US08403037B2
A method of dissolving a tool includes exposing an outer surface of the tool to an environment reactive with the tool, reacting the tool with the environment, and applying stress to the tool. The method also includes concentrating stress on the tool at stress risers in the outer surface, and initiating fracturing the tool at the stress risers.
US08403036B2
An apparatus for use in a wellbore is provided. The apparatus comprises a mandrel, a sealing element carried on the mandrel, the sealing element being radially expandable from a first run-in diameter to a second set diameter in response to application of axial force on the sealing element, and an extrusion limiting assembly carried on the mandrel and proximate the sealing element. The extrusion limiting assembly comprises a plurality of separate segments and a first circumferential band that retains the plurality of segments in a ring shape and substantially covers an outer circumferential surface of the plurality of segments while in a run-in condition of the apparatus.
US08403027B2
The present invention discloses a method of strip casting an aluminum alloy from immiscible liquids that yields a highly uniform structure of fine second phase particles. The results of the present invention are achieved by using a known casting process to cast the alloy into a thin strip at high speeds. In the method of the present invention, the casting speed is preferably in the region of about 50-300 feet per minute (fpm) and the thickness of the strip preferably smaller than 0.08-0.25 inches. Under these conditions, favorable results are achieved when droplets of the immiscible liquid phase nucleate in the liquid ahead of the solidification front established in the casting process. The droplets of the immiscible phase are engulfed by the rapidly moving freeze front into the space between the Secondary Dendrite Arms (SDA).
US08403005B2
A single-levered rotary pulling tap is used in the kitchen and includes a tap body, a spraying head, a control valve set, a first flowing assembly, and a second flowing assembly used to rotate relative to the first flowing assembly at a predetermined angular range so that user can adjustably move the spraying head to a desired position based on demand, and the pulling tap is operated smoothly to prevent from wearing related parts of the single-levered rotary pulling tap, such as the first flowing assembly, the second flowing assembly, and the control valve set, prolonging service life of the single-levered rotary pulling tap.
US08403002B2
A directional control fluid valve for establishing a first throughflow path, with which fluid is sucked in and supplied under pressure to a consumer, and a second throughflow path with which fluid is sucked out of the consumer. The valve has a housing which has a tank port, a pressure port for connecting to a pressure side of a pump, a suction port for connecting to a suction side of the pump, and a consumer port. The valve has at least one valve flap which is arranged within the housing and which can be moved between a first flap position for establishing the first throughflow path and a second flap position for establishing the second throughflow path. The housing has two parts on which are formed in each case at least two valve seats. The housing has a base part on which the tank port, the pressure port, the suction port and the consumer port are formed, and a cover part which has closed ducts. The closed ducts are connected to the associated valve seats.
US08402997B2
The disclosure relates to a valve with a pivoting lever. This lever pivots around a pivot point and can move between at least three stable positions. In the rest position, this lever is fixed and solidly connected to the body of the valve, and there is zero fluid flow in the internal fluid passage. In the intermediary released position, the axis of the lever is disposed at a positive, non-zero angle in relation to the axis of the lever in the rest position, the lever being now disconnected from the body, but the fluid flow remains zero. In the active position, the axis of the lever is disposed at a positive non-zero angle in relation to the axis of the lever in the intermediary released position, this lever being disconnected from the body, and with fluid now flowing thorough the internal fluid passage at a non-zero rate.
US08402991B2
An improved outlet valve for a frost-preventing faucet substantially employs an axial slot defined at a central top inside the inlet passage for being inserted by an elastic element and an axial post. A first stop ring is disposed around the stop valve. The first stop ring and the stop valve are inserted into a limiting slot of a hollow stop sleeve disposed under the stop valve. A second stop ring disposed around the stop sleeve is inserted into a lower section of an inner wall of the inlet passage. A bottom of the second stop ring is disposed above a top of the top porcelain. Cooperating the subject improved configuration with the top porcelain allows the water to be supplied upward since outlet gates of the bottom porcelain and the top porcelain stay abreast without a blockage. When a water pressure is larger than a rebounding force of the elastic element, the stop valve upwardly compresses the elastic element. Thereby, the water travels through the inlet passage disposed at the middle section of the plug and enters into an outlet hole at the top end of the tubular receiving valve seat. The water is further upwardly guided into a supplying pipe of the faucet. When the water pressure is smaller than the rebounding force of the elastic element, the elastic element compresses the stop valve. Thereby, an axial post of the stop valve is downwardly inserted into the limiting slot of the stop sleeve for impeding the water flow, so that the porcelain valve unit is prevented from freezing, and the water pressure is capable of controlling a feeding of the water flow.
US08402985B2
A thermal release element for valves in the form of a completely enclosed inner space with a container filled with a release liquid in which the release liquid contains a hydrocarbon selected from one of the following substance groups or containing a mixture of the hydrocarbons of an aliphatic bromide, a hydrocarbon with a nitro group, a singly halogenated benzene ring, and an aliphatic ester compound with two double-bonded oxygen atoms.
US08402982B2
A modular outdoor playpen apparatus including a room-sized enclosure, having an area in a range of 10 square feet to 20 square feet, the enclosure having a cushioned bottom wall, an open top, four side panels releasably hingedly attached to each other, a unitary cushioned padding removably disposed over all of the entire inner walls of the side panels, and a padded covering removably disposed over the bottom wall between the side panels. The apparatus also provides a canopy that attaches to the cushioned padding.
US08402981B2
The invention relates to a protective element, especially a suspended protective element for using as a parasol or an umbrella, comprising a vertical pole, a protective cover element, and a holding structure connected to the vertical pole. The holding structure is rotatably mounted in relation to the vertical pole, and the rotational axis of the support extends at least approximately parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vertical pole.
US08402980B2
In an apparatus and method of generating an ultrasonic vibration, an ultrasonic vibration generated in an ultrasonic vibration generator is transmitted through a material layer to control the intensity and the direction of the ultrasonic vibration. In an apparatus and method of cleaning a wafer, a cleaning solution supplier supplies a cleaning solution for cleaning the wafer onto the wafer. An ultrasonic vibration generator generates an ultrasonic vibration. The ultrasonic vibration is transmitted through a material layer of a transmission member to control the intensity and the direction of the ultrasonic vibration. The ultrasonic vibration is applied to the cleaning solution.
US08402972B2
A forehead cushion for a forehead support of a breathing mask arrangement includes a cushion element including a contact surface adapted to contact a patient's forehead and provide a distribution of contact force and a coupling element provided to the cushion element. The coupling element is adapted to couple the cushion element to the forehead support. The cushion element is movable with respect to the coupling element to achieve different contact positions on the patient's forehead.
US08402967B2
A gas blender with auxiliary mixed gas outlet for mixing a primary gas, generally air, and a secondary gas, generally oxygen, to obtain a mixed gas having several controlled characteristics. The gas blender may be incorporated into a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device. The gas blender controls the mixing to produce the mixed gas having a predetermined mixture setpoint, generally an oxygen percentage, and a predetermined control setpoint, generally a pressure setpoint or flow rate setpoint. The gas blender provides an auxiliary mixed gas source for use by an auxiliary piece of equipment such as a nebulizer or resuscitation bag. The gas blender includes a primary gas inlet passageway, a secondary gas inlet passageway, a gas mixing apparatus, a mixed gas distribution passageway with an auxiliary mixed gas outlet, a gas sensor, a delivery sensor, a mixed gas delivery control valve, a mixed gas controlled passageway, and a controller.
US08402954B2
When an ECU applies to an igniter a plurality of pulse signals, the duty ratio of which is lower than a predetermined duty ratio, as a lock release signal, a latch circuit of a lock inhibition circuit stops applying a shut-off signal to a shut-off circuit thereby to release a lock condition of an IGBT. A drive main circuit thus restarts current supply to the IGBT. A condition detection circuit outputs to the ECU a condition signal corresponding to the current supplied while the IGBT is turned on.
US08402950B2
In a fuel injector, a body has formed therein a spray hole and a fuel supply passage. Fuel supplied to the fuel supply passage is delivered to the spray hole. A fuel pressure sensor produces a signal indicative of a pressure of the fuel. First terminals are attached to the fuel pressure sensor, and include a terminal for outputting the signal. The fuel pressure sensor is threadedly installed in the body while the plurality of first terminals are rotated about a preset axis. A connector includes a housing attached to the body, and second terminals supported by the housing for external electric connection of the fuel pressure sensor. Electrodes are each arranged to extend around the preset axis in a circular arc. Each of the electrodes electrically connects a corresponding one of the first terminals to a corresponding one of the second terminals.
US08402949B2
A fuel injector for an internal combustion engine is provided. The fuel injector is equipped with a fuel pressure sensor which is installed in a metallic injector body. The fuel injector also includes an amplifier working to amplify an output of the fuel pressure sensor and a thermal insulating member disposed between the metallic injector body and the amplifier to shield the amplifier thermally, thereby ensuring the accuracy in measuring the pressure of fuel within the fuel injector.
US08402942B2
The present invention relates to system and methods for improving efficiency of an internal combustion engine. This system may include a fuel processor. The system receives instructions for a desired engine output and operating conditions. The system may then determine an operational state corresponding to the desired output. The operational state includes designating the cylinders into one of three categories: working, deactivated and passive. The number of working cylinders is calculated by dividing the desired output by the power provided by one cylinder operating at substantially optimal efficiency. Then the system substantially disables fuel flow to and air flow to the deactivated cylinders, substantially disables fuel flow to and firing of the passive cylinders, and substantially regulates fuel flow to, air flow to and firing of the working cylinders. Firing of the working cylinders is synchronized with engine speed to reduce unwanted engine vibrations. The number of working, passive and deactivated cylinders may be continually altered in response to changes in desired output or operating conditions.
US08402938B2
An internal combustion engine comprises a rotating connector engaged rotatably in the rotatable receptacle. The rotating connector includes two rotational axles, two radial arms extending from the rotational axles, and an off-center middle axle connected to the two radial arms, and the two rotational axles share a common axis and are parallel to the off-center middle axle. The upper end is rotatably connected to the off-center middle axle of the rotating connector and the lower end is rotatably connected to the crankshaft. The internal combustion engine goes through an engine cycle comprising an intake phase, a compression phase, a expansion phase, and a exhaust phase. During the intake and compression phases the piston travels between a top dead center and a first bottom dead center. During the compression and exhaust phases the piston travels between a second bottom dead center to the top dead center.
US08402937B2
An intake duct cast as a recess in a combustion engine cylinder head that opens into a combustion chamber thereof at its lower end via an annular valve-seat housing. The intake duct, over part of its length, includes a substantially planar underside connected to the housing via a transition region that defines a shrinkage void of rounded shape within the mass of the cylinder head.
US08402931B2
Various embodiments of the present invention are directed toward a linear combustion engine, comprising: a cylinder having a cylinder wall and a pair of ends, the cylinder including a combustion section disposed in a center portion of the cylinder; a pair of opposed piston assemblies adapted to move linearly within the cylinder, each piston assembly disposed on one side of the combustion section opposite the other piston assembly, each piston assembly including a spring rod and a piston comprising a solid front section adjacent the combustion section and a gas section; and a pair of linear electromagnetic machines adapted to directly convert kinetic energy of the piston assembly into electrical energy, and adapted to directly convert electrical energy into kinetic energy of the piston assembly for providing compression work during the compression stroke.
US08402928B2
A method for operating an engine with a fuel reformer is presented. In one embodiment a first fuel is reformed into a gaseous fuel comprising H, CO, and CH4. The engine is operated by injecting the gaseous fuel and a second fuel to a cylinder of the engine in response to an available amount of gaseous fuel, engine speed and engine load. Further, an engine actuator may be adjusted to vary cylinder charge in response to the available amount of gaseous fuel.
US08402926B1
A pet cap having an integrated cap base gathering member attached about a perimeter of a cap body. The pet cap is placed over a pet's head, covering the pet's ears and ear canals. A grooming party baths the pet. The cap provides a barrier between water and other fluids and the pet's ears and ear canals. A securing strap is provided, spanning across an opening of the pet cap. The securing strap is positioned under the pet's snout to maintain the pet cap in position. The securing strap can be removably attached to the pet cap. The cap can include optional ear cover flaps extending downward from a lower edge of the cap body.
US08402924B2
Systems and methods for training animals not to pull excessively on leads. Some systems include a tension detector, a first stimulator adapted to emit a first stimulus, a second stimulator adapted to emit a second stimulus that is different than the first stimulus, and a controller adapted to actuate the emission of the first stimulus in response to the tension in the lead exceeding a predetermined force and to actuate the emission of the second stimulus in response to the tension in the lead exceeding the predetermined force for a predetermined length of time. Some methods include detecting that a tension in the lead exceeds a predetermined force, automatically emitting the first stimulus, and if the tension in the lead exceeds the predetermined force for a predetermined length of time, automatically emitting the second stimulus.
US08402919B2
An arrangement for housing a large number of milking animals, each of which belongs to one of a plurality of groups, comprises a resting area (1) wherein the milking animals are allowed to rest; a feeding area (3) wherein the milking animals are fed; and a milking area (5) housing at least one milking robot for milking the milking animals, wherein the resting area (1) or the feeding area (3) is partitioned in sections (7, 9, 11, 13; 41, 43, 45, 47), the number of which corresponds to the number of the groups; and a device (19; 53) is provided for directing each of the milking animals moving towards the resting area (1) or the feeding area (3), which is partitioned in sections, into one of the sections depending on the group, to which the respective milking animal belongs, so that that each of said sections will house milking animals belonging to one of said groups.
US08402917B2
A mask frame assembly for thin film deposition including a frame having an opening portion and a support portion, and a mask having a deposition area in a position corresponding to the opening portion, wherein the mask includes a first layer including the deposition area and a peripheral portion disposed outside the deposition area and a second layer including a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, at least a part of the first surface of the second layer faces the first layer and contacts the peripheral portion, and the second surface is welded to the support portion of the frame.
US08402914B2
A dip coating apparatus includes a container, a separating plate, an air intake, at least one driving module, and at least one carrying base. The separating plate separates the container into a first chamber and a second chamber, and defines a through opening communicating the two chambers. The first chamber is configured for drying workpieces, and the second chamber is configured for carrying coating liquid to coat the workpieces. The air intake takes drying air into the first chamber. The driving module is mounted on the separating plate. The carrying base carries the workpieces, and is connected to the driving module and positioned in the second chamber. Driven by the driving module, the carrying base is able to dip the workpieces into the coating liquid for coating, and is able to cover the through opening and expose the workpieces to the first chamber for drying.
US08402907B2
A movable cleat assembly is provided. The movable cleat includes a support base, a face plate positioned adjacent the support base and a retractable cleat. The retractable cleat includes a handle portion and at least one leg extending through the support base and the face plate. The face plate further includes an edge that is adapted to deform or otherwise embed a portion of itself into a boat when installed. At least one of the support base and face plate includes at least one tube to receive the leg therein. The at least one tube is composed of a corrosion-proof material.
US08402906B2
A ship-body frictional resistance reducing device for reducing frictional resistance of a sailing ship body by forming an air bubble curtain on a ship's bottom by generating air bubbles includes an air chamber provided on the ship's bottom inside the ship including an air supply port formed thereon, a plurality of air ejection holes formed in an array on the ship's bottom that serves as a bottom of the air chamber, and a diffusion plate provided inside the air chamber intervening between the air supply port and the air ejection holes. The diffusion plate is formed in a manner that it includes at least a supply-port facing area covering the air supply port and a pair of ejection-hole facing areas covering air ejection holes located at both edges of the air ejection holes in an arrangement direction.
US08402904B2
A sewing machine includes a housing portion, a bed, a needle plate, an image capture device, a moving device, a command acquisition device, and a moving control device. The housing portion houses at least one needle bar. The needle plate is provided on the bed and includes a needle hole. The image capture device is adapted to capture an image of the needle hole. The moving device moves the image capture device in relation to the housing portion. The command acquisition device acquires a command to move the image capture device in relation to the housing portion. The moving control device controls the moving device in accordance with the command that has been acquired by the command acquisition device to move the image capture device in relation to the housing portion.
US08402903B2
A feed dog device for a sewing machine includes a feed dog mount mounted under a needle plate and having a feed dog mounted thereon to permit the feed dog to extend through slots in the needle plate. The feed dog mount is coupled with a lever through a force transmitting unit to couple an increased torque generated by a pivotal movement of the lever to the feed dog mount so as to enable a weight end of the lever to drive the feed dog mount to move reciprocatingly in a transverse direction perpendicular to a normal feeding direction of a fabric. The lever is actuated by a cam follower with a torque generated as a result of transmission through a rotary cam member which is rotated with an output shaft of the drive member. Since the feed dog can be reciprocatingly moved in the transverse direction, the sewing machine can perform a variety of sewing operations.
US08402900B2
A workstation system (1) comprising with a plurality of desktops e.g. (3a), each desktop (3a) comprising a primary work area (33) and at least one recessed portion e.g. (34b) providing an auxiliary work area e.g. (36b). The recessed portions (34b) of adjacent desktops (3a-3d) can be arranged to provide an interactive work area (6a-6d) for multiple people.
US08402884B2
In a toaster, a toasting carriage is latched during toasting by an electromagnet actuated by a timer control circuit, and released when toasting time has elapsed. One of two rectifying circuits is always live and supplies a DC current to the timer control circuit and another, separate rectifying circuit supplies a DC current to energise the electromagnet when the toasting cycle is initiated. A first switching module switches a current flow through the heating element, while a second switching module isolates the always live rectifying circuit from the heating element. Switches of the first and second switching modules are disposed in an array and are closed by movement of the toasting carriage to the toasting position. More responsive and stable electromagnetic latching contributes to reducing risks associated with a fire that could occur during use of the toaster.
US08402880B2
A retaining system for securing a closure at an installed position within a bore. The bore being in a portion of a housing and having screw threads along at least a portion thereof. The closure having an internally threaded hold extending therein. The closure in the installed position closes the bore. The retaining system comprising a retaining cover for obstructing removal of the closure from the bore. The retaining cover being receivable in the bore in a position generally adjacent the closure. The retaining cover having external threads interengageable with the screw threads of the bore such that the cover is rotatable relative to the housing in a tightening direction for movement of the cover into the bore toward the closure and rotatable in an opposite, loosening direction for movement of the cover out from the bore away from the closure. The cover having a central axis of rotation.
US08402875B2
An armor plated assembly (20) and a protective wall system (120) containing a protective material. The armor plated assembly (20) comprises of a container (22) having opposing walls (26) for encompassing the protective material. The assembly (20) includes an armor device (24) having a first plate (48) and a second plate (50) with one of the opposing walls (26) sandwiched between the first plate (48) and the second plate (50) securing the armor device (24) to the container (22). The armor device (24) impedes the penetration of a projectile through the armor plated assembly (20). The protective wall system (120) includes at least two of the armor plated assemblies (20) with a mechanical connection (140) between the armor devices (126, 134) of the armor plated assemblies (20) for aligning and securing the assemblies (20) in a stacked orientation. A second embodiment of the protective wall system (220) includes at least two containers (222, 234) and a bib (232, 236) adhered to each of the containers (222, 234) such that the bibs (232, 236) overlap in a shingle-like engagement between the stacked containers (222, 234).
US08402869B2
Woodworking machines are disclosed having cutting tools adapted to cut workpieces. The machines include a detection system adapted to detect one or more dangerous conditions between a person and the cutting tool. The machines also include a brake mechanism having one or more braking components adapted to engage and stop the cutting tool in response to the detection of a dangerous condition.
US08402859B2
A shift mechanism for a dual clutch transmission employs a rotating barrel cam having at least three tracks which are engaged by and translate at least three associated cam followers. The cam followers extend from shift fork bodies which slide on rails and include shift forks which bi-directionally translate at least three synchronizer clutches which engage at least five forward gears or speeds and reverse. A single electric motor and gear train drive the barrel cam.
US08402858B2
A gearshift device for a change-speed gearbox of a motor vehicle, includes, but is not limited to a gearshift lever guided movably between positions corresponding to different gears, on which a locking member is displaceable between a locking position in a first degree of freedom in which it blocks any movement of the gearshift lever from a forward gear position into a reverse gear position, and a release position in a first degree of freedom in which it allows movement from the forward gear position into the reverse gear position. The locking member on the gearshift lever is movable in a second degree of freedom between a normal position in which movement between release position and locking position is possible and an alignment position in which it fixes the gearshift lever free from play.
US08402854B2
A linear actuator capable of setting a bed to a flat state in emergencies is provided.A linear actuator 10 contains a shaft 16 with a feed male screw section 17, a worm gear reduction device for transmitting the rotation of a motor 40 to the shaft 16, a nut 19 that is coupled by a screw to the feed male screw section 17 and advances or retreats by the forward rotation of the shaft 16 and advances or retreats by the reverse rotation of the shaft 16, and a moving cylinder 12 that is fixed to the nut 19 and advances and retreats relative to a housing 11, wherein a sub-shaft 52 linking to the worm gear reduction device, an inner race 59 spline-coupled to the sub-shaft 52, an engaging male section 82 and engaging female section 83 for free engaging, provided between a collar 55 of the shaft 16 and the inner race 59, an operating ring 66 fitted to allow free rotation on the outer circumference of the housing 11, and a function ring 72 for converting the rotation of the operating ring 66 to an axial movement and transmitting it to the inner race 59 are installed. The shaft 16 can be freely rotated in emergencies by releasing the engaging between the engaging male section and the engaging female section.
US08402847B2
A hydrophobic property demonstrator (100) comprises an inclinable sample support (10) and an upper tank (20) for producing droplets (GA, GB) that fall onto a sample (A, B) placed on the support. The droplets are produced regularly with a constant size by selecting a profile and diameter of a hole (23, 24) at the bottom of the tank, and by maintaining a constant water level (N) in said tank. Such a demonstrator is particularly suited for demonstrating the efficiency of the hydrophobic behavior of spectacle lenses.
US08402844B2
A health and usage monitoring system for use in monitoring health and usage of one or more components of a vehicle. In various embodiments, the present invention uses at least one roving wireless sensor that can be temporarily placed in a first position to monitor one or more components of the vehicle and then moved to another position to monitor one or more other components of the vehicle, thus reducing the total number of sensors used to monitor the vehicle. In some embodiments, a system according to the present invention may comprise at least one or more roving wireless sensors. Other embodiments may comprise one or more roving wireless sensors used in conjunction with one or more wired sensors. The present invention also provides similar embodiments for a method of monitoring the health and usage of one or more components of a vehicle.
US08402837B1
A system for field testing the bearing behavior of a test helical pile employs a plurality of anchor helical piles driven into the ground at angles around the test helical pile and a head assembly to form a support structure over the test pile. The head assembly includes attachments for engaging the upper ends of the anchor helical piles, and a vertical passageway extending through the head assembly. A hollow-core hydraulic jack having a vertical passageway is inserted between the upper end of the test helical pile and the head assembly to exert a test load on the test helical pile. A vertical member is placed through the vertical passageways in the head assembly and jack to the upper end of the test helical pile to measure movement of the test helical pile in response to the test load.
US08402836B2
A pressure difference measuring cell for registering pressure difference between a first pressure and a second pressure, comprises: an elastic measuring arrangement having at least one measuring membrane, or diaphragm, that comprises silicon; a platform, which is pressure-tightly connected with the elastic measuring arrangement; a first hydraulic path for transferring a first pressure onto a first surface section of the elastic measuring arrangement; and a second hydraulic path for transferring a second pressure onto a second surface section of the elastic measuring arrangement. The first pressure opposes the second pressure, and the elastic deflection of the measuring arrangement is a measure for the difference between the first and the second pressure, wherein the pressure difference measuring cell has additionally at least one hydraulic throttle, characterized in that the at least one hydraulic throttle comprises porous silicon.
US08402832B2
Pressure measurement and recording mediums and devices that can respond accurately and reliably to uniform pressure conditions including non-gaseous environments and industrial processing environments are disclosed. Also discloses are methods of making and using the devices.
US08402831B2
Low temperature wafer bonding (temperature of 450° C. or less) is employed to fabricate CMUTs on a wafer that already includes active electrical devices. The resulting structures are CMUT arrays integrated with active electronics by a low-temperature wafer bonding process. The use of a low-temperature process preserves the electronics during CMUT fabrication. With this approach, it is not necessary to make compromises in the CMUT or electronics designs, as is typical of the sacrificial release fabrication approach. Various disadvantages of sacrificial release, such as low process control, poor design flexibility, low reproducibility, and reduced performance are avoided with the present approach. With this approach, a CMUT array can be provided with per-cell electrodes connected to the substrate integrated circuitry. This enables complete flexibility in electronically assigning the CMUT cells to CMUT array elements.
US08402830B2
A method for nondestructive testing of a test object by means of ultrasound, and a corresponding device, the method including radiating directed ultrasonic pulses into the test object 100 at an irradiation angle β, whereby the irradiation angle β is set electronically, recording of echo signals that result from the ultrasonic pulses radiated into the test object 100, determining an ERS value of an error 102 in the volume of the test object from echo signals, which can be associated with the error 102.
US08402824B1
A precision gyroscope includes a semiconductor substrate, a gyroscope integrated on the substrate, and a quartz resonator clock integrated on the substrate. In another embodiment the substrate is a quartz substrate.
US08402822B2
The invention is a process tank containing a direct level magnetostrictive measurement system disposed directly in the tank, where the level system preferably communicates to a remote location. One embodiment of the invention embodies an internal well guide chamber, which exactly replicates the actual vessel's internal conditions (pressure and temperature), and also prevents the float from being affected by turbulence from a two phase condition, such as might occur if boiling or flashing is present inside the vessel. The process tank should have a fluid temperature different by more than 50° C. from the ambient environment, or alternatively, be a flashing tank.
US08402821B2
A method and a monitoring unit for monitoring a tire of a vehicle record a first measured value of revolutions of a tire with a first sensor. In addition, a second measured value of the revolutions of a tire is recorded with a second sensor. Alternatively, a second measured value of a second, different measured variable of a tire can also be recorded. In a further step, the directly measured or derived measured values of a measured variable are compared and an error signal is generated if a determined deviation is greater than a predefinable tolerance value.
US08402815B2
The invention relates to an air pollution sensor system (1) comprising an air inlet (11), an air outlet (12), a sensor unit (2), and an air displacement device (3). The air displacement device is arranged to establish an air flow (4) from the air inlet through the sensor unit to the air outlet. The sensor unit comprises, a filter (22) for removing airborne pollutants from the air flow. The sensor unit is arranged to generate an output signal (21) based on the amount of airborne pollutants removed from the air flow by the filter. The air displacement device is arranged to be controlled by the output signal, thereby improving the lifetime of the air pollution sensor system by minimizing the amount of pollutants that will be deposited inside the sensor unit when the air pollution sensor system is operated under predetermined conditions.
US08402814B2
A method for the analysis of isotope ratios, wherein at least one sample gas and/or at least one reference gas are supplied to at least one analytical device via at least one open split, the addition of a carrier gas also being possible. According to the invention, the concentration of the sample gas and/or reference gas passing into the analytical device is controlled by the supply of the respective carrier gas or by direct supply of the sample gas into the analytical device. In the device according to the invention for supplying gases to at least one analytical device, two or more capillaries are provided for sample gases, the capillaries in each case having their own drive for the movement between mixing zone and waiting zone.
US08402810B2
The present invention provides a method for testing the water hammer strength of a glass bottle. The method includes the steps of providing a holding device on a fixing stage with a cushion material therebetween, holding the bottle filled with a content and fitted with a cap with the holding device at a position above the center of gravity thereof and suspending the bottle in the air, and dropping a weight directly or indirectly onto the cap to apply an impact to the bottle. The weight is repeatedly dropped while gradually increasing a drop energy thereof. The water hammer strength of the bottle is tested based on the drop energy of the weight at the time when the bottle is damaged.
US08402809B2
A method and apparatus for determining the work required to expel a tampon from a tampon applicator having a barrel containing the tampon and a plunger for expelling the tampon from the barrel. The method includes the steps of selecting and applying an applicator gripping test force to a grip zone on the barrel of the tampon applicator and selecting a tampon expulsion test rate and applying a force to the plunger sufficient to expel the tampon from the barrel of the tampon applicator at the selected tampon expulsion test rate. Further, the method includes the step of calculating the force on the plunger required to expel the tampon from the barrel at the selected tampon expulsion test rate as a function of the distance the tampon travels during expulsion.
US08402801B2
A helical cord having an elliptical shape and the like is manufactured so that a length-to-width ratio or a dimension of a shaped form of the cord to be shaped in a longitudinal direction can be changed. A cord (C) is sequentially passed through through holes (21H, 22H) of stationary and movable shaping bodies (21, 22) opposing each other of a shaping device (20). At that time, the movable shaping body (22) is moved along the stationary shaping body (21) by a moving device so that the through holes (21H, 22H) become eccentric with respect to each other, and the cord (C) passing between the eccentric through holes (21H, 22H) is bent and deformed so as to be shaped. Also, a first and a second displacement mechanism that displace the movable shaping body (22) in X- and Y-directions are provided in the moving device, the movable shaping body (22) is thereby reciprocatingly displaced in the both directions in synchronization by displacement amounts which were set, respectively, the movable shaping body (22) is continuously moved in response to the displacements in the both directions, and thus the passing cord (C) is shaped.
US08402800B1
A key assembly with a releasable shackle allows a key to be attached and released from a closed loop or key chain. The key is similar to convention keys but does not have a closed shackle. A gap is formed in the shackle to define an opening. A gate that can be opened or closed releasable closes the gap. The gate is opened to add or remove the key from the loop. The gate is closed to lock the key on the loop. The gate can be formed in a number of manners including a wire gate, as flexible resilient gate, a hinged gate, or as a cuff.
US08402783B2
An ice-making device for a refrigerator, which is designed to separate ice through a simple process is provided. The ice-making device for a refrigerator includes an ice tray defining an ice-making space, an ice core member that is partly received in the ice-making space to make ice at an end thereof, a driving unit moving and rotating at least one of the ice tray and the ice core member, and a power transmission unit for transferring power from the driving unit to the ice core member. The ice on the ice core member starts being separated in a state where the ice is spaced apart from an outer surface of the ice tray.
US08402782B2
An ice-making device designed to make and separate ice from an ice tray through a simple process is provided. The ice-making device includes an ice tray defining an ice-making space, a freezing core that is partly received in the ice-making space to make ice at an end thereof, a driving unit moving and rotating the freezing core, and a power transmission unit for transferring power from the driving unit to the freezing core. The power transmission unit including a cam unit rotatably connected to the driving unit and a moving member that moves in vertical and rotational direction by a driving force of a motor transferred by the cam unit.
US08402766B2
A process for production of electric energy and CO2 from a hydrocarbon feedstock includes steam reforming of the feedstock, separation and combustion of hydrogen, and separation of CO2.
US08402751B2
Systems and methods for controlling regeneration of a particulate filter downstream of an engine in a vehicle are provided herein. One exemplary method includes, during an engine shutdown, increasing a throttle opening and regenerating a particulate filter downstream of a three-way catalyst. The method also includes, during an engine start following an engine shutdown, setting one or more engine parameters based on whether the particulate filter was regenerated during a last engine shutdown before the engine start.
US08402750B2
A reagent injection system for reducing emissions from an engine includes a reagent container. A heating element is positioned in a heat transfer relationship with reagent stored within the container. An interchange tube includes a first end in receipt of a recirculated liquid reagent and a second open end positioned in the container. The interchange tube includes a bleed-off tube branching off of the interchange tube between the first and second ends. A terminal end of the bleed-off tube is positioned within a vapor dome above a surface of the reagent.
