (S35).
US08220057B2
A method of automatically controlling fraud in an electronic transaction system. When a user initiates a session in the electronic transaction system, an element is generated and stored in a database in association with information identifying the user. Each time during the session the user commands the execution of an operation, an equation is determined that is satisfied by the element stored in the database. When a sufficient given number of operations has been effected, the system of equations consisting of the equations determined as above is solved to deduce the element. By consulting the database, the corresponding information identifying the user is deduced from the element obtained in this way.
US08220056B2
In a threat management system and method for managed systems, leveraging of identifications and/or assessments of common threats, and/or valuation of assets which may be susceptible to common threats, can be applied to facilitate monitoring of customer compliance with policies needed to guard against threats to customer assets. Threat identification and response in managed systems may be tailored for different customers, in some instances without having to parse individual customer details, such as assets at risk and types of threats to those assets.
US08220055B1
A method includes decreasing a suspicion of a negative action by an application if the application has previously performed a positive action. The positive action is an action that is never or rarely taken by malicious code. In one example, the positive action is use of a user interface element by the application to have a user interaction with a user of the computer system. By taking into consideration the positive action by the application, the occurrence of false positives is minimized.
US08220048B2
A network intrusion detection system combines the normally sequential steps of protocol analysis, normalization, and signature matching through the use of a regular expression to speed the monitoring of network data. The regular expression also allows the creation of a superset matcher, permitting multiple stages of matching of increased accuracy to produce additional throughput gains.
US08220046B2
Embodiments of the present invention recite a method and system for implementing login protection and prevention to a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver. In one embodiment, a geospatial data collection device which is communicatively coupled with a GNSS receiver is authenticated. It is then determined that the geospatial data collection device is authorized to collect data from a geographic region in which the GNSS receiver is located. The geospatial data collection device is then permitted access to a control interface of the GNSS receiver.
US08220037B2
A method and apparatus for centrally managing operation of browsers on client devices within an organization or other collection of users. A central server promulgates a central browser policy for application by agents executing on the client devices. The agents may operate in real-time as a browser executes (e.g., as browser extensions) and/or when the browser is inactive (e.g., as separate processes). The agents apply the central policy to block, remove or modify browser objects as required by the policy (e.g., to protect privacy), archive browser objects on the central server, create objects regulated by the organization (e.g., for browser pre-caching), etc. Because the policy is centrally customized but locally executed, it can be implemented on mobile devices even when those devices are remote from the organization.
US08220035B1
A security component may be associated with a network-enabled application. The security component may initiate the display of an embedded region of a window drawn according to display information received from a relying party. The security component may define at least a portion of the appearance of the embedded region; the relying party may not define this portion. The embedded region may include customization information configured by a user, and “Card” information received from an assertion provider, indicating how to authenticate user credentials in order to gain access to relying party restricted content. The security component may request authentication of user credentials from the assertion provider, which may be trusted by the relying party. The security component may receive an assertion token from the assertion provider indicating the credentials are authentic. The security component may forward the assertion token to the relying party to gain access to the restricted content.
US08220030B2
A system of security for global computer transactions that provides a reverse-authentication authority system that enables a client to authenticate the server to the client first before the user of a client proceed to enter their user id and password or other personal data in the web page to assure them that the web page did indeed originate from the secure web server and not from an imposter. The system uses an authentication code that is given to the client user when they call a reverse-authentication server by an out-of-band method such as a telephone network, different than the global network and which then appears in the part of the web page for them to visually see and compare the one they have received in the telephone call to the server.
US08220022B1
A system, method and various user interfaces facilitate traversing multiple groups of video recommendations. A group of video recommendations includes a central video, an indicator of video of interest corresponding to the central video, and a set of related videos displayed at its corresponding display distance from the central video and from each other. The corresponding display distance of a video is calculated as a function of the video's recommendation score and correlation with other videos of the group. Responsive to selection of new central video, a new group of video recommendations is generated and displayed in coordination of the existing groups of video recommendations, where the plurality of central videos are visually connected. Visually presenting recommended videos responsive to user selections of videos of interest provides a quick and intuitive way for user to traverse videos of interest and visualize the browsing of the recommended videos.
US08220020B2
Systems and methods for enhanced navigation of streaming video are disclosed. An exemplary method involves receiving a video as it is streamed from a server over a computer network. A first user request is received to display a first navigation video strip on the display device. The first navigation video strip includes a first plurality of video frames from the video. In response to the first user request, first instructions are obtained for displaying the first navigation video strip. The first navigation video strip is then displayed on the display device in accordance with the first instructions.
US08220019B2
A remote advertising system and method are provided. The advertising media (such as video, pictures, audio and text) may be stored on computer servers. The advertising media is downloaded to one or more kiosks at scheduled intervals and displayed on a rotating schedule. Users may interact with the advertisement to request additional information relating to the advertisement to be displayed, purchase the advertised products and services, or print out tickets, coupons or the like for related or unrelated products and services.
US08220009B2
A protection device of a slot-in optical disk drive is provided. The protection device is disposed between two linking parts of the slot-in optical disk drive. One of the two linking parts is formed with a slot, and the other one of the two linking parts is connected to an upper end of a guide pin. A lower end of the guide pin protrudes and is inserted into the slot, and a portion of the guide pin corresponding to a side of the slot is formed with a notch. As the notch engages with the slot, the situation that the guide pin slides out of the slot can be avoided.
US08220007B1
Systems and methods which facilitate extension of software applications, without changing the software application binary code, through use of a data channel architecture are shown. According to embodiments, a robust bi-directional data channel is implemented within the software application allowing interaction with external code to provide extension of the software application to include one or more new and/or modified feature. Embodiments adapt a software application for loading of a trigger and an extension library for interfacing a feature module with the software application. The trigger may comprise a small piece of code, such as in a scripting language, adapted to be embedded in the software application at runtime which directs processing to a corresponding extension library. The extension library may comprise a command set, such as a scripting language dynamic link library or bundle, used for implementing a robust bidirectional protocol between the software application and external code.
US08219996B1
A computer processor includes a fairness monitor for monitoring allocations of a processor resource to requestors. If unfairness is determined, a resource allocator is biased to offset said unfairness.
US08219989B2
Dedicated access is provided to a physical input/output (I/O) device which is non-configurable by an initiating logical partition. Access is established by: initiating, by the logical partition, creation of a partition adjunct; invoking a hypervisor of the data processing system to instantiate the partition adjunct with resources donated from the initiating logical partition, the donated resources including a donated virtual address space of the logical partition and the physical I/O device; creating, by the hypervisor, the partition adjunct and assigning the donated virtual address space and donated physical I/O device to the created partition adjunct; and interfacing, by the hypervisor, the logical partition and the created partition adjunct, the interfacing including providing the logical partition with a virtual I/O device which replaces the donated physical I/O device, and which is configurable by the logical partition.
US08219985B2
A system for assembling an update for a software release is described, comprising a processor and memory configured to define classes of software components, each class having a plurality of instances, each instance having a unique identifier (UID) and representing a software component having a plurality of versions; for each version of the software component, assign time stamps and indicator identifying release status of the version; introduce a flexible coupling between versions of software components and instances of classes using a pointer between a version of the software component and a UID associated with the version; select versions of software components from which pointers originate; for each instance of the class, to which the pointer points, select one version of the software component based on the assigned indicator; and assemble the selected versions of software components into the update of the software release. A corresponding method is also provided.
US08219984B2
A network for updating firmware, drivers, or application software facilitates the access to generated update packages by electronic devices and the update of firmware, drivers, content or application software in a fault tolerant mode. A “Bubbles” technique is employed to generate efficient and compact update packages. A “Bubbles” information is generated employing the “Bubbles” technique that is subsequently sent to the electronic devices as part of an update package. The “Bubbles” information and other related information is used in preprocessing activities and in other update related activities. For example, they are used to prepare the electronic device for an update to a different version of its firmware, software and/or content.
US08219978B2
Methods and apparatus include: providing a computer having a program execution module for carrying out a process according to a program; providing an execution control module, connected to the program execution module; carrying out mutual authentication, within the execution control module, with respect to the program execution module; carrying out a process for authentication relative to an object program for execution by the program execution module; and preventing the program execution module from executing the object program until the object program is successfully authenticated.
US08219975B2
A method for analyzing the performance of a video game uses a diagnostic tool that is associated with application code of the video game. The diagnostic tool is activated when the video game is in operation, and real-time performance data is captured and displayed. A warning is generated when a performance metric violates a pre-set condition. The warning may be displayed on a display screen that is used to provide information for rectifying the violation.
US08219962B1
Methods are used to enrich a cell library in such a way to provide a nearly continuous choice of cells to implement a circuit design. The emphasis of the design method is on automatic determination of the needed cell sizes and variants. The method exploits different variants on drive strengths, P/N ratios, topology variants, internal buffering, and so forth. The method allows enriching libraries to become more suitable for efficient timing closure. The method also offers means to adapt the preexisting cells to fit the final distribution, minimizing the number of new cells to be created.
US08219960B1
A method for configuring programmable logic in an IC to implement instances of a relocatable circuit includes, for each instance, assigning a respective portion of an address space of a processor to the instance, configuring a respective interface circuit for translating the transactions accessing the respective portion of the address space into a fixed address space of the relocatable circuit, and selecting a respective region within an array of programmable logic and interconnect resources of the IC. The processor accesses the address space with read and write transactions issued on an interface bus. The relocatable circuit is independent of the address space assigned to the instances. Each region is configurable to implement an instance. The programmable logic and interconnect resources are configured to implement the instances and to couple each instance to the interface bus of the processor via the respective interface circuit, using a single copy of configuration data for the relocatable circuit.
US08219952B2
A computer is programmed to identify a number of groups of timing windows, each group including a victim timing window and one (or more) aggressor timing window(s), respectively for a victim net and one (or more) aggressor nets in an IC design. The computer automatically slides (i.e. shifts in time) the victim and aggressor timing windows as a group for each die, i.e. by a specific amount that is identical for all timing windows of an instance of a coupled stage in a die, but differs for other instances of the same coupled stage in other dies. Crosstalk analysis is then performed, using time-shifted timing windows which result from sliding, to identify overlapping victim and aggressor nets, followed by variation aware delay calculations to identify timing violations and timing critical nets, followed by revision of the IC design, which is eventually fabricated in a wafer of semiconductor material.
US08219941B2
A memory is encoded with a data structure that represents a pattern having a range for one or more dimensions and/or positions of line segments therein. The data structure identifies two or more line segments that are located at a boundary of the pattern. The data structure also includes at least one set of values that identify a maximum limit and a minimum limit (i.e. the range) between which relative location and/or dimension of an additional line segment of the pattern in a portion of a layout of an integrated circuit (IC) chip, represents a defect in the IC chip when fabricated. In most embodiments, multiple ranges are specified in such a range defining pattern for example a width range is specified for the width of a trace of material in the layout and a spacing range is specified for the separation distance between two adjacent traces in the layout.
US08219937B2
Embodiments related to the manipulation of objects on a multi-touch graphical user interface are disclosed. For example, in one disclosed embodiment, a method of operating a graphical user interface of a computing device comprises presenting a group of objects on the graphical user interface in a group representation, where the group of objects includes two or more objects. The method further comprises receiving a multi-touch gesture at the graphical user interface in which two or more temporally overlapping touches are moved relative to each other on the graphical user interface. The method further comprises changing an organization of the group of objects presented on the graphical user interface in response to a changing of a distance between the two or more temporally overlapping touches as they are moved relative to each other on the graphical user interface.
US08219929B2
The present invention relates to a method of entering of data in a data processing system. A first linear sequence of top-level icons is displayed. A second linear sequence of second-level icons for a selected one of the top-level icons is also displayed such that the position of the leading icon of the second linear sequence is aligned with the selected one of the top-level icons of the first linear sequence. At least one data entry field for a selected one of the second-level icons is also displayed.
US08219926B2
Tickers are populated with location-based information that is selected according to the geographic location of communication devices. The location of a communication device is identified based on a GPS system, proximity to transmitters in a wireless network, user input, or using other techniques. Location-appropriate content is obtained either in real-time from the network or from a local data store at the communication device. In general location-based, context-aware content can be displayed on tickers associated with a variety of communication devices, including mobile communication devices and “immobile” or stationary personal computers. When a ticker item is selected from the ticker, a location associated with the selected ticker item and/or a location of the communication device is used to generate a map that is displayed on the display of the device to the user.
US08219920B2
Methods and systems for managing To do items and/or notes and/or emails (or other electronic messages) are described. On exemplary method includes receiving an input to create a To do item based on a portion of an email record, such as a received email, and creating, in response to the input, the To do item. Another exemplary method includes storing a note having a To do item in the note, the note being stored as an entry in a note database which is separate from a To do database and storing the To do item in the To do database and receiving an input within either a note view or a To do view to edit the To do item and causing the note to be edited and causing the To do item to be edited in response to the input.
US08219916B2
A system and methodology for visually representing user activity associated with an information resource is described. Online and offline activities of users are associated with symbolic representations of those users. In an embodiment, the symbolic representation of a user has the appearance of a dust particle. The dust particle can provide a universal and unobtrusive visual representation of the online or offline activity of the represented user. Further, the dust particle can exist for the represented user to communicate with other users with privacy and anonymity. To visually convey selected aspects of an online or offline activity, the activity is mapped to visual attributes that alter the dust particle behavior and/or appearance. The result is a dynamic and universal representation of online and offline user activities associated with an information resource such as a web page, database, or document that can help other online users efficiently discern the relevancy and popularity of the information resource.
US08219901B2
Method, device and computer-readable medium are provided for filtering elements of a structured document on the basis of an expression including an item of information for identification of an evaluation mode of a part of the expression. A step of evaluating the expression on the basis of the data of the structured document is performed by evaluating the part of the expression on the basis of the item of information for identification of the evaluation mode, the evaluation mode corresponding to (i) an extraction of elements not satisfying the part of the expression, (ii) an extraction of elements satisfying the part of the expression, or (iii) an extraction of elements satisfying the part of the expression and an extraction of elements not satisfying the part of the expression.
US08219893B2
A method and system using the principle of generalized maximum likelihood estimation to resolve sample timing uncertainties that are associated with the decoding of communication signals. By using generalized maximum likelihood estimation, sample timing uncertainty can be resolved by taking multiple samples of the received signal within a symbol period and determining which sample best corresponds to the optimal sample timing. The sample which best corresponds to the optimal sample timing can be determined from a timing index which can be calculated from ambiguity indicators that are based on the samples of the received signal.
US08219891B2
A wireless communications network uses a beamforming process to increase signal quality as well as transmission capabilities and reduction of interference. An improved Golay sequence is also used in the wireless communications network. In one aspect, the processes can be used to communicate regardless of whether the system is on an OFDM mode or a single carrier mode.
US08219890B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for denoising for a finite input, general output channel. In one aspect, a system is provided for processing a noisy signal formed by a noise-introducing channel in response to an error correction coded input signal, the noisy signal having symbols of a general alphabet. The system comprises a denoiser and an error correction decoder. The denoiser generates reliability information corresponding to metasymbols in the noisy signal based on an estimate of the distribution of metasymbols in the input signal and upon symbol transition probabilities of symbols in the input signal being altered in a quantized signal. A portion of each metasymbol provides a context for a symbol of the metasymbol. The quantized signal includes symbols of a finite alphabet and is formed by quantizing the noisy signal. The error correction decoder performs error correction decoding on noisy signal using the reliability information generated by the denoiser.
US08219880B2
In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a check/correct circuit coupled to a control circuit. The check/correct circuit is coupled to receive a block of data and corresponding check bits. The block of data is received as N transmissions, each transmission including M data bits and L check bits. The check/correct circuit is configured to detect one or more errors in each of a plurality of non-overlapping windows of K bits in the M data bits, responsive to the M data bits and the L check bits. The control circuit is configured to record which of the plurality of windows have had errors detected and, if a given window of the plurality of windows has had errors detected in each of the N transmissions of the block, the control circuit is configured to signal a device failure. Each of K, L, M, and N are integers greater than one.
US08219879B2
A method for arranging memories of a low-complexity low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder and a low-complexity LDPC decoder using the same method are provided. The main idea of the method for arranging memories of a low-complexity LDPC decoder is to merge at least one or two small-capacity memory blocks into one memory group, so that the memory area can be reduced and the power consumption in reading or writing data is lowered. Besides, as the merged memory group shares the same address line in reading or writing data, at least one delay unit is used to adjust the reading or writing order and thereby ensure data validity. A low-complexity LDPC decoder using the disclosed method can meet the demands of high processing rate and low power consumption.
US08219862B2
A test controller applies test stimulus signals to the input pads of plural die on a wafer in parallel. The test controller also applies encoded test response signals to the output pads of the plural die in parallel. The encoded test response signals are decoded on the die and compared to core test response signals produced from applying the test stimulus signals to core circuits on the die. The comparison produces pass/fail signals that are loaded in to scan cells of an IEEE 1149.1 scan path. The pass/fail signals then may be scanned out of the die to determine the results of the test.
US08219855B2
This document relates to apparatus and methods to store and retrieve trace information in on-chip system memory of microcontrollers. A microcontroller comprises a microprocessor and a memory device accessible through a data bus and an address bus coupled to the microprocessor. The microcontroller includes on-chip debug logic coupled to the microprocessor. Trace data can be retrieved from system memory using a debug port of the debug logic. A system in accordance with the present invention will lower the cost of implementation of trace features in microcontrollers, and strongly reduce the cost of supporting such features in debug tools.
US08219854B2
The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for validation configuration of distributed applications. Embodiments of the invention provide a system framework for identifying root causes of configuration errors and best-practice incompliance of distributed applications. The system framework provides both platform provider and customer a powerful and consistent method to create, extend, and utilize a tool that simplifies the configuration troubleshooting experience. Using the system framework, a user is able to access more information about applications and to troubleshoot multiple applications at the same time without having to load or activate any of the applications. In addition, users are able to add custom rules to identify commonly occurring configuration problems.
US08219849B2
The present invention permits virtually the entire functionality of a computer system to be made accessible over a network such as the Internet or an Intranet. More particularly, the present invention permits a computer system to be run as a “virtual machine” through a web page provided at a web site on the World Wide Web (WWW). The apparatus of the present invention includes a plurality of computers arranged in a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet or an Intranet. At least one of the computers has at least one unique address designating a web site. A host computer system (which may or may not be one of the computers on the Internet) can be “posted” onto an “advertising” web page at the web site to permit other computers coupled to the Internet to interact directly with the host computer system. The computer “posted” on the web page is referred to as the “host” or “advertiser” computer, and computers accessing the host computer are referred to as “client” or “user” computers. Having the host computer posted on a web page creates a “virtual computer” that can be view and/or controlled by the client computers. Once the connection has been made between the host computer and one or more client computers, the web page is bypassed, i.e. the two or more computer systems communicate through the Internet without necessarily going through the web site supporting the “advertising” web page.
US08219844B1
A synchronous clear emulation circuit is provided. The synchronous clear emulation circuit includes a register having an asynchronous clear port. Moreover, the synchronous clear emulation circuit is configured to emulate a synchronous clear port by using the asynchronous clear port. The synchronous clear port is emulated by outputting a data output signal that is synchronous with the clock signal and the data output signal is based on an asynchronous clear signal received at the asynchronous clear port. The asynchronous clear port performs a function of the asynchronous clear port without the synchronous clear port implemented within the register.
US08219843B2
An integrated circuit includes a global power supply node. A first power domain has a first power management circuit, which includes a local power supply node. A first power control circuit is capable of receiving an input signal. A second power control circuit has a higher current capacity than the first power control circuit. The first power control circuit and the second power control circuit are coupled to the local power supply node and the global power supply node. The input signal is configured to initiate a power sequence, e.g., a power up process or a power down process, in the first power control circuit. A first control signal generated by the first power control circuit is configured to initiate a power sequence in the second power control circuit.
US08219840B1
A method may include, in response to an idle time of a computing device meeting or exceeding a power-save time threshold value, placing the device into a low-power state; in response to receiving an input to the device after the device has been placed into the low-power state, exiting the low-power state; determining whether the idle time meets or exceeds a lockout threshold value; after having exited from the low-power state, if the idle time meets or exceeds the lockout threshold value, requiring a user to perform a successful predetermined authentication to the device before allowing the user to access applications in the device; and if the idle time does not meet or exceed the lockout threshold value, allowing the user to access applications in the device without requiring the user to perform the successful predetermined authentication to the device.
US08219836B2
Methods and apparatus are disclosed to control power consumption within a processor. An example apparatus disclosed herein includes logic to identify at least one instruction type and to initialize a counter value corresponding to a maximum number of instructions to be performed, the maximum number being at least partially dependent upon the identified at least one instruction type. The example apparatus also includes processing logic to be enabled or disabled based, at least in part, on the counter value.
US08219831B2
A processor includes a device providing a throttling power output signal. The throttling power output signal is used to determine when to logically throttle the power consumed by the processor. At least one core in the processor includes a pipeline having a decode pipe; and a logical power throttling unit coupled to the device to receive the output signal, and coupled to the decode pipe. Following the logical power throttling unit receiving the power throttling output signal satisfying a predetermined criterion, the logical power throttling unit causes the decode pipe to reduce an average number of instructions decoded per processor cycle without physically changing the processor cycle or any processor supply voltages.
US08219822B2
The geographic location of a computer attempting to gain authentication to a server is obtained using the IP address of the computer, with authentication being denied if the geographic location is not approved.
US08219821B2
A system and method for signature based data container recognition is provided. When a new data container, such as a lun, is created, a security appliance generates a signature of the data container, by, e.g., examining the contents of one or more data blocks of the data container. The generated signature is then associated with the appropriate encryption key for the data container and is stored either within a configuration database of the security appliance or on a key management system operating within a security appliance environment. To identify the encryption key associated with a data container, the security appliance generates a signature of the data container and compares the generated signature with the stored signatures. Should there be a matching signature, the security appliance utilizes the encryption key associated with the matching signature to process data access requests to/from the data container.
US08219815B2
An information management system is described comprising one or more workstations running applications which allow a user of the workstation to connect to a network, such as the Internet. Each application has an analyzer, which monitors transmission data that the application is about to transmit to the network or has just received from the network, and which determines an appropriate action to take regarding that data. The analyzer may consult policy data containing a supervisor-defined policy to govern the workstations in order to determine what action to take. Such actions may be extracting data from the transmission data, such as passwords and usernames, digital certificates or eCommerce transaction details for storage and record keeping; ensuring that the transmission data is transmitted at an encryption strength appropriate to the contents of the transmission data; determining whether a check needs to be made as to whether a digital certificate received in transmission is valid; determining whether a transaction about to be made by a user of one of the workstations needs third party approval before it is made; and controlling the transmission of messages, such as e-mails according to a policy.
US08219814B2
A user credential management system and method for managing user credentials are provided. The user credential management system comprises an authentication module for authenticating a user login to a mobile device, and a message transforming module for associating a user credential to a message sent from the mobile device to a server. The method comprising the steps of authenticating a user login to a mobile device, locating a user credential associated with the user login, and associating the user credential to a message between the mobile device and a server.
US08219796B2
A method and a device for controlling a computer system having at least two execution units, switchover operations being carried out between at least two operating modes, and a first operating mode corresponding to a comparison mode and a second operating mode corresponding to a performance mode. At least one set of runtime objects is defined; at least one identifier is assigned to each runtime object of the defined set; and the identifier assigns at least the two operating modes to the runtime object.
US08219792B2
Information handling system security is maintained by locking the information handling system from boot of an operating system with a service processor of the information handling system. The service processor obtains authorization for boot from a third party authentication service by providing authentication information to the authentication service and requiring a successful authentication for boot. For example, the service processor releases a token upon successful authentication to authorize boot. In one embodiment, the authentication service sends a token to the service processor for the service processor to use to authorize boot.
US08219790B2
A field device of process automation technology containing a plurality of parameters, with which are associated device-internal parameter addresses. The field device is connectable to a fieldbus having a fieldbus-specific parameter addressing system. In such case, the device-internal parameter addresses of the plurality of parameters are determinable by application of a generic mathematical function to belonging fieldbus-specific parameter addresses formed according to the fieldbus-specific parameter addressing system.
US08219782B2
Address generation by an integrated circuit is described. An aspect relates generally to an address generator which has first and second processing units. The second processing unit is coupled to receive a stage output from the first processing unit and configured to provide an address output. The stage output is in a first range, and the address output is in a second range. The first range is from −K to −1 for K a block size, and the second range is from 0 to K−1.
US08219780B2
Systems, methodologies, media, and other embodiments associated with mitigating the effects of context switch cache and TLB misses are described. One exemplary system embodiment includes a processor configured to run a multiprocessing, virtual memory operating system. The processor may be operably connected to a memory and may include a cache and a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) configured to store TLB entries. The exemplary system may include a context control logic configured to selectively copy data from the TLB to the data store for a first process being swapped out of the processor and to selectively copy data from the data store to the TLB for a second process being swapped into to the processor.
US08219776B2
Described embodiments provide logical-to-physical address translation for data stored on a storage device having sectors organized into blocks and superblocks. A flash translation layer maps a physical address in the storage device to a logical sector address. The logical sector address corresponds to mapping data that includes i) a page index, ii) a block index, and iii) a superblock number. The mapping data is stored in at least one summary page corresponding to the superblock containing the physical address. A block index and a page index of a next empty page in the superblock are stored in a page global directory corresponding to the superblock. A block index and a page index of the at least one summary page and the at least one active block table for each superblock are stored in at least one active block table of the storage device.
US08219766B1
A computer-implemented method for identifying the presence of sensitive data in a backup may comprise identifying a backup, identifying sensitive data in the backup, creating metadata that identifies the presence of the sensitive data in the backup, and associating the metadata with the backup. In addition, a method for preventing sensitive data from being placed in a backup may comprise identifying a file, identifying sensitive data in the file, and preventing the file from being placed in a backup. Corresponding systems and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08219748B2
The respective physical storage devices of a storage system are set to a power-saving state in which these respective physical storage devices are able to respond to a prescribed type of command. Then, a first prescribed type of command is sent to the respective physical storage devices that are in the power-saving state, and the results of this first prescribed type of command are checked.
US08219746B2
A memory system and methods for memory manage are presented. The memory system includes a volatile memory electrically connected to a high-density memory; a memory controller that expects data to be written or read to or from the memory system at a bandwidth and a latency associated with the volatile memory; a directory within the volatile memory that associates a volatile memory address with data stored in the high-density memory; and redundant storage in the high-density memory that stores a copy of the association between the volatile memory address and the data stored in the high-density memory. The methods for memory management allow writing to and reading from the memory system using a first memory read/write interface (e.g. DRAM interface, etc.), though data is stored in a device of a different memory type (e.g. FLASH, etc.).
US08219737B2
A processing system includes a plurality of first circuit modules. A plurality of second circuit modules are coupled to an RF data bus via intra-device RF communications. The RF data bus receives first data from at least one of the plurality of first circuit modules, and transmits the first data via intra-device RF communications to at least one of the plurality of second circuit modules.
US08219736B2
A configurable register method and structure included configuration logic to form a register value. A data bridge system, for connecting an interface of a computer system to a plurality of application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), has a data bridge operatively coupled between the computer interface and the plurality of ASICs that employs the configurable registers. The data bridge has a read only memory for storing at least the initial values and mask values for each ASIC of the plurality of ASICs. The data bridge upon initialization forms base address registers and other configuration data that are queried by the computer system. When the ASICs are graphic processors, the initial values and the mask values stored in the read only memory define the base address registers in the data bridge as a function of the configuration requirements of the graphic processors. The base address registers are thus programmable as a function of the initial values and mask values in the read only memory. The read only memory is coupled to the data bridge.
US08219734B2
An electronic apparatus includes a main body and a panel unit removable from the main body. The electronic apparatus also includes an attachment unit in the panel unit that indirectly attaches a removable memory device to the main body through the panel unit. The main body includes a control unit that logically disconnects a data line logically connecting the removable memory device to the main body through the attachment unit, upon an operation before a power line electrically connecting the removable memory device to the main body through the attachment unit is physically disconnected.
US08219732B2
A method for managing states by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer in a wireless network is disclosed. The method includes determining next occurable physical interrupts for each of the states; configuring a link of the states according to the determination result; transitioning to a state to be linked next if a physical interrupt occurs in each state; and transitioning to an initial state if an timer interrupt occurs in each state. The MAC layer transitions to the initial state if a physical interrupt occurs in a last state among the linked states. The physical interrupt occurs in association with a physical event, and the timer interrupt occurs in association with a timer event.
US08219728B2
An arrangement for transferring message based communications between separate disjunctive components. The arrangement includes at least two components. At least a first component is arranged to provide services to at least one second component and/or to an operator of the loosely coupled system. At least one message bus is arranged to perform real-time transfers of communications from/to the at least one first component to/from the at least one second component. The at least one message bus is connected to or integrated in an internal communication backbone arranged with a communication member for establishing outgoing communication links. A predetermined message based interface is arranged relative to each of the components and the at least one message bus such that all communications between the at least one first component and the at least one second component are defined in the same single standardized message language. A method for providing components in the arrangement and a platform including the arrangement.
US08219725B2
A balancing process between I/O processor groups of a non-uniform multiprocessor system enables spreading of I/O workload across multiple I/O processor groups on a group base as soon as the I/O processor group with maximum group utilization reaches a certain high limit together with other processor groups being utilized significantly lower. The additional balancing is decreased step by step again when a certain low utilization limit is reached or the workload becomes more evenly balanced between the I/O processor groups. Checking if increase or decrease of the balancing is required is done periodically, but with low frequency to not affect overall performance. The checking and balancing happens asynchronously in predefined intervals. This solves the problem that with an increasing number of I/O processors the handling of initiatives leads to increased cache traffic and contention due to shared data structures, which slows down the I/O workload handling significantly.
US08219724B1
A method is used in flexibly managing input/output (I/O) operations based on application awareness. An I/O operation that is directed to storage is received. The storage is provisioned in accordance with an application. The provisioning includes selecting one or more default options in accordance with best practices of the application. Based on the provisioning in accordance with the application and based on a rejection template that has a user configurable description of I/O acceptance criteria, evaluation of the acceptability of an I/O operation is performed. The rejection template is revised.
US08219716B2
An input and output (IO) scheduler dispatches a first IO request from a first IO queue during a first dispatch cycle and dispatches a second IO request from a second IO queue during a second dispatch cycle to one or more disks, where the first IO request is the last remaining IO request in the first queue and the second IO request is the first overall IO request in the second queue. The first and second IO requests are selected from multiple IO requests received from one or more clients for accessing the one or more disks. A seek time monitor measures disk seek time (IO queue switch time) incurred between the first IO request and the second IO request, and determines whether the first IO request and the second IO request belong to the same group. The disk seek time is attributed to a group associated with the first IO request and the second IO request, if the first IO request and the second IO request belong to the same group. If not, then this seek time incurred during queue switch is attributed to a common ancestor of two IO queues in the IO hierarchy.
