US08322433B2

Embodiments of the invention disclose systems, apparatuses, and methods of measurement performed by pipe conveyed tools. In an embodiment, a system for evaluation of a well bore includes a drill string assembly comprising a plurality of pipe joints, a wired slip joint coupled to the plurality of drill pipe, the slip joint movable from a retracted position to an extended position to compensate for changes in length of the drill string, the extended position having a length greater than the retracted position; a sensor positioned in the slip joint, wherein the sensor detects a change in length of the slip joint and generates a signal representative of a position of the slip joint, and a communication system to transmit the signal from the slip joint to a surface processor.
US08322424B2

A chopper mechanism for providing a fiber to a fluid at an oilfield. The chopper mechanism may be employed to process the fiber from an uncut form to a cut form in order to provide a mixture of the fluid and the fiber with flowback inhibiting character. Techniques of employing the chopper mechanism may be utilized at the site of an oilfield for applications such as fracturing, cementing, and drilling. Additionally, the chopper mechanism itself may be made available as a large high capacity chopper assembly, or a smaller handheld chopper gun for slower rate fiber supply operations.
US08322421B2

According to one embodiment, a treatment fluid for a well includes: (a) a water-soluble polymer, wherein the water-soluble polymer comprises a polymer of at least one non-acidic ethylenically unsaturated polar monomer; (b) an organic crosslinker comprising amine groups, wherein the organic crosslinker is capable of crosslinking the water-soluble polymer; (c) a Lewis acid; and (d) water; wherein the treatment fluid is a crosslinkable polymer composition. According to another embodiment, a method for blocking the permeability of a portion of a subterranean formation penetrated by a wellbore is provided, the method including the steps of: (a) selecting the portion of the subterranean formation to be treated; (b) selecting estimated treatment conditions, wherein the estimated treatment conditions comprise temperature over a treatment time; (c) forming a treatment fluid that is a crosslinkable polymer composition comprising: (i) a water-soluble polymer, wherein the water-soluble polymer comprises a polymer of at least one non-acidic ethylenically unsaturated polar monomer; (ii) an organic crosslinker comprising amine groups, wherein the organic crosslinker is capable of crosslinking the water-soluble polymer; (iii) a Lewis acid; and (iv) water; (d) selecting the water-soluble polymer, the crosslinker, the Lewis acid, and the water, and the proportions thereof, such that the gelation time of the treatment fluid is at least 1 hour when tested under the estimated treatment conditions; and (e) injecting the treatment fluid through the wellbore into the portion of the subterranean formation.
US08322419B2

A method of gravel packing a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation. The wellbore has a cased section and an uncased section and contains synthetic or oil-based drilling fluids containing drilled solids. To carry out the method, fresh synthetic or oil-based displacement fluid that is free of drilled solids is introduced into the wellbore to displace the synthetic or oil-based drilling fluids from the uncased section of the wellbore. A water-based displacement fluid is introduced into the wellbore to displace fluids within the cased section of the wellbore. A sand control screen assembly is run to a selected depth within the uncased section of the wellbore. A gravel pack slurry containing gravel and a water-based carrier fluid is then introduced into the wellbore.
US08322399B2

Continuous casting machine for forming a lead alloy strip of large thickness; which comprises a cooled rotating drum (4) having an annular seat (8) formed on the periphery thereof and a vat (10) for containing a molten lead bath, which is sealingly engaged on the peripheral surface (7) of the rotating drum (4). The machine (1) also comprises a fixed shoe (11) extending, from the vat (10), along an arc (25) around the rotating drum (4) and having an arc shape suitable for sealing engagement, in a sliding relationship, on the shoulders (90) of the annular seat (8). Heating means (26) are provided, these consisting of a plurality of torches acting on the shoe (11) along at least an initial section thereof (25) which extends from the vat (10), for heating to a temperature higher than the melting temperature of the lead alloy the free surface of the lead inside the annular seat (8). The bottom (9) of the annular seat (8) is knurled, while the inner surface (13) of the shoe (11) which slides on the lead is smooth and kept at a high temperature by the heating means (26). As a result of these characteristic features, the rotating drum (4) is able to transport in a rotationally integral manner the lead from a first angular position where it is inserted in the molten state inside the annular seat of the rotating drum (8) to a following angular position where it is extracted in the form of a continuous strip.
US08322394B2

An apparatus for connecting and cutting tubular cores (1) for supporting rolls of wound material comprising a loading station (80), comprising a rolling cradle consisting of two parallel and horizontal rollers (10 and 11), a star-shaped driven supplier (4), having, for example, four continuous protrusions (2) that allow to load tubular cores of different lengths. The rollers (10 and 11) of the rolling cradle are arranged along a longitudinal direction (16). The apparatus comprises a pusher (5) that acts against a rear end of the core (1), once it has been loaded on the rolling cradle (10, 11), in order to bring a front end of a loaded core in a connecting station (60) where it is present the rear end of a core portion to connect, loaded previously. The pusher (5) comprises an approaching element (9) with vertical idle rollers (7 and 8). Downstream of the loading station (80) a taping station (60) is present and a transmission roller (62) bridging the two cores is capable of transmitting the moving rotation between the core portion and the core. A conveying station (50) a cutting station (30) and a sliding suction abutment (70) are present downstream. The apparatus has the peripheral dragging means (30) equipped with a device for transmitting a number of rotations suitable for causing said core and said core portion to rotate for a predetermined number of turns.
US08322380B2

A universal fluid flow adaptor may be formed of a single structure having a plurality of vertical conduits to receive a gas flow, the plurality of vertical conduits extending through the single structure from the top surface to the bottom surface, a plurality of horizontal conduits to receive a gas flow, the plurality of horizontal conduits extending through the first side, the second side, the first end, and the second end at an interior of the single structure, wherein one or more of the plurality of vertical conduits converge with at least one of the plurality of horizontal conduits at the interior of the single structure, and wherein one or more of the plurality of horizontal conduits converge to form at least one cross-shaped conduit at the interior of the single structure.
US08322378B2

A check valve for one-way flow of a fluid comprises a valve body defining at least two pairs of axially-extending sidewalls, each pair of sidewalls having a pair of resilient lips defining slit opening at the outlet end of the valve. In one embodiment of the invention, the valve body defines three pairs of sidewalls and corresponding lips which are arranged one another so as to provide the check valve with an “I-beam” cross-sectional shape. The I-beam check valve has a compact cross-section, making it suitable for mounting either inside or outside a pipe. The I-beam shape provides support along the valve axis so that the valve does not require any supplemental support structure. In another embodiment, the valve body may define two pairs of sidewalls having a “T-shaped” transverse cross section.
US08322364B2

An actuator for operating a valve comprises a housing, a cap, a ring and a piston. The housing has a connecting interface for being mounted on the valve. The cap substantially covers a first portion of the housing. Both the cap and the housing define a substantially enclosed space inside the housing. The ring sealably covers a second portion of the housing. The ring is equipped with two ports that are in fluid communication with the enclosed space. The piston is slidably located inside the housing. Advantageously, an actuator assembly may include the actuator as previously described and one bonnet, one of the connecting interfaces of the actuator being connected to the bonnet. The bonnet is adapted to be mounted to a valve body.
US08322363B2

A fuel tank system for a vehicle (1) such as a tractor comprises a first compartment (28) and a second compartment (29) located on a first side of the vehicle. A third compartment (8) is located on a second side of the vehicle opposite the first side and a first pipe (10) is connected between an aperture (12) in the first compartment and an aperture (14) in the third compartment, wherein the first pipe (10) includes a one-way valve (16) which allows fuel to flow from the third compartment (8) to the first compartment (28). A second pipe (20) is connected between an aperture (22) in the second compartment (29) and a junction (25) in the first pipe (10). The junction (25) is intermediate the one-way valve (16) and the third compartment (8) allowing fuel to flow to the third compartment (8) from the second compartment (29). The fuel is extracted from the first compartment (28) and means are provided to allow fuel to overflow from the first compartment (28) to the second compartment (29) when the fuel is above a predetermined level. By providing a T junction (25) in the first pipe (10), only one fuel aperture is required in the third compartment (8).
US08322362B2

A water pressure backup device has a water tank mounted between a water source and interior plumbing lines and containing an air bladder that is inflated by a battery powered compressor when water pressure is lost at the source, bladder inflation within the tank thereby providing auxiliary water pressure to the interior plumbing lines. A control unit detects when water pressure at the source is lost, and monitors air pressure in the bladder and water pressure in the tank. When water pressure is restored at the source, the control unit shuts off the compressor and opens an air pressure relief valve at the bladder.
US08322356B2

The quickly erectable dome shelter includes an extendible perimeter truss assembly with link members connected between adjacent legs, a central truss assembly of link members, and a roof framework, including pairs of curved upper and lower peak truss members, that is movable between a lowered, collapsed configuration and a raised, upwardly arching position. The shelter also includes telescoping peak pole members coupled to the central truss assembly of link members and the roof framework, and may also include telescoping peak truss brace members connected between a peak truss member and a link member of the perimeter assembly of link members.
US08322355B2

A non-inserted nozzle for washing a container that can increase the washing efficiency, decrease the amount of washing fluid used, and shorten the washing time in sterilizing and washing a bottle container. The upper end surface of a non-inserted nozzle 8 serves as a liquid-receiving surface 10, and a retention wall 11 of a predetermined height is formed on the outer periphery of the liquid-receiving surface, thereby producing a retention recess. A plurality of nozzle holes 13 linked to a fluid channel of a nozzle stem 14 are provided obliquely so as to spread outwardly substantially in the central section of the liquid-receiving surface. The non-inserted nozzle 8 is disposed below the mouth of an inverted container 28 at a distance H from it and the sterilizing fluid or washing fluid is sprayed from below the mouth of the container, without inserting the nozzle into the container.
US08322349B2

Cigarette rolling and forming devices include parallel cylinders extending between a pair of support plates, and a looped belt trained therearound. One cylinder is moveable relative to the other for alternately receiving and compressing loose tobacco into a tobacco rod with the belt. In some devices, a pair of slots allows movement of the cylinder, and guard plates are disposed to prevent tobacco from the belt from entering the slots. Some devices include two pairs of slots and two moveable cylinders. Some devices include a support trough disposed to prevent sections of the belt from contacting each other. Some devices include a folding device configured to engage and fold the edge of a piece of paper received between the cylinders and rolled around the tobacco rod. Some devices include a nozzle to retain a pre-formed tube and a pushing device adapted to push a formed tobacco rod into the tube.
US08322346B2

A minimally-invasive surgical procedure for monitoring a physiological parameter within an internal organ of a living body. The procedure entails making a first incision in the body to enable access to the organ. An endoscopic instrument is then inserted through the first incision and a second incision is made therewith through an external wall of the organ and into the internal cavity thereof. A sensing unit is placed in the second incision such that the second incision is occluded by the unit and a proximal end of the unit is outside the organ. The unit includes a sensing device having a sensing element adapted to sense the physiological parameter within the organ, and an anchor to which the sensing device is secured. The first incision is closed, after which a readout device outside the body telemetrically communicates with the sensing device to obtain a reading of the physiological parameter.
US08322345B2

A surgical drape includes a sheet with a shoulder portion, a body portion and a pull tab. The shoulder portion is folded longitudinally in half to form a container such that the transverse edges of the container are sealed and the body portion is folded transversely in half and rolled into a tight drape roll which is disposed and removably secured within the container. In use, the container is removably attached to a surface of an operating table such that a portion of a patient can be placed upon the container. The tight drape roll and the pull tab are configured such that when a patient is placed upon the container, the tight drape roll can be easily unfurled by pulling on the pull tab to form a relatively flat drape surface. In another embodiment, a waste bag is removably disposed on the container. In yet another embodiment, a fluid collection and drainage pouch is removably disposed on and integrated into the body portion.
US08322343B2

A lower extremity exerciser and positioning device includes a generally wedge-shaped inferior and a generally wedge-shaped superior support. Each support has a top surface and curved trailing edge. A limb-cradling furrow extends across the top surfaces and trailing edges. The inferior support may be used alone, or with the superior support stacked on top. Spacers may be added to extend and elevate the device. Releasable attachments are provided to secure together adjacent components. The device may be configured to accommodate various patient physiques; used to relieve heel, sacral and buttock pressure for purposes of avoiding pressure ulcers; and used to allow patients to independently perform various knee and hip exercises.
US08322342B2

A limb positioner includes a multi-axis positioner, a lock supporting the multi-axis positioner, and a limb support. The multi-axis positioner includes a variable resistance locking mechanism adjustable to vary the resistance of each axis to movement, the multi-axis positioner including a first pivot pivotable about a first axis. The limb support is supported by the multi-axis positioner and includes a frame configured to support a limb such that a joint of the limb is indexed to the first pivot for movement of the limb about the joint. The limb support includes disposable dressing positioned on the first and second extensions, the disposable dressing including a plurality of flexible restraints for securing the limb of a patient to the limb support.
US08322341B2

An occluding system is provided that can include a first occluding device (e.g., secondary occluder) and a second occluding device (e.g., primary occluder). Providing two devices can better promote effective occlusion within the body lumen and facilitate advantageous occlusion stages, such as initial and long-term occlusion stages. In various embodiments, the two occluding devices are in operative communication with one another, such that the second occluding device is adapted to couple with or slide along a tail portion of the first occluding device.
US08322334B2

A nebulizer includes a receptacle for containing a liquid, a liquid-drawing tube, and a hollow cover including a partition plate dividing an interior of the cover into first and second chambers, first and second conduits each having an inlet end adapted to be connected to a compressed gas supply tube, and an outlet end communicated with the first chamber, and a mist output tube communicating fluidly with the second chamber. A nebulizing unit is connected to the outlet end of the first conduit and the liquid-drawing tube for directing a first compressed gas from the first conduit to the liquid exiting from the tube to convert the liquid into a mist. The second conduit introduces into the first chamber a second compressed gas which entrains the mist when flowing to the second chamber and exiting through the mist output tube.
US08322329B1

Certain exemplary embodiments can provide a system, machine, device, manufacture, circuit, composition of matter, and/or user interface adapted for and/or resulting from, and/or a method and/or machine-readable medium storing machine-implementable instructions for, activities that can comprise and/or relate to, controlling the amount of energy delivered to a projectile from a source of compressed gas.
US08322328B2

An improved railgun, railgun barrel, railgun projectile, and railgun system for accelerating a solid-to-hybrid transitioning armature projectile using a barrel having a bore that does not conform to a cross-sectional profile of the projectile, to contact and guide the projectile only by the rails in a low pressure bore volume so as to minimize damage, failure, and/or underperformance caused by plasma armatures, insulator ablation, and/or restrikes.
US08322319B2

A cam shaft phase variable device of an engine in which the attachment angle of a crankshaft and a cam shaft is maintained securely without being shifted by disturbance torque. The device has a drive body of revolution having a tubular section and a guide groove of reducing diameter and rotating relatively to the cam shaft and being driven by a crankshaft, a control body of revolution rotating relatively to the drive body through a rotary operating force imparting means and having the outer circumferential surface supported by the inner circumferential surface of the tubular section, an eccentric circular cam rotating synchronously, a movable member for displacing the guide groove, a cam guide intersecting the central axis perpendicularly and displaced by the eccentric circular cam, and an intermediate body of revolution displacing in the direction intersecting the cam guide perpendicularly while being supported on, and rotating integrally with, the camshaft.
US08322311B2

Improvements in an animal leash are disclosed. The leash is present invention relates to a leash for an animal such as a dog that leaves the owners hands free. The leash is wrapped around the wrist of a user and includes a pocket for keys, money, ID and or credit card. The leash is made from a fixed rope or belting material or can be made from a stretchable or coiled material or a combination thereof. The leash is secured on the user with a removable fastening system that allows the user to adjust the diameter of the strap around their wrist to allow the user to jog or walk without holding the leash. The securing system can also be adjustable to different degrees of break-away force to prevent damage to a user or animal if the user or the tethered animal becomes stopped or restrained.
US08322296B2

A submersible apparatus (10) which can be fully submerged in a liquid medium, includes: a sealed hollow body (12) having a longitudinal main axis (A); at least one driving member (14, 36, 52) for moving the apparatus (10) horizontally and/or vertically, which can co-operate with the medium in which the apparatus (10) is submerged and which can move in relation to the hollow body (12) through an opening (22, 44, 56) provided in the wall of the body (12); and elements (18, 40, 64) for actuating the driving member (14, 36, 52), which are disposed inside the hollow body (12). The invention is characterized in that the opening (22, 44, 56) is sealed by a flexible membrane (24, 50, 58) which can deform and co-operate with the driving member (14, 36, 52) as the driving member (14, 36, 52) moves through the opening in order to move the apparatus (10).
US08322287B2

The article transport facility includes a plurality of article transport vehicles which can travel on a travel path defined by rails installed in the ceiling. The travel path includes a loop-shaped primary path, and secondary paths each arranged to extend along and by at least one article transport location, a first connecting path that connects the primary path and the secondary path, and a second connecting path, provided independently from the first connecting path, with one end portion connected to the secondary path located on one side of the primary path, and the other end portion connected to the secondary path located on the other side of the primary path.
US08322282B2

Transportation of a lithographic plate uses an indexer to load plates into pods for delivery to a press cylinder via a pod elevator or a pod cart. The plates are imprinted with a bar code, imaged, punched, bent, sheared, corner notched, and registered to a press cylinder. The plates are loaded into the indexer, which moves the loaded plates into a position in alignment with designated pod compartments, and loads the plates into each of the designated pod compartments by indexed movement of an elevator within the indexer. The pod elevator or the pod cart moves the pods proximate to a press cylinder where the plates are unloaded from the pod and loaded onto a press cylinder. A computing device, such as a PLC, directs the process. A vision system senses information from the indexer, pod, pod elevator, and the plate for feedback to a PLC, which initiates all of the foregoing operations.
US08322276B2

A large cylindrical baler is equipped with a bale control device coupled to fixed forward side wall sections of the baling chamber and being selectively operated such that front and rear bale control members of the device are respectively located behind and forward of a space into which a completed bale may be discharged, with the rear bale control member engaging a discharged bale so as to halt the rolling inertia imparted to the bale during discharge, the front and rear bale control members thus cooperating for locating the bale at rest. Once the bale is at rest, the rear bale control member is moved to a bale-clearing position wherein the rear bale control member may move forwardly relative to the bale without coming into contact with the bale.
US08322272B1

An improved screw feeder assembly is provided for interconnection between the outlet of a preconditioner and the inlet of an extruder barrel. The assembly includes an upright housing with a pair of elongated shafts equipped with auger flighting within the housing and driven by means of motor. Preferably, the housing is mechanically coupled to the outlet and inlet with the shafts extending through the preconditioner vessel and downwardly to a point within the inlet and closely adjacent the screw(s) within the extruder barrel; the flighting is provided along the length of the housing, from a point closely adjacent the outlet and into the extruder inlet. This provides a positive conveyance of preconditioned material from the outlet to the inlet. Use of the assembly allows maintenance of superatmospheric pressures and temperatures above 212° F. within the preconditioner, which permits more efficient processing.
US08322256B2

A system for forming a tendon-bone graft. The system can include a support member that is adapted to support the tendon-bone graft. The system can further include a first clamp that is adapted to engage the support member and the tendon-bone graft to orient and hold the tendon-bone graft on the support member in a first direction, and a second clamp that is adapted to engage the tendon-bone graft to clamp the tendon-bone graft to the support member in a second direction. The system can also include a shaping member that is operable to resect the tendon-bone graft. The shaping member can be moveable relative to at least one of the first clamp and the second clamp to resect the tendon-bone graft.
US08322253B2

A method of manufacturing a blade including heating and quenching a coil of strip steel material to harden the material, heating the strip steel material to temper the material, grinding a first angle along an edge of the material, and subsequent to the grinding, re-hardening, for example by induction heating, the edge of the material.
US08322244B2

A gear mechanism arrangement includes an axial bearing apparatus and a shaft mounted rotatably in the axial bearing apparatus. The shaft is fixedly coupled to a first mechanical coupling point and a second mechanical coupling point, the first mechanical coupling point configured to engage a gear stage and the second mechanical configured to engage a movement converter. The movement converter is configured to convert between a rotational movement and a longitudinal movement of the gear mechanism arrangement. The axial bearing apparatus is configured to transmit a force which acts axially on the shaft to a stationary part of the gear mechanism apparatus arrangement. The axial bearing apparatus is further configured such that active bearing friction is dependent on a rotational direction of the rotational movement and differs for each of first and second rotational directions of the rotational movement.
US08322242B2

A linear actuation system has two linear actuator channels acting in tandem and a gear housing connecting the two actuator channels and providing an output for the actuation system. The gear housing has multiples gears with at least one gear connected to each actuator and is movable.
US08322241B2

An actuator for a wheel guiding element of motor vehicle wheel suspensions, with a first, preferably electrically driven actuating drive which selectively changes the length of the wheel guiding element, in the actuator there being a compensation spring which counteracts the compressive forces acting on the wheel guiding element. According to the invention, the pretensioning force of the compensation spring can be changed by means of a second, preferably electrically driven actuating drive.
US08322240B2

A hydraulic pump device for a work vehicle having a transmission case that houses a PTO shaft (12) comprises: a hydraulic pump (35), a pump input shaft (36) of the hydraulic pump (35) that has a projecting shaft portion projecting into the transmission case (1), a first bevel gear (41), and a second bevel gear (42). The first bevel gear (41) is fitted on the PTO shaft (12) and the second bevel gear (42) is connected to the projecting shaft portion. A holder (38) for supporting the PTO shaft (12) is removably attached to the transmission case (1). The first bevel gear and the second bevel gear are supported to the holder for rotation about respective axes.
US08322237B2

A bearing device for coupling a position indication device to an apparatus for measuring a position of the apparatus is described. The apparatus includes a first connecting member. The bearing device includes a bearing housing including a first opening defined therein configured to receive the first connecting member and a second opening defined therein configured to receive at least a portion of the position indication device. The bearing device also includes a grommet configured for positioning within the first opening and for positioning around the first connecting member.
US08322233B2

A hydraulic fluid sampler and a method for obtaining a hydraulic fluid sample includes a sample container holder configured to support a sample container mounted thereto in an inverted position and a non-inverted position. In the inverted position, the sample container holder is configured to flush the sample container with hydraulic fluid so as to flush away any contaminates that may be present. In the non-inverted position, the sample container holder is configured to fill the sample container with hydraulic fluid.
US08322221B1

A non-contact near field high resolution acoustic imaging system of a sample, the system including an acoustic wave generator generating a plurality of acoustic waves a ultrasonic horn amplifying the waves to an amplitude of between about 20 microns and about 300 microns, and a frequency between about 20 kHz and about 40 khz. The ultrasonic horn further directs the amplified waves to impinge upon the sample. On contact between the waves and the sample, a plurality of transmitted energy is transmitted to the sample, a plurality of longitudinal displacements and surface acoustic wave displacements in the sample are created. An adjustable separation distance lies between the sample and the ultrasonic horn, the distance adjusted to maximize the transmitted energy. The distance is preferably greater than the maximum displacement of the ultrasonic horn, or approximately 0.1 mm. The non-contact near field high resolution acoustic imaging system further includes a surface displacement detector for detecting the longitudinal wave displacements or surface acoustic wave displacements, the detector including a tip and a tip diameter; and a computer for digitizing and storing the longitudinal wave displacements or surface acoustic wave displacements. The longitudinal displacements or surface acoustic wave displacements are analyzed to create an image of at least a portion of the sample, the image alternatively having a resolution about equal to the surface displacement detector tip diameter.
US08322218B2

A surface acoustic wave device having electrodes disposed on a piezoelectric substrate, comprising a sealing member having a peripheral wall disposed on the piezoelectric substrate in surrounding relation to the electrodes, and a top plate covering the peripheral wall; and a sealing stiffener disposed on the piezoelectric substrate in facing relation to a liquid material imposed on the piezoelectric substrate and which extends parallel to a portion of the peripheral wall.
US08322216B2

A capacitive accelerometer having one or more micromachined acceleration sensor assembly is disclosed. The acceleration sensor assembly comprises a spring-mass-support structure, a top cap and a bottom cap. The proof mass plate of the spring-mass-support structure has cutout spaces and is supported by a pair of branched torsional beams which are substantially located in the cutout spaces. The torsional axis of the proof mass plate is offset from the mass center in direction perpendicular to the proof mass plate. The acceleration sensor assembly further comprises multiple coplanar electrodes for differential capacitive sensing and electrostatic forcing. The capacitive accelerometer according to the present invention may comprise one, two or six micromachined acceleration sensor assemblies with electronic signal detection, conditioning and control circuits in different configurations and applications to detect and measure linear and angular accelerations. Methods to fabricate the micromachined acceleration sensor assembly are disclosed.
US08322212B2

A MEMS sensor is provided with a substrate and a sensor element. The sensor element moves in response to an influence registered by the sensor primarily in an oscillating turn around a sensor axis that is parallel to the substrate. The sensor has an anchor arranged on the substrate in order to hold the sensor element onto the substrate. A connecting element arranges the sensor element on the anchor.
US08322195B2

An apparatus and a method for measuring the coagulation characteristics of a test liquid (1), in particular of a blood sample, is provided. According to the present invention standardized geometrical dimensions of a cup (2) and a respective pin (3) are modified for receiving maximum elasticity signal per volume test liquid without resulting in irreversible inelastic effects. In particular, the test liquid gap (8) between the cup (2) and the pin (3) is reduced, the diameter of the cup (2) and the pin (3) are increased and/or the geometry of test liquid accommodating portions (7; 10; 10′) are optimized for increasing the ratio between signal amplitude and a needed amount of test liquid (1) compared to standardized equipment.
US08322193B2

Transdermal diffusion cell testing vessel includes a container defining a chamber having an opening against which skin is placed, and a casing arranged partially around and spaced apart from part of the container to define a compartment therebetween. The chamber retains a saline solution and is not in flow communication with the compartment through which water is circulated. The vessel includes separate inlet ports and outlet ports, each including a conduit communicating with the chamber or compartment. The outlet port of the chamber is angled downward relative to a horizontal upper surface of the container against which skin being tested is placed. The vessel is used for conducting transdermal diffusion cell testing in combination with a solution source fluidly coupled to each vessel, a waste receptacle fluidly coupled to each vessel, a syringe pump fluidly coupled to a respective vessel, and a sample collector fluidly coupled to the syringe pump(s).
US08322191B2

Photoacoustic cells for gas sensors are described. In some instances, the photoacoustic cell may be configured to provide an increased internal path length of the light beam in the photoacoustic cell relative to, for example, a conventional cylindrical photoacoustic cell. The photoacoustic cell may be shaped to provide increased internal reflection of the light within the photoacoustic cell, thereby increasing the absorption of the light by a gas to be detected in the photoacoustic cell. One example photoacoustic cell that can provide such increased internal reflection may be a generally conical-shaped.
US08322186B2

Disclosed is a method of forming a heat exchanger turbulizer apparatus including a member having a longitudinal axis, a lateral width and a plurality of strips including first strips and second strips, each strip extending widthwise and being corrugated longitudinally so as to form a plurality of laterally spaced-apart sections connected to one another by bridges projecting from the sections in a common direction, the bridges of the first and second strips extending in the same direction and the corrugations of the second strips being offset laterally from the corrugations of the first strips. The method comprises: crimping longitudinally-corrugated strip material between first and second forming dies to form said apparatus, said dies being adapted such that substantially all lateral movement of strip material in crimping results from strip material being drawn laterally by material that has been displaced in a direction parallel to the direction of die movement.
US08322179B2

In a reel furnace having a strip reeling device, the strip reeling device comprising a reel shaft, a reel drum supported on the reel shaft and at least one stirrup clamp, the reel shaft passing through a furnace wall delimiting the inner space of the reel furnace and being supported rotatably in supporting bearings outside the reel furnace, the reel drum and the at least one stirrup clamp being positioned with respect to one another by means of a connection element, and a gap for receiving a strip head being set between the reel drum and the at least one stirrup clamp. The useful life of the reel drum is appreciably increased and a strip thickness-dependent setting of the entry gap for the hot-rolled strip is ensured when the reel drum is designed as a closed body and the connection element is designed as an actuating device for fixing a specific gap width between the reel drum and the stirrup clamp and for clamping a strip head which has entered the gap.
US08322177B2

The present invention relates to a method and tooling suitable for handling closure blanks (5) having an external radius (6) at their cut edge at production speeds of about (1200) closures per minute. The external radius (6) limits formation of “angel hair” (a common problem in metal closure production). However, reversing the external radius causes a problem, when producing metal closures having a conventional inward curl at their peripheral edge. Accordingly, the invention proposes a modified curling rail (40) having a first portion (41) to uncurl the external curl (6) on the closure blank (5) and a second portion (45) to urge the straightened side wall of the closure blank (5) towards an inward curl.
US08322176B2

A system and method for incrementally forming a workpiece. A first manipulator is configured to move a first tool in multiple directions along a first surface of a workpiece. A second manipulator is configured to move a second tool in multiple directions along a second surface of the workpiece. The first and second tools move along first and second predetermined paths of motion and exert force to form the workpiece.
US08322171B2

Disclosed is a drum washing machine, which improves structures of hinge units to rotatably support a door to easily assemble a door with a housing, and firmly endures a load of the door. The drum washing machine includes a housing provided with an opening through which laundry is put into the washing machine; a door connected to the housing to open and close the opening; a first hinge unit rotatably connecting the door to the housing; and a second hinge unit separated from the first hinge unit to rotatably support the door together with the first hinge unit. The second hinge unit causes the door to be supported on the housing. Through the above constitution, a worker may easily assemble the door with the housing, thus increasing a working efficiency.
US08322168B2

The subject invention relates to a warp-knit fabric and methods of constructing the fabric. The fabric includes a plurality of walewise stitch-loop chains and a weftwise elastomeric thread running in successive courses and held in place by the stitch-loop chains. The fabric may include border segments that have filling yarn disposed weftwise across the stitch-loop chains.
US08322165B2

In an apparatus for fabricating an optical fiber, the apparatus includes a drawing furnace provided with an insertion opening for receiving an optical fiber perform, a feed mechanism configured to support one end of the optical fiber preform so as to feed into the drawing furnace, a first sealing unit configured to seal a clearance gap between the optical fiber preform and the insertion opening, and a second sealing unit configured to seal a gap between the optical fiber preform and the first sealing unit when a tapered portion formed at the one end side of the optical fiber preform passes through the insertion opening. As a result, the available entirety of the optical fiber preform can be changed to an optical fiber, so that the cost for fabricating the optical fiber can be significantly reduced.
US08322163B2

A method for manufacturing an optical fiber preform is described that includes detecting structural integrity of the tube during a collapsing phase utilizing a fluid flow that is fed to the tube. Also, a system for manufacturing optical fiber preforms is described that comprises a holder configured to hold a tube, a heater configured to heat at least part of the tube to a tube collapsing temperature, and a fluid supply system configured to supply a fluid to the tube held by the holder. The system comprises a tube integrity monitor configured to monitor structural integrity of the tube, during a collapsing phase, by monitoring the fluid.
US08322159B2

An air conditioning system for communication equipment includes an indoor module placed inside a base station and an outdoor module placed outside the base station. The indoor module has a first indoor heat exchanger installed on a brine pipe and having a heat exchange tube, an expansion valve installed on a refrigerant pipe, a second indoor heat exchanger having a heat exchange tube to which the refrigerant pipe is connected, a compressor for compressing refrigerant, and an indoor blower. The outdoor module has a brine pump installed on the brine pipe, a first outdoor heat exchanger having a heat exchange tube to which the brine pipe extending from the brine pump and the first indoor heat exchanger is connected, a second outdoor heat exchanger having a heat exchange tube to which the refrigerant pipe, extending from the compressor and the expansion valve, is connected, and an outdoor blower.
US08322137B2

In a turbo-charged gasoline engine the opening profile of each intake valve, defined by the opening and closing moments and by the lift, or by the opening stroke of the intake valve, is varied according to the engine operating conditions, so as to reduce or completely eliminate the intervention of a “waste-gate” valve and ensure that in each engine operating condition each cylinder processes only the quantity of air necessary for optimal combustion, with an air/gasoline dosage value close to the stoichiometric ratio.
US08322132B2

