US09049184B2
According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for controlling access to a network comprises a first operation of determining a type of electronic device to join the network. Then, unique device credentials are sent to the electronic device. These unique device credentials are used in authenticating the electronic device, and the format of the unique device credentials is based on the type of electronic device determined.
US09049180B2
In order to provide additional functionalities in an infotainment system of a motor vehicle, a method for providing a signal output, in which a main file is transmitted that refers to secondary files and indicates an identifier related to each secondary file. The identifier can be calculated upon receipt of the main file (for example in the motor vehicle) for a secondary file already provided in the motor vehicle and compared with the identifier contained in the main file. Thus, the secondary file does not need to be downloaded every time, but can be provided in a buffer memory. The identifier shows if the secondary file provided is the most recent version thereof.
US09049179B2
Systems and methods for mobile network traffic coordination across multiple applications are disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a distributed proxy and cache system, including, a local proxy on a mobile device for intercepting a data request made via a mobile device, and a proxy server coupled to the mobile device and a content server to which the data request is directed. One embodiment includes, delaying transfer of a first data transfer request initiated by a first application until another data transfer request initiated by a second application is detected on the mobile device and transferring, the first data transfer request of the first application and the other data transfer request of the second application a single transfer operation over the network.
US09049161B2
A method and apparatus for linking sounds and emoticons to allow a recipient of a message containing an emoticon to hear audio associated with the emoticon. In one aspect of the invention, a first user or sender establishes a link or association between the emoticon being sent and a sound file to be associated with that particular emoticon. The emoticon is then transmitted from the sender to the recipient along with the link or association such that the recipient can hear the audio when the emoticon is displayed.
US09049159B2
Systems and techniques for transferring electronic data include enabling instant messaging communication between a sender an at least one recipient through an instant messaging host. In addition, voice communication is enabled between the sender and the recipient through the instant messaging host.
US09049157B1
A Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM)-based Longest Prefix Match (LPM) lookup table including a TCAM holding a plurality of prefix entries for looking up results in an associated RAM, the associated RAM storing results corresponding to TCAM match indices; additional Random Access Memory (RAM) storing results from the associated RAM; and one entry in the TCAM representing at least two entries in the additional RAM from the associated RAM, whereby at least one entry in the TCAM is made available.
US09049153B2
Some embodiments provide a method of processing a packet through a logical switching element implemented by several managed switching elements. The method receives a packet for processing through a processing pipeline of the logical switching element. The method processes the packet through the processing pipeline. The method stores state information in the packet for indicating that the packet has been processed through the processing pipeline in order to prevent other managed switching elements from processing the packet through the processing pipeline. The method forwards the processed packet to a managed switching element of the several managed switching elements.
US09049144B2
A method of establishing a network connection between two nodes of a communication network via a connectionless transport layer communication protocol is presented. In the method, a plurality of data packets is exchanged between a first node and a second node. Each of the data packets comprises a header and a payload formatted according to the connectionless protocol. The connectionless protocol payload of the data packets includes a separate header comprising a first port indicator for the first node and a second port indicator for the second node. The separate header of at least one of the data packets includes an indication to establish a connection between the first node and the second node. In response to the exchange of data packets, the first and second nodes establish the connection, wherein the first port indicator and the second port indicator are associated with the established connection between the nodes.
US09049140B2
A source device obtains a data packet that includes both a destination address and a payload. The source device selects an exit point address of multiple exit point addresses corresponding to the destination address based on one or more policies. The source device encapsulates the data packet with a header that includes the selected exit point address, and the encapsulated data packet is provided to the backbone network. The encapsulated data packet is routed through the backbone network based on the exit point address, and an edge router of the backbone network identifies an interface of the edge router that corresponds to the exit point address. The header is removed from the encapsulated data packet, and the data packet is added to a buffer of the interface for routing to one or more other devices outside of the backbone network.
US09049129B2
There is provided a node monitoring apparatus including: a node identification unit that identifies a function of a node present in a network; a parameter setting unit that sets a parameter for monitoring processing on the node in accordance with the function identified by the function identification unit; and a node monitoring unit that performs the monitoring processing on each of the nodes based on the parameter set by the parameter setting unit.
US09049128B1
A method may include receiving a communication from a client device and identifying a port number, a protocol and a destination associated with the communication. The method may also include identifying a first application being executed by the first client device based on the port number, the protocol and the destination associated with the first communication.
US09049119B2
A wireless communication and control system including a wireless device. There is a central server for storing communication protocols and control protocols and communicating the communication protocols and selectively communicating the control protocols between the wireless device and the central server. A communication protocol configures the system for communication and control protocols configure the system as one of a selection of intelligent appliance controllers. Alternately the control protocols configure the system as one of a selection of Internet terminals. The wireless device is any hand-held communication device, such as a hand-held computing device, wireless telephone, or cellular phone. The primary mode may switch from local office to a public carrier loop. This switching may be automatic or per specific instruction and preferences stored on a Server or in the CT/MD.
US09049111B2
Embodiments of the invention include an apparatus, method, and computer program for progressive charting of network traffic flow data. The method includes, in one example, receiving, at a network traffic analyzer, a query of network traffic flow data over a certain time period. The method further includes modifying the query to produce sub-queries each based on different segments of time within the certain time period, executing at least one of the sub-queries, and incrementally outputting results of each of said executed sub-queries as each of the sub-queries are completed.
US09049105B1
One or more event records associated with incidents that may occur in a network may be created and stored in an event sequence with other related event records. Whether the event records are related may be determined based at least in part on a dependency between network elements associated with the incidents. The one or more event records may be executed by event handlers to create additional event records, which may also be stored in an event sequence with related event records. A user may request event sequences for display at a user device. Event sequences may be processed to provide at least a portion of the sequences based at least in part on user-specific information. A user may interact with and/or respond to event records in the network. Such interactions or responses may also be stored as event records in an event sequence.
US09049097B2
The communication management apparatus includes a network-presence-check processing unit that performs network presence check processing for generating network presence information, a token-circulation-order determining unit that determines token circulation order using the network presence information, a setup processing unit that notifies each of communication nodes in the network of token circulation destination information, a token-frame processing unit that, after transmission of a data frame by a data-frame-communication processing unit, transmits, based on the token circulation order, a token frame including information concerning a transmission right acquiring apparatus that acquires a transmission right next and determines whether the transmission right acquiring apparatus of the transmission right acquiring apparatus information of the received token frame is the own apparatus, and the data-frame-communication processing unit that performs transmission and reception processing for a data frame for acquiring the transmission right.
US09049089B2
A base station is provided for receiving an acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signal, including a transmitting unit configured to transmit a control signal using one or a plurality of CCE(s). The base station also includes a receiving unit configured to receive an ACK/NACK signal, the ACK/NACK signal being multiplied by an orthogonal sequence, by a sequence defined by a cyclic shift, and by either a first value or a second value, wherein the first value rotates a constellation of the ACK/NACK signal by 0 degrees and the second value rotates the constellation of the ACK/NACK signal by N degrees, which is different from 0 degrees.
US09049084B1
Systems, methods, and computer-readable media, for facilitating transmission of offset QPSK signals indicating two digital symbols. In some embodiments, a first digital symbol of a first digital information unit and a first digital symbol of a second digital information unit are used to identify a first signal attribute associated with a sine wave and a second signal attributed associated with a cosine wave. Thereafter, an offset QPSK signal is generated using the first signal attribute in association with the sine wave and the second signal attribute in association with the cosine wave to encode both the first digital symbol and the second digital symbol within the offset QPSK signal.
US09049083B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of communications technologies, and provide a base station antenna and a base station antenna feed network. The base station antenna includes a transceiver array, a first-level vector synthesis network, a second-level phase shifter array, a second-level vector synthesis network, and an antenna unit array. By using the second-level vector synthesis network, the base station antenna makes phase differences between multiple vector signals sent to antenna units smoother, thereby extending an adjustable range of a downtilt on the premise that the number of transceivers is as small as possible.
US09049078B2
An apparatus, including a plurality of devices, a network operations center (NOC), and a plurality of control nodes. Each of the plurality of devices consumes a portion of the resource when turned on, and performs a corresponding function within an acceptable operational margin by cycling on and off. The NOC is disposed external to the facility, and generates a plurality of run time schedules that coordinates run times for the each of the plurality of devices to control the peak demand of the resource. Each of the plurality of control nodes is coupled to a corresponding one of the plurality of devices. The plurality of control nodes transmits sensor data and device status to the NOC via the demand coordination network for generation of the plurality of run time schedules, and executes selected ones of the run time schedules to cycle the plurality of devices on and off.
US09049076B1
Systems and methods for content selection with privacy features include determining that a period of time from when the cookie was last used to visit a webpage has exceeded a threshold value. Based on the determination, the topic may be removed from an interest category profile used to select content.
US09049072B1
Systems and methods for removing a DC offset from an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal transmitted over a plurality of subcarrier frequencies. The system includes a receiver. The system further includes a high pass DC component filter configured to reduce a DC component of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed signal, the high pass DC component filter shaping noise in the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed signal which results in a non-uniform power spectral density of the noise across the plurality of subcarrier frequencies. The system further includes a noise whitener configured to compensate for the noise shaping by the high pass DC component filter by normalizing the non-uniform power spectral density of the noise across the plurality of subcarrier frequencies.
US09049071B2
A method for implementing policy settings in a user device comprising a plurality of applications, wherein the policy settings comprise at least one application policy setting for managing at least one of the plurality of applications and at least one client policy setting for managing the user device, the method comprising determining a set of policy settings for the user device, providing an update of the policy settings and causing implementation of the policy settings by the user device, to control management of the at least one of the plurality of applications and management of the user device.
US09049067B2
In an embodiment, a circuit may include an input node, an output node, an internal node, a compensation circuit, and an adjustable capacitance circuit. The compensation circuit may be configured to modify a return loss of a signal received at the input node. The compensation circuit may include a first inductive element, a second inductive element, and a capacitive element. The first inductive element may couple the input node and the output node. The second inductive element may couple the output node and the internal node. The capacitive element may couple the input node and the internal node. The adjustable capacitance circuit may be configured to adjustably modify the return loss of the signal received at the input node. The capacitance circuit may be coupled to the compensation circuit.
US09049065B2
A method for estimating a feedback channel for a wireless repeater using frequency domain channel estimation estimates an error correction term using a most recent channel estimate and cancels the error correction term from a current block of the receive signal. Then, the feedback channel is estimated using frequency domain channel estimation and using a current block of the pilot signal and the corrected block of the receive signal. A channel estimate error term may also be estimated and subtracted directly from the channel estimate.
US09049064B2
Where first and second reference signals for a first and second communication system, respectively, are transmitted, resources that affect a reception apparatus compatible only with the first communication system can be minimized, and the throughput can be prevented from being deteriorated. As resources for a reference signal CSI-RS for LTE-A, last half symbols in a time direction of a resource unit RB/Sub-frame defined in a frequency-time domain are used, and the CSI-RS is allocated in a position up to the last two symbols or in the last symbol, or the like, of a particular RB/Sub-frame and transmitted when a reference signal 4RS for LTE is transmitted to a reception apparatus in addition to transmitting CSI-RS for LTE-A. The reception apparatus receives CSI-RS allocated in the last half symbol of RB/Sub-frame based on CSI-RS allocation information, measures channel quality by using this CSI-RS, and transmits and reports feedback information.
US09049063B2
Methods and apparatus are described for processing data in a wireless communication network. Iterative estimation techniques are used to enable tracking of time-varying communication channels. A signal is transmitted over a channel in the network, the signal comprising a sequence of symbols carried on a plurality of sub-carriers. Boot-up estimator estimates, in a time domain, parameters of a model of the channel based on the received signal. A domain converter transforms at least one of the estimated parameters from the time domain to provide at least one transformed parameter in a second domain. An equalizer and decoder determine estimates of symbols from the received signal using the at least one transformed parameter, and tracking estimator updates the estimated model parameters during reception of the signal using at least one estimated symbol.
US09049061B2
This invention discloses a CMOS device, which includes: a first MOSFET; a second MOSFET different from the type of the first MOSFET; a first stressed layer covering the first MOSFET and having a first stress; and a second stressed layer covering the second MOSFET, wherein the second stressed layer is doped with ions, and thus has a second stress different from the first stress. This invention's CMOS device and method for manufacturing the same make use of a partitioned ion implantation method to realize a dual stress liner, without the need of removing the tensile stressed layer on the PMOS region or the compressive stressed layer on the NMOS region by photolithography/etching, thus simplifying the process and reducing the cost, and at the same time, preventing the stress in the liner on the NMOS region or PMOS region from the damage that might be caused by the thermal process of the deposition process.
US09049053B2
The present invention relates to a method of managing an object (OBJ) through a management gateway (ONG) communicating with a system architecture present on a telecommunications network offering functionalities for registering objects and for routing messages. The method includes the registering (201) of the object with the system architecture by way of the management gateway, by using the registration functionality, and the control (203) of a parameter associated with the object through the management gateway, using the message routing functionality. The present invention also relates to a management gateway (ONG) corresponding to the management method.
US09049048B2
A recording medium, relay node and method are provided. The recording medium having recorded therein a communication program causing non-real time communication to be executed by first and second node groups in a network for conducting real time communication between the nodes through relay devices connecting the first and second node groups. The communication program causing a computer of a local node to execute causing a local node selected from the first node group to set a path leading from the local node to another node selected from the second node group, causing the local node to receive data on the non-real time communication from the other nodes of the first node group than the local node to the other nodes of the second node group than the another node; and transferring from the local node to the another node, the data received, using the path set in the setting.
US09049043B2
The present invention relates to a method for reducing the electricity consumption of an Ethernet interface involving switching to a low power mode when no activity is detected on the physical layer thereof for a first predetermined duration (T_L1_INACTIVE). The method is characterized in that the interface also switches to a low power mode when no activity is detected on the MAC layer thereof for a second predetermined duration (T_L2L).
US09049033B2
Systems and methods for controlling various aspects of ensemble experiences and system control for attention management are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for providing attention management for a specific participant in an online ensemble event, may comprise: receiving live stream signals, including audio signals, from each of a plurality of participants; displaying a plurality of objects on the corresponding user device of each specific participant, each of the plurality of objects corresponding to one specific participant; providing options for each specific participant to manipulate sizes of each of the plurality of objects and volume from each of the plurality of participants; providing a customized participation layer/interface to a specific participant to manage how other participants perceive the expression from the specific participant; and providing options for each specific participant to initiate an interaction with any of the plurality of participants.
US09049031B2
An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes an ingress network device receiving a multicast stream from a coupled source device and a first and a second egress network device. The first and second egress network devices each receive the multicast stream for coupled destination devices. The information handling system also includes a plurality of intermediate network devices by which the ingress network device is coupled to the first and second egress network devices to form a network and further includes a network controller. The network controller has a topology of the network in a memory and forms a multicast tree based on the topology as well as a link load level and a multicast replication capacity associated with links to the first and second egress network devices and to each of the plurality of intermediate network devices.
US09049029B2
Differing network services can be provided to a single network agent such that a single agent can access services billed to different accounts. Different services and billed to different accounts by the network agent sending a network agent identifier to the network which identifies the agent. After an agent is identified, it sends a service qualifier that identifies a service being requested and an account to which the service should be billed or charged.
US09049019B2
A piece of data terminal equipment having an Ethernet connector having first and second pairs of contacts used to carry high frequency data communication signals. The piece of data terminal equipment to have at least one path coupled across at least one of the contacts of the first pair of contacts of the Ethernet connector and at least one of the contacts of the second pair of contacts of the Ethernet connector. The piece of data terminal equipment to draw different magnitudes of DC current through the at least one path.
US09049015B2
In one embodiment, a method for providing an ACK packet while queuing data is provided. One or more packets in a series of packets may be received from a client at a gateway. The gateway determines that a packet in the series of packets has not been received. The one or more packets are then queued. The queued packets may have included an ACK for one or more previously sent packets. Thus, if the gateway had forwarded the one or more packets that are queued, then the ACK would have been received by the server. However, the one or more packets are queued and thus the ACK included in the packets is not sent with the queued packets. Even though the plurality of packets are queued, an acknowledgement packet is generated and then sent for the previously sent packets. The acknowledgement packet acknowledges to the server that the one or more previously sent packets were received by the client. The server may then continue transmitting packets to the client and knows it does not need to retransmit the one or more previously sent packets.
US09049012B2
According to an embodiment, a communication apparatus includes a finding unit; a negotiating unit; and a communicating unit. The finding unit is configured to, in response to a request from an application that makes use of key information, find out a key generating device that generates the key information. The negotiating unit is configured to perform a negotiation operation with respect to the key generating device to determine conditions for key information that is to be generated. The communicating unit is configured to receive, from the key generating device, the key information that is generated based on the conditions determined in the negotiation operation, and send the received key information to the application.
US09048998B2
A method of feedback in a wireless transmit receive unit includes providing a precoding matrix index (PMI), error checking the (PMI) to produce an error check (EC) bit, coding the PMI and the EC bit and transmitting the coded PMI and EC bit.
US09048992B2
A method for receiving Acknowledgement/Negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) information in a mobile communication system includes receiving a first signal including first spread ACK/NACK information and second spread ACK/NACK information from a first antenna set of a transmitting end in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol; receiving a second signal including third spread ACK/NACK information and fourth spread ACK/NACK information from a second antenna set of the transmitting end in an OFDM symbol; and de-spreading at least the first and third spread ACK/NACK information or the second and fourth spread ACK/NACK information for identifying the ACK/NACK information.
US09048990B2
Disclosed are various embodiments of extracting a paging message from paging channel downlink communications. A first and second page bursts and received. When the signal to noise ratio of the first and second bursts exceeds a threshold, a Viterbi decoder is executed and an error checking code calculated to determine whether the paging message is successfully extracted. If not, a third page burst is received and a Viterbi decoder executed to extract the paging message.
US09048988B2
Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO)-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication is provided which allows high accuracy estimation of frequency offset, high accuracy estimation of a transmission path fluctuation and high accuracy synchronization/signal detection. Pilot symbol mapping is provided for forming pilot carriers by assigning orthogonal sequences to corresponding subcarriers among OFDM signals which are transmitted at the same time from respective antennas in the time domain. Even when pilot symbols are multiplexed among a plurality of channels (antennas), this allows frequency offset/phase noise to be estimated with high accuracy.
US09048985B2
Provided is a precoding method for generating, from a plurality of baseband signals, a plurality of precoded signals to be transmitted over the same frequency bandwidth at the same time, including the steps of selecting a matrix F[i] from among N matrices, which define precoding performed on the plurality of baseband signals, while switching between the N matrices, i being an integer from 0 to N−1, and N being an integer at least two, generating a first precoded signal z1 and a second precoded signal z2, generating a first encoded block and a second encoded block using a predetermined error correction block encoding method, generating a baseband signal with M symbols from the first encoded block and a baseband signal with M symbols the second encoded block, and precoding a combination of the generated baseband signals to generate a precoded signal having M slots.
US09048984B2
A channel switching method, apparatus, and system are disclosed. A mobile terminal sends a channel switching command to a first access point, so that the first access point parses the channel switching command and sends a parsed channel switching command to a second access point and the second access point performs channel switching according to the parsed channel switching command. The mobile terminal receives a feedback message from the first access point. When the feedback message indicates that channel switching preparation of the second access point is ready, the mobile terminal breaks a connection to the first access point and sets up a connection to the second access point to complete the channel switching.
US09048977B2
A system, a method and an apparatus are disclosed herein for receiver terminal driven joint encoder and decoder mode adaptation for SU-MIMO transmission. In one embodiment, the system comprises a transmitter that is able to be directed to transmit wireless signals over a multiple-input, multiple output (MIMO) system using any of a plurality of encoding modes; and a user terminal having a receiver comprising a decoding module which has a plurality of decoding modes, each of which can be used to decode communications from the transmitter received over a multiple-input, multiple output (MIMO) channel, wherein at least one encoding mode is operable with multiple of the decoding modes. The system also comprises a joint selection module that is operable to select for the MIMO transmission the decoding mode from the plurality of decoding modes and an encoding mode from the plurality of encoding modes to be used by the transmitter on the channel, the selection being based on receiver-dependent criteria corresponding to the decoding mode associated with the encoding mode and channel information, receiver hardware and state, and application-specific constraints. The joint selection module is operable to send information to identify the encoding mode to the transmitter using a feedback channel.
US09048976B2
Provided are a method and apparatus for transmitting reference signals in a wireless communication system. A first set of reference signals and a second set of reference signals are generated and mapped to a first resource block (RB) in accordance with a first reference signal pattern and a second RB which is close to the first RB in accordance with a second reference signal pattern. The first RB and the second RB are transmitted from a base station to user equipment. Each of the first reference signal pattern and the second reference signal pattern is formed of one sub-frame and on RB unit. In addition, resource elements (Rs) to which the first set of reference signals and the second set of reference signals are respectively mapped in accordance with the second reference signal pattern are REs to which the second set of reference signals and the first set of reference signals are respectively mapped in accordance with the first reference signal pattern.
US09048964B2
A first signal generator is arranged to generate a first signal. A compensating null code circuit is configured to provide a null code. A multiplexer is capable of multiplexing the first signal and the null code consistent with a predetermined time sequence for expression of the null code in a produced precursor signal. A ranging code generator is arranged for generating a ranging code. A mixer is capable of accepting the ranging code and the precursor signal and outputting a locally generated reference signal. After down-conversion and digitization of the received composite signal, the code correlator can correlate the digital received composite signal to the locally generated reference signal to decode at least a first portion of the received composite signal, while leaving a second portion of the received composite signal undecoded.
US09048953B2
A technique for reducing a necessary bandwidth of an optical receiver in an optical OFDM communication system is disclosed. Optical OFDM signals of different spectra are alternately transmitted for each OFDM symbol time, and; after this light is transmitted via an optical fiber, the light undergoes photoelectric conversion by a delay interferometer having a delay time equal to one symbol time and a balanced direct detection receiver and is received.
US09048952B2
A switch is inserted and connected between a first portion and a second portion of an HPD line. The switch connects the first portion to the second portion when an HPD signal is outputted to the second portion. The switch cuts off the connection between the first portion and the second portion when the HPD signal is not outputted to the second portion. An AND gate generates a connection state detection signal that represents the connection state of an HDMI optical active cable, and outputs the connection state detection signal to a switch.
US09048946B1
A method of ranging comprises broadcasting a discovery request to a plurality of optical network units and receiving a respective discovery response from one or more of the plurality of optical network units. Each respective discovery response is transmitted as an out-of-band signal. The method also comprises approximating a respective out-of-band round trip delay to each corresponding optical network unit based on the respective discovery response; dynamically adjusting a size of a respective quiet window for each optical network unit based on the approximated out-of-band round trip delay; determining when to start the quiet window for each corresponding optical network unit based on the respective approximated out-of-band round trip delay; receiving an in-band ranging signal from the corresponding optical network unit during the respective quiet window; and determining an in-band round trip delay estimate based on the in-band ranging signal received during the respective quiet window.
US09048942B2
Interference in an audio signal is reduced by estimating a target signal using beam-forming in a direction of the signal source. A set of estimates of interference is determined by using a microphone array filtering matrix to block the target signal in the audio signal. A set of filters is optimized by minimizing an objective function measuring a mismatch between the set of estimates of interference and the estimate of the target signal. The minimizing uses a sparse regularization of coefficients of the set of filters. The set of estimates of interference are filtered using the set of filters after the optimizing. Then, the estimate of interference after the optimizing is subtracted from the target signal.
US09048940B2
In one or more embodiments, a cellular signal is received and directed to a path bypassing active amplifier circuitry. This may be in response to the active amplifier circuitry being non-operational (e.g., in a fault state) or detecting that an RF environment does not necessitate amplification. Bypassing the active amplifier circuitry may enable transmission of a non-amplified cellular signal when active circuitry is in a fault state or while traveling through areas of strong cellular service (e.g., proximate a cell tower).
US09048936B2
Systems, methods, and devices for communicating in a wireless network are described herein. In an aspect, a method of transmitting a data unit includes generating a data unit. The data unit includes one or more short training field (STF) sequences. The method further includes encoding each of the STF sequences with a pseudo-random spreading code. The code is based on an addressee of the data unit. The method further includes transmitting, at a transmitter, the data unit over a wireless channel. In another aspect, a method of processing a data unit includes receiving, at a receiver, a data unit. The data unit includes one or more STF sequences. The method further includes determining whether the data unit comprises one or more differentially encoded symbols. The method further includes receiving one or more long training field (LTF) sequences when the data unit does not comprise one or more differentially encoded symbols.
US09048933B2
Disclosed is a radio-frequency front-end apparatus that can be used in wireless communication systems performing transmission/reception by using a single antenna. The radio-frequency transceiving front-end apparatus using passive elements in a wireless communication system includes: a transmitting unit's hybrid coupler configured to divide and output a transmission signal into two outputs having a phase difference of 90°; a first circulator configured to receive a first output of the hybrid coupler through a first terminal thereof and output the received first output through a second terminal thereof; a second circulator configured to receive a second output of the hybrid coupler through a first terminal thereof and output the received second output through a second terminal thereof; and an output unit's hybrid coupler configured to receive transmission signals from the second terminal of the first circulator and the second terminal of the second circulator, and combine and output the received signals.
US09048931B2
A filter arrangement comprises a first terminal that handles duplex radio antenna feeder signals for at least two transceiver modules, a second terminal that handles at least duplex signals for a first transceiver module, a third terminal that outputs a first multi carrier power amplifier system input signal, the input signal representing a transmit signal from the first transceiver module, and a fourth terminal that receives a multi carrier power amplifier system output signal. The output signal includes an amplified representation of the transmit signals from the two transceiver modules. The first and second terminals are connected via first a single filter, the second and third terminals are connected via a second single filter, and the fourth and first terminals are connected via a third single filter.
US09048929B2
A system for distributing broadband signals via twisted pair wiring is disclosed. Various aspects of the system involve use of a broadband signal distribution interface device and/or a broadband line driver. In one aspect, a broadband signal distribution interface device includes a broadband signal interface configured to receive broadband radio frequency signals, and a plurality of broadband signal connections configured to distribute broadband radio frequency signals. The interface device also includes circuitry defining an upstream signal path and a downstream signal path and including a gain control circuit and a slope control circuit each positioned along the downstream signal path. The circuitry is configured to accommodate downstream transmission of the broadband signals onto twisted pair wiring.
US09048928B2
Expandable transceivers and receivers support operation on multiple frequency bands and multiple carriers. In an exemplary design, an apparatus (e.g., a wireless device, an integrated circuit (IC) chip, or circuit module) includes a low noise amplifier (LNA) and interface circuit. The LNA resides on an IC chip and includes a first/on-chip output and a second/off-chip output. The interface circuit also resides on the IC chip, is coupled to the second output of the LNA, and provides an amplified RF signal outside of the IC chip. The apparatus may further include a buffer, load circuit, and downconverter circuit. The buffer resides on the IC chip, is coupled to the first output of the LNA, and receives a second amplified RF signal from outside of the IC chip. The load circuit is coupled to the first output of the LNA. The downconverter circuit is coupled to the load circuit.
US09048926B2
The present disclosure discloses a multi-card mobile terminal and an SIM card data dumping method thereof An MCC and an MNC of a secondary SIM card is compared with data in a white list preset in the mobile terminal. If the secondary SIM card is to be locked, short message data is copied from the secondary SIM card, saved into a short message function module of the mobile terminal, labeled as being from the secondary SIM card and used by a primary SIM card. This helps a user to switch services from one operator to another without substantially affecting use of the mobile terminal, which represents conveniences for the user.
US09048920B2
An apparatus and method for reducing FM audio artifacts in a receiver are provided. A direct conversion radio frequency (RF) receiver converts an analog FM signal into a phase shifted digital low IF signal. A digital controller coupled to the analog FM receiver provides adaptive frequency translation for different channel spacing and provides adaptive low IF configuration through the different channel spacing, thereby suppressing audio artifacts.
US09048915B2
A method and apparatus for splitting signals received via a plurality of antennas. A signal split apparatus of the present disclosure includes a first antenna which receives a first input signal, a second antenna which receives a second input signal, a first phase shifter which shifts phase by applying a first modulation frequency to the first input signal, a second phase shifter which shifts phase by applying a second modulation frequency to the second input signal, a summer which sums the phase-shifted first and second input signals, and an analog-digital converter which converts the summed signal to a digital signal, wherein the first and second modulation frequencies are different from each other. The signal split apparatus and method of the present disclosure is capable of splitting signals efficiently.
US09048914B2
Provided is a downlink reference signal structure suitable for increase in number of transmission layers. A radio base station device (20) has a plurality of transmission antennas; a orthogonal RS sequence generator (22) for generating orthogonal reference signals based on a two-dimensional orthogonal code, the orthogonal reference signals being orthogonalized between downlink reference signals adjacent in two-dimensional directions of frequency direction and time direction to each other in one transmission layer and being orthogonalized in different transmission layers assigned to one radio resource; a multiplexer (23) for multiplexing transmission data and the orthogonal reference signals in the one transmission layer; and a transmitter for transmitting a transmission signal obtained by multiplexing the transmission data and the orthogonal reference signals, via the transmission antenna in transmission layers simultaneously.
US09048905B2
A method and system for radio frequency transmitting and receiving beamforming using both GPS guidance and wireless access points is disclosed. The method and system comprises providing a wireless networking device with a locating system; providing an access point, the access point broadcasting its location; calculating a relative vector from the device to the access point based upon the location; steering a transmitted beam with a sounding packet to the access point; calculating a channel condition by the access point; and sending a packet by the access point to the wireless networking device to establish a connection.
US09048904B2
A method for transmitting channel status information (CSI) via uplink in a wireless communication system includes transmitting a first precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and a second PMI at a subframe. A subsampled codebook for each of a precoding codebook for Rank-1 and a precoding codebook for Rank-2 is determined based on at least the first PMI or the second PMI. In case of the Rank-1 or the Rank-2, a number of elements for the first PMI is 8.
US09048902B2
A transmission apparatus and method for transmitting data within a multi-carrier transmission system including two or more transmission apparatuses configured to transmit same data. To avoid destructive interferences the transmission apparatus includes a signal input configured to receive multi-carrier signals carrying data to be transmitted, a distortion unit configured to distort the multi-carrier signals by use of a distortion function including a phase parameter for differently modulating phase of the multi-carrier signals, the distortion function being different from distortion functions used by other transmission apparatuses, whose coverage areas overlap with the coverage area of the present transmission apparatus, by using a phase parameter different from the phase parameter used by the other transmission apparatuses, and a transmission unit configured to transmit the distorted multi-carrier signals as a transmission signal.
US09048896B2
Apparatus for multi-user multi-antenna transmission based on double codebook and method for the same
Double codebook-based multi-user, a multi-antenna transmission apparatus and a transmission method are started. A transmission apparatus includes an effective channel information reception unit configured to receive an effective channel matrix for a transmission channel, a zero-forcing precoding unit configured to receive data streams and perform zero-forcing precoding to null inter-user interference based on the effective channel matrix, a beam forming unit configured to receive the data streams subjected to the zero-forcing precoding from the zero-forcing precoding unit and perform beam forming, and a multi-antenna array configured to transmit the data streams subjected to the beam forming by the beam forming unit to the multi-user. With the method and apparatus, it is possible to improve a transmission capacity and effectively process an interference between terminals in a multi-layer beam forming environment.