US08219711B2
A method and apparatus for dynamically transcoding and delivering variable bit rate media files delivers media files to client systems. The media server dynamically transcodes a content file to a bit rate requested by a client using an original content file or other transcoded content files. The media server can dynamically select a segment of a content file to transcode. The file format required by the client is determined and the transcoded segment is formatted to the file format. The formatted segment is delivered to the client.
US08219706B2
A method includes receiving network distance information, receiving a request from a client for an identity of a peer providing content, and identifying a first peer and a second peer providing the content. The network distance information includes a compilation of network distance information provided by a plurality of service providers. The method further includes determining that a network distance between the first peer and the client is less than a network distance between the second peer and the client based on the network distance information, and providing the identity of the first peer to the client.
US08219701B2
A communication control apparatus includes a data acquiring unit configured to acquire data to be transmitted to a receiving apparatus, a packetizing unit configured to generate packets using the data acquired by the data acquiring unit, a determining unit configured to compute a possible data transmission delay time of the data packetized by the packetizing unit and determine a transmission interval of the packets based on a result of the computation, and a transmission unit configured to transmit the packets generated by the packetizing unit at intervals that are each within the transmission interval determined by the determining unit.
US08219698B2
A DCS protocol message addressed to a remote DCS station is generated at a local distributed control system (DCS). The DCS protocol message is received at a local tunneling device. The local tunneling device packages the DCS protocol message into a SCADA protocol message. The SCADA protocol message is transmitted from the local tunneling device to a remote tunneling device. The remote tunneling device receives the SCADA protocol message. The SCADA protocol message is unpackaged into a DCS protocol message at the remote tunneling device, and the DCS protocol message is placed on to a remote DCS such that it flows to the remote station. The DCS protocol message is received at the remote station.
US08219690B2
An internet-protocol address assignment control apparatus obtains, via an interface provided in a first communication device, a first unique number for a first interface provided in a server apparatus connected to the interface provided in the first communication device and a second unique number for a second interface provided in the server apparatus connected to an interface provided in a second communication device. The apparatus stores, in a storage, the obtained second unique number for the second interface provided in the server apparatus on a basis of the first unique number for the first interface provided in the server apparatus.
US08219687B2
A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program product for managing session data. The process determines whether preexisting session data associated with a request for content is present in response to receiving the request. Responsive to an absence of the preexisting session data being associated with the request, the process generates session data associated with the request. The process then generates a response page having a set of forms including a set of hidden fields. The set of hidden fields include the session data. Thereafter, the process sends the response page to a client browser.
US08219685B2
A client apparatus which transmits a service request to a server apparatus via a network and comprises an input event detector configured to detect input events, an information generator configured to generate an item of information integrating items of information of the input events detected by the input event detector, and a transmission unit configured to transmit the item of information to the server apparatus.
US08219684B1
A server system having one or more processors and memory receives a request including server identifiers for one or more other server systems. After receiving the request, the server system determines whether enough other server systems have a predefined task-processing status for the request. When enough other server systems have the predefined task-processing status for the request, the server system performs a corresponding task-scheduling action that overrides a default task-scheduling policy as applied to the request. When the server system decides to perform a respective task-processing operation for the request, the server system sends a processing-status message to one or more of the other server systems indicating that the respective server system has undertaken performance of the respective task-processing operation for the request and performs the respective task-processing operation.
US08219679B2
A method and apparatus are provided for detecting peer-to-peer communication on a data communication network, between an internal client machine within an internal address space and an external client machine. The method includes routing all messages addressed to internal client machines to an analysis device. The analysis device identifies messages pertaining to peer-to-peer communication and identifies the internal client machine to which the messages of a specified nature were addressed. The analysis device terminates the connection with the external client machine if the establishing of the peer-to-peer communication is in violation of a pre-determined internal network rule.
US08219676B2
A method and system for generating a web log that includes transaction entries from transaction queues of one or more cores of a multi-core system. A transaction queue is maintained for each core so that either a packet engine or web logging client executing on the core can write transaction entries to the transaction queue. In some embodiments, a timestamp value obtained from a synchronized timestamp variable can be assigned to the transaction entries. When a new transaction entry is added to the transaction queue, the earliest transaction entry is removed from the transaction queue and added to a heap. Periodically the earliest entry in the heap is removed from the heap and written to a web log. When an entry is removed from the heap, the earliest entry in a transaction queue corresponding to the removed entry is removed from the transaction queue and added to the heap.
US08219673B2
An analysis apparatus includes a history analysis part analyzing the trend based on the access log and deriving the latent trait to an access destination, a principal components analysis part analyzing principal components of the frequency distribution of the access, a classification part classifying the correlation of the principal components into plural classes, an event recording part recording the events to induce to the access destination, a first generating part generating a latent trait principal component table; a second generating part generating a class construction ratio table stored the class as the result of classification, a third generating part generating an event classification table stored the class and the contents of the event, and an analysis result recording part recording the latent trait principal component table, the class construction ratio table and the event classification table, as an event feature model of the effect on the execution of the event.
US08219671B2
A testing method including the step of identifying multiple hosts located within multiple grids of a grid environment, wherein each host is a software object. A ghost agent can be associated with each identified host. Actions of the host can be replicated within each ghost agent. Data relating to the replicated actions can be recorded. Test input can be generated from the recorded data. Tests can be conducted within the grid environment using the test input.
US08219657B2
Application service requests received by an application hosting framework are automatically differentiated and categorized, and resource usage patterns associated with the requests are predicted. Resource usage data points are successively extracted from the hosting framework. Elements of an initial resource usage pattern matrix are computed from the data points. An estimate for the number of categories of requests is computed from the initial resource usage pattern matrix, where the requests in each category have similar resource usage patterns. Elements of a resource usage signature matrix and request categorization matrix are computed from the estimate for the number of categories of requests and the initial resource usage pattern matrix.
US08219656B2
A method, system, and computer program product that provides the capability to manage, control, and reconfigure wireless devices remotely over a wireless network with acceptable reliability and security. A method for remotely managing a wireless device over a telecommunications network comprising a server and the wireless device, the method comprises the steps of establishing a communicative connection between the server and the wireless device over the telecommunications network, transmitting a command from the server to the wireless device over the signaling network, and executing the command at the wireless device.
US08219649B2
A system and method for automatically deploying a change and configuration management software tool to a web application server includes launching a configurable wizard application programmed to solicit data from a user. The user is queried regarding a desired web application server and database connectivity authentication parameters. A location on the user's system of the desired web application server's installation package is identified. The user's input is integrated with the selected web application server. The change and configuration management software tool is automatically deployed to the desired web application server.
US08219646B2
Systems and methods for dynamic intelligent mirror selection are presented. Dynamic intelligent mirror selection may include evaluating available mirrors at a client to determine an optimum mirror from which to download a portion of data. For each portion of data downloaded, reevaluation of the available mirrors may be provided such that dynamic selection of the mirrors may reflect changes in network conditions. The mirror selection may be based at least partially on observed characteristics of mirrors observed while downloading from a mirror, such that no synthetic work load is needed to benchmark mirror performance. The observed characteristics may include transfer speed, error counts, latency, and mirror load. Furthermore, a random bonus and usage bonus may be provided to help in facilitating the evaluation of available mirrors.
US08219641B2
The Automated Data Delivery Systems (ADDS) are two delivery systems designed to either deliver specific data to customer computers over a network, e.g., the Internet, or from one application program to another. In both cases the user computer requesting data delivery can either have a special automatic data reception capability or receive the data without screening. In particular, ADDS are systems that allows a data delivery services to be offered on the Internet or an Intranet between two sites or offered between an Internet site and a User Computer. In addition the ADDS invention includes a modification to existing or future application programs that allow the program to deliver specified data, in the format specified by the user, to the location specified by the user, and at a schedule specified by the user. In the case of Internet delivery the Website might charge a specified price for the delivery service.
US08219639B2
A shared storage distributed file system is presented that provides clients with access to a storage area network (SAN) attached storage device. The access is provided either via block-level requests over the SAN or via file-level requests made to a server over a local area network (LAN). File requests are categorized between SAN requests and LAN requests. This categorization can be based on dividing the requests between write and read requests, or between requests that alter data stored on the storage device and requests that do not alter data on the storage device. In other embodiments, the categorization can be made on the size of the file or the data involved in the file request. In one embodiment, the client is able to access and interpret metadata stored on the storage device.
US08219636B2
A receiving module selectively receives a stream of digital data from a recording device via a network. A data store selectively stores the digital data. A streaming module that selectively streams the stored digital data to a network device via the network.
US08219634B2
Information distribution systems and information distribution methods are provided. In an information distribution system, header files of contents in accordance with a preference of a user of a data terminal are automatically selected, in advance, from a content distribution apparatus and are transmitted to the data terminal, so that probabilities that the header files of the contents have been already stored are very high when the user downloads the content of the body data. If the number of header files to be stored is more than a predetermined number, the most of the header files with respect to the contents of the body data to be downloaded will be in the data terminal. Therefore, on performing a downloading operation, the header files can be played immediately, then subsequently, the downloaded content of the body data are played, whereby the user can appreciate the content which the user desires to view and listen to without waiting time.
US08219618B2
An information communication system for exchanging a plurality of contents between a plurality of node devices, includes a plurality of internal networks connected to an external network. The internal networks include: node devices that connects the same internal network; and a support device, which connects the internal network, and which supports acquisition of contents by the node devices. An internal overlay network is constructed for each of the internal networks. An external overlay network is constructed on the external network. Each of the node devices includes a first acquisition unit that acquires contents from a first internal overlay network, which is an access destination of the first acquisition unit. If it is unable to acquire the contents from the first internal overlay network, the first acquisition unit acquires contents from one of the support devices through a first support device, which is a support device connecting the first internal network.
US08219614B2
An edge peer device, includes a first peer device connection management unit for allowing the edge peer device to participate in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, and establishing a pipe connection to other edge peer device or the PAN gateway device to transmit or receive contents; a first peer device authentication unit for performing authentication of the edge peer device and PAN gateway device; and a first advertisement management unit for generating and storing advertisements and indexing the generated advertisements to transmit the indexed advertisements to the super peer device. Further, the edge peer device includes a first PAN device management unit for requesting and receiving a list of PAN devices from the PAN gateway device to manage the PAN device list; a first PAN service management unit for managing and providing services included in the PAN device list; and a first P2P communication unit for performing P2P communication with the super peer device and other peer devices.
US08219606B2
Methods and systems are described for sharing information for detecting an idle TCP connection. In one aspect, a second node receives a packet in a TCP connection. A header in the packet is detected identifying metadata for a period, detectable by a first node, during which no packet including data is received in the connection by the first node. The second node modifies a timeout associated with the connection based on the metadata. In another aspect, a first node receives information for detecting a period during which no packet including data sent in the TCP connection by a second node is received by the first node. A packet is generated including a header identifying metadata for the period based on the information, and sent to the second node. The period is detected based on the information. The connection is deactivated in response to detecting the period.
US08219595B2
A system and method for efficient data access are described. A method for efficient remote data access for use by server management applications, includes transferring server schema from a service processor on a server to an application machine, receiving a request for server data on application machine, processing the request for server data on application machine, and forming, in a self-describing format, a single, consolidated query to obtain information not obtained from the server schema on the application machine. Processing the request obtains server data from the server schema on the application machine and the consolidated query is formatted in self-describing format. The method further includes transferring the consolidated query to the service processor, the service processor: processing the consolidated query, obtaining the requested data, and forming a response with the requested data in the self-describing format. The method transmits the formatted, retrieved data to application machine.
US08219593B2
Systems and methods are described that calculate the interestingness of a set of one or more records in a database, either absolutely (i.e., compared to an overall collection of records) or relative to some other set of records. In one embodiment, the measure is a relative entropy value that has been normalized. Various applications of the measure are described in the context of an information retrieval system. These applications include, for example, guiding query interpretation, guiding view selection and summarization, intelligent ranges, event detection, concept triggers and interpreting user actions, hierarchy discovery, and adaptive data mining.
US08219591B2
Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with graph query adaptation are described. One example method includes generating an adapted topological query from a base topological query. The adapted topological query may be generated upon detecting a pre-specified sub-graph in the base topological query. The example method may also include executing the adapted topological query on a stored graph to generate a query result.
US08219587B2
A method, apparatus, and computer readable article of manufacture for tracing, on the basis of a key, an index created using a tree structure to access data. The method includes: searching the tree structure to reach a target node that can be associated with the key without acquiring a lock on the root node and on an internal node; setting the target node as a current node when the target node is a leaf node; moving the search to a node at a lower layer when the target node is an internal node by tracing an edge in the tree structure to reach a leaf node and setting the leaf node as the current node; and associating the key with the leaf node specified as the current node by acquiring a lock on the leaf node specified as the current node, thereby accessing the data.
US08219585B2
Systems and methods are provided for manipulating data sets. In accordance with one implementation, a computerized system is provided for storing, managing, indexing, interrelating, and/or retrieving data sets in a manner independent of the data model. The system includes an element module configured to store and uniquely identify elements and an element relation module configured to store relationships between the elements in the element module. The computerized system may also comprise a class module configured to store attributes of elements in a class and a type definition module configured to define the class and the attributes related to the class. The computerized system may further comprise a state machine module, the state machine module including a state machine transition module and a status module.
US08219569B2
A method and system for the in-place evolution of XML schemas is disclosed. To automatically evolve an existing XML schema, a schema evolver receives both an existing XML schema and an XML document as input. The XML document indicates changes to be made to the existing XML schema. Based on the existing XML schema and the XML document, the schema evolver evolves the existing XML schema into a new XML schema that incorporates the changes indicated in the XML document. According to one aspect, the schema evolver generates one or more SQL statements based on the new XML schema. The SQL statements, when executed by a database server, cause the database server to evolve database structures that were based on the formerly existing XML schema so that the database structures conform to the new XML schema. This is accomplished “in place,” without copying the data in the database structures.
US08219564B1
Embodiments of the present invention provide mechanisms that overcome limitations of existing indexes by creating two-dimensional (2D) spatial indexes to quickly locate data containers that match two or more predicates. This is accomplished by representing metadata attributes describing a data container as dimensions in a 2D space so that a data container can be expressed as a point or a cell in a 2D space with coordinates being a pair of values of the selected attributes. A space filling curve is used to traverse the 2D space and convert each pair of the 2D coordinates to a single space filling curve value. A 2D spatial index is then created based on the computed space filling curve values so that one value can be associated with one or more points (data containers) in the index. Advantageously, the created spatial index provides for searching and processing fewer metadata entries, thereby decreasing the time typically used to search for data.
US08219549B2
An anti-spam technique for protecting search engine ranking is based on mining search engine optimization (SEO) forums. The anti-spam technique collects webpages such as SEO forum posts from a list of suspect spam websites, and extracts suspicious link exchange URLs and corresponding link formation from the collected webpages. A search engine ranking penalty is then applied to the suspicious link exchange URLs. The penalty is at least partially determined by the link information associated with the respective suspicious link exchange URL. To detect more suspicious link exchange URLs, the technique may propagate one or more levels from a seed set of suspicious link exchange URLs generated by mining SEO forums.
US08219547B2
A large OLAP cube includes data and dimensions not required for a particular query, or for a collection of queries. A response to a query is generated by using the large OLAP cube rather than using an OLAP cube tailored to the query, and rather than querying the relational database directly. The large OLAP cube may be created after identifying a set of frequently sought data and/or filters used in queries to the relational database. Data may be staged by creating a smaller OLAP cube with data extracted from the large OLAP cube. The cubes may then be queried, browsed, and used to prepare reports or generate flat files.
US08219546B2
An operator manager may be configured to determine a number of available cores and to assign the cores among a plurality of operators of a query, the operators including a running set of operators through which a plurality of query paths exist. The operator manager may include a status monitor configured to determine the number of available cores and to determine the running set of operators, a critical path selector configured to determine a critical path of the query from among the query paths and the running set of operators, and a workload manager configured to assign a first core of the available cores to a running operator of the running set and of the critical path, and to thereafter receive a new critical path from the critical path selector and to assign a second core of the available cores to the running operator of the new critical path.
US08219543B2
An embodiment of a method includes receiving a selection of an original content item, deriving a supplemental content item from the original content item, designating a unique identifier to the supplemental content item, and inserting a reference including the unique identifier into the primary document. A system includes a candidate content item repository having one or more content items that can be included in a structured electronic document, a copy module configured to derive a base supplemental content item from a selected one of the candidate content items and further configured to designate a unique identifier for the base supplemental content item, and a document editor configured to receive the unique identifier and insert the unique identifier into a reference to the base supplemental content in the primary document. A computer-readable medium has instructions to cause a computer to carry out a structured document generation process.
US08219533B2
A system and method monitors and weeds out illegitimate/illegal websites during search engine indexing and domain name registration. The whois database generated during domain name registration is used as a reference database for correlation with a database generated by the search crawler on a search engine server. A whois analyzer from the search engine server extracts a set of URLs into a database called the uncorrelated URL database. The uncorrelated URL database contains those URLs from both the aggregate whois database and reverse index database after removing common URLs. The uncorrelated URLs are contacted and advised by the whois administrator to take necessary action to be listed in the whois database and properly be indexed during search engine crawling. This process ensures that every URL is properly registered and identified on the Internet thus eliminating the success of illegal/unwanted websites.
US08219528B1
Method and apparatus for simultaneous comparison of multiple backup sets maintained in a computer system are described. A plurality of backup sets of data maintained in a computer system including a hierarchy of objects is managed. In some examples, a graphical user interface (GUI) is displayed on a display coupled to the computer, the GUI having views configured show a first group of backup sets from the plurality of backup sets. Individual objects of a selected backup set in the first group of backup sets are pinned in a pinned view of the views in response to a first command. A second group of backup sets from the plurality of backup sets is shown in the views in response to a second command by sliding individual objects of at least one backup set in the plurality of backup sets across at least one unpinned view of the views with respect to the individual objects of the selected backup set in the pinned view.
US08219515B2
Systems (and corresponding methodologies) that enable inferences to be drawn from the physicality of electronic information much like that of a visual inspection of physical records are provided. In other words, a user is able to draw inferences from parameters of electronic data such as quantity, regularity, age, condition, type, keywords, title, author, origination date, storage location, etc. The innovation provides a data observation system having a summarization generator component and a rendering component that conveys attributes of electronic data such that inferences and conclusions based upon the physicality of the data.
US08219506B2
A method is used to configure an extended analog computer for use as an application controller. The method includes selecting input pins from among a plurality of pins in a continuous sheet processor, selecting an arrangement of intermediate and output pins from among the remaining pins in the plurality of pins in the continuous sheet processor, applying a pattern data set to the input pins, using an evolutionary algorithm, coupling current sources and sinks to the intermediate and output pins, measuring an error between an output and its expected value, and continuing to select intermediate and output pin arrangements, apply pattern data sets, and measure errors until a configuration threshold is met.
US08219496B2
In order to facilitate a user's ability to trust a computing environment, a trusted computing device (2) is arranged to challenge other devices in the computing environment and to record a log of the facilities available within the computing environment and an indication of whether those facilities are trustworthy. A new user (40) entering the computing environment can obtain the log from the trusted computing device in order to ascertain the status of the environment. Alternatively any device can hold data concerning platforms in its vicinity and its operation can be authenticated by the trusted device.
US08219491B2
A system and method for identifying incoming ACH transactions involving subscriber accounts at a financial institution, comparing the ACH transaction details with preset notification criteria, suspending any ACH transaction that satisfy the preset criteria so that the transaction does not post to the account, notifying the subscriber of the incoming ACH transaction, providing the subscriber with the option to either authorize or dispute the ACH transaction, and facilitating the dispute process according to applicable banking rules by requesting further information from the subscriber and forwarding the dispute information to the ACH operator.
US08219489B2
A Globally Unique IDentifier (GUID) is used to match an authorization request with an authorization response for a transaction between a merchant and a consumer upon an account within a payment processing system where the payment amount is unknown until after the merchant receives the authorization response that includes the GUID. After receiving the authorization response and when the payment amount is known, the merchant forms a transmission that has information for delivery to an issuer of the account. This information is sufficient for the issuer to forward the payment amount from the account to pay the merchant for the transaction. While including the GUID and the payment amount, the information does not include an identifier of the account.
US08219488B2
The present invention relates to the field of e-commerce and in particular to making purchases on-line using payment card, for example debit, charge or credit cards. The concept of the present invention adopts an alternative approach to security methods presently employed to protect cardholders. The concept obviates the need for a cardholder to transmit Card Numbers along with other purchasing details at the time of purchase and couples this with the use of a password feature. This renders the transaction akin to a Bank Cash withdrawal that Bank/card Schemes are totally happy with from a security point of view but are reluctant to allow e-commerce and/or any others access to their “network” to ensure Security.
US08219485B2
A system and method for money management in an electronic trading environment are presented. According to one embodiment, a trader may configure a plurality of filters, each including at least one filter criteria and filter condition. When a money management module detects a new order, the money management module intercepts the order and determines if the order matches one or more predefined filters. If the order matches one or more filters then conditions associated with the applicable filter(s) are applied to the order. The application of one or more conditions to an order may result in sending a modified order, preventing the order from reaching the exchange, or sending order to the exchange without any modifications.
US08219474B2
The system includes a first and second computer systems and a purchase card associated with a major credit card organization. The card does not include information about any prospective card holder and is provided with a card number so that when activated, has an initial monetary value. The first computer system, located at a purchase outlet, is configured to transmit the card number over a communication network to the second computer system to activate the account, without requiring information from any person acquiring the card. The activated card is usable at retail establishments that accept credit cards. A method includes the steps of authorizing distribution of a plurality of non-activated purchase cards to purchase card outlets and authorizing activation of the purchase card account without requiring information from any person acquiring the card. Another method includes the steps of receiving a plurality of non-activated purchase cards at a purchase card outlet, and selling the purchase cards without acquiring information about the purchaser and initiating activation of the purchase card sold.
US08219473B2
A financial portfolio management system operable in a network environment can be configured to gather financial information from a plurality of sources over an electronic network and intelligently aggregate the information into a financial portfolio viewable by a client. The client can determine which accounts should be included in the portfolio. The system uses web crawling, parsing, or spidering technology to update the portfolio information. The system provides one platform that conveys financial information from a variety of accounts held at several different financial institutions.
US08219470B1
Embodiments described herein allow a worker to use tools similar to that of an employer or payroll provider to determine, after having been paid, if the number of hours compensated for, is correct. At a first stage, a time sheet is provided for a worker in a specific industry to input a work history for the pay period. In a second stage, data from an actual pay stub is received from the worker, including hours paid and associated codes. Codes of the work hours and/or provided on the pay stub may be reconciled or used as needed, and a comparison is made to determine if the hours of the pay stub are accurate. If not, than a tool is provided to the user to petition the employer for correction.
US08219464B2
Embodiments of sales generation, including sales generation employing reverse lead generation using vehicle data systems and methods, are presented herein. In particular, in certain embodiments a user may utilize the vehicle data system to obtain pricing data corresponding to a desired vehicle configuration. When the user is presented with the pricing data associated with the specified vehicle configuration the user may additionally be presented with an upfront price offered by a dealer, where by providing their personal information the user may obtain the name of the dealer offering the upfront price and may additionally be offered the opportunity to purchase the desired, or similar, vehicle at the upfront price.
US08219459B1
A system for conducting a computer-based, simultaneous, multiple round, descending clock auction for basic generation services includes a web server for receiving bid data for one or more users for basic generation service products, an application server host application software, which processes the one or more bids according to at least one auction rule, tracks the auction, monitors the auction, and/or determines when to end the auction, and a database server, which stores auction data. A method of conducting a computer-based, simultaneous, multiple round, descending clock auction for basic generation services includes the repeating steps of receiving bids indicating desired tranche units of basic generation service products, calculating next round prices for each product, and sending round results to bidders. The subsequent round price for each of the products and a notice of the number of tranches bid during the immediately previous round of bidding for each of the products and/or the amount of excess supply offered. When the number of tranches bid for the round of bidding are equal to or less than the certain threshold for each of the products such that no further bidding can take place under the auction rules, the auction ends after the round of bidding and awarding winning bidders an ending price for each of the at least one of the plurality of products won by the winning bidders.
US08219458B1
A system for conducting a computer-based, simultaneous, multiple round, descending clock auction for basic generation services includes a web server for receiving bid data for one or more users for basic generation service products, an application server host application software, which processes the one or more bids according to at least one auction rule, tracks the auction, monitors the auction, and/or determines when to end the auction, and a database server, which stores auction data. A method of conducting a computer-based, simultaneous, multiple round, descending clock auction for basic generation services includes the repeating steps of receiving bids indicating desired tranche units of basic generation service products, calculating next round prices for each product, and sending round results to bidders. The subsequent round price for each of the products and a notice of the number of tranches bid during the immediately previous round of bidding for each of the products and/or the amount of excess supply offered. When the number of tranches bid for the round of bidding are equal to or less than the certain threshold for each of the products such that no further bidding can take place under the auction rules, the auction ends after the round of bidding and awarding winning bidders an ending price for each of the at least one of the plurality of products won by the winning bidders.
US08219447B1
A facility selects a unit of content to include in an instance of a content container. For each of a plurality of units of content, across a plurality of other instances of the content container distributed during a foregoing period of time that included the unit of content, the facility determines both an average level of success achieved by including the unit of content, and a measure of the level of variability of the level of success achieved by including the unit of content. The facility scores each unit of content by selecting a value from a probability distribution that is based on the determined average level of success and measure of the level of variability of the level of success. The facility selects one of the units of content to include in the instance of the content container based on the determined scores.
US08219446B1
A system and method for providing an individual with advertisement information. At least one database including electronic trait information, electronic preference information and electronic advertiser information is stored on at least one database. One or more communication devices receive a first electronic request for first information from a first computing device, and determine first electronic responsive information that comprises information that is at least responsive to the first electronic request. Further, a user relevance factor is determined that represents a relevance of the advertiser information to the first user. First advertisement information is determined for at least one of branded products and services. The first advertisement information and the first electronic responsive information are transmitted to the first user computing device.
US08219444B2
A system, method and program product are provided for planning sales of one or more products or services. The method comprises selecting a markdown profile associated with the one or more products or services, selecting a sales pattern associated with the markdown profile, and distributing sales of the one or more products or services using the markdown profile and sales pattern.
US08219442B2
A system and method for managing a permit-based parking environment governed by a parking program. The permit-based parking environment includes a number of parking permits each including a unique RFID tag and tag number. One or more RFID readers are used to scan the vehicles parked in the parking environment to determine if a RFID tag is associated with the parked vehicle. The results of the scan along with information related to the parked vehicle are provided to a permit management system to determine if the vehicle is parked within the scope of privileges pre-defined for that vehicle, pursuant to the parking program governing the parking environment. The permit management system stores, manages, and monitors data related to the permits controlled under the parking program.
US08219437B2
Systems and methods are presented for constructing production plans to achieve one or more production goals, in which a diagnosis engine determines the production plant condition based on a previously executed plan, observations from the plant, and a plant model, and formulates a heuristic based on a diagnostic objective, and with a planner to performing a partial-plan search using the heuristic to construct the plans that will concurrently achieve at least one production goal and facilitate the diagnostic objective.
US08219426B1
Systems and methods provide customizable insurance according to consumer preferences. Demand simulators may be used to guide the creation of optimized packages of features, which consumers may select from to form an insurance product appropriate for their particular needs. Packages may be formed with a particular appeal to consumers with common characteristics. In addition, methods are provided for selling insurance products formed through an optimization process and providing corresponding insurance services.
US08219424B2
Methods and systems are provided for determining and displaying amounts for use in settling insurance claims are disclosed. Closed claims that match an open claim are identified based on one or more characteristics of the open claim. A likelihood value associated with at least one of the matching closed claims is determined. An amount for use by an adjuster in settling the open claim is determined based on the likelihood value for at least one of the matching claims. A most likely amount and most likely range associated with the open claim may be determined based on the likelihood values.
US08219420B1
A method and apparatus for coordinating payment of healthcare expenses is disclosed. The method comprises determining a co-payment amount based on a customer's insurance coverage, determining the availability of funds from a plurality of the consumer's prioritized accounts, and deducting at least a portion of the co-payment from the highest priority account having available funds.
US08219399B2
Techniques are described related to tiles of automated speech recognition data. In an implementation, automated speech recognition (ASR) data is obtained. The ASR data is divided into a plurality of tiles based on an approximate amount of data to be included in each tile. Each of the tiles is a partition of the ASR data.
US08219398B2
Disclosed are novel embodiments of a speech synthesizer and speech synthesis method for generating human-like speech wherein a speech signal can be generated by concatenation from phonemes stored in a phoneme database. Wavelet transforms and interpolation between frames can be employed to effect smooth morphological fusion of adjacent phonemes in the output signal. The phonemes may have one prosody or set of prosody characteristics and one or more alternative prosodies may be created by applying prosody modification parameters to the phonemes from a differential prosody database. Preferred embodiments can provide fast, resource-efficient speech synthesis with an appealing musical or rhythmic output in a desired prosody style such as reportorial or human interest. The invention includes computer-determining a suitable prosody to apply to a portion of the text by reference to the determined semantic meaning of another portion of the text and applying the detennined prosody to the text by modification of the digitized phonemes. In this manner, prosodization can effectively be automated.
US08219392B2
Systems, methods, and apparatus for the detection of signals having spectral peaks with narrow bandwidth are described herein. The range of described configurations includes implementations that perform such detection using parameters of a linear prediction coding (LPC) analysis scheme.
US08219388B2
A sensation of presence of voice chat in a virtual space is enhanced. A user speech synthesizer used in a virtual space sharing system where information processing devices share the virtual space. The user speech synthesizer comprises a speech data acquiring section (60) for acquiring speech data representing a speech uttered by the user of one of the information processing devices, an environment sound storage section (66) for storing an environment sound associated with one or more regions defined in the virtual space, a region specifying section (64) for specifying a region corresponding to the user in the virtual space, and an environment sound synthesizing section (68) for acquiring the environment sound associated with the specified region from the environment sound storage section (66), combining the acquired environment sound and the speech data and synthesizing synthesized speech data.
US08219386B2
The Arabic poetry meter identification system and method produces coded Al-Khalyli transcriptions of Arabic poetry. The meters (Wazn, Awzan being forms of the Arabic poems units Bayt, Abyate) are identified. A spoken or written poem is accepted as input. A coded transcription of the poetry pattern forms is produced from input processing. The system identifies and distinguishes between proper spoken poetic meter and improper poetic meter. Error in the poem meters (Bahr, Buhur) and the ending rhyme pattern, “Qafiya” are detected and verified. The system accepts user selection of a desired poem meter and then interactively aids the user in the composition of poetry in the selected meter, suggesting alternative words and word groups that follow the desired poem pattern and dactyl components. The system can be in a stand-alone device or integrated with other computing devices.