An exhaust treatment system associated with a power source is disclosed. The exhaust treatment system may have a filter located to remove particulate matter from an exhaust flow of the power source. The exhaust treatment system may further have a heat source located to elevate the temperature of the exhaust flow. The exhaust treatment system may also have a first sensor and a second sensor. The exhaust treatment system may further have a controller in communication with the heat source, the first sensor, and the second sensor. The controller may be configured to receive a particulate matter load value and a power source load value and activate the heat source when the particulate matter load value is above a particulate matter load threshold value and the power source load value is below a power source load threshold value that is indicative of the exhaust flow being within an exhaust flow range.
US08322131B2

An internal combustion engine exhaust gas cleaning apparatus is basically provided with a NOx trapping catalytic converter, a sulfur poisoning amount estimating section and a sulfur poisoning removal section. The NOx trapping catalytic converter is arranged in an exhaust passage to trap NOx contained in an exhaust gas flowing through the exhaust passage when an air-fuel ratio of the exhaust gas is lean and to release trapped NOx when an air-fuel ratio of the exhaust gas is rich. The sulfur poisoning amount estimating section estimates an estimated sulfur poisoning amount of sulfur poisoning of the NOx trapping catalytic converter based on a fuel consumption amount and an oil consumption amount. The sulfur poisoning removal section raises a temperature of the NOx trapping catalytic converter to a sulfur poisoning removal temperature based on the estimated sulfur poisoning amount to remove sulfur poisoning from the NOx trapping catalytic converter.
US08322124B2

A pair of rake wheels in an assembly is referred to as a center splitter assembly. Each rake wheel is configured for free-rotation, meaning it is powered by contacting the ground. The center splitter is used to separate material, each wheel moving material in a different direction. The rake wheel on the left side of the center splitter assembly will rotate in a clockwise direction, as viewed from behind the wheel, which will cause the material to move from the right to the left. The opposite applies to the rake wheel on the right side of the center splitter assembly, where it will rotate counter-clockwise, moving material from the left to the right. Since these rake wheels are attempting to move material in opposite directions, the spacing between the wheels has been found to be critical.
US08322122B2

A drive arrangement for a harvesting header of a harvesting machine is provided. The harvesting machine has a chassis on which a feeder housing is fastened. On the front side of the feeder housing a fastening device is attached. The fastening device is movable with respect to the feeder housing. On the fastening device, a harvesting header can be attached. The drive arrangement comprises an output shaft for driving the header, the output shaft being be set in rotation by the harvesting machine and is coupled with the fastening device and can move with the fastening device relative to the feeder housing. A harvesting header drive shaft of the harvesting header can be drivingly connected to the output shaft. It is further provided that a coupling with two coupling halves is attached between the output shaft and the harvesting header drive shaft, with these coupling halves separating automatically when the harvesting header is disassembled from the feeder housing and connecting automatically when the harvesting header, is attached on the feeder housing.
US08322105B2

Pultruded and extruded structures are presented. The pultruded and extruded structures are hollow structures, are used for structural distribution poles and transmission towers for electricity, may include lighting components and may include antenna wires in the hollow structures for telecommunications. The pultruded and extruded structures include combination pultruded-filament wound or “pull wound” structures. The pultruded and extruded structures are pultruded or extruded in pre-determined sizes and shapes, plural colors, are environmentally safe, aesthetic pleasing and resistant to damage from weather, animals, insects and resistant to corrosion.
US08322102B2

A modular wall system 10 includes a number of decorative panels that are received in an extruded panel frame 22. The panel frames 22 are positioned by connecting them to a wall rail 16 that is attached to the building. The wall rail 16 and the panel frame 22 each have a groove 52, 62 that accepts a fastener or clip 18 by interference or snap fit to attach the panel frame 22 to the wall rail 16. The grooves 52, 62 have a dove-tail shape that permits a snap fit to secure the panels 12 yet permit the panels to be easily removed or reconfigured.
US08322098B2

A tough, water-proof building system provides wall, ceiling, and floor structures, as well as accessories. The walls can be designed to have vertical and horizontal strengths sufficient to be used in place of concrete, as an engineered solution, both above grade and below-grade, including in severe weather conditions. Walls have inner and outer layers, and structurally reinforcing members extending, typically as a layer and/or stud, the full height of the wall, at spaced locations along the length of the wall. The spaces between the structurally reinforcing members are optionally filled with insulating foam. An optional reinforcing stud is attached to, or overlaid by, the inner layer, and extends inwardly into the building from what is otherwise the inner surface of the building panel/wall panel. A building floor can be supported from the load-bearing wall, at locations on the floor support members which are below the top of the load-bearing wall.
US08322083B1

An articulating downspout assembly for a downspout system of a building has an elbow component and an end component each having an integrated or integral configuration that cooperatively join with each other to form a hinge. The hinge allows the end component to pivot between a prone position and an upright position. In the upright position the end component is at an angle relative to the elbow component such that a downspout extension section coupled to the end component leans toward and/or against a vertical downspout portion of the building's downspout system. This prevents the end component and thus the downspout extension from spontaneously falling (pivoting) back to the prone position. The integrated configuration of the elbow component is characterized by one or more configured slots while the integrated configuration of the end component is characterized by one or more configured tabs. Preferably, the integrated configuration of one or more configured slots of the elbow component is formed in an upper surface of an end portion of the elbow component, while the integrated configuration of one or more configured tabs of the end component is formed in and projects from an upper end surface of the end component. The resulting hinge between the elbow component and the end component does not stress the material (e.g. metal) of either the elbow component or the end component.
US08322081B2

A roof-mounted actuator of a gutter dumping assembly is actuatable to rotate a gutter from an initial, upright position to a downwardly-facing dumped position in order to dump debris from the gutter. The actuator is coupled to the gutter support by a flexible structure so that, after the actuator positively engages a support for the gutter and forces it to an over-center position, the gutter falls to a dumped position under only the force of gravity.
US08322078B2

A door for a vehicle including a cast upper door frame having an upper halo portion including a central web. A glass run flange is connected to the central web by an intermediate connector. A door flange extends from the central web substantially orthogonally thereto. A stamped aluminum lower inner panel is operably connected to the cast upper frame.
US08322077B2

A door handle assembly includes a door handle that engages a bell crank to actuate a door release latch. A locking member moves relative to the bell crank, and shifts to a locked position wherein the locking member engages an engagement member to prevent rotation of the bell crank when the door handle assembly experiences an inertial force due to an impact or the like.
US08322073B2

A rear sliding window assembly suitable for use in a vehicle includes a fixed portion and a sliding portion and upper and lower track members disposed at a surface of first and second fixed glass portions. The sliding portion comprises a glass window panel and is laterally movable between the upper and lower track members relative to the fixed portion. The glass window panel is movable between an opened position and a closed position, and the glass window panel is disposed at the gap that is between the first and second fixed glass window portions when at its closed position. A glide member is longitudinally movable along the lower track member to facilitate movement of the glass window panel between its opened and closed positions. A sealing member is disposed between the fixed portion and the sliding portion at least when the glass window panel is at its closed position.
US08322070B2

The present invention provides a method for producing a mulching sheet which easy to biodegrade and can be produced at a low cost. A cotton waste sheet is prepared with randomly accumulated cotton waste and impurities selected from a group consisting of cottonseeds, stems, leaves and calyxes of cotton tree. Water is sprayed to the cotton waste sheet. Thereafter, the cotton waste sheet is passed between a pair of calender rolls each taking a form of a Japanese drum, while being heated, to press the cotton waste sheet in the thickness direction. The cotton waste is thereby closed, and the obtained mulching sheet has a high tensile strength. Furthermore, the impurities in the cotton waste sheet are crushed or flatted. The mulching sheet is a mixture of parts made of flatted impurities and parts made of cotton waste.
US08322064B2

A firearm may have a plurality of power-consuming accessories that can be attached to the weapon. In order to reduce the weight of these power-consuming accessories, as well as the proliferation of their batteries, the Weapons Accessory Power Distribution System provides a common power source to power the power-consuming accessories attached to the weapon. One or more powered rails are provided on the handguard, which encircles the barrel of the weapon, to provide a point of mechanical and electrical interconnection for the power-consuming accessories to provide quick connect mounting and dismounting of the power-consuming accessory, absent the use of connectors with their tethering cables, which are susceptible to entanglement. The powered rail(s) are electrically interconnected with a power source, which typically is a battery mounted in the butt stock of the weapon.
US08322058B2

A telescoping greeting card having a plurality of pockets and/or panels that are connected in sequence and configured to slidably telescope between a closed position wherein each of the pockets and/or panels are contained within a main panel and an open position wherein each of the pockets and/or panels are extended in a longitudinal array. The greeting card additionally contains a switch and a sound module with at least one pre-recorded audio file that may be played back upon removal of one of the panels or pockets of the greeting card, which triggers the switch.
US08322051B2

Articles of footwear may include self-adjusting studs that adjust to various types of conditions, environmental changes, and applied forces. The self-adjusting studs may have a first portion and a second portion of different levels of compressibilities and/or retractabilities that compress and extend based on the type of surface on which the wearer is walking or running. This footwear with self-adjusting studs may easily transition between surfaces of varying hardness without causing damage to the surface, but also providing the wearer with the necessary amount of traction on each type of surface. Wearers will enjoy the benefit of being able to move on various surfaces without the need to change their footwear multiple times to accommodate the wearer's varying traction needs on different surfaces.
US08322048B2

Impact-attenuation members include: (a) an impact-attenuating member and (b) a shear resistant member engaged with the impact-attenuating member. Another example impact-attenuation member includes a shear resistant member having a continuous wall that bulges outward on opposing sides when in an uncompressed base orientation. The shear resistant members may be structured and arranged to allow bending or compression against impact forces in one direction (e.g., when landing a step or a jump), but remain highly stable against shear or lateral forces in another direction (e.g., in a side-to-side direction). Such impact-attenuation members may be used in footwear products, including in athletic footwear.
US08322035B2

A vertical axis wind turbine comprising: a plurality of support arms (2) connected with a vertical axis (1), a wind rotor comprising a plurality of blades (3) connected to the blade support arms (2), the wind rotor having a rotation radius and the blades (3) having a chord length; wherein an airfoil of the blade is an asymmetrical camber airfoil, the convex surface (31) of the blade (3) faces vertical axis (1), and a ratio of the rotation radius of the wind rotor (R) to the chord length of the blade (L) is between about 1.8 and about 4.
US08322034B2

An apparatus for the insertion and withdrawal of a plug-in module with front panel into and out of a module carrier includes a lever arm (2) pivotable about an axis (3) with a handle portion (2a) for the rotation of the lever arm as well as a bolt (5) to lock the lever arm and an operating element (5a) connected to the bolt with which the lever arm can be unlocked. The operating element (5a) is arranged spaced from the lever arm (2), and the handle portion (2a) is designed such that it contacts the front panel (10) of the plug-in module in the inwardly pivoted position.
US08322024B2

There is provided a method of manufacturing a magnetic field generator (10) that includes a pair of plate yokes (12a), (12b) which are opposed to each other, with their opposing faces provided with respective permanent magnet assemblies (14a), (14b) which have faces opposing to each other, to which pole pieces (16a), (16b) are fixed respectively, and include permanent magnets (18). The permanent magnets (18), (28) include R—Fe—B magnets. During manufacturing, the assembled magnetic field generator (10) is heated in its entirety at a temperature not lower than 40° C. and not higher than 70° C., whereby the R—Fe—B magnets are magnetized to a magnetization rate not smaller than 80% and not greater than 99.9%.
US08322021B1

A method of manufacturing a disk drive, the method including providing a disk and a motor hub, the disk defining an opening, the opening having a pre-swaged inner diameter, and the motor hub defining a swage ring having a pre-swaged outer diameter. The method further including positioning the disk such that at least a portion of the swage ring extends into the opening, and swaging the swage ring radially outwards into contact with the disk.
US08322019B2

Provided is a multiple transposition method for superconducting wire, by making each superconducting wire unit from second-generation superconducting wires that were firstly transposed and then transposing each superconducting wire unit in such a manner that the phase of each unit can be changed along the length, comprising preparing wires by making curves on superconducting wires in such a manner that the superconducting wires of a thin multiple layer grown epitaxially are slit in zigzags and then making the curves repeatedly and by machining the wires with a desired length; making first-transposed superconducting wire units by combining a plurality of the prepared wires such that curves of adjacent wires come in touch to each other and are superposed; preparing a superconducting wire unit bundle by arranging the first-transposed superconducting wires units and by locating a plurality of the first-transposed superconducting wire units in parallel along the length; and making a second transposition on the first-transposed superconducting wire units by rotating the plurality of superconducting wire units on the central axis of the superconducting wire unit bundle along the length to be twisted and combined with each other.
US08322014B1

A self-propelled apparatus for the seaming of roof assemblies for a building structure, wherein the apparatus includes multiple belt components configured parallel to one another around the same set of horizontal rollers for the alignment of panel edges in order for engagement of such horizontal rollers to perform the seaming procedure is provided. Such an apparatus exhibits a greatly reduced propensity for potentially marring, distorting, or otherwise misaligning the panel edges due to uniform pressures exerted on the target panel surfaces during use. In addition, the inventive multiple belt-drive apparatus exhibits a much lower potential for slippage during use than an apparatus utilizing multiple rollers to apply proper force during a seaming operation. Reduced crimping, dimpling, creasing, and the like, provides greater reliance of the finished assembled seamed roof in terms of waterproofing and uplift protection as well as to best ensure the seaming apparatus does not jam or otherwise fail during the seaming process itself. A second belt component may also be added in perpendicular relation to the first for further improvements in pressure exertion and thus overall reliability of the seaming operation, preferably, though not necessarily, with multiple belts in place as well. The method of seaming with such an apparatus is also encompassed within this invention.
US08322013B2

A composite of a magnesium part or a magnesium alloy part and a resin composition, improved to have high corrosion resistance, is manufactured by: a step of shaping a magnesium alloy part 1 from a casting or an intermediate material; a step of immersing and chemically etching the shaped part in an acidic aqueous solution; a step of immersing the chemically etched shaped part in an aqueous solution containing potassium permanganate and forming on the surface thereof a thin layer having manganese oxide as a component; a step of inserting the part, on which the thin layer has been formed, into a metallic mold for injection molding and injecting into the mold a resin composition selected out of a resin composition whose main component is polyphenylene sulfide, a resin composition whose main component is a polybutylene terephthalate resin and a resin composition whose main component is an aromatic polyamide resin and then integrally affixing the magnesium alloy part 1 and the resin composition 4; and a step of subjecting the integrally affixed composite 7 to a chemical conversion treatment by immersing it again in a magnesium alloy chemical conversion treatment solution.
US08322007B2

A handling device for a resistant load includes a guide track (2) or a plurality of parallel guide tracks, a pair of slides or carriages (10a, 10b) slidingly mounted on a guide track (2) or a respective guide track, removable locking means (6a, 6b) associated with each slide or carriage (10a, 10b) and designed to keep in position its respective slide or carriage along the respective guide track (2), a linear actuator means (3) associated with each slide or carriage (10a, 10b) and having at least one first component (4) and at least one second component (5a) which can be displaced, upon control, one with respect to the other parallely to the guide track (2) or plurality of parallel guide tracks, the at least one first component (4) being displaceable together with a slide or carriage (10a) of the pair, and the at least one second component (5a) being displaceable together with the other slide or carriage (10b) of the pair, engagement means (7a, 7b) for a resistant load displaceable together with the linear actuator means, and control means designed to control the removable locking means (6a, 6b) and the linear actuator means (3).
US08322006B1

A safety shield is provided for a clip applying apparatus which applies plastic clips to connect rebar. The safety shield prevents operation of the apparatus unless a forward end of the apparatus is properly placed against the bars which are to be joined. Other features may include a safety latch which prevents operation if a cover door of the apparatus is open. Another feature which may be included is an anti-jamming mechanism that prevents operation of the apparatus if a string of clips is not properly received within the clip applying apparatus.
US08322004B2

A metallic fuel system component includes an internal surface and an external surface. The metallic fuel system component is made by inducing compressive residual stress in only a portion of the internal surface of the metallic fuel system component by transmitting a laser shock wave through the metallic fuel system component from the external surface to the internal surface.
US08322003B2

An attachment shackle has an open ring having threaded first and second end-parts arranged facing one another at the opposite ends. A rotary ferrule of tubular shape is fitted with screwing on the second end-part to close or open the space separating the two end-parts. A lock is arranged at the rear of the first end-part. The lock engages in a notch of the ferrule to perform locking in the closed position. Unlocking is performed by a manual releasing action of the lock allowing movement of the rotary ferrule to the open position.
US08321985B2

A bridge superstructure comprises a first aspect of the present invention, a bridge structure comprises a contact surface supported by a decking mounted on a superstructure. The superstructure includes a mounting for the decking. The decking comprises a panel composed of a fiber reinforced polymer composite, the panel comprising a plate having an upperside and an underside, a plurality of first and second beams, each beam having an upper face and a base face and side faces, the upper face of each beam being integral with the underside of the plate, a first beam having an aperture extending between the side faces, wherein a second beam extends through the aperture. The panel further comprises means for attachment to the superstructure and a layer of wear-resistant material on the upper side of the plate.
US08321984B2

A bonded mesh composite panel of an upper includes a substrate layer formed from a substrate material, a mesh material layer and one or more skin material layers. The mesh composite can be fabricated by first arranging panels of substrate, mesh and skin layer material into an assembly corresponding to the locations of those panels in a completed upper. The assembly may include separate layers of hot melt bonding material interposed between the substrate, mesh and skin layers. The assembly is pressed at an elevated temperature so as to melt the bonding material and the skin layers and bond the elements together. Before the pressed assembly completely cools, it is then pressed a second time in an unheated press. A heat-conductive compressible pad can be used in the pressing process to create a surface effect in the skin layers that reveals a patterns of an underlying mesh layer.
US08321982B2

A method of operating a washing machine, by which a steam generator is disclosed, laundry and the washing machine itself can be safely protected in a manner that an error occurrence of the washing machine is accurately detected and by which a following cycle such as a washing cycle, a drying cycle and the like can be effectively performed despite the failure of the washing machine. The present invention includes a step (a) of supplying water to a steam generator, a step (b) of supplying steam into a drum by generating heat from a heater of the steam generator, and a step (c) of detecting abnormality of the washing machine while the step (a) or (b) is carried out.
US08321980B2

A flexible system is provided for surrounding a perimeter and covering a top surface of a mattress. The flexible system supports one or more appendage(s) of a character. The flexible system includes a textile or fabric frame for covering portions of a head side, a foot side and intermediate sides of the mattress. The textile or fabric frame forms an opening around a portion of a top surface of the mattress, where the opening has an inner peripheral edge. The flexible system further includes a cover sheet positioned over the top surface, and having an outer peripheral edge that is removably attached to the inner peripheral edge of the opening of the frame. The appendage(s) of the character are supported on the textile or fabric frame at one or more of the head side, the foot side and the intermediate sides of the mattress.
US08321974B2

An insulating construction having a multi-layer synthetic core for use in products such as sleeping bags is provided. A sleeping bag using this construction may include a synthetic core having first and second layers, an inner lining adjacent to the first layer, and an outer shell adjacent to the second layer. The synthetic core may be contained within the inner lining and outer shell. The first layer may be constructed of a first material having a first denier; and the second layer may be constructed of a second material having a second denier larger than the first denier. The inner liner may define an inner space configured to accommodate a human body. Various other products made from this construction, such as jackets, pants, and other garments, are also provided.
US08321972B1

A lifting belt comprising a waist belt and a detachable right and left leg strap is described. The lifting belt allows for quick and easy lifting of a person that has fallen, or is otherwise incapacitated. The lifting belt is configured with a plurality of lifting handles on the waist belt. The plurality of lifting handles allows a after to choose a handle that is in a suitable location for them to reach. The lifting handles are made of a woven fabric attached to the waist belt and a daisy chain configuration on the leg straps, so they are not uncomfortable to the fallen person. The lifting belt is adjustable in size, whereby an attachment device can connect a leg strap or waist belt by an end loop, daisy chain loop, or lifting handle. In one embodiment, the left and right leg straps are a different design, such as different colors, to allow for quick identification and coordination between lifters.
US08321971B2

A convertible sofa-bed which is easy to convert between a sofa configuration and a bed configuration is provided. From a sofa configuration, a buttock-foot member may be pulled outward. Simultaneously, a head rest member and back rest member which are initially at a generally vertical position are traversed to a generally horizontal position. When the buttock-foot member is fully traversed outward (i.e., extended position), the head rest member, back rest member and the buttock-foot member are generally substantially coplanar and generally horizontal. This provides a firm bed. From the bed configuration, head rest member and the back rest member may be buckled to allow the buttock-foot member to be pushed inward. The buttock-foot member is then pushed fully inward (i.e., retracted position) until the head rest member and the back rest member are in the generally vertical position with the buttock-foot member and back rest member forming a seat.
US08321964B2

A garment, for example, an undergarment, that includes a pocket is described. The pocket is positioned on the interior of the garment and can be positioned against the wearer's body. The pocket is generally aligned with the centerline of the wearer's body. In an example, the garment includes a body to partially cover the wearer's body. The body includes a rear panel substantially aligned with a center line of the wearer's body. The rear panel includes an interior face to be proximal the wearer and an exterior face to be distal the wearer. A supporting band is to support the body generally at a waist of the wearer. The pocket can be positioned on either the supporting band or the rear panel or both. The pocket is designed to store small or flat objects in a manner that is essentially invisible outside the wearer's clothes.
US08327460B2

The present invention allows simple and sensitive detection of microimpurities, microdefects, and corrosion starting points which may be present in a material. A probe microscope has a function to sense ions diffused from a specimen in a liquid. A probe is caused to scan over a predetermined range on a specimen. Then, the probe is fixed to a particular position in a liquid so as to set the distance between the specimen and the probe to a given value at which the microstructure of the specimen surface cannot be observed. Thereafter, one of the current between the probe and a counter electrode and the potential between the probe and a reference electrode is controlled, and the other of the current and potential which varies in accordance with the control is measured. Thus, ions diffused from the specimen are sensed.
US08327456B2

An authorization framework is provided that protects data records in a platform, such as a service-based platform, by requiring multiple level entities to be authorized with respect to the data records. For example, the data records can have an associated owner user that can grant access to other users with respect to the data. Additionally, however, the user can also grant access to certain applications that access the platform such that the data records can be initially closed for a user requiring the user to explicitly grant desired access to applications and/or users. In this regard, applications can be forbidden from accessing the data, even on behalf of the user, unless expressly authorized to do so by the user. Thus, the user can make informed decisions regarding who is to have access to its data.
US08327454B2

A method for allowing multiple users to access preview content is disclosed. In one embodiment, a user is provided with preview content and is allowed to access the preview content even if another user's access to the preview content has expired. In another embodiment, a user is provided with content that he is not allowed to access but is allowed to access a preview version of the content by creating a license that specifies the user's access to the preview content, wherein the license is stored on a memory device that stores the preview content. Other embodiments are disclosed, and each of the embodiments can be used alone or together in combination.
US08327442B2

This document discloses the architecture and proposed application of a highly distributed network security system. Using a combination of intelligent client-side and server-side agents, redundant memory arrays, duplicate network connections, and a variety of statistical analytics, which are cleverly designed to anticipate, counteract and defeat likely strategic designs, behaviors and adaptations of these threats which may be intended to evade or even disable the network security system, this system serves to detect, prevent, and repair a wide variety of network intrusions.
US08327440B2

A method and apparatus for enhanced browsing with security scanning. Within a document (e.g., a web page, a word processing document, a list of electronic mail messages), a link to other content or another document is selected by a computing device and the content is identified before a user clicks on the link to open the content. The content is placed into a safe cache that prevents the content from adversely affecting the user's computing device. The content is scanned and/or its behavior is analyzed to detect any security threats or undesirable content (e.g., viruses, worms, scripts, adware, spyware, pornography). Results of the analysis may be collected at a central server. The link or an associated indicator may be configured to indicate whether a threat is present; more information may be provided as desired. A user may be provided with various options to ignore a threat, disable the link, etc.
US08327439B2

A security data structure, method and computer program product are provided. In use, computer code is received. Furthermore, functions in the computer code that control a behavior of the computer code when executed are statically identified.
US08327438B2

A system for executing a program using a virtual machine monitor and a method of controlling the system are provided. The system includes a virtual machine monitor which divides an operating system (OS) into at least one root domain and a plurality of domains having different trust levels, and a trust-management module which is included in the at least one root domain and which periodically measures the trust level of an application program currently being executed in the plurality of domains. The virtual machine monitor executes the application program in one of the domains based on the trust level of the application program.
US08327421B2

Application-specific and single-sign-on user-authentication credentials are analyzed and consolidated based on commonalities among the credentials and usage of the applications to which they are attributed according to a process whereby a plurality of user-authentication credentials each associated with a different computer application are received; at least a subset of the plurality of user-authentication credentials are associated with each other based on consistencies among the associated authentication credentials and observed application usage patterns attributed to each respective user-authentication credential; an identity signature is created for the individual based on the subset of associated user-authentication credentials; and the identity signature is attributed to the individual.
US08327420B2

An authentication system includes one or more terminals in communication with a server on a network. The server is operable to receive user login information; and generate an authentication data set having: a plurality of decoy data; an anchor data, wherein the anchor data is based on information from a user profile; and target data in a predetermined relationship relative to the anchor data. The server is also operable to generate a decoy data set having: a plurality of second decoy data; and at least one anchor data. The server may then display the authentication data set and decoy data set and determine an authentication result by performing a predetermined manipulation of the target data. The server may receive a user response to an authentication prompt; and authenticate the user if the authentication result and user response are the same.
US08327405B2

A method for operating a personal communication device includes, using a user interface, selecting a policy type and entering parameters of the selected policy type, thereby to designate a policy to govern the distribution of a video signal to viewers by a wireless network. One or more messages are transmitted from the personal communication device, in which the policy is communicated to a video server within the wireless network. A prompt is received from the video server to begin transmitting the video signal, and then the personal communication device begins wirelessly transmitting the video signal on an uplink to the wireless network for distribution according to the policy.
US08327404B2

An exemplary method includes presenting, by a media content delivery system, an advertisement for a media content instance that is accessible only at or after a scheduled release time, receiving, by the media content delivery system, a request input by a user to purchase access to the media content instance, and providing, by the media content delivery system in response to the received request, enhanced content associated with the media content instance for experiencing by the user before the scheduled release time. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.
US08327402B1

Methods and devices for presenting an interactive media guidance application are provided in accordance with various embodiments. In some embodiments, the methods comprise: determining that a first portion of guide listings corresponding to guidance information for a first amount of time has been displayed on the user equipment device; automatically requesting a second portion of guide listings corresponding to guidance information for a second amount of time from a database having guidance information in response to determining that the first portion of guide listings has been displayed, wherein the second amount of time succeeds the first amount of time in time order and wherein the second portion of guide listings is stored in a cache located between the database and the user equipment device; receiving an indication that a user has requested at least one guide listing within the second portion of guide listings; and receiving the second portion of guide listings from the cache in response to receiving the indication from the user.
US08327401B2

A television receiver receives a programming signal including programming content and EPG data. The television receiver receives a request for an EPG display. The television receiver modifies the EPG data for one or more records in the EPG data which include content ratings that exceed a ratings lock setting of the television receiver. The television receiver may modify the EPG data for one or more records in a variety of different manners depending on a variety of different factors associated with the records. The television receiver then generates the EPG display from the modified EPG data and transmits the generated EPG display to a display device. The modification of the EPG data may prevent display of objectionable content in the EPG display and/or may indicate that the records correspond to blocked programs.
US08327397B2

A method for displaying video information in a digital broadcast receiver during a change from a current channel to a new channel is disclosed. The method is suitable for displaying video information such as an advertisement, information selected by the user, or a program guide.
US08327396B2

Methods and apparatus for multi-purpose metering are disclosed. An example method includes acquiring a rate of data transfer to/from the monitored location and comparing the acquired rate of data transfer to a threshold. The example method also includes setting at least one media monitoring device in a first bandwidth mode when the acquired rate of data transfer exceeds the threshold, and setting the at least one media monitoring device in a second bandwidth mode when the acquired rate of data transfer is below the threshold.
US08327394B2

A method includes receiving viewership data associated with television contents; calculating one or more local boosting factors and a national boosting factor for each of the television contents based on the viewership data; applying boosting factor assignment heuristics to the one or more local and national boosting factors for each of the television contents; selecting one or more boosting factors based the applying of the boosting factor assignment heuristics for each of the television contents; and publishing the one or more boosting factors to one or more television distribution sites for each of the television contents.
US08327372B1

A system for improving resource utilization across a cluster of interconnected symmetric multiprocessor (“SMP”) servers is provided. The system includes single system image (“SSI”) software that represents the cluster of SMP servers as a single virtual SMP server and virtualization software that partitions the virtual SMP server into virtual servers. The system may also include virtual infrastructure management software that is used to partition the virtual SMP server into the virtual servers. A method for using SMP servers is further provided. The method includes representing the SMP servers as a virtual SMP server and partitioning the virtual SMP server into virtual servers. The method may also include allocating and reallocating processes across the physical SMP servers.
US08327370B2

A computer-implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed for optimizing the fractional allocation of a computing resource among multiple partitions in a data processing system. Multiple processing attributes are defined. A policy is generated for a first partition. The policy includes the definition of the processing attributes. Current values are determined for the first partition for the processing attributes. The policy and the current values are then used to determine a fractional portion of the resource to be allocated to the first partition.
US08327364B2

A solution for retrieving data from a plurality of different sources, wherein the data are retrieved from the different sources by means of respective data retrieval jobs having respective execution times. A data retrieval jobs execution list is built by ordering the data retrieval jobs to be executed in order of decreasing execution times. Next, the data retrieval jobs are executed according to the data retrieval jobs execution list.
US08327362B2

A workflow information generation unit is used for constructing a workflow configured with a plurality of processes. Information of the processes is storable in a workflow information storage. The workflow information generation unit includes a process-designation information obtaining unit, an advance notice output unit, an implementation-determination information obtaining unit, a process information output unit, a result information output unit. The process-designation information obtaining unit obtains information designating a process to be included in the workflow. The advance notice output unit outputs advance notice information to notify that information of the designated process is to be stored in the workflow information storage. The implementation-determination information obtaining unit obtains implementation-determination information indicating whether the designated process is allowed to be included in the workflow. The process information output unit stores information of the designated process to the workflow information storage. The result information output unit outputs result information for the designated process.
US08327351B2

Methods and apparatus for an application modification framework used in an integrated technology platform are shown, which allows hot deployment of modifications, including a modification component, a hot deployment component, and a package manager component. The framework provides various editors to allow a developer of the base application or a custom client application to edit files and features associated with the application. Managers are provided to control each of the editors and for maintenance of historical information to allow auditing and modification monitoring. Hot deployment controls the ability of the user to implement modifications and changes, wherein changes are identified as to origin and purpose, allowing smart debug to identify if error(s) occurred during custom modification, base modification or otherwise.
US08327349B2

A method of matching one or more software plug-ins to a user, the method including: defining one or more trigger events based on one or more actions of an application; monitoring a use of the application for the one or more trigger events; generating a suggestion of one or more plug-ins based on the use of the application; and generating a notification including the suggestion.
US08327321B2

A method and a system for using synthetic partitioning constraints to impose design patterns containing desired design features (e.g., distributed logic for a threaded, multicore based computation) onto logical architectures (LA) specifying an implementation neutral computation. The LA comprises computational specifications and related logical constraints (i.e., defined by logical assertions) that specify provisional loops and provisional partitionings of those loops. The LA contains virtually no programming language constructs. Synthetic partitioning constraints add implementation specific design patterns. They define how to find frameworks with desired design features, how to reorganize the LA to accommodate the frameworks, and how to map the computational payload from the LA into the frameworks. The advantage of synthetic partitioning constraints is they allow implementation neutral computations to be transformed into custom implementations that exploit the high capability features of arbitrary execution platform architectures such as multicore, vector, GPU, FPGA, virtual, API-based and others.
US08327309B2

A system on a chip comprises a plurality of circuit blocks, a programmable processor and a communication circuit. Design information includes connection data including an identification of the direct mutual connection and first and second circuit blocks coupled by the direct mutual connection. An additional register is added to the system on a chip coupled to the direct mutual connection. Verification programs are used includescomprising instructions for the processor to access registers in the second one of the circuit blocks, to use the connection data, or information derived therefrom to select the first one of the circuit blocks, and to issue the standardized call to the interface program of the selected further one of the circuit blocks.
US08327305B1

