US08826058B1

A Delay-tolerant Asynchronous Interface (DANI) is typically used to make the clock domains for reusable silicon intellectual property (IP) cores completely independent of each other. In fact, a DANI-wrapped IP core usually appears to its environment as if it were clockless. This property is necessary to address the variability in data transmission-time between source and destination. This variability is a result of increased lack of predictability in today's leading-edge manufacturing processes. A DANI wrapper can be applied to the IP core that is the source of data to be transmitted or it can be applied to the IP core that is the destination of that data. The transmission time over the route between source and destination may vary more than a single clock period.
US08826051B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for dynamically allocating power for a system having non-volatile memory. A power budgeting manager of a system can determine if the total amount of power available for the system is below a pre-determined power level (e.g., a low power state). While the system is operating in the low power state, the power budgeting manager can dynamically allocate power among various components of the system (e.g., a processor and non-volatile memory).
US08826042B2

A technique allowing an improvement in the confidentiality of information stored in a memory device. A memory controller includes a key generation part that newly generates key information for use in encryption and decryption of information at every predetermined timing, and a data conversion circuit that encrypts information to be outputted to a memory device based on the information and decrypts encrypted information inputted from the memory device based on the key information. In the data conversion circuit, each time the key generation part generates new key information, key information is updated so as to set the new key information as the key information.
US08826038B1

Circuits, methods, and apparatus that prevent detection and erasure of encoding or encryption keys. These encoding keys may be used to encode a configuration bitstream or other data for an FPGA or other device. An exemplary embodiment of the present invention masks a first key to form an encoding key in order to prevent detection of the first key. In a specific embodiment, the first key is encoded using a second key. The encoded key is used to encode a configuration bitstream or other data. The encoded key is stored on an FPGA or other device. When the device is to be configured, the encoded key is retrieved and used to decode the bitstream or other data. A further embodiment stores an encryption key in a one-time programmable memory (OTP) array to prevent its erasure or modification. The encoding key may be further obfuscated before storage.
US08826034B1

Digital signatures are examined for specified attributes indicating that an exemption is not appropriate. If the specified attributes are not present in a digital signature, the associated application will be exempt from heuristic detection. However, where the specified attributes are present in a signature, the signed application is subject to heuristic detection just like a non-signed application. This does not mean the application is automatically treated as being malicious, but simply that the application is scrutinized to check for malicious behavior.
US08826032B1

The systems and methods described herein include processes for efficiently detecting relevant state changes in storage network environments and for resolving the name of hosts in storage networks. A subset of states for each component in the storage network is tracked, state information consisting of the values of the selected states with an associated timestamp and a component identifier (ID) for the storage network components is periodically received, a hash function value of the received state using a pre-selected hash function is computed, the most-recent locally-stored hash function value associated with that component ID is retrieved, and in case the hash function value is different from the most-recently locally-stored value, the new hash function value and the timestamp associated with that new value and component ID are stored and this state information is forwarded to a global analyzer service.
US08826022B1

Embodiments of the present invention comprise systems and methods of creating monetary accounts for members in a social network. One aspect of one embodiment of the present invention comprises receiving transaction data associated with at least one member of a social network, associating a first member of the social network with a trust factor, associating a second member of the social network with another trust factor, and determining whether to create an account between the first member and second member, based at least in part on the trust factor of the first member and the trust factor of the second member. Another aspect of one embodiment of the present invention comprises receiving transaction data from a plurality of members of a social network, wherein each member has an associated trust factor, and resolving the transaction data based at least in part on the trust factors associated with the plurality of members.
US08826019B2

A token-based centralized authentication method for providing access to a service provider to user information associated with a user's relationship with the service provider includes the steps of: authenticating a user presenting a user token at a user terminal, the user token having stored thereon a user ID; deriving a resource identifier using at least two data input elements, the at least two data input elements including the user ID of the user and a service provider ID of the service provider, wherein the user information is stored in a storage network and the resource identifier is associated with the user information; retrieving the user information from the storage network using the resource identifier; and providing the retrieved user information to the service provider.
US08826011B2

A method and device for selectively protecting a control signal. The method includes: configuring, at a transmission end, a header comprising indication information representing whether the control signal is encrypted; performing, at the transmitting end, protection of the control signal by selecting one of schemes for protecting the control signal; and transmitting, by the transmission end to the reception end, the control signal comprising the header. The schemes for protecting the control signal include: a first scheme that protects confidentiality and integrity of the control signal, a second scheme that protects only the integrity of the control signal, and a third scheme providing no protection of the control signal.
US08826010B2

A communication system includes a plurality of nodes, the communication system being arranged to assign each of the plurality of nodes a certificate by means of which it can authenticate itself to other nodes in the communication system. The communication system further includes an authentication node arranged to determine that a certificate should be revoked and to, responsive to that determination, write an indicator of that certificate's revocation to a location in the communication system that is external to the authentication node and to which the node assigned the revoked certificate is not permitted to write.
US08826008B2

A system, methods and devices for the secure notification of an identity in a communications network. The methods include sending or receiving a communication including a hash of a certificate of a device to notify or detect the presence of the device in a network. Each certificate is associated with an identity which is excluded from the communication of the hash of the certificate. The received hash is compared to hashes of certificates stored in an electronic device to determine an identity. The identity may represent an electronic device or a user of the electronic device.
US08826006B2

A method and device are useful for enabling a trust relationship using an unexpired public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate, where a current status of the PKI certificate is unavailable. The method includes determining at a relying party that a certificate status update for the PKI certificate is unavailable (step 905). Next, in response to the certificate status update being unavailable, a tolerable certificate status age (TCSA) for the PKI certificate is determined at the relying party based on one or more attributes associated with a certificate holder of the PKI certificate (step 910). Using the PKI certificate, a trust relationship is enabled between the relying party and the certificate holder after determining the TCSA and before an expiration of the TCSA (step 915).
US08826004B2

A low-cost, network based, secure printer that can provide multiple vendors with independent protected access, as authorized by a secure printer authority, is provided. The secure printer authority issues certificates for each secure printer and authorized vendor. Each certificate includes a public key and identification for the respective secure printer or vendor. The certificates are utilized during generation of a secret session key that preferably can be utilized only once to print the requested document. The secret session key is used by the vendor to encrypt the document, and used by the printer to decrypt the document. Since the secret session key is preferably valid for only a single document, printing of the document can only occur once, thereby preventing any fraudulent printing of the document. Additionally, only vendors authorized by the secure printer authority will have the ability to establish session keys with the printer.
US08825994B2

A method for replacing a current desktop image having a current operating system on storage media for a computing device is described. In the method, an agent process is executed on the computing device for downloading from a server to a staging area on local storage media a replacement desktop disk image having a replacement operating system. The replacement desktop image includes a prefetch set of files and metadata for additional files, the prefetch set of files including a minimal set of files necessary to boot the replacement operating system, the replacement desktop image not including contents of the additional files. The computing device is rebooted to replace the current desktop image with the replacement desktop image. The computing device is then rebooted again to load the replacement operating system using the prefetch set of files.
US08825993B2

A method includes tagging, by a processor executing a first operating system kernel, a region of a volatile memory used by a first storage area network (SAN) adapter driver coupled to a SAN adapter, and decoupling the first SAN adapter driver from the SAN adapter. A boot of a second operating system kernel is then initiated while preserving in the tagged region of the volatile memory contents stored therein. After the boot, a second SAN adapter driver is then coupled to the SAN adapter.
US08825988B2

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for implementing a matrix algorithm for scheduling instructions. One embodiment of the method includes selecting a first subset of instructions so that each instruction in the first subset is the earliest in program order of instructions associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of sub-matrices of a matrix that has a plurality of matrix entries. Each matrix entry indicates the program order of one pair of instructions that are eligible for execution. This embodiment also includes selecting, from the first subset of instructions, the instruction that is earliest in program order based on matrix entries associated with the first subset of instructions.
US08825980B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a system, method, and program product for defragmenting files on a hard disk drive. A computer system identifies a plurality of movable blocks on a hard disk drive. The computer system categorizes each of the movable blocks into a category based on the write count of each movable block, wherein the movable blocks categorized into a first category have higher write counts than the movable blocks categorized into a second category. The computer system relocates the movable blocks of the first category to a first group of one or more adjacent tracks, and the computer system relocates the movable blocks of the second category to a second group of one or more adjacent tracks, wherein the first group of one or more adjacent tracks and the second group of one or more adjacent tracks share, at most, one common track.
US08825979B2

A non volatile memory device includes a first buffer register configured to receive and store the data to be stored into the memory device provided via a memory bus. A command window is activatable for interposing itself for access to a memory matrix between the first buffer element and the memory matrix. The command window includes a second buffer element that stores data stored in or to be stored into a group of memory elements. A first data transfer means executes a first transfer of the data stored in the second buffer register into the first buffer register during a first phase of a data write operation started by the reception of a first command. A second data transfer means receives the data provided by the memory bus and modifies, based on the received data, the data stored in the first buffer register during a second phase of the data write operation started by the reception of a second command. The first transfer means execute a second transfer of the modified data stored in the first buffer register into the second buffer register during a third phase of the data write operation. The second transfer is executed in response to the reception of a signal received by the memory bus together with the second command.
US08825978B2

A memory apparatus includes a host device and a slave device. The host device stores verification data. The slave device includes a memory unit, a control unit, and a logic unit. The control unit drives the memory unit to provide storage data in a data transmission sub-period, and further provides a control signal, indicating the first verification data, in a dummy sub-period. The logic unit provides first preamble data, indicating substantially a same data value as the verification data, in the dummy sub-period in response to the first control signal. The preamble data and the storage data are transmitted according to an internal clock signal. The host device samples the first preamble data according to an external clock signal, and determines whether the external and the internal clock signals are synchronized by comparing the first preamble data and the first verification data.
US08825977B1

A hybrid drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a disk, and a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM). When a write command is received from a host that is mapped to the NVSM, the write command is serviced by writing data to the NVSM, and when a life remaining of the NVSM falls below a threshold, by also writing a copy of the data to the disk.
US08825974B2

A data storage virtualization subsystem (SVS) for providing storage to a host entity is disclosed. The SVS comprises a storage virtualization controller for connecting to the host entity, at least one physical storage device (PSD) pool, and at least one PSD is designated to be a pool spare PSD to the at least one PSD pool. The at least one PSD pool comprises at least one enclosure for receiving the PSD, and at least one ID-storing device to store a pool ID for identifying the at least one physical storage device pool.
US08825971B1

A backup client de-duplicates backup data sets using a locally stored, memory resonant, root tag vector and hash cache. To create a new backup data set, the client queries a backup server to determine which of the root hashes in the root tag vector are available on the backup server. If one or more are no longer available, the backup server re-uses a root tag vector entry corresponding to one of the no longer available root hashes. If all are available, the client ages out a root hash for re-use based on a combination of age and represented size. Data is de-duplicated by chunking and hashing it and comparing the resulting hashes to hashes in the hash cache. To prevent the hash cache from growing too large, entries in the hash cache are aged out based on a combination of age and size of data represented by the entries.
US08825966B2

An arrangement of memory devices and a controller is based on an interface with a reduced pin count relative to a known memory device and controller arrangement. Facilitating the reduced pin count interface are some operations performed by the controller. The controller determines a width for a Data bus while assigning a target device address to each of the memory devices.
US08825963B1

A storage system provides highly flexible data layouts that can be tailored to various different applications and use cases. The system dynamically balances performance with block sharing, based on service level objectives (SLOs). The system defines several types of data containers, including “regions”, “logical extents” and “slabs”. Each region includes one or more logical extents. Allocated to each logical extent is at least part of one or more slabs allocated to the region that includes the extent. Each slab is a set of blocks of storage from one or more physical storage devices. The slabs can be defined from a heterogeneous pool of physical storage. The system also maintains multiple “volumes” above the region layer. Each volume includes one or more logical extents from one or more regions. Layouts of the extents within the regions are not visible to any of the volumes.
US08825957B2

Information is maintained on strides configured in a second cache and occupancy counts for the strides indicating an extent to which the strides are populated with valid tracks and invalid tracks. A determination is made of tracks to demote from a first cache. A first stride is formed including the determined tracks to demote. The tracks from the first stride are to a second stride in the second cache having an occupancy count indicating the stride is empty. A determination is made of a target stride in the second cache based on the occupancy counts of the strides in the second cache. A determination is made of at least two source strides in the second cache having valid tracks based on the occupancy counts of the strides in the second cache. The target stride is populated with the valid tracks from the source strides.
US08825955B2

A data processing apparatus has a cache with a data array and a tag array. The tag array stores address tag portions associated with the data values in the data array. The cache performs a tag lookup, comparing a tag portion of a received address with a set of tag entries in the tag array. The data array includes a partial tag store storing a partial tag value in association with each data entry. In parallel with the tag lookup, a partial tag value of the received address is compared with partial tag values stored in association with a set of data entries in said data array. A data value is read out if a match condition occurs. Exclusivity circuitry ensures that at most one partial tag value of said partial tag values stored in association with said set of data entries can generate said match condition.
US08825951B2

A mechanism is provided for managing a high speed memory. An index entry indicates a storage unit in the high speed memory. A corresponding non-free index is set for a different type of low speed memory. The indicated storage unit in the high speed memory is assigned to a corresponding low speed memory by including the index entry in the non-free index. The storage unit in the high speed memory is recovered by demoting the index entry from the non-free index. The mechanism acquires a margin performance loss corresponding to a respective non-free index in response to receipt of a demotion request. The margin performance loss represents a change in a processor read operation time caused by performing a demotion operation in a corresponding non-free index. The mechanism compares the margin performance losses of the respective non-free indexes and selecting a non-free index whose margin performance loss satisfies a demotion condition as a demotion index. The mechanism selects an index entry from the demotion index to perform the demotion operation.
US08825948B2

The present application discloses a memory controller for accessing an external memory device. The memory controller comprises a bus interface and an internal memory buffer capable of accessing the bus interface. The internal memory buffer operates as an on-chip storage. In various embodiments of the disclosure, the internal memory buffer operates during a testing of a chip containing the memory controller. For example, the internal memory buffer may emulate the external memory device in response to an input signal. Moreover, in various embodiments of the disclosure, the external memory device may be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), while the internal memory buffer may be a static random access memory (SRAM). The memory controller may be adapted to automated test equipment (ATE). Moreover, the memory controller may be incorporated onto a system-on-a-chip (SOC) along with one or more agents.
US08825944B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for populating strides of tracks to demote from a first cache to a second cache. A first cache maintains modified and unmodified tracks from a storage system subject to Input/Output (I/O) requests. A determination is made to demote tracks from the first cache. A determination is made as to whether there are enough tracks ready to demote to form a stride, wherein tracks are written to a second cache in strides defined for a Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) configuration. A stride is populated with tracks ready to demote in response to determining that there are enough tracks ready to demote to form the stride. The stride of tracks, to demote from the first cache, are promoted to the second cache. The tracks in the second cache that are modified are destaged to the storage system.
US08825940B1

Systems and methods for an architecture for optimizing execution of storage access commands is disclosed. The architecture enables a storage subsystem to execute storage access commands while satisfying one or more optimization criteria. The architecture thereby provides predictable execution times of storage access commands performed on a storage subsystem. In order to optimize execution of storage access commands, in one embodiment the host system sends a calibration request specifying a storage access command and an optimization criterion. In response to the calibration request, the storage subsystem determines the execution speeds of the storage access command within the non-volatile memory storage array and selects at least one region within the non-volatile memory storage array having the execution speed that satisfies the optimization criterion. Subsequently, when the host system desires that a storage access command be executed in satisfaction of the optimization criterion, the storage subsystem executes the command within the selected region.
US08825930B2

This document discusses, among other things, a system and method for serializing a video signal and providing non-packet-based serialized video information to a physical Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface and, in certain examples, receiving the non-packet-based serialized video information from the physical USB interface, deserializing the received non-packet-based serialized video information, and providing a high definition output signal to a video port (e.g., an HD video port, such as HDMI, DisplayPort, etc.) using the deserialized video information.
US08825929B2

A system and method for processing seismic data on one or more co-processor devices that are operatively coupled to a host computing system via a communications channel. The compression of input data transmitted to the co-processor device and/or the size of the storage provided on the co-processor device may enhance the efficiency of the processing of the data on the peripheral device by obviating a bottleneck caused by the relatively slow transfer of data between the host computing system and the co-processor device or by the relatively slow transfer of data within the co-processor device between the co-processor information storage and the co-processor.
US08825928B2

A device or “dongle” (30) is provided for controlling communications between a Subscriber Identity Module (or SIM) (12), such as of the type used in a GSM cellular telephone system, and a computer, such as a WINDOWS® operating system-based PC (10). The SIM (12) can be authenticated by the telephone network, in the same way as for authenticating SIMs of telephone handset users in the network, and can in this way authenticate the user of the PC (10) or the PC (10) itself. Such authentication can, for example, permit use of the PC (10) for a time-limited session in relation to a particular application which is released to the PC (10) after the authentication is satisfactorily completed. The application may be released to the PC (10) by a third party after and in response to the satisfactory completion of the authentication process. A charge for the session can be debited to the user by the telecommunications network and then passed on to the third party. The dongle (30) provides additional security for the authentication data stored on the SIM by requiring a PIN to be entered and/or by only being responsive to requests received from the PC (10) which are encrypted using a key, which requests are generated by a special PC interface driver (38). The PIN may be stored only temporarily. The dongle (30) has an electrical connector (34), and means may be provided for selectively rendering the connector (34) available for coupling to the PC (10).
US08825924B2

A computer array (10) has a plurality of computers (12). The computers (12) communicate with each other asynchronously, and the computers (12) themselves operate in a generally asynchronous manner internally. When one computer (12) attempts to communicate with another it goes to sleep until the other computer (12) is ready to complete the transaction, thereby saving power and reducing heat production. A plurality of read lines (18), write lines (20) and data lines (22) interconnect the computers (12). When one computer (12) sets a read line (18) high and the other computer sets a corresponding write line (20) then data is transferred on the data lines (22). When both the read line (18) and corresponding write line (20) go low this allows both communicating computers (12) to know that the communication is completed. An acknowledge line (72) goes high to restart the computers (12).
US08825922B2

An arrangement for processing trace data information is provided, the arrangement including, a chip including one or more memory circuits configured to store trace data information relating to a series of instructions, and a trace data information port configured to provide off-chip access to the trace data information; and a direct memory access controller circuit configured to control the transportation of trace data information from the one or more memory circuits to the trace data information port.
US08825914B2

An information processing apparatus includes a first device initialization unit configured to perform an initialization process for recognizing one or more first devices that include a device storing an application, a second device initialization unit configured to perform an initialization process for recognizing a second device that is different from the one or more first devices, an application initialization unit configured to perform an initialization process for reading out the application from the one or more first devices and executing the application, and an initialization control unit configured to, after the initialization process by the first device initialization unit is performed, control to cause the initialization process by the application initialization unit to proceed in parallel with the initialization process by the second device initialization unit.
US08825909B1

An application directed method for substituting a driver for a target device includes the steps of updating a set of hardware identifiers for the target device to include a new hardware device, building a list of drivers based on the set of hardware identifiers that includes the new hardware identifier, and calling into an operating system to cause the operating system to switch the driver for the target device to a new driver which is selected from the list. With this method, a device that has multiple drivers associated therewith can have just one of the drivers substituted, and where multiple devices share the same hardware ID, the driver for just one of the devices can be substituted.
US08825908B2

A method of identifying devices on a bus and an apparatus are provided. A method of identifying devices on a bus comprises pooling a plurality of devices connected to a bus, each of the plurality of devices not having uniquely assigned to it a respective unique device identifier (ID) of the bus, selecting, after the pooling, one of the plurality of devices using at least one selection criteria, the at least one selection criteria identifying the one of the plurality of devices uniquely among all of the plurality of devices, and reassigning a unique device ID of the bus to the selected one of the plurality of devices uniquely. An apparatus is configured to carry out the method of identifying devices on a bus.
US08825902B2

A switch is provided which may include a plurality of ports, a plurality of link up/down detection logic units and a configuration validation checker. Each link up/down detection logic unit may be associated with a port and may detect a change in the state of a link associated with the port. The configuration validation checker couples to each of the link up/down detection logic units and may cause the switch to change its routing behavior with regard to a port for which a link up/down detection unit has detected a state change.
US08825887B2

The system and method for streaming media to a viewer and managing the media comprises an enhanced service routing processor (ESRP), a real time switch management system (RTSMS), a name routing processor (NRP), and a managed media switch (MMS). The RTSMS has a reservation system. The ESRP receives media from an owner, manages the media according to media rules and order rules defined by the owner, and distributes the media to one or more switches, such as the MMS, according to the media rules and the order rules. The RTSMS is configured to receive the media rules and to receive a viewer's media request via the reservation server. The reservation system of the RTSMS processes the media request according to the media rules and builds a reservation for the requested media. The RTSMS generates the reservation to the viewer and to the NRP. The NRP receives the reservation data from the viewer and from the RTSMS. The NRP processes the reservation data and locates an MMS that can stream the media to the viewer. The NRP transmits the IP address of the MMS to the viewer and transmits the reservation data to the MMS. The viewer initiates a session or connection with the MMS using the reservation number. If the reservation data from the viewer matches the reservation data from the NRP, the MMS streams the media to the viewer.
US08825882B2

A data system architecture is described that allows multiple processing and storage resources to be connected to multiple clients so as 1) to distribute the clients' workload efficiently across the available resources; and 2) to enable scaleable expansion, both in terms of the number of clients and in the number of resources. The major features of the architecture are separate, modular, client and resource elements that can be added independently, a high-performance cross-bar data switch interconnecting these various elements, separate serial communication paths for controlling the cross-bar switch settings, separate communication paths for passing control information among the various elements and a resource utilization methodology that enables clients to distribute processing or storage tasks across all available resources, thereby eliminating “hot spots” resulting from uneven utilization of those resources.
US08825874B2

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a Policy Charging and Control Node (PCRN) for updating a session associated with a subscriber in response to an event. The method may include receiving at the PCRN an event message indicating that an event has occurred within the session; retrieving subscriber information including at least one incremental value associated with the event for the subscriber; determining an updated value based on the at least one retrieved incremental value and at least one reference value; and responding to the event message with an update message including the updated value. Various exemplary embodiments may further include configuring a subscriber profile repository to include at least one incremental value and terminating the session if the subscriber is not allowed to use incremental updates or no incremental value is defined for the subscriber.
US08825868B2

A duplicate suppression protocol is introduced in order to suppress duplicate entries from appearing in a list of available network resources. With the duplicate suppression protocol of the present invention, a computer that wishes to query for network resources also asks for duplicate suppression information from the responding network resources. The duplicate suppression information for a particular network resource specifies identifiers associated with that network resource for various protocols. Thus, if a particular network resource responds to more than one network resource request from a single requesting entity, that requesting entity will be able to locate duplicate network resource information. Thus, a single unified list of network resources available for various different protocols may be presented with all duplicate network resources removed.
US08825867B2

A method, in one or more network elements that are in communication between clients that transmit packets and servers, of distributing the packets among the servers which are to process the packets. Stickiness of flows to servers assigned to process them is provided. A packet of a flow is received at a static first level packet distribution module. A group of servers is statically selected for the packet of the flow with the first level module. State that assigns the packet of the flow to the selected group of servers is not used. The packet of the flow is distributed to a distributed stateful second level packet distribution system. A server of the selected group is statefully selected with the second level system by accessing state that assigns processing of packets of the flow to the selected server. The packet of the flow is distributed to the selected server.
US08825859B2

Systems and methods for providing one or more GSLB vServers to support both IPv4 and IPv6. The IPv6 support can be provided by permitting both A and AAAA domain name resolution. In other embodiments, the IPv6 support can be provided by modifying data structures to support IPv6 addresses.
US08825857B2

Alarm panels are assigned to monitoring servers at a monitoring station by an allocation server. Each panel obtains the data network address of its assigned monitoring server by contacting the allocation server, upon installation/configuration. The provided data network address is stored at the panel for later use. This allows the allocation server to fairly and flexibly distribute monitoring responsibility for the many panels across multiple monitoring servers.
US08825846B2

A proactive intellectual property enforcement system is disclosed. File sharing services may be disrupted by uploading a collection of multiple modified versions of a media file. The collection of modified copies may each include a distinct portion of modified and unmodified content. However, even though each modified copy includes a distinct variation of modified and unmodified content, the set of modified files are constructed such that some common portion (or portions) of the media file are always created as the modified version. Thus, a complete, unmodified copy of the media title cannot be reconstructed from the set of modified copies.
US08825840B2

Systems, methods and articles of manufacture for logging computer generated log messages utilizing a computerized feedback signal. A logging server logs computer generated log messages from a log source at a logging server at a first detail level. The detail level of logging is the amount of information or data logged for a given activity. A log analyzer analyzes the log messages being logged by the logging server at a first detail level. Then, in response to a computerized feedback signal based upon the analysis of the log messages by the log analyzer, the detail level of logging at the logging server is automatically modified to a second detail level which is different than the first detail level.
US08825834B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for automated cluster member management based on node capabilities. In one embodiment of the invention, a method for automated cluster member management based on node capabilities can be provided. The method can include defining a membership policy for a cluster, the membership policy specifying a nodal configuration required for a node in a cluster. The method further can include evaluating different nodes in a computing environment against the membership policy for the cluster. Finally, the method can include associating cluster members in the cluster to only those of the nodes having respective configurations meeting the nodal configuration of the membership policy. Likewise, the method can include evaluating nodes already in the cluster, and disassociating cluster members in the cluster from those of the nodes having respective configurations failing to meet the nodal configuration of the membership policy.
US08825832B2

According to one embodiment, a method for managing a plurality of connections is provided. The method comprises grouping a plurality of connections to form at least two connection groups, where each connection is associated with a communication service and each connection group comprises a first connection and at least one failover connection operable to establish a new communication service if the communication service associated with the first connection fails; and associating the at least two connection groups with a user identifier.
US08825831B2

A method for obtaining information about a transmission capability of a transmission link (TL) is disclosed. A sending entity (SE) sends data packets at a sending rate to the transmission link (TL), which transmits the data packets according to its transmission capability to a receiving entity (RE) receiving the data packets at a receiving rate. The sending rate is modulated with a rate modulation and the following steps are executed by an analysis entity (AE): obtaining the sending rate, obtaining the receiving rate, comparing the obtained sending rate and the obtained receiving rate to determine a relation of the obtained sending rate and the obtained receiving rate and to determine an appearance of the rate modulation of the sending rate in the obtained receiving rate, and obtaining the information about the transmission capability based on the determined relation and the determined appearance of the rate modulation.
US08825823B2

A system and method of detecting, locating, geolocating and providing diagnostics on electronic devices includes use of emission detection apparatus, information collected over a network and template containing emission signatures. Collected unintended emissions are compared to an emission signature in the template preferably constructed from the information collected on the network. Using the known location of the electronic device, the emissions measurement device is then used to detect and identify other devices in the vicinity of the electronic device that is connected to the network. The emission detection apparatus includes a high sensitivity receiver for receiving and analyzing electronic emissions. The network collection apparatus could be any software manifestation known in the art for collecting information about a device such as a cookie or online fingerprinting or a hardware based collection mechanism.
US08825820B2

A method of managing a network application includes identifying a network path for the network application, obtaining network performance measurements along the network path, obtaining application performance information for the network application, and extracting infrastructure specific information for the infrastructure supporting the network application. The method further includes correlating the application performance information, network performance measurements, and the infrastructure specific information to identify a performance issue affecting the network application, and modifying the application behavior, the network behavior, or any combination thereof in response to the performance issue.
US08825816B2

A method, apparatus, and system are described for a central management system to configure remote devices. A device service manager server (DSM) may have an IP redirector module configured to cooperate with two or more device service controllers (DSCs) that are behind a firewall on a wide area network relative to a location of the DSM on the wide area network, where the DSM serves as a central management station for a distribution of initial configuration information to the DSCs, wherein an executable boot up file uploaded via a drive port in that DSC is scripted to gather configuration information for that DSC and network devices on the same network as that DSC and without a prompt by the DSM then sends configuration files to the DSM which makes a master copy of the device configuration file in the DSM's registry for that DSC.
US08825814B1

A method for minimizing application initialization delay comprising sending, from a privileged application executing on a mobile device, a registration message to a server, receiving, at the privileged application, a response message from the server, extracting, from the response message, application information and notifying the mobile device of the application information.
US08825811B2

Content delivery by a network node is optimized. The network node is communicatively coupled between multiple end user devices and at least one content service provider. A request for a media streaming service available from the content service provider is intercepted from a first requestor device. It is determined if the media streaming service is registered for delivery optimization based on at least one service rule specific to the media streaming service. It is determined if a second requestor device is currently receiving the media streaming service from the content service provider. In response to the media streaming service being received by the second requestor device, delivery optimization of the media streaming service is performed by replicating the media streaming service for delivery to the first requestor device. The replicated media streaming service is sent to the first requestor device.
US08825806B2

A chassis is selected from one or more chassis. Each chassis has one or more computing devices installed therein. A computing device is selected from the computing devices installed in the selected chassis. Each computing device is connected to one or more switches within the chassis. A switch is selected from the switches to which the selected computing device is connected. Each switch is connected to a storage-area network (SAN) encompassing one or more SAN storage devices. A SAN storage device is selected from the SAN storage devices connected to the selected switch. Network settings for the selected SAN storage device and/or the selected computing device are configured. The selected SAN storage device is configured for use by the selected computing device. An operating system (OS) instance is selected and deployed onto the selected SAN storage device for use by the selected computing device.
US08825805B2

The present invention is directed to a method and mechanism for reducing the expense of data transmissions between a client and a server. According to an aspect of data prefetching is utilized to predictably retrieve information between the client and server. Another aspect pertains to data redundancy management for reducing the expense of transmitting and storing redundant data between the client and server. Another aspect relates to moved data structures for tracking and managing data at a client in conjunction with data redundancy management.
US08825802B2

Systems and methods are provided for an automatic user or friend recommendation system that matches players that have compatible play styles, play schedules, or the like. Behavioral data is collected or entered from players, and a profile of each player is created and compared to calculate a compatibility score. If the compatibility score exceeds a predetermined threshold, then the players are marked as compatible, or a degree of compatibility may be calculated and displayed as well. Users can edit their profile, e.g., on a web application or in-game. Users may also interact with optional and incremental demographic survey questions as they log in. A notification of compatible players may be provided via the web application or via an in-game indication. For example, a glow may appear around a compatible player, or compatible players may be displayed in a list, such as an instant messaging client.
US08825801B2

A method comprises providing an interface permitting a first user to control activation of a mobile information channel through which the first user can share access to content with a plurality of additional users, activating the mobile information channel responsive to input received from the first user via the interface, inserting content provided by the first user into the mobile information channel, receiving additional content relating to the mobile information channel from one or more of said additional users via one or more respective mobile devices associated with at least one wireless network, inserting at least a portion of the additional content into the mobile information channel, and integrating into the mobile information channel information associated with at least one wireless networking functionality of said at least one wireless network.
US08825793B2

In one embodiment, a display engine and one or more data files are determined. They are then sent to a website provider's network. The display engine and data are used to provide ASP functionality without contacting the ASP network for every user request. So even if the ASP network is not available, the ASP functionality provided by the display engine and data is always accessible to the website provider. For example, the website provider's network may provide the ASP functionality by displaying data in one or more data files at a user's display device. This is performed without relying on the availability of the ASP network.
US08825783B1

This specification describes technologies relating to recording an event album for sharing through a social network. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include receiving a signal indicating a check-in and transmitting a first message including a check-in status update generated at least in part based on the check-in. The methods may further include starting a recording session associated with the check-in and recording media files during the recording session. The methods may further include automatically associating the media files with the check-in. The methods may further include transmitting the media files in one or more additional messages associated with the check-in status update.
US08825781B2