US08402748B2
A fuel control system for a vehicle comprises a fuel control module, a heat release determination module, and a detection module. The fuel control module supplies fuel to a cylinder of a diesel engine for combustion within the cylinder. The heat release determination module determines a heat release value based on a pressure within the cylinder during the combustion. The detection module selectively indicates that the fuel is a diesel fuel alternative when the heat release value is less than a predetermined heat release value. The predetermined heat release value is less than a second predetermined heat release value associated with diesel fuel.
US08402736B2
A method of operating an aircraft, and the aircraft itself, comprising a gas turbine engine that exhausts a plume of gases in use, the aircraft is characterized by comprising an electromagnetic radiation generator and a waveguide to direct electromagnetic radiation at the exhaust plume to avoid the formation of contrails.
US08402735B2
The amount of water to be injected in an intercooler is controlled to cool the compressed gas to the saturation temperature. It is difficult to adjust the amount of the water to be injected, however, since the temperature of the compressed gas at an intercooler outlet is actually higher than the saturation temperature. An intercooling system is configured so as to cool a gas to the saturation temperature without controlling the amount of water injection and thereby maintain the reliability of the compressor while improving the cooling efficiency. The intercooling system is located between a plurality of compression stages of a gas compressor to cool the gas that has been in the compressor. A desired amount of liquid is sprinkled to cool the compressed gas while restraining inflow of the liquid into the compression stages.
US08402714B2
The system includes a plurality of mullion retrofit adaptors, each having a rear side configured and disposed to fit over the front side of at least some mullion of the existing supporting framework. It also includes a plurality of new mullions, each having a rear side configured and disposed to fit over at least some of the retrofit adaptors. A method for refurbishing an existing curtain wall attached to a base structure is also presented. This proposed concept can significantly reduce the time and costs for refurbishing an existing curtain wall.
US08402698B1
A housing structure for erecting on a ground surface includes a generally helical ramp having at least two lanes for accommodating vehicular traffic in opposing directions, a loop at the highest level of the ramp connecting the at least two lanes. The ramp includes a plurality of habitable units, each at one of a plurality of radial positions with respect to a center of the ramp. The habitable units that share any particular radial position but that are vertically offset are each generally vertically co-aligned in a common multi-level building. In one embodiment, at least one habitable unit includes more than one floor or story. Each habitable unit preferably comprises at least a private garage connected to the ramp with a driveway, and a private living space that may include a rear balcony connected to a front porch by a breezeway.
US08402689B2
A method and a device are disclosed for capturing sea crustaceans, such as crab, lobster, and shrimp. In various embodiments, the disclosed crustacean trap has a tapered body and collapsible trap doors usable for stacking multiple crustacean traps to reduce space requirements for storage, transportation and deployment. Foldable entry doors allow pre set up of traps for commercial and sport fishing fishing applications. The disclosed crustacean trap is configured for single-step and/or single-hand setting up of bait, trap doors, and deployment. The disclosed crustacean trap further includes a body-attached hook, which reduces line and rope tangling during setup and operation.
US08402675B2
A footwear construction including a portion of an upper and/or sole, a strap defining a sleeve, and a cord joined with the upper and/or sole portion, extending toward the strap and slidably housed in the sleeve. An adjustment element is selectively locatable along a part of the cord. By sliding the cord relative to the sleeve and optionally adjusting the location of the adjustment element, the spatial relationship between the strap and the upper and/or sole portion can be selectively adjusted to accommodate a particular dimension of a wearer's foot and/or ankle. A method is also provided for manufacturing footwear including the above components.
US08402672B2
A method of controlling a spray dryer apparatus having a spray dryer chamber (1), an air inlet (2), an inlet air control system (11) including a fan (13) and an air heater (14), a feed inlet (3), and an exhaust air outlet (4), comprising determining a content (Y) of moisture of inlet air, determining an inlet air temperature set value (Tinlet) in dependence of the inlet air moisture content (Y), determining an inlet air temperature measured value of inlet air between the air heater (14) and the spray dryer chamber (1), and regulating the inlet air temperature in dependence of the inlet air temperature set value and the inlet air temperature measured value, and determining an outlet air temperature of the exhaust air and regulating an inlet air flow rate in dependence of the outlet air temperature.
US08402670B2
The present invention provides an apparatus and method to accurately scribe benchmarks into a tensile test sample bar. The apparatus includes a base having a planar surface allowing a tensile test sample bar to rest thereupon. The apparatus further includes a guide having two spaced apart edges separated by a predetermined width. The planar surface of the base further includes a plurality of grid lines to properly align the tensile test sample bar. The base further includes at least one securing member adapted to abut and secure the guide during scribing of the tensile test sample bar. The method includes the steps of aligning a tensile test sample bar on the planar surface having a plurality of grid lines and securing the tensile test sample bar on the planar surface by means of the securing members. The guide then provides for an accurate predetermined width of the spacing of the benchmarks scribed onto the tensile test sample bar. By means of a scribe, the user runs the scribe along each of the edges of the guide and scrapes two benchmarks onto the tensile test sample bar.
US08402668B2
An improved coordinate measuring apparatus is provided. The coordinate measuring apparatus has a device that holds a CMM adapter plate in a way that simulates the locating points on the electromagnetic device in the CMM. Once in place, the threaded cube on the adapter plate is aligned to the CMM machine axes by holding a sliding V-block on the device against any corner of the cube. The screws that hold the threaded cube in the adapter plate are then tightened, and the adapter plate is released from the device. The threaded cube is now square to the CMM X-Y-Z axes.
US08402663B2
A tool such as a knife or other hand tool has only two pieces, a handle and a blade or other implement. The blade is movable from a fully retracted position to an extended position and the blade may be locked in both the retracted and extended positions.
US08402662B1
A removable knife opening assist for a folding knife. The removable knife opening assist includes a hook and an attachment portion. The folding knife is configured to be stored in a folded condition in a container. The removable knife opening assist is configured to snag the container so that the folding knife is automatically opened for use when the folding knife is withdrawn from the container, without the need to manipulate the knife, other than the simple withdrawal of the folding knife from the container.
US08402661B2
A raceway member 6 of a wheel support hub unit, having wheel or vehicle body fixing portions 7 extending radially outward from a solid or hollow shaft portion, and a wheel or vehicle body positioning cylindrical portion 9 extending concentrically with the shaft portion, the fixing portion 7 being formed by the cold side extrusion so that the fixing portion is integral with the shaft portion 5.
US08402660B1
Exemplary methods are provided for installing a ramp assembly into a vehicle. The vehicle includes a floor, a vehicle well disposed in the floor, and inboard and outboard ramp support members. In one embodiment, ramp assembly mounts, such as movable mounting blocks, are utilized for installing the ramp assembly into the vehicle.
US08402659B2
A method for producing an at least partially surface-densified metallic toothed element comprising a densified sintering material, in order to improve a strength profile, a preform of the toothed element being produced with a locally selective oversize profile relative to a final size of the toothed element and being rolled to the final size by means of at least one rolling die, the toothed element being densified in locally varied manner at least in the region of at least one flank and/or one root of a tooth of the toothed element to produce a densified outer layer.
US08402656B2
A method of producing a diaphragm damper 1 having a high pressure chamber 3 comprised of two diaphragms 2 with flanges 6 welded together and charged inside with a high pressure gas. The diaphragms 2 are made of magnetically attractable thin metal sheets. A pair of jigs 30, 40 provided to face each other inside the pressure vessel 20 hold the diaphragms 2 by magnetic force. The pressure vessel 20 is sealed and evacuated, then the pressure vessel 20 is charged and pressurized by a mixed gas including helium. After this, the pair of jigs 30, 40 are made to approach each other to make the flanges 6 of the pair of diaphragms 2 come into close contact. Inside the pressure vessel 20, the jigs 30, 40 are simultaneously rotated to rotate the pair of diaphragms 2 and a laser beam is fired at the flanges 6 of the diaphragms 2 to weld the flanges 6 over their entire circumferences.
US08402650B2
A method for producing a built-up cam shaft and a built-up cam shaft having a shaft are provided. A functional component is produced in a separate manufacturing process and has an internal orifice to receive the shaft. The orifice in the functional component is substantially round to receive the shaft, and an insertion mechanism is provided on the raised areas and/or at the orifice in the functional component, which allow the functional component to be pushed onto the raised areas substantially without shavings being produced. The raised areas partially dig into the orifice and in so doing connect the functional component to the shaft in a non-positive and positive manner substantially by deformation of the material of the functional component in the region of the orifice in the functional component.
US08402649B2
A method of manufacturing a scroll member includes a casting step and a cutting step. In the casting step an iron casting having a spiraling part is formed. In the cutting step, the iron casting obtained in the casting step is cut to obtain a final shape of the scroll member. Preferably the iron casting obtained in the casting step has a fixing part with the spiraling part extending from one side and a protruding part extending from an opposite side. A specified portion of the spiraling part, a central portion of the fixing part and/or the protruding part has a larger dimension before the cutting step is performed than after the cutting step is performed.
US08402647B2
Methods of manufacturing light panels having at least one re-entrant turning feature. In one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a light panel includes providing a base layer, providing a cover layer, and coupling the cover layer to the base layer to form at least one re-entrant turning feature between the base layer and the cover layer. In another embodiment, a method of manufacturing a light panel includes providing a base layer, forming at least one receiving space in the base layer, providing at least one prismatic block, and coupling at least a portion of the prismatic block into the receiving space such that re-entrant turning features are formed between the prismatic block and the base layer.
US08402643B2
A gas cartridge loading mechanism has a sensor member movable toward a collar retaining portion and mounted to undergo pivotal movement between a locked position and an unlocked position, and a stopper configured to prevent movement of the sensor member when the sensor member is disposed in the locked position and to allow movement of the sensor member when the sensor member is disposed in the unlocked position. The sensor member is configured to move in the locked position when a gas cartridge is set with improper orientation, and to move in the unlocked position when the gas cartridge is set with proper orientation.
US08402641B2
A connector system for connecting first and second elongate conductors includes a wedge connector and a hydraulic power drive tool assembly. The wedge connector includes: a sleeve member defining a sleeve cavity and mountable on the first and second conductors; a wedge member; and a lubricant coating disposed on at least one of the sleeve member and the wedge member. The hydraulic power drive tool assembly is adapted to drive the wedge member into the sleeve cavity when the sleeve member is mounted on the first and second conductors to secure the wedge connector to each of the first and second conductors. According to some embodiments, the lubricant is a wax.
US08402640B2
An opposing first plate and second plate are slideably disposed with respect to each other using self-aligning plate registration means. Circuit board registration means and component registration means are provided for the initial X-Y alignment and registration of the circuit board and socket contact elements with one or more electrically conductive leads of an electronic component such as a focal plane array (FPA). A non-contact portion is provided on the first plate to eliminate plate contact with the first component surface which may comprise the lens of an FPA. The first and second plates are urged together such that an even, controlled and substantially planar compressive force is applied, permitting the efficient insertion of the electrically conductive leads into the socket contacts.
US08402637B2
A fixturing system (10) for use with a frame-straightening repair bench (30) that assists in properly positioning fixture bases and providing verification of repairs. The fixturing system includes fixture bases, support assemblies (14), locating members (16), designed to couple with specific control points, and securing mechanisms to secure the vehicle during repair. The alignment targets and verification system provide proof that the fixturing system and replacement parts are properly positioned. If a repair cannot be made by pulling, the damaged areas of the vehicle can be removed and the fixturing system can help position and hold replacement parts until the repair is made substantially permanent, and the alignment targets and verification system provide proof that the repair is accurately made.
US08402635B2
A method of manufacturing a magnetic head, including a magneto resistance effect (MR) element that reads a magnetic recording medium, is disclosed. A multilayer film is formed on a shield layer. Unnecessary portions of the multilayer film are removed from both sides of the MR element in a first direction orthogonal to a lamination direction of the multilayer film and parallel to the MR element surface facing the magnetic recording medium. An insulating layer is formed on a surface exposed by removal of the unnecessary portions. An integrated soft magnetic layer covering both sides of the MR element in the first direction and an upper side of the MR element is formed, thereby configuring a second shield layer. An anisotropy application layer is formed on the second shield layer, thereby providing exchange anisotropy to the soft magnetic layer, and magnetizing the soft magnetic layer in a predetermined direction.
US08402634B2
A method of continuously mounting clips to first and second rods, which are abutted and crossed with each other, includes the steps of a) providing a clip dispensing gun; b) providing clips each having a first rod clipping portion fittable with the first rod and a second rod clipping portion fittable with the second rod; c) loading clips into a clip guiding portion of the clip dispensing gun; d) pushing one of the clips by a clip feeding member of the clip dispensing gun to advance one clip to a ready-to-be-fired position, and e) ejecting the clip in the ready-to-be-fired position out of the clip dispensing gun by using a striker of the clip dispensing gun for enabling first and second rod clipping portions of the ejected clip to be fitted with the first and second rods respectively.
US08402627B2
A puller tool and method for pulling a component from another component are provided. The puller tool can include a cross bar, a pair of puller legs that are movable along the length of the cross bar and a forcing screw. The puller legs can be quickly positioned anywhere along the length of the cross bar through a quick release mechanism. The cross bar can include notches on its outer surface to ensure that the puller legs are equidistant from each other during use.
US08402625B2
A system for modifying a slot in a rotor includes a drill, a clamp connected to the drill and configured to engage with an interior surface of the slot, and means for supporting the drill from a stationary platform adjacent to the rotor. A method for modifying a slot in a rotor includes connecting a coupling to a stationary platform adjacent to the rotor, connecting a drill to the coupling, and locating the drill proximate to the slot. The method further includes inserting a clamp into the slot, engaging the clamp with an interior surface of the slot, and operating the drill to create a cavity in the slot.
US08402616B2
A carabiner equipped with a swivelling gate formed by a rigid metal wire of smaller diameter than that of the body. The wire is provided with a protuberance at one of the ends to form a male latching element and an articulation loop at the opposite end for passage of the swivel-pin. A flexible return device for returning the gate to the closed position comprises a compression spring operating in conjunction with an intermediate transfer stirrup inside a housing of the body.
US08402603B1
A vacuum cleaner nozzle to clean a stair structure that includes a horizontal tread that meets a vertical riser at an inward corner includes a nozzle body having a business end formed with opposed upper and lower extremities forming an angle with one another and meeting at an outward corner. The opposed upper and lower extremities and the outward corner are to be concurrently applied to the vertical riser, the horizontal tread, and the inward corner, respectively. An unbroken front suction opening is formed in the upper extremity, the lower extremity, and the outward corner to assure a concurrent suction along substantially the entire height of the vertical riser, substantially the entire width of the horizontal tread, and the inward corner.
US08402601B2
The invention relates to a vacuum cleaner nozzle for cleaning of surfaces such as floors, comprising a rotatable, elongated brush (5), which is provided with brush means and located close to an air inlet opening to the vacuum cleaner. The brush is rotatably driven and adapted to rotate during cleaning to brush off debris and dust from the surface or to accomplish agitation of the surface. A first end of the brush is adapted to be mounted in the vacuum cleaner nozzle by moving the brush in an axial direction, while a second end of the brush is adapted to be mounted in the vacuum cleaner nozzle by moving the brush in a lateral direction, wherein the second end of the brush is maintained in a recess (13) by means of a releasable blocking element (7). The blocking element (7) is quick releasable without any need for a tool.
US08402598B2
An upright-type vacuum cleaner is provided. The upright-type vacuum cleaner includes a cleaner body comprising a motor chamber in which a suction motor is mounted, a brush assembly connected to the cleaner body, a discharge filter unit mounted on a first surface of the cleaner body, to filter out impurities from an air stream discharged from the suction motor, and a cord reel assembly mounted on a second surface of the cleaner body and having a power cord. The discharge filter unit includes a filter member mountable and demountable to and from the cleaner body by a user outside the vacuum cleaner, and at least a part of an air stream filtered by the filter member shifts a direction to pass through the cord reel assembly.
US08402594B2
A windscreen wiper device comprising an elastic, elongated carrier element, as well as an elongated wiper blade, which can be placed in abutment with a windscreen to be wiped, which wiper blade includes at least one longitudinal groove, in which groove a longitudinal strip of the carrier element is disposed, wherein ends of the longitudinal strip are connected to a respective connecting piece, which windscreen wiper device comprises a connecting device for an oscillating arm, wherein the wiper blade comprises an elongated upper holding part and an elongated lower wiping part of a flexible material, wherein the holding part comprises downwardly extending side arms for holding the wiping part from the outside in a lateral region thereof, wherein the holding part is provided with an elongated reinforcement element, and wherein the holding part and the reinforcement element are mutually connected through co-extrusion.
US08402589B2
Novel cleaning implements and novel components of cleaning implements are provided. Aspects relate to novel wringers having convex regions with a plurality of drain exits. In some embodiments, concave regions are also provided. The concave regions are substantially devoid of any drain exits. An upper portion of the wringer may be substantially cylindrical or conic-cylindrical and a lower portion may be neither cylindrical nor conic-cylindrical. The bottom perimeter of the bottom may define a square-like shape. Further aspects relate to novel connection assemblies. Certain assemblies may have a top portion with a vertical wall that is configured to position mop fibers along a vertical axis.
US08402577B2
A bed base and bed base kit includes four side members, each being symmetrical about its longitudinal axis. The side members are assembled into a rectangular structure with the members positioned to stand vertically upright on their edges. Opposed side members are of the same length and are connected at adjacent ends by a two-component connector. A first component of the connector is attached to the opposed ends of each one of a first pair of opposing side members and a second component is attached to the opposed ends of each one a second pair of opposing side members. The second components are offset from the longitudinal axis of the one side member to which they re attached. Thus, when the side members are assembled to form the rectangular structure, the respective edges of the side members are substantially flush with each other.
US08402566B2
A seam joining structure (1) includes a first material web (10) with a first barrier layer (42) and with a first edge (14) on an outer boundary of the first material web (10), a second material web (30) with a second barrier layer (42) and with a second edge (34) on an outer boundary of the second material web (30), as well as at least one seam (21) that joins the first and second material webs (10, 30) in a seam area (3) to form a first seam allowance (13) between the seam (21) and the first edge (14) of the first material web (10) and to form a second seam allowance (33) between seam (21) and the second edge (34) of the second material web (30). The first and second material webs (10, 30) are arranged one above the other in seam area (3) and the second seam allowance (33) is folded around the first edge (14) of the first material web (10) and covers the at least one seam (21) to form a seam cover (2), whereby the seam cover (2) is joined in the seam area (3) to the first material web (10). This seam-joining structure can contribute to creating waterproof functional clothing with high wearing comfort.
US08402564B2
A fitting system for a hat includes a band configured to be coupled to the hat; and a resilient member disposed within at least a portion of the band. The resilient member includes a first end, a second end, and an intermediate portion between the first and second ends. A crown extension and a crown extension bottom edge extend downwardly below a circumferential bottom edge of the hat wherein the resilient member is only positioned within a front band portion, a first side band portion, a second side band portion, and the crown extension. The first side band portion and the second side band portion are adapted to attach to the crown to form side gaps. Each of the side gaps are designed to receive the top portion of the user's ear so that the hat is designed to sit lower on the user's head without impinging upon the user's ears while the hat is being worn. A system and method are provided.
US08402563B1
Camouflage apparel for a hunter or solder or the like comprising a cape or sheet composed of camouflage material. The cape may be separate or attached to a pouch or hood of camouflage material. The cape and hood may be separate or attached to a portion of a vest which extends across the back of the neck of the wearer thereof such that the cape is receivable in the hood for stowage and such that the cape may be removed from the hood to drape across the front of the wearer. The vest has a seat which is stowably securable to the rear of the vest by straps which are fastened by buckles which are manipulatable at locations in front of the vest.
US08402562B1
A garment comprises a body portion formed from a first, body panel. The body portion has an exterior and an interior, a neck opening, a waist opening and two arm openings. The garment includes a pocket system having an interior pocket formed by a portion of the first, body panel and a second, middle panel attached to the interior of the first body panel. The interior pocket has an opening on the interior of the garment. The pocket system includes an exterior pocket formed by at least a portion of the second, middle panel and a third, innermost panel. The second and third panels have opposed edges attached to the first, body panel. The exterior pocket has an access opening on the exterior of the garment. An electronic connection from an electronic device can be made through an opening when the electronic device is placed inside the exterior pocket.
US08407809B2
A media file content provider 30 sends a non-permanent copy of a media file, such as a music or video file, to a second mobile station MS 34 in response to a request from a first MS 22. The copy may be rendered non-permanent by streaming it, by encrypting it, and by appending a first instruction to automatically delete it after playing. The first MS 22 may be given an option of delivery pathways, such as cellular 76, 78, WLAN 80, or DVB-H 84. After playing, an offer is made to the second MS 34 to purchase a permanent copy of the media file. If accepted, the content provider may provide another copy of the media file, or preferably a permanent decryption key or a second instruction that defeats the first instruction prior to its deletion of the media file.
US08407806B2
A method of distributing a data over a network includes protecting the data as a protected document by encryption and watermarking, controlling access to the protected document based on permissions, checking for permissions from a database, recording a record of the step of checking in the database, and accessing the protected document if allowed per permissions from the step of checking. The method collects a so-called “document thread” indicating a fingerprint of the first accessor of the data and the distributions and uses subsequently made of the data. The method is operable via a web page interface, such as through a browser of a device of the network communicatively connected to a web server of a data center. The method is alternately operable atop a document/data management system, including a client device application of a device of the network communicatively connected to the document/data management system. The method provides detection and log of the protected data in each event of access by the device over the network, deterrence of inappropriate access to the protected data by the device through policies for the document and device and event recordation on access, and disablement of the protected data for access by the device if access is not permissible per the method.
US08407804B2
In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for virtual machine scan optimization. In response to a change in the primary virtual machine, the virtual machine scan optimization may involve comparing the primary virtual machine to the related virtual machine and tracking changes of the primary virtual machine with respect to the related virtual machine wherein the changes are identified by location within the primary virtual machine; forming a tracked changes log; generating a relevant file map of the primary virtual machine wherein the relevant file map includes a plurality of relevant files and each of the plurality of relevant files' locations in the primary virtual machine; comparing the changed locations identified in the track changes log with the locations of the plurality of relevant files to determine if any one of the plurality of relevant files has been changed; and in the event that a relevant file has been changed, as indicated by the comparison of the relevant file map to the tracked changes log, causing the changed relevant file to be security scanned.
US08407800B2
A method for detecting, analyzing, and mitigating vulnerabilities in software is provided. The method includes determining whether one or more vulnerabilities are present in one or more target software components, determining whether any detected vulnerabilities are fixable, and fixing the detected vulnerabilities that are fixable in code or in associated models used to generate code. A vulnerability-covering code is generated when one or more of the detected vulnerabilities are not fixable. A determination is then made whether there are any remaining vulnerabilities in the vulnerability-covering code. A vulnerability-aware diverse code is generated when there are one or more remaining vulnerabilities to obfuscate the remaining vulnerabilities.
US08407796B2
A method includes receiving a status update from a client device, the status update reflects at least one change associated with the client device, updating a model of the client device based on the status update, receiving data to be screened for a virus, the data is received after an updating of the model of the client device, and screening the model of the client device for the virus. Systems and articles of manufacture are also disclosed.
US08407790B2
Systems and methods for protecting client computers are described. One method includes receiving webpage data at a proxy from a webpage before the data reaches an intended recipient; gathering scripting-language-data from the webpage data; normalizing the scripting-language-data so as to generate normalized data; emulating execution of the normalized scripting-language-data with a inspection-point-script-execution engine that that is adapted to provide inspection points instead of effectuating particular functions, and determining whether to block the data from the intended recipient by analyzing inspection-data collected from the inspection points.
US08407788B2
This disclosure describes, generally, methods and systems for self defending and repairing a database. The method includes monitoring, at a database server, code modifications to a database management application. The database management application is configured to maintain the database. The method further includes determining that a code modification has occurred to the database management application. The method further includes checking the code modification for the presence of an authorization key, and in response to an invalid or non-existent authorization key, determining that the code modification is unauthorized. Further, the method includes quarantining the modified code in a secure storage location, and automatically accessing original code of the database management application and replacing the modified code with code from the original code of the database management application.
US08407785B2
In accordance with some embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, systems, methods, and media for protecting a digital data processing device from attack are provided. For example, in some embodiments, a method for protecting a digital data processing device from attack is provided, that includes, within a virtual environment: receiving at least one attachment to an electronic mail; and executing the at least one attachment; and based on the execution of the at least one attachment, determining whether anomalous behavior occurs.
US08407774B2
A method and system for the identification of a user is provided, the system having: an enrollment processor, whereby initial login attempts by the user are measured, and data identifying the user are collected for a specific device and location; the enrollment processor being configured to collect the identifying data and create a first login score, a iterative average login score, and a iterative standard deviation login score; an enrolled login processor, the enrolled login processor being configured to measure dwell time on keys and flight time between keys in a login sequence and to calculate weighted dwell time and weighted flight time from the dwell time and the flight time; a login score calculator, the calculator taking the weighted flight time and the weighted dwell time and generating an actual login score; a login confidence comparator, the login confidence comparator comprising a processor whereby a comparison score is generated as a function of the actual login score, the iterative average login score, and the iterative standard deviation login score.
US08407771B1
A system and method for providing persistence in a secure network access by using a client certificate sent by a client device to maintain the identity of a target. A security handshake is performed with a client device to establish a secure session. A target is determined. A client certificate is associated with the target. During subsequent secure sessions, the client certificate is used to maintain persistent communications between the client and a target. A session ID can be used in combination with the client certificate, by identifying the target based on the session ID or the client certificate, depending on which one is available in a client message.
US08407759B1
A device, method, and system for secure mobile data storage includes a mobile data storage device having a short-range communication circuit, a long-range communication circuit, and a data storage for storing data. The mobile data storage device is used to store data used by a paired mobile communication device. The mobile data storage device and the mobile communication device communicate control signals over a wireless control link established using the short-range communication circuit and data over a wireless data link, different from the wireless control link, established using the long-range communication circuit. The mobile data storage device and/or mobile communication device may monitor a distance between the devices and perform a security function in response the devices being separated from each other. The mobile data storage device may backup data on a remote data server and/or repopulate data from the remote data server using the mobile communication device.
US08407750B2
Embodiments of the present invention pertain to enabling users of peer to peer clients to socially interact while viewing videos. According to one embodiment, a first client and a second client are physically remote from each other. A first video and a second video are for the same show but are in different formats. The first client accesses the first video and the second client accesses the second video. The users of the first client and the second client are enabled to socially interact with each other using peer to peer communications between the first client and the second client.
US08407748B2
An image processing apparatus includes a reception unit configured to receive a transmission request of information on a directory for managing contents from a display apparatus, a transmission unit configured to transmit a response to the transmission request received by the reception unit, and a notification unit configured to notify the display apparatus of a change in a predetermined directory, thereby causing the display apparatus to transmit a transmission request of information on the predetermined directory again. When a new directory is formed on the same layer as that of the directory for managing the contents as a result of addition of the contents in the storage medium, the notification unit notifies the display apparatus of a change in a directory located on a layer above the directory for managing the contents.
US08407746B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods for distributing media content between portable media devices with digital rights management protections. Offering several applications in the technical arts, embodiments of the present invention provide methods for managing distribution of media content between portable media devices. Further, embodiments of the present invention provide methods for easy and effective transmission of media content between portable media devices.
US08407737B1
A scan transport bar is disclosed. The scan transport bar includes a number of cells indicating programs within the scan. The scan transport bar is displayed with the currently-tuned program. The scan transport bar includes tuning sequence numbers for allowing users to easily tune to programs within the scan. A countdown timer is also provided that indicates the amount of time until the next tune in the scan.
US08407725B2
Embodiments described herein include mechanisms for encapsulating data that needs to be shared between or across processes. These mechanisms include slawx (plural of “slaw”), proteins, and pools. Generally, slawx provide the lowest-level of data definition for inter-process exchange, proteins provide mid-level structure and hooks for querying and filtering, and pools provide for high-level organization and access semantics. Slawx includes a mechanism for efficient, platform-independent data representation and access. Proteins provide a data encapsulation and transport scheme using slawx as the payload. Pools provide structured and flexible aggregation, ordering, filtering, and distribution of proteins within a process, among local processes, across a network between remote or distributed processes, and via longer term (e.g. on-disk, etc.) storage.
US08407713B2
A method of summarizing data includes providing a multi-method summarization program including instructions for summarizing data for a transaction processing system. At least one functional aspect of the transaction processing system for which a summarization of a subset of the data is desired is determined. The functional subset to a user as a light summarization program is exposed. The dependencies of the functional subset can be enforced at runtime allowing packaging flexibility. A method for efficient parallel processing involving not necessarily filled requests for help.
US08407703B1
In response to the detection of an external event by the first thread, the first thread sends a quiesce event to each additional thread of the application and suspends execution. The quiesce event may be either a suspension event requesting suspension of the additional threads or a termination event requesting termination of the additional threads. Each additional thread, upon receiving the quiesce event, checks its environment to determine whether it is holding any critical system resource. If the additional thread determines that is not holding any critical system resource and that it is therefore safe to quiesce, the additional thread quiesces. Before quiescing, the last additional thread to quiesce resumes the first thread, which is now free to perform critical operations without interference from the additional threads. If the quiesce type is suspension, the first thread resumes the additional threads upon completing its critical operations, whereupon the application resumes its normal operation.
US08407695B2
Execution is provided of at least: the first processing for making the installer software store the group information that relates to information which classifies a plurality of apparatuses into groups and specifies the apparatuses belonging to each group or the address information indicating the location storing this group information, at the time of building the installer software for installing the universal control software that provides universal control of a plurality of the apparatuses; the second processing for notifying about the group information or address information to prompt the group setting of a plurality of the apparatuses when installing the universal control software using installer software; and the third processing for selecting an apparatus as the object of control from among the apparatuses specified by group information acquired from the storage location having been notified or specified by the address information, when universal control software is executed.
US08407693B2
A technique for managing package dependencies for an application installation. A set of used files for the application and a package for a respective file in the set of used files are identified, and names of the identified packages are added to an original package list of package names for the application, wherein the original package list defines package dependencies. Responsive to a determination that the identified packages can be located, that the files within the identified packages can be found, and that the files within the identified packages were used, the original list of package names for the application is updated to form an updated list of managed package dependencies. A difference list between the updated list and the original list of package names is created, and the application is selectively installed using a combination of the original list of package names and the difference list.
US08407689B2
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for deploying an update to nodes propagated throughout a data center are provided. Launching new upgrade to hosting environment residing on the nodes typically invokes a mechanism (e.g., fabric controller) to form a group of nodes that are independent of one another with respect to upgrade domains, which are assigned to tenants (e.g., program components of service applications running within the data center) presently hosted by the nodes. The constraints of the update domains are articulated by service level agreements established for the service applications, respectively. Forming the group involves identifying independent nodes for membership, where no two members of the group host analogous tenants (belonging to a common service application) that are assigned to distinct update domains. However, it is acceptable to join to the group those nodes hosting analogous tenants that are each assigned to the same update domain.
US08407687B2
Methods, systems, and configured storage media are provided for discovering software updates, discovering if a given computer can use the software update, and then updating the computers with the software as needed automatically across a network without storing the updates on an intermediate machine within the network. Furthermore, when a failure is detected, the rollout is stopped and the software can be automatically removed from those computers that already were updated. The software update can be stored originally at an address that is inaccessible through the network firewall by intermediately uploading the software update to an update computer which is not a part of the network but has access through the firewall, which is then used to distribute the update.
US08407686B2
A notification of a problem associated with an application may be received. A difference may be determined between a problem version of the application and an operational version of the application to identify a change associated with the problem. A person associated with the change may be determined. A task of resolving the problem may be assigned to the person associated with the change. A person may be notified of the problem and of the assigning of the task based on the identified change. A modification may be performed to resolve the problem associated with the change based on the determining of the difference.