A circuit and methods for placing a circuit block on an integrated circuit (IC) are disclosed. An embodiment of the disclosed method includes dividing the IC into multiple regions based on pre-determined value. This pre-determined value may be a voltage drop value measured on specific regions on the IC. The performance requirement for the circuit block is determined and placed in one of the regions on the IC. In one embodiment, the placement of the circuit block is based on the performance requirement and the measured value at specific regions on the IC. The measured value may be a voltage drop value and a circuit block with a higher performance may be placed in a region with a lower voltage drop value.
US08327303B1

A method and system for template-based behavioral model creation for behavioral modeling is disclosed. A design characterization and modeling (DCM) tool has a number of templates for different circuits. A designer chooses a template and customizes the template with a number of parameters and optionally pin assignments. The DCM tool generates a behavioral model that has real wire (“Wreal”) capability. The transistor level design is simulated with a testbench according to the parameters to generate Wreal calibration information. The behavioral model uses the Wreal calibration information in behavioral modeling to provide quick behavioral processing of the behavioral model with the benefit of increased accuracy provided by the Wreal calibration information, for example. Optionally, the DCM tool generates another testbench that validates the analog and behavioral models.
US08327300B2

Disclosed is a method, system, and article of manufacture for a one-pass approach for implementing metal-fill for an integrated circuit. Also disclosed is a method, system, and article of manufacture for implementing metal-fill that is coupled to a tie-off connection. An approach that is disclosed comprises a method, system, and article of manufacture for implementing metal-fill having an elongated shape that corresponds to the length of whitespace. Also disclosed is the aspect of implementing metal-fill that matches the routing direction. Yet another disclosure is an implementation of a place & route tool incorporating an integrated metal-fill mechanism.
US08327270B2

A method and system for enhancing search skills of human guides in an information search system. The method allows human guides to be trained when they are not particularly busy fielding search queries from information seekers. The method can include determining whether a guide is idle and presenting to a human guide at least one video or audio source for training the human guide. The video training can include a demonstration of the most effective method for providing search results for an information search query, thereby enabling a guide to learn effective strategies and skills for conducting information searching. The training can contribute to the likelihood of the guide being promoted to a level of a more experienced human guide, thereby allowing greater effectiveness in fielding search queries for information seekers.
US08327265B1

A parsing system and method are provided in which the break characters in the document are used to rapidly parse the document and extract one or more key phrases from the document which characterize the document. The break characters in the document may include explicit break characters, such as punctuation, soft stop words and hard stop words. The determination of which phrases in the document are extracted depends upon the type of break character appearing after the phrase in the document. The parser may also be used to parse a foreign language document into one or more phrases.
US08327256B2

Approaches for rendering data on a display are provided using matrix tree and matrix tree table presentation structures. A matrix table is rendered on a display. The matrix table comprises a set of columns and a set of rows. Each column is associated with a different dimension instance of a first dimension, and each row is associated with a different dimension instance of a second dimension. The intersection of each column and row is a cell. In one approach, a tree of nodes is rendered within at least one cell of the matrix table. In another approach, a tree table is rendered within at least one cell of the matrix table. The tree table comprises a tree of nodes, where each node of the tree of nodes comprises a row of data. A tree of nodes in a cell of the matrix table may be expanded or collapsed upon request.
US08327254B2

A method and system for associating one or more contents with an electronic page. The method includes receiving a request for the electronic page from a user. The method further includes processing the request in a predefined manner. Thereafter, the method includes selecting one or more contents in response to processing the request. Further, the method includes rendering one or more contents along with the electronic page in a predetermined format.
US08327243B1

A syndrome generator generates odd syndromes of a sequence of syndromes and stores the odd syndromes in registers. A syndrome sequencer identifies the register storing the next syndrome of the sequence of syndromes, reads the syndrome from the register, and outputs the syndrome to a sequential polynomial generator. Further, the syndrome sequencer generates an even syndrome by squaring the syndrome read from the register and writes the even syndrome into the same register. Moreover, the syndrome sequencer outputs each syndrome of the sequence of syndromes in sequential order. The sequential polynomial generator generates a locator polynomial in a number of iterations based on the sequence of syndromes received from the syndrome sequencer.
US08327239B2

A communication device configured to perform packet reception processing, with the header of a packet including a header sequence and a Reed-Solomon code, includes: a header check sequence inspecting unit configured to detect, based on the header check sequence included in a received packet header, an error of the header; a Reed-Solomon encoding unit configured to encode the header of a received packet other than the Reed-Solomon code to generate a Reed-Solomon code; a Reed-Solomon code inspecting unit configured to detect whether or not the Reed-Solomon code generated by the Reed-Solomon encoding unit is completely identical to the Reed-Solomon code within the received packet header; and a processing control unit configured to control payload processing of a received packet in accordance with the inspection results of the header check sequence inspecting unit and the Reed-Solomon code inspecting unit.
US08327236B2

An error judging circuit includes a first EOR circuit tree that generates a check bit of a correction code by polynomial remainder calculation with respect to a polynomial expression of an original code which is protected from an error with respect to data of m bit block unit by addition in a Galois extension field GF (2m) in SmEC-DmED using Reed-Solomon code, a second EOR circuit tree for generating syndromes from Sn=Y(αn) with respect to code C(x) in which the check bit is added to the original code when a polynomial representation of a code which is to be detected an error and has a possibility that an error is mixed is Y(x), and an error detection circuit unit that detect if there is a one block error, a two block error, or no error based on whether or not an equation of syndromes S12=S0S2 is satisfied.
US08327227B2

A method for managing a memory block is provided. In this method, a plurality of block tables having different storing priorities is provided. In addition, the number of error correction bits in the memory block is checked. Thereby, in the present invention, data is stored into the memory block in a block table according to the number of error correction bits in the memory block so that the sequence in which the memory block is used for storing data is determined.
US08327220B2

A data storage device includes an interface that is configured to interface with a host, a command bus, multiple memory devices that are operably coupled to the command bus and a controller that is operably coupled to the interface and to the command bus. The controller is configured to receive a verify on write command from the host using the interface, write data to one of the memory devices, read the data from the memory device, calculate an error correction code for the data as the data is being read, verify the data was written correctly to the memory device using the error correction code and communicate results to the host using the interface.
US08327215B2

Provided is an apparatus and method for encoding a Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code using a message passing algorithm. The apparatus, includes: a parity calculating unit for operating a check node value on an input bit and a predetermined parity bit according to the message passing algorithm and calculating a parity bit; a parity correcting unit for correcting the calculated parity bit according to a parity check result of the calculated parity bit; and an output transform unit for combining the input bit and the corrected parity bit.
US08327209B2

A sound data decoding apparatus based on a waveform coding method includes a loss detector, sound data decoder, sound data analyzer, parameter modifying section and sound synthesizing section. The loss detector detects whether a loss exists in a sound data. The sound data decoder decodes the sound data to generate a first decoded sound signal. The sound data analyzer extracts a first parameter from the first decoded sound signal. The parameter modifying section modifies the first parameter based on a result of the detection of loss. The sound synthesizing section generates a first synthesized sound signal by using the modified first parameter. Thus, a deterioration of sound quality is prevented in the error compensation of sound data.
US08327179B2

A method for estimating a timing difference between a first clock signal and a second clock signal is disclosed. The estimating method comprising: generating an edge signal by detecting an edge of the second clock signal by sampling the second clock signal using the first clock signal; generating a delayed edge signal by a further sampling of the second clock signal using the first clock signal; generating a first intermediate code by counting a number of clock edges of the first clock signal within a duration defined by the edge signal using an asynchronous counter; generating a second intermediate code to represent a timing difference between the second clock signal and the delayed edge signal using a time-to-digital converter; and generating an output code using a weighted sum of the first intermediate code and the second intermediate code.
US08327178B2

A local device broadcasts a service advertisement in a wireless network, where the service advertisement includes one or more service identifiers (IDs) identifying one or more services being advertised and an availability schedule of the local device. Optionally, the local device reduces power to at least a portion of the local device and wakes up at a time according to the availability schedule. The local device listens in the wireless network according to the availability schedule of the local device. In response to a service request received from a remote device during the availability window, the local device transmits a service response to the remote device. The service request includes one or more service IDs identifying one or more services being inquired by the remote device and the service response includes detailed information associated with one or more services identified by the one or more service IDs.
US08327173B2

In an integrated circuit device, a circuit for maintaining asserted values on an input output pin of the device when a functional block of the device is placed in a sleep mode. The circuit includes an interface for coupling a functional block of a processor to an input and output pin and an output storage element coupled to the interface for storing a current value of the input output pin. The circuit further includes a sleep mode enable for controlling the output storage element to store the current value of the input output pin prior to the functional block being entering a sleep mode and cause the current value of the input output pin to remain asserted after the functional block is in sleep mode. The sleep mode enable is also to deactivate the storage element when the sleep mode is exited.
US08327160B2

In a remote controller, a startup time or a first time duration until the startup time is input into an input unit. A timer unit counts a clock time or a second time duration. A control unit generates a signal to turn on an electrical apparatus when the second time duration reaches the first time duration, or when the clock time equals to the startup time. A transmitting unit transmits the signal. In the electrical apparatus, a main unit operates main function. A transformer supplies electricity from an external power source to the main unit through a switch. A rectifier rectifies the signal. A signal identifying unit identifies it. A reservation memory unit keeps parameter for main function. A control unit turns on the switch and controls the main unit according to the parameter when the signal is received. A battery supplies electricity to above units.
US08327157B2

A computing system utilizing a local or remote secure email server that intercepts secure message that include an identifying domain extension provides secure data transmissions between internet or intranet users. The secure email messages can only be accessed from the secure email server by an intended recipient.
US08327156B2

A cryptographic processing device, comprising: a storage unit; initial setting unit for setting a value to be stored in the storage unit; Montgomery modular multiplication operation unit for performing a Montgomery modular multiplication operation plural times for a value set by the initial setting unit; and fault attack detection unit for determining whether or not a fault attack occurred for each of at least some parts of the Montgomery modular multiplication operations performed plural times.
US08327146B2

A method and communications system for generating and using compact digital certificates for secure wireless communication. Each compact certificate includes a digital signature and only a portion of the data used in generating the signature. The remaining certificate data is pre-stored on one or more wireless devices for which secure communication is desired. Upon receiving a compact certificate, the wireless device authenticates the certificate using its digital signature along with both the data contained in the certificate and the data pre-stored on the wireless device. This approach permits secure connections to be established between wireless devices using relatively small digital certificates.
US08327138B2

Techniques for dynamically altering security criteria used in a file security system are disclosed. The security criteria pertains to keys (or ciphers) used by the file security system to encrypt electronic files to be secured or to decrypt electronic files already secured. The security criteria can, among other things, include keys that are required to gain access to electronic files. Here, the keys can be changed automatically as electronic files transition between different states of a process-driven security policy. The dynamic alteration of security criteria enhances the flexibility and robustness of the security system. In other words, access restrictions on electronic files can be dependent on the state of the process-driven security policy.
US08327133B2

A communication device configured to perform communication with at least one external device via a network using a secret key and an electronic certificate that includes information on a public key corresponding to the secret key, includes a storing system configured to store the secret key and the electronic certificate, a receiving system configured to receive an instruction to delete at least one of the secret key and the electronic certificate stored in the storing system, a revocation instructing system configured to instruct, via the network, a management device that manages a list of revoked electronic certificates to register the electronic certificate stored in the storing system with the list in response to the received instruction, and a deleting system configured to delete the at least one of the secret key and the electronic certificate in response to the received instruction.
US08327125B2

In a method for securing content in a system containing a security processor configured to control access to the content by a main processor, in which main processor being configured to send heartbeats to the security processor, a determination as to whether at least one heartbeat was received within a predicted time interval is made and in response to a determination that at least one heartbeat was not received with the predicted time interval, access to the content by the main processor is ceased.
US08327103B1

A storage processor of a data storage system includes a data relocation task scheduler that provides system limit control on the execution of data relocation requests. The data relocation task scheduler also provides fairness and concurrency limit enforcement by scheduling relocation requests from different provisioning domains, such as storage pools, in a fair manner. For example, the data relocation task scheduler includes stackable sets of pending task queues that store incoming data relocation requests. The data relocation task scheduler applies an iteration scheme to remove data relocation requests from the pending task queues thereby providing scheduling fairness among the queues and among the different provisioning domains within the data storage system. The data relocation task scheduler is configured to receive updated policies that control both system-wide data relocation resource consumption and scheduling fairness among the queues during operation and dynamically adjust current policies with the updated policies.
US08327101B2

A data processing system includes a mechanism for completing an asynchronous memory move (AMM) operation in which the processor receives an AMM ST instruction and processes a processor-level move of data in virtual address space and an asynchronous memory mover then completes a physical move of the data within the real address space (memory). A status/control field of the AMM ST instruction includes an indication of a requested treatment of the lower level cache(s) on completion of the AMM operation. When the status/control field indicates an update to at least one cache should be performed, the asynchronous memory mover automatically forwards a copy of the data from the data move to the lower level cache, and triggers an update of a coherency state for a cache line in which the copy of the data is placed.
US08327081B2

A processor module having a cache device and a system controller having a copy TAG2 of a tag of the cache device configure a system to which a protocol representing the states of a data block of the cache device by six states, that is, an invalid state I, a shared state S, an exclusive state E, a modified state M, a shared modified state O, and a writable modified state W can be applied. In order to implement the concept, information about a new state in a cache device of a requester is included in a reply packet from the cache device for transmitting the data block. After the completion of the snooping process of the TAG2 until the reception of the reply packet from the cache device for transmitting the data block and the determination of the next state, an object data block is locked in the TAG2.
US08327068B2

In a storage having a nonvolatile RAM of destructive read type, the number of restorations attributed to data read from the nonvolatile RAM is decreased, and the overall life of the storage is prolonged. In a storage having a nonvolatile RAM of destructive read type and a volatile RAM and holding the same data in the nonvolatile and volatile RAMs, data is read out of the volatile RAM in reading and data is written in both volatile and nonvolatile RAMs in writing.
US08327062B2

Non volatile memories and methods of programming thereof are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method of programming a memory array includes receiving a series of data blocks, each data block having a number of bits that are to be programmed, determining the number of bits that are to be programmed in a first data block, determining the number of bits that are to be programmed in a second data block, and writing the first data block and the second data block into the memory array in parallel if the sum of the number of bits that are to be programmed in the first data block and the second data block is not greater than a maximum value. The first and second data blocks may or may not be adjacent data blocks. Improved programming efficiency may be achieved in a memory circuit when the maximum allowable current may be limited by the application or the size of a charge pump. Inverse data may be written in parallel if the sum is greater than the maximum value.
US08327056B1

In an embodiment, an apparatus comprises a buffer, a plurality of processors, and a processor control module. The processor control module is to manage how many of the plurality of processors are used to process data from the buffer based at least in part on an amount of the data stored in the buffer.
US08327050B2

Methods and systems for creating, reading, and writing compressed files in a computer system comprising a file system coupled with storage medium and at least one application program interface (API) configured to communicate with the file system by means of file access-related requests are provided. The file access-related requests are intercepted in order to provide at least one of the following: a) to derive and compress data corresponding to the intercepted file access request and to facilitate storing the compressed data at the storage medium as a compressed file; b) to facilitate restoring at least part of compressed data corresponding to the intercepted file request and communicating the resulting data through the API. The compressed files comprise plurality of compressed units. One or more corresponding compressed units may be read and/or updated with no need of restoring the entire file while maintaining de-fragmented structure of the compressed file.
US08327027B2

A specially programmed computer encodes repeating sequences of equidistant-spaced bit series that are identified in an input file. The position of each sequence is encoded relative to one or more instances of the previous sequence, including both the spacing between bits and the bit position of identified portions of each. For a certain class of input files, this encoding of repeating sequences significantly compresses the input file into the output file. A specially programmed computer decodes files that have been encoded in this manner.
US08327013B2

Systems and methods for providing index files for streaming media over a network are disclosed. These systems and methods provide for receiving requests for a media file and responding to these requests by generating corresponding index files used in streaming the media file. The index file can then be provided to the requesting entity. These systems and methods, which can be utilized together with a dynamic chunk generator, enable the insertion of advertisements at any point during playback of the media file.
US08327008B2

This present invention relates to a method for using hypervisors to enable stable wireless network connections. The crux of the invention involves pushing the control of the networking devices from the Operating System level down to a networking front end hypervisor level. The hypervisor will control all networking devices, the authentication for these devices, and the selection of which connection to use. The hypervisor will also perform Network Address Translation (NAT) to the Operating System. Thus, the Operating System will receive a single, private IP address for use with the Operating System's applications. The hypervisor will handle the change of the IP address when roaming between networks and hide it from the Operating System through the use of the NAT.
US08327004B2

Novel storage area networks (SANs) and methods of operation thereof utilize a plurality of hosts coupled via an interconnect with one or more storage units. A manager device, process or other functionality in communication with a plurality of agent processes, devices or other functionality, each of which is associated with a host. The agents identify attributes of (i) their associated hosts, (ii) interconnect to which that host is coupled, and/or (iii) storage units to which that host is coupled via the interconnect. The manager responds to these attributes identified by the agents to manage the SAN. The manager can be implemented on a first digital data processor and the hosts on further digital data processors. These digital data processors can be coupled via a first network, e.g., an IP or other network, to support communications between the manager and the agents. A second network, e.g., SCSI and/or fiber channel based fabric, separate from the first network, can be utilized as the interconnect between the hosts and the storage devices.
US08327000B2

A switch may be used to force the expiration of a cookie on a user's system by inserting an expiration field into the cookie contained in a network response packet. Additionally, a mechanism is provided to delete or damage a cookie contained in a network request packet, so that server software is not disrupted by the receipt of a cookie. Deleting a cookie results in a cleaner request, but damaging a cookie may be more efficient in certain circumstances. By providing these features, an efficient cookie switching design is provided.
US08326997B2

A system receives a first request for data associated with a data stream received over a first network from a remote source and then determines when the requested data will be available based on analyzing the data stream. The system communicates a second request for the requested data over a second network to the remote source when the requested data will not be available from the data stream within a threshold time and receives the requested data from the remote source over at least one from the list including the first network and the second network.
US08326996B2

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for establishing multiple sessions between a database and a middle-tier client. During operation, the system receives a request for a plurality of sessions at a database from a middle-tier client. In response to the request, the system authenticates the middle-tier client, and creates a session between the database and the middle-tier client. The system clones the session one or more times to create the plurality of sessions. Finally, the system sends a plurality of session-handles associated with the plurality of sessions to the middle-tier client. This enables the middle-tier client to distribute the session-handles to end-user clients in response to subsequent requests from the end-user clients to access the database.
US08326995B2

A method (300) and apparatus (200) for accessing context information is disclosed. The method may include providing (320) a virtual data source registry (140) corresponding to a local rendezvous point (130) local to a device (110) and a remote rendezvous point (150) remote from the device, where the local rendezvous point can correspond to locally available context information available local to the device and the remote rendezvous point can correspond to remotely available context information available remote from the device. The method may also include receiving (330), at the virtual data source registry, join requests from multiple applications, where the join requests can request context information from a context source. The join requests can include a local join request from a device application (161) in the device to the local rendezvous point. The method may include receiving (340) context information at the virtual data source registry from the context source, returning (350) locally available context information from the local rendezvous point to the device application in response to receiving the local join request, and multicasting (360) remotely available context information from the remote rendezvous point to the multiple applications in response to receiving the join requests.
US08326990B1

Procedures and systems may be used for assigning data partitions to data-processing host computers, for example, to initially assign data partitions at the outset of a large data-processing job or during failover measures taken in response to a failed host in a share-nothing database management system (SN-DBMS). In one implementation, a method of managing exclusive access to a data partition within a database system assesses a first host and a second host that have exclusive access to a first and second data partition, respectively, within a database system. The method assigns exclusive access of the data partition to one of the first and second hosts based on factors that may include the processing powers of first and second the hosts, and on processing requirements (such as data quantity and data criticalness) for data on the first and second data partitions.
US08326981B2

Improved approaches for providing secure access to resources maintained on private networks are disclosed. The secure access can be provided through a public network using a standard network browser. Multiple remote users are able to gain restricted and controlled access to at least portions of a private network through a common access point. The solution provided by the invention is not only easily set up and managed, but also able to support many remote users in a cost-effective manner.
US08326978B2

The present disclosure provides techniques for updating fabric alert definitions defined for a fiber channel or other fabric-based network within a storage management system. One embodiment provides techniques for detecting fabric merges, fabric segmentations, and principal switch changes of the fabric and modifying fabric alert definitions as a result of these changes. Thus, any alert definitions scoped by fabric will remain relevant even after fabric structural changes, and duplicate and/or redundant alerts may be reduced within the storage management system. In a further embodiment, detection of fabric changes is performed by first storing relationships between fabrics and switches, and comparing the current relationships between the fabrics and the switches against the stored relationships. Upon recognition of changes within the fabrics, the fabric alert definitions may be automatically analyzed and updated.
US08326971B2

A method and apparatus is provided for monitoring operations of a specified transaction server that has an associated network topology. One embodiment comprises the steps of defining a plurality of zones within the network topology, and assigning one or more monitoring agents to each of the zones, wherein each agent is adapted to selectively run synthetic transactions with the specified server. The method further comprises monitoring results of successive synthetic transactions carried out by the agents, in order to detect any errors associated with the successive transactions. In response to detecting a performance or an availability problem, selectively, that is associated with a particular synthetic transaction run by a particular one of the agents, one or more agents is dynamically scheduled to run synthetic transactions, wherein each scheduled transaction has a specified relationship with the particular transaction.
US08326970B2

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for deriving an analytic model for a session-based system is provided. The method comprises receiving, by a model generator, client-access behavior information for the session-based system, wherein the session-based system comprises a plurality of interdependent transaction types. The method further comprises deriving, by the model generator, from the received client-access behavior information, a stateless transaction-based analytic model of the session-based system, wherein the derived transaction-based analytic model models resource requirements of the session-based system for servicing a workload. According to certain embodiments, the derived transaction-based analytic model is used for performing capacity analysis of the session-based system.
US08326969B1

A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing scalability of a resource management and analysis system is disclosed. A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing scalability of a resource management and analysis system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of receiving and storing information associated with each of the managed elements by a first system, determining a topology of the distributed system from the received managed element information, providing selected information regarding the topology to each of a second and a third system, wherein progressively less specific information is provided to the second and third systems, receiving, at the second system information, regarding status of the managed elements and determining an aggregated status of the managed components and performing, at the third system, an analysis based at least on the aggregated status information and the selected topology information.
US08326966B2

A log manager for tracing a user or process in a data processing system is provided. A user inputs various criteria in the log manager, indicating exactly what is to be traced. A tracer key is created based on this information. The tracer key is then transmitted to the appropriate applications in the system, which then gather the relevant information. The applications then forward this information to a log receiver. The receiver stores the information. The log receiver can then produce a trace report for the user at any time the user wishes.
US08326949B2

Systems configured to provide applications style functionality to at least one user, the systems comprising: at least one user device that includes at least one receiver for receiving data comprising a series of linked states plus additional data associated with each state, the additional data comprising, storage instructions and display instructions; and at least one decoder to decode the received data and cache each state and its corresponding display instructions in accordance with the storage instructions. The systems may also comprise: at least one server configured to communicate with the at least one user device that includes a processor for interpreting the execution of an application or rendering of a state and expressing it as a series of states through which the at least one user device may navigate to create the appearance of executing an application or browsing web content.
US08326940B2

The user of a mobile station which is prepared to receive information providing services from unspecified IP (Information Providers) accesses a gateway server and performs a pre-registration procedure (S71). When an IP server has information to provide to users, it constructs the information in the form of electronic mail, appends user attribute data, and sends this to the gateway server (S72). Upon receiving electronic mail with attribute data, the gateway server stores the electronic mail in a third mailbox, makes a comparison of the user attributes, and calls the mobile stations of relevant users (S73). A user who has received a call requests a download of the electronic mail from the gateway server (S74). The gateway server sends electronic mail to the mobile station which made the request (S75, S76).
US08326925B2

One embodiment of the invention relates to a method for processing a post to a discussion board comprising placing the post on the discussion board; performing an entitlement check to determine whether access to an expert should be provided to the user, wherein the entitlement check is associated with at least one of a characteristic of the user and a characteristic of the post; and based on the entitlement check providing access to the expert in the form of a control.
US08326913B2

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to techniques for automatically processing services in a service-oriented architecture. More specifically, services that are not already stored in a database are processed and then stored in a database using a service contract discovery process. The service contract discovery process can be performed when (1) a server provides service to a client computer; or (2) a server performs a scanning process to locate services that are not already stored in the database.
US08326911B2

The embodiments described herein generally relate to a method and system of injecting repeatable processes, or workflows, into the processing of data-oriented or procedural requests in an entity management system. A request in such a system is subject to authentication, authorization, and action phases of processing, and workflows may be associated with each phase for automatic processing upon the triggering of a certain request under particular circumstances. A declarative mapping associates workflows with the request type, phase, requester, and target. The mapping may be created at the system administrator level, or by any person with the necessary capabilities, through the application of the processing concept in API or UI and may be consulted and invoked upon receipt of a request matching the mapping's criteria. Mappings may also be created and retrieved to manage state changes resulting from processing in other phases of the request processing model.
US08326907B2

A method for establishing a simulating signal suitable for estimating a complex exponential signal includes the following computer-implemented steps: sampling a time domain signal of a physical system to obtain a sampling signal; transforming the sampling signal to a frequency domain signal using Fast Fourier Transform; determining parameters of the frequency domain signal; establishing a simulating signal; establishing a target function which is a deviation of the simulating signal from the sampling signal; obtaining correcting factors; iterating the target function using a gradient method and the correcting factors to obtain three sets of iterated signal parameters; obtaining corrected parameters using quadratic interpolation; and using the corrected parameters to correct the simulating signal, and establishing an updated target function. The simulating signal can be used to estimate dynamic behavior of the physical system if the updated target function converges to a tolerable range.
US08326898B2

The present application generally relates to address data maintenance services using a mail processing system. The present application discloses techniques and equipment to update address information and usage of mail processing equipment to print delivery point barcodes that represent the current and accurate address information available for the addressee. The present application also provides a new approach for storing and searching address and name run time directories as part of a mail processing system using address reader technology.
US08326895B2

A computer readable storage medium for associating a phase with an activation of a computer program that supports garbage collection include: a plurality of stacks, each stack including at least one stack frame that includes an activation count; and a processor with logic for performing steps of: zeroing the activation count whenever the program creates a new stack frame and after garbage collection is performed; determining whether an interval has transpired during program execution; examining each stack frame's content and incrementing the activation count for each frame of the stacks once the interval has transpired; detecting the phase whose activation count is non-zero and associating the phase with the activation; and ensuring that when the phase ends, an action is immediately performed.
US08326893B2

Provided are a method, system, and program for allocating data sets to a container data set. A container data set is allocated in a storage system. An entry is included in a file allocation catalog for the allocated container data set indicating an address range of data allocated to the container data set, wherein the file allocation catalog maps data sets to address ranges in the storage system. A virtual file allocation catalog for the container data set is generated. A request is received to allocate a data set. A determination is made as to whether the data set to allocate has a size less than a threshold size. An entry is included in the virtual file allocation catalog to allocate the data set in the address range of the container data set in response to determining that the data set to allocate size is less than the threshold size.
US08326882B1

A heterogeneous data storage environment includes a first and second data storage system where the first data storage system includes management functionalities that are distinct from the management functionalities included by the second data storage system. A storage system management device is displays an environment management interface that dynamically changes based upon a user's need to manage either the first or second storage system. For example the storage system management device provides a default environment management interface for the first data storage system that includes a custom management display that allows the user to access the management functionalities associated with the first data storage system. The storage system management device dynamically changes the content of the environment management interface to provide a custom management display associated with the user selection of a second data storage system.
US08326875B2

The invention provides an information processing apparatus and a system environment setting method thereof capable of changing over profiles flexibly and preventing failure to return to the original profile if the time zone desired to change over the profiles of the information processing apparatus is irregular or if the schedule is suddenly changed. The information processing apparatus of the invention includes a DB 230 for storing a plurality of profiles composed of data for setting the system environment, a profile changeover section 214 for reading out a specified profile from the DB 230 in order to change over the profiles, and setting the system environment, a user interface section 212 for receiving the continuation time of the profile being changed over, and a timer control section 211 for clocking the lapse of time after changeover of profiles, in which when the lapse of time has reached the continuation time of the profile, the profile changeover section 214 reads out the predetermined default profile from the DB 230, and sets the system environment.
US08326873B2

Various embodiments of the invention may provide a method for operating a REST web service operable to search one or more data sources. In some embodiments, the invention may comprise receiving a query directed to a first data source, wherein the first data source defines at least one characteristic of at least one first data object returned by the query. Some embodiments of the invention may comprise querying the first data source. Various embodiments of the invention may comprise receiving at least one first data object from the first data source in response to querying the first data source. In some embodiments, the invention may comprise retrieving linked relationships between the at least one first data object and one or more second data objects from a second data source. Some embodiments of the invention may comprise querying the second data source for information on the one or more second data objects. Various embodiments of the invention may comprise receiving the one or more second data objects from the second data source in response to querying the second data source. In some embodiments, the invention may comprise generating a composite data object in response to the received query, the composite data object including the at least one first data object and the one or more second data objects formatted as markup language, wherein the markup language contains embedded functionality therein.
US08326858B2

A computer-implemented method for coordinating web-based content between networked computing devices is disclosed. The method includes associating an identifier with a first remote device without connecting the identifier to a registered user account, receiving from the first remote device a request to modify a web page, receiving a log-in from a registered user and associating the log-in with the first remote device after receiving the request to modify a first personalized web page, and associating the request to modify a web page with a first personalized home page associated with the registered user, and modifying the first personalized home page.
US08326856B2

A method (and apparatus) for adapting an input parameter, for dynamically invoking target Web services, and for adapting output results, includes receiving an invocation request including an input parameter in a first format. A semantic information representation module MetaWSDL (Meta Web Service Description Language), wherein the MetaWSDL includes a universal XML (eXtended Markup Language) representation which includes semantic information of a Web service method signature, is retrieved from a memory. A MetaWSDL processor is invoked to adapt the input parameter to a second format using the retrieved MetaWSDL. The target Web services are dynamically invoked, using the adapted parameter in the second format, and the output result in the first format is adapted to the second format, using the MetaWSDL.
US08326852B2

Embodiments of the invention provide techniques for determining query entities in physical tables for an abstract database. A query entity may be created to store a particular set of data. The query entity may be defined in terms of the structure of the physical database, such as an SQL statement, used to generate the query entity as needed. The fields included in a given query entities may be determined based on the presence (or absence) of values in the columns of a physical database table. In addition, logical fields having access method which map to the fields included in a query entity may be generated.
US08326825B2

Embodiments are directed to determining optimal partition configurations for distributed database data and to implementing parallel query optimization memo data structure to improve partition configuration cost estimation efficiency. In an embodiment, a computer system accesses a portion of database data and various database queries for a given database. The computer system determines, based on the accessed database data and database queries, a partition configuration search space which includes multiple feasible partition configurations for the database data and a workload of queries expected to be executed on that data. The computer system performs a branch and bound search in the partition configuration search space to determine which data partitioning path has the lowest partitioning cost. The branch and bound search is performed according to branch and bound search policies. The computer system also outputs the partition configuration with the determined lowest partitioning cost.
US08326820B2

Described herein is a technology that facilitates efficient large-scale similarity-based retrieval. In several embodiments documents, images, and/or other multimedia files are compactly represented and efficiently indexed to enable robust search using a long-query in a large-scale corpus. As described herein, these techniques include performing decomposition of a file, e.g., a document or document-like representation. The techniques use dimension reduction to obtain three parts, topic-related words (major semantics), document specific words (minor semantics), and background words, representing the major semantics in a feature vector and the minor semantics as keywords. Using the techniques described, file vectors are matched in a topic model and the results ranked based on the keywords.
US08326811B2

To inhibit deterioration in the I/O performance of a file even if the file includes an area that is frequently accessed.An access account of the file is recorded, an area of the file is split into a plurality of partial areas at least one or more times if the access count exceeds a split threshold, the partial area (partial area including a hotspot with frequent access) in which the access count exceeded the split threshold is minimized, data corresponding to that partial area is ultimately uncompressed, and data corresponding to the other partial areas is compressed.
US08326808B2