US08219385B2
A computer-implemented method, system, and computer program product are provided for conducting a search of electronically stored information. The method includes: (a) providing a user with an interactive targeting rule editor to enable the user to formulate a targeting rule to identify desired search results, the targeting rule comprising a natural language text string, the interactive targeting rule editor allowing the user to change one or more designated editable portions of the natural language text string to one of a set of specified alternate portions, delete one or more designated removable portions of the natural language text string, or add one or more of a set of specified insertable portions to form a syntactically valid targeting rule in accordance with a targeting rule grammar; (b) receiving the text string or a representation thereof from the user; (c) translating the text string or a representation thereof into an executable query; and (d) executing the executable query against the electronically stored information to generate search results.
US08219384B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for enhancing speech recognition accuracy. In one aspect, a method includes receiving an audio signal that corresponds to an utterance recorded by a mobile device, determining a geographic location associated with the mobile device, adapting one or more acoustic models for the geographic location, and performing speech recognition on the audio signal using the one or more acoustic models model that are adapted for the geographic location.
US08219361B2
The present invention relates to vibration analysis and in particular, but not limited to, the derivation of multiple types of vibration signals from one vibration signal for vibration analysis. In the preferred method of the invention the vibrations of an object are measured using at least one vibration sensor, wherein the vibration sensor converts vibrations into an electrical vibration signal. The electrical vibration signal is digitized based on a first frequency, wherein the first frequency is selected from a plurality of possible frequency values. A first type of vibration signal is derived from the digitized vibration signal. A second type of vibration signal is then derived from the digitized vibration signal based on a second frequency. The second frequency is rationally determined from, and lower than, the value selected for the first frequency. The invention also provides apparatus for deriving multiple types of vibration signals from one measured vibration signal for vibration analysis.
US08219359B2
A performance evaluating apparatus includes a selector, a first performance value calculator, and a second performance value calculator. The first performance value calculator calculates a first performance value based on first partial process execution time tcpu in which a first processor performs a first partial process and a second partial process execution time tdisk in which a second processor performs a second partial process. The second performance value calculator calculates a second performance value based on the first partial process execution time and the predetermined upper limit executable time ratio α1. The selector selects either the first performance value or the second performance value as the performance value based on the upper limit executable time ratio, the first partial process execution time, and the second partial process execution time.
US08219355B2
For an integrated circuit associated with a plurality of parameters whose values are described by a first probability distribution function, a method for estimating a failure probability includes selecting a first plurality of samples, performing a first test to determine an outcome for each of the first plurality of samples and identifying failed samples, and clustering the failed samples using a computer-implemented cluster forming method that, in some cases, returns multiple clusters. The method also includes forming a probability distribution function for each of the clusters, forming a composite probability distribution function that includes a weighted combination of the first probability distribution function and the probability distribution function for each of the clusters. The method further includes selecting a second plurality of samples using the composite probability distribution function and performing a second test to determine an outcome for each of the second plurality of samples. A failure probability can then be computed.
US08219352B2
Embodiments of the invention disclose a system and a method for determining a pose of a probe relative to an object by probing the object with the probe, comprising steps of: determining a probability of the pose using Rao-Blackwellized particle filtering, wherein a probability of a location of the pose is represented by a location of each particle, and a probability of an orientation of the pose is represented by a Gaussian distribution over orientation of each particle conditioned on the location of the particle, wherein the determining is performed for each subsequent probing until the probability of the pose concentrates around a particular pose; and estimating the pose of the probe relative to the object based on the particular pose.
US08219346B2
Various techniques are described for high resolution time measurement using a programmable device, such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The timing may be triggered by any event, depending on the applications of use. Once triggering has occurred, a START pulse begins propagating through the FPGA. The pulse is able to propagate through the FPGA in a staggered manner traversing multiple FPGA columns to maximize the amount of time delay that may be achieved while minimizing the overall array size, and thus minimizing the resource utilization, of the FPGA. The FPGA timing delay is calibrated by measuring for the linear and non-linear differences in delay time of each unit circuit forming the staggered delay line path for the timing circuit. The FPGA is able to achieve nanosecond and sub-nanosecond time resolutions.
US08219342B2
A self correcting device includes a first flip-flop to receive data and coupled to a clock input; one or more delayed flip-flops used to detect delay variations; a multiplexer coupled to the output of the first flip-flop and the delayed flip-flops, a metastability detector and error check controller to control the multiplexer to select one flip-flop output; and an adaptive voltage swing link coupled to the multiplexer output to generate a voltage swing on the link based on a selected clock skew.
US08219341B2
System and method for implementing wafer acceptance test (“WAT”) advanced process control (“APC”) are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises performing an inter-metal (“IM”) WAT on a plurality of processed wafer lots; selecting a subset of the plurality of wafer lots using a lot sampling process; and selecting a sample wafer group using the wafer lot subset, wherein IM WAT is performed on wafers of the sample wafer group to obtain IM WAT data therefore. The method further comprises estimating final WAT data for all wafers in the processed wafer lots from IM WAT data obtained for the sample wafer group and providing the estimated final WAT data to a WAT APC process for controlling processes.
US08219340B2
A monitoring method for Through-Silicon Vias (TSVs) of a three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is provided, wherein the 3D IC includes a plurality of TSVs, and the method includes: providing a plurality of inverters; connecting the inverters with the TSVs as a circuit; enabling the circuit to oscillate; measuring an output signal on an output end of one of the inverters; and determining the characteristic of TSVs of the 3D IC based on the output signal.
US08219339B2
A system, method, and apparatus for obtaining a record of logic level transitions within a signal, and for accurately determining a voltage-time pair exhibited by the signal. To achieve these ends, a front-end device may be mated to a real-time sampling system, such as an oscilloscope. The front-end device effectively permits the oscilloscope to observe signals exhibiting greater data rates than otherwise possible without the front-end device.
US08219338B2
A testing system for bus parameters includes a wave displaying unit and a control module connected to the wave displaying unit. The control module includes a decode unit, a testing unit connected to the decode unit, and an output unit connected to the testing unit. The decode unit is connected to the wave displaying unit. The wave displaying unit is configured for receiving an electronic signal from a bus to be tested. The decode unit is configured for decoding the electronic signal to determine if the electronic signal is valid. The testing unit tests parameters of the bus. The output unit displays testing results for the parameters.
US08219334B2
An improved meter and its operation is described. The meter can be a part of a larger automated meter reading process that allows for remote reading of the meter though power line communication. Using a microcomputer core, the meter processes incoming analog data and can calculate several relevant data values need by utility providers. The meter can also be used to monitor and detect tampering dry connect/voltage free devices, such as gas and water meters, connected to the meter.
US08219333B2
A battery management system for a battery pack that includes multiple battery cells is disclosed. The battery management system includes a detector coupled to the battery cells, multiple temperature sensors coupled to the battery cells, a current sensor coupled to the battery cells in series, and a processor coupled to the current sensor. The detector generates first monitoring signals corresponding to cell voltages across the battery cells. The temperature sensors generate second monitoring signals corresponding to temperatures of the battery cells. The current sensor generates third monitoring signals corresponding to currents of the battery cells. The processor determines whether an undesired condition is present according to the first, second, and third monitoring signals.
US08219329B2
A thermal mass flow meter and a thermal mass flow control device addresses a thermal siphon error, even if they are in a compact and inexpensive structure, without using a flow path converting block. A control computing process portion is configured to correct a measurement error caused by thermal siphon by calculating a correction value based on a measurement value at time of depressurizing fluid flow path and flow rate measuring conduit to an atmospheric pressure or less, a difference between the measurement value and a measurement value at time of charging an actual fluid into the flow rate measuring conduit, kind of the actual fluid, pressure at time of charging the actual fluid, and flow ratio of the fluid flowing in the fluid flow path and the flow rate measuring conduit, storing the correction value, and correcting an actual measured output flow value by the stored correction value.
US08219328B2
The present invention provides a system and method for automatically deriving unique surrogate response data from experiment results in which inherent data loss occurs in a sufficient number of the samples to disallow quantitative effects estimation at the experimenter's desired level of confidence for statistical significance. In part, the unique surrogate response data sets of the present invention have one or more of four primary characteristics including: each is numerically analyzable; each may be readily or directly obtained when inherent data loss occurs; each provides a response value for an experiment trial; and each provides information on the effect of a change made to the process or system that would have been obtainable if the experiment samples had had no inherent data loss.
US08219323B2
Systems and methods for determining free energy parameters for predicting binding affinities of nucleotide sequences are provided. The disclosed subject matter obtains phenotypic measurements for nucleotide sequences (for example a DNA sequence or RNA sequence), links the phenotypic measurements to the nucleotide sequences to obtain linked pairs of phenotypic measurements and nucleotide sequences, estimates a relationship between the phenotypic measurements and the nucleotide sequences using the linked pairs, and obtains sequence specific affinity parameters from the estimated relationship.
US08219321B2
A system and method that enable the processing of seismic data. In one embodiment, a system comprises a plurality of processing nodes and a server. The plurality of processing nodes are configured to process seismic data for migration. The server is operatively linked to each of the plurality of processing nodes to enable communication between the server and the processing nodes. The server may manage a set of stored beam tables that can be accessed by the processing nodes in order to process seismic data.
US08219313B2
Navigation devices, methods, and programs store map data hierarchically with the map data of a hierarchy level being excluded. The devices, methods, and programs read the stored map data, perform a route search within each predetermined area on a departure point side and a destination side, and acquire a shortest cost route in a range overlapped in search areas. In a hierarchy level having a proximal higher hierarchy level of which the map data does not exist, the devices, methods, and programs expand the predetermined area into a search area in the proximal higher hierarchy level and acquire a first shortest cost route, and perform the route search in a higher hierarchy level to acquire a second shortest cost route. When the second shortest cost route's cost is smaller than the first shortest cost route's cost, the devices, methods, and programs update the cost of the shortest cost route.
US08219307B2
An aircraft navigation aid device includes at least one flight management system, an airport navigation aid unit which is incorporated in this flight management system, and a common interface unit.
US08219300B2
An engine control system and method for controlling engine air flow during a deceleration fuel cut includes an internal combustion engine, an anti-lock braking system (ABS), and an electronic control unit (ECU) that controls the engine. The ECU establishes a desired air flow rate for the internal combustion engine, which is taken from an ABS failed condition look-up table when determined that the ABS has failed while the engine is in a deceleration fuel cut mode, and otherwise is taken from a normal condition look-up table.
US08219297B2
A running control apparatus for a vehicle includes a required driving output deciding unit that decides a required driving force of a driving system of the vehicle on the basis of an integrated value of a difference between a target vehicle speed and an actual vehicle speed, a driving control unit that controls the actuation of the driving system on the basis of the required driving force, and a determination unit that determines whether or not the required driving force is unrealizable in the control of the driving system due to the intervention of additional control. The required driving output deciding unit imposes a limit on an increase or a decrease in the required driving force when the determination unit determines that the required driving force is unrealizable in the control of the driving system.
US08219292B2
Method for blocking inadmissible gear shifts in a transmission and shift assembly for a transmission
A method is proposed for blocking inadmissible gearshift processes in a transmission with a plurality of shifting devices which, to carry out a shift process, are moved by actuating devices when a shift command is sent by a control unit (TCU) to the relevant actuating device. The actuating devices are connected for data exchange with one another and with the control unit (TCU) in such manner that the actuating device of the shifting device to be shifted is activated provided that clearance has been given by at least one other actuating device. In addition a shifting system is proposed for a transmission with a control unit and a plurality of actuating devices for the actuation of shifting devices, such that the actuating devices are associated with at least one shaft (A, B) and such that the actuating devices are connected for data exchange with one another and with the control unit (TCU) in such manner that the actuating device of the shifting device to be shifted can be activated provided that clearance has been given by at least one other actuating device.
US08219289B2
A vehicle control apparatus for a vehicle that includes a brake mechanism that produces braking force through the actuation of a first actuator and a shift mechanism that changes the shift position of a transmission through the actuation of a second actuator. The vehicle control apparatus includes: a controller that controls the electric power supplied to the first actuator and that controls the electric power supplied to the second actuator; a first electric power supply unit that supplies electric power to the controller; a second electric power supply unit that supplies electric power to the first actuator; and a third electric power supply unit that supplies electric power to the second actuator. An actuator control unit in the controller controls the electric power supplied to the second actuator from the second electric power supply unit or from the third electric power supply unit when the second actuator is not able to operate using the electric power supplied from the first electric power supply unit.
US08219286B2
An occupant detection system with noise reduction, a controller having noise reduction for an occupant detection system and a method for reducing noise in an occupant detection system. A high order digital filter is used to filter harmonics of a noise signal from an electrode signal used to determine an occupant presence or absence of the occupant. A way of sampling the electrode signal and the implementation of the high order digital filter cooperate such that the signal processing can be performed by a lower cost general purpose microprocessor as opposed to using a higher cost digital signal processor.
US08219285B2
In an electric power steering system installed in a vehicle and designed to generate, by a motor, assist torque for assisting the driver's turning effort of the steering wheel, a self-aligning torque determiner determines a value of self aligning torque applied to the vehicle. A commanded-value generator determines a value of an assist ratio based on a predetermined relationship between a variable of the self aligning torque and a variable of the assist ratio. The assist ratio represents a ratio of share of torque by the motor for compensating the self aligning torque. The commanded-value generator generates, based on the self aligning torque and the value of the assist ratio, a commanded value for the assist torque. An assist torque determiner determines the assist torque based on the commanded value for the assist torque generated by the commanded-value generator.
US08219284B2
The present invention provides a steering control apparatus that controls steering of a vehicle of a steer-by-wire type, and includes steered-wheel motors that apply separate torques to right and left steered wheels respectively, a rod member that couples the right and left steered wheels so that the steered wheels can be steered, and a steering controller that controls driving of the steered-wheel motors. In each steered wheel, a center of the contact face thereof and a kingpin point thereof are offset in a lateral direction of the vehicle, and the steering controller controls driving of the steered-wheel motors so as to generate a torque difference between the right and left steered wheels, and provides a steering effort in accordance with this torque difference for each of the right and left steered wheels via the rod member, thereby to steer the vehicle.
US08219283B2
A system and method for actively cancelling steering nibble and/or brake judder in an electric power steering system using a controller and an electric motor by converting a selected wheel speed to a frequency, selecting a nibble order, determine nibble enable frequencies for cancellation, selecting a damping factor based on changes in vehicle velocity, calculating filter coefficients based on the selected damping factor, the selected nibble order and the wheel frequency, applying a gain scheduler to a steering column torque signal for the nibble enable frequencies, applying a tuned resonator filter to an output of the gain scheduler and using the filter coefficients to produce a nibble signal, calculating an active nibble cancelling torque signal from the nibble signal and applying the active nibble cancelling torque signal to the electric motor to cancel steering wheel nibble vibration.
US08219279B2
A method provides for transferring back-up data between on-board electronic modules of a vehicle. The presence of default parameters is sensed at a first electronic module during a running of the vehicle engine for an engine cycle. The current engine cycle accumulation register data is stored for the engine cycle in the first electronic module. A parameter and accumulation register data recovery routine is run wherein parameters and accumulation register data for the first electronic module are recovered from memory in the second electronic module on the vehicle and restored in the memory of the first electronic module. The information is transferred using SAE J1939 protocol. The first electronic module can be an engine control unit and the second electronic module can be a body controller. During a parameter and data back-up routine periodically run, the first electronic module stores current parameters and accumulation register data into memory of the second electronic module that will serve as back-up parameter and accumulation register data storage in the event the first module loses such parameters and accumulation register data.
US08219277B2
When a failed Hall IC cannot be identified through determination as to whether any of output voltages falls outside a predetermined output range and determination as to whether any of the output voltages has steeply varied, a microcomputer determines whether the directions of steering torques converted from the output voltages are the same. Then, when the directions of the converted steering torques are the same, the average of these output voltages is used to calculate a temporary torque, and then power assist control is continued, that is, specifically, assisting force applied to a steering system is slowly and gradually decreased, on the basis of the temporary torque.
US08219276B2
The invention relates to a method for aiding the maintenance of a system, the system comprising a set of networked elements, the system being accompanied by indications defining subsets of networked elements Ei, each subset of networked elements Ei being associated with a probability of failure Pi, the including the steps of calculating a first value Ti for each subset of networked elements Ei, the first value Ti including an estimation of the maintenance time related to the repair of the subset of networked elements Ei, calculating a second value Fi for each subset of networked elements Ei, the second value Fi including a representation of a compromise between the estimation of the maintenance time Ti related to the repair of the subset of networked elements Ei and the probability of failure Pi of the subsets of networked elements Ei, and sorting the designated sets of items of equipment Ei in order of decreasing second value Fi.
US08219270B2
An operator selectable performance control system for an electric vehicle, is provided. In various embodiments, the system includes a motor structured and operable to provide motive power and regenerative braking forces to the vehicle and a mechanical brake assembly structured and operable to exert mechanical braking forces to the vehicle. The system additionally includes a controller operable to control the application of motive power and regenerative braking forces of the motor. The system further includes an operator selectable switch structured and operable to changeably select one of a plurality of vehicle performance routines executable by the controller for affecting maximum vehicle speed and an amount of regenerative braking implemented during vehicle operation.
US08219265B2
A display system and method for an aircraft simultaneously displays the terrain under the flight plan, or under the current track of the aircraft, as both a two-dimensional lateral situation view image and as a perspective vertical situation view image. This provides improved tactical flight planning, and that does not erroneously show the flight plan passing through the displayed terrain.
US08219263B2
A bicycle user information apparatus comprises an information receiver that receives information corresponding to the bicycle user through the Internet; and an administration control unit that manages the information received through the information receiver and enables external access to the managed information in response to predetermined criteria. The administration control unit includes a user registration unit that registers identifying information corresponding to the bicycle user.
US08219260B2
A temperature control apparatus includes a resistance heater whose a resistance value changes depending on a temperature of the resistance heater; a signal generator to output a control signal having two voltage levels including a first-voltage and a second-voltage; a switching section to flow a first current through the resistance heater when the voltage level of the control signal is the first-voltage, and to flow a second current having a current value smaller than that of the first current through the resistance heater when the voltage level of the control signal is the second-voltage; and a voltage measuring instrument to measure a voltage value across the resistance heater at the time when the second current flows through the resistance heater. The signal generator controls the temperature of the resistance heater based on the voltage value measured by the voltage measuring instrument.
US08219255B2
A method and a system for controlling an electrical installation uses a graphics-based control system, e.g. a SCADA system and a geo-referenced information system, such as a geographic information system. The system is capable of displaying at least one component of the electrical installation and a piece of geo-referenced information that is linked to the component of the electrical installation. In the GIS, selectable context menus can be displayed in relation to specific geographic reference points, in particular in relation to the location coordinates of the components of the electrical installation, the menus being selected by a user. The context menus determine control commands for the SCADA system, the commands are transmitted directly to the SCADA system after a relevance check and are executed. A user can thus use the GIS system as a type of entry mask for the specification of control commands in the SCADA system.
US08219250B2
A controller is configured to exchange information with a building automation system and includes various executable programs for determining a real time operating efficiency, simulating a predicted or theoretical operating efficiency, comparing the same, and then adjusting one or more operating parameters on equipment utilized by a building's HVAC system. The controller operates to adjust an operating efficiency of the HVAC system. An adjustment module utilized by the controller may modify the HVAC equipment parameters based on the likelihood that various HVAC equipment operates in parallel and on-line near its natural operating curve. In addition, the adjustment module may include a self-learning aspect that permits the controller to more efficiently make similar, future adjustments as needed.
US08219247B2
A method of operating a furnace having process tubes and multiple burners where it is desired to conform the temperatures of the process tubes to selected target temperature criterion. The present method provides a systematic and quantitative approach to determine how to adjust burner flow rates to result in desired tube wall temperatures, for example to minimize the temperature deviation between tube wall temperatures at a predetermined elevation in the furnace.
US08219243B2
An automated store arrangement for storing and dispensing medicaments with at least one operating device for storing and retrieving medicament containers, a dispensing device, and a control device. The containers may respectively accommodate a multiplicity of medicament portions and have an integrated discharge device. The dispensing device has at least one container receptacle, to which the operating device can respectively feed a container and from which the operating device can pick up the container, a release device, which can activate the discharge device of the container, and a packing device, which can accommodate a number of emerging medicament portions and pack them into the medicament. The control device is coupled to the operating device and to the release device and the packaging device and controls them in such a way that medicament portions of at least one predetermined kind are packed in a respectively predetermined number and sequence.
US08219240B2
A conveyance device includes a motor, a conveyance unit, a movement detection signal output unit, a storage unit, a time measurement unit, a first updating unit, a standby time setting unit, a second updating unit, a manipulated variable determination unit, and a motor driving unit. The standby time setting unit sets a value larger than a parameter value TX stored in the storage unit as a standby time TW. The second updating unit updates the parameter value TX stored in the storage unit to the standby time TW each time the elapsed time measured by the time measurement unit reaches the standby time TW.
US08219229B2
A computational technique to construct a 3-D valve leaflet geometry. The invention pertains to methodology to construct a 3-D heart valve leaflet geometry using finite element analysis (FEA) to simulate the manual assembly process or, in other words, provide a virtual assembly process as an input to a subsequent simulated valve testing step. The simulated valves may be subjected to simulated cyclic valve opening and closings and the stress levels induced therein monitored. Simulated valve designs with lower principal stresses can then be selected for prototyping. Proposed valves can be subjected to cyclic fatigue stress testing under simulated physiologic conditions to study valve durability.
US08219224B2
Systems and methods of managing entertainment content on a computer jukebox are provided in which, in exemplary embodiments, a digital file is transferred from a data center to a temporary cache in a digital memory of the computer jukebox in response to a user selection and the file is transferred from the temporary cache to a local file in the digital memory according to predetermined criteria. Also provided is a system and method of managing entertainment content on a computer jukebox in which, in one embodiment, the least popular albums are removed from the digital memory of the computer jukebox if the digital memory has reached a predetermined memory limit and a predetermined number of the most popular albums not already in the digital memory are added to the digital memory.
US08219222B2
An apparatus comprising a controller. The controller includes an input/output (I/O) module and a rule module. The I/O module is configured to present a question for a patient when communicatively coupled to a user interface and receive patient information in response to the question via the user interface. The rule module is configured to apply a rule to the patient information and generate a suggested insulin pump setting from application of the rule. Other devices, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US08219220B2
A multicore processor for industrial control provides for the execution of separate operating systems on the cores under control of one of the cores to tailor the operating system to optimum execution of different applications of industrial control and communication. One core may provide for a reduced instruction set for execution of industrial control programs with the remaining cores providing a general-purpose instruction set.
US08219216B2
An industrial control system includes an industrial controller and a series of bridge devices logically connected in a cascaded arrangement to facilitate data communication between the industrial controller and an I/O device. The control system further includes a programming interface connected to the industrial controller to provide modifications to the program and component configuration. Modifications are provided to the controller and to the bridge devices across the network in a multiphase operation that includes a first operation that cascades the modifications from the industrial controller and to the bridge devices, and a second operation that cascades a apply command to the industrial controller and to the bridge devices instructing the industrial controller and the bridge devices to update the configuration of each of the devices based on the modifications provided in the first phase only upon acknowledgement that the industrial controller and each of the bridge devices has accepted the modifications.
US08219211B2
A medical electrical lead that includes a lead body having a lead body lumen, an electrode head assembly fixedly engaged with the lead body and having an electrode head assembly lumen communicating with the lead body lumen, and a conductor extending within the lead body lumen and the electrode head assembly lumen. An insulating member extends through the electrode head assembly lumen and the lead body lumen to electrically isolate the conductor.
US08219210B2
A method and apparatus is described for detecting and localizing areas of myocardial infarction or ischemia. By pacing sites in proximity to the infarcted or ischemic region with appropriately timed pacing pulses, the region is pre-excited in a manner that lessens the mechanical stress to which it is subjected, thus reducing the metabolic demand of the region and the stimulus for remodeling.
US08219208B2
Decoupling circuits are provided which transfer energy induced from an MRI pulsed RF field to the housing for an active implantable medical device (AIMD) which serves as an energy dissipating surface. This is accomplished through broadband filtering or by resonant filtering. In a passive component network for an AIMD, a frequency selective energy diversion circuit is provided for diverting high-frequency energy away from an AIMD lead to the AIMD housing for dissipation of said high-frequency energy.
US08219202B2
The disclosure describes a method and system for applying electrical stimulation to an ilioinguinal nerve of a patient. The system includes electrical stimulators that apply electrical stimulation for alleviation of pelvic pain. The system may apply electrical stimulation for pelvic pain in men or women. The electrical stimulators may comprise various types of electrodes such as cuff electrodes, electrode leads, and microstimulators implanted at various locations proximate to a single or both ilioinguinal nerves of a patient. In particular, the electrode may be implanted proximate or adjacent to a region of the ilioinguinal nerve above or below the inguinal canal.
US08219187B2
In a method and apparatus for providing an indication suitable for assessing a physiological condition of a patient, at least two biosignals are obtained from the patient. The biosignals contain at least one common physiological data component, such as an EEG or EMG component. An analysis of each of the biosignals is carried out to obtain a complexity value for each of the biosignals. Or, the biosignals may be divided into their components and a complexity value is obtained for the biosignal components. Thereafter and on the basis of the complexity values, a complexity value indicative of at least one physiological data component present in the biosignals is selected and utilized to provide the physiological condition assessment indication of the patient.
US08219186B2
A non-invasive system and method of diagnosing and predicting cardiac disease in a patient's heart is disclosed that comprises a microprocessor which contains a signal processor and a pattern recognition processor; detect the electrophysiological signals of the heart whereby the signals are processed to create a pattern that represents the patient's heart. The pattern may be further processed by repeatedly comparing it to patterns stored within the pattern recognition processor whereby certain coronary diseases such as myocardial ischemia in the patient's heart may be diagnosed. During each heartbeat, at least a million different electrical signals are collected and the results of test are displayed on a screen. The results may include the diagnosis, computer generated image of the patient's heart identifying areas of any cardiac disease that has been detected and/or a two dimensional non-linear waveform representing the electrophysiological signals of the patient's heart. In a further embodiment, the system will also generate ECG waveforms.
US08219180B2
The present invention provides systems, devices, and methods employing fiber optic shape and position tracking. The systems, devices, and methods permit measurement of and continuous tracking of the shape and position of objects whose shape dynamically changes with time. Applications include tracking and monitoring of endoscopes for diagnostic and surgical procedures.
US08219173B2
Method and apparatus for optimizing analyte sensor calibration including receiving a current blood glucose measurement, retrieving a time information for an upcoming scheduled calibration event for calibrating an analyte sensor, determining temporal proximity between the current blood glucose measurement and the retrieved time information for the upcoming calibration event, initiating a calibration routine to calibrate the analyte sensor when the determined temporal proximity is within a predetermined time period, and overriding the upcoming scheduled calibration event using the current blood glucose measurement are provided.
US08219171B2
A system, device, and method for placing a capsule for sensing one or more parameters of a patient by anchoring the capsule to a tissue at a specific site and releasing the capsule from the device, using a single actuator operated during a single motion. As an example, a delivery device may anchor the capsule to the tissue site and release the capsule from the delivery device during a single motion of the actuator. This allows a user to place the capsule by interacting with only a single actuator through one type of motion, thus making delivery of the capsule more reliable and user-friendly.
US08219163B2
A slide mechanism comprises a main plate forming two guiding groove portions, and a slide plate forming two guiding flanges engaging with the guiding groove portions respectively. The slide mechanism includes a plurality of rollers received in the guiding groove portions to guide the guiding flanges to slide relative to the guiding groove portions. The invention also discloses a portable electronic device applying the slide mechanism.
US08219159B2
A cover flip mechanism and an electronic device using the same are provided. An electronic device with the cover flip mechanism includes a first casing and a second casing. The cover flip mechanism includes a sliding mechanism connected to the first casing and the second casing, a rotating mechanism having a supporting portion and a rotating portion disposed at the second casing and is connected to the supporting portion, a fastener pivotally connected to the second casing and a protrudent block disposed at the first casing. When the first casing slides relatively to the second casing to the rotating location, the protrudent block pushes the fastener, and then the fastener rotates and releases the supporting portion. Therefore, the supporting portion can rotate relatively to the second casing via the rotating portion further to push the first casing to rotate relatively to the second casing.
US08219158B2
A handheld wireless communication device configured to be hand cradleable by an operator during text entry. A display, key field and trackball navigation tool are located on a front face of the device. At least some keys of the key field are arranged in key-columns and each of the key-columns is vertically offset from adjacent key-columns. Alphanumeric input keys include several alphabetic keys with letters arranged in a traditional (QWERTY), but non-ITU Standard E.161 telephone letter layout. A microprocessor is provided that receives operator commands from the keys and the trackball navigation tool and which affects corresponding changes to the display based on user input. At least one key of the key field is positioned adjacent to the trackball navigation tool and the at least one key has an arcuate-shaped edge conformance fitting to an arcuate-shaped boundary about the trackball navigation tool.
US08219141B2
Provided is a power amplifier sharing system for a mobile communication system having a mobile Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) function, particularly, a power amplifier sharing system that can reduce the power consumption and the size of a circuit in a mobile communication terminal having a mobile RFID function. The system includes a mobile communication transceiver for transmitting/receiving a mobile communication signal; a mobile RFID transceiver for transmitting/receiving a mobile RFID signal; a power amplifier for amplifying a signal; a switch for connecting the mobile communication transceiver and the mobile RFID transceiver to the power amplifier; and a transceiver controller for controlling the switch and the power amplifier.
US08219134B2
In embodiments, the present invention provides a method and system for switching between broadcast and unicast content on a mobile device. The method and system involves making unicast content available to the mobile device, making broadcast content available to the mobile device; and providing an application on the mobile device which allows for switching between the unicast and broadcast content.
US08219127B2
A method and apparatus for performing measurements logging in a mobile communications system is provided. An user equipment receives a first measurement configuration message including a first measurement configuration and receives a second measurement configuration message. The user equipment discards the first measurement configuration upon receiving the second measurement configuration message.
US08219123B2
A method for providing a personalized multimedia messaging service, wherein the method includes obtaining an MMS message (800). Recipient according to preferences of the at least one targeted recipient (900), thereby producing a personalized MMS message (910), and transmitting the personalized MMS message to the at least one targeted recipient indicate (1000) that the at least one targeted recipient is not interested in receiving the personalized MMS message.
US08219120B2
An information management method and an information management system are provided. The method mainly includes the following steps. A first message is sent to a foreign agent (FA) of a mobile station (MS) after a paging controller (PC) is redirected. The first message includes information of a new PC after redirection. The FA stores the information of the new PC and sends a response message to the first message to the PC. The following technical effects are achieved by the present invention through the above technical solutions. An anchor PC before redirection or a new anchor PC after redirection reports an ID of the new anchor PC to the FA, so the FA gets to know an address of the new anchor PC when paging and thus implements the paging process successfully.
US08219114B2
A system for determining the location of a wireless mobile device with respect to an interconnected network of wireless transmission waveguides is disclosed. The interconnected network could be interconnected ducts of an HVAC system in a building. Multiple wireless probes are placed at multiple locations within the HVAC duct system (or similar interconnected network of waveguides). Each probe may detect a common signal from a wireless mobile device and independently preserve arrival time information of the detected signal, wherein the signal propagates to probes by way of a free-space path to an opening in one or another duct, and thereafter to the probes via one or another path through the interconnected ducts, which act as wireless transmission waveguides. By correlating timing information of a signal received at three or more probes, a location of the mobile wireless device may be determined by one or another form of triangulation.
