US08043751B2
A fuel cell system including a fuel processor, and a method of operating the fuel cell system, the fuel cell system includes: a reformer that reforms a hydrocarbon group fuel source into a reformed gas; a burner that heats the reformer; a CO remover unit that removes CO from a reformed gas generated by the reformer; a stack to generate electricity using the reformed gas; a first burner fuel supply line to supply the hydrocarbon group fuel source to the burner; and a second burner fuel supply line to supply the reformed gas from the CO remover unit to the burner.
US08043744B2
Battery-operated device, having an electrically operated functional unit and an electrochemical voltage source, which are housed together in an essentially gas-tight device housing, the electrochemical voltage source having an electrolyte based on an ionic liquid and a coating-free plastic battery housing.
US08043743B2
Provided is a pouch-type secondary battery including an electrode assembly, electrode tabs extending outward from the electrode assembly, a pouch-type battery case for housing the electrode assembly, first sealing portions for sealing the pouch-type battery case and the electrode tabs, and second sealing portions formed at positions with the exception of electrode tab-positioned sites between the first sealing portions and the electrode assembly. The secondary battery is configured to have a structure such that a channel is formed with electrode tab portions by further sealing inside portions of the electrode tabs with the exception of electrode tab-occupied portions. Such a structure allows for easy unidirectional discharge of gases even when the battery inside reaches a certain level of internal pressure due to evolution of gases and enables previous expectation of the gas discharge direction. Therefore, it is possible to provide a secondary battery with improved safety.
US08043741B2
A battery case excellent in glossiness of appearance and working efficiency and a surface-plated steel plate which can be used preferably to manufacture the battery case. The battery case is produced by deep-drawing, DI-forming, DTR-forming a surface-treated steel plate having glossy nickel or glossy nickel-cobalt alloy plating on the outermost layer corresponding to the external face of a battery case of a plated original plate consisting of a steel plate. The glossy nickel plating or glossy nickel-cobalt alloy plating layer on the outermost layer has a high glossiness, and therefore the appearance is excellent. The runnability of a formed battery case is high as well as the working efficiency.
US08043739B2
A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery, having an internal resistance of 10 mΩ or less as an alternating-current impedance value of 1 kHz, comprises a metal outer container, a nonaqueous electrolyte contained in the container, a positive electrode contained in the container, a negative electrode contained in the container, a separator interposed between the negative electrode and the positive electrode, a negative electrode lead having one end connected to the negative electrode, and a negative electrode terminal attached to the outer container so as to be connected electrically to the other end of the negative electrode lead, at least the surface of the negative electrode terminal which is connected to the negative electrode lead being formed of aluminum alloy with an aluminum purity of less than 99 wt. % containing at least one metal selected from the group consisting of Mg, Cr, Mn, Cu, Si, Fe and Ni.
US08043736B2
A power generator has a hydrogen source, such as a hydrogen producing fuel and a fuel cell having a proton exchange membrane separating the hydrogen producing fuel from ambient. A valve is disposed between the fuel cell and ambient such that water is controllably prevented from entering or leaving the fuel cell by actuation of the valve. In one embodiment, multiple fuel cells are arranged in a circle around the fuel, and the valve is a rotatable ring shaped gate valve having multiple openings corresponding to the fuel cells.
US08043735B2
A method of fabricating a rechargeable battery having an electrode assembly, a PCB and a battery case, wherein the electrode assembly is connected to the PCB, the method including preparing a PCB having a first surface with an external contact terminal formed thereon and having a second surface with a conductive feature formed thereon, wherein the conductive feature is electrically connected to the external contact terminal through a conductive trace, and plating the external contact terminal by electrically connecting a plating electrode to the conductive feature.
US08043731B2
A III-V nitride, e.g., GaN, substrate including a (0001) surface offcut from the <0001> direction predominantly toward a direction selected from the group consisting of <10-10> and <11-20> directions, at an offcut angle in a range that is from about 0.2 to about 10 degrees, wherein the surface has a RMS roughness measured by 50×50 μm2 AFM scan that is less than 1 nm, and a dislocation density that is less than 3 E6 cm−2. The substrate may be formed by offcut slicing of a corresponding boule or wafer blank, by offcut lapping or growth of the substrate body on a corresponding vicinal heteroepitaxial substrate, e.g., of offcut sapphire. Both upper and lower surfaces may be offcut. The substrate is usefully employed for homoepitaxial deposition in the fabrication of III-V nitride-based microelectronic and opto-electronic devices.
US08043727B2
An electromagnetic wave-absorption multilayer substrate has an electromagnetic wave-absorption sheet which includes a soft magnetic alloy powder and a binding agent and two insulating substrates which have facing surfaces facing the electromagnetic wave-absorption sheet and which are pressure-bonded thereto. In addition, one of the insulating substrates has a plurality of holes formed in the facing surface.
US08043719B2
A metal member is manufactured that has a plating layer of precious metal on the surface of a bare metal portion formed of a predetermined metal. First, a surface layer of the bare metal portion is removed. Then, a plating of precious metal is applied to the portion where the surface layer of the bare metal portion was removed. Then, the metal member is heat treated in an inert atmosphere. As a result, a metal member can be manufactured that has less carbide and hydrogen near a boundary surface of the plating layer and the bare metal portion than it would if the removing step and the heat treating step were not performed. With a metal member manufactured in this way, the plating layer does not easily peel away.
US08043712B2
[Problem] Provision of a heat-sealable multilayer polypropylene-based resin film having heat seal strength sufficient for packaging a heavy article and tight-sealing property, and a packaging material using the film.[Solving means] A heat-sealable multilayer polypropylene-based resin film comprising a crystalline polypropylene-based resin and a propylene-α-olefin copolymer, which is an oriented polypropylene-based resin film made of a laminate of 3 or more layers of a substrate layer having a melting point of 155° C. or less, an intermediate layer and a thermal adhesion layer having a melting point of 150° C. or less, wherein the intermediate layer has a xylene-soluble content of 2.5% or less, the substrate layer has a melting point higher than that of the intermediate layer, and the intermediate layer has a thickness of 4 μm or above.
US08043711B2
Disclosed herein is an aluminum alloy clad sheet for a heat exchanger including a core layer, a sacrificial layer formed on one surface of the core layer, and a filler layer including an Al—Si based alloy formed on the other surface of the core layer. The core layer includes a predetermined amount of Si, Cu, Mn, Ti, and Mg, the remainder including Al and inevitable impurities, and the sacrificial layer includes a predetermined amount of Si, Mn, and Zn, the remainder including Al and inevitable impurities. The core layer has a crystal grain size after the brazing heat treatment at 595° C. for 3 minutes of at least 50 μm and less than 300 μm. The filler layer and the sacrificial layer are defined for their thickness, and the number of intermetallic compounds in the core layer is also defined to a predetermined range. By such constitution, the aluminum alloy clad sheet has improved fatigue life and post-braze strength, high corrosion resistance, and excellent erosion resistance and brazeability.
US08043705B2
There is provided a technology that can be applied as a substrate material to ordinary resin substrate materials and allows the adhesive strength between this substrate material and a plating metal layer to be increased; more specifically, there is provided an ordinary resin substrate material with an increased adhesive strength between the substrate material and a plating metal layer. The present invention relates to a resin substrate material such as an epoxy resin whose surface is swellable in a solution containing imidazolesilane and a palladium or other noble metal compound having a catalytic action in electroless plating and which has been surface-treated with the solution, and to an electronic component substrate material manufactured by performing electroless plating on this resin substrate material.
US08043702B2
A surface-modified, magnetic nanoparticle has one or more multi-dentate ligands bound to a surface of a magnetic nanoparticle. The one or more multi-dentate ligands are bound to the surface of the magnetic nanoparticle through one or more dithiocarbamate groups. The one or more multi-dentate ligands may be a compound of Formula II: R2NCH2[CH2NR′CH2]m[CH2N(CS2−)CH2]q[CH2NHCH2]rCH2NR″2 (II) where each R, R′, and R″ are independently H, a branched ethyleneimine unit, an unsubstituted or substituted alkyl, an unsubstituted or substituted alkenyl, or an unsubstituted or substituted aryl; and n is an integer from 1 to about 50.
US08043696B2
Improved microlayer structures and methods typically employing at least 4 stacked layers of polymers (e.g., including alternating layers of components A and B), such as that obtained by coextrusion. The layers each have a thickness of less than about 50 microns. One optional approach involves forming an intermediate form that includes at least one elongated member made from the plurality of layers, from which a shaped composite article may be made.
US08043692B2
A wear-, erosion- and chemically-resistant material containing tungsten alloyed with carbon, the carbon being present in an amount of 0.01 wt % up to 0.97 wt % of the total weight, wherein the material preferably comprises a matrix of metallic tungsten with dispersed tungsten carbide nanoparticles having a particle size not greater than 50 nanometers, preferably not greater than 10 nanometers. The material is optionally also alloyed with fluorine, the fluorine being present in an amount of 0.01 wt % up to 0.4 wt % of the total weight. The material is extremely hard and tough.
US08043684B2
A process for manufacturing a disk shaped component comprising fabricating a disk shaped component using a composite material having at least a first material and a second material, wherein the first material is disposed at and proximate to a center portion of the disk shaped component and the second material is disposed at and proximate to a rim of the disk shaped component, wherein the first material comprises a first coefficient of thermal expansion, a first stress value and a first oxidation resistance, and the second material comprises a second coefficient of thermal expansion, a second stress value and a second oxidation resistance, wherein the first coefficient of thermal expansion is greater than the second coefficient of thermal expansion, the first stress value is greater than the second stress value and the first oxidation resistance is less than the second oxidation resistance.
US08043682B2
A pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet with a release liner has a bubbles containing pressure-sensitive adhesive layer and a release liner in contact with at least one surface of the bubbles containing pressure-sensitive adhesive layer. The release liner comprises at least three layers including an intermediate layer and surface layers, and the surface layers are positioned on both surfaces of the intermediate layer. The intermediate layer comprises at least one polyolefin resin. Each of the surface layers comprises a low-density polyethylene and an olefinic elastomer and independently has a thickness of 15 μm or less. The ratio of the thickness of the intermediate layer to the total thickness of the surface layers (the intermediate layer/the surface layers) is in the range of 4 to 19.