The present matter relates to a method and system for alerting unopened items in communications, particularly attachments and external resources referenced (e.g. Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) or other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), etc.), in communications such as email or meeting invite messages. The alerting may be triggered by a meeting reminder, telephone communication, search or other event. Alerting may be to senders, recipients or both.
US08825773B1

A computer-implemented method for concealing information of a personal profile provided by a social networking service is described. A message sent from the personal profile to a second profile provided by the social networking service is monitored. A determination is made as to whether the second profile is a commercial profile. The message is received when the second profile is a commercial profile. An avatar profile is used to publish the message anonymously to the second profile on behalf of the personal profile. A message sent from the second profile to the personal profile is intercepted when the second profile is a commercial profile. The intercepted message is analyzed with respect to at least one security filter. The message is associated with the avatar profile when the message passes the at least one security filter. The avatar profile is used to publish the message to the personal profile.
US08825771B2

In a case where mail can not be stored in a mail box in a mail receiving server due to capacity excess, a detail content of the mail can be notified to an addressee of the mail. A mail receiving server comprises a mail receiving unit, a first mail box, a determining unit, a temporal storage space, an extracting unit, an information notice mail managing unit, and a second mail box.
US08825765B2

A first game server is configured to provide a game to a first category of user device. A second game server is configured to provide the game to a second category of user device. A game manager is configured to receive a request from a user device for the game application and to assign the request to one of the first game server and the second game server according to whether the user device is included in the first category of user device or the second category of user device.
US08825764B2

A social networking system obtains linguistic data from a user's text communications on the social networking system. For example, occurrences of words in various types of communications by the user in the social networking system are determined. The linguistic data and non-linguistic data associated with the user are used in a trained model to predict one or more personality characteristics for the user. The inferred personality characteristics are stored in connection with the user's profile, and may be used for targeting, ranking, selecting versions of products, and various other purposes.
US08825761B2

Systems and methods for sharing group status within a social network are provided. A representative system includes a mobile device operative to: designate a set of mobile devices, each of the mobile devices being operative to communicate with others of the mobile devices and being associated with a respective member of a group of members of a social network; automatically generate group status information corresponding to a current status of the group of members; and provide the group status information to the social network.
US08825759B1

In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods, systems and program products. A server system receives from a plurality of computing devices indications that a user of each of the computing devices requested to receive posts that a first user authors. The server system receives from a first computing device a post that was authored by the first user. The post is transmitted from the server system to the plurality of computing devices. A score for the post is determined to satisfy a criteria for transmission to a second user who has not requested to receive posts authored by the first user. The determination uses a distance of the second user to the first user in a social network graph. In response, the post is transmitted from the server system to a second computing device that is associated with the second user.
US08825758B2

A collaborative authoring application provides an authoring environment in which two or more users can edit a document concurrently. Each user edits a copy of the document, sends updates to a master copy of the document, and receives updates from the master copy of the document. The authoring environment may be configured into a public mode of operation, in which content and metadata are synchronized automatically, or into a private mode of operation, in which metadata is synchronized automatically and content is synchronized only at the request of the user. The authoring application may edit documents offline in public or private mode.
US08825753B2

Systems and methods are disclosed that provide for automatic management of device content for demonstration applications running on mobile devices such as smart phones. The systems and methods can eliminate or reduce the need for manual process of content management for such demonstration applications. Systems and methods according to the present disclosure can also provide for the following: updating content on a device to include content that demonstrates the device capabilities dynamically; delivering content based on the device demographic to cater the needs of the customers; performing local wipe of content generated by customers at regular intervals automatically; providing easy discovery of the premium device capabilities to the customers; advertising new capabilities delivered to the devices; and, tracking features/applications used by the customers and/or creating a store or device profile.
US08825749B2

While a device is offline, usage data is tracked on the device. The usage data is uploaded to a server after the device is again connected to a network. Applications that run on mobile devices typically embed a browser to display content. Unfortunately, mobile devices also frequently disconnect from the associated network. A system tracks usage data by using JavaScript in the browser to communicate with the native device, which then buffers the usage data for future upload. This is done by installing, in each application, a “protocol handler” that listens for a request over a particular protocol. The protocol handler intercepts the requests and stores the usage data locally on the device. Subsequently, when the device detects network connectivity, the device uploads the data to servers that collect data for aggregation and presentation.
US08825735B2

A system for managing the use of BOTs by computer network users, the system including a gateway-to-BOT communications manager configured to relay communications to a BOT on behalf of a computer user in a manner that prevents the BOT from associating the communications with the computer user, and a gateway-to-user communications manager configured to relay the communications from the computer user to the gateway-to-BOT communications manager, and relay to the computer user communications received from the gateway-to-BOT communications manager that originate from the BOT.
US08825730B1

Efficient and scalable circuitry for performing Cholesky decomposition is based on a dataflow style architecture which uses self-timed circuitry and eliminates the need for complicated state machines. Calculations are ordered such that partial sums of products are created in parallel subject to data dependency requirements, allowing a single accumulator to perform the summation. A Vector FIFO receives a partial sum of products from a vector processing engine. A Feedback FIFO stores partial results and feeds the partial results back to the data path based on signals from a dataflow controller. The circuitry is flexible to allow different matrix sizes, speed grades, and target frequencies without recompilation.
US08825728B2

Confidential information is provided to a proxy computer in communication between an unsecured computer and a computer having information desired by a user. The proxy computer receives the confidential information in either an encrypted form or having arbitrary information combined therewith. The proxy computer ascertains the confidential information and forwards it to the computer having the information desired by the user.
US08825726B2

A system is provided for detecting statistical variations and public opinion. The system comprises a respondent interface subsystem for capturing respective opinion values of a set of respondents in relation to a subject matter, said opinion values having respective validity periods associated therewith. The system further includes a database subsystem for storing the respective opinion values corresponding to each respondent and to said subject matter. The system further includes a statistical processing subsystem for calculating successive values of a collected opinion value by selecting respective subsets of said respective user opinion values according to said respective validity periods and calculating said successive values of a collective opinion value over said corresponding subset.
US08825721B2

System and Methods for time based object aging for generational garbage collectors are provided. Time data is received from a user identifying the amount of time an object should survive in a generation defined in a heap. Generational garbage collection is performed, and objects are promoted from one generation to the next oldest generation based on the time data received.
US08825719B2

Concurrent, incremental, and lock-free stack scanning for garbage collectors is disclosed. This method uses a summary table and return barriers to allow high responsiveness. The method also supports programs that employ fine-synchronization to avoid locks, imposes negligible overhead on program execution, can be used with existing concurrent collectors, and supports the special in-stack references existing in languages such as C#.
US08825714B2

An application server reads components data from a component information system (CIS) of a database server connected to the application server. The components data are converted to HDL data. If the converted HDL data includes illegal characters, a user is prompted to modify the illegal characters. If the converted HDL data does not include illegal characters, the application server amends formats of the converted HDL data according to requirements of each client connected to the application server. Each client includes a drawing unit. The application server controls the drawing unit to draw circuit diagram using the HDL data with the amended formats.
US08825711B2

Systems and processes for storing correlated data in a graph database are described. A first user node may be stored. In response to a request, a first event node and a second user node may be stored. The first event node may be associated with the first user node through an edge indicating participation. The first event node may be associated with the second user node through an edge indicating participation. In response to a content access, a second event node and a content node may be stored. The second event node may be associated with the first user node through an edge indicating participation. The second event node may be associated with the content node through an edge indicating usage. The first user node may be associated with the content node through an edge indicating the first user node handles the content node.
US08825709B2

According to the invention, a system for storing and displaying genealogical information is disclosed. The system may include a processor and a storage medium having processor instructions. The instructions may be for receiving information which identifies a first and second parent, receiving information which identifies a first and second child, and receiving an indication that the first child is a biological child of both parents, and that the second child is a biological child of only one parent. The instructions may further be for receiving a first instruction to display a first listing of children, and in response, causing the first child to be displayed in the first listing, but not the second child. The instructions may additionally be for receiving a second instruction to display a second listing of children, and in response, causing both the first child and the second child to be displayed in the second listing.
US08825705B2

Embodiments relate to methods and systems for building representations of related subjects. The representations may include a plurality of nodes, each being associated with a subject. Users may be able to access records and/or source documents related to a plurality of subjects and add or modify node characteristics based thereon. Users may interact with (e.g., by adding to or modifying) documents, files, and/or records and may also make other changes or additions to nodes in the system. A process may then identify what other users may be interested in such interaction and why. For example, a score may be associated with the interaction and other users based on factors such as whether the users have linked to the document, file or record and/or the node the interaction may apply to. Interacting users, identified users, and interaction details may be stored in a database. Identified users may be notified of the interaction.
US08825700B2

Architecture that provides the ability to intelligently page (slice) hierarchical datasets through viewing operations of a hierarchical view. This further provides the capability to make additions to/deletions from the hierarchy view and manage the parent/child relationship of view records without ever sending the entire recordset to the client or receiving the entire recordset back to the server, thereby optimizing operation performance on the hierarchical datasets.
US08825684B2

File comparing device includes a comparator for comparing a first and second content identifiers, of respective files, with each other. Each file having at least two content identifiers and each content identifier is defined by at least one parameter. In addition a selector is included for selecting, using the parameters of the content identifiers, sub-groups of content identifiers, to increase flexibilities. Calculators calculate functions of the values of the parameters and further comparators compare the functions with thresholds. Content identifiers may be defined by cost and accuracy parameters. Then, calculators calculate first functions of the values of the cost parameters and calculate second functions of the values of the accuracy parameters and further comparators compare the first functions with first thresholds and compare the second functions with second thresholds.
US08825677B2

This document describes, among other things, systems and methods for generating advertising campaigns or listings utilizing catalog information. A method comprises receiving, by an online publication system, a product catalog; accessing, by the online publication system, a merchant profile; and using the product catalog and the merchant profile to develop advertising data, wherein the advertising data includes at least one of an advertising campaign, a marketplace listing, or a store listing.
US08825673B2

A computer product including a data structure for organizing of a plurality of documents, and capable of being utilized by a processor for manipulating data of the data structure and capable of displaying selected data on a display unit. The data structure includes a plurality of directionally interlinked nodes, each node being associated with one or more documents having a header and body text. All the documents are associated with a given node and have identical normalized body text. All documents that have identical normalized body text are associated with the same node. One or more of the nodes is associated with more than one document. For any node that is a descendent of another node, the normalized body text of each document associated with the node is inclusive of the normalized body text of a document that is associated with the other node.
US08825671B1

Computer-implemented methods for identifying an entity based on selected content are provided. In one aspect, a method includes identifying a referent entity, from a list of entities, based on user-selectable content of a file and a context in which the user-selectable content is selected from the file by a user, and providing an identification of the entity to a user device. Systems, graphical user interfaces, and machine-readable media are also provided.
US08825668B2

Methods, apparatuses, and computer programs are presented for updating song playlists based on received rating inputs from user devices. One method includes receiving information associated with songs in an initial playlist from a host device by a server. The server generates a rating interface for the initial playlist, which is associated with an image code. The image code for the rating interface is sent to the host device so that the user devices can access the rating interface via the image code. After one or more user devices provides rating inputs to the songs in the initial playlist, the received one or more rating inputs are analyzed to produce an adjusted playlist. The method further includes transmitting the adjusted playlist to the host device to be executed.
US08825656B1

A system, method, and apparatus are provided for supporting and/or executing count-distinct queries. A large set of data (e.g., tens or hundreds of millions of event records) is condensed daily to generate presence bitmaps to reflect the distinctiveness of a selected data dimension S (e.g., user ID) for one or more key dimensions g1, g2, . . . (e.g., advertisement ID, campaign ID, advertiser ID). The condensation process eliminates duplication and yields a single value (e.g., 1 or 0) for each tuple [S, g1, . . . ] to represent the distinctiveness of each value in the S dimension to each combination of values in the grouping dimensions. On a monthly basis, the daily values are condensed to yield a single value for the month, and a similar process is applied on any other desired time granularities (e.g., year). The condensed data may be generated for any combination of selected dimension(s) and grouping dimension(s).
US08825654B2

Methods and apparatus for a new approach to the problem of finding communities in complex networks relating to a social definition of communities and percolation are disclosed. Instead of partitioning the graph into separate subgraphs from top to bottom a local algorithm (communities of each vertex) allows overlapping of communities. The performance of an algorithm on synthetic, randomly-generated graphs and real-world networks is used to benchmark this method against others. An heuristic is provided to generate a list of communities for networks using a local community finding algorithm. Unlike diffusion based algorithms, The provided algorithm finds overlapping communities and provides a means to measure confidence in community structure. It features locality and low complexity for exploring the communities for a subset of network nodes, without the need for exploring the whole graph.
US08825652B1

Techniques are provided for small file aggregation in a parallel computing system. An exemplary method for storing a plurality of files generated by a plurality of processes in a parallel computing system comprises aggregating the plurality of files into a single aggregated file; and generating metadata for the single aggregated file. The metadata comprises an offset and a length of each of the plurality of files in the single aggregated file. The metadata can be used to unpack one or more of the files from the single aggregated file.
US08825648B2

Techniques for utilizing data mining technology to extract universal topics with multilingual representations from a multilingual database, and to organize existing or new documents in different languages by analyzing their respective topic distributions.
US08825642B2

A game recommendation engine is presented. Contemplated game recommendation engines are configured to establish correlations among game attributes and attributes of known disabilities. The recommendation engine can further identify or quantify relationships among games and disabilities having the correlated attributes. The relationships can be used to generate and present recommendations to users. For example, a game design can receive recommendations on game features to incorporate into game to be compatible with or accessible to a disabled person, or a disable person can receive recommendations on games that are accessible to or compatible with o them based on their disabilities.
US08825636B2

Methods, systems, and computer-readable storage media are disclosed for providing a search results output tool. According to an illustrative embodiment, a method receives one or more search results generated by a search engine in response to a user query of a network information source. Each of the search results is associated with one or more properties. The properties associated with each of the search results are stored. The user is prompted to select one or more selected search results. The user is also prompted to select one or more selected properties. A record is generated for each of the selected search results that include the one or more selected properties. The record for each of the selected search results is then output.
US08825629B2

An access structure analysis method is interspersed with the query optimization process. The method can determine the ideal combination of access structures, including both materialized views and indexes, for a given database workload. The interspersed structure analysis method can include advanced transformations like view merging, star transformation, bitmap access plans, query rewrite using materialized views, for example. The method may be performed using the query optimizer's rules as heuristics to guide the index candidate generation process.
US08825627B1

Pages presented by an on-line merchant are configured to create ambience appropriate for products referenced by the pages. An appropriate theme defining visual and/or audible elements may be applied to each requested page to create the ambience. The theme may be customized for a particular geographic location. Keywords associated with a requested page may be identified and utilized to select a theme appropriate for the requested page. An association between product categories and themes may be defined. Keywords associated with a requested page and the categories might be utilized to identify a category. Once the category has been identified, the theme associated with the category may be applied to the requested page. The themed page may be provided for display at a customer computer. The amount of time spent by customers on themed pages may be determined and utilized to determine whether to theme certain pages or categories of pages.
US08825624B2

Techniques are disclosed for performing identity resolution using life arcs as a feature. Space and time data may be received for an entity. A life arc template may be provided that specifies data that a life arc for each entity should include. A life arc may be generated for the entity based on the space and time data and the life arc template. An assertion for identity resolution may be made for the entity, based on the generated life arc.
US08825620B1

Substrings within strings, such as words within words, are identified based at least in part on recorded behavior of users that have submitted the strings or substrings as search queries. The behavior may relate to actions taken by the users upon having submitting the search queries. The actions may be actions taken in connection with an electronic marketplace, such as actions related to the consumption of items offered in the electronic marketplace. The identified strings and corresponding substrings are used in connection with processing search queries. The strings and substrings may be used to update a search index and/or to modify received search queries for processing.
US08825612B1

The present invention relates to a method, system, and a computer program product for delivering content to a communication device, in response to an image sent by the communication device. The received image is matched with a plurality of images, and, when a match is found for the received image, content corresponding to the image is delivered to the communication device. The plurality of images is stored in an image database, and the corresponding content is stored in a content repository. The present invention enables a content provider to automatically update the image database and the content repository without any human intervention.
US08825605B2

Systems and methods for scheduling requests to access data may adjust the priority of such requests based on the presence of de-duplicated data blocks within the requested set of data blocks. A data de-duplication process operating on a storage device may build a de-duplication data map that stores information about the presence and location of de-duplicated data blocks on the storage drive. An I/O scheduler that manages the access requests can employ the de-duplicated data map to identify and quantify any de-duplicated data blocks within an access request. The I/O scheduler can then adjust the priority of the access request, based at least in part, on whether de-duplicated data blocks provide a large enough sequence of data blocks to reduce the likelihood that servicing the request, even if causing a head seek operation, will not reduce the overall global throughput of the storage system.
US08825604B2

According to one embodiment of the present invention, at least a portion of data from a first processing system is archived onto a second processing system based on partitions of the data. A query received at the first processing system is processed at the second processing system to retrieve archived data satisfying the received query in response to determining at the first processing system that the received query encompasses archived data. Embodiments of the present invention further include methods, systems, and computer program products for archiving and accessing data in substantially the same manner described above.
US08825598B2

Among other things, methods, systems and computer program products are disclosed for manipulating media. In one aspect, synchronization of media files involves identifying a change to an attribute associated with a media file associated with a first media file library located on the host system; accessing a client device list including device IDs for devices associated with the first media file library; identifying a first client device indicated by the device list; accessing a first synchronization order file stored on a server system; modifying the first synchronization order file to indicate the change to the attribute associated with the media file; and providing the modified first synchronization order file to the server system to enable the first client device to apply the indicated change to the attribute associated with the media file within a second media file library located on the first client device.
US08825597B1

Synchronization of folders shared among multiple clients over a network is provided. A first user of a first client instantiates a folder to be shared, and the folder and its contents are synchronized with a host system. As the user makes changes to the folder and its contents on the first client, those changes are propagated to the synchronized version on the host server. Other clients who will be sharing the synchronized folder register with the host system and obtain a current version of the synchronized folder and contents. As the contents of the synchronized folder are changed by any of the clients, the changes are propagated to the host system, which in turn delivers the changes to each of the clients registered as sharing that folder. In this way, each client participating in the share has a current version of the folder and its contents.
US08825593B2

A system for aggregating data from a plurality of operational databases, and a method for providing the same, are provided. The system includes a data store storing a collection of pre-defined extraction scripts. The extraction scripts identify data available for extraction from a plurality of operational database products, and including parameters for specifying which of the data to extract. A data warehouse server executes the extraction scripts to extract, merge, transform and load the specified data from the plurality of operational databases into a multidimensional database.
US08825588B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for visualizing rule input attributes with a rule according to disparate rule attribute distributions. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for visualizing rule input attributes with a rule according to disparate rule attribute distributions has been provided. The method includes identifying in response to a selection of a rule for viewing in a rule viewer an input for the selected rule and determining an attribute for the input. However, attributes present in a guard for the selected rule can be excluded. The method also can include computing a global distribution of the attribute irrespective of the identified input and a specific distribution for the identified input. Thereafter, the attribute can be flagged as being correlated with the selected rule when it is determined that a sufficient disparity exists between the global distribution and the specific distribution.
US08825582B2

A system and method for controlling interaction among environments including virtualized environments and a system environment. A process issues a request to perform an action on a resource or a second process. A virtualization environment manager operating in the system environment detects the request and in response, retrieves data associated with the request identifying the first process, a base environment corresponding to the process, and the resource, and retrieves a first rule from a programmable database of rules. A base environment of a process is an environment in which a process is running. The first rule corresponds to at least one of the first process, the base environment, and the resource and identifies a target environment in which to process the request. The target environment is different from the base environment of the process. The virtualization environment manager directs the request to the target environment.
US08825579B1

A method and system are described that can predict the future value of a positive signal from prior measured values of the signal. The signal is measured at a prior baseline time, and at times incrementally beyond the baseline time. The post-baseline time increments comprise sets of geometric sequences. The system produces a future estimate of the signal merely by multiplying and dividing prior signal values. By repeated operation, the system can produce an output signal: a continuing stream of periodic signal predictions, which approximates periodic samples of the future signal “pulled back” in time.
US08825569B2

The invention relates to a method for automatically teaching parameters to a tray sealer, for example, position values, acceleration values and/or distances.
US08825566B2

A system, method and computer-readable medium for maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation of a graphical model are disclosed. The MAP estimation process can include obtaining an encoded data message sent over a 4G cellular wireless network and generating a graphical model representation of the message. The graphical model can be converted into a nand Markov random field (NMRF). The MAP estimation process can also include determining whether the NMRF has a perfect graph structure, and solving for a MAP estimate configuration of the NMRF. The MAP estimation process can further include outputting the MAP estimate configuration, an indication of the MAP estimate configuration, and/or a result based on a combination of the MAP estimate configuration and the encoded data message (e.g., a decoded message).
US08825553B2

A request for an acknowledgement using a private key may be generated and transmitting to a customer device. The acknowledgement may be received from the customer device and verified using a public key associated with a customer operating the customer device. A request for a current location of the customer device may be transmitted and the current location may be received. A determination that the current location is proximate to a meter may be made, and, in response to determining that the current location is proximate to the meter, the meter may be manipulated.
US08825546B2

A system operable to monitor the consumption of a commodity at the premises of a consumer may comprise a billing system interfacing with suppliers and retailers of the commodity to facilitate the purchase and distribution of the commodity. The billing system may include a payment structure that can alleviate the burden of consumers having to pay for an entire delivery of the commodity—the consumer is only responsible for paying for the amount actually consumed during a time period at a prevailing price during that time—as well as significantly reduce a retailer's working capital required to float the purchase of the commodity before it is paid by its consumers. Such a billing system and payment structure may eliminate or reduce the need for a retailer to borrow against receivables to pay for such purchases.
US08825543B2

A system and method are provided for distributed risk management. According to one example embodiment, a central risk controller is provided that can communicate with a plurality of local risk management modules located at a plurality of gateways. The central risk controller may allocate a portion of a central account balance associated with a trading account to each local risk management module. Then, as the trades are made using the trading account, the local risk management modules may manage risk associated with the trades until the local account balance is insufficient. As the account balance gets low, the local risk management module may query the central risk controller for the additional risk account balance.
US08825537B2

A system comprises at least one financial information management system storing financial data, the financial data including transaction data and account data for at least one account; a data aggregation system operative to retrieve data from the at least one financial information management system, to age the data relative to an aging date based on an account characteristic in addition to or instead of a transaction date, and to aggregate the aged data according to one or more predetermined rules; and a report generation system operative to generate reports from the aged and aggregated data.
US08825533B2

A method, an apparatus and an article of manufacture for enabling communication between at least two computer applications that is observable to a user. The method includes obtaining a description of functions for each of the at least two computer applications, comparing the description of functions for each of the at least two computer applications, generating a dialog between the at least two applications based on the comparing of the description of functions for each of the at least two computer applications, and making the dialog available to a user.
US08825531B1

The invention includes a system and method for an automated self-checkout system. The system includes a self-checkout housing, a means for inputting information, a means for receiving payment, a means for providing information to a customer, and a controller operatively connected to the means for inputting, means for receiving and the means for providing information to the customer. Additionally, the controller includes a reset module that responds to input inactivity prior to completion of the purchaser transaction by voiding the transaction and resetting the display to start a new transaction. The invention may also include a security verification mechanism.
US08825530B2

A computer implemented method and system for verifying tax liability and tax deductions reported by taxable entities. A tax monitoring platform comprising a database management system dynamically generates one or more tax forms specific to each taxable entity based on characteristic information of the taxable entities. The tax monitoring platform acquires tax information filled into the tax forms by the taxable entities via a user interface, extracts tax elements from the tax information, and transforms the tax elements to conform to a predetermined template. The tax monitoring platform determines an association between a first taxable entity and a second taxable entity based on the tax elements of each of the taxable entities, and compares the tax elements of the first taxable entity with the tax elements of the second taxable entity based on the association using the database management system, for determining the accuracy of reporting of tax information.
US08825525B2

A campaign offers and rewards system includes an offer serving engine that provides offers or rewards. An analytics engine, with data intelligence, identifies receipt line items and ties the line items, including uniform price code (“UPC”), stock keeping unit (“SKU”) or product short name from different receipts to create a list of products and services not matched to advertisers. A redemption engine is in communication with a database that includes a reward budget. The redemption engine assists in controlling the redemption of rewards in view of the reward budget and in response to a communication from the analytics engine.
US08825522B2

Disclosed are methods and systems for redeeming virtual coupons by associating the coupons with a consumer and a payment system associated with the consumer. In some embodiments, the method includes distributing the enabled promotional offers, from one or more source sites, via the electronic contact addresses for the plurality of consumers, such that the promotional offers can be electronically accepted by at least some of the particular consumers with whom they are identified without redeeming the accepted offers. The method further includes electronically receiving a redemption of the promotional offer by means of the consumer's presentment of the associated payment system for purchasing the subject matter of the accepted promotional offer.
US08825516B2

Traceability codes on perishable products facilitate the correlation of product data from the origin of a distribution chain to quality assessments of the perishable products made at points along the distribution chain. The product data is initially associated with the code, the product is marked with the code, and then the product is distributed. Receipt of a code after the perishable product enters the distribution chain establishes an elapsed time. Location information submitted with the code can also establish a traversed distance. A quality assessment submitted with the code can be associated with both time and distance. Consumers, for example, may submit codes, provide assessments and locations, and in return access product data linked to the specific products they consider in retail stores, purchase, and use. Inspectors can likewise submit quality assessments from locations earlier in the distribution chain as well as in retail stores.
US08825508B2

A method and an apparatus perform automatic assignment in an environment. The apparatus according to one embodiment comprises an event handler for extracting event elements from reports in the environment; an assignment handler for assigning information to the reports, the assignment handler assigning information to the reports by assigning events to the reports using the event elements of the reports, and assigning staff of the environment to the events; and an action handler for generating actions for the events and sending the actions to the assigned staff.
US08825502B2

A system provides an information sharing architecture that allows physically separate healthcare information systems, called “deployments,” to share and exchange information. The collection of these participating deployments is referred to as the “Community,” and systems within the Community sometimes store records for patients in common. The system allows participants in the Community to share information on data changes to these patients, and to reconcile concurrent and conflicting updates to the patient's record.
US08825497B2

The embodiments described herein are directed to systems and methods for transmitting audio data and control segment in a single bitstream and reducing audio disturbance associated with the control segment when the bitstream is processed by an audio digital-to-analog converter. The system, according to one aspect, comprises a first audio unit, a transmitter coupled to the first audio unit, a receiver coupled to the transmitter, a second audio unit coupled to the receiver, a first processor coupled to at least one of the first audio unit and the transmitter, a second processor coupled to the second audio unit and the receiver, and an audio digital-to-analog converter connected to the second processor.
US08825494B2

A computation apparatus includes: a range calculation section for calculating a range of an input value that can give a predetermined discrete value obtained by discretizing a computation result of a nonlinear operation; and a discrete value output section for outputting, when the input value is input, the predetermined discrete value corresponding to the range in which the input value that has been input is contained.
US08825493B2

A system that transmits a request to initiate a communication session with a member device of a social network may include, for example, activating a speech capture element, maintaining activation of the speech capture element in accordance with a pattern of prior speech messages, detecting a speech message at the activated speech capture element, and transmitting the detected speech message, or a derivative thereof, to the member device of the social network.
US08825488B2

A method includes receiving script data including script words for dialogue, receiving audio data corresponding to at least a portion of the dialogue, wherein the audio data includes timecodes associated with dialogue words, generating a sequential alignment of the script words to the dialogue words, matching at least some of the script words to corresponding dialogue words to determine hard alignment points, partitioning the sequential alignment of script words into alignment sub-sets, wherein the bounds of the alignment sub-subsets are defined by adjacent hard-alignment points, and wherein the alignment subsets includes a sub-set of the script words and a corresponding sub-set of dialogue words that occur between the hard-alignment points, determining corresponding timecodes for a sub-set of script words in a sub-subset based on the timecodes associated with the sub-set of dialogue words, and generating time-aligned script data including the sub-set of script words and their corresponding timecodes.
US08825483B2

A method of audio processing comprises composing one or more transformation profiles for transforming audio characteristics of an audio recording and then generating for the or each transformation profile, a metadata set comprising transformation profile data and location data indicative of where in the recording the transformation profile data is to be applied; the or each metadata set is then stored in association with the corresponding recording. A corresponding method of audio reproduction comprises reading a recording and a meta-data set associated with that recording from storage, applying transformations to the recording data in accordance with the metadata set transformation profile; and then outputting the transformed recording.
US08825480B2

A system is provided for transmitting information through a speech codec (in-band) such as found in a wireless communication network. A modulator transforms the data into a spectrally noise-like signal based on the mapping of a shaped pulse to predetermined positions within a modulation frame, and the signal is efficiently encoded by a speech codec. A synchronization sequence provides modulation frame timing at the receiver and is detected based on analysis of a correlation peak pattern. A request/response protocol provides reliable transfer of data using message redundancy, retransmission, and/or robust modulation modes dependent on the communication channel conditions.
US08825476B2

Provided are a method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a high frequency signal by using a low frequency signal. The high frequency signal can be encoded by extracting a coefficient by linear predicting a high frequency signal, and encoding the coefficient, generating a signal by using the extracted coefficient and a low frequency signal, and encoding the high frequency signal by calculating a ratio between the high frequency signal and an energy value of the generated signal. Also, the high frequency signal can be decoded by decoding a coefficient, which is extracted by linear predicting a high frequency signal, and a low frequency signal, and generating a signal by using the decoded coefficient and the decoded low frequency signal, and adjusting the generated signal by decoding a ratio between the generated signal and an energy value of the high frequency signal.
US08825473B2

The present invention provides a computer-implemented method of analyzing messages in a computer system to allow workflows constituted by the messages to be identified, the method comprising: analyzing a sequence of messages in a computer system in order to classify the messages, thereby producing a corresponding sequence of classifications of the messages; and, applying sequence induction to the sequence of classifications of the messages to produce (i) a set or sub-sequences of the classifications of the messages and (ii) a sequence grammar for the sub-sequences, from which a workflow constituted by the sequence of messages can be identified.
US08825471B2

A system and method for extracting facts from documents. A fact is extracted from a first document. The attribute and value of the fact extracted from the first document are used as a seed attribute-value pair. A second document containing the seed attribute-value pair is analyzed to determine a contextual pattern used in the second document. The contextual pattern is used to extract other attribute-value pairs from the second document. The extracted attributes and values are stored as facts.
US08825459B2

A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and computer readable storage medium provide the ability to create a geometric model in a computer-aided design (CAD) application. Direct graphical manipulation via user interaction is used to create the geometric model in the CAD application. The direct graphical manipulation is captured, without additional user input, as one or more lines of script code as if the user is writing the script code. The captured script code is integrated into an environment hosted by the CAD application. The script code is then displayed where it can be modified. The modification of the script code acts to modify the geometric model.
US08825455B2

An on-demand table model for semiconductor device evaluation is provided. A method of providing on-demand table models for semiconductor device evaluation, includes measuring one or more measurement values of an instance of a semiconductor device. The method further includes providing, by a processor, a table model of the instance for the semiconductor device evaluation upon receiving a request for the semiconductor device evaluation. The method further includes generating a table entry in the table model for the one or more measurement values, the table entry including one or more evaluation values of an evaluation function for the instance.
US08825447B2

Automatic correlation, in which an automatic correlation accelerator tool accesses at least a first and a second recording of a base script that defines operations executed in testing performance of a system. The tool causes the system to execute the first recording of the base script and the second recording of the base script and stores, in electronic storage, dynamic value data that describes dynamic values generated during execution of the first recording of the base script and during execution of the second recording of the base script. The tool automatically, without human intervention, analyzes the stored dynamic value data to identify candidates for correlation within the base script and generates a correlated script based on the identified candidates for correlation and the base script.
US08825442B1