US08219108B2
Provided is a method of operating a smart radio communication system, the method including: collecting information associated with each of a plurality of radio access technologies (RATs) through an access to the plurality of RATs; receiving a type of a service, requested by a terminal, via a first RAT accessing the terminal among the plurality of RATs; selecting an optimal channel based on the collected information and the received type of the service; and transmitting a content corresponding to the service via the selected optimal channel.
US08219107B2
The amount of data that is transmitted over a cellular network is reduced thereby providing an improvement in the quality of service. The data reduction is obtained by intercepting data units transferred over a bearer between two nodes, such as a BTS and BSC. The current load for a bearer is determined and based on the current load, the source of the data is requested to change the bit rate of subsequent data units. Thus, the bit rate of data that is transmitted toward two intermediate nodes is changed in order to control the load over a bearer that connects the two intermediate nodes.
US08219101B2
A method of managing cells of base stations (BSs) and a mobile telecommunication system for the same, capable of allowing a user equipment (UE), which had not been permitted, to access the CSG BS if the UE meets an access condition, are disclosed. In accordance with the method and the system, an outdoor BS, manages a list of indoor BSs of a CCSG selected among indoor BSs of the CSG. The indoor BSs of the CCSG allow the UE to access the indoor BSs of the CCSG when the UE meets an access condition. The outdoor BS broadcasts a reporting criteria and reporting information, receives measurement values that meet the reporting criteria and an identity of the indoor BS as the reporting information from the UE, recognizes the environment of the UE based on the measurement value, checks the identity of the indoor base station in the list of the CCSG and allows the UE to access the indoor base station based on a check result.
US08219098B2
A femtocell base station and method of switching communication services of femtocell base stations. The method establishes an authorization list by which the mobile communication apparatus can be authorized to access the other femtocell base stations within the communication coverage, sets up a communication warning value and a signal capturing duration, performs a timing process when detecting that the signal intensity of itself is less than the communication warning value, and selects another femtocell base station having the highest priority in the priority list as an object for performing a switching process when the timing process counts to the signal capturing duration and the signal intensity of itself is less than the signal intensity of the other femtocell base station having the highest priority in the priority list, so as to interconnect the mobile communication terminal.
US08219093B2
The present invention relates to efficient handover processing for a multi-mode mobile station supporting a licensed wireless system and unlicensed wireless system. A handover processing method using unlicensed mobile access (UMA) includes: checking, upon recognition of necessity of handover, neighbor cell information from a licensed wireless system; determining possibility of handover on the basis of the neighbor cell information; preventing, if handover is not possible, a handover-related operation, and maintaining an existing connection to the licensed wireless system; and performing, if handover is possible, handover to an associated unlicensed wireless system.
US08219086B2
A low duty mode is provided for a femtocell base station operating as part of a cellular communications system. Methods and systems are described for reducing the service impact of the low-duty mode on mobile stations that are either already attached or are attempting to attach to a femtocell base station.
US08219077B2
Apparatus and methods for managing predetermined malfunction events in a wireless device operating in a wireless communications network. Malfunction event data and operational data are recorded by the wireless device based on a selected malfunction event tracking configuration. Further, a recovery module associated with the wireless device operates to attempt to recover information leading up to and including the malfunction event. The collected information may be transmitted to a user manager in the form of a malfunction event log. The malfunction event log may be analyzed to characterize the malfunction, and is particularly useful for determining the sequence and identity of events leading to the malfunction, including a crash, freeze and reset.
US08219067B1
A system, method, and computer-readable media are described for allowing a user to specify a desired time of delivery for a message (e.g., MMS message, SMS message). In one embodiment, a user interface is provided that allows the user to set a desired time of delivery while composing the message. The desired time of delivery is then included in the message. The recipient device places the message in a hidden folder until the desired time of delivery. Also, a messaging center may wait to deliver a messaging-waiting notification to the recipient until a low network usage period.
US08219066B2
This invention can reduce the load on a recording apparatus, efficiently design the overall system, and accurately calculate a data amount recordable on a recording unit in accordance with setting change of each communication apparatus or the like. A portable remote storage transmits information on a data amount storable in the portable remote storage to digital cameras. The information on the data amount storable in the portable remote storage is based on the remaining area of a shared storage area commonly available for the digital cameras except for an exclusive storage area assigned to each digital camera.
US08219055B2
A tuner for a wireless receiver is provided, which may include an input interface that is adapted to receive wireless signals, a mixer that is adapted to select a specific frequency from signals received at the input interface, and a controllable switch that is adapted to lead an output from the mixer towards a base-band unit of the receiver and to disconnect the output. The tuner may further include a controller which may be adapted to operate the controllable switch to disconnect the output of the mixer when the controller studies characteristics of the tuner and to reconnect the output of the mixer at other times. The studied characteristics may be associated with parasitic direct current voltages in the tuner, which may be associated with a low noise amplifier of the tuner, or programmable gain amplifier of the tuner or with both amplifiers. The controller may cause a compensation direct current voltage to be generated and applied to the mixer's output based on the ratio between programmed gain and actual/measured gain of the programmable gain amplifier.
US08219054B2
According to an aspect of the invention, an oscillating circuit includes: a first MOS transistor having a first drain terminal and a first source terminal; a load element connected to the first drain terminal; and an oscillator connected to the first source terminal and outputs a fundamental signal and a harmonic signal, wherein the harmonic signal is amplified so that the amplified harmonic signal is output from the first drain terminal.
US08219053B2
A system and method of automatically tuning a reading device that remotely monitors RFID tags or transponders. The reading device utilizes the phase signal of an antenna signal wherein the harmonic of the antenna signal is filtered through a signal coupling transformer and utilizes the antenna current reading to determine the optimal capacitance setting for the reader by adjusting capacitors and storing the relative phase signal and level of current in a processor. In one embodiment, the method comprises supplying power to the reading device, monitoring the power supply, storing data related to the monitored power supply, emitting a signal from an antenna, filtering the harmonic of such signal, outputting the phase signal to a processor and adjusting capacitors based on the phase signal and monitored current.
US08219046B2
A RF transmitter is operable to transmit a signal at a frequency specified by the Bluetooth protocol. A passive upconversion mixer, which comprises a pair of MOSFET switches, is utilized inside the RF transmitter. The passive upconversion mixer is operable to receive analog local oscillator (LO) signals to be utilized for controlling operation of each of the pair of MOSFET switches to transmit signals with maximum gain. A MOS threshold voltage VTH and a DC component of a received baseband signal, VBB—DC, are determined for each of the pair of MOSFET switches. The determined VTH and the determined VBB—DC of the received baseband signal are combined such as VTH+VBB—DC and compared with a DC component of the received LO signals, VLO—DC. The VLO—DC is set equal to VTH+VBB—DC, accordingly, to provide maximum gain from the passive upconversion mixer for signal transmission.
US08219045B2
A system (100) and method (300) of feedback transmitter power control can include a transmitter temperature detector such as a thermistor based temperature detector (118), a detector for detecting forward and reflected transmitter power (113 and 115), and a voltage controlled attenuator (120) placed in a radio frequency power control feedback path for modifying transmitter power based on a detected transmitter temperature and a detected forward and reflected transmitter power. The system can further include a logarithmic amplifier controller (122) in the feedback path coupled to the voltage controlled attenuator as well as a power amplifier (112) coupled to the voltage controlled attenuator. The system can operate in both analog and time division multiple access modes. The system can be active in real time throughout a push-to-talk session.
US08219038B2
The present invention relates to a portable terminal, and to a method and apparatus for improving broadcasting reception performance of the portable terminal by filtering a transmission frequency of a radio frequency unit introduced to a broadcasting reception path without experiencing broadcast signal loss. The filtering can be achieved using a filter that includes a variable capacitor in the broadcasting reception path. Accordingly, the transmission frequency of the radio frequency unit may be filtered without a broadcast signal loss. A capacitance of the variable capacitor may be controlled according to the broadcast channel.
US08219037B2
A baseband processor of a distributed architecture for monitoring mobile communication in a wireless communication network is claimed. Systems and methods enable receiving reporting data related to events that occur in a wireless network from the perspective of the wireless device. The data management system is capable of generating a data reporting profile and communicating with a wireless device. The application processor is capable of monitoring and reporting a plurality of conditions within the wireless device and sending and receiving communications from the data management system. The baseband processor is capable of monitoring and reporting plurality of conditions on the wireless network and sending and receiving communications with the application processor. Both the application processor and the baseband processor monitor and report the conditions of the device and the network by applying a series of logical rules found within the data reporting profile.
US08219016B2
A fixing device includes a hollow, generally cylindrical open-sided stationary heat roll, a flexible fuser belt, a fuser pad, a rotatable pressure member, and a roll shape retainer. The heat roll is configured to heat an outer circumference thereof, and defines an elongated longitudinal side opening in one side thereof. The fuser belt is looped for rotation around the heat roll to transfer heat radially outward from the roll circumference. The fuser pad is held substantially stationary along the roll opening outward from the roll hollow and inward from the loop of the fuser belt. The pressure member is pressed against the fuser pad through the fuser belt to form a fixing nip. The roll shape retainer is disposed on the roll opening to retain the generally cylindrical shape of the heat roll.
US08219012B2
A toner image transfer apparatus in a printer is provided. The toner image transfer apparatus comprises a transfer belt structure, a rotatable transfer rod and a transfer roll retraction mechanism. The transfer belt structure comprises a driven toner image transfer belt and a rotatable backup roll engaging an inner surface of the transfer belt. The rotatable transfer roll is adapted to define a nip with the belt and backup roll. The transfer roll retraction mechanism comprises motion transfer structure coupled to the transfer roll and drive apparatus associated with the motion transfer structure.
US08218996B2
An image forming apparatus including a fixing unit; a discharge unit; a stacking unit; an inversion guide; a cooling fan; an opening; a duct; and a second duct, wherein the discharge unit is provided on a downstream side of the side end of the fixing unit in a paper discharge direction, and an air flow direction from the duct toward the second duct is substantially matched with a direction in which hot air above the fixing unit is taken in by the cooling fan.
US08218991B2
A fixing device according to an embodiment of the present invention heats a metal conductive layer of a heat roller using an induction current generating coil. In order to supplement a heat capacity of the heat roller, a press roller having a large heat capacity is heated by a halogen lamp. During a start of activation of an image forming apparatus, when a printer control circuit is started, the supply of electric power to the halogen lamp is started before warming-up is started.
US08218979B2
Digital compensation of chromatic dispersion (CD) effect experienced by optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed (OFDM) signal in fiber transmission is provided in the frequency domain using a Fast Fourier Transform/Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (FFT/IFFT) pair with equal length of digital samples prior to OFDM receiver signal processing, wherein the equal length is larger than the length of a FFT used for OFDM subcarrier demultiplexing of the received signal. The OFDM signal processing is independent of fiber CD, so small guard-interval (GI) can still be used to achieve high spectral efficiency even under the experience of large CD. The GI need only to be large enough to accommodate other effects such as polarization-mode dispersion. The length of an IFFT used for OFDM subcarrier multiplexing, as well as the FFT for OFDM demultiplexing can be sufficiently small so subcarrier spacing is sufficiently large to tolerate typical frequency offsets between the transmitter laser and the optical local oscillator.
US08218974B2
An optical transmitter and an optical transmission method includes a plurality of light-emitting elements, a plurality of light-receiving elements for monitoring optical outputs from the light-emitting elements, a linear operation circuit for calculating optical output monitor signals by removing crosstalk parts from a plurality of photoelectric conversion currents outputted from the light-receiving elements, and a drive circuit for driving individually currents to apply to the light-emitting elements based on the optical output monitor signals.
US08218966B2
A technique for securing data transmission via an optical communication line comprising an optical fiber extending between a first network element and a second network element; the technique comprises conveying a first optical signal carrying data via the optical fiber from the first network element towards the second network element at a predetermined optical wavelength, and conveying a second optical signal at the same predetermined optical wavelength via the same fiber in the opposite direction to create within the optical fiber a combined optical signal such that combination of the first and second optical signals is adapted to hamper an unauthorized non-intrusive extraction of the first optical signal from the combined optical signal.
US08218963B2
Using photographic flash for candid shots often results in an unevenly lit scene, in which objects in the back appear dark. A spatially adaptive photographic flash (100) is disclosed, in which the intensity of illumination (21, 23) varies depending on the depth and reflectivity (30, 101) of features in the scene. Adaption to changes in depth are used in a single-shot method. Adaption to changes in reflectivity are used in a multishot method. The single-shot method requires only a depth image (30), whereas the multi-shot method requires at least one color image (40) in addition to the depth data (30).
US08218961B2
An autofocus system includes: an image pickup unit that takes a subject image formed by an optical system; a target subject detection unit that detects a target subject, which is previously registered as an autofocus target, in a photographing image taken by the image pickup unit; a lens-to-subject distance calculation unit that calculates a lens-to-subject distance to the target subject based on information on a photographing angle of view depending on a focal length of the optical system, a size of the target subject in the photographing image, and a size of the target subject in real space; and a rough AF unit that controls a focus of the optical system so as to bring into focus the subject which is located at the lens-to-subject distance calculated by the lens-to-subject distance calculation unit.
US08218959B2
A dual lens optical system includes a first optical system and a second optical system selectively redirecting at least one of two lights of representing images of object from two incident lenses into a first optical axis of light toward an image sensor by at least one reflection member, wherein, at least one optical element is disposed between an image sensor and the reflection member.
US08218958B2
An image stabilizer includes: an optical system movable in a plane perpendicular to an optical axis (“orthogonal plane”) and correcting image blur; a movable member holding the optical system and movable relative to a fixed member in an orthogonal plane; a guide guiding the movable member while preventing from rotating in an orthogonal plane; three first balls rollably interposed between the fixed and guide members; two second balls rollably interposed between the guide and movable members; one third ball rollably interposed between the fixed and movable members; a biasing unit biasing the movable member toward the fixed member; and a drive unit driving the movable member relative to the fixed member in two directions perpendicular to the optical axis, wherein in an orthogonal plane, two of the first balls are rollable only in first direction; the second balls are rollable only in second direction different from the first direction.
US08218952B2
According to one embodiment, a content playback device includes a receiving module which receives a plurality of channels including content, a selection module which selects a desired channel from a plurality of channels, a playback module which plays back a content item included in the selected channel, and a creation module which creates a special clock based on a playback time of a content item for the selected channel.
US08218940B2
An information handling system includes a video processor that provides a first video signal in a first video format; a display that receives a second video signal in a second video format; and another display that receives a third video signal in a third video format. The first, second, and third video formats are all different from each other. The information handling system also includes a mid-stream frame buffer that stores video information from the first, second, and third video signals, and a video selector coupled to the mid-stream frame buffer the video processor and the displays. The video selector converts the First video signal into the second and third video signals and couples the video processor to a selected display.
US08218935B2
The present disclosure relates to a drop terminal mounting system for use in a fiber optic network. The drop terminal mounting system includes a drop terminal having a drop terminal housing to which a plurality of fiber optic adapters are mounted. The fiber optic adapters have exterior ports that are accessible from an exterior of the drop terminal housing. The drop terminal mounting system also includes a bracket having a cradle for receiving the drop terminal. The bracket has features that facilitate mounting the bracket to different types of structures such as poles, strands, or to hand-holes.
US08218927B2
A scanning optical head for a catheter is locally controlled by a motor at an insertion end of the catheter uses a hollow motor through which a longitudinal optical path of the catheter passes. This permits the motor to be positioned between a control base of the catheter and avoids rotating the whole fiber, and therefore makes the beam scanning stable and accurate. In addition, because there is no coupling component, it also eliminates the light reflection between additional surfaces as well as varying fiber birefringence, which becomes a cause of noise when imaging the deep structure.
US08218925B2
Armored fiber optic assemblies are disclosed that include a dielectric armor along with methods for manufacturing the same. The dielectric armor has an armor profile, thereby resembling conventional metal armored cable to the craft. The dielectric armor provides additional crush and impact resistance and the like for the optical fibers and/or fiber optic assembly therein. The dielectric armor is advantageous to the craft since it provides the desired mechanical performance without requiring the time and expense of grounding like conventional metal armored cables. Additionally, the armored fiber optic assemblies can have any suitable flame and/or smoke rating for meeting the requirements of the intended space.
US08218921B2
A single helix chiral fiber grating of a predetermined grating strength is provided that is operable to control light transmission in a predetermined wavelength range. The novel fiber grating comprises a first optical fiber with a first interface portion at a first end, a second interface portion at a second end, and a middle portion therebetween. The first optical fiber is configured with at least one fiber core, surrounded by a corresponding at least one cladding, with a first longitudinal section disposed within the first interface portion, a second longitudinal section disposed within the second interface portion, and also includes a longitudinal helical section, disposed therebetween within the middle portion, that comprises a longitudinal helix structure of a single predetermined handedness, having a predetermined pitch profile, and having a predetermined helix diameter profile selected and configured to produce the predetermined grating strength. The helical section of the novel fiber grating is preferably produced by placing the first optical fiber, proximal to and parallel with a second fiber (or equivalent elongated member), and longitudinally twisting them together to form a double helix structure. Advantageously, the diameter of the second fiber (or a diameter profile thereof) may be selected to achieve the predetermined helix diameter profile in the helical section of the first fiber. The second fiber may be left proximal to the first fiber after fabrication or removed.
US08218917B2
An integrally molding die for manufacturing a package includes a supporting portion for supporting at least one end including an incident/exit port of a light signal in a light transmission path, and a lead frame for mounting an optical element. The integrally molding die includes a recess for forming the supporting portion, a first projection, which comes into contact with an optical element mounting surface of the lead frame, and a second projection, which comes into contact with a back surface of the optical element mounting surface.
US08218916B2
A sensing system including a sensor having an enclosure that defines a chamber, a fiber optic segment extending from outside the enclosure into the chamber, and a sequence of optical processing elements within the chamber. The elements include a fiber Bragg grating, a polarizer, a side hole fiber, and a mirror. A light source is arranged to direct light to the sensor(s). A spectral analyzer is arranged to detect light reflected back from the sensor(s). The fiber Bragg grating substantially reflects a first spectral envelope while transmitting the remainder of the optical spectrum to the polarizer and side hole fiber. The polarizer, side hole fiber, and mirror cooperate to return an optical signal within a second spectral envelope. The characteristic wavelength of a peak in the first spectral envelope is highly sensitive to temperature and relatively weakly sensitive to pressure. The period of the optical signal within the second spectral envelope is highly sensitive to pressure and relatively weakly sensitive to temperature. The spectral analyzer measures these spectral components to simultaneously derive a measure of temperature and pressure that effectively compensates for temperature-pressure cross-sensitivity of the sensor(s).
US08218912B2
A method of detecting one or more errors in a series of electronically processed, multi-pixel images, the pixels of which correspond from one image to the next, the method including monitoring the reflectance of one or more of the corresponding pixels during sequential processing of each image of the series and, if the reflectance value of a pixel is invariant or substantially invariant in more than a predetermined number of consecutive said images, and identifying an error.
US08218903B2
A system creates three-dimensional computer models of physical objects by displaying illumination patterns on a display device to incidentally illuminate a physical object. A video camera acquires images of the object illuminated by the patterns. The patterns can include motion and multiple colors for acquiring images with large variations in surface shading of the object. Shading values from acquired images of the object are analyzed to determine the orientations of points on the object's surface. The system evaluates the quality of acquired images and selects patterns tailored to specific attributes of objects. The points' orientations are determined by comparing the points' shading values with an illumination model or shading values acquired from a calibration shading object. A model surface is fitted to the points' orientations. Applications may utilize the model for any purpose, including creating and exchanging customized virtual objects, enhanced object tracking, and videoconferencing applications.
US08218892B2
A method of representing an image comprises processing the image to produce a second image highlighting edges in the image (eg a intensity gradient image) and deriving a descriptor based on spatially integrated or rotationally invariant representations of regions of the second image.
US08218875B2
A method and system for preprocessing an image for Optical Character Recognition (OCR), wherein the image includes a plurality of columns is disclosed. Each column includes one or more of Arabic text and non-text items. The method includes determining a plurality of components associated with one or more of the Arabic text and the non-text items, wherein a component includes a set of connected pixels. On determining the plurality of components, a line height and a column spacing is determined for the plurality of components. The plurality of components are then associated with a column of the plurality of columns based on the line height and the column spacing. Subsequently, a set of characteristic parameters are calculated for each column and the plurality of components of each column are merged based on the set of characteristic parameters to form sub-words and words.
US08218873B2
Search terms are derived automatically from images captured by a camera equipped cell phone, PDA, or other image capturing device, submitted to a search engine to obtain information of interest, and at least a portion of the resulting information is transmitted back locally to, or nearby, the device that captured the image.
US08218871B2
A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for detecting behavioral deviations in members of a cohort group. In one embodiment, a member of a cohort group is identified. Each member of the cohort group shares a common characteristic. Respiratory metadata associated with the member of the cohort group is received in real-time as the respiratory metadata is generated. The respiratory metadata describes respiration associated with the member of the cohort group. Patterns of respiratory changes are identified using the respiratory metadata. The respiratory metadata is analyzed to identify the patterns of respiratory changes. In response to the patterns of respiratory changes indicating behavioral deviations in the member of the cohort group, the member of the cohort group is identified as a person of interest.
US08218867B2
A compensation method for removing an image noise is applicable to compensate for noises generated by Bayer pattern color interpolation. The compensation method includes the following steps selecting a partial region in the Bayer pattern to set a selection region; selecting a plurality of color units from the selection region one by one, in which each of the color units at least includes a green pixel, a red pixel, and a blue pixel; sequentially performing a color weight adjustment on the green pixel, the red pixel, and the blue pixel; and compensating for the pixel in the selection region according to each color weight, so as to generate a recovered pixel.
US08218866B2
A saturation adjustment method is disclosed for compensating over-saturation adjustment. The saturation adjustment method includes: adjusting a first full-scale saturation corresponding to a hue of a color wheel to become a second full-scale saturation wherein the second full-scale saturation is greater than the first full-scale saturation; setting a critical saturation corresponding to the hue based on the first and second full-scale saturations; and adjusting a first saturation within a range between the critical and second full-scale saturations corresponding to the hue to become a second saturation based on the first full-scale, second full-scale and critical saturations. Furthermore, disclosed is a color adjustment system essentially including a saturation adjuster for adjusting the first saturation greater than the critical full-scale saturation to become the second saturation based on an adjusted full-scale saturation and the critical saturation.
US08218860B1
An image-editing application may be configured to transform a color hue value range in an image to a replacement color hue value range. The image-editing application may create a hue histogram of the image. The hue histogram may include tabulated frequencies of color hue values included in the image. The image-editing application may search for prominent peaks in the histogram. For a prominent peak, the image-editing application may determine a corresponding range of color hue values. Subsequently, the image-editing application may determine a range of replacement color hue values. The image-editing application may replace the prominent color hue values with the replacement color hue values. When the image is displayed on a display device, the pixels associated with the prominent color hue values will display the replacement color values.
US08218854B2
A method for synthesizing an image with multi-view images includes inputting multiple images, wherein each of the reference images is corresponding to a reference viewing-angle for photographing; synthesizing an image corresponding to a viewpoint and an intended viewing-angle; segmenting the intended synthesized image to obtain a plurality of meshes and a plurality of vertices of the meshes. Each of the vertices and the viewpoint respectively establish a viewing-angle, and the method further includes searching a plurality of neighboring images among the reference images referring to the viewing-angle. If at least one of the neighboring images falls within an adjacent region of the vertex, a first mode is adopted without interpolation to synthesize the intended synthesized image; when none of the neighboring images falls within the adjacent region of the vertex, a second mode is adopted, where a weighting-based interpolation mechanism is used for synthesizing the intended synthesized image.
US08218848B2
A method for generating a positron emission tomography (PET) attenuation correction map from magnetic resonance (MR) images includes segmenting a 3-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance (MR) whole-body image of a patient into low-signal regions, fat regions, and soft tissue regions; classifying the low-signal regions as either lungs, bones, or air by identifying lungs, identifying an abdominal station, and identifying a lower body station; and generating an attenuation map from the segmentation result by replacing the segmentation labels with corresponding representative attenuation coefficients.
US08218847B2
A registration method whereby a sensor-based approach is used to establish initial registration and whereby upon the commencement of navigating an endoscope, image-based registration methods are used in order to more accurately maintain the registration between the endoscope location and previously-acquired images. A six-degree-of-freedom location sensor is placed on the probe in order to reduce the number of previously-acquired images that must be compared to a real-time image obtained from the endoscope.
US08218842B2
In a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, an image storage unit correlates a reconstructed pre-correction image and a reconstructed post-correction image for each slice position and stores the correlated images. When a display condition related to a reconstructed image of one of either the reconstructed pre-correction image and the reconstructed post-correction image stored in the image storage unit is changed, the changed display condition is also applied to the other reconstructed image.
US08218819B2
Techniques are disclosed for detecting foreground objects in a scene captured by a surveillance system and tracking the detected foreground objects from frame to frame in real time. A motion flow field is used to validate foreground objects(s) that are extracted from the background model of a scene. Spurious foreground objects are filtered before the detected foreground objects are provided to the tracking stage. The motion flow field is also used by the tracking stage to improve the performance of the tracking as needed for real time surveillance applications.
US08218817B2
A visual tracker tracks an object in a sequence of input images. A tracking module detects a location of the object based on a set of weighted blocks representing the object's shape. The tracking module then refines a segmentation of the object from the background image at the detected location. Based on the refined segmentation, the set of weighted blocks are updated. By adaptively encoding appearance and shape into the block configuration, the present invention is able to efficiently and accurately track an object even in the presence of rapid motion that causes large variations in appearance and shape of the object.
US08218809B2
A video screen/monitor display microphone attachment. The video display is fixed to a microphone and has an internal surface substantially conforming to an outer surface of the microphone.
US08218800B2
A hearing system is provided that includes a left device that supplies an electrical sound signal for supplying the left ear of the user, and a right device that supplies an electrical sound signal for supplying the right ear of the user. A perceptive model for binaural hearing is implemented at least in one of the two devices or a further device belonging to the hearing system, with which a left setting value for the left device and/or a right setting value for the right device can be determined on the basis of the two sound signals. The left device can then be set with the left setting value and/or the right device with the right setting value. The entire process of the binaural hearing and not only the monaural hearing is thus taken into consideration for the setting of the hearing system.
US08218799B2
A compact audio speaker assembly that fits into the ear canal without occluding the ear canal, thus allowing ambient sounds to be heard along with the audio source. The ear speaker is secured in the ear canal by a ribbon or wire like spring structure anchoring the speaker to the concha portion of the outer ear and typically pushing the speaker up against the top side of the ear canal, leaving a space for external sounds to bypass the speaker to the eardrum. The speaker may further include a connecting signal cable that passes over the ear and behind the ear to provide additional support for the speaker and strain relief for the signal cable. One embodiment may include a shell over the speaker connected to the wire like spring anchor and may include an ear wax screen. Two speakers may be configured for stereo listening.
US08218787B2
A microphone array signal processing apparatus which is capable of picking up sound in a low frequency band even with a compact microphone array. The microphone array signal processing apparatus is comprised of delay devices (411-1 to 411-M) that add delays to the respective ones of a plurality of sound signals output from the respective ones of a plurality of microphones constituting the microphone array, an adder (412) that sums the plurality of sound signals with the respective delays added thereto, a harmonic structure detecting section (421) that detects a harmonic structure of sound included in the sound signal, and a filtering processing section (422) that selectively passes predetermined frequency components based upon the detected harmonic structure.
US08218780B2
Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods for dereverberation of audio generated in a room. In one aspect, a method for dereverberating reverberant digital signals comprises transforming a reverberant digital signal from the time domain into Fourier domain signals using a computing device, each Fourier domain signal corresponding to a subband. For each subband of the Fourier domain signal, the method computes autoregressive model coefficients of the reverberation with the current and previous magnitudes of the Fourier digital signal, and inverse filters the magnitude of the Fourier domain signal using the computing device, based on the autoregressive model coefficients and previous magnitudes of the Fourier digital signal. The method includes inverse transforming the Fourier domain signals with filtered magnitudes into an approximate dereverberated digital signal.
US08218776B2
A surge protection circuit acquires a surge signal from a left channel (LC) signal line and a right channel (RC) signal line. After the surge signal being transmitted on the LC signal line and the RC signal line is removed, an audio signal outputted from a signal input device is transmitted to an audio output device via the LC signal line and the RC signal line.
US08218760B2
Method and device for generating factors of a RSA modulus N with a predetermined portion Nh, the RSA modulus comprising at least two factors. A first prime p is generated; a value Nh that forms a part of modulus N is obtained; a second prime q is generated in an interval dependent from p and Nh so that pq is a RSA modulus that shares Nh; and information enabling the calculation of the modulus/V is outputted.
US08218759B2
A method for encrypting data includes receiving a block of plaintext for a data set at one or more computers, acquiring a cryptographic key for the data set, generating an initialization vector for the block of plaintext based on the block of plaintext, and encrypting the block of plaintext using the cryptographic key and the initialization vector.
US08218755B2
An access-frequency estimating apparatus includes a storage unit that stores hours outside operating hours and for which a second-degree derivative of access frequency distribution for contact centers whose business is similar to that of a contact center subject to estimation is nearly 0, and a coefficient indicating relation between access frequency during operating hours of the other contact centers and access frequency outside the operating hours; an acquiring unit that acquires past access frequencies for operating hours of the contact center; an extracting unit that extracts, from the storage unit, a coefficient expressing relation between the access frequencies for the operating hours and an arbitrary hour outside the operating hours; a first calculating unit that calculates an estimated access frequency for the arbitrary hour of the contact center, based on the past access frequencies acquired and the coefficient; and an output unit that outputs the estimated the access frequency calculated.
US08218750B2
A conference call management method and system. The method includes receiving by a computer processor from a conference call administrator, a command for enabling a first conference call. The computer processor enables the first conference call thereby allowing telecommunications between the conference call administrator and a first participant. The computer processor locks the first conference call such that additional participants are unable to access the first conference call. The computer processor receives from a second participant, a conference call request for accessing a second conference call and routes the second participant to a virtual holding area. The computer processor enables the second conference call and routes the second participant from the virtual holding area to the second conference call.
US08218747B2
A telephone device may be provided with a status storage device, a call request receiving device, a selectable information sending device, a selected result information receiving device, a first notice instruction sending device, a receiver device specifying device, and a second notice instruction sending device. The status storage device may be configured to store a status of each of a plurality of receiver devices. The call request receiving device may be configured to receive a call request. The selectable information sending device may be configured to send selectable information for selecting one type of call request from among a plurality of types of call requests to a source of the call request. The selected result information receiving device may be configured to receive selected result information sent from the source. The first notice instruction sending device may be configured to send a call request notice instruction to all of the plurality of receiver devices when the selected result information is a first type of call request. The receiver device specifying device may be configured to specify a receiver device having an idle status based on the stored contents of the status storage device when the selected result information is a second type of call request. The second notice instruction sending device may be configured to send the call request notice instruction to the receiver device specified by the receiver device specifying device.