US08043678B2
The present invention relates to a radome which has excellent transmission loss of radio waves and structural strength, which can be easily produced, and which has favorable workability, and a method of producing the same. The radome includes an olefin woven material and a glass cloth, in which the olefin woven material and the glass cloth are impregnated with a matrix resin to be integrated with each other, and the glass cloth is disposed closer to an inner side of the radome than the olefin woven material. As the olefin woven material, a woven material formed of an ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene fiber can be used. As the matrix resin, an epoxy resin, a vinyl ester resin, an unsaturated polyester resin, or a silicone resin can be used.
US08043674B2
Heat-sealable, multi-layer composite packaging structures that are suitable for packaging and having improved sealing properties and simplified construction as compared to prior art composite film constructions are disclosed. The inventive film structure includes a first substrate, such as paper, bonded such as by extrusion lamination, to a sealable, high-barrier film. This inventive “paper-adhesive-polymer” lamination may replace prior art “paper-adhesive-foil-adhesive” foil-based tandem laminations. An improved or comparable polymer film substrate may replace the “foil-adhesive” layer components of the popular incumbent prior art structure.
US08043673B2
A tube-in-tube assembled parison for preparation of an elongated medical device. The parison if formed by assembling in tube-in-tube fashion a first tube of orientable polymer material and a second tube formed of orientable polymer material disposed around the first tube, with an adhesive tie layer disposed between the first and second tubes. The tubes are brought into contact to form a unitary parison. The adhesive may allow movement between the polymer layers during balloon blowing. The first tube, or the second tube, or both, may have been longitudinally pre-stretched after formation thereof but before assembly of the parison.
US08043670B2
The invention relates to new polymerizable mesogenic or liquid crystalline compounds comprising a terminal cyclohexylphenyl group wherein the phenyl group has polar substituents, to polymerizable mesogenic or liquid crystalline mixtures and anisotropic polymers prepared thereof, and to the use of the new compounds and the mixtures and polymers prepared thereof in optical and electrooptical devices, adhesives, synthetic resins with anisotropic mechanical properties, cosmetics, diagnostics, liquid crystal pigments, decorative and security applications, nonlinear optics, optical information storage, electronic devices like organic field effect transistors (FET or OFET) or electroluminescent devices.
US08043669B2
This invention is to provide a process for producing a composite material that contains a thermoplastic resin as a matrix and is reinforced with electrically conductive fibers. This invention is to provide a process for producing a composite material that has a small percentage of voids and is excellent in mechanical properties such as flexural strength, flexural modulus.This invention is a process for producing a composite material, which comprises (1) the step (A) of causing the thermoplastic resin to adhere to the electrically conductive fibers and (2) the step (B) of applying microwave to said fibers to cause them to generate heat and impregnating said fibers with said resin, the composite material comprising a thermoplastic resin and the electrically conductive fibers being impregnated with the thermoplastic resin.
US08043668B2
Provided is a method for depositing a fluorine-doped silicon oxide film on the surface of a substrate made of a material comprising at least 50 mass % of an ethylene/tetrafluoroethylene copolymer. This method comprises flowing a mixed gas into between electrodes, exposing the mixed gas to electric power applied between the electrodes so that the electrical power density between the electrodes becomes from 0.5 to 1.1 W/cm3 to cause discharge, and forming plasma of the mixed gas and depositing the fluorine-doped silicon oxide film on the surface of the substrate. In this method, the mixed gas for forming the fluorine-doped silicon oxide film comprises silicon tetrafluoride, oxygen and a hydrocarbon, the atomic ratio of oxygen atoms to carbon atoms (O/C) is from 1 to 10, and the atomic ratio of oxygen atoms to silicon atoms (O/Si) is from 1.7 to 25 in the mixed gas.
US08043666B2
Disclosed is a polyamine sheet which is usable for DNA chips or protein chips. Also disclosed are a photoreactive polyamine used for producing such a polyamine sheet, and a photoreactive compound which can be a raw material for such a photoreactive polyamine. Specifically disclosed are a photoreactive compound having a diazirine group as a photoreactive group, a photoreactive polyamine compound produced from such a photoreactive compound and a polyamine, a polyamine sheet using such a photoreactive polyamine compound, and a method for producing such a polyamine sheet.
US08043660B2
A method for manufacturing polycrystalline silicon with high quality by effectively preventing undesired shape such as giving an rough surface to silicon rods or an irregularity in diameter of the silicon rods. The method for manufacturing polycrystalline silicon includes: an initial stabilizing step of deposition wherein a velocity of ejecting the raw material gas from the gas ejection ports is gradually increased; the shaping step wherein first the ejection velocity is increased at a rate higher than that in the stabilizing step and then the ejection velocity is gradually increased at a rate lower than the previous increasing rate; and a growing step wherein, after the shaping step, the ejection velocity is made slower than that at the end of the shaping step until the end of the deposition.
US08043659B2
A substrate processing method capable of controlling the internal pressure of a processing chamber to a high pressure and exhausting gases within the processing chamber at a high rate. The substrate processing method is for use in a substrate processing apparatus having a processing chamber, a supply unit supplying a processing gas into the processing chamber, a first pipe connected to the processing chamber at one end thereof, a turbo molecular pump disposed in the first pipe, a first shutoff valve disposed between the processing chamber and the turbo molecular pump in the first pipe, a second pipe connected to the processing chamber at one end thereof, a pressure control valve disposed in the second pipe, and a dry pump connected to the other end of the first pipe and to the other end of the second pipe. The substrate processing method comprises a pressure control step of controlling the internal pressure of the processing chamber using the pressure control valve after closing the first shutoff valve when performing a treatment on a substrate housed in the processing chamber; a first exhaust step of exhausting gases within the processing chamber through the second pipe using the dry pump by opening the pressure control valve after performing the treatment on the substrate; and a second exhaust step of exhausting gases within the processing chamber through the first pipe using the turbo molecular pump by closing the pressure control valve and opening the first shutoff valve after the first exhaust step.
US08043657B2
The present invention supplies a solvent to the front surface of a substrate while rotating the substrate. Subsequently, the substrate is acceleratingly rotated to a first number of rotations, and a resist solution is supplied to a central portion of the substrate during the accelerating rotation and the rotation at the first number of rotations. Thereafter, the substrate is deceleratingly rotated to a second number of rotations, and after the number of rotations of the substrate reaches the second number of rotations, the resist solution is discharged to the substrate. The substrate is then acceleratingly rotated to a third number of rotations higher than the second number of rotations so that the substrate is rotated at the third number of rotations. According to the present invention, in application of the resist solution by spin coating, the consumption of the resist solution can be suppressed, and a high in-plane uniformity can be obtained for the film thickness of the resist film.
US08043646B2
A soft wheat flour containing bran, wherein the bran has a total fiber content comprised between 20 and 30% and a protein content comprised between 12.0 and 18.0% (% in weight of the total weight of the bran); such flour preferably has a bran content comprised between 5 and 30% and is produced by a process which comprises the process phases of a) subjecting soft wheat caryopses (101) to successive process phases involving abrasion in order to substantially remove the bran coating, thereby obtaining various bran fractions, the latter of which (D) originates from the removal of the aleurone, nucellar and testa layers; b) adding the latter bran fraction (D) to a soft wheat flour (F) substantially free of bran in a quantity such as to obtain a flour (C) containing from 5 to 30% of the total mixture weight of bran fraction (D); the invention furthermore refers to a soft wheat flour bakery product containing bran, wherein the bran has a total fiber content comprised between 20 and 30% and a protein content comprised between 12.0 and 18.0% (% in weight of the total weight of the bran), as well as to the use of a soft wheat bran fraction essentially containing the layers of the starting caryopses (101) consisting of the aleurone (105), nucellar (104) and testa (103) layers in the production of whole grain bakery products.
US08043639B2
Mixing milk with a reaction product, which is prepared by dissolving at a high concentration highly pure milk whey protein having been separated from cow's milk, etc. and concentrated and then treating with transglutaminase, then inoculating with a lactic acid bacterium and fermenting economically affords a yogurt of agitated type, which is enriched in whey protein, shows little water release and has a rich feeling and a highly smooth texture.
US08043636B2
An organic agent for controlling weeds (a so-called herbicide) primarily includes ingredients which are used for human nutrition and the individual components are harmless to nature (including animals and people). These ingredients include extract of garlic, cayenne pepper, nettles and sugar in the form of dextrose. Thorough tests have documented that the new organic herbicide has the same efficiency or is better than one of the hitherto most-used chemical herbicides.
US08043632B2
Polymer articles are rendered antimicrobial by a process that includes contacting a chitosan solution with a polymer surface that inherently contains amino-reactive functional groups as polymerized. The process requires no pretreatment with agents such as oxidizing agents or plasma to generate the necessary functional groups at the polymer surface.
US08043631B2
A composition for delivering a tumor therapeutic agent to a patient includes a fast-release formulation of a tumor apoptosis inducing agent, a slow-release formulation of a tumor therapeutic agent, and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. An apoptosis-inducing agent in a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier may be administered before or concomitantly therewith. Nanoparticles or microparticles (e.g., cross-linked gelatin) of the therapeutic agent (e.g., paclitaxel) also may be used. The nanoparticles or microparticles may be coated with a bioadhesive coating. Microspheres that agglomerate to block the entrance of the lymphatic ducts of the bladder to retard clearance of the microparticles through the lymphatic system also may be employed. This invention also uses drug-loaded gelatin and poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) nanoparticles and microparticles to target drug delivery to tumors in the peritoneal cavity, bladder tissues, and kidneys.
US08043630B2
Drugs are formulated as oral dosage forms for controlled release in which the release rate limiting portion is a shell surrounding the drug-containing core. The shell releases drug from the core by permitting diffusion of the drug from the core. The shell also motes gastric retention of the dosage form by swelling upon imbibition of gastric fluid to size that is retained in the stomach during the postprandial or fed mode.
US08043626B2
The novel antimicrobial composition is disclosed including from about 60 to 95% of a lipophilic polar solvent such as propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, or isopropanol and from about 0.5 to 5% of a mixture of C8 to C14 fatty acids. Other constituents of the present invention may include water, an alcohol (such as ethanol or propanol) or a mixture thereof. Also disclosed is a novel method of killing harmful microbes on the udder of a milk-producing animal using the above-mentioned composition.