US08407682B2
Software stored on a computer-readable storage medium at a user station provides a plurality of functions including an online service selector function that enables a user at the user station to select any one of a plurality of available online service providers, and a communications function that establishes a communication link between the user station and the selected one of the available online service providers. Corresponding methods for operating a user station are also described.
US08407681B2
A system and associated method for changing the initial size of a variable where intermediate code contains a static method class which in turn contains the initial size of variable. Comparing a statistic with the initial size of the variable, the statistic being derived from all current instances of the variable contained in located in dynamic memory, the comparing being performed in response to an event having occurred. Then modifying the initial size of the variable located in the intermediate code. The modification being in such a way as to change the initial size of variable in dependence of the statistic and all current instances of the variable located in the dynamic memory. Finally, repeating the comparing and changing steps for all variables contained in the dynamic memory.
US08407662B2
A method provides network driver injection into a target image to transform the target image to be compatible with one or more source machines, for facilitating operating system streaming over a network. The method may include: facilitating access to a source system registry file of a source machine; facilitating access to a target system registry file of the target image, without copying the target image; determining whether source network interface cards of the source machine are compatible with the target image; and if the source network interface cards are not compatible with the target image, performing network interface driver injection into the target image. The target image may include an operating system. A machine-readable storage medium and apparatus are provided. A method is described for building a program for providing network driver injection into a target image to transform the target image to be compatible with computing machines.
US08407659B2
In a method of designing a printed circuit board, a package capacitance, a package inductance, and a chip capacitance of an actual memory device are calculated. A signal line capacitance and a signal line inductance per unit length of a signal line are calculated based on characteristics of the printed circuit board. A length of the signal line for each pin is determined based on the package capacitance and the signal line capacitance.
US08407651B2
Methods for optimizing design parameters of a circuit are disclosed. In one aspect, an optimization problem includes one or more performance specifications that represent an exponent of a design parameter to be optimized. Various parameters of passive and active circuit devices may be efficiently and accurately optimized as a result. In another aspect, linear performance specifications are included for accurately calculating voltages. In yet other aspects of the invention, three special types of convex optimization problems are disclosed for enabling the above use of exponents of design parameters which provide efficient and accurate calculations of a virtually unlimited array of circuit parameters and performance characteristics.
US08407649B2
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a hole is formed within an LE array of a PLD by interrupting the LE array base signal routing architecture such that a hole is left for IP function block to be incorporated. An interface region is provided for interfacing the remaining LE array base signal routing architecture to the IP function block.
US08407642B2
A leak current calculation apparatus includes an acquiring section for acquiring partial circuit information, and a grouping section for forming a plurality of groups each comprising a part of the partial circuits connected with each other and for generating group information. The apparatus includes a leak difference value calculating section for calculating a leak difference value, which is a difference between a provisional maximum value acquired by adding up the maximum values of the leak current values of all the partial circuits and a sum of maximum values of the leak current values contained in the group information of the groups, and a maximum leak current calculating section for calculating the maximum leak current value of the integrated circuit by adjusting the provisional maximum value with the leak difference value.
US08407633B2
A method configures a plurality of circuit elements for execution of an application in a first configuration. The method monitors the execution of the application on the plurality of circuit elements to produce monitoring information, using a computerized device, and stores the monitoring information in a storage structure. The method selectively communicates the monitoring information to an external element separate from the computerized device. The external element transforms the first configuration into a second configuration based on the monitoring information. The computerized device receives the second configuration from the external element and reconfigures the plurality of elements into the second configuration.
US08407631B2
The present invention applies the data mining methodology by which the wafer exposure effectiveness and efficiency are predictable in terms of the chip size, chip length and chip width. More specifically, in the present invention, an index, named “Mask-field-utilization weighted Overall Wafer Effectiveness” (MOWE), integrates the two parameters of “Overall Wafer Effectiveness” (OWE) and “Mask-Field-Utilization” (MFU), mainly regarding the wafer exposure effectiveness and efficiency respectively, in order to construct a model tree of the MOWE to achieve the data mining. By the MOWE model tree, the causal relationship between design independent variables and fabrication dependent variables is constructed, which can be accordingly applied as design guidelines in the design phase to improve the chip layout in order to produce a better wafer exposure effectiveness and efficiency.
US08407629B2
A pattern verification-test method according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: deriving an illumination condition at a verification-test subject position in a photomask surface of a mask pattern as a verification or a test subject based on the verification-test subject position and illumination condition information about a distribution of an illumination condition in a photomask surface of exposure light incident on the mask pattern, performing lithography simulation on the mask pattern based on the derived illumination condition and the mask pattern, and verifying or testing the mask pattern based on a result of the lithography simulation.
US08407628B2
This invention discloses a photomask manufacturing method. A pattern dimensional map is generated by preparing a photomask in which a mask pattern is formed on a transparent substrate, and measuring a mask in-plane distribution of the pattern dimensions. A transmittance correction coefficient map is generated by dividing a pattern formation region into a plurality of subregions, and determining a transmittance correction coefficient for each of the plurality of subregions. The transmittance correction value of each subregion is calculated on the basis of the pattern dimensional map and the transmittance correction coefficient map. The transmittance of the transparent substrate corresponding to each subregion is changed on the basis of the transmittance correction value.
US08407623B2
This is directed to controlling media playback based on particular touch gestures detected by a touch-sensing interface. The electronic device can identify particular touch inputs, such as combinations of tapping and holding a touch sensitive surface, or circular motions. In response to detecting a particular touch gesture, the electronic device can perform a playback operation specifically associated with the detected touch gesture. To provide a consistent user interface with the device, some of the particular touch gestures can match other inputs provided using a button, for example a button integrated on a wired headset. In such an embodiment, the same combination of tapping and holding a touch input and pressing and holding a button can control the same electronic device operations.
US08407622B2
A portable device and a method of providing menu icons are provided. The portable device includes a button signal determination unit, a focus location checking unit, a background screen management unit, and an icon management unit. The button signal determination unit determines whether an input button signal is the signal of a function button or the signal of a direction button when the button signal is received from a user. The focus location checking unit determines a location of a focus located on a specific menu icon. The background screen management unit changes the view point of a background screen to a direction in which the focus is moved. The icon management unit changes the size of a menu icon based on the location of the focus.
US08407621B1
A facility for coordinating an online discussion is described. The facility receives an indication that a user has captured a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier that identifies a particular online discussion. In response, the facility incorporates into an online forum that hosts this online discussion an indication that this user captured a symbol encoding an identifier that identifies this online discussion.
US08407616B2
A graphical user interface facilitates methods for analyzing a temperature distribution across a scene that is captured by a thermal imaging device. Preferably, the interface includes a both a two-dimensional image of the captured scene and a three-dimensional representation of the captured scene. The three-dimensional representation is formed by a plurality of pixels, each of which are coded by a qualitative value from within a range of qualitative values, and each value, within the range, corresponds to a temperature. Each of the plurality of pixels is arranged, in a first and a second dimension of the three dimensions, according to a position of a corresponding pixel of the two-dimensional image, and, in a third dimension, according to a magnitude of the temperature associated therewith.
US08407615B2
A system and method by which menus, displays, charts, maps and pictures may be presented to a user and very quickly seen and used in the context of a larger display without obscuring key elements of that display. Menus or other graphical displays are anchored to the sides of a solid figure, which can be rotated to display the menu panels and other textual and graphical information.
US08407613B2
In some embodiments, a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display concurrently displays on the touch screen display a plurality of predefined regions, the predefined regions including: a source region, a command region, and a destination region. In response to detecting a first command association input by a user on the touch screen display, the device associates a first icon from the source region with a first directory management command icon in the command region. In response to detecting a first command performance input that includes selecting a first folder icon in the destination region, the device performs a directory management operation on a folder or file that corresponds to the first icon. The directory management operation is in accordance with the first directory management command icon and the selected first folder in the destination region.
US08407612B2
A multi-document application that includes a multi-document interface that includes a view area that displays one document at a time and includes a tab group element that displays tabs, each tab having a control that permits a corresponding document to be visualized in the view area. A user may then designate that one or more of the tabs are to be pinned to thereby have the multi-document application assign a pinned status to the tab. The pinned status may be persisted such that when the multi-document application is closed and reloaded, the pinned status remains. Further, when a tab receives a pinned status, the tab does not display less information regarding the corresponding document as compared to before the tab was pinned.
US08407601B2
Regulating user interface controls includes identifying a grouping from among different groupings and providing a set of user interface controls corresponding to the identified grouping. The groupings can correspond to the maturity levels (e.g., kids and teenagers) of different network service provider users.
US08407596B2
Media timeline interaction may be provided. An electronic presentation may comprise a media object. A user may select the media object within a presentation application and use an on-object user interface in conjunction with the application's user interface to modify the media object. The user may also display the modified media object within the presentation application.
US08407588B1
The different advantageous embodiments provide a method for loading and editing text files. A text file is identified as input. A determination is made as to whether the text file is a columnar text file. If the text file is columnar, data information is retrieved for the text file. Pre-defined cache settings are identified. A determination is made as to whether the data information retrieved fits within the pre-defined cache settings. If the data information retrieved fits within the pre-defined cache settings, a determination is made as to whether the first row of the text file is a header row in a view. If the first row of the text file is not a header row, the text file is normalized. A view mode is selected for load and edit operations of the text file.
US08407586B2
An apparatus includes an editing area display unit configured to display a screen including an editing area that enables a user to edit a document, a temporary storage area display unit configured to display a temporary storage area which differs from the editing area and temporarily displays a list of reduced images of editing materials, and a layout editing unit configured to edit the document by adding a material selected from the editing materials displayed in the temporary storage area. When a currently edited document is transferred to a file, a control unit stores a path of a material displayed in the temporary storage area in relation to the document transferred to the file. When a document file stored in relation to the path of a material area is newly opened, the control unit determines whether the newly opened document file is related to the material in the temporary storage area.
US08407577B1
Techniques are described for facilitating access of computing system users to restricted or other functionality, such as internal functionality of a business or other organization. The functionality access may be facilitated by an access provider system that executes on a client computing system of an authorized user, such as a program operating in conjunction with another presentation program that presents publicly available information by modifying interactions available to the user when using the presentation program or otherwise providing additional information to the user. In some situations, the additional information is provided by temporarily modifying the information being presented by the presentation program, such as to provide additional information that is related to functionality corresponding to a subject area of the currently presented information and/or corresponding to an aspect of the currently presented information that is indicated by the user.
US08407574B2
A user interface and methods for accessing document presentations are described herein. In one aspect of the invention, an exemplary method of the invention allows a user to directly snapback to a previous accessed document presentation without having to select from a menu of items or go through the intermediate pages. In this method, when a first document presentation is accessed, a first location of the first document presentation is recorded, automatically or manually. Subsequently, when a sequence of additional document presentations originated from the first document presentation is accessed, in response to a first input, without having to select from a menu of items, the first document presentation is directly retrieved from a recorded first location and displayed in a window. In one particular embodiment, a second document presentation is accessed and a second location of the second document presentation is recorded, where the recordation of the second location resets or supercedes the recordation of the first location. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.
US08407571B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for performing SOVA detection at higher data rates than achievable with conventional designs. A received signal is processed by (i) determining at least three selection signals that define a plurality of paths through a multiple-step trellis into a given state, wherein a first of the plurality of paths is a winning path for each single-step-trellis period of a multiple-step-trellis cycle, a second path is a winning path for a first single-step-trellis period and is a losing path for a second single-step-trellis period of a multiple-step-trellis cycle and a third path is a losing path for a first single-step-trellis period and is a winning path for a second single-step-trellis period of a multiple-step-trellis cycle; and (ii) determining at least one reliability value (such as a reliability value for a bit decision associated with a maximum-likelihood path through the multiple-step trellis or a plurality of reliability values for each multiple-step-trellis cycle).
US08407565B2
Disclosed are a rich media sever, a rich media transmission system, and a rich media transmission method, which are adaptive to network environments. The rich media server includes an interfacing unit for communicating with a terminal, which requests rich media; a media processing unit for processing at least one piece of media corresponding to the request; a rich-media encoding unit for encoding at least one piece of media, which is output from the media processing unit, to produce rich media, and outputting the rich media to the interfacing unit in order to provide the rich media to the terminal; and a controller for determining importance rates of pieces of media constituting the rich media, based on reproduction information of the rich media, and controlling at least one of the media processing unit and the rich-media encoding unit to convert a transmission processing for the at least one piece of media based on the determined importance rates.
US08407562B2
A non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) storage system includes a NVSM drive interface configured to receive host data sectors (HDSs) from a host interface. A buffer managing module is configured to store the HDSs in a buffer. A compression module is configured to compress the HDSs to generate compressed HDSs of different lengths. A drive data sector (DDS) generating module is configured to add nuisance data to the compressed HDSs to generate DDSs. The DDSs are stored in NVSM.
US08407555B2
LDPC codes robust to non-stationary narrowband ingress noise. Particularly designed LDPC codes are adapted to address deleterious noise-effects incurred within LDPC coded signals that propagate via a communication channel (such as from a transmitting communication device to a receiving communication device). Such LDPC matrices employed for encoding and/or decoding such LDPC coded signals are composed of sub-matrices (e.g., all-zero values sub-matrices and/or CSI (Cyclic Shifted Identity) sub-matrices). The sub-matrices are generally uniform in size and square in shape. Based on certain operational conditions, such as communication channel noise, various operations within a communication device are adaptively modified (e.g., signaling, modulation, demodulation, symbol mapping, metric generation, decoding, etc.). Various types of signaling may be employed for such LDPC coded signals including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signaling, which may include employing symbols of different size therein (e.g., symbols with x and y bits, respectively, with x and y being integers).
US08407553B2
Certain embodiments of the present invention are efficient run-time methods for creating and updating a RAM list of dominant trapping-set profiles for use in (LDPC) list decoding. A decoded correct codeword is compared to a near codeword to generate a new trapping-set profile, and the profile written to RAM. Record is kept of how many times RAM has been searched since a profile was last matched. Profiles that have not been matched within a specified number of searches are purge-eligible. Purge-eligible profiles are further ranked on other factors, e.g., number of times a profile has been matched since it was added, number of unsatisfied check nodes, number of erroneous bit nodes. If there is insufficient free space in RAM to store a newly-discovered profile, then purge-eligible profiles are deleted, beginning with the lowest-ranked profiles, until either (i) sufficient free space is created or (ii) there are no more purge-eligible profiles.
US08407550B2
A code to be decoded by message-passing is represented by a factor graph. The factor graph includes variable nodes indexed by i and constraint nodes indexed by a connected by edges for transferring messages mi→a outgoing from the variable nodes to the constraint nodes and messages ma→i incoming from the constraint nodes to the variable nodes. The messages mi→a are initialized based on beliefs bi of a received codeword. The messages ma→i are generated by overshooting the messages mi→a at the constraint nodes. The beliefs bi are updated at the variable nodes using the messages ma→i. The codeword is outputted if found, otherwise, the messages mi→a are updated using a correction for the overshooting.
US08407548B2
A data link layer tunneling technique improves the throughput of high speed data in noisy wireless environments. Recovering lost frames transmitted between a packet sending unit and a packet receiving unit in a data communications system generally comprises (a) identifying a failure to successfully receive a missed frame at the packet receiving unit; (b) establishing a logical tunnel channel at the packet receiving unit to acknowledge the next successfully received frame; (c) starting a first timer at the packet receiving unit; (c) upon receiving a tunnel establishment request from the packet receiving unit, the packet sending unit resending the missed frame on the logical tunnel channel and starting a second timer; and (d) the packet sending unit resending the missed frame a specified number of times until receiving an acknowledgement from the packet receiving unit.
US08407538B2
A semiconductor package includes a memory controller chip, a plurality of first memory chips configured to store normal data, a second memory chip configured to store error information for correcting or detecting error of the normal data, and an interface unit configured to interface the memory controller chip, the plurality of first memory chips, and the second memory chip.
US08407536B2
A voice processing apparatus includes: an error detector which detects an error in a frame containing voice data; a correction value calculator which determines a level of the error detected by the error detector and calculates a correction value according to the level; and a voice data corrector which corrects the voice data by using the correction value calculated by the correction value calculator.
US08407532B2
Provided is a test apparatus that tests a device under test, comprising a test unit that sends and receives signals to and from the device under test; and a control apparatus that controls the test unit. The control apparatus includes a first buffer and a second buffer that buffer access requests to the test unit; a data output section that buffers, in the first buffer, access requests to be sent from the control apparatus to the test unit and, when an error occurs, buffers the access requests in the second buffer instead of the first buffer; and a transmitting section that sequentially transmits the access requests in the first buffer to the test unit and, when an error occurs, sequentially transmits the access requests in the second buffer to the test unit.
US08407523B2
In order to protect a software program, at least one corruption function is included in the program. Also included in the program is at least one instruction that causes the program to be directed to the corruption function. An available breakpoint is then set such that, when the starting location of the corruption function is reached, an exception is generated and the handling of the exception causes the corruption function not to run. This has the effect that, if a malicious user attempts to use the available hardware breakpoint to perform unauthorized actions on the software program, the corruption function will run, and the software program will be unusable.
US08407516B2
In one embodiment, the present invention provides an ability to handle an error occurring during a memory migration operation in a high availability system. In addition, a method can be used to dynamically remap a memory page stored in a non-mirrored memory region of memory to a mirrored memory region. This dynamic remapping may be responsive to a determination that the memory page has been accessed more than a threshold number of times, indicating a criticality of information on the page. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08407511B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for a clock phase generator for CDR data sampling that generates early and/or late sampling clocks, relative to ideal transition and sample points. An early sampling clock is generated by generating a plurality of transition and data sampling clock signals having a substantially uniform phase separation; and delaying at least one of the transition clock signals to generate one or more early clock signals. A late sampling clock is generated by generating a plurality of transition and data sampling clock signals having a substantially uniform phase separation; and delaying at least one of the data sampling clock signals to generate one or more late clock signals. The early clock signals can be employed, for example, in a threshold-based decision feedback equalizer. The late clock signals can be employed, for example, in a classical decision feedback equalizer.
US08407510B1
Systems and techniques for improved bus control, which may be particularly useful for double data rate (DDR) data transfer. A circuit may include a clock transmitter in communication with a clock bus, a clock receiver in communication with the clock bus, and a driver in communication with the clock bus. The driver may drive a voltage of the clock bus to a first voltage level when the clock transmitter is not transmitting a clock signal on the clock bus and the clock receiver is not receiving a clock signal on the clock bus.
US08407507B2
A power management circuit has a resource management unit which performs a use management of a functional block in an integrated circuit, and a power management unit which transmits a power control request to a power control device which controls power of the functional block for each domain. The power control request designates the domain and the power control content for the domain. The power management unit executes a use prohibition process prohibiting the use of the functional block belonging to the domain, by using the resource management unit, before transmitting the power control request to the power control device, in accordance with a type of the functional block belonging to the domain and the power control content.
US08407501B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide an approach to provision storage resources (e.g., across an enterprise storage system (ESS) such as a general parallel file system (GPFS) or the like) for different workloads in an energy efficient manner. The system evaluates different energy profiles/workloads' energy consumption characteristics of storage devices to determine an allocation plan that reduces the energy cost (e.g., results in the lowest cost/energy consumption for handling a storage workload). In a typical embodiment, energy consumption characteristics for handling a particular storage workload will be determined. Thereafter, a type of storage device capable of handling the workload will be determined. Then, an allocation plan that results in the most efficient energy consumption for handling the workload will be developed. In general, the allocation plan is based upon the energy consumption characteristics and an energy efficiency algorithm. The energy efficiency algorithm serves to identify storage device(s) that can handle the workload in such a way as to reduce total energy consumption and, accordingly, costs. Along these lines, the energy efficiency algorithm may also consider other factors such as capacity and load of storage devices and service level agreement (SLA) terms in addition to energy costs (e.g., over times of day and/or days of week). In any event, at least one storage device can then be selected for handling the storage workload according to the allocation plan.
US08407497B2
A method and apparatus for scaling frequency and operating voltage of at least one clock domain of a microprocessor. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to techniques to divide a microprocessor into clock domains and control the frequency and operating voltage of each clock domain independently of the others.
US08407493B2
In a method of supplying power for a device wired adapter, a stand-alone USB device is connected to the device wired adapter for operating as a wireless USB device. The stand-alone USB device is set as a USB on-the-go host. The device wired adapter is set as a USB on-the-go device. Power is supplied to the device wired adapter by the stand-alone USB device. A USB on-the-go role of the device wired adapter is swapped with a USB on-the-go role of the stand-alone USB device.
US08407488B2
A secure LSI device 1 includes an encryption section 2 for encrypting a program, and an external I/F 50 for inputting/outputting a program or data from/to an external memory 100. In the encryption section 2, the operation of a private key arithmetic processing section 20 is prohibited with respect to a sequence whose execution is determined by a key-generation/update sequencer 30 to be impermissible. In the external I/F 50, a program processing section 51 and a data processing section 55 are structured independently from each other.
US08407484B2
Methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media for distributing digital content. One embodiment comprises an apparatus comprising: a device (100) communications bus; coupled to the device communications bus (150), a bi-directional communications controller (110) capable of communicatively interfacing with a computer (710); coupled to the device communications bus (150), an integrated processor (130) capable of executing (270) computer-executable instructions; and coupled to the integrated processor (130), a storage module (140) capable of storing computer-executable instructions.
US08407483B2
A system for authenticating personal use of contents by using a portable storage medium includes: a portable personal use authentication device configured to store domain authentication information; and a contents personal use authentication apparatus configured to extract playback information for playing a provided content based on the domain authentication information and provide the extracted playback information to a player.
US08407482B2
The present invention is directed toward a method, device, and system for enhancing web security by masking a URL embedded in at least some portion of web content. A session dependent URL is generated and masked on a server side prior to being distributed to a customer for viewing. The session dependent URL is only active during the session in which it was generated. After the session has ended information relating to the session, web content, and masking of the URL is purged from memory.
US08407477B2
The present invention is made to provide an information distribution system capable of securely storing digitized personal information in an encrypted state in a storage section and securely transferring/disclosing the stored digitized information only to a particular third person via a network. Communication of the information is securely performed in the encrypted state between information terminals connected to the communication network (between a client and a server or between peer-to-peer client terminals). An information terminal which has created information encrypts the original information by a common key generated upon communication and stores the information in a secure storage of one of the information terminals connected to the communication network while maintaining the encrypted state. Further, the system creates a mechanism for authenticating a person having a particular authority for viewing the encrypted information and index information having an encrypted common key and link information indicating the location of the information for supply to a user.
US08407467B2
A ubiquitous audio reproducing and servicing method and apparatus for streaming or downloading a lossless audio source from a Content Provider (CP) using a lossy audio source card as an authentication key. The ubiquitous audio reproducing method includes determining whether a memory card storing lossy audio sources and their authentication codes is inserted, if it is determined that the memory card is inserted, transmitting an authentication code of a lossy audio source in the memory card and a system unique Identifier (ID) to a content server by connecting to the content server via a network, and if the content server allows the use of a lossless audio source corresponding to the lossy audio source using the authentication code, streaming or downloading the lossless audio source from the content server.
US08407466B2
Systems and methods provide for controlling download and playback of media content. A system includes a client, which can play content, and a server. The server includes a permission system that can determine whether a client request to download or play content should be granted. All purchase, download, and playback requests require permission from the permission system. The server also includes a DD module system that transfers a DD module to the client. The DD module includes a content key decryption module, a content decryption module, and a content decompression module. The content key decryption module decrypts an encrypted content key that was received from the server. The decryption uses a unique DD module key that has been hard-coded into the content key decryption module. The content decryption module uses the content key to decrypt encrypted content. The content decompression module decompresses compressed content so that it can be played.
US08407464B2
In one embodiment, techniques to validate certificates using authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services are provided. A service receives a request from a requester for validation of a certificate. The request may include the certificate associated with the requester. The servicer creates a AAA request that includes the certificate. The AAA request is then sent to the AAA server. A response is then received from the AAA server that includes a result of the certificate validation and also AAA attributes associated with any AAA services performed. The servicer may then validate the proof of possession of the private key or perform other type of authentication calculations after receiving the response from the AAA server if the response indicates the certificate was validated. The servicer can then perform an action based on the certificate validation and AAA attributes.
US08407452B2
An arithmetic processing apparatus includes an operation circuit group that performs encryption and a redundant operation circuit group configured the same as the operation circuit group. The arithmetic processing apparatus, while performing encryption, performs normal encryption in the operation circuit group, and performs an encryption mask processing program by using data and the like randomly generated by a random data generating unit and the like in the redundant operation circuit group. The arithmetic processing apparatus, when not performing encryption, performs normal arithmetic processing in the redundant operation circuit group.
US08407450B2
An electronic device receives satellite signals from positioning information satellites and acquires positioning information and time information. A stored data table comprises a first block of data having a first array of time difference data and a second block of data having a second array of time difference data that is different than the first array of time difference data. A stored memory address table stores the memory address of each of the first and second blocks of data, at least one the blocks of data being stored a plurality of times in the memory address table. The data block corresponding to the acquired positioning information is identified, the memory address corresponding to that data block is read, the data block data indicated by the memory address is acquired, and the time difference data for the segment corresponding to the positioning information is acquired from the data block.
US08407446B2
A method and system where a hardware platform such as a disk drive is formatted to the largest block length it is desired to read from or write to. Using commands, data can be accessed from the drive in any block length that is equal to or less than the formatted block length.
US08407441B2
A system that calibrates timing relationships between signals involved in performing write operations is described. This system includes a memory controller which is coupled to a set of memory chips, wherein each memory chip includes a phase detector configured to calibrate a phase relationship between a data-strobe signal and a clock signal received at the memory chip from the memory controller during a write operation. Furthermore, the memory controller is configured to perform one or more write-read-validate operations to calibrate a clock-cycle relationship between the data-strobe signal and the clock signal, wherein the write-read-validate operations involve varying a delay on the data-strobe signal relative to the clock signal by a multiple of a clock period.
US08407429B2
The exemplary embodiments provide a multi-context configurable memory controller comprising: an input-output data port array comprising a plurality of input queues and a plurality of output queues; at least one configuration and control register to store, for each context of a plurality of contexts, a plurality of configuration bits; a configurable circuit element configurable for a plurality of data operations, each data operation corresponding to a context of a plurality of contexts, the plurality of data operations comprising memory address generation, memory write operations, and memory read operations, the configurable circuit element comprising a plurality of configurable address generators; and an element controller, the element controller comprising a port arbitration circuit to arbitrate among a plurality of contexts having a ready-to-run status, and the element controller to allow concurrent execution of multiple data operations for multiple contexts having the ready-to-run status.
US08407422B2
Methods and apparatus relating to improving address translation caching and/or input/output (I/O) cache performance in virtualized environments are described. In one embodiment, a hint provided by an endpoint device may be utilized to update information stored in an I/O cache. Such information may be utilized for implementation of a more efficient replacement policy in an embodiment. Other embodiments are also disclosed.
US08407420B2
A memory system, apparatus and method for performing operations in a shared cache coupled to a first requester and a second requester. The method includes receiving at the shared cache a first request from the second requester; assigning the request to a state machine; transmitting a first pipe pass request from the state machine to an arbiter; providing a first instruction from the first pipe pass request to a cache pipeline, the first instruction causing a first pipe pass; and providing a second pipe pass request to the arbiter before the first pipe pass is completed. The first requester may be a lower level cache such as an L2 cache, or an I/O device and the second requester may be an upper level cache such as an L4 cache, and the first request may be a coherency request.
US08407415B2
A device for recording information on a record carrier (11) is arranged for formatting a multilayer record carrier. The device has formatting means (16) for formatting the record carrier according which formatting includes de-icing by, in the event that locations in the user data area have not yet been recorded, writing dummy data (60) on the locations. The formatting means (16) determine a first radial position (50) and a first layer (40), which first radial position is indicative of a location on the first layer on which user data will be recorded first according to a predefined recording format. Subsequently said de-icing is started by writing of dummy data on a second layer (41) of the record carrier at the first radial position, opposite the location of the first user data (55). Hence a de-iced area (58) is created opposite the user data (55).
US08407412B2
An apparatus and method are provided for communicating with a plurality of physical memory circuits. In use, at least one virtual memory circuit is simulated where at least one aspect (e.g. power-related aspect, etc.) of such virtual memory circuit(s) is different from at least one aspect of at least one of the physical memory circuits. Further, in various embodiments, such simulation may be carried out by a system (or component thereof), an interface circuit, etc.
US08407411B2
Techniques pertaining to adjusting the operation frequency of a DRAM are disclosed. According to one embodiment, the DRAM operation frequency adjusting system includes a statistic module counting effective operations of a DRAM to obtain a bandwidth utilization rate of the DRAM at a present operation frequency; a parameter configuration module including a target frequency configuration sub-module configured to generate a target operation frequency; and a frequency switch controller for switching a present operation frequency of the DRAM to the target operation frequency. The invention adjusts the operation frequency of a DRAM according to the application environment, and creates a balance between performance and power consumption of DRAMs, and thus improves operation speed of system-on-chips as well as decreases the power consumption.
US08407409B2
According to one aspect of the invention, a method of evaluating reliability of flash memory media comprises managing a flash memory remaining life for each disk of a plurality of flash memory media disks provided in one or more flash memory media groups each of which has a configuration and a relationship between said each flash memory media group and the flash memory media disks in said each flash memory media group, wherein each flash memory media group is one of a RAID group or a thin provisioning pool; and calculating to obtain information of each flash memory media group based on the measured flash memory remaining life for each disk in said each flash memory media group, the configuration of said each flash memory media group, and the relationship between said each flash memory media group and the flash memory media disks in said each flash memory media group.
US08407407B1
A drive control module of a solid-state drive (SSD) includes a first module that receives host commands from one of a host command buffer and a drive interface of the SSD, converts the host commands to stage commands, and determines whether to store the stage commands in a stage slot of a staging memory or leave the stage slot empty. A second module transfers data between a buffer and a flash memory based on the stage commands. The flash memory comprises flash arrays. A third module detects a first empty stage of one of the flash arrays and based on an empty stage timer value triggers at least one of an end of the first empty stage, a start of an at least partially full stage of the one of the flash arrays, or a start of a second empty stage of the one of the flash arrays.
US08407398B2
An approach is provided that loads software files, such as an operating system, on a hybrid storage device. The hybrid storage device is a device that includes a nonvolatile storage device and a nonvolatile memory cache. The nonvolatile memory cache has less storage capacity than the nonvolatile storage device. The nonvolatile memory cache is preset (“pinned”) to data corresponding to an initial set of address ranges of the nonvolatile storage device, such as all or part of the operating system that was loaded onto the nonvolatile storage device. A system usage metric is initialized along with a threshold value. The nonvolatile memory cache remains pinned to the initial set of address ranges until the system usage metric reaches the threshold value. When the system usage metric reaches the threshold value, then a caching algorithm is used to determine what data should be cached to the nonvolatile memory cache.
US08407393B1
A method of operating a disk drive is disclosed, the disk drive comprising a head actuated over a disk surface, and a first non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM). Calibrated parameters are stored in the first NVSM, wherein the calibrated parameters for accessing the disk surface. Prior to altering the disk drive, the calibrated parameters are uploaded from the disk drive to a host. After altering the disk drive, the calibrated parameters are downloaded from the host to the disk drive and the calibrated parameters are stored in a second NVSM.
US08407390B2
According to the present invention, a method and apparatus for data processing is provided for a data processing device comprising an auxiliary execution system, a main execution system, a switch unit and a networking unit. The method and apparatus according to the present invention are capable of establishing a networking data channel between the auxiliary execution system, the switch unit and the networking unit based on a first control instruction for the switch unit; or of establishing a networking data channel between the main execution system, the switch unit and the networking unit based on a second control instruction for the switch unit. In this way, the realization of always online can be guaranteed, and apparently, the user satisfaction can be effectively improved.