A method for determining switching characteristics in electronic devices is disclosed. The method includes applying a ramped series of electrical pulses, identifying a candidate switching pulse, grouping the measured parameter values for the remaining electrical pulses, extrapolating an expected parameter value for the candidate switching pulse for each group, and comparing the expected parameter value for each group to the parameter value for the candidate switching pulse. The method also includes applying a ramped series of electrical pulses, identifying a candidate switching pulse, and clustering the remaining measured parameter values.
US08825441B2

An information processing apparatus includes a versatile Operating System (OS) that performs a time measurement process in response to a request from an application, a storage unit that stores a process load of the versatile OS and a delay time of the time measurement process in combination, a detecting unit that detects a process load of the versatile OS when the application requests the time measurement process, an acquiring unit that acquires a delay time that corresponds to the process load, which is detected by the detecting unit, as an expected delay time from the storage unit, and a requesting unit that requests the versatile OS to measure a requested measurement time that is obtained by subtracting the expected delay time, which is acquired by the acquiring unit, from a measurement time that is requested by the application.
US08825437B2

A relocation detection unit includes: an acceleration sensor adapted to detect acceleration generated in the apparatus, an arithmetic section adapted to obtain a first calculation value by performing Nth-order integration on detected value of the acceleration sensor at a predetermined timing, wherein N is a predetermined positive integer, a correction section adapted to obtain a second calculated value by adding/subtracting a specific value to/from the first calculation value at the predetermined timing, and a detection section adapted to detect that the apparatus has been relocated if the second calculated value exceeds a preset reference value.
US08825433B2

A method and system is provided for automatically generating valid at speed structural test (ASST) test groups. The method includes loading a netlist for an integrated circuit into a processor. The method further includes determining a plurality of clock domain crossings between a plurality of clock domains within the integrated circuit. The method further includes generating a first test group. The method further includes adding a first clock domain of the plurality of clock domains to the first test group. The method further includes adding a second clock domain of the plurality of clock domains to the first test group when the second clock domain does not have a clock domain crossing into the first clock domain.
US08825431B2

A fluorescence intensity calculating apparatus, includes: a measuring section configured to receive fluorescences generated from plural fluorescent dyes excited by radiating a light to a microparticle multiply-labeled with the plural fluorescent dyes having fluorescence wavelength bands overlapping one another by photodetectors which correspond to different received light wavelength bands, respectively, and whose number is larger than the number of fluorescent dyes, and obtain measured spectra by collecting detected values from the photodetectors; and a calculating section configured to approximate the measured spectra based on a linear sum of single-dyeing spectra obtained from the microparticle individually labeled with the fluorescent dyes, thereby calculating intensities of the fluorescences generated from the fluorescent dyes, respectively.
US08825429B2

An apparatus and method are provided in order to verify the calibration on the fluid handling system. A magnet coupled to the scale is used to attach a precalibrated weight so that a controller in the system can determine if the scale needs to be calibrated. This way a storage tank does not need to be removed in order to check the calibration of the scale. The system can be locked down if the calibration is not within the predetermined calibration tolerance.
US08825428B2

Systems and methods are provided for storing and recalling metrics associated with physiological signals. It may be determined that the value of a monitored physiological metric corresponds to a stored value. In such cases, a patient monitor may determine that a calibration is not desired. In some cases, a patient monitor may recall calibration parameters associated with the stored value if it determined that the stored value corresponds to the monitored metric value.
US08825423B1

This document generally describes technology to verify the calibration of a materials testing system, such as a compact tension testing system. The calibration of a materials testing system can be verified based on the results generated from the materials testing system running one or more tests on a calibration specimen with one or more known characteristics.
US08825422B2

A field device for process instrumentation, in particular a measuring transducer, comprising an analogue output to which a two-wire line is connectable for transmitting an analogue output signal. The output circuit contains a controller with an actuator connected downstream for the analogue output signal. A monitoring unit monitors whether an actuating signal remains within a predeterminable value range to monitor the output circuit for correctly setting the loop current. If the actuating signal is outside the value range, an indicator signal is output to a computing unit so that suitable measures can be introduced in response to an error state that has thus been identified.
US08825414B2

A system for determining the amount of life consumed for a tool includes at least one sensor associated with the tool for generating observation data, a memory in operable communication with the at least one sensor, the memory including a database for storing the observation data generated by the sensor, and a processor in operable communication with the memory. The processor includes a model generator that generates a current model for a current run of the tool. The current model includes parameters of a functional approximation of the observation data. The processor also includes a classifier that classifies the current model and a current run estimator that determine the amount of life consumed based on the classification of the current model and a time of use associated with the current run.
US08825408B2

Methods and systems to characterize a fluid in a reservoir to determine if the fluid is in one of equilibrium or non-equilibrium in terms of one of gravity, solvency power, entropy effect or some combination thereof. The method includes acquiring tool data at each depth for each fluid sample of at least two fluid samples wherein each fluid sample is at a different depth and communicating the tool data to a processor. Determining formation properties of each fluid sample to obtain formation property data and determining fluid properties for each fluid sample to obtain fluid property data. Selecting a mathematical model based on one of gravity, solvency power or entropy, in view of a fluid property, using one of tool data, formation property data, fluid property data, known fluid reservoir data or some combination thereof, to predict if the fluid is in an equilibrium distribution or a non-equilibrium distribution.
US08825406B2

A navigation apparatus that performs route guidance to a destination includes a display unit that displays an image so as to be superimposed on a field of view of a driver and a control unit that displays an image of a guidance object for route guidance on the display unit such that the guidance object moves along a route in advance, thereby performing the route guidance. The control unit displays an image of an object different from a vehicle as the guidance object.
US08825404B2

A method can include, for a predetermined route, automatically processing a first set of machine instructions to create a visual travel guide for the predetermined route, the visual travel guide comprising a second set of machine instructions adapted to cause an information device to render: an identification of a destination of the predetermined route; a plurality of videos, each video corresponding to a road intersection located approximately on the predetermined route, each video adapted to substantially reproduce a view of a driver of an automobile approaching the road intersection; a plurality of textual descriptions associated with the plurality of videos; at least one of an identification of an origin of the predetermined route and an identification of an approach to the destination; and an advertisement associated with at least a portion of the predetermined route.
US08825399B2

It is presumed and commonly accepted by those skilled in the art of satellite navigation and Kalman filter design that the filter must be provided with the tracker position and velocity a priori in order to determine target position and velocity. Indeed, it is generally asserted that without a priori knowledge (known or measured values) of the tracker position and velocity, line of sight measurements between satellites do not contain adequate information to infer target states. Passive and autonomous navigation of space vehicles without a priori values for the position and velocity of either the target or tracker vehicle is achieved by reconfiguring the extended Kalman filter, or more generally any predictor/correction class filter, to include states for both the target and tracker vehicles. The target and tracker vehicles must both follow trajectories in an inertial frame of reference through the gravitational field of a gravitational body having a known gravitational model. The reconfigured filter simultaneously estimates the position and velocity of both tracking and target space-based vehicles from line-of-sight measurements.
US08825393B2

A method for providing a location service and a mobile terminal are provided. The location service providing method includes determining a positioning method based on location information of the mobile terminal and measurement information used for calculating the location of the mobile terminal, determining a map switch indicator by using at least one of the determined positioning method, the location information, and the measurement information, selecting a global map (i.e., the whole area map) or a local map according to the determined map switch indicator, and indicating the location of the mobile terminal on the selected map.
US08825391B1

Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to generating elevation maps. More specifically, data points may be collected by a laser moving along a roadway and used to generate an elevation map of the roadway. The collected data points may be projected onto a two dimensional or “2D” grid. The grid may include a plurality of cells, each cell of the grid representing a geolocated second of the roadway. The data points of each cell may be evaluated to identify an elevation for the particular cell. For example, the data points in a particular cell may be filtered in various ways including occlusion, interpolation from neighboring cells, etc. The minimum value of the remaining data points within each cell may then be used as the elevation for the particular cell, and the elevation of a plurality of cells may be used to generate an elevation map of the roadway.
US08825385B2

An aspect of the invention is an information terminal device includes a widget management unit for managing execution of a widget being a monofunctional program for performing display on the display part of a display device. The widget management unit includes a policy determination unit for determining the operation policy, including operation restriction and priority, concerning a display state at the display device in the widget, and a reliability determining unit for determining the reliability representing the reliability of the widget in the widget. When the state of the movement calculated by a navigation unit becomes a preset state, the widget management unit regulates the display state of the widget according to the operation restriction and the reliability, and performs display, while preferentially displaying guidance state and positional information calculated by the navigation unit.
US08825379B2

A method of providing navigational information includes processing destination information spoken by a vehicle occupant on-board. The processed voice information is transmitted to a remote center wirelessly. The processed voice information is voice recognition analyzed at the remote data center to recognize components of the destination information spoken. The remote center generates a list of hypothetical recognized components of the destination information listed by confidence levels as calculated for each component of the destination information analyzed by the voice recognition system. The hypothetical recognized component list is displayed with confidence levels at the remote center for selective checking by a human data center operator. A component set is selected based on the confidence levels and accuracy of the selected set is confirmed by interactive voice exchanges between the vehicle driver and the remote data center. A destination is determined from confirmed components of the destination information.
US08825373B1

An apparatus and method are disclosed for performing loop closing on one or more paths to be optimized. The paths may include poses associated with imagery obtained by a vehicle. The apparatus may identify candidate intersections from the paths based on their proximity, and may further determine relative poses from the poses of the paths using structure-from-motion techniques. The apparatus may then apply a partitioning schema to the paths to be optimized to obtain individual partition cells. The partition cells may then be sent to one or more client devices for optimizing the paths included in the partition cells. When the apparatus receives a set of optimized paths from the client devices, the apparatus may re-partition the paths to be optimized to ensure that non-optimized portions of paths are optimized.
US08825371B2

A vehicle can include a navigation unit configured to determine a position of the vehicle. A detection unit can be configured to recognize position and features of objects external to the vehicle. An identification unit can be configured to identify objects expected to be detected based on a determined position of the vehicle, by comparing the recognized features to feature data of object reference data stored in a local database. When the identification unit is unable to identify an object, the identification unit can compare recognized or stored object features to the additional feature data received from a remote database. A navigation unit can update the position of the vehicle based on position data of identified objects and more accurate and safe autonomous operation of a vehicle can be achieved.
US08825370B2

A trip planner is provided for creating, modifying, categorizing, and sharing online trip plans. A trip plan includes a list of items such as hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions selected from a travel guide or provided by a user. An item can have a street address for positioning the item on a map, an image and description of the item, and other metadata assigned by the user, such as tags and notes. The trip planner can generate an itinerary listing the items, and a corresponding map showing the locations of the items. A trip plan can be shared with other users, who can locate the trip plan by searching for the tags or other metadata.
US08825366B2

The device includes processor elements for determining an optimal flight trajectory, which is free of collision with obstacles, which respects constraints of energy, and which links the current position of the aircraft to a target point defined by an operator. The device minimizes additional crew work required to update and validate a new trajectory when an original flight plan needs to be modified to avoid moving obstacles such as storms or other aircraft.
US08825364B2

A vehicle location recognition apparatus includes a link determination unit which accurately determines a link traveled by a vehicle from among a plurality of links meeting at a narrow-angle branch point, on the basis of vehicle location information and road information, travel history information representing a route traveled by the vehicle at the branch point. The vehicle location recognition apparatus includes a history information generation unit for generating travel history information for the determined link. The travel history information is stored in a learning database. On the basis of the travel history information, a learning unit generates learned priority information representing the priorities of the respective links meeting at a branch point and used in the determination by the link determination unit.
US08825359B1

Provided are systems, methods, and computer-readable for verifying the traffic designations of roads of a geographic map. Location data for a geographic area is obtained and location data points are filtered based on speed. A road network for the geographic area is obtained, and location data points are associated with a road based on proximity and heading with respect to the orientation of the road. The associated location data points in each direction are counted and used to determine a traffic direction. The traffic direction is compared to the existing traffic designation for the road, and conflicts are identified, such as missing one-way designations, unlikely one-way designations, and incorrect one-way designations.
US08825357B2

Some embodiments provide a method of determining speed information for one or more road segments in map data by receiving probe data relating to the one or more road segments, determining a speed formula for the one or more road segments based on the probe data, and determining the speed information for the one or more road segments according to the speed formula.
US08825341B2

A vehicle information management system eliminates the need for a large capacity storage and allows an abnormality and a malfunction to be easily specified. An updating unit does not store diagnostic data obtained at the time of an engine stall in a storage if it is determined that the engine stalls is because of a rider's operation of the vehicle, and stores diagnostic data obtained at the time of the engine stall in the storage if it is determined that the engine stall is not attributable to a rider's operation of the vehicle, based on detection results from an operation detector and an engine state detector.
US08825340B2

Disclosed is a vibration control apparatus of a driving system for a vehicle. More specifically, a toque command generating portion receives a demand torque from a driver and generates a torque command for operating a motor. A torque control portion receives the torque command from the toque command generating portion, collects information on exterior disturbances, and controls an actual torque of the motor accordingly. Lastly, a damping portion extracts and filters a vibration element generated due to operation of the motor by control of the torque control portion and generates a target torque to eliminate vibrations from the motor.
US08825339B2

A vehicular drive control apparatus provided with pulse-driving and gliding means for setting upper limit Vhi and lower limit Vlo of running speed V of a vehicle according to an upper and lower vehicle speed limit maps, and on the basis of target running speed Vt which is the running speed V at a time when control initiating conditions have been satisfied, and running the vehicle in P & G running mode by alternately repeating pulse-driving run (accelerating run) and gliding run (decelerating run) of the vehicle at the running speed V varying between the set upper and lower limits Vhi and Vlo, the control initiating conditions including a condition that the vehicle is in a steady running state.
US08825336B2

A method for detecting a burnout state during which driven wheels of a motor vehicle are caused to spin is provided. The method includes detecting a rotational wheel speed of a first driven wheel and a rotational wheel speed of a second driven wheel and comparing the rotational wheel speed of the faster turning wheel with a first constant. A vehicle speed is detected and compared with a second constant. An engine rotational speed is detected and compared with a third constant. The burnout state is detected when the rotational wheel speed of the faster turning wheel is greater than the first constant, the vehicle speed is less than the second constant, and the engine rotational speed is greater than the third constant.
US08825335B2

A method for determining the yaw tendency of a vehicle is hereby presented. The method comprises the steps of determining the propulsion states of one or several wheels of said vehicle, and estimating yaw moment variations of a vehicle from said propulsion states, wherein said yaw moment variations are induced from altered propulsion states between at least two of the wheels of said vehicle.
US08825320B2

A method for controlling a powertrain includes monitoring a desired synchronous transmission shift during deceleration of an output member including a desired operating range state, monitoring an output speed, predicting output deceleration through the desired synchronous transmission shift, determining a penalty cost associated with the desired synchronous transmission shift based upon an input speed profile resulting from the predicted output deceleration and from the desired synchronous transmission shift, and executing the synchronous transmission shift based upon the penalty cost.
US08825313B2

A crane control system with a display and entry unit for showing and entering the crane operating mode information that is required for the load moment limiting and/or the crane control, especially corresponding to its current mechanical layout, wherein the crane control system comprises a logic that determines application and/or outfitting related dependencies between two or more input parameters.
US08825307B2

In a control device of an electric vehicle, control unit switches energization such that a decrease in an output of a rotary electric machine in which a stall state is detected by stall state-detecting unit and an increase in an output of another rotary electric machine in which the stall state is not detected by the stall state-detecting unit are made to be the same.
US08825302B2

A motor vehicle and a method for controlling a motor vehicle in road traffic are provided. A motor vehicle includes a driver assistance system and a navigation means comprising a sensor for detecting compressive forces, or tensile forces, or torsional forces. An evaluation unit is coupled to the navigation means and evaluates the signals of the sensor. The evaluation unit puts the driver assistance system into operation or takes it out of operation when a threshold value of the signals stored in the evaluation unit is exceeded or fallen below. A controller is activated when the threshold value is exceeded or fallen below and transfers at least partial control of the motor vehicle by the driver assistance system to manual operation by a driver or transfers the manual control of the motor vehicle to at least partial control by the driver assistance system.
US08825299B2

A main control device generates a first signal and a second signal, which is substantially equivalent to the first signal, in accordance with the input signal, a sub-control device includes a comparison-judgment-processing unit that compares the first signal with the second signal, and judges that an abnormality occurs when a state, in which a deviation between the both signals is greater than equal to a predetermined value, is continued in a time being equal to a first predetermined time, and a limitation unit is configured in such a way that the limitation unit adds a predetermined limitation to the output of the main control device in accordance with a result for which the comparison-judgment-processing unit judges that the abnormality occurs.
US08825296B2

The invention relates to a method for operating a control system (63) of a motorcycle (60), which moves an electromechanical steering lock (10) from an unlocked position (1) to a locked position (2) and vice-versa, with an ignition system (62) to start the engine of the motorcycle (60), which is controlled by the control system (63), an authentication (70), in which an ID-generator (64) maintains a data link with the control system (63), wherein after a positive authentication (70) in an operational step (71a,71b), the steering lock (10) is brought into the appropriate position (1,2). According to the invention, it is provided that the first actuator element (31) has a signal connection with the control system (63), which is accessible to the user, and the operational step (71a,71b) commences only after positive authentication (70) via intentional activation of the first actuator element (31), which occurs after the authentication (70).
US08825291B2

In a vehicle vibration-damping controlling apparatus for executing vibration-damping control to control a power source loaded on a vehicle to suppress sprung vibration of the vehicle, a control amount of the vibration-damping control is changed based on a judgment target amount that is used in judging control and variable accompanied by an execution of the vibration-damping control. Therefore, since the control amount of the vibration-damping control is changed based on the judgment target amount, it is possible to allow the vibration-damping control to coordinate with various pieces of judging control related to the power source and appropriately execute the vibration-damping control.
US08825290B2

A risk-degree setting unit (108) sets the degree of risk for the case where an inverter (103) performs conversion processing (inverter risk degree), and sets the degree of risk for the case where a storage battery (105) stores electrical energy (storage battery risk degree). A final output destination determination unit (109), based on the degrees of risk set by the risk-degree setting unit (108), determines the final output destination of electrical energy output from an electric motor (106), and controls the turning ON or OFF of a relay (110). The final output destination determination unit (109) turns the relay (110) ON when the storage battery (105) is determined as the final output destination of the electrical energy output from the electric motor (106), and turns the relay (110) OFF when the inverter (103) is determined as the final output destination of the electrical energy output from the electric motor (106).
US08825288B2

A control apparatus includes a first drive device driving a movable panel, a first detection device detecting a state of the movable panel, a second drive device driving a sunshade, a second detection device detecting a state of the sunshade, and a control device controlling one of the first and second drive devices to stop an operation of a succeeding member serving as one of the movable panel and the sunshade configured to be positioned behind a preceding member serving as the other of the movable panel and the sunshade relative to each of the opening position and the closing position, in a case where a distance between the movable panel and the sunshade becomes smaller than a predetermined distance on a basis of a position of the movable panel detected by the first drive device and a position of the sunshade detected by the second drive device.
US08825287B2

Methods and systems are provided for door latches for vehicles. The system includes an electric door latch mechanism movable between a latched position and an unlatched position. Exterior and interior open switches are disposed a door for receiving an unlatch request from an outside or an inside of the vehicle. A controller is in communication with the exterior open switch, the interior open switch, and the electric door latch mechanism. The controller is configured to assign either a locked state or an unlocked state for each of the open switches. The controller is also configured to control operation of the electric door latch mechanism such that the electric door latch mechanism is commanded to move from the closed position to the open position in response to the unlatch request from the open switches when the respective open switch is in the unlocked state.
US08825281B2

There is described a system and method for establishing a performance of at least one of a vehicle and an operator of the vehicle over a given period. In particular, the method comprises: recording measured vehicle parameters at a continuous rate over a given period, the continuous rate being at least as great as the rate of change of the measured vehicle parameters; calculating criteria using, for each criterion, a selection of the measured vehicle parameters; and outputting the criteria, the criteria being representative of a performance of at least one of the operator and the vehicle over the given period.
US08825269B2

In a process for monitoring motor vehicles of a motor vehicle fleet which is operated by a fleet operator, by way of a sensor system in the respective vehicle of at least a part of the vehicle fleet, vehicle-related data of the vehicle are determined. The vehicle-related data includes at least its geographical position. By use of at least a portion of the vehicle-related data, a number of servicing parameters are determined, which describe the service requirement of the respective vehicle. By using a data network, by way of which the respective vehicle and a user interface assigned to the fleet operator communicate, the number of servicing parameters and the geographical position of the respective vehicle are output by way of the user interface.
US08825268B2

An HV-ECU executes a program including a step (S102) of turning on a fail-safe permission flag if a select sensor is abnormal (YES in step S100), and a step (S108) of transmitting a non-P request signal to a P-ECU if the position of a shift lever is read as the N position (YES in S104) and a predetermined time Tn(2) elapses (YES in S106).
US08825266B2

Controlling a vehicle to automatically prevent the vehicle from colliding with obstacles includes identifying and locating obstacles in front of the vehicle, wherein relative position of an obstacle is determined; measuring relative speed of the obstacles; assessing whether there is a risk of a collision between the vehicle and the obstacle as a function of the relative position and relative speed. If there is a risk of a collision, the method further includes: calculating an unsafe region around the obstacle as a function of known measurement errors; calculating an evasion point within or on an edge of the unsafe region; defining a protection zone around the evasion point; defining an evasion route which is in the form of a circular path and has a predefined radius of curvature; controlling the vehicle at a critical distance, so that the vehicle follows the evasion route which is tangential to the protection zone.
US08825264B2

A roadgraph may include a graph network of information such as roads, lanes, intersections, and the connections between these features. The roadgraph may also include one or more zones associated with particular rules. The zones may include locations where driving is typically challenging such as merges, construction zones, or other obstacles. In one example, the rules may require an autonomous vehicle to alert a driver that the vehicle is approaching a zone. The vehicle may thus require a driver to take control of steering, acceleration, deceleration, etc. In another example, the zones may be designated by a driver and may be broadcast to other nearby vehicles, for example using a radio link or other network such that other vehicles may be able to observer the same rule at the same location or at least notify the other vehicle's drivers that another driver felt the location was unsafe for autonomous driving.
US08825263B1

Guiding a leading vehicle according to a desired trailing vehicle path includes generating one or more proceeding paths for one or more intermediate locations along an implement train between a trailing vehicle first location and a leading vehicle second location. The proceeding paths generated with a propagation and transformation algorithm that propagates a preceding path of one of the first location, such as the desired trailing vehicle path, or one of one or more intermediate locations to an immediately proceeding location, and transforms the preceding path according to dimensional characteristics of the implement train. A second guiding path is generated for the leading vehicle second location with the algorithm based on the immediately preceding path of the intermediate location closest to the second location. The method facilitates guidance of the trailing vehicle along the desired trailing vehicle path without navigation markers on the implement train except for the leading vehicle.
US08825261B1

A passenger in an automated vehicle may relinquish control of the vehicle to a control computer when the control computer has determined that it may maneuver the vehicle safely to a destination. The passenger may relinquish or regain control of the vehicle by applying different degrees of pressure, for example, on a steering wheel of the vehicle. The control computer may convey status information to a passenger in a variety of ways including by illuminating elements of the vehicle. The color and location of the illumination may indicate the status of the control computer, for example, whether the control computer has been armed, is ready to take control of the vehicle, or is currently controlling the vehicle.
US08825253B2

A hybrid vehicle control device is provided that is capable of achieving stable input torque control and torque capacity control of the clutch. When transitioning between a slip drive mode, in which the vehicle travels by controlling the rotation speed of the drive source and controlling the slip state of a starting clutch, and an engagement drive mode, in which the vehicle travels by controlling the torque of the drive source and completely engaging the starting clutch, the torque of the inertia component of the drive source side is deducted from the target drive torque set on the basis of the acceleration opening degree set as the starting clutch transfer torque capacity in the slip state.
US08825250B2

Systems and methods are provided for detecting that an electric motor drive vehicle (e.g., an electric scooter or motorbike) is idling based on one or more of sensed parameters indicative of the idling state. These sensed parameters may include one or more of, alone or in any combination, a sensed throttle position, at least one sensed electrical characteristic of a traction electric motor, a power converter, or an electrical storage device of the vehicle, and a sensed rate of rotation of a drive shaft of the traction electric motor or of a wheel drivably coupled to the traction electric motor. Upon detecting that the vehicle is in an idling state, a controller of the vehicle enters into a standby mode. In the standby mode, a relatively small amount of electrical power is supplied to the traction electric motor to cause a vibration of the motor to alert a driver that the vehicle is ON in the standby mode and is ready to be driven. Additionally, an audible and/or visual indication may be issued in the standby mode to further alert the driver that the vehicle is ON and ready to be driven.
US08825249B2

A hybrid system includes a hybrid controller which controls the speed and torque of an engine based on the operated level of an accelerator pedal within a first range where the power generation efficiency of the system becomes equal to or higher than a preset power generation efficiency to allow the engine to operate at an engine operating point when the SOC detected by an SOC sensor is equal to or higher than an HEV low SOC, and which controls the speed and torque of the engine based on the operated level of the accelerator pedal within a second range where the power generated by a power generator motor becomes larger than that of the first range to allow the engine to operate at the engine operating point when the SOC detected by the SOC sensor is lower than the HEV low SOC.
US08825237B2

The present application relates to a system and method for providing real-time indications of economic impact of aircraft operations to an aircraft operator. The system and method allow the aircraft operator to reduce economic impact during flight of the aircraft. Such an analysis and cue to the aircraft operator allows the operator to make real-time changes during flight to reduce damage of life-limited aircraft components, thereby reducing the economic impact of aircraft operation that is directly associated with maintenance and component replacement. The system and method can also include pre-flight and post-flight analysis methods for reduction of economic impact of flight operations.
US08825236B2

A method of determining the reliability of long-term predicted orbit data, includes: determining the reliability of long-term predicted orbit data, which is acquired by predicting a satellite orbit in a target period of at least one day, using predicted position data including predicted positions of a positioning satellite in time series and actual position data including actual positions of the positioning satellite corresponding to the predicted positions.
US08825235B2

An aircraft hover system for enabling an aircraft to hover at a target spatial location represented by GPS location coordinates. The hover system includes a display screen rendering a display including live video feed of the terrain below the airborne aircraft, a first mark overlaying the video feed, the first mark representing the current position of the aircraft relative to the terrain, and a perimeter surrounding the first mark, the portion of the terrain within the perimeter being substantially magnified compared to that of the terrain outside of the perimeter. The hover system is configured such that, as the aircraft approaches the target spatial location, the distance between the first mark and a second mark on the display gradually decreases until and finally the first and second marks coincide; the second mark representing the target spatial location.
US08825229B2

A mobile tracking and subduing apparatus of a target object that includes liquid storage tank that is configured hold a predetermined amount of a liquid, a probe configured to inject the liquid from the liquid storage tank into a skin surface of a target object, an optical detection unit for obtaining image or video data, a GPS unit that generates positional data, a wireless communications interface configured to receive command data, and a target tracking unit for detecting and tracking the target object based on the received positional data, command data, and images or video data and inject the contents of the liquid storage section into the target object via the probe.
US08825224B2

An automated vehicle shutdown and user notification method and device for shutting down an engine in a vehicle having a passive keyless entry and start ignition system where the engine has unintentionally been left running by the user is disclosed. In one aftermarket embodiment, the method is implemented in an aftermarket remote start interface module. The module comprises a micro-controller, a memory, a vehicle data bus connector that provides for interface through the vehicles onboard diagnostic (OBDII) port to the vehicle data bus. The system includes a remote start module having a radio frequency transceiver and a cellular telephone transceiver, and provides audible, visual and electronic notifications that the vehicle has been left running and that the engine will be shut off unless the shutdown sequence is deactivated. If the shutdown fails by any malfunction, the system will go into an alternative notice mode.
US08825219B2

The power flexibility of energy loads are maximized using a value function for each load and outputting optimal control parameters per load. These loads are aggregated into a virtual load by maximizing a global value function that includes the value function for each individual load. The solution yields a dispatch function providing: a percentage of energy to be assigned to each individual load, a possible time-varying power level within a time interval for each load, and control parameters and values. An economic term of the global value function represents the value of the power flexibility to different energy players. A user interface includes for each time interval upper and lower bounds representing respectively the maximum power that may be reduced to the virtual load and the maximum power that may be consumed by the virtual load. An energy trader modifies an energy level in a time interval relative to the reference curve for the virtual load. Automatically, energy compensation for the other intervals and recalculation of upper and lower boundaries occurs and is displayed. The energy schedule for the virtual load is distributed to the actual loads using the dispatch function.
US08825216B2

An apparatus for controlling power of sensor nodes based on estimation of power acquisition, includes: a self power acquisition unit acquiring self power; an internal sensing unit sensing power acquired from the self power acquisition unit and consumed power; a power cut-off unit cutting-off power for each component of the sensor nodes; and a microprocessor receiving information of acquired power and consumed power from the internal sensing unit to analyze a supply and demand of power, estimating the acquired power using annual meteorological statistics data and recent weather forecast data, controlling power for each component of the sensor nodes through the power cut-off unit according to the estimation of the acquired power, and controlling a sensing period and a communication period of the sensor nodes.
US08825212B2

A robot system according to an embodiment includes a robot a switching determination unit and a rearrangement instruction unit The switching determination unit performs determination of switching between the operation of transferring the workpiece and the operation of rearranging the workpiece based on the state of transferring the workpiece by the robot The rearrangement instruction unit instructs the robot to rearrange the workpiece.
US08825211B2

The present invention provides an automated steering wheel leveling system and method. Particularly, the automated steering wheel leveling system includes a machine vision, a plurality of motor cylinders, a motor, and a robot, each operated by a process PC. The machine vision photographs a steering wheel to obtain position information of the steering wheel and determines a stroke of a motor cylinder and a grip position of a gripper using the position information. The plurality of motor cylinders move a plurality of grippers to steering wheel to secure the steering wheel. The motor rotates the steering wheel in order to adjust a zero-point of the steering wheel. The robot then moves the machine vision, the motor cylinder, and the motor to the steering wheel to align a shaft of the servo motor with a shaft of the steering wheel.
US08825204B2

In a method for adjusting a gap through which a product is to be conveyed, a rotatable element is driven with a predetermined torque, and the rotatable element is moved against the product located in the gap until the rotatable element stops.
US08825203B2

A system and method provides for a pneumatic tube carrier routing and tracking system having a system control module that captures and presents tracking information associated with sending and receiving carriers. The pneumatic tube carrier tracking system comprises sending and receiving stations connected by pneumatic tubing, and which are configured to securely send carriers, with receiving users optionally being restricted from unauthorized access of carriers. The pneumatic tube carrier tracking system further comprises a color sensor to automatically route the color-coded carriers to dedicated receiving stations using color identifiers. The sending and receiving stations further have identifying tag readers configured to scan identifier tags to read carrier delivery, carrier receipt and receiving user information.
US08825196B2

A pharmaceutical storage and retrieval system and a method of storing and retrieving pharmaceutical containers from the system. The system includes a pharmaceutical storage and retrieval and a controller operatively coupled to the device to control storage and retrieval functions of the device. The device includes a gantry assembly, a shelving assembly, a user access assembly, and a user authorization system that function in a coordinated manner to carry out the storage and retrieval functions of the device.
US08825185B2

A control system for using a predictive control with a control process having a time delay includes an adaptive feedback controller and a predictor. The predictor uses at least an adaptively updated control parameter from the adaptive feedback controller to predict the output of the control process during the time delay. The control system further includes a filter that dampens the rate of change of the adaptively updated control parameter provided to the predictor from the adaptive feedback controller to slow the adaptation of the predictor relative to the adaptation of the adaptive feedback controller.
US08825175B2