US08043625B2
Disclosed are substantially purified Plasmodium sporozoites and preparations of Plasmodium sporozoites substantially separated from attendant non-sporozoite material, where the preparations of Plasmodium sporozoites have increasing levels of purity. Vaccines and pharmaceutical compositions comprising purified Plasmodium sporozoites are likewise provided. Methods of purifying preparations of Plasmodium sporozoites are also provided.
US08043621B2
The present invention relates to a polynucleotide construct encoding a fusion protein consisting of a domain which binds the immunoglobulin Fc region, genetically fused to a truncated form of Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE). In particular, the invention discloses the fusion protein, ZZ-PE38, and further provides immunotoxins, formed from complexes of the fusion protein with antibodies for targeted cell killing.
US08043616B2
Mammalian sRAGE mimetibody polypeptides and nucleic acids are disclosed. Methods of utilizing the polypeptides to reduce or inhibit the binding of RAGE and its ligands and to treat RAGE-related diseases are also disclosed.
US08043615B2
The invention pertains to agonists and antagonists of LDCAM and methods of treating disease and infection by administering one or more LDCAM antagonists or agonists.
US08043611B2
The present invention provides nucleic acid constructs, expression systems, and methods relating to the regulation of gene expression. The invention may be applied to regulate the expression of any coding sequence of interest, including those coding for viral components necessary for the packaging of viral particles.
US08043609B2
The present invention provides compositions and methods for treating and/or preventing age related macular degeneration and other conditions involving macular degeneration or choroidal neovascularization, ocular inflammation, or any combination of these. Certain of the compositions comprise a poxvirus complement control protein or a complement binding fragment or variant thereof. Other compositions comprise a poxvirus complement control protein linked to a moiety that binds to a component present on or at the surface of cell or noncellular molecular entity, e.g., a component present in the eye of a subject at risk of or suffering from age related macular degeneration or a related condition or choroidal neovascularization, ocular inflammation, or any combination of these. Certain of the methods comprise administering a poxvirus complement control protein or complement binding fragment or variant thereof to a subject.
US08043607B2
Dihydroxybenzotriazole UV absorbing compounds that are particularly useful in ophthalmic devices are disclosed.
US08043596B2
The invention provides a method for producing carbon nanotubes, comprising spraying an oil onto a catalyst metal supported by at least one support selected from the group consisting of silica gel, alumina, magnesia, silica-alumina and zeolite which is placed in an atmosphere that has been controlled to a specific temperature, and an apparatus therefor. According to the invention, a large amount of carbon nanotubes can be synthesized from inexpensive raw materials by using a simple apparatus.
US08043585B2
A process for recovering metals such as Ni, Co, Mn, Cu, Zn, among others, through precipitation as sulphides, enabling recovery of magnesium in the form of hydroxide, carbonate and oxide and providing recovery of sulphate as gypsum and ammonium sulphate. Liquid phase, after full treatment, comprises recovered water with a quality proper for total reuse in industrial process.This process of liquid and solid effluent treatment is provided with flexibility to process several types of effluents presenting wide variations in their chemical composition. The main steps of this process are: (1) equalization of liquid effluent, (2) precipitation of metals as sulphides, (3) oxidation of metallic sulphides and crystallization as metallic sulphates, (4) precipitation of magnesium as hydroxide and calcination thereof into magnesium oxide (5) recovery of ammonia, (6) preconcentration of the remaining saline solution, (7) evaporation/crystallization of ammonium sulphate, (8) storage of recovered water, (9) partial or total precipitation of sulphate contained in the effluent with quicklime, (10) segregated storage of gypsum and gypsum-magnesium mixture, (11) softening of the remaining solution and (12) storage of softening water.
US08043581B2
A system and method for reducing the number of input/output connections required to connect a microfluidic substrate to an external controller for controlling the substrate. In one example, a microfluidic processing device is fabricated on a substrate having a plurality of N independently controllable components, (e.g., a resistive heating elements) each having at least two terminals. The substrate includes a plurality of input/output contacts for connecting the substrate to an external controller, and a plurality of leads for connecting the contacts to the terminals of the components. The leads are arranged to allow the external controller to supply control signals to the terminals of the components via the contacts using substantially fewer contacts than the total number of component terminals. For example, in one embodiment, each lead connects a corresponding contact to a plurality of terminals to allow the controller to supply to signals to the terminals without requiring a separate contact for each terminal. However, to assure that the components can each be controlled independently of the others, the leads are also arranged so that each component's terminals are connected to a unique combination of contacts. Thus, the external controller can activate a selected component by supplying control signals to the combination of contacts uniquely associated with that component.
US08043579B2
A gas hydrate production apparatus capable of reacting a raw gas with a raw water to thereby form a slurry gas hydrate and capable of removing water from the slurry gas hydrate by means of a gravitational dewatering unit. This gravitational dewatering unit is one including a cylindrical first tower body; a cylindrical dewatering part disposed on top of the first tower body; a water receiving part disposed outside the dewatering part; and a cylindrical second tower body disposed on top of the dewatering part, wherein the cross-sectional area of the second tower body is continuously or intermittently increased upward from the bottom.
US08043574B1
An apparatus for the synthesis of anhydrous hydrogen halide fluids from organic halide fluids, such as perfluorocarbon fluids and refrigerant fluids, and anhydrous carbon dioxide for the environmentally safe disposition thereof.
US08043569B2
The present invention relates to the field of perfumery and more precisely it concerns a device, and the consumer articles associated therewith, for dispensing an active composition into the surrounding space. The device includes an active liquid, a reservoir holding the active liquid, a wick-/emanator structure composed of a wicking part and an emitting part, the latter having an evaporative surface to be directly exposed to the surrounding space when the device is activated and being housed in a moveable housing assembly, activation of the device occurring without need to removing the housing assembly and or the wick-/emanator structure, the device further comprising a rotor arranged in a manner providing for rotation of wicking or emitting parts to allow forced evaporation of the active volatile upon activation of the device.
US08043566B2
Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus for analyzing, sensing and measuring information related to the concentrations of various gases, including NOx, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxygen, in a multi-component gas system using chemical sensors and chemical sensor arrays. The sensors and sensor arrays use chemo/electro-active materials to analyze and detect the presence of gases.
US08043565B1
Gas chromatography apparatuses are provided that can include a housing configured to substantially envelop the column within the compartment. Analytical instruments are provided that can include at least one chromatography column compartment having a volume of the less than 100 mL. Analytical methods are provided that can include increasing the temperature of a chromatography column at a rate of about 60° C./minute using less than about 40 W. Methods are also provided that include providing at least one gas chromatography column compartment configured to substantially envelop a gas chromatography column and performing analysis with the one compartment in the first operable position and/or transitioning portions to the second operable position to allow access to the one compartment. Production processes are provided that can include forming a first trench within the first surface of a substrate and/or aligning the first substrate with a second substrate to define at least one compartment between the first and second substrates.
US08043563B2
An electronic biosensor arrangement (1), comprising a receiving region (2) for biological material, a sensor-electrode arrangement (3) with sensor electrodes (3a, 3b) which intermesh in a comb-like manner being associated therewith, with which sensor electrodes (3a, 3b) a measuring circuit (5) is connectable for measuring an electrical measurement parameter on the sensor electrodes (3a, 3b) and influenced by biological material, wherein the sensor electrodes (3a, 3b) form a plurality of sensor capacitors (Csensor,1 to Csensor,N), with which electronic switching means (S2,1 to S2,N) driven by a control logic (8) are associated for connecting to earth or to a voltage source carrying a measurement voltage (Vdrive), respectively, comprising a reference capacitor (Cref), to which a switching means (S1) driven by the control logic (8) and arranged for optionally connecting to earth or to the measurement voltage (Vdrive) is likewise assigned, wherein the capacitors (Cref, Csensor1−Csensor, N) are also combined to a node (A), which is connected to an input (−) of a differential amplifier (10), and with which measurement capacitors (C0 to C5) having binary-weighted capacities (Cmin to 32Cmin) are furthermore connected for forming an SAR comparison unit, with the measurement capacitors being also selectively connectable via switching means (S3,0 to S3,5) driven by the control logic (8) to a voltage source (Varray) or to earth for the purpose of providing charge-difference for SAR conversion.
US08043561B2
Analyzers are described that include a conveyance device for transporting containers which contain analyte, each container having identification information; an identification information reader for reading an identification information of a container transported at a first position by the conveyance device; an analyzer body for acquiring an analyte from a container transported at a second position by the conveyance device and analyzing the analyte; and an anomaly notification device for reporting an anomaly if the identification information reader consecutively reads the same identification information. Conveyance device and transport anomaly determination method are also described.
US08043552B2
A process for pressurization of a thin-walled plastic container having a container weight to wall surface ratio on the order of 150 g/m2 to 250 g/m2, designed to contain a flat liquid, comprising the following stages: providing a container; filling the container that has residual stresses under cold conditions with said flat liquid; sealing the container after filling; and, heating the container, without raising the temperature of the liquid, to reach the temperature of the container's glass transition point so as to generate a pressurization of the interior of said container.
US08043547B2
A device and method for forming a groove pattern in a light-guiding plate for obtaining high luminance and decreasing processing time, thereby improving yield. The device has a tool unit including a tool guide and a head which is further provided with a heating plate disposed below the tool unit; a stamper disposed under the heating plate; and a plurality of cutting tools extending from a lower side of the stamper at fixed intervals, for forming a plurality of groove patterns in a surface of the light-guiding plate.
US08043540B2
A method and a device for feeding a molten resin capable of accurately feeding the molten resin without the delay of feed timing by preventing the molten resin from adhering to route members before it seats on a mold to increase the positioning accuracy of the molten metal in the mold, and a method of manufacturing a molded part by using the fed molten resin. Vibration is provided to the route members such as molten resin guide pins (10, 40, 50), throat members (62, 70, 85), and female mold positioned in a route in which the molten resin (25) passes before it seats on the female mold (7, 63) by a vibration imparting device (27) or a gas layer film is formed on the surfaces thereof. Thus, the molten resin can be fed while preventing it from adhering to the route members.