A method of verifying the consistency in a hierarchical database includes: generating a pointer record by acquiring a reference point stored in the hierarchical database and associating a first reference point identification value determined from a storage location of the reference point with pointer information retained at the reference point; generating a segment record by acquiring a segment stored in the hierarchical database and associating verification data with a retention address of the acquired segment, the verification data giving a second reference point identification value in connection with the calculation module, the calculation module calculating, for a segment in the hierarchical database, a reference point identification value used to identify a reference point which points to the segment; and verifying the consistency of a chain formed in the hierarchical database from the reference point to the segment by comparing the segment record with the pointer record.
US08326803B1

A first write operation is intercepted. The first write operation is a write from a virtual machine to a virtual disk. The first write operation is a change to a first data location. The change to the first data location is recorded. The recording creates a first change record. The first change record is stored separately from the first data location. A first backup operation is performed. The first backup operation, the intercepting, and the recording are performed by an application executing on a host of the virtual machine. The first backup operation includes a read request for the first data location. The read request for the first data location is fulfilled based on the first change record.
US08326800B2

Embodiments are directed to providing distributed database service upgrades of database server instances in a computer cluster using multiple database server instances and to monitoring and maintaining a distributed database service during upgrade. In an embodiment, each computer system in a computer cluster instantiates at least two different database server instances on each of the nodes in the cluster. The first database server instances are configured to operate using a current distributed database version and the second instances are configured to operate using a new, updated distributed database service version. The computer system receives an indication that the distributed database service is to be upgraded. Then, based on the received indication, the computer system migrates database replicas from the first database server instances to the second database server instances which operate the new, updated service version, substantially without user-visible downtime.
US08326799B2

The disclosure is related to systems and methods of distributing data in devices with multiple storage entities. In a particular embodiment, a system is disclosed that includes multiple storage entities, with each storage entity having a sub-controller. A controller is communicatively coupled to each of the multiple storage entities. The controller is configured to send at least one of a respective copy of data or metadata associated with the respective copy of the data to each of the multiple storage entities. Upon receipt of the at least one of the respective copy of the data or the metadata associated with the respective copy of the data, each sub-controller provides storage competency information of the respective storage entity for the respective copy of the data. Upon receiving storage competency information for the multiple storage entities, the controller selects a particular one of the multiple storage entities and notifies the selected storage entity to store the respective copy of the data.
US08326796B2

Despite the availability of mashup editors, people without programming knowledge cannot easily access the data sources to create data feeds. A data feed engine allows a user to create a data feed without protocol and/or formatting knowledge for the data source. The data feed engine automatically builds a search command with search parameters and a data source identity (e.g., server name, network address, port number, etc.). The data feed engine also encodes the built search command as a data feed and publishes a link for the data feed in a data feed catalog. After publication, users can access the catalog to combine data feeds, edit data feeds, etc., and create mashups.
US08326791B2

Embodiments of the invention are generally directed toward methods, systems, and computer-readable media for prioritizing bridge repairs using a risk-based analysis. An overall risk factor is generated for each of a plurality of bridges. The overall risk factor represents the probability of failure times the consequence on failure for the bridge. Repairs to bridges that pose a greater risk may be prioritized before repairs made to bridges posing a lower risk.
US08326788B2

An entity resolution system and alert analysis system configured to process inbound identity records and to generate alerts based on relevant identities, entities, conditions, activities, or events is disclosed. One process of resolving identity records and detecting relationships between entities may be performed using a pre-determined or configurable entity resolution rules. Further, the entity resolution system may include an alert analysis system configured to allow analysts to review and analyze alerts, entities, and identities, as well as provide comments or assign a disposition to alerts generated by the entity resolution system. Furthermore, the entity resolution system may be configured to handle duplicate alerts, i.e., one or more identical or near-identical alerts generated using the same entities and/or identities as well as assign a relevance score to the particular entities and identities included in the alert.
US08326777B2

Incremental training data is used to supplement a trained model to provide personalized recommendations for a user. The personalized recommendations can be made by taking into account the user's behavior, such as, without limitation, the user's short and long term web page interactions, to identify item recommendations. A trained model is generated from training data indicative of the web page interaction data collected from a plurality of users. Incremental training data indicative of other web page interaction data can be used to supplement the trained model, or in place of the trained model. Incremental training data can be indicative of user behavior collected more recently than the data used to train the model, for example.
US08326767B1

A system for privacy management of customer data is provided. The system includes a data store, a plurality of applications, a central broker and a distributed component. The data store maintains customer privacy data used by the applications. The central broker provides the applications with customer data and manages the customer privacy data according to a set of rules regarding access to the customer privacy data. The distributed component is distributed from the central broker and is operable to communicate with the central broker to obtain at least some of the customer data. The distributed component provides at least some of the customer privacy data to the applications according to the set of rules regarding access to the customer privacy data.
US08326764B1

A system that facilitates direct communication of a transaction between an automation controller and a business system comprises a request analyzer that receives a request for data relating to the automation controller and locates a transaction definition within the automation controller based upon the request. A subscribing component subscribes the business system to the automation controller based at least in part upon the located transaction definition.
US08326753B2

A new medium of tender employs both a primary barcode and a merchant specific extension barcode that are both associated with specific consumers. The system operates within preexisting merchant platforms and links merchant systems, POS systems, inventory systems, SKU systems, barcode readers and a server. The system allows the ready linking and access of consumer transaction related information including purchase history, credit information, merchandise details and similar information. It further allows for the ready remittance of payment via the ACH network through the eCache computer network or other funding networks based on criteria established by the merchant itself. It further facilitates the administration of consumer rewards or loyalty programs and also facilitates consignment arrangements between suppliers and merchants.
US08326747B2

A method is disclosed for offering transaction account consumers with payment term options to pay a minimum amount due early, defer payment into the following payment cycle, and pay a standard amount when due. When generating a periodic billing statement, the invention determines a consumer's eligibility to elect early payment, deferred payment, and regular payment. When a consumer is eligible for early payment, a received payment is compared to a discount rate tier, then a discount amount is calculated and credited to the consumer's account. When the consumer is eligible for deferred payment, the system calculates a new current minimum payment due by multiplying the current non-deferred balance by a predetermined percentage amount and adding the result to the deferred balance. When the consumer is not eligible for deferred payment, the system calculates a new current minimum due by summing the current non-deferred balance with the deferred balance.
US08326713B2

The invention facilitates monitoring, identifying, allocating and distributing the costs related to the consumption of raw technology resources by an organization. The invention provides a controller for automatically billing a designated account, project, division or third party for fees associated with the computing time, use or other similar services. The system may utilize a rules engine or any other factors for dividing the billings. The system may provide loyalty points for computer usage or accept loyalty points to pay for computer usage. The system may also monitor use in substantially real-time or provide notifications and warnings related to low or excessive use. Enhanced descriptive billing statements can be created simplifying the process of reconciling fees to the computing costs. The system may also compile usage statistics and send out requests for bids to obtain improved financial arrangements or to share usage with other entities.
US08326708B2

Techniques are described for facilitating delivery and adjustments of customer orders at a customer delivery site. A delivery courier is assigned a mobile field computing device for facilitating delivery and order adjustments of customer orders associated with that courier's delivery route. The mobile field computing device includes memory for storing customer order history data and delivery route data downloaded from a server system. The delivery route data stored in the mobile field computing device may be used by the delivery courier to facilitate delivery of the customer orders. Further, the delivery courier may use the mobile field computing device to process a variety of different order adjustment transactions at a customer delivery site.
US08326705B2

A system and method to optimize the yield of a restaurant having perishable inventory is described. Through a card company, a restaurant can market incentives to make reservations during an off-peak time to enrolled card members. Offer marketing is based on stated customer preferences, and conducted via, for example, a website, email, or text message. Reservations are made, for example, via a centralized booking service. The incentive is fulfilled to the card member in a coupon-less manner. The card company receives a commission from the participating restaurant for every such sale.
US08326703B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for implementing a software architecture design for a software application implementing catalog management useful to create or update published catalogs based on product master data changes or external supplier catalogs. The application is structured as multiple process components interacting with each other through service interfaces, and multiple service interface operations, each being implemented for a respective process component. The process components include a Purchasing Contract Processing process component that handles agreements between a purchaser and a supplier; a Product Catalogue Authoring process component that creates and edits product catalogs by collecting product information from relevant sources, controls the quality of the product catalogs' contents, and controls when and to what extent Product Catalogues can be published; and a Product Catalogue Publishing process component that makes published product catalogs available to a large number of users electronically for use in other business processes.
US08326696B2

A system and methods for a personal seat license (PSL) auction are described. The PSL auction is designed to maximize revenue while providing bidders with a fun and engaging experience. In general, the PSL auction extends over multiple days, and PSLs are auctioned in mixed quantities of small lots so that inventory gets the most exposure. The list end times for the PSL listings are staggered to provide a dynamic online marketplace where PSL listings are closing all of the time. This provides more bidders that bid on multiple lots and more chances for bidders to return if they are unsuccessful on a given day.
US08326695B2

An automated auctioning system includes a customer, a web services register server (such as an Extended Markup Language (XML)-based registry server like an Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) registry) and a number of web service providers. Automated auctioning processes of a web service desired by the customer are undertaken between the potential customer and the web service providers. The potential customer issues a bid request, and each web service provider determines whether the value of a bid in response to the bid request is below a value warranted by market demand and issues the bid if the value is higher. The potential customer assesses the bid, creating a bid assessment score. The potential customer performs an iteration on the bid assessment score using a new bid request if the score has improved since a last iteration, while engaging the web service if the score has not improved.
US08326693B1

Systems, methods and computer program products for processing inputs of various formats to be used in an auction are described. In some implementations, a conversion application can be used to assist a user in setting a conversion ratio by which a service can be valued (e.g., for converting values between commercial and proprietary currency). In some implementations, a cash value of the service to be rendered can be defined. In these implementations, the conversion application can facilitate the determination of an appropriate conversion ratio by which the cash value can be converted to other currency value (e.g., to other proprietary currency).
US08326686B2

Advertiser repository information (e.g., a list of HTML pages) may be used to automatically generate a page-ad and associated ad information for each page using a subset of features of the page. Subsequently, a page-ad index for all pages from different advertisers may be created. After creating a page-ad index, if a client issues a query (e.g., from a search engine), candidate page-ads may be selected using the page-ads index. If necessary (e.g., if there are more candidate page-ads than requested ads), the candidate page-ads may be entered into an arbitration (e.g., auction). Then, the arbitration may determine a set of one or more winning page-ads to be served for rendering.
US08326683B2

A personalized consumer to business matchmaking apparatus and its related method correlate and quantify a personalized match between a business offering products or services to a searching consumer looking for the reviewed products or services. In one embodiment of the invention, the personalized consumer to business matchmaking is based on requirements, traits, and profiles of the business, the searching consumer, and business evaluators who have reviewed the business. Whereas conventional consumer reviews such as star-ratings merely give an average rating based on inputs from the business evaluators, the personalized consumer to business matchmaking apparatus and its related method generate a personalized match score based on individual traits, requirements, and profiles of the business, the searching consumer, and the business evaluators.
US08326678B1

Systems, methods, and computer program products are provided for monitoring the daily performance, as measured by customer impact, of technology systems that interface between a company and its customers. To do so, for example, embodiments of the present invention record, on a daily basis, the number of failed interactions between the company's customers and its technology systems, and, based on the recorded number of failed interactions, embodiments of the present invention provide performance measurements of the company's technology systems.
US08326672B2

Commercial size of spending wallet (“CSoSW”) is the total business spend of a business including cash but excluding bartered items. Commercial share of wallet (“CSoW”) is the portion of the spending wallet that is captured by a particular financial company. A modeling approach utilizes various data sources to provide outputs that describe a company's spend capacity. Companies which provide databases of financial information about other companies can use scores provided by this CSoW/CSoSW modeling approach to give an indication of how much the company is likely to spend in the future.
US08326662B1

Example embodiments provide program products, systems, and associated methods of presenting a seller with a graphical representation of demand for a potential product listing so that the seller can intelligently price and position the product. A website server associated with a website of product listings captures in a database product preference criteria for a consumer, including, for example, price information. The website server aggregates the captured product preference criteria for a plurality of consumers and determines an imputed consumer demand for a potential product listing. The website server displays on a display device associated with a computer of a seller a multi-dimensional graph of demand for the potential product listing so that the seller can gauge market demand prior to listing a product for sale. Embodiments further include two-dimensional graphs plotting demand versus price, contour lines for the demand imposed on pricing graphs, and color-coded demand heat maps.
US08326659B2

A system of hardware and software provides a systematic and systemic method for performing assessment the effectiveness of different levels within an institution. The system includes template driven definitions that span multiple tiers of hierarchically arranged operating units within the institution thereby providing flexibility and customization to handle a user-definable model of the institution's organization. In particular, a model is stored of a plurality of organizational levels of the institution, wherein each organizational level includes at least one respective, associated node. For any node, at least one customizable assessment project associated with that node is created and presented to a user; then, the at least one customizable assessment project is completed based, at least in part, on first input received from the user.
US08326641B2

An apparatus and method for encoding and decoding using mutual information between a high band signal and a low band signal to increase a coding efficiency in a portable terminal are provided. The apparatus includes a bandwidth extender for extracting auxiliary information relating to a characteristic of a high band signal using the high band signal and a low band signal and an encoder for encoding residual high band signal obtained by subtracting auxiliary information acquired from the low band signal from auxiliary information acquired from the high band signal.
US08326640B2

Aspects of a method and system for multi-band amplitude estimation and gain control in an audio CODEC are provided. In this regard, an audio signal may be filtered and delayed to generate one or more sub-band signals, a gain may be applied to each sub-band signal to generate one or more level adjusted sub-band signals, and the one or more level adjusted signals may be added to a delayed version of the audio signal. The gain applied to a particular one of the one or more sub-band signals may be controlled based on a detected amplitude of a summed signal derived by summing the particular one of the one or more sub-band signals and a corresponding one of the one or more level-adjusted sub-band signals.
US08326628B2

A method of auditory communication is provided. The method includes measuring physiological data from at least one sensor to form a data set; identifying a type of the data set; identifying an auditory cue associated with the type of the data set; and generating an auditory notification based on the data set and the auditory cue. The auditory notification indicates at least one of a temporal, spectral, spatial or power characteristic of the data set. The method also includes emitting the auditory notification.
US08326624B2

Determining and communicating biometrics of a recorded speaker in a voice transcription process is provided. An interactive voice response system receives a request from a user for a transcription of a voice file. A profile associated with the requesting user is obtained. The profile comprises biometric parameters and preferences defined by the user. The requested voice file is analyzed for biometric elements according to the parameters specified in the user's profile. In response to detecting biometric elements in the voice file that conform to the parameters specified in the user's profile, a transcription output of the voice file is modified according to the preferences specified in the user's profile for the detected biometric elements to form a modified transcription output file. The modified transcription output file is provided to the requesting user.
US08326620B2

A voice activity detection process is robust to a low and high signal-to-noise ratio speech and signal loss. A process divides an aural signal into one or more bands. Signal magnitudes of frequency components and the respective noise components are estimated. A noise adaptation rate modifies estimates of noise components based on differences between the signal to the estimated noise and signal variability.
US08326616B2

A speech enhancement system improves the speech quality and intelligibility of a speech signal. The system includes a time-to-frequency converter that converts segments of a speech signal into frequency bands. A signal detector measures the signal power of the frequency bands of each speech segment. A background noise estimator measures a background noise detected in the speech signal. A dynamic noise reduction controller dynamically models the background noise in the speech signal. The speech enhancement renders a speech signal perceptually pleasing to a listener by dynamically attenuating a portion of the noise that occurs in a portion of the spectrum of the speech signal.
US08326614B2

A speech enhancement system improves speech conversion within an encoder and decoder. The system includes a first device that converts sound waves into operational signals. A second device selects a template that represents an expected signal model. The selected template models speech characteristics of the operational signals through a speech codebook that is further accessed in a communication channel.
US08326607B2

The present invention relates to a method and arrangement for improving quality of a voice transmission by extracting filter coefficient parameters with respect to a voice signal in a first speech transmission rate, and using the extracted filter coefficient parameters in a second transmission rate that is equal or lower than the first transmission rate.
US08326606B2

A sound encoding device enabling the amount of delay to be kept small and the distortion between frames to be mitigated. In the sound encoding device, a window multiplication part (211) of a long analysis section (21) multiplies a long analysis frame signal of analysis length M1 by an analysis window, the resultant signal multiplied by the analysis window is outputted to an MDCT section (212), and the MDCT section (212) performs MDCT of the input signal to obtain the transform coefficients of the long analysis frame and outputs it to a transform coefficient encoding section (30). The window multiplication part (221) of a short analysis section (22) multiplies a short analysis frame signal of analysis length M2 (M2
US08326589B2

In the present invention, in a case where a stable equilibrium point calculation is not calculable by using a Newton method, a damping factor of a mechanical system differential equation of a generator is set to be greater than an actual value of the generator of the power system. By applying pseudo-transient simulation to the nonlinear differential algebraic equation of the power system including the mechanical system differential equation of the generator, in which the damping factor is set, a norm of a mechanical system equation is found. If the found norm meets a predetermined condition, variable values of the power system at a time when the norm is found are set as initial values of the nonlinear differential algebraic equation of the power system. A stable equilibrium point is determined by applying the Newton method to the nonlinear differential algebraic equation in which the initial values are set.
US08326585B1

A method for identifying a shock wave includes creating a grid comprising cells; sorting the cells based on their pressure gradients; and sorting the cells based on a negative dot product of their pressure gradients and their velocity vectors divided by the velocity of sound. The number of cells that are refined may be reduced by sorting the cells based on their distances from a shock wave center, and/or sorting the cells based on their mass fractions of a species. A buffer zone of refined cells may be created in front of the shock wave.
US08326582B2

An acoustic sensor acquires acoustic data corresponding to a rotating component of a machine during operation of the machine. The acoustic sensor can be configured to enhance acoustic signals in a range of frequencies corresponding to at least one evaluated condition of the rotating component and/or enhance the acoustic signals received from a directional area narrowly focused on the rotating component. The rotating component is evaluated using the acoustic data acquired by the acoustic sensor. In an embodiment, the machine can be a vehicle traveling past a parabolic microphone. In a more specific embodiment, the vehicle is a rail vehicle and the rotating component is a railroad wheel bearing.
US08326577B2

Methods and systems for use in predicting wind turbine failures are provided. One example method includes determining a parametric profile for a component of a wind turbine from operating data of a plurality of wind turbines, determining an anomaly profile for the component of the wind turbine from anomaly alerts from a plurality of wind turbines, and determining a probability of failure for the component of the wind turbine based on the parametric profile and the anomaly profile. The parametric profile defines at least one parametric event associated with the component prior to failure of the component, and the anomaly profile defines at least one anomaly associated with the component prior to failure of the component.
US08326571B2

A person location detecting apparatus according to the present invention includes a light emitting section for radiating a projection light and a TOF method distance image sensor for receiving a reflected light from a room space of the projection light to output distance information in accordance with a distance to an object in the room space from each of a plurality of light receiving sections, and further includes a distance change detecting section for detecting a distance change to the object in the room space based on the distance information from the TOF method distance image sensor and a person distinguishing section for distinguishing a person by specifying a shape of a detected distance change area to detect a direction and distance to the distance change area that is specified as a shape of a person as a location of a person.
US08326564B2

A detected data processing apparatus includes a selecting unit that calculates mutual correlation between a plurality of groups of detected data acquired from a detecting unit that detects an operational state of a circuit board, and then selects as analysis data the detected data of a group whose value indicating correlation with other groups is smaller than a threshold value set up in advance; and a first calculating unit that calculates a first Mahalanobis distance on a basis of a first Mahalanobis space generated by using the analysis data selected by the selecting unit from the detected data obtained when a normal circuit board is operated and on a basis of the detected data obtained when a circuit board of diagnosis target is operated.
US08326558B2

The invention relates to a method for analyzing an integrated circuit, including a step for applying laser radiation at a point on the surface of the circuit, a step for exciting the circuit thus subjected to laser radiation by applying an electrical excitation signal, a step for collecting the response of the circuit to the excitation, the circuit being subjected to laser radiation, and a step for measuring the phase difference between the response to the excitation of the circuit subjected to laser radiation and a reference response of the circuit in the absence of laser radiation applied to the circuit. The invention also relates to an associated observation method and installation.
US08326556B2

A method of and system for processing stray flux data associated with a synchronous electrical machine; the method comprising capturing stray flux data from the synchronous electrical machine; generating a stray flux waveform using at least the captured stray flux data; analysing the generated stray flux waveform and the captured stray flux data; and storing the generated stray flux waveform and the captured stray flux data in a database.
US08326549B2

A control device includes a transmission unit including a first gear rotating with a motor shaft and a second gear rotating with a rotating roller which drives a rotated body, a speed detecting unit for detecting the rotational speed of the rotated body or rotating roller, a motor controlling unit for maintaining a constant motor shaft rotational speed based on the rotational speed, a converting unit for converting the rotational speed to a relationship between a frequency contained in a variation of the rotational speed in association with time and a variation value of the rotational speed, and a wear detecting unit for detecting a predictor of wear of cogs in at least one of the first and second gears when the variation value at a specified frequency, determined based on the number of the cogs of the first gear and the motor shaft rotational speed, exceeds a threshold value.
US08326545B2

A system and method for displaying a pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics drug model for a patient is provided. A monitor is arranged to detect a quantity of anesthetic agent provided to a patient by an anesthesia machine. A display is provided for displaying real-time pharmacokinetics data associated with the quantity of anesthetic agent provided to the patient. Safety control means are provided to initiate the display of real-time pharmacokinetics data for the anesthetic agent only when a predetermined threshold value for the anesthetic agent is detected by the monitor. Alternately, control means are adapted to terminate display of real-time pharmacokinetics data for the anesthetic agent when a predetermined threshold value for the anesthetic agent is detected by the monitor.
US08326544B2

Methods, systems and software for generating a multi-dimensional volume are disclosed. The methods include decomposing one or more original volumes into a collection of diplets, wherein each diplet includes information about spatial location, orientation, amplitude, wavelet, acquisition configuration, and coherency. The methods further include migrating the collection of diplets using one or more of a velocity model or an anisotropic velocity model, and synthesizing one or more of the migrated diplets to an output multi-dimensional seismic volume.
US08326540B2

The method for obtaining a fluid migration profile for a wellbore, including the steps of obtaining a static profile for a logged region of the wellbore, obtaining a dynamic profile for the logged region of the wellbore, digitally filtering the dynamic profile to remove frequency elements represented in the static profile, to provide a fluid migration profile, and storing the fluid migration profile on a computer-readable memory.
US08326538B2

Methods for monitoring a wellsite include transporting a mobile monitoring platform to a wellsite. The mobile monitoring platform includes a transportable chassis including two or more wheels; a mast supported by the platform and extendable vertically upward from the chassis; a transceiver including a wireless modem and an antenna; a controller adapted to communicate with the transceiver; and a power module electrically coupled to at least one of the transceiver and the processor. The methods include wirelessly receiving, at the transceiver, wellsite data from a plurality of sensors at or adjacent the wellsite; and wirelessly transmitting, in real-time, the wellsite data to a remote monitoring station.
US08326536B1

A computer-implemented system and method for correlating satellite imagery for use in photovoltaic fleet output estimation is provided. Pixels in satellite imagery data of overhead sky clearness is correlated to a bounded area within a geographic region. Each pixel represents collective irradiance that is converted into point clearness indexes for the points within the bounded area relative to clear sky irradiance. The point clearness indexes in the point clearness indexes are averaged for the points within the bounded area into an area clearness index. A variance of the area clearness index is determined in proportion to a physical area covered by each pixel. For each point, a variance of the point clearness index is determined as a ratio of the area clearness index variance and the physical area relative to the point clearness index, regional cloud speed, and a time interval relating to a time resolution of collective irradiance observation.
US08326530B2

An information processing apparatus includes a three-dimensional map data storage unit for storing three-dimensional map data for use in projecting a three-dimensional space on a map onto a plane, a location information storage unit for storing location information including a type of geographical objects at points spaced at predetermined intervals on the map represented by the three-dimensional map data with the location information in association with the respective point, a geographical object information storage unit for storing geographical object information, the geographical object information including a position of a geographical object on the map and display information relating to the geographic object, and a placement position setting unit for setting a display information placement position indicating a position of a sign pointing to the display information on the map based on the location information present within a predetermined area of the position of the geographical object indicated by the display information.
US08326526B2

Method and device for exchanging messages in a VLC navigation system is provided, in which a map server generates a provision message in the form of visible light signals through all lamps in an area, using a PLC network, where a navigation service is provided, a terminal that wants to implement the navigation service among terminals that have received the provision message transmits a registration request message to the map server, the map server transmits a registration response message for the registration request message to the terminal, the terminal transmits a map request message including information about a destination to the map server, the map server transmits a map response message including information about a path to the destination to the terminal, and the terminal displays map information and the path.
US08326523B2

A method of determining range between two objects, where a grid consisting of a plurality of grid lines are projected into space by the first object and detected by the second object.
US08326516B2

There is provided an engine control device which can accurately calculate a compensation coefficient used for transient compensation of an ignition timing without involving a complicated and large-scale calculation model in order to prevent a combustion deterioration and the like caused by a mechanical response delay and the like of the variable valve timing mechanism at a transition time such as an acceleration/deceleration time. The angular difference between each current real phase of the intake/exhaust valves 21 and 22 and a target phase set based on an engine load equivalent amount such as an intake air amount is obtained; the shift amount or its correlation value between a current real intake air amount and a theoretical intake air amount value calculated using a pressure inside an intake manifold when each phase of the intake/exhaust valves has reached the target phase is obtained; further a compensation coefficient for matching the shift amount or its correlation value with the angular difference is obtained; and the compensation coefficient is used to perform transient compensation of an ignition timing.
US08326505B2

A control system for an electromechanical-braking system provided with actuator elements configured to actuate braking elements for exerting a braking action has a control stage for controlling the braking action on the basis of a braking reference signal. The control stage comprises a model-based predictive control block, in particular of a generalized predictive self-adaptive control type, operating on the basis of a control quantity representing the braking action. The control system further has: a model-identification stage, which determines parameters identifying a transfer function of the electromechanical-braking system; and a regulation stage, which determines an optimal value of endogenous parameters of the control system on the basis of the value of the identifying parameters.
US08326504B2

A trailer sway intervention system. The trailer sway intervention system includes a trailer having a plurality of wheels, each wheel having a brake, and a vehicle towing the trailer. The vehicle includes a plurality of sensors configured to sense operating characteristics of the vehicle, and a controller. The controller receives the sensed operating characteristics from the sensors, determines an error based on a difference between an expected yaw rate and a sensed yaw rate, asymmetrically applies braking forces to one or more trailer wheels based on the difference, and symmetrically applies braking forces to the trailer wheels when the absolute value of the difference between the expected yaw rate and the sensed yaw rate is declining.
US08326499B2

A method for dissipating power through a machine may include directing power into a power system of the machine. The method may further include controlling a parasitic load of the power system to increase dissipation of the power system, the controlling of the parasitic load being a function of a power dissipation limit of the power system.
US08326496B2

A motion control device of a vehicle comprises: a steering angle controller which controls a steering angle of a steered wheel so that an actual turning controlling variable becomes a target turning controlling variable; and a braking force controller which controls a vehicle braking force so that the actual turning controlling variable becomes the target turning controlling variable. The control of the steering angle controller is stopped by detecting a timing with which the braking force controller detects an oversteering state of the vehicle to start a braking force control.
US08326495B2

In a regulating system and method of regulating the chassis of a motor vehicle, sensor data which are present for regulating the suspension and the damping of a vehicle body vehicle and describe the suspension state are forwarded to the regulating module of an antilock brake system. A state of the motor vehicle with regard to a brow situation can be determined from the sensor data. The sensor data or the state with regard to the brow situation are/is taken into consideration in the regulating module of the antilock brake system when determining control signals for regulating the brake pressure in brake apparatuses which are assigned to the wheels, in particular in the brake cylinders. This increases the driving safety considerably when driving over a brow and immediately after driving over a brow and increases the efficiency and reliability of the antilock brake system substantially in corresponding driving situations.
US08326485B2

Exemplary methods, systems and components enable selective control of an operational mode for a vehicle that is subject to an administrative standard. In some instances a qualified person or entity may attain a preferred consequential result related to a selected vehicle operation mode that may involve a vehicle operation paradigm and/or a vehicle travel route and/or a vehicle travel destination. In some embodiments, implementation of the selected vehicle operation mode may modify a conformity status of the vehicle relative to the administrative standard. Various accessible records may be maintained regarding administrative compliance states and their respective benefits, as well as regarding certification of preferable consequential results available to qualified recipients based on a correlated vehicle operational mode.
US08326480B2

Method for monitoring the state of a tire, in which at least one analysis value (UR i), from which the state of a tire is determined, is formed from wheel speed signals (ωrot i) of the vehicle wheels, wherein the analysis value (UR i) is an absolute rolling circumference of a tire or a variable which represents the absolute rolling circumference of a tire, in particular a dynamic tire radius which is determined by evaluating wheel speed signals (ωrot i) and signals from at least one sensor in order to measure the speed of the vehicle over an underlying surface, and the analysis value (UR i) is used to determine a loss of pressure and/or working loads of the tire, as well as a device for monitoring the state of the tire.
US08326470B2

The described method and system improve electric-power driving range for electric vehicles, i.e., electric-only, hybrid electric, and other vehicles that draw electrical power from an on-board storage system for propulsion and auxiliary functions such as HVAC, defroster, defogger, seat heaters, seat coolers, etc. The described system uses an alternate energy source off-board of the vehicle, e.g., the municipal power grid, to power and run vehicle systems while the vehicle is plugged into the grid. The system also provides the user with the ability to remotely choose via an electronic medium or telematics system among multiple available alternate sources of energy to power vehicle systems. The user may remotely trigger the use of the selected source and may also remotely activate and deactivate vehicle systems powered by the alternative energy source.
US08326467B2

A controller for a power system including a plurality of power system components includes a memory for storing computer-executable instructions and a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions. The computer-executable instructions program the processor to determine an operating condition of at least one first power system component and at least one second power system component of the plurality of power system components. The processor is also programmed to determine whether a predetermined condition is met based on at least one operating condition, and transmit a command to at least one other controller to at least one of electrically couple the first power system component to the second power system component and electrically decouple the first power system component from the second power system component based on whether the predetermined condition is met.
US08326466B2

The present disclosure provides a method for operating an HVAC system for conditioning inside air of a building. The HVAC system includes an HVAC unit and a local HVAC controller. In some instances, control of an HVAC system may be modified based upon predictions of Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) events. For example, and in an illustrative but non-limiting example, a local HVAC controller may control an HVAC unit in accordance with at least one nominal HVAC control parameter, such as a nominal setpoint. At least one measure related to an environmental condition in or around the building and/or load on the HVAC unit may be observed, and a CPP event of a utility supplying power to the building may be predicted based at least in part on the observed measure(s). If the CPP event is predicted, the local HVAC Controller may then control the HVAC unit according to at least one CPP HVAC control parameter, which results in the HVAC unit consuming less energy during the CPP event relative to controlling according to the nominal HVAC control parameter(s).
US08326465B2

A building system includes a communication network, a plurality of wireless nodes, a plurality of passive wireless devices, a plurality of sensors, and a processing circuit. The wireless nodes are disposed within a building and are operably coupled to the communication network. Each passive wireless device is affixed to an object within the building, and contains first information regarding at least one property of the object. Each the passive wireless device is configured to communicate wirelessly to the wireless nodes using power derived from communication signals detected in the passive wireless device. The sensors are configured to generate second information representative of sensed temperature throughout the building, each sensor operably connected to the communication network. The processing circuit is operably coupled to receive the first information from the wireless devices and the second information from the sensors. The processing circuit is configured to generate control information regarding the building based on the first information and the second information.
US08326464B2

A return fan control system for an HVAC system comprises a supply fan control loop, a return fan control loop and a building pressure control system. The supply fan control loop comprises a duct pressure controller arranged to control a supply fan to a duct pressure setpoint. The return plenum pressure control loop comprises a return plenum pressure controller arranged to automatically control a return fan to a return plenum pressure setpoint determined by a setpoint reset function. The building pressure control system is operable to control a building pressure. The building pressure control system may comprise a building pressure control loop and an outside air control loop cooperatively arranged to control an exhaust damper in response to an outside air intake.
US08326463B2