Techniques for adjusting stimulation are disclosed. A medical device measures an impedance associated with one or more electrodes, e.g., the impedance presented to the medical device by a total electrical circuit that includes the one or more electrodes, the conductors associated with the electrodes, and tissue proximate to the electrodes. The medical device stores at least one patient-specific relationship between impedance and a stimulation parameter, and adjusts the value of the stimulation parameter based on the measured impedance according to the relationship. The medical device may store multiple relationships, and select one the relationships based on, for example, an activity level of the patient, posture of the patient, or a current stimulation program or electrode combination used to deliver stimulation. By adjusting a stimulation parameter, such as amplitude, according to such a relationship, the stimulation intensity as perceived by the patient may be kept substantially constant.
US08825170B2

Various techniques are described for periodically performing a calibration routine to calibrate a low-power system clock within an implantable medical device (IMD) based on a high accuracy reference clock also included in the IMD. The system clock is powered continuously, and the reference clock is only powered on during the calibration routine. The techniques include determining a clock error of the system clock based on a difference between frequencies of the system clock and the reference clock over a fixed number of clock cycles, and adjusting a trim value of the system clock to compensate for the clock error. Calibrating the system clock with a delta-sigma loop, for example, reduces the clock error over time. This allows accurate adjustment of the system clock to compensate for errors due to trim resolution, circuit noise and temperature.
US08825168B2

Apparatus and method for at least partially fitting a medical implant system to a patient is described. These apparatuses and methods comprise using a dynamic mutation rate. This genetic algorithm may comprise generating successive generations of child populations. In executing the genetic algorithm, children may undergo mutations based on a mutation rate. This mutation rate may be dynamic and be based on the characteristics of the children in the generation. Additionally, values may be frozen during execution of the genetic algorithm if the likelihood that the value has converged on a particular value exceeds a threshold.
US08825164B2

A system for designing a therapy or for treating a gastrointestinal disorder or a condition associated with excess weight in a subject comprising at least one electrode configured to be implanted within a body of the patient and placed at a vagus nerve, the electrode also configured to apply therapy to the vagus nerve upon application of a therapy cycle to the electrode; an implantable neuroregulator for placement in the body of the patient beneath the skin layer, the implantable neuroregulator being configured to generate a therapy cycle, wherein the therapy cycle comprises an on time during which an electrical signal is delivered, the electrical signal comprising: a) a set of pulses applied at a first selected frequency of about 150-10,000 Hz, wherein each pulse of the set of pulses has a pulse width of at least 0.01 milliseconds and less than the period of the first selected frequency.
US08825153B2

A stimulation system can have a first sensor to generate a first reading and a second sensor to generate a second reading. An analysis module of a programmer such as a patient programmer, which programs a stimulation signal to be delivered to a patient, conducts an evaluation of the patient based on the first and second readings. Evaluations may include determinations such as range of motion determinations, posture determinations, physical task-specific brain activity determinations, cognitive task-specific brain activity determinations, and brain activity-specific movement determinations.
US08825147B2

A cardiac muscle excitation waveform detector including: a waveform acquisition section that acquires, in a preset period, a waveform from an intracardiac electrocardiogram measured in middle of occurrence of atrial fibrillation; a waveform detection condition setting section that sets conditions for detecting a waveform of cardiac muscle excitation; and an excitation waveform detection section that detects a waveform of cardiac muscle excitation from the waveforms based on the conditions, wherein the waveform detection condition setting section includes a section that sets conditions based on a contour of a waveform to detect candidates for the waveform of cardiac muscle excitation, a section that sets a search period for searching for a waveform of cardiac muscle excitation; and a section that sets a preset period subsequent to detection as a detection exclusion period during which the candidate waveforms are not detected when the waveform of cardiac muscle excitation is detected.
US08825136B2

The present invention includes a method of pre-planning a spherical fixed point stereotactic radiosurgery by obtaining an image from a patient having a target, the image comprising coordinates of the actual patient target in 3 dimensions on a first day; planning an optimal stereotactic radiosurgery using the patient's actual target using actual coordinates in 3 dimensions prior to the day of surgery by creating virtual radiosurgical coordinates and plans to maximize target exposure and minimize the patient's waiting time in radiosurgery, thereby allowing evaluation of several plans to maximize plan conformality and safety; and treating the patient based on the virtual stereotactic radiosurgery plans on a second day.
US08825135B2

A mammographic system which carries out a bioptic method for inserting a bioptic needle into a breast to sample a tissue from a bioptic region includes a display unit for displaying second stereoscopic images acquired by applying a radiation to the breast while the bioptic needle is being inserted in the breast, an indicating unit for indicating a pointed end of the bioptic needle and the bioptic region in each of the second stereoscopic images, a bioptic needle position calculator for calculating a three-dimensional coordinate position of the pointed end of the bioptic needle which is indicated, a bioptic region position calculator for calculating a three-dimensional coordinate position of the bioptic region which is indicated, and an angle calculator for calculating a direction of the calculated bioptic region with respect to the calculated pointed end of the bioptic needle and displaying the calculated direction on the display unit.
US08825133B2

An MRI-compatible catheter that reduces localized heating due to MR scanner-induced currents includes an elongated flexible shaft having a distal end portion and an opposite proximal end portion. A handle is attached to the proximal end portion and includes an electrical connector interface configured to be in electrical communication with an MRI scanner. One or more RF tracking coils are positioned adjacent the distal end portion of the shaft. Each RF tracking coil includes a conductive lead, such as a coaxial cable, that extends between the RF tracking coil and the electrical connector interface and electrically connects the RF tracking coil to an MRI scanner. In some embodiments of the present invention, the conductive lead has a length sufficient to define an odd harmonic/multiple of a quarter wavelength of the operational frequency of the MRI Scanner, and/or includes a series of pre-formed back and forth segments along its length.
US08825129B2

A nerve block catheter system employs an indwelling, flexible catheter comprising a tissue lock to retain the catheter tip in pharmacologically proximity to a target nerve and optionally, a decoupler that insulates the tip of the catheter from proximal tissue movement.
US08825116B2

An audio interface adapted to reduce a subscriber voice may receive a subscriber voice and a background noise. The subscriber voice may then be compared to the to the background noise. If the received subscriber voice is louder than the received background noise, the audio interface may output a message to the cellular telephone subscriber indicating the subscriber may reduce his speaking volume. Additionally, an audio interface may process a voice waveform that corresponds to the subscriber voice and a background waveform that corresponds to the background noise to generate a substantially opposite voice waveform and a substantially opposite background waveform respectively. The substantially opposite voice waveform and background waveform may be substantially out of phase from the voice waveform and background waveform respectively and output via one or more output ports of the audio interface.
US08825103B2

A quality measuring section measures reception quality of a radio signal received by a wireless communication section. A quality information transmitting section transmits reception quality information indicating the reception quality measured by the quality measuring section. A device number calculating section calculates, based on reception quality indicated by reception quality information transmitted from other wireless communication devices and the reception quality measured by the quality measuring section, the number of wireless communication devices, from among the other wireless communication devices, that can communicate with the wireless communication device including this device number calculating section. A power value determining section compares the number of the wireless communication devices calculated by the device number calculating section with a predetermined number of devices, to determine, on the basis of the comparison result, a transmission power value for the wireless communication section to transmit the radio signal.
US08825099B2

Techniques for determining and reporting channel quality indicator (CQI) information are described. A user equipment (UE) may determine a transmit power per channelization code, POVSF, based on the available transmit power and a designated number of channelization codes, e.g., by uniformly distributing the available transmit power across all transport blocks and all of the designated number of channelization codes. The UE may estimate SINRs of multiple transport blocks based on POVSF, determine CQI indices for the transport blocks based on the SINRs, and send the CQI indices to a Node B. The Node B may send multiple transport blocks to the UE based on the CQI indices. The Node B may send the transport blocks (i) with the designated number of channelization codes at POVSF or (ii) with a second number of channelization codes at POVSF, with the transport block sizes being scaled based on the designated and second numbers of channelization codes.
US08825090B1

The communication device comprising a power-off notification implementer, a power-off location notifying implementer, a header displaying implementer, a footer displaying implementer, a zone leaving notifying implementer, and a zone entering notifying implementer.
US08825088B2

The present invention relates to a method and system for locating a mobile terminal addressed in a location service request by an overlay identity. A database is accessed to obtain a first routing information of the mobile terminal based on the overlay identity, and the first routing information is then used to access a sub-scriber database in order to derive a second routing information and a cellular identity of the mobile terminal, based on which a location service of the cellular network is initiated. Thereby, a LCS clients of the overlay system (e.g. IMS) can be supported in current LCS services to enhance their functionality.
US08825086B2

The direction display device includes: a wireless communication section to perform near field wireless communication; a barometric pressure measuring section; a converting section to convert barometric pressure into altitude; an orientation measuring section to measure an orientation of a specified direction; an operation section; a display section; a registration controlling section to obtain current positional information from an external positioning device on the basis of a registration instruction of the measured orientation to store the current positional information as registered positional information so as to be correlated to registered orientation information; a registration position extracting section to extract the registered positional information including an altitude value whose difference from the converted altitude is within a predetermined range; and a display controlling section to cause the display section to indicate a direction regarding the registered orientation correlated to the registered positional information.
US08825076B2

A method and an apparatus for terminal locating in long term evolution system are provided by the present invention, wherein, the method includes: calculating the propagation delay from the terminal to the base station to which the terminal belongs, according to the synchronization time advance of the terminal and the signal reception delay of the base station to which the terminal belongs (101); and determining the distance between the terminal and the base station by using said propagation delay, and determining the position of the terminal relative to that of the base station according to said distance and the direction of arrival of the signal from the terminal (102). By applying the method and the apparatus provided by the present invention, the terminal locating can be achieved with low cost, low implementation complexity, and high precision for location only by using a simple algorithm.
US08825064B2

A system and methodology that utilizes data collected by a femto access point (FAP) to identify and prioritize cell sites that can be acquired to improve indoor coverage of an existing communication network is provided. Moreover, the data can include femto network listen measurements that can be utilized to compare the macro coverage provided by the existing communication network with the radio coverage provided by a disparate communication network, for example, by the cell sites of an operator being considered for acquisition. In addition, a number of attachment attempts made to the FAP within a specified period can be calculated. Moreover, this information can be leveraged to make merger/acquisition decisions, including quantifying the number of sites of the disparate communication networks to operate and/or predicting the incremental performance gain opportunities that result due to the operation of the sites of the disparate communication networks.
US08825063B2

A wireless user device maintains wireless access via a public land mobile network and, while maintaining such wireless access, participates with one or more other devices in an instant communication session delivered via a carrier instant communications processing element of the public land mobile network. The session communications from the wireless user device are routed through a processing element of a private communication network for an assignment of a generic identifier to the session communications in place of a user identifier of the wireless user device, and then routed back to the public land mobile network to the carrier instant communications processing element for delivery to the one or more other devices in the instant communication session.
US08825052B2

In response to a transition of a mobile device from a first wireless access network to a second wireless access network, a mapping is applied to obtain a particular mobility state of the mobile device to use in the second wireless access network, where the mapping outputs the particular mobility state in response to information associated with mobility of the mobile device in the first wireless access network.
US08825051B2

Devices and methods are provided for facilitating handing over to a hybrid femto access point that implements multiple radio access technologies (RATs), including a first RAT and a second RAT. In one embodiment, the method involves detecting a pilot from the hybrid femto access point, wherein the pilot is associated with the first RAT. The method involves registering with the hybrid femto access point on a first channel associated with the first RAT based upon the detected pilot. A system selection database is analyzed to identify a second channel associated with the second RAT, and a selection to handover to the identified second channel is effectuated.
US08825050B2

The present invention provides a method of and a network entity for processing a random access preamble. The network entity comprises a transceiver for receiving an random access preamble; and a processor for determining if the random access preamble is successfully detected, and for determining, in the case where the random access preamble is not successfully detected, if a combined preamble resulting from a combination of the random access preamble with a previous random access preamble received at the network entity prior to reception of the random access preamble and having an identical signature to the signature of the random access preamble, is successfully detected.
US08825042B2

An apparatus for determining network health, the network comprising a plurality of network base station transceivers in bidirectional communication with radios operating in the network, a first radio transmitting a transmitted signal. The apparatus comprises first and second devices for determining respective first and second signal parameters of respective first and second received signals, the first and second received signals responsive to the transmitted signal transmitted during normal over-the-air operation of the first radio, wherein the received signal received at the first receiver is time aligned with the received signal received at the second receiver to ensure the first and second devices determine the first and second signal parameters of the same transmitted signal and wherein the network health is responsive to the first and second signal parameters.
US08825040B2

The present invention presents a method and a controller for selecting the type of connection used to connect a terminal device to a serving base station. The connection type is selected on the basis of monitored communication-environmental parameters of the terminal device. The selection is made between a direct cellular radio connection and a relayed cellular radio connection. The relayed connection is established through another terminal device acting as a relay terminal for the connection being relayed. A direct device-to-device link between the two terminal devices is established as a cognitive radio connection, and a radio access technology and communication parameters of the device-to-device link may be negotiated between the terminal devices. The relay terminal then links the device-to-device link to a direct cellular radio connection between the relay terminal and the serving base station.
US08825026B1

The system comprising a first communication device and a second communication device, wherein when the door is locked by the first communication device, a door locked message is displayed on the first communication device and/or the second communication device, wherein when the door is unlocked by the first communication device, a door unlocked message is displayed on the first communication device and/or the second communication device, and wherein the first communication device comprises a word processing implementer.
US08825025B2

A cellular telephone or other wireless communications device supports association with a third party sponsor other than a network operator. The device establishes default user interface settings for the user interface consistent with association with the network operator. The device then determines a desired association with one or more third party sponsors. Based upon the desired association, the device retrieve third party sponsor settings. The device then alters its user interface settings based upon the third party sponsor settings, wherein the altered user interface settings differ from the default user interface settings. The device then communicates with a third party sponsor server computer via the communications interface to exchange information relating to operation of the cellular telephone. Multiple third party sponsors could share access to the user interface. The third party sponsor may be a business, a group of individuals, or another entity.
US08825017B2

Methods and systems are provided to connect telephone calls, such as international phone calls, using both the data network and telephone network of a mobile communication device such as a cellular phone. These systems initially route a call to the destination phone number through a non-international temporary phone number, thereby saving the cost of an international phone call on the mobile phone's service plan. An application on the mobile phone uses the data network to automatically request and receive the substitute termination number, and automatically sets up a call on the telephone network to the substitute termination number, which routes the call to the desired international telephone number. These systems reduce the cost of an international call, permit mobile phone users without international calling plans to make international calls, and automatically connect to an international number through a temporary non-international number using dual networks.
US08825014B2

An apparatus, and an associated methodology, for alerting a user of a radio device of delivery thereto of a text, or other, message. The alert of the received message is made according to a selected schedule and settings and includes a repeat notification. A user selects schedules and settings that define the manner by which the received message is to be annunciated. The user enters the selections by way of a touch screen interface. Determination is made, upon detection, by detector of a received message in what manner to make notification of the message.
US08825013B2

The disclosed embodiments include a system and method for quick note messaging. In one embodiment, a call from a calling party to the communication device is intercepted by a network system. The network system is configured to receive a calling party selection to record a quick note message for a user of the communication device prior to connecting the call. The network system monitors for at least one of a termination of the call by the calling party or a time-out threshold. The network system indicates at the communication device if a quick note message has been received. If the calling party selection to record a quick note message is not received, then the network system is configured to handle call processing normally.
US08825010B2

A cell locking method for a mobile terminal and a mobile terminal capable of locking a cell are disclosed in the present invention. The method includes: the mobile terminal acquiring a system identification (SID), a network identification (NID), a base station identifier (BASE ID) and a pseudo-random number (PN) of a current cell; judging whether the SID, NID, BASE ID and PN are already stored in a database of the mobile terminal, if yes, then setting the mobile terminal to a normal status; judging whether the SID, the NID, and the PN are already stored in the database of the mobile terminal and the database is not full, or whether the BASE ID and PN are already stored in the database of the mobile terminal, if yes, then transferring to D; and D. writing the SID, NID, BASE ID and PN into the database of the mobile terminal.
US08825008B2

An approach is presented for providing the authorized transfer of a mobile device. A platform receives a request to modify ownership status information for a mobile device, and generates in response to the request, a sale identifier based on the ownership status, wherein the sale identifier provides verification that the mobile device can be subject to a transfer of ownership, and specifies device information associated with the mobile device.
US08825001B2

The present invention relates to a system and method for delivering a message to and receiving an acknowledgement from a mobile device, and more specifically, the system and method allows network operators, or any central administration group(s) to issue messages and warnings to a mobile device, which requires an acknowledgement in order for the mobile device to continue functioning without restriction.
US08824998B2

A mechanism is described for facilitating dynamically prioritized control of calls over a network according to one embodiment. A method of embodiments includes receiving, at a computing device, a call reporting an emergency, automatically evaluating the received call and the reported emergency, and assigning a priority level to the call based on the evaluation of the call and the emergency. The method may further include placing the call in a first queue based on the assigned priority level. The call may be picked from the first queue and processed based on the assigned priority level. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08824996B2

A method for broadcasting messages in a wireless communication system is provided. The method includes employing a paging channel to receive a broadcast event on a wireless device and utilizing the broadcast event to trigger a warning message on the device. For example, the broadcast event can be detected from a natural disaster such as a primary earthquake warning or tsunami.
US08824993B2

Frequency translation and applications of same are described herein. Such applications include, but are not limited to, frequency down-conversion, frequency up-conversion, enhanced signal reception, unified down-conversion and filtering, and combinations and applications of same.
US08824981B2

An envelope tracking system and a method for adjusting a nonlinear transfer function of an envelope tracking power supply for a power amplifier are provided. An output signal of the power amplifier is provided to a feedback receiver for determining an actual performance of the envelope tracking power amplifier. An assumed performance of the envelope tracking power amplifier is determined by evaluating the non-linear transfer function at a value defined by an input signal for a transmitter including the power amplifier. A difference between the assumed performance and the actual performance provides a correctional value for the nonlinear transfer function.
US08824977B2

A circuit includes an antenna, and a pair of transceivers. A first transceiver in the pair is connected to the antenna via a first pair of feed-points, and is designed to transmit and receive signals in a first band of frequencies. A second transceiver in the pair is connected to the antenna via a second pair of feed-points, and is designed to transmit and receive signals in a second band of frequencies. The first band and the second band are non-overlapping frequency bands. The first pair of feed-points is located at a voltage null point of the antenna with respect to the second pair of feed-points. The second pair of feed-points is located at a voltage null point of the antenna with respect to the first pair of feed-points. The first transceiver and the second transceiver are, thus, enabled to simultaneously transmit and/or receive corresponding signals using the same antenna.
US08824969B2

A radio base station eNB according to the present invention includes a CA controller unit 12 configured to determine a PCC and SCCs to be used for CA communications, and a receiver unit 11 configured to receive “Measurement Report” from a mobile station UE having detected a cell having a higher radio quality in a certain SCC than a predetermined threshold for a period of TTT or longer, the “Measurement Report” containing the radio quality of the detected cell. If the cell having the highest radio quality in a measurement object CC is not under the control of the radio station eNB, the CA controller unit 12 avoids use of the cell having the highest radio quality for SCC communications in the CA communications.
US08824965B2

The present disclosure provides a device, system and method to present electronic content on a first mobile electronic device in communication and configured to receive electronic content from a second electronic device.
US08824951B2

A toner conveyor includes a noncircular conveyance member rotatable in a predetermined direction of rotation to convey toner to a toner container and a plate-shaped metal scraper slidably contacting the conveyance member with predetermined pressure therebetween to scrape the toner off the conveyance member. The scraper includes a contact end contacting the conveyance member, at least one through-hole spaced apart from the contact end, and a toner carrying face contacting the toner accumulated in the toner container. A lid is attached to the toner carrying face of the scraper to cover the at least one through-hole of the scraper and includes a separation region extending from an upper edge thereof to at least a position disposed opposite a lower edge of the at least one through-hole in a short direction of the scraper. The separation region is separatable from the scraper.
US08824926B2

A fixing device includes a fixing rotator unit and an induction heating portion. The fixing rotator unit includes a heating rotary belt, a pressing member being in contact with the inner surface of the heating rotary belt, a pressurizing rotator forming a fixing nip between the pressurizing rotator and the pressing member, a belt guide member including a guide portion and an extending portion, positioning the heating rotary belt, and guiding rotation. The induction heating portion includes a magnetic-flux generating portion, a magnetic core portion, and a support member supporting the magnetic-flux generating portion. The support member includes a positioning portion that positions the belt guide member by coming into contact with or engaging the extending portion to control a distance between the magnetic-flux generating portion and the outer surface of the heating rotary belt.
US08824922B2

A toner container removably installed into an image forming apparatus body. The toner container includes a pouch member that contains a new toner therein and can be turned inside out, and a cover member that covers an outside of the pouch member and includes an inlet through which a waste toner flows in, the inlet being formed opposite to a side of the cover member from which the new toner contained in the pouch member is discharged. After the new toner contained in the pouch member is discharged, the pouch member is turned inside out, and the waste toner flows from the inlet into the pouch member.
US08824918B2

A developer accommodating unit for accommodating a developer for image formation includes a developer accommodating container including a flexible container provided with openings for permitting discharge of the accommodated developer and sealing member for sealing the openings by a bonding portion and for exposing the openings by being moved, an unsealing member, mounted on the sealing member, for moving the sealing member, and a frame which accommodates the developer accommodating container and the unsealing member and which includes a fixing portion for fixing the flexible container. In addition, connecting potion is disposed between the openings in the flexible container. With respect to an unsealing direction of the sealing member, the fixing portion and the connecting portion are provided so as to overlap with each other.
US08824908B2

An information processing apparatus capable of determining a height of a toner image formed on an image bearing member with high accuracy includes detecting a two-dimensional reflection image corresponding to a reflection image of a beam from the toner image formed on the image bearing member, identifying a representative position based on the detected two-dimensional reflection image, and determining the height of the toner image based on the identified representative position.
US08824904B2

A fixing device includes a temperature measuring unit, configured to measure the temperature in regions that extend partially along the outer surface of a heating rotating body, which includes a resistance heating layer, in the circumferential direction and are aligned in the direction of the axis of rotation of the heat rotating body, and a control unit configured to sample temperatures, measured by the temperature measuring unit in each of the regions, over the entire outer surface of the heating rotating body in the circumferential direction by causing the heating rotating body to rotate while supplying a predetermined amount of power to the resistance heating layer, and to determine whether an abnormality has occurred in the resistance heating layer based on the difference between the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature among the sampled temperatures in each region.
US08824900B2

A method for generating an optical single sideband signal comprising the steps of splitting an optical field into two parts and introducing a relative phase delay of +/−π/4 radians in each direction of transmission to one of the parts, intensity reflection-modulating each part with electrical signals having a relative phase delay of +/−π/2 radians and then recombining the reflection-modulated signals.
US08824898B2

For providing circuit arrangement and method for transmitting signals from a data source to a data sink, the signals being TMDS encoded, the driver circuit is supplied by a connection interface, connected upstream, assigned to data source, with supply voltage, electrical TMDS encoded signals are electro-optically converted by an LED connected downstream of the driver circuit and coupled into an optical fiber as light supplied with TMDS encoded signals, the direct current portion supplied from TMDS transmitter to connection interface, to data source, is converted by driver circuit to a modulated signal current for controlling LED. Light supplied with TMDS encoded signals decoupled out from optical fiber by light-absorbing element, opto-electrically converted and supplied to transimpedance converter circuit connected downstream of light-absorbing element and upstream of connection interface assigned to data sink, transimpedance converter circuit being supplied by direct voltage portion being applied to differential pair of wires.
US08824889B2

A passive optical network (PON) component comprising a first coupler, a second coupler in communication with the first coupler via a plurality of communication paths, a delay module located on one of the communication paths, and a balanced detector in communication with the second coupler. The disclosure includes a method comprising receiving a plurality of optical signals from a plurality of optical network units (ONUs), wherein each ONU is associated with an optical frequency differential, copying at least some of the optical signals, delaying one of the optical signals or the copied optical signals, and producing a radio frequency (RF) signal based on at least one of the optical signals and at least one of the copied optical signals. Also included is a PON component comprising a processor configured to implement a method comprising transmitting an optical signal using an optical frequency differential.
US08824883B2

A lens device (2) is provided with a first operating ring (11) for adjusting the opening surface area of an aperture device (15) and a second operating ring (12) for adjusting the transmittance of a variable light transmittance filter (16). The correspondence relation between the operational amount for the first operating ring and the rate of change in the amount of light transmitted by the aperture device and correspondence relation between the operational amount for the second operating ring and the rate of change in the amount of light transmitted by the variable light transmittance filter are the same.
US08824875B2

There is provided a method for heating a part within a processing chamber of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus having a substrate in the processing chamber and performing a process on the substrate. The heating method includes generating heating lights which is generated by a heating light source provided outside the processing chamber and has a wavelength band capable of passing through a first part in the processing chamber and being absorbed into a second part in the processing chamber made of a material different from that of the first part, and heating the second part in the processing chamber by passing the heating lights through the first part in the processing chamber and irradiating the heating lights to the second part in the processing chamber.
US08824874B2

An operation-mode conversion apparatus for an image display compound device includes a power-state detector which detects a power state of the compound device, an operation-mode determination unit which determines a present operation mode of the compound device, and an operation-mode controller which converts the operation mode of the compound device based on the power state, the present operation mode, and whether one of an optical storage medium and a movable memory is detected by the compound device, in response to a user input signal, regardless of the preset operation mode.
US08824869B2

Access point pictures designated as randomly accessible positions are I pictures or P pictures. Information indicating the decoding sequence (I1, P1, B1, B2, B3, B4, P2, . . . ) of pictures functioning as access points and attribute information (picture_type) indicating whether a picture functions as an access point or is necessary for decoding of the access point following a given access point are recorded on the video information recording medium. Random access is possible even if the GOP interval is lengthened.
US08824864B2

To provide means for editing a content data stream quickly.A data processor according to the present invention can edit a content that has been written on a medium. The content is stored in a file as a data stream including multiple packets of the same packet size. And a file system for accessing data on a cluster size basis has been established on the medium. The data processor includes: a receiving section, which receives an instruction on a partial deletion range including the beginning of the file; and a media control section for deleting data, the size of which is an integral number of times as large as the least common multiple of the cluster size and the packet size, from the beginning of the file within the partial deletion range.
US08824858B2

An information processing apparatus is provided, which includes: a parameter setting section for setting a parameter of a delimitation detecting method with respect to a service that receives content by an operation of an input device; and a delimitation detecting section for detecting delimitation of the received content by the set parameter.
US08824857B2

A method of reproducing a video image is provided. The method includes reproducing a video image in a three-dimensional (3D) manner, being requested to reproduce the video image at an Nx playback speed (N is a natural number equal to or greater than 2), and in response to the request, reproducing the video image at the Nx playback speed. The reproducing of the video image at the Nx playback speed comprises includes reproducing the video image at the Nx playback speed in a two-dimensional (2D) manner.
US08824856B2

A moving image display processing apparatus, method and system is disclosed for displaying a moving image having frames and including additional information related to the moving image. The additional information is a plurality of representative frames from the moving image, each representative frame being a still image representing a group of sequential frames, and an implicative image associated with at least one frame in the group of sequential frames other than the representative frame. The representative frames are displayed in a predetermined sequence such that implicative images are displayed between the representative frames. The moving image and the additional information can be received from different information providers and the additional information may be available for use for a predetermined period of time.
US08824852B2

A cable clamp assembly and a cable clamp method for a flat fiber optic cable are disclosed. The assembly includes a wedge-shaped outer shell with a bottom wall having a friction inner surface with a longitudinal central recess formed therein. The flat fiber optic cable resides within the interior of the outer shell and is supported by the friction inner surface. A shim having two parallel rows of protrusions fits within the interior of the outer shell with the protrusions being in contact with the fiber optic cable. The assembly includes a wedge insert having two outer ridges that substantially align with the two rows of protrusions. When the wedge insert matingly engages the outer shell, the outer ridges press down on the protrusions, which in turn press down on the fiber optic cable mainly at the locations where longitudinal dielectric strength members reside.
US08824845B1

Disclosed are buffer tubes of various colors having reduced stress whitening while retaining compliance with standard color requirements. In this regard, each buffer tube includes a polymeric tube that typically has a small amount of titanium dioxide. Each buffer tube typically demonstrates color compliance with the EIA Standard EIA-359-A.
US08824842B2

An optical semiconductor device, includes: a plurality of first diffraction grating layers disposed at a spacing from each other along first direction above first semiconductor layer, length of a lower surface of each of a plurality of first diffraction gratings along first direction being longer than a length of an upper surface of first diffraction grating; second diffraction grating layer disposed along first direction above first semiconductor layer, first and second diffraction grating layers being alternately disposed at a spacing from each other, a length of an upper surface of second diffraction grating layer along first direction being longer than the length of a lower surface of second diffraction layer; a diffraction grating including first and second diffraction grating layers; a second semiconductor layer disposed between first and second diffraction grating layers and under second diffraction grating layer; and third semiconductor layer disposed on first and second diffraction grating layers.
US08824841B1

An expanded beam optical insert is provided for use in optical data connectors, such as fiber optic connectors or the like. The expanded beam optical insert may be readily assembled, substantially without the use of costly fixturing tools or adhesives, while still allowing the precise positioning of alignment of optical lenses for placement of ferrule assemblies, optical stubs, and the like.
US08824837B2

Improved integration of optoelectronic devices is provided by a spacer layer laterally sandwiched between distinct regions that are monolithically fabricated onto the same substrate (e.g., by selective epitaxy). An optical waveguide in one of the regions can optically couple to an optoelectronic device in another of the regions through the spacer layer, thereby providing a monolithically integrated form of butt-coupling. Preferably, the spacer layer thickness is less than about 50 nm, and is more preferably less than about 20 nm, to reduce optical loss. The spacer layer is preferably electrically insulating, to prevent shorting of devices grown by selective epitaxy.
US08824833B2

Systems and methods for image data fusion include providing first and second sets of image data corresponding to an imaged first and second scene respectively. The scenes at least partially overlap in an overlap region, defining a first collection of overlap image data as part of the first set of image data, and a second collection of overlap image data as part of the second set of image data. The second collection of overlap image data is represented as a plurality of image data subsets such that each of the subsets is based on at least one characteristic of the second collection, and each subset spans the overlap region. A fused set of image data is produced by an image processor, by modifying the first collection of overlap image data based on at least a selected one of, but less than all of, the image data subsets.
US08824832B2

An image processing apparatus includes an image reducing section generating at least one reduced image by generating a reduced pixel with reference to pixel values by each predetermined area of a target image being a process object, a noise extracting section extracting a noise component at a frequency band according to a reduction ratio of the reduced image for each reduced pixel based on the reduced image, a noise subtraction section subtracting the noise component of the reduced pixel from each of pixels at the predetermined area being referred to generate the reduced pixel, and an area smoothing section smoothing the pixels with each other at the predetermined area being referred to generate the reduced pixel based on the noise component of the reduced pixel.
US08824827B2

Systems, methods and apparatus for image processing by classifying pixels are described. In some systems, an exposure control operation is performed according to the pixel classifications. In some cases, the pixels are classified according to a predetermined segmentation of a color space, based on predicted sensor responses.
US08824823B1

Systems, methods, and software for operating an image processing system are provided herein. In a first example, a method of operating an image processing system is provided. The method includes identifying object pixels associated with an object of interest in a scene, identifying additional pixels to associate with the object of interest, and performing an operation based on a depth of the object in the scene on target pixels comprised of the object pixels and the additional pixels to change a quality of the object of interest.
US08824821B2