US08043538B2
In a mold temperature control circuit of an injection molding device, such a molding cycle is repeated that, prior to injection of a resin, a heating-use medium is returned to molds and heated to a temperature suitable for resin injection, after injection of the resin, the heating-use medium is switched to a cooling-use medium, thereby the cooling-use medium is returned to the molds and cooling is conducted to give a temperature equal to or lower than a temperature at which the resin is solidified. In the mold temperature control circuit of the injection molding device, a junction piping is able to commonly use the respective supply pipings of the heating-use medium, the cooling-use medium and the scavenging compressed air to the molds and the respective discharge pipings thereof, and there is provided mold bypass piping coupling the supply-side junction piping of the heating medium with the discharge-side junction piping, a mold bypass on-off valve, a passed heating medium sensor, a mold-temperature adjusting control device which stores a mold temperature determination program and a passed heating medium determination program.
US08043526B2
This invention relates to a crosslinking composition comprising an organic acid and a compound having the structure of Formula I: A′-NRA—RD wherein A′, RA, and RD are defined in the specification. This invention also relates to a process for producing the crosslinking composition by reacting an amino compound containing amino groups; a mono(alkylaldehyde) and/or a poly(alkylaldehyde), and an alcohol; and adding an organic compound where said amino compound is selected from the group consisting of triazine, linear or cyclic ureas, cyanuric acid, substituted cyanuric acids, linear or cyclic amides, glycolurils, hydantoins, linear or cyclic carbamates and mixtures thereof.
US08043523B2
The present invention provides a refrigerator oil composition which satisfies both sludge dispersibility and prevention of wear and seizing of sliding parts made of aluminum and/or iron, and a compressor and a refrigeration apparatus using the refrigerator oil composition. The refrigerator oil composition is characterized by comprising a base oil which is at least one member selected from mineral oils and synthetic oils, and at least one polyamide compound having two or more amide groups in the molecule and being present in an amount of 0.01 to 5% by mass based on the total amount of the refrigerator oil composition.
US08043520B2
A pattern forming material contains a block copolymer or graft copolymer and forms a structure having micro polymer phases, in which, with respect to at least two polymer chains among polymer chains constituting the block copolymer or graft copolymer, the ratio between N/(Nc−No) values of monomer units constituting respective polymer chains is 1.4 or more, where N represents total number of atoms in the monomer unit, Nc represents the number of carbon atoms in the monomer unit, No represents the number of oxygen atoms in the monomer unit.
US08043516B2
According to one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a magnetic recording medium includes forming protruded magnetic patterns on a substrate, depositing a nonmagnetic material in recesses between the magnetic patterns and on the magnetic patterns, and etching back the nonmagnetic material using an oxygen-containing etching gas while reforming a surface of the nonmagnetic material.
US08043514B2
When a wiring pattern is formed on a wiring board utilizing electroplating, an unnecessary portion is removed by proceeding as follows. First electroless plating layers are formed on both sides of an insulating substrate, which are covered with metallic foils in advance. On the first electroplating layers, wiring patterns are formed by etching so as not to extend to the end edge of the substrate. Then, a plating resist pattern is formed so that only a predetermined portion of the wiring patterns is exposed and a second electroplating layer is formed on the predetermined portion of the wiring patterns by supplying electric power from second electroless plating layers. Finally, the plating resist pattern and the second electroless plating layers are removed, and a solder resist is formed so that predetermined portions of the wiring patterns are exposed.
US08043500B2
A system and method of disinfecting and sanitizing potable water on an aircraft. An ozone generator generates a supply of ozone which is fed into an injector. A pump is connected to a water supply line and an end of an injector. Water flows from the water supply line through the pump and into the injector where the water and the supply of ozone mix to disinfect the water.
US08043497B2
A conduit end cap structure (e.g., a floor drain assembly) that is securely attached to the conduit and aesthetically pleasing. The end cap of the conduit comprises a perforated plate. Anchor supports extend from the substantially concealed underside of the plate, each providing support for an anchor that is received by an anchor receiving structure on the conduit to securely attach the plate to the conduit near its opening. The anchor may be in the form of a fastener (e.g., a set screw), and the anchor receiving structure is in the form of a channel provided on the inside wall of the conduit opening. The fastener extends into the channel, thereby securely retaining the plate to prevent it from dislodging from the conduit end.
US08043494B2
In a method for increasing the efficiency of bitumen recovery from oil sands, bitumen asphaltenes naturally present in the oil sands ore are treated with selected chemical agents to produce surfactants which reduce surface and interfacial tensions and promote the production of bitumen-water emulsions, thus facilitating the extraction and recovery of bitumen for use in producing synthetic crude oil. The agents react with the asphaltenes by oxidation, sulfonation, sulfoxidation, or sulfomethylation reactions, or by a combination of such reactions. These reactions may be initiated by adding selected agents into water-based oil sand slurries in process vessels or in pipelines. Alternatively, the agents may be injected directly into subsurface oil sand formations for in situ production of surfactants to enhance the efficiency of in situ thermal bitumen recovery processes. The methods of the invention may also be used to improve the stability of bitumen-water emulsions to facilitate transportation of the emulsions by pipeline, and to enhance the recoverability of bitumen from oil sands tailings.
US08043487B2
A physical vapor deposition apparatus includes a vacuum chamber with side walls, a cathode, a radio frequency power supply, a substrate support, and anode, and a shield. The cathode is inside the vacuum chamber and includes a sputtering target. The radio frequency power supply is configured to apply power to the cathode. The substrate support is inside and electrically isolated from the side walls of the vacuum chamber. The anode is inside and electrically connected to the side walls of the vacuum chamber. The shield is inside and electrically connected to the side walls of the vacuum chamber and includes an annular body and a plurality of concentric annular projections extending from the annular body.
US08043462B2
A method for forming gas barriers on electronic devices is provided. The fabrication method includes: providing a first substrate having at least one electronic device thereon; providing a second substrate and forming a gas barrier over the second substrate; disposing the second substrate over the first substrate, wherein the gas barrier faces the electronic device; providing an electromagnetic wave light source over the second substrate; and irradiating the second substrate by the electromagnetic wave light source to transfer the gas barrier to the electronic device and cover the electronic device.
US08043459B2
One embodiment includes a dry adhesive material including catechol chemically attached to the surface of a shape memory polymer molecule. The catechol content may allow the dry adhesive to be utilized in both dry and wet conditions to bond objects together. The shape memory polymer may allow the dry adhesive to be reversibly attached to the objects.
US08043448B2
Disclosed herein are zirconium-based alloys that may be fabricated to form nuclear reactor components, particularly fuel cladding tubes, that exhibit sufficient corrosion resistance and hydrogen absorption characteristics, without requiring a late stage α+β or β-quenching processes. The zirconium-base alloys will include between about 1.30-1.60 wt % tin; 0.0975-0.15 wt % chromium; 0.16-0.24 wt % iron; and up to about 0.08 wt % nickel, with the total content of the iron, chromium and nickel comprising at least about 0.3175 wt % of the alloy. The resulting components will exhibit a surface region having a mean precipitate sizing of between about 50 and 100 nm and a Sigma A of less than about 2×10−19 hour with the workpiece processing generally being limited to temperatures below 680° C. for extrusion and below 625° C. for all other operations, thereby simplifying the fabrication of the nuclear reactor components while providing corrosion resistance comparable with conventional alloys.
US08043445B2
The invention relates to an aluminium alloy wrought product with high strength and fracture toughness and high fatigue resistance and low fatigue crack growth rate, and having a composition for the alloy comprising, in weight %, about 0.3 to 1.0% magnesium (Mg), about 4.4 to 5.5% copper (Cu), about 0 to 0.20% iron (Fe), about 0 to 0.20% silicon (Si), about 0 to 0.40% zinc (Zn), and Mn in a range 0.15 to 0.8 as a dispersoids forming element in combination with one or more of dispersoids forming elements selected from the group consisting of: (Zr, Sc, Cr, Hf, Ag, Ti, V), in ranges of: about 0 to 0.5% zirconium (Zr), about 0 to 0.7% scandium (Sc), about 0 to 0.4% chromium (Cr), about 0 to 0.3% hafnium (Hf), about 0 to 0.4% titanium (Ti), about 0 to 1.0% silver (Ag), the balance being aluminium (Al) and other incidental elements, and whereby there is a limitation of the Cu—Mg content such that −1.1[Mg]+5.38≦[Cu]≦5.5. The invention further relates to a method of manufacturing such a product.
US08043436B2
A substrate cleaning system according to the present invention comprises cleaning devices, and a controller for controlling the driving of the cleaning devices in accordance with driving recipes predetermined. The controller prioritizes the cleaning devices, calculates, on the basis of a driving recipe for a cleaning device having a higher priority and a driving recipe for a cleaning device having a lower priority, a time in which the two cleaning devices can interfere with each other, and sets the calculated time as a waiting time. The cleaning device having the higher priority is made to start cleaning a substrate from a predetermined cleaning-starting position, while the cleaning device having the lower priority is kept waiting in a predetermined waiting position. When or after the waiting time has elapsed since the cleaning device having the higher priority started cleaning, the cleaning device having the lower priority is made to move from the waiting position and start cleaning the substrate.
US08043430B2
Apparatuses are provided for controlling flow conductance of plasma formed in a plasma processing apparatus that includes an upper electrode opposite a lower electrode to form a gap therebetween. The lower electrode is adapted to support a substrate and coupled to a RF power supply. Process gas injected into the gap is excited into the plasma state during operation. The apparatus includes a ground ring that concentrically surrounds the lower electrode and has a set of slots formed therein, and a mechanism for controlling gas flow through the slots.
US08043417B2
A reactor-installed or column-installed vertical plate heat exchanger having channels for flow of cooling fluid and vertical passageways between the cooling fluid channels for flow of product. A divider is located between a first fraction and a second fraction of the product vertical passageways and a vapor product inlet communicates with the tops of the product vertical passageways in the first fraction. A product collection volume communicates with the bottoms of the product vertical passageways and an outlet communicates with the product collection volume for recovering condensed product. An uncondensed vapor outlet communicates with the tops of the vertical passageways in the second fraction for removing uncondensed vapor from the heat exchanger.