The disclosure relates to a digital position transmitter for control of an actuating element having a positioner in a process installation, with the position transmitter having a regulator with a dead band in order to suppress disturbance signals. It is proposed that the dead band in each case lags the set-value change asymmetrically with respect to the set value.
US08326462B1

A tactile contact and impact display system comprises a receiver, operable to receive therein a user's digit while leaving a target area of skin of the user's digit at least partially exposed. A contact pad is operable to engage the target area of the user's skin. An actuation system is actuatably coupled to the contact pad and is operable to move the contact pad relative to the target area of skin. A distance sensor is coupled to the contact pad, the distance sensor being operable to sense a separation distance between the contact pad and the target area of the user's digit. A restraining system is operable to substantially restrain the contact pad from moving in at least one degree of freedom relative to the receiver while allowing the contact pad to move in at least one degree of freedom relative to the receiver.
US08326456B2

A behavior control apparatus collects information of a mobile object in relation to an action space of the mobile object, and acquires a position and an orientation of a human. The behavior control apparatus sets an exclusive area for the human based on the position and the orientation, and judges whether any information is to be notified to the human by the mobile object. If judging negatively, the behavior control apparatus determines a target position, a target orientation and a travel route of the mobile object such that the mobile object moves out of the exclusive area.
US08326451B2

An inventory control system and method uses a locating device associated with a mover and identifies an ID tagged asset using an ID reader also associated with the mover. Thus, a single relatively high-cost locating device may be temporarily associated with the asset, enabling precise location of a multitude of assets as a mover traverses an inventory area. The asset location and identification may be associated in a database. The asset location may be refined by using additional measurement devices, for example a forklift height sensor, to determine extension from a locating device. A further embodiment utilizes RFID or barcode technology for the ID tag. The locating device may utilize near-field location technology, signals-of-opportunity, or other RTLS technologies.
US08326450B2

Mail carriers are assisted in delivering mail pieces. Each group of mail pieces is received from a sorting system, for delivery to respective final destinations. Also, the sorting system provides delivery data, preferably in electronic form, about delivering the group of mail pieces. Subsequently, GPS is used to determine a location of the mail carrier along a mail route. Information is then provided to the mail carrier regarding delivery of the group of mail pieces, in response to the location of the mail carrier and in response to the delivery data that was received from the sorting system.
US08326448B2

A method and a device for operating a machine tool are disclosed, wherein a machining operation of the machine tool is controlled by a parts program by storing a simulated configuration of the machine tool in the parts program, determining an actual configuration of the machine tool, comparing the actual configuration with the simulated configuration of the machine tool stored in the parts program, and generating a warning message if the actual configuration is not in conformance with the simulated configuration. This prevents errors in the machining process resulting from a discrepancy between the configuration of the machine tool used in the simulation of the parts program and the configuration of the actual machine tool during the actual machining operation.
US08326440B2

A node of a fault-tolerant system relies upon a primary communication mechanism, when possible, for primary connection to a central server. The node monitors its primary connection to the server. While the primary connection is active, the node operates in a supervised mode, in that it generally does not perform a certain subset of tasks without having received real-time commands from the server to perform those tasks. However, when the node detects that it is no longer connected to the server, the node transitions into a fail-over mode. The node operates in the fail-over mode until the node detects that primary connection is re-established. While in fail-over mode, the node may execute a stored set of fail-over instructions that were provided by the server. The node may also attempt to establish a backup connection to the server via a second and different type of communication mechanism.
US08326424B2

A telemetry system is presented for enabling radio-frequency (RF) communications between an implantable medical device and an external device in a manner which reduces the power requirements of the implantable device by duty cycling its circuitry. A wakeup scheme for the implantable device is provided in which the external device transmits a data segment containing a repeating sequence of special wakeup characters in order to establish a communications session with the implantable device. The wakeup scheme may be designed to operate in the context of a handshaking protocol for collision avoidance.
US08326423B2

Tools and methods are particularly suited for certain cardiac conditions involving use of a catheter for pacing of the right and left ventricles from a lead in the right ventricle, e.g., to facilitate mechanically and/or electrically synchronous contractions for resynchronization. Certain aspects involve pacing and/or mapping by delivering pulses to a cardiac site useful for improving heart function as measured, e.g., by QRS width, fractionation, late LV activation timing, mechanical synchronicity of free wall and septal wall, effective throughput/pressure, or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, a catheter arrangement includes a fixation mechanism to attach the catheter arrangement to heart tissue, individually-addressable electrodes for providing pacing signals to the heart tissue, and an elongated structure that supports the fixation mechanism and the electrodes. The elongated structure is used to direct an end thereof to the target region in the right ventricle, and deliver an electrical pacing signal to different portions within the target region of the heart when the fixation mechanism is operative to attach to heart tissue and also when the fixation mechanism is not attaching the catheter arrangement to heart tissue.
US08326419B2

An exemplary method includes accessing cardiac information acquired via a catheter located at various positions in a venous network of a heart of a patient where the cardiac information comprises position information, electrical information and mechanical information; mapping local electrical activation times to anatomic positions to generate an electrical activation time map; mapping local mechanical activation times to anatomic positions to generate a mechanical activation time map; generating an electromechanical delay map by subtracting local electrical activation times from corresponding local mechanical activation times; and rendering at least the electromechanical delay map to a display. Various other methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed.
US08326414B2

A nerve stimulating drill bit is provided and can include a shank and a body attached to the shank. The body can include a plurality of flutes and a cutting tip. Further, a first conductor can extend through the shank and the body. The first conductor can be insulated and can provide a signal at the cutting tip. Further, the signal can be configured to provide nerve stimulation at the cutting tip of the nerve stimulating drill bit.
US08326409B2

In a system having an interface which utilizes an electroencephalogram, device operations which are not intended by the user are reduced.An adjustment apparatus for an electroencephalogram distinction method is used for an electroencephalogram interface system. The system has a biological signal measurement section for acquiring an electroencephalogram signal from a user, and an electroencephalogram interface section for presenting via an output section a plurality of menu items of the manipulation menu in a regular order, distinguishing by a previously determined distinction method a component of an event-related potential which is contained in the electroencephalogram signal after each menu item is highlighted, and operating a device based on the distinguished event-related potential. The adjustment apparatus includes: an analysis section for determining a gradient of a waveform of the event-related potential before the menu item is highlighted; and a determination section for comparing the gradient of the waveform as determined by the analysis section against a threshold value, and determining that the menu item corresponding to the gradient is a menu item which the user wishes to select based on a result of comparison.
US08326408B2

A method and apparatus using brainwaves to control real objects is provided. The method and apparatus comprise using sensors to detect the brain's electrical signals and transmit at least two brainwaves to an apparatus that converts the brainwaves into a format usable by a signal processor. The signal processor determines a coherence between portions of the brainwaves, typically in the frequency domain, and compares the coherence values, which change rapidly from moment to moment, to thresholds. Based on the comparison of the coherence value to the thresholds, which are adjusted over time based on feedback relating to success, a control signal is developed that can be sent to a real object to control 3 dimensional motion of the control object.
US08326402B2

A method for tracking a position of an object includes generating alternating current (AC) magnetic fields at two or more frequencies in a vicinity of the object using at least one field generator. The AC fields are sensed using a field sensor associated with the object. Corresponding AC data points that are indicative of amplitudes and directions of the AC fields at the field sensor are produced, wherein at least some of the sensed AC fields are subject to a distortion. A dependence of the AC data points on the frequencies of the AC fields is extrapolated to a target frequency so as to determine the amplitudes and directions of the AC fields with a reduced level of the distortion. Position coordinates of the object relative to the at least one field generator are calculated responsively to the extrapolated data points.
US08326400B2

The invention provides, in a method of perfusion magnetic resonance imaging of a region of interest in a vascularized animal subject, said method comprising administering a contrast agent bolus into the vascular system of said subject; determining the magnetic resonance signal strength si(t) for voxels (i) of said region of interest at a series of time values (t) over a period from before contrast agent arrival in said region of interest to at least the end of the first pass of said contrast agent through said region of interest; from the determined values si(t) for said signal strength and an arterial input function v(t), determining values for the tissue residue function ri(t) for each said voxel; and optionally generating an image of said region of interest from the determined values of ri(t); the improvement comprising generating from si(t) a voxel specific arterial function vi(t) and using said voxel specific arterial function to determine the values of the tissue residue function ri(t).
US08326398B2

A patient treatment unit for analyzing and treating abnormality of human or animal tissues, includes a display; a pulse generator circuit that outputs a sequence of electrical pulses at a pulse frequency, the electrical pulses having a pulse width, the pulse generator controlling the pulse frequency and the pulse width of the electrical pulses; a pair of probes for contacting a body of a patient and electrically coupled to the pulse generator; and a voltage and current sensing circuit that senses a voltage or a current via the probes when contacting the body of the patient.
US08326393B2

An implantable sensor is provide which can be used for determining a concentration of at least one analyte in a medium, in particular a body tissue and/or a body fluid. The implantable sensor has a layered construction with at least one insulating carrier substrate and at least two electrodes which are arranged in at least two different layer planes of the implantable sensor and are electrically isolated from one another by the at least one insulating carrier substrate. The electrodes have electrode areas which face the medium when the sensor has been implanted, and are in contact with the medium over a large area and substantially uniformly, directly or via a generally analyte-permeable membrane layer.
US08326392B2

A physiologic sensor device configured to be placed on an appendage. The sensor device includes a foldable portion designed to be deformed around the tip of the appendage. In some embodiments the foldable portion is a soft compressible material. In other embodiments a stabilization component is provided to isolate sensing elements from external forces. Some embodiments also include a deformable frame that folds in response to a bending force as the sensing device is placed on the appendage. The deformable frame holds the sensor device in place until another bending force is applied. In other embodiments the frame and/or sensor elements are removable and disposable relative to other components of the sensor device.
US08326388B2

A method and apparatus for non-invasive measurement of living body information comprises a light source configured to generate light containing a specific wavelength component, an irradiation unit configured to irradiate a subject with the light, and at least one acoustic signal detection unit including piezoelectric devices formed of a piezoelectric single crystal containing lead titanate and configured to detect an acoustic signal which is generated due to the energy of the irradiation light absorbed by a specific substance present in or on a subject.
US08326385B2

A mobile wireless communications device may include a portable housing, at least one antenna carried by the portable housing, and at least one capacitive proximity sensor carried by the portable housing and configured to sense proximity of a human user adjacent thereto. The mobile wireless communications device may also include a wireless transmitter carried by the portable housing and coupled to the at least one antenna, and a controller carried by the portable housing and coupled to the wireless transmitter and the at least one capacitive proximity sensor. The controller may be configured to cooperate with the wireless transmitter to adjust transmitted power output from the at least one antenna based upon the at least one capacitive proximity sensor.
US08326381B2

A mobile device is described herein in which the mobile device can have a base portion that can include a guide base and can also have a slider portion that can include a sliding plate. The slider portion can be slidably engaged with the base portion and can move relative to the base portion. The mobile device can also include a cover plate that can be slidably engaged with the guide base of the base portion and the sliding plate of the slider portion. In one arrangement, the cover plate can be configured to selectively cover a slot of the sliding plate. As an example, when the slider portion moves from a closed position to an open position, the cover plate can move in substantially the same direction as the slider portion due to a friction coefficient between the cover plate and the sliding plate being greater than a friction coefficient between the cover plate and the guide base.
US08326379B2

An electronic headset for a user, the headset including a housing; a first microphone to receive a first audio input provided by the user; a second microphone to receive a second audio input provided by one or more audio sources other than the user; a controller converting the first audio input into a first electronic signal when the controller operates in a first operational mode and converting the second audio input into a second electronic signal when the controller operates in a second operational mode; a first output system active in the first operational mode to communicate the first electronic signal to a second electronic device; a second output system active in the second operational mode and including a sound generator to convert the second electronic signal into an audio signal; and a mode control for setting the controller into one of the operational modes.
US08326374B2

Methods and apparatus implementing spatial processing in a remote unit. In general, in one aspect, a remote unit in accordance with the invention includes a spatial processing unit to process signals received by a plurality of antennas.
US08326370B2

A system and method for determining the orientation of a mobile device for displaying a graphical user interface and for activating an audio user interface in response to an incoming call or outgoing call. For the graphical user interface, depending on the detected orientation of the mobile device, the graphical user interface can be displayed in a first vertical orientation, a second vertical orientation, a first horizontal orientation, and a second horizontal orientation. For the audio user interface, depending on the detected orientation of the mobile device, a speaker and a microphone can be activated based on the detected vertical orientation so that the activated speaker is near the top of the mobile device and the activated microphone is near the bottom of mobile device.
US08326355B1

The communication device comprising a voice communication implementer, a calculation implementer, a bold formatting implementer, an italic formatting implementer, a font formatting implementer, a stereo audio data output implementer, a multiple language implementer, a caller's information displaying implementer, and an icon displaying implementer.
US08326354B2

A mobile terminal including an output device configured to output information, a camera configured to captures an image of a wine label on a wine bottle; and a controller configured to extract wine identification information from a memory that corresponds to information included in the captured image of the wine label, and to output at least a portion of the extracted wine information on the output device.
US08326349B2

An access device is described herein for determining and selecting, for a cellular call received by a cellular transceiver of the access device, one of a plurality of networks to route the call to. In some embodiments, the determining and selecting may be based at least on a type of each of a plurality of network interfaces of the access device and availability of each corresponding network, the network interfaces including at least two of a cellular retransmitter, an IP networking interface, or a PSTN interface. In various embodiments, if a cellular network is determined and selected, the access device may relay the call. Also, if an IP or PSTN network is determined and selected, the access device may establish on behalf of the call an outgoing call through the IP or PSTN network and translate signals of the cellular call to signals for the IP or PSTN network.
US08326348B2

Provided is an apparatus and method for saving power in a dual mode portable terminal that concurrently supports a cellular network and an unlicensed band network. The method includes, upon disassociating from an in-association Access Point (AP) of an unlicensed band network, measuring a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) from the AP during a predetermined time and calculating an average value of the RSSI; and comparing the calculated average value with a predetermined threshold value and deciding whether to perform a mode conversion between a low power mode and a general mode.
US08326346B2

A hand-held device, such as a remote control, has a time-limited feature, such as backlight illumination, that is caused to be activated upon the occurrence of a triggering event sensed by a triggering sensor, such as a motion sensor. The hand-held device functions to disable and/or downwardly adjust a time period during which the time-limited feature will be allowed to be active upon a future occurrence of a triggering event in response to the device determining that a predetermined number of trigger events sensed via the triggering sensor are false trigger events. The time-limited feature may be disabled by disabling the triggering sensor.
US08326339B2

Method and apparatus for computing a noise power estimate in a wideband CDMA (WCDMA) network are disclosed and may include calculating a noise power estimate for a downlink channel based on an orthogonal sequence generated for a transmitted signal. The orthogonal sequence may be generated based on a slot number of the transmitted signal and/or a transmit diversity mode used for the transmitted signal. A portion of a plurality of dedicated physical channel (DPCH) pilot bits for the downlink channel may be summed to generate an in-phase (I) component and a quadrature (Q) component. The generated I component and the generated Q component may be multiplied by the orthogonal sequence to generate at least one noise I component and at least one noise Q component.
US08326337B2

Methods and apparatus are provided to respond to a scanning request to further improve the utilization rate of air interface resources. A scanning response message is sent to a mobile station in response to a scanning request received from the mobile station. The scanning response message can be in the form of a MOB_SCN_RSP message that includes a BS ID sequence indication field that maps the BS IDs carried in the MOB_SCN_REQ message.
US08326332B2

Improved paging for wireless networks is disclosed. A wireless terminal clock is synchronized to a server clock. A paging window and a dormant window are set for communicating between the server and the wireless terminal using the synchronized time. The paging window and the dormant window are set using a set of instructions. During the paging window, a control channel for a cellular network is found by the wireless terminal, and a page is received from the server at the wireless terminal.
US08326316B2

A portable wireless terminal and a moving velocity detecting method for the portable wireless terminal capable of detecting a moving velocity with high accuracy without increasing power consumption and terminal cost are provided. At the start of a communication, GPS reception-related circuits 32 and 33 are turned on, an initial position of a portable wireless terminal 10 is detected, a RAKE receiver 24 and a synchronous detector 25 measure Doppler shift amounts of down signals at a known frequency received from a plurality of base stations, respectively, and a CPU 41 calculates relative velocities of the portable wireless terminal 10 to the respective base stations and obtains a current moving velocity of the portable wireless terminal 10 from positions of the base stations, the initial position, and the relative velocities. The current position is calculated from the initial position and the current moving velocity, and sequentially updated to be used in place of the initial position at the time of calculating the moving velocity next time. The initial position at the start of the communication may be obtained by using a W-LAN, an RFID system, a wireless IC card or user input information instead of using a GPS.
US08326314B1

A system is described. The system includes a fixed microwave path pair between a first site and a second site and an additional microwave path between the first site and a third site. A transceiver portion of the first site and a transceiver portion of the second site are configured to transmit on the fixed microwave path pair on TDD-FDD reversed paired frequencies. The transceiver portion of the first site is configured to transmit to the transceiver portion of the third site on one frequency of the paired frequencies using the side lobe radiation of an antenna at the first site.
US08326305B2

The present invention relates to systems and methods for selectively pre-registering a data path for a mobile station. In an embodiment, a serving base station receives a mobile-originated handoff-request message from a mobile station, wherein the mobile-originated handoff-request message identifies one or more target base stations. The serving base station then responsively determines whether to instruct each respective target base station to pre-register a data path for the mobile station. The serving base station then sends a respective serving-to-target handoff-request message to each identified target base station, indicating whether the serving base station is instructing that target base station to pre-register a data path for the mobile station.
US08326302B2

A system and method for selecting a gateway upon mobile station initial network entry is provided. A method for controller operations includes determining that a criterion for gateway selection for a mobile station is met, selecting a gateway based on an allocation vector, and transmitting an allocation request to the selected gateway. The selecting being based on an allocation vector of selection probabilities for a plurality of gateways. The method also includes receiving a response message from the selected gateway, completing an initial network entry procedure if the response message indicates that the selected gateway will support the mobile station, and performing an alternate selection procedure if the response message indicates that the selected gateway will not support the mobile station.
US08326294B2

Disclosed are devices, methods and computer program products for radio access network (RAN) signal acquisition. In one aspect, a mobile device scans a radio frequency spectrum for RAN signals and detects signals corresponding to a plurality of channels of a first network type having a first channel bandwidth. The mobile device then determines a power level of the detected signal on each of the plurality of channels and discards signals having substantially equal power within a first frequency range to define a remaining set of signals. The first frequency range corresponds to a second channel bandwidth of a second network type and the second channel bandwidth is greater than the first channel bandwidth. The mobile device then ranks the remaining signals based on the determined power level and selects one of the remaining signals for acquisition based on the ranking.
US08326293B2

In one embodiment, a wireless device having two or more antennas. The wireless device substantially concurrently determines (a) using a first antenna, whether a first communications service is available for data transfer, and (b) using a second antenna, whether a second communications service is available for data transfer. After determining that at least one communications service is available for data transfer, the wireless device uses both antennas to transfer data using a selected communications service.
US08326292B2

A method for determining a dedicate searching space (DSS) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) for a user equipment (UE) of a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method includes steps of indicating the UE to monitor a semi-persistent scheduling cell radio network temporary identifier (SPS C-RNTI) in the PDCCH for receiving a semi-persistent scheduling grant, and determining the DSS utilized for monitoring the SPS C-RNTI according to a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) of the UE.
US08326286B2

A method includes receiving communication data that is directed to a first Mobile Directory Number (MDN) that is associated with a mobile communication device of a mobile subscriber. The first MDN is a local telephone number in a first country. The method includes determining a location of the mobile communication device. A first International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number is active when the mobile communication device is located in the first country, and a second IMSI number is active when the mobile communication device is located in a second country. The method includes routing the communication data to the mobile communication device based on the location of the mobile communication device.
US08326279B2

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for utilizing mobile device information and functionality from separate computing devices. A synchronization operation is performed to update a data store with communication information from a mobile device. The synchronization operation is performed wirelessly with the mobile device. A user of a separate computing device can access the communication information stored in the data store separately from the mobile device. The user of the separate computing device can remotely initiate operations on the mobile device from the separate computing device. For example, the user can initiate the sending of text messages through the mobile device from the separate computing device. As another example, the user can initiate the placing of a telephone call through the mobile device from the separate computing device.
US08326278B2

A device for programming user-defined information into an electronic device is provided. The programmer allows a user to program customized information, such as user-selected audio, video, or Internet access information into his or her programmable device. Such electronic devices include wireless telephones, pagers, and personal digital assistants. The programmer allows a user to, among other things, customize the device to suit his or her particular taste.
US08326276B2

A method is disclosed for proximity-based call management that includes sensing a proximity event between a first device associated with a first network and a second device associated with a second network, sending a first communication address for the first device from the first device to the second device over a wireless communication path between the first device and the second device, and signaling the second network from the second device to establish a conference call between the first device and the second device. A proximity based call management apparatus is disclosed including a processor coupled to a memory, a proximity sensor in data communication with the processor, a network interface in data communication with the processor, and a computer program stored in the memory for execution by the processor, the computer program comprising instructions proximity-based call management.
US08326275B2

A method, apparatus and system for handling a call received at a mobile communication device, in association with an automated number identification (ANI) number are provided. The ANI number is compared with a list of ANI numbers associated with an applications server, the list stored at the mobile communications device. When the ANI number is not in the list, a tone is provided on the call. When a corresponding tone is detected on the call in response to the tone, the call is handled as a call associated with the applications server and otherwise the call handled as a typical mobile communication call.
US08326270B2

Exemplary embodiments provide for optimizing operation of a radio program, wherein the radio program is operated by a host using a host process. Aspects include collecting and storing contextual information from participants of the radio program, the participants including listeners and callers of the radio program; analyzing the contextual information; and enabling at least one feature on the host process based at least in part on the contextual information.
US08326269B1

A wireless unlocking system includes a programmable telephone. When the programmable telephone receives a call from a communication terminal along with a calling telephone number, the calling telephone number is matched with a number of pre-stored telephone numbers. The programmable telephone transmits an unlocking signal to an electrically controlled lock and unlocks a door if the telephone number of the call successfully matches one of the pre-stored telephone numbers.
US08326261B2

Apparatuses and methods to facilitate customer to supplier funds transfer via premium messages. In one aspect, an apparatus to electronically transfer funds from a customer to a supplier, includes: a server component connected to a network; and a database coupled to the server component. The server component is configured to: transmit a plurality of premium rate mobile terminating text messages to the first mobile cellular telephone to effect a transfer of funds from the customer for reception by the supplier, after the customer has placed an order with the supplier; and transmit a notification message to a second mobile cellular telephone having a second telephone number to confirm that the transfer of funds has taken place.
US08326260B1

A system and method for managing an emergency over a wireless network. A wireless station receives an emergency information string broadcast by a string broadcast station. The string broadcast station is operated by law enforcement or other authorized personnel. A wireless station obtains the emergency information string and obtains an emergency alert message from a server. The message may be retransmitted by the wireless station. A listener module may be deployed that can be used to identify wireless stations that are within an area affected by the emergency and to provide the emergency alert message to the identified wireless stations.
US08326255B2

A biasing arrangement for an electronic apparatus having an input device connected by wires is disclosed. The biasing arrangement comprises a bias signal generator arranged to provide a bias voltage and a reference voltage; a flying capacitor circuitry having a first set of switches connected to said bias signal generator to selectively connecting and disconnecting the bias voltage and reference voltage, respectively, over a capacitor of the flying capacitor circuitry, and the flying capacitor circuitry further having a second set of switches to selectively connecting and disconnecting the voltage over the capacitor to an output of the flying capacitor circuitry, wherein the first and second sets of switches are not both in a connecting state at any time; and a wired connection between output of the flying capacitor circuitry and the input device of the apparatus. An electronic apparatus, a biasing method, and a computer program are also disclosed.
US08326254B2

A communication device includes a memory module that stores a plurality of applications corresponding to a plurality of uses of the communication device. A processing module executes a selected one of the plurality of applications and selects one of a plurality of power modes based on a current one of the plurality of uses of the communication device corresponding to the selected one of the plurality of applications. The processing module generates a power mode signal based on the selected one of the plurality of power modes. A power management circuit receives the power mode signal and that generates a plurality of power supply signals based on the power mode signal.
US08326249B2

A communications device, e.g., a mobile wireless terminal, includes a plurality of antennas having different associated polarization directions. The plurality of antennas includes an electrical antenna, e.g., a dipole antenna and a magnetic antenna, e.g., a loop antenna or a slot antenna. In one embodiment the electrical antenna is used for receiving and/or transmitting signals associated with a vertical polarization direction, while the magnetic antenna is used for receiving and/or transmitting signals associated with a horizontal polarization direction. In some embodiments different data streams are communicated concurrently via the electrical and magnetic antennas. Methods for operating the communications device to switch between the electrical and magnetic antennas and/or to control reception and/or transmission are described. The novel antenna configuration facilitates the use of the horizontal polarization direction communications between the communications device and a base station without the need for directionally azimuth positioning the magnetic antenna.
US08326248B2

An analog radio receiver can change a noise suppression parameter appropriate for a sound to be reproduced. The analog radio receiver includes a sound category determining unit for determining a category of a sound to be reproduced from an input signal, and a selecting unit for selecting, on the basis of the category determined by the sound category determining unit, a noise suppression parameter such as passband of the IF filter, blend value of the stereo blend unit, high-cut value of the high-cut unit, response rate of the soft mute unit, and the like, wherein the IF filter, the stereo blend unit, the high-cut unit, the soft mute unit suppress noises of the input signal on the basis of the noise suppression parameter selected by the selecting unit.
US08326247B2

A receiver 1 is comprised of a first frequency changing circuit 13 for converting a received signal including two or more broadcast waves into a first intermediate frequency signal with a local oscillation, a band separation filter 14 for allowing bands included in the two or more broadcast waves converted into the first intermediate frequency signal to pass therethrough simultaneously, and a second frequency changing circuit 15 for converting the received signal which is outputted by the band separation filter 14 and which is limited to the two or more broadcast waves into a second intermediate frequency signal from which each of the broadcast waves can be sampled at a frequency at which the broadcast waves do not interfere with one another.
US08326241B2

A method and an apparatus for determining whether a mobile terminal operates normally are provided. The method includes generating a transmission signal, isolating, at a Front End Module (FEM), the transmission signal provided to an antenna, and outputting the same, measuring a level of the output signal, and comparing the measured level of the output signal with a preset threshold level to determine that at least one of a Power Amplifier Module (PAM) and the FEM operates normally.
US08326234B2

A high frequency switching circuit, including a high frequency switching element. The high frequency switching element including a first channel terminal and a second channel terminal, wherein the high frequency switching element is configured to switchably route a high frequency signal via a channel path between the first channel terminal and the second channel terminal. The high frequency switching circuit further includes a power detection circuit, wherein the power detection circuit is configured to obtain a first measurement signal from the first channel terminal and a second measurement signal from the second channel terminal, and to combine the first measurement signal and the second measurement signal to derive, in dependence on both the first measurement signal and the second measurement signal, a power signal describing a power value of the high frequency signal routed via the channel path of the high frequency switching element.
US08326231B1

A method of operating a mobile electronic device includes connecting, by an electronic device, to a network and transmitting, by the electronic device, at least one communication to the network. The method also includes identifying, by a processor of the electronic device, at least one communication parameter of the at least one communication and determining, by the processor of the electronic device, a first disconnect time as which to disconnect from the network based on the at least one communication parameter identified by the processor. The method further includes disconnecting from the network at the first disconnect time.
US08326226B2

A method for communicating to a recipient transceiver from a plurality of transceivers located within the broadcast range of the recipient transceiver includes: transmitting a communication at a first power level such that only a first group of transceivers receive the broadcast, the communication including a command causing each of the first group of transceivers not to respond to a subsequent broadcast; and subsequent thereto, transmitting a communication at a second power level greater than the first power level such that a second group of transceivers greater than and including the first group of transceivers receive the broadcast, but such that only a limited number of transceivers of the second group respond to the broadcast, the limited number of transceivers excluding the first group of transceivers. Each of the plurality of transceivers is associated with a respective sensor for acquiring data and transmitting the data to the recipient transceiver.
US08326223B2

A wireless IC device includes a wireless IC chip, a power supply circuit board upon which the wireless IC chip is mounted, and in which a power supply circuit is provided, the power supply circuit includes a resonant circuit having a predetermined resonant frequency, and a radiation pattern, which is adhered to the underside of the power supply circuit board, for radiating a transmission signal supplied from the power supply circuit, and for receiving a reception signal to supply this to the power supply circuit. The resonant circuit is an LC resonant circuit including an inductance device and capacitance devices. The power supply circuit board is a multilayer rigid board or a single-layer rigid board, and between the wireless IC chip and the radiation pattern is connected by DC connection, magnetic coupling, or capacitive coupling.
US08326222B2

A signal transmission device includes: an input signal conductor in which an input signal current flows and thereby generating an input signal magnetic field; a magnetically-biasing conductor in which a biasing current flows and thereby generating a biasing magnetic field; and one or more magnetoresistive elements in each of which a sensing current flows and thereby generating a self-biasing magnetic field, and each including a magnetization free layer having a magnetization direction which varies in response to the input signal magnetic field, the biasing magnetic field, and the self-biasing magnetic field. Each of the biasing magnetic field and the self-biasing magnetic field is applied to the magnetization free layer in a same direction to each other.
US08326219B2

An underwater communications system is provided that transmits electromagnetic and/or magnetic signals to a remote receiver. The transmitter includes a data input. A digital data compressor compresses data to be transmitted. A modulator modulates compressed data onto a carrier signal. An electrically insulated, magnetic coupled antenna transmits the compressed, modulated signals. The receiver that has an electrically insulated, magnetic coupled antenna for receiving a compressed, modulated signal. A demodulator is provided for demodulating the signal to reveal compressed data. A de-compressor de-compresses the data. An appropriate human interface is provided to present transmitted data into text/audio/visible form. Similarly, the transmit system comprises appropriate audio/visual/text entry mechanisms.
US08326203B2

A toner conveyance device includes a toner conveyance path to convey toner from a lower position to an upper position, a lower holding member and an upper holding member provided in the toner conveyance path, a toner conveyance belt extended among the upper holding member and the lower holding member, running obliquely upward at a lower-side region, running obliquely downward at an upper-side region, and including engagement grooves communicating an inner side and outer side of the conveyance belt formed at predetermined intervals in a running direction of the conveyance belt so as to transfer a drive force, and a guide member provided inside a circulating loop of the conveyance belt to prevent the conveyance belt from entering inside. The lowest portion of the guide member at the upper-side region is placed on a substantially vertical line drawn from a belt delivery part of the lower holding member.
US08326196B2

This is a baffle used in a transfer station of an electrophotographic marking system. The baffle has a series of air passages that, when these passages are opened, they apply pressure to a sheet of paper and push it upward against a belt or drum surface of a photoreceptor or photoconductor. The toner imaged photoreceptor then transfers the image to the paper that is in contact with it. From the transfer station, the paper with the transferred image is then moved to the fuser station where the image is fused to the paper.The baffle with air passages does not scratch the photoconductor surface as do the prior art systems. Also, the baffle has a much longer useful life than the more costly lift finger transfer blades previously used.A controller senses when a sheet enters the transfer station, senses the paper size, then activates a number of air passages to match the paper size.
US08326195B2

A transfer device and an image forming apparatus capable of forming an image of smooth image quality with little uneven density, are provided. An alternating voltage is applied so that a first period in which a first peak-to-peak voltage Vpp(1) is applied and a second period in which a second peak-to-peak voltage Vpp(2), lower than the first peak-to-peak voltage, is applied are alternately repeated. In the alternating voltage to be applied, a transfer side potential to shift a toner from an intermediate transfer belt to recording paper sheet and an opposite transfer side potential to shift the toner from the recording paper sheet to the intermediate transfer belt are applied so as to alternate with each other. When f1 denotes a frequency of the first period and f2 denotes a frequency of the second period, f1=f2 is satisfied.
US08326194B2

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable belt member; a stretching roller for stretching the belt member; a plurality of line like marks which are arranged in a rotational direction of the belt member and are formed stepwisely on a surface of the belt member, the marks being tilted from a rotational axis direction of the belt member at least at end portions thereof on sides close to an end surface of the belt member; and control means for controlling rotation of the belt member on the basis of a result of detection of the marks.
US08326190B2