US09048892B2
A MIMO system supports multiple spatial multiplexing modes for improved performance and greater flexibility. These modes may include (1) a single-user steered mode that transmits multiple data streams on orthogonal spatial channels to a single receiver, (2) a single-user non-steered mode that transmits multiple data streams from multiple antennas to a single receiver without spatial processing at a transmitter, (3) a multi-user steered mode that transmits multiple data streams simultaneously to multiple receivers with spatial processing at a transmitter, and (4) a multi-user non-steered mode that transmits multiple data streams from multiple antennas (co-located or non co-located) without spatial processing at the transmitter(s) to receiver(s) having multiple antennas. For each set of user terminal(s) selected for data transmission on the downlink and/or uplink, a spatial multiplexing mode is selected for the user terminal set from among the multiple spatial multiplexing modes supported by the system.
US09048891B2
A multi-tiered CSI vector quantizer (VQ) is provided for time-correlated channels. The VQ operates by quantizing channel state information by reference to both the current channel state information and a prior channel state quantization. A system is also provided that uses multi-tiered CSI quantizers. Enhanced signaling between the transmitter and receivers is provided in order to facilitate the use of multi-tiered CSI quantizers.
US09048885B2
A method of transmitting control information in a wireless communication system is disclosed. A method of receiving control information in a mobile station which receives downlink data from a plurality of cells simultaneously in a wireless communication system comprises receiving downlink control information including the control information on data transmitted from the plurality of cells from a serving base station via a downlink control channel.
US09048880B2
A customer-accessible station includes a near field communication (NFC) transceiver configured to interact with another NFC transceiver of a customer's mobile station and/or a micro-cell base station subsystem for use at a premises of an enterprise includes a base transceiver system configured for wireless communication with a mobile station over a frequency band allocated for mobile traffic in a macro cellular network. A communication interface sends and receives communications for one or more mobile stations when at the premises via a packet data network. A controller coupled to the base transceiver system operates the micro-cell base station subsystem to appear as a base station similar to a base station of the macro cellular network, including enabling mobile station registration. A customer management server responds to identification of a registered mobile station by communicating information about a customer associated with the identified mobile station to a system used by enterprise personnel.
US09048876B2
An error control encoding system produces a codeword from a data word, where the resulting codeword includes the data word and three or more parity segments produced using the data word. The system includes a first encoder to encode the data word in two or more first data segments in order to produce two or more first parity segments, where each of the two or more first data segments includes a respective sequential portion of the data word. The system includes a second encoder to encode the data word in one or more second data segments in order to produce a corresponding one or more second parity segments, where each of the one or more second data segments includes a respective sequential portion of the data word, and each of the one or more second data segments also includes a sequential portion of the data included in a plurality of the two or more first data segments. Further, the system includes a controller configured to provide the two or more first data segments of the data word to the first encoder for encoding and to provide the one or more second data segments of the data word to the second encoder for encoding.
US09048872B2
A layered decoding architecture with a reduced number of hardware buffers for low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoding by storing a variable-to-check message. When a check node begins a new operation, a variable-to-check message (Q) is added to a check-to-variable message (R) obtained in previous check-node operation to obtain an updated APP value. Then, the R value for the check node in the layer being processed is deducted from the APP value to obtain a variable-to-check message (Q). This variable-to-check message is stored in the memory and inserted into the check node equation to obtain a check-to-variable message. Finally the check-to-variable message obtained in this operation is stored to the check-to-variable message shift register to complete the updating operation for the check node and the variable node for the layer being processed. Improved hardware utilization and fewer buffers, thus achieving a smaller hardware area while retaining the converge speed, is obtained.
US09048871B2
Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with LDPC decoder architectures are described. According to one embodiment, an apparatus includes a super-parity-check matrix corresponding to at least a portion of a low density parity check (LDPC) code matrix. The super-parity-check-matrix is configured to operate with nx check node processing elements (NPEs) and ny bit NPEs. The super-parity-check matrix includes a plurality of parity check matrices. Each parity check matrix is configured to operate with x check NPEs and y bit NPEs. The numbers n, x, and y, are selected such that ny codeword bits are processed in the single time unit by a high throughput decoder and y codeword bits are processed in the single time unit by a low throughput decoder.
US09048870B2
Embodiments of the present inventions are related to systems and methods for decoding data in an LDPC decoder with flexible saturation levels for variable node probability values.
US09048864B2
A digital to analog converter including a current steering source and a master replica bias network. The current steering source includes a data current source providing a source current to a source node, a switch circuit operative to steer the source current to a selected one of first and second control nodes based on a data bit, a buffer circuit that buffers the source current between the first control node and a first current output node or between the second control node and a second current output node, and an activation current source provides activation current to the buffer circuit via the first and second control nodes. The master replica bias network replicates biasing of the buffer circuit relative to a replica control node and drives the buffer circuit to maintain the first control node, the second control node and the replica control node at a common master control voltage.
US09048861B2
An analog to digital converter comprises an input terminal configured to receive an analog input signal and an output terminal configured to provide an output digital signal. The analog to digital converter also comprises a main summer having a summing input, a subtracting input and a summing output, wherein the summing input is connected to the input terminal; an analog filter having a filter input and a filter output, wherein the filter input is connected to the summing output; a quantizer having a quantizer input and a quantizer output, wherein the quantizer input is connected to the filter output; a digital integrator having a digital integrator input and a digital integrator output, wherein the digital integrator output is configured to provide a multi-bit output signal, the digital integrator input is connected to the quantizer output, and the digital integrator output is connected to the output terminal; and a main feedback digital to analog converter having a main feedback converter input and a main feedback converter output, wherein the main feedback converter input is connected to the digital integrator output, and the main feedback converter output is connected to the subtracting input of the main summer.
US09048855B2
A semiconductor device may include a coding lookup table unit including a plurality of coding lookup tables each of which is selected by a respectively selection signal, and a selection unit configured to receive one of N-bit parallel data and extract respective encoded data corresponding to the selection signal and to which the N-bit parallel data is mapped from the coding lookup table unit, and encoded data and extract respective N-bit parallel data corresponding to the selection signal and to which the encoded data is mapped from the coding lookup table unit, wherein N is 2 or an integer greater than 2, and wherein the coding lookup tables respectively store a plurality of coded data patterns that respectively correspond to patterns of the N-bit parallel data and are random temporally and spatially.
US09048848B2
A phase-locked loop circuit using a multi-curve voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) having a set of operating curves, each operating curve corresponding to a different frequency range over a control voltage range. The phase-locked loop circuit includes a phase and frequency detector driving a charge pump and a digital control circuit configured to perform a closed loop curve search operation to select one of the operating curves in the multi-curve VCO and to perform a curve tracking operation using the selected operating curve, the selected operating curve being used by the VCO to generate an output signal with an output frequency being equal or close to a target frequency of the phase-locked loop. In one embodiment, the digital control circuit increases the charge pump current above a nominal current value during the closed loop curve search operation and set the charge pump current to the nominal current during the curve tracking operation.
US09048843B1
A frequency divider circuit includes an adder circuit, multiplexer circuits, and a phase interpolator circuit. The adder circuit generates a summed value. The multiplexer circuits receive first periodic signals and generate second periodic signals by selecting among the first periodic signals based on the summed value. The phase interpolator circuit generates a third periodic signal using a weighted average of the second periodic signals that is determined based on the summed value.
US09048842B2
A sensor element device for a capacitive proximity switch of an operating device, where the sensor element device has an upper side for contacting the underside of an operating panel of the operating device and a block-like illuminated display with a lighting direction towards the underside of the operating panel. The sensor element device is electrically conductive on its side or an upper side facing the operating panel, thereby forming a sensor element. The illuminated display is mounted on a component carrier by a voluminous, spatial-shape-variable, elastic and electrically conductive material, where this material layer provides the required variable distance and electrical connection from the upper side to the underside as electrical contacts.
US09048840B2
An integrated circuit including a first circuit, a second circuit, a third circuit, a first complementary pair of transistors, and a second complementary pair of transistors. The first circuit may be configured to generate a first input signal in response to a first control input signal. The second circuit may be configured to generate a first output signal and a second output signal in response to the first input signal and a bias signal. The third circuit may be configured to generate the bias signal in response to a bias input signal. The first complementary pair of transistors may be configured to drive a first series output of the integrated circuit in response to the first output signal. The second complementary pair of transistors may be configured to drive a first shunt output of the integrated circuit in response to the second output signal.
US09048835B2
In a power supply, a synchronous rectification switch rectifies a pulse voltage, and a current-voltage conversion unit converts a current on a voltage-input side of the synchronous rectification switch to a first voltage and converts a current on a voltage-output side of the synchronous rectification switch to a second voltage. A switching unit switches an operation state of the synchronous rectification switch based on a result of a comparison between the first voltage and the second voltage converted by the current-voltage conversion unit. A state holding unit holds an off state after the synchronous rectification switch is turned off by the switching unit.
US09048832B2
A programmable logic device includes a plurality of programmable logic elements (PLE) whose electrical connection is controlled by first configuration data. Each of The PLEs includes an LUT in which a relationship between a logic level of an input signal and a logic level of an output signal is determined by second configuration data, an FF to which the output signal of the LUT is input, and an MUX. The MUX includes at least two switches each including first and second transistor. A signal including third configuration data is input to a gate of the second transistor through the first transistor. The output signal of the LUT or an output signal of the FF is input to one of a source and a drain of the second transistor.
US09048823B2
Integrated circuits with clock generation and distribution circuitry are provided. Integrated circuits may include phase-locked loops configured to generate multiple clock signals that are delayed versions of one another. The clocks signal may be distributed to various regions on an integrated circuit using serially connected clock buffer blocks. Each buffer block may include bidirectional pairs of buffer circuits coupled in parallel. Each buffer circuit may have a first input configured to receive an input clock signal, an output at which a corrected version of the input clock signal is provided (e.g., an output at which an output clock signal with desired duty cycle is provided), a second input that receives a first delayed clock signal for setting the desired duty cycle for the output clock signal, and a third input that receives a second delayed clock signal that is high at least when the first delayed clock signal rises high.
US09048822B2
A single-ended ring oscillation device for generating a fully differential signal is provided. The single-ended oscillation device includes a single-ended ring oscillator and a phase processing unit. The single-ended ring oscillator includes an odd number of inverting delay units. The inverting delay units sequentially generate a first signal, a second signal and a third signal. The phase processing unit generates an intermediate signal according to the first signal and the third signal, and outputs the intermediate signal and a delayed version of the second signal as a fully differential signal. The intermediate signal and the second signal are opposite to each other in phase.
US09048819B2
A method and apparatus for detecting RF field strength. A field strength reference generator develops a field strength reference current as a function of a field strength of a received RF signal; and a field strength quantizer develops a digital field-strength value indicative of the field strength reference current. In one embodiment, detected field strength is used to dynamically vary the impedance of a tank circuit whereby, over time, induced current is maximized. In another embodiment, using the quantized field strength to sense changes to the environment to which the RFID tag is exposed.
US09048816B2
An acoustic wave filter has a first signal line connecting one among the plurality of first IDT electrodes and the first balanced signal terminal; a second signal line connecting the other first IDT electrode with the second balanced signal terminal; a third signal line connecting one among the plurality of second IDT electrodes with the second balanced signal terminal; and a fourth signal line connecting the other second IDT electrode with the first balanced signal terminal. The fourth signal line has an intersection portion three-dimensionally intersecting with a part of the second signal line. The intersection portion extends in a direction inclined relative to the second signal line on the major surface.
US09048815B2
Method for performing dynamic impedance matching and communication apparatus thereof are provided. With respect to an operating band of an impedance matching circuit of a communication device, a first number of times of tuning are performed on a first element of an impedance matching circuit, and a second number of times of tuning are performed on a second element of the impedance matching circuit, wherein the first number is different from the second number.
US09048812B2
A bulk acoustic wave (BAW) structure includes a first electrode disposed over a substrate, a piezoelectric layer disposed over the first electrode, and a second electrode disposed over the first piezoelectric layer. A bridge is formed within the piezoelectric layer, where the bridge is surrounded by piezoelectric material of the piezoelectric layer.
US09048809B2
Switchable and/or tunable filters and methods of manufacture. The method of forming the filters includes forming at least one piezoelectric filter structure comprising a plurality of electrodes formed on a piezoelectric substrate. The method further includes forming a micro-electro-mechanical structure (MEMS) comprising a MEMS beam formed above the piezoelectric substrate and at a location in which, upon actuation, the MEMS beam shorts the piezoelectric filter structure by contacting at least one of the plurality of electrodes.
US09048805B2
A tunable radio frequency (RF) duplexer and duplexing methods are disclosed. The tunable RF duplexer includes a first hybrid coupler, a second hybrid coupler, and an RF filter circuit. The first hybrid coupler is operable to split the RF transmission input signal into first and second RF quadrature hybrid transmission signals (QHTSs). The second hybrid coupler is operable to split the RF receive input signal into first and second RF quadrature hybrid receive signals (QHRSs). The RF filter circuit is operable to pass the first and second RF QHTSs to the second hybrid coupler and to reflect the first and second RF QHRSs back to the second hybrid coupler. Additionally, the second hybrid coupler is configured to combine the first and second RF QHTSs into an RF transmission output signal and to combine the first and second RF QHRSs into an RF receive output signal.
US09048800B2
A power amplifier power controller in the power amplifier system monitors various operating conditions of the power amplifier, and controls the output transmit power of the power amplifier by coordinated control of both the input drive level to the power amplifier and the gain of the power amplifier. The power amplifier power controller controls the input drive level to the power amplifier so that the input drive level does not change substantially while adjusting the gain of the power amplifier to maximize the transmit power. The power amplifier power controller may also adjust the input drive level by some portion of the overall change required to the power of the power amplifier, while adjusting the gain of the power amplifier by the remaining portion of such overall change.
US09048795B2
An apparatus for signal bandwidth compensation is disclosed. The apparatus includes: a digital predistortion filtering unit, a compensation filter, a conversion unit, and a power amplifier; where the digital predistortion filtering unit receives an original signal, performs predistortion processing on the original signal; the compensation filter receives the predistortion signal, compensates for distortion caused during a process of transmitting the predistortion signal to the power amplifier, and outputs a compensated predistortion signal to the conversion unit; the conversion unit receives the compensated predistortion signal, converts the compensated predistortion signal into an analog signal, performs frequency mixing processing, and outputs a predistortion signal experiencing the frequency mixing to the power amplifier; the power amplifier receives the predistortion signal experiencing the frequency mixing, amplifies the predistortion signal experiencing the frequency mixing, and outputs an amplified signal.
US09048793B2
A power amplifier configured to receive an AC input signal and output, based on the AC input signal, an output voltage via a first output voltage terminal and a second output voltage terminal. The power amplifier includes a first transistor and a second transistor connected in a push-pull configuration, a first inductor, a second inductor, and a first capacitor. The first output voltage terminal is located between the first inductor and the first transistor. The second output voltage terminal is located between the second transistor and ground. The first capacitor is configured to provide a first circuit path between the first output voltage terminal and the second output voltage terminal. The first circuit path functions as a short circuit for even harmonics of a fundamental frequency of the AC input signal but does not function as a short circuit for the fundamental frequency of the AC input signal.
US09048780B2
Disclosed is a portable and compact hybrid power unit for ready to use, plug-in power for nearly any environment. Open Energy System (OES) is self-contained in a durable shell that can be deployed almost anywhere in the world. The OES transforms from a rugged box into an energy generating unit with all equipment assembled and ready to generate power. Pre-assembled solar modules can slide out from the opening sides of the unit along a rolling channel, lock into place and open into a ready-to-generate solar electric array. In addition, the OES is mobile and transportable. It can hitch to a vehicle, be dropped in by helicopter, shipped in or used as a permanent unit. Further, the OES unit is designed to fit 5 to a standard shipping container and can be deployed using various shipping methods.
US09048779B2
Apparatuses for positioning and moving an object are provided. One apparatus positions/moves the object within a two-dimensional space having the shape of a convex polygon. Another apparatus positions/moves the object within a three-dimensional space having the shape of a convex polyhedron. Yet another apparatus separately positions/moves two different attachment points on the object within the bounds of the lateral faces of a three-dimensional space having the shape of a convex prism.
US09048764B2
A power generation system may include a generator and a power converter coupled to the generator. The power converter may include a plurality of bridge circuits coupled in parallel. Each bridge circuit may be coupled to an inductor. In addition, the power converter may include a plurality of parallel shorting devices. The shorting devices may be coupled to the bridge circuits such that an impedance of the inductors is effectively coupled between the shorting devices and the generator.
US09048760B2
A driving unit of a vibration-type actuator includes a command unit, a change making unit, an AC signal generating unit, and a filter unit. The command unit outputs a command signal that directs at least one of a frequency, an amplitude, and a phase difference of an AC signal. The change making unit makes a change to the command signal and outputs the command signal. The AC signal generating unit generates a generated AC signal in which at least one of a frequency, an amplitude, and a phase difference of the generated AC signal is modulated in accordance with the output of the change making unit. The filter unit selectively dampens a frequency component, of at least one of the output signal of the change making unit and an output signal of the AC signal generating unit, that excites vibration other than vibration in a predetermined vibration mode.
US09048751B2
A power-supply circuit includes: a rectification circuit to output a rectified voltage obtained by rectifying an AC voltage; an inductor to be applied with the rectified voltage; a transistor to increase an inductor current when turned on; a diode to output the inductor current when the transistor is turned off; a capacitor to generate a DC voltage; a detection circuit to detect the inductor current; and a switching control circuit to perform switching of the transistor, when the detected current is smaller than a reference current, and stop switching of the transistor when the detected current is larger than the reference current, the target level corresponding to a level at which the diode is turned on when the rectified voltage rises, when the diode is turned on, the inductor and the capacitor respectively having inductance and capacitance values for allowing the inductor current larger than the reference current to flow.
US09048737B2
A switching-mode power supply (SMPS) for an image forming apparatus which may prevent an overvoltage supplied to the SMPS, and damage to circuits in the SMPS in the image forming apparatus. The SMPS includes a rectifying circuit to rectify an alternating-current (AC) voltage input from an external power supply source into a direct-current (DC) voltage, a transformer to transform the rectified DC voltage input to a primary coil and output the transformed DC voltage to a secondary coil, a main switch that is connected to the primary coil and switches an output of the transformer, a first overvoltage detecting unit to determine whether the rectified DC voltage is an overvoltage by comparing the rectified DC voltage with a first reference voltage, and a switching control unit to control a switching operation of the main switch based on a result of the determination.
US09048736B2
A power adaptor includes an inverter, a feedback circuit, a detecting unit, and an adjusting unit. The inverter is configured to convert an input voltage into an output voltage according to a power conversion ratio and adjust the power conversion ratio according to a feedback voltage. The feedback circuit is configured to provide the feedback voltage by voltage-dividing the output voltage according to a specific ratio. The detecting unit is configured to detect a load of an output end of the power adaptor. The adjusting is configured to adjust the specific ratio according to the loading variation of the load.
US09048732B2
A control circuit for an AC-DC power converter includes a junction field effect transistor (JFET), a first resistor, a second resistor, and a third resistor. The JFET includes a substrate, a drain, a source, a gate, a first oxide layer, and a second oxide layer. The first oxide layer is attached to a region located between the drain and the gate of the JFET, and the second oxide layer is not attached to a region located between the drain and the gate of the JFET. The first resistor is positioned on the first oxide layer, and the second resistor and the third resistor are positioned on the second oxide layer. When the JFET and the first resistor receive an input power signal, the first, the second, and the third resistors divide the input power signal, and prevent from the breakdown of the first oxide layer and the second oxide layer.
US09048730B2
A switched mode power supply provides a reduction of switching losses and increased efficiency. The switched mode power supply includes a first switch coupled to an input terminal configured to receive an input voltage, a second switch, an inductor and an output capacitor. The first switch and the second switch are coupled together at a node, the inductor is coupled between the node and an output terminal, and the output capacitor is coupled to the output terminal. The switched mode power supply further includes a transformer coupled between a control input of the first switch and the node and a pulse generator connected to a control input of the second switch. Further, the transformer includes at most two windings, in particular a primary winding and a secondary winding which are not directly connected to each other.
US09048725B2
The invention relates to an electric device with a winding (12) and means for inducing a current in the winding. A bridge circuit (400) electrically connects the winding (12) to a load (13). According to the invention the bridge circuit (400) includes capacitor means (401, 402), which is adapted for obtaining resonance with the impedance of the winding (12).
US09048719B1
A photovoltaic cell for the production from solar radiation of electrical energy includes a reservoir adapted to contain a quantity of photoionizable solution, a solar powered plasma generator in fluid communication with the reservoir, a solar powered ionization chamber in fluid communication with the plasma generator, an electrode baffle in fluid communication with the ionization chamber and a return fluid communication path from the electrode baffle to the reservoir. As arranged, the reservoir, the plasma generator, the ionization chamber and the electrode baffle form a closed fluid loop in order from the reservoir to the plasma generator to the ionization chamber to the electrode baffle and back to the reservoir.
US09048718B2
A linear vibrator is disclosed. The linear vibrator includes a housing having a base and a cover, a number of elastic members connected to the housing, a vibrating unit suspended in the housing by the elastic members, and a coil positioned in the housing. The vibrating unit includes a pole plate received in a recess formed in the vibrating unit, and a damper positioned on the pole plate by magnetic flux.
US09048717B2
A power generator includes a first array of magnets or a first sheet magnet, a first conductor, and a power management circuit. The first array comprises a one dimensional or two dimensional array of magnets. The first sheet magnet includes a one dimensional or two dimensional array of alternating magnetic poles. The first conductor comprises a first serpentine conductor that is on a plurality of layers of a first multilayer printed circuit board or a first serpentine conductor that is on one or more planes. The power management circuit provides DC power as a result of relative motion between the first array of magnets or the first sheet magnet and the first conductor.
US09048699B2
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a power tool including: a brushless motor; switching elements that drive the brushless motor; a circuit board on which the switching elements are mounted; a transmission portion that transmits a driving force of the brushless motor; and a housing that houses the brushless motor, the switching elements, the circuit board and the transmission portion therein, wherein the switching elements include semiconductor elements each having terminals on a bottom surface thereof, and wherein the switching elements are surface mounted on the circuit board.
US09048695B2
A wireless power transmission device and method are provided. An amount of power transmitted wirelessly by the wireless power transmission device may be controlled based on information to be transmitted by the wireless power transmission device, such that the information may be transmitted without using any additional device for information transmission. Additionally, an internal impedance of a terminal may be controlled based on information to be transmitted by the terminal, and a reflected wave of a transmission signal transmitted by the wireless power transmission device may be then controlled, such that the information may be transmitted without using any additional device for information transmission. Therefore, no further device may be desired, and thus a power consumption amount may be reduced, and there may be no need to match a communication part for information exchange with a transmission part for wireless power transmission.
US09048690B2
Provided is an in-vehicle power supply apparatus which supplies power to both a high-power load such as an actuator, and the CPU for controlling the high-lower load, and which is capable of preventing reduction in voltage of the CPU even when voltage of the in-vehicle power supply is momentarily reduced due to power consumption of the high-power load, and which include an auxiliary power supply having its capacity reduced so as to enable reduction of the size of the power supply apparatus. The in-vehicle power supply apparatus for supplying a power to both a power load, and a CPU for controlling the power load comprises: a first distribution line for distributing, to the power load, the power supplied from an in-vehicle power supply through a bus; a second distribution line for distributing, to the CPU, the power supplied from the in-vehicle power supply through the bus; an auxiliary power supply, connected to the second distribution line, for supplying the power to the CPU when a voltage is reduced in the bus; and a backward flow prevention section for preventing a charge stored in the auxiliary power supply from flowing into the bus.
US09048683B2
Disclosed is a method for advance detection of output power, before arrival at a boundary frequency between an inband and an outband during frequency tracking in a wireless charging apparatus, the wireless charging apparatus including a first resonator resonating at a lower-limit frequency of the inband and a second resonator resonating at an upper-limit frequency of the inband, to adaptively adjust the frequency based on the power values output from the first and second resonators, and to determine a power transmission control value corresponding to the adjusted frequency, thereby enabling frequency control and power control within the inband.
US09048679B2
The present disclosure provides for repeatedly charging a rechargeable battery during a single charging session to a steady state voltage to attain a higher charge capacity of the rechargeable battery than a charge capacity of the rechargeable battery existing prior to the rechargeable battery being charged to the steady state voltage. The higher charge capacity is attained without exceeding a maximum allowable charge threshold of the rechargeable battery.
US09048668B2
The charger 10 includes a first charging path that charges battery banks via current limiting resistors R1 to R3, a second charging path that charges the battery banks without passing through the current limiting resistors R1 to R3, and a circuit that is capable of selectively switching the first and second charging paths to one another, being provided to the respective battery banks, and being identical in resistance values of the current limiting resistors R1 to R3. A battery voltage detection circuit detects the voltages of the battery banks; and a controller 16 controls the first to third charging circuits so that the battery banks are charged through the first charging path when there is difference in the voltages of the battery banks. The battery banks are charged through the second charging path when there is no difference in the voltages of the battery banks.
US09048665B2
A protective enclosure for an electronic device is provided. The protective enclosure includes a hard shell that includes a front shell formed to a rigid shape of a front portion of the electronic device and a back shell formed to a rigid shape of a rear portion of the electronic device. The protective enclosure also includes a stretchable cushion layer over the hard shell that has a sufficient elasticity to conform to the hard shell and provide cushioning to the protective enclosure. The protective enclosure also includes a battery and electrical circuitry configured to receive electronic communications from the electronic device and distribute electrical current received from an external power source among the battery and the electronic device based on the received electronic communications.
US09048663B2
This invention concerns an electrical energy distribution system. The system incorporates ‘ride-through’ capability, comprising: a supply side for supplying energy in the form of direct current at a supply voltage, a delivery side for delivering energy, having plural connection ports for selective connection to respective electrical energy loads. Wherein each connection port includes electricity conditioning circuitry to deliver and vary electrical power supply to a load connected at the port. And further comprising a bank of charge storage devices arranged in series and connected across the supply voltage.
US09048650B2
An AC adapter unit has an AC adapter that includes an AC adapter block and a DC cable, and a storage tray that stores the AC-adapter. The connector-side cable part of the DC cable is stored in the storage tray on-the left-side part of the AC adapter block. The connector-side cable part has a bundled-part with a figure-8 shape when seen from the top opening side of the storage tray. The-long axis of this bundled part is parallel to the long axis of the AC adapter block.
US09048648B1
An apparatus for facilitating using a screw to secure a receptacle cover plate over a junction box recessed in a wall, the junction box including at least one tapped screw receiver, and the cover plate defining at least one hole corresponding to the at least one tapped screw receiver. At least one stud threadingly engages the at least one tapped screw receiver, and at least one threaded bushing is threadingly secured to one end of the at least one stud. The at least one screw extends through the at least one hole defined in the cover plate to threadingly engage the threaded bushing, thereby securing the cover plate to the junction box.
US09048647B2
A magnetic wall cover system that includes an inner cover made at least partially of a ferrous material. The inner cover has an outer alignment surface. The magnetic wall cover system also has an outer cover that has an inner alignment surface. The outer cover is adapted to be removably mounted on the inner cover such that the inner alignment surface is in engaging relationship to the outer alignment surface when the outer cover is mounted over the inner cover. The magnetic wall cover system also includes at least one magnet disposed on the outer cover. The magnet is adapted to form a magnetic attraction between the magnet and the ferrous material of the inner cover.
US09048645B1
A weatherproof while-in-use electrical box assembly adapted for use on buildings that include a siding exterior or that will be finished with siding. The weatherproof electrical box assembly includes an electrical box with an integral siding block and a cover assembly adapted to receive large electrical plugs. The integral siding block provides a channel around the electrical box for accommodating siding. The channel enables the electrical box assembly to channel water to the bottom of the box and exterior of the siding where it will drip harmlessly to the ground. The cover assembly includes cord openings that enable closing of the cover plate while electrical cords are connected to electrical outlets within the electrical box. Cord inserts are provided for closing the cord openings when they are not in use. The tamperproof cover includes an arm adapted to accept a padlock for securing the cover to the electrical box.
US09048641B2
A terminal box includes a box body forming a recessed portion and a terminal board accommodated within the recessed portion and providing conduction between a tab of a solar cell panel and a power line. The terminal board includes a projecting portion projecting from the box body toward the solar cell panel, and a spring portion extended along a direction perpendicular to the projecting direction of the projecting portion. The projecting portion includes a contact portion for contacting the tab of the solar cell panel. The projecting portion is supported by a first-side end of the spring portion. The spring portion has a meander structure having a plurality of folded portions in a plane having a normal line perpendicular to both the projecting direction of the projecting portion and the extending direction of the spring portion.
US09048640B2
An assembly includes a box and a removable sleeve that is engageble with the box and with a wall substrate to secure tight contact between the wall substrate and the box structure, irrespective of the thickness of the wall substrate. The sleeve is configured to be coupled to an electrical device having a corresponding configuration for insertion in the box.
US09048639B2
Described embodiments include a system and an apparatus. A described system includes a stationary device configured to be electrically coupled to a transmission line of a power transmission system and remain at a fixed location during a test measurement of the power transmission system. The system includes a mobile device configured to travel on the transmission line. The stationary device and the mobile device are further configured to cooperatively measure properties of the power transmission system.
US09048638B2
An apparatus and method for interconnecting mains cables used for underground secondary low-voltage AC network systems utilizing an improved crab joint connector arranged to maximize the number of interconnections in a compact design wherein the plurality of legs are arranged in a rectangle configuration and a single bus leg is positioned at an end of an insulated housing.
US09048636B2
The invention is directed to an electrical pedestal comprising an elastomeric base and housing which are configured as one piece to together define a unitary hollow enclosure for accommodating one or more electrical components.
US09048633B2
The present invention relates to a laser device comprising an array of several large area VCSELs (101) and one or several optics (201, 202) designed and arranged to image the active layers of the VCSELs (101) of said array to a working plane (501) such that the laser radiation emitted by the active layers of all VCSELs (101) or of subgroups of VCSELs (101) of the array superimposes in the working plane (501). The proposed laser device allows the generation of a desired intensity distribution in the working plane without the need of an optics specially designed for this intensity distribution or beam profile.
US09048627B2
A mode locked fiber laser system is arranged to have a lasing bandwidth and having a linear cavity, the cavity including a gain medium, a saturable absorber having a saturation power, and a filter having a spectral response, wherein the mode locked fiber laser system is arranged so that substantial CW mode locked operation is obtainable with less than 3 times the saturation fluence impinging on the saturable absorber.
US09048623B2
A photonic crystal laser capable of producing a radially-polarized halo-shaped laser beam having a smaller width than conventional beams includes: an active layer; a ring-shaped photonic crystal including a plate-shaped base body on one side of the active layer, the base body having a number of modified refractive index areas of the same shape, the modified refractive index areas having a refractive index different from the base body and periodically arranged in the circumferential direction of a ring, and each of the modified refractive index areas being asymmetrically shaped with respect to an axis extending through the center of the modified refractive index area in the radial direction of the ring; a first and second electrode facing each other across the active layer and the ring-shaped photonic crystal; and a window provided in the second electrode capable of allowing passage of a laser light generated from the ring-shaped photonic crystal.
US09048622B2
A high power pulsed light generation device includes: a master clock generator that generates a master signal; an optical oscillator that generates a pulsed light synchronized with the master clock signal; an optical amplifier that amplifies the pulsed light emitted from the optical oscillator to output a high power pulsed light; a pump semiconductor laser that generates a pulsed light for pumping the optical amplifier; a driving unit that drives the pump semiconductor laser by a pulsed driving current synchronized with the master clock signal; and a control unit which controls the driving unit and controls a gain of the optical amplifier for each pulse by changing a pulse width of the pulsed drive current from driving unit so as to change the pulse width of the pumping pulsed light.
US09048619B2
A laser diode assembly includes: a mode-locked laser diode device; a diffraction grating that configures an external resonator, returns primary or more order diffracted light to the mode-locked laser diode device, and outputs 0-order diffracted light outside; and an imaging section provided between the mode-locked laser diode device and the diffraction grating and imaging an image of a light output end face of the mode-locked laser diode device on the diffraction grating.
