US09620601B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure include contact structures and methods of forming the same. An embodiment is a method of forming a semiconductor device, the method including forming a contact region over a substrate, forming a dielectric layer over the contact region and the substrate, and forming an opening through the dielectric layer to expose a portion of the contact region. The method further includes forming a metal-silicide layer on the exposed portion of the contact region and along sidewalls of the opening; and filling the opening with a conductive material to form a conductive plug in the dielectric layer, the conductive plug being electrically coupled to the contact region.
US09620600B2

A semiconductor device according to an embodiment includes a semiconductor substrate having a first surface and a second surface. The semiconductor substrate includes an element region and a termination region provided around the element region. The termination region has a first semiconductor region of a first conductivity type provided at the first surface of the semiconductor substrate and a second semiconductor region of a second conductivity type provided between the first semiconductor region and the second surface. The semiconductor device further includes a first insulating film provided on the first semiconductor region, a second insulating film provided on the first semiconductor region and having a portion interposed between the first insulating films, a first electrode provided on the first surface of the element region and electrically connected to the first semiconductor region, and a second electrode provided at the second surface of the semiconductor substrate.
US09620598B2

An electronic device can transistor having a channel layer that includes a compound semiconductor material. In an embodiment, the channel layer overlies a semiconductor layer that includes a carrier barrier region and a carrier accumulation region. The charge barrier region can help to reduce the likelihood that de-trapped carriers from the channel layer will enter the charge barrier region, and the charge accumulation region can help to repel carriers in the channel layer away from the charge barrier layer. In another embodiment, a barrier layer overlies the channel layer. Embodiments described herein may help to produce lower dynamic on-resistance, lower leakage current, another beneficial effect, or any combination thereof.
US09620597B2

A graphene optoelectronic detector is disclosed, which comprises: an insulating substrate with a graphene layer disposed thereon; a first electrode disposed on the graphene layer or between the graphene layer and the insulating substrate; and a second electrode disposed on the graphene layer or between the graphene layer and the insulating substrate, wherein there is a predetermined distance between the first electrode and the second electrode, and the first electrode and the second electrode are at different electrical potentials, wherein a high-drift carrier moving region is disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode, and a low-drift carrier moving region is disposed outside the high-drift carrier moving region. In addition, the present invention further provides a method for detecting photons and electromagnetic energy using the aforementioned graphene detector.
US09620593B2

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor layer made of a wide bandgap semiconductor and including a gate trench; a gate insulating film formed on the gate trench; and a gate electrode embedded in the gate trench to be opposed to the semiconductor layer through the gate insulating film. The semiconductor layer includes a first conductivity type source region; a second conductivity type body region; a first conductivity type drift region; a second conductivity type first breakdown voltage holding region; a source trench passing through the first conductivity type source region and the second conductivity type body region from the front surface and reaching a drain region; and a second conductivity type second breakdown voltage region selectively formed on an edge portion of the source trench where the sidewall and the bottom wall thereof intersect with each other in a parallel region of the source trench.
US09620589B2

Integrated circuits and methods for fabricating integrated circuits are provided. In an embodiment, a method includes providing a semiconductor substrate, defining a length on the semiconductor substrate corresponding to opposing vertices of a nanowire, removing a portion of the semiconductor substrate to provide a first fin structure and a second fin structure, etching a first cavity proximate to the first side, depositing a protective layer in the first cavity, removing a portion of the protective layer to expose a portion of the semiconductor substrate, and etching a second cavity at the exposed semiconductor substrate where the first and second cavities communicate. The first and second fin structures are adjacent where the length of the first fin structure corresponds to the opposing vertices and has a first side and a second side.
US09620586B2

Radiation hardened NMOS devices suitable for application in NMOS, CMOS, or BiCMOS integrated circuits, and methods for fabricating them. A device includes a p-type silicon substrate, a field oxide surrounding a moat region on the substrate tapering through a Bird's Beak region to a gate oxide within the moat region, a heavily-doped p-type guard region underlying at least a portion of the Bird's Beak region and terminating at the inner edge of the Bird's Beak region, a gate included in the moat region, and n-type source and drain regions spaced by a gap from the inner edge of the Bird's Beak and guard regions. A variation of minor alterations to the conventional moat and n-type source/drain masks. The resulting devices have improved radiation tolerance while having a high breakdown voltage and minimal impact on circuit density.
US09620578B2

An array substrate, a manufacture method of the array substrate, and a display panel are configured to achieve a combination of solar energy technology and the OLED display technology. The array substrate includes substrate, scanning lines, data lines, a thin film transistor (TFT), a common electrode and a pixel electrode. The array substrate further includes a light-emitting structure configured to provide a backlight source, a solar cell structure and a power output line. The light-emitting structure is provided between the common electrode and the pixel electrode. The solar cell structure is provided between the substrate and the common electrode. The power output line is provided in a same layer as the common electrode and is electrically connected to the solar cell structure so as to transmit electric energy generated by the solar cell structure to an external circuit.
US09620573B2

A reduction in contaminating impurities in a TFT, and a TFT which is reliable, is obtained in a semiconductor device which uses the TFT. By removing contaminating impurities residing in a film interface of the TFT using a solution containing fluorine, a reliable TFT can be obtained.
US09620571B2

An electronic device is provided with a display and a light sensor that receives light that passes through the display. The display includes features that increase the amount of light that passes through the display. The features may be translucency enhancement features that allow light to pass directly through the display onto a light sensor mounted behind the display or may include a light-guiding layer that guides light through the display onto a light sensor mounted along an edge of the display. The translucency enhancement features may be formed in a reflector layer or an electrode layer for the display. The translucency enhancement features may include microperforations in a reflector layer of the display, a light-filtering reflector layer of the display, or a reflector layer of the display that passes a portion of the light and reflects an additional portion of the light.
US09620566B2

A variable resistance memory device includes a semiconductor substrate having a vertical transistor with a shunt gate that increases an area of a gate of the vertical transistor.
US09620558B2

A solid-state image sensor includes: a pixel array that includes first pixels, each having first and second photoelectric conversion units, and second pixels, each having third and fourth photoelectric conversion units; first to fourth transfer gates via which a signal charge respectively generated in the first to fourth photoelectric conversion units is respectively transferred to first to fourth charge voltage conversion units. At least one of a gate width, a gate length and an installation position of at least one transfer gate among the first to fourth transfer gates is altered to achieve uniformity in voltage conversion efficiency at the first to fourth charge voltage conversion units.
US09620555B2

A device includes a semiconductor substrate having a front side and a backside. A photo-sensitive device is disposed at a surface of the semiconductor substrate, wherein the photo-sensitive device is configured to receive a light signal from the backside of the semiconductor substrate, and convert the light signal to an electrical signal. An amorphous-like adhesion layer is disposed on the backside of the semiconductor substrate. The amorphous-like adhesion layer includes a compound of nitrogen and a metal. A metal shielding layer is disposed on the backside of the semiconductor substrate and contacting the amorphous-like adhesion layer.
US09620553B2

A semiconductor device includes a substrate, a semiconductor layer, light-sensing devices, a transparent dielectric layer and a grid shielding layer. The semiconductor layer overlies the substrate, and has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. The semiconductor layer includes microstructures disposed on the second surface of the semiconductor layer. The light-sensing devices are disposed on the first surface of the semiconductor layer. The transparent dielectric layer is disposed on the second surface of the semiconductor layer, and covers the microstructures. The grid shielding layer extends from the first surface of the semiconductor layer toward the second surface of the semiconductor layer, and surrounds each of the light-sensing devices to separate the light-sensing devices from each other, in which a depth of the grid shielding layer is greater than two-thirds of a thickness of the semiconductor layer.
US09620552B2

A solid-state imaging device includes a photoelectric conversion unit, a transistor, and an element separation region separating the photoelectric conversion unit and the transistor. The photoelectric conversion unit and the transistor constitute a pixel. The element separation region is formed of a semiconductor region of a conductivity type opposite to that of a source region and a drain region of the transistor. A part of a gate electrode of the transistor protrudes toward the element separation region side beyond an active region of the transistor. An insulating film having a thickness substantially the same as that of a gate insulating film of the gate electrode of the transistor is formed on the element separation region continuing from a part thereof under the gate electrode of the transistor to a part thereof continuing from the part under the gate electrode of the transistor.
US09620545B2

A solid-state image pickup device includes an element isolation insulating film electrically isolating pixels on the surface of a well region; a first isolation diffusion layer electrically isolating the pixels under the element isolation insulating film; and a second isolation diffusion layer electrically isolating the pixels under the first isolation diffusion layer, wherein a charge accumulation region is disposed in the well region surrounded by the first and second isolation diffusion layers, the inner peripheral part of the first isolation diffusion layer forms a projecting region, an impurity having a conductivity type of the first isolation diffusion layer and an impurity having a conductivity type of the charge accumulation region are mixed in the projecting region, and a part of the charge accumulation region between the charge accumulation region and the second isolation diffusion layer is abutted or close to the second isolation diffusion layer under the projecting region.
US09620544B2

An image sensor device includes a substrate having a pixel array region, isolation structures in the substrate separating pixel regions from one another in the pixel array region, a photo-sensing region in each of the pixel regions, and a reflective cavity structure in the substrate within each of the pixel region. The reflective cavity structure continuously extends from a bottom of the isolation structure to a deeper central portion of each of the pixel regions, thereby forming a dish-like profile. The reflective cavity structure has a reflective index smaller than that of the substrate.
US09620539B2

There is provided a solid-state image pickup device including: a semiconductor substrate (21); a photodiode (11A, 11B) formed in the semiconductor substrate; a transistor (10) having a gate electrode (14) part or all of which is embedded in the semiconductor substrate, the transistor being configured to read a signal electric charge from the photodiode via the gate electrode; and an electric charge transfer layer (13) provided between the gate electrode and the photodiode.
US09620533B2

A display device includes red, blue, green, and white pixels, a plurality of gate lines, a plurality of data lines, and a plurality of storage electrodes lines. Each of the red, blue, green, and white pixels includes first to third thin film transistors, a first subpixel electrode connected to an output terminal of the first thin film transistor, and a second subpixel electrode connected to the output terminal of the second thin film transistor. A channel width of a third thin film transistor in each of the red and green pixels is larger than that of a third thin film transistor in each of the blue and white pixels, or a channel length of the third thin film transistor in each of the red and green pixels is longer than that of the third thin film transistor in each of the blue and white pixels.
US09620522B1

The present disclosure provides a method of manufacturing a three dimensional memory device to suppress warpage of conductive patterns. The method may include providing a multilayered structure in which different material layers are alternately stacked over a substrate, etching partially the material layers to form a multi-step structure, each step being formed of at least one pair of the material layers, forming vertical support layers, each support layer being disposed on a top face of each step, removing partially the material layers to form recesses, filling the recesses with a conductive material to form gate lines, the gate line defining an upper portion of the step, and forming vertical contact plugs respectively on the upper portion of the step.
US09620512B1

A switching field effect transistor and the memory devices can be formed employing a same set of processing steps. An alternating stack of insulating layers and sacrificial material layers is formed over a substrate. Memory stack structures for memory devices and gate dielectric-channel structures for the field effect transistor can be simultaneously formed in a memory region and in a transistor region, respectively. After replacement of the sacrificial material layers with electrically conductive layers, portions of the electrically conductive layers in a memory region are electrically isolated from one another to provide independently controlled control gate electrodes for the memory devices, while portions of the electrically conductive layers in the transistor region are electrically shorted among one another to provide a single gate electrode for the switching field effect transistor.
US09620504B2

A semiconductor device includes merged contact plugs. A multi-fin active having N sub-fins is formed in a substrate. A contact plug is formed on the impurity areas. N is an integer between about eight (8) and about one thousand (1000). The N sub-fins include a first sub-fin formed in the outermost portion of the multi-fin active and a second sub-fin formed near the first sub-fin. A straight line perpendicular to a surface of the substrate and passes through a virtual bottom edge of the contact plug is disposed between the first sub-fin and the second sub-fin, or through the second sub-fin. The virtual bottom edge of the contact plug is defined at a cross point of a correlation line extending on a side surface of the contact plug and a horizontal line in contact with a lowermost end of the contact plug and parallel to the surface of the substrate.
US09620501B1

An enhancement-depletion circuit element includes a depletion-mode load transistor and an enhancement-mode drive transistor formed from the common elements of: a first patterned conductive layer including a load gate electrode and a drive gate electrode; a patterned inorganic dielectric stack including a load gate dielectric and a drive gate dielectric; a patterned inorganic semiconductor layer including a load semiconductor region and a drive semiconductor region; a second patterned conductive layer including a load source, a load drain, a drive source and a drive drain; and a patterned differential passivation structure having a patterned polymer dielectric layer and a patterned conformal inorganic dielectric layer. The depletion-mode load transistor has a load back-channel in contact with the patterned conformal inorganic dielectric layer. The enhancement-mode drive transistor has a drive back-channel in contact with the patterned polymer dielectric layer.
US09620500B2

A series-connected transistor structure includes a first source, a first channel-drain structure, a second channel-drain structure, a gate dielectric layer, a gate, a first drain pad and a second drain pad. The first source is over a substrate. The first channel-drain structure is over the first source and includes a first channel and a first drain thereover. The second channel-drain structure is over the first source and substantially parallel to the first channel-drain structure and includes a second channel and a second drain thereover. The gate dielectric layer surrounds the first channel and the second channel. The gate surrounds the gate dielectric layer. The first drain pad is over and in contact with the first drain. The second drain pad is over and in contact with the second drain, in which the first drain pad and the second drain pad are separated from each other.
US09620499B2

A semiconductor device for restraining snapback is provided. The semiconductor device includes IGBT and diode regions. In a view of n-type impurity concentration distribution along a direction from a front surface to a rear surface, a local minimum value of an n-type impurity concentration is located at a border between cathode and buffer regions. A local maximum value of n-type impurity concentration is located in the buffer region. At least one of the buffer and cathode regions includes a crystal defect region having crystal defects in a higher concentration than a region therearound. A peak of a crystal defect concentration in a view of crystal defect concentration distribution along the direction from the front surface to the rear surface is located in a region on the rear surface side with respect to a specific position having the n-type impurity concentration which is a half of the local maximum value.
US09620496B2

Protection circuits, device structures and related fabrication methods are provided. An exemplary protection circuit includes a first protection arrangement and a second protection arrangement. The first protection arrangement includes a first transistor having a first collector, a first emitter, and a first base coupled to the first emitter at a first node, and a second transistor having a second collector, a second emitter, and a second base coupled to the second emitter at a second node, the second collector being coupled to the first collector at a third node. The second protection arrangement is coupled electrically in series between the second node and a fourth node. The protection circuit further includes a first diode coupled between the third node and the fourth node.
US09620494B2

Provided are a hybrid substrate, a semiconductor package including the same, and a method for fabricating the semiconductor package. The hybrid substrate may include an insulation layer, and an organic layer. The insulation layer may include a top, a bottom opposite to the top, and a conductive pattern having different pitches. The organic layer may be connected to the bottom of the insulation layer, and may include a circuit pattern connected to the conductive pattern. The conductive pattern may include a first metal pattern, and a second conductive pattern. The first metal pattern may have a first pitch, and may be disposed in the top of the insulation layer. The second conductive pattern may have a second pitch greater than the first pitch, and may be extended from the first metal pattern to be connected to the circuit pattern through the insulation layer.
US09620491B2

An organic light emitting diode (OLED) display includes: a substrate including a plurality of organic light emitting elements; an adhesive member on at least a portion of an upper surface of the substrate; a flexible circuit board adhered to the upper surface of the adhesive member and having a portion bent to be mounted to a lower surface of the substrate; and a light blocking member at the upper surface of the substrate, wherein the light blocking member is laterally offset from the adhesive member.
US09620489B2

Techniques, systems, and devices are disclosed to provide multilayer platforms for integrating semiconductor integrated circuit dies, optical waveguides and photonic devices to provide intra-die or inter-die optical connectivity. For example, an integrated semiconductor device having integrated circuits respectively formed on different semiconductor integrated circuit dies is provided to include a carrier substrate structured to form openings on a top side of the carrier substrate; semiconductor integrated circuit dies fixed to bottom surfaces of the openings of the carrier substrate, each semiconductor integrated circuit die including a semiconductor substrate and an integrated circuit formed on the semiconductor substrate to include one or more circuit components, and each semiconductor integrated circuit die being structured to have a top surface substantially coplanar with the top side of the carrier substrate; and planar layers formed on top of the top surfaces of the semiconductor integrated circuit dies and the top side of the carrier substrate to include optical waveguides and photonic devices to provide (1) intra-die optical connectivity for photonic devices associated with a semiconductor integrated circuit die, or (2) inter-die optical connectivity for photonic devices associated with different semiconductor integrated circuit dies.
US09620488B2

Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3DIC) structures are disclosed. A 3DIC structure includes a first chip, a second chip and at least one through substrate via (TSV). The first chip is electrically connected to the second chip with a first bonding pad of the first chip and a second bonding pad of the second chip. The TSV extends from a first backside of the first chip to a metallization element of the first chip. At least one conductive via is electrically connected between the TSV and the first bonding pad, and at least one elongated slot or closed space is within the at least one conductive via.
US09620486B2

A light-emitting diode module for emitting white light includes a first light emitting diode chip for generating radiation in the blue spectral range having a first peak wavelength, a second light emitting diode chip for generating radiation in the blue spectral range having a second peak wavelength, a third light emitting diode chip for generating radiation in the red spectral range having a third peak wavelength, a first and a second phosphors disposed downstream of the first and the second light emitting diode chips, respectively. The first light emitting diode chip with the first phosphor generates a first mixed radiation and the second light emitting diode chip with the second phosphor generates a second mixed radiation. The first phosphor exhibits a first absorption maximum at a wavelength greater than the first peak wavelength. The second phosphor exhibits a second absorption maximum at a wavelength less than the second peak wavelength.
US09620479B1

A first semiconductor structure including a first bonding oxide layer having a metal resistor structure embedded therein and a second semiconductor structure including a second bonding oxide layer having a metallic bonding structure embedded therein are provided. A nitride surface treatment process is performed to provide a nitrided surface layer to each structure. Each nitrided surface layer includes nitridized oxide regions located in an upper portion of the bonding oxide layer and nitridized metallic regions located in an upper portion of either the metal resistor structure or the metallic bonding structure. The nitrogen within the nitridized metallic region located in the upper portion of the metallic bonding structure is then selectively removed to restore the upper portion of the metallic bonding structure to its original composition. Bonding is then performed to form a dielectric bonding interface and a metallic bonding interface between.
US09620477B2

Disclosed is a wire bonder comprising: a processor; a bond head coupled to the processor, the processor being configured to control motion of the bond head; a bonding tool mounted to the bond head, the bonding tool being drivable by the bond head to form an electrical interconnection between a semiconductor die and a substrate to which the semiconductor die is mounted using a bonding wire; and a measuring device coupled to the bond head, the measuring device being operable to measure a deformation of a bonding portion of the bonding wire as the bonding tool is driven by the bond head to connect the bonding wire to the semiconductor die via the bonding portion. Specifically, the processor is configured to derive at least one correlation between the measured deformation of the bonding portion and an operating parameter of the wire bonder; compare the at least one derived correlation against a predetermined correlation between the operating parameter of the wire bonder and a desired deformation of the bonding portion; and calibrate the operating parameter of the wire bonder based on the comparison between the at least one derived correlation and the predetermined correlation of the deformation of the bonding portion against the operating parameter of the wire bonder. A method of calibrating a wire bonder is also disclosed.
US09620453B2

A method includes providing a semiconductor structure including a recess. The recess includes at least one of a contact via and a trench. A layer of a first metal is deposited over the semiconductor structure. An electroless deposition process is performed. The electroless deposition process removes a first portion of the layer of first metal from the semiconductor structure and deposits a first layer of a second metal over the semiconductor structure. An electroplating process is performed. The electroplating process deposits a second layer of the second metal over the first layer of second metal. A second portion of the layer of first metal remains in the semiconductor structure.
US09620448B1

A power module is disclosed. The power module includes a magnetic assembly, a switching device, a first upper conductive element and a first sidewall conductive element. The magnetic assembly has a first magnetic core, a second magnetic core and a receiving space. The first magnetic core has a first top surface, a first bottom surface and at least one first sidewall through-hole. The second magnetic core is coupled with the first magnetic core. The receiving space is formed between the first magnetic core and the second magnetic core. The switching device is disposed on the first top surface and accommodated in the receiving space. The first upper conductive element is disposed on the first top surface of the first magnetic core and electrically connected to the switch component. The first sidewall conductive element is disposed in the first sidewall through-hole and electrically connected to the first upper conductive element.
US09620444B2

According to a power semiconductor device of the present invention, it comprises a plurality of lead frames formed into like a wiring pattern, a power semiconductor element joined onto the lead frame, and a capacitor placed between mutually adjacent two lead frames, and is encapsulated with a mold resin. The capacitor is characterized in that external electrodes of that capacitor are connected to the lead frames each through a stress-relaxation structure portion that is lower in rigidity than the capacitor.
US09620440B1

A multichip package includes a first semiconductor device mounted on a first leadframe, in which a primary heat producing surface of the first semiconductor device is oriented towards and in contact with a heat dispersing region of the first leadframe. A second semiconductor device is mounted on a second leadframe, in which a primary heat producing surface of the second semiconductor device is oriented towards and in contact with a heat dispersing region of the second leadframe. A surface of the heat dispersing region of the first leadframe is exposed on a first side of the multichip package, and a surface of the heat dispersing region of the second leadframe is exposed on a second side of the multichip package that is opposite from the first side.
US09620437B2

A microelectronic assembly is provided which includes a first element consisting essentially of at least one of semiconductor or inorganic dielectric material having a surface facing and attached to a major surface of a microelectronic element at which a plurality of conductive pads are exposed, the microelectronic element having active semiconductor devices therein. A first opening extends from an exposed surface of the first element towards the surface attached to the microelectronic element, and a second opening extends from the first opening to a first one of the conductive pads, wherein where the first and second openings meet, interior surfaces of the first and second openings extend at different angles relative to the major surface of the microelectronic element. A conductive element extends within the first and second openings and contacts the at least one conductive pad.
US09620432B2

A semiconductor device includes a first dielectric layer formed on a second dielectric layer and planar contacts formed in the second dielectric layer. The planar contacts are spaced apart to form a gap therebetween. The first dielectric layer includes a thermally conductive dielectric layer and is formed on lateral sides of the planar contacts and in the gap. A resistive element is formed between the planar contacts over the gap and in contact with at least the thermally conductive dielectric layer in the gap.
US09620429B2

The present invention is a semiconductor apparatus including a semiconductor device, an on-semiconductor-device metal pad and a metal interconnect each electrically connected to the semiconductor device, a through electrode and a solder bump each electrically connected to the metal interconnect, a first photosensitive insulating layer formed on the semiconductor device, and a second photosensitive insulating layer formed on the first photosensitive insulating layer, in which the first and second photosensitive insulating layers are composed of a photo-curable resin composition containing a silicone polymer compound having an epoxy group-containing repeating unit shown by formula (1) and a phenolic hydroxyl group-containing repeating unit shown by formula (2), a photosensitive acid generator, a solvent, and crosslinking agents. There can be provided a semiconductor apparatus that can be easily placed on a circuit board and stacked by forming a fine electrode on the semiconductor device and providing a through electrode outside the semiconductor device.
US09620419B2

A process of forming an integrated circuit containing elongated contacts which connect to three active areas and/or MOS gates, and elongated contacts which connect to two active areas and/or MOS gates and directly connect to a first level interconnect, using a litho-freeze-litho-etch process for a contact etch mask. A process of forming an integrated circuit containing elongated contacts which connect to three active areas and/or MOS gates, and elongated contacts which connect to two active areas and/or MOS gates and directly connect to a first level interconnect, using a litho-freeze-litho-etch process for a first level interconnect trench etch mask. A process of forming the integrated circuit using a litho-freeze-litho-etch process for a contact etch mask and a litho-freeze-litho-etch process for a first level interconnect trench etch mask.
US09620413B2

A semiconductor device has a carrier with a fixed size. A plurality of first semiconductor die is singulated from a first semiconductor wafer. The first semiconductor die are disposed over the carrier. The number of first semiconductor die on the carrier is independent from the size and number of first semiconductor die singulated from the first semiconductor wafer. An encapsulant is deposited over and around the first semiconductor die and carrier to form a reconstituted panel. An interconnect structure is formed over the reconstituted panel while leaving the encapsulant devoid of the interconnect structure. The reconstituted panel is singulated through the encapsulant. The first semiconductor die are removed from the carrier. A second semiconductor die with a size different from the size of the first semiconductor die is disposed over the carrier. The fixed size of the carrier is independent of a size of the second semiconductor die.
US09620406B2

A method for fabricating a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes forming a first fin-shaped pattern including an upper part and a lower part on a substrate, forming a second fin-shaped pattern by removing a part of the upper part of the first fin-shaped pattern, forming a dummy gate electrode intersecting with the second fin-shaped pattern on the second fin-shaped pattern, and forming a third fin-shaped pattern by removing a part of an upper part of the second fin-shaped pattern after forming the dummy gate electrode, wherein a width of the upper part of the second fin-shaped pattern is smaller than a width of the upper part of the first fin-shaped pattern and is greater than a width of an upper portion of the third fin-shaped pattern.
US09620400B2

Some aspects of the present disclosure relate to a system having a substrate device, a substrate support surface, and a substrate handler that positions the substrate device on the substrate support surface. The substrate device and the substrate support surface may have counterpart coarse position units and fine position units. The system may measure coarse positional offsets between the first and second coarse position units, re-position the substrate device on the substrate support surface based on the coarse positional offsets, and subsequently measure fine positional offsets between the first and second fine position units. In some implementations, the substrate device is integrally coupled to the substrate handler via a wireless communication link in order to communicate position information as feedback for further placement.
US09620397B2

A highly efficient Automated Material Handling System (AMHS) that allows an overhead hoist transport vehicle to load and unload Work-In-Process (WIP) parts directly to/from one or more WIP storage units included in the system. The AMHS includes an overhead hoist transport subsystem and at least one vertical carousel stocker having a plurality of storage bins. The overhead hoist transport subsystem includes an overhead hoist transport vehicle traveling along a suspended track defining a predetermined route, which runs adjacent to the carousel stocker, thereby allowing the overhead hoist transport vehicle to access a WIP part directly from one of the storage bins. At least one of the storage bins includes a movable shelf operative to move laterally from a first position along the carousel path to a second position near the overhead hoist transport vehicle.
US09620391B2

The invention relates to an electronic component including a leadframe, composed of a platform, and possibly at least one electrical connecting piece, wherein at least one electronic member is located on the platform, and including a housing that encloses the electronic member and the platform, wherein at least one support region is provided to support the platform during the fabrication process for the housing, and wherein at least a section of the at least one support region projects from the housing.
US09620389B2

A tape film package is provided including an insulating pattern; a via contact in a via hole in the insulating pattern; first interconnection patterns extending from the via contact to a cutting surface of the insulating pattern; and second interconnection patterns connected to the via contact below the insulating pattern. The second interconnection patterns are parallel to the first interconnection patterns and spaced apart from the cutting surface of the insulating pattern.
US09620382B2

Plasma-based atomic layer etching of materials may be of benefit to various semiconductor manufacturing and related technologies. For example, plasma-based atomic layer etching of materials may be beneficial for adding and/or removing angstrom thick layers from a surface in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and related technologies that increasingly demand atomistic surface engineering. A method may include depositing a controlled amount of a chemical precursor on an unmodified surface layer of a substrate to create a chemical precursor layer and a modified surface layer. The method may also include selectively removing a portion of the chemical precursor layer, a portion of the modified surface layer and a controlled portion of the substrate. Further, the controlled portion may be removed to a depth ranging from about 1/10 of an angstrom to about 1 nm. Additionally, the deposition and selective removal may be performed under a plasma environment.
US09620380B1

A method for fabricating an integrated circuit includes providing an semiconductor wafer includes forming in an upper mandrel layer a first upper mandrel having a first critical dimension and a second upper mandrel having a second critical dimension; forming upper sidewall spacers along sidewalls of the first upper mandrel while leaving the second upper mandrel without sidewall spacers; removing the first upper mandrel from between the upper sidewall spacers; transferring a pattern of the upper sidewall spacers and of the second upper mandrel into a lower mandrel layer to form first lower mandrels according to the pattern of the upper sidewall spacers and a second lower mandrel according to the pattern of the second upper mandrel; and forming lower sidewall spacers along sidewalls of the first and second lower mandrels.
US09620376B2

Methods of and apparatuses for laterally etching semiconductor substrates using an atomic layer etch process involving exposing an oxidized surface of a semiconductor substrate to a fluorine-containing etch gas and heating the substrate to remove non-volatile etch byproducts by a sublimation mechanism are provided herein. Methods also including additionally pulsing a hydrogen-containing gas when pulsing the fluorine-containing etch gas. Apparatuses also include an ammonia mixing manifold suitable for separately preparing and mixing ammonia for use in various tools.
US09620375B2

A production methods includes providing a substrate including a lattice plane that extends in a non-symmetrical manner and such that it is offset at an angle α from at least a first or second main surface region of the substrate, the first and second main surface regions extending parallel to each other; anisotropic etching, starting from the first main surface region, into the substrate so as to obtain an etching structure which includes, in a plane extending perpendicularly to the first main surface region, two different etching angles relative to the first main surface region; arranging a cover layer on the first main surface region, so that the cover layer lies against the etching structure in at least some sections; and removing, section-by-section, the material of the substrate starting from the second main surface region in the area of the deformed cover layer, so that the cover layer is exposed in at least one window region.
US09620373B1

Methods for fabricating semiconductor or micromachined devices with metal structures and methods for forming self-aligned deep cavity metal structures are provided. A method for fabricating a device with a metal structure includes patterning a mask with an opening perimeter bounding an opening over a substrate. The method includes performing an isotropic etch to etch a shallow portion of the substrate exposed by the opening and a shallow portion of the substrate underlying the opening perimeter of the mask. The method also includes performing an anisotropic etch to etch a deep portion of the substrate exposed by the mask opening and a deep portion of the substrate underlying the opening perimeter of the mask to form a cavity having a bottom surface. Further, the method includes depositing metal over the mask, into the mask opening and onto the bottom surface, wherein the metal on the bottom surface forms the metal structure.
US09620370B2

A method of forming a Ti film on a substrate disposed in a chamber by introducing a processing gas containing a TiCl4 gas as a Ti source and a H2 gas as a reducing gas and by generating plasma in the chamber, includes introducing an Ar gas as a plasma generation gas into the chamber, converting the Ar gas into plasma to generate Ar ions, and acting the Ar ions on the Ti film to promote desorption of Cl from the Ti film.
US09620368B2

A method for fabricating semiconductor device is disclosed. A substrate having a first gate layer and a first dielectric layer thereon is provided. A shallow trench isolation (STI) is formed in the substrate and surrounds the first gate layer and the first dielectric layer. The first dielectric layer is removed. A first spacer is formed on the sidewall of the STI above the first gate layer. Using the first spacer as mask, part of the first gate layer and part of the substrate are removed for forming a first opening while defining a first gate structure and a second gate structure.
US09620366B2