US08043413B2
An embodiment of the present invention provides a system for removing foreign objects from the airstream entering an inlet system of a turbomachine. The system may include an electrostatic system that may be configured to charge conductive, or partially conductive foreign objects that are in the airstream flowing through the system. This system may create an electric field to draw the charged foreign objects, allowing for a collecting section to remove the charged foreign objects from the airstream. An embodiment of the present invention may provide an automatic accumulation system for collecting the foreign objects removed from the airstream. An embodiment of the present invention may provide an automatic cleaning system for cleaning components of the collecting system.
US08043411B2
A device for removal of at least a portion of carbon dioxide from an aqueous fluid includes at least one membrane through which carbon dioxide can pass to be removed from the fluid and immobilized carbonic anhydrase on or in the vicinity of a first surface of the membrane to be contacted with the fluid such that the immobilized carbonic anhydrase comes into contact with the fluid. The first surface exhibits carbonic anhydrase activity of at least 20% of maximum theoretical activity of the first surface of the membrane based on monolayer surface coverage of carbonic anhydrase in the case that the carbonic anhydrase is immobilize on the first surface.
US08043407B2
It is an object of the present invention to provide a similar composition metal type welding solid wire capable of forming a welded joint having excellent cryogenic characteristics, such as ensuring a low-temperature toughness equivalent to that of the cryogenic base metal, and in addition, further having a high crack initiation resistance, and a weld metal thereof. The welding solid wire of the present invention is an iron base welding solid wire including carbon: 0.10 mass % or less (not inclusive of 0%), silicon: 0.15 mass % or less (not inclusive of 0%), nickel: 8.0 to 15.0 mass %, manganese: 0.10 to 0.80 mass %, and Al: 0.1 mass % or less (not inclusive of 0%), and oxygen in an amount of 150 ppm or less (inclusive of 0), characterized by including: a REM: 0.005 to 0.040 mass %, or chromium: 4.0 mass % or less (not inclusive of 0%).
US08043401B2
During the production of stainless steel, a slag is formed during the melting of the solid material in the electric arc furnace, the slag having a high degree of metal oxides, particularly chromium oxide. The chromium concentration often reaches values of more than 30%. Currently, such slags cannot be reduced to a desired degree due to their composition. In order to minimize the resulting high loss of recyclable material, the invention provides to charge the electric arc furnace with pellets, or briquettes (8), which are made of a defined mixture of an iron carrier as the ballast material, carbon, or carbon and silicon, as the reducing agent, and a binder, wherein they react beneath the slag layer (7) in the steel melt (6) with the metal oxides of the slag (7), particularly with the chromium oxide present, in a floating, chemical, and reducing manner. The reaction gases (12) produced in the process, which are mainly made of carbon monoxide, advantageously support a foaming of the slag (7).
US08043399B1
A method for detoxifying spent CCA (copper, chromium, arsenic) treated wood, from which CCA is efficiently removed from the wood, allowing both the CCA and the wood to be reused has been developed. The method comprises the steps of (1) microwave-enhanced acid extraction of CCA, (2) separation of the acid-containing CCA solution from the wood, (3) separation/precipitation of CCA from the acid extract, (4) recovery and regeneration of CCA-bearing precipitant for reuse in the wood preservation industry, (5) recycling recovered acid solution, (6) microwave-assisted liquefaction of the extracted wood, and (7) use of detoxified liquefied wood to form polymeric materials such as polyurethanes and phenolic resin adhesives. The recovered CCA may be used to treat wood. The recovered acids may be used to extract CCA from CCA-treated wood, and the liquefied wood may be used as phenolic or polyurethane resins.
US08043394B2
A particulate matter (PM) filter assembly includes a PM filter that filters PM from an exhaust stream and that includes an entry face facing a first direction of flow of the exhaust stream, and a swirl element disposed in the exhaust stream and that includes a blade that directs a portion of the exhaust stream in a second direction of flow that is different than the first direction of flow. The blade directs the portion of the exhaust stream to distribute the exhaust stream over a frontal area of the entry face of the PM filter. A related method of filtering particulate matter from an exhaust stream is also provided.
US08043392B2
The mixture of molten alumina-zircon grains has the following chemical composition in percentage by weight to give 100%: 40-45.5% ZrO+HfO2; 46-58% Al2O3; 0-10% additive; <0.8% SIO2 and <1,2% impurities. The mixture is characterised in that the degree of impurity-containing grains is less than 2% and the nodule concentration measured on the section of any grain of the mixture is greater than 500 nodules per mm2 in at least 50% of cases.
US08043391B2
A method is provided for producing and preparing fast pyrolysis products from a biomass for entrained-flow pressure gasification that includes: heating of the biomass under exclusion of oxygen in a pyrolysis reactor, a temperature of between 400 to 600° C. being established for one to 50 seconds, such that the biomass reacts to form porous pyrolysis coke, pyrolysis condensate and pyrolysis gas; and drawing off the pyrolysis gas; condensing vaporous constituents of the pyrolysis condensate in a plurality of condensation stages so as to: condense, in a first condensation stage, at temperatures above the dew point of water, a low-temperature carbonization tar from the vaporous constituents; and condense and separate at temperatures between 0° C. and the dew point of water, in at least one subsequent condensation stage, an aqueous solution of oxygen containing organic compounds.
US08043389B2
A fuel cell system includes a reformer for reforming fuel and generating hydrogen gas. A stack generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction between the hydrogen gas and oxygen. A fuel supply unit supplies fuel to the reformer. An air supply unit supplies air to the reformer and the stack. The reformer includes a reformation reactor unit for generating the hydrogen gas and a heat-insulating unit including a vacuum area covering the reformation reactor unit and recovering heat generated from the reformation unit.
US08043381B2
Methods and devices for insertion between adjacent vertebrae in a spine following removing at least a portion of a nucleus from within a disc. In one embodiment, the device includes a member having a flexible wall surrounding an internal volume and a coupler that is secured to the flexible wall. The member is adapted to expand when filled with a first filler material to form an interior cavity. The coupler has a first access point, a second access point, a first coupler side hole, and an optional second coupler side hole. The first and second access points are adapted to removably receive one or more fill tubes. The fill tubes cooperate with the first and optional second coupler side holes to direct the first filler material into the internal volume and a second filler material into the interior cavity.
US08043379B2
An intervertebral disc prosthesis comprises a first endplate, a second endplate, and a bearing surface positioned between the first endplate and the second endplate. The bearing surface may be provided by a mobile bearing disc including a convex bearing surface configured to engage the first endplate and a concave bearing surface configured to engage the second endplate. The multiple bearing surfaces of the mobile bearing disc engage articulating surfaces on the endplates to form a plurality of articulating joints. Each articulating joint is configured to facilitate a particular type of movement for the segmental unit. Furthermore, each articulating joint is defined by a distinct center of rotation. The contact pair formed by the convex bearing surface of the bearing component and the concave bearing surface of the first endplate may provide a flexion/extension center of rotation for the prosthesis. The contact pair formed by the convex bearing surface of the bearing component and the concave bearing surface of the first endplate may provide a lateral bending/torsional center of rotation for the prosthesis.
US08043378B2
An intercostal spacer device for placement between two adjacent ribs, includes a spacer member and at least two pair of arms that extend from a first end of the spacer member and at least one pair of arms that extend from a second end of the spacer member. The intercostal spacer device is sized and configured to allow for placement into the intercostal space to produce a force for correcting a spinal deformity.
US08043376B2
Implants, tools and techniques facilitate a percutaneous posterior lateral approach to the placement of an in-situ cage, and an inventive cage design to meet this objective. In terms of apparatus, the invention includes a laterally expandable cage, including a locking gate, enabling the system to be introduced into an intradiscal space through a minimally invasive percutaneous posteo-lateral approach. In addition to the cage designs, adapted to hold bone graft and/or other biologic materials, the invention includes other novel instruments, including an introducer associated with cage placement, deployment and closure.
US08043374B2
A system for use in reconstructing a ligament is provided. The system includes a graft ligament support block and an installation tool. The support block includes a body having a distal and proximal ends and a longitudinal axis extending therebetween, the proximal end being tapered so as to facilitate withdrawal of the support block through a bone tunnel, a graft hole extending through the body transverse to the longitudinal axis and configured to receive a graft ligament therein and a transverse fixation pin hole extending through the body transverse to the longitudinal axis and configured to receive a transverse fixation pin therein. The installation tool includes a holder having a shaft with distal and proximal ends and longitudinal axis extending therebetween, the proximal end of the shaft including at least one finger for engagement in the opening and a handle mounted to the proximal end of the shaft.
US08043369B2
Biomedical devices such as silicone hydrogels formed from a polymerization product of a mixture comprising (a) a siloxane-containing homopolymer comprising one or more thio carbonyl thio fragments of a reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agent; and (b) one or more biomedical device-forming monomers are disclosed.
US08043358B2
A stent may comprise a plurality of serpentine bands that overlap along the length of the stent. Each serpentine band may comprise a plurality of alternating first struts and second struts connected by a plurality of alternating proximal turns and distal turns. Each first strut defines a curvilinear path different from that of each second strut.
US08043356B2
A stent-graft (100) is provided with a tightenable loop element (104) having a first end terminated in a slip knot or self-tightening knot (112) and a second end which is received in and can slide in the knot (112). The knot (112) is tied by a suture to the stent-graft (100) so as to be fixed thereto. The loop (104) is fitted to the stent-graft (100) in a manner as to pass between the inside to the outside of the graft material and in such a manner that controlled curvature of the stent-graft (100) is possible, in particular control of the overlapping of adjacent stents held within the zone of the loop (104). An introducer assembly is also disclosed which includes a control cannula (120) able to the fixed to the stent-graft (100) during the deployment procedure, as well as a mechanism of suture loops (150, 152) at the proximal end of the stent-graft (100) for retaining this in a constricted form during the process of curving the latter during the deployment process.
US08043353B2
An insertion system with a self-expanding braided stent (11) for implantation in a blood vessel has an outer sleeve (12) with a distal end (14) and a proximal end. An inner sleeve (16) arranged in the outer sleeve (12) is displaceable relative to the latter and protrudes, with a handling section, from the proximal end of the outer sleeve (12). Moreover, at the distal end (15), there is a tip (18) which is securely connected to a stent support (24) on which the braided stent (11) is arranged in its loaded state. The stent support (24) is arranged to be displaceable relative to the inner sleeve (16).