US09048618B2
A long wavelength, short cavity laser can include: an active region or gain cavity having a length from about 10 microns to about 150 microns; a gap region adjacent to the active region and having a gap length that is less than 30 microns or less than the length of the active region; and a distributed Bragg reflector (“DBR”) region having a grating with a kappa of at least about 200 cm−1, wherein the gap region is between the active region and the DBR region, and wherein the laser lases at a long wavelength side of a Bragg peak of the laser. The laser can have a second DBR region opposite of the first DBR region.
US09048606B2
An object of the invention is to improve electrical connection performance by increasing a pressure of contact between an electric wire and a terminal. A conductor press bond part (11) of a terminal is formed in substantially a U-shaped cross section opened upward by a base plate (11A) and a pair of conductor crimp pieces (11B, 11B) extended upward from both right and left lateral edges of the base plate (11A). A range from the base plate (11A) to the root of the pair of conductor crimp pieces (11B, 11B) is formed as a curved wall (11H) with substantially a circular arc shape, and when a radius of curvature of an inner surface of the curved wall (11H) is R and a radius of a conductor of the electric wire is r, the curved wall is set so as to satisfy R
US09048590B2
A connecting apparatus for transmitting high-voltage current in a motor vehicle has a first connector (4), a second connector (6) and a shielding housing (12). The first connector (4) has at least one housing arrangement (20) with a first insulating housing (21) with at least one first contact (18) that is connected electrically to an internal conductor (16) of a cable (14), and has a shielding arrangement (28) connected to a shield (30) of the cable (14). The shielding arrangement (28) is connected to the shielding housing (12) by a shielding part (32). The second connection element (6) has at least one second housing arrangement (41) with a second insulating housing part (42) and at least one second contact (46) connected to a current line element. The shielding part (32) is a shielding sleeve (34) with a spring ring (36).
US09048584B2
An electrical connector is provided for terminating a plurality of electrical conductors. The electrical connector includes a terminal subassembly having terminals configured to be electrically connected to the electrical conductors. The terminal subassembly has an insulator holding the terminals. The terminal subassembly has a mating interface where mating surfaces of the terminals mate with a mating connector. The mating interface of the terminal subassembly is approximately flat. The electrical connector also includes a metal shell holding the terminal subassembly. The metal shell has the cross-sectional shape of an oval.
US09048582B2
A half fitting prevention connector includes a cylindrical case, a connector body, a lever, and a release lever. The release lever has a lock hole. An electromagnetic coil has a plunger. The plunger is arranged so as to face a microswitch. The electromagnetic coil is excited by connection between the signal terminal of the connector body and a signal terminal of a mating connector, and thereby moving the plunger toward the microswitch. The release lever is rotatable so that the plunger can enter the lock hole to press the microswitch in a state that the connector body is completely fitted with the mating connector and the plunger cannot enter the lock hole in a state that the connector body is half fitted with the mating connector.
US09048575B2
A temperature controller for adjusting temperature includes a substrate side contact portion formed on a surface on one side of a circuit substrate for processing an input signal. The substrate side contact portion is configured to be brought into contact with a cable device.
US09048571B2
A magnetic grounding clamp for portable yet secure connection of a welder grounding lead to any grounding body including irregular-shaped objects such as pipes and metal cylinders. The grounding electrode generally comprises conductive body having a protruding elongate neck, opposing-protruding legs, and a pivoting foot assembly having a disk-like magnet attached distally at the end of each leg. A length-adjustable tungsten grounding electrode protrudes downward from the end of the elongate neck. The body has a tail section with an adjustable spacer protruding therefrom. The spacer see-saws the body about the foot assemblies to maintain the grounding electrode in direct contact with whatever earth structure the cupped magnets are affixed to, thereby ensuring a firm ground contact and reliable ground path for the welder grounding lead.
US09048563B2
This connector comprises: a connector housing (11), on one side of which is formed a flat cable terminal-section insertion section (13) wherein a flat cable terminal-section (26) is inserted, and on the other side of which is formed an interlocking hood section (15) wherein a mating connector (5) in an electric wire terminal (100) connected to a flat cable (2) interlocks; and a relay terminal (3) which is accommodated inside the connector housing (11), connects with a terminal fitting (7) in an electrical wire terminal, one end of which is connected to the flat cable terminal-section (26) and the other end of which is accommodated in the mating connector (5), and connects the flat cable (2) and electrical wire (6). A sealant accommodating section (17), wherein a sealant (9) which is attached to the flat cable terminal-section (26) is accommodated, is provided in the flat cable terminal-section insertion section (13).
US09048561B2
A waterproof structure for a connector includes a housing, a shield wire, a shield terminal, a first packing, and a second packing. The housing has a tubular housing part. The shield wire passes through the inside of the tubular housing part and extends from the housing. The shield terminal has a first section, a second section and a third section. The first section and the second section get into the tubular housing part such that the shield wire passes through the inside of the shield terminal, the first section joints with a braided shield wire of the shield wire, and the third section protrudes from the tubular housing part. The first packing seals a gap between the second section of the shield terminal and the tubular housing part. The second packing seals a gap between the shield wire and the third section of the shield terminal.
US09048559B2
An electrical receptacle with a baffle latching mechanism can prevent an electroshock accident by keeping the baffle and baffle latching mechanism from moving. A baffle latching mechanism for an electrical receptacle, comprises a rectilinear baffle latch comprising a first side perpendicular to a second side, a positioning groove between a first end and a second end of the first side, a platform at the bottom of the positioning groove, and a positioning convex pin projecting from the second side of the baffle latch.
US09048557B2
Provided is a memory card. The memory card includes interconnection terminals for electric connection with an external electronic machine. The interconnection terminals may be spaced from the front side of the memory card by a distance greater than the lengths of the interconnection terminals. Alternatively, the memory card may include other interconnection terminals between its front side and the former interconnection terminals. The former and latter interconnection terminals may be used for electric connection with different kinds of electronic machines.
US09048556B2
A electric contact pin which can certainly contact a plunger with a contact spring and ensure smooth operation (vertical motion) of the plunger. The present invention can execute electrical tests of the electrical parts accurately. The electric contact pin according to the present invention contacts an eccentrical portion of an open coil portion provided for the contact spring capable of easily deforming in a radial direction with a conductive portion of the plunger. Consequently, the conductive portion of the plunger is elastically pinched between the eccentrical portion of the open coil portion and the closed coil portion. The eccentrical portion of the open coil portion and the closed coil portion are contact with the conductive portion of the plunger at any time.
US09048553B2
A card connector that includes a housing that houses a card provided with a terminal member, a connecting terminal attached to the housing that connects with the terminal member of the card, a cover member connected to the housing and which forms a card housing space between the housing, a card connector attached to a substrate. The cover member includes a top panel part, a plurality of side panel parts established from the side edge of the top panel part, and a fixed side that extends from the bottom end edge of the side panel part. At least one of the fixed sides is connected to a heat transfer pad arranged on the substrate. The top panel part contacts the top surface of the card housed within the card housing space and is provided with a heat transfer improving part that improves heat transfer from the card to the top panel part.
US09048546B2
Multipath reception by an antenna is reduced by mounting the antenna on a semi-transparent ground plane that has a controlled distribution of layer impedance over a central region and a peripheral region. The central region includes a continuous conductive segment on which the ground element of the antenna is disposed. The distribution of the layer impedance over the peripheral region is configured by multiple conductive segments electromagnetically coupled by lumped circuit elements. A semi-transparent ground plane can be fabricated by depositing a metal film on a dielectric substrate and etching grooves into the metal film to form a desired pattern of conductive segments. Lumped circuit elements can be fabricated as discrete devices, surface mount devices, and integrated circuit devices. Various semi-transparent ground planes can be configured for linearly-polarized and circularly-polarized radiation.
US09048543B2
A system and method are disclosed which may comprise a composite resonating antenna structure which may comprise: a first substrate comprising a first portion of a flexible substrate comprising a first conductive layer forming a first resonating element on the first portion of a flexible substrate; a second substrate connected to a second portion of the flexible substrate to form a transition, with the first portion of the flexible substrate and the second substrate generally orthogonal to each other; and a second conductive layer attached to a third substrate, the second conductive layer shaped to include a ground plane section and a signal transmission line carrying microwave frequency signals including a center frequency; wherein the first resonating element radiates a frequency equal to the center frequency based on first portion of the flexible substrate and the third substrate being generally orthogonal to each other.
US09048539B2
The present invention relates to an apparatus for mitigating undesired portions of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) associated with an antenna. The apparatus comprises a coupling element EM inductively coupled with the antenna, the coupling element being substantially co-polarized with the antenna. The apparatus further comprises one or more dissipating elements EM inductively coupled with the coupling element, each of the one or more dissipating elements being substantially differently polarized than the antenna, for example cross-polarized to the antenna. The coupling element may be a conductive element configured for predetermined EM inductive coupling with at least the antenna and the one or more dissipating elements. Each of the one or more dissipating elements may be a conductive element configured for predetermined EM inductive coupling with the coupling element. A method of manufacture is also provided.
US09048531B2
Provided is an information communication device, including an enclosure, and an antenna disposed in the enclosure so that at least one surface of a radiation plate is oblique with respect to a bottom surface of the enclosure, the antenna having a feeding point located on the surface that is oblique with respect to the bottom surface.
US09048525B2
An antenna circuit which includes a substrate and a planar circuit with a circuit line of a conductive material formed on a surface of the substrate, and at least one conductive pad (notch-forming part) electrically connected with the circuit line of the planar circuit. Cutting lines, such as perforations, are provided in the substrate around an outer periphery of the notch-forming part and extend into the notch-forming part on either side of connection points where the circuit line connects with the notch-forming part, The cutting lines approach each other in the notch-forming part to form a section (notch port). The antenna circuit can be destroyed even if an IC tag provided with the antenna circuit is peeled off from various directions, and the destruction rate of the circuit can be increased stably.
US09048517B2
Disclosed herein is a battery cooling duct. The duct includes a suction portion disposed between a rear seat and a floor panel of a vehicle, an inlet of the suction portion fluidly communicating with an interior of the vehicle to suction interior air. An extension portion is formed by extending an outlet side of the suction portion to a rear of the vehicle, e.g. a trunk, between the rear seat and the floor panel, and defines a passageway configured to allow the interior air to pass therethrough. A discharge portion extends from an outlet of the extension portion to the rear of the vehicle, and discharges the interior air passed through the extension portion, through an outlet of the discharge portion to the battery of the vehicle.
US09048514B2
A method is provided for presenting battery degradation of a rechargeable battery to a user of an electronic device. The method comprising the following steps. An initial capacity and a remaining capacity of the rechargeable battery are obtained. The battery degradation is determined as a proportion of a difference between the initial capacity and the remaining capacity to the initial capacity. The battery degradation is visually displayed on a display of the electronic device as a battery gauge. A system to implement the method is also provided.
US09048503B2
A method for manufacturing a cable-type secondary battery includes: preparing a first polarity current collector having a long and thin shape; forming at least two first polarity electrode active material layers on the first polarity current collector to be spaced apart from each other in the longitudinal direction; forming an electrolyte layer to surround the at least two first polarity electrode active material layers; forming at least two second polarity electrode active material layers on the electrolyte layer to be spaced apart from each other at positions corresponding to the first polarity electrode active material layers; forming an electrode assembly by surrounding the second polarity electrode active material layers with a second polarity current collector; surrounding the electrode assembly with a cover member; and bending the electrode assembly and the cover member into a serpentine configuration with the active regions spaced apart from one another.
US09048496B2
Provided herein are methods for processing electrochemically active materials and resulting active material structures for use in rechargeable batteries. The resulting active materials structures include carbon containing coatings that partially or completely cover the surface of the active material structures. In a typical embodiment, the method includes providing a solution of carbon containing precursor in a solvent, dispersing electrochemically active material in the solution to form a mixture, removing the solvent from the mixture to form electrochemically active material coated with the carbon containing precursor, and heating the electrochemically active material coated with the carbon containing precursor in an inert atmosphere at a temperature sufficient to at least partially convert the carbon containing precursor into a carbon coating. Also provided are an electrochemically active material prepared according to the methods described herein, as well as an electrode and a rechargeable electrochemical cell, each containing such electrochemically active material.
US09048492B2
A negative electrode active material for an electric device includes an alloy containing silicon in a range from 33% by mass to 50% by mass, zinc in a range of greater than 0% by mass and less than or equal to 46% by mass exclusive, vanadium in a range from 21% by mass to 67% by mass, and inevitable impurities as a residue. The negative electrode active material can be obtained with a multi DC magnetron sputtering apparatus by use of, for example, silicon, zinc, and vanadium as targets. An electric device using the negative electrode active material can achieve long cycle life and ensure a high capacity and cycle durability.
US09048491B2
In the invention, a lithium-ion secondary battery, in which a value obtained by dividing average 3% modulus strength of a separator by average 3% modulus strength of a negative electrode including a negative electrode active material layer containing silicon and silicon oxide as a main component is 0.079 or less, is used.
US09048490B2
A lithium ion secondary battery includes an electrode group formed by winding a positive electrode having a positive electrode current collector and a positive electrode active material layer, and a negative electrode having a negative electrode current collector and a negative electrode active material layer, with a separator interposed between the electrodes. A wound positive electrode current collector exposing section faces a wound negative electrode current collector exposing section with the separator interposed therebetween, thereby forming a heteropolar electrode current collector facing zone corresponding to at least one turn in the electrode group. A unipolar electrode current collector facing zone, in which adjacent portions of the wound current collector exposing section or the wound current collector exposing section face each other directly or with the separator interposed therebetween corresponds to at least one turn in the electrode group.
US09048489B2
An electrode assembly and a lithium secondary battery including the same. Heat generation of the electrode tabs is reduced by providing the electrode tabs at the outermost parts of the electrode assembly. An insulation member is attached at the boundary of the electrode tabs and the respective electrode plates. An insulation member is also attached to the uncoated portions formed on the outer circumference of the electrode assembly, thereby preventing internal short circuits either between an uncoated portion and an active material layer or between the uncoated portions. The electrode assembly can be used in pouch, rectangular and cylindrical lithium secondary batteries to prevent an internal short circuit within the batteries.
US09048484B2
A battery pack (13) is disposed at a lower part of a vehicular body. The battery pack (13) includes: a protrusion (27, 31) protruding in a vehicular upward direction and disposed at an upper face of the battery pack (13), and a dent portion (29) disposed at the upper face of the battery pack (13) and formed lower than the protrusion (27, 31), wherein an accessory (25) is disposed in the dent portion (29).
US09048480B2
Anion exchange polymer electrolytes that include guanidinium functionalized polymers may be used as membranes and binders for electrocatalysts in preparation of anodes for electrochemical cells such as solid alkaline fuel cells.
US09048475B2
An apparatus and method to detect a short circuit event in a fuel cell system of a vehicle. The detection relies on three existing sensors within the fuel cell system, two current sensors and a voltage sensor. A controller executes an algorithm with a set of thresholds stored in a computer readable medium to monitor the sensors to sense if any of the threshold values are crossed. If crossed, the controller may take remedial action to stop the short circuit and/or prevent damage to the fuel cell system. A mode manager may work with the controller to determine when the operating conditions of the fuel cell system are ideal for sensing for a low voltage condition indicative of a short circuit event. A pair of integrators may be electrically coupled to an alternating current sensor to differentiate a short circuit event from a high frequency resistance current.
US09048473B2
Provided is a vehicular power source unit having an external electric power supply controlling element (94) configured to control the operation of a heater (16) and a recharger (22) operated by an electric power supplied from a commercial power source (70) via an external power source connector (25) according to a terminal voltage and temperature of a fuel cell (10) detected by a fuel cell state detecting element (91) and a state of a battery (20) detected by a battery state detecting element (92) when a fuel cell vehicle is halted, the supply of reactant gas to the fuel cell (10) by a fuel cell controlling element (93) is stopped and the external power source connector (25) is connected to the commercial power source (70).
US09048439B2
A light-emitting element which emits light with high luminance and can be driven at low voltage. The light-emitting element includes n (n is a natural number of 2 or more) EL layers between an anode and a cathode, and includes a first layer, a second layer, and a third layer between an m-th (m is a natural number, 1≦m≦n−1) EL layer from the anode and an (m+1)th EL layer. The first layer functions as a charge-generation region, has hole-transport properties, and contains an acceptor substance. The third layer has electron-transport properties and contains an alkali metal or the like. The second layer formed of a metal complex having a metal-oxygen bond and an aromatic ligand is provided between the first and third layers, whereby an injection barrier at the time of injecting electrons generated in the first layer into the m-th EL layer through the third layer can be lowered.
US09048430B2
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention disclose a non-halogenated etchant for etching an indium oxide layer and a method of manufacturing a display substrate using the non-halogenated etchant, the non-halogenated etchant including nitric acid, sulfuric acid, a corrosion inhibitor including ammonium, a cyclic amine-based compound, and water.
US09048427B2
The present invention is related to a thin film fabrication of a rubber material with piezoelectric characteristics and a manufacturing method thereof. The present invention is developed by utilizing polymer casting, multilayer stacking, surface coating, and micro plasma discharge processes. To realize the desired electromechanical sensitivity, cellular PDMS structures with micrometer-sized voids are implanted with bipolar charges on the opposite inner surfaces. The implanted charge pairs function as dipoles, which respond promptly to diverse electromechanical simulation.
US09048418B2
A sensor element includes a base part, a detection vibrating arm extended from the base part, and detection parts that are provided on the detection vibrating arm and detect flexural vibration of the detection vibrating arm, the detection parts each have a first electrode layer, a second electrode layer provided at an opposite side to the detection vibrating arm with respect to the first electrode layer, and a piezoelectric layer provided between the first electrode layer and the second electrode layer, and the detection parts have parts provided over boundary parts between the detection vibrating arm and the base part and the parts bend or curve to extend in a direction including a direction component orthogonal to an extension direction of the detection vibrating arm along side surfaces of the detection vibrating arm and the base part.
US09048416B2
According to some aspects, a layered structure includes a memory layer, a magnetization-fixed layer, and a tunnel insulating layer. The memory layer has magnetization perpendicular to a film face in which a direction of the magnetization is configured to be changed according to information by applying a current in a lamination direction of the layered structure. The magnetization-fixed layer has magnetization parallel or antiparallel to the magnetization direction of the memory layer and comprises a laminated ferripinned structure including a plurality of ferromagnetic layers and one or more non-magnetic layers, and includes a layer comprising an antiferromagnetic material formed on a first ferromagnetic layer of the plurality of ferromagnetic layers and situated between the first ferromagnetic layer and the non-magnetic layer. The tunnel insulating layer is located between the memory layer and the magnetization-fixed layer.
US09048405B2
The light emitting device comprising a light emitting element; and a wavelength converting member having a first face and a second face, in which light emitted from the light emitting element enters in through the first face, and a part of the second face serves as a light emitting face, wherein the light emitting element further comprises a reflection control structure around the light emitting face of the second face, and the reflection control structure comprises a reflection film on the wavelength converting member and an anti-reflection film on the reflection film.
US09048403B2
A light emitting device including a light emitting structure having a first conduction type semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a second conduction type semiconductor layer, a transparent conductive layer disposed on the light emitting structure, a metal filter having an irregular pattern disposed between the light emitting structure and the transparent conductive layer, and openings disposed between the irregular patterns in the metal filter.
US09048400B2
A light-emitting device (1) includes a base (10), a light-emitting element (11) placed on the base (10), and a wavelength converting layer (12) that covers the light-emitting element (11). The wavelength converting layer (12) includes a wavelength converting portion (13) that converts a wavelength of light from the light-emitting element (11), and a light guide portion (14) made of a light-transmitting material, and the light guide portion (14) extends from a light-emitting element (11) side to a light extraction side of the wavelength converting layer (12). Consequently, it is possible to provide a light-emitting device that can be miniaturized and reduced in thickness easily and can prevent a decrease in the light extraction efficiency.
US09048398B2
The present invention provides a white organic light-emitting element high in the emission efficiency. In particular, the invention provides a white organic light-emitting element that has an emission spectrum having peaks in the respective wavelength regions of red color, green color and blue color and is high in the emission efficiency. It is preferable to use an electron transport material between a first emission region and a second emission region and more preferable to use a hole block material.
US09048396B2
LED packages are disclosed that are compact and efficiently emit light, and can comprise encapsulants with planar surfaces that refract and/or reflect light within the package encapsulant. The packages can comprise a submount with one or more LEDs, and a blanket conversion material layer on the LEDs and the submount. The encapsulant can be on the submount, over the LEDs, and light reflected within the encapsulant will reach the conversion material, where it is absorbed and emitted omnidirectionally. Reflected light can now escape the encapsulant, allowing for efficient emission and a broader emission profile, when compared to conventional packages with hemispheric encapsulants or lenses. In certain embodiments, the LED package provides a higher chip area to LED package area ratio. By using an encapsulant with planar surfaces, the LED package can provide unique dimensional relationships between the various features and the LED package ratios, enabling more flexibility with different applications.
US09048388B2
A multi-layer thermoelectric module and a fabricating method thereof are provided. The module includes two thermoelectric element sets and a metal electrode set, in which the thermoelectric element sets are corresponding to different operating temperature ranges. Each thermoelectric element set includes a thermoelectric unit, an interfacial adhesion layer, a diffusion barrier layer and a high melting-point metal layer. In the method, the thermoelectric unit, the interfacial adhesion layer, and the diffusion barrier layer are sequentially formed on the thermoelectric unit. Then, two high melting-point metal layers are formed respectively on the electrode layers of the metal electrode set. Thereafter, a solid-liquid interdiffusion jointing step is conducted to use a low melting-point metal layer to react with the high melting-point metal layer for producing an intermetallic compound layer jointing the thermoelectric element set with the metal electrode set, and the low melting-point metal layer is consumed completely.
US09048381B1
The invention provides a method for fabricating a light-emitting diode device. The method includes providing a carrier having a first surface and a second surface. The first surface has insulating micro patterns. A buffer layer, a first-type semiconductor layer, a light-emitting layer and a second-type semiconductor layer are grown on the first surface to form a light-emitting lamination layer. A substrate is provided for the second-type semiconductor layer to bond on. The carrier is lifted off from the light-emitting lamination layer by a laser lift-off process, and surfaces of the insulating micro patterns and a surface of the buffer layer between the insulating micro patterns are exposed. The insulating micro patterns and the buffer layer are removed. Recess structures are formed on the first-type semiconductor layer. A surface-roughing process is then performed on the recess structures.
US09048372B2
A method for patterning an article, the article comprising a first layer of a first material, the method comprising providing a thread carrying a first species, e.g. a solvent in which the first material is soluble, and contacting the thread with the first layer to remove at least part of the first layer.
US09048371B2
Semiconductor devices and methods for fabricating semiconductor devices are provided. In one example, a method for fabricating a semiconductor device includes etching a trench into a waveguide layer in a detector region of a semiconductor substrate. An avalanche photodetector diode is formed about the trench. Forming the avalanche photodetector diode includes forming a multiplication region in the waveguide layer laterally adjacent to the trench. An absorption region is formed at least partially disposed in the trench.
US09048370B1
Methods and devices are provided for determining an operating bias voltage of a photodiode. One example method includes (i) varying a bias voltage of a photodiode; (ii) detecting spurious signals generated by the photodiode while varying the bias voltage of the photodiode; (iii) determining a threshold bias voltage at which a frequency of occurrence of the spurious signals reaches a threshold frequency; (iv) determining an operating bias voltage for the photodiode based on at least the threshold bias voltage; and (v) operating the photodiode with the operating bias voltage in a light-detection and ranging (LIDAR) system.
US09048369B2
There is provided an EL display device of a color filter system which obtains sufficient brightness and contrast while making it difficult to generate a color mixture even if pixels become fine. An EL display device 100 according to the present invention includes a first substrate 1, a circuit layer 2 formed on the first substrate 1, a color selection reflection layer 11 formed in an upper layer of the circuit layer 2, lower electrodes 5 formed in an upper layer of the color selection reflection layer 11, a white light emission EL layer 7 formed in an upper layer of the lower electrodes 5, an upper electrode 8 formed in an upper layer of the EL layer 7, and a sealing layer 9 formed in an upper layer of the upper electrode 8.
US09048352B2
A solid image pick-up device has a plurality of light sensors arranged on its image pick-up area of a semiconductor substrate. A transparent plate having the same shape and size as the semiconductor substrate is bonded to the surface of the semiconductor substrate. A plurality of bonding pads are formed on the surface of the semiconductor substrate and arranged around the image pick-up area. Further, a plurality of through holes are formed through the semiconductor substrate, extending from the lower surfaces of the bonding pads to the back surface of the semiconductor substrate. An insulating film is attached to the inner surface of each of the through holes, while another insulating film is attached to the back surface of the semiconductor substrate.
US09048349B2
A wafer processing method transfers an optical device layer (ODL) in an optical device wafer (ODW) to a transfer substrate. The ODL is formed on the front side of an epitaxy substrate through a buffer layer, and is partitioned by a plurality of crossing streets to define a plurality of regions where optical devices are formed. The transfer substrate is bonded to the front side of the ODL. The transfer substrate and the ODL are cut along the streets. The transfer substrate is attached to a supporting member, and a laser beam is applied to the epitaxy substrate from the back side of the epitaxy substrate to the unit of the ODW and the transfer substrate. The focal point of the laser beam is set in the buffer layer, thereby decomposing the buffer layer. The epitaxy substrate is then peeled off from the ODL.
US09048345B2
A method of forming a light-emitting diode includes: providing a substrate having one or more first openings passing through the substrate; forming a sacrificial layer on the substrate; forming an epitaxial layer on the sacrificial layer; connecting a supporting substrate with the epitaxial layer; and separating the substrate from the epitaxial layer by selectively etching the sacrificial layer.
US09048341B2
An example of a capacitor includes a series of ridges and trenches and an interconnect region on the integrated circuit substrate. The series of ridges and trenches and the interconnect region have a capacitor foundation surface with a serpentine cross-sectional shape on the series of ridges and trenches. Electrical conductors are electrically connected to the electrode layers from the interconnect region for access to the electrode layers of the capacitor assembly.
US09048334B2
A metal gate structure comprises a metal layer partially filling a trench of the metal gate structure. The metal layer comprises a first metal sidewall, a second metal sidewall and a metal bottom layer. By employing an uneven protection layer during an etching back process, the thickness of the first metal sidewall is less than the thickness of the metal bottom layer and the thickness of the second metal sidewall is less than the thickness of the metal bottom layer. The thin sidewalls allow extra space for subsequent metal-fill processes.
US09048330B2
A three-dimensional Gate-Wrap-Around Field-Effect Transistor (GWAFET). The GWAFET includes a substrate of III-V semiconductor material. The GWAFET further includes one or more channel layers with a gate wrapped around these one or more channel layers. Additionally, the GWAFET includes a barrier layer residing on the top channel layer with a layer of doped III-V semiconductor material residing on each end of the barrier layer. A source and drain contact are connected to the layer of doped III-V semiconductor material as well as to the multiple channels in the embodiment with the GWAFET including multiple channel layers. By having such a structure, integration density is improved. Furthermore, electrostatic control is improved due to gate coupling, which helps reduce standby power consumption. Furthermore, by using III-V semiconductor material as opposed to silicon, the current drive capacity is improved.
US09048329B2
An integrated circuit device includes a transistor array having a vertical stack of independently controllable gate electrodes therein. A first semiconductor channel region is provided, which extends on a first sidewall of the vertical stack of independently controllable gate electrodes. A first electrically insulating layer is also provided, which extends between the first semiconductor channel region and the first sidewall of the vertical stack of independently controllable gate electrodes. Source and drain regions are provided, which are electrically coupled to first and second ends of the first semiconductor channel region, respectively.
US09048322B2
A display substrate includes a base substrate, a data line disposed on the base substrate, a gate line crossing the data line, a first insulation layer disposed on the base substrate, an active pattern disposed on the first insulation layer and comprising a channel comprising an oxide semiconductor, a source electrode connected to the channel, and a drain electrode connected to the channel, a second insulation layer disposed on the active pattern, and contacting to the source electrode and the drain electrode, a gate electrode disposed on the second insulation layer, and overlapping with the channel, a passivation layer disposed on the gate electrode and the second insulation layer, and a pixel electrode electrically connected to the drain electrode through a first contact hole formed through the passivation layer and the second insulation layer.
US09048321B2
Provided is a miniaturized transistor with stable and high electrical characteristics with high yield. In a semiconductor device including the transistor in which an oxide semiconductor film, a gate insulating film, and a gate electrode layer are stacked in this order, a first sidewall insulating layer is provided in contact with a side surface of the gate electrode layer, and a second sidewall insulating layer is provided to cover a side surface of the first sidewall insulating layer. The first sidewall insulating layer is an aluminum oxide film in which a crevice with an even shape is formed on its side surface. The second sidewall insulating layer is provided to cover the crevice. A source electrode layer and a drain electrode layer are provided in contact with the oxide semiconductor film and the second sidewall insulating layer.
US09048314B2
A transistor having a narrow bandgap semiconductor source/drain region is described. The transistor includes a gate electrode formed on a gate dielectric layer formed on a silicon layer. A pair of source/drain regions are formed on opposite sides of the gate electrode wherein said pair of source/drain regions comprise a narrow bandgap semiconductor film formed in the silicon layer on opposite sides of the gate electrode.
US09048305B2
In HEMTs based on III-nitrides epitaxial films or GaAs, AlGaAs and InGaAs epitaxial films, unwanted microcracks are often formed in the composite epitaxial layers in the channel region during fabrication and operation. These microcracks are caused by strain or stresses due to lattice mismatch and thermal expansion coefficient differences between materials and substrate's. Those microcracks will bring about an increase in source to drain resistance and lead to performance and reliability degradation of the HEMTs and the MMICs containing them. The present invention provides HEMTs with minimized effects of the unwanted microcracks by aligning the channel region long axis to a certain direction so that the channel region long axis forms a right angle with axis of at least one type of the microcracks.
US09048304B2
In a semiconductor device, a first-layer includes a group-III nitride semiconductor of a first conduction type. A second-layer includes a group-III nitride semiconductor of a second conduction type on a first surface of the first layer. A third-layer includes an Al-containing group-III nitride semiconductor on a first region of a surface of the second layer. A gate electrode has one end above a surface of the third-layer and has the other end within the first-layer via the second-layer. The gate electrode is insulated from the first- to third-layers. A first electrode is connected to the third-layer. A second electrode is connected to a second region of the surface of the second-layer. A third electrode is provided above a second surface of the first layer. The second surface is opposite to the first surface of the first layer.
US09048297B2
An integrated circuit containing a vertical interconnect that includes a region of interconnect metal continuously surrounding one or more dielectric pillars. The vertical interconnect electrically contacts a top surface of a lower conductive structure. An upper conductive structure contacts a top surface of the vertical interconnect. A process of forming an integrated circuit that includes forming a vertical interconnect that has a region of interconnect metal continuously surrounding one or more dielectric pillars. The vertical interconnect electrically contacts a top surface of a lower conductive structure, and an upper conductive structure contacts a top surface of the vertical interconnect.
US09048296B2
Techniques formation of high purity copper (Cu)-filled lines and vias are provided. In one aspect, a method of fabricating lines and vias filled with high purity copper with is provided. The method includes the following steps. A via is etched in a dielectric. The via is lined with a diffusion barrier. A thin ruthenium (Ru) layer is conformally deposited onto the diffusion barrier. A Cu layer is deposited on the Ru layer by a sputtering process. A reflow anneal is performed to eliminate voids in the lines and vias.