Method and apparatus for performing visual effects rendering on an image are described. User specifications are processed for at least one visual effect for the image. Scene analysis information associated with the image may be accessed, wherein the scene analysis information is based on the user specifications and indicates at least one pixel of the image for coupling with the at least one visual effect. The at least one pixel is accentuated using depth map information, wherein dimensions for the at least one pixel are determined in response to corresponding depth values of the at least one pixel. An output image is generated having at least one visual effect.
US08824813B2

An image processing device that encodes image data including: an encoding unit which, with a small region line including, arrayed in the horizontal direction, small regions obtained by dividing large regions arrayed in the vertical direction of an image, performs encoding of image data of the large region, advancing the encoding order of small regions in the same order as a scan order, and advancing the encoding order of small region lines in an order different from the scan order; and a control unit that controls the encoding unit to encode in accordance with a state of a left small region situated at a left periphery of a small region to be processed, and a state of a lower small region situated at a lower periphery of the small region to be processed. The device suppresses deterioration in encoding efficiency due to high speed image encoding.
US08824811B2

A portable electronic device is provided. The portable electronic device includes a processor for providing encoding data and an LCD module coupled to the processor. The processor includes an encoder for encoding a frame data to generate the encoding data. The LCD module includes a driver and an LCD coupled to the driver. The driver includes a decoder for decoding the encoding data to obtain an image data. The LCD displays the image data.
US08824809B2

A sort-out cycle such as a judgment of three levels of “usable”, “unusable”, and “reserve” is made to images and, when the judgment of all images is completed, the judgment of the three levels is made again to the “reserve” images is repeated. The number of sort-out cycle times in which the judgment is made is applied as an evaluation to the images which are finally determined as “usable”.
US08824806B1

Content portions to be presented on a display of an electronic device are identified by designating portions of a digital image as content regions and other portions of the digital image as non-content regions. The content portions are then identified from within the content region, in which each content portion has a predetermined width. Each content portion is then expanded to produce an expanded content portion. Each expanded content portion is presented on a display of an electronic device in a sequential manner.
US08824804B2

An image processing apparatus includes: a determining unit determining, in image data including packs each including pixels and serving as a unit, a monotonic pack including pixels equal to a precedently image-processed preceding pixel and a normal pack other than the monotonic pack; a pixel row forming unit forming a pixel row including aligned pixels of the normal pack, while deleting the pixels of the monotonic pack; a pixel row processing unit processing the formed pixel row by inputting the pixel row to an image processing unit; and a supplementing unit supplementing an image processing result of the pixel row output from the image processing unit with, as an image processing result of the deleted pixels of the monotonic pack, a result of image processing by the image processing unit on the preceding pixel of the normal pack, to thereby obtain an image processing result of the image data.
US08824800B2

A method and system for analysis of immunoassays, and more specifically to an improved analysis of chromatographic assays, often referred to as a lateral flow assay is disclosed. These assays commonly employ a test strip utilizing visible particles as the labels for the analytes to be detected, where, as an additional feature, the analytical strip is removable for reading the quantity of analytes captured therein and for archival purposes. An image of the test strip is analyzed automatically.
US08824799B1

A method for encoding an image, one embodiment comprising analyzing colors and spatial features of pixels of the image to identify a text region separate from a picture region; generating, for a portion of the text region, a mask dividing the portion into background pixels and text pixels, the background pixels identified as pixels with a constant color, the text pixels identified as pixels contrasting the constant color and comprising a plurality of colors; analyzing chrominance values of the plurality of colors to determine a text chrominance; generating, for each text pixel of the plurality of text pixels, a text pixel value to generate text pixel values, each text pixel value based on a luminance of a text pixel for which it was generated; and transmitting an encoding of the portion comprising an encoding of each of the constant color, the mask, the text chrominance and the text pixel values.
US08824790B2

A pixel block is compressed by providing a respective color component prediction for each pixel in the block. A difference between color components of two neighboring pixels is calculated and compared to a threshold. If the difference is smaller than the threshold, the prediction is calculated based on a first linear combination of the color components of these two neighboring pixels. However, if the difference exceeds the threshold, a second or third linear combination of the color components of the neighboring pixels is employed in the prediction. A guiding bit associated with the selected linear combination may be used. A prediction error is calculated based on the color component of the pixel and the provided prediction. The compressed block comprises an encoded representation of the prediction error and any guiding bit.
US08824789B2

According to one embodiment, an image encode controller includes a chroma component adjuster, a difference generator, a quantizer, an inverse-quantizer, and a variable codeword length encoder. The chroma component adjuster adjusts an original color component in accordance with a quantization coefficient to generate an adjusted chroma component. The difference generator generates a difference pixel component. The quantizer quantizes an output of the difference generator based on the quantization coefficient. The inverse-quantizer inversely quantizes an output of the quantizer based on the quantization coefficient. The variable codeword length encoder performs variable codeword length encoding with respect to an output of the quantizer to generate encoded data. The difference generator generates the difference pixel component based on a pixel component corresponding to an i-th pixel (where i denotes natural number), the adjusted chroma component, and an output of the inverse-quantizer corresponding to the (i−1)th pixel.
US08824777B2

There is provided a method of post-correction of a 3D feature point-based direct teaching trajectory, which improves direct teaching performance by extracting shape-based feature points based on curvature and velocity and improving a direct teaching trajectory correction algorithm using the shape-based feature points. Particularly, there is provided a method of post-correction of a 3D feature point-based direct teaching trajectory, which makes it possible to extract and post-correct a 3D (i.e., spatial) trajectory, as well as a 2D (i.e., planar) trajectory, with higher accuracy.
US08824774B2

The pattern inspection apparatus of the present invention performs comparison between images of regions corresponding to patterns formed to be same patterns, thereby determining mismatch portions across the images to be defects. The apparatus includes multiple sensors that synchronously acquire images of shiftable multiple detection systems different from one another, and an image comparator section corresponding thereto. In addition, the apparatus includes a means for detecting a statistical offset value from the feature amount to be a defect, thereby properly detecting the defect even when a brightness difference is occurring in association with film a thickness difference in a wafer.
US08824763B2

Disclosed is an image reconfiguration method for electro-magnetic tomography. The image reconfiguration method for electro-magnetic tomography includes: measuring electric field values of each electro-magnetic wave for normal tissue, benign tumor tissue, and cancer tissue that are body tissue properties to perform signal processing on the electric field values of the electro-magnetic waves; calculating the electric field values of the electro-magnetic waves that are subjected to the signal processing as specific image reconfiguration data values; and comparing with the calculated specific image reconfiguration data value and applying to a nonlinear image transform function to convert into amplified image output data value, thereby outputting an image based on the image output data value, wherein the nonlinear image transform function is an exponential function or log function based nonlinear image transform function that selectively amplifies only a difference in the specific image reconfiguration data values between the body tissues.
US08824762B2

A method of processing ultrasound data includes receiving ultrasound data for a first ultrasound image, the first ultrasound image being represented as a first set of discrete pixels corresponding to positions of a region of interest; receiving ultrasound data for a second ultrasound image, the second ultrasound image being represented as a second set of discrete pixels corresponding to positions of the region of interest; generating a displacement map by minimizing a cost function using a dynamic programming procedure that identifies each of the first set of discrete pixels with a corresponding one of the second set of discrete pixels; refining the displacement map to obtain intermediate displacement values corresponding to positions between the discrete pixels based on minimizing a local approximation to the cost function; and calculating a physical property of the region of interest based on the displacement map.
US08824754B2

A hand carried medical imaging device includes a probe configured to acquire raw medical image data, an integrated display, a data memory configured to store the acquired raw medical image data, a back end processor, and a user interface operably coupled to the back end processor configured to receive commands from a user and to instruct the back end processor to display the produced medical image on the integrated display at a first resolution, and to either produce and send either the medical image at the second, higher resolution, to send the acquired raw image data, or both, to the external device, in accordance with the commands from the user.
US08824753B2

A method for noise suppression in a 3-D volume image, executed at least in part on a logic processor, obtains the 3-D volume image, applies diffusion to the volume image according to a parameter that relates to image scale and is specified in an operator instruction, and displays the volume image modified according to the applied diffusion.
US08824750B2

A method and a system for distributing facial identifiers to gateways are described. The system has one or more gateways and a web server associate with the gateways. Each gateway is coupled to a video capturing device. The web server identifies one or more gateways using a metadata associated with a picture of a face. The web server then distributes the picture of the face and the metadata to the identified gateways.
US08824749B2

A method for biometric identification for use with a computing device is provided herein. The method includes capturing a temporal sequence of images of the face of a user at different locations within a three-dimensional interaction space. The method further includes extracting one or more face descriptors from the images and generating a biometric template compiling the face descriptors.
US08824745B2

A map information display apparatus for displaying map information on the basis of information on image-capturing times and image-capturing positions that are respectively associated with a plurality of captured images includes a captured image extraction unit configured to extract images captured within a predetermined time period that includes the image-capturing time of a predetermined captured image from among the plurality of captured images; a map area selection unit configured to select an area of a map so as to include the image-capturing positions of the captured images extracted by the captured image extraction unit by using as a reference the image-capturing position of the predetermined captured image; and a map information display unit configured to display map information in such a manner that the area of the map, which is selected by the map area selection unit, is displayed.
US08824742B2

A system for detecting a vehicle occupancy violation includes an image capture module that acquires an image including a vehicle cabin from a camera positioned to view oncoming traffic. The system includes a violation determination device, which includes a feature extraction module that processes the image pixels for determining an image descriptor. The process is selected from a group consisting of a Successive Mean Quantization Transform; a Scale-Invariant Feature Transform; a Histogram of Gradients; a Bag-of-Visual-Words Representation; a Fisher Vector Representation; and, a combination of the above. The system further includes a classifier that determines a distance that the vehicle image descriptor/representation is positioned in the projected feature space relative to a hyper-plane. The classifier determines whether the distance meets a threshold and classifies the image when the threshold is met. A processor implements the modules. A graphic user interface outputs the classification.
US08824741B2

The invention relates to a method for estimating the roll angle in a travelling vehicle (7), comprising the following steps. In step a), a camera (8) is used to record a sequence of images of the vehicle's surroundings, in particular of the road (1) ahead. In step b), at least one signature (S1-S6) on the road surface is extracted from the camera images, i.e. said signature is determined and tracked. The changed position of the at least one signature (S1-S6) in one or more subsequent camera image(s) is used in step c) to determine in which direction the camera (8) is turned with regard to the roll angle.The value of the roll angle is estimated in step d).For this purpose, the roll angle is either directly estimated in step d1), taking into account the vehicle speed (v) and an imaging model of the camera (8), or the roll angle is iteratively increased or decreased by a defined correction angle in step d2) until the roll angle sufficiently compensates for the turning of the camera (8). On this basis, the estimated roll angle is obtained as an overall correction value.
US08824730B2

A system and method for control of video bandwidth based on the pose of a person. In one embodiment, a plurality of video streams is obtained that are representative of images at a first location. The video streams are communicated from the first location to a second location. A pose of the head of a person is determined wherein the person is at one of the first location and the second location. The images at the second location are displayed, wherein bandwidth for communication of the video streams is allocated among the video streams based on the pose of the head of the person.
US08824721B2

A sports board apparatus and method including a first speaker housing adapted to receive a first speaker and an audio device housing adapted to receive an audio device. The first speaker housing can be adapted to mount the first speaker substantially flush with the top surface of the sports board. The audio device housing can be adapted to mount an audio device substantially flush with the top surface of the sports board. An electrical conduit can be operably coupled to the first speaker housing and adapted to be coupled to the audio device so that a sports board owner can listen to music or other audio programming while engaging in leisurely activities, such as surfing, snowboarding, kayaking, wakeboarding, windsurfing, or skateboarding. The sports board can also include a stabilizing fin, a power supply, a solar collection device, an amplifying device, and a second speaker for deterring aquatic creatures.
US08824711B1

Disclosed herein, among other things, are methods and apparatus for improving speech intelligibility for speech-in-noise in audio processing and hearing assistance devices. The present subject matter includes a method for improving speech intelligibility for speech-in-noise for audio processing and hearing assistance devices. The method includes receiving an audio signal using a microphone array and processing the received signal to improve speech intelligibility in noise. A barrier-type beamforming process is used to improve signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the microphone array. The beamforming process includes convex optimization using a logarithmic barrier function, according to various embodiments.
US08824708B2

An oscillation device (100) includes a piezoelectric element (121), a vibrating member (122) which binds one surface of the piezoelectric element (121) and is formed of a metal material, a resin member (123) which holds an outer circumferential portion of the vibrating member (122), a piezoelectric element (111), a vibrating member (122) which binds one surface of the piezoelectric element (111), is overlapped with the vibrating member (121) and the resin member (123) when seen in a plan view, and is formed of a metal material, and a support member (140) which supports the resin member (123) and the vibrating member (112), wherein at least one opening (150), which connects a space (170) positioned between the vibrating member (121) and the resin member (123), and the vibrating member (122) to the outside of the space (170), is provided in at least one of the vibrating member (121), the resin member (123), and the vibrating member (112).
US08824702B2

The present invention provides a reverse-phase modulating structure of a piezoelectric ceramic speaker, comprising a positioning frame, an acoustic generator and two or more than two flexible units; wherein the acoustic generator comprises a plurality of ceramic layers stacked onto one another to form a ceramic slat, and said flexible units are clamped between an inner edge of the positioning frame and the acoustic generator. Via the pressure exerted onto the acoustic member by the flexible units, the in-phase movement of the acoustic generator can be modulated and the phase conflict of the acoustic generator can be reduced as well as the prevision of the sound quality distortions such that high quality of the ceramic speaker can be enhanced and realized.
US08824698B2

There is provided an integrated circuit device having a wiring board 1200′, the wiring board 1200′ including: a first vibrating membrane 714-1 which forms a first microphone; a second vibrating membrane 714-2 which forms a second microphone; and a differential signal generating circuit 720 which receives a first voltage signal obtained in the first microphone and a second voltage signal obtained in the second microphone and generates a differential signal indicating a difference between the first and second voltage signals, and a voice input device and an information processing system including the same. Accordingly, it is possible to realize a voice input element having a small size and a noise removal function with high accuracy.
US08824697B2

A communication system for a passenger compartment includes at least two microphone arrays arranged within first and second regions, respectively, in the passenger compartment, and at least two loudspeakers and a signal processor connected to the microphone arrays and to the loudspeaker. Each microphone array has at least two microphones and provides an audio signal. Each loudspeaker is located within a different one of the first and the second regions. The signal processor processes the audio signal from the microphone array within the first region and provides the processed audio signal to the loudspeaker located within the second region.
US08824696B2

A system and method for supplying power to a headset, and for transmitting multiple signals generated in the headset to a terminal using frequency division multiplexing. An audio signal and a carrier signal are generated in the terminal and summed together to form a composite uplink signal. The composite uplink signal is provided to a headset over a first physical channel. At the headset, the audio and carrier signals are separated, and the carrier signal is used to generate power in the headset. Signals generated by a plurality of acoustic sensors in the headset are combined using frequency division multiplexing to generate a composite downlink signal, which is transmitted to the terminal over a second physical channel. One or more carrier signals used to generate the composite downlink signal are provided by either a carrier source in the headset, or by recovering the carrier signal from the composite uplink signal.
US08824694B2

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a communication device having a controller to monitor ambient noise in proximity to the communication device, monitor a transmitted voice signal associated with the communication device, adjust a receiver volume for the transmitted voice signal based at least in part on a comparison of the transmitted voice signal with the ambient noise, monitor a received voice signal associated with the communication device, and adjust a speaker volume for the received voice signal based at least in part on a comparison of the received voice signal with the ambient noise, where the adjusting of the receiver volume is independent of the adjusting of the speaker volume. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US08824692B2

A self calibrating dipole microphone formed from two omni-directional acoustic sensors. The microphone includes a sound source acoustically coupled to the acoustic sensors and a processor. The sound source is excited with a test signal, exposing the acoustic sensors to acoustic calibration signals. The responses of the acoustic sensors to the calibration signals are compared by the processor, and one or more correction factors determined. Digital filter coefficients are calculated based on the one or more correction factors, and applied to the output signals of the acoustic sensors to compensate for differences in the sensitivities of the acoustic sensors. The filtered signals provide acoustic sensor outputs having matching responses, which are subtractively combined to form the dipole microphone output.
US08824689B2

An apparatus for determining a spatial output multi-channel audio signal based on an input audio signal and an input parameter. The apparatus includes a decomposer for decomposing the input audio signal based on the input parameter to obtain a first decomposed signal and a second decomposed signal different from each other. Furthermore, the apparatus includes a renderer for rendering the first decomposed signal to obtain a first rendered signal having a first semantic property and for rendering the second decomposed signal to obtain a second rendered signal having a second semantic property being different from the first semantic property. The apparatus comprises a processor for processing the first rendered signal and the second rendered signal to obtain the spatial output multi-channel audio signal.
US08824686B1

Apparatus and method for synchronizing encryption keys among a cluster of security appliances and stand alone lifetime key management, LKM, appliances. The cluster includes security appliances where new encryption keys are generated and assigned to an SNS ID with an SNS CTR (counter). The security appliances inside a cluster have local sequence counters and share their keys. One security appliance is a coordinator with which the LKMs will synchronize. Each LKM also has a SNS ID and local sequence counter from which increasing sequence numbers are generated. In each security appliance in a cluster, the up-to-date stored sets of keys are organized with respect to SNS IDs and SNS CTRs associated with the other cluster members. The object keys are stored in the SNS space and a peer map associates a given peer with a given SNS ID, and version numbers are assigned and incremented when a key is modified.
US08824680B2

A first network device is configured to receive a request for a secret key, generate the secret key, and send the secret key to a second network device, a third network device, and a wireless user device. The second network device may send content, encrypted with the secret key, to the wireless user device. The third network device may send content, encrypted with the secret key, to the wireless user device when the second network device is not sending content to the wireless user device. The wireless user device may use the secret key to decrypt the content received from the second network device or the third network device.
US08824673B2

A machine management method includes installing software in a machine including a security device that holds a secret key unextractable from the security device and a public key extractable from the security device, encrypts input data with the public key, and decrypts the input data with the secret key; storing machine identification information of the machine in association with software identification information of the software installed in the machine in an external management apparatus; creating a device-encryption key to encrypt data stored on a first storage device of the machine; storing a device-encryption-key BLOB obtained by encrypting the device-encryption key with the public key on a second storage device of the machine; and storing the device-encryption key in association with the machine identification information in the external management apparatus.
US08824658B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for routing callers to agents in a contact center, along with an intelligent routing system. An exemplary method includes mapping a first portion (or fraction) of callers to agents according to a performance and/or pattern matching algorithm based on comparing caller data associated with the callers and agent data associated with the agents. The method further includes mapping a second portion of the callers (e.g., the remaining portion or fraction of all callers) to agents differently than the first portion of the callers (e.g., mapping based on queue order or performance based), which may provide a control group for monitoring or analyzing the effect of the pattern matching algorithm. The method may further include displaying the effect of the routing on at least one outcome variable, which may include revenue generation, cost, customer satisfaction, first call resolution, cancellation, or other variable outputs from the pattern matching algorithm of the system.
US08824656B2

A method and system self-supportable devices and applications are provided. The method and system in one embodiment allows devices and applications to automatically communicate and service themselves, for example, by checking knowledgebase services and other services for instructions on how to handle an exception. In another embodiment, the devices and applications automatically initiate actions needed to handle the exception.
US08824650B2

Methods, systems, and products provide called party identification to a calling party. A communication is processed from a calling communications address to one of a plurality of communications addresses associated with a simultaneous ring. When an answer is detected at one of the plurality of communications addresses, an answering communications address is sent to the calling communications address.
US08824642B2

Methods and apparatuses for enabling a user to perform telecommunication operations are disclosed. A method disclosed includes receiving a device having a storage containing data corresponding to an account identifier and data associated with a voice portal and then establishing a connection with a server associated with the voice portal. Upon establishing the connection, the data corresponding to the account identifier is provided to the server associated with the voice portal. Then, upon confirmation by the server that the account identifier corresponds to an active subscriber account, the user is enabled to perform selected operations of the voice portal using voice input commands based on limitations, if any, associated with the active subscriber account.
US08824637B2

An X-ray tube is produced by forming a first housing section 20 from sheet metal; forming a second housing section 22 from sheet metal, mounting an electron source 18 in one of the housing sections; mounting an anode 16 in one of the housing sections; and joining the housing sections 20, 22 together to form a housing defining a chamber with the electron source 18 and the anode 16 therein.
US08824629B2

In each of a first phase shift differential image produced in the absence of a subject in preliminary imaging and a second phase shift differential image produced in the presence of the subject in main imaging, boundaries, at each of which a value changes from π/2 to −π/2 or from −π/2 to π/2, are determined. First and second staircase data in each of which a value changes by π or −π when crossing each of the boundaries in a predetermined direction is produced. The first and second staircase data is added to the first and second phase shift differential images to produce first and second added phase shift differential image, respectively. The first added phase shift differential image is subtracted from the second added phase shift differential image to produce a corrected phase shift differential image.
US08824624B2

An imaging system (100) includes a stationary gantry (102) and a rotating gantry (104). The rotating gantry (104) includes a first component (110, 114, 116) supplied with first power and a second component supplied with second power, wherein the first and second power are different. A contactless power chain (118) includes a first transformer (202, 204, 306) for transferring the first power from the stationary gantry (102) to the rotating gantry (104) and a second transformer (202, 204, 306) for transferring the second power from the stationary gantry (102) to the rotating gantry (104). The first and second transformers (202, 204, 306) are shifted relative to each other along the longitudinal axis (108) by a pre-determined finite non-zero distance (240). In another embodiment, an imaging system (100) includes a stationary gantry (102) and a rotating gantry (104) that rotates about a longitudinal axis (108). A contactless power chain (118) transfers power from the stationary gantry (102) to the rotating gantry (104), wherein windings (214, 218, 230, 234) of the contactless power chain (118) are carried by a non-resin based carrier (700).
US08824618B2

Disclosed is an unlatching tool that may be used to unlatch a control rod from a control drive. The unlatching tool may include a baseplate, a first guide member and a second guide member attached to the baseplate, a first frame and a second frame attached to the baseplate, a stepper motor attached to the first frame, a worm drive attached to the first frame, a cable reel shaft attached to the first and second frame, a hose wrapped around the cable reel shaft, and a hook attached to a first end of the hose. The hook may include a cylindrical sleeve having a at least one finger configured to fold and unfold. Disclosed also is a method of unlatching a control rod from a control drive.
US08824616B1

In an example, the phase interpolator (PI) is provided to adjust the phase of a clock such that the phase is aligned to an incoming data pattern from a data stream. The data can be captured from a device such as a flip-flop or the like. The present technique uses a PI (digital to phase) and a digital state machine in a feedback loop to set the correct digital code to the PI inputs to achieve an appropriate clock phase. Of course, there can be variations.
US08824615B2

A frequency tracking circuit is disclosed. The frequency tracking circuit includes an edge selector, a phase-frequency processor and a digital controlled oscillator. The edge selector receives a data signal and feedback clock signal and sequentially outputs a data edge signal and a feedback-clock-edge signal. The phase-frequency processor receives the data edge signal and the feedback-clock-edge signal and outputs a frequency adjusting digital signal after executing differential operation according to a first phase difference and a second phase difference. The digital controlled oscillator receives the frequency adjusting digital signal so as to adjust frequency of the feedback clock signal. The phase-frequency processor outputs a frequency tracking signal to the edge selector, wherein the edge selector utilizes the frequency tracking signal for acquiring the data edge signal and utilizes the data edge signal for acquiring the feedback-clock-edge signal.
US08824609B2

A synthesizing unit of a receiving device according to an embodiment synthesizes fixed components, which are fixed between carriers of an effective symbol, included in inter-carrier interference (ICI) in a broadcast signal on which fast Fourier transform (FFT) has been performed in view of an adding position of the guard interval in the broadcast signal and ICI in a broadcast signal on which FFT has been performed without considering the adding position, according to an addition amount of the guard interval. The ICI calculating unit calculates ICI to be removed from the broadcast signal based on the fixed component synthesized by the synthesizing unit.
US08824606B2

A receiver unit of a communication device can employ multiple correlators for decoding the access address of a packet received from another communication device. A dynamically determined primary frequency offset is applied to a phase difference signal that is determined from an RF signal that comprises the packet. For each of a plurality of access address decoding chains of the receiver unit, a secondary frequency offset associated with the access address decoding chain is applied to the phase difference signal, the phase difference signal is correlated with a predetermined access address of the communication device, and a resultant correlation output is compared against a correlation threshold. One of the access address decoding chains that generated the correlation output that is greater than the correlation threshold is selected and the packet is demodulated based, at least in part, on the phase difference signal corresponding to the selected access address decoding chain.
US08824604B2

An apparatus and method for symbol decoding by selecting a degree of freedom (DOF) parameter for a noise vector; selecting a delta probability value; computing a cost function for a lattice point that is one of a discrete set of nominal codeword positions in a hypersphere; selecting a sphere decoding radius based on the DOF parameter, the delta probability value and the cost function; and decoding a symbol using the sphere decoding radius. And, the apparatus and method of setting pre-defined threshold probabilities; computing threshold radii based on the pre-defined threshold probabilities; setting an initial sphere radius square to the value of a first threshold radii; finding the Lattice point based on the initial sphere radius square; computing an updated sphere radius square as the minimum of either a cost function or a second threshold radii; and finding a next lattice point based on the updated sphere radius square.
US08824601B2

System(s) and method(s) are provided to transmit simultaneously a first and a second communication channel in a single-carrier waveform format with disparate error rate requirements. First channel and second channel are coded individually to form an alphabet for a first and second constellation. Prior to transmission, bits of information of the first and second channels are modulated with a hierarchical modulation constellation is generated through a combination of a first a second constellation; each constellation is assigned a configurable weight (e.g., a “hierarchic weight”) that is expressed in terms of a configurable energy ratio. The energy ratio determines the resilience of bits associated with the first and second channel. Bit mapping within the first and second constellation provides redundancy to mitigate error rate within each quadrant of the hierarchical constellation. Hierarchical modulation of more than two channels can be accomplished through the same principal of individual coding and constellation composition.
US08824592B2

A modulated impulse generating apparatus includes a source signal generator that generates a source signal, a first oscillation unit that, when activated, a signal having extracts a desired frequency component from the source signal generated by the source signal generator and causes amplitude of the extracted signal to increase, a second oscillation unit that, receives input of a signal caused to increase by the first oscillation unit, and that, when activated, causes amplitude of the input signal to increase together with the first oscillation unit and outputs a modulated impulse modulated wave, and an activation unit that activates the first oscillation unit after the source signal generated by the source signal generator has been input to the first oscillation unit and activates the second oscillation unit after a certain time period has elapsed and oscillation amplitude of the input signal has increased.
US08824586B2

Performance in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems may be enhanced by configuring beams in a direction that reduces coupling between the beams. A decoupling metric may be calculated based on signal strengths received through the beams when an antenna system is pointed in different directions. The decoupling metric may be used to select a particular direction for operation of the antenna system. The decoupling metric may be combined with the signal strengths from each beam to select a direction for the antenna. An interface provides information to a user during positioning of the antenna to allow the user to select a direction for placement of the antenna that reduces coupling between beams in the MIMO antenna system.
US08824584B2

A method for transmitting a sounding reference signal in a MIMO wireless communication system and an apparatus therefor are disclosed. The method for transmitting sounding reference signals (SRSs) in a MIMO wireless communication system comprises receiving sounding reference signal parameters from a base station; receiving information of the number of sounding reference signals which will be transmitted at a transmission time instant from the base station; if a plurality of sounding reference signals are provided, generating the sounding reference signals corresponding to each of the plurality of antennas by using the sounding reference signal parameters; and transmitting the generated sounding reference signals to the base station through their corresponding antennas at a specific transmission instant.
US08824583B2

Techniques for transmitting data using channel information for a subset of all subcarriers used for data transmission are described. A transmitter station receives channel information for at least one subcarrier that is a subset of multiple subcarriers used for data transmission. The channel information may include at least one transmit steering matrix, at least one set of eigenvectors, at least one channel response matrix, at least one channel covariance matrix, an unsteered pilot, or a steered pilot for the at least one subcarrier. The transmitter station obtains at least one transmit steering matrix for the at least one subcarrier from the channel information and determines a transmit steering matrix for each of the multiple subcarriers. The transmitter station performs transmit steering or beam-steering for each of the multiple subcarriers with the transmit steering matrix for that subcarrier.
US08824572B2

Methods and systems are provided for timing synchronization for reception of highly-spectrally efficient communications. An example method may include, mapping, in a transmitter, a plurality of transmit bits to a plurality of symbols at a symbol rate that is based on an oscillator signal. The plurality of symbols may be processed via a filter. The processing may result in an inter-symbol correlated (ISC) signal. The oscillator signal may be frequency divided to generate one or more pilot signals having a frequency that is a sub-harmonic of a frequency of the oscillator signal. The pilot signal may be injected into the ISC signal. The injecting may result in an ISC signal with timing carrier. The ISC signal with timing carrier may be transmitted. Gain of the one or more pilot signals may be adjusted based on a spectral mask value associated with the transmitting.
US08824567B2

A method and device for tracking error propagation and refreshing a video stream is provided. The proposed subject matter comprises of an error propagation tracking method that works in the sub-sampled domain to reduce computational cycles and memory bandwidth. Further, the tracking based update of the error propagation metric is done differently for static and non-static regions to avoid unnecessary refresh of static areas. Through suitable thresholding of the metric at a macroblock (MB) level, a set of refresh MBs are selected for each frame. These refresh MBs are coded either as an intra MB or as an inter MB that is predicted from one or more reliable reference frames (—frames that are known to be available at the decoder with negligible errors—). Such inter coding of refresh MBs improves the compression efficiency when compared to pure intra coding of refresh MBs. Further, variants to the threshold selection are presented that result in temporally uniform distribution of the number of refresh MBs and a strict refresh scheme wherein all MBs are guaranteed to be with negligible errors following a packet loss within a committed refresh period. In addition, to using the error propagation metric, spatial connectivity to already chosen refresh MBs is used in the selection of additional refresh MBs within a frame and across frames; this reduces the rate of error propagation due to part of a macroblock predicting from older, erroneous neighboring MBs and in turn requiring more refresh MBs on the average per frame.
US08824565B2

A method and apparatus for performing motion estimation in a digital video system is disclosed. Specifically, the present invention discloses a system that quickly calculates estimated motion vectors in a very efficient manner. In one embodiment, a first multiplicand is determined by multiplying a first display time difference between a first video picture and a second video picture by a power of two scale value. This step scales up a numerator for a ratio. Next, the system determines a scaled ratio by dividing that scaled numerator by a second first display time difference between said second video picture and a third video picture. The scaled ratio is then stored calculating motion vector estimations. By storing the scaled ratio, all the estimated motion vectors can be calculated quickly with good precision since the scaled ratio saves significant bits and reducing the scale is performed by simple shifts.
US08824561B2

An image decoding device and method analyzes a parameter of the encoded bit stream to restore a 1-bit information to indicate that temporal distance between any two successive video frames to be displayed is constant in the video sequence, the 1-bit information being analyzed prior to a decoding process for a data area representing the video frames, A VOP decoder decodes a VOP that is image data serving as an encoding unit of video object and a VOL header analyzing part decodes a VOP rate flag, contained in encoded form in a header information part of a VOL layer composed of several VOPs, for indicating that a display rate in the VOL of the VOP to be decoded by the VOP decoder is a fixed rate by the VOP rate flag only.
US08824556B2

An image decoding method includes decoding encoded image data to generate a decoded image signal including a luma signal and a chroma signal. The method further includes scaling, when a reference field has a different parity from a current field for motion compensation and when the decoded image signal is in a format in which the number of chroma pixels is vertically different from the number of luma pixels, a chroma motion vector of the chroma signal according to an accuracy for a luma motion vector of the luma signal so that a reference frame will coincide in phase of the chroma signal with a current frame. The method also includes performing motion compensation of the decoded image signal using the scaled chroma motion vector according to the accuracy of the luma motion vector of the luma signal.
US08824555B2