US08407388B2
A device for manipulating an operating state of a deterministic communication system is provided, which communication system includes a physical data bus, a plurality of nodes connected thereto, and an arrangement for transmitting messages in message frames at fixedly predefined communication cycles. The device is situated in the data bus between at least one node, from whose point of view the operating state of the communication system is manipulated, and the other nodes of the communication system. To make any desired manipulation of the operating state of the communication system possible, the manipulation device includes an arrangement for short-circuiting the data bus (2) and/or interrupting the data bus.
US08407386B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for accessing a shared memory associated with a reader-writer lock according to a first concurrency mode, dynamically changing from the first concurrency mode to a second concurrency mode, and accessing the shared memory according to the second concurrency mode. In this way, concurrency modes can be adaptively changed based on system conditions. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08407380B2
A remote operation system has a server, a client to which a first keyboard is connected, and a KVM switch connected to the server, the client and a second keyboard, the KVM switch including: an acquisition portion that acquires a state of the second keyboard; and the client including: a reception portion that receives a state of the first keyboard, and the state of the second keyboard from the KVM switch; a determination portion that determines whether the state of the first keyboard is identical with the state of the second keyboard; and a transmission portion that transmits information which makes the state of the first keyboard identical with the state of the second keyboard, to the first keyboard when the state of the first keyboard is not identical with the state of the second keyboard.
US08407377B1
A system and method for clients, a control module, and storage modules to participate in a unified address space in order to and read and write data efficiently using direct-memory access. The method for reading data includes determining a first location in a first memory to write a first copy of the data, a second location in a second memory to write a second copy of the data, where the first memory is located in a first storage module including a first persistent storage and the second memory is located in a second storage module including a second persistent storage. The method further includes programming a direct memory access engine to read the data from client memory and issue a first write request to a multicast address, where the first location, the second location, and a third location are associated with the multicast address.
US08407370B2
A plurality of command storage areas respectively corresponding to a plurality of priorities and storing I/O commands in a storage control apparatus are common to a plurality of ports and a plurality of processors. Here, regardless of which port receives an I/O command, the I/O command is stored in a command storage area corresponding to a priority which is given to the I/O command. The plurality of processors run the I/O commands in the plurality of command storage areas so that an I/O command with a higher priority is run more often within a given period of time.
US08407351B2
Techniques to ensure that user agent information is transported includes determining whether both a type field and a client platform information field are included in a first portion of a uniform resource locator field (URL) of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request message received from a remote client process. The first portion is different from a domain portion of the URL. The type field holds data that indicates whether the remote client inserted the client information field into a URL of an original HTTP request message. If both the type field and the client platform information field are included, then it is determined, based on data in the type field, whether to include both the type field and the client platform information field in a first portion of a URL in a link in a HTTP response message. The HTTP response message is sent to the remote client process.
US08407350B2
A system and method for exchanging information between clients separated by firewalls is disclosed. A server may receive the information as posted through a browser client from beyond a first firewall and relay it to another client beyond a second firewall without lowering the security levels of the firewalls.
US08407345B2
A method and apparatus for controlling document access and application usage using centrally managed rules. The rules are stored and manipulated in a central rule database via a rule server. Policy enforcers are installed on client systems and/or on servers and perform document access and application usage control for both direct user document accesses and application usage, and application program document accesses by evaluating the rules sent to the policy enforcer. The rule server decides which rules are required by each policy enforcer. A policy enforcer can also perform obligation and remediation operations as a part of rule evaluation. Policy enforcers on client systems and servers can operate autonomously, evaluating policies that have been received, when communications have been discontinued with the rule server.
US08407344B2
A system and method for active profile services is provided. An embodiment includes an active profile server that is configured to respond to requests for subscriber profile information from an application server. The profile server is further configured to access a known set of profile information for a subscriber and, according to predefined criteria, automatically modify the known set of subscriber profile information and provide the modified profile information to the application server.
US08407343B2
A communication method between service modules in a system in which service modules operating on a plurality of information processing apparatuses connected with a network operate in collaboration with each other, the system includes a monitoring apparatus that is provided with a monitor module monitoring a connection between service modules in the system and that has connection management information including identifier information for uniquely identifying an information processing apparatus in which a service module is operating in the system, and connection information including external connection information for the service module to perform communication using an external network between the information processing apparatuses and internal connection information for the service module to perform communication using an internal network of the information processing apparatus.
US08407340B2
Page load time analysis. The analysis may allow a web page designer to determine improvements that could be made to the web page to decrease load time, and perhaps identify the modules or components that are critical paths in decreasing page load time. The analysis is performed based on the monitoring of multiple requests associated with a page request. The user may be notified of the graph or the results of analysis of the graph. The user may then determine whether the page load time can be improved.
US08407325B2
The invention provides a method for automated project accountability comprising, determining at least one decision maker of a project preparation, determining a readiness category for the decision maker, and providing a readiness category rating for the readiness category. The method further determines a decision process for the readiness category and readiness category rating, conducts a project assessment as a function of the decision process, and determines a project readiness as a function of the project assessments.
US08407319B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for event-driven module loading. In one aspect, a method includes obtaining a mapping for a resource, wherein the mapping identifies one or more events that, upon occurrence, will trigger a dynamic loading of one or more code modules that are referenced by the resource, determining that an event has occurred, identifying one or more of the code modules that are associated with the event, based on the mapping, and dynamically loading the identified code modules.
US08407300B2
An address set in a forwarding mail of an electronic mail received from a sender is obtained, a receiver having a delete program for deleting the forwarding mail is identified as the obtained destination, and the electronic mail is related to the sender and the receiver of the identified delete program.
US08407299B2
In one embodiment, a scheme is disclosed for interpreting contents of at least one message body per message, e.g., a SIP or HTTP message, wherein the message body contents correspond to a content type. A communication protocol message such as a SIP or HTTP message is generated by a sender towards a recipient, wherein the message includes at least one message body content in the message's body. A component associated with the recipient is configured to examine whether at least one indicator is associated with the message. A component, operable responsive to the examination, is configured to inhibit a treatment of the message body content and to apply an alternative treatment with respect thereto.
US08407293B2
A mail server has a mail receiving section for receiving an electronic mail including attached image data transmitted from a user through Internet, a print user designation managing section for making a user ID and a password for the corresponding user and transmitting them, and a data accumulating unit for making a user directory for each user ID and storing image data therein. When the user ID and the password are inputted from a touch panel by the user, one or more print terminals download the image data from the data accumulating unit through the Internet in order to print the image data. A usage guide including information related to an installation location of the print terminal is provided to the user in a web site (usage guide site).
US08407290B2
Users sharing web pages and editing shared content are forced to manually refresh their web browsers to view a latest version of the content. This can be cumbersome and may not give users a true interactive content sharing experience. Functionality for dynamic sharing of content modifications and for automatic presentation of the latest version of the content can be implemented on the web browser to ensure that the latest version of the content is always presented to the user. By automatically retrieving content modifications made by one user and transmitting the content modifications to other users viewing and editing the shared content, users can be preempted from having to manually refresh the content presented on the web browser. This can result in a more interactive content sharing experience with little or no manual intervention.
US08407287B2
Systems, methods, and media for identifying and associating user devices with media cues are provided. In some embodiments, a plurality of data streams from a plurality of endpoints is received. At least one media segment is then received from a user device. It is determined whether the at least one media segment from the user device corresponds with one of the plurality of data streams from the plurality of endpoints. In response to being unable to match the at least one media segment, a media cue is inserted into one of the plurality of data streams. In response to detecting that the media cue in that data stream is received by the user device, identification information is transmitted to the user device that associates the user device with one or more services on a communications server.
US08407277B1
A full subtractor cell is disclosed including an XNOR gate having first and second inputs coupled to first and second bits; an XOR gate having first and second inputs coupled to an XNOR gate output and a carry input bit; a first AND gate having first and second inputs coupled to an XNOR gate output and the carry input bit; an inverter gate having an input coupled to the second bit to generate a complemented second bit; a second AND gate having first and second inputs coupled to the first bit and an inverter output to receive the complemented second bit; and an OR gate having first and second inputs coupled to a first AND gate output and a second AND gate output. An XOR gate output and an OR gate output generate the sum output bit and the carry output bit.
US08407275B2
A floating point processor unit executes a floating point compare instruction with two operands of the same or different precision by comparing the two operands in integer format, which speeds up the execution of the floating point compare instruction significantly. The floating point processor now executes the floating point compare instruction at least twice as fast or faster (e.g., two clock cycles instead of five clock cycles in the prior art) for nearly most operand cases (e.g., 99% of all cases). Only the rare corner cases require additional operations on one of the operands and thus require additional cycles of execution time because the integer compare operation will not work for these corner cases. This is due to the fact that one operand is a single precision subnormal number in an unnormalized representation (i.e., has two representations) and the other operand is in the SP subnormal range such that the integer compare operation will fail.
US08407270B2
Provided is a method of calculating a negative inverse of a modulus, wherein the negative inverse, which is an essential element in Montgomery multiplication, is quickly obtained. The method includes setting a modulus, defining P obtained by converting the modulus to a negative number, and defining S obtained by subtracting 1 from P, and calculating a negative inverse of the modulus by using P and S.
US08407267B2
An apparatus, method, system and computer-readable medium store and manage image data with automatic labeling of image data corresponding to body slices, such as obtained by a computed tomography scanner. The labels include a body coordinate value along the body axis. The respective body coordinate value can be determined by comparing received image data sets with reference data sets with known attached coordinate values utilizing pattern recognition techniques. Applications include medical image data management in hospitals or operating and providing medical networks. Queries for images that include particular body regions are processed more efficiently. This results in less local memory required and narrower bandwidth resources of transmission networks.
US08407258B2
Systems and methods for automating and increasing the efficiency of access to data using inheritance of access rules within an organization based upon the relationship of positions within the organization and the roles associated with the positions. In one embodiment, a role structure is used in conjunction with a hierarchical organization structure to allow access rules to be inherited by some of the positions from other positions based upon the relationship of positions within the organization and the roles associated with the positions. Access rules can be applied across equivalent or similar positions, yet differentiated between distinct portions of the organization and the distinct roles associated with the positions. Consequently, particular access rules are not necessarily inherited by all of the positions subordinate to a particular position with which the rule originates, and are not necessarily inherited by all of the positions that are associated with a particular role.
US08407257B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide for techniques for enabling mutation of an instantiated object between multiple underlying object types at run time. The object may alter its behavior from one object type to another at anytime without requiring a new object to be instantiated. The object's behavior may be implemented by other objects which are retrieved at run time, thus disconnecting the direct link between the object's behavior and the object.
US08407254B2
A remote access medical image exchange system utilizes a decentralized, i.e., self-organizing, distribution system combined with bid queues to establish a market place which allows for continuously negotiated prices with control (over who reads the images, when they are read and what the fee will be for such a reading) being placed in the hands of the patient/gatekeeper and the diagnostic physician.
US08407252B2
An online sales/automatic rebate and coupon redemption system provides online customers automatic retrieval and redemption of all applicable rebates and coupons during purchase. Purchase orders from customers are selectively fulfilled and products are shipped to the customers either by the system for online sales with automatic rebate and coupon redemption or by other merchant or manufacturer environments. The system purchases from merchants using applicable coupons and rebates and then sells the products to the customers, passing the savings to them. The system makes it possible to automatically retrieve coupons and rebates for items in a shopping cart during the activity of an online purchase at an electronic mall or an online merchant site. The system provides coupons to potential customers via email, based on customer profile, geographical information, etc. Manufacturers and merchants can update coupon value and content based on ongoing sales and volume of customer activity.
US08407249B1
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that controls accesses to revisions of documents in the presence of a multi-user permissions and ownership model. During operation, the system receives a request to on behalf of a user to access a revision of a document. If the request is directed to a most-recent revision of an existing document, the system uses the multi-user permissions and ownership model to control access to the revision. Otherwise, if the request is directed to a previous revision of the document, the system grants access to the revision only if the user was the owner of the document at the time of the revision.
US08407245B2
A string matching system is described herein that provides for very fast and efficient pattern matching against large sets of certain types of pattern strings. If a set of pattern strings is comprised of strings that can be logically divided into segments, these pattern strings can be stored efficiently in a tree-like data structure, segment by segment, storing pattern-match syntax segments separately from literal string segments. After segmentation, individual match candidate strings are compared, segment by segment, against elements in the tree. The system uses a data structure that is conceptually a combination of a tree and a hash table. Using a hash table to implement the branching elements at each level in the tree contributes to quick matching speed at each level. By consistently separating strings into segments, the system can also share storage locations for like elements in the data structure.
US08407234B1
A computer-automated system orders a list of elements according to multiple criteria. Each element in a data set may have any number of attributes. Attributes may have corresponding weights which differ from each other. The system orders the elements based on the weight of the attributes and the attributes associated the elements. In particular, the system may combine the weights of all attributes associated with a particular element to produce a combined weight for the element. The system may tend to place elements having relatively high combined weights closer to the beginning of the list than elements having relatively low combined weights. The system may be used in a variety of applications, such as coordinating the schedules of multiple workers in a hospital or other workplace, based on multiple needs of the workplace and multiple preferences of the workers.
US08407233B2
A method and system for calculating a relevance between words using a document set is provided. The method of calculating the relevance between words based on a document set, includes: obtaining statistical information about the words based on at least one of the words, documents, a word classification of the words, and a document classification of the documents, wherein the words and the documents are included in the document set; standardizing the statistical information; and calculating the relevance between the words based on the standardized statistical information.
US08407224B2
An apparatus for generating a collection profile of a collection of different media data items has a feature extractor for extracting at least two different features describing a content of a media data item for a plurality of media data items of the collection, and a profile creator for creating the collection profile by combining the extracted features or weighted extracted features so that the collection profile represents a quantitative fingerprint of a content of the media data collection. This collection profile or music DNA can be used for transmitting information, which is based on this collection profile, to the entity itself or to a remote entity.
US08407223B2
A system for information discovery of items, such as individuals or objects, from video-based tracks. The system may compute similarities of characteristics of the items and present the results in a matrix form. A similarity portrayal may have nodes representing the items with edges between the nodes. The edges may have weights in the form of vectors indicating similarities of the characteristics between the nodes situated at the ends of the edges. The edges may be augmented with temporal and spatial properties from the tracks which cover the items. These properties may play a part in a multi-objective presentation of information about the items in terms of a negative or supportive basis. The presentation may be partitioned into clusters which may lead to a merger of items or tracks. The system may pave a way for higher-level information discovery such as video-based social networks.
US08407217B1
A computer-assisted method for discovering topics in a document includes the steps of calculating a term prominence value for a token, selecting tokens based on the term prominence values of the respective tokens, and outputting topic terms comprising the selected tokens to represent the topics in the document.
US08407216B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for automatically generating tag terms (or tags) for objects in databases of a web site. The metadata of the objects (or data) of the web site are processed and parsed to automatically generate tag terms for the corresponding objects. Information (or data, or content) downloaded from the Internet often comes with metadata, which can exist in titles, description, sources, and authors of the information, etc. The metadata of downloaded information can be process and parsed to generate tag terms for the corresponding objects. The system can automatically generate tag terms for the data, which are stored as objects in the databases, and make the data (or objects) searchable. In addition, the automatically generated tag terms allow associated data to maintain their relationship. For example, data from the same sources, same authors, or same subjects can be identified based on the common tag terms. Automatically generated tag terms enable searching and association of data (or objects) in databases in a web site.
US08407211B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining relevance scores for locations. In one aspect, a method includes storing a respective plurality of category-location relevance scores for each location of a plurality of geographic locations. A category-location relevance score is based on a plurality of category-entity-location relevance scores for a plurality of entities associated with the category at the location. A first category-location relevance score is determined for a first geographic location that is not one of the plurality of geographic locations. Determining the first category-location relevance score includes calculating the first category-location relevance score based on a second category-location relevance score for a second geographic location in the plurality of geographic locations and a physical distance between the first geographic location and the second geographic location.
US08407198B2
Information processing apparatus and method, recording medium, and program are provided. An information processing apparatus includes the following elements. A receiver receives a command requesting for the execution of predetermined processing. A storage unit stores data and first information indicating, among a plurality of stages in a lifecycle of the information processing apparatus, the current stage determined by the stored data and second information indicating an executable command in the current stage, the executable command being determined for each of the plurality of stages. A determining unit determines on the basis of the first information and the second information whether the command received by the receiver is an executable command in the current stage.
US08407179B2
A method of determining influence of a member within an overall dataset may include functions which capture, aggregate, analyze and visually present the relationships and influence that members of a dataset or collection, such as individual persons, websites, applications and/or machines, exercise over one another based on interaction, behavioral and demographic factors, etc. The calculated results of influence may be employed for the tracking of content and/or marketing, for example.
US08407176B2
Patterns of change in system operating parameters are identified which may be used to identify unexpected operational conditions and to trigger an appropriate alert or action. A network is controlled using operating data for the network. Network operating data is received and divided into sequential time periods. A structural description such as an association rule is determined for the received data in each time period and a change pattern in the determined structural description is identified over the time periods. The network is then controlled using a predetermined action corresponding to a predetermined structural description change pattern in response to the identified structural description change pattern matching the predetermined structural description change pattern.
US08407175B2
A method to solve a template SAT problem associated with a bounded model that is modeled checked, said method comprising: receiving the template SAT problem, the template SAT problem comprising a plurality of clauses including a template clause that represents a plurality of concrete clauses each associated with a different temporal shift, the template clause is associated with a literal; determining a value of the literal in a cycle based on the template clause and a temporal shift, said determining comprises: determining a concrete clause of the plurality of concrete clauses based on the template clause and the temporal shift; determining a new template clause based on at least two clauses; determining a deduced clause based on at least the value of the literal in the cycle; deducing a solution to the template SAT problem; and outputting the solution.
US08407169B2
A system and method is provided for representation of a real world problem situation. The system includes a computer software process which can acquire or accept a set of input data. The input data generally includes seed facts and user entered facts. The set of input data represents real world objects which pertain to a real-world problem situation. The computer software process generates new data. The new data consists of additional not-previously-known facts about the real-world problem situation. The additional not-previously known facts include acquired facts and reasoned facts. The computer software process utilizes a fact structured representation method. The fact structured representation method represents a first group of facts about a problem situation. It also represents a rule structured representation method for representing a first group of rules about a class of problem situations. The computer software process also represents a plurality of causal features of the problem situation so that a reasoning process results. The reasoning process is characterized as performing some elements of deep reasoning.
US08407168B2
A codebook generating method includes a dividing and transforming step dividing an original image into original blocks and transforming the original blocks into original vectors; a dividing step grouping the original vectors to obtain centroids; a first layer neuron training step selecting a portion of the centroids as first-level neurons; a grouping step assigning each of the original vectors to a closest first-level neuron so as to obtain groups; a second layer neuron assigning step assigning a number of second-level neurons in each of the groups, and selecting a portion of the original vectors in each of the groups as the second-level neurons; and a second layer neuron training step defining the original vectors in each of the groups as samples, training the second-level neurons in each of the groups to obtain final neurons, and storing vectors corresponding to the final neurons in a codebook.
US08407164B2
Apparatus, systems, and methods can operate to provide efficient data clustering, data classification, and data compression. A method comprises training set of training instances can be processed to select a subset of size-1 patterns, initialize a weight of each size-1 pattern, include the size-1 patterns in classes in a model associated with the training set, and then include a set of top-k size-2 patterns in a way that provides an effective balance between local, class, and global significance patterns. A method comprises processing a dataset to compute an overall significance value of each size-2 pattern in each instance in the dataset, sort the size-2 patterns, and select the top-k size-2 patterns to be represented in clusters, which can be refined into a clustered hierarchy. A method comprises creating an uncompressed bitmap, reordering the bitmap, and compressing the bitmap. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US08407163B2
In a monitoring method, a time sequence of information pertaining to a monitored device, network, or system is recorded, comprising observations of the monitored device, network, or system and known prior correct action recommendations for the monitored device, network, or system. A hidden Markov model (HMM) operating on the time sequence of information is maintained. The HMM comprises a hidden state of the monitored device, network, or system. A current state of the monitored device, network, or system is classified using a classification value comprising an emission of the HMM that depends on an estimate of the distribution of the hidden state and on a selected portion of the time sequence of information. An action recommendation is generated for the current state of the monitored device, network, or system based on the classification value.
US08407160B2
Systems, methods, and media for generating sanitized data, sanitizing anomaly detection models, and generating anomaly detection models are provided. In some embodiments, methods for generating sanitized data are provided. The methods including: dividing a first training dataset comprised of a plurality of training data items into a plurality of data subsets each including at least one training data item of the plurality of training data items of the first training dataset; based on the plurality of data subsets, generating a plurality of distinct anomaly detection micro-models; testing at least one data item of the plurality of data items of a second training dataset of training data items against each of the plurality of micro-models to produce a score for the at least one tested data item; and generating at least one output dataset based on the score for the at least one tested data item.
US08407157B2
A method and system for locating harvested material comprises receiving material data including material location data on a material location of harvested material within a work area. Background data is obtained. A location-determining receiver determines a forwarder location of a forwarder. An estimator estimates economic cost factors associated with corresponding candidate paths or segments of candidate paths between the forwarder location and the material location. A selector selects a preferential planned path between the forwarder location and the material location consistent with the material data, background data, and minimization of the economic cost factors.
US08407147B2
A method of conducting a software update of a gaming machine, including: starting a boot process of the gaming machine; determining during the boot process that a memory device potentially containing at least one software component more recent than a corresponding software component currently stored in gaming machine memory is in data communication with the gaming machine; determining that the memory device contains at least one authentic, more recent software component; and updating gaming machine memory with each more recent software component.
US08407142B1
To facilitate management of a universal payment account, it is determined whether a transaction occurs. Transaction information is received from a payment systems module if the transaction occurs, wherein the transaction information comprises a universal payment identifier associated with a universal payment account. A processor determines at least one payment rule based at least in part on the universal payment identifier, and the processor determines a financial account associated with the universal payment account based upon the at least one payment rule. The plurality of financial accounts are associated with the universal payment account and the determined financial account is used to process the transaction. The determined financial account is accessed to facilitate processing of the transaction.
US08407141B2
Financial transaction data comprising payment on any one of multiple financial transaction types are processed with an adapter layer that receives an incoming data message relating to a financial transaction initiated by a payer and operates on the incoming data message to produce adapted data relating to the financial transaction, and a processor that receives the adapted data and determines transaction routing to direct the adapted data to a processing network module that requests authorization by an issuer, responds to authorization by initiating request for settlement and payment on the financial transaction to a transaction payee, and responds to payee query requests by providing non-payment data to an external payee.
US08407139B1
A system, device, and method for calculating an enhanced credit score using insurance rating information, individual rating factors, interaction rating factors, geographic rating factors, vehicle monitoring rating factors, and/or credit risk information is disclosed. Insurance rating information, individual rating factors, interaction rating factors, geographic rating factors, and vehicle monitoring rating factors, either individually or in combinations, may be used as inputs to a novel credit-scoring model to calculate an enhanced or improved credit score. The novel credit-scoring model may be implemented in a computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computing device to calculate an enhanced credit score. The computer-executable instructions may be arranged into an input module, output module, and calculation module. The modules may be used to calculate an enhanced credit score that may be used by lending institutions and others to determine the terms of a financing agreement with a user.
US08407132B2
A trading screen displays market information, such as working orders, buy and sell orders, and other items of interest, in association with values on a value axis. Each item of interest is therefore displayed in relation to the value axis to provide a trader with an intuitive display of the market. In one embodiment, a user can select a location associated with a particular value on the trading screen and upon an selection, for example, by a click of the mouse button, the value axis is repositioned so that the selected value is moved to a predefined location. During which, market information is moved to new locations that are associated with their respective values on the value axis.
US08407131B2
Trading software may receive trading information from an exchange. The trading software may use the trading information to compute an estimate of last traded total sweep quantity. The trading software may also display the last traded total sweep quantity on a trading screen.
US08407126B2
Methods and systems for calculating values for indexes based on breakout currencies are provided. A prospective breakout index may be formed before an entity breaks out of a monetary union. Other aspects relate to calculating an initial index value on a breakout date. An initial exchange rate of the breakout currency may be combined with a breakout value and/or a base value. In one embodiment, the breakout value is the reciprocal of the initial exchange rate. Therefore, in accordance with certain embodiments, the initial index value of the breakout index may be equal to the base value. Further aspects relate to calculating a second index value. A second exchange rate of the breakout currency may be utilized with the fixed base value and the breakout value to calculate the second index value of the breakout index. Further aspects relate to creating a prospective currency unit for a monetary union.
US08407124B2
Described herein are methods and apparatus for the processing of electronic invoices. A server for processing invoices communicates with computing systems such as a supplier system (used by a supplier), a buyer system (used by a buyer), and finance systems (which manage bank accounts of the supplier and buyer). The server communicates with the supplier system and the buyer system regarding an electronic invoice that relates to a transaction between the supplier and the buyer, and that includes a unique identification code. When the buyer has approved the electronic invoice, the supplier system and/or the server is able to settle the invoice using the unique identification code.
US08407120B1
Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media are described for estimating real estate property values based on an adjusted repeat sales model. In one exemplary embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises calculating data for estimating the adjustments from aggregated levels to disaggregated levels by marking a first transaction to a second transaction using a repeat sales house price index function at an aggregated level; determining, using the calculated data, an estimate of the deviation between the repeat sales house price index at the aggregated level and a repeat sales house price index at a disaggregated level; and calculating the repeat sales house price index at the disaggregated level based on the determined estimate of the deviation from the aggregated level.
US08407119B2
A target level of funds may be defined to specify an ideal level of currency stored in a currency handling device for efficient operation. The target level may be modified based on forecasted currency usage needs. Forecasts may be conducted based on historical usage data, user input and seasonal/event considerations. When a level of funds exceeds the target level by a specified amount, a transport request may be generated. When a level of funds underruns the target level by a specified amount, a change order request may be generated. In one or more arrangements, recommendations for target levels, transport requests and change order requests may be provided for user confirmation instead of automatically executing the recommendation.
US08407109B2
A frequency of a residual amount signal which includes the absence of consumables and is issued by a printing apparatus is analyzed, whether new consumables have been attached or not is properly discriminated, and proper stock management is made.
US08407105B2
Various processes are disclosed for discovering item relationships between particular items, such as products represented in an electronic catalog, based on monitored user behaviors (e.g., item viewing activities, item purchases, shopping cart activities, etc.). The discovered item relationships may, for example, be used to generate personalized item recommendations for users, and/or to supplement item detail pages of an electronic catalog with lists of related items. Also disclosed are processes for generating personalized item recommendations based on users' search activities and browse node visits.
US08407100B2
Systems, methods, and program product for facilitating electronic ordering of goods, services, or goods and services, or other products, through messaging over a financial services electronic payment network, are provided. A customer provides electronic order registration activation information for an electronic order transaction card. The customer is provided an electronic order card having a unique electronic payment network compatible electronic order card identifier including a non-financial transaction IIN and a customer number, and is provided a catalogue or list including product order codes each associated with a different product, to enable electronic ordering over the financial services electronic payment network. An electronic order card configured to interface with a conventional point-of-sale terminal can be used to facilitate the electronic ordering over the existing financial services electronic payment network when presented to the point-of-sale terminal with a product order code identifying a selected product.
US08407098B2
This is directed to systems and methods for ordering a playlist of media items. An existing playlist can include media sharing some characteristics, where some of the media items are unfamiliar to the user. To provide the user with a sense of the unfamiliar media items, the electronic device can order the playlist media items based on a familiarity or popularity measure. For example, the electronic device can determine the chart rankings of each media item in the playlist, and play back the media items in the order of chart ranking. This may allow a user to first listen or watch the most familiar or popular media items and get a sense for the less familiar or popular media items in the playlist.
US08407092B2
A data processing system is described wherein use of resources in the system is metered. Metering evidence is generated which is difficult to forge and is, thus, relatively resistant to tampering. Such a system finds application, for example, in the field of metering the amount of time a person spends reading advertisement that are published on the World Wide Web. If reliable, such metering evidence may be used by the owner of the web server that contains the advertisement to bill the originator of the advertisement.
US08407069B2
An system for constructing formularies is disclosed. The system includes a central computer system and at least one additional computer. The central computer system compiles a list of various pharmaceutical products and sort them into different categories. Formularies are then created by selecting individual products or categories of products that will be covered. When prescription claims are received, coverage is either accepted or denied based on whether the products in the prescription claims are covered by the formulary.
US08407055B2
An information processing apparatus includes an obtaining unit that obtains meta-information concerning content; a predicting unit that predicts an emotion of a user who is viewing the content from the meta-information obtained by the obtaining unit; and a recognizing unit that recognizes an emotion of the user using the emotion predicted by the predicting unit and user information acquired from the user.
US08407054B2
A speech synthesis device is provided with: a central segment selection unit for selecting a central segment from among a plurality of speech segments; a prosody generation unit for generating prosody information based on the central segment; a non-central segment selection unit for selecting a non-central segment, which is a segment outside of a central segment section, based on the central segment and the prosody information; and a waveform generation unit for generating a synthesized speech waveform based on the prosody information, the central segment, and the non-central segment. The speech synthesis device first selects a central segment that forms a basis for prosody generation and generates prosody information based on the central segment so that it is possible to sufficiently reduce both concatenation distortion and sound quality degradation accompanying prosody control in the section of the central segment.
US08407053B2
A speech processing apparatus, including a segmenting unit to divide a fundamental frequency signal of a speech signal corresponding to an input text into pitch segments, based on an alignment between samples of at least one given linguistic level included in the input text and the speech signal. Character strings of the input text are divided into the samples based on each linguistic level. A parameterizing unit generates a parametric representation of the pitch segments using a predetermined invertible operator and generates a group of first parameters in correspondence with each linguistic level. A descriptor generating unit generates, for each linguistic level, a descriptor that includes a set of features describing each sample in the input text and a model learning unit classifies the first parameters of each linguistic level of all speech signals in a memory into clusters based on the descriptor corresponding to the linguistic level.
US08407052B2
Methods and systems for correcting transcribed text. One method includes receiving audio data from one or more audio data sources and transcribing the audio data based on a voice model to generate text data. The method also includes making the text data available to a plurality of users over at least one computer network and receiving corrected text data over the at least one computer network from the plurality of users. In addition, the method can include modifying the voice model based on the corrected text data.
US08407048B2
Methods and systems for transcribing portions of a telephone conversation to text enables users to request transcription such as by pressing a button on a mobile device, with the request transmitted to a server including transcription software. The server transcribes some or all of the telephone conversation to text, and transmits the text to the mobile device. The text data may be scanned for selected information, and only the selected information transmitted to the mobile device. The selected information may be automatically stored in memory of the mobile device, such as in an address book.
US08407044B2
A method for discriminating a telephony content signal into a first category or a second category is described. The method comprises a filtering procedure for obtaining from the telephony content signal a band signal set comprising one or more band signals, each band signal being associated with a respective frequency band at least one of said band signals being a sub-band signal (n) associated with a sub-band of an overall frequency band of the telephony content signal. Furthermore a determination procedure is provided for determining a band signal variation value (LLn) and a band signal strength value (TLn) for each band signal (n) of said band signal set. Finally, a discrimination procedure discriminates whether the telephony content signal is of the first category or of the second category. The discrimination procedure comprises one or both of an unconditional and a conditional step for evaluating a relationship of the band signal variation value (LLn) and said band signal strength value (TLn) for said sub-band signal (n).