US09048295B2
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes the steps of immersing a substrate in a solution containing metal ions to adhere a metal catalyst to a surface of the substrate, immersing the substrate with the metal catalyst adhered thereto in an electroless plating solution to electrolessly plate a layer on the substrate, immersing the substrate in an electroplating solution to electroplate a layer on the electrolessly plated layer using the electrolessly plated layer as a power feeding layer, and forming a metal layer of Cu or Ag on the electroplated layer. The electroplated layer is formed of a different material than the metal layer.
US09048289B2
There is disclosed a method of forming layers of either GaAs or germanium materials such as SiGe. The germanium material, for example, may be epitaxially grown on a GaAs surface. Layer transfer is used to transfer the germanium material, along with some residual GaAs, to a receiver substrate. The residual GaAs may be then removed by selective etching, with the boundary between the GaAs and the germanium material providing an etch stop.
US09048288B2
The present disclosure provides methods for treating a part made from a decomposable semiconductor material, and particularly, methods for detaching a surface film from the rest of such part. According to the provided methods, a burst or pulse of light particles of short duration and very high intensity is applied to the part in order to selectively heat, under substantially adiabatic conditions, an area of the part located at a predefined depth from the surface to a temperature higher than the decomposition temperature of the material, and subsequently a surface film is detached from the rest of the part at the heated area. In preferred embodiments, the decomposable semiconductor material comprises Ga, or comprises AlxGayIn1-x-yN, where 0≦x≦1, 0≦y≦1 and x+y≦1.
US09048286B2
The present invention relates to substrates for ICs and method for forming the same. The method comprises the steps of: forming a hard mask layer on the bulk silicon material; etching the hard mask layer and the bulk silicon material to form a first part for shallow trench isolation of at least one trench; forming a dielectric film on the sidewall of the at least one trench; further etching the bulk silicon material to deepen the at least one trench so as to form a second part of the at least one trench; completely oxidizing or nitridizing parts of the bulk silicon material which are between the second parts of the trenches, and parts of the bulk silicon material which are between the second parts of the trenches and side surfaces of the bulk silicon substrate; filling dielectric materials in the first and second parts of the at least one trench; and removing the hard mask layer.
US09048283B2
Hybrid bonding systems and methods for semiconductor wafers are disclosed. In one embodiment, a hybrid bonding system for semiconductor wafers includes a chamber and a plurality of sub-chambers disposed within the chamber. A robotics handler is disposed within the chamber that is adapted to move a plurality of semiconductor wafers within the chamber between the plurality of sub-chambers. The plurality of sub-chambers includes a first sub-chamber adapted to remove a protection layer from the plurality of semiconductor wafers, and a second sub-chamber adapted to activate top surfaces of the plurality of semiconductor wafers prior to hybrid bonding the plurality of semiconductor wafers together. The plurality of sub-chambers also includes a third sub-chamber adapted to align the plurality of semiconductor wafers and hybrid bond the plurality of semiconductor wafers together.
US09048274B2
A system comprising a conveyor. A semiconductor processing tool has a lifter port. The tool is positioned near the conveyor, such that the lifter port is configured to transport a Front Opening Unified Pod (FOUP) between the conveyor and the lifter port. An upstream stocker and a downstream stocker are both co-located with the conveyor and the tool. The upstream and downstream stockers each have a respective storage space for the FOUP and a respective robotic device configured to transport the FOUP between its respective storage space and the conveyor. The upstream stocker is configured to receive the FOUP from an overhead transport (OHT) and deliver the FOUP to the conveyor. The downstream stocker is configured to receive the FOUP from the conveyor and deliver the FOUP to the OHT.
US09048262B2
A semiconductor structure including semiconductor fins, a gate over a middle portion of the semiconductor fins, and faceted semiconductor regions outside of the gate separated from gaps may be formed. The semiconductor structure may be formed by forming fins on a semiconductor substrate where each fin has a pair of sidewalls aligned parallel to the length of the fin, growing dummy semiconductor regions on the sidewalls of the fins, forming a sacrificial gate that covers a center portion of the fins and the dummy semiconductor regions, removing portions of the dummy semiconductor regions not covered by the sacrificial gate, and growing faceted semiconductor regions on the sidewalls of the portions of the fins not covered by the sacrificial gate. The faceted semiconductor regions may intersect to form gaps between the faceted semiconductor regions and the gate.
US09048250B2
A method of manufacturing a super-junction semiconductor device is disclosed that allows forming a high concentration layer with high precision and improves the trade-off relationship between the Eoff and the dV/dt. The method comprises a step of forming a parallel pn layer and a step of forming a proton irradiated layer in the upper region of the pn layer. Then, heat treatment is conducted on the proton irradiated layer for transforming the protons into donors to form a high concentration n type semiconductor layer.
US09048243B2
A chip package structure includes a package body, a first lead and a second lead. Elements embedded inside the package body include a core circuit having at least one first connection terminal, at least one ESD protection circuit having at least one second connection terminal, at least one third connection terminal and at least one interconnection structure. The interconnection structure is electrically connected to the second connection terminal and the third connection terminal. The first lead on the package body is electrically connected to the second connection terminal and an external circuit. The second lead on the package body electrically connects the first connection terminal and the third connection terminal. The second lead and the first lead are separate in structure.
US09048241B2
A semiconductor device utilizing redistribution layers to couple stacked die is disclosed and may include a first semiconductor die with a first surface comprising bond pads, a second surface opposite the first surface, and sloped side surfaces between the first and second surfaces, such that a cross-section of the first die is trapezoidal in shape. A second semiconductor die with a first surface may be bonded to the second surface of the first die, wherein the first surface of the second die may comprise bond pads. A passivation layer may be formed on the first surface and sloped side surfaces of the first die and the first surface of the second die. A redistribution layer may be formed on the passivation layer, electrically coupling bond pads on the first and second die. A conductive pillar may extend from a bond pad on the second die to the second redistribution layer.
US09048240B2
An electronic device includes an anisotropic conductive film as a connection material, the anisotropic conductive film being formed from an anisotropic conductive film-forming composition. The anisotropic conductive film-forming composition includes a polycyclic aromatic ring-containing epoxy resin, a fluorene epoxy resin, nano silica and conductive particles.
US09048238B1
An integrated circuit device and a method for making it are provided. The integrated circuit device comprises plural conductive layers, plural dielectric layers and plural first stopping layers. The conductive layers are extending in a first direction. The dielectric layers are paralleled to the conductive layers, and the conductive layers and the dielectric layers are disposed in an alternative arrangement. The first stopping layers are disposed over the conductive layers and the dielectric layers. The first stopping layers make no contact with the conductive layers.
US09048235B2
A stack package includes a first semiconductor chip having a plurality of first pads, and a second semiconductor chip stacked on the first semiconductor chip and having a plurality of second pads corresponding to the first pads respectively, the second pads connected to the corresponding first pads. The first and second pads are arranged such that the first and second pads overlap with each other even after the first and second semiconductor chips are rotated relative to each other by a predetermined angle.
US09048226B2
A chip assembly includes a PCB and a chip positioned on the PCB. The PCB includes a number of first bonding pads. Each bonding pad includes two first soldering balls formed thereon. The chip includes a number of second bonding pads each corresponding to a first bonding pad. Each second bonding pad includes a second soldering ball. The two first soldering balls of a first bonding pad are electrically connected to the second soldering ball of a corresponding second bonding pad via two bonding wires.
US09048221B2
A device has a first substrate having a first surface; a first electrode pad arranged on the first surface of the first substrate; a first insulator film provided on the first surface of the first substrate so that the first electrode pad is exposed; a first bump electrode provided on the first electrode pad and having a first diameter; and a second bump electrode provided on the first insulator film and having a second diameter smaller than the first diameter.
US09048220B2
A method of crystallizing a silicon thin film, which enables uniforming the size of a crystalline grain of the silicon thin film, includes: a second process of stacking, on a substrate, a first gate electrode having a first reflectivity; a third process of stacking a second gate electrode on the first gate electrode, the second gate electrode having a second reflectivity lower than the first reflectivity and including a top face having an area smaller than an area of the top face of the first gate electrode; a fourth process of stacking a gate insulation film to cover a first region and a second region; a fifth process of stacking a noncrystalline silicon thin film on the stacked gate insulation film; and a sixth process of crystallizing the noncrystalline silicon thin film by irradiating the noncrystalline silicon thin film from above with a laser beam.
US09048219B2
A semiconductor device includes a substrate including a first active region, a second active region and a field region between the first and second active regions, and a gate structure formed on the substrate to cross the first active region, the second active region and the field region. The gate structure includes a p type metal gate electrode and an n-type metal gate electrode directly contacting each other, the p-type metal gate electrode extends from the first active region less than half way toward the second active region.
US09048216B2
Transistors with self-aligned source/drain regions and methods for making the same. The methods include forming a gate structure embedded in a recess in a substrate; removing substrate material around the gate structure to create self-aligned source and drain recesses; forming a channel layer over the gate structure and the source and drain recesses; and forming source and drain contacts in the source and drain recesses, wherein the source and drain contacts extend above the channel layer.
US09048209B2
A semiconductor device is made by forming a heat spreader over a carrier. A semiconductor die is mounted over the heat spreader with a first surface oriented toward the heat spreader. A first insulating layer is formed over the semiconductor die and heat spreader. A via is formed in the first insulating layer. A first conductive layer is formed over the first insulating layer and connected to the heat spreader through the via and to contact pads on the semiconductor die. The heat spreader extends from the first surface of the semiconductor die to the via. A second insulating layer is formed over the first conductive layer. A second conductive layer is electrically connected to the first conductive layer. The carrier is removed. The heat spreader dissipates heat from the semiconductor die and provides shielding from inter-device interference. The heat spreader is grounded through the first conductive layer.
US09048208B2
A method of making a display device includes forming first electrodes of organic light emitting diodes in respective pixel areas on a substrate, forming a first common layer on the first electrodes in the pixel areas, forming emission layers in the pixel areas on the first common layer, forming a second electrode of the organic light emitting diodes on the emission layer, and applying physical pressure to divide the first common layer.
US09048207B2
Disclosed herein is a bubble discharging structure, including a substrate which has a first area and a second area adjacent to the first area, and on which a counter substrate is caused to come in contact with the first area to provide a film having a first pattern, and a bubble discharging path through which the first area and the second area communicate with each other, and through which a bubble confined between the substrate and the counter substrate when the counter substrate is caused to come in contact with the first area is discharged from the first area to the second area.
US09048199B2
A semiconductor package and a method of manufacturing the semiconductor package are disclosed. A semiconductor package in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes a substrate, which has a ground circuit formed thereon, a semiconductor chip, which is mounted on the substrate, a conductive first shield, which is formed on an upper surface of the semiconductor chip and connected with the ground circuit, and a conductive second shield, which covers the substrate and the semiconductor chip and is connected with the first shield. With a semiconductor package in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, grounding is possible between semiconductor chips because a shield is also formed on an upper surface of the semiconductor chip, and the shielding property can be improved by a double shielding structure.
US09048197B2
An integrated circuit package system that includes: providing a substrate with a protective coating; attaching a labeling film to a support member in a separate process; joining the protective coating and the labeling film; and dicing the substrate, the protective coating, and the labeling film to form the integrated circuit package system.
US09048195B2
Provided is a polishing fluid that has a fast polishing rate, and can selectively suppress polishing of layers including polysilicon or modified polysilicon during the chemical mechanical polishing in the manufacture of semiconductor integrated circuits, and a polishing method using the same. A polishing fluid used for the chemical mechanical polishing in which each of the components represented by the following (1) and (2) is included, the pH is 1.5 to 5.0, and a polishing workpiece can be polished in a range of a ratio represented by RR (other)/RR (p-Si) when the polishing rate of the first layer is RR (p-Si), and the polishing rate of the second layer is RR (other) of 1.5 to 200. (1) Colloidal silica particles (2) At least one inorganic phosphate compound selected from phosphoric acid, pyrophosphoric acid, and polyphosphoric acid.
US09048191B2
A plasma etching method includes supplying an etching gas containing an oxygen gas and a sulfur fluoride gas at a predetermined flow rate into a processing chamber that accommodates a processing substrate including a silicon layer and a resist layer, and etching the silicon layer with plasma generated from the etching gas using the resist layer as a mask. The plasma etching method further includes a first step of etching the silicon layer while a flow ratio of the oxygen gas to the sulfur fluoride gas is adjusted to a first flow ratio; a second step of etching the silicon layer while decreasing a flow rate of the oxygen gas to decrease the flow ratio to a second flow ratio, which is lower than the first flow ratio; and a third step of etching the silicon layer while the flow ratio is adjusted to the second flow ratio.
US09048186B2
A method for forming an integrated circuit is provided. The method includes forming a gate dielectric structure over a substrate. A titanium-containing sacrificial layer is formed, contacting the gate dielectric structure. The whole titanium-containing sacrificial layer is substantially removed.
US09048185B2
Some embodiments relate to an integrated circuit (IC). The IC includes a semiconductor substrate having an upper surface with a source region and drain region proximate thereto. A channel region is disposed in the substrate between the source region and the drain region. A gate electrode is disposed over the channel region and separated from the channel region by a gate dielectric. Sidewall spacers are formed about opposing sidewalls of the gate electrode. Upper outer edges of the sidewall spacers extend outward beyond corresponding lower outer edges of the sidewall spacers. A liner is disposed about opposing sidewalls of the sidewall spacers and has a first thickness at an upper portion of liner and a second thickness at a lower portion of the liner. The first thickness is less than the second thickness. Other embodiments are also disclosed.
US09048183B2
Embodiments provide methods for depositing metal-containing materials. The methods include deposition processes that form metal, metal carbide, metal silicide, metal nitride, and metal carbide derivatives by a vapor deposition process, including thermal decomposition, CVD, pulsed-CVD, or ALD. A method for processing a substrate is provided which includes depositing a dielectric material forming a feature definition in the dielectric material, depositing a work function material conformally on the sidewalls and bottom of the feature definition, and depositing a metal gate fill material on the work function material to fill the feature definition, wherein the work function material is deposited by reacting at least one metal-halide precursor having the formula MXY, wherein M is tantalum, hafnium, titanium, and lanthanum, X is a halide selected from the group of fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine, and y is from 3 to 5.
US09048176B2
According to one embodiment, a method for manufacturing a nonvolatile storage device. The device includes a plurality of first conductive layers each extending in a first direction, a plurality of second conductive layers each extending in a second direction and spaced from the first layers, and memory cells each provided between the first layers and the second layers and including a rectifying element including a semiconductor layer, and a variable resistance element stacked with the rectifying element. The method includes a film formation step, a heating step and a patterning step. The film formation step is configured to form a rectifying element material film including an amorphous semiconductor film. The heating step is configured to heat the rectifying element material film. The patterning step is configured to form the rectifying element including the semiconductor layer by patterning the rectifying element material film after the heating step.
US09048173B2
A method for selective formation of a dual phase gallium nitride material on a (100) silicon substrate. The method includes forming a blanket layer of dielectric material on a surface of a (100) silicon substrate. The blanket layer of dielectric material is then patterned forming a plurality of patterned dielectric material structures on silicon substrate. An etch is employed that selectively removes exposed portions of the silicon substrate. The etch forms openings within the silicon substrate that expose a surface of the silicon substrate having a (111) crystal plane. A contiguous AlN buffer layer is then formed on exposed surfaces of each patterned dielectric material structure and on exposed surfaces of the silicon substrate. A dual phase gallium nitride material is then formed on a portion of the contiguous AlN buffer layer and surrounding each sidewall of each patterned dielectric material structure.
US09048172B2
A method of manufacturing a white light emitting device includes dividing a phosphor sheet into phosphor film units to be applied to individual light emitting diode (LED) devices, measuring light conversion characteristics of the respective phosphor film units, classifying the phosphor film units of the phosphor sheet into a plurality of groups according to measurement results of the light conversion characteristics and combining the phosphor film units classified into the plurality of groups and an LED device having predetermined light characteristics so as to obtain target color characteristics.
US09048162B2
A device includes a diode, which includes a first, a second, and a third doped region in a semiconductor substrate. The first doped region is of a first conductivity type, and has a first impurity concentration. The second doped region is of the first conductivity type, and has a second impurity concentration lower than the first impurity concentration. The second doped region encircles the first doped region. The third doped region is of a second conductivity type opposite the first conductivity type, wherein the third doped region overlaps a portion of the first doped region and a portion of the second doped region.
US09048159B2
A solid-state imaging device includes: a substrate; an insulator layer formed on the substrate; a semiconductor layer formed on the insulator layer; and a silicon layer formed on the semiconductor layer. The silicon layer includes a plurality of pixels each including a photoelectric converter configured to convert light into signal charge, and a circuit configured to read the signal charge, and a refractive index of the insulator layer is lower than a refractive index of the semiconductor layer.
US09048154B2
A radiation imaging apparatus, comprising an imaging unit in which a plurality of pixels are arranged to form a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, and a control unit configured to control the imaging unit so as to perform reset operation for initializing each of the plurality of pixels repeatedly, and readout operation, after the reset operation, for reading out a signal from each of the plurality of pixels sequentially, wherein one cycle length of the reset operation is shorter than a period of time required for the readout operation, and a pulse width of a signal supplied to each of the plurality of pixels in the reset operation is shorter than a pulse width of a signal supplied to each of the plurality of pixels in the readout operation.
US09048150B1
In one embodiment of the present invention, a method of forming a semiconductor device includes performing a test during the forming of the semiconductor device within and/or over a substrate. A first voltage is applied to a first node coupled to a component to be tested in the substrate and a test voltage at a pad coupled to the component to be tested through a second node. The test voltage has a peak voltage higher than the first voltage. The component to be tested is coupled between the first node and the second node. A leakage current is measured through the component to be tested in response to the test voltage. After performing the test, the second node is connected to a functional block in the substrate. The first node is coupled to a third node coupled to the functional block.
US09048137B2
Scalable Gate Logic Non-Volatile Memory (SGLNVM) devices fabricated with the conventional CMOS process is disclosed. Floating gates of SGLNVM with the minimal length and width of the logic gate devices form floating gate Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor. The floating gates with the minimal gate length extend over silicon active areas to capacitively couple control gates embedded in silicon substrate (well) through an insulation dielectric. The embedded control gate is formed by a shallow semiconductor type opposite to the type of the silicon substrate or well. Plurality of SGLNVM devices are configured into a NOR-type flash array where a pair of SGLNVM devices share a common source electrode connected to a common ground line with two drain electrodes connected to two separate bitlines. The pairs of the NOR-type SGLNVM cells are physically separated and electrically isolated by dummy floating gates to minimize cell sizes.
US09048124B2
An electronic device may be provided with electronic components such as radio-frequency transceiver integrated circuits and other integrated circuits that are be sensitive to electromagnetic interference. Metal structures are configured to serve both as heat sinking structures for the electrical components and electromagnetic interference shielding. Components are mounted to the substrate using solder. Metal fence structures are also soldered to the substrate. Each metal fence has an opening that covers a respective one of the components. A thermally conductive elastomeric gap filler pad is mounted in the opening. A metal heat spreading structure is electrically shorted to the fence using a conductive gasket that surrounds the gap filler pad so that the structure serves as an electromagnetic interference shield. Heat from the component travels through the gap filler pad to the metal heat spreading structure so that the heat spreading structure may laterally spread and dissipate the heat.
US09048120B2
Semiconductor devices including a first transistor and a second transistor are integrated on a substrate. Each of the first and second transistors include a nano-sized active region including source and drain regions provided in respective end portions of the nano-sized active region and a channel forming region provided between the source and drain regions. The source and drain regions of the first transistor have the same conductivity type as those of the second transistor, and the second transistor has a threshold voltage lower than that of the first transistor. The channel forming region of the second transistor may include a homogeneously doped region, whose conductivity type is the same as the source and drain regions of the second transistor and is different from the channel forming region of the first transistor.
US09048112B2
A stacked integrated circuit includes a first tier IC and a second tier IC. Active faces of the first tier IC and the second tier IC face each other. An interconnect structure, such as microbumps, couples the first tier IC to the second tier IC. An active portion of a voltage regulator is integrated in the first semiconductor IC and coupled to passive components (for example a capacitor or an inductor) embedded in a packaging substrate on which the stacked IC is mounted. The passive components may be multiple through vias in the packaging substrate providing inductance to the active portion of the voltage regulator. The inductance provided to the active portion of the voltage regulator is increased by coupling the through via in the packaging substrate to through vias in a printed circuit board that the packaging substrate is mounted on.
US09048101B2
One embodiment of the disclosure provides an electrostatic discharge protection circuit, including a first resistor, a p-type field effect transistor, a capacitance device and an n-type field effect transistor. The first resistor has a first terminal coupled to a first rail and a second terminal coupled to a first node. The p-type field effect transistor has a source coupled to the first rail, a gate coupled to the first node and a drain coupled to a second node. The capacitance device has a first terminal coupled to a second rail or the second node and a second terminal coupled to the first node. The n-type field effect transistor has a source coupled to the second rail, a gate coupled to the second node and a drain coupled to the first node.
US09048100B2
A base at least one principal plane of which is a nitride is prepared for use in epitaxial growth. The base is placed on a susceptor in an epitaxial growth reactor and heated to a predetermined temperature (step A). The heating is started with inactive, nitrogen gas being supplied into the reactor. Then, active, NH3 gas is supplied. Then, a growth step (step B) of a first nitride semiconductor layer is started without an intervening step of thermally cleaning the principal nitride plane of the base. In step B, the first nitride semiconductor layer is epitaxially grown on a principal nitride plane of a base without supply of an Si source material. Then, a relatively thick, second nitride semiconductor layer is epitaxially grown on the first nitride semiconductor layer by supplying an n-type dopant source material (step C).
US09048092B2
A method for preparing graphene by reaction with Cl2 based on annealing with assistant metal film is provided, comprising the following steps: applying normal wash to a Si-substrate, then putting the Si-substrate into a reaction chamber of a CVD system and evacuating, rising the temperature to 950° C.-1150° C. gradually, supplying C3H8 and carbonizing the Si-substrate for 3-10 min; rising the temperature to 1150° C.-1350° C. rapidly, supplying C3H8 and SiH4, growing a 3C—SiC hetero-epitaxial film on the carbonized layer, and then reducing the temperature to ambient temperature under the protection of H2 gradually, introducing the grown sample wafer of 3C—SiC into a quartz tube, heating to 700-1100° C., supplying mixed gas of Ar and Cl2, and reacting Cl2 with 3C—SiC to generate a carbon film, applying the sample wafer of carbon film on a metal film, annealing at 900° C.-1100° C. for 10-30 min to reconstruct the carbon film into graphene; and taking out of the metal film from the sample wafer of graphene to obtain large area graphene. The graphene obtained by the method has large area, smooth surface, good continuity, and low porosity; and the product can be used to seal gas and liquid.
US09048089B2
Some embodiments relate to methods and apparatus for providing a homogeneous wafer temperature profile in a wafer cleaning tool without introducing unwanted particles onto the wafer. In some embodiments, a disclosed wafer cleaning tool has a processing chamber configured to house a semiconductor wafer. A dispensing arm provides a high temperature cleaning solution to the semiconductor wafer. A heating cup is located within the processing chamber at a position that is around the perimeter of the semiconductor wafer. The heating cup generates heat that increases the temperature of outer edges of the semiconductor wafer by a greater amount than a temperature of a center of the semiconductor wafer, thereby homogenizing an internal temperature profile of the semiconductor wafer.
US09048084B2
Described herein is an integrated circuit which comprises: a first buffer, with positive trans-conductance, to drive a first signal with first phase; and a second buffer, with negative trans-conductance, to drive a second signal with second phase, wherein the first buffer and the second buffer are cross-coupled to one another.
US09048066B2
A method is for etching successive substrates on a platen in an inductively coupled plasma chamber in which the etching process results in carbonaceous deposits in the chamber. The method includes (a) interrupting the etching processing of substrates, (b) running an oxygen or oxygen containing plasma within the chamber and removing gaseous by-products, and (c) resuming the etch processing of substrates. The method is characterized in that it further includes the step of running an argon plasma in the chamber after step (b) with the platen biased.
US09048049B2
A malfunction determining unit 7 compares an absolute value of the difference between a first count and a second count stored in a storage unit 8 with a predetermined threshold. If the absolute value is less than a predetermined upper limit, the malfunction determining unit determines that a contact unit 1 has no malfunction. If the absolute value is the upper limit or more, the malfunction determining unit 7 determines that the contact unit 1 has malfunction, and supplies the determination result to a control unit 3. The control unit 3 allows an output unit 10 to output a malfunction detecting signal if receiving the determination result indicating the presence of malfunction from the malfunction determining unit 7.
US09048046B2
An operation input device includes: an operation body having a handle portion. The operation body tilting around a rotation center point when a user tilts the operation axis line of the handle portion. The operation body tilting in a predetermined number of tilting directions. The operation input device including multiple detection portions, the number of the detection portions being less than the predetermined number of tilting directions of the operation body. Each detection portion outputting a first output value when the operation body tilts in a direction corresponding to the detection portion and outputting a second output value when the operation body tilts in a direction not corresponding to the detection portion. A determination device determines a tilting direction of the operation body based on information on the number of first output values and information on a part of the detection portions that have outputted the first output values.
US09048045B2
A power supply circuit breaker includes: a first connector housing; a second connector housing; a lever; a main circuit switch which is brought into a breaking state in a first operation position of the lever, and brought into a connecting state in a connector mating operation position and a second operation position of the lever; a signal circuit switch which is brought into a breaking state in the first operation position and the connector mating operation position of the lever, and brought into a connecting state in the second operation position of the lever; a first lock portion for locking the lever in the second operation position; a second lock portion for locking the lever in the connector mating operation position; and an unlocking operation portion capable of being operated to unlock a lock state of the second lock portion.
US09048040B1
An electrical unit outlet device is disclosed for controlling power isolation, based on a predetermined time, for a device charger, while remaining plugged into a power outlet. A power isolating circuit cuts any power to the charging device off when charge is complete.
US09048033B2
An electrical switch is disclosed, including a switch housing and a busbar routed through a housing opening in the switch housing. In at least one embodiment, a contact element is present for making electrical contact with the busbar, the contact element being clamped in between the busbar and the switch housing in the housing opening.
US09048032B2
An electrical switch device has a contact system and a movable actuator for switching the contact system. The contact system resiliently preloads a sliding contact against a first fixed contact in a first switch position and against a second fixed contact in a second switch position. In case of pressurization, the actuator moves the sliding contact mainly linearly from the first switch position to the second switch position. In the first switch position, the actuator adjoins to a snap-action element having a stable position and actuates the latter from its stable position to an instable position when switching over to the second switch position, wherein the snap-action element returns to the stable position upon completion of pressurization by means of the actuator.
US09048025B2
An electrode for an electric storage device includes at least an active material selected from the group consisting of a carbon nanotube, activated carbon, hard carbon, graphite, graphene and a carbon nanohorn; an ionic liquid; and a three-dimensional network metal porous body.
US09048020B2
A bond wire transformer comprises a plurality of primary bond wires coupled in parallel; and a plurality of secondary bond wires coupled in parallel, each secondary bond wire being spaced apart from and oriented relative to a corresponding primary bond wire so as to achieve a desired mutual inductance between the corresponding primary and secondary bond wires, thereby providing magnetic coupling between the primary and secondary bond wires.
US09048013B2
A pressure sensible textile has at least a high-resistance conducting area and two groups of low-resistance conducting wefts or warps contacting the high-resistance area directly. The two groups of low-resistance conducting wefts or warps cross each other and do not contact with each other directly. Furthermore, two scanning circuits can be electrically connected to the two groups of low-resistance conducting wefts or warps. Then, a controller is added to the two scanning circuits to obtain a pressure sensible device.
US09048011B2
The invention relates to the field of production in thin coatings of electronic devices and/or MEMS and relates to an improved method for forming a pattern in a thin SiARC anti-reflective coating, comprising the doping by deposition of such SiARC coating covered with a resist pattern through a protective coating of the resist pattern, then etching the doped zones of the SiARC coating (FIG. 3c).
US09048006B2
A carbon nanotube film includes a plurality of carbon nanotubes. The plurality of carbon nanotubes is arranged approximately along a same first direction. The plurality of carbon nanotubes are joined end to end by van der Waals attractive force therebetween. The carbon nanotube film has a uniform width. The carbon nanotube film has substantially the same density of the carbon nanotubes along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The change in density across the width is within 10 percent. The present application also relates to a carbon nanotube film precursor and a method for making the carbon nanotube film.
US09048000B2
An apparatus for producing light includes a chamber and an ignition source that ionizes a gas within the chamber. The apparatus also includes at least one laser that provides energy to the ionized gas within the chamber to produce a high brightness light. The laser can provide a substantially continuous amount of energy to the ionized gas to generate a substantially continuous high brightness light.
US09047997B2
A system for radioisotope production uses fast-neutron-caused fission of depleted or naturally occurring uranium targets in an irradiation chamber. Fast fission can be enhanced by having neutrons encountering the target undergo scattering or reflection to increase each neutron's probability of causing fission (n, f) reactions in U-238. The U-238 can be deployed as layers sandwiched between layers of neutron-reflecting material, or as rods surrounded by neutron-reflecting material.
US09047995B2
In a method of designing a nuclear reactor core for uprated power operations, a set of constraints are inputted to be satisfied for uprated power operations, and a test reactor core design is generated based on the constraints. One or more automated tools may be selected from a set of automated tools to evaluate the test core design against the constraints. The selected tool may then be operated. Operation of the selected automated tool includes simulating reactor operation with the test core design, based on the constraints, to produce a plurality of outputs, comparing the outputs against the constraints, and providing data indicating constraints that were violated by the test core design during the simulation, based on the comparison. One or more of the automated tools are iterated until a test core design meets all constraints for uprated power operations, thereby representing an acceptable power uprate core design.
US09047994B2
A core of a light water reactor has a plurality of fuel assemblies. The fuel assemblies include a plurality of fuel rods in which a lower end is supported by a lower tie-plate and an upper end is supported by an upper tie-plate. The fuel rods form plenums above a nuclear fuel material zone and have a neutron absorbing material filling zone under the nuclear fuel material zone. Neutron absorbing members attached to the upper tie-plate are disposed between mutual plenums of the neighboring fuel rods above the nuclear fuel material zone. The neutron absorbing members have a length of 500 mm and are positioned at a distance of 300 mm from the nuclear fuel material zone. Even if the overall core is assumed to become a state of 100% void, no positive reactivity is inserted to the core.
US09047990B2
A circuit for determination of a resistance of an array of capacitive elements includes a reference ring oscillator circuit, the reference ring oscillator circuit being loaded with low-loss capacitive elements; an array test ring oscillator circuit, the array test ring oscillator circuit being loaded with the array of capacitive elements; and a resistance determination module, the resistance determination module configured to determine the resistance of the array of capacitive elements based on data from the reference ring oscillator circuit and the array test ring oscillator circuit.
US09047989B2
A method includes resetting an output timing adjustment circuit in each of a plurality of DRAM devices to a default output timing data value, measuring a default delay from read command to read data for each of the plurality of DRAM devices, identifying a slowest DRAM device having a maximum default delay from read command to read data among the plurality of DRAM devices, writing an output timing data value to the output timing adjustment circuit in each of the plurality of DRAM devices to set the delay from read command to read data for each respective DRAM device to an amount substantially equal to the maximum default delay, and reading data from any one of the plurality of DRAM devices with a delay from read command to read data substantially equal to the maximum default delay.
US09047987B2
A new architecture for use with computer memory storage devices is disclosed that provides means by which a memory storage device may be accessed both as standard archive file device as well as in any unique physical and native command set modes supported by the device. A system architecture for accessing a memory storage device that provides access to the storage device via a standard memory storage method while alternatively providing direct access to the full physical and functional capabilities of the storage device. The system architecture has four main elements. Firstly, a central processing system which acts as the user interface and controls access to all attached peripheral functions. Secondly, an electronic bridge connected on one side to the central processing system via a standard I/O channel and on the other side to the memory device through a memory bridge presenting the memory device to the central processing system as a standard memory peripheral. Thirdly, a second processing unit which on one side is connected to the central processing system and on the other side is connected to the memory storage device via the multiplexer thus providing the second processing unit direct access to the memory storage device. And finally, the multiplexer that can connect either the electronic memory bridge or the second processing system to the memory storage device.