According to one embodiment, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes forming a mask layer on a layer to be etched. The mask layer contains at least one type of a metal, boron, and carbon. The metal is selected from a group including tungsten, tantalum, zirconium, hafnium, molybdenum, niobium, ruthenium, osmium, rhenium and iridium. A composition ratio of the metal is higher than a composition ratio of the boron and a composition ratio of the carbon. The method includes making a hole or a slit in the layer to be etched by performing a dry etching to the layer to be etched using the mask layer being patterned.
US09620353B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device including attaching, by a liquid treatment, a first liquid to a surface of a semiconductor substrate having a fine pattern formed therein; substituting the first liquid attached to the surface of the semiconductor substrate with a solution, the solution comprising a sublimate dissolved in a second liquid; vaporizing the second liquid and precipitating the sublimate to the surface of the semiconductor substrate to form a solid precipitate comprising the sublimate; and removing the precipitate by sublimation. For example, the sublimate may be a material having at least two carboxyl groups bonded to cyclohexane or a material formed of two carboxyl groups bonded to benzene with the bonding sites of the two carboxyl groups being adjacent to one another.
US09620350B2

A method of reflecting ions in a multireflection time of flight mass spectrometer is disclosed. The method includes guiding ions toward an ion mirror having multiple electrodes, and applying a voltage to the ion mirror electrodes to create an electric field that causes the mean trajectory of the ions to intersect a plane of symmetry of the ion mirror and to exit the ion mirror, wherein the ion are spatially focussed by the mirror to a first location and temporally focused to a second location different from the first location. Apparatus for carrying out the method is also disclosed.
US09620347B2

The present invention relates to an ion guide device and an ion guiding method. The ion guide device comprises: a plurality of electrode sets distributed along a central axis longitudinally, wherein each electrode set has a ring shape and consists of at least 2 segmented electrodes (for example, 1, 2 and 3, 4 for 2 sets respectively); the power supply system which provides radio-frequency with different phases applied to the adjacent electrode sets (for example, between 1,3 and 2,4) along the central axis, and provides DC Voltages on each segmented electrode (1,2,3,4), wherein, distribution of DC potential drives ions to move in the radial direction while driving said ions to move along the central axis. The ion guide can be used to guide and focus ions under relatively high gas pressure; especially it can be used for off-axis transmission of ions with the purpose to reduce the neutral noise.
US09620346B2

A mass spectrometer is disclosed comprising an ion guide. The ion guide comprises a hollow tubular conductor having a wall. One or more electrodes are provided in the wall of the tubular conductor. An exit aperture is provided in the wall of the tubular conductor downstream of the one or more electrodes. An AC or RF voltage is applied to the one or more electrodes and a DC potential difference is maintained between the wall of the tubular conductor and the one or more electrodes. The combination of a DC voltage gradient and applying an AC or RF voltage to the electrodes is that ions are confined radially to a region which is preferably close to the one or more electrodes. Ions are preferably extracted from the ion guide via the exit aperture.
US09620341B2

A system for inspecting a sample including a detector, either a photomultiplier tube or an electron-bombarded image sensor, that is positioned to receive light from the sample. The detector includes a semiconductor photocathode and a photodiode. Notably, the photodiode includes a p-doped semiconductor layer, an n-doped semiconductor layer formed on a first surface of the p-doped semiconductor layer to form a diode, and a pure boron layer formed on a second surface of the p-doped semiconductor layer. The semiconductor photocathode includes silicon, and further includes a pure boron coating on at least one surface.
US09620338B2

A system, a method, and a program for predicting a processing shape formed by a plasma process, including databases for apparatus condition, incident ion, incident radical, actual measurement, material property and surface reaction, as well as a trajectory calculation unit, and a surface shape calculation unit. The trajectory calculation unit calculates the trajectories of the respective ions incident on the surface of the substrate based on information and data obtained from the databases and from measurement data from an on-wafer monitoring sensor. Based on the calculation result by the trajectory calculation unit, the surface shape calculation unit calculates the change of the shape by referring to the data stored in the material property and surface reaction DB.
US09620333B2

A charged particle beam apparatus automatically prepares a sample piece from a sample and includes a charged particle beam irradiation optical system that irradiates a charged particle beam to a sample placed on a movable sample stage. A sample piece transferring unit holds and transfers a sample piece separated and extracted from the sample, and a holder support holds a sample piece holder to which the sample piece is transferred. A computer controls a position of an object based on a template prepared from an image of the object acquired by irradition with the charged particle beam and position information acquired from the image of the object. The sample piece transferring unit includes a needle that transfers the sample piece separated and extrated from the sample, and a needle actuting mechanism that actuates the needle. The computer controls the needle actuating mechanism so as to approach the needle to the sample piece using the template formed from an absorbed current image acquired by irradiating the needle with the charged particle beam.
US09620331B1

The system described herein relates to analyzing an object using a charged particle beam device generating a beam of charged particles and to the charged particle beam device for analyzing the object. A part of an image of the object corresponding to a volume unit surface of a volume unit is segmented into an area having a first color level and a second color level as well corresponding area fractions are determined. A plurality of particles with color levels are identified by comparing the color levels with the information stored in a database. By comparing the color levels, it is possible to identify the potential particles, for example minerals, which may be included in the volume unit.
US09620324B2

A sealed cold cathode X-ray tube for use in small X-ray source devices is provided. In one embodiment, a sealed cold cathode X-ray tube includes an elongate member, a cathode emitter, and an anode.
US09620319B2

An exemplary coil actuator for an associated switching device which can be actuated during its operation from an open position to a closed position to allow a current to flow therethrough and from the closed position to the open position to interrupt such flowing from flowing therethrough. The coil actuator includes a coil electromagnet arranged to move between a rest position and an actuating position, wherein movement from the rest position to the actuating position is suitable to cause the actuation of the switching device; and an electronic component arranged to count an operation time which is indicative of the duration of the actuation of the switching device.
US09620312B2

Embodiments are directed to a watch having a rotatable and translatable input member. In one aspect, the watch includes a housing defining a watch body. The watch may include a crown positioned within an aperture of the housing and a shaft coupled with the crown at a first end of the shaft. To measure input at the crown, the watch may include a tactile dome positioned at a second end of the shaft that is configured to detect translation of the crown and a sensing element positioned within the housing that is configured to detect rotation of the crown.
US09620310B2

An accessory device for a circuit breaker. The device includes a housing having a top wall and a hinge portion. The device also includes a plunger arm that extends from the hinge portion to form a cantilever wherein the plunger arm includes a first surface and a sloped surface. The plunger arm is moveable between an initial position wherein the plunger arm does not activate the first and second switches located in the housing and a deflected position wherein the first and sloped surfaces simultaneously contact the first and second switches, respectively, thereby activating the first and second switches. The plunger arm also includes a plunger portion that is oriented transverse to the plunger arm. A mating surface is formed on the plunger portion that mates with a mating surface of a circuit breaker operating mechanism. Further, the housing, hinge portion, plunger arm, and plunger portion are integrally formed.
US09620306B2

A magnetic keyboard includes a base, a switch circuit board and plural keys. Each key includes a keycap, plural first magnetic elements and plural second magnetic elements. The switch circuit board is disposed on the base. The plural keys are connected with the base. The plural first magnetic elements of each key are fixed on an inner surface of the keycap. The plural second magnetic elements are disposed within the base. The first magnetic elements are partially inserted into the corresponding second magnetic elements. Consequently, the keys are connected with the base, and the function of returning the keycaps to their original positions are achievable.
US09620302B2

A storage module for a hydraulic stored-energy spring mechanism for operating a high-voltage switch, for example a high-voltage circuit breaker, having a spring element which acts to store energy and having a fluid for transmitting the energy of the spring element, by a moving storage piston, to a piston rod for operating the high-voltage switch, wherein the storage piston projects into the housing which is filled with fluid and the housing forms a pressurized storage reservoir for the fluid. The pressurized storage reservoir is connected to a hydraulic system of the stored-energy spring mechanism by at least one channel element which projects into the pressurized storage reservoir and a pressurized channel which is connected to the channel element. The storage piston closes a subregion of the channel element starting from a specific piston stroke “s”.
US09620300B2

An electrochemical device comprises an element body 10 in which a pair of a first inner electrode and a second inner electrode are laminated to sandwich a separator layer; an exterior sheet 4 covering the element body; a first lead terminal 18 drawn to an outside of the exterior sheet 4; and a second lead terminal 28 drawn to the outside of the exterior sheet 4. A proof stress of the exterior sheet is 390 to 980 N/mm2 in JIS Z2241, and a hardness of the exterior sheet is 230 to 380 Hv in Vickers hardness (JIS Z2244).
US09620298B2

A method of fabricating electrodes having protruding nanofeatures includes growing metal oxide nanofeatures on a metal or metal alloy wire using a heat treatment in an oxidizing environment. An electrically conducting material is deposited on the nanofeatures to form coated nanofeatures. An electrochemically active material (active material) is deposited to form a coating onto the coated nanofeatures to form at least one nanofeatured electrode. An energy storage coaxial cable (ESCC) can be formed from a first nanofeatured electrode and a second nanofeatured electrode, wherein the first nanofeatured electrode is configured as a linear electrode and the second nanofeatured electrode is configured as a tubular electrode, and the ESCC includes an ion porous separator and an electrolyte between the first nanofeatured electrode as an inner electrode and the second nanofeatured electrode as an outer electrode.
US09620297B2

An electrode material for electricity storage devices includes: an active material including at least one of quinone having a halogen group and hydroquinone having a halogen group; and a porous body supporting the active material.
US09620292B2

A direct-current capacitor module is disclosed in this disclosure. The direct-current capacitor module includes a plurality of direct-current capacitors and a laminated busbar structure. The direct-current capacitors are grouped into a first portion and a second portion. The laminated busbar structure is electrically connected to capacitor binding posts of the direct-current capacitors. The laminated busbar structure has a positive terminal and a negative terminal. The laminated busbar structure includes a first busbar layer, a second busbar layer and an insulation layer. The first busbar layer includes a first sub-busbar layer, which is electrically connected between at least two direct-current capacitors of the first portion. The second busbar layer includes a second sub-busbar layer, which is electrically connected between at least two direct-current capacitors of the second portion. The insulation layer is disposed between the first busbar layer and the second busbar layer.
US09620290B2

A monolithic ceramic electronic component having outer electrodes that include an inorganic substance containing at least Si, a crystal phase C containing at least Si, Ti, and Ba at the interfaces to a ceramic layer in peripheral end portions of the outer electrodes. A value of the crystal phase area ratio indicating the relationship between the area of the crystal phase C and the area of a glass phase G, which are formed at the interface to the ceramic layer, in a region within 5 μm from the peripheral end portion of the outer electrode is within a range of 75% to 98%.
US09620285B2

A capacitor including: a first conductive plate; a second conductive pate arranged parallel to the first conductive plate to define a spacing between a surface of the first conductive plate and an opposing surface of the second conductive plate; a dielectric material disposed in the plate; and a capacitor lead connected to one of the first and second conductive plates at a connection region; wherein a thickness of the space is varied in the connection region.
US09620283B2

A system for transmitting data signals from a sensor on a vehicle through magnetic resonance coupling (MRC). The system includes a control circuit having a base coil, a variable current source, a variable capacitor and a control load, where the variable current source and the capacitor are tuned to provide a predetermined AC current to the base coil so as to generate an oscillating magnetic field at a predetermined frequency. The system also includes a receiver circuit associated with the sensor, where the receiver circuit includes a receiver coil, a tuning capacitor and a variable resistive load. The receiver coil is tuned and magnetically coupled to the base coil at the predetermined frequency. A change in the variable resistive load in the receiver circuit in response to a sensor measurement causes a change in the voltage across the control load that gives an indication of the sensor measurement.
US09620282B2

A power transfer system is provided with a transmission coil and a reception coil respectively provided along a first surface and a second surface that face each other proximal to each other. The transmission coil and reception coil are provided proximally to be electromagnetically coupled to each other. The winding wire of the transmission coil is wound on the first surface, and the winding wire of the reception coil is wound on the second surface. The power transfer system is provided with a magnetic body provided proximately so as to be electromagnetically coupled to the transmission coil and the reception coil to cover at least one part of a region in which at least the winding wires of the transmission coil and reception coil are present between the first surface and the second surface.
US09620278B2

A device includes a printed circuit board (PCB). The device may also include a high voltage coil disposed on the PCB and a low voltage coil disposed on the PCB. Further, a conductive shield forms a three-dimensional enclosure around the high voltage coil and confines an electric field generated by the device to the PCB.
US09620277B2

Core bodies which have an alignment structure and allow an alignment during the production of magnetic cores irrespective of production tolerances, in which the production tolerances are compensated. In illustrative embodiments a core body of ferromagnetic material comprises a crossbar having an aspect ratio of length to width greater than 1, and at least one core leg extending laterally away from the crossbar along an extension direction. An alignment recess is formed in a rear surface of the crossbar, which is arranged on a side of the crossbar opposite the core legs. A magnetic core is formed of core bodies, whereby at least one core body is provided with an alignment recess, and the core bodies are aligned relative to one another.
US09620262B1

A transmission line cable that utilizes a plurality of substantially flat insulated conductors, each consisting of two or more solid metallic strands laid side by side in a parallel configuration within an extruded insulator. The plurality of insulated conductors are stacked into groups of two or more and may be utilized as signal conductors or shield conductors. Once the insulated conductors are stacked, the stack is twisted together, and either wrapped in a conductive insulator, placed in an extruded non-conductive insulator, or both, creating a cable that is stable, flexible, and has improved transmission characteristics, including reduced attenuation, noise and signal skew.
US09620257B2

Polymer compositions which are antistatic or have been made conductive and the production thereof.
US09620254B2

A reactor in-core instrument handling system in which the signal leads are routed from the instrument sensors through an outer sheath through the upper reactor internals and out of and around the sheath in a substantially tightly wound spiral before exiting the reactor vessel.
US09620239B2

A method for operating a memory is provided. The memory has an array of memory cells arranged in a plurality of rows and columns. Each row includes a label storage unit. The method includes receiving a first to-be-programmed data set to be stored into a target row and determining whether a condition is satisfied. When the condition is satisfied, performing a first operation on the first to-be-programmed data set to obtain a second to-be-programmed data set, programming the second to-be-programmed data set into the target row of memory cells, and setting the value of the label storage, unit to be a first labeling value. When the condition is not satisfied, performing a second operation on the first to-be-programmed data set to program the first to-be-programmed data set into the target row of memory cells, and setting the value of the label storage unit to be a second labeling value.
US09620236B2

Some embodiments include apparatuses and methods having a compensation unit to provide a compensation value based at least in part on a threshold voltage value of a memory cell. At least one of such embodiments includes a controller to select a code during an operation of retrieving information from the memory cell to represent a value of information stored in the memory cell. Such a code can be associated with an address having an address value based at least in part on the compensation value. Additional apparatuses and methods are described.
US09620234B2

Methods for reading data that was functionally stored include reading a pattern of threshold voltages from a particular group of memory cells, determining which pattern, of a plurality of patterns, matches the read pattern, and determining a group of decoded data associated with the pattern determined to match the read pattern.
US09620233B1

Techniques are disclosed for accurately sensing memory cells without having to wait for a voltage that creeps up on word line after a sensing operation to die down. In one aspect, a read pass voltage is discharged in a manner that purges residual electrons from a memory string channel after a sensing operation. A control circuit may begin to discharge the read pass voltage from memory cell control gates at different strategic times in order to provide a path for residual electrons to leave the channel. Because residual electrons have been purged from the channel, no or very few electrons will be trapped in shallow interface traps of the memory cell if the word line voltage does creep up following sensing. Thus, the word line voltage may still creep up after the sensing operation without changing a threshold voltage of the memory cell.
US09620229B2

An integrated circuit includes a memory array, a wordline circuit, divided into at least two subcircuits, to control the memory array, and a bitline circuit, divided into at least two subcircuits, to control the memory array. The wordline subcircuits and the bitline subcircuits at least partially overlap separate respective regions of the memory array.
US09620219B2

A method of operating a nonvolatile memory device includes: first programming a target transistor of a cell string of the nonvolatile memory device, wherein the target transistor has a first threshold voltage distribution after the first programming, and wherein the cell string includes a plurality of transistors; and second programming the target transistor of the cell string, wherein the first transistor has a second threshold voltage distribution after the second programming, wherein a width of the second threshold voltage distribution is less than a width of the first threshold voltage distribution.
US09620215B2

A scheduling device according to one embodiment includes an access request accepting section and an access request selecting section. The access request accepting section is configured to accept access requests from requesters. The access request selecting section is configured to select a first access request as a reference for access request selection from among the accepted access requests, select an access request transferable in a bank interleave (BI) mode with respect to the first access request, and select an access request transferable in a continuous read/write (CN) mode in response to a determination that there is no access request transferable in the BI mode, or that the preceding access request was in the BI or the CN mode. The access request selecting section is configured to repeat the selections in response to a determination that there is no access request transferable in the BI mode and in the CN mode.
US09620201B1

A storage system and method for using hybrid blocks with sub-block erase operations are provided. In one embodiment, a storage system is provided comprising a memory comprising a block, wherein the block comprises a first sub-block and a second sub-block; and a controller in communication with the memory. The controller is configured to erase the first sub-block, wherein the second sub-block is programmed; and program the first sub-block to fewer bits per cell than the second sub-block is programmed to. Other embodiments are provided.
US09620199B2

According to one embodiment, a semiconductor storage device includes a flip-flop circuit configured with two stages of inverters composed of TFETs. The flip-flop circuit includes first and second nodes. A first access transistor composed of a TFET is provided between the first node and a first write word-line. A second access transistor composed of a TFET is provided between the second node and a second write word-line. A MOS transistor which has a gate connected to the first node and responds to a voltage impressed on a read word-line to supply a voltage corresponding to a potential at the first node to a read bit-line is included. The first and second access transistors are configured with TFETs connected in a manner that a drain current flows from the first and second nodes to a write bit-line when turned on.
US09620198B1

A semiconductor memory apparatus may precharge a plurality of word lines to first and/or second low voltages. The semiconductor memory apparatus may precharge an odd word line and an even word line to different levels, and accelerate passing GIDL occurring from a memory cell toward a word line to screen memory cells susceptible to GIDL.
US09620196B2

A reception circuit includes a control signal generation circuit that generates a first enable signal based on a strobe signal and a second enable signal based on a core clock signal and a pointer control signal. A pattern data generation circuit generates determination pattern data from the first enable signal. An asynchronous transfer circuit latches the determination pattern data based on the first enable signal and the strobe signal and outputs determination data corresponding to the latched determination pattern data based on the second enable signal and the core clock signal. A determination circuit determines a timing for generating the pointer control signal based on the determination data. A set value calculation circuit calculates a transfer set value based on the determination result of the determination circuit. The control signal generation circuit updates the pointer control signal based on the transfer set value.
US09620191B2

A memory device may include a data region, a reference region, a resistor circuit, and a sense amplifier. The data region may include a plurality of data memory cells coupled between a first bit line and a first source line. The data region may provide a data voltage corresponding to data stored in each of the data memory cells. The reference region may include a plurality of reference memory cells coupled between a reference bit line and a reference source line. The reference region may provide a reference voltage. The resistor circuit may include one or more resistors, and is coupled between the reference source line and a power source line. The sense amplifier may provide an output voltage by comparing the data voltage and the reference voltage. The power source line may be either a ground voltage or a negative voltage.
US09620190B2

A magnetic memory device can include a plurality of separately controllable magnetic memory segments configured to store data. A plurality of separately controllable source lines can each be coupled to a respective one of the plurality of separately controllable magnetic memory segments.
US09620184B1

A system and method for efficient data eye training reduces the time and resources spent calibrating one or more memory devices. A reference voltage (Vref) calibration mechanism reduces the time and resources for calibration by reducing the number of tests needed to sufficiently determine the boundaries of the data eye of the memory device by using a combination of small steps and small steps to find a preferred reference voltage. In one example, the Vref calibration mechanism uses small steps of the reference voltage in a first range above a nominal reference voltage to find a maximum eye width then uses small steps to more precisely find the maximum eye width. If a maximum reference voltage is found in the first range then the second range below the nominal reference voltage does not need to be tested thereby saving additional time and resources.
US09620172B2

Systems and methods for converting interactive multimedia content authored for distribution via a physical medium for electronic distribution are disclosed. One embodiment of the invention includes building an object model of interactive multimedia content authored for distribution via a physical medium using a content authoring system, automatically authoring a user interface based upon the object model using the content authoring system, and packing the transcoded multimedia content into at least one container.
US09620169B1

Certain embodiments provide systems and method for creating a processed video stream. A method for creating a processed video stream includes receiving project instructions and media at a computing device executing a socially interactive application. The project instructions can include a project type. The method also includes uploading the project instructions and media to a server connected to the computing device. The method includes creating a project script based on the project type at a processor of the server. The method includes encoding, at the processor, a video stream based on the project script. The method also includes sharing the video stream at the socially interactive application.
US09620166B2

The invention relates to devices, systems and methods for restoring optical discs, including CD's, DVD's and Blu-ray discs. The invention provides an easy to use device for user's to repair optical discs without having to clean or remove rotating pads in the device between uses for the life of the pads of about 84 cycles.
US09620163B1

A method comprises writing a waveform on a magnetic recording medium using a heat-assisted magnetic recording apparatus which includes a laser. The method also comprises reading back the waveform from the medium, and detecting one or more transition shifts in the readback waveform indicative of a mode hop of the laser. The method further comprises measuring a metric of the one or more transition shifts.
US09620162B1

A data storage device is disclosed comprising a disk comprising a plurality of data sectors and a plurality of servo sectors, and a head actuated over the disk, wherein the head comprises a laser configured to heat the disk while writing data to the disk. When the head is over a first data sector not being written, a first prelase bias is applied to the laser, and when the head is over a servo sector, a second, lower prelase bias is applied to the laser. When the head is over a second data sector being written, a write bias higher than the first prelase bias is applied to the laser.
US09620161B2

Provided herein is an apparatus, including a first region of a substrate corresponding to a data region in a patterned recording medium; a first set of protrusions etched out of the first region of the substrate, wherein the protrusions of the first set of protrusions are rectangle shaped; a second region of the substrate corresponding to a servo region in a patterned recording medium; and a second set of protrusions etched out of the second region of the substrate, wherein the second set of protrusions includes radial lines etched into the substrate across chevrons etched out of the substrate.
US09620160B1

A data storage device is disclosed comprising a disk, a head, a shock sensor, and an oscillator circuit responsive to the shock sensor and configured to generate an oscillating signal using positive feedback. A resonant frequency of the shock sensor is detected based on the oscillating signal. A physical shock affecting the head actuated over the disk is detected based on a response of the shock sensor to the physical shock and based on the detected resonant frequency of the shock sensor.
US09620137B2

In general, techniques are described for coding of vectors decomposed from higher-order ambisonic coefficients. A device comprising a memory and a processor may perform the techniques. The memory may be configured to store audio data. The processor may be configured to determine whether to perform vector dequantization or scalar dequantization with respect to a decomposed version of the plurality of HOA coefficients.
US09620135B2

An audio encoding device includes a processor; and a memory which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to execute: detecting a plurality of lobes based on a frequency signal constituting an audio signal; calculating a masking threshold value of the frequency signal; allocating an amount of bits per unit frequency region to be allocated for encoding of the frequency signal on a basis of the masking threshold value; selecting a main lobe on a basis of bandwidth and power of the lobes; and controlling the encoding by reducing the amount of bits in a first region including a maximum value of the power in the main lobe.
US09620134B2

A method includes determining, at a speech encoder, first gain shape parameters based on a harmonically extended signal and/or based on a high-band residual signal associated with a high-band portion of an audio signal. The method also includes determining second gain shape parameters based on a synthesized high-band signal and based on the high-band portion of the audio signal. The method further includes inserting the first gain parameters and the second gain shape parameters into an encoded version of the audio signal to enable gain adjustment during reproduction of the audio signal from the encoded version of the audio signal.
US09620133B2

An audio processing device includes an initial processing module to generate a stream of frequency coefficients based on input audio data, a watermarking module to embed a digital watermark into the stream of frequency coefficients to generate a modified stream of frequency coefficients, and a final processing module to process the modified stream of frequency coefficients to generate output audio data. In some implementations, the input audio data comprises unencoded audio data, the initial processing module comprises a frequency domain transform module to perform a time-to-frequency domain transform to generate the unencoded audio data, and the output audio data is encoded audio data. In other instances, the input audio data comprises encoded audio data, the initial processing module comprises an initial decoding module to partially decode the encoded audio data to generate the stream of frequency coefficients, and the output audio data is decoded audio data.
US09620120B2

A minutes taking system includes a voice recognition apparatus and an image forming apparatus. The voice recognition apparatus receives voice signals from the image forming apparatus, performs voice recognition processing on the received voice signals, and returns voice recognition results to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus includes voice input units, a storage unit, a voice transmission unit, a voice recognition result receiving unit, a minutes data creating unit, and an image forming unit. The storage unit accumulates the voice signals input from the voice input units. The voice transmission unit transmits a non-transmitted voice signal, among the voice signals stored in the storage unit, to the voice recognition apparatus when a predetermined condition is satisfied. The minutes data creating unit creates minutes data based on the voice recognition result received by the voice recognition result receiving unit.
US09620097B2

Amplifier circuitry that is operative to provide selective control of the amplitude of a musical signal as the signal transitions from the pre-amplifier to power amplifier components of an electric guitar amplifier. According to a preferred embodiment, at least one low variable power amplifier is integrated into the signal path from the pre-amplifier to the power amplifier components of the guitar amplifier. The low power amplifier allows for selective control of the amplitude of the musical signal such that the signal ranges from ‘zero volts’ to more than 100 DB. Such low power amplifiers may be selectively deployed in guitar amplifiers utilizing either Class A or Class A/B circuitry and enables a musician to have full control of the power amplifier from 0% gain to 100% gain at any tone selection and any power amp wattage, as may be desired.
US09620095B1

Notwithstanding practical limitations imposed by mobile device platforms and applications, truly captivating musical instruments may be synthesized in ways that allow musically expressive performances to be captured and rendered in real-time. In some cases, synthetic musical instruments can provide a game, grading or instructional mode in which one or more qualities of a user's performance are assessed relative to a musical score. By constantly adapting to such modes to actual performance characteristics and, in some cases, to the level of a given user musician's skill, user interactions with synthetic musical instruments can be made more engaging and may capture user interest and economic opportunities (e.g., for in-app purchase and/or social networking) over generally longer periods of time.
US09620087B2

A multimedia interaction system includes: multiple electronic devices and a location detection circuit. The location detection circuit dynamically detects respective electronic device's spatial position and orientation. When an user instructs a source electronic device of the multiple electronic devices to transmit a target image object toward a selected direction, the source electronic device decides a target direction according to a location of a first candidate electronic device and the selected direction if a relative position between the first candidate electronic and the selected direction satisfies a first predetermined condition. The source electronic device transmits a target command corresponding to the target image object to a second candidate electronic device to perform corresponding multimedia interaction operations only if a relative position between the second candidate electronic and the target direction satisfies a second predetermined condition.
US09620086B1

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for dynamic contrast adjustment for glyph rendering. Example methods may include rendering a first glyph associated with a font in a first font size, increasing a first contrast of the first glyph in the first font size by adjusting a first grayscale value associated with the first glyph in the first font size to generate an adjusted first grayscale value, and storing the adjusted first grayscale value in a grayscale mapping table associated with the font, the grayscale mapping table comprising a default grayscale value for the first glyph in a second font size. Example methods may include generating a font file comprising the first glyph and the grayscale mapping table.
US09620085B2

Various embodiments present a combined visual entity that represents overlapping visual entities. The combined visual entity can include a primary visualization that represents one of the overlapping visual entities and annotations that represent others of the overlapping visual entities. For example, a map view can include multiple geographical entities that overlap. A primary visualization can be rendered that represents one of the multiple geographical entities. The primary visualization can be visually annotated (e.g., with symbols, letters, or other visual indicators) to indicate others of the multiple geographical entities. In some embodiments, a zoom operation can cause visual entities to be added and/or removed from the combined visual entity.
US09620077B2

A display panel structure includes a substrate, plural gate lines and data lines arranged on the substrate, plural pixel units, and plural dummy pixel units. The substrate has a display region and a peripheral region surrounding the display region. The gate lines and data lines are extended from the display region to the peripheral region. The pixel units are disposed at the display region. The dummy pixel units are disposed at the peripheral region, and include a first region, a second region, and a third region. The dummy pixel units of the first region and the second region are arranged along a first direction and a second direction, respectively. The dummy pixel units of the third region are arranged between the first and second regions. The dummy pixel units of the third region include one of the gate lines and one of the data lines.
US09620076B2

An apparatus capable of displaying a plurality of images while a screen is scrolled, including a processing unit configured to process an image to be displayed on a display unit, a display control unit configured to control the display unit to display a plurality of images processed by the processing unit, a scroll control unit configured to set another plurality of images as display targets to be displayed on the display unit by scrolling the displayed plurality of images, and a control unit configured to control the processing unit to process the plurality of images as the display targets such as to prioritize the processing for an image disposed on an upstream side over an image disposed on a downstream side in a moving direction of scrolled images.
US09620073B2

A liquid crystal display device and a gate driving circuit are provided. The gate driving circuit includes shift register circuits cascade-connected in series. Each shift register circuit includes: first and second pull-up circuits, first and second pull-down circuits and a pull-down control circuit. The first and second pull-up circuits are electrically connected in series between a preceding-stage gate driving signal and a gate driving signal output terminal. The first and second pull-down circuits and the pull-down control circuit are electrically connected with the first and second pull-up circuits in parallel. The pull-down control circuit is electrically coupled to the preceding-stage gate driving signal, the first and second pull-down circuits and first and second voltage levels and for controlling the first and second pull-down circuits according to the preceding-stage gate driving signal. Accordingly, the invention is suitable for CMOS process and can increase circuit stability.
US09620071B2

The invention discloses a thin film transistor drive circuit and a drive method thereof and a liquid crystal display device. The thin film transistor drive circuit includes a plurality of scan lines, a scan signal output port configured to sequentially apply a scan signal to each of the scan lines, and a plurality of logic circuits. Each of the logic circuits is connected with one of the scan lines and a control signal line. The logic circuits are added to a drive circuit, and an input control signal corresponding to a truth table of the logic circuit is input for a preset duration by using a logic relationship of the logic circuit, so that an output control signal output to a scan line can be obtained to improve a scan signal on the scan line, to improve a delay distortion at the time of being turned off.
US09620069B2

The present disclosure relates to the technical field of liquid crystal display, and particularly, relates to a method for compensating impedances of data lines of a liquid crystal display. The method includes the following steps: a setting step of setting a memory and a subtracter; a measuring step of measuring the impedance value of a data line to be compensated, and inputting the impedance value into the memory; a calculating step of performing calculations with the impedance value measured in the measuring step through the subtracter, so as to obtain an impedance compensation value required by the respective data line; and a compensating step of reading out the impedance compensation value acquired in the calculating step through a data driving unit, and performing impedance compensation on the respective data line based on the impedance compensation value, in order to obtain a total load impedance for the respective data line. A uniform, satisfactory display effect can be ensured, with display defects, such as vertical black and white strips, color shift and the like, advantageously prevented.
US09620067B2

An electro-optic display uses first and second drive schemes differing from each other, for example a slow gray scale drive scheme and a fast monochrome drive scheme. The display is first driven to a pre-determined transition image using the first drive scheme, then driven to a second image, different from the transition image, using the second drive scheme. The display is thereafter driven to the same transition image using the second drive scheme; and from thence to a third image, different from both the transition image and the second image, using the first drive scheme.
US09620066B2

A large area display comprises multiple sub-units arranged in rows and columns. Each sub-unit has associated row and column drivers, with the column driver driving the column electrodes of all the sub-units a column. A chip select means provides a separate chip select signal to each row of sub-units, so that only one row of sub-units are scanned at a time, and all the sub-units in the selected row are scanned simultaneously. Column data are supplied to the column drivers as a linear series of column data values; and delayed Gate Start Pulse signals are fed to the column drivers in each column of sub-units after the first so that these column drivers receive the delayed Gate Start Pulse signals and apply the appropriate column data values to their associated column electrodes.
US09620059B2