US08407026B2
Embodiments of methods and systems are described that provide methods for quantifying an entity's reaction to one or more communication signals by quantifying a probabilistic relationship between the communication signal and a known relationship of an attribute to the communication signal. With this quantification, the entity's reaction can be modeled as probability distributions that can be compared to the communication signal and known relationship. With this information, an entity's reactions can be compared to an ideal algorithm that optimally integrates the known relationships and communication signals to arrive at an optimal reaction. By making this comparison between the entity's reaction and an optimal reaction, a quantitative calibration measure can be determined. The meaning of the communication signals, or relationships to an attribute, may or may not be known and in embodiments the quantification of reactions can provide an ability to estimate an unknown attribute from the communication signals.
US08407022B2
A bias value associated with a sensor, e.g., a time-varying, non-zero value which is output from a sensor when it is motionless, is estimated using at least two, different bias estimating techniques. A resultant combined or selected bias estimate may then be used to compensate the biased output of the sensor in, e.g., a 3D pointing device.
US08407008B2
An exemplary system for managing the deployment of a seismic data acquisition system uses a module configured to execute a plurality of task in the field by receiving one or more seismic devices. The module may include a power source that provides electrical power to the seismic devices. The module may also include a processor programmed to retrieve data stored in the seismic devices, perform diagnostics, facilitate inventory and logistics control, configure seismic devices and update data or pre-programmed instructions in the seismic device.
US08407000B2
An image-augmented inertial navigation system includes an inertial navigation system configured to estimate a navigation state vector and an imager configured to output pixel signals associated with terrain features passing through a field view of the imager. The system further includes a processing unit configured to determine a distance from the imager to each of the pixel signals for a given image frame and to determine a distance between the imager and a centroid of one or more of the terrain features passing through the field of view of the imager for the given image frame. The processing unit is also configured to track each terrain feature as the terrain features pass through the field of view of the imager. The processing unit is further configured to update the navigation state vector of the inertial navigation system based on calculated NED coordinates position information of the tracked terrain features.
US08406999B2
A navigation device includes a map information acquiring unit 47 and 48 for acquiring map information, a positioning unit 46 for measuring a vehicle position, an input unit 34 and 45 for inputting a search condition for a search for facilities which are search objects, a facility searching unit 50 for, when the vehicle position measured by the positioning unit is located on a dedicated road whose exits and entrances are predetermined, searching through the map information acquired by the map information acquiring unit for facilities existing on the dedicated road and facilities existing at a predetermined distance or less from an exit of the dedicated road, those facilities satisfying the search condition inputted from the input unit, and a display unit 32 and 43 for displaying the facilities searched for by the facility searching unit in order of increasing distance from the vehicle position measured by the positioning unit.
US08406996B2
Inertial navigation systems for wheeled vehicles with constrained motion degrees of freedom are described.
US08406992B2
A network-based navigation system includes a user interface and a computer server system that can access a map database, an actual imagery database and an advertisement database in order to provide visual route guidance information having virtual drive-thru advertisements integrated with actual imagery from along a physical route. The user interface permits a user to submit a request for navigation information, receive visual route guidance information in response to the request and initiate a drive-thru presentation of at least a portion of a route. The computer server determines at least one route from the map database based on the request from the user and provides route guidance information to the user interface in response. The computer server also identifies actual imagery from the image database associated with the at least one route and selectively replaces at least one polygon region identified in the actual imagery associated with the at least one route with at least one advertisement from the ad database to create a drive-thru presentation with at least one virtual advertisement. At least a portion of the drive-thru presentation is presented to the user interface. In one embodiment, the computer server records a drive-thru charge for the virtual advertisements present in the portion of the drive-thru presentation provided to the user interface.
US08406991B2
Upon detection of a portable terminal positioned at a predetermined distance allowing wireless communication with an in-vehicle device, the in-vehicle device in an in-vehicle system performs a pairing process with respect to the detected portable terminal to establish wireless communication with the detected portable terminal. Thereafter, the in-vehicle device acquires an image and sound acquired by an application being executed on the portable terminal from the portable terminal, with which wireless communication has been established. The in-vehicle device converts acquired various types of data into an outputtable format of the in-vehicle device and outputs the converted data to at least one of a display unit and a speaker.
US08406981B2
An operation amount detecting unit 17 detects an operation amount of a throttle grip from a zero position. A basic throttle opening degree computing unit 18 computes a basic throttle opening degree corresponding to the operation amount. A throttle opening degree additional value computing unit 20 outputs as a target throttle opening degree a value obtained by adding the basic throttle opening degree with a throttle opening degree additional value corresponding to the operation amount when the operation of the throttle grip is performed within a small operation region corresponding to an idle operation. The throttle opening degree additional value computing unit 20 outputs as the target throttle opening degree the basic throttle opening degree when the operation of the throttle grip is performed without the small operation region.
US08406975B2
An ECU executes a program including the steps of: determining whether or not the conditions for execution of low-temperature neutral control: the temperature of the automatic transmission hydraulic fluid is at most a threshold value; the shift position is D or R position; the vehicle speed is zero; and the brake is ON and the vehicle is stopped, are continuously satisfied for a period of time represented by a threshold value; executing the neutral control when the conditions for execution of low-temperature neutral control are continuously satisfied for at least the period represented by the threshold value; returning from the neutral control when the conditions for execution of low-temperature neutral control are not satisfied; and restricting the throttle opening position in returning from the neutral control.
US08406968B2
A control system and method for a vehicle having an engine and a transmission with an autoshift function comprises a processor coupled to the engine and the transmission of the vehicle and adapted to control the power output of said engine and, in an autoshift mode of operation, the upshifting and downshifting of the transmission. The control system further comprises user interface means (10) coupled to said processor and including a first manual control means (14) being operable to be set to a first engine speed, and a second manual control means (16) being operable to be set to a second engine speed. The interface means (10) provides signals representing the setting of said first and second manual control means (14, 16) to said processor; and said control system has a plurality of modes of operation selectable by the relative settings of said first and second manual control means.
US08406965B2
Disclosed herein is a shoulder collapse risk monitoring system capable of alerting a driver to a risk of a road shoulder collapse during approach operations to the shoulder.The system includes: a shoulder shape measuring device 101 that measures a shape and slope angle of a road shoulder around a vehicle; a measurement position identification section 121 that identifies a wheel position relative to the shoulder when the shape and slope angle of the shoulder are measured by the shoulder shape measuring device; a shoulder strength calculating section 122 that calculates, from the shape and slope angle of the shoulder measured by the shoulder shape measuring device, strength of the shoulder at the wheel position identified by the measurement position identification section; a wheel load measuring section 123 that measures a wheel load of the wheel whose position has been identified by the measurement position identification section; and an alert device 105 that presents information on a risk of a collapse of the shoulder at the identified wheel position by comparing the wheel load measured by the wheel load measuring section, with the shoulder strength calculated by the shoulder strength calculating section.
US08406963B2
This disclosure relates to a control system for a machine implement. The control system includes a measurement sensor configured to provide an implement measurement signal indicative of a velocity of a machine implement, and a controller. The controller is configured to provide an implement measurement signal and an operator command signal, and to determine an adjusted implement command based signal based on the implement measurement signal and the operator command signal.
US08406950B2
An optoelectronic sensor (10), in particular a laser scanner, for a vehicle (100) which moves on a path (104) bordered at both sides, the optoelectronic sensor having a light receiver (24) for the conversion of received light (20) into electric signals as well as an evaluation unit (30, 34) which is configured to determine the position of objects in a monitored zone of the sensor (10) from the electric signals and to recognize whether an unauthorized object is located within a protected field (102) dynamically changing in position and/or extent, wherein a safety output (32) is provided via which a stop signal or a brake signal can be output to the vehicle (100) by the evaluation unit (30, 34) on the recognition of a protected field intrusion. The evaluation unit (30, 34) is furthermore configured to recognize borders (110) of the path (104) from the electric signals and to fit the protected field (102) dynamically into the borders (110).
US08406946B2
The present invention relates to single power source installed at a common load, for individually installing the CVT between the output shaft of the single power source or further through two or more output shafts of the transmission and the individually driven load, for randomly changing the speed ratio to match the speed differential operation between two loads driven by the single power source, in which the stabilizing device constituted by torque limited coupling device with sliding damping during sliding is installed between the loads individually driven by the two CVTs.
US08406943B2
A method of verifying clearance of a rail crossing includes: (a) detecting the presence of a train near the crossing, the train being equipped with a locomotive control unit; (b) in response to detection of the train near the crossing, generating a unique code; (c) capturing an image of the crossing; (d) transmitting the unique code along with the image to a remote operator control unit; (e) using the locomotive control unit, waiting for a response from the operator control unit containing the unique code; and (f) if the response containing the unique code is received by the locomotive control unit, permitting further operation of the train and, if the unique code is not received by the locomotive control unit, carrying out an automatic response which prevents movement of the train through the crossing.
US08406940B2
A method for mapping a railroad track is provided. The method includes defining a plurality of track segments that form the railroad track and determining coordinates of each track segment. The method also includes storing the coordinates of each track segment in a database as map segments and linking the map segments stored in the database to create a multi-dimensional railroad track map.
US08406937B2
A method of reducing electricity usage during peak demand periods includes the steps of establishing predetermined load reduction criteria representative of a desire by a power provider to reduce loading on an electricity supply grid, and coordinating with a facility having HIF lighting equipment to permit the power provider to turn-off one or more of the HIF lighting equipment by sending instructions to a master controller at the facility in response to the predetermined load reduction criteria, and establishing a list of HIF lighting equipment to be turned-off in response to the instructions, and configuring the master controller to send an override control signal to the HIF lighting equipment to implement the instructions, and configuring the HIF lighting equipment to send a response signal to the master controller providing a status of the HIF lighting equipment.
US08406933B2
Systems and methods for estimating the effects of a request to change power usage are described. Device data about one or more devices may be received. User behavior data about past and anticipated user behavior may be received. Effects of a request to change power usage on a power grid may be estimated using the device data and the user behavior data. Whether to send the request to change power usage may be determined based on the estimated effects.
US08406927B2
An electronic control system for drilling devices, includes at least one pair of data-processing units (2a, 2b); a plurality of data-exchange lines, connected to the data-processing units (2a, 2b) for transmission of signals from and to control devices (4a-4c) of the drilling device; and accessories (5, 9) proper to the drilling device. Each of the data-processing units (2a, 2b) is redundant by the others with one and the same level of hierarchy, and all the data-processing units (2a, 2b) are connected to all the control devices (4a-4c) and to the accessories (5, 9) proper to the drilling device through the electronic data-exchange lines that are redundant in a number equal to the multiplicity of the data-processing units (2a, 2b).
US08406919B1
A quality regulating apparatus and method is disclosed which operates on a product stream having an incoming product stream quality level so that an outgoing product stream quality level provided by the apparatus follows a target quality level so that it is better than the target quality level providing a maximum yield. The apparatus includes a conveying device, a product stream imager, an inspection engine, a routing engine, and an object diverting station. In operation, the inspection engine and routing engine cooperate in a manner so that objects classified as defective are intentionally passed to the output product stream when their inclusion maintains the quality level of the first output product stream at a level that is better than or equal to the target quality level.
US08406917B2
A system and method of the present invention randomly mixes and palletizes various containers received from a conveyor. A control system received an order in advance to cooperate with an automatic storage and retrieval system to pick the containers, ordered by various customers, and to place them on a second conveyor. A robotic device, such as a robotic arm or a gantry system, selectively picks the containers from the second conveyor and places the containers on a pallet in a mixed fashion. The pallets are delivered to the respective customers.
US08406915B2
The present disclosure relates to a mobile rack for a library and an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system for a library including the same, wherein the mobile rack includes a plurality of racks configured to keep books each attached with an RFID tag and mounted with an RFID reader for recognizing tag information stored in the RFID tag, a moving unit configured to move at least one of the plurality of racks, a server configured to manage the books that are inputted, outputted and stacked, and a controller configured to control the moving means in response to a user command through the server or the tag information and to adjust a discrete distance between racks.
US08406914B2
An injection molding controller controls an injection molding apparatus and peripheral devices of the injection molding apparatus. The injection molding controller includes an integral interface and a storage unit. The integral interface includes an injection molding control page and peripheral control pages. The integral interface shows the injection molding control page and the peripheral control pages simultaneously. The storage unit communicates with the integral interface and stores data related to the integral interface. The disclosure further provides a method for manufacturing the injection molding controller and an injection molding system using the injection molding controller.
US08406911B2
A method and apparatus are provided for implementing Advanced Process Control (APC) for enhanced electrical, magnetic, or physical properties process output control using a sequential segmented interleaving algorithm. The sequential segmented interleaving algorithm includes two tuning equations running in parallel. A deposition time is calculated after a production run based upon the relationship between the electrical, magnetic, or physical properties process output and deposition time process input. A deposition rate offset value is calculated after a calibration run based upon the relationship between a calibration deposition thickness process output and an updated deposition time process input calculated after a last production run.
US08406909B2
A method of designing a dental-implant prosthesis includes the steps of arranging a referential jig and combining the referential jig into a fixture installed in a patient's oral cavity, the referential jig having at least one feature point, the fixture having a connection interface, the referential jig having an opposite-joint interface; scanning the patient's oral cavity to acquire an oral digital data and a referential-jig digital data having at least one feature-point digital data; selecting one digital dental-implant prosthesis from a prosthetic database in a computer, a digital positioning jig overlapping the digital dental-implant prosthesis for combination with the connection interface, and proceeding with overlapping and localization of the digital positioning jig and the referential-jig digital data to combine the referential-jig digital data into the connection interface; and adjusting the position, size, and angle of the digital dental-implant prosthesis to acquire the digital dental-implant prosthesis which is most suitable to the patient.
US08406908B2
A method for producing a dental prosthesis, including obtaining data for the teeth that are to be replaced and for their surrounding area; compiling a database containing data for prefabricated tooth replacement parts; excluding those tooth replacement parts which, based on the data recorded for the teeth to be replaced and for their surrounding area, are unsuitable for functional and/or aesthetic and/or stability reasons; selecting the tooth replacement parts to be used; using imaging software to obtain a virtual representation of the tooth replacement parts integrated into the surrounding area in the patient's dentition in accordance with customary set-up rules; recording the data of an actual situation in a patient's mouth after preparation of the affected teeth and insertion of any implants; checking the compliance of the selected tooth replacement parts with the data of the actual situation after preparation; making available the selected tooth replacement parts; modifying the selected tooth replacement parts according to the data of the actual situation after preparation.
US08406891B2
This document discusses, among other things, a communication circuit for an IMD comprising a radio frequency (RF) modulator to modulate and demodulate IMD data signals, first and second serial buffer registers to store received demodulated data and to store transmit data for modulation and configured to operate according to a first clock signal, and a parallel buffer register to receive data in parallel from the first and second serial buffer registers and configured to operate according to a second clock signal that is slower than the first clock signal. The communication circuit also includes a telemetry control circuit configured to, when in the receive mode, alternate between serially receiving data into the first serial buffer register while the parallel buffer receives data from the second serial buffer register, and serially receiving data into the second serial buffer register while the parallel buffer receives data from the first serial buffer.
US08406889B2
The present invention relates to conducting polymer nanowires and their use in a brain-machine interface which is secure, robust and minimally invasive. In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, a vascular-based brain-machine interface comprising conducting polymer nanowires is disclosed.
US08406882B2
One example includes a configurable power source system for an implantable device having a predetermined power requirement, the system comprising a housing for a battery and a capacitor, the housing including a distance D between a first internal face and a second internal face, the housing adapted to fit within dimensions of the implantable device, a plurality of batteries of different thicknesses, each battery adapted to fit within a perimeter of the housing, a plurality of capacitors of different thicknesses, each capacitor adapted to fit within the housing and adjacent the battery and a pick and place system adapted to assemble a selected battery from the plurality of batteries and a selected capacitor from the plurality of capacitors with the housing to form a configurable power source at least meeting the predetermined power requirement for the implantable device.
US08406879B2
The invention relates to cardiac rhythm management systems, and more particularly, to rate adaptive cardiac pacing systems and methods. In an embodiment, the invention includes a method for providing rate-adaptive cardiac pacing therapy from an implantable medical device, the method including sensing a pulmonary function of a patient; determining a rate of change in the pulmonary function; sensing a cardiac function of the patient; determining a rate of change in the cardiac function; and calculating a target pacing rate based on an existing pacing rate, the rate of change in the pulmonary function, and the rate of change in the cardiac function.
US08406875B2
An apparatus includes a sensing unit and control circuitry. The sensing unit is connected to a channel that delivers Electro-Physiological (EP) signals from a cardiac catheter to an EP recording system and pacing signals from the EP recording system to the catheter. The sensing unit is configured to automatically identify time intervals during which the pacing signals are delivered. The control circuitry is configured to route the EP signals on the channel from the catheter to the EP recording system via an intervening system that is detrimental to the pacing signals, to switch the channel to an alternate path that bypasses the intervening system during the identified time intervals, and to route the pacing signals from the EP recording system to the cardiac catheter over the alternate path.
US08406869B2
A method for treatment is provided, including identifying that a subject has suffered from an adverse cerebrovascular event, excluding Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Responsively to the identifying, beginning at least nine hours after the event, electrical stimulation is applied to a site of the subject selected from the group consisting of: a sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG), a greater palatine nerve, a lesser palatine nerve, a sphenopalatine nerve, a communicating branch between a maxillary nerve and an SPG, an otic ganglion, an afferent fiber going into the otic ganglion, an efferent fiber going out of the otic ganglion, an infraorbital nerve, a vidian nerve, a greater superficial petrosal nerve, and a lesser deep petrosal nerve. The stimulation is configured to excite nervous tissue of the site at a strength sufficient to induce at least an increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF) and/or a release of one or more neuroprotective substances.
US08406868B2
Methods for treating a patient and further to devices for performing such treatment, e.g., methods and devices to perturb at least one physiological system and deliver therapy to the patient based on the effects of such perturbation. For example, a method for using an implantable medical device is disclosed that involves delivering electrical stimuli to an efferent nerve associated with the selected organ. Afferent electrical activity is monitored during delivery of electrical stimuli to the efferent nerve, the monitored afferent electrical activity includes an indirect component of a compound action potential (CAP). A status of the selected organ is assessed based upon the indirect component. A determination is made as to whether to deliver therapy to the selected organ in response to assessing the status of the selected organ.
US08406863B2
The invention relates to a device for applying saved frequency information in the form of modulated magnetic fields and/or modulated light to the body, wherein the device comprises at least one transceiver, one display, one memory, one control electronic, one D/A-converter, and a coil (6) for the application of modulated magnetic fields and/or a laser (7) for the application of modulated light. The invention also relates to a method for tapping signals of the electric potential of the heart and the pulse value and applying saved frequency information by means of a device according to the invention.
US08406858B2
Methods and systems for in vivo classification of tissue are disclosed. The tissue is irradiated with light from multiple light sources and light scattered and fluoresced from the tissue is received. Distinct emissions of the sample are identified from the received light. An excitation emission matrix is generated (1002). On-diagonal and off diagonal components of the excitation emission matrix are identified (1004, 1006, 1008). Spectroscopic measures are derived from the excitation emission matrix (1014), and are compared to a database of known spectra (1016) permitting the tissue to be classified as benign or malignant (1018). An optical biopsy needle or an optical probe may be used to contemporaneously classify and sample tissue for pathological confirmation of diagnosis.
US08406848B2
Magnetic source imaging (MSI) involves the reconstruction of the current sources in a portion of a body, such as an organ, from measured magnetic field data. The measured magnetic field data may be from one-dimensional or three-dimensional sensors. Aspects of the present invention include systems and methods for reconstructing the electrical current of an organ given magnetic data. In embodiments, reconstruction of three-dimensional current sources is accomplished knowing or estimating the position, or offset, of the sensor plane with respect to the patient in order to form a set of linear equations. Alternatively, reconstruction of three-dimensional current sources is accomplished without knowing the offset of the sensor plane with respect to the patient. In embodiments, the linear and nonlinear systems of equations are iteratively used to obtain the current source information. In embodiments, multi-scale strategies are employed.
US08406841B2
A dry electrode for biomedical signal measuring sensor includes a conductive sponge, a conductive fabric, and a thin metal film. The conductive fabric covers the whole conductive sponge, and the thin metal film is disposed on one face of the conductive fabric opposite to the conductive sponge. When using the dry electrode in measuring biomedical signal, it is not necessary to apply a conductive gel on a patient's skin, at where the biomedical signal is to be measured. Without the need of applying the conductive gel, the dry electrode is readily for measuring biomedical signal at any time and can be conveniently used in measuring signal over a long period of time without the problem of an attenuated signal due to gradually becoming dried conductive gel.
US08406830B2
A radio frequency signal transmission system is provided which includes a radio frequency signal transmission connector including an antenna for radiating a radio frequency signal having a predetermined frequency band, and a first dielectric body made of a material having a predetermined first permittivity and having the antenna cast therein, and a radio frequency signal transmission cable including a dielectric transmission path formed of a second dielectric body made of a material having substantially the same second permittivity as the first permittivity of the first dielectric body of the radio frequency signal transmission connector. The radio frequency signal transmission connector is connected with the radio frequency signal transmission cable thereby to form a radio frequency signal transmission path through which the radio frequency signal radiated from the antenna is transmitted to the dielectric transmission path via the first dielectric body.
US08406825B2
A mobile communications device having an antenna partly formed from an electrostatic discharge shield covering a microphone. The antenna includes a radiator arm extending from the electrostatic discharge shield and includes a feed element connecting the electrostatic discharge shield to a signal trace. To the extent the microphone employs an acoustic tube to form an acoustic pathway between the device casing and the microphone, the radiator arm of the antenna may be arranged over the acoustic tube.
US08406824B2
A wireless communication apparatus includes a power-supply apparatus configured to supply electric power to a load that is intermittently operated by using a battery as a power supply; and a control unit configured to control the power-supply apparatus, wherein the power-supply apparatus includes a capacitor; a switching unit capable of selectively forming a first path through which charging is performed from the battery to the capacitor and a second path through which the battery is connected in series with the capacitor, and wherein the control unit controls the switching unit so that the first path is formed during a period in which the load is idle and the second path is formed during a period in which the load is not idle, and thereby supplies the voltage of the sum of the battery voltage and the charged voltage of the capacitor in a non-idle period.
US08406821B2
An in-vehicle hands-free phone system includes: a base station; a portable terminal that is wirelessly connected to the base station; and an in-vehicle device that includes: an information acquisition portion that acquires information about a portable terminal that is connected to the in-vehicle device; a storage portion that stores a number sequence whose intermediate portion includes a predetermined code; and a tone sending-out control portion that sends the number sequence stored in the storage portion to the portable terminal and causes the portable terminal to send out the number sequence in a tone. The tone sending-out control portion determines a tone sending-out behavior about a number sequence part that is subsequent to the predetermined code on the basis of the information acquired by the information acquisition portion.
US08406818B2
Embodiments of the disclosed invention include an apparatus, method, and computer program product for providing a larger display area for viewing pictures and/or videos on a communication device. For example, in one embodiment, a communication device is disclosed comprising a plurality of display components for displaying an image that covers a plurality of sides of the communication device. In certain embodiments, a user first image is displayed in response to receiving an incoming call for providing a visible indicator for alerting the user of an incoming call.
US08406810B1
An authentication semiconductor element (such as a chip for a user identity card) and an associated user device include magnetic elements for automatically aligning and holding in place the authentication element on electrical contacts of the user device. The authentication semiconductor element includes a substrate, an electrical circuit, electrical contacts formed on the surface of the substrate, and at least two magnetic elements located on the substrate. The user device includes a communication interface, a processor, and a socket for receiving an authentication semiconductor element. The socket includes electrical contacts and at least two magnetic elements positioned to magnetically interact with the magnetic elements of the authentication element and automatically align the electrical contacts of the authentication element on corresponding electrical contacts of the socket.
US08406808B2
A multiservice communication device includes a plurality of transceivers that wirelessly transceive network data with a corresponding plurality of networks in accordance with a corresponding plurality of network protocols, wherein at least one of the plurality of transceivers further transceives control channel data with a remote management unit contemporaneously with the network data via a logical control channel carried using the corresponding one of the plurality of network protocols, wherein the control channel data includes local control data sent to the management unit and remote control data received from the management unit. A processing module processes the remote control data and generates a least one control signal in response thereto, the at least one control signal for adapting at least one of the plurality of transceivers based on the remote control data.
US08406795B2
A wireless terminal using OFDM signaling supporting both terrestrial and satellite base station connectivity operates using conventional access probe signaling in a first mode of operation to establish a timing synchronized wireless link with a terrestrial base station. In a second mode of operation, used to establish a timing synchronized wireless link with a satellite base station, a slightly modified access protocol is employed. The round trip signaling time and timing ambiguity between a wireless terminal and a satellite base station is substantially greater than with a terrestrial base station. The modified access protocol uses coding of access probe signals to uniquely identify a superslot index within a beaconslot. The modified protocol uses multiple access probes with different timing offsets to further resolve timing ambiguity and allows the satellite base station access monitoring interval to remain small in duration. Terrestrial base station location/connection information is used to estimate initial timing.
US08406771B2
A wireless communication system, includes: a first base station; a second base station; a first terminal which transmits call connection data to the first base station; a second terminal which receives a call connection request; and a management device which manages location and movement of the first terminal, wherein the first base station employs a handover procedure to notify the management device, when receiving the call connection data from the first terminal, that a call connection destination of the second terminal which has received the call connection request is changed, and notifies the first terminal about a frequency of the second base station, and the first terminal transmits call connection data to the second base station based on the notified frequency.
US08406769B2
A leadership support system includes a leader terminal and plural member terminals. The member terminals, according to either the relay of communication information not addressed thereto or the reception of communication information addressed thereto, send back a response to the appropriate communication information. The leader terminal determines, based on the times of relaying the communication information, whether or not the member terminal that transmitted the communication information is in danger of isolation. When the leader terminal determines the member terminal in danger of isolation, it outputs a warning signal indicative of a ranger of isolation to that member terminal.
US08406760B2
In a method and an arrangement for using certain data acquired upon registration of a mobile communication device of a mobile subscriber of a cellular provider at a switching center, in particular for traffic forecasting, wherein the acquired data comprise at least a numerical identification associated with the person of the subscriber and time and location of registration at the switching center, the numerical identification is used at least partially as an argument of a true one-way function or pseudo one-way function for calculating a functional value. The functional value is associated with the acquired data, especially time and location of the registration. The acquired data including the functional value but without the numerical identification are transmitted to a unit using the data.
US08406742B2
A cellular telephone set can increase number of display patterns of animation display without occupying large storage region in the memory and without performing setting operation every time. The character presentation means determines character to be displayed in each event screen upon depression of call release button after telephone calling, depression of call release button after telephone call reception, upon occurrence of at least one of presence of not responded call and newly received mail, and upon variation of state between open state and closed state of the first and second casings, depending upon calling history, time of calling, call arriving history, time of call arrival, and timing of detection of variation of state between open state and closed state of the first and second casing by the detecting means.
US08406741B2
Disclosed herein is a dual SIM terminal and an operating method thereof for supporting dual standby and single talk using a single baseband. The dual SIM mobile terminal may include a controller which is a single chipset, a dual SIM, and two radio frequency (RF) units, thereby having an effect capable of providing a service at the same level as a dual SIM using two mobile terminals even with one mobile terminal. Furthermore, dual SIM switching is performed according to a state of the network, a pricing system, and a user's setting, thereby providing the user's desired service.
US08406737B2
A mobile terminal includes a display, transmitter, memory, and a controller configured to recognize a first SIM card having a first SIM identification that identifies the first SIM card, and to receive access data having conditional broadcast access information via user input, the access data being associated with the first SIM identification. The controller is further configured to store the access data based upon the recognition of the first SIM card in the memory, cause the display to display received broadcast content in accordance with conditions specified by the access data, and delete the access data from the memory after the first SIM card is removed from the mobile terminal.
US08406735B2
A method pairs electronic equipment, particularly, in a wireless network system. The method includes: providing first and second wireless electronic equipment to be paired which store a first and a second public key, respectively, and providing a user with a wireless portable electronic device which stores a third public key. Then, the portable electronic device transmits the third public key in turn to the first and second electronic equipment, and receiving from the first and second equipment the first and second public keys, respectively. Moreover, the portable electronic device calculates first and second numbers starting from the first and second public keys, respectively. The same first and second numbers is independently calculated by the first and second electronic equipment, respectively, starting from the third public key and representing secret numbers shared between the portable device and the first and second electronic equipment. Finally, the portable device provides a secure communication key to be transmitted in turn to the first and second equipment through encryption with the first and second secret numbers, respectively.
US08406725B2
A method and apparatus for sending an event from user equipment operating in a mobile network, the method comprising the steps of: monitoring whether an unrelated opportunistic event has occurred; and sending said event with said unrelated opportunistic event.
US08406720B2
Techniques are provided herein to generate beamforming weight vectors for transmissions to be made from a first wireless communication device, e.g., a base station, to a second wireless communication device, e.g., a client device. The first device has a plurality of antennas and receives uplink transmissions from the second device, each uplink transmission comprising a group of frequency subcarriers. The first device computes channel information from the received uplink transmission and computes one or more trigonometric waveforms determined to approximate the channel information. One or more downlink beamforming weight vectors are computed at any given frequency subcarrier (thus in any frequency subband) by interpolation using the one or more trigonometric waveforms.
US08406717B1
Systems and techniques for digital processing of FM stereo signals are described. In some implementations, a receiver system is provided. The receiver system can include a received signal input configured to receive a digital signal based on a received mono signal or a received stereo signal. The receiver system can also include a stereo detector coupled with the received signal input, the stereo detector configured to produce a stereo detection signal indicating either a received stereo signal or a received mono signal. The receiver system can further include a digital signal processor coupled with the stereo detector, the digital signal processor configured to process the digital signal based on stereo transmission when the stereo detection signal indicates a received stereo signal and process the digital signal based on mono transmission when the stereo detection signal indicates a received mono signal.
US08406708B2
Methods and circuits for pre-distorting a signal to compensate for distortion introduced by an electronic device operating on the signal. In an example method, first and second signal samples representing the input and output of the electronic device are generated. The first and second signal samples are spaced at unit-delay intervals, and each of the second signal samples corresponds in time to one of the first signal samples. Pre-distortion weights are then calculated from the first and second signal samples, the pre-distortion weights corresponding to a pre-distortion model comprising a lattice-predictor memory model structure having multiple delays and having at least one multi-unit delay interval between adjacent delays. The calculated pre-distortion weights are then applied to the input signal, using a predistorter with a structure corresponding to the lattice-predictor memory model, to produce a pre-distorted input signal for input to the electronic device.
US08406690B2
A system is provided for transmitting data between a first component and a second component, which rotates relative to the first component. The system includes a first coupling element of limited angular extent mounted to the first component, and a second coupling element of limited angular extent mounted to the second component. The first and second coupling elements come into angular alignment once per revolution of the second component relative to the first component. The system further includes a first transceiver connected to the first coupling element, and a second transceiver connected to the second coupling element. The first and second transceivers are configured to detect the angular alignment of the first and second coupling elements. The first and second transceivers are further configured to transmit data between the first and second transceivers via the first and second coupling elements when the angular alignment is detected.
US08406688B2
A data control apparatus that enables data communication among devices with simple operations. A first communication unit communicates with a first device placed on a predetermined surface of the data control apparatus. A second communication unit communicates with a second device. A detection unit detects a position of the first device placed on the predetermined surface of the data control apparatus. A communication control unit controls communication between the first device and the second device according to the position of the first device detected by the detection unit.
US08406686B2
A mobile communication terminal apparatus includes a non-contact communication section configured to perform non-contact communication with an external terminal apparatus. The non-contact communication section includes a main unit having a controller configured to control communication with the external terminal apparatus and a main antenna, and a sub-unit having a sub-antenna having a coil whose number of windings is smaller than the number of windings of a coil of the main antenna and an adjuster configured to adjust a resonance frequency.