US09047984B2
Disclosed is a system and method for reading a flash memory cell with an adjusted read level. A current read level is set to a new read level associated with increasing a first error rate to decrease a second error rate. The first error rate is associated with determining that the most significant bit of the flash memory cell is a binary 1 and the second error rate is associated with determining that the most significant bit is a binary 0. On reading the memory cell, a probability value is generated for the most significant bit, the probability being higher if the bit is equivalent to a binary 0 than if the bit is equivalent to a binary 1.
US09047969B2
A method includes destructively reading bits of a spin torque magnetic random access memory and immediately writing back the original or inverted values. A detection of the majority state of the write back bits and a conditional inversion of write back bits are employed to reduce the number of write back pulses. A subsequent write command received within a specified time or before an original write operation is commenced will cause a portion of the write back pulses or the original write operation pulses to abort. Write pulses during subsequent write operations will follow the conditional inversion determined for the write back bits during destructive read.
US09047942B2
Non-transitory computer-readable media having information embodied therein that includes a description of an integrated circuit device. The information includes descriptions of a volatile storage die having a first addressable range of storage cells and a non-volatile storage die. The description of the non-volatile storage die having a second addressable range of storage cells that defines an overlapping region with the first addressable range of storage cells. The information also includes a description of an interface circuit coupled to the volatile and non-volatile storage die to selectively transfer data stored in the overlapping region of storage cells between the die.
US09047941B2
An organic molecular memory of an embodiment includes a first conductive layer, a second conductive layer, and an organic molecular layer interposed between the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer, the organic molecular layer including charge-storage molecular chains or variable-resistance molecular chains, the charge-storage molecular chains or the variable-resistance molecular chains including fused polycyclic groups.
US09047926B2
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a HAMR device having two temperature sensors. The first temperature sensor is disposed adjacent a waveguide and is about two or more micrometers away from an air bearing surface. The first temperature sensor has a length, a width and a thickness, and the length is greater than the width and the thickness. The length of the first temperature sensor is substantially perpendicular to the waveguide.
US09047924B1
A magnetic disk device according to an embodiment is provided with a magnetic disk including a recording surface with a plurality of tracks on which data is recorded, a head configured to write the data to the recording surface, and a controller configured to count a write count corresponding to a number of writes by the head, and to perform data refresh when the write count exceeds a threshold. While counting the write count, the controller counts using a first count-up value when the head performs an on-track write, and counts using a second count-up value higher than the first count-up value when the head performs an off-track write.
US09047922B2
A method and system for providing autonomous event logging and retrieval for failure analysis. In one implementation, storage device firmware monitors and records events (e.g., storage device errors and/or failures) to the storage device flash in substantially real time from power on of the storage device to power off. Additionally, diagnostic data relating to an event, including a time stamp and storage device environmental conditions are recorded. The logged event data may be utilized to streamline failure analysis by determining whether the storage device failed and if so, when the storage device failed and what the conditions of the storage device were at the time of the failure. Such information may be used for failure, warranty, integrator, and/or troubleshooting analysis.
US09047917B1
A disk drive slider is disclosed comprising a first read element for generating a first read signal, and a first sense amplifier comprising a first input terminal coupled to the first read element, a first output terminal coupled to a first output line, and a first supply terminal coupled to a supply line. The first sense amplifier is for amplifying the first read signal to generate a first amplified read signal, the first output line is for transmitting the first amplified read signal to a preamp, and the supply line is for coupling to the preamp in order to supply power to the first sense amplifier and supply a first bias to the first read element.
US09047912B1
A write head includes a three-dimensional waveguide extending along a light-propagation direction. The three-dimensional waveguide is configured to receive light from a light source at a fundamental transverse electric (TE) mode. The three-dimensional waveguide includes an input coupler, a curved middle section, and a terminating end. The input coupler is tapered between the light source and the curved middle section. The write head includes a dual-mode waveguide extending along the light propagation direction and has an edge proximate to and separated from the curved section by a gap at a coupling region. The three-dimensional waveguide excites a higher-order TE mode in the dual-mode waveguide via the coupling region.
US09047893B1
A magnetic sensor having a first sensor stack portion that includes a free layer, non-magnetic spacer or barrier layer and a portion of a pinned layer structure. The sensor has second sensor stack portion formed over the first sensor stack portion. The second sensor stack portion include includes a second portion of the pinned layer structure and a layer of antiferromagnetic material formed over the. The first sensor stack portion is configured with a width and stripe height that define the functional width and strip height of the sensor, whereas the upper portion can be made wider and deeper without affecting sensor performance. Because the patterning of the first sensor stack portion is performed on a thinner structure than would be necessary to pattern the entire sensor stack, the patterning can be performed with smaller dimensions and increased resolution.
US09047890B1
A thin film inductor having yokes, one or more of which is laminated, and one or more conductors passing between the yokes. The laminated yoke or yokes help reduce eddy currents and/or hysteresis losses. Magnetic layers of the laminated yoke have varying thickness, with the thickness of magnetic layers closer to the winding (that is, in areas of higher density magnetic flux) having relatively lower thickness(es) in order to further reduce eddy currents and related energy losses.
US09047886B2
In an optical disk device, a technique for AC tilt correction with stability and following capability is provided in which, during an operation of a tracking servo mechanism, a lens shift amount obtained from a tracking control signal or a lens position error signal is measured for each of predetermined angles of rotation of an optical disk, and the measured values are averaged in a radial direction of the optical disk, and a tilt controller corrects an AC tilt based on the resulting average value.
US09047876B2
Disclosed is an audio device that plays back compressed audio signals that can be sufficiently comfortable to be audible even in a play back environment with improved acoustic quality. In order to correct a weak signal component near a frequency with a high output level of a compressed audio, weak-signal component adding unit (121) extracts a specific frequency region based on input audio signals, generates a weak-signal component composed of harmonics signals composed of a harmonic component and the like, and a noise signal and adds the generated weak-signal component to the input audio signal. In order to correct a high-frequency band output level from which compressed audio signals are omitted, high-frequency band audio adding unit (122) generates audio of a high-frequency band composed of a harmonic signal and a noise signal and adds the generated high-frequency band audio to the input audio signal.
US09047871B2
Devices, systems, methods, media, and programs for detecting an emotional state change in an audio signal are provided. A plurality of segments of the audio signal is received, with the plurality of segments being sequential. Each segment of the plurality of segments is analyzed, and, for each segment, an emotional state and a confidence score of the emotional state are determined. The emotional state and the confidence score of each segment are sequentially analyzed, and a current emotional state of the audio signal is tracked throughout each of the plurality of segments. For each segment, it is determined whether the current emotional state of the audio signal changes to another emotional state based on the emotional state and the confidence score of the segment.
US09047869B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and computer program product for the automated voice enablement of a Web page with free form input field support. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for voice enabling a Web page with free form input field support can be provided. The method can include receiving speech input for an input field in a Web page, parsing a core attribute for the input field and identifying an external statistical language model (SLM) referenced by the core attribute of the input field, posting the received speech input and the SLM to an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine, and inserting a textual equivalent to the speech input provided by the ASR engine in conjunction with the SLM into the input field.
US09047865B2
A system and method for processing of audio and speech signals is disclosed, which provide compatibility over a range of communication devices operating at different sampling frequencies and/or bit rates. The analyzer of the system divides the input signal in different portions, at least one of which carries information sufficient to provide intelligible reconstruction of the input signal. The analyzer also encodes separate information about other portions of the signal in an embedded manner, so that a smooth transition can be achieved from low bit-rate to high bit-rate applications. Accordingly, communication devices operating at different sampling rates and/or bit-rates can extract corresponding information from the output bit stream of the analyzer. In the present invention embedded information generally relates to separate parameters of the input signal, or to additional resolution in the transmission of original signal parameters. Non-linear techniques for enhancing the overall performance of the system are also disclosed. Also disclosed is a novel method of improving the quantization of signal parameters. In a specific embodiment the input signal is processed in two or more modes dependent on the state of the signal in a frame. When the signal is determined to be in a transition state, the encoder provides phase information about N sinusoids, which the decoder end uses to improve the quality of the output signal at low bit rates.
US09047858B2
An electronic apparatus comprises a storage module, a manipulation module, a voice output control module, and a display module. The storage module configured to store book data. The manipulation module is configured to convert a manipulation of a user into an electrical signal while the voice output control module configured to reproduce a voice by reading the book data in the storage module based on the manipulation, and the display module is configured to display the book data. When it is determined that a part to be reproduced includes an illustration or a figure, the user is urged to view the display module and the illustration or the figure is displayed at the display module.
US09047856B2
A speech server and methods provide audio stream analysis for tone detection in addition to speech recognition to implement an accurate and efficient answering machine detection strategy. By performing both tone detection and speech recognition in a single component, such as the speech server, the number of components for digital signal processing may be reduced. The speech server communicates tone events detected at the telephony level and enables voice applications to detect tone events consistently and provide consistent support and accuracy of both inbound and outbound voice applications independent of the hardware or geographical location of the telephony network. In addition, an improved opportunity for signaling of an appropriate moment for an application to leave a message is provided, thereby supporting automation.
US09047855B2
An apparatus includes a member configured to form an acoustic seal around a portion of an acoustic environment, and active noise reduction circuitry. The active noise reduction circuitry includes: detection circuitry configured to detect a change in pressure within the acoustic environment caused by movement of the member, and gain compensation circuitry configured to change a loop gain of a feedback loop in response to the detected change in pressure.
US09047854B1
An apparatus, that allows one to control the operation of a musical instrument, includes: a rotatably mounted, circular cylinder having on its outer surface rings of individual lights, a photosensor associated with each ring of lights that yields an output signal that controls the operation of the musical instrument's strikers, a rotation sensor that provides a rotation output signal indicative of the cylinder's rotational position, a programmable controller with a memory storage element, a means for inputting into the memory storage element a music input signal having the information necessary to cause the acoustical members of the musical instrument to play a desired musical composition, and a software program that uses the music input and rotation output signals to generate a control signal for the light's power source that intermittently illuminates the rings of lights so that the photosensors output signals cause the strikers to create those sounds required to play the desired musical composition.
US09047852B2
The Pole Position Sliding Pickup System changes the way tonal variety is arrived at by electric guitar players. Rather than installing multiple pickups in different positions in order to achieve a limited variety in tone, the Pole Position Sliding Pickup System uses a single pickup which can be moved quickly and easily to any position between the base of the neck and the bridge in order to achieve a much greater variety in tone, and create wah wah-like sound effects by manipulating the pickup at different speeds and distances. Not only are the variety of possible tones increased, but so is the ease with which they can be attained, because the method of sliding the pickup into place is easier than conventional methods of choosing stationary pickups.
US09047843B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal panel, a gate driver, a data driver, and an initial driving control unit. The liquid crystal panel includes a plurality of liquid crystal cells. Each liquid crystal cell is defined by a gate line, a data line and a thin film transistor. The gate driver controls the thin film transistor connected to the gate line of each liquid crystal cell according to a gate control signal. The data driver outputs a pixel signal to the data line of the each liquid crystal cell according to a data control signal. The data driver includes a switch connected to the data line of the each liquid crystal cell. The initial driving control unit is structured to compare a clock count with a predetermined reference value and operable to alternately generate a first state signal and a second state signal based on the comparison. The unit applies the first state signal to the switch during a masking interval. The pixel signal is not output to the data line during the masking interval.
US09047834B2
An exemplary liquid crystal display (LCD) provides data lines, gate lines, and pixel units arranged as a matrix array. A method for driving the LCD includes a step of analyzing and determining polarities of one column of the pixel units as determining pixels, thereby defining a first polarity group and a second polarity group, and a step of sequentially applying corresponding data signals to a part of the whole pixel units that are arranged at same rows with the first polarity group in a part of a period of a frame. Corresponding data signals are sequentially applied to the other part of the whole pixel units that are arranged at same rows with the second polarity group in another part of a period of a frame.
US09047832B2
Systems, methods, and devices for performing column inversion using 2-column demultiplexers are provided. In one example, an electronic display may include a display panel with columns of pixels configured to be programmed with frames of image data and display driver circuitry. The display driver circuitry may include three demultiplexers, each respectively coupled to one pixel column of a first superpixel and one pixel column of a second superpixel. Each of the three demultiplexers may receive amplified image data of a single polarity per frame.
US09047827B2
A display apparatus includes a backlight assembly, a driving circuit part, and a display panel. The backlight assembly emits light. The driving circuit part receives an image signal, converts the image signal into image data, and generates a driving signal based on the image data. The display panel includes at least one pixel in which a plurality of sub-pixels is arranged in a two row by four column array, wherein the panel receives the light to display an image in response to the driving signal, wherein two sub-pixels of the sub-pixels arranged in a first row of the array each comprise a white color filter and two sub-pixels of the sub-pixels arranged in a second row of the array each comprise a white color filter.
US09047826B2
Systems, methods, and devices for performing column inversion using reordered image data are provided. In one example, an electronic display may include a display panel with columns of pixels and driver circuitry to drive the pixels using column inversion. The driver circuitry may drive pixels of a first superpixel in a first color order and drive pixels of an adjacent second superpixel in a second color order, such that more pixels are driven sequentially at a common polarity than would have been driven sequentially at the common polarity were the pixels of the first superpixel driven at the same color order as the pixels of the second superpixel.
US09047823B2
An organic light emitting display and a method of erasing an image sticking thereof are provided. In the image sticking erasing method, a panel driving circuit is driven by a logic power voltage during a power-off delay time to discharge pixels.
US09047819B2
An organic light emitting display is capable of preventing brightness from being non-uniform due to IR drop so as to improve reliability of the organic light emitting display. The organic light emitting display comprises: a display panel having a display region and a non-display region; a plurality of sub pixels defined by perpendicularly intersecting a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of data lines formed in the display region of the display panel; and a power source supply pad unit provided in the non-display region of the display panel for supplying a power source voltage to the plurality of sub pixels. A resistance value of sub pixels arranged in a first region adjacent to the power source supply pad unit is higher than a resistance value of sub pixels of a second region which is separated from the power source supply pad unit, with the first region interposed therebetween.
US09047815B2
To provide a method for driving a semiconductor device, by which influence of variation in threshold voltage and mobility of transistors can be reduced. The semiconductor device includes an n-channel transistor, a switch for controlling electrical connection between a gate and a first terminal of the transistor, a capacitor electrically connected between the gate and a second terminal of the transistor, and a display element. The method has a first period for holding the sum of a voltage corresponding to the threshold voltage of the transistor and an image signal voltage in the capacitor; a second period for turning on the switch so that electric charge held in the capacitor in accordance with the sum of the image signal voltage and the threshold voltage is discharged through the transistor; and a third period for supplying a current to the display element through the transistor after the second period.
US09047804B1
Processing of a digital image includes using a machine to convert numerical representations of colors in the digital image to lexical representations of the colors. The lexical representations may be used for image processing such as color reproduction. Examples of lexical-based color reproduction include, without limitation, using the lexical representations to perform color correction of an image display device, identifying potential problems with color shifts, generating statistics about lexical boundary crossings, and developing image processing pipelines.
US09047795B2
Methods and electronic devices for providing a wallpaper viewfinder are described. In one aspect, a method includes: receiving image data from a camera of the electronic device; displaying a viewfinder for the camera on a display of the electronic device based on the image data; identifying a subject in the image data; and overlaying one or more interface element representations on a portion of the displayed viewfinder which does not contain the identified subject, the interface element representations depicting interface elements associated with a graphical user interface of the electronic device.
US09047782B1
Provided are a vehicle ultrasonic parking assistance apparatus including a charge pumping circuit and a method of operating the same. The vehicle ultrasonic parking assistance apparatus changes a transmission output voltage in a voltage driving scheme without using a transformer. By using the charge pumping circuit instead of the transformer so as to boost a voltage, the manufacturing cost is reduced, and a signal is input to the ultrasonic converter at the same voltage as a voltage of when the transformer is used. Also, the charge pumping circuit is provided at a region in which the variable current source was provided, and thus, the manufacturing cost is not additionally expended. Furthermore, since only a conversion of energy by the ultrasonic converter is considered, designing is simplified.
US09047775B2
An apparatus, system, and method for monitoring traffic and roadway water conditions. Traffic flow and roadway flooding is monitored concurrently through a wireless sensor network. The apparatus and system comprises ultrasound rangefinders monitoring traffic flow, flood water conditions, or both. Routing information may be calculated from the traffic conditions, such that routes are calculated to avoid roadways that are impassable or are slow due to traffic conditions.
US09047772B2
Provided is an on-vehicle device which can build a charge system which can charge in accordance with use of advertisement information. The on-vehicle device stores uplink information including some or all of information indicating whether the advertisement information is received, information indicating whether the received advertisement information is displayed, and information indicating whether a vehicle (C) has stopped before reaching an advertisement object point indicated by the advertisement information. Each of the information is made to be a charging object for advertisement.
US09047766B2
An approach is provided notifying a user while he or she is driving of an unmapped crossing to prevent the user from unintentionally obstructing access to the crossing. A traffic platform processes and/or facilitates a processing of traffic information associated with at least one crossing to determine one or more traffic conditions. The traffic platform determines that the one or more traffic conditions may at least potentially cause at least one obstruction of at least one other crossing by at least one vehicle. The traffic platform further causes, at least in part, a presentation of at least one notification regarding the at least one obstruction to at least one device associated with the at least one vehicle, at least one other vehicle that is potentially affected by the at least one obstruction, or a combination thereof based, at least in part, on the one or more traffic conditions.
US09047762B1
The display system includes a display having a touchscreen input device. A processing system is operatively associated with the display. The display operates in a number of fixed modes. Each fixed mode has a single fixed format, each single fixed format having at least one fixed region, wherein the at least one fixed region has configurable overlay options. In an aircraft application the plurality of fixed modes are selected from the group of flight modes consisting of navigation, air-to-air (A-A), emergency, air-to-ground (A-G), preflight checklist and system status. In a preferred embodiment the emergency mode includes functionality to conserve power.
US09047748B2
In a method for detecting a falling object using a safety guard device, a current digital image of the overhead scene is captured by an image capturing device of the safety guard device. The method detects a falling object in the current digital image, and outputs alarm messages when a falling object is detected in the current digital image and the falling object is going to hit a user of the safety guard device.
US09047738B2
A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium to provide a variation of a video poker game. The video poker game offers the player an ability to earn having the very next game dealt from a stripped deck. A stripped deck is a standard 52-card deck with certain cards removed. For example, one type of stripped deck is a standard 52-card deck with all 2s through 9s removed, thereby providing the player with a huge advantage.
US09047736B2
A method for wagering badges. The method includes establishing badges representing an associated event, such as a window of time that the badge was available. A predetermined criteria for the badges are established, such as an activity required for a gamer to obtain a particular badge, and a determination is made that a gamer is entitled to the badge, based on the predetermined criteria. Similarly, other gamers can also obtain badges by meeting the criteria for the badge. Each gamer, is associated with their badges and a wager or trade between gamers can be established whereby the gamers wager or trade chosen badges. Ownership of the wagered badges is then transferred based on the outcome of the wager or trade.
US09047734B2
Systems and methods for integrating graphic animation technologies with fantasy sports contest applications are provided. This invention enables a fantasy sports contest application to depict plays in various sporting events using graphic animation. The fantasy sports contest application may combine graphical representation of real-life elements such as, for example, player facial features, with default elements such as, for example, a generic player body, to create realistic graphic video. The fantasy sports contest application may provide links to animated videos for depicting plays on contest screens in which information associated with the plays may be displayed. The fantasy sports contest application may play the animated video for a user in response to the user selecting such a link. In some embodiment of the present invention, the fantasy sports contest application may also customize animated video based on user-supplied setup information.
US09047731B2
A wagering game account management system and its operations are described herein. In embodiments, the operations include detecting an account rule, wherein the account rule includes an activation event, wherein upon occurrence of the activation event a transfer of funds is initiates between a wagering game session and account and one or more other financial accounts. In some embodiments, the operations also include detecting the occurrence of the activation event. In some embodiments, the operations also include initiating the transfer of funds between the wagering game session account and one or more other financial accounts.
US09047729B2
The gaming machine performs the following functions: running a base game at gaming terminals in response to a start operation input through an input device; running a crap game simultaneously at all the gaming terminals in response to a game start command from the center controller; determining which gaming terminal is designated to be a shooter of a crap game; allowing the gaming terminal designated to be the shooter to receive a roll operation input through an input device, and output a roll operation command to the center controller; determining a win or loss which causes the crap game to end; and (i) when no win or loss is resulted, running a crap game again; and when a win is resulted, awarding a payout according to the win.
US09047726B2
The invention concerns a method for separating a stack of notes of value, in which the stack of notes of value is arranged in a separating position. Subsequently, a withdrawal element is driven such that it transports at least one marginal note of value of the stack of notes of value in a separating direction in the direction of a separating gap formed between a transport element and a counter run element. Also the transport element is driven such that it transports the note of value further in the separating direction. By means of a sensor unit arranged downstream of the separating gap the number of the notes of value withdrawn and transported through the separating gap is determined. The withdrawal element, the transport element and/or the counter run element are controlled depending on this determined number of notes of value withdrawn.
US09047725B2
Provided is a fare box which enables passengers to smoothly pay fares using bills without hesitation even when a bill transportation passage is disabled due to jamming of a bill or a breakdown. Two entrances, which are a bill normal receiving opening and a bill backup receiving opening, are provided as bill receiving openings of the fare box. Either of the bill normal receiving opening and the bill backup receiving opening is allowed to be selectively opened by a shutter member. At normal times, the bill normal receiving opening is put into operation with the shutter member positioned at a normal position. When a bill normal transportation passage has become jammed with a bill, the shutter member is shifted from the normal position to a bypass position on the basis of an operation performed on a bill receiving opening switch lever, whereby the bill backup receiving opening is opened instead of the bill normal receiving opening.
US09047723B2
A method of categorizing defects in a media item is described. The method comprises the steps of: receiving an ultrasonic image of the media item, where the ultrasonic image comprises a plurality of points, each point having a thickness value corresponding to a normal value, a thin value, or a thick value; identifying one or more blobs comprising contiguous points each having a thickness value corresponding to a thin value; for each identified blob, comparing a size of the blob with a damage criterion; ignoring the blob if the blob size does not meet the damage criterion; and for each identified blob having a size meeting the damage criterion, categorizing the identified blob using the thickness values and locations.
US09047719B2
Provided are a vehicle diagnostic system, a vehicle diagnostic method, and an external diagnostic device that are capable of readily or promptly confirming or diagnosing whether or not a malfunction related to non-execution of idle stop in a vehicle having an idle stop control system has occurred. The external diagnostic device has recorded therein a plurality of idle stop conditions for executing idle stop of an engine in a vehicle. Idle stop conditions that are not fulfilled when idle stop has not executed are displayed in a prescribed display unit, when stopping the vehicle when the external diagnostic device has been connected to the vehicle and the vehicle has been driven.
US09047718B2
In a vehicle diagnostic method and an external diagnostic device, sensor detection values acquired by communicating with an ECU are measured to determine whether the values are in a normal range while a vehicle is idling. After an engine is started, an operation to measure soundness is prohibited at least until the sensor detection values including the engine rotational frequency reach a threshold value region indicating the completion of the warm-up operation. The fluctuation state of the sensor detection values is displayed on an operation screen until the sensor detection values reach the threshold value region.
US09047716B1
In one embodiment of a system and method for remote activation of a device includes, a transceiver is provided for transmitting a command signal according to a first transmission protocol having a first data rate, receiving an acknowledgment signal indicating that the command signal transmitted according to the first transmission protocol has been received, and transmitting the command signal according a second transmission protocol, the second transmission protocol having a second data rate less than the first data rate and including partition of the command signal. A controller is provided for selecting the first transmission protocol for use in transmitting the command signal in response to a user input, and selecting the second transmission protocol for use in transmitting the command signal when the transceiver fails to receive the acknowledgment signal.
US09047714B2
As automated screening system and method. A method includes receiving a personal identifier from an individual at an induction kiosk and issuing a scanning unit at the induction kiosk. The method includes associating the scanning unit with the personal identifier and inducting the scanning unit, including at least one item added by the individual, at the induction kiosk. The method includes conveying the scanning unit to an imaging device, and imaging the scanning unit and the item to produce a scanned image. The method includes receiving the personal identifier at a return kiosk and returning the scanning unit and the item to the individual based on the association between the scanning unit and the personal identifier.
US09047713B2
A multisided card having at least two obverse faces and two reverse faces that are adjacent one another, can be used to print and store relatively insecure information of the obverse faces and to have more sensitive information stored and printed on the adjacent reverse faces. To protect privacy, a caricature or cartoon of an individual can he placed on an obverse face, or in a virtual card, wallet or purse, which image cannot be read by facial recognition techniques but could be recognized by human observers.
US09047712B2
A meter apparatus and method of operating a removable meter apparatus are described. The meter apparatus includes a tag associated with unique tag identification information and configured to be permanently affixed to a location housing at a unique physical location, and includes a removable meter unit configured to mate with the location housing and receive the tag identification from the tag and report the tag identification to a data manager configured to associate an identifier of the removable meter unit with the tag identification and unique physical location, and associate configuration information for the physical location with the removable meter unit and the tag identification. The unique physical location can comprise a single-space parking location.
US09047711B2
According to one embodiment, a method for controlling display of an image in a mobile terminal includes: displaying a two-dimensional (2D) image including a plurality of objects; converting the 2D image to a three-dimensional (3D) image including the plurality of objects in response to a touch input; measuring an ambient brightness; and automatically adjusting a screen brightness and a depth of the 3D image using control values corresponding to the measured ambient brightness.
US09047709B1
Systems, methods and articles of manufacture for creating an annotated angle with the user specified points are described herein. Embodiments of the present invention relate to reducing or eliminating the effort a user must put forth in creating an angular dimension by drawing two explicit lines or two explicit objects comprised of two lines where either the user would have to ensure the explicit lines intersected to form the angular dimension or define an exact center point to be the vertex of the angular dimension. Further embodiments allow a user to easily create the annotated angle by defining points in the CAD interface eliminating the need to create line geometry with the defined center point in the CAD interface. In one embodiment, this is achieved by the user specifying a start point, a start direction, an end point, and an end direction where the annotated angle may then be created based on the user defined points in the CAD interface.
US09047707B2
A graph display device includes a display module, a graph display control module which displays a graph corresponding to an expression on the display module, a specifying module which specifies a point on a graph displayed on the display module, a setting module which sets a tangent that contacts the graph at the specified point, an area determination module which, of two areas divided by the tangent set by the setting module, determines one area opposite to the area in which the graph lies to be a display area for coordinate values, and a coordinate value display control module which displays coordinate values of the specified point in the area determined by the area determination module.
US09047702B2
The present invention relates to a computed tomography system (10) and a corresponding method which enable tracking of a contrast material bolus and which involve a reduced radiation dose. The proposed computed tomography system (10) comprises an acquisition unit including an X-ray source (18) and an X-ray detector (30) for acquiring projection data sets (42, 44, 46), a reconstruction unit (41) for reconstructing a planning image (48) from a first projection data set (42), an identification unit (52) for identifying a region of interest (40) in the planning image (48), a selection unit (54) for selecting a projection angle (60) through the region of interest (40), a calculator (62) for calculating a target projection value (64) for a projection of said region of interest (40) with the selected projection angle (60), a control unit (32) for controlling said acquisition unit to acquire a second, reduced projection data set (44) including projection data from projections of said region of interest (40) with the selected projection angle (60), and a comparator (68) for comparing projection values of the second projection data set (44) with the target projection value (64), wherein the control unit (32) is adapted to control the acquisition unit to initiate the acquisition of a third projection data set (46) based on the comparison result (70) and to reconstruct a diagnostic image (50) from the third projection data set (46).
US09047694B2
An image processing apparatus is provided which offers higher versatility than conventional image processing apparatuses. When an input signal to a spatial filtering block is a monochrome signal that contains Y component only, a selector selects its input terminal and a selector selects its input terminal. Then, a low-pass filter output signal of a programmable spatial filter is inputted to a spatial filter, and a low-pass filter output signal of the spatial filer is inputted to a spatial filter. That is, the programmable spatial filter and the spatial filters are connected in series (in cascade), and the cascade-connected three spatial filters perform filtering operation. In this example, low-pass filters with 5H5 taps are connected in cascade in three stages, which enables low-pass filtering with 13H13 taps.
US09047692B1
Systems, methods, and computer storage mediums are provided for creating a scene scan from a group of photographic images. An exemplary method includes determining a set of common features for at least one pair of photographic images. The features include a portion of an object captured in each of a first and a second photographic image included in the pair. The first and second photographic images may be captured from different optical centers. A similarity transform for the at least one pair of photographic images is the determined. The similarity transform is provided in order to render the scene scan from each pair of photographic images. At least one of the rotation factor, the scaling factor, or the translation factor associated with the similarity transform is used to position each pair of photographic images such that the set of common features between a pair of, at least in part, align.
US09047688B2
One or more systems, devices, and/or methods for illustrating depth are disclosed. For example, a method includes receiving a depthmap generated from an optical distancing system. The depthmap includes depth data for each of a plurality of points, which are correlated to pixels of an image. Data indicative of a location on the image is received. Depth data correlated with the first point is compared to depth data correlated with pixels at surrounding points in the image. If the depth data correlated with the first point indicate a lesser distance from a viewer perspective of the image than the depth data of a pixel at the surrounding points in the image, the pixel is changed to a predetermined value. The comparison may be repeated at other pixels and a depth illustration may be drawn that relates the depth of the received location to other objects in the image.
US09047679B2
In image processing, a color fringe is removed. The processing includes selecting a maximum gradient magnitude among gradient magnitudes for each of color components in an image, calculating a boundary of a dilated near-saturation region in the image, detecting a transition region in the image according to the maximum gradient magnitude and the dilated near-saturation region, and removing a color fringe from the transition region.
US09047672B2
An image generation apparatus is provided with: a resolution sensitivity conversion unit which generates different weight-averaged images by performing convolution operations on the infrared image with plural different weighted-filter images, and generates a resolution-sensitivity-converted image by adding luminance differences between the weight-averaged images to luminance values of the infrared image; a luminance shift calculating unit which sets the most frequently appearing luminance value of the resolution-sensitivity-converted image to an intermediate value in an enlarged range and as an intermediate luminance value, and generates a luminance-shifted image obtained by linearly shifting luminance values of the resolution-sensitivity-converted image in such a manner that the shifting corresponds to the intermediate luminance value and the enlarged range; and a luminance arithmetic operation unit which generates an arithmetically processed image by performing an arithmetic operation based on luminance differences between corresponding positions of the luminance-shifted image and a reverse shifted image.
US09047666B2
A mobile device comprising a processor configured to merge a plurality of images each having a distinct focus position in a scene to generate a focus-stacked image that encompasses all focus positions of the plurality of images. Also, an apparatus comprising a camera configured to capture a plurality of color images for one scene each with a distinct focus distance and a processor configured to register the plurality of color images to generate a plurality of registered color images, generate a plurality of luminance (Y) channels from the plurality of registered color images, and stack the plurality of Y channels to generate a focus-stacked Y channel.
US09047662B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure provides improved methods for determining the presence of abnormalities in exfoliated cells. In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides methods for reconstructing cellular spectrum of a cell sample by creating a spectral map of the cellular sample, generating a binary mask of the spectral map, removing edge artifacts from each cell, and co-adding spectral data of each pixel corresponding to the cell to reconstruct the spectrum of each cell.