A developer supply device, comprising a casing having an opening facing a supply target and a developer reservoir portion provided on an opposite side; a roller-like developer holding body placed around the opening to face the supply target; a main carrying substrate that is located to face the developer holding body at a downstream end portion thereof in a developer transport direction and is configured to carry the developer through a traveling electric field to the developer holding body; and a sub carrying substrate that has a facing part to face the main carrying substrate, the sub carrying substrate being configured to carry the developer from the developer reservoir portion to the facing part through a traveling electric field, and wherein the sub carrying substrate carries the developer in the facing part in a direction opposite to a direction in which the main carrying substrate carries the developer.
US08326184B2

A development device includes a developer container internally divided by a partition into a supply path and a recovery path, a developer bearing member, a supply conveyance member to apply force to convey developer to a developer retaining space through the supply path, the developer retaining space retaining the developer to be conveyed by the developer bearing member, a recovery conveyance member, a communication pathway provided between the supply path and the developer retaining space, the communication pathway passing the developer from the supply path to the developer retaining space, and a developer softening member to soften the developer that is present above the partition, provided at least one of at a position in the communication pathway and at a position close to the communication pathway.
US08326179B2

A photosensitive unit includes: plural photosensitive drums; side plates provided on a first side and a second side of the photosensitive drums in an axial direction of the photosensitive drum, respectively, each of the side plates being formed with through holes at a position opposing each photosensitive drum in the axial direction; and plural bearing members fitted into the through holes, respectively, to support end portions of the photosensitive drums. An inner surface of each of the through holes has four linear portions. The four linear portions are in contact with a virtual circle virtually set in the corresponding through hole, and arranged at a regular angular interval with respect to a center of the virtual circle. Each of the bearing members includes an insertion portion which has an outer peripheral surface having a diameter larger than that of the virtual circle, and is inserted into the through hole.
US08326170B2

An image forming apparatus including a chip having an engine processor and a basic processor includes an image forming unit which has an image forming engine and forms an image of given image data, an engine processor to control a driving of the image forming engine, and a basic processor which is integrally provided with the engine processor and controls processes related to image formation except the driving of the image forming engine.
US08326166B2

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable image bearing member; a developing device, including a developer carrying member and developing bias application means for applying a developing bias for developing a developer image; a rotatable intermediary transfer member; a primary transfer member for forming a primary transfer nip and for transferring the developer image from the image bearing member onto the intermediary transfer member; a secondary transfer member for secondary-transferring the developer image from the intermediary transfer member onto a recording material; wherein an area of the image bearing member includes a first area at least containing an area located in primary transfer nip at a time when a speed of the intermediary transfer member is temporarily decreased and includes a second area located in the primary transfer nip when there is no temporary change in speed; and a control device for controlling a developing bias.
US08326161B2

An image forming apparatus, when exiting the service mode, in response to receiving an operation to exit a service mode before a work related to maintenance ends, performs processing of a job if authentication based on generated authentication information is successful. Further, the image forming apparatus shifts to a normal mode when receiving the operation to exit the service mode after the work related to maintenance ends.
US08326153B2

A tunable dispersion compensator (TDC) is tuned from a first dispersion setpoint to a second dispersion setpoint while maintaining continuity of the dispersion. The dispersion tuning follows a pre-determined trajectory in the time domain, so that continuity of the optical dispersion across the channel optical bandwidth is maintained while minimizing all other TDC-induced optical impairments during a tuning period.
US08326152B2

A signal strength corresponding to an incoming optical burst from each of a plurality of optical nodes is measured. The measurements can be performed at system start-up, configuration/installation of the optical nodes and/or at certain intervals of operation of the optical nodes. Signal strength information for the optical nodes based on the measurements is stored in memory. When scheduling the optical nodes for transmission, a preferred transmission order is determined in response to the stored signal strength information. In an embodiment, the preferred order is determined to reduce differences in signal strength levels between consecutive optical bursts.
US08326148B2

An optical network is disclosed comprising one or more photonic switching nodes is disclosed. Each of the switching nodes comprises a plurality of input ports; at least one output port; and a switch configured to route messages between the plurality of input ports and the at least one output port and provide bufferless resolution of contention between messages for a common output port.
US08326134B2

An integrated wiring assembly electrically connects components of a multi-zone boiler heating system. The integrated wiring assembly includes a plurality of connection terminals which are commonly connected to facilitate connecting thermostats and zone valves for each zone, end switches of each zone valve to a start switch of the boiler, and a transformer to supply electrical power to the components, in such a way that the complexity of the electrical connections is simplified.
US08326132B2

In one embodiment, the method includes reading random access information from the audio signal. The random access information indicates whether or not random access operation is allowed in the audio signal. If the random access operation is allowed, the audio signal has a plurality of random access units. A random access unit includes one or more of frames and at least one of the frames is a random access frame. The random access frame is a frame encoded such that previous frames are not necessary to decode the random access frame, and the random access information further indicates a distance between random access frames in frames. The random access frame is decoded based on the random access information.
US08326130B2

A video image reproducing apparatus reads out sub-content information related to sub-content to be reproduced, from a recording medium, obtains attribute information indicative of the features of the sub-content, on the basis of the sub-content information, and controls each reproduction procedure of the main content and the sub-content on the basis of the attribute information, so that the main content and the sub-content are reproduced in coordination with the features of the sub-content.
US08326127B2

The various embodiments described herein generally provide for the identification of locations in a presentation stream based on metadata associated with the presentation stream. Locations within an audio/video stream are identified by processing associated text data using autonomous location information referencing the text data. The identified locations within a presentation stream may be utilized to identify boundaries of segments within the presentation stream, such as segments of a show and interstitials of the show. Processing is then performed to determine whether the identified boundaries possess specific characteristics. If the identified boundaries do not possess the identified characteristics, then additional processing is performed to identify other locations, temporally near the identified boundaries, which correspond with boundaries of the portion of the audio/video stream identified by the autonomous location information.
US08326123B2

A movie video player able to differentiate data set at the time of an incoming call and thereby able to prevent copyright infringement when switching sound data, that is, a movie player comprising a movie playback unit for playing back a movie including audio and video, a display unit able to display at least the played back movie and text, a text-to-speech unit having a text-to-speech function of converting to speech text being displayed on the display unit and the state of the device, and a controller, wherein when a predetermined event occurs for starting up the text-to-speech function during the playback of a movie, the controller stops only the audio output of the movie and activates the text-to-speech function in a first case where the video and audio data can be separated, and the controller stops both the video and audio data of the movie and activates the text-to-speech function in a second case where the video and audio cannot be separated, and a mobile terminal and a data processing method of a mobile terminal.
US08326113B2

A first recording apparatus acquires first data and records the first data in a first recording unit, transmits to a second recording apparatus first priority information which is information relating to priority data representing priority of recording the first data to the second recording apparatus, receives second priority information which is information relating to priority data representing priority of recording second data acquired at the second recording apparatus which is transmitted from the second recording apparatus, determines priority data of the first recording apparatus and the second recording apparatus, based on the first priority information and the second priority information, and transfers the first data to the second recording apparatus, based on the priority data of the second recording apparatus, if the recording capacity of the first recording unit falls below a stipulation value corresponding to the priority data of the first recording apparatus.
US08326112B2

An apparatus for performing a correlation between a test sound signal replayable at variable speed and a reference sound signal, which is a digitally stored version of the test sound signal, has a determinator for determining a measure for the replay speed of a test sound signal; a variator for varying a test sound signal sampling rate, to generate a modified test sound signal depending on the measure for the replay speed, or for varying a reference sound signal sampling rate, to generate a modified reference sound signal depending on the measure for the replay speed, the variator being formed to vary the test or reference sampling rate so that a deviation between a test or modified test sound signal replay speed and a reference or modified reference sound signal replay speed is reduced; and a comparator for comparing the test or modified test sound signal and the reference or modified reference sound signal to obtain a correlation result.
US08326111B2

In a recording apparatus, an instruction section instructing start of recording of input data containing video data and/or audio data, a recording section recording, in a first recording mode, the input data in a recording medium as a separate unit from the input data previously recorded and recording, in a second recording mode, the input data in the recording medium successively as one unit with the input data previously recorded when instructed by the instruction section to start recording of the input data, and a control section controlling the recording section so that the input data is recorded in any of recording modes including the first recording mode and the second recording mode are provided, in accordance with number of units the input data recorded in the recording medium.
US08326104B2

The present disclosure relates to a telecommunications cable having a layer constructed to resist post-extrusion shrinkage. The layer includes a plurality of discrete shrinkage-reduction members embedded within a base material. The shrinkage-reduction members can be made of a liquid crystal polymer. The disclosure also relates to a method for manufacturing telecommunications cables having layers adapted to resist post-extrusion shrinkage.
US08326089B2

A method is provided for displaying a concatenated file such as an image or text file that has been generated by combining information from other files. The concatenated file includes a file structure that can be shown on a display unit and that contains basic information and reference information. The reference information includes information about links of the concatenated file with source reference files which are also files of the file structure and are used for generating the concatenated file. The source reference files are automatically identified with the assistance of the reference information after the concatenated file has been selected. The source reference files and the concatenated file are subsequently displayed and accentuated at the display unit in an intelligent tree structure.
US08326086B2

Image registration very often used to be a tedious task which had to be performed manually. According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a non-rigid image registration by an iterative refinement process based on a combination of landmarks with similarity values is proposed. Advantageously, a very fast and robust method maybe provided.
US08326076B2

An image forming apparatus comprising a function for adjusting a color of an image and a printing method thereof are provided, in which an information reading unit extracts information corresponding to a lens of an imaging device from additional information corresponding to an image captured by the imaging device, an information saving unit saves data required for adjusting the color of the image according the information corresponding to the lens of the imaging device, and an image processing unit adjusts the color of the image according to the data. Accordingly, it is possible to print the printing image closer to a natural color by adjusting color differences according to different imaging devices and the color of the image according to the lens information of the imaging device.
US08326071B2

The present application provides an image processing method of obtaining a clear image from a blurred image which includes the steps of converting an array of image data from a two dimension into a one-dimensional vector, the image data storing pixel values of the blurred image; converting all of two-dimensional matrix operations acting on the one-dimensional vector into an image filtering for the image data of the blurred image, and calculating values of statistic parameters necessary for calculation of a cost function estimating the clear image and a gradient vector of the cost function; and obtaining, by using the gradient vector being calculated, image data of the clear image by a numerical optimization method which calculates the image data of the clear image by using only the gradient vector such that a value of the cost function becomes maximum or minimum.
US08326066B2

A method of adjustable spatial and/or temporal compression of an image including a face includes identifying a group of pixels that correspond to a face within a digitally-acquired image. A first compression portion of the image including the group of pixels is determined. A second compression portion of the image other than the group of pixels is also determined. The first compression portion may be automatically compressed with higher-grade compression than the second compression portion to generate a compressed image including the face, or an option to provided the compressed image including the different grade compressions may be provided.
US08326060B2

An MPEG video decoding method and an MPEG video decoder are provided. The method includes determining whether to perform motion compensation on motion-vector-decoded data or not depending on a value of a decoded motion vector, determining whether to perform inverse discrete cosine transformation (IDCT) on motion-compensated data or not depending on values of decoded DCT coefficients, and generating a decoded image based on the results of the two determinations.
US08326024B2

A method and apparatus for making a three-dimensional object from a solidifiable material such as a photopolymer is shown and described. In accordance with the method, positions relative to a build axis are subdivided into first and second exposure data subsets, and the first and second exposure data subsets are solidified in alternating sequences to reduce the surface area of solidified material in contact with a solidification substrate.
US08326016B2

A check processing system enables determining if tampering has occurred while sending check image information captured by a check processing device to a server. The digitally watermarked image information and the magnetic ink character data are then sent through a host computer to the server. If the image information is tampered with on the host computer, the server cannot extract the magnetic ink character data from the received image information, and even if the magnetic ink character data can be extracted, the extracted magnetic ink character data will be different from the magnetic ink character data received by the server.
US08326009B2

In a continuous mammography procedure, the breast of a subject is fixed in place in a retention device, and a first x-ray image is generated by irradiating the breast in the retention device. While the breast is still held in the retention device, the first x-ray image is evaluated to define a condition for generating a second x-ray image. The second x-ray image is then generated according to the defined condition, with the breast still in the same position in the retention device.
US08326004B2

Provided are a fingerprint recognition device which performs a fingerprint recognition function and can be inserted into a card, the card including the fingerprint recognition device, and a user authentication method for the card including the fingerprint recognition device. The fingerprint recognition device includes a fingerprint touch unit that a fingerprint touches and an image sensor capturing a fingerprint pattern by using a reflected wave reflected from the fingerprint touch unit 310 and comparing a comparison reference fingerprint pattern with the captured fingerprint pattern.
US08325985B2

An information processing apparatus that executes processing for creating an environmental map includes a camera that photographs an image, a self-position detecting unit that detects a position and a posture of the camera on the basis of the image, an image-recognition processing unit that detects an object from the image, a data constructing unit that is inputted with information concerning the position and the posture of the camera and information concerning the object and executes processing for creating or updating the environmental map, and a dictionary-data storing unit having stored therein dictionary data in which object information is registered. The image-recognition processing unit executes processing for detecting an object from the image acquired by the camera with reference to the dictionary data. The data constructing unit applies the three-dimensional shape data registered in the dictionary data to the environmental map and executes object arrangement on the environmental map.
US08325982B1

The present invention is a method and system for detecting and tracking shopping carts from video images in a retail environment. First, motion blobs are detected and tracked from the video frames. Then these motion blobs are examined to determine whether or not some of them contain carts, based on the presence or absence of linear edge motion. Linear edges are detected within consecutive video frames, and their estimated motions vote for the presence of a cart. The motion blobs receiving enough votes are classified as cart candidate blobs. A more elaborate model of passive motions within blobs containing a cart is constructed. The detected cart candidate blob is then analyzed based on the constructed passive object motion model to verify whether or not the blob indeed shows the characteristic passive motion of a person pushing a cart. Then the finally-detected carts are corresponded across the video frames to generate cart tracks.
US08325968B2

A speaker includes a magnetic circuit defining a magnetic gap, a diaphragm defining a central part and peripheral part surrounded the central part of the diaphragm, a coil defining an end suspended in the magnetic gap, an elastic plate defining a central flat coupled to the central part of the diaphragm and a side coupled to another end of the coil. And the side of the elastic plate comprises a first part extending perpendicularly from the central flat toward the peripheral part of the diaphragm and a second part extending parallel to the central flat for coupling another end of the coil.
US08325956B2

A hearing device includes an input transducer positionable at an ear of a user for converting an acoustic input to the hearing device into an input signal, and a filter providing a source signal based on a source band of the input signal and for providing a target signal based on a target band of the input signal. The source band contains lower frequencies than the target band. A modulation envelope processor processes the source signal to generate a modulation envelope signal. A signal combiner combines the modulation envelope signal with the target signal from the target band, generating a target output signal. The hearing device may also include a signal processor for processing at least the target output signal and providing a processed output signal, and an output transducer for converting the processed output signal into an acoustic output to be provided to the ear of the user.
US08325945B2

A mixing control device has a plurality of input channels for processing and mixing audio signals according to parameters specified in the respective input channels. In the mixing control device, a plurality of channel strips are grouped into a first portion and a second portion, each channel strip having a fader operable for controlling a parameter. An allocating part allocates the plurality of the input channels to the plurality of the channel strips so that the fader of the channel strip is operable to control the parameter of the input channel allocated to the channel strip. An instructing part provides an instruction to switch the parameter to be controlled by the fader. In response to the instruction, a switching part switches a parameter controlled by the faders of channel strips belonging to the second portion to another parameter of channels allocated to channel strips belonging to the first portion, so that both of the faders of the channel strips belonging to the first portion and the second portion are operable to control the parameters of the channels allocated to the channel strips belonging to the first portion.
US08325939B1

This specification describes technologies relating to editing audio data. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include receiving an audio signal including digital audio data; receiving an input identifying particular audio data of the audio signal corresponding to a noise pulse; and replacing the audio data corresponding to the detected noise pulse using interpolation of adjacent audio data to generate an edited audio signal. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer program products.
US08325933B2

The present invention is based on the finding that a sound-reproduction system, which can generate a spatial sound impression in a reproduction environment, can be efficiently and intuitively controlled by means of a graphic user interface when an impulse response associated with a spatial direction with respect to the reproduction environment is graphically represented, and when the possibility is created for a user to change the impulse response graphically so that, based on the user input of a change, the changed impulse response can be graphically represented and the changed graphical representation can be detected, in order to control the sound-reproduction system. Since it is system-theoretically possible to describe all known linear signal processing operations by impulse responses, it is possible, with the inventive graphic user interface, to provide a sound mixer, through a graphical representation, with an intuitive access to sound effects depending on the direction.
US08325929B2

Binaural rendering a multi-channel audio signal into a binaural output signal is described. The multi-channel audio signal has a stereo downmix signal into which a plurality of audio signals are downmixed, and side information having a downmix information, as well as object level information of the plurality of audio signals and inter-object cross correlation information. Based on a first rendering prescription, a preliminary binaural signal is computed from the first and second channels of the stereo downmix signal. A decorrelated signal is generated as an perceptual equivalent to a mono downmix of the first and second channels of the stereo downmix signal being, however, decorrelated to the mono downmix. Depending on a second rendering prescription, a corrective binaural signal is computed from the decorrelated signal and the preliminary binaural signal is mixed with the corrective binaural signal to obtain the binaural output signal.
US08325927B2

Digital rights management (DRM) can be effectively implemented through use of an anchor point and binding records in a user domain and backed up through use of an escrow anchor point and an escrow binding record in an anchor point based digital rights management system. An escrow binding record provides additional functionality and reliability to a DRM system by allowing a user to use of digital content even after an access device has been lost or compromised.
US08325925B2

A system for delivering messages to a receiver mobile device and a method and memory storing instructions therefor are described. The system comprises a key server arranged to: transmit a first signal responsive to receipt of a message from a sender mobile device; transmit a delivery confirmation notice responsive to receipt of a second signal from the receiver mobile device; transmit a key to the receiver mobile device responsive to receipt of the second signal from the receiver mobile device; and a message server communicatively coupled with the key server and arranged to: transmit a third signal to the receiver mobile device responsive to receipt of the first signal from the key server; transmit a fourth signal to the sender mobile device responsive to receipt of the delivery confirmation notice from the key server.
US08325919B2

The present invention is directed to a streaming system for encrypting compression-encoded image data to distribute it via network of a predetermined transport protocol, and a streaming server used in this system transmits, to a client terminal, on the RTP packet basis, stream data encrypted so that encryption is performed every encryption block size from the leading portion of each GOP without encrypting the last data having less than encryption block size. In this instance, portions of prior and/or posterior stream data are stored into an extended area of RTP header so that size of stream data transmitted every RTP packet is integral multiple of encryption block size. Further, size information of added prior additional data and/or posterior additional data are also stored into the extended area. This streaming server suppresses increase in size by encryption to have ability to support both real time production and down-load reproduction without replacement of encryption.
US08325918B2

The present invention is directed to a streaming system for encrypting compression-encoded image data to distribute it via network of a predetermined transport protocol, and a streaming server used in this system transmits, to a client terminal, on the RTP packet basis, stream data encrypted so that encryption is performed every encryption block size from the leading portion of each GOP without encrypting the last data having less than encryption block size. In this instance, portions of prior and/or posterior stream data are stored into an extended area of RTP header so that size of stream data transmitted every RTP packet is integral multiple of encryption block size. Further, size information of added prior additional data and/or posterior additional data are also stored into the extended area. This streaming server suppresses increase in size by encryption to have ability to support both real time production and down-load reproduction without replacement of encryption.
US08325916B2

A stream of content has multiple sub-streams, where each sub-stream comprises a part of the content and is divisible into logical blocks bounded by intrinsic partitions. For each sub-stream, a specification of the logical blocks bounded by the intrinsic partitions is defined and the sub-stream is divided into the logical blocks bounded by the intrinsic partitions. Each divided logical block is encrypted and then divided into one or more portions to produce corresponding pieces of data, and each piece of data is placed into a data packet as a payload thereof. Each data packet is transmitted to a recipient thereof, and the recipient can retrieve the pieces of data from the payloads of the packets, reconstruct the encrypted logical blocks, and manipulate the sub-stream on a per-logical block basis without necessarily decrypting each encrypted logical block.
US08325907B2

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided for processing telephone calls from a plurality of customers directed to a call center. In some embodiments, the method includes receiving a telephone call at a call center from a first customer, determining that all agents of the call center are unavailable, placing the telephone call in a queue, obtaining first customer information, and matching the first customer information to second customer information associated with an ongoing communication between a second customer and an agent. The first customer is then offered an opportunity to monitor the ongoing communication, and in some embodiments is connected to the ongoing communication.
US08325898B2

A do-not-disturb mode is entered in response to an identifier and a first authorization code is received. A call is received from a caller whereafter the caller is prompted to input a second authorization code. If the first and second authorization codes are the same, a notification is generated to notify a called party that a telephone call is being received.
US08325892B2

A system and method for authentication for configuring a customer premises equipment (CPE) in a service provider network. In a multiple dwelling unit (MDU) a customer device (e.g., voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phone) can be configured with CPE functionality, thereby enabling the customer device CPE to support the provision of service to multiple additional customer devices in a customer premises. A dedicated CPE device is thereby eliminated from the service provider network. The customer device CPE can be designed to support a form of authentication (e.g., Layer 2, Layer 3) that would be sufficient for access by the multiple additional customer devices to various network services.
US08325883B2

An approach is provided for selectively translating a communication session and associated media among different formats based on user sensory impairment, preferred communication format, device capability, and restrictive environmental conditions.
US08325879B2

The invention relates to x-ray filters in a collimator for controlling the energy of an x-ray beam along a projection axis in computed tomography systems. According to the invention, the filter assembly comprises a filter element for attenuating the x-ray beam, and at least a support plate which fixes the filter element. The filter element and the support plate are notch-shaped in the center part of the filter assembly along a direction perpendicular to the projection axis. The design may free space to be used by other collimator parts and further allows use of more than one filter element in a filter assembly for backup purposes. This simplifies replacement of a defective x-ray filter in the field.
US08325869B2

A phase calibration circuit applied to at least one signal processing module group includes at least two phase calibration modules, a phase detection module and a filter module. An output node of a first phase calibration module is coupled to an input node of a first signal processing module, an input node of a second phase calibration module is coupled to an output node of the first signal processing module, and the first signal processing module receives a calibrated signal outputted from the first phase calibration module and generates a processed signal. The phase detection module is utilized for generating a phase error signal according to a calibrated signal of an Mth phase calibration module, where M is an integer equal to or greater than two. The filter module is utilized for generating at least a first and a second phase calibration signal according to the phase error signal.
US08325868B2

A passive phase jitter modulation (PJM) tag is charged with power in a continuous wave (CW) section. When receiving a command from a reader, the passive PJM tag must recognize the command and determine exactly when to begin demodulating the command. Only then can the passive PJM tag demodulate the command. To this end, a synchronization apparatus for accurately demodulating a signal input to a PJM tag includes a plurality of correlators correlating a received phase jitter-modulated signal with a template of an internal matched filter which is in the same form as at least a portion of a modified frequency modulation (MFM) flag.
US08325864B2

A first phase adjustment circuit adjusts phases of a data decision clock signal and a first boundary decision clock signal according to a phase adjustment amount based on an output signal of a data decision circuit and an output signal of a first boundary decision circuit. A second phase adjustment circuit adjusts a phase of a second boundary decision clock signal according to a result of adding the phase adjustment amount and a phase adjustment amount offset. An adaptive equalization control circuit adjusts an equalization coefficient of an equalization circuit according to a data width of an output signal of the equalization circuit based on a logical comparison result between the output signal of the data decision circuit and an output signal of a second boundary decision circuit when the phase adjustment amount offset is changed.
US08325857B2

The present invention employs hierarchical modulation to simultaneously transmit information on different modulation layers using a carrier RF signal. Initially, first data to be transmitted is assigned to a first modulation layer and second data is assigned to a second modulation layer. In one embodiment of the present invention, the first and second data are assigned based on reliability criteria. The first and second modulation layers are hierarchical modulation layers of the carrier RF signal. Once assigned, the first data is transmitted using the first modulation layer of the carrier RF signal and the second data is transmitted using the second modulation layer of the carrier RF signal. In one embodiment of the present invention, information may be transmitted to one end user using one modulation layer, and information may be transmitted to a different end user using a different modulation layer.
US08325852B2

A method for data transmission is provided that includes selecting a codeword from a predetermined codebook based on a transmission rank, generating a precoding matrix based on the selected codeword, precoding a plurality of symbols with the precoding matrix, and transmitting the precoded symbols.
US08325850B2

A system and method for digital communications with unbalanced codebooks is provided. A transmitter includes a channel encoder that generates an output codeword from an information vector provided by an information input, and a modulator/transmitter circuit coupled to the channel encoder. The modulator/transmitter circuit prepares the output codeword for transmission over a physical channel. The channel encoder encodes the information vector into an intermediate codeword using a first code and shapes the intermediate codeword into the output codeword having a desired distribution.
US08325849B2

A method of processing broadcast data in a broadcast transmitting system includes Reed-Solomon (RS) encoding and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) encoding enhanced data bytes; converting the RS-CRC encoded enhanced data bytes into enhanced data bits; encoding each of the converted enhanced data bits with one of a first coding rate and a second coding rate, thereby outputting data symbols; first interleaving the data symbols; converting the first interleaved data symbols into data bytes; forming a first data group including enhanced data corresponding to the converted data bytes; deinterleaving data of the first data group; outputting enhanced data packets including the deinterleaved data of the first data group; multiplexing the enhanced data packets with main data packets including main data; second interleaving data of the multiplexed data packets; and trellis encoding the second interleaved data.
US08325846B2

A data transmission method in a multiple antenna system is provided. The method includes: defining a codebook including at least one precoding matrix composed of a plurality of rows and columns, wherein the codebook is at least one of a first type in which all elements of the precoding matrix are non-zero elements, a second type in which any one column of the precoding matrix includes non-zero element and the remaining columns include at least one zero element, and a third type in which all columns of the precoding matrix include at least one zero element; precoding an input symbol by using the defined codebook; and transmitting the precoded symbol.
US08325832B2

An analog multi-tone receiver includes an interface for receiving a data transmission signal containing N sub-channel signals corresponding to N active sub-channels. The receiver includes a plurality of samplers to sample, during each time interval of a sequence of time intervals, the received signal in parallel to produce a plurality of data sets, each sampler having a distinct threshold level. The receiver includes a decoder to jointly decode the plurality of data sets to determine a plurality of data symbols including at least one data symbol for each of the N active sub-channels.
US08325822B2

Methods and apparatuses to encode multimedia data enabling, among others, for example, improved decoded video quality, improved error recovery capabilities and/or improved decoding efficiency are described. An encoder device determines one or more distortion values for one or more portions of multimedia data based at least in part on one or more concealment methods related to concealing the one or more portions if the one or more portions were received in error. The encoder device determines one or more encoding methods for the one or more portions based at least in part on the one or more estimated distortion values. In one aspect, determining the one or more encoding methods comprises determining the one or more encoding methods so as to refresh the one or more portions based at least in part on a comparison of the one or more estimated distortion values and one or more thresholds.
US08325819B2

This disclosure describes techniques for coding an enhancement layer in a scalable video coding (SVC) scheme. The techniques may be used in coding transform coefficients, and are particularly useful in variable length coding of refinement coefficients of an enhancement layer of a SVC scheme. According to the techniques of this disclosure, information is transmitted from an encoder device to a decoder device that identifies which variable length coding tables should be used for the decoding two or more different types of video blocks. The information may be transmitted once per frame (or other coded unit), and may identify a first table to be used for intra-coded blocks and a second table to be used for inter-coded blocks of a respective frame. The decoder performs table selection based on this information, and decodes different types of video blocks using the selected table for each block type.
US08325818B2

A data conversion apparatus which converts data including a K pixel amount of bit data expressed as N bits/1 pixel, where N and K are plural, using conversion data of predetermined bits comprising: a holding unit configured to hold input data in K×N bits; an acquisition unit configured to acquire from the conversion data a number of bit patterns corresponding to a decimal value expressed by N bits among a conversion target to convert the input data held by the holding unit by N-bit units; a storage unit configured to store a pattern of N bits corresponding to a decimal value obtained from a bit pattern acquired by the acquisition unit in a bit position of the conversion target; and an updating unit configured to update the bit position of the conversion target each time the acquisition unit and the storage unit perform processing.
US08325817B2

A communication apparatus dividing an image for one field into a plurality of groups each including N lines (N≧1) and performing compression/decompression for each group includes a separator separating image data from reception data; a determination unit determining whether an error exists in the separated image data; a storage unit storing the image data as interpolation data when the determination unit determines that no error exists in the image data; a decoder decoding the image data; a first detection unit detecting a decoding position of the image data and a corresponding position of the interpolation data stored in the storage unit when the determination unit determines that an error exists in the image data and that the amount of missing data of the image data exceeds a threshold; and a reading unit reading the interpolation data in accordance with the detected decoding position and corresponding position.
US08325804B2

The method, for the determination of the coding mode of a macroblock constituted of picture blocks, carries out a pre-selection of intra directional predictive coding modes of macroblock blocks according to the following steps: calculation of the activities gradient of a block in the prediction directions, pre-selection of intra directional coding modes of a block for which the directions correspond to the activity or activities gradient of minimum value.
US08325802B2

An image data compression device includes a quantization part quantizing image data with a quantization step that varies based on a quantization parameter, a FIFO buffer part buffering quantized data of a plurality of frames, a coded data formation part reading out the quantized data from the FIFO buffer part asynchronously with a writing to the FIFO buffer part and generating coded data by encoding the quantized data, a rate control part controlling a data size of the coded data by changing the quantization step and a frame skip part skipping a generation process of the image data. The rate control part calculates the quantization parameter by using a predicted data size of the coded data of a previous frame which is calculated from a data size of the quantized data of the previous frame. The frame skip part performs the skip process if a frame, in which the quantization parameter becomes larger than a skip threshold, appears consecutively in a number of times which is equal or more than the number of a skip succession threshold.
US08325801B2

A coding system includes an inter prediction block, a transform and quantization block, an encoding unit, and a reconstruction loop with an adaptive restoration block. The inter prediction block performs prediction on a current frame, the transform and quantization block performs transform and quantization processes on prediction residues, and the reconstruction loop reconstructs the current frame to generate the restored reconstructed samples. The adaptive restoration block performs restoration on processed data by considering a plurality of candidate restoration methods, selects one of the candidate restoration methods as a final restoration method, and generates adaptive restoration information corresponding to the final restoration method. The encoding unit encodes the prediction information and adaptive restoration information to generate an encoded bitstream.
US08325790B2

The problem of inefficient channel impulse-response processing is addressed by processing different parts of a channel impulse response to accurately locate channel taps, and to generate more than one set of equalization coefficients. This allows the most-suited equalization coefficient to be selected based on a selection criterion.
US08325789B2

A wireless communication apparatus includes a loopback transfer function acquisition section that, when a first path including all paths from each branch of the first set to each branch of the second set via the antenna is formed, acquires a loopback transfer function of each path included in the first path based on a reception status of a reference signal transmitted from each branch of the first set and received by each branch of the second set, and when a second path opposite to the first path is formed, acquires a loopback transfer function of each path included in the second path based on a reception status of a reference signal transmitted from each branch of the second set and received by each branch of the first set, and a calibration factor calculation section to calculate a calibration factor of each branch based on the acquired loopback transfer functions.
US08325774B2

Semiconductor structures and laser devices including the semiconductor structures are provided. The semiconductor structures have a quantum cascade laser (QCL) structure including an electron injector, an active region, and an electron extractor. The active region of the semiconductor structures includes a configuration of quantum wells and barriers that virtually suppresses electron leakage, thereby providing laser devices including such structures with superior electro-optical characteristics.
US08325773B2

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates adjusting the wavelengths of lasers via temperature control. This system includes a chip with an active face upon which active circuitry and signal pads reside. A thermal-control mechanism provides localized thermal control of two lasers mounted upon the active face of the chip. By individually controlling the temperature of the lasers, the thermal-control mechanism controls the wavelengths emitted by each respective laser. By creating a temperature gradient that causes a temperature difference between two or more lasers, the system can cause the lasers to emit different wavelengths.
US08325760B2