US08406685B2
The present invention provides a method for intercepting and monitoring of cellular satellite communication wherein communication between at least one mobile device (MES) and the satellite is through a first band link that includes plurality of first-band spot beams each accommodating at least one basic channel unit that includes a control channel and corresponding traffic channels, and communication between the satellite and main station is through wideband second-band link accommodating plurality of second band spot beams each accommodating at least one basic channel unit that includes a control channel and corresponding traffic channels, the method comprising detecting map between a control channel of the downlink first band link and corresponding control channel of downlink second band link by identifying identical unique spot beam number (SB Mask) data in the respective control channels.
US08406684B1
A two-way radio device with combined mobile communication function comprises at least a radio transceiver module, a 2G/3G transceiver module, a control processor, an audio processing module, a memory, a display, a button set and a power supply module. Accordingly by executing a manual operation mode or an automatic operation mode of the device, one of a radio communication function and a mobile communication function of the device is selected to be enabled so as to achieve voice and data communications with one of radio system subscribers or 2G/3G system subscribers. Besides, the device can also execute a transfer operation mode to transfer and forward communications between the radio system subscribers, or between the radio system subscribers and the 2G/3G system subscribers.
US08406680B2
A sheet reversing device has a vertical first conveyance path, a horizontal second conveyance path into which a sheet is carried via the first conveyance path and a horizontally third conveyance path into which the switched-back sheet is carried from the second conveyance path. A curved guide plate is disposed between the first and second conveyance paths and includes a curved guide surface for guiding the sheet to the second conveyance path, and a pivotal guide pivotably supported with a part thereof projecting from the curved guide surface. The pivotal guide pivots to retract into the inner side of the curved guide by being pushed by the sheet moving from the first conveyance path toward the second conveyance path while guiding the sheet switched back and carried out from the second conveyance path toward the third conveyance path with the part thereof projecting from the curved guide surface.
US08406677B2
When carrying out monochrome printing, an engine unit of a printer calculates an amount of toner consumed as lubricant by a color photoreceptor according to the number of sheets to be printed (S63). When carrying out color printing, the engine unit calculates an amount of toner remaining on the color photoreceptor after the printing based on an amount of toner necessary for printing calculated from a printing rate and an amount of actually transferred toner that is calculated from the transfer rate (S65). The toner remaining on the color photoreceptor is used as lubricant, and the engine unit calculates an amount of toner by subtracting the residual toner amount from the amount of toner as lubricant calculated from the number of sheets for monochrome printing (S67), and supplies the calculated amount of toner as lubricant to the color photoreceptor when carrying out monochrome printing.
US08406662B2
A developer supply device, comprising: a casing; first electrodes located at a first most downstream position defining a certain distance with respect to the supply target and positions between the casing and the first most downstream position to form a first traveling electric field; a second electrodes that are located at a second most downstream position defining the certain distance with respect to the supply target and positions between the casing and the second most downstream position to form a second traveling electric field; a power circuit that supplies a first voltage and a second voltage having a same frequency respectively to the first electrodes and the second electrodes such that a phase of voltage change of a first most downstream electrode and a phase of voltage change of a second most downstream electrode shift with respect to each other.
US08406655B2
An image-forming device which may include a casing and a developing unit that is detachably mounted in the casing and formed with a first opening. The developer unit may have a developer carrying member carrying a developer, wherein the developing unit includes one end. The image-forming device may also include a first shutter configured to open and close the first opening and a developer cartridge that is configured to be detachably mounted in the casing, accommodate the developer, and is formed with a second opening. The second opening may be in alignment with the first opening when the developing unit and the developer cartridge are mounted in the casing. The image-forming device may also include a second shutter configured to open and close the second opening. The image-forming device may also include an alignment member between the developing unit and the developer cartridge.
US08406654B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a plurality of photosensitive members, an endless belt, and a separation mechanism. The photosensitive members are arranged in parallel with and spaced from one another and correspond to respective colors. The plurality of photosensitive members includes a first photosensitive member and at least one second photosensitive member. Each of the photosensitive members has a first end portion and second end portion that is opposite to the first end portion in a longitudinal direction of each of the photosensitive members. The endless belt contacts the photosensitive members. The separation mechanism is configured to swing the second photosensitive member around the first end portion of the second photosensitive member as a fulcrum between a contact position at which the second photosensitive member contacts the endless belt and a separated position at which the second photosensitive member is separated from the endless belt.
US08406651B2
In a method to remove toner deposits on a surface of a cleaning element, electrically charged toner particles are transferred from a transfer element surface to a photoconductor. On the cleaning element, untransferred, electrically charged toner particles as residual toner from the transfer element surface are received. Electrically charged toner particles on the cleaning element are directed past an electrode arrangement arranged at a distance from the surface of the cleaning element. An alternating electrical field is generated which acts on the toner particles to loosen them. The toner particles remaining on the surface of the cleaning element are brought into contact with a mixture of carrier particles and toner particles during further transport along a transport direction of the cleaning element.
US08406637B2
A system and method are provided for controlling the pre-emphasis applied to an optical signal, in which the output level of individual transmitters is controlled in order to reach a pre-defined desired value of a quality metric. Transmitters are able to adjust their output power without external control in such a way as to optimise the power distribution across the system.
US08406633B1
A method of synchronizing with a data transmission in a passive optical network, wherein the data transmission includes a plurality of data transmission frames each having i) a known transmission duration, and ii) a start boundary identified by a predetermined synchronization pattern. The method includes comparing a plurality of data patterns within the data transmission to at least part of a predetermined synchronization pattern; providing a comparison result for each comparison having a match between a data pattern and the at least part of the predetermined synchronization pattern; assigning a frame tracking signal to each one of the plurality of comparison results occurring within the known transmission duration; comparing one or more subsequent data patterns occurring in the data transmission to at least part of the predetermined synchronization pattern for each assigned frame tracking signal; and generating a synchronization signal associated with a selected one of the frame tracking signals.
US08406631B2
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to synchronizing network timing. In one particular example, network timing may be synchronized using reflected signals.
US08406625B2
Provided is an optical network in which a wavelength division multiplexing-based optical transmission scheme is implemented. An apparatus for cross-connecting an optical path includes a path switch including a plurality of input terminals receiving optical signals from other nodes, and a plurality of output terminals sending the optical signals to the other nodes, the path switch switching the path of the optical signal so that the optical signal input via one of the input terminals is output to one of the output terminals; and a wavelength converter converting a wavelength of the optical signal input via the input terminal and outputting the wavelength-converted optical signal to the output terminal according to a switching result of the path switch. Thus, inefficient use of a network resource due to wavelength collision can be prevented, the path can be automatically cross-connected and thus quickly established, path switching and branch combination can be performed irrespective of wavelength, and switching can be performed irrespective of direction.
US08406622B2
Systems and methods are described that that dynamically configure high-speed data link lightpaths between access routers and backbone routers at geographically dispersed locations to reassign traffic when a backbone router fails or is removed from service. Embodiments reduce the quantity of backbone router ports used in dual backbone router-homed networks.
US08406619B2
There is disclosed stereographic camera system including a left and a right camera including respective lenses, plural mechanisms to synchronously set a focal length of the lenses, to synchronously set a focal distance of the lenses, to set a convergence angle between the left and right cameras, and to set an intraocular distance between the left and right cameras. A distance measuring device may be used to measure the distance to an extreme object. A controller may cause an interocular distance and a convergence angle between the left and right cameras to be set based on a maximum allowable disparity, the focal length of the lenses, and a convergence distance.
US08406617B2
A photographic optical device may include a movable module having a camera module on which a lens and an imaging element are mounted, a support body, and a shake correction mechanism. The movable module may be provided with a sensor for detecting an inclination of the camera module and a cover member which structures an outer peripheral face of the movable module. The shake correction mechanism may be provided with a swing drive mechanism for swinging the movable module so that the optical axis is inclined. The swing drive mechanism may be provided with a drive magnet and a drive coil.
US08406616B2
The present invention refers to a tablet (1) for retaining a volatile substance in a liquid or solid state, such as a perfume and/or an insecticide. The tablet comprises at least a first and a second layers (2,4) of volatile substance retaining material, said first and second layers being spaced apart from each other at a selected distance, and wherein it further comprises a layer of impermeable material (3) joined to said layers and located in between said first and second layers.
US08406608B2
Provided are, among other things, systems, methods and techniques for creating a talk shows and other video programming. In one example, a host processor-based facility is configured for: (i) accepting inputs of content and stylistic information for designing a composited video program, (ii); and electronically transferring such content and stylistic information to the processor-based production server; the host processor-based facility and a set of the participant processor-based devices, each associated with a user, are configured: (i) to communicate with each other over an electronic communications network as participating devices in a live conference that includes audio communication, with each of the participating devices transmitting a live first data stream; and (ii) to transmit a second data stream to a processor-based production server; both the first data stream and the second data stream represent a corresponding user's participation in the live conference; and the processor-based production server is configured to receive the second data streams and assemble them into a final composited video program using the content and stylistic information.
US08406594B2
An optical fibre that use index-guidance formed with a low index cladding or a microstructured cladding using voids/holes or low index features (404) together with multiple high index resonant cladding features (1205, 1206). One to three resonant cross sectional extending structure act as a filter by resonantly coupling light out to part of the cladding (1202) or other structures (fx. a high index outer cladding ring) that acts as light sink(s) at one to three wavelength when using one to three materials or features with different size, shape, refractive index profile or normalized frequency parameter. The fibre can be asymmetrical. The fibre can be adapted for suppression of higher order modes (HOM) and/or guiding light in a narrow spectral wavelength range and act as a band pass filter. For enhancing out-coupling the high index features can be arranged along two intersecting lines tangentially positioned in relation to the core and along a line that extends from the core and intersects the tangentially positioned lines. Light absorbing material such as samarium can be used in the light sink. The fibre can be used in a fibre amplifier or fiber laser.
US08406592B2
Bend resistant multimode optical fibers are disclosed herein. Multimode optical fibers disclosed herein comprise a core region and a cladding region surrounding and directly adjacent to the core region, the cladding region comprising a depressed-index annular portion comprising a depressed relative refractive index which is spaced from the core at least 0.5 microns and less than 4 microns.
US08406590B2
A method and apparatus for manufacturing an optical cable comprising at least one metal tube housing at least one optical fiber and having a predetermined excess fiber length (EFL) is described. In this method the metal tube is plastically deformed and shortened by a predetermined amount (St) greater than the predetermined EFL and is plastically deformed after shortening to provide a controlled elongation thereof so as to reach the predetermined excess fiber length. An optical cable so manufactured has a local excess fiber length (EFL) varying of or less than 0.2% along the longitudinal extension of the cable with respect to an average EFL of the cable.
US08406589B2
A process for forming a fiber optical cable assembly comprises the steps of (a) subjecting a first high tenacity reinforcement yarn such as para-aramid that is coated with a water-impermeable thermally reversible cross-linked polymeric coating to a temperature of from 45 to 200 ° C. for sufficient time to convert the protective coating via bond cleavage into a water-swellable super absorbent polymer, (b) combining one or more of the first reinforcement yarns from step (a) with one or more optical glass fiber transmission media and (c) applying a protective sleeve over at least one assembly of step (b).
US08406573B2
This disclosure describes various exemplary user interfaces, methods, and computer program products for the interactively ranking image search results refinement method using a color layout. The method includes receiving a text query for an image search, presenting image search results in a structured presentation based on the text query and information from an interest color layout. The process creates image search results that may be selected by the user based on color selection palettes or color layout specification schemes. Then the process ranks the image search results by sorting the results according to similarity scores between color layouts from the image search results and the interest color layout from a user based on the color selection palettes and the color layout specification schemes.
US08406557B2
A lens shading correction method and apparatus are provided for removing vignetting occurring in digital images due to lens shading. A white image captured by an image pickup device and an image pickup unit is separated into reference white images corresponding to color channels. A vignetting center having a maximum light intensity is estimated in each of the reference white images. Multiple reference segments on each of the reference white images are defined. A lens shading correction value corresponding to each pixel constituting the reference segments are calculated using a corresponding light intensity. A lens shading correction function corresponding to each reference segment is derived using a corresponding lens shading correction value. Vignetting of a general image received in a general image processing mode is removed, using the derived multiple lens shading correction functions.
US08406551B2
A method for rendering an edge of a graphics primitive to be displayed on a screen. Such edge has an inclination relative to a reference direction of the screen. The method includes the steps of: calculating, based on the inclination of the edge, an error coefficient representative of the distance of the edge from a center of a pixel of the screen; and associating a transparency coefficient to the pixel, based on the calculated error coefficient.
US08406535B2
A method for performing image recognition is disclosed. The method includes obtaining a collection of pixels and grouping at least some of the pixels into a set of cluster features based on gradient magnitude. For each cluster feature in the set, statistical variables are generated. The statistical variables represent a collective property of the pixels in the cluster feature. The statistical variables are utilized as a basis for comparing the collection of pixels to a different collection of pixels.
US08406532B2
A method and system of matching features in a pair of images using line signatures. The method includes determining a first similarity measure between a first line signature in a first image in the pair of images and a second line signature in a second image in the pair of images; determining a second similarity measure between the first line signature in the first image and a third line signature in the second image; comparing the first similarity measure with a first threshold value; comparing a difference between the first similarity and the second similarity with a second threshold value; and if the first similarity measure is greater than the first threshold value and the difference between the first similarity and the second similarity is greater than the second threshold value, the first line signature and the second line signature produce a match.
US08406531B2
Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.
US08406530B2
Aspects of the present invention are related to systems and methods for determining the location of numerals in an electronic document image.
US08406524B2
A method, apparatus, and medium of generating a visual attention map. A visual attention map to extract visual attention may be generated to convert a two-dimensional (2D) image into a three-dimensional (3D) image based on visual attention. The 2D image may be downscaled and at least one downscaled image may be generated. A feature map may be extracted from the 2D image and the at least one downscaled image, and the visual attention map may be generated.
US08406521B2
A method and apparatus are provided. The method includes the steps of an imaging device capturing an image of a display of a medical instrument, an image processor determining a location of a patient biometric measurement within the image, an optical character recognition module recognizing a set of alphanumeric characters within the determined location and a communication processor sending the recognized characters to a remotely located healthcare database.
US08406516B2
An image processing apparatus MFP includes a memory for storing color data of a plurality of picture elements together with a correlation to identification information for identifying each picture element, and storing a reference value and a statistical value for each of a predetermined number of baskets; a classifying unit for classifying each of the plurality of picture elements into one of the baskets based on the color data and the reference value corresponding to the basket; a calculating unit for calculating the statistical value and the reference value of the basket accommodating the classified picture element based on the color data corresponding to the picture element; and a determining unit for determining a representative color of each basket based on the statistical value, and outputting the representative color of each basket and a result of the classification of each picture element.
US08406498B2
Multimodal or multispectral images of cells comprising a population of cells are simultaneously collected. Photometric and/or morphometric image features identifiable in the images are used to identify differences between first and second populations of cells. The differences can include changes in a relative percentage of different cell types in each population, or a change in a first type of cell present in the first population of cells and the same type of cell in the second population of cells. The changes may be indicative of a disease state, indicative of a relative effectiveness of a therapy, or indicative of a health of the person from whom the cells populations were obtained.
US08406496B2
A method and system for left ventricle (LV) detection in 2D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images is disclosed. In order to detect the LV in a 2D MRI image, a plurality of LV candidates are detected, for example using marginal space learning (MSL) based detection. Candidates for distinctive anatomic landmarks associated with the LV are then detected in the 2D MRI image. In particular, apex candidates and base candidates are detected in the 2D MRI image. One of the LV candidates is selected as a final LV detection result using component-based voting based on the detected LV candidates, apex candidates, and base candidates.
US08406489B2
An image display apparatus 4 includes a control unit 15 having an image display controller 15a and an image processing controller 15b to enable an easy recognition of a condition and the like of an imaging target with respect to respective image areas at each imaging point. The image display controller 15a controls to display a time scale indicating an imaging period of a series of intra-subject images, to divide a display area of each time point on the time scale so as to be associated with divided image areas, and to display average colors of divided image areas respectively in divided scale areas separated as a result of the division, the divided scale areas and the divided image areas being associated with each other, respectively. The image processing controller 15b obtains image data stored in the portable recording medium 5 or the storage unit 14 to output to an image processor 13, and controls various image processes on the output image.
US08406486B2
To provide an inter-pattern feature corresponding device (1) for determining a feature correspondence relationship with high accuracy even if a pattern to be collated has distortion. The inter-pattern feature corresponding device (1) includes a means (11) for generating a proximity feature point group in which the feature points are positionally proximate to each other in a pattern and a location relationship numeric number group indicating the location relationship between the feature points of the proximity feature point group as feature point group locations, a means (12) for comparing the generated location relationship numeric numbers to detect the corresponding feature point group location candidates, a means (13) for comparing the location relationship numeric numbers between a feature point of each feature point group location of the corresponding feature point group location candidates and feature points which are proximate to the feature point group locations, adding the corresponding proximity feature points to the corresponding feature point group location candidates, and updating the corresponding feature point group location candidates, a means (14) for examining the associated corresponding feature point candidates of the updated corresponding feature point group location candidates to set the associated corresponding feature points of the corresponding feature point group location candidates, and a means (15) for examining the corresponding feature point group location candidates to set inter-pattern corresponding feature points.
US08406485B2
An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
US08406481B2
The present method relates to the automated indexing of event images for distribution. The automated indexing can use automated facial recognition to determine which people are in each image. The images indexed in this fashion can be presented in a gallery, ordered by characteristics of the people in the images such as their name or room number, so as to facilitate the selection of the images by the people. The identification of the people in the images can be assisted by security or other information regarding the people that may be available to the event manager. Furthermore, the closeness of the relationships of two people can be inferred from the degree to which the people are in the same images, allowing the people in the images to be placed into groups, which can be hierarchical and/or overlapping, and which can assist in the organization of images being presented to the people, either in a gallery or electronic display format.
US08406479B2
Provided is a visual axis direction detection device capable of obtaining a highly accurate visual axis direction detection result without performing a particular calibration for each of examinees. The device (100) includes: a feature calculation unit (160) which calculates as a reference position, a 3D position of the center of a face of an examinee whose visual axis direction is to be detected, from a 3D position of two face parts positioned symmetrically, and calculates as a feature position, a 3D position of the center of the right and left pupils of the examinee in the horizontal direction; a visual axis direction feature amount calculation unit (172) for calculating a shift amount of the feature position from the reference position in the horizontal direction as a visual axis direction feature amount; and a visual axis vector calculation unit (173) for calculating the visual axis direction of the examinee according to the visual axis direction feature amount.
US08406475B2
Method for analyzing berries, characterized in that: berries are arranged on an analysis plate, an image of the berries is recorded, the image consisting of pixels of at least one component of an elementary color, the contours of the berries are identified, and geometric and/or colorimetric characteristics of the berries are determined. The number of berries can then be determined, or a volume, a surface area, a surface area to volume ratio, and a characteristic concentration for each berry can be determined, in addition to an average, for all of the pixels inside the contour of a defined berry, of the values of a component of an elementary color of a component of interest. A device for implementing the method is also disclosed. The invention especially relates to viticulture and to the analysis of the maturity of the grape.
US08406470B2
A method for detecting an object in a depth image includes determining a detection window covering a region in the depth image, wherein a location of the detection window is based on a location of a candidate pixel in the depth image, wherein a size of the detection window is based on a depth value of the candidate pixel and a size of the object. A foreground region in the detection window is segmented based on the depth value of the candidate pixel and the size of the object. A feature vector is determined based on depth values of the pixels in the foreground region and the feature vector is classified to detect the object.
US08406459B2
Guilloches (preventing modification) and watermarking (preventing substitution) technologies are combined to protect a medium, such as a card or a passport. The major idea stems from their dual role for medium authentication: the presence of one is needed to check the validity of the other one. By nature, the guilloche network is visible in the image and easily detectable by image processing. This network is therefore used to generate reference points as elements of synchronization to retrieve watermark information originally embedded in the medium that has submitted an RST transformation. These reference points are by nature stronger than any other means involving invisible templates in the spatial or Fourier space.
US08406454B2
A method for shoe fitting includes identifying outer foot outlines defining outer boundaries of feet of a user, and inner foot outlines defining weight-bearing areas of the feet in a computer-readable image of the feet. Weighted foot outlines are calculated based on the outer and inner foot outlines. A plurality of unfilled shoes are defined by a common shoe last having a last bottom outline, and sets of different left and right interchangeable insole adapters for insertion into the unfilled shoes are provided. The adapters match the last bottom outline and have respective adapter outlines. The weighted foot outlines are compared with the adapter outlines, to determine an optimal shoe size of a pair of shoes out of the plurality of the unfilled shoes, and to select left and right insole adapters from the sets of the interchangeable insole adapters whose adapter outlines best match the weighted foot outlines.
US08406447B2
An earphone device (1) comprising a main body (14) to be inserted in to the outer ear (28) of a user. The main body (14) has a first side (5) that faces the user's head when inserted, a cavity (13) and a sound opening (2) connecting the first side (5) with the cavity (13). The main body (14) further comprises an ear canal protrusion (3) to be inserted into the ear canal (7). The cross section of the ear canal protrusion (3) is smaller than the cross section of the ear canal (7) and the ear canal protrusion (3) is having a first side (8) adapted to lie against the ear canal wall (10) and a second side (9) lying opposite the first side (8) and beside the sound opening (2).
US08406446B2
A microphone includes: a housing that serves as a microphone grip; a microphone unit supported at one end of the housing; an air chamber provided behind the microphone unit in the housing. The air chamber is filled with a plurality of elastic particles. The individual particles are mechanically bonded to one another and part of the particles are mechanically bonded to the housing such that gaps are formed therebetween.
US08406444B2
An audio radiation type reflective sound box structure comprises a hollow cone tube having a first end received in a box, a second end extended out of an opening of the box to form an inclined side wall, and at least one vent disposed adjacent to the first end. When a diaphragm of a speaker mounted on an inner side edge of the second end generates vibrations, compressed air in the hollow cone tube is pushed out of the opening through the vent, and then collides with the outer edge of the inclined side wall and is diffused toward a peripheral direction adjacent to a front side of the speaker along an extension direction of the inclined side wall. Thus, the sounds reflected by the box can be evenly transmitted to a peripheral environment adjacent to the front side of the speaker.
US08406442B2
There is described a hearing aid comprising input transducer means for converting input acoustic signals into electrical input signals, signal processor means and output transducer means. The signal processor means is operable to divide said electrical input signals into a plurality of frequency bands and to perform a contrast enhancement operation in each said frequency band, to increase the difference between the amplitudes of those frequency components of the input signals having a relatively high amplitude and those frequency components thereof having a relatively low amplitude to produce output electrical signals in each said respective frequency bands. The output transducer means is operable to produce an output acoustic signal corresponding to a combination of said output electrical signals.
US08406439B1
Methods and systems for providing synthetic audio placement are described herein. In different aspects, the methods and systems may include a connection port to receive a plurality of remote audio signals included in a conference call, at least one of the plurality of remote audio connections being a single channel audio signal, a processor configured with the connection port to provide a sound field for placing the plurality of audio signals, the sound field providing synthetic audio placement of each of the plurality of remote audio signals, and a rendering output configured with the processor to project the plurality of remote audio within the sound field to a listener.
US08406436B2
A sound capture device comprises a symmetric microphone array that includes non-radially-oriented directional sensors (101). The device typically derives a spherical harmonic representation of the incident sound field, and affords higher signal-to-noise ratios and better directional fidelity than prior arrays, across a wide range of audio frequencies.
US08406435B2
Described herein are one or more implementations offering a centralized (e.g., single-point) user-interface, where a user may manipulate audio properties (e.g., volume level) for one or more audio submixes produced by each of multiple active operating-system processes.
US08406434B2
The audio processing system disclosed in the invention comprises an audio processor and an audio amplifier. The audio processor receives a data signal to generate a processed signal, and comprises at least one gain control circuit and at least one operational amplifier. The gain control circuit generates a gain signal according to a volume control signal, a reference signal, and a feedback signal. The operational amplifier couples to the gain control circuit and amplifies the data signal by the gain signal to generate a processed signal. The audio amplifier couples to the audio processor to receive and amplify the processed signal, wherein an amplified signal is generated.
US08406433B2
A 3-point positioning device senses a scene including an auxiliary positioning module by means of an image sensor, and accordingly generates a sensed image. The auxiliary positioning module comprises a first, a second, and a third auxiliary positioning units. By means of the sensed image, the 3-point positioning device recognizes a first, a second, and a third sensing units of the image sensor corresponding to the first, the second, and the third auxiliary positioning units. In this way, the 3-point positioning device can calculate out an absolute location of the auxiliary positioning module according to the locations or the received power of the first, the second, and the third sensing units.
US08406428B2
The present application provides an apparatus and method for verifying a user, via captured biometric characteristics of the user, who is interacting online. The captured biometrics are guaranteed to be captured in real-time, and avoids the possibility of providing biometrics that were previously captured, by sending to the user a time-sensitive challenge and requiring the user to provide the requested biometric information within a predetermined time period. Therefore, the present invention is best positioned for environments where trusted identification of a user is needed online to facilitate secure transactions.
US08406424B2
Disclosed is a virtual universal decryption (VUD) service that provides a mechanism for allowing users of camera enabled mobile devices to use their camera to decrypt messages. The VUD service can provide a mechanism for a user of a VUD enabled device to authorize one or more other users of VUD enabled and camera enabled devices to use their cameras to decrypt messages sent by the authorizing user. The VUD service may then provide mechanisms for the authorized users to decrypt messages, which have been encrypted by the authorizing users, by simply capturing an image/video of the encrypted text with a camera of their VUD enabled devices.
US08406418B2
A headset and method for voice communication comprising a housing (2) and a pickup unit (8) rotatably connected to the housing via a joint (7). The pickup unit (8) transmits its position to circuitry which in turn enables functions according to its position. When the unit is moved to a predetermined position and a function is enabled, the user is preferably notified by an audible signal in the earphone. The unit may be rotated, pivoted or twisted and even ratcheted to various positions to engage different functions, such as mute, volume up/down, activate Bluetooth® link etc. One position detection includes a sliding contact (20, 70) mutually rotatable about a rotational axis (26) and a annular ring (50) arranged so that the ring (50) is positioned around the rotational axis (26) so as to provide an electrical connection between the first annular ring (50) and the contact members (30).
US08406417B2
A line card includes a subscriber line interface circuit, an interface line, and a first overvoltage protector. The subscriber line interface circuit has a first input terminal operable to receive power at a first reference voltage. The interface line is coupled to the subscriber line interface circuit for interfacing with a subscriber line external to the line card. The first overvoltage protector is coupled to the interface line and referenced to the first reference voltage to provide overvoltage protection responsive to a voltage on the interface line exceeding the first reference voltage by a first predetermined threshold.
US08406416B2
An apparatus comprising a transmitter configured to transmit a digital subscriber line (DSL) signal in a line from a plurality of subscriber lines according to a reference virtual noise power spectral density (PSD), wherein the reference virtual noise PSD is based on an upper bound for a worst-case far-end crosstalk (FEXT) PSD in the subscriber lines. Also included is an apparatus comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising obtaining an upper bound for a worst-case FEXT PSD for a plurality of subscriber lines, obtaining a referred virtual noise PSD based on the worst-case FEXT PSD for the lines, and determining a bit-loading for the lines based on the referred virtual noise or a scaled version of the receiver-referred virtual noise.
US08406415B1
Conferencing products for conducting a conference between a local and two or more distant parties through an electronic channel, wherein distant party audio is routed to the distant parties to provide full audio. These conferencing products are capable of open-air interaction with participants in the locality of a product. Acoustic echo cancellation is applied, which may be accomplished through a single set of coefficients or by a plurality of coefficients and/or echo cancelers on different incoming audio streams and speaker combinations. Privacy modes are provided, whereby one distant party cannot hear the communications of another distant party; those modes including a coaching mode where the privacy is one-way and a mediation mode where the privacy is two-way. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Description below, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.
US08406413B2
Provided is an apparatus for splitting an input signal, the apparatus including a xDSL profile filter for filtering a first sub-signal from the input signal, the first sub-signal according to a xDSL profile, and outputting a xDSL profile output signal; a voice-band filter for filtering a second sub-signal from the input signal, the second sub-signal according to a voice frequency band, and outputting a voice-band output signal; and a user interface for selecting a xDSL profile mode, wherein the xDSL profile mode is consistent with one of a plurality of xDSL profiles, and wherein the xDSL profile filter filters the first sub-signal according to the xDSL profile mode.
US08406412B2
Systems and methods for adapting an existing call flow wherein the call flow further comprises an associated data set, comprising: activating the existing call flow, the existing call flow generating a series of questions designed to obtain information from a caller; determining if an exception condition has occurred; allowing a user to activate an exception call flow in response to the exception condition; retaining the data set associated with the call flow when the exception condition occurred; adapting the data set such that the call flow addresses the exception condition; analyzing the adapted data set to determine if it is unique; and, modifying the existing call flow to incorporate the adapted data set if the adapted data set is unique.
US08406407B2
A system and method for providing custom alerts including a processor configured to retrieve a custom alert from a custom alert provider, a receiver configured to receive, from a user, a request to initiate communication with a communications agent, and a transmitter configured to transmit one or more signals over a network to communicate with the communications agent, wherein transmitting the one or more signals includes transmitting the custom alert for output at the communication agent.
US08406404B2
This invention relates to a method for setting up a conference call in a telecommunications network using the SIP protocol to set up a communication between a first terminal (30) and a second terminal (32), call controllers (36ca30, 36ca32) relaying signals for this communication.According to the invention, such a method is characterized in that it comprises the following steps: the step to interrupt communication of the first terminal (30) with the second terminal (32) to set up a communication between this first terminal (30) and a conference bridge (38pc), the step to simulate the second terminal (32) maintaining its communication with the first terminal (30) using at least one of the call controllers (36ca30, 36ca32), and the step to simulate the second terminal (32) interrupting its communication with the first terminal (30) to set up a communication between this second terminal and the conference bridge (38pc).
US08406398B2
An embodiment of a method includes selecting call detail report (CDR) call setup attributes from captured CDR data, refining the CDR data, and summing CDR amount attribute values for each set of CDR call entries having common values for the selected CDR call setup attributes. Each set of one or more CDR call entries having common values for the CDR call setup attributes are combined into a single refined CDR call entry having the common CDR call setup attribute values and the summed CDR amount attribute values. The summing process is repeated for each set of CDR data associated with each of a plurality of network elements. After summing the CDR attribute amount values for call entries having common CDR setup call attribute values for each switch, CDR attribute amount values associated with common CDR setup attribute values in call entries associated with all switches are summed to generate a final set of refined CDR data.
US08406395B2
The disclosed embodiment relates to identifying telecom users. An exemplary method comprises collecting, with a computing device, call usage data based on the call usage of a new telecom user, comparing, with a computing device, the collected call usage data with existing call usage data stored within a call usage database to determine if the collected call usage data for the new telecom user corresponds with the existing call usage data for an existing telecom user, assigning the new telecom user a user identifier corresponding to the existing telecom user if it is determined that the collected call usage data for the new telecom user corresponds with the existing call usage data for an existing telecom user, and assigning the new telecom user a new user identifier if it is determined that the collected call usage data for the new telecom user does not correspond with the existing call usage data for an existing telecom user. The disclosed embodiment also relates to a system and computer-readable code that can be used to implement the exemplary methods.
US08406392B2
A method and system for authenticating a telephone number. The method includes receiving a user-inputted telephone number over a communication channel. The method includes providing a security code to a user over the communication channel. The method includes initiating a voice telephone call session to the user-inputted telephone number. The method includes prompting the user over the voice telephone call session. The method includes responsive to receiving the security code from the user over the voice telephone call session, authenticating the user-inputted telephone number.