A display device is disclosed. The display device includes: a pixel array unit and a driving unit which drives the pixel array unit. The pixel array unit includes rows of first scanning lines and second scanning lines, columns of signals, pixels in a matrix state arranged at portions where the scanning lines and the signal lines cross each other and power supply lines and ground lines supplying power to respective pixels. The driving unit includes a first scanner performing line-sequential scanning to pixels by each row by supplying a first control signal to each first scanning line sequentially, a second scanner supplying a second control signal to each second scanning line sequentially so as to correspond to the line-sequential scanning and a signal selector supplying a video signal to rows of signal lines so as to correspond to the line-sequential scanning.
US09620055B2

An organic electroluminescent display device, includes: a gray level extractor that extracts gray levels of frame data signals for a frame image; an image type determiner that determines a type of the frame image using a distribution of the gray levels of the frame data signals, the type of the frame image being one of a low-gray-level type, a medium-gray-level type and a high-gray-level type; a gamma reference voltage generator that selects a set of gamma reference voltages based upon the image type; a data driver converting the frame data signals into frame data voltages using the selected set of gamma reference voltages; a timing controller that supplies the frame data signals to the data driver; and a display area including pixels having an organic light emitting diode that display the frame image.
US09620050B2

The invention provides a display method and a display device. The display method comprises: generating a primary image based on image information, wherein the primary image is formed of virtual pixels arranged in a matrix, each virtual pixel is formed by multiple virtual sub-pixels of different colors arranged in one row, in the column direction, the size of the virtual pixel and that of the sub-pixel are the same; calculating a comparison component of each sub-pixel by using primary components of comparison virtual sub-pixels of the sub-pixel; acquiring differences between comparison components of each sub-pixel and other sub-pixels adjacent thereto, if each of the differences between comparison components of the sub-pixel and the other sub-pixels exceeds a predetermined threshold value, determining the sub-pixel as a highlighted sub-pixel; calculating a display component of each sub-pixel by using primary components of sampling virtual sub-pixels of the sub-pixel.
US09620047B2

A method of operating display device includes initializing an image display reference coordinate as a random coordinate among coordinates included in a shift pattern when power is applied to the display device, shifting the image display reference coordinate from the random coordinate along the shift pattern, and displaying an input image to a display panel included in the display device based on the image display reference coordinate.
US09620038B2

A method displays a single image on a graphical display for diagnostic purpose, without interrupting an observer's perception of the display of a sequence of images. Under that method, a sequence of images is displayed on a graphical display, interrupted only by the diagnostic image that is displayed for a time period not longer than 30 milliseconds. The diagnostic image may be used, for example, for calibrating colors and luminances of pixels in the graphical display. Another use of the diagnostic image may be, for example, determination of the ambient light reflected from the graphical display.
US09620037B2

A sign waving apparatus that includes a base, a housing enclosing a motor, a frame support connecting the base and the housing, and a sign mount mechanically connected to a motor. The sign or signs attach to the surfaces of the sign mount. The sign mount moves relative to the housing in a variety of different motions.
US09620019B1

A method for informing a driver of a subject vehicle that the subject vehicle and a secondary vehicle may be entering a target lane between the vehicles from opposite sides of the target lane. The method includes identifying location of the subject vehicle relative to the secondary vehicle when the subject vehicle and the secondary vehicle are on opposite sides of the target lane, and when at least one of the subject vehicle and the secondary vehicle is moving into the target lane. The method also includes alerting the driver of the subject vehicle of the secondary vehicle when the subject vehicle and the secondary vehicle are on opposite sides of the target lane, and when a gap between the subject vehicle and the secondary vehicle is decreasing. The method further includes steering the subject vehicle away from the secondary vehicle if the gap is less than a predetermined distance.
US09620012B2

An application processing unit executes an application that is performed as a notification device mounted in a vehicle. In the application processing unit, an input unit acquires information indicating that the vehicle is receiving driving assistance. In the application processing unit, an output unit outputs notifications to other vehicles in accordance with the information that has been acquired at the input unit.
US09620006B2

The emission of variable ultrasonic sound waves from a plurality of sound sources is controlled based on controlled signals generated by a controller. The plurality of sound sources emit ultrasonic waves towards a surface based on the control signals, creating a force which causes particles within a region proximate the surface to move in a desired manner with respect to the surface. The movement of the particles with respect to the surface changes the appearance of the surface. In this manner, the appearance of the surface may be changed in a desired manner to suit needs for home automation and security.
US09619999B2

A sensor event assessor input/output controller is disclosed. In one embodiment, a multi-channel sensor input configuration provides two-way communication with a plurality of sensors, each of the plurality of sensors having its own channel. An electronic signal receiver receives electronic signals from one or more of the plurality of sensors at a pre-defined sample rate. A signal combiner bundles the electronic signals from one or more of the plurality of sensors into a single electronic signal. A single channel output is used to provide the single electronic signal to the sensor event assessor.
US09619997B2

A method of adjusting event detection and alarm generation sensitivity settings of a patient monitoring system includes receiving physiological information from a patient, determining an acuity level of the patient in dependence upon the physiological information received, and at least one of automatically updating a sensitivity setting for a system action in dependence upon the determined acuity level of the patient or prompting a user to manually update the sensitivity setting for the system action in dependence upon the determined acuity level.
US09619994B2

A security system comprises a system control panel for arming and disarming the security system. A door sensing unit comprises a first radio frequency (RF) transceiver interconnected with the system control panel over a network. The first RF transceiver is mounted proximate to a door that defines at least a portion of a perimeter around an area to be monitored by the security system. The first RF transceiver has an RF detection field proximate to the door. A disarm device comprises a second RF transceiver that automatically transmits a disarm device packet. The first RF transceiver receives the disarm device packet when the second RF transceiver is within the RF detection field. The first RF transceiver sends a disarm message to the system control panel over the network to disarm the security system based on at least the disarm device packet.
US09619986B2

An integrated tag device includes an active tag and transmits a tag signal; a reader device recognizes tag device identification information, generate and transmit a tag device recognition signal, receive a risk notification signal and inform a worker; a worker terminal checks location information thereof, includes the checked location information in a map information request signal, and transmits the map information request signal, receives and displays factory facility map information; an intelligent integrated safety management control server checks reader device identification information and tag device identification information, checks installation location information, tracks a location and predicts a movement path of each moving entity, classifies and stores a movement pattern and a movement path, checks reader device identification information, generates and transmits a risk notification signal, checks worker terminal location information and identification information, checks reader device identification information, reads and transmits factory facility map information to the worker terminal.
US09619979B1

Systems and methods for providing a visual indication of cable connection status. A method may include determining whether an Information Handling System (IHS) has established data communications using one of a plurality of different types of protocols supported by a cable and providing, on the cable, a visual indication of the type of protocol being used and/or an amount of power delivered via the cable. A cable may include a plurality of conductors, a controller coupled to the plurality of conductors, and a plurality of LEDs coupled to the controller. The controller may: determine whether an IHS coupled to the cable has established data communication with another device via the cable using one of a plurality of different types of protocols supported by the cable; and provide a visual indication of the type of protocol being used in the data communication and/or power delivered via the cable.
US09619959B2

Wagering game systems can leverage web browsers to present wagering game content with a variety of technologies. For instance, an electronic wagering game table can present diverse wagering game content (e.g., multiple wagering games, portal games, social networking applets, hospitality menus, etc.) with a variety of technologies that interface with a web browser. Also, a single wagering game can be constructed from multiple technologies. A wagering game system can implement a framework that dynamically builds up a web page to use multiple technologies for presenting content with a web browser on a wagering game system. The framework can dynamically construct the web page, which can involve modifying objects, embedding objects, removing objects, and replacing objects that correspond to different technologies.
US09619956B2

Voter-generated ballots created using consumer-grade printers are remade to ballots scannable by specialized ballot scanners. The voter-generated ballots include a machine-readable indicia, such as a two-dimensional barcode, that encodes ballot information. The ballot information includes choices made by the voter and information for use in remaking the ballot. Voters wish to submit their votes using printouts from non-specialized printers such as those found at their homes or offices; yet election officials wish to tabulate votes using scanners that require specialized, high-quality ballots. The disclosed systems and methods bridge this gap.
US09619948B2

A computer-implemented method for monitoring an operation performed by a machine having an implement is provided. The method includes determining a fuel consumption rate value of the machine. The method also includes generating a provisional value based at least in part on the fuel consumption rate value for the operation. The method further includes determining one or more thresholds for the operation. The one or more thresholds correspond to a normal fuel consumption rate value of the machine for the operation. The method further includes generating a status indicator, indicative of a score of the operation based at least in part on a comparison of the provisional value and the one or more thresholds.
US09619946B2

A communication system in a vehicle is described and various methods for securely providing diagnostic data between a vehicle and a remote server using a vehicle diagnostic tool. The method may include the steps of: receiving at the remote from the diagnostic tool both a challenge question and encrypted data acquired by the diagnostic tool from a vehicle electronic control unit; using the challenge question to determine how to decrypt the encrypted data; and decrypting the encrypted data at the remote server.
US09619937B2

An apparatus for processing primitives in a tile-based graphics processing system includes processing circuitry which is configured to determine, for a group of plural primitives, the rendering tiles that the group of primitives should be processed for. The processing circuitry is also configured to store, for the group of primitives, a data entry containing an indication of the identity of the plurality of primitives in the group of primitives, and an indication of the rendering tiles that it has been determined the group of primitives should be processed for.
US09619931B1

This disclosure relates to systems and methods for controlling a light box system. The light box system can be used to create lighting for a virtual environment. The light box system, also referred to as a light box, can be formed from a plurality of walls that form a room-like structure. Each wall of the light box can include a plurality of light projection elements. The light projection elements can be light emitting diodes (LED) that can project light within the interior of the light box. The light projection elements can output light towards the interior of the light box in order to generate calculated light output for a virtual environment. The lighting characteristics of the virtual environment can be modified to change the calculated lighting output for a virtual environment.
US09619928B2

Technologies are generally described for methods and systems effective to generate a composite image. The methods may include receiving first image data that includes object data corresponding to an object and receiving second image data that includes obscuring data. The obscuring data, if displayed on a display, may obscure at least a portion of the. The methods may also include identifying a first region that may include the object data, in the first image data. The methods may also include identifying a second region, that may include the obscuring data, in the second image data. The methods may also include replacing at least part of the second region with at least part of the first region to generate the composite image data that may include at least some of the object data. The methods may also include displaying the composite image on a display.
US09619914B2

Systems and methods are described for animating 3D characters using synthetic motion data generated by motion models in response to a high level description of a desired sequence of motion provided by an animator. In a number of embodiments, the synthetic motion data is streamed to a user device that includes a rendering engine and the user device renders an animation of a 3D character using the streamed synthetic motion data. In several embodiments, an animator can upload a custom model of a 3D character or a custom 3D character is generated by the server system in response to a high level description of a desired 3D character provided by the user and the synthetic motion data generated by the generative model is retargeted to animate the custom 3D character.
US09619908B1

Systems and methods are provided for identifying lines in a heat map representative of overlap between two data sets. In an aspect, a method includes generating a heat map comprising a plurality of data points that represent similarities between a first data set and a second data set. The method further includes identifying areas of the heat map within a region of the heat map comprising a potential match line, identifying short lines formed via subsets of the data points respectively contained within the areas, merging the short lines to form a long line, determining degrees of continuity along the long line, and identifying a portion of the long line associated with a degree of continuity above a continuity threshold.
US09619904B2

A method for reconstructing high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slices, including: receiving a thick MRI slice of bodily tissue acquired using a single MRI scan, wherein the thick slice has a high SNR; receiving two thin MRI slices of the bodily tissue acquired using a single MRI scan, wherein each of the two thin MRI slices has a low SNR; and reconstructing multiple high SNR thin slices of the bodily tissue using the thick slice and the two thin slices.
US09619902B2

A method for applying a filter component for an analytical tomographic reconstruction technique, e.g. filtered backprojection, used in tomographic comprises providing an algebraic reconstruction algorithm for reconstructing a spatial representation of a volume of interest from a projection data set. It thereby takes into account a geometry of the tomographic imaging. The method also comprises applying the algebraic reconstruction algorithm to a plurality of virtual projection data sets—corresponding with a basis vector of a basis for the projection space—to produce a plurality of reconstructed spatial representations and determining the filter component using the plurality of reconstructed spatial representations, and applying the filter. Applying the analytical reconstruction technique with the determined filter component may inherit beneficial properties from the algebraic reconstruction algorithm, e.g. versatility and robustness to noise, without incurring the associated computational cost.
US09619899B2

The disclosure includes a system and method for distinguishing between items of similar appearance that vary in size. An image recognition application receives an image including a plurality of items, identifies each item in the image, generates a region of interest for each identified item in the image, determines a dimension of the region of interest for each identified item in pixels, determines a plurality of pixel-to-physical dimension ratios for each identified item, identifies a selected pixel-to-physical dimension ratio among the plurality of pixel-to-physical dimension ratios, and determines a stock keeping unit identifier of each identified item in the image based on the selected pixel-to-physical dimension ratio and the dimension of the region of interest for each identified item.
US09619898B2

A method includes computing an anisotropic filter with a major-axis and a minor-axis for a pixel to be displayed on screen-space, wherein the anisotropic filter is to be applied to corresponding MIPs on a texture map. Additionally, the method includes varying the length of the major-axis of the anisotropic filter based on the angle of the major-axis of anisotropy with respect to the screen space. Further, the method includes determining a number of texels from the texture map that are to be sampled in the anisotropic filter based on the length of the modified major-axis. The color of the pixel may be determined based on the texels sampled in the anisotropic filter.
US09619895B2

Disclosed herein is an image processing apparatus of a vehicle camera, including a light source extraction unit configured to extract light sources from a first frame exposed to light sources during a first time and to extract light sources including motion blurs from a second frame exposed to the light sources during a second time longer than the first time, a target light source classification unit configured to classify a first target light source that belongs to the light sources of the first frame and that does not move and a second target light source that belongs to the light sources of the second frame and that does not move, and a motion determination unit configured to estimate a first location that is the central point of the first target light source and a second location that is the central line including the central point of the second target light source, compare the first location with the second location, and determine whether or not a pitch motion of the vehicle has occurred.
US09619891B2

A system that analyzes data from sensors and video cameras to generated synchronized event videos and to automatically select or generate tags for an event. Enables creating, transferring, obtaining, and storing concise event videos generally without non-event video. Events stored in the database identifies trends, correlations, models, and patterns in event data. Tags may represent for example activity types, players, performance levels, or scoring results. The system may analyze social media postings to confirm or augment event tags. Users may filter and analyze saved events based on the assigned tags. The system may create highlight and fail reels filtered by metrics and by tags.
US09619880B2

The invention improves the quality of image diagnosis by a user. An image processing unit compares each pixel value of a perfusion image with a threshold, and extracts a lesion candidate region as a collateral circulation candidate or bypass blood vessel candidate from the perfusion image based on a comparison result. The image processing unit displays the lesion candidate region together with a blood vessel image representing the spatial distribution of blood vessels in a head.
US09619878B2

Optical inspection methods and apparatus for high-resolution photomasks using only a test image. A filter is applied to an image signal received from radiation that is transmitted by or reflected from a photomask having a test image. The filter may be implemented using programmed control to adjust and control filter conditions, illumination conditions, and magnification conditions.
US09619875B2

Disclosed are methods and systems for calculating a contrast reagent (CR) extravasation rate constant and generating a contrast reagent leakage corrected relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) image map of a brain region from dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) time-course image data based on pharmacokinetic first principles. In one example approach, a computerized method may include performing a linearization transform of a DSC MRI time-course equation which accounts for an intravascular contribution and an extravasating component, and calculating CR leakage from a slope of a linear portion of the transformed data.
US09619866B2

A method, at a display control device, for transforming image data, the method comprising receiving portions of image data from a host device, wherein the portions of image data are based on tiles of an image, wherein the image comprises tiles in a tile order, each tile comprising pixels in a pixel order, and receiving display order information provided by host device, wherein the display order information provides an order for providing the portions of image data to a display device and generating different image data having a different tile order based on the display order information, and a different pixel order and providing the different image data the display device for displaying a transformed image.
US09619855B2

Systems, apparatus and methods are described including distributing batches of geometric objects to a multi-core system, at each processor core, performing vertex processing and geometry setup processing on the corresponding batch of geometric objects, storing the vertex processing results shared memory accessible to all of the cores, and storing the geometry setup processing results in local storage. Each particular core may then perform rasterization using geometry setup results obtained from local storage within the particular core and from local storage of at least one of the other processor cores.
US09619850B2

One or more words are received. A set of frequency of occurrence values of the received word(s) within a set of domain tables is determined. A domain table in the set of domain tables is associated to the received word(s), based on the set of frequency of occurrence values meeting a threshold value. A word-sense of the received word(s) is determined based on a corresponding word-sense in the associated domain table and/or corresponding domain dictionary.
US09619844B2

Systems and methods are provided for a user to generate content that reports social incidents, interests, and/or services. Specifically, a method is provided including subscribing with a server to send and receive information or data regarding a social incident, interest, and/or service of interest to a beneficiary. The method further includes defining a template for a report on the server to capture the information or data. The method further includes viewing and/or retrieving the report submitted by a user (via a client) of the general public that perceived the social incident, interest, and/or service of interest to the beneficiary. The defining the template comprises defining at least one information component that the beneficiary may be interested in receiving from the user regarding the social incident, interest, and/or service, and associating the defined template to the beneficiary.
US09619841B2

Systems to assist in the creation, transmission, and processing of health insurance claims. Computer-implemented methods that enable the receiving of, storing of, and granting access to data in such systems.
US09619830B2

A method and system are provided for populating an electronic device registered for a user with applications from an application platform that the electronic device is operating with. The method is carried out by an application recommendation node. The method includes the acts of collecting a user profile for the user and an identifier for the electronic device, selecting a list of applications from the application platform based on the user profile, associating the list of applications with the identifier, receiving notification of a first presentation of the identifier following the association, and pushing the list of applications to the electronic device corresponding to the identifier following the notification.
US09619829B2

A visual refinement interface enables users to adjust and/or refine search results by selecting results that match a user's interest, and displaying subsequent results that are closer to the selected items. Multiple result sets can be displayed concurrently such that the user can maintain context for the results. Further, the user can quickly go back to modify an earlier selection without having to navigate to a previous page, for example, and a single modification can cause several subsequent result sets to automatically change such that the user can quickly view dozens of new results, for example, simply by selecting at least one different result from a displayed result set. Prior result sets can be modified, such as by reducing the size or adjusting the placement of the sets, such that the user can easily determine the current set and the relatedness to previous results sets.
US09619824B2

Ads delivered to mobile devices by virtue of a mobile app executing on the device are displayed on the device screen outside the confines or borders of the mobile app. This enables app developers to display ads through their apps to app users wherein the ads are displayed outside the confines of the actual app as displayed on the device. That is, the ad may be displayed as what may be characterized as a ‘regular non-app generated’ ad, such as on the device's home or lock screen (display areas not normally associated with an app). In this manner, clutter is decreased within mobile apps that would otherwise be caused by the ads. Consequently, advertisers are more likely to pay higher rates thereby generating more revenue for app developers or related entities.
US09619821B2

A system and method for managing media advertising enterprise data including a process for learning enterprise data matching. An EDM (Enterprise Data Management) application module can be configured to include a set of rules at an enterprise level to manage disparate and disconnected records associated with an entity. A number of unmatched and enterprise entities that matches with respect to an active entity can be returned based on a fuzzy logic associated with various matching options stored in an EDM database. A matching process can then be performed to accurately match similar records regardless of manual input, location, and format of the records in a distributed system. Each unmatched record can then be assigned with a parent enterprise entity. Such an optimization mechanism can interactively manage and report records at the enterprise level in a simple and efficient manner.
US09619819B2

Credit applicants may apply for instant credit, and use an instant account number (“IAN”) to make purchases after the instant credit has been granted. Fraud control methods may be used in authorizing the instant credit. When the IAN is issued to purchase airline tickets, it can be ensured that the applicant's last name matches the passenger's last name for the airline ticket being purchased, and that the ticket will not be renamed or sold. When the IAN is issued in conjunction with a partner's loyalty or rewards program, the applicant's account information with the rewards program is captured. It is ensured that the applicant has some tenure with the partner and that data submitted by the applicant is consistent with data on file with the partner.
US09619807B2

Disclosed is a genuine product certification system, including: a genuine product certification means, including: an optical material; additional information; and patterns for genuine product certification; a user terminal adapted to perform genuine product certification using the genuine product certification means; a service server including information about the patterns, the spectrum of the optical material, and the additional information as existing data, and adapted to perform genuine product certification using a result of performing genuine product certification using the user terminal and to generate statistical data concerning the occurrence of imitation products; and a manager terminal adapted to receive and output information about performance of the genuine product certification by the service server and the statistical data concerning the occurrence of imitation products transmitted from the service server.
US09619802B1

Disclosed is a technique for identifying touch events performed on a mobile device within a secure environment. The technique can involve diverting coordinates for certain touch events to a secure environment in a payment application, for example, by modifying an import address table (e.g., implementing a “hook”) that is accessed by an event loop of the mobile device. Generally, only those touch events that are performed within the bounds of a user interface area are diverted to the secure environment, and all touch events outside that area continue to be identified using the operating system libraries of the mobile device. A checksum may be generated for the import address table using a cryptographic hash function. The checksum allows the payment application or a payment processing system to determine whether an unauthorized modification of the import address table is present.
US09619797B2

A method of paying a second party is provided. A first party accesses the names of one or more qualified second parties. The qualified second parties are second parties that, (i) have an association with the payment service, and (ii) second parties that if they do not have an established association with the payment service then they have established one prior to payment. The first party has an association with the payment service. A tab is opened by the first party that can be selected by the qualified second party at any geographic location of a first party's mobile device. The qualified second party is only able to charge a first party's financial account when the first party's mobile device is within a defined geographic area. The tab is a relationship between the first party, the payment service and the qualified second party, The qualified second party can engage in a financial transaction with the first party is within the defined geographic area.
US09619791B2

Electronic commerce is enhanced for customer convenience. When an online order is received, a profile may be checked. A customer may her profile with items that are automatically added to the online order. Food and beverages, for example, may be items that are frequently consumed and thus automatically added to any online order. Electronic commerce may thus be enhanced to restock items that are frequently purchased.
US09619790B2

Systems and methods which allow for a money transfer transaction to be funded without providing payment at the point in time when the transaction is originated and which also do not require a customer to undertake a separate transaction with a separate entity prior to initiating the money transfer transaction with a money transfer service are provided. Embodiments may therefore allow for money transfers, such as in emergency situations, when customers would not otherwise have payment readily available at the time of the transaction.
US09619772B1

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to, among other things, determining whether some or all portions of an application stack implemented on a distributed system are vulnerable to availability issues. In some examples, a web service may utilize or otherwise control a client instance to control, access, or otherwise manage resources of a distributed system. Based at least in part on comparing one or more customer graphs with one or more model, curated, or best practice graphs of a distributed system, availability risks and/or deployment recommendations may be provided. Additionally, in some examples, one or more remediation and/or migration operations may be performed automatically or provided as recommendations.
US09619771B2

Systems and methods for authoring and performing procedural workflows, and engaging in multimedia communication, remote assistance, training, data entry, inventory management, authentication, and secure networking using a hands-free or substantially hands-free wearable digital device are described. In one implementation, a user logs into a secure network using existing credentials, and a Quick Response Code is generated to temporarily authorize the user's wearable device within the secure network. In another implementation, information is encrypted and transferred between a computing device and a remote system, and the computing device is verified as being connected to a particular network and located within a particular geofence. In a further implementation, an interface for authoring a procedural workflow includes defining workflow steps based on selected primitives, and displaying rendered previews of the workflow as it would appear on different user devices.
US09619764B2

Various embodiments of the present disclosure include methods and apparatus for automatic certification of food products. In an example embodiment, apparatus comprises a hand-held device including a display and one or more input devices to sense product identification indicia associated with or affixed to a food product that is grown or raised in an agricultural operation. The hand-held device includes at least one processor to determine a machine-readable identification code from the product identification indicia and send the identification code to at least one remote server. The device also receives, from the at least one remote server, agricultural certification information that is associated with the product, the certification information indicating compliance of the product with at least one agricultural certification established by a certification authority and having one or more requirements.
US09619763B2

Various embodiments of the present disclosure include methods and apparatus for recording and reporting video corresponding to production of an agricultural product. In an example embodiment, an apparatus comprises a hand-held device including a display and one or more input devices to sense product identification indicia associated with or affixed to a food product that is grown or raised in an agricultural operation. The hand-held device includes at least one processor to determine a machine-readable identification code from the product identification indicia; send the identification code to at least one remote server; receive, from the at least one remote server, video data that is associated with the product. The video data is reproducible on a video display apparatus to produce a human-viewable video showing at least one aspect of the production of the food product.
US09619762B2

Various embodiments of the present disclosure include methods and apparatus for tracking labor information in the production of food products. In an example embodiment, an apparatus comprises a hand-held device including a display and one or more input devices to sense product identification indicia associated with or affixed to a food product that is grown or raised in an agricultural operation. The hand-held device includes at least one processor to determine a machine-readable identification code from the product identification indicia; send the identification code to at least one remote server; receive, from the at least one remote server, information that is associated with the product, the information including labor information that is associated with the production of the food product; and display at least some of the labor information on the display in human readable form.
US09619754B2

A solid-state device for generating a single photon for quantum information processing, the device including: a quantum dot molecule including: a first singly-charged quantum dot; and a second singly-charged quantum dot; wherein the first singly-charged quantum dot is adjacent to the second singly-charged quantum dot; and a tunnel barrier that separates the first singly-charged quantum dot from the second singly-charged quantum dot.
US09619752B1

A method is provided for estimating past data by identifying a high frequency data set for a defined time period. A pattern is calculated for the high frequency data set and then the pattern is applied to a low frequency data set in a past time period to estimate a high frequency query point.
US09619749B2

A neural network includes a plurality of inputs for receiving input signals, and synapses connected to the inputs and having corrective weights established by a memory element that retains a respective weight value. The network additionally includes distributors. Each distributor is connected to one of the inputs for receiving the respective input signal and selects one or more corrective weights in correlation with the input value. The network also includes neurons. Each neuron has an output connected with at least one of the inputs via one synapse and generates a neuron sum by summing corrective weights selected from each synapse connected to the respective neuron. The output of each neuron provides the respective neuron sum to establish operational output signal of the network. A method of operating a neural network includes processing data thereby and using modified corrective weight values established by a separate analogous neural network during training thereof.
US09619748B1

An intelligent control system based on an explicit model of cognitive development (Table 1) performs high-level functions. It comprises up to O hierarchically stacked neural networks, Nm, . . . , Nm+(O−1), where m denotes the stage/order tasks performed in the first neural network, Nm, and O denotes the highest stage/order tasks performed in the highest-level neural network. The type of processing actions performed in a network, Nm, corresponds to the complexity for stage/order m. Thus N1 performs tasks at the level corresponding to stage/order 1. N5 processes information at the level corresponding to stage/order 5. Stacked neural networks begin and end at any stage/order, but information must be processed by each stage in ascending order sequence. Stages/orders cannot be skipped. Each neural network in a stack may use different architectures, interconnections, algorithms, and training methods, depending on the stage/order of the neural network and the type of intelligent control system implemented.
US09619737B2

A display apparatus that switches and displays a plurality of operation screens each including an operation object selectable by an operator and having a layered structure includes a storage unit which stores information on guidance of prompting an operator to select a predetermined operation object, a recognizing unit which recognizes that an operation object is added or deleted, and an update unit which updates information on guidance in response to a relation between an operation screen to/from which the operation object is added or deleted and an operation screen positioned higher or lower than the operation screen such that content of the guidance provided on the basis of the information reflects configurations of the plurality of operation screens after addition or deletion of the operation object, when the operation object is added or deleted.
US09619734B2

Land classification based on analysis of image data. Feature extraction techniques may be used to generate a feature stack corresponding to the image data to be classified. A user may identify training data from the image data from which a classification model may be generated using one or more machine learning techniques applied to one or more features of the image. In this regard, the classification module may in turn be used to classify pixels from the image data other than the training data. Additionally, quantifiable metrics regarding the accuracy and/or precision of the models may be provided for model evaluation and/or comparison. Additionally, the generation of models may be performed in a distributed system such that model creation and/or application may be distributed in a multi-user environment for collaborative and/or iterative approaches.
US09619730B2

Multi-energy imaging is afforded with a single detector array by generating a first data set, indicative of a first radiation energy spectrum, using a first set of cells of the array, and by generating a second data set, indicative of a second radiation energy spectrum, using a second set of cells of the array (e.g., where substantially more cells are in the first set than the second). The first data set is comprised of measured data from the first set of cells and estimated data that would have been yielded from the second set of cells had the second set been configured to detect the first energy spectrum. The second data set is comprised of measured data yielded from the second set of cells and estimated data that would have been yielded from the first set of cells had the first set been configured to detect the second energy spectrum.
US09619724B2

An information interchange unit, a storage unit, and a display controller are configured such that, after a image selection unit selects a first image and a second image, the information interchange unit interchanges, automatically, first image information of the first image with second image information of the second image, or interchanges, automatically, first position information of the first image with second position information of the second image, the storage unit stores and correlates the first image information and the second position information, and stores and correlates the second image information and the first position information, and the display controller controls, automatically, a display to display the one image based on the first image information and the second position information, and the another image based on the second image information and the first position information.
US09619719B2

Systems and methods are provided for detecting traffic signs. In one implementation, a traffic sign detection system for a vehicle include at least one image capture device configured to acquire at least one image of a scene including a traffic sign ahead of the vehicle. The traffic sign detection system also includes a data interface and at least one processing device programmed to receive the at least one image via the data interface, transform the at least one image, sample the transformed at least one image to generate a plurality of images having different sizes, convolve each of the plurality of images with a template image, compare each pixel value of each convolved image to a predetermined threshold, and select local maxima of pixel values within local regions of each convolved image as attention candidates, the local maxima being greater than the predetermined threshold.
US09619718B2

A vehicle may include an object detection system and a control system. The object detection system may be configured to detect a presence of an object near the vehicle. In some implementations, the object detection system may include a sensor module and/or a camera system. The control system may be communicatively coupled to the object detection system and may be configured to determine an initial state of an area near the vehicle using the object detection system. The control system may be configured to activate a response if the object detection system detects the presence of an object near the vehicle based, at least in part, on the determined initial state. In some implementations, the response may include an activation of the camera system.
US09619715B2

Alerts to object behaviors are prioritized for adjudication as a function of relative values of abandonment, foregroundness and staticness attributes. The attributes are determined from feature data extracted from video frame image data. The abandonment attribute indicates a level of likelihood of abandonment of an object. The foregroundness attribute quantifies a level of separation of foreground image data of the object from a background model of the image scene. The staticness attribute quantifies a level of stability of dimensions of a bounding box of the object over time. Alerts are also prioritized according to an importance or relevance value that is learned and generated from the relative abandonment, foregroundness and staticness attribute strengths.
US09619713B2

Techniques for grouping images are disclosed. In some situations, the techniques include identifying at least one event-based image group among a plurality of images based on an event that is associated with each identified image, receiving a selection of one or more objects in a first image of the identified event-based image group, identifying other images in the identified event-based image group that each include at least one of the selected one or more objects, and associating the identified images with the first image. In one instance, the selected objects include individuals captured in the image.
US09619712B2