A digital broadcasting system and a method of processing data are disclosed, which are robust to error when mobile service data are transmitted. To this end, additional encoding is performed for the mobile service data, whereby it is possible to strongly cope with fast channel change while giving robustness to the mobile service data.
US08325752B2

A circuit for sharing Tx/Rx ports of a CMOS based time multiplexed transceiver includes a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) and a Power amplifier (PA), and deploys a single RF choke shared between the LNA and PA. The circuit selectively functions as a PA cascode or a LNA input device. In one form the circuit uses MOS transistors configured for use in one of Blue tooth, WLAN and TDMA applications, taking advantage of source-drain symmetry of the MOS transistors. The circuit may include a DC path and be used in WLAN applications, wherein the sharing of the single choke is enabled by one switch in the DC path. As described, the single RF choke is disposed outside of the LNA and the PA. The circuit supports high out powers and causes reduced signal loss due to just one LC tank as opposed to two LC tanks present in the prior art.
US08325743B2

A relay apparatus includes: a tag information acquisition section that acquires tag information attached to the network-connected device; a management section that manages the tag information read out by the tag information acquisition section and an IP address assigned by the management apparatus, and an identification information assigned to the relay apparatus itself in association with one another; and a processing section that receives information that the management apparatus has transmitted with the tag information or IP address as a transmission destination and receives information transmitted from the network-connected device for execution of predetermined processing.
US08325741B2

A method for implementing NAT traversal is disclosed herein. The first MGW and the ICE mechanism supporting device obtain the local candidate information and the candidate information of the peer end; the first MGW and the ICE mechanism supporting device perform connectivity check according to the candidate information; and the first MGW and the ICE mechanism supporting device transmit media streams according to the result of the connectivity check. A system and a device for implementing NAT traversal are also disclosed. The method, the system and the device under the present disclosure improve stability of transmitting media streams in a network inclusive of an MGC and an MGW (for example, an NGN).
US08325733B2

The disclosure describes method and system for forwarding frames of a flow via a layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM) for improving network utilization and improving users experience by reducing the latency associated with the flow. When a new flow is identified, forward control information for frames of the new flow is obtained. The forward control information can include re-writing of at least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow. At least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow is manipulated according to the obtained forward control information, and the manipulated frames of the new flow are forwarded accordingly.
US08325725B2

A method reduces computational and/or bandwidth requirements of multicast routing by efficiently communicating required source state information. The method comprises receiving at a first network element, executing a modified host management protocol, a source interest list from a host over a network, the source interest list identifies at least one multicast source to be one of excluded or included from routing to the host. The modified host management protocol identifies a difference between the source interest list and a source state maintained by the first network element. The modified host management protocol provides the difference between the source interest list and the source state and not an entirety of the source interest list to a multicast routing protocol to alter the set of multicast sources to be routed to the host.
US08325720B2

Methods and systems for simulating IP networks. Routing Clusters are formed by grouping routers that are connected directly or indirectly and are running the same routing protocol. Routers that are configured to run more than one routing protocols became Border Routers for routing clusters based on these routing protocols. Routing tables are formed by flooding the routers inside the routing clusters and by flooding routes across routing links by redistribution command.
US08325719B1

An apparatus may include a plurality of queues, wherein each queue is configured to receive a respective data stream. The apparatus may also include a multiplexer configured to time division multiplex the data streams into a combined data stream and a Generic Framing Procedure-Transparent (GFP-T) frame constructor configured to create a GFP-T frame. The GFP-T frame may include a payload portion. The payload portion may include a payload data portion including a subsection of the combined data stream, and a payload header portion indicating the occurrence of a data stream signal failure. The apparatus may also include a transmitter configured to transmit the GFP-T frame via an optical link.
US08325718B2

A method of transmitting data includes determining how much data is desired to be transmitted from a data source. A utility function is used to determine a pattern of microutilities to be associated with data samples from the data source. The pattern of microutilities specifies a pattern of data delivery to at least one predetermined location relative to the data source. The data samples are propagated according to the pattern of microutilities.
US08325717B2

In a network, packets are fragmented into head and non-head fragments. Non-head fragments are saved up front at an entry point, while a network switch forwards only the head fragment to Layer 4-Layer 7 (L4-L7) features for processing. The switch records changes that are performed on the head fragment's fields by the L4-L7 features while they process the head fragment. At an exit point, fields of the saved non-head fragments are overwritten with information that was recorded for the head fragment. This can include updating or modifying the source and destination parameters of the non-head fragments in an intelligent manner by reusing the results of the packet processing that was performed on the head fragment. This fragmentation handling technique avoids having to redundantly process the non-head fragments in the same manner as the head fragments.
US08325714B2

A system and method are provided for programming the parallel path width in a serial-to-parallel path transceiver. Initially, the transceiver is programmed to select a link layer (layer 1) protocol, such as Gigabit Ethernet (GBE) or SONET. The method accepts serial digital data in the selected protocol at a serial interface, and differentiates the serial data into units of i bits per unit. Another programmed selection is made between n number of unique data interfaces, where each interface includes a plurality of parallel paths. The serial digital data is assigned to z selected data interfaces and transmitted. In one aspect, the serial data is assigned to m number of parallel path channels, where m is less than, or equal to z, and less than i. In another aspect, the frequency at which each data interface parallel path transmits data is selected.
US08325712B2

A method for providing a user agent (UA) with configuration data for a subsequent session is provided. The method includes the UA sending a first setup message over a first control signalling to control a second control signalling. The method further includes the UA sending a second setup message via the second control signalling, the second setup message initiating procedures to establish a circuit switched-based bearer. The method further includes a network component sending the UA a control message via the first control signalling indicating that a session has been established, the control message containing information related to configuration data for a subsequent session.
US08325709B2

In one aspect, multimedia connections are enabled between terminals coupled to a first communication network with a power characteristic control system and to a second communication network for transmitting multimedia data to be controlled in a simple manner. When a switching-oriented power characteristic is activated, the power characteristic control system controls a base connection by means of the first communication network between a first terminal and a second terminal. In the framework of the base connection, address information identifying the first terminal in the second communication network and multimedia information are transmitted to the second terminal. Furthermore, according to a multimedia capacity of the second terminal, the transmitted multimedia information, and the control system of the base connection, a terminal-controlled multimedia connection is controlled by means of the second communication network between the first and the second terminal, on the basis of the transmitted address information.
US08325703B2

A system for managing the simultaneous operation of a plurality of radio modems in a single wireless communication device (WCD). The multiradio control may be integrated into the WCD as a subsystem responsible for scheduling wireless communications by temporarily enabling or disabling the plurality of radio modems within the device. The multiradio control system may comprise a multiradio controller (MRC) and a plurality dedicated radio interfaces. Further, clock synchronization protection between the multiradio system controller, other modems and wireless communication devices with whom the wireless device is communicating may further be implemented as a protective measure to ensure a valid clock synchronization between all devices internal and external to the primary wireless device.
US08325702B2

Ad-hoc wireless network which operates in accordance with a time division multiple access (TDMA) channel scheme. The network includes a plurality of nodes configured for wireless ad-hoc network communications using at least a first tier waveform and a second tier waveform.
US08325698B2

A method of generating a public long code mask (PLCM) in a mobile station in a wireless mobile communication network is provided. The method comprises receiving a message in the mobile station from a base station when the mobile terminal is handed off, the message comprising a first field including a first value, a second field including a second value, and a third field including least significant bits of the PLCM; and generating the PLCM using the least significant bits included in the third field.
US08325696B2

In an example embodiment described herein is an apparatus comprising a wireless transceiver and channel selection logic coupled to the wireless transceiver and operable to select an operating frequency for the wireless transceiver. The channel selection logic is configured to reserve a dedicated channel having a special identifier. The channel selection logic is configured to have the wireless transceiver advertise the dedicated service on a normal operating frequency. The channel selection logic is responsive to receiving a request from a wireless device via the wireless transceiver on the normal operating frequency to use the dedicated channel to switch to the dedicated channel and establish communications with the wireless device on the dedicated channel.
US08325695B2

MIMO systems communicate with wireless devices. MIMO systems include directional antennas that are oriented so that the physical sectors of the antennas overlap to form areas of overlap. Some physical sectors overlap substantially while others overlap partially. Radios are selectively coupled to antennas to communicate with the wireless devices. The physical sectors of the antennas that are selectively coupled to the radios overlap. The radios use the antennas to communicate with the wireless devices. The antennas operate as a MIMO antenna.
US08325692B2

Disclosed are a radio link control (RLC) entity and a data processing method for the RLC entity. The RLC entity includes a transmission data storing module that stores PDUs corresponding to SDUs transmitted from a first upper layer and outputs the stored PDUs by SDU units, a ciphering module that ciphers the PDUs stored in the transmission data storing module and transmitting the ciphered PDUs to a first RLC entity, a deciphering module that deciphers the ciphered PDUs transmitted from a second RLC entity, and a received data storing module that stores the deciphered PDUs and outputs the PDUs toward a second upper layer in the form of SDU units.
US08325685B2

A method for providing transmit diversity in wireless network communications is presented. An indication of a slot structure is received. The slot structure identifies at least a first location of a reference signal within a slot. A first reference signal is transmitted within a first slot using a first antenna. A location of the first reference signal within the first slot is determined by the slot structure. A second reference signal is transmitted within the first slot using a second antenna. A location of the second reference signal within the first slot is determined by the slot structure. In some cases, the slot structure identifies a second location of a reference signal within the slot structure. The second location being offset from the first location, and a third reference signal is transmitted within the first slot at the second location on the first antenna.
US08325682B2

A resource release control method, a communication system, and a device are configured to delete a bearer context on an original-side heterogeneous-system management network element (NE) even if a target-side management NE does not support interaction with a serving gateway (S-GW) and does not support an idle mode signaling reduction (ISR) mechanism. The resource release control method includes: acquiring version information of a target-side management NE, when a user equipment (UE) activating an ISR mechanism is handed over from an original-side network to a target-side network; and deleting a bearer of an original-side heterogeneous-system management NE, if the version information indicates that the target-side management NE does not interact with an S-GW and does not support the ISR mechanism. Meanwhile, a communication system and a relevant device are also provided.
US08325677B2

There are provided a communication system, a control apparatus, a router, and communication method thereof, there are capable of eliminating loss in packets during a handover and effectively releasing a resource of a router in a network base IP mobility protocol in which a mobile mode is movable without mounting a special protocol. When an MN 1 as a mobile terminal is moved, a router at a movement destination, a mobile access gateway (MAG)b 3 that has received a router solicitation from the MN 1 sends a location registration to a control apparatus, a local mobility anchor (LMA) 4, and when the LMA 4 determines as a handover, the LMA 4 instructs a router at a movement source, an MAGa 2 or an MAGb 3 to transfer a buffer from the MAGa 2 to the MAGb 3.
US08325674B2

The present invention provides a method for implementation in a cable modem termination system that is communicatively coupled to a first wireless access device configured to provide wireless connectivity to at least one mobile unit. The method includes receiving a request to allocate resources to the first wireless access device for a wireless connection to the mobile unit. The requested resources are determined based upon a quality of service associated with the mobile unit. The method also includes determining whether to grant the request for the resources based on policy information received from a policy server and providing information indicating whether the requested resources have been granted.
US08325673B1

Providing personal multi-device nomadic media is described herein. In different aspects, the techniques may include providing content to a user on a first device and suspending the delivery of the content on the first device. The user may register on a second device and resume delivery of the suspended content on the second device.
US08325665B2

A method for selecting an operational channel of a wireless narrow area network, a coordinator using the same, and a computer-readable recording media recording a program for realizing the method. More particularly, a method for selecting an operational channel of a wireless narrow area network in which one radio channel is occupied by a plurality of coordinators at different timings by selecting a predetermined period of a radio channel where a coordinator of the wireless narrow area network is used by another coordinator as own operational channel, a coordinator using the same, and a computer-readable recording media recording a program for realizing the method.
US08325663B2

Systems and methods for providing an efficient network entry for a mobile station in RF communications systems with fully configured and partially configured carriers are described. A distinguishing parameter for fully configured carriers is determined. A mobile station receives a carrier and determines whether a fully configured carrier has been received. The mobile station performs synchronization with a base station using the detected fully configured carrier and completes a network entry procedure. In one method embodiment, the distinguishing parameter is a unique preamble characteristic. In another method embodiment, the fully configured carrier frequency is part of messages broadcast by both the fully configured and partially configured carriers. In yet another method embodiment, the carrier raster for fully configured carriers is distinguishable from the carrier raster for partially configured carriers. Latency is reduced for the network entry process for the mobile stations.
US08325657B2

Controlling interference in a telecommunications network, in which data are transmitted between mobile devices and base stations in resource blocks, includes, for each of the base stations: allocating resource blocks to one of multiple resource groups, the corresponding resource blocks of each base station being in the same resource group; allocating resource groups to one of multiple transmission power values, the corresponding resource groups of each base station having different transmission power values; and allocating respective ones of the mobile devices to one of the resource groups depending upon a UE characteristic. Interference at a resource block of a resource group of a base station caused by a neighboring base station is detected. In response thereto, an indication of the resource group subject to interference is sent to the neighboring base station and then the transmission power value of said resource group of the neighboring base station is selectively reduced.
US08325644B2

Certain aspects of the present disclosure present a technique for designing a signal (SIG) field of a mixed mode preamble transmitted to a plurality of user terminals. The SIG field can signal a number of spatial streams assigned to each user. The SIG field is designed such that a robust interference cancellation can be achieved at each user terminal.
US08325640B2

Disclosed herein relates to a method and apparatus of sleep mode operation in a multi-carrier system. In a communication system of transmitting and receiving data using a multi-carrier including a primary carrier for transmitting and receiving control information and data and a secondary carrier using a radio frequency (RF) different from the primary carrier, a method of establishing a sleep mode operation through active primary and secondary carriers according to an embodiment of the present invention may include transmitting a sleep cycle ID (SCID), a listening window, and traffic indication inactive information indicating that an indication (TRF-IND) as to whether traffic is generated is not transferred to a terminal through the primary carrier, sending downlink data to the terminal through the active primary or secondary carrier during the listening window, and sending a listening window early termination indication indicating to early terminate the listening window of the primary or secondary carrier that has received the downlink data through the primary carrier to the terminal if the data sending is completed.
US08325636B2

A serial intelligent cell (SIC) and a connection topology for local area networks using Electrically-conducting media. A local area network can be configured from a plurality of SIC's interconnected so that all communications between two adjacent SIC's is both point-to-point and bidirectional. Each SIC can be connected to one or more other SIC's to allow redundant communication paths. Communications in different areas of a SIC network are independent of one another, so that, unlike current bus topology and star topology, there is no fundamental limit on the size or extent of a SIC network. Each SIC can optionally be connected to one or more data terminals, computers, telephones, sensors, actuators, etc., to facilitate interconnectivity among such devices. Networks according to the present invention can be configured for a variety of applications, including a local telephone system, remote computer bus extender, multiplexers, PABX/PBX functionality, security systems, and local broadcasting services. The network can use dedicated wiring, as well as existing wiring as the in-house telephone or electrical wiring.
US08325630B2

In one embodiment, a technique for routing traffic in networks represented by logical topologies, such as Multi Chassis Port Channel (MCPC) or Multi Chassis Ether Channel (MCEC) topologies, is provided. By modifying a port priority vector (PPV) to include an additional “Switch ID” field that identifies a designated bridge ID or a local switch ID, depending on whether the corresponding port is used as an MCT, a routing protocol designed to avoid loops in routing paths, such as STP, may avoid blocking MCT ports.
US08325629B2

A system and method assures the proper and continued operation of intermediate network devices, such as bridges, in a computer network. The bridge includes a spanning tree protocol (STP) engine, which is configured to have a bridge assurance (BA) sub-engine. The STP engine assigns the bridge's ports to one of a Root, Alternate, Designated or Backup Role. The BA sub-engine directs the STP engine to issue configuration messages from all ports to which neighboring bridges are coupled, including ports assigned to the Root and Alternate roles. The BA sub-engine further looks for the receipt of BPDU messages from neighboring bridges and employs one or more timers to determine whether the neighboring bridges are continuing to operate properly.
US08325623B1

A system and method is provided whereby more data packets than are necessary may be transmitted in order to prompt a node of network to more quickly increase the number of packets that will be accepted by the node. In one aspect, a single packet of data is split into multiple packets. In another aspect, a single packet of data is padded so that multiple packets need to be sent.
US08325622B2

A system for transmitting data packets representing a source signal across a packet data network is provided. The encoder comprises a first encoder (110) and a redundancy encoder (120). The redundancy encoding is generated with a bit rate continuously scalable, the bit rate being provided by a bit rate controller (142) that uses input from the network (130) and packet-loss rate information. At the decoder, recovery is performed by a parameter estimator based in part on information transmitted from the first encoder using information from previous and/or future blocks and in addition on redundant information. The method may be added to existing lossy source coding systems or may be used to enhance the quality of the reconstructed source signal even in scenarios without packet loss.
US08325619B2

A processing device (D) acts on behalf of at least one radio terminal (UE) capable both of receiving data broadcast by a radio communication network in point-to-multipoint mode over a physical broadcast channel and according to an adaptable modulation and coding scheme, and of determining measurements representative of the radio conditions present in at least the cell in which it is located. This device (D) comprises processing means (PM) tasked with i) determining whether a measurement taken by at least one radio terminal (UE) corresponds to a status from among a set of predefined statuses, and ii) if so, to generate a message dedicated to the determined status and order the radio terminal (UE) to transmit this status message to the radio network within a portion of the time/frequency/code domain reserved within a signaling frame, for at least the cell in question.
US08325615B2

Systems and methods for integrating subscriber management and call control functionalities in a packet data network are provided. Subscriber management services include things such as tracking usage for billing, providing account information, and authorization of resources to a subscriber or user. Call control functionality includes setting up Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call sessions for the exchange of data. SIP functionality is provided by a SIP server and subscriber management is provided by a Network Access Server (NAS), where the SIP functionality and NAS functionality are implemented on the same device. The combined device can maintain at least one database that maps information between the functionalities, so both functionalities may access or be alerted to the other's information.
US08325612B1

Data overhead of mesh-based multicast ad hoc routing protocols are controlled by adaptively adding redundancy to the minimal data overhead multicast mesh as required by the network conditions. The computation of the minimal data overhead multicast mesh is NP-complete, and therefore an heuristic approximation algorithm inspired on epidemic algorithms is employed to increase tractability of a solution. A mobility-aware and adaptive mesh construction algorithm based on a probabilistic path selection is provided, which is able to adapt the reliability of the multicast mesh to the mobility of the network. Simulation results show that the proposed approach, when implemented into On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP), is able to offer similar performance results and a lower average latency, while reducing data overhead between 25 to 50% compared to the original ODMRP.
US08325611B2

A shared (proxy) OAM session is performed in a packet-based network on behalf of a plurality of connections. First and second connections are each routed between respective nodes of the network for carrying data traffic. The second connection shares a portion of the routing of the first connection. The shared OAM session is performed along a path which is co-routed with at least part of the shared portion of the routing of the first connection and the second connection. Failure notification signalling is propagated to an endpoint node of each of the first and second connections when the shared OAM session indicates a failure has occurred. The use of a shared OAM session reduces processing at nodes and reduces OAM traffic. Each connection can be a trunk, such as a PBT/PBB-TE trunk, or a service carried within a trunk.
US08325600B2

Some embodiments discussed herein may interleave one data transmission request with one or more segments of another data transmission request. In one embodiment, updated context information from a previous segment is used to transmit a next segment.
US08325597B2

A bridge apparatus creates, transmits and circulates pass checking frames having virtual network identifiers in a ring network, and collects a passing/non-passing state of each virtual network identifier. The bridge apparatus creates, transmits and circulates a usage state checking frame in the ring network, and collects a used/unused state of the virtual network identifier of each bridge apparatus. The bridge apparatus creates, transmits and circulates a connection changing frame to change the virtual network identifier having the used state and the non-passing state into the virtual network identifier having the unused state and the passing state. Each bridge apparatus changes the virtual network identifier having the used state and the non-passing state into the virtual network identifier having the unused state and the passing state.
US08325595B2

A method for a user equipment to precode and transmit an uplink signal efficiently in a 2-antenna system and a method for a base station to receive the transmitted signal efficiently are disclosed. A 2-antenna codebook includes 4 DFT matrixes and 2 antenna selection matrixes for a rank 1 and one identity matrix for a rank 2 as precoding matrixes. For efficient uplink signal transmission/reception, the present invention provides signal transceiving technology between user equipment and base station using the 2-antenna codebook.
US08325592B2

A communication device for sending transmission signals for one or more mobile stations from multiple transmitting antennas is disclosed. The communication device includes a scheduling unit configured to allocate one or more frequency resource blocks each having a predetermined bandwidth and including one or more subcarriers preferentially to each selected one of the mobile stations that is in a good channel condition; one or more delay setting units provided between the scheduling unit and the transmitting antennas and configured to set delay values for one or more signal paths leading to the transmitting antennas; and a delay value updating unit configured to repeatedly update the delay values to be set by the delay setting units.
US08325590B2

A communications system comprising a base station, and a plurality of terminals served by that base station which may include an ad-hoc network of terminals. Information from the base station or transmitting terminal is transported to the receiving terminals in the form of symbols in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed format. Each terminal has means for measuring a channel dispersion and rate of phase variation corresponding to multipath signal reception for that terminal and for reporting that dispersion and variation measure to the transmitting station. In response to the channel dispersion and phase change measurements, the base station or transmitting terminal is arranged to provide, for groups of terminals having a similar channel dispersion, respective symbol and prefix lengths on the basis of the dispersion measurement of that group of terminals.
US08325589B2

A method and apparatus are described for performing a handover in a content delivery system, including performing the handover from a first network to a second network at a protocol layer determined based on whether a content stream identification file used by said first network is paired with a content stream identification file used by said second network. Also described are a method and apparatus for performing a handover in a content delivery system, including performing the handover from a first network to a second network at a protocol layer determined based on whether a same content stream identification file used by the first network is used by the second network. Further described are a method and apparatus for performing a handover in a content delivery system, including performing the handover from a first network to a second network at one of an application layer, a network layer and a media access control layer.
US08325581B2

An optical head (10) transmits a light beam to an optical disc (30), in which light-transmitting layers largely change in thickness, and includes a degree-of-diversion/convergence enlarging member (20) fixed between a collimating lens (4) and an objective lens (6). The diversion/convergence enlarging member (20) reduces a moving range of the collimating lens (4), and allows the optical head (10) to be miniaturized.
US08325574B2

An optical disc device capable of preventing a current larger than prescribed in specifications from flowing by measuring amounts of variation in drive signals of the actuator or the spindle motor, and in view of a correlation between those amounts of variation in the drive signals and the amount of current, changing the servo control system characteristics according to measured amounts of variation, and setting a limit to the level of drive signals.
US08325573B2

A recording device includes a plurality of channels configured to record data to an optical recording medium, a reception unit configured to receive data transmitted from an external device, a storage unit configured to temporarily store the data that is received by the reception unit, and a distribution control unit configured to read the data that is stored in the storage unit and distribute the data by a block unit to the plurality of channels based on transfer time of the data and recording time to the optical recording medium so that record processing of the plurality of channels are simultaneously ended.
US08325570B1

A thermally-assisted magnetic recording head includes: a medium facing surface; a magnetic pole; a waveguide including a core and a cladding; a plasmon generator; and a protruding member. The protruding member is disposed between the medium facing surface and a front end face of the core facing toward the medium facing surface. The protruding member has a first end face located in the medium facing surface, and a second end face facing toward the front end face of the core and receiving light having propagated through the core and passed through the front end face. The protruding member is formed of a metal different from both a material forming the magnetic pole and a material forming the plasmon generator. The protruding member is heated and expanded by the light received at the second end face, so that the first end face gets protruded toward a magnetic recording medium.
US08325555B2

A data storage device includes a data storage medium and a controller. The controller is configured to control at least one of a reading, erasing, and writing operation on the data storage medium. The controller includes an interface and a power management unit. The interface is configured to exchange at least one of a command, an address, and data with a host. The power management unit is configured to change the power mode of the interface into a power saving mode if: a command input from the host is not executed, data transfer is not actually executed in executing the command, or status information is not reported after the command is executed.
US08325554B2

A memory module is provided comprising a substrate having an interface to a host system, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, and a logic device. The logic device may receive the indicator of an external triggering event and copies data from the volatile memory devices to the non-volatile memory devices upon receipt of such indicator. When the indicator of the triggering event has cleared, the logic device restores the data from the non-volatile to the volatile memory devices. The memory module may include a passive backup power source (e.g., super-capacitor) that is charged by an external power source and temporarily provides power to the memory module to copy the data from volatile to non-volatile memory. A voltage detector within the memory module may monitor the voltage of an external power source and generates an indicator of a power loss event if voltage of the external power source falls below a threshold level.
US08325552B2

A memory device includes a command decoder and control interface logic. One or more external inputs, such as row and column address strobes, communicate with the command decoder through the control interface logic. A control signal is also in communication with the control interface logic. During operation of a drowsy mode in the memory device, a self-refresh signal causes the control signal to disable the external inputs. With the external inputs disabled, command hazards are reduced when exiting drowsy mode.
US08325549B2

A global to local bit line interface circuit for domino SRAM devices includes a pair of complementary global write bit lines in selective communication with an array of SRAM cells through local write bit lines, the global write bit lines configured to write a selected SRAM cell with data presented on a pair of write data input lines; a pair of complementary global read bit lines in selective communication with the array through local read bit lines, the global read bit lines configured to read data stored in a selected cell and present the read data on a pair of read data output lines; and write control logic configured to control precharging of the global write bit lines independently with respect to the global read bit lines, and wherein a pulse width of write data on the global write bit lines is determined only by a global column select signal.
US08325546B2

A semiconductor memory apparatus includes a memory device having a first plane and a second plane and a repair address latch unit configured to latch a plurality of repair addresses outputted from the memory device. The apparatus also includes an address comparison unit configured to compare the plurality of repair addresses stored in the repair address latch unit and a first plane address and a second plane address which are sequentially inputted. A repair processing unit is configured to selectively activate corresponding memory cell groups of the first plane and the second plane in conformity with the comparison result of the address comparison unit under the control of a first plane signal, a second plane signal and a start pulse signal.
US08325541B2

A non-volatile semiconductor memory apparatus includes a first memory area configured to include a plurality of non-volatile memory cells, a second memory area configured to include a plurality of memory cells whose write speed is faster than the plurality of non-volatile memory cells, and a host interface configured to control the first and second memory areas, wherein the first and second memory areas are configured to be provided with the same address signal and command signal from the host interface.
US08325540B1

A variable reference voltage circuit for performing memory operation on non-volatile memory includes a multi-level voltage source and a selector circuit. The multi-level voltage source generates multiple voltages. The selector circuit includes a selector input and a selector output. The selector input is coupled to the multi-level voltage source to selectively couple any of the multiple voltages to the selector output. The selector output of the selector circuit is coupled to a non-volatile memory array to provide the NV memory array with a selectable program voltage for programming the NV memory array and a selectable erase voltage for erasing the NV memory array.
US08325539B2

A semiconductor memory device includes a plurality of chips, a data path that is physically shared by the plurality of chips, a data input/output pad, and a data output driver. The data output driver is configured to receive merged data that includes data merged from a set of chip data read from the plurality of chips, compare the merged data to first reference data in a test mode, compare the merged data to second reference data in a test mode, and based on the comparisons, apply an output voltage at a data input/output pad.
US08325534B2

A device includes an address storage device. A first circuit includes a first flash memory, configured to sequentially receive first and second addresses and store the first address in the address storage device. The first circuit has a first set of control inputs for causing the first circuit to perform a first operation from the group consisting of read, program and erase on a cell of the first flash memory corresponding to a selected one of the first and second addresses. A second circuit includes a second flash memory, configured to receive the second address. The second circuit has a second set of control inputs for causing the second circuit to read data from a cell of the second flash memory corresponding to the second address while the first operation is being performed.
US08325532B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit device includes a memory cell array including a plurality of planes each including a plurality of memory cells, a power supply voltage generating circuit including a voltage generating circuit configured to generate a power supply voltage common to the plurality of planes, a select number detection circuit configured to detect a number of selected planes of the plurality of planes, and a resistance variable circuit configured to vary a wiring resistance between the plurality of planes and the voltage generating circuit in accordance with the number of selected planes, which is reported from the select number detection circuit, and a control circuit configured to control the power supply voltage generating circuit.
US08325530B2

A method of performing an operation on a flash memory cell device, used when a gate coupling ratio between a floating gate and a control gate of less than 0.4. A potential is required to be applied across the control gate. Electrons are either injected to the floating gate from the control gate or ejected from the floating gate to the control gate. The operation associated with the injection or the ejection is determined by the nature of a silicon channel provided in the device. Devices using a bulk-tied FinFET-like structure are particularly suited to this method. The method is also particularly suited for use on cells in a NAND array.
US08325527B2

A NAND based non-volatile memory device can include a plurality of memory cells vertically arranged as a NAND string and a plurality of word line plates each electrically connected to a respective gate of the memory cells in the NAND string. A plurality of word line contacts can each be electrically connected to a respective word line plate, where the plurality of word line contacts are aligned to a bit line direction in the device.
US08325526B2

A semiconductor device is provided, which comprises at least a cell including a plurality of memory elements connected in series. Each of the plurality of memory elements includes a channel formation region, a source and drain regions, a floating gate, and a control gate. Each of the source and drain regions is electrically connected to an erasing line through a semiconductor impurity region.
US08325523B2

An embodiment of the invention provides a semiconductor device that includes: a memory cell array that includes non-volatile memory cells; a first selecting circuit that connects or disconnects a source and a drain of a transistor that forms one of the memory cells, to or from a data line DATAB connected to a first power supply; and a second selecting circuit that connects or disconnects the source and drain to or from a ground line ARVSS connected to a second power supply. In this semiconductor device, the first selecting circuit and the second selecting circuit are arranged on the opposite sides of the memory cell array. One embodiment of the invention also provides a method of controlling the semiconductor device.
US08325520B2

A method for programming that biases a selected word line with a programming voltage. An unselected word line on the source side and an unselected word line on the drain side of the selected word line are biased at a pass voltage that is less than the normal pass voltage. These unselected word lines are both located a predetermined distance from the selected word line. The remaining word lines are biased at the normal pass voltage.
US08325509B2

Memory device, comprising a storage material, a first electrode connected to the storage material; and a second electrode associated to the storage material.
US08325508B2

A writing method optimum for a variable resistance element which can maximize an operation window of the variable resistance element is provided. The writing method is performed for a variable resistance element that reversibly changes between a high resistance state and a low resistance state depending on a polarity of an applied voltage pulse. The writing method includes a preparation step (S50) and a writing step (S51, S51a, S51b). At the preparation step (S50), resistance values of the variable resistance element are measured by applying voltage pulses of voltages that are gradually increased to the variable resistance element, thereby determining the first voltage V1 for starting high resistance writing and the second voltage V2 having a maximum resistance value. At the HR writing step (S51a), a voltage pulse having a voltage Vp that is equal to or higher than the first voltage V1 and equal to or lower than the second voltage V2 is applied to the variable resistance element, thereby changing the variable resistance element from the low resistance state (S52) to the high resistance state (S53).
US08325507B2

A memristor includes a first electrode of a nanoscale width; a second electrode of a nanoscale width; and an active region disposed between the first and second electrodes. The active region has a both a non-conducting portion and a source of dopants portion induced by electric field. The non-conducting portion comprises an electronically semiconducting or nominally insulating material and a weak ionic conductor switching material capable of carrying a species of dopants and transporting the dopants under an electric field. The non-conducting portion is in contact with the first electrode and the source of dopants portion is in contact with the second electrode. The second electrode comprises a metal reservoir for the dopants. A crossbar array comprising a plurality of the nanoscale switching devices is also provided. A process for making at least one nanoscale switching device is further provided.
US08325506B2

The invention provides a content-addressable memory cell formed by two transistors that are configured so that one of the transistors is for storing a data bit and the other for is storing the complement of the data bit. Each transistor has a back control gate that can be controlled to block the associated transistor. The device also includes a comparison circuit that is configured to operate the first and second transistors in read mode while controlling the back control gate of each of the transistors so as to block the passing transistor if a proposed bit and the stored bit correspond. Then, the presence or absence of current on a source line linked to the source of each of the transistors indicates whether the proposed bit and the stored bit are identical or not. The invention also provides methods for operating the content-addressable memory cells of this invention, as well as content-addressable memories having a plurality of the content-addressable memory cells of this invention.
US08325505B2