A temporal motion vector predictor is includable, together with one or more spatial motion vector predictors, in a set of motion vector predictors for a block to encode of a current frame. A method of determining the temporal motion vector predictor comprises selecting as the temporal predictor one motion vector from among motion vectors in a reference block of a reference frame different from the current frame. The reference block is a block of the reference frame collocated with the block to encode or a block of the reference frame neighboring the collocated block. The selection is based on a diversity criterion for achieving diversity among the predictors of the set.This can reduce the motion vector memory requirements with no or no significant additional coding efficiency penalty. Alternatively, even if the motion vector memory is not reduced in size, coding efficiency improvements can be achieved.
US08824554B2

Video analytics systems and methods are described that typically comprise a video encoder operable to generate macroblock video analytics metadata (VAMD) from a video frame. Functional modules receive the VAMD and an encoded version of the video frame is configured to generate video analytics information related to the frame using the VAMD and the encoded video frame. The downstream decoder can use the VAMD to obtain a global motion vector related to the frame, detect and track motion of an object within the frame and monitor a line provided or found within the frame. Traversals of the line by a moving object can be detected and counted using information in the VAMD and the line may be part of a polygon that delineates an area to be monitored within the encoded frame. The VAMD can comprise macroblock level and video frame level information.
US08824551B2

A method and apparatus for decoding a video and a method and apparatus for encoding a video are provided. The method for decoding the video includes: receiving and parsing a bitstream of an encoded video; extracting, from the bitstream, encoded image data of a current picture of the encoded video assigned to a maximum coding unit, and information about a coded depth and an encoding mode according to the maximum coding unit; and decoding the encoded image data for the maximum coding unit based on the information about the coded depth and the encoding mode for the maximum coding unit, in consideration of a raster scanning order for the maximum coding unit and a zigzag scanning order for coding units of the maximum coding unit according to depths.
US08824541B2

A method for decoding a video bitstream is disclosed. The method comprises: entropy decoding a first portion (112-1) of a video bitstream (52), wherein first portion (112-1) of video bitstream is associated with a video frame (110), thereby producing a first portion (112-1) of decoded data; entropy decoding a second portion (112-2) of video bitstream (52), wherein second portion (112-2) of video bitstream (52) is associated with video frame (110), thereby producing a second portion (112-2) of decoded data, wherein entropy decoding second portion (112-2) of video bitstream (52) is independent of entropy decoding first portion (112-1) of video bitstream (52); and reconstructing a first portion (112-1) of video frame (110) associated with video bitstream (52) using first portion (112-1) of decoded data and second portion (112-2) of decoded data.
US08824539B2

An OFDM receiver for processing an OFDM received signal to perform OFDM reception in presence of Doppler effects is provided. The receiver has at least two parallel processing chains, each processing chain has a time domain windowing for processing an OFDM block. The processing consisting of the multiplication, element by element of the OFDM block, by a set of predetermined coefficients.The receiver also has a DFT block (such as FFT) for demodulating said windowed OFDM symbol into the frequency domain equivalent wherein the windowings of the at least two parallel processing chains have complementary profiles so as to avoid any loss of information throughout the OFDM sample. The invention also provides a process to be used in an OFDM receiver.
US08824530B1

A modem for handling notifications received over a network is disclosed. In one embodiment, the modem includes a first interface to connect to a network, a second interface to connect to a host processor on a terminal and a modem processor to receive presence configuration information from the host processor and in response thereto transmit a request comprising the presence configuration information to a presence information store. The modem processor further arranged to receive one or more notifications with presence information from the store based on the presence configuration information in the request. The presence information supplied to the store by one or more further terminals associated with one or more users. The modem processor stores the one or more notifications in a storage means, and in response to receiving a request for presence information from said host processor, supply presence information thereto based on the one or more notifications.
US08824525B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a multipath searching method and a multipath searcher, to improve accuracy of delay estimation, thereby improving performance of a receiver. The method includes: performing processing on received signals ri(t) and pilot sequences pi(t) to obtain upsampling signals y(τ); subtracting contribution values of a current multipath waveform to other multipath waveforms by using a raised cosine function with a peak position set to zero and according to a global maximum value of |y(τ)|2 and a total of M sampling points {circumflex over (τ)}1(m) near the global maximum value, to obtain an upsampling signal yL(τ) having a minimum residual in M groups of upsampling signals yL(m)(τ); and obtaining a time delay power spectrum of the upsampling signal yL(τ) having the minimum residual.
US08824520B2

A laser includes: a substrate; a first reflector including pairs of high and low refractive index layers; an active region forming a resonator; a second reflector including an emission surface and pairs of high and low refractive index layers; an extending region thicker than oscillation wavelength, extending the length of the resonator, and including a conductive semiconductor material; a confining layer including a high refractive index region and a surrounding low refractive index region; and an additional film allowing the oscillation wavelength to transmit therethrough. The first and second reflectors, the extending region, and the active region determine a reflection band including resonance wavelengths, in one of which oscillation occurs. The additional film includes central and outer circumferential portions having different thicknesses to suppress resonance in the high refractive index region and the extending region. The central and outer circumferential portions overlap the high and low refractive index regions, respectively.
US08824519B1

Optical pump modules comprising VCSEL and VCSEL array devices provide high optical power for configuring fiber optic gain systems such as fiber laser and fiber amplifier particularly suited for high power operation. Pump modules may be constructed using two reflector or three reflector VCSEL devices optionally integrated with microlens arrays and other optical components, to couple high power pump beams to a fiber output port. The pump module having a fiber output port is particularly suited to couple light to an inner cladding of a double-clad fiber, often used to configure high power fiber laser and fiber amplifier. The pump modules may be operated in CW, QCW and pulse modes to configure fiber lasers and amplifiers using single end, dual end, and regenerative optical pumping modes. Multiple-pumps may be combined to increase pump power in a modular fashion without significant distortion to signal, particularly for short pulse operation.
US08824514B2

The present invention includes a fundamental laser light source configured to generate fundamental wavelength laser light, an optical crystal configured to receive fundamental laser light from the fundamental laser light source, the optical crystal configured to generate alternate wavelength light by frequency converting a portion of the received fundamental laser light to alternate wavelength light, an auxiliary light source configured to generate auxiliary wavelength light, the auxiliary wavelength light having a wavelength different from the fundamental wavelength laser light and the alternate wavelength light, the fundamental laser light source and the auxiliary light source oriented such that the fundamental laser light copropagates with the auxiliary light through a surface of the optical crystal, and a detector configured to detect at least one of fundamental wavelength laser light scattered by the optical crystal, alternate wavelength light scattered by the optical crystal, or auxiliary light scattered by the optical crystal.
US08824513B2

A system and method for efficiently combining multiple laser beams into a single frequency by invoking stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a dual core optical fiber is disclosed. The method and apparatus essentially becomes a brightness converter for the input laser beams. An SRS seed is generated in a long length of fiber or by a diode and is launched into the back-end of the SBS combining optical fiber. Various single-frequency pump beams are launched into the front-end of the same fiber. The seed acts to lower a threshold for SBS in the fiber, thus invoking the nonlinearity. Provided the various pump beams are close in frequency and seed/pump modes overlap, each acts to amplify the seed through the nonlinear SBS process, providing an output signal which is brighter than the combined pump beams.
US08824505B2

Method and apparatus for transporting client signals in an OTN are illustrated. In one embodiment, the method includes: receiving a client signal; determining a quantity of n-bit data units of the client signal based on a clock of the client signal and a local clock; mapping the quantity of n-bit data units of the client signal to an overhead of a first Optical Channel Data Tributary Unit (ODTU) frame; mapping the n-bit data units of the client signal to a payload area of a second ODTU frame next to the first ODTU frame according to the quantity of n-bit data units mapped in the overhead of the first ODTU frame; mapping each n-bit data unit of the second ODTU frame to an Optical Channel Payload Unit-k Tributary Slot (OPUk TS) in an OPUk frame; and forming an Optical Channel Transport Unit-k (OTUk) frame including the OPUk frame for transmission.
US08824504B2

A packet add/drop multiplexer and a data transmission method of a packet add/drop multiplexer are provided. The packet add/drop multiplexer includes: a line interface unit including a first line interface and a second line interface; a scheduling unit, configured to schedule a data frame of an input transporting side and send a data frame of an output transporting side through the second line interface; a branch unit, configured to encapsulate received data to a third Transmission Container (T-CONT) data packet and send the third T-CONT data packet to the scheduling unit, or decapsulate a first T-CONT data packet sent by the scheduling unit to recover data. In the packet add/drop multiplexer and the data transmission method of the packet add/drop multiplexer, a T-CONT data packet of a transporting side is used as a packet add/drop multiplexing structure of a packet scheduling entity, the data packet has a simple structure and a capability of self-synchronization, and the logic is simple when the data packet is processed.
US08824501B2

An optical transport system configured to transmit a set of two or more optical variants per bit-word, with the optical variants in the set being different from one another in one or more of the time of transmission, spatial localization, polarization of light, carrier wavelength, and subcarrier frequency. Differences between the optical variants may also be due to different respective constellation mapping. The optical variants of each set are detected and processed at the receiver in a manner that enables coherent summation of the corresponding electrical signals prior to constellation de-mapping. The coherent summation tends to average out the deleterious effects of linear and nonlinear noise/distortions imparted on the individual optical variants in the optical transport link because said noise/distortions are incoherent in nature. A BER reduction enabled by the use of optical variants may be implemented in addition to or instead of that provided by FEC coding.
US08824497B2

A method for performing data access via software according to communication protocol handling includes: calculating a time slot period and an upper limit of a processing time for performing a predetermined data processing according to time slot information defined in a communication protocol, a critical period and a time slot number; defining a clock frequency of a processor according to the upper limit of the processing time; and performing data access according to the slot time by the processor operating at the clock frequency. Accordingly, design inflexibility arising from performing data access via hardware is addressed, and a non-real-time issue caused by performing data access via software is also prevented.
US08824485B2

Packet processing logic of a host system's virtualization manager detects packets on the ingress or the egress path to/from a virtual port having three bitmap arrays for processing packets within a virtual local area network (VLAN). The logic checks the VLAN identifier (VID) of the packet to determine, based on an offset position within the corresponding bitmap array, whether the port supports the VLAN. Both the ingress array offset position and egress array offset positions correspond to the value of the VID, and are set within the specific bitmap array during configuration of the VLAN on the port. When the VLAN is supported by the port, the logic enables the packet to be processed by the port. Otherwise, the logic discards the packet. A strip bitmap array indicates when a packet's VID should be removed prior to forwarding the packet on the egress of a port (or destination port).
US08824483B2

A distributed switch may include a plurality of sub-switches. These sub-switches may be arranged in a hierarchy that increases the available bandwidth for transmitting multicast data frames across the switch fabric. Moreover, the distributed switch may be compatible with link aggregation where multiple physical connections are grouped together to create an aggregated (logical) link. Link aggregation requires similar data frames to use the same data path when traversing the distributed switch. With a unicast data frame, the sub-switch in the distributed switch that receives the data frame typically identifies the destination port (during a process called link selection) and forwards the data frame to the sub-switch containing that port. However, with multicast data frames, instead of the receiving sub-switch performing link selection to determine the destination port, link selection may be done by a different sub-switch or not done at all.
US08824477B2

A hybrid network device can implement functionality to indicate the sequence of packets associated with a common packet stream transmitted via a plurality of packet routes and to manage out-of-order packet arrival. In a hybrid communication network, a first network device can determine sequence identifiers associated with a plurality of packets of a packet stream received from a second network device via a plurality of packet routes between the first network device and the second network device. The first network device can detect out-of-order delivery of one or more of the plurality of received packets based, at least in part, on the sequence identifiers associated with the plurality of packets. Consequently, the first network device can re-order at least a subset of the plurality of packets based on the sequence identifiers associated with the plurality of packets.
US08824476B2

Method and apparatus for MAC in-order delivery are disclosed. The MAC in-order delivery may be activated per-connection and may be negotiated at connection setup. The MAC in-order delivery either for non-ARQ connections or ARQ connections may be performed by using HARQ packet ordering information. Alternatively, the MAC in-order delivery may be performed using a sequence number (SN) field at the MAC PDU level or using an SN field at the MAC SDU level. For a connection that has MAC in-order delivery disabled, the MAC PDU may not include an SN field, and an SN field may be included in a MAC extended header or a MAC sub-header when needed.
US08824473B2

The present disclosure provides an apparatus and a method for PWE3 access. The method includes: after receiving non-Ethernet data transmitted by a local user, a local PE performs inner layer PWE3 frame format encapsulation and an outer layer L2VPN frame format encapsulation on the non-Ethernet data in sequence, and then transmits the encapsulated data to an opposite PE; after receiving the data transmitted by the opposite PE, the local PE performs an outer layer L2VPN frame format de-encapsulation and an inner layer PWE3 frame format de-encapsulation on the date in sequence, and then transmits, to the local user, the non-Ethernet data obtained after the two de-encapsulations. The present disclosure can implement the pseudo wire emulation edge-to-edge access for non-Ethernet with saving label space of the PE, and can avoid multiple exchanges of Pseudo Wire (PW) labels.
US08824464B2

Techniques for distributing digital content include receiving provider content over a network connection at a customer premises node located on premises of a first customer. The provider content is offered by a network service provider different from the first customer. Provider data based on the provider content is stored in non-volatile storage on the customer premises node of the first customer. It is determined whether conditions are satisfied for sending the provider content to a second customer different from the first customer. If it is determined that such conditions are satisfied, then the provider data is retrieved from the non-volatile storage, and data based on the provider data is sent over the network connection for receipt by the second customer. Thereby a customer premises node serves as a cache of provider content for other customer premises nodes on the same last mile segment or access network.
US08824463B2

A prohibition turn determination apparatus determines an initial path so that the communication amounts of respective links connecting switches to each other are most efficiently distributed between a communication pair, that is, a pair of servers communicating with each other via a network. Then, the prohibition turn determination apparatus calculates the communication amounts of respective turns formed along the initial path based on the communication amounts set between end nodes which are the communication pair. Next, the prohibition turn determination apparatus determines prohibition turns, which are not used for packet communication, based on the communication amounts of respective turns by an Up/down method or a TP method. Finally, the prohibition turn determination apparatus determines the final routing to avoid the prohibition turns.
US08824459B2

Methods and apparatus to measure market share for VoIP carriers is disclosed. An example method includes querying a plurality of VoIP carrier servers to determine the VoIP carrier server that owns the telephone subscriber number (SN), in response to the querying, receiving a plurality of messages operable to determine whether the telephone SN is found within any one of the plurality of VoIP carrier servers, when the received plurality of messages is at least one of inconclusive or when the telephone SN is not found within any one of the plurality of VoIP carrier servers, placing a first partial call to the telephone SN from a first VoIP number within a first VoIP carrier network, receiving a first signal from the first VoIP carrier network, and based on the first received signal, determining whether the telephone SN belongs to the first VoIP carrier network.
US08824451B2

The disclosure discloses a method and a system for establishing an associated bidirectional Label-Switched Path (LSP). The method includes the following steps: a head node sends a PATH message for establishing or updating an LSP to an end node, wherein the message carries an object for identifying association; the end node sends to the head node a PATH message for establishing or updating an LSP as a reverse LSP corresponding to the above LSP, wherein the message carries an object for identifying association; in the case that the attributes of the objects for identifying association carried in the PATH messages sent by the head node and the end node are the same, the LSP and the reverse LSP are associated with each other by the head node and the end node and become an associated bidirectional LSP. The method for establishing an associated bidirectional LSP in the disclosure can be applied to transition from a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network to a MPLS-Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) network and binding a reverse LSP with a unidirectional LSP.
US08824446B2

A wireless communication system includes a transmission device including plural transmission antennas and a receiving device including plural reception antennas. The transmission device includes a branching unit that branches a signal into plural transmission signals respectively passing plural signal lines each corresponding to each of the transmission antennas and delay units provided on at least one of the signal lines to apply a delay to the transmission signal. When a transmission signal branched by the branching unit is applied with a delay by the delay units, the transmission device sets the transmission signal on which the delay is applied as the transmission signal, and transmits the transmission signals to the receiving device via the transmission antennas. The receiving device includes delay units provided on at least one of plural signal lines that respectively pass plural reception signals received at the reception antennas to apply a delay to the reception signal and a combining unit that sets the reception signal on which the delay is applied as the reception signal, and combines the reception signals.
US08824441B2

A wireless device of transmitting a data frame in a WLAN is provided. The wireless device includes: a MAC unit generating a data frame; a PHY unit transmitting a wireless signal of the data frame; and a processor being operably coupled to the MAC unit and the PHY unit and controlling a set of TXVECTOR parameters. The processor is configured for: generating the data frame, the data frame including a data field having a service field and a very high throughput signal information (VHT-SIG-B); and transmitting a wireless signal of the data frame via a operating channel bandwidth. The data field is scrambled with a scrambling sequence, the scrambling sequence is generated based on a initial scrambling sequence and a generator polynomial. The service field is determined based on the set of TXVECTOR parameters, the TXVECTOR parameters including an control information for the service field.
US08824437B2

A wireless communications device includes an intent value storage configured to store therein an intent value indicating a level of intention to serve as an access point specified based on a certain criterion; a power supply status information storage configured to store therein a piece of power supply status information indicating whether power is supplied to the wireless communications device from an alternating-current power supply; and an access point determination unit configured to determine, between the wireless communications device and another wireless communications device forming the wireless network, one of the wireless communications devices as the access point. The determination unit is configured to acquire the intent value and the piece of power supply status information of the another wireless communications device, and determine the access point based on both of the intent values and both of the pieces of power supply status information.
US08824434B2

A communication system, comprising a wireless communication device including a plurality of antennas communicatively coupled with a communication component, the communication component including a processor, a transmitter, and a receiver, the communication component configured to transmit a first data stream by simultaneously transmitting a first plurality of signal streams using the plurality of antennas, the first plurality of signal streams collectively representing the first data stream, the communication component configured to receive a second data stream by simultaneously receiving a second plurality of signal streams using the plurality of antennas and generating the second data stream from the second plurality of signal streams.
US08824432B2

A protocol for inter-cell communication in a cognitive radio wireless access network using beacon period framing is disclosed. By establishing scheduled use of beacon periods within each frame of a super-frame among a plurality of participating cells in a wireless access network, efficient and reliable communication can take place eliminating beacon packet collisions and bandwidth wastage. Within each super-frame exits 16 data frames of fixed size which can each include both a data transmission portion and a beacon period. A protocol is established by which announcement, reserved, and free-to-use beacon periods are established within the super-frames associated with a particular spectrum. By coordinating communication between cells on the beacon period, collision between cells by simultaneous attempts to transmit or bandwidth wastage of periods in which no transmission takes place can be avoided.
US08824429B2

The locations of nodes in a network are determined relative to the location of monitoring devices that collect trace information on the network. By appropriate sorting, filtering, and characterizing the trace information, nodes are identified as being local to or remote from each monitoring device that detects traffic to or from the node. If the trace information is insufficient to determine the relative location of a node, the node is identified as such. By identifying the nodes whose locations can be determined automatically by this analysis of the trace information, the number of nodes whose locations must be determined by more costly manual methods can be substantially reduced.
US08824424B2

A method for coordinating communications between a user equipment and a base station is presented. The method includes receiving an assignment of a first set of timeslots for at least one of uplink and downlink communications between the user equipment and the base station. The method also includes transmitting to the base station an instruction to delay a reduction of a number of timeslots monitored by the user equipment to less than the first set of timeslots for communications. In some implementations, the instruction comprises at least one of a predetermined communication and a block including at least one of a dummy block format and a specified block format. The method may include transmitting a control block to the base station, the control block identifying one or more timeslots being monitored by the user equipment.
US08824417B2

A method for a call control node (MSC Server) enhanced for Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) allowing for a session transfer of a call involving a User Equipment (UE) of a handover party from a circuit switched (CS) access towards a target packet switched (PS) access is provided, the call involving said handover party and another party, said call being anchored in an Service Centralization and Continuity Application Server (SCC AS) of the IP-Multimedia-Subsystem (IMS), the method comprising the steps of receiving (202) an indication that the User Equipment (UE) is SRVCC capable, receiving (204) an indication of an address and port the UE is going to use for speech media over PS, providing (206) the UE with an indication of the address and port to be used towards the other party (remote end), deciding (208) to perform a SRVCC from CS access to said target PS access, sending (210) a relocation request for a bearer to a respective mobility management node (SGSN/MME), including said address and said port of the UE to be used for creating a PDP context, and sending (212) a handover command message to the UE, sending (214) a request for a “Forward Session Transfer” to the SCC AS, using the address and the allocated port to be used for media to construct a respective SDP.
US08824416B2

Methods and apparatus for controlling signaling processing resources that are shared among two or more cells at a base station, such that signaling processing resources are efficiently utilized and such that resources assigned for sending uplink grants and downlink assignments on a downlink control channel that is shared among the mobile terminals in each cell is also efficiently used. An example method is an iterative process whereby a manager controlling the assignments of resources on the downlink control channel among the mobile terminals on each cell is requested to provide resource to a restricted number of mobile terminals for a cell. This is repeated for each cell until a total processing capacity for the site is reached. The restriction in the number of mobile terminals included in each request relates to the total capacity for processing remaining on the site.
US08824412B2

A method of signaling in a wireless communication system (300) comprising a first network element (310) serving a wireless communication unit (325) with at least one packet data network (PDN) connection. The method comprises transmitting, by the first network element (310) to the wireless communication unit (325), a signaling message relating to a wireless communication unit (325) uplink (UL) PDN transmission, where the signaling message comprises a parameter indicative of at least one aggregate maximum bit rate (AMBR) value.
US08824410B2

For allowing a reliable communication between the wireless part and the core network part via the fixed line network a method for operating a network, especially for policy control within the network, is provided, wherein the network includes a mobile network and a fixed line network, wherein the mobile network includes a wireless part and a core network part and wherein the mobile network and the fixed line network cooperate for providing communication between the wireless part and the core network part via the fixed line network. The method is characterized in that information regarding the wireless part will be provided via the mobile network to the fixed line network for controlling the communication within the fixed line network. Further, a corresponding network, preferably for carrying out the above mentioned method is disclosed.
US08824407B2

A method for network entry management for use in a base station. The method includes steps of broadcasting multiple carriers, wherein the carriers are classified into fully configured carriers and partially configured carriers, the fully configured carrier includes at least one primary synchronization channel (P-SCH) and at least one secondary synchronization channel (S-SCH), and the partially configured carrier includes at least one P-SCH and does not include the S-SCH.
US08824395B2

A device receives, from a mobile device, a request to connect to a network, and determines, based on the connection request, whether the mobile device has mobility capability. The device registers the mobile device per host-based mobility protocol standards when the mobile device does not have mobility capability. The device registers the mobile device per network-based mobility protocol standards when the mobile device has mobility capability.
US08824393B2

Broadcast data is divided into a plurality of broadcast channels. Any of the plurality of broadcast channels is placed on a predetermined subcarrier in each of a plurality of main bands such that the placed broadcast channels differ from each other in a same frame and are consecutive in a predetermined order in a frame direction. The subcarriers are converted into a transmit RF signal and the transmit RF signal is transmitted.
US08824391B2

A method of transmitting a sounding reference signal from a user equipment to a base station in a wireless communication system using a plurality of component carriers is disclosed. The present invention includes the steps of checking offset values of a plurality of the component carriers corresponding to a subframe having the sounding reference signal applied thereto from the base station and if the sounding reference signal is transmitted using a certain component carrier of a plurality of the component carriers, transmitting the sounding reference signal to the base station using the certain component carrier in a sub-frame corresponding to the offset value of the certain component carrier. Preferably, the present invention further includes the step of if the sounding reference signals are transmitted using at least two component carriers in the same subframe, transmitting the sounding reference signal having a longest transmission periodicity among the sounding reference signals only.
US08824376B2

A method of sending status information (STATUS PDU) in which a receiving side reports a data received state to a transmitting side in a mobile telecommunication system. A receiving side radio link control (RLC) entity considers an available radio resource to construct a status PDU fit to a size of the available radio resource and then sends the constructed status PDU to a transmitting side RLC entity, thereby avoiding a deadlock situation of RLC protocols.
US08824370B2

Methods, servers and systems for performing dynamic context based routing operations in a telecommunications signaling network in which a dynamic context based router may receive a first message encoding signaling information from a source component, decode the message into an internal representation, perform application level routing operations using contextual information derived from the internal representation to identify a destination component, encode signaling information contained in the internal representation into a second message, and send the second message to the identified destination component. Application level routing operations using contextual information may include generating keys based on the internal representation, transmitting the generated keys to an external resource, receiving supplementary information in response to the generated keys, and using the supplementary information to identify the destination component. The information in the internal representation may be modified to send a subset or a superset of the information contained in the first message.
US08824367B2

A method for receiving paging information, including acquiring free time information of a traffic card and occupation time information for receiving paging information of a non-traffic card; and when occupation time for receiving paging information of the non-traffic card is not in conflict with free time of the traffic card, receiving paging information of the non-traffic card on the free time. Based on the above method, an apparatus for receiving paging information is provided. Paging information of a non-traffic card can be received when the traffic card is in traffic, which helps identify if the non-traffic card has incoming service (i.e. incoming traffic).
US08824365B2

A method for establishing a connection of a home Node B (HNB), the method comprising the steps of: transmitting, by the HNB, an attachment request message including an identifier of a closed subscriber group (CSG) where the HNB is located and information on location of the HNB to an operation and maintenance center (OMC); selecting, by the OMC a device establishing a connection with the HNB using the information on location of the HNB; transmitting, by the OMC, an attachment response message including information on the device to the HNB; establishing, by the HNB, a connection with the selected device. With the method proposed in the present invention, a UE can switch between HNBs in the same CSG through interface X2. Meanwhile, such information as the radio resource management and so on can be exchanged between two HNBs.
US08824359B2

An access node comprising a processor configured to promote allocation of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) resource to a relay node. The PDCCH resource is configured for use by the relay node. The access node is further configured to exclusively control allocation of the PDCCH resource.
US08824357B2

Systems and methods for improving data transmission rates in communication networks are disclosed. In an 802.11 wireless communication network, where a source node of the wireless network transmits TCP data to a destination node of the wireless network, the destination node does not transmit TCP acknowledgments (ACKs) for the TCP data if 802.11 ACKs indicate that the destination node received the TCP data. If a source outside the wireless network transmits TCP data to the destination node within the wireless network through an intermediate device, such as an access point, the destination node suppresses transmitting TCP ACKs. The intermediate device transmits TCP ACKs as proxy for the destination node to the source. The intermediate device also suppresses TCP ACKs where a source node within the wireless network sends the TCP data to a destination node outside of the wireless network.
US08824350B2

A channel synchronization method, system and device in the multicast broadcast single frequency network are disclosed, which relate to wireless communication filed and are used to solve the problem of unable to ensure the base station to synchronously send the multi-points control channel (MCCH) message in the multicast broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) region in the prior art. The specific scheme is: the network device in the MBSFN obtains multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) service information and confirms the time resource and the frequency resource that bears MBMS service information. The network device sends the MBMS service information, the time resource and the frequency resource information to the base station in the MBSFN. The base station utilizing the time resource and the frequency resource sends the MBMS service information to the terminal via MBMS point to MCCH. Consequently the purpose that the base station synchronously sends the MBMS service message in the MBSFN is achieved.
US08824348B2

A method of controlling power saving modes of a plurality of terminals joining in a group communication by a base station is provided. The base station establishes a group call connection with the plurality of terminals, and establishes a same power saving mode pattern for the plurality of terminals.
US08824333B2

An industrial network with bidirectional communication for real time control includes nodes selectively operable in either a switch mode or a serial shifting mode. Nodes operating in the switch mode are capable of initiating data frames for transmission on the network and receiving data frames from the network. Nodes operating in either the switch mode or the serial shifting mode are capable of extracting and/or inserting data into a data frame as it is transmitted through that node. An initialization procedure determines end nodes and intermediate nodes within the network. The end nodes are configured to initially operate in the switch mode and the intermediate nodes are configured to initially operate in the serial shifting mode. The intermediate nodes are additionally operable to selectively toggle between operation in switch mode and serial shift mode and may operate in both modes during a single I/O scan cycle.
US08824328B2

Systems and methods for optimizing the performance of an application, as described, may include determining an arrival time of a packet at a network emulator node by the network emulator node, wherein the packet is transmitted from a node to the network emulator node over the network, establishing a packet ordering queue at the network emulator node, applying a maximum delay time by the network emulator node, applying a minimum delay time by the network emulator node, and computing a packet departure time for the packet from the network emulator node. An exemplary embodiment may additionally include the determination of a bandwidth delay time, where the applicable network bandwidth is imposed by the network emulator node.
US08824309B2

The present invention discloses a method and device for judging Radio Link Failure (RLF) in Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology, which are used to effectively judge whether a radio link is failed or not in CA technology. Said method comprises: on an evaluation point, comparing the determined radio link quality parameter of each carrier participating in the RLF judgement with the corresponding radio link quality parameter threshold, determining whether to trigger an in-sync indication or out-of-sync indication on the evaluation point, and judging whether the radio link of the User Equipment (UE) is failed according to the number of the continuously received in-sync indications or out-of-sync indications. The embodiment of the present invention determines whether to trigger an in-sync indication or out-of-sync indication by comparing the radio link quality parameters of the carriers participating in the RLF judgement with the corresponding radio link quality parameter thresholds, and thereby judges that whether the radio link is failed or not in CA technology.
US08824305B2

Paging and power consumption are managed in conjunction with providing local breakout in a wireless wide area network. In some aspects, if a packet destined for an access terminal is received at an access point that provides local breakout, the access point may inform the network so that the network will cause the access point to page the access terminal. Alternatively, in some aspects an access point that provides local breakout may maintain idle context of the access terminal, whereby the access point may autonomously page the access terminal (i.e., without involving the core network). In some aspects local breakout traffic is filtered at an access point to reduce the number of pages or packets sent to an access terminal. In some aspects an indication of a packet type is provided with a page message to enable an access terminal to determine whether to receive the packet. In some aspects a local link interface may be selectively disabled or enabled to limit traffic at an access terminal.
US08824298B2

Systems and methods for Multi-Radio Access Technology (RAT) Carrier Aggregation (MRCA) wireless wide area network (WWAN) assisted wireless local area network (WLAN) flow mapping and flow routing are disclosed. One system comprises a dynamic flow mapping module that is configured to form a flow-mapping table to dynamically map service flows between the WWAN radio and the WLAN radio in the wireless device. A flow routing module is configured to route data packets to one of the WWAN radio and the WLAN radio in the wireless device based on the flow-mapping table to transmit and receive the data packets via the wireless device.
US08824296B2

A method, in an element having a queue used to store messages sent from a message sender to a message receiver, of handling congestion in the queue, without discarding a new message from the message sender. The new message which is to be added to the queue is received. The new message is of a given message type. It is determined that congestion handling is to be performed. The congestion handling is performed by removing older messages, of the given message type, from the queue. The new message is added to the queue. Other methods, apparatus, and network elements are also disclosed.
US08824294B2

Congestion control techniques based upon resource utilization information stored by a network device. According to an embodiment of the present invention, a network device is configured to identify a data source causing congestion based upon information stored by the network device identifying a set of data sources, and for each data source, information identifying the amount of a resource of the network device being used for processing data received by the network device from the data source.
US08824290B2

Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to wireless communications and methods and apparatus for downlink flow control at a user equipment (UE). Aspects generally include monitoring, by a UE, one or more parameters related to the UE, and selectively dropping received packets based on the one or more parameters in order to trigger a rate control mechanism. Selectively dropping received packets may occur at a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer in order to reduce a corresponding transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput. Accordingly, packets may be selectively dropped prior to reaching an applications processor.
US08824285B1