A head mounted device (HMD) includes a transparent display, sensors to generate sensor data, and a processor. The processor identifies a threat condition based on a threat pattern and the sensor data, and generates a warning notification in response to the identified threat condition. The threat pattern includes preconfigured thresholds for the sensor data. The HMD displays AR content comprising the warning notification in the transparent display.
US09619711B2

Automatic characterization or categorization of portions of an input multispectral image based on a selected reference multispectral image. Sets (e.g., vectors) of radiometric descriptors of pixels of each component of a hierarchical representation of the input multispectral image can be collectively manipulated to obtain a set of radiometric descriptors for the component. Each component can be labeled as a (e.g., relatively) positive or negative instance of at least one reference multispectral image (e.g., mining materials, crops, etc.) through a comparison of the set of radiometric descriptors of the component and a set of radiometric descriptors for the reference multispectral image. Pixels may be labeled (e.g., via color, pattern, etc.) as positive or negative instances of the land use or type of the reference multispectral image in a resultant image based on components within which the pixels are found.
US09619710B2

A system for analysis of remotely sensed image data of parking facilities, storage lots, or road regions, for determining patterns over time and determine time-based information such as facility capacities or vehicle movement.
US09619707B2

A photographing unit photographs a face of the user who is looking at a screen displayed on a display unit. An area detecting unit detects, from the photographed image of the photographing unit, an eye area of the user and at least one of a face area of the user or a predetermined part area of the user other than the user's eyes. An areal size/position information obtaining unit obtains areal size information and position information of the eye area, and areal size information and position information of the at least one of the face area or the predetermined part area. A gaze position estimation unit estimates a position in the screen that the user is gazing at, based on the areal size information and the position information.
US09619706B2

Systems and methods use an origin pattern to verify the authenticity of a host object. The origin pattern includes a text-based serial number and a computer-graphics based surface-texture component. The serial number includes a public manufacturer identifier and an object identifier sequence that is based on a hash of a private manufacturer identifier and a private object identifier. The surface-texture component includes a two dimensional texture mapped onto a three dimensional surface, the generation of the surface being based on the hash. In response to an authentication request for an origin pair, the system may verify the serial number component exists in a data store and generate a challenge surface-texture component based on data in the data store. If the challenge surface-texture component matches, the system may use a time-location stamp to determine an authenticity probability and provide an indication of authenticity in response to the verification request.
US09619705B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining the identity of an object in an image where the object in the image is in a disassembled state. In one aspect, a method includes accessing previous interactive sessions, each of the interactive sessions including images of a reference object in one or more disassembled states and each of the interactive sessions specifying an identity of the reference object in an assembled state; processing an image of a first object to identify characteristics of the first object, the first object being in a disassembled state in the image; comparing the image of the first object in the disassembled state to images of reference objects in disassembled states; and determining an identity of the first object based on the comparison and the identities of the reference objects in assembled states specified in the interactive sessions.
US09619704B2

The present technology relates to a computer-implemented method for tracking an object in a sequence of multi-view input video images comprising the steps of acquiring a model of the object, tracking the object in the multi-view input video image sequence, and using the model.
US09619701B2

Systems and methods include an application operating on a device. The application causes the graphic user interface of the device to display an initial instruction to obtain a full-view image that positions all of an item within a field of view of a camera on the device. The application automatically recognizes identified features of the full-view image, by using a processor in communication with the camera. After displaying the initial instruction, the application causes the graphic user interface to display a subsequent instruction to obtain a zoom-in image that positions only a portion of the item within the field of view of the camera. Also the application automatically recognizes patterns from the zoom-in image, using the processor. Furthermore the application performs an authentication process using the identified features and the patterns to determine whether the item is valid, using the processor.
US09619698B1

Methods and apparatuses for athletic performance monitoring with body synchronization analysis are disclosed. In one example, a first sensor output associated with a movement of an user foot and a second sensor output associated with a movement of an user arm are received, the user arm on a body side opposite the user foot. The first sensor output and the second sensor output are analyzed to identify a degree of synchronization between the movement of a user foot and the movement of a user arm.
US09619675B2

A system and method for disposing a capacitive proximity and touch sensor in locations where an integrated circuit package may be vulnerable to intrusion by providing electrodes in the packaging that may prevent interception of data obtained by a probe that is brought into proximity of the integrated circuit.
US09619674B2

A method, computer program product, and system to implement access control from a master device to a slave device over an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) interface are described. The method includes generating, using a processor, a control block defining the access control to the slave device over the I2C interface. The generating the control block is performed by the trusted code layer and the generating the control block is prohibited by the user-modifiable code layer. The method also includes controlling a command over the I2C interface to the slave device based on a generated command from the trusted code layer and the user-modifiable code layer in accordance with the control block.
US09619671B2

A platform including a security system is described. The security system comprises, in one embodiment, a multi-state system having a plurality of modes, available whenever the platform has a source of power. The modes comprise an unarmed mode, in which the security system is not protecting the platform, an armed mode, in which the platform is protected, the armed mode reached from the unarmed mode, after an arming command, and a suspecting mode, in which the platform is suspecting theft, the suspecting mode reached from the armed mode, when a risk behavior is detected.
US09619661B1

A method and system for managing personal data is provided as a means to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of personal data access, approval and curation across multiple content sources. The method and system accomplishes this by discovering, identifying, collecting normalizing personal information from content sources then alerting the user to any identifiable use of their personal information and allowing the user to directly dictate personal information use policies and manually control individual personal data attributes on multiple content platforms.
US09619659B1

Systems and methods for securing or encrypting data or other information arising from a user's interaction with software and/or hardware, resulting in transformation of original data into ciphertext. Generally, the ciphertext is generated using context-based keys that depend on the environment in which the original data originated and/or accessed. The ciphertext can be stored in a user's storage device or in an enterprise database (e.g., at-rest encryption), or shared with other users (e.g., cryptographic communication). Use of context-based encryption keys enables key association with individual data elements, as opposed to public-private key pairs, or use of conventional user-based or system-based keys. In scenarios wherein data is shared by a sender with other users, the system manages the rights of users who are able to send and/or access the sender's data according to pre-defined policies/roles.
US09619655B2

An automated software vulnerability scanning and notification system and method provide an automated detection and notification regarding a software vulnerability. The operation of the system and the method includes obtaining software vulnerability information, periodically scanning a web application and a corresponding web server associated with an operator, and evaluating the periodic scans relative to the software vulnerability information to detect software vulnerabilities. Upon detection of a software vulnerability, a notification message is provided automatically to the operator regarding the software vulnerability.
US09619648B2

A behavior change detection system collects behavior from a service, such as an online service, and detects behavior changes, either permanent or transient, in the service. Machine learning hierarchical (agglomerative) clustering techniques are utilized to compute deviations between clustered data sets representing an “answer” that the service presents to a series of requests.
US09619640B2

A method includes issuing a digital certificate to a licensee, the digital certificate identifying a licensed product and the licensee to enable the licensee to enable the licensed product. The method involves receiving a request to enable the licensed product from an entity, the request including the digital certificate and determining whether the entity is the licensee of the licensed product based on the digital certificate. A system includes a relational structure having associations among authorized entities and digital certificates within an organization. Each to digital certificate identifies a licensed product licensed to the organization. A certificate distribution module distributes the digital certificates to associated authorized entities.
US09619638B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and system for enacting various driving profiles based on identifying the age and gender of the user. Initially, identifying information is acquired from a user of a vehicle. An identification program determines whether the driver is known, by comparing the identifying information to a set of stored identifying information. If the driver of the vehicle is known, as the identifying information from the user is similar to stored identifying information, then a specific driver profile associated with the specific driver is activated. If the driver is not known, as the identifying information from the user of the vehicle is not similar to the stored identifying information, then the age and gender of the user of the vehicle is determined. Based on the determined age and gender of the driver of the vehicle, various vehicle setting ranges are enacted.
US09619627B2

Systems and methods are provided for collecting, preparing, and/or analyzing a biological sample. A sample collection site may be utilized with one or more sample processing device. The sample processing device may be configured to accept a sample from a subject. The sample processing device may perform one or more sample preparation step and/or chemical reaction involving the sample. Data related to the sample may be sent from the device to a laboratory. The laboratory may be a certified laboratory that may generate a report that is transmitted to a health care professional. The health care professional may rely on the report for diagnosing, treating, and/or preventing a disease in the subject.
US09619611B2

The present modeling tool and method dynamically generate a maintenance simulation of a vehicle. For doing so, a configuration interface receives a list of components of the vehicle, each particular component comprising parameters defining the particular component. The configuration interface further receives relationships between the components in the list, and determines a plurality of state, transitions, conditions, triggers and actions. A processing unit processes the data received and determined via the configuration interface to generate the maintenance simulation, the maintenance simulation comprising an aggregation of all the determined transitions between the components into a global state machine. The present method may further be performed by a computer program product.
US09619603B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide methods for optimizing a lithographic projection apparatus including optimizing projection optics therein, and preferably including optimizing a source, a mask, and the projection optics. The projection optics is sometimes broadly referred to as “lens”, and therefore the joint optimization process may be termed source mask lens optimization (SMLO). SMLO is desirable over existing source mask optimization process (SMO), partially because including the projection optics in the optimization can lead to a larger process window by introducing a plurality of adjustable characteristics of the projection optics. The projection optics can be used to shape wavefront in the lithographic projection apparatus, enabling aberration control of the overall imaging process. According to the embodiments herein, the optimization can be accelerated by iteratively using linear fitting algorithm or using Taylor series expansion using partial derivatives of transmission cross coefficients (TCCs).
US09619598B2

Various implementations of the invention provide for the determination of a test set that satisfies a coverage model, where portions of the search space need not be searched in order to generate the test set. With various implementations of the invention, a search space defined by a set of inputs for an electronic design and a coverage model is identified. The search space is then fractured into subspaces. Subsequently, the subspaces are solved to determine if they include at least one input sequence that satisfies the coverage constraints defined in the coverage model. The subspaces found to include at least one input sequence that satisfies these coverage constraints, are then searched for unique input sequences in order to generate a test set. Subspaces found not to include at least one input sequence that satisfies the coverage constraints may be excluded from the overall search space.
US09619594B1

A computer-implemented method for configuring an advection diffusion model may include retrieving, via a processor, a plurality of advection diffusion model parameters indicative of model extremes of the advection diffusion model, retrieving, via the processor, convergence area information indicative of a convergence area for the advection diffusion model, determining, via the processor, an accuracy metric for each of the plurality of advection diffusion model parameters, selecting, via the processor, an optimal advection diffusion model parameter from the plurality of advection diffusion model parameters, and configuring, via the processor, the advection diffusion model with the optimal advection diffusion model parameter.
US09619581B2

Various technologies pertaining to construction of a query for execution over a cube are described. Tabular data is presented on a displayed on a display screen, where the tabular data represents at least a portion of a data cube. Input is received with respect to the tabular data, and responsive to the input being received, a query is constructed based upon the input. The query is executed over the data cube, resulting in provisioning of a new table.
US09619579B1

Embodiments of the present invention assist in the development, management, and deployment of aggregated data attributes for multiple data sources. One embodiment provides a development interface that allows for elements of attributes, including filters, to be moved into a coding area in which an attribute or an attribute element is being edited. In another embodiment, the user interface presents data fields to assist in the development of filters for multiple data sources with divergent formats. The application further provides a validation interface through which users can validate attributes and trace the results returned by various elements referenced by the attributes under validation. Another embodiment provides a system for managing attributes and deploying them to various systems by creating a deployment file that is used by an attribute calculation system. In one embodiment, the attribute calculation system is a scalable system that dynamically calculates attributes for multiple data sources.
US09619577B2

A computing system used for graphical user interface image reproduction includes a processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor. The processor is configured to: extract data from network traffic being sent from a server to a first client device, the network traffic including cacheable files used to create a graphical user interface display on the first client device; store the cacheable file in a trace file associated with the first client device; and send the cacheable file to a second client device in response to a request from the second client device.
US09619572B2

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for multiple web-based content category searching for web content on a mobile communication facility comprising capturing speech presented by a user using a resident capture facility on the mobile communication facility; transmitting at least a portion of the captured speech as data through a wireless communication facility to a speech recognition facility; generating speech-to-text results for the captured speech utilizing the speech recognition facility; and transmitting the text results and a plurality of formatting rules specifying how search text may be used to form a query for a search capability on the mobile communications facility, wherein each formatting rule is associated with a category of content to be searched.
US09619571B2

A method for searching for related entities using entity co-occurrence is disclosed. Embodiments of the method may be employed in any search system that may include at least one search engine, at least one entity co-occurrence knowledge base, an entity extraction module, and at least an entity indexed corpus. The method may extract and disambiguate entities from search queries by using an entity co-occurrence knowledge base, find extracted entities in an entity indexed corpus and finally present search results as related entities of interest.
US09619562B2

Disclosed is a method and system for providing to a user rapid access to search resources while interacting with electronic documents by providing for recognition of user initiated search triggers that result in searches being performed with minimal user input or page navigation. The method and system includes generating, by a server computer, a web page, injecting code into the web page, and transmitting the web page to a client computer. The code, when executed on the client computer, detects a search interface trigger occurring during display of the web page, the search interface trigger not associated with an input focus of the web page or of a browser on the client computer, detects a search execution trigger after the detecting of the search interface trigger, and transmits, to a search entity, a request for search results related to content associated with the search interface trigger.
US09619561B2

A technology can be provided for change invariant scene recognition of an environment by an agent that uses image sensors to capture images. An example method can include grouping the images into situation image sets to form an image database. A navigation image can be captured by the agent at the agent's current location. Another operation can be searching through images by separately loaded situation image set to identify images that are a probable match for the navigation image. Error values can be computed between the navigation image and situation image sets. A probability can be calculated that situation image sets are to be used as a relevant situation image set based on the error values. Then the relevant situation image set can be searched for matching purposes with the navigation image while the error value is below a defined threshold.
US09619557B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for key phrase characterization of documents. In accordance with one implementation, a method is provided for key phrase characterization of documents. The method includes obtaining a first plurality of documents based at least on a user input, obtaining a statistical model based at least on the user input, and obtaining, from content of the first plurality of documents, a plurality of segments. The method also includes determining statistical significance of the plurality of segments based at least on the statistical model and the content, and providing for display a representative segment from the plurality of segments, the representative segment being determined based at least on the statistical significance.
US09619556B1

Techniques for determining ownership of files and/or email messages are disclosed. In one embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method including determining a distribution of a plurality of email messages within a file; selecting a preset number of email messages based on the determined distribution of the plurality of email messages within the file; extracting metadata from each of the preset number of email messages; classifying each of the preset number of email messages based on the extracted metadata; determining an owner of each of the preset number of email messages based on the classification of each email message by analyzing the metadata of each of the preset number of email messages; calculating statistics for the preset number of email messages based on the determined owner of each of the preset number of email messages; and assigning ownership to the file based on the calculated statistics.
US09619553B2

A method, computer program product, and system for ranking meeting topics is described. A plurality of participants in an electronic meeting is identified. One or more interests associated with one or more individuals included in the plurality of participants are identified. One or more topics associated with the meeting are received. A ranking of the one or more topics is determined based upon, at least in part, the one or more identified interests.
US09619541B2

A method, apparatus, and system for multi-instance redo apply is provided for standby databases. A multi-instance primary database generates a plurality of redo records, which are received and applied by a physical standby running a multi-instance standby database. Each standby instance runs a set of processes that utilize non-blocking, single-task threads for high parallelism. At each standby instance for the multi-instance redo, the plurality of redo records are merged into a stream from one or more redo strands in logical time order, distributed to standby instances according to determined apply slave processes using an intelligent workload distribution function, reemerged after receiving updates from remote instances, and applied in logical time order by the apply slave processes. Redo apply progress is tracked at each instance locally and also globally, allowing a consistent query logical time to be maintained and published to service database read query requests concurrently with the redo apply.
US09619537B2

Embodiments relate to converting data object(s) from a single-source database environment into a multi-source database environment. An engine is configured to receive a single-source database universe from a repository. The engine analyzes that universe to identify details thereof for conversion, including but not limited to connections, tables, views, alias tables, etc. A new multi-source connection is registered, and then the multi-source universe is re-generated through a universe conversion algorithm, an automatic function mapping algorithm, and a query generation algorithm. Embodiments avoid labor intensive manual re-creation of the universe, and may be implemented as an automatic conversion wizard also updating dependent report queries per new multi-source query patterns. Particular embodiments converting a single-source database environment available from SAP AG, may utilize a Software Design Kit (SDK) to create a migration plug-in as part of an Information Design Tool (IDT).
US09619533B2

Systems and methods for multi-object reporting in a content management system. A report type definition may define which objects are involved and how they are related. A report execution engine may generate a multi-object query language statement to translate the report type definition into query language. A query language execution engine may break the query language statement down into separate single pieces. A cost optimization engine may determine if it is cost efficient to join the objects. An indexed access execution engine may extract unique IDs of the objects and join the unique IDs to generate an index. A Lucene based search engine may be accessed according to the index, and the response is post processed to generate a multi-object report.
US09619519B1

Systems and methods are provided for detecting non-explicit cues based on user interactions with a user interface. For example, user interest with respect to items may be determined based on indirect user interaction with a user interface. Furthermore, two or more non-explicit cues determined to be associated with a particular item may indicate a strong likelihood of user interest. One or more additional displays of information may be presented to the user in response to the detected one or more non-explicit cues, for example, by displaying additional information regarding an item and/or displaying an element to teach a user about the user interface.
US09619518B2

A stream of tuples can assigned identifiers to tuples to store only the nonduplicative tuples. In a streams processing environment, a stream application actor like an operator can receive a series of tuples, process them, and output another series of tuples. Each of the tuples can be assigned a tuple identifier. The tuple identifier can tag the tuple as associated with the operator. Another operator can receive the tuples, identify the duplicative tuples, and store only the nonduplicative tuples.
US09619515B2

Systems and a method for expanding a query are described. The method calculates a diversity index for a plurality of query terms that are included in a plurality of other queries associated with the query. The diversity index is a measure of diversity among the plurality of query terms and relates to differences among the plurality of query terms. The method further compares the diversity index to a threshold value. Finally, the method expands the query with one or more of the plurality of query terms based on the comparison.
US09619497B2

Computationally implemented methods and systems include acquiring obscured data, said obscured data including property data regarding at least one property of one or more devices, wherein said obscured data has been obscured to avoid uniquely identifying the one or more devices, acquiring one or more services configured to be carried out on the one or more devices, said acquiring at least partly based on the acquired obscured data including the property data regarding at least one property of the one or more devices, and offering the one or more services in exchange for access to identifying data configured to uniquely identify the one or more devices associated with the property data. In addition to the foregoing, other aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text.
US09619493B2

A system for achieving non-interruptive data reconstruction is disclosed. The system includes a source storage, a target storage, a server, a traffic modeling unit and at least one data moving service unit. With the help of traffic modeling unit, a period of time of low access can be estimated. Data reconstruction (copying or moving) can be carried on during the period of time. Thus, non-interruptive data reconstruction can be done.
US09619491B2

A computing device restores a state of an analytic model. A first indicator of a dataset is received. A second indicator is received of an analytic model state file in which a state of an analytic model is stored. A reentry point name of a function to restore the analytic model is extracted from the state stored in the analytic model state file indicated by the received second indicator. The function is called using the extracted reentry point name to restore the state of the analytic model. The dataset indicated by the received first indicator is scored using the restored state of the analytic model. Scoring results from the scored dataset are written to an output file.
US09619479B1

A method to partition a deduplication pool is provided. The method includes determining that an amount of data in a plurality of data containers of the deduplication pool has reached a data capacity threshold and comparing each data container of the plurality of data containers with at least one other of the plurality of data containers as to amount of shared data. The method includes grouping, based on results of the comparing, the plurality of data containers into a plurality of groups of data containers, with data sharing from each of the plurality of groups of data containers to each other of the plurality of groups of data containers less than a data sharing threshold and data sharing inside each of the plurality of groups of data containers greater than the data sharing threshold.
US09619478B1

A computer-implemented method to compress log messages is disclosed. The method starts with maintaining a log reference table having a plurality of log reference entries, each containing a string of characters to be recited repeatedly during logging of messages. In response to a request for logging a log message initiated from an application, the method creates a compressed log message entry in a compressed log file. The compressed log message entry includes: a time stamp indicating the time the log message being created; a log reference identifier identifying one of the plurality of log reference entries without reciting a corresponding string of characters of the log reference entry, where the one of the plurality of log reference entries contains one or more variable indications; and a log variable portion associated with the log message, where the log variable portion contains a part of the log message.
US09619476B2

Provided are techniques for parallel container and record organization using buckets. In response to receiving an update to an entity in a file plan, a date associated with a disposition of the entity is determined and a reference to the entity is added to a bucket associated with the date.
US09619470B2

A user feedback module, executable by a processing device from memory is disclosed. The user feedback module receives from a user device a selection of a seed media item. The seed media item includes a seed label. The user feedback module further generates a list, the list includes the seed label and a set of related labels based on the seed label. The seed label and each related label include a separate label weight. The user feedback module also identifies multiple media items associated with an associate label. The associate label includes at least one of the seed label or a related label of the first set of related labels. The user feedback module also transmits to the user device a first media item from the multiple media items. The user feedback module adjusts the label weight of the associate label based on a user feedback on the first media item.
US09619468B2

A processor-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product derives and utilizes a context object to generate a synthetic context-based object. A context object for a non-contextual data object is derived by contextually searching a document that contains multiple instances of the non-contextual data object. The non-contextual data object is associated with the derived context object to define a synthetic context-based object, where the non-contextual data object ambiguously relates to multiple subject-matters, and where the context object provides a context that identifies a specific subject-matter, from the multiple subject-matters, of the non-contextual data object. The synthetic context-based object is then associated with a data store in a data structure that contains heterogeneous data stores that hold data of different formats. A dimensionally constrained hierarchical synthetic context-based object library for multiple synthetic context-based objects is then constructed for handling requests for data stores.
US09619459B2

An arrangement and corresponding method are described for natural language processing. A natural language understanding (NLU) arrangement processes a natural language input to determine a corresponding sentence-level interpretation. A user state component maintains user context data that characterizes an operating context of the NLU arrangement. Operation of the NLU arrangement is biased by the user context data.
US09619448B2

Automated comparison of Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) documents for revision mark-up includes reading document data from first and second DITA documents into respective document object model trees of nodes, and identifying and collapsing emphasis subtree nodes in the trees into their parent nodes, the collapsing caching emphasis data from the identified subtree nodes. A traversal transforms the model trees into respective node lists and captures adjacent sibling emphasis subtree nodes as single text nodes. The node lists are merged into a merged node list that recognizes matches node pairs having primary sort key information and document structure metadata meeting a match threshold, with differences between matching tokens of the node pairs saved. A merged document object model built from the refined merged node list is transformed into a hypertext mark-up language document.
US09619447B2

Map files associated with a terminal-based legacy application, such as a Customer Information Control System (CICS) application, are converted to views and models of a web-based application, such as an application implemented with a Java Platform Enterprise Edition (JEE) compliant server. A hybrid application server executes the legacy application in a first runtime, such as a CICS runtime, in response to a user request received through the web-based application executing in a second runtime, such as a JEE runtime. When a terminal command is identified in the executing legacy application, data associated with the terminal command is packetized and forwarded to the web-based application through an established socket without creating a data stream. The web-based application invokes the models associated with the terminal command and presents a web page responsive to the terminal command to the user.
US09619434B2

A method includes receiving a set of parameters for a given project and generating, using information from a knowledge database, a plurality of combinations of group members based at least in part on the set of parameters. The method also includes evaluating a set of metrics for each of the combinations of group members, the set of metrics comprising at least one novelty metric and at least one collective intelligence metric. The method further includes generating one or more strategy matrices for each of at least a subset of the combinations of group members using information from the knowledge database, evaluating the combinations of group members in the subset using the strategy matrices to determine respective predicted success values, and selecting a given one of the combinations of group members for the given project based at least in part on the sets of metrics and predicted success values.
US09619432B2

A driver assisting system and method for a vehicle are provided. The system includes a processor and a display system. The display system is adapted to display information on a screen of a vehicle. The screen is adapted to show the environment in front of the vehicle or a representation thereof. The vehicle extends in a longitudinal direction and a lateral direction, the longitudinal direction corresponding to the intended direction of vehicle travel. The processor is adapted to receive a first input data signal indicative of a velocity of the vehicle, and a second input data signal indicative of an actual performed and/or on-going and/or impending lateral position change of the vehicle. The processor is further adapted to process at least the first and the second input data signals to calculate an estimated vehicle path, and the display system is adapted to display the estimated vehicle path on the screen.
US09619426B2

An out-of-band to optical conversion component is provided that uses a transmit disable signal and a receive loss of signal (LOS) signal built into optical small form-factor pluggable transceiver and cable to pass the out-of-band protocol between serial attached SCSI enclosures. The transmit disable signal, when asserted, turns off the optical output, while the receive LOS signal detects the loss of signal. The out-of-band to optical conversion component sits in line on the serial attached SCSI data traffic and strips off the out-of-band signals from the serial attached SCSI expander so that only data flows over the optical cable. The out-of-band to optical conversion component sends the out-of-band signals to the other enclosure using the transmit disable pin on the small form-factor pluggable transceiver and cable. The other enclosure receives the message on the receive LOS signal and transmit it back onto the serial attached SCSI receive data pair.
US09619425B2

An electronic control unit includes a bus connection for a connection to a bus line of a current-controlled bus, an evaluation device for sampling the current flowing through the bus connection in order to detect a digital message from a sensor which is connectable to the bus line, and a current controller for generating a predefined current pulse through the bus connection in order to induce the sensor to assume a predefined synchronization state. The current controller is set up to control the current through the bus connection in such a way that it corresponds to an operating current through the sensor.
US09619423B1

Systems and devices are provided for broadcasting a message to addressed logic blocks in lieu of, or in addition to, programming individual status registers of an integrated circuit. One such device may be an integrated circuit that includes a broadcast bus and addressed logic blocks. The broadcast bus may broadcast an addressed message that includes content and a target address. Each of the addressed logic blocks may receive the addressed message from the broadcast bus and use the content of the addressed message only when the target address matches an address assigned to that logic block.
US09619420B2

A system which is configured to enable a vehicle's embedded USB Host system to connect to multiple mobile devices through a USB Hub, regardless of whether the mobile devices are configured to act as USB Hosts or USB Devices, without the need to add or provide OTG controllers in the system or additional vehicle wiring, or inhibiting the functionality of any consumer devices operating in USB Device mode connected to a vehicle system Hub while another consumer device connected to the same Hub operates in USB Host mode. Preferably, the system is configured to provide that no additional cabling is required, and no hardware changes are required to be made to the HU. The system can be employed between a vehicle's embedded USB Host, USB Hub and at least one consumer accessible USB port. In the case where the consumer device is acting as a USB Host, signals between the consumer device and the vehicle's embedded USB Host are processed through a bridge, thereby rendering the consumer device compatible with the vehicle's embedded USB Host.
US09619409B2

The present disclosure relates to an interface comprising a memory controller and a memory unit coupled to the memory controller and configured to communicate with the memory controller through a first signal and a second signal. The interface further comprises a determination unit comprising judgment logic configured to send a control signal configured to align the first signal with the second signal. The memory controller further comprises a digitally-controlled delay line (DCDL) coupled to the determination unit and configured to receive the control signal, wherein the determination unit instructs the DCDL to adjust a delay of the first signal to align the first signal with the second signal. The memory controller further comprises a value register configured to store a signal delay value corresponding to alignment between the first signal with the second signal which is contained within the control signal. Other devices and methods are disclosed.
US09619390B2

According to a method of data processing, a memory controller receives a plurality of data prefetch requests from multiple processor cores in the data processing system, where the plurality of prefetch load requests include a data prefetch request issued by a particular processor core among the multiple processor cores. In response to receipt of the data prefetch request, the memory controller provides a coherency response indicating an excess number of data prefetch requests. In response to the coherency response, the particular processor core reduces a rate of issuance of data prefetch requests.
US09619386B2

According to an embodiment, a synchronization variable monitoring device includes: an address comparator configured to compare a received address included in an Invalidate Request, and an address that is set as an address of synchronization variable data upon receiving the Invalidate Request; a readout circuit configured to read out data of the address of the synchronization variable data when the received address and the address of the synchronization variable data coincide with each other; a conditional variable comparator configured to determine whether or not a predetermined condition is satisfied based on the data read out by the readout circuit; and a synchronization completion flag register configured to output a synchronization signal indicating that a synchronization condition is satisfied when the conditional variable comparator determines that the predetermined condition is satisfied.
US09619378B2

A method for allocating memory among a plurality of computing systems includes assigning a free memory threshold to each computing system, dynamically varying at least one free memory threshold for at least one computing system based on a past memory usage of the at least one computing system, periodically monitoring each computing system for memory usage and in response to the monitoring determining that an amount of free memory for the computer system is below the free memory threshold for the computing system, allocating memory from the free memory pool to the computing system.
US09619370B1

Systems and method are provided for testing an infrastructure. The infrastructure may include one or more computers connected by a network. Moreover, each of the computers may include an agent. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving, at a controller, a test request to perform at least one of a plurality of predetermined tests, the predetermined test including one or more parameters associated with performing the predetermined test and one or more expected results from performing the predetermined test. The method further includes determining whether the predetermined test is available at one of the computers. The method also includes sending, by the controller, the predetermined test to one of the computers based on the results of the determining step, such that the agent at the computer performs the predetermined test sent by the controller. Furthermore, the method includes receiving, at the controller, one or more results of the predetermined test performed by the agent at the computer.
US09619361B2

A performance profiling apparatus includes: a plurality of counters provided for a routine included in a program; a storage section configured to store an instruction of the program and an identification information indicating the routine of the program; a processor configured to read the instruction from the storage section and to execute a process according to the instruction; and a counter controller configured to, at the time of reading the instruction of the processor, receive the identification information of the instruction which is output from the storage section with the instruction and to instruct a first counter designated by the identification information to count up.
US09619359B2

A server and a signal analyzing device thereof are disclosed. The server includes a plurality of hard disk drive (HDDs), a plurality of indicators, at least a jumper, and a logic array. The logic array is coupled to the at least one jumper and includes a plurality of analyzing modules. The logic array selects one of the analyzing modules in response to the at least one jumper. The selected analyzing module analyzes an input signal and outputs a decoded signal. The indicators show the states of the HDDs according to the decoded signal.
US09619355B2

A booting verification method for a computer and an electronic device are provided. The booting verification method includes the following steps. Whether a manufacturing mode indication is present is determined. The manufacturing mode indicator is established and the manufacturing mode indicator is set to a predetermined value if the manufacturing mode indicator is absent, where the predetermined value is greater than or equal to 1. Whether the manufacturing mode indicator is greater than 0 is determined if the manufacturing mode indicator is present. A manufacturing booting mode is entered and the manufacturing mode indicator is decreased if the manufacturing mode indicator is greater than 0. A normal booting mode is entered if the manufacturing mode indicator is not greater than 0.
US09619352B2

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for controlling restoration of a storage aggregate. For example, a local storage device, located at a first storage site, and a remote storage device, located at a second storage site, may be assigned to a first storage aggregate. Responsive to a disaster of the first storage site, a gate may be created for the local storage device. The gate may block automated reconstruction and/or automated synchronization that may otherwise occur with respect to the local storage device. Until the local storage device is restored, the remote storage device may be used to service I/O requests that were otherwise directed to the local storage device. Responsive to receiving a user restoration command, the gate may be removed from the local storage device. Synchronization between the local storage device and the remote storage device may then be facilitated.
US09619344B2