US08218742B2
In an example method of correlating charging data records within an offline charging system, each of a plurality of sources selects a same one of a plurality of charging functions in which to route charging information associated with a given call session or event. In an example, the plurality of sources corresponds to either a plurality of network elements or a plurality of charging data functions. In another example, the plurality of charging functions corresponds to either a plurality of charging data functions or a plurality of charging gateway functions. At the selected charging function, the routed charging information is correlated.
US08218730B2
A mechanism to which a liquid-repellent structure hard to be exfoliated is applied.The tip of each of microprojections has a generally spherical surface. When a liquid metal (8) comes into contact with such a surface, the liquid metal (8) cannot enter the spaces among microprojections and is supported by the surfaces of the tips only with point contact.Therefore, the liquid metal (8) neither wets the surface of the base material nor spread over the surface.The liquid-repellent surface (11) has a structure such that the liquid metal (8) is supported by point contact of the many microprojections and repelled by the surface (11), and does not wet the surface (11).
US08218724B2
The object of the invention is therefore to provide an x-ray device that is simple to construct and can be inexpensively produced. This object is achieved by the proposed x-ray device for examining syringe caps having a cannula and having the features that is an x-ray source, an x-ray detector, and a holder. The x-ray device is characterized in that the syringe cap is arranged in the beam path so that its longitudinal axis coincides with the main axis of the beam path. The syringe cap is thus impinged from above and from below with x-rays, in order to examine the position of the cannula.
US08218721B2
A diaphragm and diaphragm device for the specific manipulation of x-ray radiation that emanates from an x-ray focus of a CT apparatus and serves for scanning an examination subject, wherein the x-ray focus and the diaphragm arranged relatively near to the focus can be rotated together around a system axis (z-axis), and the diaphragm has movable diaphragm elements that dynamically adjust a diaphragm aperture (and therefore the spatial divergence of the x-rays passing through the diaphragm aperture). The diaphragm elements have a transmission factor for x-ray radiation that is different than zero. With such a diaphragm or diaphragm device the acquisition of the projection data necessary for the reconstruction of an artifact-free image of a region of interest (ROI) is possible with lower radiation exposure of the examination subject.
US08218716B2
A radiation tomography method of the present invention includes: calculating a radiating timing, with reference to imaging timing correction data relating a plurality of gantry angles to a plurality of imaging timing correction amounts, on the basis of an imaging timing at which a radiation source supported by a rotating traveling gantry is arranged at a predetermined imaging angle and an imaging timing correction amount, of the plurality of imaging timing correction amounts, related to a gantry angle at which the traveling gantry is arranged at the imaging timing; and calculating, on the basis of an X-ray image imaged with a radiation radiated from the radiation source at the radiating timing, three-dimensional data of the X-ray image of a subject. According to the radiation tomography method, the X-ray image imaged with the further accurately arranged radiation can be obtained even in a case where the traveling gantry deflects depending on the gantry angle at which the traveling gantry is arranged, and thus the three-dimensional data can be obtained more accurately.
US08218707B2
An initialization circuit in a delay locked loop ensures that after power up or other reset clock edges are received by a phase detector in the appropriate order for proper operation. After reset of the delay locked loop, the initialization circuit assures that at least one edge of a reference clock is received prior to enabling the phase detector to increase (or decrease) the delay in a delay line. After at least one edge of a feedback clock is received, the initialization circuit enables the phase detector to decrease (or increase) the delay in a delay line.
US08218705B2
A novel interpolating phase detector for use in a multiphase PLL is described comprising an array of individual phase comparators, all operating at essentially the same operating point which permits the circuits to be designed simultaneously for high speed and for low power consumption. Two adjacent phase outputs of a multi-phase VCO may be selected and interpolated in between, by selectively attaching a variable number of phase comparators to each phase output and summing their phase error outputs. By varying the number of phase comparators attached to each phase output, interpolation can be achieved with high linearity.
US08218702B2
A system and methods for recovering data from an input data signal are disclosed. The system includes a transmitter for conveying a data signal filtered by a finite impulse response (FIR) filter to a receiver via a channel. The receiver uses an adaptive algorithm to determine update signals for a pre-cursor tap coefficient of the FIR based on samples taken from the received data signal and conveys the update signals to the FIR. To generate update signals, the receiver samples the data signal at a phase estimated to correspond to a peak amplitude of a pulse response of the channel. The phase is based on a clock recovered from the data signal. The update signals increase or decrease a pre-cursor tap coefficient setting in response to determining that the phase corresponds to a point earlier or later, respectively, than the peak amplitude of the channel's pulse response.
US08218701B2
A frame synchronization device and a frame synchronization method capable of preventing a malfunction when a frame is synchronized by using a frame synchronization pattern varying sequentially is presented. A bit serial signal at every frame is transmitted sequentially in a shift register composed of flip-flop circuits. When a bit in each of the stages is detected to be coincided with a corresponding bit in a frame synchronization pattern by coincidence circuits, existence of a synchronized frame is determined. Each bit in the synchronization pattern is also inputted into an all-zero detection circuit. If an all-zero state is detected, a first AND circuit does not output a synchronization pattern detecting signal even with a case where coincidence is detected from the coincidence circuits.
US08218700B2
Method and device making it possible to synchronize a master station and one or more subscriber stations in a wireless communications network, comprising at least one processor disposed at the level of each of the subscriber stations and suitable for calculating each subscriber's transmit time adjustment by taking account of the rate of variation of the satellite-subscriber path, a master station side processor suitable for measuring the loop error and a processor suitable for comparing the value of the error with a threshold value and as soon as the loop error value for a subscriber station is less than or equal to the threshold value, for giving said subscriber station permission to send its traffic.
US08218698B2
The invention provides a method for frequency offset estimation according to a filtered signal with destroyed phase information. In one embodiment, a filter filters an original signal according to a series of first filter coefficients to obtain a first-channel component of the filtered signal, and filters the original signal according to a series of second filter coefficients to obtain a second-channel component of the filtered signal. A series of third filter coefficients are first derived from the first filter coefficients. The original signal is then filtered according to the third filter coefficients to obtain a reference signal. A first frequency offset value is estimated according to the first-channel component of the filtered signal and the reference signal, wherein the first-channel component of the filtered signal is a first-channel component of an artificial signal, and the reference signal is a second-channel component of the artificial signal.
US08218696B2
In a receiving apparatus (100), a noise power estimation unit (107) estimates the noise power included in a received signal in the frequency domain. A channel characteristics calculation unit (105) estimates the channel characteristics in accordance with a reference signal included in the received signal. A tap coefficient calculation unit (108) calculates the tap coefficients for a filtering unit (109) in accordance with noise power included in the received signal and with an autocorrelation value for the channel characteristics. The filtering unit (109) calculates an estimated value for the channel characteristics via filtering processing on the channel characteristics in accordance with the tap coefficients.
US08218692B2
A device for separating uncoordinated co-channel signals including a symbol detector.
US08218688B2
A quadrature demodulator generates an I-signal from a modulated reception signal and a local signal, generates a Q-signal from the local signal and the local signal having a phase shifted through 90 degrees. Capacitors remove DC components from the I- and Q-signals. Low-pass filters remove frequency components higher than the frequencies of the I- and Q-signals. An I-signal squaring section squares the I-signal having passed through the low-pass filters. A Q-signal squaring section squares the Q-signal having passed through the low-pass filters. An adding section adds the squared I-signal and the squared Q-signal together. A comparator then compares the level of an S1 signal resulting from the addition with a threshold to obtain an S2 signal. A data generating section of a digital signal processing section executes a process of inverting the signal level of the S2 signal at every rising edge of the S2 signal to demodulate reception data.
US08218676B2
A circuit for use with an amplification circuit having a predistortion datapath portion, a power amplifier portion and a gain portion. The predistortion datapath portion can output a predistorted signal based on the input signal. The power amplifier portion can output an amplified signal based on the predistorted signal. The gain portion can output a gain output signal based on the amplified signal. The circuit comprises a digital predistortion adaptation portion and a combiner. The digital predistortion adaptation portion can output a predistortion adaptation portion output signal. The combiner can output an error signal. The predistortion adaptation portion output signal is based on the input signal, the gain output signal and the error signal. The error signal is based on the difference between the predistorted signal and the predistortion adaptation portion output signal.
US08218672B2
A polarity independent differential data transceiver receives a differential voltage signal and outputs a first logic state when the differential voltage signal is in a positive voltage differential range and/or when the differential voltage signal is in a corresponding negative differential voltage range. The differential data transceiver will output a second logic state in response to receiving a voltage differential signal that is in an intermediate differential voltage range near zero between the positive differential voltage range and the corresponding negative differential voltage range.
US08218666B2
A method of resetting a trellis-coded modulation (TCM) encoder to a known state, the TCM encoder including a reset input that resets the TCM encoder to the known state when held at a reset level for a plurality of symbol clock cycles, the method including identifying an event to occur in the future that requires the TCM encoder to be reset to the known state; and holding the reset input of the TCM encoder at the reset level beginning the plurality of clock symbol cycles before a time the event will occur so that the TCM encoder will be reset to the known state immediately before the event occurs.
US08218663B2
Transmission with multiple antennas in a wireless network is performed by transmitting a plurality of reference sequences (RS) from a UE. A first RS s1[k] is produced using a first cyclic shift and a base sequence s0[k], wherein k={1, 2 . . . K} is an element index. A second RS s2[k] is produced using a second cyclic shift and s0[k]. A first symbol sequence x1[k] is produced using at least s1[k] and s2[k], for at least one k. A second symbol sequence x2[k] is produced using at least s1[k] and s2[k], for at least one k. x1[k] is transmitted using a first transmit antenna and x2[k] is transmitted using a second transmit antenna.
US08218662B2
A method and device for wirelessly communicating between a mobile communication terminal and a base station, including exchanging one or more resource units between the base station and the mobile communication terminal, each resource unit having 18 subcarriers by a plurality of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) symbols. The one or more resource units are permutated using X contiguous subcarriers as a permutation unit in each OFDMA symbol, wherein X is a positive integer that is a multiple of 2 as well as a divisor of 18.
US08218659B2
A delay indicator calculator calculates at least two of a first delay indicator indicating a delay time determined based on a correlation value having a predetermined difference from the maximum value of the correlation signal, a second delay indicator indicating a change of a delay time determined based on time during which the correlation signal has no less than a predetermined value, and a third delay indicator indicating a change of a time difference between main and delay path peaks. An estimator generates a state estimation of the transmission path based on the probabilities of the at least two delay indicator values exceeding respective reference values for a plurality of symbols.
US08218658B2
This invention discloses a method for OFDM and OFDMA channel estimation via phase-rotated polynomial interpolation and extrapolation (inter/extra-polation). For complexity reason, polynomial inter/extra-polation is an often considered method for channel estimation in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, in which the simplest choice is linear inter/extra-polation. But the performance of this method depends on the accuracy of symbol timing estimation as well as the channel delay spread. The invention mitigates the problem by adding a linear phase factor to polynomial inter/extra-polation, which corresponds to adding a delay (also called delay shift) in the time domain.
US08218651B1
A method for splicing a first data stream that conveys a first single program transport stream (SPTS) and a second data stream that conveys a second SPTS, the method includes: receiving first data stream metadata units representative of first data stream packets, second data stream metadata units representative of second data stream packets and a request to perform a splicing operation at a n′th splicing point; performing, in response to the splicing request, transport stream layer processing of the first data stream metadata units and of the second data stream metadata units such as to provide a control output stream; and transmitting an output stream in response to the control output stream.
US08218649B2
According to one embodiment, an information processing apparatus includes a recovery module which causes a decording module to decode supplementary slice data when it is determined that the value of the information indicating a position of processing target slice data in the image is inappropriate. The recovery module creates the supplementary slice data by editing slice data located upwardly adjacent to the processing target slice in such a manner that information indicating a position thereof in the image is edited into information for the processing target slice.
US08218644B1
Disclosed are systems and methods used in motion estimation and particularly for data compression. Embodiments of the invention may store and operate on an n-bit value in less than n bits. In one embodiment, if the multi-bit value is less than a threshold, then the multi-bit value is stored in the reduced-bit storage directly, with no loss of precision. If the multi-bit value is greater than the threshold, then the Most Significant Bits (MSBs) of the multi-bit value are shifted into the reduced-bit storage, and a compression flag set. To decompress, if the compression flag was not set, the bits stored in the reduced-bit storage are merely copied back into the multi-bit value directly. If the compression flag was set, then the bits stored in the reduced-bit storage are shifted (left) by the same amount they were shifted (right) during compression, and an error-minimizing value is added.
US08218641B2
Digital pictures may be encoded by padding all un-processed pixels within a currently processing picture with temporary pixel values; searching the picture for a matching section for use as a reference in pixel reconstruction of a section of the picture independent of whether the picture is intra-coded or inter-coded; and using the matching section to perform pixel prediction on the section to generate one or more predicted pixels for the section.
US08218635B2
Systolic array-based systems and methods for performing block matching in motion compensation. A target pixel block is loaded into a systolic array. A matching sized block of a reference search space is loaded into the array, row by row. A sum of absolute difference (SOAD) is computed for each row and stored. After each row has been loaded, the reference space is incremented to the next column. After the entire reference space has been searched, the reference block with the smallest SOAD is taken as the motion vector for the target pixel block.
US08218633B2
Systems and methodologies for employing bidirectionally decodable Wyner-Ziv video coding (BDWZVC) are described herein. BDWZVC can be used to generate M-frames, which have multiple reference frames at an encoder and can be forward and backward decodable. For example, optimal Lagrangian multipliers for forward and backward motion estimation can be derived and/or utilized. The optimal Lagrangian multiplier for backward motion estimation can be approximately twice as large as the optimal Lagrangian multiplier for forward motion estimation. Further, an optimal P-frame/M-frame selection scheme can be employed to enhance rate-distortion performance when video is transmitted over an error prone channel. Accordingly, a first frame in a group of pictures (GOP) can be encoded as an I-frame, a next m−1 frames can be encoded as P-frames, and a remaining n−m frames can be encoded as M-frames, where n can be a length of the GOP and m can be optimally identified.
US08218627B2
A scaleable macro block rate control method particularly well-suited for MPEG video. There is provided a method to easily derive a quantization parameter (QP) value using information such as bit usage, previous QP values and SAD values from the past encoded and future frames. The method utilizes quantization estimation techniques based on statistical relationships between different intensity measures, such as distortion intensity, absolute difference intensity and mean of absolute difference intensity. The method is well-suited to applications utilizing MPEG video such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, JVT/H.264 standards and so forth.
US08218608B2
A self-tuning duplicating transceiver is provided. The transceiver includes a microprocessor, a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter includes an electrically tunable radio frequency oscillator, and the receiver includes a counter for determining an edge count associated with a received signal. The microprocessor is programmed to receive an unknown signal with the receiver and use the counter to determine the edge count thereof, and electrically tune the transmitter oscillator to a carrier frequency corresponding to the edge count for the unknown signal.
US08218602B2
The present invention is directed to the selective provision of interference canceled signal streams to demodulating fingers in a communication receiver. According to the present invention, potential interferer signal paths are identified. Signal streams having one or more potential interferer signals removed or canceled are created, and a correlation is performed to determine whether the strength of a desired signal path increased as a result. If the correlation indicates that the strength of a desired signal path was increased by the signal cancellation, the interference canceled signal stream is provided to the demodulation finger assigned to track the desired signal path. If the correlation determines that the strength of the desired signal path did not increase as a result of performing interference cancellation, the raw or a different interference canceled signal stream is provided to the demodulation finger.
US08218601B2
A receiver is provided for use with a satellite navigation system comprising a constellation of multiple satellites. Each satellite transmits a signal incorporating a spreading code. The receiver includes at least one code storage unit that includes combinatorial logic for storing a memory code comprising a fixed pattern of bits including address decoding, wherein the stored memory code corresponds to a spreading code incorporated into a signal transmitted from a satellite. The receiver further includes a correlator for performing a correlation between an incoming signal and the stored spreading code from the one code storage unit.
US08218597B1
A diode pumped solid-state laser for high shock, high vibration environments such as those found in laser ignition systems for artillery systems.
US08218595B2
A GaN edge emitting laser is provided comprising a semi-polar GaN substrate, an active region, an N-side waveguiding layer, a P-side waveguiding layer, an N-type cladding layer, and a P-type cladding layer. The GaN substrate defines a 20 21 crystal growth plane and a glide plane. The N-side and P-side waveguiding layers comprise a GaInN/GaN or GaInN/GaInN superlattice (SL) waveguiding layers. The superlattice layers of the N-side and P-side SL waveguiding layers define respective layer thicknesses that are optimized for waveguide planarity, the layer thicknesses being between approximately 1 nm and approximately 5 nm. In accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure, planarization can be enhanced by ensuring that the N-side and P-side GaN-based waveguiding layers are grown at a growth rate that exceeds approximately 0.09 nm/s, regardless of whether the N-side and P-side GaN-based waveguiding layers are provided as a GaInN/GaN or GaInN/GaInN SL or as bulk waveguiding layers. In still further embodiments, planarization can be enhanced by selecting optimal SL layer thicknesses and growth rates. Additional embodiments are disclosed and claimed.
US08218593B2
Optical devices include a doped glass material in which the dopant facilitates the transmission of energy out from the glass material. The doped glass may not significantly absorb a selected wavelength of laser radiation to be manipulated by the optical devices. The dopant may comprise one or more of a transition metal element, an actinide element, and a lanthanide element. Laser systems include at least one such optical device and a laser device configured to emit a beam to be manipulated by the optical device. Methods for forming optical devices and laser systems including such optical devices include dispersing a dopant within a glass material to form, and forming the glass material into a body having a size and shape configured to manipulate a beam of radiation emitted by a laser device. The dopant is selected to comprise a material that facilitates the transmission of energy out from the glass material.
US08218592B2
A laser device includes a semiconductor laser, a signal generating circuit generating a pulse signal for driving the semiconductor laser, an amplifying circuit amplifying the pulse signal, and a control circuit unit provided between the amplifying circuit and the semiconductor laser and controlling the pulse signal by letting alternating-current components of the pulse signal pass through and removing at least part of direct-current components of the pulse signal.
US08218591B2
An LD with an improved heat dissipating function in the edge regions is disclosed. The LD provides the core region including the active layer and extending whole of the substrate, and the ridge waveguide structure on the core region that extends in a direction along which the light generated in the active layer is guided. The ridge waveguide structure is buried by a thick resin layer in both sides thereof, but the resin layer is removed in the edge regions close to respective facets of the LD.
US08218577B2
An apparatus for transmitting and receiving packets in a packet switching network that includes at least two stations. The apparatus includes a phase-locked loop, as well as means for receiving packets containing samples of the network, the samples being derived from data sampled every Tech period, where Tech is derived from a time base synchronized on all the stations of the network and the samples being associated with incremental values predicting at least one sample, calculating, in case of interruption of packet reception, a prediction of a sample that should have been received, by adding an increment value to a received sample value.
US08218574B2
A scalable packet analyzer receives data packets from a data packet source for packet analysis and includes a plurality of policy engine arrays, each having a plurality of packet analysis microengines. A policy algorithm loader module is operative with each packet analysis microengine for loading a policy algorithm to each packet analysis microengine such that each packet analysis microengine analyzes specific sections of the data packet in parallel within each policy engine array based on the applied policy algorithm to obtain data about the data packet for further data packet processing.
US08218571B2
A Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) device obtains knowledge of the configuration of an attached Ethernet fabric from data fields within a frame header during a fabric initialization or login (FLOGI) process. FCoE N_Ports obtain similar information during the port initialization or login (PLOGI) process. The FCoE device may provide network management services to attached FCoE devices. Embodiments include a management module or processor within an FCoE N_Port. The management module or processor receives a frame having a header and validates and extracts information associated with an Ethernet fabric from the FCoE N_Ports and in order to provide management services based on the information associated with the Ethernet fabric. The FCoE N_Port communicatively couples to at least one additional FCoE N_Port through the Ethernet fabric. The FCoE N_Ports may be implemented within a disc storage drive, a host bus adapter, and/or an FCoE switch. The capability of an N_Port to obtain this information allows a management module or processor at the N_Port to manage the Ethernet fabric.
US08218567B2
Aspects of a method and system for reducing transceiver power via a variable signal constellation are provided. In this regard, an Ethernet PHY device may receive one or more signals indicative of a current state of an Ethernet link to which the PHY device is coupled and/or indicative of resources, such as power, available to the PHY device. Accordingly, a number of points comprising a signal constellation utilized to communicate data via the Ethernet link may vary based on the one or more signals. A current state of the link may comprise a bit error rate, a packet error rate, and/or utilization, in terms of bandwidth for example, of the link. Aspects of the invention may enable controlling, at least in part, power consumption of the PHY device may altering the number of points comprising the signal constellation.
US08218560B2
Disclosed is a demultiplexer for demultiplexing a multiplexed stream, obtained on time division multiplexing a plurality of elementary streams. A buffer controller, forming this demultiplexer, writes a multiplexed stream, beginning from a location specified by a data write pointer of a ring buffer, configured for storing data of the multiplexed stream, in the manner of an endless loop. On receipt of an ES1 readout request, an ES1 readout control unit takes out, from an ES1 readout pointer storage unit, a readout pointer, as a start point of retrieving an area in the ring buffer where the oldest ES1 is stored. The ES1 readout control unit then retrieves and reads out the ES1, with a location specified by the ES1 readout pointer, as a start point, and sends the ES1, thus read out, to the source of the request. The ES1 readout control unit then updates the ES1 readout pointer and the data leading end pointer.
US08218557B2
Communication sessions are each homed on one of a plurality of line cards in a network element. Packets received by the network element are processed on the home card before being transmitted to a subscriber device, such as a mobile phone or laptop computer. When a packet is received by the network element, it is not necessarily received by the line card that serves as a home card for the respective session. The packet is switched within the network element from the receiving line card, i.e., the trunk card, to the home card. The network element identifies the home card by performing a lookup in a table duplicated on all the line cards using the least significant bits of the IP address in the packet. Using these bits to organize the table limits the size of the table and balances load among the line cards.
US08218552B2
A method of radio transmitting packets and transmitter. The packets are identified by at least one respective transmission criterion which is selected from either one or a combination of the following criteria: types of services classified in terms of reliability in transmission, bandwidth efficiency in transmission, drop ranking in transmission. The identified packet are assigned an indicator indicative of the selected transmission criterion and are transmitted according to the transmission criterion corresponding to the indicator assigned to the packet.
US08218538B1
In one aspect, initial storage system control information is received, and in response a configuration of a storage interface is determined in accordance with the initial storage system control information. Then final storage system control information is accessed via the storage interface and the storage interface is reconfigured in accordance with the final storage system control information. In another aspect, one of a plurality of physical partitions of a physically partitionable symmetric multiprocessor executes a storage control process to control storage traffic, and another one of the physical partitions executes a program to process the storage traffic. The physical partitions are enabled to communicate the storage traffic at least in part via respective input/output controllers coupled to a switch fabric. The partitionable symmetric multiprocessor has programmatically configurable links for selectively isolating shared memory coherency and cache memory coherency transactions between at least some included processors.
US08218535B1
The invention is directed to a communication network wherein a direct tunnel may be formed between a user equipment and a gateway support node, bypassing an intermediate serving support node. If, however, the gateway node should be outside of the actual communication network to which the user equipment is connected, a two-tunnel concept is used wherein a tunnel is provided between the user equipment and the serving support node. Likewise, when receiving a request for Lawful Interception, the tunnel formed between the user equipment and the gateway node is reconfigured to be directed to the serving node for guiding all user traffic and control signaling via this serving node.
US08218534B2
The present invention relates to a method and system of detecting anomaly traffic for VoIP applications, in which a router captures an IP packet of a VoIP flow being transmitted, the captured IP packet is classified into an SIP message and a RTP traffic, header information is extracted from the classified SIP message and RTP traffic, the extracted header information is stored in a database, and whether SIP-based anomaly traffic or RTP-based anomaly traffic is generated is determined based on the extracted and stored information, and to a system therefor.
US08218529B2
The invention relates to the field of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and more specifically to a system and method of terminating a VoIP call. In certain exemplary embodiments, the present solution provides in a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) network, a method of terminating a call received from a public switched telephone network (PSTN) phone by a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone via a PSTN gateway, in the absence of a terminating signal from the PSTN gateway, the method comprising: (a) receiving at said SIP phone a sequence of codec frames from said PSTN gateway; (b) determining if a specified portion of each codec frame in said received sequence of codec frames is a specified value; (c) if said specified portion is said specified value, incrementing a counter by an incrementing amount; and (d) when said counter reaches a specified threshold, terminating said call In the absence of a BYE message, session termination of a VoIP call can still be facilitated using the method and apparatus of the present invention.
US08218519B1
The present example provides a method of providing a Transmit ID within an ad hoc wireless communications network, and use of the transmit ID to provide methods to select a node's transmit pattern (Transmit Patterns), to inform a node receiver that a packet is incoming that is to be decoded (Receive Packet Acquisition), to tell a node receiver how to efficiently retrieve pulses from multiple packets simultaneously (Efficient Receive Processing), and how to disburse network transmissions throughout network time (Network Traffic Smoothing). The present example may also provide for Network Management of the Transmit IDs for use in network bandwidth reduction and maintenance of the Transmit IDs within the Network.
US08218517B2
Methods and systems for dual frequency timing acquisition for compressed WCDMA communication networks may include processing received WCDMA signals. The WCDMA signals, which may be primary synchronization channel signals, may comprise signals transmitted by one base station at one frequency band and by another base station at a different frequency band, during a compressed frame. Samples of the received WCDMA signals from the different base stations may be stored in portions of a memory allocated for signals from each base station. The received WCDMA signals having the first frequency band may be processed via the processing circuitry during a non-compressed frame. The samples corresponding to the signals with the first frequency band during the non-compressed frame may be stored in the memory. The received WCDMA signals may be sampled at a faster rate during the non-compressed frame than during the compressed frame.
US08218516B1
A wireless network device comprises a first wireless communication device that includes a first radio frequency (RF) transceiver that generates a synchronization pulse and that transmits and receives data according to a first period. A second wireless communication device receives a signal indicative of the synchronization pulse and includes a second RF transceiver that transmits and receives data according to a second period. The second period is not equal to the first period and the second wireless communication device adjusts the second period according to the first period and the synchronization pulse.
US08218511B2
In communication system (SYS) including a first network (IN) with at least a first terminal node (CN), and an ad hoc network (AHN) with at least a second terminal node (RN1-RN4; MN), and a gateway (GW), transmission information (TI) is forwarded between the first terminal node (CN) of the first network (IN) and the second terminal node (RN1-RN4; MN) of the ad hoc network (AHN). In order to perform a more accurate flow control of transmission information (TI) inside the mobile ad hoc network (AHN), the gateway (GW) and the second terminal node (MN) exchange transmission information (TI) as well as acknowledgement information (ACTAN, ACTAN′, ACTAN″). Preferably, the exchange of the transmission information (TI) and the acknowledgement information (ACTAN, ACTAN′, ACTAN″) is carried out through a tunnel link (TUN1) established between the gateway (GW) and the second terminal node (MN).
US08218508B2
One out of sixteen preamble signatures is selected. A code is produced based on the selected preamble signature. The produced code is phase rotated to produce a processed preamble signature signal. The processed preamble signature signal is used in processing the CDMA RACH signal and the CDMA RACH signal is used to access a CDMA system.
US08218504B2
According to one embodiment, a mobile communication system includes base stations each forming a wireless zone for wirelessly accommodating mobile terminals, and a control device accommodating the base stations. The control device includes a construction module, a prediction module and an instruction module. The construction module constructs a database regarding a history of handovers by the mobile terminals. The prediction module predicts a base station of the next connection destination of a mobile terminal being in communication and timing of a handover to the base station of the next connection destination on the basis of the database. The instruction module instructs the handover to the predicted base station to the mobile terminal being in communication before the timing comes.
US08218502B1
Wireless access points detect neighboring wireless access points in different subnets. Upon connecting with a wireless client, a wireless access point determines predictive roaming information for the wireless client. Predictive roaming information identifies the wireless client; its home network subnet; and includes connection information associated with the wireless client. The wireless access point forwards the predictive roaming information associated with a wireless client to neighboring wireless access points while the wireless client is still connected with the wireless access point. Neighboring wireless access points store received predictive roaming information. Upon connecting with a wireless client, a neighboring wireless access point determines if the wireless client matches the stored predictive roaming information. If so, the neighboring wireless access point uses the predictive roaming information to quickly connect with the wireless client and to establish a tunnel to redirect network traffic associated with the wireless client through to its home subnet.
US08218500B2
A pre-synchronization method in which the source cell chooses a signature for the user equipment (mobile) to use in the target cell for RACH access, and instructs the user equipment to perform RACH access and return to the current cell before a handover command (break command) is issued. This causes parallel execution of the UL synchronization process with the context transfer process among the two base stations.
US08218499B2
The present invention concerns a method for optimizing ROHC RTP (Robust Header Compression Real Time Protocol) compression applied to IP header of data packets stream so as to use more compact formats enable to remain in a steady state, to never discard received packet, and to serve radio resources without requiring to modify ROHC specification. In the method, when handover or mobility procedure is started, new reference values are normally added to a sliding compression window, but no reference value is removed from the window as long as the handover or mobility procedure is on going. After the handover or mobility procedure is complete, when the number of values transmitted on the new radio link are appropriate to cope against the error properties on the new link, all older values can be removed at once from the compression window, thereby reverting to normal window operation.
US08218475B2
A transmitting power level control method and system are provided, whereby the power of a terminal device in a wireless sensor network is saved and the lifetime thereof is extended. The control method includes the steps of: (A) broadcasting a plurality of transmitting power level (TPL) messages, each of which represents a respective TPL and the respective TPLs are different from one another, wherein each of the plurality of TPL messages is broadcasted at the respective TPL thereof; and (B) setting a TPL for the terminal device at a minimum one of the TPLs represented by the TPL messages received by the terminal device.
US08218470B2
A relay to transmit data received from a transmitter to a receiver includes a reception unit to receive a first data frame including first data and a second data frame including first MAP information transmitted from a transmitter, and a determination unit to determine whether the received first data and first MAP information correspond to each other, and to determine that the reception unit has failed to receive second MAP information corresponding to the first data and second data corresponding to the first MAP information when the received first data and the first MAP information do not correspond to each other.
US08218462B2
A network infrastructure device of an apparatus in one example comprises a first external interface and a second external interface. The network infrastructure device communicates with a first telecommunication network through the first external interface. The network infrastructure device communicates with a second telecommunication network through the second external interface. The network infrastructure device allows a mobile communication device that has a first registration in the first telecommunication network and a second registration in the second telecommunication network to receive, through the second telecommunication network, a call directed to the first registration. The first telecommunication network is unable to directly query the second telecommunication network for a status of the second registration.