US09047655B2
A system and method of symbol matching may include a processor configured to determine which pixels of a first symbol are tangent pixels; for each of the determined tangent pixels, determine whether a second symbol includes a pixel corresponding to the tangent pixel that includes at least one same tangent constraint as that of the tangent pixel; accept the first and second symbols as a match based on shared tangent constraints conditional upon a determination that the second symbol includes for each of at least a subset of the tangent pixels of the first symbol a corresponding pixel that includes the at least one same tangent constraint as that of the tangent pixel; and generate a document including a single symbol that is mapped to the first and second symbols.
US09047650B2
A mechanism for geographically-aware electronic traveling advertisements is disclosed. A method of the invention includes displaying each of a plurality of advertisements on an electronic display of a mobile advertising unit in a general rotation and on a random basis, determining a current location of the mobile advertising unit from a Geographic Positioning System (GPS) unit and a current time from a clock, interrupting the general rotation to display a high priority advertisement if the current location of the mobile advertising unit is within a GPS waypoint range of the high-priority advertisement, interrupting the general rotation to display a high priority advertisement if the current time of the mobile advertising unit is within a time range of the high-priority advertisement, and recording statistics for each advertisement displayed on the electronic display in a log stored at the mobile advertising unit.
US09047648B1
Systems and methods for measuring, collecting, managing, reporting and distributing data pertaining to medical device measurements, such as personal health condition data, are provided. In various embodiments, medical device(s) are paired (integrated, tethered, or wirelessly coupled) with a user's portable computing device, such as a cell phone, so that the portable device receives locally made health data measurement(s) recorded by the medical device(s). After any pre-processing by the portable device, standard interfaces enable the health data measurement(s) to be transmitted, e.g., periodically, from the portable device to a health station server on a wireless communications network. The health station server may then analyze the health data measurement(s), e.g., versus historical and demographic data, so that the results of the analysis can be distributed to end users and service providers alike who make use of the communications network in a variety of ways.
US09047644B1
In one aspect, a method for providing context regarding an addition to a social graph is provided. The method initiates with processing a request from a first user to add a second user to a social graph of the first user. A context that identified the second user to the first user is identified, the context defined by an activity of the second user preceding the request to add the second user to the social graph of the first user. A message is generated for the second user describing the processed request and containing information based on the context that identified the second user to the first user.
US09047636B2
Embodiments of the invention are directed to a system, method, or computer program product for dynamically determining an appropriate payment account for a transaction. Embodiments of the invention allow a user to receive a transaction request and subsequently the transaction is applied to the appropriate payment account. Applying the transaction to the appropriate payment account is based on the type of transaction, the payment accounts available to the user, financial institution considerations, financial plans of the user, customer plans of the user, etc. This invention allows a user to make a purchase at a point-of-sale and have confidence that the transaction will be implemented to the payment account that provides the best promotional benefits for the customer based on the customer's individual needs.
US09047635B2
According to various exemplary embodiments, an electronic text message is received from a source telephone number, the electronic text message including content describing a product item. A seller of the product item is identified, based on the source telephone number, and the product item is identified, based on the content included in the electronic text message. Thereafter, a draft version of an item listing is automatically generated, where the item listing lists the product item as being for sale by the seller on a marketplace website.
US09047633B2
A system and method for searching and matching products based on color using a universal color system comprises a plurality of processor based client devices, each client device uniquely associated with a user, a database engine comprising a plurality of products reverse mapped and organized in accordance with the hexadecimal color codes of the universal color system, and a processor based server. The server receives a color-based search query comprising user's color selection from a client device associated with a user over a communications network. The user's color selection comprises at least one hexadecimal color code of the universal color system. A color engine of the server searches the database engine for products having the hexadecimal color codes with a predetermined range of the hexadecimal color code of the user's color selection, and transmits the search result to the client device associated with the user over the communications network.
US09047631B2
A method and system for providing location based assistance. The method and system including hosting a database of information regarding a customer, hosting a database of information regarding sale associate availability, and receiving a customer assistance request. The system determines the location of the customer and determines the availability of at least one sale associate within a predetermined location threshold of the location of the customer to service the customer assistance request. The customer assistance request is then routed to the at least one sale associate within the predetermined location threshold of the location of the customer for assistance.
US09047629B2
The present invention relates to a method of enabling a computer network transaction for a product being purchased by a buyer from a seller, comprising the steps of generating a once-only transaction identification means associated with the transaction, providing the transaction identification means to a transaction acquirer, together with a buyer identification means which identifies the buyer to the transaction acquirer, and providing the once-only identification means to the seller, whereby the seller may provide the transaction identification means to the transaction acquirer and the transaction acquirer can match the transaction identification means received from the seller with the transaction identification means they have been provided with and, if they match, can enable settlement of the transaction.
US09047628B2
Systems and methods are described for determining a weighted rating and a relative rating. In some embodiments, a receiving module and rating module are configured to receive an identity of a collector, a list of raters, and a social graph, determine for at least one rater a set of non-intersecting paths between the rater and the collector, calculate capacity values for non-intersecting paths, normalize path values, convert path values to a user weight, and apply the at least one rater's weight to the at least one rater's rating. In some embodiments, a receiving module and rating module are also configured to receive a rating for each of the items rated by the rater, calculate a transformed rating, calculate a relative rating, and assign a relative rating to an item.
US09047619B2
A system and method for providing a message to a recipient is provided. The system includes a network communication system for providing a message to a recipient using a communication device. The network communication system includes a communication system operatively connected to at least one communication device. The network communication system further includes an exchange platform, the exchange platform having a signal media server operatively connected to at least one message server, the exchange platform receiving a communication from a potential recipient through the communication device, the communication system determining if the potential recipient is flagged in a recipient database, the message server determining the message, the message server retrieving at least one message, wherein the signal media server forwards the message to the recipient via the communication device.
US09047611B2
Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for computing relative score and enhancing one or more scores associated with data objects. In one method, the method receives, at a computing system, one or more data objects from a user. The method further extracts one or more internal and external parameters based on the one or more data objects. Subsequently, the method compares data objects of the user with corresponding data objects of one or more competing users, based at least in part on the one or more extracted parameters and the requirement included in the data object of the user. Further, in some embodiments, the data objects and requirements of the user are also compared with the corresponding data objects and requirements of one or more complementary users, based at least in part on the one or more extracted parameters. The method further computes one or more scores associated with the data objects based at least in part on the at least one of the comparison of the one or more data objects of the user with the corresponding data objects of one or more competing users and/or the one or more extracted parameters. The method may also provide feedback to the user, where the feedback is directed to enhance the one or more computed scores associated with the data objects.
US09047597B2
Provided is a POS system, including a terminal (12) that includes a bank deposit amount calculating unit (122) for calculating a bank deposit amount for each business day, in which the bank deposit amount calculating unit (122) subtracts an amount spent for other uses than as a change from a total amount of cash gained on a day that validity of the spending is judged and approved, to thereby calculate a bank deposit amount of the day. With this configuration, the management of cash such as a change fund in the POS system is clarified.
US09047596B2
An integrated point-of-sale terminal for use with a fuel dispenser has a site controller, at least one dispenser having a user interface, at least one processor at the site controller, memory coupled to the processor, and a plurality of point-of-sale applications associated with the site controller. The processor is configured to dynamically regulate which of the plurality of point-of-sale applications has control of the dispenser user interface based on a set of business rules.
US09047595B2
Embodiments of the invention include systems, methods, and computer-program products for providing readable indicia for medical office payments. As such, a readable indicia may be presented at a point-of-transaction (POT) at a medical treatment providers for a user to select. The system may dynamically present the readable indicia based on the user, the treatments provided, and the user's insurance coverage. The user may select the readable indicia with his/her user device. Upon selection, the system may provide the user with expedited viewing of itemized treatments, insurance coverage for each treatment, and amount due for each treatment, co-pay amount, an amount to be paid by the insurance company, detectable information, and a total amount the user will owe the medical treatment provider. The system may receive authorization to accept the treatment and apply a payment means to the treatment.
US09047592B2
A method of checking a new entry in a calendar application having a cache that includes a first subset of existing entries falling within a first date range. Also, an electronic device implementing the method. The method includes determining whether the date of the new entry falls within the first date range. If so, the method determines whether the new entry directly conflicts with or is adjacent to one of the existing entries in the first subset, and provides a notification if appropriate. If the date is outside the first date range, the method creates a new calendar cache including a second subset of existing entries falling within a second date range around the new entry date, determines whether the new calendar entry directly conflicts with or is adjacent to one of the existing calendar entries in the second subset, and provides a notification if appropriate.
US09047589B2
A method of publishing a publication message includes receiving, at one of a plurality of first relays, a subscription request from a first client and transmitting the subscription request from the one of the plurality of first relays to only one of a plurality of central relays. The method also includes receiving, at another of the plurality of first relays, a publication request from a second client. The publication request includes the publication message. The method further includes transmitting the publication message from the another of the plurality of first relays to all of the plurality of central relays, transmitting the publication message from at least one of the plurality of central relays to the one of the plurality of first relays, and transmitting the publication message from the one of the plurality of first relays to the first client.
US09047588B2
Allowing a message, composed as an instant message, to be transmitted using an e-mail protocol and displayed at a recipient as an instant message or an e-mail is disclosed. In particular, on a message originator, one embodiment includes, composing a message as an instant message, and transmitting the message using an e-mail protocol. On a message recipient, one embodiment includes, receiving a message in an e-mail protocol, determining whether the message is to be displayed as an instant message, and in the case that the message is to be displayed as an instant message, displaying the message as an instant message at the recipient, otherwise displaying the message as an e-mail at the recipient. Functionality of the originator and recipient sides can be combined into a single client.
US09047585B2
The present invention concerns a computer-implemented method and system that aides in reducing the amount of regret experienced when deciding between and amongst geographic areas having a suitable workforce. More specifically, the present invention includes a user selecting critical factors relating to worker demographics that define geographic areas. Data is returned to the user's computer as a virtual table and is a mixture of critical or informational factors qualifying all areas returning data. Each area is ranked according to the value of lowest returned index number, which gives the user a quick assessment of problematic critical factors for each area. Area utilities are created and give the user the ability to simultaneously compare all remaining areas to one another so that they may select at least one area amongst many with the smallest chance for a bad surprise. This reduces the regret of a user having to select one area over another having a suitable workforce for their business needs.
US09047580B1
Embodiments of systems, methods, and computer-readable media for auditing electronic freight bills are disclosed. For example, one embodiment of the present invention is a method including the steps of receiving a first data source comprising a first set of data; receiving a second data source comprising a second set of data; generating a record comprising at least a portion of the first data set and at least a portion of the second data set; and conducting an audit of the record. In another embodiment, a computer-readable media comprises code for carrying out such a method.
US09047573B2
A data processing apparatus that makes it possible for a user of a data processing apparatus to recognize whether or not descriptive contents of process definition tickets are executable on the data processing apparatus. Process definition tickets in which sequential processing flows for realizing functions are described are obtained, and it is determined whether or not the descriptive contents of the process definition tickets are executable on the data processing apparatus. A list of the process definition tickets whose descriptive contents have been determined as being executable on the data processing apparatus as a result of the determination is displayed in a manner being identifiable by the user. The user selects the process definition ticket whose descriptive contents are executable on the data processing apparatus from the list of the displayed process definition tickets, and the selection is received. The descriptive contents of the received process definition ticket are executed.
US09047567B2
A method of enhancing the accuracy of a question-answer system. Missing information from a corpus of data is identified. The missing information is any information that improves a confidence for a candidate answer to a question. A follow-on inquiry is generated. The follow-on inquiry prompts for the missing information to be provided. The follow-on inquiry is output to an external source. A response to the follow-on inquiry is received from the external source. The response is added to the corpus of data.
US09047562B2
A plurality of pruning measures (PM) are calculated from a feature amount (CV) of test data (TD) which is input, a plurality of isopycnic surfaces (EC) are plotted and set on a threshold space (SS), a threshold curved surface (SC) in which a decrease in at least one of a plurality of pruning measures (PM) causes an increase in at least one thereof is generated using a portion of one isopycnic surface (EC) as a part, a hypothesis curved surface (HC) of subject data (CD) is generated on the threshold space (SS) to set a position intersecting the threshold curved surface (SC) to a pruning threshold (PS), and a plurality of hypotheses of the subject data (CD) are pruned. Thereby, there is provided a data processing device of which at least one of the recognition speed and the recognition accuracy is higher than in the related art.
US09047545B2
A chemistry analyzer is disclosed that can include a unitary base with vertical and horizontal supports for constraining subassemblies. The subassemblies include at least a reagent/sample carousel subassembly, a transfer arm subassembly, and a reaction carousel subassembly. A centralized hydraulic system can also be provided behind a user access panel. The analyzer can use machine-readable test specifications coupled with its reagent vessels to define tests that include operations that employ the reagents. The analyzer can also display to the operator a pictorial representation that includes graphical elements that convey levels of usage for the storage vessels, and access icons that are each associated with a color and each lead to a set of screens for different types of operations for the analyzer.
US09047544B2
The present invention relates to a method, system, and computer-readable medium for producing a mobile tag with dynamic content. Furthermore, the present invention provides a mobile tag with dynamic content in the form of a sticker.
US09047541B2
In an example implementation, a processor-readable medium stores code representing instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to retrieve a unique printer identification (ID) over a short-range wireless communication (e.g., NFC) between a mobile device and a public printer. The processor discovers a current geographic location of the mobile device from GPS technology on the mobile device. The processor then uploads the unique printer ID and the geographic location to a cloud-based print service provider.
US09047531B2
Devices, methods, and software are disclosed for an interactive user interface for capturing a frame of image data having a representation of a feature. In an illustrative embodiment, a device includes an imaging subsystem, one or more memory components, and one or more processors. The imaging subsystem is capable of providing image data representative of light incident on said imaging subsystem. The one or more memory components include at least a first memory component operatively capable of storing an input frame of the image data. The one or more processors may be enabled for performing various steps. One step may include receiving the image data from the first memory component. Another step may include attempting to identify linear features defining a candidate quadrilateral form in the image data. Another step may include providing user-perceptible hints for guiding a user to alter positioning of the device to enhance a capability for identifying the linear features defining a candidate quadrilateral form in the image data.
US09047525B2
There is described an imaging apparatus having an imaging assembly that includes an image sensor. The imaging apparatus can capture a frame of image data having image data corresponding to a first set of pixels of the image sensor. The imaging apparatus can capture a frame or image data having image data corresponding to a second set of pixels of the image sensor.
US09047514B2
Apparatus, systems and methods are provided for illuminating objects in a projection area. The system includes a computing device, a projector and a camera. The computing device stores a digital model of an object, and illumination data having lighting parameters and a reference to the digital model. The projector, or another light source, projects structured light onto the projection area, and the camera simultaneously captures an image of the projection area. The computing device receives the captured image, determines a position and orientation of the object by comparing the digital model to the captured image, and then generates a canvas image including a region matching the determined position and orientation of the object. The projector projects the canvas image onto the projection area. A predefined portion of the object corresponding to the reference in the illumination data is thereby illuminated according to the lighting parameters.
US09047509B2
Techniques are described for creating and manipulating software notes representative of physical notes. A computing device is described that includes a processor and an image collection module executable on the processor and configured to receive an input image of an environment having a plurality of physical notes. An image processing engine executable on the processor is configured to identify the plurality of physical notes in the input image and generate, for each of the physical notes, a corresponding digital note. The image processing engine is further configured to identify an indication of one or more groups of the plurality of identified notes in the input image and group the plurality of digital notes according to the indication.
US09047508B2
A method and system for identifying and acting on a handwritten action item is disclosed. The system may learn a set of user-defined symbols and associate each symbol with an action category. Then, when the system that captures a handwritten action item that includes one of the symbols, it will determine which action category that corresponds to the symbol, identify process parameters in the action item, determine a task to be performed based on the action category, and apply the process parameters to automatically perform the task.
US09047507B2
A method for processing data includes receiving a depth map of a scene containing at least an upper body of a humanoid form. The depth map is processed so as to identify a head and at least one arm of the humanoid form in the depth map. Based on the identified head and at least one arm, and without reference to a lower body of the humanoid form, an upper-body pose, including at least three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of shoulder joints of the humanoid form, is extracted from the depth map.
US09047503B2
In one aspect, the present invention relates to a system 100 for automated cellular assay data analysis. The system 100 comprises a virtual assay module (VAM) 115 operable to generate simulated images of cell responses to one or more stimuli. The system 100 also comprises a comparator module 116 operable to compare the actual and simulated images, and an analysis module 117 operable to quantify the differences between phenotypes represented by the actual and simulated images. Various aspects and embodiments of present invention may account for stochastic variations in the response of single cells, to provide additional useful information relating to, for example, toxological effects and/or for use as part of a feedback mechanism to refine dynamically a virtual assay model such that it is not limited by way of there being only inadequate static fitting expressions available.
US09047497B2
A user may be authenticated by an application. The user may be in possession of a user-specific card, which may store a user ID (UID), an operator ID (SID), and a plurality of application IDs (AIDn), and other related data. The card may provide data for implementing a plurality of security steps, performed individually or in combination, as chosen depending on a desired security level and/or the application. In a first security step, the application may read from the card the user ID (UID) from the card. In a second security step, the application may read out the operator ID (SID) and forward it to a server of an operator, which may then verify the operator ID (SID). In a third security step, the application may read out and verify its corresponding application ID (AIDn). The application may request additional information for the user from the server, using the user ID (UID).
US09047494B1
Operation of a device may be enabled or disabled by an instruction that may be given in a variety of ways. For example, a device (e.g., a car) may be equipped with a mechanism that disables (“kills”) and/or enables (“unkills”) some or all of the functionality of the car upon receipt of an appropriate instruction. The instruction could be given remotely. For example, the instruction could be given remotely from a wireless telephone by sending appropriate messages through a network. An instruction to re-enable operation of the device could also be given remotely. The honoring of kill and/or unkill instructions could be predicated on some type of authentication, such as the identity of the device from which the instruction is issued, a password, a biometric identification, the location from which the instruction is issued, or some other factor.
US09047491B2
The subject matter herein relates to data processing and, more particularly, to encryption acceleration. Various embodiments herein provide devices and systems including a standardized encryption application programming interface embedded in firmware to perform encryption services. Some such embodiments move encryption operations away from operating system processes into firmware. As a result, encryption operations are generally accelerated.
US09047471B2
An SOC implements a security enclave processor (SEP). The SEP may include a processor and one or more security peripherals. The SEP may be isolated from the rest of the SOC (e.g. one or more central processing units (CPUs) in the SOC, or application processors (APs) in the SOC). Access to the SEP may be strictly controlled by hardware. For example, a mechanism in which the CPUs/APs can only access a mailbox location in the SEP is described. The CPU/AP may write a message to the mailbox, which the SEP may read and respond to. The SEP may include one or more of the following in some embodiments: secure key management using wrapping keys, SEP control of boot and/or power management, and separate trust zones in memory.
US09047469B2
Techniques for modes for applications are described. In one or more implementations, multiple operational modes are provided for an application. The operational modes can be associated with different resource access permissions, trust statuses, graphical user interfaces, and so on. An application can be launched in a particular one of the operational modes based on a context in which a request to launch the application is received. In one or more implementations, correlations between launch request contexts for an application and operational modes can be configured to enable different launch requests to cause an application to launch into different operational modes.
US09047468B2
A method, system and computer-readable storage medium with instructions to migrate full-disk encrypted virtual storage between blade servers. A key is obtained to perform an operation on a first blade server. The key is obtained from a virtual security hardware instance and provided to the first blade server via a secure out-of-band communication channel. The key is migrated from the first blade server to a second blade server. The key is used to perform hardware encryption of data stored on the first blade server. The data are migrated to the second blade server without decrypting the data at the first blade server, and the second blade server uses the key to access the data. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09047465B2
Methods and apparatus for automatic security checking in systems that monitor for improper network usage are disclosed. An example system to mitigate improper network usage disclosed herein comprises an alert processor to determine whether to issue a notification in response to an activity alert corresponding to monitored usage of a communication network by a user device, wherein the monitored usage occurs after the user device has been granted access to the communication network, and an automatic verifier to respond to the activity alert by causing at least one of an automatic validation command or an automatic disconnect command to be sent to the user device before the alert processor determines whether to issue the notification.
US09047457B2
A host station includes: a first electronic component having a “first” identifier, conforming to a predetermined convention, identifiers according to the convention including a “common” part, common to electronic components of the same family, and a “unique” part specific to each instance of an electronic component in the same family, at least one second electronic component having a “second” identifier conforming to the convention, and the common part of the second identifier being different from the common part of the first identifier, and verification of matching in accordance with a predetermined rule of the unique part of the first identifier with the unique part of the second identifier.
US09047452B2
An information handling system which supports Pre-Boot Authentication (PBA) and which provides the ability for each authorized user of the system to have a unique ID and key at the BIOS level. In these systems, a user only needs knowledge of the traditional BIOS password only at the time the user is enrolled in the PBA feature. Later changes to the password do not have the effect of denying access to enrolled users.
US09047451B2
A method for differentiated access control on a computing device, and the computing device, the method including starting a timer on the computing device; resetting the timer if activity occurs on the computing device prior to the expiration of the timer; and preventing a subset of applications from being launched or enabled on expiry of the timer.
US09047447B2
When a connection device is connected to an SD socket of an electronic device, a process setting unit of the electronic device obtains permission/inhibition information (an output signal) set forth in a permission/inhibition information setting unit of the connection device. Based on the obtained permission/inhibition information, the process setting unit identifies an execution unit whose operation is to be activated among the execution units provided in the electronic device. Then, the process setting unit instructs the identified execution unit to start operation. This realizes operation of execution units in correspondence to the permission/inhibition information.
US09047439B2
A reactor with minimal dead volume especially suited to reverse-flow applications comprises: a) a reactor body; b) a first head engaged with said reactor body; c) a first conduit extending from outside said head to at least partially through said head; and d) a first valve in flow communication with said first conduit controlling fluid flow along a flow path extending from the first valve and through the reactor body. The reactor is especially suited for use in a process for rapid stream-switching of at least two streams in a reverse-flow reactor.
US09047429B2
In-place resynthesis for static memory (SRAM) based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) toward reducing sensitivity to single event upsets (SEUs). Resynthesis and remapping are described which have a low overheard and improve FPGA designs without the need of rerouting LUTs of the FPGA. These methods include in-place reconfiguration (IPR), in-place X-filling (IPF), and in-place inversion (IPV), which reconfigure LUT functions only, and can be applied to any FPGA architecture. In addition, for FPGAs with a decomposable LUT architecture (e.g., dual-output LUTs) an in-place decomposition (IPD) method is described for remapping a LUT function into multiple smaller functions leveraging the unused outputs of the LUT, and making use of built-in hard macros in programmable-logic blocks (PLBs) such as carry chain or adder. Methods are applied in-place to mapped circuits before or after routing without affecting placement, routing, and design closure.
US09047423B2
A method, system and computer program product for choosing actions in a state of a planning problem. The system simulates one or more sequences of actions, state transitions and rewards starting from the current state of the planning problem. During the simulation of performing a given action in a given state, a data record is maintained of observed contextual state information, and observed cumulative reward resulting from the action. The system performs a regression fit on the data records, enabling estimation of expected reward as a function of contextual state. The estimations of expected rewards are used to guide the choice of actions during the simulations. Upon completion of all simulations, the top-level action which obtained highest mean reward during the simulations is recommended to be executed in the current state of the planning problem.
US09047416B2
In a switching node, high-speed and advanced service protocol processing function is achieved by utilizing an external control server without affecting performance of conventional service protocol processing. Specifically, a forwarding engine has PCI express and an LAN interface. Depending on a type of an input packet, destination of the packet is switched to the PCI express side for conventional network service and to the LAN interface side for extended network service that cooperates with the external control server. A CPU having the PCI express and the LAN interface is provided ahead of the LAN interface. The CPU performs communication of service inquiry with the external control server at high speed via the LAN interface. After response from the control server is obtained, setting of the forwarding engine is performed through the PCI express.
US09047415B2
A method for media access control, the method includes generating at least one media access grant in response to at least one media access request. The method further includes monitoring a data line, while maintaining at least a clock line in a low power mode, to detect at least one media access request generated by at least one component connected to the data line and to the clock line; and forcing the at least clock line to exit the low power mode and starting a contention prevention period, when the media access controller or at least one component requests to access the data line. Also disclosed is a device for implementing the method of media access control.
US09047411B1
Programming environment for executing program code despite errors and for providing error indicators
A device may receive an indication to evaluate a first portion of program code and a second portion of program code provided via a user interface. The first portion of program code may include an error. The device may cause the first and second portions of program code to be evaluated based on receiving the indication to evaluate the first and second portions of program code. The second portion of program code may be evaluated after the first portion of program code. The device may generate a first result corresponding to the first portion of program code and a second result corresponding to the second portion of program code. The first result may include an error indicator. The device may provide the first result and the second result via the user interface.
US09047410B2
Cloud-based testing of applications allows an application under test (AUT) to be subjected to test loads mimicking expected high volume real-time production loads. Test loads can be applied from geographically distributed test load sources. During testing, the system can monitor usage of AUTs and the underlying cloud infrastructure (virtual machines, test servers, etc.) on which the AUT is executing. An AUT can be scaled, for instance, additional instances of the application can be started, and additional virtual machines can be configured and test servers provisioned if AUT or infrastructure usage exceeds specified thresholds during testing. A testing services provider can supply a web-based unified management console from which admins and test users can manage AUT testing.
US09047409B2
A method for processing data of a control unit in a data communication device, which has a first memory area and a second memory area, and is connected to the control unit through an interface. Data from the control unit is transmitted to the data communication device through the interface. A value is stored identically in the first memory area and in the second memory area. The data communication device tests whether a first trigger is present, and if present, storage in the first memory area is discontinued, or the trigger class of the first trigger is tested and storage in the first memory area is discontinued only in the presence of a predefined trigger class. Subsequently, values of the data are read out from the first memory area, whereby values arriving chronologically after the first trigger are stored in the second memory area by the data communication device.
US09047406B2
Trace data streams are generated for tracing target processor activity. Various trace data streams are synchronized using markers called sync points. The sync points provide a unique identifier field and a context to the data that will follow it. All trace data streams may generate a sync point with this unique identifier. These unique identifiers allow synchronization between multiple trace data streams. When multiple trace data streams are on, it is possible that the data input rate may be higher than the data output rate. If synchronization is lost in such a case, there must be a scheme to resynchronize the streams. This invention is a technique for this needed resynchronization.
US09047405B2
User script code that has been developed for execution in a host application can be remapped to debuggable script code, based on explicit debugging gestures, allowing for appropriate debugging coverage for the code while mitigating execution (in)efficiency issues. Capabilities of a virtual machine used for a host application can be determined, and the user script code can be instrumented with guards for detecting explicit debugging gestures based on capabilities of the virtual machine. The instrumented user script code can be executed in a runtime environment, for example, by a just-in-time compilation service. If an explicit debugging gesture is detected, a function where the gesture was detected can be transformed into debuggable script code, in one embodiment, based on the debuggable gesture detected.
US09047401B2
The present invention relates to an exception handling test apparatus and method. The exception handling test apparatus includes a generation module configured to generate a modified device driver based on a defect model and information obtained from the device manager, a hooking module configured to hook the device driver using the modified device driver, a scanning module configured to collect test information returned from the hooked modified device driver to the application while the application operates, and an analysis module configured to analyze the collected test information.
US09047400B2
During a debug mode of operation of a data processor, it is determined at the data processor that a watchpoint event has occurred, and in response, an operating condition of a trace FIFO that stores trace information not yet communicated to a debugger is changed. For example, the occurrence of a FIFO flush watchpoint results in trace information being selectively flushed from the trace FIFO based on a state of the FIFO before the trace information has been communicated to a trace analyzer.
US09047398B2
An ambulatory medical device is disclosed. The device comprises a device controller, an alert controller, and an indicator. The device controller may be configured to control the operation of the ambulatory medical device. The alert controller may be configured to: determine a first alerting interval, the first alerting interval defining an earliest point in time and a latest point in time for an alert generation due to a first alerting cause; determine in the first alerting interval an alerting point in time based on an alerting criterion; and generate an alert trigger at the alerting point in time. The indicator may be configured to generate an alert upon generation of the alert trigger. The alerting criterion may be used to generate an alert within the alerting interval at a time especially suited and/or convenient for the device user.
US09047397B1
Disclosed herein are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for performing radiography analysis. For example, certain embodiments perform radiographic analysis using mixed variable computation techniques. One exemplary system comprises a radiation source, a two-dimensional detector for detecting radiation transmitted through a object between the radiation source and detector, and a computer. In this embodiment, the computer is configured to input the radiographic image data from the two-dimensional detector and to determine one or more materials that form the object by using an iterative analysis technique that selects the one or more materials from hierarchically arranged solution spaces of discrete material possibilities and selects the layer interfaces from the optimization of the continuous interface data.
US09047391B2
In a searching apparatus: a first receiving unit receives a search request from a client; based on the search request, a first generating unit generates a distributed search request to request a server to conduct a search and an integration request to integrate search results of the distributed search request; a first transmitting unit transmits the distributed search request to the server; a second transmitting unit transmits identification information of an execution result of the integration request to the client; a second receiving unit receives, from the client, an obtainment request to obtain the execution result identified by the identification information; a receiving unit receives the search results of the distributed search request from the server; an executing unit executes the integration request on the received search results; and a third transmitting unit transmits the execution result of the integration request to the client that transmitted the obtainment request.
US09047390B2
The subject disclosure is directed towards providing a web application with access to hardware accelerated graphics. A rendering format for a set of video frames is established. A graphics component, which is coupled to a graphics device and associated with an unsupported file type, is identified. The graphics component generates image data compromising the hardware accelerated graphics. When the web application requests a set of video frames, the image data is transformed into the set of video frames in accordance with the format. Then, the set of frames is communicated to a display device.
US09047383B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for analyzing user profiles. One of the methods includes identifying websites with which users of a social networking service have established an affiliation. The method includes filtering the identified websites by removing websites in which a count of users who have established an affiliation with the website exceeds a threshold. The method includes producing a list of valid affiliations for each filtered website, including generating a validity score for each of the established affiliations with the respective filtered website, determining whether each of the established affiliations with the respective filtered website is valid based on the corresponding validity score, and ranking the users who established valid affiliations with the respective website based on the corresponding validity scores. The method also includes providing the list of the valid affiliations ordered by the ranking.
US09047381B1
A method and apparatus of organizing user requested data is disclosed. One example method may include transmitting a query message to a remote site to obtain the user requested data, receiving a response data based on the query message, the response data may include at least a portion of the user requested data. The method may also include storing the response data in a temporary data file memory location, processing the response data in the temporary data file, storing said at least a portion of the user requested data in a permanent data file, and presenting the permanent data file contents to the user. The user may have the capability of receiving numerous messages in a single interface and expanding those messages of interest to review the original message information.
US09047376B2
A video segment including interactive links to information about an actor appearing in the segment may be prepared in an automatic or semi-automatic process. A computer may detect an actor's face appearing in a frame of digital video data by processing the video file with a facial detection algorithm. A user-selectable link may be generated and activated along a track of the face through multiple frames of the video data. The user-selectable link may include a data address for obtaining additional information about an actor identified with the face. The video data may be associated with the user-selectable link and stored in a computer memory. When later viewing the video segment via a media player, a user may select the link to obtain further information about the actor.