According to embodiments of the present invention, a metadata file is transferred from the first system to the second system and a database on the second system is initialized based on the metadata file. An image, including information of the first system to be restored, is transferred from the first system to the second system, and restoration of the information to the second system based on the image is initiated. Prior to completion of the restoration, one or more log files indicating actions performed on the first system relating to the information to be restored is transferred from the first system to the initialized database on the second system. In response to completion of the restoration, the actions of the log files are performed to synchronize the restored data on the second system with the first system.
US09619337B2

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention disclose a method, computer program product, and system for optimizing performance of a computer backup solution that includes at least two data movers. The automated method includes measuring data mover performance during operation of a backup cycle, and optimizing the performance of data movers by increasing or decreasing the number of threads operating concurrently in the data movers. The method further includes computation of performance rankings of the data movers and shifting workload among the data movers in accordance with their respective performance rankings, such that the computer backup solution converges toward an optimized configuration.
US09619332B2

Disclosed is a method for managing content on an information handling device, involving identifying creation of new content on the information handling device; tagging the content created on the information handling device with a unique identifier; and storing the unique identifier in a registry. When a risk to the information handling device is perceived, a plug-in on the device efficiently manages the content on the device.
US09619326B2

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for implementing redundancy in memory controllers. The disclosed systems and methods utilize a row of memory blocks, such that each memory block in the row is associated with an independent media unit. Failures of the media units are not correlated, and therefore, a failure in one unit does not affect the data stored in the other units. Parity information associated with the data stored in the memory blocks is stored in a separate memory block. If the data in a single memory block has been corrupted, the data stored in the remaining memory blocks and the parity information is used to retrieve the corrupted data.
US09619324B2

Apparatus, systems, and methods for error correction in memory are described. In one embodiment, a memory controller comprises logic to receive a read request for data stored in a memory, retrieve the data and at least one associated error correction codeword, wherein the data and an associated error correction codeword is distributed across a plurality of memory devices in memory, apply a first error correction routine to decode the error correction codeword retrieved with the data and in response to an uncorrectable error in the error correction codeword, apply a second error correction routine to the plurality of devices in memory. Other embodiments are also disclosed and claimed.
US09619323B2

A data storage device may include a memory device suitable for storing data and reading stored data as read data, and a bit distribution check unit suitable for performing a first error detection operation on the read data, based on a bit distribution of the read data.
US09619322B2

A data storage system stores sets of data blocks in extents located on storage devices. During operation, the system performs an erasure-coding operation by obtaining a set of source extents, wherein each source extent is stored on a different machine in the data storage system. The system also selects a set of destination machines for storing destination extents, wherein each destination extent is stored on a different destination machine. Next, the system performs the erasure-coding operation by retrieving data from the set of source extents, performing the erasure-coding operation on the retrieved data to produce erasure-coded data, and then writing the erasure-coded data to the set of destination extents on the set of destination machines. Finally, after the erasure-coding operation is complete, the system commits results of the erasure-coding operation to enable the set of destination extents to be accessed in place of the set of source extents.
US09619318B2

A memory circuit is described comprising a plurality of memory elements, wherein each memory element is configured to store one data element of a plurality of data elements, an error correction information memory configured to store joint error correction information of the plurality of data elements, for each memory element, an error detection information memory storing error detection information for the data element stored in the memory element and a memory access circuit configured to, for an access to a memory element of the plurality of memory elements, check whether the error detection information for the data element stored in the memory element indicates an error of the data element stored in the memory element and, depending on whether the error detection information for the data element stored in the memory element indicates an error of the data element stored in the memory element, to process the error correction information for the access.
US09619316B2

Systems, methods, and apparatuses are directed to optimizing turnaround timing of successive transactions between a host and a memory device. The host includes framing logic that generates a write frame that includes a plurality of data bits and an error bit checksum that is appended at the end of the data bits. The host further includes a bus infrastructure configured to accommodate the transfer of the write frame to the memory device and logic that defines the turnaround time to begin at a time instant that immediately follows the transfer of the data bits of the write frame. The turnaround time measures the time delay at which a succeeding write frame is to be transferred. In this manner, the turnaround time is optimized to enable the earlier initiation of successive data operations, thereby reducing the overall latency of successive back-to-back transactions.
US09619314B2

A management system manages a plurality of management target devices. A storage device stores one or more rules, plan information, and plan history information. A control device specifies a first cause event that is a candidate of a cause of the event that has occurred in any one of the management target devices based on the one or more rules, specifies a plurality of first plans that can be executed in the case in which the first cause event is a cause based on the plan information, calculates an index value indicating a possibility of succeeding in a failure recovery in the case in which the plan is executed for each of the plurality of first plans based on the plan history information, and displays data indicating any one or more plans of the plurality of first plans according to a display mode decided based on the index value.
US09619312B2

Embodiments relate to pre-silicon device testing using a persistent command table. An aspect includes receiving a value for a persistent command parameter from a user. Another aspect includes determining whether the value of the persistent command parameter is greater than zero. Another aspect includes based on determining whether the value of the persistent command parameter is greater than zero, selecting a number of commands equal to the value of the persistent command parameter from a regular command table of a driver of a device under test. Another aspect includes adding the selected commands to the persistent command table of the driver. Another aspect includes performing testing of the device under test via the driver using only commands that are in the persistent command table of the driver.
US09619308B2

A method, including receiving, by a user space driver framework (UDF) library executing from a user space of a memory over a monolithic operating system kernel, a kernel application programming interface (API) call from a device driver executing from the user space. The UDF library then performs an operation corresponding to the kernel API call.
US09619307B2

Enabling a web application to call at least one native function of a mobile device includes accessing the web application by a browser of the mobile device. The web application includes at least one GUI element. The mobile device operates a listener module that is a TCP/IP socket listener listening for an address including a localhost IP address and a port number. Upon selection of the GUI element, a cross domain HTTP request is submitted by the browser to the listener localhost IP address. The listener module receives the request and calls the at least one native function in dependence on the received request.
US09619304B2

One or more aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure include identifying a first application component received by a running application, identifying a first automatically connectable connection for the first application component, selecting a second automatically connectable connection for a second application component, the second application component residing in the running application, and automatically connecting the first connection with the second connection so that information can be exchanged between the first application component and the second application component by way of the first connection and the second connection while the first application is running.
US09619294B2

A cloud manager monitors available resources on host computer systems, including a number of hardware threads supported by CPUs on the host computer systems. The cloud manager receives a request to provision a virtual machine (VM) that includes a hardware multithreading parameter that specifies whether hardware multithreading is allowed on the host computer system. The cloud manager then selects a host computer system for the VM taking the hardware multithreading parameter into consideration. The VM is then placed on the selected host computer system using the hardware multithreading parameter.
US09619291B2

An improved system and method for a task management library to execute map-reduce applications is provided. A map-reduce application may be operably coupled to a task manager library and a map-reduce library on a client device. The task manager library may include a wrapper application programming interface that provides application programming interfaces invoked by a wrapper to parse data input values of the map-reduce application. The task manager library may also include a configurator that extracts data and parameters of the map-reduce application from a configuration file to configure the map-reduce application for execution, a scheduler that determines an execution plan based on input and output data dependencies of mappers and reducers, a launcher that iteratively launches the mappers and reducers according to the execution plan, and a task executor that requests the map-reduce library to invoke execution of mappers on mapper servers and reducers on reducer servers.
US09619278B2

A transaction request is received at a log-based transaction manager, indicating a conflict check delimiter and a read set descriptor indicative of one or more locations from which data is read during the requested transaction. Using the conflict check delimiter, a subset of transaction records stored in a particular persistent log to be examined for conflicts prior to committing the requested transaction is identified. In response to determining that none of the read locations of the requested transaction correspond to a write location indicated in the subset of transaction records, a new transaction record is stored in the particular persistent log indicating that the requested transaction has been committed.
US09619277B2

A dispatcher stack is allocated to each of a plurality of processors sharing a run queue. Each processor, in process dispatch processing, saves in a switch-source process stack the context of a switch-source process (the process being run), saves in the dispatcher stack of each of the processors a dispatcher context, inserts the switch-source process into the run queue, removes a switch-destination process from the run queue, and, in addition, restores the context of the switch-destination process from the switch-destination process stack.
US09619274B2

A cloud manager monitors available resources on host computer systems, including a number of hardware threads supported by CPUs on the host computer systems and whether or not the CPUs have split core enabled. The cloud manager receives a request to provision a virtual machine (VM) that includes a hardware multithreading parameter that specifies whether hardware multithreading is allowed on the host computer system. The cloud manager then selects a host computer system for the VM taking into consideration the hardware multithreading parameter, the hardware threads supported by the CPU, and the split core settings. The VM is then placed on the selected host computer system using the hardware multithreading parameter. The result is more efficient utilization of CPU resources in a host for a virtual machine.
US09619269B2

Provided is a device and a method for providing network virtualization, in which a method of dynamically mapping a processor includes extracting tenant information on a tenant and information on a virtual machine (VM) generated by a Cloud OS or controller; classifying virtual machine queues (VMQs) and processors to process the VMQs by tenant, and dynamically mapping the VMQs onto the processors by tenant.
US09619268B2

Examples quickly suspend and resume virtual desktops on demand or on schedule. Virtual desktops, or desktops as a service, are provided to users, where the virtual desktop is a forked VM, cloned VM, or otherwise at least a partial duplicate of an existing VM. The virtual desktop points to existing memory maintained by the existing VM, and the virtual desktop only writes to memory the pages that the virtual desktop creates or modifies.
US09619265B2

Technologies are generally described for systems and methods for reconfiguring a programmable circuit. An accelerator reconfiguration device may detect a trigger. The trigger may indicate that a command has been sent to a processor to switch from execution of a first virtual machine to a second virtual machine. In response to detecting the trigger, the reconfiguration device may identify a programmable circuit and program for the programmable circuit associated with the second virtual machine. The reconfiguration device may further generate a write command to write the program to the programmable circuit.
US09619258B2

A system and method for providing quality of service during live migration includes determining one or more quality of service (QoS) specifications for one or more virtual machines (VMs) to be live migrated. Based on the one or more QoS specifications, a QoS is applied to a live migration of the one or more VMs by controlling resources including at least one of live migration network characteristics and VM execution parameters.
US09619255B1

A computer implemented method, system, and program product for moving a virtual machine from a first site to a second site, the method comprising notifying a replication appliance that a virtual machine is moving from the first site to the second site; wherein a volume corresponding to the virtual machine is being replicated from the first site to the second site, reducing the lag between the volume on the first site and the second site, and moving the virtual machine from the first site to the second site.
US09619252B2

The disclosure relates to reconfigurable avionics equipment, subscribed to an onboard network such as an AFDX® network. The equipment has an architecture in two portions, a functional portion which makes it possible to perform the function proper to the piece of equipment and an interfacing portion, which allows the functional portion to communicate over the network. The interfacing portion includes a configuration file separate from the one used to configure the functional portion and able to be downloaded, using the network, independently of the latter.
US09619242B2

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to initialize a platform. An example disclosed apparatus includes a boot loader manager to prevent operating system loading in response to detecting a power-on condition, a context manager to retrieve first context information associated with the platform, and a policy manager to identify a first operating system based on the first context information, the policy manager to authorize the boot loader manager to load the first operating system.
US09619232B2

Predictive fetching and decoding for selected instructions (e.g., operating system instructions, hypervisor instructions or other such instructions). A determination is made that a selected instruction, such as a system call instruction, an asynchronous interrupt, a return from system call instruction or return from asynchronous interrupt, is to be executed. Based on determining that such an instruction is to be executed, a predicted address is determined for the selected instruction, which is the address to which processing transfers in order to provide the requested services. Then, fetching of instructions beginning at the predicted address prior to execution of the selected instruction is commenced. Further, speculative state relating to a selected instruction, including, for instance, an indication of the privilege level of the selected instruction or instructions executed on behalf of the selected instruction, is predicted and maintained.
US09619227B2

Vector processing engines (VPEs) employing a tapped-delay line(s) for providing precision correlation/covariance vector processing operations with reduced sample re-fetching and/or power consumption are disclosed. The VPEs disclosed herein are configured to provide correlation/covariance vector processing operations, such as code division multiple access (CDMA) correlation/covariance vector processing operations as a non-limiting example. A tapped-delay line(s) is included in the data flow paths between memory and execution units in the VPE. The tapped-delay line (s) is configured to receive and provide an input vector data sample set to execution units for performing correlation/covariance vector processing operations. The tapped-delay line(s) is also configured to shift the input vector data sample set for each filter delay tap and provide the shifted input vector data sample set to the execution units, so the shifted input vector data sample set need not be re-fetched from the vector data file during the filter vector processing operations.
US09619224B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for aggregating source code metric values. One of the methods includes obtaining data representing a directed graph, wherein one or more nodes of the graph are associated with a respective set of one or more metric instances, wherein each set of metric instances for each node includes all metric instances occurring in sets of any node descendant from the node in the graph, wherein each metric instance identifies a location in a source code base, and wherein each metric instance has a respective metric value, a respective identifier, and a respective attribute type. An attribute value is computed for a first node in the graph from the respective metric value of each metric instance in a first set of metric instances associated with the first node.
US09619221B2

For update of individual firmware of an image forming apparatus by a service person through a dedicated interface, an update information file indicating a range of versions of firmware in collective update is stored. In the collective update, applicable firmware is searched based on the versions included in the update information file to search sets of applicable firmware. When the sets of the applicable firmware searched in a distribution system are acquired, collective update of the firmware is performed based on a firmware set selected from the sets.
US09619216B2

Methods and systems for configuring mobile applications for managed execution are described herein. Executable application binaries may each be converted into a corresponding dynamic library. The dynamic libraries may be bundled with a managing application that is configured to manage execution of the dynamic libraries at a mobile computing device. Resource files consumed by the application binary may also be bundled with the managing application and accessible to the dynamic libraries during execution. The managing application may provide a workspace within which operation of the dynamic library occurs. Operation of the dynamic library may at least partially correspond to operation of the executable application binary. Execution of the dynamic library may be bound to a process that is executed for the managing application at a processor of a computing device.
US09619214B2

An optimizing compiler includes a vector optimization mechanism that optimizes vector instructions by eliminating one or more vector element reverse operations. The compiler can generate code that includes multiple vector element reverse operations that are inserted by the compiler to account for a mismatch between the endian bias of the instruction and the endian preference indicated by the programmer or programming environment. The compiler then analyzes the code and reduces the number of vector element reverse operations to improve the run-time performance of the code.
US09619211B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for the automated suggestion of code usage patterns in an IDE. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for automated suggestion of code usage patterns in an IDE is provided. The method includes receiving input of a code snippet for a source code file of a software development project loaded into memory of a host computer for display through an IDE. The method further includes matching terms of the received input to terms in different blocks of code in different source code files of the software development project. The method yet further includes selecting one of the different blocks of code as a code completion choice for insertion into the source code file in the IDE. Finally, the method includes inserting the selected one of the different blocks of code into the source code file in the IDE.
US09619204B2

A system and method for performing sorting. The method includes partitioning a plurality of keys needing sorting into a first plurality of bins, wherein the bins are sequentially sorted. The plurality of keys is capable of being sorted into a sequence of keys using a corresponding ordering system. The method includes coalescing a first pair of consecutive bins, such that when coalesced the first pair of bins falls below a threshold. The method also includes ordering keys in the first coalesced pair to generate a first sub-sequence of keys in the sequence of keys.
US09619202B1

A voice command-driven system and computer-implemented method are disclosed for selecting a data item in a list of text-based data items stored in a database using a simple affirmative voice command input without utilizing a connection to a network. The text-based data items in the list are converted to speech using an embedded text-to-speech engine and an audio output of a first converted data item is provided. A listening state is entered into for a predefined pause time to await receipt of the simple affirmative voice command input. If the simple affirmative voice command input is received during the predefined pause time, the first converted data item is selected for processing. If the simple affirmative voice command input is not received during the predefined pause time, an audio output of a next converted data item in the list is provided.
US09619201B2

A detachable adjustable electronics module may be removably or permanently connected to eyewear. The module may include electronics for processing audio and/or video input and/or output signals. The module may be provided with an adjustable arm, for adjustably carrying a speaker. The module and/or the speaker may be adjusted relative to the wearer in any of the anterior-posterior direction, the inferior-superior direction and laterally. Rotation adjustments may also be accomplished. Eyewear may be provided with only a single module, on a single side, or with two modules, one on each side, such as to provide stereo audio or dual mono sound.
US09619200B2

An apparatus and method for executing a voice command in an electronic device. In an exemplary embodiment, a voice signal is detected and speech thereof is recognized. When the recognized speech contains a wakeup command, a voice command mode is activated, and a signal containing at least a portion of the detected voice signal is transmitted to a server. The server generates a control signal or a result signal corresponding to the voice command, and transmits the same to the electronic device. The device receives and processes the control or result signal, and awakens. Thereby, voice commands are executed without the need for the user to physically touch the electronic device.
US09619198B2

Disclosed are methods and systems for dynamically playing audible punctuation in connection with playout of content defined by a playlist. A client receives a playlist defining a sequence of media content items to be played out by the client, the playlist indicating attribute data for each media content item of the sequence. For each of at least one of the media content items of the playlist, the client determines based on the attribute data and perhaps based on user preference data an audible punctuation to play out in connection with playout of that media content item, and the client retrieves and plays out the audible punctuation in connection with playout of that media content item.
US09619187B2

A terminal device may send a registration request, which requests the server to register virtual printer relation information related to a virtual printer, to a server, and communicate a wireless profile with an existent printer using a first terminal interface. The wireless profile may be used in a wireless network, which is established by using a second terminal interface, and is a wireless network to which both the terminal device and the existent printer are to belong. The terminal device may establish a belonging state, which is a state in which both the terminal device and the existent printer belong to the wireless network, using the second terminal interface, and send authentication information to the existent printer via the established wireless network. The authentication information may be associated with the virtual printer relation information in the server.
US09619174B2

Storage class memory may be used in an architecture to achieve high performance, high reliability, high compatibility. In some embodiments, reads may be handled in a conventional way used in a memory based model. However writes do not use a memory based model but instead correspond to a storage based model. The hybrid nature can be achieved by setting the storage class memory to be write protected so that all writes must go through a software based block device interface. In some embodiments, the software based block device interface prevents erroneous writes to the storage class memory.
US09619171B2

The storage system of the present invention is able to generate one virtual logical device from different logical devices which exist in each of the different storage control units and remote-copy all or part of the virtual logical device to another logical device. The same virtual identifier is set for a volume of the first storage unit and for a volume of the second storage unit. The path control unit of the host identifies a plurality of volumes which have the same virtual identifier as one virtual volume. A remote copy pair can also be set by a virtual volume and a volume of the third storage unit. The setting of the virtual volume and the setting of the remote copy can be performed by means of an instruction from the management server.
US09619164B2

Described herein are techniques for arranging a plurality of M.2 solid state drive (SSD) modules and flash storage elements into a compact form factor. On a first side of an SSD sled, a plurality of M.2 SSD modules may be communicatively coupled to a port expander. On a second side of the SSD sled, a plurality of flash storage elements (not packaged into M.2 SSD modules) may be present. A plurality of SSD sleds (with the above-described characteristics) may be sized so as to collectively fit into a single hard disk drive (HDD) compatible compartment of a chassis.
US09619160B2

In one embodiment, a node coupled to a plurality of storage devices executes a storage input/output (I/O) stack having a plurality of layers including a persistence layer. A portion of non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) is configured as one or more logs. The persistence layer cooperates with the NVRAM to employ the log to record write requests received from a host and to acknowledge successful receipt of the write requests to the host. The log has a set of entries, each entry including (i) write data of a write request and (ii) a previous offset referencing a previous entry of the log. After a power loss, the acknowledged write requests are recovered by replay of the log in reverse sequential order using the previous record offset in each entry to traverse the log.
US09619151B2

To provide a technology that, regardless of the capacity of a storage device, enables its areas to be flexibly partitioned and managed, and, when a file is allocated to a region also, can also use its areas effectively by means of an efficient method. When a region size of a storage device is expressed as the sum of mutually differing power-of-2 values, and areas whose size is one of the power-of-2 sizes configuring that sum are taken to be master partitions, to partition the areas into partitions each of whose size is the size made by successively dividing each master partition in half and to generate an allocation table holding allocation information expressing the allocation status of each of the files that have partitions with each of the sizes included in the master partitions. To manage a region based on the allocation information stored in the allocation table.
US09619148B2

An apparatus includes processor component caused to: retrieve metadata of organization of data within a data set, and map data of organization of data blocks within a data file; receive indications of which node devices are available to perform a processing task with a data set portion; and in response to the data set including partitioned data, compare the quantities of available node devices and of the node devices last involved in storing the data set. In response to a match, for each map data map entry: retrieve a hashed identifier for a data sub-block, and a size for each of the data sub-blocks within the corresponding data block; divide the hashed identifier by the quantity of available node devices; compare the modulo value to a designation assigned to each of the available node devices; and provide a pointer to the available node device assigned the matching designation.
US09619147B2

The present invention provides a search method used to search for the reading order of a plurality of recording groups when the plurality of recording groups written on tape are continuously read by a tape drive which manages data on tape in recording units having a fixed data length for each recording. This search method includes the steps of: receiving information on a plurality of tape groups to be read; and sorting the plurality of recording groups to be read so the reading time is shortened. In the sorting step, the time required to sort the plurality of reading groups is reduced by combining two or more recording groups into a single object to be sorted in the sorting step when at least two or more contiguous recording groups have been assigned to the same region or are assigned across adjacent regions among the plurality of regions.
US09619144B2

Devices, methods and systems are provided for processing measurement data. An exemplary device includes a first module to provide data and an interrupt, a control module coupled to the first module to obtain the data from the first module and provide an indication after obtaining the data, and an interrupt control module coupled to the first module and the control module to notify the first module to clear the interrupt in response to the indication from the control module.
US09619141B2

A device includes a display unit which displays display screens, an input unit which receives a gesture input, and a controller which detects whether a gesture, input on the input unit, is in a gesture input region where gesture input is accepted on one of the display screens of the display unit. The controller displays gesture input regions for the display screen when the gesture is not detected in the gesture input region.
US09619133B2

A high-speed scroll contents display system includes: a web document providing apparatus, as a user terminal is connected, a web document created in a web description language to the connected user terminal; and the user terminal for receiving the web document from the web document providing apparatus, displaying the web document as a web page screen on a mobile browser, and performing, if movement of a touched state on the web page screen is sensed, a contents scroll in correspondence to a sensed moving direction, repeating an operation of performing a high-speed scroll on contents while reducing a speed according to an ease function in a flicking direction of a sensed flick, stopping movement of the screen for a predetermined time period, and moving again the screen reducing the speed according to the ease function when the predetermined time period is elapsed, until an end of the flick is sensed.
US09619131B2

Methods and devices for navigating lists of items using multiple displays are described. An example method is implemented on an electronic device having a first display. The method includes displaying a list of items on the first display, at least one of the list of items having respective associated content not visible in the displayed list of items; and while displaying the list of items on the first display, sending the associated content for one or more of the at least one item to a second display for display on the second display.
US09619129B2

A user may make a digital item available to other users of a computer network, such as an instant messaging system, a chat environment, or a subscription-based computer network. Examples of digital items that may be shared with other users include digital representations of graphic images, photographs, audio segments, songs, video segments, movies, and text (such as lists of favorites (e.g., a list of favorite books, a list of favorite movies, and a list of favorite places to visit)). On-line presence information is provided to indicate the on-line presence of users with whom a digital item has been shared, may be shared or is being shared. For instance, an indication of the on-line or offline status of a user with whom an item has been shared or is being shared may be presented.
US09619122B2

A method and apparatus for automatic generation of a device program including determining a controller from among a plurality of controllers displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) on a user device communicatively coupled to a corresponding external controller, generating a user interactive pin layout in the GUI for the controller, displaying in the GUI, a plurality of operations for execution by the controller, determining an operation from among the plurality of operations for the controller, associating pins selected to parameters of the operation, receiving parameter data for the operation from at least one data entry field in the GUI, generating a program for the controller based on the user interactive pin layout, the received parameter data, the operation, and sending the program for storage in a memory on the controller, wherein at least one determined operation comprises communicating data with an external data service.
US09619119B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide an information prompt processing method, apparatus, and terminal device. The information prompt processing method includes: identifying a contact keyword contained in body content edited in an editing interface; extracting from a contact database at least one piece of contact information corresponding to the contact keyword, generating at least one editing operation according to the contact information and an operation command for the contact information, and displaying the at least one editing operation in the editing interface for a user to select; and executing the operation command for the contact information corresponding to the editing operation according to the selection of the user. The operation process in the embodiments of the present invention is simple, and the operation efficiency when the user adds contact information is improved.
US09619115B2

A computer-implemented method of visualizing a dataset is implemented on a computer having memory, one or more processors, and a display. The method includes: rendering multiple objects on the display in a tiled manner, wherein each object is a visualization of a respective set of fields of the dataset and there is no overlap between the objects; in response to detecting a first user instruction, switching the rendition of at least one of the objects from the tiled manner to a floating manner; in response to detecting a second user instruction, moving a first object to a location on top of a second object, wherein the location is determined by the second user instruction such that at least a portion of the second object is covered by the first object; and in response to detecting a third user instruction, updating both the first object and the second object.
US09619113B2

A method of operating a user device includes, in response to a set of app icons being displayed, monitoring for user interaction with one of the app icons. In response to detecting user interaction with a first app icon corresponding to a first app, the method determines whether the detected user interaction satisfies first criteria or second criteria. In response to determining that the detected user interaction satisfies the first criteria, the method displays an action list corresponding to the first app. The action list includes a set of action items for user selection. A first item corresponds to a specific state of the first app. In response to the user selecting the first item, the method opens the first app to the specific state. In response to determining that the detected user interaction satisfies the second criteria, the method performs a default action for the first app.
US09619094B2

Embodiments are disclosed that relate to touch input detection in a touch sensor. One example provides a method comprising establishing a first reference sequence, starting with a first set of candidate reference sequences each differing from the first reference sequence, reducing the first set of candidate reference sequences by applying a rule set to the first set to derive a relatively smaller second set of candidate reference sequences, for each candidate reference sequence in the second set of candidate reference sequences, calculating a touch detection performance score of a combined reference sequence, and configuring at least a portion of a receive circuit to correlate signals to at least one of the touch detection conditions by using the first reference sequence in a combined correlation operation with at least a selected candidate reference sequence from the second set of candidate reference sequences.
US09619090B2

A method for multi-touch detection on a grid based capacitive sensor includes transmitting consecutively a first and then a second sequence of a Golay pair of sequences on a first driver line of a grid based capacitive sensor and transmitting the first and then the second sequence of a Golay pair of sequences on a second driver line, at a predefined delay with respect to transmission on the first driver line. Output on a receiver line of the grid based capacitive sensor is sampled and output originating from the first driver line is separated from output originating from the second driver line. The presence of an input object is detected responsive to the output as separated.
US09619085B2

The present disclosure relates to a touch device, and more particularly to a pattern of a capacitive touch device and a manufacturing method thereof. The pattern of the capacitive touch device comprises of a substrate, two adjacent first axial electrodes, a first axial conductive wire, and a pair of metal jumpers. The first axial conductive wire is disposed between the two adjacent first axial electrodes for connecting the two adjacent first axial electrodes. The pair of metallic metal jumpers is disposed on the connecting points of the two first axial electrodes and the first axial conductive wire. Accordingly, resistance caused by the connecting points of the two adjacent first axial electrodes and the first axial conductive wire can be reduced such that response speed of the pattern of the capacitive touch control device is increased.
US09619083B1

A touch circuit, a display driver circuit, a touch display device, and a method of driving the same. After display driving is ended and before touch driving begins to be performed, touch driving and touch sensing are accurately performed through pre-setting driving without the influence of display driving that was ended already. An accurate touch sensing result without touch sensing noise is obtained.
US09619080B2

An electronic apparatus includes a display, a touch panel, an input receiving module and a threshold value correcting module. The touch panel is configured to be superimposed on the display. The input receiving module is configured to receive an input through the touch panel. The threshold value correcting module is configured to correct a threshold value which determines whether or not a touch is input.
US09619069B2

A display apparatus with a touch detection function, includes: a plurality of common drive electrodes disposed in parallel so as to extend in one direction; a display element displaying on the basis of a pixel signal and a display drive signal; a touch detection element detecting an external approaching object on the basis of a touch-detection drive signal; and a scan drive section performing first scan driving to apply the display drive signal to the plurality of common drive electrodes sequentially by time division and second scan driving having a scan speed different from a scan speed of the first scan driving to apply the touch-detection drive signal to the plurality of common drive electrodes sequentially by time division, wherein the scan drive section drives the common drive electrodes for each plurality of the electrodes in the first and the second scan driving.
US09619066B2

A touch sensor integrated type display device includes a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of data lines which are arranged to cross over each other, a plurality of pixel electrodes respectively disposed in areas defined by the crossing of the plurality of gate lines and the plurality of data lines, a plurality of touch electrodes serving as common electrodes, each of which overlaps some of the plurality of pixel electrodes in an active area, and a routing wire which is arranged on at least one side of each of first and second data lines related to the some pixel electrodes corresponding to each touch electrode serving as the common electrode in parallel with the first and second data lines. The routing wire is connected to the touch electrode serving as the common electrode.
US09619061B2

Disclosed are a display device and a control method thereof. More particularly, disclosed is a method of providing various notification modes based on a folding angle of a foldable display device and a bending angle of a flexible display device.
US09619059B2

A stretchable display device, including a stretchable display panel to display images; and a window on a touch sensing layer, the window including a soft part and a plurality of hard parts attached on a surface of the soft part, the hard parts including an attachment portion attached to the soft part and a non-attachment portion not attached to the soft part.
US09619050B2

A mouse configured to be used as a user interface with a computing device. The mouse may include an arm component, a body component coupled to a first part of the arm component, and a wheel component coupled to a second part of the arm component.
US09619044B2

A trackpad device includes a top surface, a capacitive sensor operably coupled to the top surface, a resistive sensor disposed below the capacitive sensor and at least one controller operably coupled to the capacitive sensor and to the resistive sensor. The at least one controller and the capacitive sensor are configured to detect one or more objects on the top surface. The at least one controller and the resistive sensor are configured to detect the one or more objects on the top surface independent of the detection by the at least one controller and the capacitive sensor. The at least one controller is configured to determine locations of the one or more objects on the top surface using information from the detection by the at least one controller and capacitive sensor and information from the detection by the at least one controller and the resistive sensor.
US09619030B2

One embodiment of the user interface system comprises: A tactile layer defining a tactile surface touchable by a user and plurality of deformable regions operable between a retracted state, wherein the deformable regions are flush with an undeformable region of the tactile layer; and an expanded state, wherein the deformable regions are proud of the undeformable region. A substrate joined to the undeformable region and defining a fluid port per deformable region and a fluid channel. A displacement device displacing the fluid through the fluid channel and the fluid ports to transition the deformable regions from the retracted state to the expanded state. A first and a second pressure sensor detecting changes in fluid pressure within the fluid due to a force applied to a particular deformable region. A processor determining the particular deformable region to be location of the input force based upon the detected fluid pressure changes.
US09619023B2

A communication terminal for communicating with a counterpart communication terminal includes a receiver that receives image data including an eye image of a user operating the counterpart communication terminal from the counterpart communication terminal, the eye image of the user being captured at the counterpart communication terminal while the user is viewing a predetermined position on a counterpart display, and circuitry that specifies a sightline position indicating a sightline position of the user operating the counterpart communication terminal based on the received image data, generates calibration data indicating a relationship between a first area including the specified sightline position of the user and a second area including the predetermined position on the counterpart display, and adjusts the specified sightline position of the user on a display at the communication terminal based on the generated calibration data.
US09619022B2