US08406388B2
Embodiments of the invention provide a system for generating an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) database, the system comprising a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory comprising a list of telephone numbers associated with one or more destinations implementing IVR menus, wherein the one or more destinations are grouped based on a plurality of categories of the IVR menus. Further the memory includes instructions executable by said processor for automatically communicating with the one of more destinations, and receiving at least one customization record from said at least one destination to store in the IVR database.
US08406375B2
The present invention discloses an article inspection device, comprising: an x-ray machine, a collimation unit, a transmission detector array and a scattering detector array. The scattering detector array comprising a plurality of same scattering detector modules arranged in a matrix of i-rows and j-columns. A transmission cross section of the article transmitted by the x-rays is divided into a plurality of same sub-regions arranged in a matrix of i-rows and j-columns. The plurality of scattering detector modules arranged in i-rows and j-columns correspond to the plurality of sub-regions arranged in i-rows and j-columns one by one for detecting pair production effect annihilation photons and Compton-effect scattering photons from the respective sub-regions. Obtaining atomic numbers of the respective sub-regions based on a ratio of the pair production effect annihilation photon count to the Compton-effect scattering photon count, so as to form a three-dimensional image of the article. In addition, the present invention further discloses an article inspection method.
US08406372B2
A shift register of an LCD device includes a plurality of shift register units coupled in series. Each shift register unit includes an input circuit and a pull-down circuit having symmetric structures which enable the LCD device to function in a forward-scan mode and a reverse-scan mode.
US08406368B2
An upper detector and a lower detector that face at least one side of a fuel assembly, on which neutrons are irradiated in a nuclear reactor, and detect radiation are set at a predetermined interval in an axial direction of the fuel assembly. Distributions of radiation signals are measured by the upper detector and the lower detector while the fuel assembly and the upper detector and the lower detectors are relatively moved along the axial direction of the fuel assembly. Soundness of radiation signals measured by the upper detector and the lower detector is determined in every measurement by comparing radiation signal distributions obtained by measuring the same portion in the axial direction of the fuel assembly in a multiplexed manner with the upper detector and the lower detector. Thereafter, relative burn-up is calculated by utilizing the measured radiation signals to measure a burn-up profile. According to the present invention, it is possible to measure a burn-up profile of the fuel assembly while securing reliability of a measurement result.
US08406365B2
A system and method are provided for reacquiring a non-synchronous communication signal in a clock and data recovery (CDR) device frequency synthesizer. The method initially acquires the phase of a non-synchronous communication signal having an input data frequency. In response to acquiring the phase of the input data frequency, a synthesized signal is generated having an output frequency. Also as a result of acquiring the input data frequency, a frequency ratio value is selected. The output frequency is divided by the selected frequency ratio value, creating a divisor signal having a divisor frequency, which is compared to a reference signal frequency. In response to the comparison, the frequency ratio value is saved in a tangible memory medium. In response to losing phase-lock with the communication signal, the frequency ratio value is retrieved from memory. After acquiring the input data frequency, the phase of the communication signal is reacquired.
US08406353B1
Signal sequence detection techniques are provided to enable a wireless communication device to detect presence of a sequence, such as a preamble sequence, in the presence of other transmission that would otherwise interference with the ability of the device to detect the sequence. At the wireless communication device, energy in a frequency band is received and a receive signal is generated from the received energy. The receive signal is divided into windows of a predetermined time duration. A running auto-correlation of the receive signal is computed to produce an auto-correlation sequence for a sequence to be detected in the receive signal. Data representing a mask is generated for a window based on the receive signal. The mask is applied to the auto-correlation sequence to filter out portions of the auto-correlation sequence that are outside of the mask. A position of sequence, e.g., a preamble sequence, in the receive signal is detected based on a position of a peak in the auto-correlation sequence after application of the mask.
US08406351B1
A method and device for compensating for undesirable signal characteristics such as baseline wander that includes a linear equalization filter responsive to receive an input, a combiner responsive to an output of the linear equalization filter, and a decision feedback equalization filter responsive to an output of the combiner, where the combiner is further responsive to an output of the decision feedback equalizer. Additionally, an error feedback circuit is responsive to the output of the combiner, and the combiner is further responsive to an output of the error feedback circuit to form a compensated signal having reduced distortion relative to the distorted signal.
US08406349B2
Provided is a method and apparatus for receiving a signal for a MIMO system. The receiving apparatus includes: a QR decomposer for calculating a unitary matrix Q, an upper triangle matrix R, and a vector size for a received signal; a multiple dimension detector for calculating a first LLR for an output of the QR decomposer through multiple dimension detection; an inverse matrix and weight calculator for calculating an inverse matrix for the upper triangle matrix R and a weight; an interference remover for regenerating a symbol for a demodulated data stream using the fist LLR and removing interference from an output vector of the QR decomposer using the regenerated symbol; and a weight zero forcing unit for performing zero forcing on the interference removed output vector from the interference remover using the inverse matrix of the upper triangle matrix R and the weight and calculating a second LLR.
US08406345B2
A method and device for acquiring a channel with a frequency offset less than half symbol rate is applied but not limited to a DVB-S system. A target channel is selected to obtain a carrier frequency and a symbol rate for programming a tuner to obtain a digital baseband signal. A down-sampling factor is calculated based on the symbol rate for performing a down-sampling operation to obtain a down-sampling signal that passes through a digital matched filter to generate a filtered spectrum. A moving average and spectrum inversion is applied to detect location of the target channel and find two cross points thereby estimating a coarse carrier frequency offset for compensating the tuner and a coarse symbol rate. A fine carrier frequency offset and a symbol rate estimate are estimated for compensating and acquiring the target channel when the target channel is successfully detected.
US08406341B2
Apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture for media monitoring are disclosed. In particular, the example apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture determine a media source type associated with a media signal and select an encoding or decoding mode based on the media source type. An encoding operation encodes the media signal using the selected encoding mode and a decoding operation decodes the media signal using the selected decoding mode.
US08406340B2
Distortion and aliasing reduction for digital to analog conversion. Synthesis of one or more distortion terms made based on a digital signal (e.g., one or more digital codewords) is performed in accordance with digital to analog conversion. The one or more distortion terms may correspond to aliased higher-order harmonics, distortion, nonlinearities, clipping, etc. Such distortion terms may be known a priori, such as based upon particular characteristics of a given device, operational history, etc. Alternatively, such distortion terms may be determined based upon operation of a device and/or based upon an analog signal generated from the analog to conversion process. For example, frequency selective measurements made based on an analog signal generated from the digital to analog conversion may be used for determination of and/or adaptation of the one or more distortion terms. One or more DACs may be employed within various architectures operative to perform digital to analog conversion.
US08406327B2
A wireless communication apparatus (a) generates a transmission symbol; (b) assigns, to the transmission symbol, a given number of units each formed of a symbol and a subcarrier in a frame which is formed of M (M is a positive integer) symbols and N (N is a positive integer) subcarriers and includes M×N units, and the given number being not more than M×N, to obtain the given number of identical transmission symbols; (c) multiplies the identical transmission symbols by a code sequence including a plurality of different elements; and (d) transmits the identical transmission symbols multiplied by the code sequence.
US08406324B2
A transmission system to transmit a transport stream (TS) having normal data and additional data, the transmission system including: a stream constructor to generate a TS, and a multiplexer (MUX) to insert information representing the characteristics of additional data in the TS. Therefore, it is possible for a reception system to use the additional data efficiently.
US08406320B2
Digital clipping method for a transmitter of an orthogonal frequency division multiple access system
The present invention relates to a digital clipping method for reducing a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of a transmission signal in a transmitter of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFDMA) system. In the method, a) the transmission signal to be digitally clipped is divided into real and imaginary parts, b) magnitudes of the real and imaginary part signals are divided into a plurality clipping levels, and c) the transmission signal is respectively clipped by comparing the real and imaginary part signals with the plurality of clipping levels while allowing phase errors. In c), a plurality of comparators is used to respectively compare the real and imaginary parts of the complex number transmission signal with the plurality of clipping levels.
US08406300B2
Improved video coding is described to encode video data within a sequence of video frames. To this end, at least a portion of a reference frame is encoded to include motion information associated with the portion of the reference frame. At least a portion of a predictable frame that includes video data predictively correlated to said portion of said reference frame is defined based on the motion information. At least said portion of the predictable frame is encoded without including corresponding motion information and including mode identifying data. The mode identifying data indicate that the encoded portion of the predictable frame can be directly derived using at least the motion information associated with the portion of the reference frame.
US08406289B2
Selecting a method from a set of methods of transcoding digital video data, the data being transferable between at least two communication apparatuses via a communication network, including, for each transcoding method, obtaining a distortion value from a mathematical model for establishing the distortion taking into account the transcoding method, the distortion model being applied to information representing the content of the signal represented by the digital data to be transcoded, and selecting a transcoding method as a function of the different distortion values obtained for the set of transcoding methods, the set of transcoding methods including at least two different types of transcoding methods, each type of transcoding method being selected from at least one of a plurality of methods of reducing a spatial resolution, a plurality of a re-quantization methods, and a plurality of methods of reducing a frame rate.
US08406288B2
A digital video apparatus provides reduced channel change times. According to an exemplary embodiment, the digital video apparatus includes at least one receiver for receiving first and second video streams representing the same program, wherein the first video stream has at least one characteristic different from the second video stream; a first signal processor for processing the first video stream to generate a first processed video stream; a second signal processor for processing the second video stream to generate a second processed video stream having a delay with respect to the first processed video stream; a renderer for rendering the second processed video stream responsive to a channel change command; and a switch for switching from the second processed video stream to the first processed video stream after the renderer begins rendering the second processed video stream, and thereby causing the renderer to begin rendering the first processed video stream.
US08406285B1
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for tuning an analog equalizer and a digital equalizer associated with a communications channel. A plurality of signals is injected into a model of a communication channel, the model being configured to have an analog equalizer at a receiving end, tuning a setting of the analog equalizer to obtain a first ratio of a pulse peak to a rise time in a precursor portion of the injected plurality signals that are received from the channel, injecting another plurality of signals into the model of the communication channel, the model being reconfigured to have the tuned analog equalizer and a digital equalizer downstream of the tuned analog equalizer, and tuning a setting of the digital equalizer based on a post-cursor tail characteristic of the another plurality of signals. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
US08406283B2
Provided is a modulation apparatus that quadrature modulates a periodic signal, comprising an I-side signal output section that outputs an I-component signal; a Q-side signal output section that outputs a Q-component signal; a quadrature modulator that quadrature modulates the periodic signal with the I-component signal and the Q-component signal; an I-side correcting section that corrects the I-component signal according to an error of the quadrature modulator; and a Q-side correcting section that corrects the Q-component signal according to the error of the quadrature modulator.
US08406280B2
A system and method for mitigating multipath interference of signals in environments to determine the line of sight signal propagation.
US08406270B2
A quadrature demodulator preweights an input signal prior to mixing with in-phase and quadrature clock signals. In an implementation with discrete phase rotation, a series of weighting circuits may be arranged before or after a select circuit to select the amount of phase rotation. Various implementations may include ratioed current mirrors to perform the weighting function, a stacked arrangement of mixers, an H-bridge input stage, integrated mixers and select circuits, and/or selectable gain stages such as gm cells to perform the weighting function.
US08406267B2
A solid-state gain element including a thin doped region in which an optical signal propagates through the thin doped region at a large angle with respect to the normal to the thin doped region, reflects at a boundary of the thin doped region, and passes through the thin doped region again. An optical pump beam propagates through the thin doped region also at a large angle with respect to the normal to the thin doped region. In one example, the gain element and source of the pump beam are configured such that there is total internal reflection of the pump beam at the boundary of the thin doped region for a second pumping pass through the thin doped region. In another example, an elliptically symmetric laser beam is used to create a circularly symmetric gain region in the thin doped region.
US08406255B2
Techniques for controlling data transmission are described. In an aspect, a user equipment (UE) determines whether to send a packet based on available transmit power. The UE determines a first packet size based on the available transmit power and sends a packet of the first packet size if it is equal to or larger than a minimum packet size. The UE sends a packet of a second packet size (e.g., the minimum packet size) if the first packet size is smaller than the minimum packet size and if at least one condition is met, e.g., the available transmit power is greater than a power threshold and the delay of a packet to send is larger than a delay threshold. In another aspect, the UE operates in a discontinuous transmission (DTX) mode and cancels the DTX mode if the delay of a packet to send exceeds a threshold.
US08406253B2
An information processing apparatus includes two communication units having different communication areas from one another and a processing unit. When a mobile terminal is within the communication area of a first communication unit, the first communication unit receives setting information for establishing communication between the mobile terminal and a second communication unit, and function information indicating a function for processing substantial information including a document and/or an image to be communicated by the second communication unit. The second communication unit establishes communication with the mobile terminal based on the setting information received by the first communication unit, and communicates the substantial information to the mobile terminal. The processing unit processes the substantial information with the function corresponding to the function information received by the first communication unit.
US08406248B2
A method of routing data in a mesh communication network including a plurality of network devices and operating in a process control environment, including assigning one of a plurality of priority levels associated with the communication network to a data packet, sending the data packet from a source network device included in the plurality of network devices to a destination network device included in the plurality of network devices, and routing the data packet to a destination network device via at least one intermediate network device included in the plurality of network devices. The act of routing includes comparing, at each intermediate network device, the priority level of the data packet to a priority mask of the intermediate network device, and modifying at least one of scheduling or routing of the data packet if the priority level of the data packet is not associated with the priority mask of the intermediate network device.
US08406237B2
A method for implementing proxy mobile Internet protocol (PMIP) in mobile IP foreign agent care-of-address mode may include determining a home address of an access terminal. The method may also include communicating with a home agent in order to bind an address of the network node with the home address of the access terminal and establish a tunnel between the network node and the home agent. The method may also include receiving first packets destined for the access terminal from the home agent via the tunnel and sending the first packets to the access terminal. The method may also include receiving second packets sent by the access terminal that are destined for a correspondent node and sending the second packets to the home agent via the tunnel.
US08406229B2
An improved system and method are disclosed for peer-to-peer communications. In one example, the method enables an endpoint to traverse a NAT device using a stateless reflector.
US08406225B2
A system may install a trunk between a first switch and an end office, where the trunk is a trunk home for the end office. The system may further identify Numeric Numbering exchanges (NXXs) that home to the end office. Traffic for at least one of the identified NXXs is routed to the end office through a second switch that is different than the first switch. The system also causes traffic for the identified NXXs to be routed to the first switch.
US08406221B2
There is provided herein a system and method for automatic configuration of data routings for use with electronic data such as phone calls, faxes, etc. In the preferred embodiment, when more than one carrier might potentially terminate the transmission, the carriers are ordered based on some screening criterion (e.g., transmission price). Data transmissions are then assigned to the carriers based on the sorting order, with the second place and lower carriers (e.g., the higher priced carriers) not being selected unless the first carrier cannot complete the transaction. The switch instructions necessary to implement this scheme are generated automatically.
US08406218B2
A method of and an apparatus therefor searching a cell in a mobile station of a communication system in which a plurality of cells are grouped into a plurality of cell groups, and each cell group includes at least two cells. The method includes detecting a primary synchronization signal and a secondary synchronization signal from a received signal, and identifying a cell based on a combination of the primary synchronization signal and the secondary synchronization signal. The secondary synchronization signal is related to the cell group to which the mobile station belongs and the primary synchronization signal is related to the cell to which the mobile station belongs within the cell group.
US08406217B2
Wireless communication may be provided between an access point and one or more wireless devices, such as wireless sensors used in avionics applications for sensing, monitoring and control systems. Synchronization of wireless devices may be required so that certain actions, such as data acquisition, are performed at precisely controlled time instances. The system described herein provides for rapid synchronization of wireless devices that does not require the use of prior timing data and that may be performed without communication directly between the wireless devices. Further, techniques are provided for addressing packet losses and packet propagation delays.
US08406215B2
Methods and apparatus are described for a Relay Node (RN) that is transparent to User Equipments to transmit, together with a base station (Node B), Reference Signals (RS) to UEs, to receive RS from UEs, to perform transmissions of Transport Blocks (TBs) to the Node B or to UEs and receptions of TBs from the Node B or from UEs, where the transmissions of TBs from the RN are for retransmissions associated with a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) process for the same TBs, and enabling the Node B to obtain control information signaled from UEs while signaling from the RN interferers with that signaling of control information.
US08406211B2
An error detection unit performs erasure decoding for physical layer packets and an assembler assembles the received data into higher layer packets. Higher layer packets that are incomplete are not erased if the higher layer packets contain some data indicated as valid by the error detection unit. In the case of incomplete packets, the data is labeled by assigning a value to a reliability attribute for the data to enable the decoder to discriminate between valid and invalid data in the same packet. The decoder is modified to use “dimmed” data from the incomplete packets to perform decoding.
US08406206B2
Embodiment of the disclosure set forth methods for sharing data in a wireless network. Some example methods include storing in a database a content related information associated with a first mobile device, receiving a request for the content related information from a second mobile device, searching the database for the content related information, and transmitting a search result to the second mobile device to enable the transfer of content between the first mobile device and the second mobile device.
US08406203B2
In a mobile communication system, a mobile switching center 27 changes a transmission rate of communication data transmitted from a mobile station 16 and so on to a database 11 or a transmission rate of communication data transmitted from the data 11 to the mobile station 16 and so on, on a basis of request from the mobile station 16 and so on or the database 11, individually and independently.
US08406202B2
A mobile communication device with a wireless module and a controller module is provided. The wireless module performs wireless transceiving to and from a service network. The controller module transmits an attachment request message without integrity protection to the service network via the wireless module, and receives an attachment response message without integrity protection from the service network via the wireless module. Also, the controller module directly applies a first value of a periodic Routing Area (RA) update timer included in the attachment response message.
US08406198B2
Systems, apparatus, and methods for forwarding data packets towards a mobile node roaming in a foreign packet-switched data network are disclosed. The data packets having been addressed to a home address of the mobile node, the mobile node being provided with a care of address for use in the foreign network, the systems, apparatus, and methods comprise various features.
US08406197B2
A wireless network system and a wireless access point (AP) device and a wireless terminal device thereof are provided. The wireless network system includes at least a wireless AP device and at least a wireless terminal device. Each wireless AP device broadcasts a beacon including a load state content of the wireless AP device. Each wireless terminal device receives beacons of all wireless AP devices, and ranks load states of all wireless AP devices in a load list according to at least CPU utilization rates in the load state contents of all wireless AP devices respectively. When a wireless terminal device intends to establish a connection with one of the wireless AP devices, the wireless terminal devices searches through the load list to select a wireless AP device being in a low load state, and transmits a connection request message to the selected wireless AP device.
US08406193B2
An apparatus and method for transmitting/receiving system information in a wireless communication system with a hierarchical cell structure are provided. A method for transmitting system information in a micro Base Station (BS) in a wireless communication system in which at least one micro cell exists within a macro cell includes transmitting first system information to a Mobile Station (MS) communicating with a macro BS within a micro cell and an MS communicating with a micro BS within the micro cell, and transmitting second system information to the MS communicating with the micro BS within the micro cell.
US08406191B2
Embodiments describe mobility management utilizing neighbor discovery and at least two pseudo wires. When a wireless device desires to handoff to a detected access router, such handoff may not be configured until such time as a current access router receives routing information of the target access router. In order to minimize handoff time, communication between the target access router and the wireless device can be through the current access router utilizing least two pseudo wires. Bidirectional neighbor discovery and create is conducted by the access routers allow subsequent wireless devices to automatically handoff between the access routers.
US08406188B2
A communication system includes wireless access points that are distributed along a linear, terrestrial-based communications medium that has an operative interface to the Internet. The wireless access points establish wireless connectivity between end users in residences and businesses to the Internet via the communications medium. The operating channel for each wireless access point is controlled by a spectrum management system to control use of available spectrum in an efficient manner and to minimize interference.
US08406185B2
An apparatus for transmitting a pilot and method thereof are disclosed, by which a pilot can be efficiently transmitted in a wireless communication system. The present invention, in which the resource unit is transmitted by a base station in a wireless communication system, includes forming the resource unit including a plurality of pilot resource elements (REs) and a plurality of data resource elements, allocating a plurality of pilot pairs to have a prescribed subcarrier interval and a prescribed OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) symbol interval within the resource unit, and transmitting the resource unit to a user equipment via multi-antenna, wherein each of a plurality of the pilot pairs includes individual pilots for two different streams or antennas.
US08406175B2
This invention relates to systems and methods for communication in a wireless ad hoc network that employs multi-packet reception. The wireless network includes a transmitting node configured to transmit a control packet to a receiving node while other nodes within a transmission range of the transmitting node are involved in ongoing communication. The receiving node is configured to receive the control packet while simultaneously receiving a second packet from a second transmitting node, and to process the control packet without aborting the receiving of the second packet. Methods for transmitting and receiving multiple packets simultaneously are also presented.
US08406167B2
A proxy-bridge for connecting Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) compliant devices with Bluetooth (BT) compliant devices, and includes SSDP support for discovery of available UPnP compliant devices and services; a Bluetooth SDP client for discovery of available Bluetooth devices and available Bluetooth services and a Bluetooth SDP server for communicating with Bluetooth SDP clients in the available Bluetooth devices. The proxy-bridge has a converter for converting the discovered Bluetooth devices and services into associated UPnP device and service information, and the discovered UPnP compliant devices and services into associated Bluetooth device, service, and/or profile information. A device and service announcer advertises device availability at regular intervals. A UPnP adapter represents the Bluetooth devices towards the UPnP devices and a Bluetooth adapter represents the UPnP compliant devices towards the Bluetooth compliant devices.
US08406164B2
A method and a system for implementing hard handovers between access networks are provided, and the method includes: the access network on the target side obtaining the loop round trip delay of the pilot of the access network on the target side, and setting a center of a searching window of the pilot of the access network on the target side according to the obtained loop round trip delay of the pilot of the access network on the target side, so as to carry out the hard handovers between the access network on the source side and the access network on the target side. With the invention, the hard handovers between access networks could be implemented successfully.
US08406157B2
A communication method of a user equipment using a time division duplex (TDD) frame in a wireless communication system is provided. The communication method include configuring a TDD frame comprising at least one downlink subframe and at least one uplink subframe, and transmitting a signal by using the TDD frame, wherein an uplink of the TDD frame starts on the basis of a guard period (GP) or an uplink pilot time slot (UpPTS) of a heterogeneous TDD frame.
US08406152B1
A machine implemented method is provided. The method comprises configuring a target port of a target storage array as a plurality of virtual ports; wherein an application executed by a computing system uses the target port to access storage space at the storage array; presenting the plurality of virtual ports to an operating system instance executed by a computing system processor; and using the plurality of virtual ports to read and write information to the storage space of the target storage array.
US08406150B2
A protocol governing the operation of an ad-hoc WLAN enables each device in the WLAN to be configured as a registrar and/or an enrollee. Accordingly, each device is configurable to support both the registrar as well as enrollee modes of operations. In response to a time-driven user action, the device may be configured to enter into a registrar mode or an enrollee mode. While in the registrar mode, the device enters into an aggressive beaconing phase by setting its beacon contention window to a relatively very small value. The aggressive beaconing increases the probability of the discovery of the registrar by the enrollees. Optionally the device may prompt the user to select between a registrar and an enrollee mode of operation by displaying the option on an LCD panel.
US08406147B2
According to the embodiments of the techniques of this application, a wireless data device or other data node sends solicitation messages periodically to a wireless gateway, such as a PDSN, when there is no data traffic between the wireless data device and a wireless data network. Each solicitation message resets the simple IP inactivity timer on the wireless gateway. When multiple wireless data devices send solicitation messages, the interval between subsequent transmissions of solicitation messages is randomized to reduce the probability of collision with the solicitations from other devices on the same wireless link. The solicitation timer, for instance, may be based on the simple IP inactivity timer setting on the wireless network, and the number of wireless data devices that the wireless data network serves. Expiration of the solicitation timer at the wireless data device or other data node causes the next solicitation message to be sent from or on behalf of the wireless data device.
US08406146B2
In a cellular wireless communications network, measurements are received from a plurality of user equipments relating to the reference signal received powers from a plurality of other cells of the cellular wireless communications network For other cells of the cellular wireless communications network having a physical cell identity (such as a scrambling code) that is the same as a physical cell identity of that first cell, it is determined from the received measurements whether a mutual potential interference level with that cell exceeds a threshold If so, an alternative physical cell identity is proposed, that would cause a mutual potential interference level between the cell or the potentially interfering cell and another cell already using that alternative physical cell identity that is lower than the mutual potential interference level between the cell and the potentially interfering cell.
US08406143B2
A method for transmitting a Connectivity Fault Management (CFM) message of Ethernet includes: receiving a CFM message transmitted from a source node, the CFM message including identifier of a path and a connection maintenance target address; determining whether the connection maintenance target address matches address of a receiving node, and if yes, terminating the CFM message; otherwise forwarding the CFM message to a next hop based upon the path identifier of the path. Another method and a system for transmitting a CFM message of Ethernet, a node for transmitting a CFM message of Ethernet, and a node for receiving a CFM message of Ethernet are also disclosed. With the invention, a CFM message may be forwarded according to information of a Medium Access Control (MAC) address and a Virtual Local Area Network Identifier (VLAN ID) of a path identifier where a monitored service is located, and thus may be forwarded correctly in a Provider Backbone Bridge Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) network.
US08406139B2
A method and apparatus for improving the efficiency of a network. A source node determines the propagation delay for data to reach a destination node. This enables the source node to transmit data more efficiently by ensuring a greater portion of a specific time slot is used for receiving data by the destination node. The destination node then determines if it is connected to any other nodes, and determines the propagation delay between the other connected nodes. The process continues until a node detects it is not connected to any other nodes for which a propagation delay has not been computed. Thus, each node on the network knows the propagation delay between each node, and the nodes utilize this information to more efficiently transfer data through the network.
US08406138B2
In a wireless communication terminal, the other terminal existence confirmation section broadcasts a confirmation message at fixed intervals and receives a response message. The topology information management section computes the topology of the whole network to which the wireless communication terminal itself belongs, on the basis of the topology information on the network received at fixed intervals from other terminals. The path management section derives an optimum path to the terminal of the transmission destination. The QoS information collection section issues a communication start request instruction and, when a QoS information collect request instruction has been issued, unicasts a QoS request packet on the path and receives a reply QoS request packet. The judgment section adopts the path as the communication path when QoS information satisfies a predetermined quality standard.
US08406134B2
The disclosed subject matter relates to an architecture that can scale content resolution in order to mitigate errors in a provisioned service of a communication network, such as a wireless service or a femtocell service that integrates with DSL or other broadband carriers. The architecture can identify fault conditions relating to e.g., bandwidth oversubscription or symbolization integrity. Based upon such identification, the architecture can alter encoding format codecs of certain types of content in order to reduce their resolution/quality, thereby mitigating bandwidth oversubscription fault conditions or freeing up space (without necessarily increasing bandwidth) to insert additional FEC code.
US08406133B2
Systems and methods of optimizing packet flow in a network are disclosed. An internetwork includes plural networks, each network having plural non-router nodes and at least one router node. The non-router nodes of a first network can be configured to perform congestion control. The non-router node establishes a packet rate value for a packet queue associated with a second network of the internetwork. A total number of packets not greater than the packet rate value are removed from the packet queue. The removed packets are sent to a node in the second network.
US08406126B1
A system for fault-tolerant communication includes N nodes, out of which one is a gateway node, and N data links, each data link connecting two of the nodes, forming a ring structure. At least two of the data links are wireless data links. The system substantially do not use one of the wireless data links to send data, effectively partitioning the ring structure into a first chain and a second chain. The system sends data downstream direction and upstream direction, through the first and second chains. The system detaches at least one node from the first chain, by substantially stop using a wireless data link having a reduction in performance and belonging to the first chain, and connects the at least one node to the second chain by starting to use the wireless data link that was substantially not in use.
US08406116B2
A server-based architecture for mobile conferencing is presented. Session-based mobile conferencing is established by transmitting necessary server network address information through page-mode based messaging services to establish connections among the various mobile devices with the server.
US08406108B2
An objective lens for an optical pickup device is provided with a light-source-side lens surface by which laser light is converged, and a disc-side lens surface by which the laser light converged by the light-source-side lens surface is converged. The first lens surface and the second lens surface are configured to guide a part of a light collecting portion of the laser light reflected on the second lens surface to a position on an outside of the first lens surface.
US08406105B1
A model is derived for write parameters of a laser in an optical drive. A parameter range for the write parameters is set based on a recordable medium. A number of test runs are recorded on the recordable medium while varying the write parameters. Write performance characteristics are measured over the test runs, and a model of write performance as a function of the write parameters is derived. Values for write parameters are selected for use in writing actual data based on the derived model. A first section of user data is written to the data-carrying region of the recordable medium using the selected values. The write performance characteristics of the first section of user data are measured, and the model is updated by including the measurements from the data-carrying region. New values for the write parameters of the laser are selected based on the updated model.
US08406094B2
In a thermally assisted recording head using a conductive scatterer as an optical near-field transducer, a propagation loss in a waveguide for guiding light to the scatterer is reduced. An optical near-field is generated by using the conductive scatterer having a width that gradually becomes smaller toward a vertex at which the optical near-field is generated. At the same time, a height of the conductive scatterer for generating the optical near-field is made substantially equal to a height of a main pole or longer than the height of the main pole.
US08406078B2
A memory circuit includes a first plurality of memory arrays disposed in a column fashion. The memory circuit includes a first plurality of keepers each of which is electrically coupled with a corresponding one of the first plurality of memory arrays. A first current limiter is electrically coupled with and shared by the first plurality of keepers. A first plurality of sector switches each are electrically coupled between the first current limiter and a respective one of the first plurality of keepers.
US08406075B2
An integrated circuit structure includes an active power supply line and a data-retention power supply line. A memory macro is connected to the active power supply line and the data-retention power supply line. The memory macro includes a memory cell array and a switch. The switch is configured to switch a connection between connecting the memory cell array to the active power supply line and connecting the memory cell array to the data-retention power supply line. The data-retention power supply line is outside of the memory macro.
US08406068B2
A voltage shifter has a supply line receiving a supply voltage that varies between a first operating value in a first operating condition and a second high operating value, in a second operating condition. A latch stage is connected to an output branch and to a selection circuit, which receives a selection signal that controls switching of the latch stage. The latch stage is coupled to the supply line and to a reference potential line, which receives a reference voltage that can vary between a first reference value, when the supply voltage has the first operating value, and a second reference value, higher than the first reference value, when the supply voltage has the second operating value. An uncoupling stage is arranged between the latch stage and the selection circuit and uncouples them in the second operating condition, when the supply voltage and the reference voltage are at their second, high, value.
US08406062B2
A memory system, including a nonvolatile memory device, a charge recycler configured to discharge charges from the nonvolatile memory device and recycle the discharged charges, and a controller configured to control the nonvolatile memory device and the charge recycler, wherein the controller controls the charge recycler to recycle the discharged charges, wherein during the recycling the charge recycler charges the charges discharged from the nonvolatile memory device.
US08406044B2
A write driver, a semiconductor memory apparatus using the same, and a programming method. The write driver includes a reset control unit configured to output a first current pulse for a first period of time and subsequently output a second current pulse having a higher current level than the first current pulse for a second period of time to a memory cell array in response to a reset program command.
US08406038B2
A semiconductor device includes a plurality of memory cells including a first transistor and a second transistor, a reading circuit including an amplifier circuit and a switch element, and a refresh control circuit. A first channel formation region and a second channel formation region contain different materials as their respective main components. A first gate electrode is electrically connected to one of a second source electrode and a second drain electrode. The other of the second source electrode and the second drain electrode is electrically connected to one of input terminals of the amplifier circuit. An output terminal of the amplifier circuit is connected to the other of the second source electrode and the second drain electrode through the switch element. The refresh control circuit is configured to control whether the switch element is turned on or off.