US08043351B2
An enhanced method and device are provided to treat atrial fibrillation or inhibit or reduce restenosis following angioplasty or stent placement. A balloon-tipped catheter is disposed in the area treated or opened through balloon angioplasty immediately following angioplasty. The balloon, which can have a dual balloon structure, may be delivered through a guiding catheter and over a guidewire already in place. A fluid such as a perfluorocarbon flows into the balloon to freeze the tissue adjacent the balloon, this cooling being associated with reduction of restenosis. A similar catheter may be used to reduce atrial fibrillation by inserting and inflating the balloon such that an exterior surface of the balloon contacts at least a partial circumference of the portion of the pulmonary vein adjacent the left atrium. In another embodiment, blood perfusion is performed simultaneously. In another embodiment, tissue contacted by the cryoablation catheter, undesired to be ablated, is protected against damage by a separate heating step.
US08043348B2
Acupuncture device uses a laser beam. Acupuncture device is configured for bringing about a suitable treatment relevant to the pain in a patient and so that it is adapted to all aspects of practice, in particular so as to enable easy replacement of laser diodes of different intensity levels or laser modules of different wavelengths and a lasting operating capacity of all its elements. Therefore, the acupuncture device includes the following elements: a control apparatus including several outlets for electrical conductors; several electrical conductors connected to the outlets of the control apparatus; several laser diodes connected to the electrical conductors; and several laser needles which are connected to the laser diodes, so that the laser beam emitted by the laser diodes is injected into the laser needles, and which are designed to contact, through their output region, a patient's body. Device may be used to irradiate blood.
US08043346B2
An anterior cervical plate and method includes a plurality of retaining slots comprising a first and second hole each adapted to permit bone retaining members to pass partially therethrough; and a platform separating the first hole from the second hole. The plate further comprises a pair of locking slides matingly adjacent to one another and adapted to rest on the platform and retain the bone retaining members in the plurality of retaining slots, wherein each the locking slide comprises a deflectable flange; and a lip positioned on an opposite side of the deflectable flange, wherein a first locking slide of the pair of locking slides is positioned in an opposite orientation relative to a second locking slide of the pair of locking slides. The deflectable flange of the first locking slide is aligned adjacent to the deflectable flange of the second locking slide.
US08043343B2
The disclosure relates generally to embodiments of systems and methods of spinal stabilization. Embodiments include methods that use a dilator to displace tissue proximate to a sleeve. An embodiment of a surgical system can comprise a dilator that may define a working channel from a first opening to a second opening. The dilator can be positioned to displace tissue proximate to the sleeve. The dilator may be shaped to allow a first end of an elongated member to enter the working channel through the first opening and exit the dilator through the second opening to be percutaneously moved to another assembly.
US08043336B2
The invention concerns an assembly (1) comprising an interspinous wedge (5) configured to be inserted between the spinous processes (9) of two vertebrae (2) to be treated, whereof at least one zone designed to be placed between the spinous processes of the vertebrae is made of an elastically deformable material. The assembly (1) further comprises: two compressive lateral elements (6), designed to be placed on either side of the wedge (5) in the longitudinal direction, said compressive lateral elements (6) being deformable between releasing positions, wherein they are relatively spaced apart from the wedge (5) in the transverse direction, and compressive positions, wherein they are relatively close to the wedge (5) in the transverse direction; and two lateral transmission elements (7), placed between the compressive lateral elements (6) and the wedge (5), configured to press against the wedge (5) in the transverse direction thereof, at the interspinous zone (10) of the wedge (5).
US08043320B2
A bifurcated balloon for in vivo use, comprises: a proximal hollow tubular element, two bifurcating hollow tubular elements extending distally from a distal end of the proximal hollow tubular element, each of the two elements comprising: a first distal tubular element guidable into a first branch of a vessel bifurcation, and a second distal tubular element guidable into a second branch of the vessel bifurcation. The bifurcated balloon further comprises a longitudinal chamber extending from a distal end of the first distal tubular element, and a first substantially longitudinal guidewire channel passing through the longitudinal chamber, the first guidewire channel having two ends of which a first end passes through a proximal portion of the longitudinal chamber.
US08043319B2
An elongated cannula with an inner tube that is designed to cooperate with a corresponding outer tube. The cannula may include a cam mechanism, a plurality of flexible members designed to expand and deploy when the inner and outer tubes move relative to each other, and a pressure ring disposed on the outer tube. The inner and outer tubes are slidably moveable relative to each other in at least one direction.
US08043305B2
Disclosed is an anastomosis catheter, for achieving a tissue to tissue or synthetic graft to tissue attachment. The catheter includes a plurality of deployable tissue anchors, which may be laterally deployed into surrounding tissue. The anchors may be used to achieve end to end or end to side anastomoses. Methods are also disclosed.
US08043303B2
A rigid extractor is revealed, a rigid device for use in percutaneous procedures to remove kidney stones directly from the kidneys. The rigid extractor uses a handle fixed to an outer rigid cannula, and an inner cannula to control an extraction device that may be removable from the inner cannula. The extractor is desirably used with a fluoroscope, in which the surgeon maneuvers the extractor with the aid of a view of the operating field provided by the fluoroscope. The surgeon then maneuvers the extractor to grasp the kidney stones and remove from the patient. The extractor may also be used with a nephroscope. The device may be used with a removable extraction device such as a basket, a grasper a pair of jaws, or a pair of scissors.
US08043295B2
A vertebral spreading instrument for moving apart two vertebrae of a spine includes a plurality of spreading fingers and a spreading mechanism for adjusting a distance between the spreading fingers. The spreading mechanism includes a first and a second part, the first and second parts each including a respective marker trackable by a navigation system. Relative positions of the first and second parts change when the distance between the spreading fingers is adjusted, and different relative positions are unequivocally assigned to different distances of the spreading fingers.
US08043294B2
A femoral caliper having one or more anatomical referencing members for placement against portions of the femur, such as the anterior cortex and posterior portion of the femoral condyles, to measure the femur for sizing of the femoral component. A reference mark positioning guide of the femoral caliper is connected to the anatomical referencing member and is capable of guiding placement of a reference mark on the femur that facilitates positioning of the femoral component. The femoral caliper includes an adjustment mechanism capable of displacing the reference mark positioning guide relative to the anatomical referencing member. This allows adjustment of the position of the reference mark (and hence the femoral component) on the femur to account for the up or down sizing of the femoral component. Preferably, the adjustment mechanism adjusts the reference mark positioning guide in the anterior-posterior direction to allow balancing of the tightness or laxity of the selected component.
US08043289B2
Large tissue regions are treated using pairs of electrode arrays. The electrode arrays may be concave and disposed in tissue so that their concave portions are opposed to each other. Axial conductors may be provided extending from the arrays and toward each other in order to increase the heating of tissues lying along the axis between the deployed electrode arrays. By properly spacing the electrode arrays apart and selecting the diameters of the arrays, desired volumes of tissue may be treated, typically with a bipolar, radiofrequency current.
US08043286B2
Described herein are methods and apparatus for cutting a material including biological tissue. The apparatus has a cutting electrode with an elongate cutting portion. A voltage pulse waveform (typically comprising repeated bursts of minipulses) having a low or very low duty-cycle is applied to the cutting electrode to cut the tissue or other material by producing a vapor cavity around the cutting portion of the electrode and ionizing a gas inside the vapor cavity to produce a plasma. A low duty cycle cutting waveform may prevent heat accumulation in the tissue, reducing collateral thermal damage. The duration of the burst of minipulses typically ranges from 10 μs to 100 μs, and the rep rate typically ranges from 1 KHz to 10 Hz, as necessary. The apparatus and method of invention may cut biological tissue while decreasing bleeding and maintaining a very shallow zone of thermal damage.
US08043280B2
A releasable medical device connector comprises a connector fitting with a spin nut which connects to an adaptor. The connector fitting has at least one radially extending member with a variable radius cross section. The spin nut is disposed upon the connector fitting proximal of the radially extending member and is both axially slidable and rotatable upon the elongated body of the connector fitting. A screw thread within a proximal portion of the spin nut is used to secure the tapering portion of the connector fitting to an external thread disposed upon the adaptor. To release the connector, the spin nut is unscrewed from the adaptor and slid so that a distal receptacle of the spin nut engages the radially extending member of the connector fitting. With the spin nut and connector fitting engaged, the medical line can be released from the adaptor by twisting and pulling upon the spin nut. The radially extending member of the connector fitting may also be used to secure the medical line to a retainer comprising one or more slots.
US08043277B2
A method for transitioning between therapeutic substances to be delivered at different flow rates to a patient. The first therapeutic substance is delivered to the patient at a known flow rate, a bridge duration equal to the known volume divided by the known flow rate is calculated; and the flow rate is controlled following introduction of a second therapeutic substance into the reservoir. If the second flow rate is lower than the first flow rate, delivery is begun of at least one of the first therapeutic substance and the second therapeutic substance at the second flow rate at least as soon as the bridge duration is over. If the second flow rate is higher than the first flow rate, delivery is begun of the at least one of the first therapeutic substance and the second therapeutic substance at the second flow rate at least as late as when the bridge duration is over.
US08043268B1
A safety hypodermic needle and a method of using the same are disclosed. The safety needle comprises a hypodermic needle and a protective sheath molded of a flexible polymeric material. The protective sheath comprises a needle sleeve with an open central passage which houses the sharp needle point. The needle sleeve is supported on a plurality of inwardly bowed ribs in an unflexed “at rest” condition in which the needle point is retained inside the needle sleeve to prevent inadvertent needle sticks. Levers attached to the ribs are used to move the ribs from their inwardly bowed unflexed “at rest” condition to an outwardly bowed flexed condition to permit the needle to pass through the open central passage of the needle sleeve and into a patient's body. After the needle is removed from the patient's body, the ribs automatically return to the unflexed “at rest” condition without the assistance of any additional biasing or restoring means.