Systems and methods for presenting location related information after a user arrives at a place. In an aspect, when a user gazes at a display of a standby device, information presentation begins. In another aspect, when a user shakes a standby device and then gazes at it, a presentation starts. Location related info may be sorted and presented by the pointing direction of a device.
US09619016B2

A method for displaying an image on a terminal, includes: acquiring current posture information of the terminal; selecting, according to the current posture information, a target area in a preset image as a wallpaper image of the terminal; and displaying the wallpaper image on a screen of the terminal.
US09619011B2

A system on chip includes a debugging controller, a plurality of clusters, and a power management unit (PMU). The debugging controller is included in a first power domain and a joint test action group (JTAG) interface is included in the first power domain. Each of the clusters is included in at least second power domain different from the first power domain. The PMU is configured to release a powered-off state of the debugging controller in response to a debugging request signal output from the JTAG interface.
US09619005B2

An apparatus and method for saving power of a USB composite network device is provided. The method includes sending an idle request IRP to a composite driver at a bus driver of a network driver when the composite network device requests selective suspend, sending power state transition information to the composite driver and shifting a power state from a normal state to an intermediate sleep state at the bus driver, and shifting a power state from the normal state to the intermediate sleep state at the composite driver according to the power state transition information, wherein, when the composite network device is shifted to the selective suspend mode, the bus driver and the composite driver are in the intermediate sleep state and an NDIS miniport driver of the network driver is in the normal state.
US09618999B1

Monitoring is performed for a requested change in a number of active processor cores within a multi-core processor. A current power level setting of the multi-core processor is checked based on the requested change in the number of active processor cores. A targeted power level setting associated with the requested change in the number of active processor cores is determined, where the targeted power level setting incorporates a worst case noise level margin defined on an active processor core basis. The current power level setting is adjusted to align with the targeted power level based on determining that the current power level setting fails to meet the targeted power level within a threshold band.
US09618997B2

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a multicore processor with a power controller to control a frequency at which the processor operates. More specifically, the power controller can limit a maximum operating frequency of the processor to less than a configured maximum operating frequency to enable a reduction in a number of frequency transitions occurring responsive to power state events, thus avoiding the overhead of operations performed in handling such transitions. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09618983B2

A memory module includes a signal tab and a power tab spaced apart from each other on a surface layer of a substrate, the signal tab and the power tab defining a module tab area, a reference plane layer below the surface layer, the reference plane layer being recessed below the signal tab and being non-recessed below the power tab, and an insulating layer between the surface layer and the reference plane layer.
US09618978B2

An embodiment of the invention introduces a method for controlling a touch panel, executed by a micro-controller of a portable computer, which contains at least the following steps. A control signal is outputted to direct a touch panel controller to disable the whole touch panel or a portion thereof before sleep mode is entered.
US09618977B2

Input device adhesive techniques are described. A pressure sensitive key includes a sensor substrate having one or more conductors, a spacer layer, and a flexible contact layer. The spacer layer is disposed proximal to the sensor substrate and has at least one opening. The flexible contact layer is spaced apart from the sensor substrate by the spacer layer and configured to flex through the opening in response to an applied pressure to initiate an input. The flexible contact layer is secured to the spacer layer such that at first edge, the flexible contact layer is secured to the spacer layer at an approximate midpoint of the first edge and is not secured to the spacer along another portion of the first edge and at a second edge, the flexible contact layer is not secured to the spacer layer along an approximate midpoint of the second edge.
US09618976B2

A computer display has an adjustable built-in stand with a slide portion that reciprocates in an opening in the rear of the display, and a support portion hingedly connected to the slide portion that extends rearwardly of the display and that supports the display in adjustable orientations, established by sliding the slide portion in the opening, ranging from the vertical or near vertical to the horizontal or near horizontal.
US09618959B2

A circuit includes a reference circuit configured to receive a reference input voltage and provides a first output signal that is a function of the reference input voltage. The circuit includes a reference adjuster configured to receive an external input signal and generates a second output signal that is a function of the external input signal to control an offset voltage to adjust the first output signal. The first output signal and the second output signal are combined to provide a dynamic reference output signal. If the external input signal has crossed a predetermined threshold, the dynamic reference output signal tracks the external input signal while maintaining a substantially constant voltage difference relative to the external input signal.
US09618954B2

In response to connection of a vehicle with an external power supply, a plug ECU (PLG-ECU) performs a first charging operation of controlling a charger using a target value which is set to a state of charge lower than a predetermined full state of charge, until the state of charge of a power storage device reaches the target value. After the state of charge reaches the target value, the PLG-ECU stops charging of the power storage device, and restarts charging of the power storage device so that the state of charge reaches the predetermined full state of charge at a scheduled time to end charging which is specified through the use of an input unit.
US09618951B2

Provided is a voltage regulator capable of keeping the accuracy of an output voltage thereof even at high temperature. The voltage regulator includes: a reference voltage circuit configured to output a reference voltage; an output transistor configured to output an output voltage; a voltage divider circuit configured to divide the output voltage to output a divided voltage; an error amplifier circuit configured to amplify a difference between the reference voltage and the divided voltage, and output the amplified difference to control a gate of the output transistor; a switching circuit configured to switch the divided voltage of the voltage divider circuit; and a temperature detection circuit configured to output a signal in accordance with temperature to control the switching circuit.
US09618949B2

A power system for delivering a custom level of electrical power to an industrial or commercial facility includes a local generator connected to a turbine operating in accordance with an organic Rankine or steam Rankine cycle. The local generator has a capacity at least greater than a maximum anticipated power level needed for the electrical needs of a local industrial or commercial facility. One or more control devices are operatively connected to the local generator for regulating active and reactive power generated by the generator. A controller directs the one or more control devices to regulate the generator such that the active power and reactive power generated by the generator are sufficient to satisfy active and reactive load conditions of local industrial or commercial facilities. Also, a flow control component is operatively connected to the main conduit for automatically limiting the flow of the motive fluid to the turbine module during base load conditions and for automatically increasing the flow of the motive fluid to the turbine module during variable load conditions.
US09618946B2

A method includes presenting a set location setting within a graphical user interface (GUI) of a mobile device, and then detecting a selection of the set-location setting. The method proceeds by detecting at least one on-site network in communication with the mobile device in response to the selection of the set location setting, identifying a network name associated with the at least one on-site network, and associating the network name of the on-site network with an on-site zone of a site associated with the mobile device. The method then proceeds by altering an operating condition of a network device located at the site in response to a location of the mobile device relative to the on-site zone.
US09618944B2

A method and system for characterizing pressure controller valves of a pressure controller system are described herein. The pressure controller system includes a first valve and a second valve coupled to a manifold and a controller configured to control operation of the first valve and the second valve. The first valve regulates mass flowrate into the manifold and the second valve regulates mass flowrate released from the manifold. To characterize the apply valve, an electronic solenoid current to the first valve is increased until the manifold pressure rate exceeds the pressure rate threshold. When the manifold pressure rate exceeds the pressure rate threshold, the electronic solenoid current to the first valve decreases until the manifold pressure rate falls below the pressure rate threshold. These steps continue until the manifold pressure exceeds a manifold pressure threshold. At this point, the first valve is closed and characterization of the second valve commences.
US09618942B2

An electronic storage device is coupled with a container capable of holding liquid for electronically storing information relating to the liquid stored in the container. The system can be configured with an antenna, for storing information to and reading information from the electronic storage device. A microprocessor-based controller, coupled with the antenna, may be employed for controlling processing of the liquid based on information read from the electronic storage device by the antenna. A connector of a secure reader system having a reader is provided to physically couple to a container having an information storing mechanism, for periodically reading information from an information storing mechanism. The connector may draw material from the container simultaneous with the reading.
US09618938B2

A system includes a computer programmed to determine, along a nominal path to be traversed by a vehicle, a potential field representing a driving corridor for the vehicle. The computer is further programmed to identify a position of the vehicle relative to the potential field at a current time, and apply a torque to q steering column of the vehicle. The torque is based at least in part on the position. The potential field includes an attractive potential that guides the vehicle to remain within the corridor.
US09618933B2

System and method for verifying a monitoring and protection system's (MPS) configuration and installation are disclosed. The MPS includes a plurality of input/output (I/O) channels configured to couple to at least one sensor sensing machinery operations, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) communicatively coupled to the plurality of I/O channels, where the ADC is configured to receive at least one signal from the plurality of I/O channels communicated by the sensor and is configured to convert the signal to a digital data. The MPS also includes a processor communicatively coupled to the ADC, where the processor is configured to derive a state based on the digital data, and an excitation system communicatively coupled to the ADC, where the excitation system is configured to excite an excitation signal for a selected system state as a replacement for the signal.
US09618927B2

A method of determining a radius of a cutting end of a tool for a turning machine using a touch probe is provided. One of the cutting end and the touch probe is movable relative to a reference frame having a first axis and a second axis and having a reference point trackable in the reference frame. The method comprises establishing a first contact point and recording a first coordinate of the reference point on the first axis; establishing a second contact point and recording a second coordinate of the reference point on the second axis; establishing a third contact point and recording a third coordinate of the reference point on the first axis and a fourth coordinate of the reference point on the second axis upon contact; and determining a radius of the cutting end based on the first, second, third and fourth coordinates.
US09618920B2

This document discusses among other things, methods and apparatus to conserve energy when providing proximity information. An example apparatus can include an energy emitter configured to emit a first pulse of energy, an energy sensor configured to receive reflected energy from the first pulse of energy, a control circuit including a processor, the processor configured to provide first proximity information of the apparatus with respect to an object using the reflected energy. The control circuit can be configured to control the energy emitter, to compare the first proximity information with second proximity information, and to modulate a delay between the first pulse of energy and a subsequent pulse of energy using the comparison.
US09618917B2

A power control device includes a multiple socket-outlet, a power plug and a power supply control circuit. The control circuit includes a power output unit, a first relay and a second relay, a first capacitor, a mechanical switch, an electronic switch and a connector connected to the host of a computer to receive a first voltage. The mechanical switch is turned on to supply power to the multiple socket-outlet, the first relay is closed, the power output unit outputs a working voltage for charging the first capacitor, the electronic switch is turned on, the second relay is closed. If the connector is turned off, the electronic switch is turned off, and the second relay is turned off so that the the multiple socket-outlet is closed.
US09618910B2

A method (100) of generating on-demand device templates for integrating a controller controllable (CC) device with a process controller in a processing plant. A device description for the CC device is obtained (101) including a list of device parameters, connection details for communications including assembly structures, and a mapping of the device parameters into the assembly structures or the device description. Using a device template generating algorithm a custom device template is generated (102) for the CC device (i) by modifying an existing device template to include at least one modification or (ii) from the device description.
US09618906B2

A hand-moving mechanism moves a hand and includes a stepping motor and a wheel train mechanism. The stepping motor includes a plurality of coils and rotates a rotational shaft thereof in forward and reverse directions. The wheel train mechanism includes a plurality of gears having: one gear which is coupled to the rotational shaft of the stepping motor; and another gear which is coupled to the hand. The stepping motor includes two coil cores which are arranged in a vicinity of a peripheral edge portion in a module having a bent peripheral edge portion, which have a linear shape respectively and which extend from a central coupling portion respectively. Each of the two coil cores is formed to be bent at a predetermined angle following a bent shape of the peripheral edge portion of the module, so as to sandwich the central coupling portion between the two coil cores.
US09618903B2

Disclosed are a holographic image display device and a method for driving the same which may stabilize luminance of a holographic image and reduce flicker. The holographic image display device includes a laser backlight unit, a surface light converter converting laser light emitted from the laser backlight unit into surface light-type laser light and emitting the surface light-type laser light, a spatial light modulator (SLM) implementing an input holographic interference pattern and projecting a holographic image at a viewing point using the surface light-type laser light, and an optical switching unit located between the laser backlight unit and the SLM and controlling polarization of the laser light. The optical switching unit blocks laser light emitted to the SLM in a blocking mode, and transmits the laser light emitted to the SLM in a transmission mode.
US09618899B2

An image forming apparatus includes a main assembly, a first unit openable relative to the main assembly, and a second unit which is provided inner than the first unit and which is openable relative to the main assembly. Two engaging portions are provided on the second unit for placing the second unit in a closed state in engagement with the main assembly. An urging portion is provided in the first unit for urging the second unit. The second unit is urged by the urging portion of the first unit so that a state of the second unit is capable of being changed from an open state to the closed state. The urging portion urges a region in a neighborhood of a central portion of the second unit with respect to a direction of arrangement of the two engaging portions.
US09618895B2

An image forming apparatus includes: a sheet conveyance section configured to convey a sheet; an image forming section configured to transfer a toner image to the sheet passing through a transfer nip; a fixing section that is allowed to be displaced in a sheet width direction in a predetermined acceptable displacement range relative to a home position, the fixing section being configured to fix the toner image on the sheet passing through a fixing nip; a skew detection section configured to detect skew of the sheet between the transfer nip and the fixing nip; and a control section which controls the fixing section to displace in the sheet width direction based on a detection result obtained by the skew detection section.
US09618882B2

An image formation apparatus includes: image formation units each configured to form a developer image; an intermediate transfer body onto which the developer images formed by the respective image formation units are transferred; a secondary transfer member configured to transfer the developer images, which are transferred to the intermediate transfer body, onto a record medium using a voltage supplied to the secondary transfer member; and a voltage supply unit configured to supply a voltage to the secondary transfer member. Arrangement of the image formation units is changeable. Depending on the arrangement of the image formation units in a conveyance direction of the intermediate transfer body, the voltage supply unit changes a voltage to be supplied to the secondary transfer member.
US09618875B2

An optical writing control device and method are provided, for controlling light emission of a plurality of light sources to form an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive element, the light sources including a plurality of light emitting elements disposed in a line and classified into a plurality of groups, including frequency converter circuitry configured to acquire image information to be formed as the electrostatic latent image; and a light source controller configured to control the plurality of light sources based on pixel information generated from the acquired image information, wherein the light source controller is further configured to control the light emission of the plurality of light sources by classifying the light emitting elements into the plurality of groups, and shifting a timing of light emission from one group of the plurality of groups to a next group of the plurality of groups, and determine a common illuminating period for the light emitting elements of at least one light source of the plurality of light sources based on the shifted timing of light emission among the plurality of groups.
US09618868B2

A color toner image with a metallic effect can be prepared by forming one or more latent images and developing them with non-conductive metallic dry toner particles and color toner particles. The developed color toner image can be transferred to a receiver material, and fixed to provide a color toner image with a metallic effect. The non-conductive metallic dry toner particles have a polymeric binder phase and non-conductive metal oxide particles dispersed therein. Before fixing, each non-conductive metallic dry toner particle has a mean volume weighted diameter (Dvol) of 15-40 μm and the non-conductive metal oxide particles are present in an amount of at least 20-50 weight %. The ratio of the non-conductive metallic dry toner particle Dvol to the average equivalent circular diameter (ECD) of the non-conductive metal oxide particles in the non-conductive metallic dry toner particles is greater than 0.1 and up to and including 10.
US09618863B2

A toner is provided. The toner includes a binder resin, a colorant, a release agent and an external additive. The toner has an average circularity of from 0.965 to less than 0.985. The toner has BET specific surface area of less than 1.20 m2/g after liberation treatment of external additive.
US09618861B2

A conductive layer contains a binder material, a first particle, and a second particle. The first particle is composed of a core particle and aluminum-doped zinc oxide covering the core particle or is composed of a core particle and oxygen-deficient zinc oxide covering the core particle. The second particle is of the same material as that of the core particle of the first particle. The content of the first particle is 20% by volume or more and 50% by volume or less of the total volume of the conductive layer. The content of the second particle is 0.1% by volume or more and 15% by volume or less of the total volume of the conductive layer and is 0.5% by volume or more and 30% by volume or less of the volume of the first particle.
US09618856B2

The present disclosure relates to a deformable reticle chuck. In some embodiments, an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) deformable reticle chuck has a substrate of insulating material with a plurality of protrusions extending outward from a first side of the substrate. A resistive material is arranged along a second side of the substrate below the plurality of protrusions. The resistive material is configured to expand in response to an applied current or voltage to adjust a shape of a reticle.
US09618852B2

An immersion lithography apparatus includes an optical member, a gap defined between the optical member and a surface disposed opposite the optical member being filled with an immersion liquid, and a fluid control device including gas outlets through which a gas is supplied to prevent the immersion liquid from entering a surround area external to an exposure area. A flow velocity of the gas supplied from the gas outlets is controlled so that a pressure of the gas supplied by a first one of the gas outlets is different from a pressure of the gas simultaneously supplied from a second one of the gas outlets.
US09618842B2

A resist composition including a base component that exhibits changed solubility in an alkali developing solution under the action of acid, an acid-generator component that generates acid upon exposure, and a nitrogen-containing organic compound, the acid generator component including an acid generator represented by general formula (b0), the nitrogen-containing organic compound including a compound represented by general formula (d1) or general formula (d2) in which each of R1 and R2 represents an aryl group or an alkyl group, Rf represents a fluorinated alkyl group, X−represents a counter anion, each of R3 and R4 represents an aliphatic hydrocarbon group, R5 represents a hydrocarbon group having 5 or more carbon atoms, and each of R6 and R7 independently represents a hydrogen atom, an aliphatic hydrocarbon group, or —C(═O)—O—R5.
US09618837B2

An extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask comprises a substrate, a first reflective layer above a surface of the substrate, and a second reflective layer over the first reflective layer. The second reflective layer has various openings that define a first state and a second state. The first state includes the first reflective layer and is free of the second reflective layer. The second state includes both the first and second reflective layers. The first state has a first reflection coefficient and a first reflectivity. The second state has a second reflection coefficient and a second reflectivity. A phase difference between the first and second reflection coefficients is about 180 degrees.
US09618831B2

An image projector includes a first deflector configured to deflect a first optical path and to form a second optical path, a second deflector configured to deflect the second optical path and to form a third optical path, a shifter configured to shift a projection lens in a vertical direction which corresponds to a longitudinal direction of the projected surface among directions orthogonal to an optical axis of the projection lens, a housing configured to house the first deflector and the second deflector, and a fixed plate fixed onto the housing at an end on an installing surface side of the housing, the projection lens and the shifter being fixed onto the fixed plate, wherein the third optical path is closer to an installing surface of the housing than the first optical path.
US09618827B2

Illumination devices may be provided with one or more light sources that emit light of the same, similar, and/or different optical spectra within a wavelength range, for example, from the extreme ultraviolet (UV) to the far infrared (IR). One or more of the light sources may be selectively adjusted to control the overall mix of light projected onto a scene of interest. For example, one or more light sources may be used, and sometimes in conjunction with other optical elements, to provide illumination having a particular angular intensity distribution, color temperature, and/or other desired optical properties for a scene within a field of view (FOV) of the camera of a mobile device used for videography and/or photography. One or more illumination devices may also be used as flashlights and/or as sources of electrical power for recharging mobile devices. Related methods are provided.
US09618822B2

An all-optical information exchange device and method are provided. The all-optical information exchange device includes: a second-order nonlinear optical waveguide, a first optical coupler, a third optical coupler, a fourth optical coupler, a first optical filter, a second optical filter and a first polarization controller; the first optical filter is transmissive to a first wavelength/waveband signal light, and the second optical filter is transmissive to a second wavelength/waveband signal light during use.
US09618807B2

Methods and devices to compensate for image color variance due to display temperatures are provided. In one example, a display of an electronic device may include a first pixel section that has multiple pixels. The pixels may include a red subpixel, green subpixel, and blue subpixel that each has a respective aperture ratio. The display may also include a second pixel section that has multiple pixels. Again, the pixels may include a red subpixel, green subpixel, and blue subpixel that each has a respective aperture ratio. One or more of the subpixel aperture ratios of the first pixel section may be greater than a respective one or more of the subpixel aperture ratios of the second section to overcome image color variance that may exist due to temperature variations of the display.
US09618799B2

Disclosed is a liquid crystal display (LCD) device. The LCD device includes a first substrate and a second substrate facing each other, a liquid crystal layer between the first substrate and the second substrate, an alignment layer on at least one of the first and second substrates for alignment of liquid crystals in the liquid crystal layer, and a sealant in an edge area of each of the first and second substrates to bond the first substrate to the second substrate, the sealant including a diene compound.
US09618793B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel and a backlight unit providing light to the liquid crystal display panel. The liquid crystal display panel includes a first substrate on which a thin film transistor is disposed, a second substrate facing the first substrate, a liquid crystal layer disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate, and a first polarizer disposed on the second substrate having a plurality of metal patterns spaced apart from each other by an interval. The backlight unit faces the second substrate.
US09618788B2

An optical film, containing a cellulose acylate, and at least one compound represented by any of formulas (I) to (III): wherein, in formulas (I) to (III), R1 and R2 each independently represent a halogen atom, an alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, aryl, hydroxy, hydroxyamino, amino, alkylamino, arylamino, alkoxy, aryloxy, alkylthio, or arylthio group (however, R1 and R2 do not represent an amino, alkylamino, or arylamino group at the same time); R3 to R6 each independently represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, aryl, acyl, alkyl- or aryl-sulfonyl, alkyl- or aryl-sulfinyl, carbamoyl, sulfamoyl, alkoxycarbonyl, or aryloxycarbonyl group; R7 represents an alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, aryl, alkylamino, arylamino, alkoxy, aryloxy, or heterocyclic group; R8 represents an alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, aryl, or heterocyclic group; and R1 to R8 each may be further substituted with a substituent; and a polarizing plate and a liquid crystal display.
US09618785B2

The present disclosure provides a color filter substrate, a method for manufacturing the same, a display panel and a display device. The color filter substrate includes a plurality of color filters and a black matrix arranged between adjacent color filters. The color filter substrate further includes a position limiting unit arranged on the black matrix and configured to clamp at least one of data lines and gate lines on the array substrate.
US09618782B2

The invention relates to a touch sensor, an in-cell touch liquid crystal display panel and a liquid crystal display. The touch sensor includes a plurality of drive electrodes and a plurality of sense electrodes disposed in a same layer and intersecting each other. The drive electrodes occupy a first area and the sense electrodes occupy a second area different from the first area. Mutual capacitances are formed between the drive electrodes and the sense electrodes. The touch sensor further includes a plurality of virtual electrodes disposed in a third area that does not overlap the first and second areas.
US09618781B2

A display device includes a display panel including an upper substrate and a lower substrate facing and coupled to a rear surface of the upper substrate, a guide frame supporting the display panel, and a coupling member coupling the guide frame to the display panel. The coupling member includes an adhesive member providing adhesive strength and at least one or more buffer members which are disposed inside the adhesive member and have an elastic force. Accordingly, the display device can absorb an impact applied to the display panel, thus enhancing the stability of the display panel.
US09618777B2

An all-fiber isolator as an optical isolator comprises: an optical fiber acting as an optical light guide for propagating incident light; and a Faraday rotator for rotating by 45° a plane of polarization polarized by the polarizer. The all-fiber isolator exhibits a magneto-optic effect enough to be used as an optical isolator at a visible light wavelength by including quantum dots in a core layer and/or an internal cladding layer of the optical fiber.
US09618770B2

There is provided a camera module including a plurality of ball bearings to support the driving of a lens barrel at the time of compensating for unintended camera movement due to disturbance such as hand shake. The lens barrel may be driven in first and second directions, independently, by one driving force exerted in the first direction perpendicular to an optical axis and by another driving force exerted in the second direction perpendicular to both the optical axis and the first direction, thereby preventing driving displacement from being generated at the time of compensating for unwanted motion such as hand shake while securing reliability against external impact, and having reduced power consumption at the time of compensating for the disturbance.
US09618765B2

Liquid crystal devices are described that maintain performance of polarization/amplitude modulation under high irradiance conditions. Configurations that isolate polarizing elements under high thermal load are discussed which allow other elements, such as glass, which may be sensitive to stress birefringence to remain near optimum thermal conditions.
US09618760B2

A collapsible ‘quasi 3D’ stereoscopic display device and method of construction for quick automatic deployment for use with a mobile smart device at any time and place and folding for storage within a mobile communication device (phone, tablet, portable computer) thin cover carrying case or other thin storage device.
US09618759B2

A display image is superimposed and displayed on an outside image in a preferred manner.An optical system superimposes a display image displayed on a display device onto an outside image, and leads the display image to an eye of an observer. A display control unit controls the display size and the display position of the display image on the display device so that the display image is displayed in an image superimposition region (a flat region) detected from the outside image. For example, the display control unit controls the display state of the display image in accordance with the state of the image superimposition region in the outside image. Also, the display control unit performs control to selectively display the display image in a line-of-sight region or outside the line-of-sight region in accordance with the line of sight of the observer.
US09618755B2

A projector has plural liquid crystal light valves each of which modulates color light, a cross dichroic prism which combines the color lights modulated by the plural liquid crystal light valves, and a projection lens which projects the light combined by the cross dichroic prism. The projector includes: a holding unit which holds the liquid crystal light valve; and a supporting member having a body unit supported to the cross dichroic prism and first plate-like portions which protrude from the body unit and support the holding unit. The first plate-like portions are inclined from a vertical plane including an optical axis of the liquid crystal light valve.
US09618750B2

A head-mounted or helmet-mounted display apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes an optical element which in use is disposed in front of the eyes of a user. The optical element comprises a waveguide portion. The apparatus further includes a first light source and a second light source of image-bearing light. The apparatus further includes first diffraction element for propagation of image-bearing light of the first light source through the optical element. The apparatus further includes a second diffraction element for propagation of image-bearing light of the second light source through the optical element. The first light source and the second light source is disposed such that relative angular movement of the first light source and the second light source about an axis of symmetry of the optical element adjusts the inter-pupillary spacing of a first visible image and a second visible image presented to a respective eye of a user.
US09618749B2

Technologies for mitigating a physiological condition include a wearable computing device coupled with a head-mounted display and sensor(s). The wearable computing device may receive sensor data indicative of a physical attribute of the user while displaying information on the head-mounted display. The wearable computing device analyzes the sensor data to detect a physiological condition of the user and, if detected, applies a mitigation strategy to mitigate the physiological condition. The detected physical condition may be a nausea condition or a seizure condition. To reduce potential risk to the user, the wearable computing device may buffer information to be displayed by the head-mounted display, analyze the display information based on risk factor rules to determine whether the display information presents a potential risk to the user, and reduce the display rate of the head-mounted display in response to the potential risk to the user. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09618747B2

A compact, lightweight, self-powered head mounted display device for viewing a media file including omnidirectional image data and corresponding audio data. The device includes a housing configured to be worn on a user's head, a processor, and at least one display for displaying the image data from a processor. The device also includes at least one speaker for playing the audio data to the user. The device also includes a system memory for storing media files for display on the device. The device detects the orientation/position of the user's head and updates the displayed image and played sound accordingly. The device may also create omnidirectional media files for playback or for use on other devices. The device may send and receive media files utilizing a wired connection, a wireless connection, or both. The device may optionally fold up for compact storage.
US09618739B2

An actuator comprises an electroactive polymer layer (402) and stretchable electrode structures (410, 411) that are disposed on each side of the electroactive polymer layer (402). A softer passive layer (401) is secured to one of the stretchable electrode structures (410, 411). When compressed transversally by the stretchable electrode structures (410, 411), the electroactive polymer layer (402) will expand tangentially and the actuator will relax into a shape wherein the interior of the electroded region is substantially parallel to the plane of the device, while a substantial portion of the area increase is absorbed by out-of-plane bends arising at the electrode boundary (duck mode). The invention can be embodied as optically reflective or refractive devices with variable geometry.
US09618738B2

An illumination device includes: an excitation light source that emits excitation light having a first wavelength; a fluorescent substance that, when irradiated with the excitation light, emits light having a second wavelength longer than the first wavelength and transmits a part of the excitation light, and thereby multiplexes and emits the transmitted excitation light having the first wavelength and the emitted excitation light having the second wavelength; and a driving unit that moves an irradiation position of the excitation light in the fluorescent substance with the passage of time.
US09618733B2

An imaging assembly for the viewing, imaging, and analysis of chemiluminescent or bioluminescent samples in gels or other substrates, in which an adjustable camera and lens module having a prime or fixed lens or a focusing lens is moved to change the field of view by shifting the focal plane of the camera and lens module. The imaging assembly can also include a mirror to bend or fold the optical path between the camera and lens module and the target area having a sample, in which the mirror can move in the same vertical direction as the camera and lens module. Further, the camera and lens module can be configured to more move in a diagonal direction relative to the location of the imaging target area. The imaging assembly can further have a duct system adaptable to adjust with the movement of the camera and lens module.
US09618730B2

A camera lens is disclosed and includes from the object side to the image side: a first lens with positive refractive power; a second lens with negative refractive power; a third lens with negative refractive power; a fourth lens with positive refractive power; a fifth lens with positive refractive power; and a sixth lens with negative refractive power. Specific conditions are satisfied.
US09618721B2

An imaging apparatus includes: a lens mount section; an imager having an imaging plane on which an image having an image height obtained through a lens device mounted to the lens mount section is formed; an imaging process section correcting transverse chromatic aberration of an imaging signal obtained by the imager; and a control section determining an imager size in accordance with the diameter of the lens device mounted to the lens mount section and correcting a correction coefficient for the correction of transverse chromatic aberration at the imaging process section according to the size thus determined.
US09618713B2

An aspect of the present invention is an optical element that combines light waves using a spatial optical system, including a housing section, an optical waveguide element, a combine section, and a collimator section is provided. The housing section has a storage space and is formed by joining two or more members together. The optical waveguide element is provided in the storage space and emits at least two light waves. The combine section is provided outside the storage space and combines the light waves emitted from the optical waveguide element outside the housing section using a spatial optical system. The collimator section is connected to the housing section, holds the combine section, and includes a light focusing section configured to focus a light wave combined by the combine section and an optical fiber to which the light wave focused by the light focusing section is introduced.
US09618711B2

An apparatus for forming a transceiver interface includes an fiber optic ferrule and an optical transceiver component. The fiber optic ferrule engages a mating plane of a lens array in the optical transceiver component. The engagement of the two components may be removable rather than fixed. The fiber optic ferrule also engages a mechanical interface to account for three degrees of freedom, while the engagement of the mating surfaces account for another three degrees of freedom.
US09618702B2

Reduced-profile connection components are described. The reduced-profile connection components are configured to connect various data transmission elements, including cables, network devices, and computing devices. A non-limiting example of a connection component includes a fiber optic connection component, including connectors, adapters, and assemblies formed therefrom. In some embodiments, the connection components may include mechanical transfer (MT) and multi-fiber push-on/pull-off (MPO) connection components, such as MT ferrules and MPO adapters. The reduced-profile connection components configured according to some embodiments have a smaller profile and/or require less parts to achieve a connection compared to conventional connection components. In some embodiments, the reduced-profile connection components may be used with conventional connection components. For example a reduced-profile connector may use a conventional MT ferrule to establish a connection within a conventional MPO adapter.
US09618701B2

An enclosure assembly for a terminating transmission line and electrical connector has a housing sub-assembly and a telescoping sub-assembly. The telescoping sub-assembly has a retained state where the telescoping sub-assembly is longitudinally fixed within the housing sub-assembly, and a retaining section with a minimum retaining position, and a maximum retaining position distanced from the minimum retaining position along a longitudinal direction of the enclosure assembly.
US09618689B2

Electronic devices may include displays having backlight structures that include optical films. The optical films may help guide light from the backlight structures to display layers that generate display images using the light. The optical films may be attached together at one or more locations. The optical films may be attached to a structural member of the backlight structures. The structural member may be formed along each edge of the optical films and prevent the optical films from sliding within the display. Each optical film may be designed to expand to a common lateral size when the display is operated at a display operating temperature. The optical films may each include an elongated opening such as a slot through which a pin can be placed to partially constrain the movement of the optical films while allowing the optical films to expand or contract under changing thermal conditions in the display.
US09618686B2