US08406035B2
A resistance variable layer has a characteristic in which the resistance variable layer changes to a second resistance state (RL) in such a manner that its resistance value stops decreasing when an interelectrode voltage reaches a first voltage (V1) which is a negative voltage, the resistance variable layer changes to a first resistance state (RH) in such a manner that its resistance value starts increasing when the interelectrode voltage reaches a second voltage (V2) which is a positive voltage which is equal in absolute value to the first voltage, the resistance variable layer changes to the first resistance state in such a manner that the resistance variable layer flows an interelectrode current such that the interelectrode voltage is maintained at a third voltage (V3) higher than the second voltage, when the interelectrode voltage reaches the third voltage, and the resistance variable layer changes to the first resistance state in such a manner that its resistance value stops increasing when the interelectrode current reaches a first current (Ilim) in a state where the interelectrode voltage is not lower than the second voltage and lower than the third voltage, and the load resistor has a characteristic in which when the electric pulse application device outputs an electric pulse of a second application voltage (VP2), a current flowing by applying to the load resistor, a voltage obtained by subtracting the third voltage from the second application voltage, is not higher than a first current value.
US08406033B2
A programmable resistance memory device with a margin cell detection and refresh resources. Margin cell detection and refresh can include reading a selected cell, measuring a time interval which correlates with resistance of the selected cell during said reading, and enabling a refresh process if the measured time falls within a pre-specified range. The refresh process includes determining a data value stored in the selected cell, using for example a destructive read process, and refreshing the data value in the selected cell. The time interval can be measured by detecting timing within the sensing interval of a transition of voltage or current on a bit line across a threshold.
US08406031B2
Embodiments provide improved memory bitcells, memory arrays, and memory architectures. In an embodiment, a memory cell comprises a transistor having drain, source, and gate terminals; and a plurality of program nodes, with each of the program nodes charged to a pre-determined voltage and coupled to a respective one of a plurality of bit lines.
US08406024B2
A power conversion circuit converting DC electric power into AC electric power and sending the AC power to an inductive load, includes a first switching device connected to the positive pole side of the DC power supply to exhibit a conductive state and an interrupted state of a current; a second switching device connected to the negative pole side of the DC power supply to exhibit a conductive state and an interrupted state of the current; a first inductor provided between the first switching device and the inductive load; a second inductor provided between the second switching device and the inductive load; and a clamping diode connected between a first connection point between the first switching device and the first inductor, and a second connection point between the second switching device and the second inductor. Thus, conduction is provided from the second connection point to the first connection point.
US08406021B2
A power factor correction (PFC) system includes an adjustment module, a compensation module, and a duty cycle control module. The adjustment module generates N time advances based on N predetermined time advances and (N−1) time advance adjustments, wherein N is an integer greater than zero. The compensation module generates N compensated versions of an input alternating current (AC) line signal by predicting ahead of the input AC line signal using a gradient of a sinusoidal reference signal and the N time advances, respectively, wherein the sinusoidal reference signal is synchronized with the input AC line signal in phase and frequency. The duty cycle control module generates PFC duty cycles based on the N compensated versions of the input AC line signal.
US08406020B2
A power factor correction circuit includes reactors L1 and L2 to accumulate energy of an AC power source and discharge the accumulated energy, a hybrid bridge switch having two diodes D1 and D2 and two switching elements Q1 and Q2 to switch the energy accumulation and energy discharge of the reactors from one to another, a controller 3 to conduct ON-control of the two switching elements according to currents passing through the reactors and OFF-control of the two switching elements according to currents passing through the two switching elements, and a mode changer 11 to change an operation mode of the power factor correction circuit between a discontinuous mode and a critical mode according to a voltage of the AC power source.
US08406015B2
A control circuit and method are provided for a flyback converter converting an input voltage to an output voltage, to compensate for an entry point of a burst mode of the flyback converter, so that the entry point is not affected by the input voltage, and audible noise resulted from a higher input voltage is reduced without impacting the light load efficiency of the flyback converter.
US08406011B2
A support for an electronic device includes a mounting apparatus and a supporting apparatus. The mounting apparatus includes a fixing bracket mounted to the main body of an electronic device, an engaging member slidably mounted to the fixing bracket, and a resilient member connected between the fixing bracket and the engaging member. The supporting apparatus includes a connecting bracket detachably mounted to the fixing bracket. When the engaging member is slid relative to the fixing bracket, a stop piece moves away from the connecting hole, and a hook extends through the connecting hole. After the engaging member is released the stop piece moves to the connecting hole to engage with the hook.
US08406003B2
A fixing apparatus includes a frame having two opposite fixing walls to fix a first storage device. The fixing apparatus further includes a supporting arm pivotally connected to the frame. The supporting arm includes a fixing plate rotatable between a first position where a second storage device is capable of being sandwiched between the fixing plate and the second fixing wall of the frame, and a second position where the first storage device is capable of being sandwiched between the fixing walls of the frame.
US08406002B2
An LNBF is disclosed. The LNBF includes a housing, a spacer, down-converter circuit, and an F-connector. The spacer is disposed on the housing, wherein a hole is formed on the spacer. The down-converter circuit board is disposed between the housing and the spacer. The F-connector is disposed on the spacer and electrically connected to the down-converter circuit board via the hole.
US08405998B2
A mechanism is provided for integrated power delivery and distribution via a heat sink. The mechanism comprises a processor layer coupled to a signaling and input/output (I/O) layer via a first set of coupling devices and a heat sink coupled to the processor layer via a second set of coupling devices. In the mechanism, the heat sink comprises a plurality of grooves on one face, where each groove provides either a path for power or a path for ground to be delivered to the processor layer. In the mechanism, the heat sink is dedicated to only delivering power and does not provide data communication signals to the elements of the mechanism and the signaling and I/O layer is dedicated to only transmitting the data communication signals to and receiving the data communications signals from the processor layer and does not provide power to the elements of the processor layer.
US08405996B2
An article and method of forming the article is disclosed. The article includes a heat source, a heat-sink, and a thermal interface element having a plurality of freestanding nanosprings, a top layer, and a bottom layer. The nanosprings, top layer, and the bottom layers of the article include at least one inorganic material. The article can be prepared using a number of methods including the methods such as GLAD and electrochemical deposition.
US08405984B2
An adjustable filler panel assembly, configured for use in an electronic equipment enclosure, includes a first panel and a second panel, each adapted to block airflow. The first panel has pairs of horizontally aligned adjustment openings formed therein, and the second panel has a pair of horizontally aligned attachment members disposed near one end. The first and second panels are connected to one another in an overlapping arrangement to form an air-blocking panel assembly with the attachment members of the second panel being aligned with and connected to a pair of adjustment openings of the first panel. In addition, the first panel and the second panel are telescopically adjustable relative to one another such that a length of the air-blocking panel assembly is selectively adjustable to fill at least a portion of an opening in the electronic equipment enclosure, thereby blocking air from flowing through the opening.
US08405975B2
Liquid cooling is selectively enabled at a portable information handling system to provide enhanced processing capabilities when needed or desired. A liquid cooling cold plate conducts thermal energy from a processing component heat pipe or heat sink to a liquid pumped from external to the information handling system housing. The pump operates with power provided from an AC/DC adapter of the information handling system or power provided from an interface with the information handling system, such as a USB port and cable. Alternatively, liquid cooling is included in a cradle to automatically engage with the information handling system is coupled to the cradle.
US08405974B2
A docking cradle is configured to seat a mobile computer. The docking cradle comprises a docking interface configured to electrically couple the docking cradle to the mobile computer and a latch for latching the mobile computer within the docking cradle. The latch comprises a pair of latching arms and a locking plate. Each latching arm comprises at least one tooth configured to engage a corresponding recess in the mobile computer, an arm pivot point on a lower portion of the latching arm, and an offset portion below the arm pivot point. Each latching arm is rotationally mounted to opposing sides of the docking cradle at the arm pivot point so as to rotate towards and away from each other. Each latching arm is shaped so that a distance between the offset portions is less than the distance between arm pivot points when the latching arms are upright. The locking plate is sized in accordance with the distance between the offset portions, the locking plate movable between a locked position and an unlocked position.
US08405971B2
A disk drive transporter, for transporting a disk drive and for mounting a disk drive within a test slot, includes a frame configured to receive and support a disk drive. The frame includes sidewalls configured to receive a disk drive therebetween and sized to be inserted into a test slot along with a disk drive. The frame also includes a clamping mechanism operatively associated with at least one of the sidewalls. The clamping mechanism includes a first engagement element and a first actuator operable to initiate movements of the first engagement element. The first actuator is operable to move the first engagement element into engagement with a test slot after a disk drive being supported by the frame is arranged in a test position in a test slot.
US08405965B2
A system comprises a cable, a hinge, and a cable guide. The hinge comprises a longitudinal axis of the hinge. A cable guide is adapted to route the cable through the hinge offset from the longitudinal axis of the hinge.
US08405958B2
The present invention provides a conductive polymer suspension for providing a conductive polymer material having high conductivity and a method for producing the same, and particularly provides a solid electrolytic capacitor having low ESR and a method for producing the same. In an emulsion comprising a dopant of a low molecular organic acid or a salt thereof, obtained by emulsifying a monomer providing a conductive polymer, using a nonionic surfactant, in a water, the monomer is subjected to chemical oxidative polymerization, using an oxidant, to synthesize a conductive polymer. The obtained conductive polymer is purified, and then, the purified conductive polymer and an oxidant are mixed in an aqueous solvent containing a polyacid component to produce a conductive polymer suspension.
US08405957B2
An electrochemical device having excellent safety at a high temperature is provided by using a separator for an electrochemical device, which is made of a porous film including a first separator layer and a second separator layer. The first separator layer includes, as a main ingredient, at least one kind of resin selected from the group consisting of resin A that has a melting point in a range of 80° C. to 130° C., and resin B that absorbs a nonaqueous electrolyte and swells due to heating and whose swelling degree is increased as the temperature rises, the second separator layer includes, as a main ingredient, a filler that has a heat-resistant temperature of not lower than 150° C., and at least one of the first separator layer and the second separator layer includes flakes.
US08405953B2
A capacitor-embedded substrate includes a base material having a desired thickness, and a pair of conductors (feedthrough electrodes) each formed in a desired pattern to penetrate through the base material in the thickness direction thereof, and oppositely disposed with an insulating layer interposed therebetween. The pair of electrodes are formed in comb-shaped patterns, and are oppositely disposed in such a manner that respective comb-tooth portions are meshed with each other.
US08405950B2
A cable having an electrostatic discharge (ESD) dissipative layer in one embodiment includes a plurality of leads; an ESD dissipative layer; and a coupling layer between the leads and the ESD dissipative layer, the coupling layer electrically connecting each of the leads, individually, to the ESD dissipative layer. A cable having an electrostatic discharge (ESD) dissipative layer in another embodiment comprises at least 16 leads; an ESD dissipative layer; and a coupling layer between the leads and the ESD dissipative layer, the coupling layer electrically connecting each of the leads, individually, to the ESD dissipative layer. A method for fabricating a cable in one embodiment comprises coupling an electrostatic discharge (ESD) dissipative layer to a plurality of leads using a coupling layer between the leads and the ESD dissipative layer, the coupling layer electrically connecting each of the leads, individually, to the ESD dissipative layer.
US08405943B2
Circuit and method for RC power clamp triggered dual SCR ESD protection. In an integrated circuit, a protected pad is coupled to an upper SCR circuit and a lower SCR circuit; and both are coupled to the RC power clamp circuit, which is coupled between the positive voltage supply and the ground voltage supply. A structure for ESD protection is disclosed having a first well of a first conductivity type adjacent to a second well of a second conductivity type, the boundary forming a p-n junction, and a pad contact diffusion region in each well electrically coupled to a pad terminal; additional diffusions are provided proximate to and electrically isolated from the pad contact diffusion regions, the diffusion regions and first and second wells form two SCR devices. These SCR devices are triggered, during an ESD event, by current injected into the respective wells by an RC power clamp circuit.
US08405940B2
A generator winding-to-ground fault detection system is disclosed that includes a signal injection source in electrical communication with a winding of an electric power generator via an injection transformer. The winding may be coupled to ground via a winding-to-ground path and the signal generation source may generate an injection signal capable of being injected to the winding using the injection transformer. The disclosed system may further include a protection module in communication with the signal injection source and the electric power generator configured to receive the injection signal and a signal relating to the current through the winding-to-ground path, and to determine the occurrence of a winding-to-ground fault condition based at least in part on the injection signal and the signal relating to the current through the winding-to-ground path.
US08405939B2
The present invention is directed to an electrical device configured to be disposed in an electrical distribution system between a source of electrical power and an electrical load. The electrical distribution system includes at least one line hot conductor, a line neutral conductor, and a line ground conductor. The line neutral conductor is connected to the line ground conductor at a termination point in the electrical distribution system. The electrical load includes at least one load hot conductor, a load neutral conductor, and a load ground conductor. The device includes a grounding confirmation circuit that includes at least one signal generator that directs at least one test signal into a current path that includes at least the line ground conductor. The grounding confirmation circuit is configured to determine a ground continuity status of the current path based on at least one ground continuity measurement. The circuit interrupter is prevented from entering the reset state if the at least one ground continuity measurement does not meet a predefined quality threshold. The at least one ground continuity measurement being a function of the at least one electrical load parameter after the circuit interrupter is in the reset state.
US08405933B2
A disk drive suspension is provided with a load beam and a flexure. A tongue portion is formed on the flexure. The tongue portion comprises a slider mounting surface and a flat portion. A slider is mounted on the slider mounting surface. A dimple is formed on the flat portion. A tip of the dimple projects thicknesswise relative to the tongue portion toward the load beam. A protrusion is formed on a facing surface of the load beam. An end face of the protrusion projects thicknesswise relative to the load beam toward the dimple. As the tip of the dimple contacts the end face of the protrusion, the tongue portion is swingably supported on the protrusion.
US08405926B2
In accordance with the present invention, a method of operating a magnetic tape drive, a magnetic tape drive and a servo control system are provided for obtaining and maintaining velocity control in a magnetic tape drive. In one embodiment, a method is provided for operating a magnetic tape drive. The tape drive includes a plurality of DC motors, and each DC motor has a plurality of Hall sensors. The DC motors are under the control of a servo system which is configured to read location information from the magnetic tape, and compute a primary tape velocity from the location information, and sense a secondary and tertiary velocity signal and compute a tape velocity based on one of the sensed secondary velocity signal and tertiary velocity. The method includes detecting if the primary velocity location information is available. In response to detecting that the primary velocity location information is available the primary velocity is employed to control the servo system. In response to detecting the primary velocity location information is unavailable then one of a secondary or a tertiary velocity signal is employed. The secondary velocity signal is employed when an absolute value of a term related to tape velocity is less than a predetermined value. The tertiary velocity signal is employed when the absolute value of the term related to tape velocity is greater than the predetermined value.
US08405917B2
A zoom lens includes, in order from an object side, a first lens group having a positive refractive power, a second lens group having a negative refractive power, the second lens group including, in order from the object side, a first negative lens and a cemented lens including a second negative lens having a convex shape on the object side and a positive lens, a third lens group having a positive refractive power, a fourth lens group having a positive refractive power, and an aperture stop arranged between the second lens group and the third lens group, wherein when changing a magnification from a short focal end to a telephoto end, an interval between the first lens group and the second lens group is increased, an interval between the second lens group and the third lens group is decreased, an interval between the third lens group and the fourth lens group is increased, and the first lens group and the third lens group are moved to be located closer to the object side at the long focal end than the short focal end.
US08405915B2
The present invention has at least a first lens group G1 to a fifth lens group G5 which are disposed in order from an object. The first lens group G1 has positive refractive power, and is divided into at least two subgroups (front group G1F and rear group G1R in FIG. 1). One of the subgroups is a focusing lens group (rear group G1R in FIG. 1). The subgroup other than the focusing lens group (front group G1F in FIG. 1), out of the subgroups, is fixed, upon focusing from an infinite object point to a close object point.
US08405903B2
An objective-optical-system positioning apparatus includes a positioning unit interposed between an objective optical system having a small-diameter end section and an examination optical system for examining light collected by the objective optical system; and a substantially cylindrical support unit, one end of which is secured to an organism, and which internally supports the small-diameter end section in a detachable manner. The positioning unit includes a holding part for holding the objective optical system and a moving mechanism supporting the holding part such that the holding part is freely movable in a direction intersecting with a direction of an optical axis of the objective optical system, and the other end of the support unit has a tapered inner surface whose diameter gradually increases toward the tip.
US08405900B2
There is provided a projection apparatus including a light source, a micromirror element which tilts a plurality of micromirrors arranged in an array +A° or −A° (A>0) separately from an array surface to form a light image with light components reflected by the plurality of micromirrors, an illumination optical system which uses light emitted from the light source and causes illumination light whose incidence angle is (2A+α)° (α>0) to enter the micromirror element from a direction to which a less than 45° turn is made from a narrow side direction of the array surface of the micromirror element, and a projection optical system which a light image output from the micromirror element enters and which projects the light image onto a projection object.
US08405896B2
The present invention relates to an electrochromic device having at least one active area (CDEF), having, on a carrier substrate (3), a multilayer stack comprising a layer forming a lower electrode (4), various functional layers (7) at least one of which is an electrochromic layer, at least one (6, 7a) of these layers being electrically insulating, and an upper electrode (9), in which device: at least one partition (5) separating the surface of the lower electrode (4) into two isolated regions, namely a free region (4a) and an active region (4b) containing the active area (CDEF); and at least one partition (12) separating the surface of the upper electrode (9) into two regions electrically isolated from each other, namely a free region (9a) and an active region (9b) containing the active area (CDEF).
US08405894B2
A light amount adjustment apparatus having a plurality of light-shielding blade members that can be so manufactured by simple machining as to reduce undesired reflection on end faces of the light-shielding blade members which are parallel with the optical axis and prevent degradation in image quality such as flare and ghosts. A driving force of a stepping motor is transmitted to the light-shielding blade members so that an aperture diameter can be changed. The light-shielding blade members are formed by injection molding of a light-shielding resin material. By performing blasting on an end face of each light-shielding blade member in a part that forms the aperture diameter, an aperture end face whose surface is roughened while substantially maintaining outside dimensions of the light-shielding blade member is formed, and an oblique portion tilted relative to the aperture end face is formed.
US08405892B2
A method and device for manufacturing a hologram recording medium. Arrangements are made to enable different original images to be reproduced upon observation from different positions and yet enable reproduced images of high resolution to be obtained.
US08405891B2
A holographic reconstruction system is disclosed for the three-dimensional reconstruction of object light spots of a scene, comprising spatial light modulation elements which modulate interference-capable light waves of illumination means with at least one video hologram, and optical focussing elements which focus the modulated light waves with the reconstructed object light spots for at least one eye position of the observer's eyes. An electro-optical deflection element controlled by a system controller focuses the modulated light wave with the reconstructed object light spots on at least one eye position and tracks them when the eye position changes. The electro-optical deflection element is a controllable optical diffraction grating with a variable surface relief structure consisting of separately controllable microcells.
US08405882B2
The invention relates to a method for devising a pantograph. The method includes the steps of defining a message to be displayed on the pantograph, forming a background pixel format and a foreground pixel cluster pattern. The foreground cluster pattern is devised from the background pixel formation. Adjacent pixels in the background pattern are combined to form pixel clusters. The foreground pattern of pixel clusters is used to fill the characters of a pantograph message.
US08405879B2
A method for calibrating a position of a first register line in a register mark for a multi-color printing machine, said first register line consisting of a first color that does not offer sufficient contrast with respect to a printing material to allow detection above a determined threshold on a register sensor. A plurality of register marks, each consisting of at least one starting line, a background line and a first register line, is printed, said background line consisting of a second color which offers sufficient contrast with respect to the first color for detection above the specified threshold on the register sensor if the first register line is printed on the background line, and said background line having a width that is greater than the first register line, and said starting line, said background line and said first register line being printed with the use of the pre-determined control parameters, which normally cause the first register line to be printed on the background line. Subsequently, it is detected whether the first register line has been recognized by the register sensor above the predetermined threshold as being completely positioned on the background line. If not, then at least one predetermined control parameter for printing the first register line is changed and printing of the register marks and the detection are repeated. Changing of the at least one control parameter may be repeated one or more times, with the first register line being shifted each time with respect to its width.
US08405873B2
When an image forming apparatus sequentially reads the document images of a plurality of pages, forms images on sheets and outputs the sheets (aggregation mode and similar), the image forming apparatus compares, for partial data of the data for a plurality of pages generated by a reading device, coded partial data after first image processing with coded partial data after second image processing. If the coded partial data after first image processing is smaller, the coded data for the plurality of pages after first image processing is caused to be stored in a compressed data storage portion. Then, a first coding/decoding portion is caused to read the stored data, a second image processing portion and similar are caused to perform processing of the data, and a printer is caused to form images on sheets and output the sheets.
US08405868B2
A person can create a desired color through use of a visual aid or tool. The aid or tool may include a plurality of color lines, provided on a medium, on which color can be blended. The plurality of color lines may include: (i) a primary set of color lines, each providing a corresponding primary color that is different than a primary color of another color line in the primary set, and (ii) a secondary set of lines, where each color line in the secondary set is for a corresponding secondary color. Each color line in the primary set includes a plurality of color formations, and each color formation may have a common range of hues that are different of hues of the other color lines in the primary set. The plurality of color formations of each color line are arranged from a highest intensity to a lowest intensity. Each color line in the secondary set includes a plurality of color formations for the corresponding secondary color. The plurality of colors for each color line in the primary set and in the secondary set are arranged from a lowest intensity to a highest intensity. One of the color lines may be identified as either containing the desired color or containing a first primary component of the desired color. Once identified, one of two actions may take place: adjacent color formations from a single color line may be mixed, or color formations from adjacent color lines of relatively equivalent intensity are mixed.
US08405867B2
An apparatus includes a division unit configured to divide the print job into a plurality of data pieces, and a definition unit configured to define an object used for each of the divided data pieces as a reusable object which can be used by each piece of data.
US08405865B2
The present invention relates to a method for changing the calibration of a recording apparatus (10) to adjust for geometric distortion, comprising: providing a media support (12) for receiving recording media (17); operating a recording head (16) comprising plurality of individually addressable recording channels (23) to form a first image feature (60) on the recording media while the recording media is positioned with a first orientation (50A) on the media support; operating a recording head to form a second image feature (62) on the recording media while the recording media is positioned with a second orientation (50B) on the media support, the second orientation being different from the first orientation; detecting variance in an expected separation between the first image feature and the second image feature; and making an imaging correction in accordance with the detected variance.
US08405864B2
An application server, a data server, and a printer are connected to one another via a communication network. The application server executes application software. Then, the application server generates print data for printing an interim result or final result of processing performed by the application software, and sends the print data to the data server. The data server provides the supplied print data to the printer. The printer performs printing in accordance with the provided print data.
US08405845B2
An accumulating unit accumulates image data of an original read by a reading unit. A combining unit combines the image data accumulated in the accumulating unit in a single printing sheet according to a predetermined copy mode. An output unit prints and outputs the image data according to the copy mode. An input unit receives an input of a read instruction. When a total number of originals read by the reading unit is smaller than a total number of originals specified in the copy mode and when the input unit does not receive an input of the read instruction within a predetermined time, a discard determining unit discards the image data accumulated in the accumulating unit, and finishes a printing process.
US08405841B2
An application mounted in a data processing apparatus creates a document and issues a print request of the document. A printer driver receives the print request and creates print data by setting a format of the document as a specific format of model dependency, and changes a default output destination of the print data into a changed output destination. A spooler receives the print data and sends the print data to one of a plurality of image forming apparatuses designated by the changed output destination through a network interface.
US08405840B2
A method for minimizing re-imaging procedures for an imaging device is disclosed. A first set of imaging instructions for a hard copy of a document is received at an imaging device. The hard copy of the document is scanned in accordance with the first set of imaging instructions to create image data. The image data is retained in memory at an identified location until a purging event occurs. A second set of imaging instructions is received at the imaging device. It is then determined whether the hard copy of the document has been removed from the processing path of the imaging device since the scanning occurred using at least one sensor. If the hard copy of the document has not been removed, imaging output is produced in accordance with the second set of instructions using the image data without rescanning a hard copy of the document.
US08405834B2
In one aspect, the invention relates to a method of acquiring optical coherence tomographic data from a sample. The method includes the steps of scanning a first location on the sample to obtain a first set of optical coherence tomographic data, scanning a second location on the sample to obtain a second set of optical coherence tomographic data, and defining a fiducial position relative to a location on the sample using one of the two sets of optical coherence tomographic data. In one embodiment, the first set of optical coherence tomographic data is survey data. However, in another embodiment the first set of optical coherence tomographic data is sample measurement data.
US08405832B2
A compact, optical measurement system has a non-flat detector array having multiple detector elements arranged on a flexible substrate in a monolithic fashion, one or more illumination sources arranged to provide more than one angle of incidence of light on a subject being measured, and a detection system in electrical communication with the detector array, the detection system arranged to receive inputs from the detector array and provide a measurement from the inputs. A method of measuring reflectance of a surface includes placing the surface adjacent a hemispherical detector array, illuminating the surface from a predetermined angle of incidence, simultaneously detecting reflectance at multiple emission angles using the hemispherical detector array, and repeating the illuminating and detecting processes at different angles of incidence. Optional arrays of lenses, baffles and filters may be employed by the system.
US08405828B2
Devices, systems, kits, and methods for detecting and/or identifying a plurality of spectrally labeled bodies well-suited for performing multiplexed assays. By spectrally labeling the beads with materials which generate identifiable spectra, a plurality of beads may be identified within the fluid. Reading of the beads is facilitated by restraining the beads in arrays, and/or using a focused laser.
US08405824B2
Various systems and methods for estimating the position of a radiation source in three-dimensional space, together with sensors for use in such systems are described. In some embodiments, the systems include a plurality of radiation sensors. The three-dimensional position of the radiation source is estimated relative to each sensor using an aperture that casts shadows on a radiation detector as a function of the incident angle of the incoming radiation. In some embodiments, the ratio of a reference radiation intensity to a measured radiation intensity is used to estimate direction of the radiation source relative to the sensor. When the angular position of the radiation source is estimated relative to two sensors, the position of the radiation source in three dimensions can be triangulated based on the known relative positions of the two sensors.
US08405809B2
A lead line structure and a display panel having the same are provided. The lead line structure includes first and second lead lines. Each of the first lead lines has a first straight portion and a first oblique portion connected with the first straight portion. The second lead lines and the first lead lines are alternatively arranged, and each of the second lead lines has a second straight portion, a second oblique portion and a contact window. The contact window contacts with the second straight portion so as to electrically connect the second straight portion and the second oblique portion. The first straight portions of the first lead lines and the second straight portions of the second lead lines extend towards the driving device and are electrically connected to the driving device.
US08405808B2
An active matrix substrate includes a substrate; scanning lines formed on the substrate; an insulating film covering the scanning lines; signal lines intersecting the scanning lines via the insulating film; switching elements formed on the substrate, each operating in response to a signal which is applied to the corresponding scanning line; and pixel electrodes each capable of being electrically connected to the corresponding signal line via the switching elements. The insulating film is a multilayer insulating film including a first insulating layer and a second insulating layer. The first insulating layer is formed of an insulating material containing an organic component, and the multilayer insulating film has a low-stack region in at least a portion of a region overlapping each switching element, the first insulating layer not being formed in the low-stack region. The active matrix substrate reduces the capacitance formed at each intersection between a scanning line and a signal line, without causing an increase in the wiring resistance or a degradation of the driving ability of switching elements.
US08405803B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate; first to fourth pixels arranged in a matrix pattern on the first substrate, the fourth pixel having an area smaller than each of the first and second pixels and larger than the third pixel; a second substrate facing the first substrate; first to fourth color filter patterns formed on the second substrate and respectively corresponding to the first to fourth pixels, wherein the first to fourth color filter patterns have green, blue, white and red colors, respectively; and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the first and second substrates.
US08405802B2
The technology presented herein has a feature of providing a liquid crystal display device of an excellent viewing angle characteristic and high brightness, including: liquid crystals containing polymerizable monomers between a first substrate with a pixel electrode having micro slits and a second substrate facing the first substrate; wherein the monomers are polymerizable with voltage applied to the liquid crystals; and an alignment orientation of the liquid crystals is controllable to a direction of extending the micro slit, wherein the pixel electrode includes: a direct coupling part electrically connected to a switching element; a capacitive coupling part electrically insulated from the switching element, and a space between the direct and capacitive coupling parts, wherein directions in which the micro slits are extended along the direct and capacitive coupling parts are orthogonal to each other.
US08405797B2
A light guide plate includes an incident face, a bottom surface, a main reflective structure and an auxiliary reflective structure. The bottom surface is connected to the incident face. The main reflective structure is disposed on the bottom surface and has a first and a second inclined surface. The auxiliary reflective structure is disposed on the bottom surface and has a third and a fourth inclined surface. The auxiliary reflective structure and the main reflective structure have an interval therebetween, in which the interval ranges between 0.2 micrometer and 0.5 micrometer, and a bottom width of the auxiliary reflective structure on the bottom surface is smaller than a bottom width of the main reflective structure on the bottom surface. A liquid crystal display is also disclosed herein.
US08405791B2
An LCD device capable of preventing damage of an LC panel by an impact damping member or through a design modification of a functional member when a functional plate such as a touch panel or the functional member is attached onto the LC panel. The LCD device comprises an LC panel, a backlight unit disposed below the LC panel for providing light, a functional member disposed on the LC panel within a size range of the LC panel, and an impact damping member disposed to be spacing from one or more sides of the functional member for absorbing an impact of the functional member when the LC panel moves.
US08405790B2
When image data is displayed on the display portion of a conventional mobile telephone, characters cannot be displayed thereon, and thus the image data and the characters cannot be simultaneously displayed. In a portable electronic device according to the present invention, a cover member having a first display device (101) for displaying an image (digital still image or the like) and a second display device (102) having a touch input operational portion (for displaying characters, symbols, or the like) are attached to each other so as to allow opening and closing.
US08405789B2
There is disclosed an active matrix reflective liquid crystal display panel on which an active matrix circuit is integrated with peripheral driver circuits. Metal lines in the peripheral driver circuits are formed simultaneously with pixel electrodes. Thus, neither the process sequence nor the structure is complicated.
US08405785B1
A television display system including a display system controller, a transmitter, and an integrated timing controller. The display system controller receives pixel data and pixel timing and control data, and responsive to a pixel data format corresponding to a selected communication standard of a plurality of communication standards that includes LVDS and at least one of RSDS and mini-LVDS, provides formatted pixel data formatted according to the pixel data format of the selected communication standard. The transmitter receives the formatted pixel data, and transmits the formatted pixel data for receipt according to a pixel data rate corresponding to the selected communication standard. The integrated timing controller receives the pixel timing and control data, and responsive to the selected communication standard being one of RSDS and mini-LVDS, generates pixel display timing and control signals to display the formatted pixel data at the pixel data rate corresponding to the selected communication standard on a television display.
US08405784B2
An electronic device (1) which is remote controllable has a conversion table storing unit (31) for holding a conversion table for converting an incompatible control signal that does not support the electronic device (1) into a compatible control signal that supports the electronic device (1), an input receiving unit (32) for receiving the input of the incompatible control signal based on the output of an incompatible remote control (4) that does not output the compatible control signal, a conversion unit (33) for converting the incompatible control signal the input of which has been received by the input receiving unit (32) into the compatible control signal according to the conversion table, and a control unit (34) for controlling the electronic device (1) according to the compatible control signal converted by the conversion unit (33).