US08043256B2
A rapid exchange balloon catheter having a proximal end and a distal end, said catheter comprising: a tubular metal shaft body extending from the proximal end along a majority of the total length and having an inflation lumen arranged therein, a plastics distal end portion bonded to the metal body in extension thereof, said distal end portion being provided with an inflation lumen in communication with a balloon, and a guide wire lumen, said guide wire lumen extending from a proximal side port to a distal end opening. To reduce the resistance to kinking, the metal body comprises a transitional region having reduced stiffness at the position of bonding to the plastics distal end portion compared to a more proximal position along the metal body.
US08043254B2
The medication delivery device is designed to receive a replaceable medication container (5) and to determine an adjusted medication dose AD for each medication container (5) received if the amount of medication contained in the medication container (5) is not a multiple of a prescribed dose D. The adjusted medication dose is the dose to be delivered instead of the prescribed dose at each use of the medication delivery device with the medication container (5) received. The adjusted dose is determined by selecting one of a first dose, that is higher than the prescribed dose, and of a second dose, that is lower than the prescribed dose, as a function of a variable B that cumulates the values nAD. (AD−D), where nAD is equal to INT (Cont/AD) and Cont is the amount of medication in the medication container received.
US08043233B2
A method wherein a location or position sensor cooperates with a controller or other operating system such that a predefined motion pattern (circular motion, double click, translatory motion, reciprocal motion, and the like, and any combination thereof) of the sensor performs one or more specific tasks, which are not necessary related to the spatial locations per se of the sensor. Also a method for identifying sensors and landmarks is described including sensing the present location of the sensor plus an additional point and comparing with locations in the recent past.
US08043227B2
A non-invasive system and method for measuring skin hydration of a subject includes a thermistor used in transient mode to obtain a measurement of the thermal conductivity of the skin of the subject and a processor for determining a skin hydration value from the thermal conductivity measurement. The system for measuring skin hydration further includes a non-invasive system for detecting blood analyte concentration, such as glucose, with a spectroscopic device having e.g., an infrared source which generates infrared beam and detector for detecting transmitted radiation through portion (e.g., finger) of a subject. The system may also include skin hydrator which moisturizes the skin and is connected in a control loop to the system for measuring skin hydration. The system for detecting blood analyte concentration may include a photoacoustic device or a metabolic heat conformation device.
US08043217B1
Real-time Ultrasound Burst Spectrography (RUBS) is a technique in which a target is stimulated using a specialized ultrasound burst signal delivered by an imaging or non-imaging ultrasound transducer and the frequency spectrum of the resulting response is analyzed and studied. The objective of this method is to interrogate (vibrate) the target and then examine its characteristic response frequency (resonance) peaks, which are unique to its mechanical and material properties (viscosity, elasticity, plasticity, visco-elasticity, etc.). The resonances could deviate from a few Hz to several KHz and the response could be in the form of a narrow peak or a band of frequencies based on the stiffness coefficient of the target material. The primary goal is to develop a reliable and non-invasive ultrasound-based diagnostic device that can be used to identify different diseases or structural abnormalities based on the stationary or dynamic target's response frequency (resonance) to a specialized acoustic excitation.
US08043194B2
In a powertrain that includes wheels for driving a vehicle, an engine including a crankshaft, a machine driveably connected to the crankshaft and able to operate alternately as an electric motor and electric generator, a transmission including an input clutch driveably connected to the crankshaft and an output driveably connected to at least two of the wheels, and an electric storage battery having a variable state of charge and electrically connected to the machine, a method for controlling vehicle creep including adjusting a torque capacity of the input clutch to a desired magnitude of input clutch torque transmitted to the wheels, determining a desired change in torque produced by the machine such that a speed of the crankshaft is controlled to a desired idle speed, using the magnitude of input clutch torque capacity and the desired change in torque produced by the machine to determine a desired magnitude machine torque, and using the machine to produce said desired magnitude of machine torque.
US08043193B2
A gear mechanism for the drive assembly of a heald shaft (1), wherein the gear mechanism (6, 6a, 6b, 6c) comprises an input shaft (7, 7b, 7c) and an output shaft (5, 5b, 5c). The gear mechanism (6, 6a, 6b, 6c) generates a differential angle of rotation between the input shaft (7, 7b, 7c) and the output shaft (5, 5b, 5c) that is superimposed on the angle of rotation and, in dependence on the angle of rotation, is subjected to an oscillating change. This oscillating change can differ from a harmonic oscillation as a result of the non-circular design of the planet gears (11a, 12a, 13a) of the gear mechanism (6, 6b, 6c), thereby making it possible to realize almost any optional movements for the heald shaft (1), with low strain on the gears and the bearings. A simple production method and a compact design are disclosed.
US08043189B2
A transmission of the present invention has an input member, an output member, four planetary gear sets, a plurality of coupling members and a plurality of torque transmitting devices. Each of the planetary gear sets includes first, second and third members. The torque transmitting devices may include clutches and brakes. The torque transmitting devices are selectively engageable in combinations of at least two to establish at least nine forward speed ratios and at least one reverse speed ratio.
US08043173B2
A training system used in sports or other training that where a participant wears a device with a visual indicator such as a device emitting colored light and an optional signaling device like a vibrator or beeper. The device can be worn on the head, elbow, wrist, waist, knee, ankle or foot or be part of an participant's attire. The device can optionally be embedded in or on a shoe. A motion or position sensor can cause the visual indicator to change color or indication when the wearer is not moving correctly. Also, in some embodiments, a vibration can signal can be commanded by a coach or instructor to show that the player is not properly moving. An embedded processor can optionally set up various rhythm patterns used in practice. The device, wherever it is worn or disposed, can optionally be controlled remotely by a coach or instructor using a wireless transmission such as digital or analog radio or light to establish certain rhythms or to signal certain participants. The coach can send different signals to different devices worn by different participants. In a particular shoe embodiment, each of a pair of shoes can optionally communicate with the other member of the pair wirelessly so that a processor in one of the shoes can coordinate a rhythm pattern of vibration or beeping signals between the shoes.
US08043168B2
Golf ball 2 has a center 8, a mid layer 10 and a cover 6. The base polymer of the mid layer 10 includes an ionomer resin as a principal component. The surface hardness H1s of the center 8 is greater than the hardness H2 of the mid layer 10. The Shore D hardness H3 of the cover 6 is equal to or greater than 57. The weight W2 of the mid layer 10 is greater than the weight W3 of the cover 6. The total weight (W2+W3) of the weight W2 of the mid layer 10 and the weight W3 of the cover 6 is 8.4 g or greater and less than 12.0 g. The total volume (V2+V3) of the volume V2 of the mid layer 10 and the volume V3 of the cover 6 is equal to or less than 10.0 cm3.
US08043149B2
A visual aim indicator shows players the position of a selected one of a set of aim points during a video game. Each of the set of aim points has a predetermined position. The predetermined positions are within a target region, so that the visual aim indicator shows players the likely destination of their aim. Each aim point is associated with a range of control input values, so that players do not need to provide a precise control input value and can quickly select one of the set of aim points. The sizes of the ranges of control input values associated with the aim points can vary so that a player's aim inputs can be biased towards or away from specific aim points. The visual aim indicator is displayed intermittently during an aiming mode of operation and removed from view when the player completes the aiming mode of operation.
US08043147B2
A vitreous system of the invention is provided for use particularly as windowpanes of a car or the like vehicle, and is always kept clean over its whole surface. A multi-layer vitreous body ‘A’ forming the system is composed of an outside glass plate (1), an inside glass plate (2) and a stratified air space (3) defined between the inside and outside plates. A number of jetting orifices (1a) are formed to penetrate the outside plate (1), and a compressor (5) is connected through a piping (4) to the air space (3) so as to charge it with a compressed air, so that this air is blown out through the orifices (1a).
US08043140B2
A wafer polishing in which a polishing liquid is supplied to a polishing pad for polishing a wafer carried on a carrier head; and the polishing liquid is supplied from one or more polishing liquid supplying devices onto the polishing pad, by a polishing liquid supplying member of the polishing liquid supplying device being positioned close to or in contact with the polishing pad, and is relatively moved against the polishing pad, so that the polishing liquid supplied to the upper portion of the polishing liquid supplying member flows down along the polishing liquid supplying member to be painted on a surface of the polishing pad.
US08043138B2
Toy apparatus is provided including a playbase (22) and at least a first toy member (16) movable relative to said playbase between at least first (36) and second (90) positions via movement means. The movement means are arranged so as to separate the at least first toy member a spaced distance apart from a surface of the playbase in moving said toy member between the at least first and second positions.
US08043135B1
An assembly (10) is provided for mounting a hydrofoil, trolling plate or trolling motor (or other accessory) on the anti-ventilation plate (14) of a sterndrive or outboard motor (16) without the need to modify the plate or motor. The assembly (10) has lower and upper elements (20, 22) which are secured about the plate (14) by bolts (34). The upper element (22) has a bolt pattern (40) to mount the hydrofoil or other device. Grip devices (50) can be mounted on the lower element (20) that are adjusted to grip the edges of the plate (14). A catch (60) mounted on the lower element (20) can be engaged in the trim tab or anode recess.
US08043131B2
A cable connector includes an electrical contact configured to receive a cable at one end, and an electrical component at another end. The contact can be constructed as a one-piece contact body or a two-piece contact body, and the contact body can include a cable lock that assists in retaining the cable in the contact body.
US08043129B2
Switching device assembly for providing a switching function in a medium voltage switchgear system. A switching device (10) is positioned in a switching device housing (11). Terminals (14, 15) are connected to the switching device (10) and receiving ends (24, 25) thereof are provided for receiving an interface surface (26, 27) of respective conductor terminals (20, 21) of the medium voltage switchgear. Mounting assemblies are arranged to releasably fasten the terminals (14, 15) to the respective conductor terminals (20, 21) in operation. A switching device drive unit (30), to which the switching device housing (11) is mounted, is provided with sealable access points (31, 32), through which the mounting assemblies are reachable when opened.
US08043124B2
The invention is a modular cable termination plug having a conductor divider having an entrant barb and a plurality of divider channels, a load bar having a plurality of through holes and a plurality of slots, and a plurality of contact terminals. Additionally, the invention may include a housing, a strain relief collar and a strain relief boot.