The present invention provides a laser backlight lamp assembly, having a LED light bar and a laser light bar at one side of the LED light bar, and a laser light source of the laser light bar is a green laser light diode; a LED lamp of the LED light bar has a base, a heat sinker installed in the base, a blue light lampwick fixed on the heat sinker and a light housing, and colloid containing fluoride red phosphor is filled inside the base, and the colloid covers the blue light lampwick, and the light housing covers the base and houses the colloid, and the laser light source of the laser light bar and the LED light bar illumine at the same time to be backlight lamps. The present invention further provides a backlight module and a display device.
US09618670B2

A light source apparatus includes: a primary light source module including a primary light source configured to emit primary light; a light conversion module including a light conversion unit configured to convert optical properties of the primary light and to generate secondary light; a light guide path, arranged between the primary light source module and the light conversion module, configured to guide the primary light to the light conversion module from the primary light source module; a first connecting portion configured to connect detachably the light conversion module with the light guide path; and a second connecting portion configured to connect detachably the primary light source module with the light guide path.
US09618666B2

An object of the present invention is to provide a near-infrared-absorbing composition capable of forming a cured film having excellent heat resistance while maintaining strong near-infrared shielding properties when a cured film is produced. The near-infrared-absorbing composition of the present invention includes a copper complex obtained by reacting two or more kinds of sulfonic acids represented by General Formula (I) described below or salts thereof with a copper component and a solvent.
US09618647B2

A method for making downhole electromagnetic logging while drilling measurements includes rotating an electromagnetic logging while drilling tool in a subterranean wellbore. The logging tool includes a plurality of transmitter antennas and a plurality of receiver antennas symmetrically spaced along a logging while drilling tool body, the plurality of transmitter antennas including at least one axial transmitter antenna and at least one transverse transmitter antenna. The plurality of receiver antennas includes at least one axial receiver antenna and at least one transverse receiver antenna. The receiver antennas are used to acquire electromagnetic voltage measurements while rotating. The voltage measurements are processed to compute harmonic voltage coefficients, selected ratios of which are processed to compute gain compensated symmetrized and anti-symmetrized quantities and angles. These quantities may optionally be further processed to compute rotated gain compensated symmetrized and anti-symmetrized quantities.
US09618643B2

Disclosed are a method and an apparatus for decoding a signal sent from a measurement-while-drilling tool. In order to decode the signal, a decoder implementation that is communicative according to a decoder implementation protocol and that is configured to decode the signal into a decoded signal is instantiated. The decoder implementation protocol is then conformed to a transmission protocol. The signal is sent to the decoder implementation according to the transmission protocol. Because the decoder implementation protocol has been conformed to the transmission protocol, the decoder implementation can receive the signal and can decode it. One way in which the decoder implementation protocol can be conformed to the transmission protocol is through the use of a translation layer between the module that sends the signal to be decoded and the decoder implementation.
US09618641B2

Controller and method for determining a driving signal of a vibro-acoustic source element that is configured to generate acoustic waves in water. The method includes estimating at least one physical constraint of the vibro-acoustic source element; modeling a ghost function determined by a surface of the water; setting a target energy spectrum density to be emitted by the vibro-acoustic source element during the driving signal; and determining the driving signal in a controller based on at least one physical constraint, the ghost function, and the target energy spectrum density.
US09618635B2

This disclosure is directed to devices, integrated circuits, and methods for sensing radiation. In one example, a device includes an oscillator, configured to deliver a signal via an output at intervals defined by an oscillation frequency, and a counter, connected to the output of the oscillator and configured to count a number of times the comparator delivers the output signal. The oscillator includes a radiation-sensitive cell that applies a resistance. The resistance of the radiation-sensitive cell is configured to vary in response to incident radiation, wherein the oscillation frequency varies based at least in part on the resistance of the radiation-sensitive cell.
US09618624B2

The invention relates to a sports- and general pole element. The pole element includes components for an arrangement for operating a handheld geophysical locating device with at least one sensor, a power supply, an operating unit, and an interface for wireless data transmissions, wherein the components are arranged concealed in a body of the sports- or general pole element and wireless transmission of locating data is provided through the interface to a mobile evaluation- and display unit.
US09618617B2

A method of measuring a level of a material in a tank. A first secondary reference (FSR) signal is generated when a reference pulse is transmitted into the tank and a second secondary reference signal (SSR) signal is generated when an echo signal responsive to the reference pulse is received. A plurality of FSR signals and a plurality of SSR signals are stored. The plurality of FSR signals and plurality of SSR signals are transferred to a correlator block which calculates a plurality of correlation function values (CFVs) that have magnitudes reflecting a degree of matching between pairs of the SSR signals with their associated FSR signals. Using a maximum CFV result a time interval (Tm) is calculated between the FSR signal and SSR signal associated with the maximum CFV result, and the level of material in the tank is determined from Tm.
US09618611B2

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a radar device for detecting objects that intersect an area, the device including a mount attachment; a radar sensor; an output interface; a memory storing one or more environment parameters; a processor in communication with the radar sensor, the output interface, and the memory, the processor being configured to: receive, from the radar sensor, signal information; retrieve, from the memory, environment parameters; calculate, based on the signal information, the distance relative to the sensor of one or more objects; calculate an area based on at least one of the environment parameters; and determine that at least one of the one or more objects intersect the area.
US09618610B2

A light source is used for emitting an invisible light toward an object. The object reflects the invisible light and reflected light is formed, and a sensor is used for receiving the reflected light. A processor is coupled to the sensor for recording a time interval of the invisible light traveling from the light source to the object and reflected from the object to the sensor. Then, the processor estimates a measurement distance of the object according to the time interval, and adjusts an emission period of the light source, an exposure period of the sensor, intensity of the invisible light, and/or main sensing range of the sensor according to the measurement distance.
US09618609B2

An object is sensed without a malfunction due to disturbance light. An optical sensor (101) of an aspect of the invention includes: a light-emitting element (LED) which turns off and turns on alternately for each one period; a light-receiving element (PD1) which receives reflection light and generates a photocurrent; and an integrating circuit (11) which integrates the photocurrent in a positive direction in a period during which the light-emitting element turns on and integrates the photocurrent in a negative direction in a period during which the light-emitting element turns off. A sum of lengths of integration periods in a first period and a last period is same as a length of another integration period.
US09618603B2

Embodiments of a communication station and method for time-of-flight (ToF) location determination in a wireless network are generally described herein. In some embodiments, a responding communication station receives a ToF measurement request. The responding communication station transmits an acknowledgment of the ToF measurement request. The responding communication station also transmits a response to the ToF measurement request that includes an indication of a time period for an initiating communication station to poll the responding communication station for a ToF result.
US09618593B2

A computer-implemented method of performing magnetic resonance imaging with ultra-short echo time pulse sequences includes defining short T2 threshold limits for enhancement. A multi-echo ultra-short echo time response is acquired and a complex dataset is determined based on the multi-echo ultra-short echo time response. A plurality of phase components is identified from the complex dataset, wherein each phase component is associated with a T2 relaxation time within the short T2 threshold limits. A plurality of frequency components is also identified from the complex dataset, wherein each frequency component is associated with the T2 relaxation time within the short T2 threshold limits. Next, a magnitude dataset is derived from the complex dataset and a fitting algorithm is applied to the magnitude dataset to yield a plurality of magnitude components, wherein each magnitude component is associated with the T2 relaxation time within the short T2 threshold limits. A plurality of phase masks are created based on the plurality of phase components and the plurality of frequency components. These phase masks are applied to the magnitude dataset to obtain a combined dataset. Then, an image based on the combined dataset may be presented on a display.
US09618582B2

A system for detecting faults in a motor includes a drive circuit, a detection circuit, and a controller. The drive circuit is configured to apply a drive signal to a motor. The detection circuit is configured to detect a response signal generated when the drive signal is applied to the motor. The controller is configured to determine a motor fault based on a comparison of the response signal to an expected signal for the drive signal applied to the motor. The drive signal is selected to generate a rotating magnetic field in the motor with a rotation-frequency greater than a maximum mechanical-response-frequency of the motor.
US09618579B2

In certain embodiments, an integrated circuit has scan-test circuitry that performs scan testing on circuitry under scan test (CUST) within the IC, where the scan-test circuitry is susceptible to a defect. In order to enable the defect to be corrected after it occurs, the scan-test circuitry includes a set of programmable circuitry connected to provide a signal to other circuitry (e.g., a scan chain) within the scan-test circuitry, where the set of programmable circuitry includes one or more configurable memory cells connected to control the programming of the set of programmable circuitry. The memory cell(s) can be configured to program the set of programmable circuitry to enable the scan testing to be performed without modification. The memory cell(s) can also be configured to program the set of programmable circuitry to modify the scan testing to correct the defect in the scan-test circuitry.
US09618576B2

A semiconductor device measurement apparatus 1A includes a tester 2 that generates an operational pulse signal to be input to a semiconductor device 3, a light source 5 that generates light, a light branch optical system 6 that irradiates the semiconductor device with the light, a light detector 7 that detects reflected light obtained by the semiconductor device 3 reflecting the light, and outputs a detection signal, an analog signal amplifier 8 that amplifies the detection signal and outputs an amplified signal, and an analysis apparatus 10 that analyzes an operation of the semiconductor device 3 based on the amplified signal and a predetermined correction value, wherein the predetermined correction value is obtained based on a signal obtained by the analog signal amplifier 8 amplifying a signal corresponding to a harmonic of a fundamental frequency of the operational pulse signal.
US09618569B2

A testing method includes measuring an electrical parameter of a device under test (DUT) and a corresponding temperature of the DUT one or more times, determining coefficients in a pre-constructed model based on a plurality of measured values of the electrical parameter and corresponding measured temperatures to characterize a relationship of the electrical parameter to the temperature, and determining a quality of the DUT based on the model and a limit value of the electrical parameter at a specified temperature. The model is pre-constructed to characterize the relationship of the electrical parameter to the temperature with the coefficients that are DUT-dependent variables.
US09618562B2

Disclosed herein is an apparatus that includes a first internal-potential generation circuit that generates a first internal potential from a power supply potential and that outputs the first internal potential to a first node, and an internal-potential force circuit that includes a first switch element provided between the first node and a second external terminal. The internal-potential force circuit causes the first switch element to enter into an off-state when the test signal supplied to a third external terminal is activated and a potential level of a first external terminal is a first level, and causes the first switch element to enter into an on-state when the test signal supplied to the third external terminal is activated and the potential level of the first external terminal is a second level different from the first level.
US09618548B1

An energy monitoring system for retrofitting a miniature circuit breaker load center 100, comprises energy monitoring module 120, data bus 140, and main controller 110. The energy monitoring module attaches onto miniature circuit breaker 130, forming a combined shape that fits into a branch circuit space of the load center. An attachment connector 320 electrically and mechanically connects the energy monitoring module to load terminal 318 of the circuit breaker. An energy sensing circuit 314 in the energy monitoring module senses energy passing through the circuit breaker and transmits data signals over the data bus to the main controller. The main controller has a shape that fits into another branch circuit space of the load center. The main controller wirelessly transmits to a network, information based on the data signals received on the data bus. The main controller provides operating power via the data bus, to the energy monitoring module.
US09618545B2

The invention relates to an apparatus and method for tracking energy consumption. An energy tracking system comprises at least one switching element, at least one inductor and a control block to keep the output voltage at a pre-selected level. The switching elements are configured to apply the source of energy to the inductors. The control block compares the output voltage of the energy tracking system to a reference value and controls the switching of the switched elements in order to transfer energy for the primary voltage into a secondary voltage at the output of the energy tracking system. The electronic device further comprises an ON-time and OFF-time generator and an accumulator wherein the control block is coupled to receive a signal from the ON-time and OFF-time generator and generates switching signals for the at least one switching element in the form of ON-time pulses with a constant width ON-time.
US09618541B1

A magnetometer that senses low level currents flowing in a conductor or wire includes two cores with excitation windings on each core that are connected in series but which are wound in opposite orientations. A periodic alternating current drives the windings. Since the windings are in series but oppositely wound, the current flowing through the windings will produce equal but opposite flux flows in the two cores. A sensing winding is wound around both cores to provide flux profiles. A digital processor analyzes a quiescent flux profile, which is generated when no sense current is flowing through the dual cores, and distorted flux profiles when sense currents are flowing through the dual cores to measure a sense current flowing through the dual cores.
US09618539B2

A DC-DC converter includes a directly coupled inductor with coil elements and power-switching phases. Each phase includes a high-side and low-side switch, where the high-side switch couples a voltage source to a coil element and the low-side switch couples the coil element to a ground voltage. Each switch is configured to be alternately activated and no two switches are activated at the same time. A current sensor for the DC-DC converter includes a single current amplifier having inputs and an output. The output provides a current sensing signal. The current sensor also includes a single RC network coupled to one of the power-switching phases and a first input of the current amplifier. The current sensor also includes a resistive ladder. The ladder includes, for each of the other power-switching phases, a resistor coupled in parallel to the RC network resistor and to a second input of the current amplifier.
US09618536B2

A probe needle includes a head, a tail and a body connected between the head and the tail and provided with a first flat section curvedly extending from the head towards the tail for providing sufficient deformation when the tail is pressed on a device under test, and a second flat section neighbored to the first flat section for supporting the probe needle in between upper and lower dies. When the probe needles are used in a probe module, the probe needles can be arranged with a pitch same as that of the conventional probe needles even though the probe needles are formed from posts having a relatively greater diameter than that of the posts for making the conventional probe needles, such that the probe needles may have enhanced current withstanding capacity and prolonged lifespan.
US09618534B2

Embodiments of the invention come up from a guide and support member within a device for testing electronic components, which guide and support member can be moved into a feeding position and into a testing position, the guide and support member with a base body for accommodating an electronic component to be tested, with at least one support for supporting contact springs of the electronic component to be tested, and with at least one stopper that stops the movement of the electronic component to be tested at one of its contact springs once the electronic component to be tested is in an exact position. According to the invention, the at least one support comprises a ceramic material, wherein the stopper is anchored in the base body.
US09618533B2

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for determining rotation. A gyroscope includes a drive frame and a base, the drive frame springedly coupled to the base. The gyroscope includes a drive structure configured for causing a drive frame to oscillate along a first axis. The gyroscope includes a sense mass springedly coupled to the drive frame. The gyroscope includes a sense mass sense structure configured for measuring a displacement of the sense mass along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis. The gyroscope includes measurement circuitry configured for determining a velocity of the drive frame, extracting a Coriolis component from the measured displacement, and determining, based on the determined velocity and extracted Coriolis component, a rotation rate of the gyroscope.
US09618524B2

The disclosure relates to an in vitro technology of detecting presence of a plaque particle, isolating the plaque particle followed by its composition analysis in several diseases states or before the disease sets in. A mechanism and a process leading to plaque formation, identifying a component in the mechanism of plaque formation, an identification of a biomarker for diagnosis/early diagnosis of plaque associated disease is described. A method of screening a candidate agent as an anti-plaque agent using flow cytometer, mass spectrometer and specific biomarkers is performed. Provided also are kits for use in practicing embodiment of the methods. A plaqueproteome database is also generated with novel protein sequences for diagnosis and specific antibodies for specific proteins are also disclosed.
US09618523B2

Methods include determining in a sample an amount of a first isomeric analyte and a second isomeric analyte. A first measurement value and a second measurement value are determined. The first measurement value represents a total amount of the first isomeric analyte and the second isomeric analyte. The second measurement value represents an amount of the second isomeric analyte only. The second measurement value is subtracted from the first measurement value to obtain a resulting value and the resulting value is equated to an amount of the first isomeric analyte in the sample.
US09618515B2

The invention includes methods for isolating circulating multiple myeloma cells as well as method of treating patients suspected of having diseases of abnormal plasma cells.
US09618510B2

The present disclosure is directed to a kit for the detection of an analyte of interest in a sample comprising, in one or more vials, containers, or compartments, a. a surface comprising (i) a capture reagent for the analyte, said capture reagent bound to the surface, and (ii) an anchoring reagent bound to an anchoring oligonucleotide sequence, said anchoring reagent bound to the surface, b. a first detection reagent for the analyte that is linked to a first nucleic acid probe, wherein the first nucleic acid probe comprises an extended sequence that is complementary to the anchoring oligonucleotide sequence and c. a second detection reagent for the analyte that is linked to a second nucleic acid probe.
US09618507B2

The present invention relates to methods for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In particular, the present invention relates to methods of treating rheumatoid arthritis with GnRH antagonists in patients with high gonadotropin and/or GnRH levels.
US09618504B2

To provide a sample analyzer capable of accurately obtaining the number of analyzable samples. When analyzing a sample collected from a subject, a CPU of the sample analyzer calculates the number of analyzable samples based on a remaining number of tests of a reagent set in a reagent holding section and the number of tests of the reagent to be consumed in measurement of a control, and causes a output section to display the number of analyzable samples. When creating a calibration curve, the CPU calculates the number of analyzable samples based on a remaining number of tests of the reagent set in the reagent holding section, the number of tests of the reagent to be consumed in measurement of the control, and the number of tests of the reagent to be consumed in measurement of a calibrator, and causes the output section to display the number of analyzable samples.
US09618503B2

The invention relates to a method for determining the production of reactive oxygen species in a cellular population. The invention also relates to a method for determining the need for an antioxidant treatment of a male subject, and to a method for identifying a substance that can reduce the reactive oxygen species in a cellular population.
US09618500B2

A vascular model includes at least one microchannel perfusable by at least one fluid and in a form of a hollow structure having a wall thickness in a range from 0.1 μm to 1000 μm, a concave inner surface with a cross-section which is circular in part and at least one pore having a diameter in a range from 1 nm to 100 μm. The at least one microchannel has a width in a range from 0.01 μm to 10 mm and a depth in a range from 0.01 μm to 10 mm. At least one chamber is perfusable by a same and/or different fluid and surrounds the at least one microchannel over an entire length and width or over parts thereof. The at least one chamber adjoins the at least one microchannel. At least one connector is configured to receive and/or discharge the at least one fluid.
US09618499B2

A diffusion chamber for determining different parameters of an aqueous substance includes a vertical central cylinder having a sample chamber for receiving a substance sample and a needle-shaped pH-measuring sensor having a measuring tip which is brought into contact with the substance sample. A spectrophotometer having glass-fiber optics is configured to penetrate the substance sample. A gas supply into the sample chamber is configured to provide a variable gas exposure of the substance sample when determining parameters. A needle of the pH-measuring sensor is inserted into an obliquely extending groove of a slid-in sample slide. A sealing ring on the sample slide is pressed against the central cylinder by means of an inserted spacer ring, the sample chamber is tightly sealed with respect to gases from the surroundings of the diffusion chamber, and a minimum distance is maintained between the lower collimating lens and the substance sample.
US09618485B2

In a high performance liquid chromatography system, wherein a mobile phase is driven through a stationary phase for separating compounds of a sample fluid comprised in the mobile phase, a flow rate of the mobile phase is controlled in dependence on a variation in a control value in the system.
US09618464B2

A metal detector (20) has a metallic enclosure (21) with entrance and exit apertures (30, 31). A coil system inside the enclosure has an energized transmitter coil. First and second receiver coils (24, 25) bound a detection zone (28) between the apertures, through which inspected objects (2) travel. The receiver coils are on opposite sides of the transmitter coil, with regard to the direction of travel (13). The receiver coils are connected in series, but their windings are wires oppositely in a rotational sense. Metal contamination in the object generates a detection signal in the receiver coils. A first and second flange (26), arranged at the entrance and exit, cancel the undesirable influence of metal contamination beyond a first distance upstream of and a second distance downstream of the coil system. The respective flanges differ from each other and, consequently, the first and second distances are different.
US09618458B2

Methods and systems for measuring a property of a component of a fuel cell system include performing a three-dimensional optical scan of at least a portion of a surface of the component to produce a three-dimensional representation of the topography of the at least a portion of the surface and measuring at least one property of the component based on the three-dimensional representation. Further embodiments include systems and methods for measuring dimensions of a fuel cell component using a line scan imaging device and/or a matrix camera.
US09618454B2

The invention concerns a method of measuring the amount of a particular SERS-active taggant compound in a sample of a material which includes the steps of adding an internal standard containing an isotopically-altered version of said SERS-active taggant compound to the sample, contacting the sample/internal standard mixture with a SERS substrate then subjecting the mixture and SERS substrate to Raman spectroscopy. The concentration of SERS-active taggant compound in the sample is then calculated from the ratio of (i) the Raman spectroscopy detector response to the SERS-active taggant compound to (ii) the Raman spectroscopy detector response to the internal standard.
US09618453B2

Provided herein are fluorescent bioprobes comprising fluorogens that exhibit aggregation-induced emission (AIE) labeled on biomolecules. The present subject matter relates to a fluorescent bioprobe comprising one or more fluorogen labeled on chitosan. The present subject matter is also directed to methods of preparing the fluorescent bioprobes, methods of labeling and detecting DNA and/or proteins with the fluorescent bioprobe, and methods of cell imaging including live cell tracking.
US09618452B2

A fluorescence hyperspectral microscopy system featuring structured illumination and parallel recording includes a light projection sub-system, a detection sub-system, and an electrical controller. The light projection sub-system includes a digital light processing (DLP) module for generating linear excitation light, a first lens set, an optical path allocation element, and an objective lens. The detection sub-system includes a second lens set, a frequency-dividing reflection element, a two-dimensional light detector, and a light collection element. With the detection sub-system performing detection in conjunction with the light projection sub-system, and the electrical controller controlling the DLP module, a two-dimensional moving platform, and the two-dimensional light detector, the fluorescence hyperspectral microscopy system provides increased resolution and can obtain accurate information in spatial and spectral dimensions and hence a four-dimensional hyperspectral image of the object under detection.
US09618445B2

The present application discloses optical microscopy systems and related method that use modulation techniques and contrast agents to enable the systems to detect nonlinear photoacoustic signals with high spectrum sensitivity and frequency selectivity for imaging. A laser beam is amplitude modulated for pure sinusoidal modulation using either the loss modulation technique or the single light amplitude modulation technique. The sample used in the invention is an endogenous contrast agent by itself or is treated by at least one exogenous contrast agent to produce or enhance photoacoustic effect induced by multi-photon absorption. The modulated laser beam is focused via a focusing device onto a sample which absorbs multiple photons simultaneously and generates ultrasonic (acoustic) waves via nonlinear photoacoustic effect. The ultrasonic waves are received and transformed into electrical signals and the frequency signals within the electrical signals are detected and recorded to create images.
US09618436B2

A method for determining mechanical properties of a material includes positioning a probe tip of selected material properties having a selected geometry and a selected accelerating mass at a selected position and a selected height above a sample of the material. The probe tip is released to accelerate toward the sample. A first parameter related to force on the probe tip with respect to time is recorded. The releasing the probe tip is repeated with at least one of a different selected probe tip material, a different tip geometry, a different height and a different accelerating mass to record a second parameter related to force. The first and second parameters are used to determine at least one of an elastic property and a strength of the material.
US09618435B2

Apparatus and methods related to umbilical bend-testing are described. For example, some embodiments may contain a three-level support structure, umbilical terminal locker, bending machine, compression testing device, and stress-strain collection system, and may be used for the bending fatigue endurance test for umbilical samples.
US09618431B2

Electrokinetic devices and methods are described with the purpose of collecting assayable agents from a dielectric fluid medium. Electrokinetic flow may be induced by the use of plasma generation at high voltage electrodes and consequent transport of charged particles in an electric voltage gradient. In one embodiment, the agents are directed electrokinetically to the sample collection assay device with no intermediate transfer steps. The agents are directed by creation of an electrokinetic potential well, which will effect their capture on to an assay device. Environmental agents such as biowarfare agents, pathogens, allergens or pollutants are collected autonomously on to the assay device, without any human intervention. The dielectric fluid medium, such as air, is sampled by electrokinetic propulsion with no moving parts or optionally, by transporting the dielectric fluid by a fan, pump or by breath. A further embodiment for collection of pathogen samples entails breathing into a tube where the sample is exposed to an electric plasma in the neighborhood of a high voltage electrode or electrodes, further transported by the breath through a potential well created at a sample collection device, where charge particles are electroprecipitated. The dielectric fluid medium may further include non-conductive liquids, such as oils. Oils may be sampled for the presence of contaminants, contaminating organisms or bio-degrading organisms.
US09618426B2

A quantitative sample transfer device for receiving and holding a sample while it is weighed and for transferring the weighed sample material into a flask without losing any sample, the quantitative sample transfer device having a hollow central body segment with a flat bottom surface, a first hollow neck at one end of the central body, a second hollow neck at the opposite end of the central body, a removable first cap for occluding the first hollow neck, a removable second cap for occluding the second hollow neck, an opening in the central body for introducing a sample into the body, a lid permanently attachable to the body segment over the opening that remains permanently closed once closed and a set of lateral ridges on at least one neck that allow for the release of air when a solvent is introduced into the transfer device to flush any remaining sample into the container. The lid may be hinged to the body segment.
US09618424B2

A method and a system for inspection of gas turbine are presented. An inspection tool is attached on a track which is permanently positioned on site with respect to the gas turbine. The inspection tool includes an extendible shaft with a proximal end attached on the track and a distal end carrying a sensor. The inspection tool moves along the track for accessing an inspection port of the gas turbine by the shaft. A control system is coupled to the inspection tool for controlling the inspection tool for the inspection of the gas turbine. The method and system enable an automated engine inspection which allows for the engine to have been inspected and reviewed by an engineer without having to send the engineer on site.
US09618422B2

Methods and systems are provided for detecting spark plug fouling in an ignition system of an engine. In one example, a method may include directing current flow into a primary winding of an ignition coil of the ignition system for a duration of dwell period responsive to a dwell command from a controller, reducing the current flow to discharge an initial spark, and discharging additional sparks. The method may further include selectively generating an indication of a recommendation to change one or more spark plugs of the ignition system based upon a primary current measured after the dwell period.
US09618415B2

A pressure sensor package includes a substrate providing a connection port, a support member mounted on the substrate by compression molding and having a gap cut through opposing top and bottom walls thereof to expose the connection port, a sensor chip mounted on the support member and electrically connected to the connection port, an encapsulating cover covered on the support member and defining therein an accommodation chamber that accommodates the sensor chip and a through hole that is disposed in communication with the accommodation chamber for the passing of an external signal therethrough to the sensor chip. Thus, the support member steadily carries the sensor chip and isolates stress arising from the external environment, thereby reducing stress interference with the sensor chip and enhancing the overall performance of the pressure sensor package.
US09618410B2

A check fixture measures a total clamp force applied by a welder device. The welder device includes a welding horn having a plurality of weld pads and welding anvil having a plurality of weld pads. The check fixture includes a base member operatively supporting a plurality of force sensors. The base member and the force sensors are received between the weld pads of the welding horn and the anvil pads of the welding anvil. Each force sensor is configured to measure an individual clamp force applied thereto by corresponding weld and anvil pads when the base member is received between the welding horn and the welding anvil and the welder device is in the clamped position. The individual clamp forces are used to determine whether the weld and/or anvil pads are worn or misaligned.
US09618409B2

An exemplary system includes a moveable mass. A load bearing member includes at least one electrically conductive tension member that supports a load associated with movement of the mass. An electrically conductive member is situated along a selected portion of a path of movement of the load bearing member. The electrically conductive member is not subject to a load on the tension member. A processor is configured to determine an electrical resistance of the tension member as an indicator of a condition of the tension member. The processor is configured to determine an electrical resistance of the electrically conductive member. The processor uses the determined electrical resistance of the electrically conductive member to compensate for any environmental influence on the determined electrical resistance of the tension member.
US09618394B2

The disclosure extends to systems, methods, and apparatuses for monitoring the condition and temperature of belts in belt driven machines, and for determining maintenance plans for the belt driven machines.
US09618381B1

A method for a fuel system comprises receiving a first indication of inconsistency in a fuel level indicator output during a fuel consumption cycle, receiving a second indication of inconsistency in a fuel level indicator output during a refueling event, and indicating electrical degradation of the fuel level indicator responsive to the first and second indications of inconsistency indicating coincident ranges of inconsistency for the fuel level indicator output. By gauging the consistency of a fuel level indicator output during both upward and downward travel, electrical degradation may be distinguished from mechanical degradation. In this way, a range of inconsistency may be determined, and a reported fuel level adjusted while the fuel level indicator output is within the range of inconsistency.
US09618375B2

A flow rate sensor system (200) is provided. The flow rate sensor system (200) includes a density or specific gravity meter (202) including a sensor assembly (204a) and a density or specific gravity meter electronics (204b) configured to generate a density or specific gravity measurement of a process fluid. The flow rate sensor system (200) further includes a mass flow meter (203) including a sensor assembly (205a) and a mass flow meter electronics (205b) configured to generate a mass flow rate of the process fluid and in electrical communication with the density or specific gravity meter electronics (204b). A remote processing system (207) is provided that is in electrical communication with only one of the density or specific gravity meter electronics (204b) or the mass flow meter electronics (205b). The remote processing system (207) is configured to receive a volume or energy flow measurement of the process fluid generated by the density or specific gravity meter electronics (204b) or the volumetric meter electronics (205b) based on the generated density or specific gravity measurement and the generated mass flow rate.
US09618374B2

Flowmeters are described in which a sensor signal received from a sensor that is attached to vibratable flowtube, so as to determine properties of a fluid within the flowtube, contains a drive signal component and a Coriolis mode component. The flowmeters are operable to determine drive parameters of the drive signal component, as well as Coriolis parameters of the Coriolis mode component. By analyzing the sensor signal based on the drive signal parameters, and not on the Coriolis signal parameters, the flowmeters are able to provide stable and accurate determinations of the properties of the fluid.
US09618364B2

An integrated wheel speed measuring device according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes: a hub which is installed inside a wheel bearing; a magnetic encoder which is installed by being inserted into a recessed portion that is provided in one surface of the hub; and a wheel cap which surrounds the one surface of the hub and the recessed portion, in which the magnetic encoder has a cylindrical shape, and is installed in the recessed portion in a longitudinal direction thereof.
US09618362B2

One embodiment includes a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) gyroscope system. The system includes a vapor cell comprising an alkali metal and a plurality of gyromagnetic isotopes and a pump laser configured to generate an optical pump beam configured to spin-polarize the alkali metal. The system also includes a probe laser that generates an optical probe beam and a detection system configured to monitor the optical probe beam and to calculate a rotation of the NMR gyroscope system about a sensitive axis based on a modulation of the optical probe beam in response to precession of the plurality of gyromagnetic isotopes resulting from the spin-polarization of the alkali metal. The system further includes a calibration controller that modulates a characteristic of the optical pump beam to substantially mitigate bias errors associated with the gyromagnetic isotopes in the calculation of the rotation of the NMR gyroscope system about the sensitive axis.
US09618357B2

A vehicle assistance device for a driver includes a control unit for generating data that indicates information with respect to the temporal occurrence of an event along a route of a vehicle. A display unit displays a map of the route of the vehicle between a starting point and a destination point of the route. The control unit controls the display unit with data, wherein the control unit generates the data in such a way that the information characterizing the temporal occurrence of an event is displayed on the display unit along the map of the route as a function of the point-in-time of occurrence of the event.
US09618356B2

A navigation apparatus includes storage configured to store a graphic map and a photographic map, a controller configured to control to convert the photographic map into the graphic map to display the graphic map when the photographic map and actual topography or the photographic map and the graphic map include mutually different positions in a photographic map display mode, and a display configured to display the graphic map or the photographic map and display a current position of a vehicle on the graphic map or the photographic map.
US09618350B2