An example power supply includes an energy transfer element, a switch and a controller. The controller includes a logic circuit and a constant current control circuit. The logic circuit generates a drive signal to control the switch in response to a control signal. The constant current control circuit generates the control signal in response to a received input current sense signal, input voltage sense signal, and output voltage sense signal. An integrator included in the constant current control circuit integrates the input current sense signal to generate an integrated signal representative of a charge taken from the input voltage source. The constant current control circuit is adapted to generate the control signal to provide a constant current at the output of the power supply such that the integrated signal is proportional to a ratio of the output voltage sense signal to the input voltage sense signal.
US08325501B2

A power factor correction of three-phase boost-type conversion is disclosed. Embodiments comprising multi-leg autotransformers are disclosed, e.g. comprising 3-phase low-pass filtering impedances such as capacitors between an input of a converter and a midpoint of the output.
US08325489B2

An electronic component mounting structure which can reduce the ESL while saving the space when mounting electronic components is provided. A first electronic component 7 is electrically connected to surface-mounted electrode parts 11A, 12A at metal terminals 26, 27 such that a first capacitor 24 having a greater capacitance and a mounting surface 4a of a multilayer substrate 4 are separated from each other. A second electronic component 8 is arranged between the first capacitor 24 and the mounting surface 4a and electrically connected to surface-mounted electrode parts 12B, 11B at second terminal electrodes 32, 33. The second electronic component 8 overlaps the first capacitor 24 when seen in the laminating direction. The first electronic component 7 is mounted to the multilayer substrate 4 such that first terminal electrodes 22, 23 oppose each other in a predetermined direction D1. The second electronic component 8 is mounted to the multilayer substrate 4 such that the second terminal electrodes 32, 33 oppose each other in the predetermined direction D1.
US08325487B2

A lever member of a lever assisted insertion device engages with a front frame of a shelf before a fully inserted position of a substrate unit to form a leverage fulcrum on the front frame. A force that an operator applies to the lever member is transmitted to the substrate unit via a point of application with respect to the fulcrum, thereby inserting the substrate unit up to the fully inserted position. A buffering device abuts against the front frame of the shelf within a depth range of a front panel of the substrate unit before an operation start position at which the lever member engages with the front frame of the shelf, to absorb impact of the substrate unit at the time of insertion.
US08325486B2

A tamper respondent module includes a basecard adapted to be inserted into a slot in a rack enclosure comprising at least one guide edge, at least one electrical coupler, a surface and at least one electronic component that contains information in an electronic format. In one example, an outer cover is coupled to the basecard and includes at least five sides. The outer cover is arranged in a covering relationship over the at least one electronic component. In another example, an anti-tamper apparatus is disposed between the outer cover and the surface. In another example, an anti-tamper circuit is electrically coupled to the at least one electronic component. In another example, a thermal frame is thermally coupled to the at least one electronic component.
US08325483B2

An electronic device able to stably disperse heat generated by an electronic component is provided. By providing a heat dissipating metal plate having a high heat conductivity between a TV tuner and a battery, heat generated by the TV tuner is dispersed to the battery having a large heat capacity and further dissipated to the outside of a case through a battery lid.
US08325481B2

A portable electronic device includes a housing including a receptacle, a slot communicating with the receptacle and a protrusion located in the slot; a stylus releasably received in the receptacle, the stylus defining a notch and a passage communicating with the notch; and an attachment element wrapping on the protrusion and passing through the notch and the passage to extend outward from the portable electronic device.
US08325476B2

An electronic device carrier comprising a base and rolling devices. When an electronic device is removed from a receiving chamber of the base, the rolling devices can reduce friction effectively and resilient force of the rolling device can fix the electronic device in the receiving chamber. The electronic device carrier further includes a transmission unit for transmitting data whenever the electronic device is positioned in the receiving chamber.
US08325467B2

An electrical enclosure includes a housing having a first end, an opposite second end, and a plurality of sides disposed therebetween to define an internal volume; an electrical busway having a plurality of electrical bus members; a plurality of phase-to-phase arc length limiters, each of the phase-to-phase arc length limiters being electrically connected to a corresponding one of the electrical bus members, each of the phase-to-phase arc length limiters having a first edge and a second edge, the first edge establishing a first gap to an adjacent one of the phase-to-phase arc length limiters; and a phase-to-ground arc length limiter electrically connected to the housing, the phase-to-ground arc length limiter having a number of members structured to attach an arc, each of the number of members having a number of arc attachment portions establishing a second gap to the second edge of the phase-to-phase arc length limiters.
US08325464B2

A coin-type electric double-layered capacitor of the present invention includes: a capacitor element; a lower cover for housing the capacitor element impregnated with an electrolyte; an upper cover for sealing an opening of the lower cover through an insulating ring-shaped packing; an upper terminal plate having one end portion connected to an outer surface of the upper cover; and a lower terminal plate having a first end portion connected to an outer surface of the lower cover and a second end portion provided with a through hole, the capacitor being configured such that at least part of the through hole is opened without being covered by an outer surface located on a bottom of the lower cover.
US08325463B2

One embodiment of an improved energy conversion and storage system uses pre-charge-enabled energy-converting variable capacitors that can be substantially encapsulated in asphalt roads or streets. Another embodiment can be substantially encapsulated in concrete walls or rooftops. Radiant solar energy does work on temperature-sensitive capacitors. Temperature change, in one embodiment, modifies the capacitance of the previously pre-charged capacitor, thereby converting solar energy into increased electrical energy available for practical use, without needing parabolic reflectors and without needing any moving parts. Other embodiments are described and shown.
US08325456B2

A static eliminator comprises an electric discharge portion, and a case in which the discharge portion for emitting ions in front thereof is disposed. The case includes an ion emitting opening and an ozone, etc suction opening. The ozone, etc generated in the discharge portion is sucked through the ozone, etc suction opening resulting in sucking air from the ion emitting opening in a direction opposite to that of ion emission through the ion emitting opening.
US08325451B2

A power switching circuit according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an output transistor connected between a power supply terminal VCC and an output terminal OUT, an output controller which controls a conducting state of the output transistor according to an input signal, a sense transistor having a gate commonly connected with the output transistor, which detects an output current flowing into the output transistor, an output current detection terminal in which a detection voltage is generated according to the output current detected by the sense transistor and a short circuit detector which detects a short circuit condition of the output current detection terminal according to the detection voltage and stops the output transistor or limits the output current.
US08325450B2

A magnetic structure in one embodiment includes a tunnel barrier layer; a free layer; and a buffer layer between the tunnel barrier layer and the free layer, wherein a cross sectional area of the tunnel barrier layer in a direction parallel to a plane of deposition thereof is greater than a cross sectional area of the free layer in a direction parallel to a plane of deposition thereof, wherein a cross sectional area of the buffer layer in a direction parallel to a plane of deposition thereof is greater than a cross sectional area of the free layer in the direction parallel to the plane of deposition thereof. Additional systems and methods are also presented.
US08325446B1

A head gimbal assembly for a disk drive includes a read head and a suspension assembly. The suspension assembly includes a load beam and a laminate flexure. The laminate flexure includes a structural layer, a dielectric layer, and a conductive layer that includes a plurality of electrical traces. The laminate flexure includes a tongue portion that connects to the read head and a flexure tail that extends away from the tongue portion. The flexure tail includes a plurality of flexure bond pads. Each of the plurality of flexure bond pads includes a widened region of a corresponding one of the plurality of electrical traces in the conductive layer, and a corresponding one of a plurality of segments or discontinuous islands in the structural layer.
US08325442B2

A spin torque oscillator includes a first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer and a first nonmagnetic layer. The first magnetic layer includes a magnetic film of a magnetic material with a body-centered cubic (bcc) structure and an oriented {110} plane of the body-centered cubic structure, the oriented {110} plane being oriented substantially parallel to a principal plane of the magnetic film. The first nonmagnetic layer is disposed between the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer. In addition, a magnetic moment in the magnetic film precesses around an axis substantially parallel to the principal plane. Furthermore, a magnetic field is applied in a direction substantially perpendicular to the principal plane, and a current is passed perpendicularly to the principal plane.
US08325435B2

In a method of determining an iteration value for an iterative decoding process of a hard disk drive, a bit error rate (BER) of a digital signal is measured in multiple iterations. A difference is calculated between BERs of consecutive iterations, and the calculated differences are compared with a reference value. An adjusted iteration value is then determined based on the comparison.
US08325428B2

A lens barrel which is capable of reducing, when the lens barrel is in a stored position, the thickness of an image pickup apparatus in its optical axis direction and also the diameter of the lens barrel. The lens barrel has a first lens, a second lens, a lens holding unit adapted to hold the second lens, and an iris diaphragm. The lens barrel moves between a photographing position and a stored position in the optical axis direction. The second lens includes a convex spherical portion protruding toward the first lens. The second lens is arranged close to the first lens and an inner circumferential portion of the diaphragm blades is arranged inwardly in the radial direction with respect to the lens holding unit and oppositely to the convex spherical portion in the radial direction, when the lens barrel is in the stored position.
US08325426B2

A projection objective of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus has a high index refractive optical element with an index of refraction greater than 1.6. This element has a volume and a material related optical property which varies over the volume. Variations of this optical property cause an aberration of the objective. In one embodiment at least 4 optical surfaces are provided that are arranged in at least one volume which is optically conjugate with the volume of the refractive optical element. Each optical surface comprises at least one correction means, for example a surface deformation or a birefringent layer with locally varying properties, which at least partially corrects the aberration caused by the variation of the optical property.
US08325424B2

A high-performance zoom lens system which is compact and has a wide view angle at a wide-angle limit and a high zooming ratio in a balanced manner, in order from an object side to an image side, comprising a first lens unit having positive optical power, a second lens unit having negative optical power, a third lens unit having positive optical power, and a fourth lens unit having positive optical power, wherein the first lens unit is composed of at most two lens elements, the second lens unit is composed of two lens elements, the third lens unit is composed of three lens elements, in order from the object side to the image side, including an object side lens element having positive optical power, a lens element having negative optical power, and an image side lens element having positive optical power, and the conditions: −2.34.5 (f2: a composite focal length of the second lens unit, ωW: a half view angle at a wide-angle limit, fT: a focal length of the entire system at a telephoto limit, fW: a focal length of the entire system at a wide-angle limit) are satisfied; an imaging device; and a camera are provided.
US08325422B2

A zoom lens disposed between an object side and an image side and including a first, second, third, and fourth lens group is provided. The first lens group has a negative refractive power and includes a first lens and a prism arranged in sequence from the object side to the image side. The first lens is an aspheric lens. A distance between the first lens and the prism is L, an effective focal length of the zoom lens at a wide-end is fw, and 1.58
US08325421B2

A zoom projection lens includes, in the order from the magnification side to the minification side thereof, a first lens group with negative refraction power, a second lens group with positive refraction power, a third lens group with positive refraction power, a fourth lens group with negative refraction power, and a fifth lens group with positive refraction power. The first lens group, the second lens group, the third lens group, and the fourth lens group are movably positioned. The fifth lens group is immovably positioned. The zoom projection lens satisfying the formulae: 1.0<|F1/Fw|<1.3; 2.5<|F3/Fw|<2.7; 2.81<|F5/Fw|<2.83; and 0.21<|F2/F4|<0.24, wherein F1-F5 respectively represent the effective focal lengths of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth lens groups, Fw represents the shortest effective focal length of the zoom projection lens.
US08325416B2

An optical element (22) comprises a material (27) thermally switchable between a first stable state and a second stable state different from the first state and a switching mechanism (28a-28c) for switching one or more selected areas of the material (27) between the first state and the second state thereby to change the transmissivity of one or more selected areas of the optical element (22). The optical element may be placed in an optical path through another component such as, for example, a display (21), reflector or backlight, such that the optical element may be controlled to change the optical properties of the component. The properties that may be changed include, but are not limited to, the display mode of a display (21), viewing angle range, brightness/luminance, and color.
US08325409B2

Methods and devices are provided for selectively allowing light to pass through a substantially transparent substrate or blocking the light, at least to some degree. Some embodiments provide a plurality of reflective vanes that can be positioned in at least two positions. According to some such implementations, when the vanes are in an open position, incident light is allowed to pass through the window. The light may reflect from two or more vanes before passing through the window. When a sufficient voltage is applied between vane electrodes and other electrodes, the vanes are pulled down, reflecting back at least some of the incident light. The voltage may be controlled according to detected temperature, ambient light intensity, etc.
US08325408B2

An electromechanical shutter device comprising a base member and a shutter assembly comprising: an electrical current source member; a shutter member movable between a light beam blocked position and a light beam passed position; a light beam blocking member associated with the shutter member; a shutter coil associated with the shutter member which generates an electromagnetic force when energized; at least one magnet which generates a magnet flux directed towards and intersecting the shutter coil; electrically conductive means connecting the electrical current source member to the shutter member for passing electrical current to energize the shutter coil and to control movement of the shutter member between the light beam blocked and passed positions; wherein when the shutter coil is energized, an electromagnetic force is generated that interacts with the magnetic flux to thereby cause movement of the shutter member between the light beam blocked and light beam passed positions.
US08325407B2

Provided is an oscillating device, which can adjust the oscillation angle and the phase of a movable plate easily with a simple constitution. A light scanning device acting as the oscillating device comprises a mirror element for oscillating the movable plate having a mirror film, a control circuit having a duty ratio adjusting unit and a function to change the duty ratio of the pulse voltage, so that it applies the pulse voltage thereby to drive a vertical comb of the mirror element, and an oscillation detecting unit for detecting the oscillations of the movable plate. On the bases of the movable plate oscillations detected by the oscillation detecting unit, the control circuit controls the duty ratio adjusting unit thereby to change the duty ratio of the pulse voltage. When the pulse voltage having the changed duty ratio is applied to the mirror element, the period of applying the voltage to the vertical comb at the oscillating time of the movable plate changes so that the phase and the oscillation angle of the oscillations of the movable plate change. By the feed-back control of the duty ratio according to the oscillations of the movable plate, the movable plate can be controlled to oscillate in the proper phase and at the proper oscillation angle.
US08325406B2

Provided is a planar lighting apparatus performing a display (i) without luminance nonuniformity, (ii) with a specified luminance distribution in a scanning direction and (iii) having a high luminance and a large area. Also provided is a liquid crystal display device using the planar lighting apparatus. In the plan lighting apparatus, a scanning light quantity of a scanning light 13 to a light guide section 15 is controlled by a controller 20, so at to emit an outgoing light 16 from a principal surface 17 with a specified luminance distribution in a scanning direction 21 of the scanning light 13.
US08325403B1

A bit-matrix processor including a pair of optoelectronic matrices and a controller for causing the matrices to perform Boolean Matrix transforms to perform logical operations, wherein Boolean logical equivalents include logical AND to replace element-wise multiplication, and logical OR instead of summation. According to one embodiment, the processor includes an optical source matrix for receiving input binary data; a passive optical replicator for replicating a pattern on the optical source matrix and projecting it onto a Spatial Light Modulator (SLM); a database loading device for loading data onto the SLM thereby to perform logical AND with the optical source matrix data; an integrating device for integrating light from the SLM onto a photodiode matrix; and an output signal processing device.
US08325397B2

An image processing device for converting a color tone of an image includes: an input unit to which an image is input; a designation unit that designates precision of color conversion performed on the input image; a color conversion table that stores output color data after color conversion of color data, which is determined according to the designated precision and may be included in the image, in an address space determined according to the precision; an address specifying unit that specifies an address referring to the color conversion table on the basis of a first portion, which is determined according to the precision, of color data expressing the input image; a color converting unit that converts the color data included in the input image into output color data by referring to the specified address of the color conversion table; a parameter specifying unit that specifies a parameter for interpolating a color, which is expressed by the output color data, on the basis of a second portion other than the first portion of the color data included in the input image; and an interpolation unit that interpolates a color, which is expressed by the converted output color data, on the basis of the specified parameter.
US08325396B2

In color management apparatus, the generation unit uses the color prediction model, the data of an input color expressed by the device dependent color and data of an output color expressed by the device independent color to generate color profile between the input color and the output color. The obtaining unit obtains a target lightness of the white point which is less than the standardized maximum lightness in the device independent color space. The change unit changes the output color into the device independent color of which the target lightness of the white point is a maximum lightness.
US08325395B2

An apparatus for processing an image, includes: a color information determination unit; and a correction amount setting unit. The color information determination unit classifies a plurality of pixels configuring an image into a plurality of groups according to a brightness thereof, and determines representative color information for each of the groups. The correction amount setting unit sets a correction amount for a white balance correction based on the representative color information determined for at least a part of the groups.
US08325394B2

A system and method of scanner characterization is provided which establishes an accurate relationship between a scanner's device-dependent (scanner) color space and a device-independent colorimetric space. A hierarchical subdivision of device-dependent color space into sub-regions is performed. The sub-regions are defined by cutting planes dividing patch color values in device-dependent color space perpendicular to principal axes. A color transformation matrix is then generated establishing the relationship between the scanner device-dependent color space and the device-independent color space for each sub-region of device-dependent color space using the patch color values and a weighting function for each matrix. Each weighting function gives a weight to each patch color value which is a function of the location of the patch color value with respect to the cutting planes defining the sub-region containing the patch color value.
US08325387B2

Disclosed is a method and an apparatus for dithering a pixel value in a image. The method includes checking a difference in chrominance signals between a particular pixel and a pixel adjacent to the particular pixel, in an input image, designating the particular pixel as being in a flat or a non-flat area in consideration of the difference in chrominance signals and dithering the particular pixel when the pixel is designated as being in the non-flat area.
US08325382B2

An electronic apparatus has a display section displaying an image in a predetermined resolution. The apparatus includes a fetching section fetching image data, a processing section processing the form of characters of character data to be added to the image data fetched by the fetching section, a synthesis section synthesizing the image data fetched by the fetching section and the character data whose character form has been processed, an output section outputting the image data out of the apparatus to display the image in a resolution different from the predetermined resolution, and an output control section for outputting the image data synthesized by the synthesis section to the display section and output section. The processing section processes the form of characters of the character data according to the resolution of the image to be displayed at the destination to which the data are output by the output control section.
US08325380B2

A method of printing an image and a photo printing system and a digital camera adapted for the printing method are provided. The method of printing an image is a printing method for outputting through a photo printer an image stored in an image storage device. The method includes: setting a temporary printing area on an image to be printed; determining whether or not an option for Paper-full printing in which no space is left on a printing material, is selected; if the Paper-full print option is selected, detecting a face area photographed on the image; determining whether or not the detected face area is included in a printing area; and according to the determination result, adjusting a printing area so that the face area can be included in the printing area.
US08325378B2

An information processing apparatus for making a bookbinding setup for a document includes a cover page determination unit for determining pages to be imposed on a cover from input data of a plurality of pages, a cover imposing processing unit for executing an imposing process of cover pages on the basis of data of the pages determined by the cover page determination unit, and a bookbinding imposing processing unit for executing an imposing process of running text pages on the basis of data of the remaining pages which are not imposed on the cover pages by the cover imposing processing unit, thus allowing an information process for making a bookbinding setup that the user wants.
US08325369B2

An image scanning system comprises an image scanner and an information processing device. The image scanner comprises an output unit to output image data generated based on scanned image to the information processing device; and an instructing unit to transmit a prohibition command for prohibiting displaying of an image based on the image data, to the information processing device. The information processing device comprises a data reception unit to receive the image data outputted by the image scanner; a display unit; a control unit configured to control the display unit to display the image based on the image data; and a command reception unit configured to receive the prohibition command. In this configuration, the control unit operates to prohibit displaying of the image based on the received image data in response to reception of the prohibition command through the command reception unit.
US08325367B2

Systems and methods for automatically assigning items to printable media are disclosed. A computer readable medium is in communication with a computing device and includes programming instructions for electronically obtaining a first template that includes a plurality of first content items, each including a first content area. For each first content item, first content area properties and first content item properties are identified. A second template including a plurality of second content areas is electronically obtained. For each second content area, second content area properties, second content item properties and content rules are automatically identified. For each first content item, it may be determined whether a first content item corresponds to a second content area based on the rules. The first content item may be automatically assigned to the second content area. A representation of each assigned content item may be printed.
US08325362B2

In one example, a system may suggest an order in which to read documents in a set. When a person has read a document in the set, the system may suggest the next document to read. The next document may be selected based on criteria such as the document's dissimilarity from the document(s) that have already been read. Choosing, as the next document, a document that is dissimilar from documents that have already been read exposes the reader to new information, thereby enhancing the reader's return on investment for the time spent reading the documents.
US08325351B2

A method of directing a beam of laser light at a target point defined by the intersection of a reference line with a generally vertical surface may comprise: a.) defining the reference line, b.) calculating a three dimensional location of a point on the line, c.) directing a beam of laser light from an automated total station toward the point on the line, d.) measuring the three dimensional location of the reference point on the vertical surface illuminated by the beam of laser light, e.) determining the point on the line closest to the reference point on the surface, f.) redirecting the beam of laser light from the automated total station toward the point on the line closest to the reference point, and g.) repeating steps d.) through f.) until the closest point on the reference line is less than a predetermined distance from the reference point.
US08325349B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for improving optofluidic microscope (OFM) devices. One technique that may be used employs surface tension at a hydrophobic surface to passively pump the fluid sample through the fluid channel. Another technique uses electrodes to adjust the position of objects in the fluid channel. Another technique computationally adjusts the focal plane of an image wavefront measured using differential interference contrast (DIC) based on Young's interference by back propagating the image wavefront from the detection focal plane to a different focal plane. These techniques can be employed separately or in combination to improve the capabilities of OFM devices.
US08325347B2

An integrated optical sensor for, for example, a (bio)chemical sensor has an optical waveguide (2) having at least two coupling regions (3, 5), which are separated by at least one measurement region (4). A first wave is excited in the waveguide (2) by the first coupling region (3) and passes through the measurement region (4) and the second coupling region (5). A second wave is excited in the second coupling region (5) and subsequently interferes with the first wave. Here, the reduction in amplitude of the first wave by the second coupling region (5) is less than 95%.
US08325346B2

An apparatus may include a flow cell for a surface plasmon resonance test apparatus and a fluid delivery system operatively coupled to the flow cell and configured to deliver a plurality of fluids to the flow cell substantially continuously. The fluid delivery system may include two pumps for pumping the fluids.
US08325345B2

Herein are disclosed methods and devices for evaluating the quality of oils (e.g., cooking oil or flying oil). The methods can provide an indication of the free fatty acid content of the oil. The methods use an optical interrogation device to provide an indication of free fatty acid based on quantitative measurements of optical reflectance from test zones on a sampling substrate.
US08325339B2

A method for performing a diagnostic assay of an analyte, wherein the method comprises providing a base that has been structured using laser processing so as to provide a substrate with at least one patterned surface, wherein the laser processing comprises the selective application of pulsed laser energy to the base, whereby to melt a surface layer of the base which resolidifies, whereby to create the at least one patterned surface; applying a metal to the at least one patterned surface so as to provide at least one metalized patterned surface; positioning the analyte on the at least one metalized patterned surface; and performing a diagnostic assay of the analyte; wherein the metal comprises a metal film.
US08325335B2

The invention makes it possible to measure binding of a biochemical substance with a high throughput and with high sensitivity using a small cell capable of being filled with a small amount of chemical solution. A space between a first substrate and a second substrate such that probes are immobilized on their mutually facing planes is used as a cell that houses a specimen solution. Light is irradiated from a first substrate side, and reflected light is subjected to spectroscopy. Binding of the target with the probe is detected by a wavelength shift in the refection spectrum.
US08325334B2

An apparatus for inspecting an edge of a substrate. A light source produces a light beam, and a two-dimensional beam deflector receives the light beam and creates a semi-annular scanning beam. A first flared parabolic surface receives the semi-annular scanning beam and directs the semi-annular scanning beam onto the edge of the substrate, thereby creating specularly reflected light from the edge of the substrate. A second flared parabolic surface receives and directs the specularly reflected light to a detector. The detector receives the directed specularly reflected light and produces signals. An analyzer analyzes the signals and detects defects at the edge of the substrate.
US08325333B2

A geometric error measuring device includes a measuring module and at least one (quadrant) photodiode. The measuring module has an emitting deice, which may emit at least one light ray; the photodiode may receive the incident ray. Also, the trajectory of the incident ray is parallel with the direction of measurement. If there is no geometric error, the position of the incident light ray will coincide with the position of the measured light ray. If there is a geometric error, the position of the measured light ray will not coincide with the position of the incident light ray. After the data are processed and calculated, geometric errors in straightness, squareness and rotational angles (pitch, yaw and roll) may be obtained. These geometric errors may then be corrected in the setup of a machine.
US08325330B2

Optical fiber lines of a PON system are monitored with a remote fiber test system having a branch-type optical fiber line constituting the PON system and test equipment connected to the branch-type optical fiber line. The test equipment includes a light source, an optical splitter, a detecting part, and a control unit. The light source outputs light having an optical coherence function of a comb shape that is formed as a result of the optical frequency being modulated by a modulation signal of period p. The optical splitter receives light output from the light source and splits the light into probe light and reference light. The detecting part detects interference light that occurs from mutual interference between the reference light and reflected light. Upon detection of the interference light, the detecting part converts the interference light into an electrical signal.
US08325328B2

The present invention concerns a single-particle LIDAR anemometry method and system comprising the continuous emission of one or more light beams through a gas containing particles, said beam being focused onto a measurement volume, a step of detecting a signal backscattered by particles passing through said volume, the method being characterized in that it comprises at least the following phases: determining in a time period Δt the frequency of each of the pulses included in the backscattered signal; distinguishing pulses based on duration and/or intensity and/or frequency-modulation criteria; and estimating the displacement velocity of said beam relative to the gas from several of the frequencies determined over the time period Δt excluding those corresponding to the pulses distinguished during the preceding step A notable application of the invention is for the measurement of the airspeed of an aircraft.
US08325324B2

An illumination optical apparatus is able to quickly perform switching of illumination conditions between illumination in a first region and illumination in a second region. The illumination optical apparatus of the present invention to illuminate an illumination target surface on the basis of light from a light source comprises: a path switching member arranged in an optical path between the light source and the illumination target surface and switching an optical path of an exiting beam between a first optical path and a second optical path; a path combining member combining the first optical path and the second optical path; a first pupil distribution forming member arranged in the first optical path and forming a predetermined light intensity distribution on an illumination pupil; and a second pupil distribution forming member arranged in the second optical path and forming a predetermined light intensity distribution on the illumination pupil.
US08325316B2

An exemplary electro-wetting display (EWD) device (30) includes a first substrate (31), a second substrate (38), a driving circuit layer (32) provided on the second substrate, a plurality of partition walls (34), a first fluid (35) and a second fluid (36). The first and second fluids immiscible with each other are disposed between the driving circuit layer and the first substrate. The partition walls are provided on the driving circuit layer, thereby defining a plurality of pixel regions (R). Each pixel region has two short sides and two long sides. The second fluid is electro-conductive or polar and the first fluid is provided between the driving circuit layer and the second fluid. The driving circuit layer corresponding to each pixel region includes a pixel electrode (325) and a switch element (324) connected thereto. The pixel electrode is continuously disposed between the switch element and the two short sides.
US08325315B2

Electric power is applied to a static charge dissipating line to apply a pixel voltage to a pixel electrode. A common voltage is applied to a common electrode. The common voltage is applied to the common electrode through a shorting pad formed on the lower substrate, or a probe is contacted to the common electrode to apply the common voltage to the common electrode. A liquid crystal layer is exposed to light while an electric field is formed between the pixel electrode and the common electrode, so that a cured reactive mesogen (RM) layer is formed on a surface of an alignment layer to pretilt liquid crystal molecules. A manner of applying electric power to the pixel electrode or the common electrode is facilitated and the pixel voltage or the common voltage may be uniformly applied. Therefore, the quality of a display panel may be improved.
US08325314B2

A liquid crystal display device includes an array substrate including: gate and data lines crossing each other to define a pixel region on a first substrate; a thin film transistor connected to the gate and data lines; and first and second height adjusters; an opposing substrate facing the array substrate; a liquid crystal layer between the array substrate and the opposing substrate; a gap spacer corresponding to the first height adjuster and contacting the array substrate and the opposing substrate; a first press-buffer spacer corresponding to the second height adjuster, contacting the opposing substrate and spaced apart from the array substrate; and a second press-buffer spacer contacting the opposing substrate and spaced apart form the array substrate, wherein a distance between the first press-buffer spacer and the array substrate is substantially less than a distance between the second press-buffer spacer and the array substrate.
US08325312B2

A liquid crystal display (LCD) device maintains a cell gap and prevents press defects via the use of ball spacers. The liquid crystal display device includes first and second substrates facing each other, a plurality of first spacers, a plurality of second spacers, and a liquid crystal layer filled between the first and second substrates. The first spacers are formed between the first and second substrates at portions of a black matrix layer of the second substrate. The first spacers include a plurality of first balls with a first diameter and a first solid to aggregate the first balls. The second spacers are formed at portions of the black matrix layer between the first and second substrates. The second spacers include a plurality of second balls with a second diameter 0.2 to 0.6 μm smaller than the first diameter and a second solid to aggregate the second balls.
US08325306B2

A liquid crystal display device including first and second substrate, with liquid crystal contained therebetween; a plurality of gate bus lines; a plurality of drain bus lines; and first and second sub picture element electrodes. The first sub picture element electrode is not in contact with the second sub picture element electrode. The first sub picture element electrode includes a first body portion and a plurality of first branches extending from the first body portion, with the first branches being separated from each other by a plurality of first slits. The second sub picture element electrode includes a second body portion and a plurality of second branches extending from the second body portion, with the second branches being separated from each other by a plurality of second slits.
US08325305B2

In a method of driving a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatus, a common voltage is applied to a common electrode above a liquid crystal layer and pixel voltages are applied to pixel electrodes under the liquid crystal layer to form an electrical field with the common electrode to control movements of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer. Each of the pixel electrodes has slits. Then, a supplementary voltage is applied to a supplementary electrode between the slits of each pixel electrode to compensate the electric field formed by the pixel electrodes and the common electrode.
US08325295B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel, a plurality of groups of light source units, a plurality of light guide plates, and a light source control circuit configured to control light amounts of the light source units. The plurality of light guide plates are configured to transmit light from the plurality of groups of the light source units. In each of the plurality of light guide plates, areas from which the transmitted light exiting toward the liquid crystal display panel differ from one another. One of the plurality of groups of the light source units paired with one of the plurality of light guide plates includes at least two light source units that are controlled in light amount independently. A number of the areas of the one of the plurality of light guide plates is at least a number of the light source units thereof.
US08325290B2

A dual liquid crystal display device includes a transmissive liquid crystal display panel; a reflective liquid crystal display panel formed on the same substrate as the transmissive liquid crystal display panel; a first light guide block disposed under the transmissive liquid crystal display panel and having dot patterns formed on a first surface thereof; a second light guide block disposed under the reflective liquid crystal display panel and having V-grooves formed on a first surface thereof; a light source disposed adjacent to the first light guide block; a housing in which the transmissive and reflective liquid crystal display panels, the light source and the light guide blocks are seated, the housing having an opening to correspond to an image display surface of the reflective liquid crystal display panel; a dual brightness enhancement film provided in a region corresponding to the opening of the housing.
US08325287B2

A liquid crystal display includes a gate line, a data line crossing the gate line and insulated from the gate line, a common voltage line separated from the gate line and the data line, where the common voltage line transfers a predetermined voltage, a first switching element connected to the gate line and the data line, a second switching element connected to the gate line and the data line, a first liquid crystal capacitor connected to the first switching element, a second liquid crystal capacitor connected to the second switching element and at least two decompressing switching elements connected to the second switching element and the common voltage line.
US08325282B2

In projection television (PTV) systems utilizing folded optical systems such as a rear projection CRT, DLP, LCD, or LCOS based televisions, or the like, an automatic geometric alignment (AGA) system including a first programmable logic, a second programmable logic operably coupled to the first programmable logic, and light sensors positioned in the over-scan region along the border of the screen and operably coupled to first programmable logic. In operation, the first programmable logic causes an on screen display (OSD) system to display and move test patterns on the screen and, using feed back data received from the light sensors, determines the geometric alignment and/or pin cushion effect error in the displayed test pattern. The second programmable logic, which includes deflection shaping circuitry to align, center or steer the beams from the projection systems, utilizes data received from the first programmable logic to compensate for geometric alignment error.
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