A system and method for collision detection and avoidance that converts a probabilistic, packet based communications system into a deterministic packet based communications system. The system and method operates in packet, frame, or datagram based network environments that support different levels of forwarding priority, for example, IP networks and Ethernet networks.
US08824280B2

A system and method for implementation of a process that propagates a link status across a media converter system implemented in a telecom and/or data com network is provided. More specifically, the system comprise XAUI and PMA/PMD interfaces that support both a copper cable and the different types of SFP+/SFP fiber-optic pluggable modules for accessing a host system and a remote link partner, respectively. With the method, the link statuses at both the copper and fiber-optic link sides of the media converter system are being monitored, such that a change of link status at one side of the media converter system will automatically be propagated across the media converter system to the other side, by dynamically enabling or disabling a respective XAUI or PMD transmitter at the opposite side of a physical layer device (PHY) of the media converter system.
US08824275B2

Calculating routing after switching occurs from a primary main control board to a standby main control board in a Fiber Channel (FC) switch includes receiving neighbor Link State Records (LSRs) sent by the primary main control board and backing up the neighbor LSRs on the standby main control board. The standby main control board is triggered to be promoted to the primary main control board, and an adjacency relationship is established with neighbors according to the backed up neighbor LSRs. LSRs of the switch are generated based on available ports on the switch and the neighbors, and a message is sent for maintaining the adjacency relationship to the neighbors with which the adjacency relationship has been established. Routing is calculated based on the neighbor LSRs and the LSRs of the switch.
US08824274B1

In general, techniques are described for dynamically scheduling and establishing paths in a multi-layer, multi-topology network to provide dynamic network resource allocation and support packet flow steering along paths prescribed at any layer or combination of layers of the network. In one example, a multi-topology path computation element (PCE) accepts requests from client applications for dedicated paths. The PCE receives topology information from network devices and attempts to identify paths through a layer or combination of layers of the network that can be established at the requested time in view of the specifications requested for the dedicated paths and the anticipated bandwidth/capacity available in the network. The PCE schedules the identified paths through the one or more layers of the network to carry traffic for the requested paths. At the scheduled times, the PCE programs path forwarding information into network nodes to establish the scheduled paths.
US08824272B2

An improved method for resolving interference between co-channel users is disclosed. A peak in a spectrum generated by a MUSIC algorithm is determined for a signal of interest (“SOI”) using a noise subspace. Also, an estimated carrier frequency offset (“CFO”) is determined for the SOI based on the determined peak in the spectrum.
US08824263B2

When the power of the write pulse is taken as the peak power and the power of the bottom pulse is taken as the bottom power, the power setting device (114) sets the power of each pulse in the recording pulse train such that the peak power PwN of the Nth information layer which is closest to the light entry surface of the optical recording medium (11), the bottom power PbN of the Nth information layer, the peak power PwM of the Mth information layer (where M is an integer such that N>M≧1), and the bottom power PbM of the Mth information layer satisfy the following formula: PbN/PwN>PbM/PwM.
US08824256B2

In a multilayer optical disc having information layers conforming to a plurality of different optical disc standards, because the type of each information layer is not recorded in the other information layers, in read and write operations by a compatible optical disc device conforming to a plurality of optical disc standards, every time the information layer being accessed changes, it has been necessary to read the type of the information layer and select a method of generating a tracking error signal adapted to the type of information layer, so access has taken time. In order to solve the above problem, in the optical multilayer disc according to the present invention, having information layers conforming to a plurality of different optical disc standards, in an area in one of the information layers, information about the other information layers is recorded. The time required to access the other information layers can be reduced by using this information to select a tracking error signal generating method.
US08824252B2

The invention discloses a signal clamping device capable of clamping a signal with a clamp level that is set according to a frequency characteristic of the signal and a method thereof and a related optical storage system. The signal clamping device includes an equalizing unit, a determining unit, and a clamping unit. The equalizing unit is utilized for equalizing the signal and generating an equalized signal. The determining unit is utilized for generating an indication signal according to the equalized signal. The clamping unit is utilized for determining a clamp level according to the indication signal and clamping the signal with the clamp level.
US08824250B2

Disclosed is an archive system for a double sided optical disc, in which optical disc drives for recording or reading data on second surfaces of double sided optical discs are mounted in at least one of first and second drive bays respectively mounted at left and right sides of a disc picker robot, so that data recording or reading operations on first and second surfaces of double sided optical discs can be automatically performed.
US08824243B2

In an ultrasonic transducer unit comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers, each of the ultrasonic transducers is provided with a recess formed in one face of an insulating substrate, and a substrate-side electrode is buried in a bottom of the recess, and a vibrating membrane is formed so as to cover the recess.
US08824234B2

A method of reading an eFuse in a column of eFuse memory cells includes electrically disconnecting a first end of the eFuse from a first electrical path. A second electrical path between a second end of the eFuse and a node is activated to bypass a third electrical path, where the third electrical path includes a diode device between the second end of the eFuse and the node. A footer coupled with the node is turned on.
US08824233B2

Systems, circuits, and methods are disclosed for charge sharing. In one such example system, a first line is configured to be driven to a first voltage representative of data to be placed on the first line and then precharged to a first precharge voltage. A second line is configured to be driven to a second voltage representative of data to be placed on the second line and then precharged to a second precharge voltage. A charge sharing device is coupled between the first line and the second line. The charge sharing device is configured to selectively allow charge from the first line to flow to the second line after the first and second lines are driven to the respective first and second voltages representative of data to be placed on the respective lines.
US08824232B2

A semiconductor memory device may include a cell string configured to include memory cells, a page buffer coupled to the cell string through a bit line, and configured to include a latch for storing data to be programmed in a memory cell or data read from the memory cell, a precharge voltage generation circuit configured to generate a precharge voltage from an external voltage according to the data stored in the latch, bit line precharge circuits configured to supply the precharge voltage to the bit line in response to precharge control signals, and a control circuit configured to output the precharge control signals so that the number of enabled bit line precharge circuits increases, accordingly, as a supply number of a program voltage augments in a program operation.
US08824231B2

A dynamic random access memory device is described. A first array has a first plurality of bitlines, each coupled to a column of memory cells. A second has a second plurality of bitlines, each coupled to a column of memory cells. Sense amplifiers are selectively connectable in an open bitline configuration to at least one bitline of the first plurality of bitlines and at least one complementary bitline of the second plurality of bitlines. A voltage supply having a voltage VBL corresponding to a bitline precharge voltage is selectively connectable to each bitline. Logic selectively connects each bitline and the complementary bitline to one of a sense amplifier and the voltage supply during a read operation. Each bitline connected to the sense amplifier is adjacent to a bitline concurrently connected to the voltage supply. A method is also described.
US08824224B2

The disclosed embodiments relate to components of a memory system that support frequency-agile strobe enable window generation during read accesses. In specific embodiments, this memory system contains a memory controller which includes a timing circuit to synchronize a timing-enable signal with a timing signal returned from a read path, wherein the timing signal includes a delay from the read path. In some embodiments, the timing circuit further comprises two calibration loops. The first calibration loop tracks the timing-enable signal with respect to a cycle-dependent delay in the delay, wherein the cycle-dependent delay depends on a frequency of the strobe signal. The second calibration loop tracks the timing-enable signal with respect to a cycle-independent delay in the delay, wherein the cycle-independent delay does not depend on the frequency of the strobe signal. In some embodiments, the first calibration loop and the second calibration loop are cascaded.
US08824222B2

One or more timing signals used to time data and command transmission over highspeed data and command signaling links are paused or otherwise disabled when a memory system enters a low-power state, and require substantial time to be re-established at appropriate frequency and/or phase as the system returns to an active operating state. Instead of waiting for the high-speed timing signals to be re-established before beginning memory access operations, an alternative, lower-frequency timing source is used to time transfer of one or more memory-access commands over a combination of data and command signaling links while the high-speed timing signals are being restored, thereby hastening transmission of memory-access commands to memory devices and reducing the incremental latency required to exit the low-power state. A timing signal generators capable of glitchlessly shifting a timing signal between two or more oscillation frequencies may also (or alternatively) be provided, thus enabling different-frequency timing signals to be delivered to system components via the same timing signal paths in either operating state. When the timing signal is used to time data (or command) transfer over information-bearing signaling links, the ability to glitchlessly shift the timing signal frequency enables a corresponding glitchless shift between lower and higher data rates on the information-bearing signaling links.
US08824219B2

A semiconductor memory circuit includes: a plurality of memory regions; a plurality of driving units configured to be enabled in response to a plurality of enable signals, respectively, and generate a predetermined voltage used for operations of the plurality of memory regions; and an enable control unit configured to count a control pulse and activate one or more enable signals among the plurality of enable signals.
US08824213B2

Subject matter disclosed herein relates to techniques to use a memory device. A method includes receiving a memory instruction comprising at least one parameter representative of at least one threshold voltage value and a read command to read at least one cell of the memory device. The method further includes detecting at least one voltage value from the at least one cell. The method further includes comparing the at least one voltage value to the at least one threshold voltage value. The method further includes determining at least one logical value of the at least one cell in response to the comparison of the at least one voltage value to the at least one threshold voltage value.
US08824211B1

An erase operation for a 3D stacked memory device assigned storage elements to groups according to an expected erase speed. The storage elements are then erased according to their group to provide a more uniform erase depth and a tighter erase distribution. In one approach, the control gate voltages are set differently for the different groups to slow down the storage elements which are expected to have a faster programming speed. An erase or inhibit status can be set for all groups together. In another approach, the control gate voltages are common for the different groups but an erase or inhibit status is set for each group separately.
US08824209B2

Provided is a method of operating a non-volatile memory device. The method includes applying a turn-on voltage to each of first and second string select transistors of a first NAND string, applying first and second voltages to third and fourth string select transistors of a second NAND string, respectively, and applying a high voltage to word lines connected with memory cells of the first and second NAND strings.
US08824202B2

The present disclosure concerns a magnetic random access memory cell containing a magnetic tunnel junction formed from an insulating layer comprised between a sense layer and a storage layer. The present disclosure also concerns a method for writing and reading the memory cell comprising, during a write operation, switching a magnetization direction of said storage layer to write data to said storage layer and, during a read operation, aligning magnetization direction of said sense layer in a first aligned direction and comparing said write data with said first aligned direction by measuring a first resistance value of said magnetic tunnel junction. The disclosed memory cell and method allow for performing the write and read operations with low power consumption and an increased speed.
US08824201B2

A semiconductor memory apparatus includes: a read current supply unit configured to supply a read current; a resistive memory cell configured to pass a current having a magnitude corresponding to a resistance value thereof in a data read mode; a voltage transfer unit coupled between the read current supply unit and the resistive memory cell and configured to transfer the read current to the resistive memory cell, wherein a voltage corresponding to the magnitude of the passed current is formed at a sensing node; and a feedback unit configured to pull-down drive a connection node, which is coupled between the voltage transfer unit and the resistive memory cell, when a voltage level of the sensing node reaches a predefined level.
US08824193B2

A semiconductor storage device which stops and resumes the supply of power supply voltage without the necessity of saving and returning a data signal between a volatile storage device and a nonvolatile storage device is provided. In the semiconductor storage device, data is held in a data holding portion connected to a transistor including a semiconductor layer containing an oxide semiconductor and a capacitor. The potential of the data held in the data holding portion is controlled by a data potential holding circuit and a data potential control circuit. The data potential holding circuit can output data without leaking electric charge, and the data potential control circuit can control the potential of the data held in the data holding portion without leaking electric charge by capacitive coupling through the capacitor.
US08824191B2

A three-dimensional array is especially adapted for memory elements that reversibly change a level of electrical conductance in response to a voltage difference being applied across them. Memory elements are formed across a plurality of planes positioned different distances above a semiconductor substrate. A two-dimensional array of bit lines to which the memory elements of all planes are connected is oriented vertically from the substrate and through the plurality of planes. During sensing, to compensate for word line resistance, a sense amplifier references a stored reference value during sensing of a memory element at a given location of the word line. A layout with a row of sense amplifiers between two memory arrays is provided to facilitate the referencing. A selected memory element is reset without resetting neighboring ones when it is subject to a bias voltage under predetermined conditions.
US08824190B1

A memory cell and method for operating a memory cell including a bidirectional access device and memory element electrically coupled in series. The bidirectional access device includes a tunneling capacitance. The memory element programmable to a first and second state by application of a first and second write voltage opposite in polarity to one another. The memory element has a lower capacitance in the first state than the second state. A read unit senses a transient read current due to a voltage drop upon application of a read voltage. Determining if the memory element is the first or second state is based on whether the read current is greater or less than a sense threshold. The sense threshold is based on a capacitance ratio between the first and second state.
US08824186B2

A circuit having an autonomous ferroelectric memory latch (AML) is disclosed. An AML characterized by an AML input, an AML output, a first AML power contact, a second AML power contact and an AML state, and a first switch in series with one of the AML input or the AML output. The switch is positioned to prevent the state of the AML from changing when power is provided between the first and second AML power contacts. In one aspect of the invention, the circuit could include a second switch in series with the other of the AML input or the AML output and a latch in series with the AML input or the AML output. The latch is positioned such that a direct path back does not exist between the AML output and the AML input.
US08824182B2

The present invention relates to a switch controller and a converter including the same. The switch controller generates an oscillating voltage determining a switching frequency alternately switching a high-side switch and a low-side switch, senses a power source voltage supplied to the switch controller, and maintains the high-side switch and the low-side switch in the turn-off state in a case that the change of the power source voltage is not generated after one of the high-side switch and the low-side switch is turned off according to the oscillating voltage.
US08824172B2

An apparatus and method for a flyback power converter reduce the standby output voltage of the flyback power converter by switching the reference voltage provided by a shunt regulator of the flyback power converter or the ratio of voltage divider resistors of the shunt regulator, to reduce the standby power consumption by an output feedback circuit of the flyback power converter, the shunt regulator, and the voltage divider resistors, and thereby improve the power loss of the flyback power converter in standby mode.
US08824163B2

Provided is a structure and disposing method of a radio frequency (RF) layered module using three dimensional (3D) vertical wiring. A first wafer in the RF layered module having the 3D vertical wiring may include a first RF device and at least one first via-hole. A second wafer may include a second RF device and at least one second via-hole disposed at a location corresponding to the at least one first via-hole. A vertical wiring may connect the at least one first via-hole and the at least one second via-hole. The vertical wiring may be configured to be connected to an external device through a bottom surface of the at least one first via-hole or a top surface of the at least one second via-hole.
US08824159B2

A Three-Dimensional Structure (3DS) Memory allows for physical separation of the memory circuits and the control logic circuit onto different layers such that each layer may be separately optimized. One control logic circuit suffices for several memory circuits, reducing cost. Fabrication of 3DS memory involves thinning of the memory circuit to less than 50 μm in thickness and bonding the circuit to a circuit stack while still in wafer substrate form. Fine-grain high density inter-layer vertical bus connections are used. The 3DS memory manufacturing method enables several performance and physical size efficiencies, and is implemented with established semiconductor processing techniques.
US08824146B2

Electronic circuitry includes a circuit board and at least one component mounted on the circuit board, with the at least one component generating heat while in use. The circuit board includes one or more apertures aligned with one or more respective components, and the electronic circuitry is configured to provide, while in use, a path for coolant fluid to flow through each aperture and past the respective component.
US08824142B2

Surfaces for electromagnetic shielding, retaining electrostatic charge and indeed collecting ion current in EHD fluid mover designs may be formed as or on surfaces of other components and/or structures in an electronic device. In this way, dimensions may be reduced and packing densities increased. In some cases, electrostatically operative portions of an EHD fluid mover are formed as or on surfaces of an enclosure, an EMI shield, a circuit board and/or a heat pipe or spreader. Depending on the role of these electrostatically operative portions, dielectric, resistive and/or ozone robust or catalytic coatings or conditioning may be applied.
US08824140B2

A handheld computing device that includes an enclosure having structural walls formed from a glass material that can be radio-transparent. The enclosure can be formed from a hollow glass tube or two glass members bonded together. A laser frit bonding process may be used to hermetically seal the two glass members together to create a water resistant electronic device.
US08824139B2

A handheld electronic device includes a first body, a second body, and a locating member. The second body is slidably connected to the first body, and has a slide surface and a locating opening. The locating opening is located at an end of the slide surface. The locating member has an elastic portion and a sliding portion, the elastic portion is disposed between the first body and the sliding portion, and the sliding portion is capable of leaning against the slide surface or being inserted in the locating opening under an elastic prestress of the elastic portion.
US08824129B2

A frame assembly for installing panel modules with different dimensions is disclosed. The frame assembly includes a first frame and a second frame. The first frame has a first fixing structure formed thereon and a first sliding structure in an axis direction. The second frame has a second fixing structure formed thereon and a second sliding structure in the axis direction. The second sliding structure is slidably engaged with the first sliding structure. The first fixing structure and the second fixing structure are fixed on a side of a first panel module or on a side of a second panel module when the second frame slides relative to the first frame in the axis direction to a first position or to a second position.
US08824124B1

A large format billboard type electronic sign includes at least one structural frame member mounted to a front side of a planar mounting structure that defines a plurality of structural bay members configured for receiving and removably supporting therein a corresponding plurality of weatherized display modules to conceal and protect at least one preformed wiring harness from wind load forces in excess of 100 pounds per square foot and degradation from the effects of ultra-violet sunlight; each individual one of said plurality of structural bay members is provided with a plurality of receptacles to facilitate mechanically and electrically coupling the at least one preformed wiring harness to the plurality of weatherized display modules; and wherein the at least one preformed wiring harness is provided with a plurality of preformed nodes which are dimensioned to be snapped or pressed into position in a wire harness node receptacle forming part of the plurality of receptacles.
US08824122B2

A capacitor assembly for use in high voltage and high temperature environments is provided. More particularly, the capacitor assembly includes a solid electrolytic capacitor element containing an anode body, a dielectric overlying the anode, and a solid electrolyte overlying the dielectric. To help facilitate the use of the capacitor assembly in high voltage applications, it is generally desired that the solid electrolyte is formed from a dispersion of preformed conductive polymer particles. In this manner, the electrolyte may remain generally free of high energy radicals (e.g., Fe2+or Fe3+ions) that can lead to dielectric degradation, particularly at relatively high voltages (e.g., above about 60 volts). Furthermore, to help protect the stability of the solid electrolyte at high temperatures, the capacitor element is enclosed and hermetically sealed within a housing in the presence of a gaseous atmosphere that contains an inert gas.
US08824120B2

An electrical double-layer capacitor electrode with excellent capacitance characteristics is obtained together with a manufacturing method therefor. Paper-molded sheet of carbon nanotubes is integrated with etched foil constituting a collector, by means of bumps and indentations formed on the surface of etched foil to prepare an electrical double-layer capacitor electrode. Alternatively, carbon nanotubes grown around core catalyst particles on substrate are integrated with etched foil by means of bumps and indentations formed on the surface of etched foil to prepare an electrical double-layer capacitor electrode. To manufacture these electrodes, this carbon nanotube sheet or substrate with carbon nanotubes grown thereon is laid over bumps and indentations on the surface of etched foil, and the sheet or substrate and the foil are pressed under 0.01 to 100 t/cm2 of pressure to integrate the carbon nanotubes with the etched foil.
US08824117B2

A method for controlling a normally closed relay includes: providing power to at least one of a first electromagnet and a second electromagnet via a power input port, then cause a first actuation member and a second actuation member to separate from each other, and the relay is then in an open state; and stopping providing power to the at lease one first electromagnet and the second electromagnet which being powered by the power input port such that the first actuation member and the second actuation member makes contact with each other, and the relay is then in a closed state.
US08824113B2

The system provides for controlling the connection of electrical power sources to electrical loads installed on a motor vehicle and limiting exposure of personnel to relatively high electrical voltages from the electrical power sources. The system includes a serial communication bus and power cables routed through the motor vehicle. At least a first connector is provided through which the serial communication bus and a power cable are routed allowing temporary severing of the serial communication bus and the power cable. The power cable includes a circuit interrupter which isolates the connector from the electrical power source in response to certain conditions on the serial communication bus, including, but not limited to, the cessation of data traffic on the serial communication bus.
US08824112B2

The present disclosure relates to a digital protection relay and an operation method of the digital protection relay for enhancing the operation of a frequency change rate relay element (81R) thereof, and the digital protection relay and an operation method thereof may calculate a plurality of different frequency change rates from the measured frequency and use a value of the frequency change rate selected based on a predetermined criteria in the control of a relay operation, thereby providing an effect of enhancing reliability for the operation of the frequency change rate relay element.
US08824109B2

A disconnector for distribution transformers with dielectric liquid intended for comprehensive protection of a power grid or for protecting distribution transformers. The disconnector provides at least two cylindrical current-limiting fuses located inside a transformer tank. Each fuse is electrically connected with an external phase power supply through fixed contacts and moving contacts of the disconnector with the active part of the transformer. The disconnector has an additional auxiliary contact which is electrically connected to a switch connected to the active part of the transformer on a low voltage side of the transformer.
US08824104B1

According to one embodiment, a magnetic head according to the embodiment includes a main magnetic pole, a spin torque oscillator, and an auxiliary magnetic pole. The spin torque oscillator includes a spin injection layer, a nonmagnetic intermediate layer, and an oscillation layer. The spin injection layer has an artificial lattice film obtained by stacking a first metal layer of a Heusler alloy and a second metal layer including at least one of platinum, palladium, and nickel two times or more repeatedly, and the first metal layer has a thickness of 0.3 to 3.5 nm.
US08824102B2

A thin-film magnetic head includes a main magnetic pole layer, write shield layer, gap layer, and thin-film coils, which are laminated on a substrate. A return magnetic pole layer is spaced from the medium-opposing surface on the side opposite to the write shield layer with the main magnetic pole layer intervening therebetween. A connecting magnetic layer is formed using a magnetic material to connect the return magnetic pole layer to the write shield layer on the side closer to the medium-opposing surface than is the thin-film coil. The thin-film coil is wound as a flat spiral around the write shield layer. A part of the thin-film coil wound as the flat spiral is disposed only at a position distanced from the substrate than is the main magnetic pole layer.
US08824097B2

A motor includes a shaft component, an upper plate portion, a lower plate portion, and a sleeve portion. The shaft component includes an inner shaft portion and an outer shaft portion. The sleeve portion is disposed between the upper plate portion and the lower plate portion. A radial gap is defined between the sleeve portion and the outer shaft portion. A fixing range in which the outer shaft portion and the inner shaft portion radially overlap is provided. At least a portion in an axial direction of the fixing range radially overlaps with an existing range in the axial direction of the radial gap.
US08824091B2

Approaches for a flying height control scheme in a hard-disk drive (HDD) device. The flying height control scheme utilizes an embedded contact sensor (ECS) to characterize the topography of a magnetic-recording disk at various flying heights of a head slider over a corresponding disk. A relation between a particular flying height and a corresponding ECS value which characterizes the media topography at that particular flying height is represented in disk topography data. The disk topography data is accessed and used for active flying height control for the head-disk interface in view of the current ECS value.
US08824085B2

A heat-assisted magnetic recording system may include, but is not limited to: at least one magnetic recording read/write head; at least one laser diode configured to illuminate at least a portion of at least one magnetic recording medium; at least one laser power level sensor configured to detect a power level of the at least one laser diode; and a controller configured to modify one or more power level settings associated with the at least one laser diode in response to one or more output signals of the at least one laser power level sensor.
US08824078B1

Receiver circuits and methods of processing received signals are disclosed herein. An embodiment of a receiver circuit includes a differential input having a first input and a second input and a differential output having a first output and a second output. A first feedback loop is connected to the input and the output, wherein the first feedback loop centers a differential output voltage around a common mode output voltage so that the differential sum is zero centered on the common mode output voltage. The circuit also includes a second feedback loop, wherein the second feedback loop centers the voltage at the first input and the voltage at the second input to a reference voltage.
US08824076B2

The present invention is related to systems and methods for adaptive parameter modification in a data processing system.
US08824075B2

A system and method for recording data to a perpendicular magnetic recording media having a highly ordered granular structure. The method includes the synchronization of write frequency and write phase to the granular structure of the magnetic media optimize performance of the magnetic data recording system by minimizing bit error rate.
US08824070B2

The lens barrel includes a first lens unit, a second lens unit, and a drive unit. The first lens unit includes a first lens element and a first lens support frame supporting the first lens element. The second lens unit includes a second lens element and a second lens support frame supporting the second lens element. The second lens unit is supported by the first lens unit to be movable in the optical axis direction of the first lens element with respect to the first lens unit. The drive unit is arranged to be used to drive the second lens unit with respect to the first lens unit, and is fixed to the first lens unit. When viewed in the optical axis direction, the drive unit is fixed to the first lens unit so that a first profile line formed by the first lens unit and the drive unit is substantially circular.
US08824066B2

This invention provides an injection-molded plastic optical lens comprising: an optical effective region and a peripheral region that are concentrically formed. An outer edge of the peripheral region comprises an indentation section, and an accommodation space surrounded by the indentation section of the outer edge of the peripheral region and an extending line extending from the non-indented section of the outer edge of the peripheral region. The accommodation space confines a flash generated during the injection-molding process of the plastic optical lens so that the assembling of the present plastic optical lens will not be affected. The present invention employs a mold having an air duct connected to an indentation configuration of the mold. The indentation section of the plastic optical lens is formed through a mold replication of the indentation configuration.
US08824057B2

A telephoto zoom lens system includes a first lens group having a positive focal length, a second lens group having a negative focal length, a third lens group having a positive or negative focal length, a fourth lens group having a positive focal length, and a fifth lens group for performing hand shake compensation by allowing a portion of the fifth lens group to move perpendicularly to the optical axis. During zooming, the first and fifth lens groups are fixed and the second, third, and fourth lens groups move, and the third or fourth lens group is a focusing lens group.
US08824056B2

Roughly described, an optical device has first and second waveguide segments which are constructed such that irradiation changes both average refractive index and also birefringence in the respective segment. The change in birefringence as a function of the change in average refractive index, is different for the two segments. Predetermined lengths of each of the two segments are irradiated. In an MZI, the technique can be used to adjust simultaneously for one or more of differential path length phase delays, coupler-induced phase errors, and frequency errors.
US08824052B2

The present disclosure relates to a shaping device for light rays of a laser beam that cross it, wherein the shaping device is formed by a conduit including an entry orifice, an exit orifice, and an internal wall, achieved by one or a plurality of facets adapted to reorient by at least one reflection at least a part of the rays of the crossing beam.
US08824045B2

An optical amplifier control apparatus according to the present invention includes control circuit 300; optical amplifiers 4, 5 respectively located on paths; a plurality of light sources 200, 201 that output excitation lights that differ in light intensity; and optical switch 32 that changes optical routes of excitation lights that are output from light sources 200, 201 and inputs the excitation lights to optical amplifiers 4, 5 as determined by control circuit 300. Control circuit 300 is provided with determination section 301 that determines which paths to allocate which excitation lights that differ in light intensity based on a parameter that relates to wavelength lights on a plurality of paths when wavelength lights of WDM signal light that propagate to one of the plurality of paths are optically amplified.
US08824042B2

Raman signal amplification apparatus comprises an ellipsoidal reflector providing a first real focus f1, and second real or virtual focus f2, both foci being situated within a sample volume. When an input laser excitation beam having an initial numerical aperture (NA) is focused onto one of the foci, the beam is reflected by the reflector and refocused onto alternating foci, such that the NA of the reflected optical path progressively increases for higher efficiency collection of Raman emissions from the multiple foci. The ellipsoidal reflector may be a half section providing a single real focus f1, with a flat reflector producing a mirror image of the ellipsoidal reflector, such that f2 is a virtual focus occupying the same point as f1. Alternatively, the ellipsoidal reflector may have a first half section with a first real focus f1 and a second half section with a second real focus f2.
US08824038B2

The invention relates to an electrochromic device including a first non-tempered glass substrate (S1), the linear thermal expansion coefficient of which is between 35 and 60·10−7/° C., said substrate (S1) being coated with a stack including at least one transparent electrically conductive layer (2, 4), an electrochromic material layer (EC2), an ion-conductive electrolyte layer (EL), and a counter electrode (EC1).
US08824036B2

A thermally stabilized, high speed, micrometer-scale silicon electro-optic modulator is provided. Methods for maintaining desired temperatures in electro-optic modulators are also provided. The methods can be used to maintain high quality modulation in the presence of thermal variations from the surroundings. Direct current injection into the thermally stabilized electro-optic modulator is used to maintain the modulation performance of the modulator. The direct injected current changes the local temperature of the thermally stabilized electro-optic modulator to maintain its operation over a wide temperature range.
US08824032B2

A security device including a zero order diffractive microstructure buried within a substrate. One or more optical structures, such as microlenses, may be formed on a surface of the substrate. The optical structures modify the optical characteristics of the zero order diffractive microstructure. Various alternatives or additional optical structures and methods of producing the security device are described in additional embodiments.
US08824027B2

An automatic media feeder includes: a media stacker on which sheets are to be stacked; a discharged media stacker; a scanning position where the sheet is to be scanned; a first conveyance path from the media stacker to the scanning position; a feeding device configured to convey the sheet from the media stacker to the scan position along the first conveyance path; a discharging device configured to discharge the sheet that passed through the scanning position to the discharged media stacker; a first reverse mechanism configured to turn over the sheet conveyed from the media stacker toward the scanning position along the first conveyance path and return the turned-over sheet to the first conveyance path; and a second reverse mechanism configured to refeed the sheet that passes through the scanning position to the first conveyance path.
US08824023B2

The invention relates to a scanning method for a large-size scanner system (1) comprising at least two image detection elements (2) that are used for scanning a large-size original (4) to be scanned and are arranged in a cascaded manner so as to have at least one overlapping area (13, 14). Said method, in which the image data in the at least one overlapping area (13, 14) of the image detection elements (2) is combined using a stitching process, said at least one overlapping area (13, 14) being searched for image data within a search region (10), includes the following steps: recognizing (18) the texture within the defined search region (10) of the original (4) to be scanned; assessing the data density in the recognized texture to determine a measure (19) of the texture content; weighting (22) the data density as a function of the measure (19) of the texture content of the recognized texture; detecting (20) congruent image elements within the defined search region (10) of the original (4) to be scanned; for each measured point (16 to 17), determining (24 to 25) a weighted deviation from the weighting (22) derived from the texture and the determined deviation (24 to 25) of each measurement; determining (27, 28) a weighted average of the deviations (29 to 30) from said weighted deviations (24 to 25); and calculating, from said weighted average (27, 28) of the deviation, shift values (29, 30) for correcting the position of the offset image elements such that said image elements are made to be congruent.
US08824016B2

An image processing device performs: defining determination regions based on image data; executing a first color conversion for the image data using a first type of parameter to generate a first image; determining an estimated amount of colorant for each determination region, the estimated amount indicating an usage amount of colorant to be used for each determination region when the first image is printed; outputting the first image if the estimated amounts of colorant for all determination regions are smaller than or equal to respective threshold values; and executing a second color conversion for the image data using a second type of parameter to generate a second image if the estimated amount of colorant for at least one is greater than the threshold value, the usage amount of colorant for the second image being smaller than the usage amount of colorant for the first image.
US08824007B2

A texture processing unit obtains smoothness information from a paper type specifying unit or a smoothness measuring device, and a lookup table is selected corresponding to the smoothness. An image area division unit divides off image signals of a predetermined hue area from among converted image signals. Predetermined hue area refers to a hue area in which, among multiple areas of different hues, a toner transfer failure tends to occur at concave portions that exist on a printing surface of a printing medium. The image signal processing unit applies the lookup table selected by the texture processing unit on the image signals that have been divided off, thereby increasing the toner amounts at concave portions.
US08824006B2