US09047371B2
A method for identifying with a broadcast stream. That method includes receiving one or more broadcast streams, from which it generates and stores an audio fingerprint of a selected portion of each received broadcast stream. A query is received, and the method generates an audio fingerprint of the query. From that point, the method continues by identifying audio content from the query, using the query audio fingerprint and a database of indexed audio content. The method concludes by identifying the source of the query using the query audio fingerprint and the stored audio fingerprints. Embodiments of the method further include predictively caching audio fingerprint sequences and corresponding audio item identifiers from a server after storing audio fingerprints extracted from the broadcast stream; and using the predictively cached audio fingerprint sequences to identify an audio item within the audio signal based on at least some additional audio fingerprints of the audio signal.
US09047369B2
A user may submit product title information to a server. The server may generate a phrase based on the product title information. The server may then search a database to find relevancies between the phrase and product categories corresponding to multiple nodes in a product category tree. Based on the relevancies, the server may select a node from the multiple nodes. The server may associate the product title information with the node corresponding to a product category when the node is a leaf node of the product category tree.
US09047368B1
Multiple documents associated with a user are retrieved from one or more sources. Textual elements in the documents are identified, and the documents are classified according to document type. Cluster keys are identified in the documents, based on document content and document classification. A cluster key comprises an association between a document and a specific entity associated with the individual user, around which to cluster associated documents. Identifying cluster keys for a document can take the form of performing feature reduction, and identifying any features remaining thereafter as cluster keys. Names and addresses other than those of the document recipient can be identified as cluster keys. Retrieved documents, identified cluster keys and associations between them are stored, thereby organizing documents into clusters based on entities associated with the individual user. The user is provided with access to the documents according to the clusters into which they are organized.
US09047358B2
A computer hardware system for synchronization of data between a first data system and a second data system includes an event propagation processor. Both data systems are modeled as a collection of representation state transfer (REST) resources. The event propagation processor is configured to integrate data between the first and second data systems for events about data changes in the data systems. The processor includes an adaptation layer in the form of an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) facade to represent REST resources. The adaptation layer includes a provider component configured to provide access to data resources in one of the data systems, and an initiator component configured to emit events corresponding to data changes in one of the data systems.
US09047357B2
Systems and methods for replicating database data in a dirty shutdown state and generating copies of the replicated data in a clean shutdown state. For example, systems can include a tracking module (e.g., a filter driver) that monitors transactions from a database application to a source database stored on a source storage device to generate log entries having at least one marker indicating a known good state of the application. The systems further include a computer coupled to a target storage device comprising a target database and log files. The computer processes the transactions, based on the log entries, to replicate data to a target database on the target storage device; performs a first snapshot on data stored in the target database existing in a dirty shutdown state; replays into the target database data stored in the log files to put the target database in a clean shutdown state; copies the target database in the clean shutdown state; and reverts the target database back to the dirty shutdown state in which the target database existed at the time of the first snapshot.
US09047348B2
The present invention pertains to cloud computing systems and handling of events that occur in the cloud. A correlation system obtains and analyzes various events to obtain comprehensive information about the behavior of the cloud. An event repository receives and maintains time-stamped events, which may be obtained from the cloud itself or from external sources reporting on the cloud. A query engine is employed to select, filter and aggregate events from the event repository. The query engine may take into account metadata which describes relationships between different parts of the cloud. Results from the query engine may be presented on a display or otherwise reported. Using such information, the system may fix known problems or change certain parameters to improve the cloud computing process.
US09047347B2
A system and method of merging text analysis results. The system uses a set of three corrected, weakened Jaccard factors to determine whether the respective results of multiple text analysis operations are equal, subtypes of each other or associated with each other, in order to merge the results.
US09047345B1
A system and machine-implemented method for processing annotations for a search result. A social annotation by a first user for a search result is received. In response to receiving the social annotation, at least one suggested interaction associated with the search result is obtained. The at least one suggested interaction is provided for display to the first user.
US09047340B2
A method for providing a viewable search results log to allow determination of the effectiveness of search strategies and sharing results of searches with others. The search results log reveals search strategies utilized by a human searcher with which the search results log is associated. The search results produced by at least one human searcher are stored in the search results log and presented according to a view format selected by a viewer. The search results log can be interrelated to other systems such as a blog or a search engine.
US09047330B2
Systems, methods and computer program products for compression of database indexes are described herein. A system embodiment includes a sequence determiner to scan a database index and to determine a start of a range and end of a range of consistently changing values in one or more index pages of said database index and an index updater to update said database index based on a sequence determined by said sequence determiner, while suspending writing of one or more values that lie within start of said range and end of said range of values. A method embodiment includes scanning an index, determining a pattern of changing values in one or more index pages of said index and selectively updating said index based on said determining step to minimize index insertions. The method embodiment further includes determining a start of a range of values and an end of said range of values in an index page, setting appropriate bits to identify said start of range of values and end of range of values, determining if an entry to be inserted can appended to at the end of said range of values, and compressing said index by suspending writing of one or more values that occur between said start of range of values and said end of range of values.
US09047329B1
In one aspect, a device is configured to provide a lookup operation for looking up a data value stored in a result table. The device includes several data tables for storing keys, or compressed representations of keys, associated with data values stored in the result table. During an example lookup operation, storage locations included within the data tables are searched for a particular key, or compressed representations of the key. If the key is found, the storage location is used to identify a memory address associated with the result table. In some implementations, the data tables are accessed in parallel to provide a lookup operation having a fixed latency. Storage locations within the data tables also are arranged to reduce the amount of memory used to implement each data table. In some implementations, the data tables are configured to use no more than one result table access per lookup operation.
US09047326B2
An entity using a computing device can upload searchable data to a network service to be indexed and stored. The data can include a plurality of data fields, each data field having one or more associated values. The network service can analyze the data fields and their respectively associated values to determine data field types for the data fields and search options to be enabled for the data fields. Based at least in part on the data field types and the search options, the network service can generate a search index configuration/schema. Based at least in part on the generated search index configuration/schema, the network service can generate a search index for the data. In some embodiments, the network service can also convert the data into a format compatible with the search index.
US09047323B2
A system for reviewing the ownership of data resources includes a database that stores a plurality of data resource identifiers. Each of the plurality of data resource identifiers has an associated owner field. The system also includes a second database that stores data resource review definitions. The review definitions define a review processes for the plurality of data resources. The system further includes a processor that is in communication with the data resource database and the review definition database. The processor executes the data resource ownership review processes defined by the review definitions at the appropriate times.
US09047317B2
Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods, and computer program products for determining a storage location for an image of a check. In some embodiments, a system is configured to: receive an image of a check, the image being associated with an account associated with a user; analyze check retrieval activity associated with the account; determine, based on the check retrieval activity, a storage location for the image; and store the image at the storage location.
US09047315B1
A system and method for geotagging hashtags. Geographic location information related to a hashtag is determined, and a geolocation is assigned to the hashtag based on the determined geographic location information. The assigned geolocation is stored in association with the hashtag in a data store. The hashtag may be provided for display on a map based on the assigned geolocation stored in the data store.
US09047310B2
An adaptive coding storage system that uses adaptive erasure resilient code (ERC) which changes the number of fragments used for encoding according to the size of the file distributed. Adaptive ERC may greatly improve the efficiency and reliability of P2P storage. A number of procedures for P2P storage applications may also be implemented. In one embodiment small, dynamic data files are diverted to the more reliable peers or even a server, while large and static files are stored utilizing the storage capacity of the unreliable peers. Also, for balanced contribution and benefit, a peer should host the same amount of content as it stored in the P2P network. As a result, unreliable peers are allowed to distribute less data, and more reliable peers are allowed to distribute more. Also, smaller files are assigned a higher distribution cost, and the larger files are assigned a lower distribution cost.
US09047307B1
A system facilitates the distribution and redistribution of chunks of data among multiple servers. The system may identify servers to store a replica of the data based on at least one of utilization of the servers, prior data distribution involving the servers, and failure correlation properties associated with the servers, and place the replicas of the data at the identified servers. The system may also monitor total numbers of replicas of the chunks available in the system, identify chunks that have a total number of replicas below one or more chunk thresholds, assign priorities to the identified chunks, and re-replicate the identified chunks based substantially on the assigned priorities. The system may further monitor utilization of the servers, determine whether to redistribute any of the replicas, select one or more of the replicas to redistribute based on the utilization of the servers, select one or more of the servers to which to move the one or more replicas, and move the one or more replicas to the selected one or more servers.
US09047306B1
An embodiment of a method of writing data begins with a first step of generating a timestamp. A second step issues a query that includes the timestamp to each of a plurality of primary storage devices. The method continues with a third step of receiving a query reply from at least a quorum of the primary storage devices. The query replies indicate that the timestamp is later than an existing timestamp for the data. In a fourth step, the data is mirrored to secondary storage after receiving the query reply from at least the quorum of the primary storage devices. Upon receiving a mirror completion message from the secondary storage, a fifth step issues a write message that includes at least a portion of the data and the timestamp to each of the primary storage devices.
US09047302B1
A computer-implemented method for deduplicating file data in tiered file systems may include identifying a tiered file system that includes a primary storage tier and a deduplicated storage tier. The method may also include detecting at least a portion of file data that has not been accessed in the primary storage tier within a predetermined period of time. The method may further include determining whether the portion of data stored in the primary storage tier is also stored in the deduplicated storage tier. In addition, the method may include ensuring that the deduplicated storage tier is currently storing a unique instance of the portion of file data stored in the primary storage tier and then removing the portion of file data from the primary storage tier. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09047300B2
Techniques to manage universal file descriptor models for content files are described. An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit and a file descriptor application operative on the processor circuit to manage file descriptors for content files, the file descriptor application arranged to generate a file descriptor for a content file in accordance with a universal file descriptor model, the universal file descriptor model to comprise a file descriptor surface with multiple file descriptor tiles to present corresponding content parts from the content file, with at least one of the file descriptor tiles defining a content part class representing homogeneous content parts from heterogeneous content file types. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09047296B2
Aspects of the present invention are generally concerned with systems and methods for generating a database of metadata that describes system data and storage operations. The database of metadata may be referred to herein as a “metabase.” For example, to generate a metabase, a data agent may traverse a file system to obtain certain characteristics of data managed by the file system while substantially simultaneously detecting and recording change notifications. These actions may be performed even if the actions of the data agent are interrupted one or more times during the traversal of the file system. The data agent may process the characteristics and change notifications to generate and update a metabase. Once formed, the metabase may be consulted to determine changes in system data rather than determining the changes by scanning the data files themselves.
US09047289B2
This system provides wired and/or wireless access throughout a multimedia network built on a distributed architecture which can be transparent to the user. This multimedia network includes content which is imported or generated within the network. The system allows for the content provider to determine the license status of content and update the license status of content which was previously provided by that provider. The external content can be accessed in real time or downloaded and stored within the system for later access at the convenience of the user. The usage of some content is controlled by the use of encryption and other protection methods. The system allows for storage of live video by storing the digitized video and allowing the user to control how, when and where the content is viewed. The system makes available multiple multimedia services to all users in the network or connected via the internet.
US09047284B2
Methods and systems for providing related web pages are disclosed. One method includes identifying a plurality of web pages, wherein the plurality of web pages each have a relationship with the first file, wherein the world wide web provides a platform for sharing web pages, and wherein each web page includes a document or information resource that is suitable for the world wide web and is accessible through a web browser. The method further includes generating a list of inquiries based on the plurality of web pages, providing, the list of inquiries to at least one author of the first file, receiving from the at least one author at least one response to the list of inquiries, selecting a subset of the plurality of web pages based on the at least one response, and storing information related to the selected subset of the plurality of web pages.
US09047279B1
Systems and methods for creating and using 2-dimensional matrix code on tags or labels to identify panel components and associated information stored in and accessible from a data storage device or server or computer with a document management system (DMS). Related information can be encoded into an identifier using a URL with hyperlink onto a 2D matrix tag or label attached to specific panel component or wire. The information encoded in the 2D matrix code can be decoded using an interactive reader and data capture device such as a smart-phone or tablet computing device. Use the capture device's decoded information to provide interactive access and visual display to the interactive URL and hyperlink related information in the DMS. The capture device can be configured to provide immediate intelligence and functions with comparison and confirmation of quality, functionality, maintenance, status, and conformity with respect to panel components.
US09047273B2
Methods, controllers, and systems for managing data transfer, such as those in solid state drives (SSDs), are described. In some embodiments, the data transfer between a host and a memory is monitored and then assessed to provide an assessment result. A number of storage units of the memory allocated to service another data transfer is adjusted based on the assessment result. Additional methods and systems are also described.
US09047269B2
In certain embodiments, a method for modeling interactions with a computer system includes collecting interaction information for each of a number of interaction sessions with a computer system, each interaction session being associated with a corresponding agent system and including one or more states and one or more state transitions. The interaction information for an interaction session includes data for the one or more states and the one or more state transitions of the interaction session. The method further includes, for each of the interaction sessions, identifying the one or more states encountered during the interaction session based on the collected interaction information and generating, based on the one or more states encountered during the interaction session, a trace of the interaction session. The method further includes generating, based on the traces of the interaction sessions, a model of the interaction sessions, the model including the traces for each of the interaction sessions.
US09047268B2
A computing device determines, based at least in part on indications of user input, scores for a first set of candidate strings and a second set of candidate strings. Each candidate string from the first set of candidate strings is in a lexicon. Candidate strings from the second set of candidate strings are not necessarily in the lexicon. The computing device determines the scores for the first set of candidate strings based on probabilities of the candidate strings being entered. For each candidate string from the second set of candidate strings, the computing device determines the scores for the candidate string based on probabilities of characters of the candidate string being entered. The computing device selects a candidate string based on the scores for the first and second sets of candidate strings and outputs, for display at the display device, the selected candidate string.
US09047265B2
There is provided a form creation device including a retaining unit that retains a range of set information which prescribes image elements that are suitable for OCR processing and an image generation unit that generates a form image based on a user's input and the set information range retained in the retaining unit.
US09047263B2
In accordance with the present disclosure, a system and method are herein disclosed for providing secure SMI memory services, including the protection of SMM memory from surreptitious attacks by, for example, rootkits. Information handling systems are susceptible to attacks, especially attacks on SMM memory. In one example, an SMI handler corresponding to the SMI Driver associated with an SMI interrupt performs validation of a password. An SSMS driver allocates memory for the SMI handler to use with the validation process and also performs a secure erase of allocated memory blocks upon completion of all secure SMI Memory Services. By controlling the validation and secure erase process through the use of the SMI handler and SSMS driver, information leakage can be prevented resulting in system data integrity.
US09047260B2
This invention provides a method, computer program and system for updating of a model of a system under test for use in model-based testing. In one embodiment, the system includes a rules engine, a comparator and a message dictionary. The rules engine runs an action against the system under test and runs the action against a model under test. The comparator compares an output from the system under test with a corresponding output from the model under test, wherein the output from the model under test is selected from one of a plurality of output message records. The dictionary engine updates the output message record by changing the message record if the output of the model under test is different from the output of the system under test. If the output message record is empty, the dictionary engine adds an output message record based on the system under test.
US09047255B2
A system in accordance with the present invention may include one or more processors, memory that receives instructions from the one or more processors according to a clock operating at a frequency, one or more programs stored in the memory, with instructions to: access media content; analyze the media content according to meta data, media characteristics, or other media-related data; and, create a media content object cluster according to the meta data, the media characteristics, or the other media-related data.
US09047254B1
This specification describes methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage device, for detecting and validating expansion types of expandable content items.
US09047245B2
A location-based matching system and method matches users of a computer-implemented system in accordance with inferences of mutual interest between the users, whereby the inferences of mutual interest are based on mutual computer-implemented relationships and user location information. Inferences of mutual interest may also be in accordance with a physical object. The inferences of mutual interest may be with respect to interests by users in being physically proximal to each other or being physically proximal to a location associated with one of the users. Information associated with user matches may be delivered to a matched user in the form of a computer-implemented map.
US09047242B2
A method begins by a processing module generating a payload section of a dispersed storage network (DSN) frame regarding a read request operation by generating one or more slice name fields of the payload section to include one or more slice names corresponding to one or more encoded data slices and generating a transaction number field of the payload section to include a transaction number corresponding to the read request operation. The method continues with the processing module generating a protocol header of the DSN frame by generating a payload length field of the protocol header to include a payload length that represents a length of the payload section and generating remaining fields of the protocol header.
US09047239B2
The present invention relates to a method, system, and computer program product for determining storage device weight values to use to select one of the storage devices to use as a target storage to which data from a source storage is migrated. A determination is made, for each of the storage devices, of static parameter values for static parameters comprising attributes of the storage device and dynamic parameter values for dynamic parameters providing device health information determined by accessing the storage device to determine operational conditions at the storage device. Storage device weight values are determined as a function of the static parameter values and the dynamic parameter values of the device. The determined storage device weight values are used to select one of the storage devices as the target storage to which data from the source storage is migrated.
US09047233B2
Various systems, processes, and products may be used to source clean cascaded volumes. In particular implementations, a system, process, and product for source cleaning cascaded volumes may include the ability to store a primary volume and a plurality of cascaded backup volumes. The system, process, and product may also include the ability to determine whether a write to one of the backup volumes is due to a background copy being made of another volume in the cascade and adjust a background copy indicator in a volume map for the backup volume if the write is due to a background copy and to determine whether a write to one of the backup volumes is due to a write to another volume in the cascade and adjust a write copy indicator in a volume map for the backup volume if the write is due to a write to another cascaded volume.
US09047230B2
Techniques for implementing mixed-radix FFT on SIMD vector processors efficiently for the latest standard in wireless communication technology by dynamically reordering stages are provided. In one aspect, a mixed-radix FFT implementation method for vector processors is provided which includes the following steps. Input data is decomposed into segments of factors based on a size of the input data, wherein the decomposing is performed in one or more stages, and wherein at each of the stages the input data is processed in blocks using one or more FFT butterfly computations for each of the blocks. The stages in which the decomposing is performed are reordered to insure complete utilization of the vector processors. The butterfly computations for one or more of the blocks are reordered to insure that the input data have memory addresses which are next to each other and contiguous.
US09047224B2
The present disclosure discloses a method, a system and a server of removing a distributed caching object. In one embodiment, the method receives a removal request, where the removal request includes an identifier of an object. The method may further apply consistent Hashing to the identifier of the object to obtain a Hash result value of the identifier, locates a corresponding cache server based on the Hash result value and renders the corresponding cache server to be a present cache server. In some embodiments, the method determines whether the present cache server is in an active status and has an active period greater than an expiration period associated with the object. Additionally, in response to determining that the present cache server is in an active status and has an active period greater than the expiration period associated with the object, the method removes the object from the present cache server. By comparing an active period of a located cache server with an expiration period associated with an object, the exemplary embodiments precisely locate a cache server that includes the object to be removed and perform a removal operation, thus saving the other cache servers from wasting resources to perform removal operations and hence improving the overall performance of the distributed cache system.
US09047222B2
A device, method, and system are disclosed. In one embodiment the device includes a router to transmit data packets between multiple host controllers and one or more peripheral devices. The router can receive a data packet from a host controller and transmit the data packet to a peripheral device across a data transmission path. The peripheral device is coupled to the first data transmission path through a first universal multi-transport medium (UMTM) connector. The connector includes an optical coupling capable of transporting the first data packet within an optical signal and an electrical coupling capable of transporting the first data packet within an electrical signal.
US09047216B2
A disk drive system and method capable of dynamically allocating data is provided. The disk drive system may include a RAID subsystem having a pool of storage, for example a page pool of storage that maintains a free list of RAIDs, or a matrix of disk storage blocks that maintain a null list of RAIDs, and a disk manager having at least one disk storage system controller. The RAID subsystem and disk manager dynamically allocate data across the pool of storage and a plurality of disk drives based on RAID-to-disk mapping. The RAID subsystem and disk manager determine whether additional disk drives are required, and a notification is sent if the additional disk drives are required. Dynamic data allocation and data progression allow a user to acquire a disk drive later in time when it is needed. Dynamic data allocation also allows efficient data storage of snapshots/point-in-time copies of virtual volume pool of storage, instant data replay and data instant fusion for data backup, recovery etc., remote data storage, and data progression, etc.
US09047213B2
Encoded least significant bit (LSB) values are generated for a cell based at least in part on a readback value for the cell. The encoded LSB values is decoded in order to obtain one or more decoded LSB values. Encoded most significant bit (MSB) values are generated for the cell based at least in part on (1) the readback value for the cell and (2) the decoded LSB values. The encoded MSB values are decoded in order to obtain one or more decoded MSB values, wherein the bit positions of the decoded LSB values do not overlap with the bit positions of the decoded MSB values.
US09047204B2
Techniques to perform forward error correction for an electrical backplane are described including forward error correction (FEC) circuitry to perform forward error correction, physical coding sublayer circuitry, and physical medium attachment (PMA) circuitry. The FEC circuitry provides primitives comprising a FEC_UNITDATA.request primitive, a FEC_UNITDATA.signal primitive, and FEC_UNITDATA.indication primitive, the FEC sublayer and includes an encoder having a reverse gearbox and a pseudo-noise generator.
US09047202B1
Actions associated with visualizing an input data set using plural graphs are monitored. At least one of the graphs is produced based on selection from another of the graphs. A relationship tree that represents relationships of the graphs is created based on monitoring the actions. Output information including description data and image data is provided, where the description data contains at least a portion of the relationship tree. The output information enables interactive navigation through the plural graphs without accessing the input data set.
US09047201B2
A method for waking up a plurality of hibernated mass storage devices is disclosed. The method includes receiving a first command from a control circuit for accessing data stored in a plurality of hibernated mass storage devices; dividing the plurality of hibernated mass storage devices into a plurality of mass storage groups; waking up a first mass storage group of the plurality of mass storage groups; and notifying the control circuit to stop sending commands to the remaining hibernated mass storage devices in a period of time.
US09047183B2
Systems and methods for detecting an issue with a message flow between two or more data systems. In an embodiment, at a first time, a number of first request messages and a number of first response messages transmitted or received during a first look-back period are determined. A first ratio is calculated based on these numbers and compared to an alerting threshold. If the first ratio is less than the alerting threshold, an alert is generated. Then, at a second time, a number of second request messages and a number of second response messages transmitted or received during a second look-back period are determined. A second ratio is calculated based on these numbers and compared to a clearing threshold. Based on this comparison, it is determined whether to maintain or clear the alert.
US09047179B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for determining level placement in q-level cells of solid-state memory, where q>2. Groups of the cells are programmed to respective levels of a predetermined plurality of programming levels, and each cell is then read at a series of time instants to obtain a sequence of read metric values for that cell. The sequences of read metric values for the group of cells programmed to each programming level are processed to derive statistical data as a function of time for that level. The statistical data for each programming level is processed to determine for that level at least one parameter of a model defining variation with time of the statistical data for programming levels. The parameters for the levels are extrapolated to define parameter variation as a function of level. A set of q programming levels which has a desired property over time is then calculated from said parameter variation and said model.
US09047172B2
An apparatus includes a storage resource to store data. The data can be accessible by a host computer system. The apparatus includes a set of dynamically powered volatile memory devices that are configured to store mapping information. The mapping information maps logical addresses of received access requests to corresponding physical addresses of the storage resource to which the access requests pertain. In accordance with received mode setting information, the controller logic adaptively controls power settings of the volatile memory devices storing the mapping information. If an abundance of power such as 120 VAC power is available, more of volatile memory devices can be powered to store a greater portion of the mapping information. If only battery power is available, fewer than all of the volatile memory devices can be powered to store a smaller portion of the mapping information.
US09047160B2
A virtual image is created by receiving a selection of at least one composable software bundle. The at least one composable software bundle includes a first set of metadata and a first set of artifacts comprising a first set of executable instructions associated with a first set of operations. A virtual image asset is selected and received. The virtual image asset includes one or more virtual image disks, a second set of metadata, and a second set of artifacts including a second set of executable instructions associated with a second set of operations. A new virtual image asset is created based on the at least one composable software bundle and the virtual image asset. The new virtual image asset includes a third set of metadata that is based on the first set of metadata and the second set of metadata.
US09047159B2
A method of installing software receives installation task data including a plurality of installation tasks. The plurality of installation tasks includes at least one user-modifiable installation task and at least one user-unmodifiable installation task. The method receives task order data defining a requisite order of execution. The method executes each of the plurality of installation tasks in accordance with the requisite order, wherein executing each user-modifiable installation task comprises altering and executing at least one installation command for the user-modifiable installation task in response to receiving a first user input.
US09047157B1
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates using unspecialized software micro-containers to build complex dynamic business processes. During operation, the system receives a command to execute a business logic at a computer system. In response to the command, the system initializes an unspecialized software micro-container from a pool of unspecialized software micro-containers. Next, the system retrieves the business logic from a business logic repository. The system then loads the business logic into the unspecialized software micro-container. Finally, the system executes the business logic in the unspecialized software micro-container. Note that the requestor publishes the desired business process in the repository, and the system, represented by the unspecialized containers, self-organizes to execute the job without additional management.
US09047151B1
Method and system for processing a command received from a processor executable computing entity from among a plurality of computing entities of a computing system that interfaces with a device is provided. The method includes receiving the command by a command processing module executed by a processor of the computing system; generating a command object for the command by the command processing module, where the command object format does not change regardless of a computing entity type or a command type; placing the command object in a command queue maintained by the command processing module; sending the command to a device in a same context as a context of the computing entity, when the command object is a first command object in the command queue with the command that is ready to be sent to the device; and sending the command to the device in a different context as the context of the computing entity, when the command object is not the first command object in the command queue with the command that is ready to be sent to the device.
US09047150B2
Fencing data transfers in a parallel active messaging interface (‘PAMI’) of a parallel computer, the PAMI including data communications endpoints, each endpoint including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task; the compute nodes coupled for data communications through the PAMI and through data communications resources including at least one segment of shared random access memory; including initiating execution through the PAMI of an ordered sequence of active SEND instructions for SEND data transfers between two endpoints, effecting deterministic SEND data transfers through a segment of shared memory; and executing through the PAMI, with no FENCE accounting for SEND data transfers, an active FENCE instruction, the FENCE instruction completing execution only after completion of all SEND instructions initiated prior to execution of the FENCE instruction for SEND data transfers between the two endpoints.
US09047148B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide pipelined vectoring-mode CORDICS including a coordinate converter operable to yield a converted vector based on an input vector, wherein an x coordinate value of the converted vector is positive, a y coordinate value of the converted vector is positive, and the x coordinate value is greater than or equal to the y coordinate value, a pipeline of vector rotators operable to perform a series of successive rotations of the converted vector to yield a rotated vector and to store rotation directions of the series of successive rotations, and at least one lookup table operable to yield an angle of rotation based on the rotation directions.
US09047143B2
System, method, and computer program product to orchestrate software defined networking (SDN) applications, by providing a plurality of network elements in a network, each network element comprising a plurality of ingress interfaces, a plurality of egress interfaces, and a routing information base (RIB), providing, to an SDN application, an application program interface (API) to abstract properties and events of: (i) the ingress interfaces, (ii) the egress interfaces, and (iii) the RIB of a specified network element, receiving a request from the SDN application apply a function to the specified network element, the function specifying to modify: (i) a preprocessing operation on a data packet, (ii) the RIB, (iii) a post processing operation on the data packet, and (iv) the properties of the ingress interfaces, egress interfaces, and RIBs of the specified network element, and applying the function to the specified network element through the API.
US09047140B2
An independently timed multiplier unit includes a multiplier and a clock generator. The multiplier has a first set of semiconductor circuits in a critical path. The clock generator has a second set of semiconductor circuits configured to control a clock period of said clock generator selected to set a clock period longer than the propagation delay through the critical path of the multiplier. The clock generator may include a delay circuit having a delay to set the clock period longer than the propagation delay through the critical path of said multiplier. The clock generator uses circuit with identical logical design including the same standard cells, the same logic design or the same floor plan. Close matching of these circuit causes the multiplier and the clock generator to experience the same PVT speed variations.
US09047126B2
A continuous availability system including a controller module executing on a computer processor, the system is configured to receive a unit of work and to select a primary site from a plurality of sites to process the unit of work. Once a site is selected the system is further configured to select one of one or more processing systems from the primary site to process the unit of work. The system is additionally configured to replicate the unit of work to at least one other site once the unit of work is completed at the primary site. The system is configured to operate even when the primary site is separated from each of the plurality of sites by a distance greater than a metropolitan area network and the operations occur within a customer acceptability window.
US09047117B2
Concepts and technologies are described herein for providing task continuity and supporting task completion across devices and time. A task management application is configured to monitor one or more interactions between a user and a device. The interactions can include the use of the device, the use of one or more applications, and/or other tasks, subtasks, or other operations. Predictive models constructed from data or logical models can be used to predict the attention resources available or allocated to a task or subtask as well as the attention and affordances available within a context for addressing the task and these inferences can be used to mark or route the task for later reminding and display. In some embodiments, the task management application is configured to remind or execute a follow-up action when a session is resumed. Embodiments include providing users with easy to use gestures and mechanisms for providing input about desired follow up on the same or other devices.
US09047116B2
An apparatus, program product and method initiate, in connection with a context switch operation, a prefetch of data likely to be used by a thread prior to resuming execution of that thread. As a result, once it is known that a context switch will be performed to a particular thread, data may be prefetched on behalf of that thread so that when execution of the thread is resumed, more of the working state for the thread is likely to be cached, or at least in the process of being retrieved into cache memory, thus reducing cache-related performance penalties associated with context switching.
US09047115B2
A primary task manager, which is a local task manager, can perform a distributed task on a local server. If the performing of the task with the local task manager succeeds, the distributed task can then be propagated to at least one secondary task manager, which is a remote task manager. The remote task manager is capable of performing the distributed task. If the performing of the task with the local task manager fails, an undo task that is associated with the distributed task can be performed.
US09047112B2
System and method for installation of a virtual service processor (VSP) are disclosed. The system include a computer that has a processor, a physical drive having a first partition and a master boot record (MBR) with initial settings indicating the first partition as an active bootable partition, and a non-transitory computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions. The instructions cause the processor to (a) load and execute a hypervisor from the computer storage medium, the hypervisor having a privileged domain and an unprivileged domain; (b) initiate a VSP in the privileged domain, the VSP being configured to manage at least one health, operation, or performance related aspect of the computer system; (c) configure the unprivileged domain to allow an operating system to run therein, the operating system (OS) being executable directly on the computer system; and (d) load and execute the OS in the unprivileged domain.
US09047101B2
A method for compiling an original application written in an intermediate code, in which the original application is executed by means of a virtual machine. The method supplies a native application having a native binary code. The method includes: extracting at least one intermediate code instruction at least one corresponding function input point; a first step of compiling the intermediate code of the application to a code that includes control flow management and calls said at least one input point of each function implementing the instructions of the intermediate code; and a second step of compiling the compiled application code and intermediate code functions supplying the optimised native application.
US09047097B2
A method for providing an application by a virtual machine. The method includes a step of compiling an application written in a source code to a native application for a particular platform and a step of transforming the compiled application into a library, wherein the library is made available to the virtual machine.
US09047094B2
According to embodiments of the invention, there is disclosed a computer processor architecture; and in particular a computer processor, a method of operating the same, and a computer program product that makes use of an instruction set for the computer. In one embodiment according to the invention, there is provided a computer processor, the processor comprising: a decode unit for decoding instruction packets fetched from a memory holding a sequence of instruction packets; and first and second processing channels, each channel comprising a plurality of functional units, wherein the first processing channel is capable of performing control operations and comprises a control register file having a relatively narrower bit width, and the second processing channel is capable of performing data processing operations at least one input of which is a vector and comprises a data register file having a relatively wider bit width. The decode unit is operable to detect for each instruction packet whether the instruction packet defines (i) a plurality of control instructions to be executed sequentially on the first processing channel or (ii) a plurality of instructions comprising at least one data processing instruction to be executed simultaneously on the second execution channel, and to control the first and second channels in dependence on said detection.