US08218457B2
An apparatus includes a plurality of call controllers that are capable of establishing a plurality of communication sessions over a packet network using a plurality of signaling protocols. The apparatus also includes an application controller that is capable of supporting one or more supplementary services during each of the communication sessions. As particular examples, the application controller and at least one of the call controllers are capable of at least one of: placing at least one of the communication sessions on hold so a user may initiate another of the communication sessions, placing at least one of the communication sessions on hold so the user may accept another of the communication sessions, and establishing a conference using at least two of the communication sessions. The communication sessions may use a common signaling protocol or different signaling protocols.
US08218452B2
Method and apparatus using incremental linear regression to derive a traffic flow signature indicative of a particular application within a packet stream.
US08218451B2
An efficient streaming method and apparatus for detecting hierarchical heavy hitters from massive data streams is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method enables near real time detection of anomaly behavior in networks.
US08218448B1
The integrity of a control network for providing reliable communications between different entities is verified. Such a verified control network may be included in a device, system, or design library. The verification of a control network includes, but is not limited to: physically exercising the control network itself and/or its design via modeling, analysis, and/or applying or using other testing or design verification methodologies. For example, a Petri net model of the control network may be analyzed to verify that the control signals cannot be generated which could interfere with each other, that a deadlock condition cannot be reached, and that a control signal on an input port will result in a control signal on an output port, albeit possibly delayed.
US08218440B2
A high speed transmission protocol that is implemented in a network device that includes a plurality of modules which are connected by a plurality of high speed links. The protocol includes a transmission link aspect for providing at least one of variable-sized packet based transmission with fixed sized messaging capability and pre-emptive transmission capability and a fabric forwarding aspect supporting at least one of class differentiations for packet flows, a plurality of addressable physical and logical modules, generic multicast forwarding port level indication for physical or logical ports, and explicit parameter for packet-content agnostic fabric operation. The protocol also include a packet processing descriptor aspect for providing at least one of a flexibility for various packet-processing descriptor adaptations and packet processing flow continuity across the network device for system design scalability. The protocol further includes an in-band messaging aspect for providing at least one of congestion management protocols, system resiliency protocols, database synchronization protocols and component access protocols and an encoding aspect for providing a structured header design.
US08218436B2
A system is provided for specifying a dynamic aggregated maximum bit rate (AMBR). The system includes a processor configured to determine whether a change in the AMBR currently applicable to a first network component should be requested. If a change in the AMBR is requested, the processor is configured to promote the first network component recommending to a second network component an adjusted AMBR.
US08218430B2
A method, a device, and a system for protecting a multicast traffic in the field of mobile communication are provided. A backup path is set up for a path that needs to be protected. Route information of the backup path is pre-stored in an entry of a route table. When a failure of the path is detected, a traffic is switched from the failed path to the backup path. By setting up a unicast tunnel or a multicast tunnel as the backup path for a working path in the multicast in advance, and by adding a backup path port as an ingress port of an entry of the route table, it realizes to switch a data flow to the backup path at a forwarding layer without being detected by a user when the working path failure occurs, realizes a fast convergence, and does not influence a user experience, thereby effectively reducing the influence on the user experience when the failed path is restored in a point-to-multipoint service.
US08218429B2
A method of multicast traffic redundancy protection includes detecting an original active router; switching a Virtual Route Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) state, by a Virtual Route Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) state switching module if the original active router is faulty; selecting a new active router, notifying, by the VRRP state switching module, a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) routing protocol module of the new active router after the VRRP state switching; and, selecting, by the PIM module, the new active router in the VRRP as a Designated Router (DR) in the PIM.
US08218419B2
An access node of a communication system comprises a plurality of transmitters adapted for communication with at least one receiver. The access node is operative to simultaneously estimate channel coefficients between multiple ones of the transmitters and the receiver, and to utilize the estimated channel coefficients to control at least one data signal sent by at least one of the multiple transmitters to the receiver. In the process of simultaneously estimating the channel coefficients, the access node transmits a plurality of distinct probing signals, each of which is generated based on a distinct combination of a common probing sequence and a selected one of a plurality of different frequency expansions. The access node may comprise at least a portion of at least one central office of a DSL communication system.
US08218417B2
An information storage medium, and a recording/reproducing apparatus and method, the information storage medium including a plurality of recording layers, each layer including a lead-in area or a lead-out area, a data area, a middle area, and a dedicated area, wherein the data area is flexibly allocated according to data capacity to be recorded in each of the recording layers, the middle area is allocated behind the data area, and the dedicated area is allocated behind the middle area. The dedicated area for a special purpose may selectively be allocated in an outer circumferential area of the information storage medium, i.e., an optical disk including a plurality of recording layers. In particular, optical disks in various formats are provided in which dedicated areas for special purposes can selectively be allocated in outer circumferential areas of the optical disks depending on recording characteristics of the optical disks and the outer circumferential areas.
US08218415B2
A laser power control system and method used in an optical disc writer. According to a write power value, the laser power control system drives a laser to output a write power through a first channel. According to a proportional value, the laser power control system drives the laser to output an overdrive power through a second channel. By using a close loop control of the laser power control system, the write power and the overwrite power are independent of the temperature changes.
US08218411B2
A compact disc player and a method and an article of manufacture for controlling ejection of a compact disc are provided. The compact disc player includes a temperature sensor configured to generate a signal indicative of a temperature of the compact disc player utilizing a temperature sensor. The compact disc player further includes a controller operably communicating with the temperature sensor. The controller is configured to determine an ejection time interval value based on the signal. The controller is further configured to energize a motor coupled to a drive mechanism for a time internal corresponding to the ejection time interval value to induce the drive mechanism to move a compact disc to a predetermined position outwardly from a housing.
US08218409B2
According to an embodiment, the invention is directed to an optical disc having signal tracks including a groove track, in which wobble signals are recorded on at least the groove track. Wobble units of wobble signals are modulated on the groove track, while at least 4 wobble units are used to represent a data bit of “0” or “1” in address information. Data bit of “0” or “1” in address information has a same phase and different phase with regard to alternate data bit at least to distinguish from each other.
US08218377B2
A fail-safe level shifter switching with high speed and operational for a wide range of voltage supply includes a cascode module, and one or more speed enhancer modules. The cascode module receives one or more input logic signal for generating a plurality of output signals with a reduced switching time. The speed enhancer modules are coupled to the cascode module for facilitating faster charging and discharging of nodes of the cascode module and improving the robustness and operating voltage range of cascode module.
US08218376B2
Bias circuitry for a static random-access memory (SRAM) with a retain-till-accessed (RTA) mode. The memory is constructed of multiple memory array blocks, each including SRAM cells formed of array transistors; functional and other circuitry outside of the array are formed of core transistors, constructed differently from the array transistors. Bias devices are included within each memory array block, the bias devices constructed as one or more array transistors. The bias devices for a memory array block may be connected in parallel with one another. In the RTA mode, the bias devices drop the power supply voltage differential across each of the SRAM cells. In a normal operating mode, a core transistor serves as a switch, shorting out the bias devices so that the full power supply differential appears across the SRAM cells.
US08218370B2
A memory array comprises a plurality of memory cells organized in a matrix of rows and columns. Each of the memory cells includes a high voltage access transistor, a floating gate memory transistor electrically connected to the access transistor, and a coupling capacitor electrically connected to the memory transistor. A first set of word lines are each electrically connected to the capacitor in each of the memory cells in a respective row. A second set of word lines are each electrically connected to the access transistor in each of the memory cells in a respective row. A first set of bit lines are each electrically connected to the access transistor in each of the memory cells in a respective column. A second set of bit lines are each electrically connected to the memory transistor in each of the memory cells in a respective column. Various combinations of voltages can be applied to the word lines and bit lines in operations to program, erase, read, or inhibit a logic state stored by the memory transistor in one or more of the memory cells.
US08218369B2
A non-volatile memory low voltage and high speed erasure method, the non-volatile memory is realized through disposing a stacked gate structure having a control gate and a floating gate on a semiconductor substrate or in an isolation well, such that adequate hot holes are generated in proceeding with low voltage and high speed erasure operation through a drain reverse bias and making changes to gate voltage. In addition, through applying positive and negative voltages on a drain, a gate, and a semiconductor substrate or well regions, adequate hot holes are generated, so as to lower the absolute voltage in achieving the objective of reducing voltage of erasing memory.
US08218367B2
When erasing non-volatile storage, a verification process is used between erase operations to determine whether the non-volatile storage has been successfully erased. The verification process includes separately performing verification for different subsets of the non-volatile storage elements.
US08218366B2
A system for programming non-volatile storage is proposed that reduces the impact of interference from the boosting of neighbors. Memory cells are divided into two or more groups. In one example, the memory cells are divided into odd and even memory cells; however, other groupings can also be used. Prior to a first trigger, a first group of memory cells are programmed together with a second group of memory cells using a programming signal that increases over time. Subsequent to the first trigger and prior to a second trigger, the first group of memory cells are programmed separately from the second group of memory cells using a programming signal that has been lowered in magnitude in response to the first trigger. Subsequent to the second trigger, the first group of memory cells are programmed together with the second group of memory cells with the programming signal being raised in response to the second trigger. Before and after both triggers, the first group of memory cells are verified together with the second group of memory cells.
US08218358B2
According to one embodiment, a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes a substrate, a stacked body, a semiconductor pillar, a charge storage film, and a drive circuit. The stacked body is provided on the substrate. The stacked body includes a plurality of insulating films alternately stacked with a plurality of electrode films. A through-hole is made in the stacked body to align in a stacking direction. The semiconductor pillar is buried in an interior of the through-hole. The charge storage film is provided between the electrode film and the semiconductor pillar. The drive circuit supplies a potential to the electrode film. The diameter of the through-hole differs by a position in the stacking direction. The drive circuit supplies a potential to reduce a potential difference with the semiconductor pillar as a diameter of the through-hole piercing the electrode film decreases.
US08218344B2
A bidirectional inverter is disclosed, the inverter including DC terminals and being connectable to a grid via grid AC terminals. The inverter includes a first subinverter and a second subinverter, both subinverters being connected in parallel to the DC terminals, and being connected in parallel to the grid AC terminals by subinverter AC terminals. Each subinverter includes a full bridge and a switchable freewheel path, both being configured to drive current between the grid AC terminals in a driving direction, and configured to block a current between the grid AC terminals in a blocking direction opposite the driving direction. The driving direction of the first subinverter is the blocking direction of the second subinverter.
US08218342B2
The power supply device according to the present invention converts alternating-current power into direct-current power, and supplies the direct-current power to a load. Further, the power supply device includes a buffer, a control section, a rectifier circuit, a smoothing circuit, and a switch. After a predetermined zero cross point is detected, the control section uses in common, over a predetermined period of the alternating-current power, predetermined parameters retained in the buffer in calculating a timing at which a PAM interrupt pulse is generated.
US08218340B2
A synchronous rectification type DC-DC converter equipped with a burst mode prevents backward flows of currents on the secondary side thereof. The DC-DC converter turns off a control signal of a switching element on the primary side when the load thereof becomes light, and includes a voltage converting transformer, a first switching element connected to the primary side coil of the transformer, a primary side control circuit performing on-off control of the first switching element, a synchronously rectifying second switching element connected to the secondary side coil, and a secondary side control circuit performing on-off control of the second switching element. A pulse width ensuring circuit ensures that the pulse width of the control signal performing on-off control of the first switching element does not become equal to or less than the original width of a PWM pulse when entering the burst mode and when exiting the burst mode.
US08218337B2
According to various aspects of the present disclosure, an apparatus is disclosed that includes a small form factor mobile platform including a system-on-package architecture, the system-on-package architecture arranged as a stack of layers including a first layer having a first conformable material; a second layer having a second conformable material; one or more electronic components embedded within the stack of layers; and a vertical filtering structure arranged periodically between the one or more electronic components, wherein the first conformable material, the second conformable material, or both are configured to allow high frequency signal routing.
US08218336B2
The present invention relates to an electrical module for a system processing motor vehicle aerial signals, comprising a housing in which an electrical circuit is arranged and plug-in connectors that are provided on the housing and are connected to the circuit, wherein the module comprises on an end a spring strap for engaging in an opening of a carrier part of a vehicle and on an opposite end a fastening device with spreading elements.
US08218333B2
The present invention provides a printed circuit board capable of sufficiently ensuring joint strength and joint reliability when mounting a surface mounted device, and a mounting structure for a surface mounted device using the printed circuit board. A BGA package as a surface mounted device includes a plurality of solder balls arranged thereon and a printed circuit board includes a plurality of mounting pads corresponding respectively to the plurality of solder balls. The BGA package is connected to the mounting pads on the printed circuit board due to melting of the solder balls, thereby mounted on the printed circuit board. A concave via hole is formed on each of the mounting pads having a circular surface shape and a part of the solder ball is in the convex via hole. Here, the center of the convex via hole is apart from the center of each of the mounting pads by at least the diameter of the concave via hole.
US08218331B2
In a DC-DC converter module, a first through-hole conductor provided in a substrate as a first lead for electrically connecting a terminal as a voltage output terminal of an IC and a first terminal of an inductor component to each other and a second through-hole conductor provided in the substrate as a second lead for electrically connecting a terminal as a switching terminal of the IC and a second terminal of the inductor component to each other oppose each other in a direction intersecting a direction in which the first and second terminals oppose each other in the inductor component (i.e., the longitudinal direction of the substrate and inductor component).
US08218311B2
According to one embodiment, a heat radiation block is pressed in contact with a heat receiving plate of an apparatus body, a heat receiving block receives its reaction force via a heat pipe and thus moves. A drawer section and the heat radiation block are fixed and held in the apparatus body after the movement of the heat receiving block.
US08218310B2
A shockproof assembly, preventing a flat storage device from shock damage, includes a housing, a bracket, and at least one first buffer. The housing has a bottom plate and a top plate coupled to each other correspondingly and covering the flat storage device. The bracket has a plurality of side blades extended along an extending direction, and the bracket is coupled the side wall of the flat storage device. A first buffer store space is defined among the side blades and the bottom plate of the housing. The first buffer is disposed in the first buffer store space and has a preset height for keeping a preset interval between the bottom face of the flat storage device and the bottom plate. Shock is absorbed by the first buffer during being transmitted to the flat storage device via the housing when the shockproof assembly is shaken.
US08218308B2
A fastening mechanism includes a main body passing through an opening on a casing rotatably, and a fastening part connected to the main body. A slot is formed on the fastening part for fastening a board of an interface card when the main body rotates to a fastening position relative to the casing. The fastening mechanism further includes a fixing part connected to the main body for engaging with the casing when the main body rotates to the fastening position relative to the casing so as to fix the fastening part and the interface card, and an elastic cantilever connected to the fixing part for providing elastic force to the fixing part so as to engage the fixing part with the casing and for driving the fixing part so as to release engagement between the fixing part and the casing when being pressed downward.
US08218306B2
Several mechanical features of an electronic device are provided. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a bezel coupled to a housing. The bezel may include one or more snaps extending into the electronic device which may be operative to engage a cantilever spring extending from the inner surface of the housing. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a window that is formed by coupling an outer layer to an inner layer that is larger than the outer layer. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a chassis for supporting the window. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a grounding clip for simultaneously grounding the bezel, the housing and a circuit board. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a switch that includes a button molded into a base using a double shot process. In some embodiments, the electronic device may include a switch supporting bracket that includes a slot operative to receive a pin of the bezel. In some embodiments, the housing of the electronic device may be manufactured using a forging process.
US08218304B2
A display device includes a casing, a display panel assembled in the casing, and a front panel assembled at the casing to cover edges of the display panel. The front panel includes two first boards and two second boards. Each of the first boards includes a main portion and two auxiliary portions located at two sides of the main portion. The two second boards are stacked on the auxiliary portions. A method for assembling a display device is also disclosed.
US08218303B2
An information processing apparatus includes a main body portion, a support portion, and a communication portion. The main body portion includes a display portion. The support portion supports the main body portion and forms a space below the main body portion in which information equipment connectable to the main body portion can be accommodated. The communication portion is provided to the support portion and performs communication with a noncontact-type communication medium.
US08218301B2
A keyboard includes a casing, a retaining frame, and a keyboard module. The casing is made from a metallic sheet and has upper and lower parts. The lower part is bent from front and rear ends of the upper part so as to define a gap between the upper and lower parts and two opposite side openings. The casing is formed with a central hole extending through the upper part and in spatial communication with the gap and the side openings. The retaining frame is received detachably in the gap of the casing, has a loop-shaped frame body disposed around the central hole of the casing, and is insertable through one of the side openings of the casing into the gap of the casing. The keyboard module is received in the central hole of the casing and engages the frame body of the retaining frame in a tongue-and-groove engaging manner.
US08218291B2
A monomer and polycarbonate resin are provided, as are methods of making the monomer. The resin may be used to provide a thin film that has a higher dielectric constant and higher glass transition temperature, and similar breakdown strength and similar dissipation factor to films prepared from polycarbonate resins not so modified. The thin films, in turn, may advantageously be used to form, wholly or in part, articles such as capacitors, sensors, batteries, flexible printed circuit boards, keyboard membranes, motor/transformer insulations, cable wrappings, industrial tapes, interior coverage materials, and the like. In particular, a capacitor comprising the polycarbonate resin is also provided.
US08218285B2
A variable capacitance element provided with a substrate, a signal line provided on the substrate, a fixed electrode provided on the substrate, and a movable electrode. The movable electrode includes a movable portion that spans the signal line and extends to above the fixed electrode, and is movable with respect to the fixed electrode, and a fixed portion that is fixed to the fixed electrode across a dielectric layer.
US08218282B2
A portable electronic device includes an audio file playing unit and a surge protector device connected to the audio file playing unit. The surge protector device includes a protector module connected to an audio file playing unit and a processor module connected to the protector module and the audio file playing unit. The processor module detects electric surges in the audio file playing unit and controls the protector module to filter the detected electric surges when the audio file playing unit plays audio files.
US08218279B2
An electronic device assigns power to USB ports dynamically. A total current detection circuit transmits driving voltage signals to the USB ports, and detects whether a total current provided to the USB ports exceeds a rated total current and output a total current detection signal. A plurality of short-circuit detection circuits detects whether USB devices connected to the corresponding USB ports are shorted and to output a short-circuit detection signal. A plurality of relay circuits switch connection between the USB ports and the power circuit. A USB controller outputs a control signal according to the total current detection signal and the short-circuit detection signal and directs the relay circuits to switch connection between the corresponding USB ports and the power circuit on and off.
US08218277B2
A system for protecting metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) output drivers within an integrated circuit (IC) from an electrostatic discharge (ESD) includes a first MOSFET output driver and a second MOSFET output driver positioned within a common IC diffusion material. The system includes a contact ring coupled to the common IC diffusion material and arranged along an outer edge of a perimeter surrounding the MOSFET output drivers. A centroid of each MOSFET output driver is common with a centroid of the perimeter surrounding both MOSFET output drivers. Each MOSFET output driver has a value of substrate resistance (Rsub) that initiates bipolar snapback in the MOSFET output driver at which an ESD event occurs. The value of Rsub depends upon a composite distance from the centroid of each MOSFET output driver to the contact ring.
US08218273B2
A driving device includes a motor, a rotatable shaft rotated by the motor, a driven member, a magnetic material spring, and a power source. The driven member sleeves on an end of the rotatable shaft, and includes an end surface with at least one latching groove defined thereon. The magnetic material spring sleeves the rotatable shaft, and includes a first end fixed to the rotatable shaft and an opposite second end capable of inserting into the latching groove of the driven member. The power source includes two electrodes. The motor and the spring are electrically connected in series between the two electrodes of the power source.
US08218271B2
According to one embodiment, a method for forming at least a portion of a magnetic head includes forming a keeper layer, forming a reference layer, and forming an AFM coupling layer which is positioned between the keeper layer and the reference layer. In addition, forming the reference layer includes forming a layer of CoFe, depositing a layer of CoFeHf which is about 20 atomic % Hf, and depositing a layer of CoFeB such that the layers of CoFeHf and CoFeB are directly adjacent and a ratio of respective physical thicknesses of CoFeHf to CoFeB is less than about 0.66. Other embodiments are also included such as a magnetic head and additional methods for forming at least a portion of a magnetic head.
US08218268B1
A novel head gimbal assembly (HGA) for use in a disk drive is disclosed. Each of a plurality of electrically conductive traces of a flexure of the HGA includes a connection region that is aligned with and connected to a corresponding one of a plurality of electrically conductive bonding pads of a head. Each of the plurality of electrically conductive traces further includes a heating pad that is offset from its connection region by an offset distance. A dielectric layer of the flexure includes a first opening over the heating pad, a support layer of the flexure includes a second opening over the heating pad, and a load beam of the HGA includes a third opening disposed over the heating pad. During assembly, light may be shined through the openings and onto the heating pad until solder located in the connection region that is offset from the heating pad melts.
US08218263B2
According to one embodiment, a system comprises an upper yoke having a first length defined between a pole tip thereof and a back gap thereof. In addition, the system includes a lower yoke having a second length defined between a pole tip thereof and a back gap thereof, the second length being greater than the first length. Also, the system includes coil turns in the upper and lower yokes. Additional systems and methods are also presented.
US08218255B2
A lens barrel unit includes a holder configured to hold a lens, a cam cylinder including a cam groove configured to engage with the holder and define a movement of the holder in an optical axis direction, and a projection that has a part of the cam groove and projects in the optical axis direction, and a straightforward movement cylinder configured to guide a straightforward movement of the holder, the straightforward movement cylinder including a flange forming a notch. In a process from a retraction state in which the projection is located in the notch to an image pickup state in which the projection is located outside of the notch, the straightforward movement cylinder moves relative to the cam cylinder in the optical axis direction.
US08218253B2
An optical lens system for taking image comprises: in order from the object side to the image side: an aperture stop; a first lens element with positive refractive power having a convex object-side surface, a second lens element with negative refractive power; a third lens element with positive refractive power having a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface; a plastic fourth lens element with negative refractive power having a concave image-side surface, the object-side and the image-side surfaces of the fourth lens element being aspheric. A focal length of the optical lens system for taking image is f, a focal length of the first lens element and the second lens element combined is f12, and they satisfy the relation: 0.98
US08218244B2
A miniature zoom lens includes a first, a second and a third lens groups arranged along an optical axis and from an object side to an image side in sequence. The refractive powers of the three lens groups are negative, positive and positive, respectively. The first lens group is fixed at a predetermined position. The second lens group is movable along the optical axis in accordance with a change of magnification. The third lens group is movable along the optical axis for keeping an image plane fixed at an image sensor. The first lens group is in resting state and the second and the third lens groups are movable during zoom-in or zoom-out operation of the miniature zoom lens. In addition, the miniature zoom lens can be composed of at least seven pieces of lens, thus the cost is reduced, the manufacture is easy and the assembly is simple.
US08218240B2
The invention discloses an image presenting method for generating an image to meet a lenticular sheet of a particular specification. The method includes the following steps: providing a database where at least one lenticular sheet data and at least one alignment pattern data are stored; reading out a lenticular sheet data and an alignment pattern data from the database; processing an image data and the alignment pattern data according to the lenticular sheet data; combining the image data and the alignment pattern data to generate a mixed image which meets the lenticular sheet of the particular specification; and outputting the mixed image.
US08218239B2
The invention relates to a transparent substrate comprising at its surface a grating of lines of at least 200 light-diffusing elements, said elements being separated by domains with a different refractive index from that of the elements, the distance d between centers of gravity of neighboring elements varying in a non-monotonic manner from one edge of the grating to the other, so that for any group of 50 successive elements, the distance d between the centers of gravity of neighboring elements of said group is at least once greater than and at least once less than the mean distance dm of distances d between centers of gravity of neighboring elements of said group, dm lying between 75 nm and 200 μm. This substrate is transparent in direct vision and redirects the light while diffusing it without iridescence in a daylighting application.
US08218237B2
Various embodiments related to rear-projection image display are disclosed. For example, one disclosed embodiment provides a projector for projecting an image and a screen configured to display the image. The screen comprises a filter layer having a light reception side and an image display side. The filter layer includes an array of trapezoidal transmissive elements and an array of trapezoidal absorption elements, where a wider base of each of the trapezoidal transmissive elements faces the light reception side of the filter layer, and where a wider base of each of the trapezoidal absorption elements faces the image display side of the filer layer.
US08218236B2
A projection screen includes a base sheet, a surface roughness structure, a reflective layer, and a light absorption layer. The base sheet has a first side and a second side opposite to the first side. A plurality of first surfaces and second surfaces are formed on the first side, each first surface faces an optical projection system, and each second surface is disposed between two adjacent first surfaces and forms an angle with respect to a neighboring first surface. The surface roughness structure is formed on at least the first surfaces and capable of diffusing a light beam to a limited extent. The reflective layer is formed on the surface roughness structure and capable of reflecting most of the light beam diffused by the surface roughness structure to a limited extent towards a limited viewing cone, and the light absorption layer is formed on the second surfaces.
US08218230B2
A flat panel display is provided. The flat panel display includes a display panel, a light source module and an optical film. The display panel has a light incident surface. The light source module including a light guide plate which has a light emergent surface is disposed parallel to the display panel. The light emergent surface is opposite to the light incident surface. A light emitted from the light source module is transmitted from the light emergent surface to the light incident surface. The optical film is disposed between the display panel and the light source module. The optical film has a first surface and a second surface which are opposite to each other. A plurality of platform-shaped optical structures are formed on the first surface while each of them has a flat top surface. A first transparent glue layer and a second transparent glue layer are respectively formed on the light incident surface and the light emergent surface. The flat top surfaces are glued to one of the first transparent glue layer and the second transparent glue layer while the second surfaces are glued to the other.
US08218229B2
A microelectromechanical systems device having support structures formed of sacrificial material surrounded by a protective material. The microelectromechanical systems device includes a substrate having an electrode formed thereon. Another electrode is separated from the first electrode by a cavity and forms a movable layer, which is supported by support structures formed of a sacrificial material.
US08218224B2
A method of manufacturing electrically tintable window glass with a variety of sizes and functionalities is described. The method comprises: (a) providing a large format glass substrate; (b) fabricating a plurality of electrically tintable thin film devices on the large format glass substrate; (c) cutting the large format glass substrate into a plurality of electrically tintable pieces, each electrically tintable piece including one of the plurality of electrically tintable thin film devices; (d) providing a plurality of window glass pieces; (e) matching each one of the plurality of electrically tintable pieces with a corresponding one of the plurality of window glass pieces; and (f) laminating each of the matched electrically tintable pieces and window glass pieces. The lamination may result in the electrically tintable device either being sandwiched between the glass substrate and the window glass piece or on the surface of the laminated pieces. The electrically tintable device is an electrochromic device.
US08218221B1
A method of generating a photoluminescence map for an indium gallium nitride (InGaN) well can include presenting data on a pixel by pixel basis. The data can be generated as a function of emission wavelength, line width of emission, polarization of emission, and intensity of emission. The data can also be generated as a function of excitation polarization and polarization angle orientation with respect to film crystalline axes of the InGaN well. The data can also be generated as a function of multiple wavelengths of light to generate the photoluminescence map. The photoluminescence maps can be correlated to device internal quantum efficiency as measured in test devices. The resulting correlation maps can serve as line monitors of indium rich InGaN wafers used for green LEDs.
US08218214B2
The present invention provides a vibration-actuated micro mirror device comprising a substrate having a swinging frame and a reflection mirror, and a vibration part having a first and a second vibration structures coupled to the substrate, wherein the first vibration structure is driven to generate a first complex wave formed by a first and a second wave signals while the second vibration structure is driven to generate a second complex wave formed by a third and a fourth wave signals, and the first and the third wave signals are formed with the same frequency and phase while the second and the fourth wave signals are formed with the same frequency but opposite phases. The first and the second complex waves actuate the substrate such that the swinging frame is rotated about a first axis while the reflection mirror is rotated about a second axis.
US08218211B2
A holographic display including a spatial light modulator, and including a position detection and tracking system, such that a viewer's eye positions are tracked, with variable beam deflection to the viewer's eye positions being performed using a microprism array which enables controllable deflection of optical beams.
US08218209B2
An image reading apparatus reads image information of an original document to produce image data having different data sizes. An image converting section converts the image information into a plurality of items of image data. A display section displays a plurality of items of information on the plurality of items of image data. A selecting section allows selecting of one of plurality of items of image data.
US08218206B2
The gamut of a printer has poor saturation reproducibility in a low-lightness region, often has a shape from which the gamut is cut away, and sometimes locally forms a part having extremely low color reproducibility. Hence, upon converting colors on a first gamut onto those on a second gamut, a third gamut is generated by transforming the second gamut for the purpose of the conversion, and the colors on the first gamut are mapped onto the third gamut. The colors on the first gamut are converted into those on the second gamut based on the mapping result.
US08218202B2
Multiple images are combined where the images exhibit variations in illumination between one another. The images are of the same portion of an object, and each image is represented by a set of image data. A comparative data transform is applied to each set of image data, such that the transformed comparative image data isolates and preserves first variations in the illumination between the images but suppresses second differences in illumination between the images. At least one normalization transform is determined from the transformed comparative image data sets. When applied to at least one of the image data sets, the at least one normalization transform minimizes the variation in illumination between the image data sets. Each determined normalization transform is applied to the at least one of the image data sets. The normalized sets of image data are transformed to a single image of the portion of the object.
US08218196B2
In the case where an output value of a document reading section for at least any of R, G and B is out of a range between a first reference value and a second reference value due to a change in an output value of a reading device caused by an electrical noise, a change of supply voltage, etc. when a document is being read, a second color conversion table is created in accordance with the above change by expanding ranges in a first color conversion table, which ranges are around predetermined first and second reference values and included in regions of RGB color system associated respectively with predetermined tone values of Y, M and C. Using the second color conversion table thus obtained, a color conversion is carried out from the RGB color system into the YMC color system.
US08218188B2
An electronic document storage and reference system, for providing an electronic document storage apparatus for performing a document transfer processing effectively, and providing means for restoring and enabling the transferred electronic document for a reference on an apparatus other than the electronic document storage apparatus, comprises a unit for transferring from the electronic document storage apparatus to an archive media an electronic document stored for more than a specified period of time, a unit for emigrating, from the electronic document storage apparatus, the information required for referring to the electronic document transferred to the archive media and a unit for restoring the transferred electronic document from the archive media for enabling the electronic document to be referred to.
US08218185B2
When a user selects an existing image forming apparatus and a virtual image forming apparatus, a job log acquisition unit acquires a job log from the selected existing image forming apparatus. A simulation unit calculates a processing speed of the existing image forming apparatus and a processing speed of the virtual image forming apparatus. The simulation unit performs job processing using the virtual image forming apparatus, and acquires a job log. The simulation unit compares the job log of the existing image forming apparatus and the job log of the virtual image forming apparatus, calculates a replacement effect, and outputs the replacement effect.