A computer readable medium embodies a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a processing apparatus to perform operations including determining information corresponding to a number of differences in distances between ending points of journeys taken by a vehicle and starting points of consecutive journeys taken by the vehicle, and transmitting one or more representations of the information. Another computer readable medium tangibly includes instructions for, for each of a number of vehicles, receiving one or more scores corresponding to a vehicle, and determining a ranked list containing at least a portion of the scores, and outputting the ranked list. Another computer readable medium includes instructions for, for each of a number of vehicles, receiving information corresponding to a vehicle, using one or more metrics, calculating one or more values from the received information, and communicating one or more representations of the one or more value to one or more entities.
US09618327B2

In an illustrative embodiment, the free space attenuation of illumination with distance, according to a square law relationship, is used to estimate the distance between a light source and two or more different areas on the surface of a product package. By reference to these distance estimates, the angular pose of the product package is determined. Plural frames of imagery, captured both with and without illumination from the light source, can be processed to mitigate the effects of ambient lighting.
US09618324B2

Provided is an apparatus and method for generating tomography mages, the apparatus including a detection unit configured to modulate each of incident beams into at least two basic modulated incident lights on the basis of at least a basic modulation parameter and into a target modulated incident light on the basis of a target modulation parameter, and to detect at least two basic interference signals and a target interference signal of an object; and an imaging unit configured to analyze the at least two basic interference signals to output a set target modulation parameter, to process the target interference signal as a target image of the object, and to output the target image.
US09618320B2

Heterodyne interferometry is combined with spectrally-controlled interferometry (SCI) to achieve the advantages of both. Phase shifts produced by SCI produce phase-shifted correlograms suitable for heterodyne interferometric analysis, thereby enabling interferometric measurements with conventional common-path apparatus free of coherence noise and scanning-related errors, and with the precision of conventional heterodyne interferometry. A spectrum-modulating light source suitable for the invention is obtained by combining a rotating spiral grating with a multi-slit grating placed in the front focal plane of a collimating lens that propagates the light toward a blazed diffraction grating. Another exemplary spectrum-modulating light source is obtained by combining a slit spectrometer with an acousto-optic modulator.
US09618318B2

The present invention relates to a method for contactlessly measuring a relative position of a magnetic field source (102) which produces a magnetic field and a magnetic field sensor (100) in relation to each other. The present invention further also relates to a corresponding displacement sensor. The invention describes an operating principle of a sensor which is based on the Hall effect and which achieves an increase in the sensor output range with a magnet which is simultaneously reduced in size by storing the earlier value when control by the magnetic field is lost. In particular, the method comprises the steps of: calculating the position signal on the basis of a quotient of two magnetic flux density components; calculating a magnitude of the magnetic flux density and comparing the magnitude with a predetermined threshold value; outputting the current calculated position signal if the magnitude of the magnetic flux density is higher than the threshold value; outputting a preceding stored position signal if the magnitude of the magnetic flux density is smaller than or equal to the threshold value; storing the output position signal.
US09618307B1

An ammunition cartridge for a gun is optically initiated by a mechanism wholly within the cartridge case itself. The case has as optical primer initiation means producing light fluence to ignite a primer, which ignited primer may in turn ignite into a flashtube, and which ignited flashtube may in turn ignite a bed of propellant in said cartridge. The optical primer initiation means may be an LED, a laser diode, a VCSEL, or some other light emitting device in general. The cartridge optically initiated primer package is so sized and made electrically and mechanically seamlessly physically compatible with current ammunition cartridges such that these new cartridges are completely interchangeable. If the cartridge primer initiation means is of a percussion type, the cartridge is adapted to include an in-line piezoelectric crystal so that electrical power will be generated when the cartridge assembly is struck by a firing pin during percussion type operations; the power is then used to initiate the light emitting device.
US09618298B2

A system facilitates one handed manipulation of a service pistol and includes a device having two components and related inserts that allow for single handed loading, cycling, firing, clearing and unloading of semi-automatic pistols. The present device includes a spine; and a retainer attached to the spine wherein the retainer comprises at least a first groove tapering from a first width towards the pivotal attachment between the cover and spine to a second width towards the front edge of the cover.
US09618295B1

A handheld archery release includes a handle and a first finger piece which is removably and adjustably connected with the handle to provide radial adjustment of the release. Preferably, a second finger piece is removably and adjustably connected with the first finger piece. Adjusting the finger pieces forward creates a flatter hand feel and provides a faster back-tension speed for shot execution. Adjusting the finger pieces rearward or backward creates a larger arcuate shape for a more swept hand feel and a slower back-tension speed for shot execution.
US09618293B1

A munitions disabling device is disposed in a storage container proximate the muzzle of a single-use weapon. A projectile having a fused warhead is loaded in the weapon prior to storing the weapon. If an unplanned stimulus launches the projectile while the weapon is in the storage container, the projectile will impact or strike the disabling device. The disabling device prevents detonation or explosion of the warhead.
US09618292B1

An apparatus for supporting a firearm having a forestock and a stock, the apparatus including at least two supports, each having an upper end portion and a lower end portion that is opposingly disposed from the upper end portion. A first and second support is configured to be removably attached at their respective upper end portion to the forestock and stock, respectively, of the firearm. Further disclosed is a base including at least one support receiver configured for removably engaging one of the first or second support at its lower end portion. Upon firing the firearm, recoil occurs without restriction as the removably engaged support disengages from the at least one support receiver and the firearm is returnable to the position prior to the firing of the firearm.
US09618290B1

A weapon barrel assembly including Silicon Nitride, Aluminum Oxide and/or Silicon Carbide combined with graphene.
US09618286B1

An ammunition magazine loader include a main body, a rounds recess, a rounds abutment, and a magazine recess. One or more rounds are provided to the rounds recess and positionally maintained by a rounds recess bottom and first and second rounds recess ledges. With a magazine positioned within the magazine recess and at least one round within the rounds recess, as the at least one round is slidably moved out of the rounds recess, the at least one round abuts the rounds abutment and pivots to orient the round such that each second case end is angled towards the magazine recess.
US09618273B2

Various embodiments of a waste heat recovery and conversion system are disclosed. The system may include a modular heat exchanger whose energy source is provided by waste heat energy transporting fluids transferring their energy to a working fluid. The working fluid may be in a liquid state contained in a reservoir hydraulically connected to a high-pressure heat transfer chamber. The high-pressure heat transfer chamber may be configured to receive thermal energy utilized to convert the working fluid into a superheated vapor.
US09618270B2

A high-velocity low-pressure cooling system (100), especially suited for data center applications, includes an air coolant loop (102), a non-air coolant loop (104) and a cooler unit (126) for heat transfer between the loops (102 and 104). The air loop (102) is used to chill ambient air that is blown across heat transfer surfaces of equipment mounted in data center racks (110). In this manner, effective cooling is provided using a coolant that is benign in data center environments.
US09618265B2

A method of tapping a steelmaking furnace comprised of determining a desired level of steel to be attained in a ladle, and calculating the weight of molten steel that will be present when the desired level is attained following a transfer of molten steel from the furnace to the ladle. The furnace is operated such that slag is formed on top of molten steel contained therein. The furnace is moved to a first position to cause transfer of molten steel to the ladle to begin. The transfer of molten steel from the furnace to the ladle is continued, and at the first occurrence of molten steel attaining the desired level in the ladle, molten steel attaining a maximum allowable weight in the ladle, or an excessive amount of slag being present upon the molten steel in the ladle, transfer of molten steel to the ladle is ceased.
US09618263B2

A system is disclosed for drying a material to liberate a substance such as a liquid having a vapor pressure from solids and/or dissolved substances in the material. The system includes a plenum chamber and a blower providing a stream of air to the plenum chamber. An outlet communicates with the plenum chamber and a velocity accelerator is disposed downstream of the outlet. The velocity accelerator is arranged to receive air from the outlet of the plenum chamber into a progressively narrowing interior passageway terminating at a downstream choke point orifice. The choke point orifice discharges into a larger diameter discharge region. A throttle body is disposed in the discharge region and is selectively movable toward and away from the choke point orifice to decrease or increase the volume of the discharge region. A passageway is formed through the throttle body for receiving flashed material from the discharge region and conveying the material in a downstream direction. Also disclosed is a system for drying materials contained within a processing vessel wherein flash generators with vacuum throttles are used to maintain drying conditions within the vessel and to remove liberated substance from the processing vessel.
US09618253B2

Refrigerators that can be used in the storage and transport of vaccines are disclosed. A refrigerator has a payload container (20) within which items can be placed for temperature-controlled storage. The payload container (20) is submerged in a reservoir (21) that contains water. The reservoir has a cooling region containing the payload container and a headspace containing water that is, in use, higher than the payload container. Cooling means, that might include a refrigeration unit (30) having cooling elements (32) or a cold thermal mass can cool water within the headspace. Where there is a refrigeration unit, a power supply, typically solar powered, can act as a source of power for the refrigeration unit. Embodiments may include a freezer compartment close to the cooling elements (32). Alternatively, the cooling region includes a pipe manifold within the payload container.
US09618243B2

A rotary valve for an adsorption heat pump may include a cylindrical valve body, arranged rotatably about a central axis in a predetermined rotation direction with an outer covering and two front plates. A plurality of counter-directional high temperature connections may be arranged on the outer covering for connecting a high temperature heat source. A plurality of counter-directional medium temperature connections may be arranged on the outer covering for connecting a medium temperature heat sink. A plurality of sorption module connections may be arranged on the front plates for connecting a plurality of corresponding sorption modules. A duct system may pass through the valve body for directing a fluid, and a throttle, integrated into the valve body, may be included for constricting a flow cross-section at a throttle site of the duct system. The duct system may include open ducts and closed ducts.
US09618229B2

Provided is a heat exchange device that facilitate assembling of a plurality of heat exchangers. The heat exchange device having a first heat exchanger and a second heat exchanger arranged adjacent to each other so that surfaces of the heat exchangers face each other. A first mounting plate fixed to the side surface of the first heat exchanger, and a second mounting plate fixed to the side surface of the second heat exchanger are fastened and fixed to each other so as to face each other. The first mounting plate has a space of a size such that the second mounting plate can be fixed to the first mounting plate so as to face each other. Insertion holes are formed in the space so as to receive therein tube ends of refrigerant tubes in a plurality of stages, the tube ends laterally projecting from the second mounting plate.
US09618227B2

Systems and methods of providing climate control and/or energy management in a structure having a networking thermostat. In some example embodiments the network is used to monitor a geographic location of a user device associated with a user of the structure. The monitoring may be performed to determine the location relative to a destination located apart from the structure. The network is used to control a set point of the thermostat based on the location. Additionally or alternatively, the monitoring may be performed to determine time period(s) during which the structure is unoccupied and the thermostat is set at a first set point. Energy savings that could have been realized by changing the first set point to a second set point are estimated and provided to the user.
US09618224B2

An HVAC controller and/or server may be programmed to determine if ventilation of a building is desired based, at least in part, on the one or more user-specified air quality thresholds stored in a memory, and one or more of a measure of indoor air quality and a measure of outdoor air quality. The air quality parameter threshold may relate to an air quality index, an air pollutant concentration, a smog alert, a pollen count, a dew point, a chance of precipitation, and/or the like. In addition, the HVAC controller and/or server may take into account current or future weather conditions when determining the ventilation needs of a building. Upon determining that ventilation is needed or recommended, the HVAC controller may send or display a message to the user. The message may recommendation that the user open a window or operate a ventilation system, as desired.
US09618221B2

A ventilation device includes a passage unit (100), a wind turbine (200) and a fan (300). The wind turbine (200) is provided above the passage unit (100), and the fan (300) is provided within the wind turbine (200). The rotation of the wind turbine (200) drives the fan (300) to rotate, so that the air within the passage (100) is exhausted by the fan.
US09618219B2

An air conditioning system includes an intake housing with a fresh air opening and a recirculation air opening, a filter housing to admit an air filter and a fan housing with a fan for intake by suction of air through the intake housing and directing the air through the filter housing. The fresh air opening and the recirculating air opening are aligned in a common horizontal direction and in a vertical direction one above the other. The recirculating air opening is situated in the gravitational direction beneath the fresh air opening. Between the fresh air opening and the recirculating air opening a separation area is configured, with drainage means in such a way that the fluid penetrating into the fresh air opening, when flowing over the drainage means is directed past the recirculating air opening in a receiving area placed below the recirculating air opening.
US09618211B2

A cooking oven includes a housing defining an internal cooking cavity with an opening. A door assembly includes an inner panel framing an inner glass pane, and an outer panel framing an outer glass pane. A pivot arrangement pivotably mounts the door assembly to the housing. The pivot arrangement includes at least one pivot part located on the door assembly and at least one pivot part located on the housing. The pivot part of the door assembly is separable from the pivot part of the housing via vertically upward movement of the door assembly and upon separation of the pivot part of the door assembly from the pivot part of the housing the door becomes completely removed from the housing to enable the door assembly to be taken to a washing station for cleaning.
US09618206B2

The damper arrangement include two concentric hollow shapes, each having a wall, wherein the walls form an annular volume therebetween. The damper arrangement further includes one or more necks for connecting to a combustion chamber at corresponding one or more contact points. The one or more necks are connected to the annular volume.
US09618202B2

Briefly, the invention provides an incinerator comprising a housing suspended above the ground. The housing is without a top or bottom, but includes an elongated member supporting the housing and a grate intermediate of the housing and the elongated member. Also provided is a device for aiding combustion reactions. The device includes a vertically disposed stanchion, a housing, a first open end and a second open end. The housing is supported at the second open end by the stanchion. The device also include a grid with a cross section identical to the cross section of the housing. The diameter of the cross section of the grid is less than the diameter of the cross section of the housing and the grid in rotates around the stanchion.
US09618193B1

A docking system for the interchangeable attachment of personal devices such as lights, electronic devices, popular survival and safety equipment and the like, to the outer face of an article of clothing. It has a pair of discs held in a parallel, spaced arrangement by a pair of opposing stanchions so that a slot is created between the disks and the stanchions. Into this slot may be inserted an engageable tab connected normally to an arm that is affixed to, or extends from a personal device, such as an emergency light. The emergency light has a plethora of lighting modes that regulate which of the numerous disposed LEDs will be illuminated and in what pattern.
US09618171B2

The present invention relates to a light-emitting building element (1) comprising a plurality of solid-state light sources (19); and a sound-absorbing element (10) having an optically reflective side (15). The sound-absorbing element (10) is arranged such that the optically reflective side (15) faces the plurality of solid-state light sources (19), and comprises a plurality of holes (17) through the sound-absorbing element from the optically reflective side to an opposite side (16) of the sound-absorbing element. Each of the holes (17) is configured such that a projection of the hole in a plane parallel to the sound-absorbing element (10) is smaller than a smallest area of a cross-section of the hole (17), the cross-section being perpendicular to a normal of the sound-absorbing element (10). By configuring the ventilation holes in this manner, hot air can pass unhindered through the holes, while at least a fraction of the light hitting the hole on the optically reflective side of the sound-absorbing element will be prevented from passing through the sound-absorbing element.
US09618170B2

A lamp and a hardscape structure illuminated by the lamp are disclosed. The lamp is formed from a plate to which a light fixture is attached. The plate may have a flange, a decorative face plate and side panels attached to direct light from the fixture along the hardscape on which the lamp is mounted. Mounting is effected by positioning the plate between discrete hardscape elements that are stacked one atop another. A portion of the plate projects out from the structure allowing the fixture to cast light on the structure surface. A light transmitting cover is also provided.
US09618157B2

Gas containment vessels are provided that are comprised of an inner corrosion resistant shell made of lower strength steel alloy or aluminum alloy or thermoplastic polymer, and an outer concentric shell constructed of high strength, albeit lower corrosion resistant, metal or fiber-reinforced composite. The fiber can comprise filaments derived from basaltic rocks, the filaments having been immersed in a thermosetting or thermoplastic polymer matrix, and commingled with carbon, glass or aramid fibers such that there is load sharing between the basaltic fibers and carbon, glass or aramid fibers.
US09618156B2

A motor control system for a lubricant pump motor comprises a pump system power input, a motor drive, a current sensor, a lubrication controller, and a drive controller. The pump system power input is configured to supply system power. The motor drive is configured to drive the lubricant pump motor using the system power. The current sensor is disposed between the pump system power input and the motor drive to sense an input current of the system power. The lubrication controller configured to provide motor activation signals. The drive controller is disposed to receive the motor activation signals via an isolated digital input, and to control the motor drive as a function of the sensed input current and a user-defined current set-point, in response to the activation signals.
US09618148B2

The invention comprises dielectric isolators for use in aircraft fuel systems to control lightning induced current and allow dissipation of electrostatic charge. The dielectric isolators are configured to have a high enough impedance to limit lightning currents to low levels, but low enough impedance to allow electrostatic charge to dissipate without allowing buildup. Although the dielectric isolators may develop a potential difference across the dielectric length due to the effects of lightning currents and its inherent impedance, they are configured to withstand these induced voltages without dielectric breakdown or performance degradation. In one embodiment, the dielectric isolator includes a tube constructed of a composition including a thermoplastic organic polymer (e.g., PEEK) and carbon nanotubes, and a pair of fittings attached to opposing ends of the tube. In another embodiment, the dielectric isolator includes a tube, an outer annular portion, and an interconnecting web, each constructed from the composition including a thermoplastic organic polymer (e.g., PEEK) and carbon nanotubes. This later embodiment is an integrally formed one-piece structure. The dielectric isolator is capable of exhibiting an electrical resistance from about 105Ω to 108Ω at an applied potential of greater than 500 volts DC when measured from one fitting to the other fitting.
US09618147B2

Connection assembly includes two pipe end sections arranged to face each other, a profiled clamp including a clamping band with a base and two tilted side walls with ends, and at least one perimeter pleat projecting outwards on each of the pipe end sections. The side walls are engagable with the pleats on sides of the pleats facing away from one another.
US09618143B2

Disclosed herein is a cord control system in several embodiments used to support, separate, and organize power cords including: industrial grade power cords, cables, air hoses, open conduit including; vacuum hoses, oxygen hoses, welding leads, welding hoses, water hoses, data cables, cables, webbing, ropes, etc. Several examples of the cord control system has an optional cord retaining strap which secures and supports multiple cords of optionally varying types on a single cord control rack by utilizing multiple cord receivers.
US09618142B2

Systems and methods for supporting one or more tubular members are provided. The system can include a frame and one or more flexible support members, each having a first end and a second end. The first ends and the second ends can be connected to the frame to provide one or more supports for one or more tubular members.
US09618141B2

Provided is an assembly of a cable and a cable support apparatus capable of suppressing vibrations and noise while saving a cable wiring space. The assembly of a cable and a cable support apparatus includes: at least one cable wired in an approximately U-shape and having one end repeatedly move with respect to the other end; and a cable support apparatus extending along the cable and curved in the approximately U-shape to support the cable, in which the cable support apparatus includes a cable support member including a plurality of piece members articulated along a length direction of the cable and a plurality of bar-shaped cable holding member mounted on at least some of the plurality of piece members to regulate the cable and the cable is disposed on an outer circumferential side at a curved portion having the approximately U-shape with respect to the cable holding member to protrude more outwardly than the cable support apparatus.
US09618140B2

A microvalve includes a first plate having a surface defining an actuator cavity. A second plate has a surface that abuts the surface of the first plate and includes a displaceable member that is disposed within the actuator cavity for movement between a closed position, wherein the displaceable member prevents fluid communication through the microvalve, and an opened position, wherein the displaceable member does not prevent fluid communication through the microvalve. An actuator is connected to the displaceable member and has only one or two pairs of actuator ribs.
US09618138B2

An adjustable damping valve arrangement comprises an adjustable damping valve in which flow is bidirectional, wherein a pressure-dependent supplementary valve is associated with the adjustable damping valve in series therewith for each through-flow direction, wherein each supplementary valve has at least one separate through-channel, the outlet side thereof being at least partially covered by at least one valve disk, wherein the flow path proceeding from the adjustable damping valve in flow direction is carried out through the first supplementary valve from a smaller inlet diameter to a larger outlet diameter, and the at least one valve disk carries out a peripheral lift movement, wherein the flow path through the second supplementary valve in flow direction to the adjustable damping valve is implemented from a larger inlet diameter to a smaller outlet diameter.
US09618137B2

Some embodiments provide irrigation valve control apparatuses comprising: a solenoid configured to cooperate with a plunger; an input stimulus source coupled with the solenoid and configured to apply an input stimulus while a plunger drive signal is not being applied and that is sufficiently small to not cause the plunger to move; sampling circuitry configured to measure one or more voltage measurements corresponding to one or more voltages across the solenoid, wherein the one or more voltage measurements are dependent upon the current position of the plunger relative to the solenoid; and control circuitry cooperated with the sampling circuitry to receive the one or more voltage measurements from the sampling circuitry, wherein the control circuitry is configured to determine whether the plunger is in one of the open and closed positions based on the one or more voltage measurements.
US09618135B1

A valve lockout device includes an elongated main body defining an interior cavity for receiving a valve to be secured. A cap with a notch for receiving a cable is affixed to one end of the main body, with a wing pivotably attached to the cap so that the wing movable between an open position and a closed position. The wing in the closed position is operable to secure a cable with the notch in the cap. With the lockout device in place over a valve and a cable secured around the valve and to the lockout device, the valve is secured against operation and users and operators are notified of the lockout condition.
US09618132B2

A variable flow orifice for a hydraulic control system in a transmission includes a shape memory alloy that selectively increases and decreases the size of an orifice. The deformation of the shape memory alloy, and therefore the size of the orifice, is a function of the temperature of the transmission. During cold conditions the orifice size is increased and during normal operating conditions the size of the orifice is decreased.
US09618128B2

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for substantially eliminating destructive transients of pressure or flow rate which can degrade the efficiency and useful lifetime of chromatography columns. The present invention enables a substantially constant flow of mobile phase liquid to be maintained through the chromatography system by eliminating the flow blockage interval associated with the actuation of sample injection valves. The present invention further provides a method to reduce the pressure and flow rate transients associated with pressurization of the sample loop contents when the sample loop is introduced to chromatography system delivery pressure.
US09618112B2

In an apparatus for detecting abnormal hydraulic pressure of an automatic transmission having first and second input shafts that input rotation of an engine through first and second clutches and an idler shaft that inputs the rotation through a third clutch, and equipped with a hydraulic pressure supply circuit having a first pressure-regulating valve that generates line pressure, a line pressure-regulating valve that controls operation of the first pressure-regulating valve based on a line pressure command value, and first, second and third hydraulic pressure detectors that detect the hydraulic pressures of first, second and third oil passages respectively, it is determined whether abnormality that makes the high pressure abnormally high has occurred in the line pressure-regulating valve based on the hydraulic pressures detected by at least one of the first, second and third hydraulic pressure detectors and a line pressure command value, when predetermined operating conditions of the vehicle are satisfied.
US09618111B2

An apparatus for a learn control of an automatic transmission includes a storage unit configured to store an initial fill time value and a gain value corresponding to a revolution per minute (RPM) peak to peak of a turbine. An oil pressure applier is configured to apply an oil pressure to a non-operating friction element. An RPM measurer is configured to measure the RPM of the turbine, and a learn controller is configured to control the oil pressure applier to apply the oil pressure to the non-operating friction element during a preset reference time and control the initial fill time based on the RPM peak to peak of the turbine showing a difference between a measured value RPM of the turbine measured by the RPM measurer and a preset targeted value while a vehicle is in a coasting operation in an in gear state.
US09618108B2

A quiet-running, multi-layer gear assembly includes a compliant center member sandwiched between a pair of stiff outer members. The compliant center member has an outer peripheral surface with gear teeth. Each of the outer members has an outer peripheral surface with gear teeth disposed in a respective directed axial thrust pattern. The center and outer members are joined on a central hub with their outer peripheral surfaces aligned so as to form a gear assembly with low or no net axial thrust. In some aspects, the compliant center member and the hub include cooperating anti-turn constructions.
US09618104B2

An anti-lash nut assembly for installation on a threaded rod and including a lead nut, a collar, and a spring positioned between the lead nut and the collar. The lead nut has a set of tabs extending radially outward from a rear end of the body. The collar has a set of clearance slots on an inside surface. The set of clearance slots are configured for sliding of the set of tabs through the clearance slots in the rear direction. The collar has a set of ramps on an inside surface. Each of the set of ramps is configured for engagement with each of the set of tabs to prohibit axial movement of the collar in the rear direction.
US09618102B2

An actuator is driven even if a jammed state, a motor stop, or the like occurs. An electromechanical actuator includes: an electric motor attached to a housing; a conversion mechanism portion having a drive portion that is driven to rotate by the electric motor and a driven portion that is driven by the drive portion and advances and withdraws in a predetermined advancing and withdrawing direction, the conversion mechanism portion being accommodated in the housing; a sliding support mechanism that transmits rotational force of the electric motor to the drive portion and allows the drive portion to slide in the advancing and withdrawing direction with respect to the electric motor; and a piston portion controlled so as to be at a predetermined position in the advancing and withdrawing direction with respect to the housing by means of pressure of a fluid supplied to and discharged from the housing.
US09618100B2

Mechanisms and methods for clamping force generation are disclosed. In one embodiment, a clamping force generator system includes a permanent magnet bearing coupled to a traction ring and to a torque coupling. The traction ring can be provided with an electromagnetic bearing rotor and the torque coupling can be provided with an electromagnetic bearing stator. In some embodiments, a mechanical load cam, a permanent magnet bearing, and an electromagnetic bearing cooperate to generate a clamping force between the traction rings, the power rollers, and the idler. In other embodiments, a series of permanent magnet bearings and a mechanical bearing configured to produce a clamping force. In one embodiment an electromagnetic bearing is coupled to a control system and produces a specified clamping force that is associated with a torque transmitted in the transmission during operation. In some embodiments, a mechanical load cam produces a clamping force proportional to torque, while a permanent magnet bearing provides a minimum clamping force.
US09618097B2

Provided is a tensioner in which the durability of the tensioner body is increased, the tensioner body is reduced in weight, and the arrangement space is reduced. A tensioner 100 includes a tensioner body 110, a plunger 120, and a ratchet 130. The tensioner body 110 has a hole outer circumferential wall 112 and a pair of pin support walls 116, 117. The hole outer circumferential wall 112 has a pair of outer circumferential wall portions 113, 114 crossing a virtual line L extending in the pin longitudinal direction through the center of the plunger housing hole 111. At least one of the outer side surfaces of the pair of pin support walls 116, 117 is formed on the inner side, in the pin longitudinal direction, of the outer side surface of one of the outer circumferential wall portions 113, 114.
US09618094B2

A planetary gear train of an automatic transmission may include: an input shaft; an output shaft parallel with the input shaft; a first planetary gear set on the input shaft including a first, second and third rotation elements, the first selectively connected to the input shaft, and the third selectively connected to the input shaft; a second planetary gear set on the output shaft including a fourth, fifth and sixth rotation elements, the first selectively connected to the input shaft through two gear ratio paths and selectively connected to a transmission housing, the fifth selectively connected to the input shaft and the transmission housing, and the sixth connected to the second rotation element and directly connected to the output shaft; four transfer gears; and frictional elements including clutches and brakes.
US09618093B1

A planetary gear train of an automatic transmission for a vehicle is disclosed. The planetary gear train may include: an input shaft receiving torque of an engine; an output shaft outputting changed torque; a first planetary gear set including first, second, and third rotation elements; a second planetary gear set including fourth, fifth, and sixth rotation elements; a third planetary gear set including seventh, eighth, and ninth rotation elements; a fourth planetary gear set including tenth, eleventh, and twelfth rotation elements.
US09618087B2

A transmission is provided having an input member, an output member, four planetary gear sets, a four coupling members and a six torque-transmitting mechanisms. Further, a hydraulic fluid control circuit is provided for controlling the operation of the plurality of torque-transmitting devices. The hydraulic fluid control circuit receives pressurized hydraulic fluid from an off-axis hydraulic fluid pump and has a plurality of fluid passages disposed in the transmission house, input member and other coupling members.
US09618084B2

A drive assembly, receiving rotational power from an input shaft rotatable about a rotation axis, includes a drive housing and first and second stage planetary gear sets. The first stage planetary gear set includes a first stage sun gear that may be coupled to the input shaft to turn a plurality of first stage planet gears rotatably mounted to a first stage planet carrier that turns with respect to a first stage ring gear, which is fixed with respect to the drive housing. The second stage planetary gear set includes a second stage sun gear turned by the first stage planet carrier to turn a plurality of second stage planet gears rotatably mounted to a second stage planet carrier, which is fixed with respect to the drive housing and about which turns a second stage ring gear. An output hub is rotated about the rotation axis with respect to the drive housing by rotation of the second stage ring gear on the second stage planet carrier.
US09618079B2

A balancer device for an internal combustion engine includes upper and lower housings made of aluminum alloy. The upper housing includes a leg part fixed to the engine. The lower housing is coupled to the upper housing by tightening bolts. A pair of balancer shafts are rotatably supported by the upper and lower housings. A positioning pin is disposed at a distal end portion of the leg part for positioning the upper housing with respect to the engine by positional correspondence to a positioning hole of the engine when the tightening bolts are tightened. The leg part is inclined outwardly with respect to a body of the upper housing such that a distal end of the positioning pin is located outside of a proximal end of the leg part with respect to the body of the upper housing when the tightening bolts are loosened.
US09618076B2

The invention relates to a stationary vibration isolation system and to a method for controlling such a system which comprises a damper effective in a horizontal direction which includes a fluid of variable viscosity.
US09618070B2

Disclosed is high strength spring steel that can limit the depth of pitting occurring when corroded and therefore possesses high strength as well as excellent pitting corrosion resistance and corrosion fatigue property, with a composition containing: C: greater than 0.35 mass % and less than 0.50 mass %; Si: greater than 1.75 mass % and less than or equal to 3.00 mass %; Mn: 0.2 mass % to 1.0 mass %; Cr: 0.01 mass % to 0.04 mass %; P: 0.025 mass % or less; S: 0.025 mass % or less; Mo: 0.1 mass % to 1.0 mass %; and O: 0.0015 mass % or less, under a condition that a PC value calculated by PC=4.2×([C]+[Mn])+0.1×(1/[Si]+1/[Mo])+20.3×[Cr]+0.001×(1/[N]) is greater than 3.3 and equal to or less than 8.0. Also disclosed is a preferred method for manufacturing the same.
US09618069B2

A biasing device that returns to a rest position when the biasing device is subjected to one of a first compression by a first object and a first tension by a second object in which the first tension causes a second compression of a third object, in which the first compression causes a second tension of the third object, in which elongation of the rod assembly simultaneously occurs with the first tension and the second compression, and in which elongation of the rod assembly simultaneously occurs with the second tension and the first compression.
US09618059B2

A viscous clutch (20) includes a housing assembly (28), a rotor assembly (26), a reservoir (38) to hold a supply of a shear fluid, a working chamber (40) operatively positioned between the housing assembly and the rotor assembly, and a fluid return bore (26-1B) that optionally extends radially through at least an outer diameter portion of the rotor assembly to the working chamber. Selective introduction of the shear fluid to the working chamber facilitates selective torque transmission between the housing assembly and the rotor assembly. The fluid return bore can form at least a portion of a fluid return path (50) from the working chamber to the reservoir.
US09618054B2

A torsional vibration damper comprises an input side and an output side which are arranged rotatably around an axis of rotation, an intermediate plate, and two elastic elements which are arranged on different circumferences around the axis of rotation, where the first elastic element is set up to transmit a power from the input side to the intermediate plate and the second elastic element is set up to transmit a power from the intermediate plate to the output side. Furthermore, the torsional vibration damper includes a single-piece retainer to support the first elastic element on a radially outer surface, while the retainer includes a contact element for engaging with one end of the first elastic element.
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