US09047092B2
A load store pipeline 18 includes an issue queue 20 and load store circuitry 24. The load store circuitry 24 includes the plurality of access slot circuits 26 to 40. Dependency tracking circuitry 42, 44, 46, 48 serves to track a freeable number of access slot circuits 26 to 42 corresponding to the sum of access slot circuits that are empty and those processing data access instructions which have not bypassed any preceding data access instructions within the program execution order.
US09047078B2
An efficient facility for determining resource usage, such as a processor time used by tasks. The determination is performed on behalf of user applications that do not require a call to operating system services. The facility includes an instruction that determines elapsed time and reports it to the user as a single unit of operation.
US09047059B2
A method for controlling a voice site using a haptic input modality. The method includes validating a haptic input from an instrument capable of accessing a voice site, processing the haptic input on a server to determine a voice site command corresponding to the haptic input, and processing the voice site command at the server to control an interaction with the voice site.
US09047058B2
An electronic device includes a main body and a support mechanism assembled within the main body, and a cover body. The main body defines an ejecting hole. The cover body is rotatably hinged to the main body for releasing the support mechanism, or for retracting the support mechanism into the main body when not required. The support mechanism includes a rotating member, a support member, and an elastic member. The rotating member is rotatably assembled within the main body and partially exposed from a top plate of the main body, the support member is assembled to the rotating member, a distal end of the support member aligns with one ejecting hole of the bottom plate, the elastic member is assembled within the main body and elastically resisting against the support member; the cover body resists against the rotating member in a folded state.
US09047054B1
Features are disclosed for managing presentation of content to improve the content consumption experience as a user moves around or when there are multiple users. Based on user positions within a content consumption location and optionally on the layout of the location, presentation of content can be adjusted. The volume of audio content may be raised or lowered based on a user's position. Audio or visual content can be paused or stopped if a user leaves the location or the user's view is obstructed. When multiple users are consuming a content item, one or more users may have priority and any adjustment may be made to first improve the experience of the priority user. In some cases, no user has priority, and adjustments may be made to improve the experience of many or all users.
US09047053B2
A conductive film is disclosed in the present disclosure, which includes: a substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite to each other; and a first conductive layer laid on the first surface, the first conductive layer includes a plurality of first conductive areas and first insulating areas, the first conductive areas include a metal mesh formed by a metal, the first insulating areas include an insulating mesh formed by an insulating metal sulfide, the insulating metal sulfide is obtained from a reaction between the metal and hydrogen sulfide. Accordingly, the problem of producing lots of wastewater of the metal salts and heavy metal pollution can be avoided, the insulating areas include the insulating mesh having a transmittance close to the metal mesh, benefit for reach a uniform transmittance of the touch screen, and avoid forming alternating light and dark color patches.
US09047046B2
An information processing apparatus includes a first touch panel, a second touch panel, and a controller. The first touch panel displays a first object and detects a first touch operation of a user on the first object. The second touch panel displays a second object and detects a second touch operation of the user on the second object. The controller links and changes the displayed first object and the displayed second object when the second touch operation is detected within a predetermined time period since the first touch operation has been detected.
US09047019B2
System, method, computer program product embodiments and combinations and sub-combinations thereof for temporary storage management in a shared disk database cluster are provided. Included is the reserving of units on-demand and of variable size from shared temporary storage space in the SDC. The utilization of the reserved units of the shared temporary storage space is tracked, and the shared temporary storage space is administered based on the tracking.
US09047009B2
An electronic device has a display and has a touch sensitive bezel surrounding the display. Areas on the bezel are designated for controls used to operate the electronic device. Visual guides corresponding to the controls are displayed on the display adjacent the areas of the bezel designated for the controls. Touch data is generated by the bezel when a user touches an area of the bezel. The device determines which of the controls has been selected based on which designated area is associated with the touch data from the bezel. The device then initiates the determined control. The device can have a sensor for determining the orientation of the device. Based on the orientation, the device can alter the areas designated on the bezel for the controls and can alter the location of the visual guides for the display so that they match the altered areas on the bezel.
US09046990B2
There is provided a manual browsing device comprising: a manual storage section that stores manual information; a collection section that collects device information of the manual browsing device or device information of a peripheral, which is an external device communicating information with the manual browsing device; an information selection section that selects a display menu which indicates some of the manual information based on the device information collected by the collection section; and an updating section that updates a display screen on which the manual information is displayed, by using the display menu selected by the information selection section.
US09046989B2
A mobile terminal and an icon control method for the same are provided. The icon control method includes detecting a selection event in relation to displayed icons, determining, when the selection event is detected, a number of icons mapped to a zone in which the selection event is detected, and changing, when the number of icons mapped to the zone is greater than one, an order of the multiple icons mapped to the zone for successive icon display according to a time during which contact is maintained after the selection event. When multiple displayed icons overlap each other on a display screen, a user can easily select a desired one of the overlapping icons without having to move any of the icons.
US09046987B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for forming crowds of users based on wireless contexts of corresponding mobile devices of the users. In general, wireless contexts of mobile devices of a number of users are obtained. For each mobile device, the wireless context of the mobile device includes a wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) context of the mobile device, a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) context of the mobile device, or both. The wireless contexts of the mobile devices of the users are then utilized to form crowds of users. More specifically, in one embodiment, users of mobile devices having sufficiently similar wireless contexts are determined to be in the same crowd of users.
US09046980B1
By using a server separate from an image it is possible to display real-time auxiliary data, such as advertisements and other pertinent data, to viewers of that image by flipping the image and presenting the auxiliary data on the reverse side of the flipped image. In this manner, additional information is presented to a viewer without increasing the footprint of the image. In some embodiments, the identity of the viewer dictates the data that is provided. In other embodiments, the base images that are being viewed are uploaded by a viewer and are not provided by the sponsor of the server. The data could, for example, be data supplied by the image owner, by the site sponsor or by a third party.
US09046976B2
A method for transmitting and detecting touch sensing signals in a touch device having a set of parallel conducting lines includes: providing a work signal and a touch sensing signal to a selected portion of the conducting lines that serve as touch sensing lines and that cooperate to define a touch sensing area; and detecting the touch sensing lines to obtain a detecting signal that corresponds to the touch sensing signal and that indicates occurrence of a touch event, so as to determine at least one of a position and an intensity of the touch event. For each of the touch sensing lines, the work signal is provided during a first time interval and the touch sensing signal is provided during a second time interval.
US09046970B2
A pointer detection apparatus and a position detection sensor are provided, with which a signal transmission characteristic of a conductor for detecting a position at a periphery of a transparent region (valid area) is improved. Also, a simplified method of manufacturing the position detection sensor is provided. The position detection sensor includes a first glass substrate, a transmission conductor group formed of a plurality of transparent conductors disposed on one face of the first glass substrate, a reception conductor group formed of a plurality of transparent conductors disposed in a direction crossing the transmission conductor group, and a signal detection circuit for detecting a signal generated in the reception conductor group based on the existence of a pointer near the position detection sensor. The position detection sensor further includes a metal wiring line pattern disposed in parallel with the transmission conductor group in a non-transparent region (outside the valid area) so as to reduce resistance of that portion of the transmission conductor group to thereby improve its signal transmission characteristic.
US09046964B2
A frame component for an infrared touch screen is provided, which can reduce the thickness of the infrared touch screen. The frame component has a light transmission body which is provided with a plurality of first avoid holes and/or first avoid slots along the length direction for avoiding locations of the infrared emitting tubes and infrared receiving tubes. An infrared touch screen comprising the frame component is also provided. The infrared touch screen further comprises a printed circuit board and a lower support component. A plurality of second avoid holes and/or second avoid slots is arranged on the lower support component for avoiding locations of electronic devices. A light transmission part, the printed circuit board and the support components are mutually clamped tightly to form a sandwich structure. The infrared touch screen according to the present invention has advantages of ultra-thinness and good circuit board firmness.
US09046958B2
Provided herein are a method, apparatus and computer program product for interpreting user input and mitigating erroneous inputs on a device. In particular, methods may include receiving an indication of a first touch event, determining, by a touch mediation function, if the first touch event is an erroneous touch event, causing the first touch event to be sent to an application in response to the touch mediation function determining that the touch event is not erroneous; and causing the first touch event to not be sent to the application in response to the touch mediation function determining that the first touch event is erroneous. The first touch event may occur proximate a first capture area for the user interface and the method may further include causing the first capture area for the user interface to be adjusted in response to the first touch event.
US09046925B2
A haptics rendering system comprises: a display device having a display screen and one or more haptic feedback mechanisms associated with at least one tactile output peripheral; and a graphics processing unit (GPU) communicatively coupled to the display device. The GPU: receives one or more portions of display image software code for a three dimensional display image; generates a three dimensional (3D) visual output of the display image for display on the display device; and concurrently generates one or more specific friction maps to provide haptic feedback of depth and/or texture associated with specific portions of the display image that comprise at least one portion having at least one of a different depth and a different texture than other portions of the display image. The GPU renders the display image and the friction map from a same set of 3D commands within the display image software code.
US09046924B2
Gesture based interaction with traffic data is disclosed. A virtual broadcast presentation may be generated based on dynamic information such as traffic information, weather information, or other information that may be featured on a virtual broadcast presentation. A gesture made by a user is detected and processed to determine an input command associated with the detected gesture. The virtual broadcast presentation may be manipulated based on the input command.
US09046922B2
Products and processes for providing multimodal feedback in a user interface device are disclosed. In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus comprises a manipulandum and an actuator in communication with the manipulandum. In one embodiment, the actuator may be operable to provide haptic feedback to the manipulandum and to produce an audible sound correlated with the haptic feedback.
US09046921B2
A display apparatus includes: an image receiving unit which receives a content; a display unit which displays the received content; an image pickup unit which captures images of a user; a storage unit which stores the content and at least one of the captured images of the user; and a control unit which displays a portion of the content with the at least one captured image from among the captured images of the user.
US09046915B2
A circuit for use in a computing system including a bus interface unit and an autoload controller. The autoload controller has an input to receive an initialization signal. In response to receiving the initialization signal, the autoload controller searches for a signature using the bus interface unit and, in response to finding the signature at a signature address, loads a plurality of base addresses corresponding to a plurality of controllers from memory locations having a predetermined relationship to the address, and provides the plurality of base addresses to a control output thereof.
US09046909B2
An integrated circuit includes a voltage regulator to supply a regulated voltage and a data output that couples to an unterminated transmission line. The circuit draws a variable amount of power from the voltage regulator according to the data. The voltage regulator includes a first current generation circuit to provide a data transition-dependent current.
US09046907B2
A method is described for driving a full-bridge circuit (34,64) comprising a circuit (31) generating a first output modulation signal (m1) and a second output modulation signal (m2) for controlling the full-bridge. The method comprises the steps for generating a first (X1) and a second (X2) square waveform having a common period (Ts), where the first waveform (X1) is configured in order to drive a leg of the full-bridge and the second waveform is configured in order to drive the other leg of the full-bridge. The method is characterized in that the first square waveform (X1) is generated with a first duty cycle based on a first modulation signal (m1); the second square waveform (X2) is generated with a second duty cycle greater than or equal to the first duty cycle of a time increment Ts/(N−1) based on the second modulation signal (m2).
US09046902B2
Disclosed is a power supply circuit of an electric device. The power supply circuit comprises a power source configured to output a power source voltage; a power source voltage detecting circuit configured to detect the power source voltage, and to output a first voltage control signal; a leading edge delay circuit configured to receive the first voltage control signal, and to output a second voltage control signal; an electronic switch connected in series between the power source and the load, configured to turn on or turn off power supply from the power source to the load; and a slow turn-on circuit configured to receive the second voltage control signal.
US09046901B2
A device for reducing a magnetic unidirectional flux fraction in the core of a transformer is provided. The device has a measuring device that provides a sensor signal corresponding to the magnetic unidirectional flux fraction, a compensation winding that is magnetically coupled to the core of the transformer, a switching unit arranged electrically in a current path in series with the compensation winding in order to feed a current into the compensation winding. The action of the current is directed opposite to the unidirectional flux fraction. The switching unit can be controlled by a regulating variable provided by a control device and can be switched into a conductive state during a predefined time interval and in accordance with the regulating variable, the switch-on time being mains-synchronous. A device for limiting the current in the current path is provided and the sensor signal is fed to the control device.
US09046896B1
A method of controlling a steam heating system on a zone by zone, and radiator by radiator basis, through the electromechanically controlled release of air from radiators. A programmable set of target temperatures for each zone is stored in a microprocessor module. The microprocessor monitors the air temperature of each zone through probes. The microprocessor can selectively open and close the electromechanical air vent valves installed on each radiator's vent port. When one of the vent valves is caused to be opened, the steam boiler is triggered to start producing steam pressure; steam displaces the air in the radiators, out the vent valves, heating them up. Each zone's temperature is achieved and maintained by controlling the associated radiators' output through modulating their air vent valves. Through the microprocessor's adjustment of the vent valves' temperatures and cycle timing, optimal energy efficiency across multiple zone control is achieved.
US09046894B2
Navigation aid method for determining, by an instruction giver, the path of an aircraft initially following a predetermined path in an approach phase and upon which are defined a safety altitude and an alarm limit, said aircraft including a navigation system of the INS/GNSS type including a satellite information receiver and at least one inertial unit producing position information, said method including determining a future path; estimating predicted protection radii on the future path are estimated, starting at the calculation time in the case of a critical situation, in terms of position information, which starts at the calculation time; calculating a limit time after which the predicted protection radius is greater than or equal to the alarm limit; and calculating a limit time after which the predicted protection radius is greater than or equal to the alarm limit.
US09046892B2
The different advantageous embodiments may provide an apparatus that may include a number of robotic machine groups, a mission planner, and a mission control. The mission planner may be capable of generating a mission for the number of robotic machine groups. The mission control may be capable of executing the mission using the number of robotic machine groups.
US09046890B2
A robot control system includes a line tracking encoder that measures a reference position of a conveyor line and transmits a tracking signal representing tracking data including the reference position of the conveyor line. A master controller is in communication with the encoder to receive the tracking signal, process the tracking data represented by the tracking signal, and generate a data packet in response to processing of the tracking data. A slave controller is in communication with the master controller and at least one robot for receiving the data packet and controlling the movement of the at least one robot in response to the data packet. A communications network directly interconnects the master controller and the slave controller and transmits the data packet from the master controller to the slave controller.
US09046888B2
A path of a cutter head of a laser cutting machine is modified to cut features according to a pattern from a material. A no-travel zone that the laser cutter avoids while performing lateral movements between cuts is specified. Locations of the path that cross the no-travel zones are also specified. The path is then modified such that all locations that violate the no-travel zone are removed so that the laser cutter detours around the no-travel zone when performing the lateral movements.
US09046887B2
An actuating apparatus has an actuator including a link having a plurality of joints and a plurality of motors for actuating the joints, and a controller for controlling the actuator. The controller controls the motors with a control torque m_τ_cntrl calculated according to the equation: m_τ_cntrl=M·(I−mEff)−1·(ddθ_cntrl−mEff·ddθ_cntrl—p)+C_cmpn from a target angular acceleration ddθ_cntrl, a preceding target angular acceleration ddθ_cntrl_p, a displaceable member torque response matrix Eff, an inertial matrix M, and a dynamic corrective force C_cmpn.
US09046886B2
A system includes a security server including a memory and a processor configured to receive a first set of communications from a human machine interface (HMI) device, wherein the first set of communications relates to HMI device security events. The security server is also configured to receive a second set of communications from an industrial controller, wherein the second set of communications relates to industrial controller security events. The security server is further configured to package and send the received first and second sets of communications to a remote managed security service provider (MSSP) for analysis.
US09046884B2
This document describes techniques and apparatuses for implementing a mood-actuated device. In various embodiments, indicators of an emotional state of a user are sensed, and a mood-actuated device is controlled to react based on the emotional state of the user. In some embodiments, the mood-actuated device includes a mechanical component that is configured to react by moving based on the emotional state of the user.
US09046882B2
The present invention provides novel techniques for controlling batch reaction processes. In particular, a parametric hybrid model may be used to parameterize inputs and outputs of batch reaction processes. The parametric hybrid model may include an empirical model, a parameter model, and a dynamic model. Critical quality parameters, which are correlated with, but not the same as, end-of-batch quality values for the batch reaction processes may be monitored during cycles of the batch reaction processes. The quality parameters may be used to generate desired batch trajectories, which may be used to control the batch reaction processes during the cycles of the batch reaction processes.
US09046880B2
A control input for controlling a driving force of an actuator (5), by a control processing of the sliding-mode control using a switching function configured from a first variable component, which is a deviation between an observed value of a secondary power imparted to a secondary element (3) from a primary element (2) via an elastic deformation member (4), and a second variable component which is a temporal change rate of the deviation, so as to converge the first variable component to zero on the switching hyperplane. A gradient of the switching hyperplane is preliminarily determined based on a response characteristics data satisfying a predetermined requirement.
US09046879B2
A fault protection circuit for use on a spur of an IEC 61158 Fieldbus network comprising a fast acting current limiter adapted to limit the spur current to the level of a reference current when the spur current reaches said reference current, control means adapted to monitor the spur AC and/or DC current and/or voltage, and isolation means adapted to apply a shunt short circuit isolation to said spur upon receipt of an activation signal from the control means, in which the control means is adapted to control the level of the reference current, and in which when said control means detects one or more pre-determined fault conditions on said spur it activates the isolation means and lowers the level of reference current.
US09046875B2
Provision of a portable apparatus which is of a simple construction and which can prevent a lock member arranged at a lock position where a pushbutton is locked from being erroneously rotated to an excessive degree. A pipe inserted into a through-hole of an apparatus exterior body is fixed to the apparatus exterior body. The pipe consists of a single component, and has a male screw portion and a stopper portion on an external arrangement tube portion thereof. A lock member is provided with a female screw portion, a lock part, and a lock portion configured to move toward and away from the stopper portion. The two screw portions and are threadedly engaged with each other, and the lock member is mounted so as to be movable in the axial direction of the pipe. A shaft portion of a pushbutton is passed through the pipe, and the pushbutton is urged toward the exterior of the apparatus exterior body by a spring. A head with which the pushbutton is equipped has an opposing portion facing the lock part. A retaining ring is mounted to a shaft end portion of the shaft portion situated inside the apparatus exterior body, and the pushbutton is prevented from being detached from the pipe.
US09046869B2
Cartridges may include a developing roller, an electrode, a detection member, and a cover member. The developing roller rotates about an axis extending along a first direction. The electrode includes a protrusion that protrudes along the first direction to an end portion. The detection member includes a cover portion, which covers an exposable portion of the protrusion when the detection member is in a first position, and which exposes the exposable portion of the protrusion when the detection member is in a second position. The cover member covers a portion of the detection member and exposes the cover portion when the detection member is in the first position. The cover member extends in the first direction to an end portion. An overlap portion of the protrusion extends at least to the end portion of the cover member and overlaps a portion of the cover member in a second direction.
US09046865B2
A cleaner includes at least two cleaning brush members to electrostatically remove toner on an object; a memory; a voltage applicator to apply a voltage to the cleaning brush members based on setup voltage values stored in the memory; a current detector to detect the amounts of currents flowing through contact portions of the object with the cleaning brush members; and a setup voltage changing device to change the setup voltage values based on the amounts of currents detected by the current detector. The voltage applicator applies a first voltage for removing residual toner or a second voltage higher than the first voltage in absolute value for removing non-transferred toner to at least one of the cleaning brush members, and the setup voltage changing device performs change of the setup voltage value for the second voltage prior to change of the setup voltage value for the first voltage.
US09046859B2
A curl correction apparatus includes a supporting member. The supporting member supports a shaft of an elastic roller and a shaft of a metal roller at a first position, and supports only one of the shaft of the elastic roller and the shaft of the metal roller at a second position. When the supporting member is located at the second position, the nip between the elastic roller and the metal roller can be opened by moving the other of the elastic roller and the metal roller.
US09046858B2
A recording-material cooling device includes a first cooling member, a second cooling member, an approach-and-separation member, and a positioning member. The first cooling member is disposed at a first face side of a recording material to absorb heat of the recording material. The second cooling member is disposed at a second face side of the recording material to absorb heat of the recording material. The approach-and-separation member brings the first cooling member and the second cooling member close to and away from each other. The positioning member positions the first cooling member and the second cooling member relatively brought close to each other by the approach-and-separation member.
US09046854B2
An apparatus and method of predicting the end of life of a consumable. A basic weighted least squares algorithm has been extended and augmented to compensate for observed common consumable/printer behavior. The system uses consumable usage data (such as toner level) acquired from the device to predict the current and future consumable level and to predict the remaining life. The apparatus and method monitors the consumable's usage and updates the prediction so that when the predicted remaining life matches a preset threshold, it automatically triggers an order placement event to ship product to customer.
US09046846B2
Provided are an image forming apparatus, a method of indicating the remaining quantity of a consumable material and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program for the remaining quantity of a consumable material. The image forming apparatus includes an array of LEDs arranged on a body of the image forming apparatus such that a lighting condition of the LEDs is visible to a user at a remote place from the image forming apparatus; an image forming section; and a control section configured to operate the image forming section to perform image forming processing. The control section is further configured to operate the LEDs to turn on or blink in a first lighting pattern according to a status of an operation of the image forming apparatus, and operate the LEDs to turn on or blink in a second lighting pattern according to a remaining quantity of a consumable material.
US09046845B2
An image forming apparatus includes an internal environment setting, a setting changing unit, an operation invalidation unit, and a change prohibition unit. The setting changing unit changes an item of the internal environment setting in response to an operation input performed on an operation input unit or in response to an external input. The operation invalidation unit receives an invalidation instruction and invalidates the operation input performed on the operation input unit. The change prohibition unit prohibits the external input from changing an item of the internal environment setting that is locked at the operation input unit in response to the operation invalidation unit receiving the invalidation instruction.
US09046843B2
A fixing device includes a fixing rotary body and a pressing rotary body disposed opposite the fixing rotary body. A pivotable pressurization member contacts and presses the pressing rotary body against the fixing rotary body. A pressurization pivot is provided on the pressurization member. A depressurization member, pivotable about the pressurization pivot, causes the pressurization member to isolate the pressing rotary body from the fixing rotary body. A depressurization pivot is provided on the depressurization member. A lock is pivotable about the depressurization pivot and engageable with the pressurization pivot. A biasing member, anchored to the lock, exerts a resilient bias that allows the lock to cause the pressurization member to press the pressing rotary body against the fixing rotary body. A detent is situated in a pivotal trajectory of the lock to restrict pivot of the lock by contacting the lock.
US09046840B2
An image heating apparatus includes: first and second rotatable members configured to form a nip for heating of a toner image on a sheet; a first unit configured to rotatably hold the first rotatable member; a second unit configured to rotatably hold the second rotatable member; and a pressing mechanism configured to press the first unit toward the second unit. The pressing mechanism includes: an abutting member capable of abutting against the first unit; an arm member, including a supporting portion configured to be rotatably supported by the abutting member, capable of abutting against the abutting member; and a spring member which is fixed to the second unit at one end portion thereof and which is mounted, at another and portion thereof, to the arm member at a position closer to a free end of the arm member than the supporting portion of the arm member.
US09046838B2
A fixing device includes a fixing rotary body and a heater disposed opposite the fixing rotary body. A heat shield is movable in a circumferential direction of the fixing rotary body and interposed between the heater and the fixing rotary body to shield the fixing rotary body from the heater. An overheating suppressor is interposed between the heater and the heat shield to shield the heat shield from the heater. The heat shield includes an intermediate portion spanning in the circumferential direction of the fixing rotary body and movable between a shield position where the intermediate portion is disposed opposite the heater directly and a retracted position where the intermediate portion is disposed opposite the heater via the overheating suppressor.
US09046836B2
An image forming apparatus includes a fixing unit, a power supply switch, a timer unit, a backup memory, and a controller. The backup memory is configured to nonvolatilely store an accumulated time, the accumulated time being a total period of time during which a heater is energized for detection of disconnection of a temperature-detecting unit after the power supply switch is turned on. The controller is configured to: recognize temperature of a heated member based on an output from the temperature-detecting unit, control the energization of the heater, and start the energization of the heater when the power supply switch is turned on. The controller is configured to determine that a disconnection of the temperature-detecting unit has occurred if the temperature recognized based on the output from the temperature-detecting unit remains in a predetermined low-temperature zone when the accumulated time has become a predetermined detecting-execution time period.
US09046835B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a fixing device having a heat source, a heating member, and a backup member; a temperature detecting member; a driving source configured to rotate at least one of the heating member and the backup member; a transmitting mechanism configured to transmit a driving force of the driving source; and a control device configured to control the heat source and the driving source, wherein, after a power is turned on, the control device turns on the heat source before the driving source is driven for the first time, and wherein, when at least one of a condition, where the temperature detected by the temperature detecting member becomes a first temperature, and a condition where a predetermined period elapses after the power is turned on, is satisfied, the control device turns off the heat source and then drives the driving source.
US09046833B2
A fixing device included in an image forming apparatus includes a fixing rotary body, a heater disposed opposite the fixing rotary body, an opposed body contacting an outer circumferential surface of the fixing rotary body, a reflector disposed opposite the heater, and a heat shield disposed between the heater and the fixing rotary body and includes a shield portion to shield heat radiated from the heater to the fixing rotary body. Heat reflectance of at least a surface of the shield portion where the heat shield faces the heater is set to a value smaller than heat reflectance on a surface of the reflector opposite and facing the heater. Also, heat absorptance of at least a surface of the shield portion where the heat shield faces the heater is set to a value greater than heat absorptance on a surface of the reflector opposite and facing the heater.
US09046828B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image carrying member, a transport belt, a driving roller, a transferring member, a nip portion, and an applying portion. The transferring member makes contact with the inner circumferential surface of the transport belt to press the transport belt against the image carrying member. The nip portion is formed between the transport belt and the image carrying member by the pressure of the transferring member. The applying portion applies a bias to the transferring member. Application of the bias to the transferring member causes, at the nip portion, the toner image carried on the image carrying member to be transferred to the recording medium carried on the transport belt. Near the nip portion, a pair of support members are arranged which keeps both width-direction end parts of the transport belt in contact with the image carrying member.
US09046825B2
An image forming apparatus includes an intermediate transfer belt; a plurality of photosensitive bodies on which a toner image is formed, wherein the photosensitive bodies are disposed to contact the intermediate transfer belt so as to form respective transfer regions which are used to transfer the toner image to the intermediate transfer belt, wherein a first photosensitive body is disposed in the most upstream side in a proceeding direction of the intermediate transfer belt, and a transfer current density of the first transfer region is greater than a transfer current density of the remaining transfer regions.
US09046824B2
A developing device includes a sleeve and a magnet roller having first and second magnetic poles, the second magnetic pole being disposed downstream of the first magnetic pole. A magnetic attraction distribution on the sleeve in a region from the first magnetic pole to the second magnetic pole is such that the magnetic attraction decreases from a position of the first magnetic pole toward the downstream side, a gradient of change in the magnetic attraction decreases in a region downstream of a region in which a gradient of reduction in the magnetic attraction temporarily increases, thereby forming an attraction reduction region in which the magnetic attraction is reduced so that developer cannot be held on the sleeve, and the gradient of change in the magnetic attraction increases in a region downstream of the attraction reduction region so that the magnetic attraction increases to a position of the second magnetic pole.
US09046823B2
A developer accommodating container for accommodating a developer, includes: a frame provided with a hole; a rotatable member penetrating the hole; and a seal member, provided on the frame by injection molding, for sealing a gap between a circumference of the hole of the frame and an outer peripheral surface of the rotatable member to prevent the developer from leaking out of the developer accommodating container. The seal member includes a projected portion which projects toward an inside of the hole and contacts the outer peripheral surface of the rotatable member.
US09046816B2
An image forming apparatus comprises: a storage medium 35 configured to arrange in a toner cartridge 30; a detection sensor 37 configured to detect the toner specific concentration of the developer in the developing apparatus 14; a control unit 100 configured to calculate a value corresponding to the drive time of the drive motor 31 to calculate an integrated count value for the toner cartridge, and output a message containing the cause of an abnormity corresponding to the count value when the toner specific concentration detected by the detection sensor shows a value indicative of the empty of the toner, wherein the count value and an empty information indicating whether or not the toner cartridge is empty are stored in the storage medium.
US09046814B2
A developing device includes a developing chamber, a developer containing chamber located on the lower side of the developing chamber, a partition wall configured to separate the developing chamber and the developer containing chamber, an opening configured to allow the developing chamber and the developer containing chamber to communicate with each other, disposed on the partition wall, a developer conveyance member configured to convey developer from the developer containing chamber to the developing chamber by causing the developer to pass through the opening, disposed on the developer containing chamber. In the developing device, a convex portion which protrudes to the developing chamber side is disposed on the partition wall.
US09046811B2
A developing device includes: a developing chamber provided with a developing agent-holding body; a first developing agent-accommodating chamber for accommodating a developing agent and arranged below the developing chamber; a first rotating member disposed in the first developing agent-accommodating chamber, elastically deformable and configured to rotate to slidably contact with an inner surface of the first developing agent-accommodating chamber; a second developing agent-accommodating chamber arranged adjacent to the developing chamber and an upper portion of the first developing agent-accommodating chamber, and to which the developing agent in the first developing agent-accommodating chamber is supplied by the first rotating member; and a second rotating member disposed in the second developing agent-accommodating chamber, elastically deformable and configured to rotate to slidably contact with an inner surface of the second developing agent-accommodating chamber and to transport the developing agent in the second developing agent-accommodating chamber toward the developing chamber.
US09046806B2
An electrode for an image forming apparatus, the electrode including: an elastically deformable spring portion that is formed in a cylindrical shape by spirally winding a wire; a ring portion that is an electrical contact portion having an annular shape and provided to one end side of the spring portion in an axial direction of the spring portion, the ring portion being formed by winding the wire around a center line, which intersects with the axial direction of the spring portion, at least twice; an inner portion that is formed by the wire forming the ring portion and is positioned at an inside of the ring portion; and an outer portion that is formed by the wire forming the ring portion and is positioned at an outside of the ring portion.
US09046800B2
Provided is the following magnetic carrier. The magnetic carrier maintains high developing performance even when the number of sheets to be output is large. Its charge-providing performance hardly reduces even when toner or an external additive is spent on the magnetic carrier. In addition, the magnetic carrier is strong in resistance against standing. The magnetic carrier includes a magnetic carrier core and a resinous coating layer formed on a surface of the magnetic carrier core, in which the resinous coating layer contains a resin composition and silica-alumina composite particles.
US09046792B2
A projection exposure tool for microlithography for imaging mask structures of an image-providing substrate onto a substrate to be structured includes a measuring apparatus configured to determine a relative position of measurement structures disposed on a surface of one of the substrates in relation to one another in at least one lateral direction with respect to the substrate surface and to thereby simultaneously measure a number of measurement structures disposed laterally offset in relation to one another.
US09046787B2
A projection exposure apparatus has a projection lens with an object plane, an image plane, an optical axis and a non-telecentric entrance pupil. The apparatus further comprises an illumination system having an intermediate field plane and a field stop. The field stop is positioned in or in close proximity to the intermediate field plane and defines an illuminated field in the object plane that does not contain the optical axis of the projection lens. The illumination system is configured such that, in the object plane, a mean of the angles formed between all principal rays emanating from the intermediate field plane on the one hand and the optical axis of the projection lens on the other hand differs from 0°.
US09046768B2
A resist overlayer film composition for lithography from which a resist overlayer film is formed. A resist overlayer film forming composition including a benzene compound having at least one amino group. A resist may be an EUV resist or an electron beam resist. The benzene compound may have at least one amino group and at least one alkyl group, one or two amino groups and one to four alkyl groups, or may be a compound of Formula (1): where R1 to R5 are independently a hydrogen atom, a C1-10 alkyl group such as methyl, ethyl or isopropyl, or an amino group.