US08218183B2
A control device and a method for controlling scanning speed of a scanner. The control device includes a decision device and a driving device. The decision device further includes an image buffer, an up-down counter and a comparator. The decision device receives the input image data and utilizes the up-down counter to compute data access volume inside the image buffer. The comparator decides whether to increase or decrease the scanning speed according to the data access volume and also outputs decision data to the driving device.
US08218174B2
Displays are provided for a graphical user interface including a device capacity mimic in a job manager in a system, such as a xerographic machine. The displays include a visual representation of the available capacity of each of a number of devices for the system, such as each output destination for a printer with multiple output destinations. The device capacity mimic shows the effect of jobs in progress on the available capacity, each job consuming a portion of the available capacity. Using this mimic, the user may, for example, revise the destination of jobs that have been planned but not yet started (e.g., by dragging the job). A mimic view of this information with a graphical user interface for managing the device assignments is provided. Thus, a user may not only view information about the device assignments for jobs, but also control or manage the device assignments for jobs.
US08218172B2
An information processing apparatus which generates print data includes a range setting module which sets the print range of each printer in order to distribute a print job to a plurality of printers and perform print processing, a recognition module which recognizes generation of an error in processing of each print range together with an error generation page within the print range when printing is performed in accordance with the set print range, a determination module which determines a re-print start page within the print range in accordance with the print attribute and error generation page of the print job within the print range that is interrupted by generation of the error, and a data transfer module which transfers print data of a re-print range specified by the determined re-print start page to a substitute printer which performs re-printing of the interrupted print range, and causes the substitute printer to execute re-printing.
US08218171B2
A photo printing system includes a display to display thereon an order screen containing at least one of images corresponding to image data files read out from a recording medium by a reading unit; and an inputting unit to be used for inputting order information containing the number of prints for the image being displayed on the display. A photo print for at least one of one or more images displayed on the display, to each of which order information to request one or more prints has been given, is made before an order for the one or more images to each of which order information to request one or more prints has been given is determined.
US08218167B2
An image output system includes a computer and a complex machine connected to the computer. A password generating section of the complex machine, in a case where a user ID transmitted from a transmitting section of the computer is stored in a HDD, generates a password which is different from the user ID, and the transmitting section transmits the password generated by the password generating section. A controller, in a case where the password received by a password receiving section and the password transmitted from the password transmitting section to the computer, controls an image forming section to output image data which is not combined with electronic watermark information by an electronic watermark information combining section.
US08218165B2
A user-interface unit receives a request from a user. A control unit performs an execution control in response to the request received by the user-interface unit, and during an execution process, performs an interruption process and an authentication process. An application-logic unit provides a plurality of functions related to an image forming process. A device-service unit provides a shared service for the application-logic unit.
US08218153B2
The resolution of an optical measurement system for measuring a surface of an object, wherein a measurement light strip is captured on a surface of an object by means of a matrix sensor with a resolution limited by quantization in a quantization direction, can be improved by calculating an effective mapping location in the quantization direction on the basis of the associated real mapping location and a further real mapping location adjacent to the associated real mapping location in a direction perpendicular to the quantization direction.
US08218151B2
Light-emitting intra-cavity interferometric (ICI) optical sensors based on channel waveguide structures which include an internal light emitting material and a functionalized region. In some embodiments, the waveguides are made of a sol-gel which incorporates the light emitting material. In some embodiments, the waveguide structure includes an ICI resonator backbone and the ICI sensor is a laser sensor. In some embodiments, the resonator backbone has an interferometric Y-branch shape. In some embodiments, the resonator backbone has a Mach Zehnder interferometer shape. In some embodiments, an ICI laser sensor has an interferometric arrayed waveguide grating shape. In some embodiments, an ICI sensor may be remotely optically pumped and remotely read.
US08218139B2
The present invention is a multipass unipoint optical cell used for the improved analysis of samples by transmission, reflection, Raman or fluorescence spectroscopy by the multiple reimaging of light through the same analysis point. The cell comprises two or more identical optical reimaging elements each consisting of two symmetrically opposing, identical, confocal, and coaxial parabolic reflective surfaces. These reimaging optical elements can be arranged around the common focal point, which thus becomes the analysis point, to form different multipass unipoint optical cell configurations, all the passes crossing in the analysis point where a sample is brought to interact with light, the effect of said interaction being enhanced in proportion to the number of passes.
US08218132B2
Particles flowed through a micro-channel are imaged by imaging means. Particle speed measuring means determines the particle speed from the image data. Particle counting means counts the particles flowed for a predetermined time. Particle size measuring means measures the size of the particles. The measurements of the particles flowed at a predetermined timing are managed by data associating means. With this, the speed, number and size of particles flowed through a micro-channel can be determined at a time, and associated data can be obtained.
US08218125B2
A lithographic projection apparatus is disclosed where at least part of a space between a projection system of the apparatus and a substrate is filled with a liquid by a liquid supply system. The projection system is separated into two separate physical parts. With substantially no direct connection between the two parts of the projection system, vibrations induced in a first of the two parts by coupling of forces through the liquid filling the space when the substrate moves relative to the liquid supply system affects substantially only the first part of the projection system and not the other second part.
US08218119B2
A liquid crystal display includes a pair of transparent substrates opposed to each other with liquid crystal therebetween, one of the pair of transparent substrates having a plurality of drain signal lines and a plurality of gate signal lines, and a plurality of pixel regions defined by the drain signal lines and the gate signal lines. The pixel region has a TFT element, a first electrode formed of a transparent electrode having a plurality of slits, a connection area that connects the first electrode to the TFT element, and a second electrode formed of a transparent electrode. The second electrode is disposed between the first electrode and the one of the pair of transparent substrates, the second electrode is connected with the second electrode of an adjacent pixel region, and the connected second electrode is arranged at a position overlapping with the gate signal line.
US08218118B2
A liquid crystal display includes first and second substrates opposed to each other with liquid crystal therebetween, the first substrate having a plurality of drain signal lines and gate signal lines, and a plurality of pixel regions defined by the drain signal lines and the gate signal lines. The pixel region has a first electrode formed of a transparent conducting layer having a plurality of slits, a second electrode formed of a transparent conducting layer, and an insulating layer interposed between the first electrode and the second electrode. The second electrode is overlapped with a plurality of the slits of the first electrode in the pixel region, the first electrode is overlapped with the drain signal line and the gate signal line, and at least one of the first electrode and the second electrode is formed between the first substrate and the liquid crystal layer in the pixel region.
US08218113B2
A pixel structure of a display including a first substrate, a second substrate, and a liquid crystal (LC) layer disposed therebetween. The pixel structure comprises a plurality of first, second, and third sub-pixels; a plurality of alignment controlling patterns, respectively formed in the first, second and third sub-pixels for controlling alignment direction of LC molecules of the LC layer; a plurality of opaque regions, respectively formed in the first, second, and third sub-pixels, and substantially aligned with the portion of the alignment controlling patterns, so that the alignment controlling patterns are shielded by the substantially corresponded opaque regions having different areas in at least two of the colored sub-pixels.
US08218112B2
LCD device includes two substrates, a first and second color filters, two liquid crystal layers. The first color filters are formed on portions of the second substrate corresponding to border area The second color filters are formed on portions of the second substrate corresponding to the display area except the border area. A first liquid crystal layer between the first and the second substrate is comprised in border area, and a zero electric field is formed on the first liquid crystal layer so as to completely transmit light incident into the first liquid crystal layer therethrough. A borderline having various colors can be displayed by forming various patterns of color filters having various colors on portions of the second substrate corresponding to the border area under normally white mode, thereby producing picture frame effect while images are displayed on the screen.
US08218111B2
The present invention relates to a display device and a method for manufacturing the display device. The display device includes at least one partition formed on a lower display panel. A color filter may fill a region defined by the partitions. A first upper passivation layer is formed on the color filter, and a second upper passivation layer is formed on the first upper passivation layer and the partitions such that the LCD structure is planarized. In the display device, the height of the partition is sufficiently high to prevent mixing of the colors of neighboring pixel filters, and the process margin of the spacer and the light blocking member may be ensured. The partitions can be formed with multiple layers having different widths such that the mixture of colors between the neighboring pixels may be prevented, and the color reproducibility may be increased.
US08218102B2
A display apparatus includes a display panel receiving a light to display an image in response to a driving signal, a driving circuit board applying the driving signal to the display panel, a backlight unit disposed under the display panel to provide the light to the display panel, a bottom chassis including a first chassis member and a second chassis member to receive the backlight unit after coupling the first chassis member to the second chassis member, and a top chassis disposed on the display panel and coupled to the bottom chassis in accordance with an embodiment. The driving circuit board is mounted on a rear surface of the bottom chassis, and the first and second chassis members are overlapped with each other in a region in which the driving circuit board is positioned.
US08218091B2
A scaler positioning module may receive a video signal selected from among a plurality of video signals. The scaler positioning module may include scaler slots for arranging the signal path of the selected video signal through at least one scaler in the scaler positioning module. The scaler slots may enable the scaler positioning module to operate in three modes. The three modes may enable the scaler positioning module to output scaled data without memory operations, scale prior to a memory write, and scale after a memory read. A blank time optimizer (BTO) may receive data from the scaler positioning module at a first clock rate and distributed memory accesses based on a bandwidth requirement determination. The BTO may access memory at a second clock rate. The second clock rate may be slower than the first which may reduce memory bandwidth and enable another video signal to access memory faster.
US08218088B2
A video apparatus has a receiver for receiving and converting an RF signal into a video signal. The video signal is then processed (notably encoded) into an encoded digital stream by processing means. The processing means is adjusted based on an indicator of a characteristic of the RF signal.
US08218086B2
There is provided a method of pre-processing video data to detect flashes, comprising calculating a normalized difference index value for a Luminance [Y] component of the video data, calculating a normalized difference index value for Chrominance [U and V] components of the video data, calculating a normalized luminance [Y] mean gradient index for the video data, and providing an indication that a flash has been detected when all the following conditions are satisfied: the normalized difference index value for the Luminance [Y] component is greater than a first predetermined threshold (TY); the normalized difference index value for the Chrominance [U and V] components is less than a second predetermined threshold (TC); and a difference between the normalized difference index value for the Chrominance [U and V] components and the normalized luminance [Y] mean gradient index is less than or equal to a third pre-determined threshold (TF).
US08218082B2
A method includes selecting a target pixel and comparing a value of the target pixel with a respective value of each of a plurality of pixels located in an area that includes the target pixel. Further, for each pixel of the plurality of pixels that has a value different by at least a threshold amount from the value of the target pixel, the value of such pixel is replaced by the value of the target pixel. A filter function is applied to a set of pixels which includes the value of the target pixel and current values, after the selective replacement step, of the plurality of pixels.
US08218081B2
A video standard detector and operation method thereof are provided. The video standard detector includes a low pass filter (LPF) unit and a standard detector unit. The LPF filters a baseband signal. The feature detector detects vertical synchronization information of the baseband signal and horizontal synchronization information of the baseband signal using the output of the LPF, and determines the video standard corresponding to the baseband signal according to the vertical synchronization information and the horizontal synchronization information.
US08218072B2
An image pickup system includes a base, a frame, an image pickup device, a receiving structure, a marking element and a switching element. The frame is connected to the base. The image pickup device is disposed on the frame. The receiving structure is disposed in the base. The frame is rotatable with respect to the base, so that the image pickup device is moved to an optimal shooting position. The marking element indicates that the image pickup device is at the optimal shooting position. When the switching element is triggered, the target object placed in the receiving structure will be shot by the image pickup device.
US08218067B2
A system and method for effectively performing a white balance procedure for electronic cameras includes a neutral density diffusion light filter assembly adapted to be attached over the lens of a camera-type device equipped with an electronic device that captures image data using an image sensor device. Alternatively, the diffusion filter could be inserted internally in association with the lens assembly or built into the camera body as an external window associated with an independent image sensor device. The diffusion filter acts as an illuminance integrator of broad light acceptance angle to document light conditions (incident or reflective) that exist at the time an image is captured, thereby enabling a white balance operation at point of capture and production of a computer-generated image with little or no colorcast and requiring minimal (if any) subsequent manual color adjustment.
US08218052B2
A high frame rate high definition imaging system and method are disclosed. An imager is clocked asynchronously to a desired output video clock. During a frame cycle, data held in a first portion of the pixel array in the imager is clocked out of the imager using an imager clock signal, and data held in a second portion of the pixel array is bypassed. The imager data is subsequently converted to a higher video clock rate and output as desired video data.
US08218051B2
A signal chain for an image sensor is disclosed. The signal chain includes photo sensing elements, pixel readout circuits, and an amplifier. Each pixel readout circuit receives a charge-induced signal and a reset signal from one of the photo sensing elements. The readout circuit computes a difference signal between the charge-induced signal and said reset signal. The difference signal is measured with respect to a reference signal. The amplifier is coupled to the pixel readout circuits, and configured to supply the reference signal during computation of the difference signal. Further, the amplifier amplifies the difference signal when the computation is done.
US08218047B2
A solid state imaging device 1 includes a photodetecting section 10, a signal readout section 20, a controlling section 30, and a correction processing section 40. In the photodetecting section 10, M×N pixel portions each including a photodiode which generates charges as much as an incident light intensity and a readout switch connected to the photodiode are two-dimensionally arrayed in M rows and N columns. Charges generated in each pixel portion Pm,n are input into an integration circuit Sn, through a readout wiring LO,n, and a voltage value output corresponding to the charge amount from the integration circuit Sn is output to an output wiring Lout through a holding circuit Hn. In the correction processing section 40, correction processing is performed for frame data repeatedly output from the signal readout section 20, and frame data after being subjected to the correction processing is output.
US08218045B2
A method for acquiring images using at least one CMOS-type sensor with four transistors including an acquisition node and a read node, where the read node can receive a compression signal, including a step of reading a reference state of the sensor; a reset step; an integration step, during which the sensor is exposed and during part of which the compression signal is applied to the read node; and a step of reading the data acquired during the integration step; the read node being, during the integration step, isolated from the acquisition node, except immediately before the application of the compression signal, at which time the acquisition node is connected to the read node long enough to enable a transfer of the charges present at the acquisition node to the read node.
US08218035B2
An image processing apparatus which corrects image data containing an image of a foreign substance, and outputs the corrected image data that has undergone correction as a visible image includes an image pixel count acquisition unit which acquires the number of pixels of the image, an output resolution acquisition unit which acquires information about the resolution of the image to be output to the output device, a foreign substance correction level setting unit which sets the degree of foreign substance correction on the basis of at least the number of pixels acquired by the image pixel count acquisition unit and the information about the resolution acquired by the output resolution acquisition unit, and a foreign substance correction unit which corrects the image of the foreign substance contained in the image data on the basis of the foreign substance correction level set by the foreign substance correction level setting unit.
US08218027B2
There is provided an imaging terminal comprising a hybrid monochrome and color image sensor pixel array having a first subset of pixels provided by color pixels having color filter elements and a second subset of pixels provided by monochrome pixels without color filter elements. The terminal can be operative to capture a frame of image data including monochrome image data representative of light incident on the monochrome pixels and color image data representative of light incident on the color pixels. The terminal can be operative to activate a color correction processing module that utilizes the monochrome color image data.
US08218020B2
Camera-based services are provided to a user of a portable communication device by recognizing text contained in an image. An image of an environment is captured using a camera within the portable communication device so as to obtain image data. The image data is processed such that text data is recognized and extracted from the image data. Data related to the text data is then output in a form recognizable by a user of the portable communication device. The text data can be processed on the portable communication device to obtain the data related to the text data. Alternatively, the processing is performed by a processing unit external to the portable communication device. Translated and audio versions of the text data are output to the user. One camera-based service provides price and product information related to a product described in an image captured by the camera.
US08218017B2
At least some of the pixels on which color filters that give the largest weight to a brightness signal or color filters that have the highest transmittance among the plurality of color filters are provided are pixels for focus detection that are designed in such a way that the direction of incidence of light beams incident thereon is restricted, the pixels other than the pixels for focus detection are pixels for image picking-up that are designed in such a way that the degree of restriction placed on light beams incident thereon is smaller than that placed on light beams incident on the pixels for focus detection, the pixels for focus detection output at least a signal for ranging, the pixels for image picking-up output at least a signal for an image, and there are at least three pixels for focus detection in an area defined between a circle having its center at the center of any one of the pixels for focus detection and having a radius equal to 3.1 times the pixel pitch and a circle having its center at the center of the aforementioned any one of the pixels for focus detection and having a radius equal to 5.9 times the pixel pitch.
US08218014B2
Briefly, in accordance with one or more embodiments, a scanner for a scanned beam display may comprise a scanning platform having a mirror disposed thereon to reflect a beam of light impinging on the mirror, a drive coil disposed on the scanning platform to scan the reflected beam of light in response to a drive current applied to the drive coil. The drive coil has coil winding segments having a narrower width in one or more regions of the drive coil, and has coil winding segments having a greater width in one or more other regions of the drive coil to provide a the drive coil with a reduced electrical resistance.
US08218012B2
A sensor is used to detect and track a plurality of objects by using a separate track window for each object. Such sensors may be electro optical or infrared. Each object of interest (potential target) in the sensor FOV has a unique track window assigned. This allows independent control of video frame summing for each object to maintain a constant (optimized) signal to noise ratio (SNR) over an extremely large signal dynamic range and reduces track jitter by the simultaneous tracking of multiple objects.
US08218006B2
A near-to-eye (NTE) display allows an operator of an apparatus, such as a pilot of an aircraft, to see a conformal video presentation of the view outside the apparatus. Significant objects outside are converted into a conformal video view. An accelerator measures movement and rate of movement of the NTE display positioned on the operator's head, and if the movement and rate exceed a threshold, either ceases the continued display, removes, or deemphasizes the conformal image, for the period of the delay in order to eliminate any jerky or jittery motion of the displayed conformal image, which may be distracting, irritating, or headache inducing to the pilot.
US08218005B2
A method for producing an interactive virtual movie which simulates the walking of a user within a real site and exploring the same. A scanning apparatus defines minimal conditions for the capturing of a new photograph, including one or more of: (i) displacement of the apparatus by a distance D; (ii) change of the apparatus orientation by an angle Δ°; or (iii) change of the orientation of the camera with respect to the apparatus by an angle of δ°. A photograph is captured each time the apparatus exceeds one of the predefined minimal conditions, wherein the measurements of the variables is reset after each capturing. The method also includes storing the captured photographs and forming open chains of those photographs captured during a common route photographing session, and forming closed chains, of photographs captured during a common junction photographing. For each of those first and last from among the closed chain photographs relating to the junction, a corresponding similar photograph is found meeting one of the criteria of highest correlation or having the closest field of view direction, and connecting between them.
US08218002B2
A method and apparatus performing the method transmit an encoded light control signal having computer generated images over a network to a device decoding the received signal and controlling light in an image space for providing the computer generated images with a point of view presented changing in translatory position and orientation with respect to an image space frame of reference corresponding to a changing point of view of images acquired in an object space by an image acquisition device sensed changing in translatory position and orientation during navigation of the image acquisition device in the object space with respect to a frame of reference of the object space.
US08218000B2
A method and system for size calibration of an electronically generated image of a specimen that is generated by an optical instrument having a downstream digital camera operable in different reproduction modes is disclosed. In order to enhance image analysis reliability and decrease access times, it is proposed that firstly, for a specified reproduction mode of the camera, a reference calibration value indicating the ratio of a specimen dimension to an image dimension be determined and stored together with the specified reproduction mode; and that for size calibration, a correction factor regarding the reproduction mode be derived by comparing the stored reproduction mode to the reproduction mode of the camera currently in use, and from that correction factor, together with the stored reference calibration value, the current calibration value be calculated.
US08217996B2
A method for display of stereoscopic images defines at least first and second unequal subsets of viewers and provides at least the first subset of viewers with a first decoding device for viewing displayed stereoscopic images. From a single display apparatus, separate images are displayed for each eye of at least the first and second subsets of viewers in a repeated sequence of displaying the image for the first eye of all viewers during a first time interval; displaying the image for the second eye of the first subset of viewers during a second time interval; and displaying the image for the second eye of the second subset of viewers during a third time interval. The first, second, and third time intervals are non-overlapping.
US08217988B2
A method and apparatus to encode an image and a method and apparatus to decode an image are provided. The apparatus to encode an image includes a first encoder to encode an omni-directional image to generate a first bitstream, a data communicator to transmit the first bitstream to a decoding apparatus and to receive position information of a region-of-interest selected from an image reconstructed based on the first bitstream from the decoding apparatus, and a second encoder to encode an image of the region-of-interest based on the position information to generate a second bitstream.
US08217985B2
There is provided a method and apparatus for adjusting at least one parameter of a video stream being received on a recipient screen, the video stream being captured by a sender's video capturing apparatus. The method includes providing a control device to a recipient to adjust the at least one parameter of the video stream captured by the sender's video capturing apparatus; interfacing the control device with a secondary application; the recipient using the control device for adjustment of the at least one parameter of the video stream captured by the sender's video capturing apparatus; and the recipient receiving and viewing the video stream on the recipient screen. There is also provided a control device for adjusting at least one parameter of a video stream being received on a recipient screen, the video stream being captured by a sender's video capturing apparatus.
US08217984B2
A network adapter detection is used to establish a videoconference between a videoconferencing unit and a remote endpoint. Information about a plurality of network adapters available for the videoconferencing application is obtained, and one or more test messages are sent to at least one open source server using each of one or more of the obtained network adapters. The videoconferencing unit than awaits a response to each of the one or more sent test messages from the at least one open source server. If a response is received, the videoconferencing application uses the network adapter that received the response to establish a videoconference connection with the remote endpoint.
US08217979B2
An optical scanner for an image forming apparatus has a housing having a wall surface provided with a through-hole, and an optical scanning unit, which is provided within the housing, scans light on an object to be scanned in order to form an image on the object to be scanned, and includes: a polygon motor; a polygon mirror that reflects the light while being rotated by a driving force of the polygon motor; a mirror member that reflects the light reflected by the polygon mirror, toward a target object; and a mirror holding member that is attached to the wall surface of the housing and holds the mirror member. The mirror holding member has a heat radiation part that is exposed to the outside of the housing through the through-hole.
US08217977B2
A color image forming apparatus and a control method thereof to correct an error between scanning lines due to an alignment error between the laser scanning units corresponding with each color of the image forming apparatus on the basis of a difference of detection times between termination signals for each color when the scanning units output a horizontal synchronization signal and a termination signal to scan a line. A difference of termination times between termination detecting sensors may be used to variably set video clocks for each color, thus reducing the number of components required and reducing the signal processing load. A single sensor may be used to detect the synchronization and termination signals, thus further reducing manufacturing costs.
US08217976B2
A method and apparatus usable in an image forming apparatus, comprising a photoreceptor, and a plurality of exposing devices having a plurality of light emitting elements arranged therein for exposing the photoreceptor, wherein the plurality of exposing devices include at least two exposing devices having a distribution tendency similar to the plurality of light emitting elements.
US08217972B2
Tilt angle and tilt direction of lenticular lenses are detected precisely to correct attitude of a transported lenticular sheet with high accuracy. At least first to third lens sensors are disposed in a transport track of the lenticular sheet, aligned in a main scan direction and spaced at uneven intervals. Each lens sensor has a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element arranged to sandwich the lenticular sheet and output a detection signal corresponding to concavities and convexities of the lenticular lenses. During the transport of the lenticular sheet, the detection signals output from the first to third lens sensors are analyzed to detect the tilt direction and the tilt angle of the lenticular lenses accurately. Based on the tilt direction and the tilt angle, the attitude of the lenticular sheet is corrected in advance, preventing the lenticular sheet from skewing while stripe images are being recorded thereon.
US08217967B2
Disclosed herein is a display including, a digital signal processing circuit that processes pixel data, a digital-to-analog conversion circuit that converts pixel data that has been subjected to signal processing into an analog signal for driving a display device, and an error data addition circuit that is provided at a previous stage of the digital-to-analog conversion circuit and adds error data to all pixel data of a corresponding screen in sync with a vertical synchronization signal, the error data having one value per one screen.
US08217956B1
Method and apparatus for rendering panoramas under spherical projections. A set of component images and alignment parameters for the images are obtained. A rotation matrix for a component image is decomposed into three rotation matrices. An in-plane rotation of the image is performed to generate a rotated image. Once an in-plane rotation is performed, the rotated image is rendered first in one planar (x or y) dimension (whether columns or rows) to generate an intermediate image, and then the intermediate image is rendered in the other planar dimension to generate an output image. Decimation of the input rows and columns may be performed if necessary, and one-dimensional interpolation may be performed to generate pixel values in the output rows and columns from pixel values in the input rows and columns. The output image may be adjusted on the spherical projection by shifting the bounding box of the output image.
US08217953B2
A circuit arrangement and method utilize texture data prefetching to prefetch texture data used by an anisotropic filtering algorithm. In particular, stride-based prefetching may be used to prefetch texture data for use in anisotropic filtering, where the value of the stride, or difference between successive accesses, is based upon a distance in a memory address space between sample points taken along the line of anisotropy used in an anisotropic filtering algorithm.
US08217949B1
A contribution of a geometric element's attribute to a value of the image sample is determined analytically for an analytic dimension of evaluation and using sampling for a discrete dimension of evaluation. Motion blur effects are rendered by analytically determining the proportions of shutter time during which image samples are exposed to objects. Space-time projections are determined by the geometry edges' positions at the beginning and the end of the shutter time, which define surfaces of space-time projections. The times that the sample ray of an image sample enter and leave the space-time projections specify the proportions of the image sample's shutter time during which scene geometry is exposed to image sample points. The attribute value of an image sample point is determined from values of all of the scene geometry visible to the image sample point during the shutter time, each weighted by the time that it is visible.
US08217942B2
A system may include a graphics memory, a data bus, a processor, and a vertex shader. The data bus may be operatively connected to the graphics memory. The processor may send vertex data to the graphics memory via the data bus. The vertex shader may read the vertex data from the graphics memory and may subdivide the vertex data into subdivided vertex data. The vertex shader may also write the subdivided vertex data to the graphics memory.
US08217941B2
A family of node structures for representing 3-dimensional objects using depth image are provided. These node structures can be adopted into MPEG-4 AFX for conventional polygonal 3D representations. Main formats of the family are DepthImage, PointTexture and OctreeImage. DepthImage represents an object by a union of its reference images and corresponding depth maps. PointTexture represents the object as a set of colored points parameterized by projection onto a regular 2D grid. OctreeImage converts the same data into hierarchical octree-structured voxel model, set of compact reference images and a tree of voxel-image correspondence indices. DepthImage and OctreeImage have animated versions, where reference images are replaced by videostreams. DIBR formats are very convenient for 3D model construction from 3D range-scanning and multiple source video data. MPEG-4 framework allows construction of a wide variety of representations from the main DIBR formats, providing flexible tools for effective work with 3D models. Compression of the DIBR formats is achieved by application of image (video) compression techniques to depth maps and reference images (videostreams).
US08217936B1
A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium are disclosed for minimizing tessellation of surfaces. A first plurality of polygons may be generated, wherein the first plurality of polygons are adjacent to a plurality of exterior curves of a surface. Each of the first plurality of polygons comprises at least one outside edge approximating a portion of one of the exterior curves within a first flatness tolerance. A second plurality of polygons may be generated, wherein the second plurality of polygons are on the interior of the surface. Each of the second plurality of polygons comprises a plurality of inside edges approximating portions of interior curves of the surface within a second flatness tolerance. The first flatness tolerance may be smaller than the second flatness tolerance.
US08217928B2
An electroluminescent (EL) subpixel, such as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) subpixel, is compensated for aging effects such as threshold voltage Vth shift, EL voltage Voled shift, and OLED efficiency loss. The drive current of the subpixel is measured at one or more measurement reference gate voltages to form a status signal representing the characteristics of the drive transistor and EL emitter of the subpixel. Current measurements are taken in the linear region of drive transistor operation to improve signal-to-noise ratio in systems such as modern LTPS PMOS OLED displays, which have relatively small Voled shift over their lifetimes and thus relatively small current change due to channel-length modulation. Various sources of noise are also suppressed to further increase signal-to-noise ratio.
US08217921B2
A flat panel display and a diving method of the same are provided. The flat panel display comprising a controller that comprises a processing unit for processing a digital signal corresponding to one frame to n number of digital sub-frame signals, a driver that receives the digital sub-frame signals from the controller to generate the n number of analog sub-frame signals and supplies the analog sun-frame signals to a display unit, and a display unit that receives the analog sub-frame signals to embody images, wherein an average of brightness corresponding to the n number of digital sub-frame signals is substantially equal to brightness of the digital signal corresponding to one frame, and the number of bits of digital sub-frame signals is smaller than that the number of bits of the digital signal.
US08217917B2
A touch sensing device includes a plurality of sensors and an emitting transducer coupled to a touch panel. The transducer induces bending waves in the touch panel. The sensors sense bending waves in the touch panel and generate a bending wave signal responsive to the sensed bending waves. A controller identifies an untouched condition signal responsive to the induced bending waves. The controller compares the untouched condition signal to the bending wave signal, and detects a touch on the touch panel based on the comparison.
US08217913B2
Displays with touch sensing circuitry integrated into the display pixel stackup are provided. Circuit elements, such as touch signal lines, such as drive lines and sense lines, grounding regions, in the display pixel stackups can be grouped together to form touch sensing circuitry that senses a touch on or near the display. An integrated touch screen can include multi-function circuit elements that can operate as circuitry of the display system to generate an image on the display, and can also form part of a touch sensing system that senses one or more touches on or near the display. The multi-function circuit elements can be, for example, capacitors in display pixels that can be configured to operate as storage capacitors/electrodes, common electrodes, conductive wires/pathways, etc., of the display circuitry in the display system, and that may also be configured to operate as circuit elements of the touch sensing circuitry.
US08217912B2
A portable device includes a touch screen that includes a display screen and that generates touch screen data in response to a user's interaction with the touch screen. A processor executes a security application for authenticating the user to the portable device that provides first display data to the touch screen for displaying a security prompt on the display screen. Touch screen data is received from the touch screen in response to the user's interaction with the touch screen and is processed to determine when an authentication shape is recognized as being indicated by the touch screen data. The user is authenticated to the portable device when the authentication shape is recognized as being indicated by the touch screen data.
US08217901B2
In one embodiment, a computer peripheral, is provided with 1) a human input interface; 2) a first computer interface; 3) a data link to provide data connectivity between the human input interface and first computer interface; and 4) a docking port to substantially encase a handheld computer engaged with the first computer interface.
US08217899B2
There is provided an information processing apparatus with a double-sided operable keyboard, capable of executing desired application processing even in the case where a keyboard is folded and keys to be normally operated are directed to a reverse side (e.g., a display apparatus side or a lower side) with respect to a user. The information processing apparatus includes a display apparatus and a keyboard apparatus. The keyboard apparatus is foldable so as to cover a lower part or a portion of a display region of the display apparatus, and at least one function key assigned arbitrary applications are provided on a bottom surface of the keyboard apparatus. Furthermore, the information processing apparatus includes a keyboard position detecting part for detecting a relative position of the keyboard apparatus with respect to the display apparatus, and switches effective keys between keys on an upper surface of the keyboard apparatus and keys on the bottom surface of the keyboard apparatus in accordance with the relative position of the keyboard apparatus.