According to one embodiment, a color correction apparatus includes an input portion, a storing portion and a correction portion. The input portion inputs color image signals which correspond to recording color material amounts. The storing portion stores a standard color reproduction parameter for calculating a standard color reproduction chromaticity and reference chromaticity deviation amounts at a plurality of reference color points in recording color material amount coordinate space. The correction portion estimates chromaticity deviation amounts of the input color image signals on the basis of the reference chromaticity deviation amount, calculates a standard chromaticity which corresponds to the input color image signals on the basis of the standard color reproduction parameter and corrects the input color image signals on the basis of the estimated chromaticity deviation amounts and the standard chromaticity.
US08824005B2

A method of characterizing an imaging system is described includes printing a color chart having a plurality of predetermined color patches; measuring the color patches to obtain colorimetric data; initializing a Neugebauer model with the Neugebauer solids of said colorimetric data; optimizing the global parameters of the Neugebauer model; optimizing the parameters associated with Demichel terms based on the Neugebauer primary associated with the Demichel term; optimizing parameters that vary with device coordinates; and creating a characterization file for the imaging system.
US08824003B2

Methods and systems are provided for visually representing print jobs in a print queue. In one embodiment, a system comprising a print queue, a scheduler, and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is disclosed. The print queue stores print jobs for a printer. The scheduler estimates a time to print each of the print jobs on the printer. The GUI displays a graphical representation of each of the print jobs in the print queue, where a size of a graphical representation of each of the print jobs is based on the estimated time to print each of the print jobs.
US08823992B2

An image handling apparatus is disclosed, including an operation panel, hardware resources, a transferring part, and an image generation controlling part. The transferring part transfers image handle information input at the input screen to an external apparatus. The image generation controlling part receives and parses image generation information for at least one of the hardware resources to execute an image generation based on the image handle information, from the external apparatus in response to an instruction of the image generation, so that at least one of the hardware resources executes the image generation.
US08823989B2

A printing system including a client terminal, a printing apparatus, and a Web server for allowing the client terminal to display a print preview image, wherein the client terminal includes: a print setting section which, when a print setting is changed on a screen notifies the Web server of the changed print setting and requires creation of a print preview image, and when a predetermined time period has elapsed after the change, requests the print preview image reflecting the changed print setting; and a preview display section which displays the image acquired from the Web server, and wherein the Web server includes: a control section which, when the changed print setting is notified, creates the print preview image by reflecting the change, and when the print preview image is required, sends the print preview image reflecting the changed print setting to the client terminal.
US08823979B2

Methods and systems are provided for scheduling multiple types of print jobs in a print queue using a pseudo job. A pseudo job is a special type of non-printing job object that is added to a print queue. In one embodiment, a system includes a print queue that stores print jobs scheduled for a printer. The print queue also stores a pseudo job that defines a boundary in the queue between print jobs having a first set of print settings and print jobs having a second set of print settings. In another embodiment, a system includes a print queue, a control system, and a graphical user interface. The graphical user interface displays options for generating a pseudo job, and receives input indicating a scheduled change to a configuration of a printer. The control system generates the pseudo job based on the input, and inserts the pseudo job in the print queue.
US08823975B2

An apparatus that creates a print product including a plurality of constituent parts to make a printing result, the apparatus includes a determination unit configured to determine information indicating a discharge unit-number of copies, which is smaller than the designated number of print copies and equal to or larger than 2 copies, when the print product is printed by a plurality number of copies, and a control unit configured to control a printing sequence, so that printing is performed using the determined discharge unit-number of copies as a unit and using the constituent part as a unit in the unit of the discharge unit-number of copies.
US08823972B2

A print controlling device is provided with an image data processing module configured to apply an image processing operation to an image data, a transmitting module configured to transmit the processed image data which is processed by the image data processing module to a printing device, and a modifying module configured to modify the image processing operation in accordance with the printing device to which the modified image data is to be transmitted.
US08823963B2

An apparatus for outputting an image is provided. The apparatus includes a printer; a storage to store screen data on a screen in which a plurality of objects are provided and on which settings regarding a process for printing an image onto paper with the printer are made; an obtaining portion to obtain image data on a target image to be outputted; a display device to display, if a medium to which the target image is outputted is electronic paper, the screen based on the screen data in a manner to hide or not to place an unrelated object which is included in the objects and is not related to the electronic paper; and an output portion to output the image data to the electronic paper based on conditions designated on the screen displayed in such a manner that the unrelated object is hidden or not placed.
US08823956B2

A print control program comprising: a first step of waiting until one or more of post-treatment functions is selected, or until a start instruction is entered; a second step of determining whether a specified post-treatment function of the post-treatment functions is selected, when the start instruction is detected; and a third step of enabling one or more of resource saving functions to be selected only if the specified post-treatment function is not selected, and of starting printing if another start instruction is detected after enabling the resource saving function/s to be selected.
US08823947B2

The invention relates to an optical sensor comprising an optical waveguide (1) and a light-sensitive element (4) for detecting light coupled out of the waveguide (1) and also various ring resonators (2), the ring resonators (2) being coupled optically to the mentioned waveguide (1) and, with the exception of at most one of the ring resonators (2), each having a means (5) for adjusting resonance frequencies of the respective ring resonator (2) and/or of the coupling between the ring resonator (2) and the waveguide (1) and at least two of the ring resonators (2) having different optical lengths in an initial state and being disposed for having their resonance frequencies influenced by means of different variables to be measured which are specific for each of these ring resonators (2). The invention refers furthermore to a method which can be implemented with a sensor of this type for detecting molecules of at least one substance.
US08823942B1

An environmental cell assembly for use in microscopy and spectroscopy applications, including: an environmentally sealed body assembly configured to selectively hold and contain a sample; a plurality of ports manufactured into one or more surfaces of the body assembly for one or more of evacuating the body assembly and injecting a gas into or removing a gas from the body assembly; a port manufactured into a surface of the body assembly for receiving a translating stage configured to move the sample within the body assembly; and a port manufactured into a surface of the body assembly for receiving one or more lenses utilized in a microscopy or spectroscopy application; wherein the one or more lenses are disposed adjacent the sample without intervening structures disposed there between. The cell assembly also includes a port manufactured into a surface of the body assembly for retaining a window and providing visualization of the sample.
US08823941B2

A detection device includes a flow channel for a fluid sample, a suction section adapted to draw the fluid sample into the flow channel, an optical device disposed in the flow channel, a light source adapted to irradiate the optical device with light, a light detection section adapted to detect light emitted from the optical device, a microbalance sensor chip having a piezoelectric substrate provided with an oscillation electrode, and disposed in the flow channel, and a quantitative analysis section adapted to perform quantitative analysis on the fluid sample based on output from the light detection section and the microbalance sensor chip. The optical device has a metal nanostructure including projections ranging in size from 1 through 1000 nm, and emits light representing the fluid sample adsorbed to the metal nanostructure.
US08823940B2

Methods and apparatuses for measuring a light absorbance are provided. The method measures light absorbance of at least one detection chamber of a microfluidic device, including the detection chamber and at least one reference chamber. The detection chamber may accommodate a test subject. The method includes detecting a plurality of reference transmitted light intensities for the at least one reference chamber and estimating a value between the plurality of reference transmitted light intensities through nonlinear approximation. The estimated value is then applied to light absorbance measurement of the detection chamber to reduce a light absorbance error of the detection chamber.
US08823929B2

The present invention provides an inspection apparatus having a high throughput and high sensitivity with respect to a number of various manufacturing processes and defects of interest in inspection of a specimen such as a semiconductor wafer on which a pattern is formed. The apparatus illuminates with light the specimen having the pattern formed thereon, forms an image of the specimen on an image sensor through a reflective optics, and determines the existence/nonexistence of a defect. The reflective optics has a conjugate pair of Fourier transform optics. An aberration of the reflective optics is corrected off-axis. The reflective optics has a field of view in non-straight-line slit form on the specimen surface. Also, the optics is of a reflection type, includes a conjugate pair of Fourier transform optics and has a field of view in non-straight-line slit form. An optimum wavelength band is selected according to the specimen (FIG. 1).
US08823923B2

A method of measuring energy expenditure in a living subject comprises: (a) administering a specified dose of doubly-labeled water (2H218O) to a living subject; (b) obtaining samples at three or more times of body water from the living subject; (c) measuring 2H/1H, 17O/16O and 18O/16O ratios in each of the obtained samples using optical spectroscopy; and (d) determining (1) a combined value of flux of body water and exhaled carbon dioxide from a change in measured 18O/16O over time, (2) a value of flux of body water alone from a change in measured 2H/1H over time, and (3) a reference value of isotopic background fluctuation from a change in measured 17O/16O over time. Using 17O measurements to estimate background fluctuations of the 2H and 18O decreases the required isotope dosing of subjects or decreases uncertainty at current dosing levels.
US08823920B2

An immersion lithography apparatus comprises a temperature controller configured to adjust a temperature of a projection system, a substrate and a liquid towards a common target temperature. Controlling the temperature of these elements and reducing temperature gradients may improve imaging consistency and general lithographic performance. Measures to control the temperature may include controlling the immersion liquid flow rate and liquid temperature, for example, via a feedback circuit.
US08823915B2

Disclosed herein is a liquid crystal display panel in which circumferences of a pair of substrates disposed so as to face each other are stuck at a given distance to each other by a seal material, a liquid crystal inlet is formed in a part of the seal material, and a liquid crystal is sealed in an inner space defined between the substrates paired with each other, the liquid crystal display panel including a resin film being formed on the inner space side of one of the pair of substrates, and an inorganic insulating film being formed on a surface side of the resin film. An area not having the inorganic insulating film being present therein is formed in the liquid crystal panel.
US08823908B2

A display apparatus which comprises a liquid crystal panel and displays a predetermined image comprises: a reflective panel which is arranged opposite to the liquid crystal panel and reflects light emitted from the liquid crystal panel; and image capture devices which are located in the liquid crystal panel and capture an image on a display surface of the liquid crystal panel using light reflected by the reflective panel. An image display condition of the liquid crystal panel of the display apparatus is captured by the display apparatus itself.
US08823906B2

Manufacturing method of a liquid crystal display device having a TFT substrate with a display area in which pixels are arranged, a counter substrate, a sealing material formed in a periphery to bond the TFT and counter substrates, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between an orientation film on the TFT substrate and an orientation film on the counter substrate. The method includes the steps of forming a first color filter, a second color filter, or a third color filter corresponding to each of the pixels in the display area of the TFT substrate, and forming an orientation film stopper by overlapping a portion of the first color filter, the second color filter, or the third color filter, in an area between the display area and the sealing material. A profile of the orientation film formed in the TFT substrate is defined by the orientation film stopper.
US08823904B2

The present invention provides an improved type of liquid crystal (LC) display device with wide-viewing angle and high optical transmittance. The LC display of the present invention consists of: at least one LC alignment apparatus, which makes the LC molecules within the display area forming a continuous-domain or multi-domain alignments, and hence improve its wide-viewing-angle characteristics; a LC layer formed by Nematic type LC with chiral dopants, and with optimal parameters of the optical path difference Δnd and LC rotations of d/p ratio, such that LC molecules can be aligned along all radial directions to achieve optimal transmittance, and thus producing an wide-viewing-angle LC display improved transmittance without the formation of dark fringes in the display area.
US08823894B2

A frame formed by cutting and bending a plate base is provided. The maximum thickness of the frame is T, the thickness of the plate base is t, and 1.5t≦T≦2.5t. The frame includes a first plate element, a second plate element, and a bending portion. The second plate element is directly contacted to the first plate element, and the first plate element is substantially parallel to the second plate element. The bending portion is connected between the first plate element and the second plate element. A backlight module using the above-mentioned frame and a liquid crystal display (LCD) module using the backlight module are also provided.
US08823887B2

A mobile terminal and a method of manufacturing a display module provided therein are provided. The mobile terminal may include a main body, a display located at the main body, a window located at the main body to cover the display, a touch sensor located at a surface of the window to detect a touch input, a gel sheet adhered to one of the touch sensor and the display, the gel sheet being made of a light-transmittance material to fill a space between the touch sensor and the display, and an air exhaust agent disposed between the gel sheet and the other one of the touch sensor and the display to displace air. The air exhaust agent changes from a liquid phase to a gel state over time.
US08823884B2

The present invention discloses a flat panel display includes a main body having a cabinet that forms a display window on a front side and a display panel contained in the cabinet, a stand located beneath said main body, and a supporting member that is fixed with said stand and supports said main body by fixing a back of said display panel at a position above said stand. The supporting member has a stand fixation part that is fixed with said stand. The supporting member has a back fixation portion to fix the back of said display panel at a position above said stand fixation part. The supporting member is formed to protrude upward from said stand and shift a center of gravity of said display panel rearward.
US08823881B2

A control device controls a television. The control device includes a touch module. The control device displays a menu containing a number of soft keys on a screen. The soft keys are activated to control the television to carry out corresponding functions. All positions on the menu are associated with all positions on the touch module correspondingly. As a result, a user can select desired soft keys to carry out corresponding functions by viewing the menu on the television and touching the touch module, rather than viewing the touch module.
US08823863B2

An image capturing apparatus includes: a first detection unit that, based on feature amounts of an image obtained by an image sensor, detects a position of a certain subject in the image and a position of a certain part of the certain subject; and a second detection unit that detects a position of a region of the certain subject in the image obtained by the image sensor with a smaller calculation amount than the first detection unit. A focus detection area corresponding to the certain part is selected from among a plurality of focus detection areas based on a relationship between the position of the region of the certain subject detected by the second detection unit and the positions of the certain subject and the certain part detected by the first detection unit.
US08823861B2

An imaging apparatus includes an optical unit capable of changing a focusing position and converting an image of a subject into an electric signal, an image processing device configured to convert the electric signal from the optical unit into imaging data and acquire reference image data before a shooting is taken, a display device configured to display the imaging data, a control device configured to control the image processing device, and a movement-detecting device connected to the image processing device and the control device and configured to detect movement information representing a variation between the imaging data and the reference image data, about each of the imaging data. The image processing device includes a correcting part configured to correct a focusing-area frame representing a focusing position of the imaging data, based on the detected movement information. The control device is configured to control the image processing device to display the corrected focusing-area frame and the imaging data together on the display device when the imaging data are reproduced.
US08823858B2

An imaging apparatus includes an image generating unit obtaining a first imaging signal or a second imaging signal from a first light-receiving element group or a second light-receiving element group of an image pickup device, respectively and generating a first image or a second image, and the first light-receiving element group and the second light-receiving element group of the image pickup device are configured to obtain a first image and a second image with different weights according to a first characteristic and a second characteristic, respectively, of a photographing optical system.
US08823850B2

An image processing system includes a pixel array including a plurality of regular pixel columns and at least one test pixel column, a plurality of column analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) configured to correspond to the regular pixel columns and convert analog input signals into digital signals, and a switching block configured to provide output signals of the regular pixel columns to input ends of the corresponding column ADCs in a normal mode, and provide in common an output signal of the test pixel column to the input ends of the column ADCs in a test mode, wherein the test pixel column generates signals having a minute voltage different from one row to another row.
US08823847B2

According to one embodiment, a solid-state imaging device includes a pixel region which is configured such that a photoelectric conversion unit and a signal scanning circuit unit are included in a semiconductor substrate, and a matrix of unit pixels is disposed, and a driving circuit region which is configured such that a device driving circuit for driving the signal scanning circuit unit is disposed on the semiconductor substrate, wherein the photoelectric conversion unit is provided on a back surface side of the semiconductor substrate, which is opposite to a front surface of the semiconductor substrate where the signal scanning circuit unit is formed, and the unit pixel includes an insulation film which is provided in a manner to surround a boundary part with the unit pixel that neighbors and defines a device isolation region.
US08823845B2

A color filter array of an image sensor is disclosed. The color filter array includes a first filter to transmit wavelengths of a first region in a visible light region, a second filter to transmit wavelengths of a second region in the visible light region, a third filter to transmit wavelengths of a third region in the visible light region, and a mixed filter to transmit wavelengths of at least one of the first region, the second region and the third region, and wavelengths of an infrared region at the same time.
US08823843B2

An image processing device includes: a detection unit detecting a movement amount of an image between first image data constituting image data generated by an image capturing element provided with a plurality of image generating pixels generating pixel values for generating an image and a plurality of pairs of phase difference detecting pixels generating pixel values for performing focusing determination by phase difference detection, and second image data subsequent to the first image data on a time axis, wherein the movement amount is a movement amount of one phase difference detecting pixel when a defective pixel included in the pair of phase difference detecting pixels is one of the pair; and a correction unit correcting the pixel value of the defective pixel in the second image data on the basis of the detected movement amount and the pixel value of one phase difference detecting pixel in the first image data.
US08823834B2

An image processing device includes a clothing extractor extracting a face or head portion from an input image, the face or head portion being a region estimated to be a face or head image, and extracting a clothing region from a region immediately below the face or head portion, the clothing region being a region estimated to be a clothing image, and a clothing converter changing clothing in the input image by performing predetermined image processing on an image in the clothing region in the input image.
US08823832B2

An imaging apparatus includes the following processing units. An imaging device generates first image data according to incident light. A compression unit performs fixed length coding on the first image data to generate first compressed data. A storage unit stores the first compressed data. A de-compression unit de-compresses only first designated data that is a part of the first compressed data so as to generate first partial de-compressed data. A signal processing unit corrects image quality of the first partial de-compressed data to generate first partial corrected image data. A display unit displays the first partial corrected image data.
US08823825B2

According to one embodiment, a high dynamic range synthesizing circuit includes an interpolation processing unit. The interpolation processing unit generates an interpolated signal for a first pixel, which is set as a target pixel, through an interpolation process using a second image signal from a second pixel which is a peripheral pixel. The interpolation processing unit generates an interpolated signal for the second pixel, which is set as a target pixel, through an interpolation process using the first image signal from the first pixel which is a peripheral pixel.
US08823822B1

Systems and methods can be configured to perform operations related to determining a phase transfer function of a digital imaging system. A digital image that includes at least one edge is received, the at least one edge includes a plurality of pixels with disparate pixel values. The at least one edge from the digital image is identified and an edge spread function is generated based on the identified edge. The edge spread function can be generated by taking at least one slice across the identified at least one edge. A line spread function is generated based on the edge spread function. An optical transfer function is generated based on a Fourier transform of the line spread function. A phase error is also identified. The phase transfer function of the digital image is identified based on the phase of the generated optical transfer function and the identified phase error.
US08823821B2

Multiview videos are acquired by overlapping cameras. Side information is used to synthesize multiview videos. A reference picture list is maintained for current frames of the multiview videos, the reference picture indexes temporal reference pictures and spatial reference pictures of the acquired multiview videos and the synthesized reference pictures of the synthesized multiview video. Each current frame of the multiview videos is predicted according to reference pictures indexed by the associated reference picture list with a skip mode and a direct mode, whereby the side information is inferred from the synthesized reference picture. In addition, the skip and merge modes for single view video coding are modified to support multiview video coding by generating a motion vector prediction list by also considering neighboring blocks that are associated with synthesized reference pictures.
US08823820B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided for capturing an image. A method may include determining a scene to be captured at a first resolution. The scene to be captured may be within a field of view of an image sensor. The method may further include causing capture by the image sensor of a plurality of sub-images at a second resolution. The second resolution may be less than the first resolution. Each of the plurality of sub-images may depict a portion of the scene to be captured. The method may additionally include using the plurality of sub-images to generate an output image depicting the scene to be captured at the first resolution. Corresponding apparatuses are also provided.
US08823815B1

A camera module (50) is provided with a suspension wire (16) and an AF spring. The spring constant of the suspension wire (16) and the AF spring is set so that the maximum value of stress specified according to the degree of deformation in the longitudinal direction of the suspension wire (16) does not exceed the buckling stress or the yield stress of the suspension wire (16) when a movable section moves within a moving range.
US08823807B2

The present invention provides a method for delivering an enhanced reality message. The method includes sending a medium containing a code or indicia corresponding to a recorded video to a recipient, said video including an altered “green screen” background. A web server is operated to send the recorded video including the altered “green screen” background to a recipient's computer when the corresponding code or indicia is received from the client computer. The method also includes superimposing the recorded, altered video over an image acquired by a webcam of the recipient's computer, and to position the recorded video on the display screen dependent upon the location of a special marker on an object seen by the webcam.
US08823806B2

A DTV pilot sensor generates DTV pilot tone detection decisions associated with monitored television band channels without knowledge or estimation of a noise level of the monitored channel.
US08823804B2

A system for detecting behavior of a target may include: a target detection engine, adapted to detect at least one target from one or more objects from a video surveillance system recording a scene; a path builder, adapted to create at least one mature path model from analysis of the behavior of a plurality of targets in the scene, wherein the at least one mature path model includes a model of expected target behavior with respect to the at least one path model; and a target behavior analyzer, adapted to analyze and identify target behavior with respect to the at least one mature path model. The system may further include an alert generator, adapted to generate an alert based on the identified behavior.
US08823803B2

An IR camera includes a thermal radiation capturing arrangement for capturing thermal radiation of an imaged view in response to input control unit(s) receiving user inputs from a user of the IR camera; a processing unit arranged to process the thermal radiation data in order for the thermal radiation data to be displayed by an IR camera display as thermal images; and an IR camera display arranged to display thermal images to a user of the IR camera. The processing unit is further arranged to determine at least one temperature reference value representing the temperature of the surrounding environment of the imaged view; and calculate at least one output power value indicative of an amount of energy dissipated in a part of the imaged view by using the temperature value of the thermal radiation data corresponding to said part of the imaged view and the at least one determined temperature reference value.
US08823796B2

An adaptive surrounding view monitoring apparatus and a method thereof are disclosed, in which the apparatus uses a steerable camera set to take horizontal images while sending the horizontal images to a control unit where they are combined into an image of 180-degree or 360-degree surrounding view. It is noted that the surrounding view image maybe an image of front surrounding view, an image of rear surrounding view or an image of ambient surrounding view relating to a vehicle, and using that, visual blind spot of a driver driving the vehicle can be eliminated and the field of vision is widened, and thereby, the probability of accident occurring is reduced.
US08823787B2

A second lens frame has a shape including: a contact portion having a cylindrical shape with a diameter smaller than an inner diameter of a space portion of a first lens frame, a distal end portion thereof being brought into contact with an end face of the first lens frame; and a fitting portion having a diameter larger than that of the contact portion in a cylindrical shape fitting on an inner wall surface of the first lens frame, and when the second lens frame is inserted into the space portion of the first lens frame, a gap is formed therebetween. Accordingly, a distal end portion of the second lens frame is reliably brought into contact with an end face of a flange portion of the first lens frame, whereby variations in position in an optical axis direction are eliminated, enabling provision of a stable optical precision.
US08823782B2

Remote control devices that support interaction by a viewer with a screen assembly of a display device are provided. The eyes of the viewer have a first position within a premises relative to the screen assembly of the display device. The remote control device has a second position within the premises relative to the screen assembly of the display device. The remote control device includes an input interface that receives viewer input, a communication interface that supports wireless transmissions, and processing circuitry. The processing circuitry participates in a generation of location information relating to the first position of the eyes of the viewer. The processing circuitry causes the communication interface to make at least one wireless transmission relating to the generation of the location information. The processing circuitry, at least in part, causes a reconfiguration of the screen assembly based on the location information.
US08823769B2

Methods, devices, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media are disclosed for allowing video conferencing participants to maintain eye contact with each other. A display is disposed between a first video capture device and a second video capture device. The video capture devices capture images of a subject video conferencing participant. Images from the first capture device are associated with images from the second video capture device for transmission over a network to a video conferencing agent of a peer video conferencing participant. Images of the peer video conferencing participant are received over the network and displayed on the display that is disposed between the video capture devices. The video capture devices may be disposed at a height that is approximately even with a focal point of the subject video conferencing participant such that the subject video conferencing participant appears, to the peer video conferencing participant, to be making eye contact with the peer video conferencing participant when he is looking at the images of the peer video conferencing participant on the display.
US08823765B2

An approach is provided for generating a composite signal. A plurality of media signals are received over a wireless communication network from a plurality of mobile devices. One or more of the received media signals are selected according to a criterion. A composite signal is generated from the selected media signals.
US08823762B2

Density unevenness caused by an optical facet angle error or the like of a polygon mirror which has a plurality of reflection planes is corrected after shipment with a simple configuration. At least one of the plurality of reflection planes is identified as a reference plane. A plurality of pieces of light amount adjustment data for changing the light amount of light deflected for each reflection plane with the reference plane as a reference, and at least one piece of light amount correction data for correcting the light amount based on the plurality of pieces of light amount adjustment data are stored. When a light source emits light, one mode can be selected out of a test print mode (S5) in which light is emitted in a light amount based on the plurality of pieces of light amount adjustment data and a corrected print mode (S13) in which light based on the light amount correction data is emitted.
US08823759B1

A method includes providing pixel data that comprises lines of pixel data and shared lines of pixel data, where the shared lines of pixel data are configured such that a first laser and a second laser of a plurality of lasers within a laser printing arrangement will print the shared lines of pixel data during printing of an image on a print medium. The shared lines of pixel data are split between the first laser and the second laser such that two shared lines of pixel data allow for printing of a single line of the image to be printed. During printing, the first and second lasers fire in accordance with lines of the shared lines of pixel data, where the firing of the second laser begins printing of lines of the image and the firing of the first laser completes printing of lines of the image.
US08823758B2

A system for laser marking eggs is disclosed comprising multiple laser marking apparatuses and a central server. The laser marking apparatuses are configured and arranged to perform laser marking jobs queued by local computers for laser marking eggs being packed by egg packing stations. The central server is configured to distribute the laser marking jobs to the local computers. In addition, a method is disclosed for controlling laser marking jobs which comprises distributing the laser marking jobs from a central computer to local computers responsible for queuing laser marking jobs to one or more laser marking apparatuses configured and arranged to laser mark information on eggs.
US08823755B2

An apparatus and method for adjusting the pixel resolution of an input image is disclosed. According to the present invention, the pixel resolution of the input image is adjusted by oversampling an analog signal representative of the input image at a higher frequency than the pixel rate of the original image, then digitally downscaling to the desired horizontal resolution of an output image. The horizontally downscaled image is then stored in a buffer memory and subsequently scaled up to the desired vertical resolution of the output image. Preferably, oversampling of the analog signal is performed at a frequency that is an integer multiple of the input pixel rate, thus providing coherent sampling to help avoid aliasing artifacts in the sampled image.
US08823753B2

A display driver circuit configured to be shared by three grey-scale voltage generators to be respectively used with red (R), green (G) and blue (B) colors. In particular, two of the three grey-scale voltage generators share first and second resistor strings, gamma voltage selectors, and gamma adjustment buffers provided in the other grey-scale voltage generator, thereby reducing the size and power consumption of the display driver circuit. Also, when only a single grey-scale voltage is output, it is possible to deactivate the grey-scale voltages provided by two of the grey-scale generators and further reduce power consumption.
US08823751B2

Embodiments of the invention provide a technique for rendering components included in a computer-aided design (CAD) drawing of a utility network, such as system of pipes and related equipment. Display settings may specify whether a particular component should be rendered using 2-line, 1-line or graphical 1-line display representations, based on the size of that component in the CAD drawing.
US08823749B2

Methods and devices provide an efficient user interface for providing continuous zoom or magnification of a displayed image on a computing device. A user may initiate a zoom-in or zoom-out function by tracing an ellipsoidal shape (e.g., a circle) using a user interface device, such as a touchscreen, touchpad or mouse. The zoom function continues so long as a touchscreen or touchpad are touched, or a mouse button is depressed, and an ellipsoidal path is traced. Zoom-in or magnification scaling factor may be applied to an image in response to a clockwise path trace and a zoom-out or demagnification scaling factor may be applied to an image in response to a clockwise path trace, or vice versa. A visual aid may be presented on the display that may be followed to conduct the zoom function.
US08823741B2

A transparent display apparatus and a method for operating the same are disclosed. The method may include detecting an object located proximate to the transparent image display apparatus; determining a position of the detected object relative to the transparent image display apparatus; and selecting, from among multiple, different augmented object displays associated with the detected object, an augmented object display based on the determined position of the detected object relative to the transparent image display apparatus. A first augmented object display may be selected based on the determined position being a first position relative to the transparent image display apparatus, and a second augmented object display may be selected based on the determined position being a second position relative to the transparent image display apparatus. Display of the selected augmented object display is controlled on the transparent image display apparatus.
US08823738B1

The illustrative embodiment of the present invention provides a method of reconciling and merging differences between displayed electronic diagrams. After differences between corresponding areas of the two electronic diagrams are detected, the software provides a mechanism for merging different attributes between the diagrams. Alternatively, the second diagram may receive all of the differences identified from the first diagram. Distinctions are made between graphical and functional attributes noted as differences between the two diagrams prior to the merge operation. The illustrative embodiment of the present invention enables the user to specify which type of attribute differences should be merged (i.e., graphical differences, functional differences, both graphical and functional, or only selected differences).
US08823737B2

A user interface and method for identifying related information displayed in an ultrasound system are provided. A medical image display of the ultrasound system includes a first region configured to display a medical image having color coded portions and a second region configured to display non-image data related to the medical image displayed in the first region. The non-image data is color coded to associate the non-image data with the color coded portions of the medical image.
US08823725B1

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for determining a duty cycle for a pixel (e.g. of alternating pixel values to achieve an average pixel color). In use, a first value of a sub-color component bit of a pixel is determined. Additionally, a second value for the sub-color component bit of the pixel is calculated. Further, a duty cycle for alternating between the first value and the second value is determined (e.g. which when applied at normal display frame rate may achieve an average color).
US08823724B2

Systems and methods for texture processing are presented. In one embodiment a texture method includes creating a sparse texture residency translation map; performing a probe process utilizing the sparse texture residency translation map information to return a finest LOD that contains the texels for a texture lookup operation; and performing the texture lookup operation utilizing the finest LOD. In one exemplary implementation, the finest LOD is utilized as a minimum LOD clamp during the texture lookup operation. A finest LOD number indicates a minimum resident LOD and a sparse texture residency translation map includes one finest LOD number per tile of a sparse texture. The sparse texture residency translation can indicate a minimum resident LOD.
US08823718B2

Systems and methods for downloading algorithmic elements to a coprocessor and corresponding processing and communication techniques are provided. For an improved graphics pipeline, the invention provides a class of co-processing device, such as a graphics processor unit (GPU), providing improved capabilities for an abstract or virtual machine for performing graphics calculations and rendering. The invention allows for runtime-predicated flow control of programs downloaded to coprocessors, enables coprocessors to include indexable arrays of on-chip storage elements that are readable and writable during execution of programs, provides native support for textures and texture maps and corresponding operations in a vertex shader, provides frequency division of vertex streams input to a vertex shader with optional support for a stream modulo value, provides a register storage element on a pixel shader and associated interfaces for storage associated with representing the “face” of a pixel, provides vertex shaders and pixel shaders with more on-chip register storage and the ability to receive larger programs than any existing vertex or pixel shaders and provides 32 bit float number support in both vertex and pixel shaders.
US08823713B2

When a function is selected, and then, a character string to which the function is executed, an operation of selecting the character string is facilitated in order to reduce an operation burden of a user.The present invention is characterized by including a display unit that displays content information including a character string; a memory unit that stores a character type-function correspondence information in which functions and a character type of a character that is a subject to which the corresponding function is executed are associated with each other; a function selection unit that selects a function to be executed; a character selection unit that selects a desired character string in the content information displayed on the display unit, after the function is selected; a character identification unit that refers to the character type-function correspondence information in order to determine whether a character having a valid character type to which the selected function can be executed is present or not in the character string selected by the character selection unit; and a valid character string decision unit that decides a valid character string, which is a subject to which the function is executed, from the selected character string, when the character identification unit determines that the character having the valid character type is present.
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