US08217897B2
An optical tracking system is disclosed that provides more precise tracking and better performance in an optical mouse. It involves provides a collimated laser, and imaging a reflection of the collimated laser, such that the reflection has a substantially linear phase gradient. The reflection of the laser includes a pattern of speckles due to optical interference effects. The speckles are imaged such that the substantially linear phase gradient restricts any variation in intensity of the imaging of the speckles during a translating motion of the reflection, thereby providing superior tracking performance.
US08217895B2
A non-contract selecting device is disclosed. The non-contract selecting device include a light source, emitting light to an outside; a camera unit, generating and outputting a video signal corresponding to an external video; a video data generating unit, generating video data corresponding to the video signal; and an identity unit, detecting a location of a detected area formed by light, reflected by pointing-means and inputted, of the light emitted from the video data in units of each frame, recognizing a moving locus of the detected area by comparing at least two continuous frames and generating and outputting corresponding change information. With the present invention, the function-selecting can be more quickly and easily and increase making the most use of elements.
US08217892B2
An input device includes an input device chassis. At least one tactile feedback module is coupled to the input device chassis. The tactile feedback module includes a first electromagnet and a second electromagnet located in a spaced apart relationship from the first electromagnet. A mass includes a pair of opposing ends and is located between the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet. A permanent magnet is located on each of the opposing ends of the mass. The mass is operable to move along an axis between the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet and may be moved to produce a variety of forces on the input device in order to provide tactile feedback.
US08217879B2
A pixel unit in the present invention is divided into two sub-pixels. Each sub-pixel includes a thin film transistor, a liquid crystal capacitor and a storage capacitor. The two transistors respectively located in different sub-pixels are connected to different scan lines. One of the two transistors is connected to the data line through another transistor. Therefore, two different pixel voltages are formed in a pixel.
US08217878B2
A display device is disclosed. The display device includes: a pixel array unit and a driving unit which drives the pixel array unit. The pixel array unit includes rows of first scanning lines and second scanning lines, columns of signals, pixels in a matrix state arranged at portions where the scanning lines and the signal lines cross each other and power supply lines and ground lines supplying power to respective pixels. The driving unit includes a first scanner performing line-sequential scanning to pixels by each row by supplying a first control signal to each first scanning line sequentially, a second scanner supplying a second control signal to each second scanning line sequentially so as to correspond to the line-sequential scanning and a signal selector supplying a video signal to rows of signal lines so as to correspond to the line-sequential scanning.
US08217874B2
An image projection apparatus is disclosed which projects an image having a good color by reducing the influence of a lateral electric field in a liquid crystal display element (LCD). The apparatus includes three LCDs, each including two opposite electrodes. As the voltage applied to a liquid crystal layer is increased, retardation provided for light in each color band is increased. A controller controls an electrode application voltage in the first LCD such that, in a white display state, a liquid crystal application voltage (LCAV) in the first LCD is lower than the LCAVs in the second and third LCDs, and such that, in a black display state, the LCAV in the first LCD is higher than the LCAVs in the second and third LCDs and has a value from 1% to 30% of the LCAV in the first LCD in the white display state.
US08217873B2
A liquid crystal display device for improving color washout problem is disclosed in the present invention, in which storage capacitors of two sub-pixels of a pixel are electrically connected to a next scan line and a next scan line of the next scan line, respectively, in order for utilizing driving signals of the two scan lines to modulate voltages of the storage capacitors, so as to make the two sub-pixels have different driving voltages.
US08217872B2
The present invention provides a liquid crystal display device including an active matrix substrate with improved characteristics and providing high-contrast between black and white displays. The active matrix substrate of the present invention is an active matrix substrate, including: pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix pattern; a source line extending in a column direction and overlapping with any adjacent two of the pixel electrodes in a row direction; and a storage capacitor line extending in the row direction and intersecting with the source line, wherein the pixel electrodes, the source line, and the storage capacitor line are disposed in different layers stacked with an insulating film therebetween, the source line has bend points below both of the adjacent two row pixel electrodes and has a crossing portion passing across a space between the adjacent two row pixel electrodes, the storage capacitor line has a portion extending in the column direction and overlapping with the space between the adjacent two row pixel electrodes, and the source line overlaps with the storage capacitor line substantially only at an intersection thereof.
US08217865B2
A display apparatus includes a pixel array, a life control unit, a signal output unit, and a duty ratio transmission unit. The pixel array, including light-emitting elements constituting a screen, displays each frame of an image on the screen by emitting light having a luminance in accordance with a level of an image signal and continuously emits light from the screen within each frame for an amount of time specified by a duty ratio. The life control unit extends the life of the light-emitting elements by simultaneously adjusting the maximum permissible level of the image signal and the duty ratio. The signal output unit drives the screen to display an image by outputting an image signal adjusted within the maximum permissible level to the pixel array. The duty ratio transmission unit for enabling the screen to emit light for an amount of time specified transmitting an adjusted duty ratio to the pixel array.
US08217861B2
A driving circuit includes: a switch unit permitting transfer of a data signal when operating in an on state; a capacitor having a first end coupled to the switch unit, and a second end; a first transistor having a first terminal for coupling to a second voltage source, a second terminal coupled to the second end of the capacitor and to a load, and a control terminal coupled to the first end of the capacitor; and a second transistor having a first terminal coupled to the second end of the capacitor, a second terminal receiving a bias voltage, and a control terminal coupled to the first terminal of the second transistor.
US08217859B2
A method of driving a plasma display device having a first electrode and a second electrode adjacent to one another in a discharge cell, including applying a first waveform at least once to the first electrode, the first waveform including a gradual increase from a first voltage to a second voltage followed by a gradual decrease from a third voltage to a fourth voltage, and applying a second waveform at least once to the first electrode after the first waveform is applied to the first electrode, the second waveform including a gradual increase from a fifth voltage to a sixth voltage followed by a gradual decrease from a seventh voltage to an eighth voltage. The first and second waveforms may be applied to the first electrode after turning on the plasma display device and before a display operation is performed.
US08217853B2
An electrical connector assembly (100) with antenna function comprising: a PCB (50) comprising a feeding circuit and a grounding circuit; an electrical connector (20) installed on the PCB comprising a metal shell (21) electrically connecting to the grounding circuit; a metal patch (30) connecting to the metal shell comprising a radiating element (33) and a connecting element (31); the radiating element electrical connecting to the feeding circuit; the connecting element connecting the radiating element and the metal shell; the radiating element, the connecting element, and the metal shell forming an antenna that serves as a medium for transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals.
US08217849B2
An antenna system for a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag in one embodiment includes a base portion; at least one angled portion oriented to have a tangential angle of between about 1 degree and about 179 degrees from a plane of the base portion; and an antenna trace on the at least one angled portion. An antenna system for an RFID tag in another embodiment includes a base portion; at least one angled portion having at least two sections each oriented to have a tangential angle of between about 1 degree and about 179 degrees from a plane of the base portion, the two sections having different overall angles relative to the base portion; and an antenna trace on the at least one angled portion. Additional systems and methods are presented.
US08217845B2
There is provided a high frequency glass antenna for automobiles which is capable of having an improved antenna gain without changing the shape of a defogger.A defogger, an antenna conductor, a feeding portion for the antenna conductor, a grounding conductor, and a grounding-side feeding portion for the grounding conductor are disposed in or on a rear window glass sheet for automobiles, the defogger forms at least one portion of the grounding conductor; and the grounding-side feeding portion is electrically connected to the defogger.
US08217843B2
A device for a wireless RF link to a remote receiving device can radiate at different radiation patterns in response to detecting a change in the device position. As the device is moved, displaced, or re-positioned, a position sensor in the device detects the change in position and provides position information to a processor. The processor receives the position information from the position sensor, selects an antenna configuration and physical data rate based on the position information, and provides an RF signal associated with the selected antenna configuration through the antenna elements of the selected antenna configuration.
US08217836B1
A navigation system/solution, suitable for use in a GPS-denied environment, may be implemented via a node, the node being mounted on-board a vehicle, such as a tactical aircraft. The system/solution allows for a single component of the node to obtain/determine a bearing measurement (via an orientation transfer scheme) and a range measurement (via a round trip timing scheme) based upon signals transmitted between the node and a second node, and further allows for the bearing and range measurements to be received and processed by a navigation processor of the node for determining a location of the node.
US08217832B2
A system and method for determining a location of a wireless device in a communications network. A request for satellite assistance data may be received from a requesting entity, and a reference location determined as a function of the request. One or more characterizing attributes may be identified as a function of the reference location, and a set of satellites determined as a function of the reference location. It may also be determined whether more than one set of signal measurements should be acquired from one or more satellites in the set of satellites as a function of the identified one or more characterizing attributes. The one or more sets of signal measurements may be acquired, and a location of the wireless device determined from the acquired measurements.
US08217830B2
A forward facing sensing system comprises a windshield electronics module disposed in the interior cabin of a vehicle at and behind the windshield. A radar sensor device is disposed within the windshield electronics module and a forward facing image sensor is disposed within the windshield electronics module, and with both disposed behind or adjacent to an upper region of the windshield. A control comprising an image processor analyzes images captured by the forward facing image sensor in order to, at least in part, detect an object present forward of the vehicle in its direction of forward travel. The radar sensor device may utilize beam aiming or beam selection or may utilize digital beam forming or digital beam steering or may comprise an array antenna or a phased array antenna or the forward facing image sensor may comprise a pixelated imaging array sensor. The radar sensor device comprises a silicon germanium radar sensor.
US08217818B2
Provided are a digital radio frequency (RF) converter and an RF converting method thereof. The RF frequency converter includes first and second RF output terminals of a differential form outputting an RF signal; a differential switch selectively connecting first and second nodes into the first and second RF output terminals in response to an oscillating waveform; at least one digital delay device column outputting a plurality of unit bits by sequentially delaying an input bit corresponding to the digital input signal; a front-end processor summing an output of the at least one digital delay device column; a plurality of current sources; and a plurality of first switches corresponding to the plurality of current sources, respectively, and delivering currents of current sources whose number corresponds to the sum value of the front-end processor among the plurality of current sources, to one of the first and second nodes.
US08217817B2
[Means for Solving the Problem] In a current switch circuit A used for a current steering D/A converter, a current switch basic circuit 1 includes first and second transistors Tr121 and Tr122 included in a differential switch 12. A threshold voltage control circuit 5 has an output terminal Vbout controlling the substrate voltage to be outputted to the substrate terminal of each of the two transistors Tr121 and Tr122 included in the differential switch 12 for controlling the threshold voltage of the two transistors of the differential switch. Accordingly, the present invention improves the decrease in the dynamic range of the current switch basic circuit 1 dependent on the threshold of each of the two transistors in the differential switch 12 and realizes a wider output voltage range without causing deterioration in properties even in a case that the power voltage is reduced in the current switch basic circuit 1.
US08217813B2
A compression technique includes storing respective fixed-size symbols for each of a plurality of words in a data block, e.g., a cache line, into a symbol portion of a compressed data block, e.g., a compressed cache line, where each of the symbols provides information about a corresponding one of the words in the data block. Up to a first plurality of data segments are stored in a data portion of the compressed data block, each data segment corresponds to a unique one of the symbols in the compressed data block and a unique one of the words in the cache line. Up to a second plurality of dictionary entries are stored in the data portion of the compressed cache line. The dictionary entries can correspond to multiple ones of the symbols.
US08217806B2
A method and apparatus, where the apparatus includes: a transmitting/receiving unit for receiving location information of other vehicles existing in a limited area by communicating with the other terminals via a mesh network; a controller for identifying an available parking space by analyzing the location information of the other terminals; and a display unit for displaying the available parking space.
US08217803B2
A wireless network is provided, that may comprise wireless sensor units organized in chains of wireless sensor units. Each wireless sensor unit may comprise plural sensors and at least a wireless transceiver connected to communicate by wires or wirelessly with the plural sensors. Each chain of wireless sensor units may include a terminal wireless sensor unit and intermediate wireless sensor units, each intermediate wireless sensor unit being configured to relay data along the chain of intermediate wireless sensor units towards the terminal wireless sensor unit. The terminal wireless sensor unit in each chain of wireless sensor units is adapted to communicate wirelessly with at least one backhaul unit of plural backhaul units; and the backhaul units are adapted to communicate with a central computer.
US08217798B2
A wide area fire safety and detection system is disclosed. The system includes a control node configured to execute a first detection routine, wherein the control node has a network interface, and an amplifier having an audio output, wherein the amplifier is configured to communicate the audio output to a plurality of fire safety nodes. The system further includes a remote node in communication with the control node, wherein the remote node has a network interface configured for communication with at least the network interface of the control node, and an audio converter configured to receive the audio output and generated a converted audio output, wherein the converted out is compatible with a microphone input.
US08217795B2
A fall detection system includes a wearable monitoring device that monitors the movement of a person. The device monitors a sensor and detects variation from the normal range and duration thereof. The system determines whether the wearer has fallen through an algorithmic analysis technique using parameters to evaluate the accelerations and timings of the events that comprise a fall. If the combination of the timing and variations from the normal ranges are sufficient as compared to preset thresholds, a fall report will be generated. The wearable device optionally allows qualified professionals to adjust or customize the parameters to optimize the evaluation to the requirements of particular users or classes of users. The wearable device generally transmits data and alerts over a short distance to a console or over a long distance using a connection to a long-distance back haul communication system such as cell network or internet or both. The device thus transmit data and alerts to a call center or other designated location.
US08217788B2
A shoe wear out sensor includes at least one detector for sensing a physical metric that changes as a sole of a shoe wears out, a processor configured to process the physical metric over time to determine if the shoe is worn out, and an alarm for informing a user of the shoe when the sole is worn out. A body bar sensing system includes a housing with at least one detector for sensing a physical metric that indicates a repetition movement of the housing when attached to the body bar, a processor for processing the physical metric over time to determine repetitions thereof, and a display for informing a user of the repetitions. A system assesses activity and displays a unitless activity value. A detector senses activity of a user. A processor reads sensed activity data from the detector. A display displays the unitless activity value. An enclosure houses the detector and the processor. The processor periodically reads the sensed activity data from the detector and processes the data to generate an activity number, the number being used to generate the unitless activity value based upon a maximum number and a display range.
US08217786B2
An apparatus for checking for the presence of objects and in particular containers, comprising a transmitting device which has a sound signal generation unit for emitting a sound signal, and a receiving device which is arranged relative to the transmitting device in such a way that a sound signal emitted by the transmitting device and transmitted through air can be received by the receiving device. According to the invention, at least the transmitting device or the receiving device has a housing, wherein at least one region of this housing is suitable for emitting or for receiving sound signals.
US08217785B2
A mobile tag tracking system for providing mobile security monitoring is provided. The system includes a communications facility, a communications network coupled to the communications facility, and a mobile tag. The mobile tag is coupled to an item to be monitored. The mobile tag has a processor having a memory and for controlling operation of the mobile tag, a radio communications component coupled to the processor for communicating with the communications facility over the communications network for reporting status messages related to the item, a power supply coupled to the processor for providing power to the mobile tag, security sequence generator coupled to the processor for generating binary sequences, a location tracking component coupled to the processor for determining the location of the mobile tag and providing a location signal to the processor, and a clock coupled to the processor. The mobile tag communicates with the communications facility using randomly scheduled communications each including a status message.
US08217780B2
A system and method are provided for extending the expiration of an entry delay period for disarming a security system based on the entry of a keypress that matches a valid access code before expiration of a preprogrammed entry delay period. The security system includes a plurality of detection devices to detect any number of conditions, a user interface such as a keypad, and a control panel communicating with each of the detection devices and the user interface. The system extends the entry delay period based on the input of each keypress using the user interface that matches a symbol of a valid access code.
US08217777B2
A vehicle environmental service system includes an in-vehicle information terminal mounted in a vehicle, a center server provided in a center, and a provider terminal managed by an affiliated service provider providing various services to users. The in-vehicle information terminal is capable of communicating with the provider terminal directly or through the center server. The in-vehicle information terminal or the center server has a point calculating unit for determining whether safety driving and/or ecological driving is being performed with respect to each of the users based on prescribed criteria and calculating the number of points to be awarded based on the result of the determination. The center server has a database for managing total number of points obtained by accumulating the number of points to be awarded with respect to each of the users. The provider terminal has a service providing unit for providing a prescribed service in exchange for a prescribed number of points in the database and an advertisement generating unit for generating advertisement information of the affiliated service provider. The in-vehicle information terminal has a unit enabling the in-vehicle information terminal to receive the advertisement information from the provider terminal directly or through the center server.
US08217772B2
A geo-fence is defined and established automatically based on a current location of an asset along with some range or distance, avoiding the need for a user to manually specify a location by drawing a perimeter, specifying a point location, or by any other means. Once established, the geo-fence can be activated so as to notify the owner of the asset and/or some other entity of movement of the asset beyond the boundary specified by the geo-fence. In one embodiment, the geo-fence can be automatically activated upon certain conditions, or can be manually activated, or any combination thereof.
US08217742B2
The present invention includes a knob assembly which provides rotational movement and translational travel along an axis of dual and independent rotary knobs. The present invention controls electronics within a housing, without requiring protrusion into the housing. Having no protrusions into the housing avoids exposure of the electronics within the housing to environmental contaminants or electromagnetic interference. The components of the dual independent push button rotary knob assembly may operate without need for O-rings, gaskets, or any other applied sealants to prevent containments from entering the housing. Assembly of the knob assembly is simplified, because the rotary knob assembly may be installed and replaced without any tools and without need to access the interior of the housing. Furthermore, if any part of the assembly is damaged, the rotary knob assembly, in part or whole, may be replaced without compromising any seal provided to the exterior surfaces of the housing.
US08217738B2
An electromechanical element includes a first electrode which is provided on a substrate, and a second electrode and a third electrode which are provided via a gap with respect to the first electrode. The first electrode contacts with the second electrode when an attracting force is applied between the first electrode and the third electrode. The first electrode has a bending portion.
US08217721B1
A slew rate enhancing circuit is disclosed. A current mirror circuit generates a mirrored current according to a current source, and the mirrored current is adaptively provided for an amplifier. A switch circuit is electrically coupled with the current source and the current mirror circuit. The switch circuit includes a first branch and a second branch that are coupled in parallel, wherein passage of the first branch and passage of the second branch are respectively controlled by a first switch and a second switch according to the non-inverting input voltage and the inverting input voltage.
US08217719B2
A variable gain amplifier having an input node, a variable current source including a control input coupled to the input node, first and second branches coupled in parallel between a first supply terminal and the variable current source, the first and second branches defining a differential pair arranged to be controlled by first and second differential gain signals and having first and second output terminals, one of the output terminals including an output node of the variable gain amplifier; and a potential divider having a middle node coupled to the first and second output terminals, wherein the middle node is also coupled to the input node by a capacitor.
US08217717B1
A linear diode detector having an increased dynamic range and an improved sensitivity level is described. The linear diode detector includes a signal input that receives a sample of output power from a power amplifier (PA). A detector output provides a voltage signal that is usable by power control circuitry to maintain a constant output power for the PA. A rectifier diode has an anode communicatively coupled to the signal input, and a cathode that is communicatively coupled to the detector output. A low pass filter is communicatively coupled to the detector output to filter out high frequency components of a rectified sample of output power. The anode of a feedback diode is communicatively coupled to the detector output, and the cathode of the feedback diode is communicatively coupled to the anode of the rectifier diode in order to feedback a portion of the voltage signal to increase detection sensitivity.
US08217710B2
The invention relates to a semiconductor device comprising a fuse that is implemented as a bar type pattern that forms a straight line instead of a pattern that is difficult to secure a manufacturing margin. A fuse block including a plurality of fuses comprises a plurality of first connection parts, each including a blowing area, a plurality of second connection parts, wherein the plurality of the second connection parts and the plurality of the corresponding first connection parts respectively form part of the fuse, and a common connection unit configured to electrically connect the plurality of the first connection parts and the plurality of the second connection parts.
US08217709B2
A semiconductor device includes a signal output unit, and a decision unit. The signal output unit includes m (≧2) pieces of fuses, a NAND gate, resistance elements, and an output terminal. The decision unit decides whether n or more pieces (m≧n≧2) of fuses are disconnected out of the m pieces of fuses included in the signal output unit, and outputs the result of a decision. When m=n=2, the decision unit is constituted of a NOR gate having two input terminals connected to a respective end of the fuses. Thus, a H-level potential signal is output at an output terminal of the NOR gate when the decision result is affirmative. On the other hand, when the decision result is negative, a L-level potential signal is output at the output terminal.
US08217704B2
A gate drive device which can suppress the fluctuation of an internal power source voltage and output voltage, while reducing the number of parts by omitting a bypass capacitor connected in parallel with a semiconductor integrated circuit, is provided. The gate drive device drives the gate of an active element with a large input capacity, such as an IGBT or MOSFET, and includes a semiconductor integrated circuit. The semiconductor integrated circuit has an internal power source based on an external power source, such as a battery. The semiconductor integrated circuit incorporates a voltage drop suppressing circuit, configured so that, if an input external power source voltage momentarily drops below a minimum operating voltage, a drop of an internal power source voltage below the minimum operating voltage, and a sharp drop in a voltage output to the gate, are prevented by the voltage drop suppressing circuit.
US08217703B2
A lever shifter is provided for receiving a signal in a first voltage domain and providing an output signal in a second voltage domain. The level shifter reduces propagation delay and power consumption by mitigating contention between NFETs and PFETs during signal propagation.
US08217702B2
An apparatus is disclosed for receiving input signals in a first higher voltage domain and for generating and outputting signals in a second lower voltage domain, said apparatus comprising: an input pad; output circuitry, said output circuitry being configured to switch to output a first predetermined value in response to a rising input signal exceeding an upper threshold value and to switch to output a second predetermined value in response to a falling input signal falling below a lower threshold value; a first input path; a second input path; and a controllable connecting path between said first and second inputs.
US08217694B2
Clock synchronization and skew adjustment circuits that utilize differing unit delay elements in their delay lines in either a graduated or a stepped unit time delay arrangement are for synchronizing with a clock signal. These graduated or a stepped unit time delays allow reduction in the number of the fine unit delay elements of the delay lines by placing a fine delay element granularity at the most critical timings to sense and adjust for the portion of the clock signal time period that are high speed or critical.
US08217685B2
In an embodiment, an integrated circuit comprises core circuitry and at least one driver circuit. The core circuitry is powered by a first supply voltage during use, and comprises a control circuit configured to generate a pull up control signal, a pull down control signal, and at least one reference voltage. The driver circuit is powered by a second supply voltage during use, the second supply voltage having a greater magnitude than the first supply voltage. The driver circuit is connected to a pad to be connected to a pin on a package of the integrated circuit. The driver circuit comprises a cascode connection of a first transistor and a second transistor, and a capacitor coupled between a first gate terminal of the first transistor and a second gate terminal of the second transistor. The first gate terminal is coupled to receive the pull down control signal.
US08217684B2
Systems and methods for realizing current drivers without current or voltage feedback for devices that require accurate current drive with zero standby current has been disclosed. In a preferred embodiment of the invention this current driver is applied for write circuits for MRAMs. A fast and accurate reference current is generated by diode voltage divided by resistor without any feedback. The diode current is not fed back from the reference current. The diode current is generated from a regulated voltage. Temperature compensation of the write current is inherently built in the diode current reference. Fine-tuning of the temperature coefficient is achieved by mixing poly and diffusion resistors. A switch inserted in the current driver can turn on the driver fast and without a need for standby current. Leading boost in the current driver can fast charge the large coupling capacitance of word and bit lines and speed up write timing.
US08217680B2
A method of operating inverter may include providing a load transistor and a driving transistor connected to the load transistor wherein at least one of the load transistor and the driving transistor has a double gate structure, and varying a threshold voltage of the at least one of the load transistor and the driving transistor having the double gate structure. A threshold voltage of the load transistor or the driving transistor may be adjusted by the double gate structure, and accordingly, the inverter may be an enhancement/depletion (E/D) mode inverter.
US08217679B2
A method of calculating total power usage of a field programmable gate array (FPGA) without external components generates at least one coefficient based on a power equation and a given FPGA logic design, wherein the power equation calculates FPGA power as a function of temperature and voltage. The at least one coefficient is applied to the power equation along with internally generated temperature and voltage measurement values. The temperature measurement and the voltage measurement values are applied to the power equation with the at least one coefficient applied to calculate a power measurement based on the temperature measurement value and the voltage measurement value. The at least one coefficient is generated by taking an FPGA design and iteratively simulating the design in a power estimation tool over a range of temperature and input voltage values. A characterization data set is generated and curve fitted to the power equation to produce the at least one coefficient.
US08217673B2
A test controller switches the operation of output stages in an integrated circuit between a normal operation mode and a test mode. The output stages are respectively connected to switch elements. A level shifter generates a switch signal for controlling activation and deactivation of the switch elements in accordance with the normal operation mode and the test mode.
US08217670B2
The invention provides a label-free sensor that includes a substrate, a first electrode formed on the substrate, a second electrode formed on the substrate and spaced away from the first electrode, and a semiconductor layer formed on the substrate and being in contact with the first electrode and the second electrode. The semiconductor layer has a plurality of probe groups bonded to the semiconductor layer by functionalization, for sensing a coupling-specific substance having bonding specificity with the probe groups. The semiconductor layer is bonded with the probe groups, and the detection of detected object is performed in an instant, quick, rapid, and sensitive manner by measuring variation in electric current, avoiding the use of fluorescent reading equipment for reading fluorescent signals.
US08217664B2
A time period of an event is determined by charging a known value capacitor from a constant current source during the event. The resultant voltage on the capacitor is proportional to the event time period and may be calculated from the resultant voltage and known capacitance value. Capacitance is measured by charging a capacitor from a constant current source during a known time period. The resultant voltage on the capacitor is proportional to the capacitance thereof and may be calculated from the resultant voltage and known time period. A long time period event may be measured by charging a first capacitor at the start of the event and a second capacitor at the end of the event, while counting clock times there between. Delay of an event is done by charging voltages on first and second capacitors at beginning and end of event, while comparing voltages thereon with a reference voltage.
US08217655B2
A transport device for conveying an object to be transported (18) between an input point (A) and a supply point (Z), where the object to be transported (18) can be supplied to an RT tube (4) of a cryostat (1), wherein the input point (A) is both horizontally and also vertically spaced apart from the supply point (Z), wherein a transport tube (14) is provided for pneumatically conveying the object to be transported within the transport tube (14) from a first transfer point (B) to a second transfer point (C), is characterized in that the transport tube (14) is vertically arranged, a first transport container (TB1) and a second transport container (TB2) are provided for receiving the object to be transported (18), a first transfer device is disposed between the input point (A) and the first transfer point (B), and a second transfer device is provided between the second transfer point (C) and the supply point (Z).
US08217649B2
A system for use in MR imaging using tissue mechanical resonance includes an external wave generator for generating mechanical waves for transmission through patient anatomy. An RF pulse generator generates an RF pulse for exciting nuclei magnetic moments at specific spin frequencies in a particular selected anatomical region of interest. A motion encoding gradient generator generates a motion encoding gradient magnetic field within a time duration of a read-out gradient and synchronized with generation of the mechanical waves. A data processor processes data derived from radio frequency signals resulting from nuclei spin frequencies responsive to the motion encoding gradient magnetic field to detect the mechanical waves propagating through the patient anatomy.
US08217631B2
A system provides generator control for a power system within a vehicle. The system includes a battery, a generator that outputs power to charge the battery. A sensor detects a state of charge (SOC) value, a health value, a voltage, a current, a temperature, and a charging voltage of the battery. A controller controls a voltage output mode of the generator in response to at least one of a state of charge (SOC) value, a health value, a voltage, a current, a temperature, and a charging voltage of the battery detected by the sensor, the voltage output mode is in response to the SOC and the temperature of the battery.
US08217629B2
A charging regulator assembly for an energy storing device includes an active material actuator configured to move a contact from a connected position permitting current transfer between the contact and a power bus into a disconnected position preventing current transfer between the contact and the power bus. The active material actuator is engaged in response to a temperature of the active material actuator rising above a pre-determined value. Moving the contact into the disconnected position prevents further current transfer into or out of the energy storing device, thereby preventing further heating of the energy storing device and preventing potential damage to the energy storing device form overheating.
US08217628B2
A battery pack includes a battery including a positive electrode and a negative electrode, a switching module including a charge switching device and a discharge switching device, the charge switching device and discharge switching device being electrically connected to a high current path of the battery, a battery management unit (BMU) electrically connected to the switching module, the BMU being configured to adjust a limit value for a charging current supplied by the charge switching device and to set a magnitude of the charging current supplied by the charge switching device to be equal to or less than the adjusted.
US08217625B2
A rechargeable battery, battery set or battery pack having a circuit or a plurality of circuits for providing self-discharging thereof electrically connected in parallel are used to form rechargeable battery assemblies and electric power supply systems for use in electric and hybrid vehicles and the like.
US08217617B2
A power supply appliance of a transport system is provided. The appliance includes a power rectifier of the motor, an AC voltage circuit, a control voltage circuit, a power supply circuit of the safety devices, an AC/DC transformer fitted between the AC voltage circuit and the control voltage circuit to supply power from the AC voltage circuit to the control voltage circuit, and a power shaping circuit.
US08217615B2
One embodiment of the invention includes a disk-drive spindle motor power regulator system. The system includes a switching system comprising at least one power transistor for each of a plurality of phases of a disk-drive spindle motor. The system also includes a switching controller configured to generate a plurality of switching signals configured to control the at least one power transistor for each of the plurality of phases of the disk-drive spindle motor. The system further includes a current monitor configured to measure a magnitude of an individual phase current through at least one of the plurality of phases of the disk-drive spindle motor.
US08217614B2
A fan delay controlling apparatus includes a connector connected to a fan of an electronic device, a power supplying module connected to the connector, and a power controlling module connected to the power supplying module. The power supplying module is connected to a fan power source and a stand-by power source. The power controlling module controls the power supplying module supply power to the fan when the electronic device including the fan powers off until an ambient temperature is lower than a predetermined value.
US08217613B2
A system and method for driving a drawer of a refrigerator and a refrigerator employing this system is provided. This system and method allows the drawer to substantially immediately and automatically stop when the drawer encounters an obstacle. This type of automatic control of the drawer may enhance the safe operation of the drawer, prevent injuries to users, and prevent overload and subsequent malfunction of a drive motor used to move the drawer.
US08217601B2
A robust method for detecting a relative position of a feedback device, such as an encoder or resolver, coupled to a shaft, such as a motor shaft, is provided. To detect the relative position, electrical commands are issued in an open loop mode to spin the motor shaft an amount greater than the apparent rotational angle between two consecutive markers of the position feedback device, such that the net mechanical rotation is equal to or greater than the total rotational angle between two consecutive markers.