US08043120B2
A multi-slot connector and a manufacture method thereof are provided. The multi-slot connector includes a housing and a conducting structure. The conducting structure has a body and a terminal portion extending from the body. After extending out from the body, the terminal portion bends to form a first ridge. After bending the first ridge, the terminal portion turns to form a winding portion which winds back toward the body and bends to form a second ridge, wherein the first and second ridges protrude toward different directions. The housing has a first slot and a second slot. When the conducting structure is disposed in the housing, the first ridge and the second ridge are respectively corresponding to the first slot and the second slot.
US08043096B2
A conductive rubber component includes a laminate in which conductive rubber layers and insulating rubber layers are laminated alternately in parallel, and the conductive rubber layers and the insulating rubber layers are integrated at their boundaries by a cross-linking reaction. A solderable metal coating is integrated with at least one surface of the laminate that is perpendicular to the electrical conduction direction by the deposition of at least one selected from atoms and molecules. This conductive rubber component can have good compression load properties and good compression set properties, achieve a stable electric connection for a long period of time due to the good compression set properties, be soldered to a printed wiring board or the like because of the presence of the integrated metal coating, suppress the occurrence of burrs, reduce costs, and improve the production efficiency.
US08043086B2
The invention concerns a method for cooling or quenching slabs and sheets (2) with water in a cooling pond (1, 14) wherein the slabs and the sheets (2), previously set upright by a tilting device (18), are lowered and temporarily maintained in position on edge. The inventive method is characterized in that the slabs and the sheets are sprayed with the cooling water. Therefor, the cooling pond (1) has, on both sides of the lowered slabs and sheets (2) jet devices (10; 11a, 11b) directed towards the surfaces of the large sides of the slabs or sheets and connected to a cooling water circuit which comprises means for reducing the water filling supply from a maximum upper water level (13b) to a lower water level (13a).
US08043079B2
A hermetic compressor and a refrigeration cycle device having the same are provided. An oil separator is installed either outside or inside of a casing to separate oil from a discharged refrigerant and an oil pump driven by a driving force of a motor is used to recollect the oil separated in the oil separator, whereby the separation between oil and refrigerant can effectively be performed and also a fabricating cost can be reduced. Also, an introduction of the separated refrigerant back into the compressor can be prevented so as to improve a cooling capability of the refrigeration cycle device. In addition, the oil pump is driven by the driving force of the motor, resulting in a simple configuration of the compressor and a reduction of a fabricating cost of the compressor.
US08043073B2
The invention relates to a device provided with channel-type structures for transporting and/or storing a liquid and/or gaseous medium. The device comprises a first (1) substrate layer and a second substrate layer (2), and a functional element (3) that is sandwiched between the first and second substrate layers, the channel-type structures being embodied in the first and/or second substrate layer. The first and second substrate layers are solidly and permanently interconnected, and the functional element is clamped between the first and second substrate layers. The functional element is elastic, the first and second layers are rigid, and the channel-type structures in the first and/or second substrate layers are at least partially sealed in a gas-tight and/or liquid-tight manner due to the functional element.
US08043064B2
A fan and a fan wheel thereof are provided. The fan comprises the fan wheel and a fan cowl. The fan wheel comprises a hub and a plurality of blades. The hub can define an axial direction and a radial direction, and each of the blades has an axial length and a radial length. The portion of each of the blades that extends along the axial direction over a top edge of a side wall of the hub accounts for the axial length in a ratio between one third and two thirds. A connection portion connecting a central portion to the side wall of the hub, and a tip and a tail of each of the blades, as well as a flow conducting portion connecting a top wall to a central hole of the fan cowl, are all rounded. Thereby, the fan and the fan wheel thereof can strengthen the flow rate and reduce the noise generated by the fan.
US08043060B1
A turbine rotor blade with a trailing edge cooling circuit in which cooling air from an impingement cavity located adjacent to the trailing edge region is connected to a plurality of metering channels that open onto the pressure side wall of the trailing edge region of the airfoil to discharge the cooling air. A row of submerged slots that open onto the suction side wall of the airfoil are connected to the metering channels by a row of small holes that bleed off the cooling air in the metering channel in a progressive manner and discharge the air into the slot. The trailing edge cooling circuit allows for a thinner trailing edge airfoil, reduces the metal temperature and reduces the shear mixing between the cooling air and the mainstream hot gas flow.
US08043057B1
A turbine airfoil with a multiple impingement cooling circuit to provide backside impingement cooling of the leading edge region and the pressure and suction side walls. A leading edge cavity and a mid-chord cavity are separated by a rib. A first baffle is secured within the leading edge cavity and forms a series of impingement compartments and impingement cooling holes to channel cooling air along the first baffle and provide impingement cooling along the backside wall of the leading edge region. A second baffle is secured within the mid-chord cavity and forms a series of pressure side and suction side impingement compartments and impingement cooling holes alternating from the pressure side wall to the suction side wall to channel cooling air along the second baffle and provide impingement cooling along the backside walls of the pressure and suction sides. A spent air collection channel extends along the trailing edge region and is connected to a row of exit cooling holes along the trailing edge of the airfoil. Cooling air from the first baffle flows into the second baffle, and from the second baffle into the spend air collection channel and out through the exit cooling holes.
US08043054B2
A monitoring system for a wind turbine includes at least one acoustic sensor configured to measure an acoustic emission generated by at least one component of the wind turbine, and a control system configured to calculate at least one wear characteristic of the component based on the measured acoustic emission. The wear characteristic includes at least one of a current amount of wear on the component, a rate of wear on the component, and a predicted amount of wear on the component.
US08043052B2
A fluid flow engine (1), in particular a turbo engine, has at least one guide vane row (5) with a plurality of guide vanes (6) and at least one rotor blade row (7) with a plurality of rotor blades (8). One guide vane row (5) and one rotor blade row (7) that follows the former directly downstream with respect to a working gas flow (11), together form a stage (10) of the fluid flow engine (1). To reduce the load on the rotor blades (8), the guide vanes (6) and the rotor blades (8) are coordinated at least in one stage (10) so that in a reference relative position between the respective guide vane (6) and the respective rotor blade (8), there is an axial distance (B) and a circumferential distance (C) between the outgoing flow edge (16) of the respective guide vane (6) and the oncoming flow edge (17) of the respective rotor blade (8) that is measured in the axial direction and is varied along a height (H) of a gas path (12) running axially between the blade rows (5, 7) of this stage (10), said height being measured radially.
US08043046B2
A fluid flow machine has a flow path (2) which is confined by at least one wall, on which at least one row of blades (6, 7) is fixedly mounted. At least one fluid offtake opening (9) and at least one fluid supply opening (10), which are connected by at least one fluid return path (11), are arranged in the wall in an area of a blade row (6, 7), with a circumferential extension of the fluid supply opening (10) being less than a distance between two adjacent blades.
US08043042B2
An industrial robot may include a robot hand structured to mount a transfer object, a multi-joint arm section having at least two arms including a robot hand supporting arm structured to support the robot hand to be rotatable; and a main section structured to support the multi-joint arm section to be rotatable. The robot hand may include a grasping part structured to contact and grasp the transfer object and a biasing member structured to bias the grasping part in a direction for grasping the transfer object. The robot hand supporting arm may include an eccentric member fixed to the robot hand supporting arm at a position being eccentric from a turning center of the robot hand in relation to the supporting arm.
US08043040B2
A goods handling' apparatus for a cargo storage and transport vehicle includes a movable cargo platform continuous with a portion of cargo enclosure floor, when the cargo platform is in an upper position. Cargo may be slid between the trailer floor and the cargo platform. A vertical actuator raises and lowers the cargo platform between the upper position and a lower position atop the ground or other vehicle support surface whereupon cargo may be slid between the cargo platform and the ground or other positions. The cargo platform is disposed substantially within the plan perimeter of the floor of the cargo module during raising and lowering. A modular system may be integrated into the cargo enclosure, or may be incorporated into a modular enclosure for appending to a cargo box of the prior art. An underride is disposed in vertically adjusting communication with the cargo platform.
US08043037B2
A cargo brace device includes a drive mechanism that allows rapid release of operative forces as well as rapid assembly and disassembly of the cargo brace. Activation of a release lever allows rapid disengagement of ratchet pawls from a toothed rack to allow first and second longitudinal members of the cargo brace to readily move axially in relation to one another.
US08043034B2
A device for the manufacture of drilled holes, cut-outs, plane surfaces or the like, includes an attachment structure, which is designed for the attachment of the device to at least one component to be machined, a feed device, which is designed to track a drill of a drilling machine, and a control device for controlling the feed device and a drilling machine. In one example, the feed device includes a support for the drilling machine, which is arranged substantially in the center of a crossbeam.
US08043030B2
A tool holder, drill holder, reamer holder, and milling cutter holder. The abstract of the disclosure is submitted herewith as required by 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b). As stated in 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b): A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification must commence on a separate sheet, preferably following the claims, under the heading “Abstract of the Disclosure.” The purpose of the abstract is to enable the Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and gist of the technical disclosure. The abstract shall not be used for interpreting the scope of the claims. Therefore, any statements made relating to the abstract are not intended to limit the claims in any manner and should not be interpreted as limiting the claims in any manner.
US08043029B2
A packer structure for grouting injects a repair liquid into a crack of a concrete structure. The packer structure includes a packer body having a flange adhered onto the crack and a central tube extending upwards from a central portion of the flange, an elastic tube having a first end connected to a first coupling portion of the central tube, a repair liquid injecting tube having a second coupling portion connected to a second end of the elastic tube and a check valve coupled to the repair liquid injecting tube and preventing the repair liquid from flowing backward; a first coupling cap having an inner circumference surface of a lower portion screwed to the central tube, and a second coupling cap having an inner circumference surface of an upper portion screwed to the repair liquid injecting tube.
US08043016B2
An image forming apparatus that forms an image on a recording medium by conveying the recording medium in a direction orthogonal to a scanning direction of a carriage having a recording head includes a first detecting unit mounted on the carriage and configured to detect the recording medium; a second detecting unit placed upstream from the first detecting unit in the direction that the recording medium is conveyed and configured to detect the recording medium; and a control unit configured to control operations of the image forming apparatus based on a detection result from the first detecting unit or the second detecting unit.
US08043011B2
The present invention provides a rolling bearing, for a tenter clip, which is capable of restraining deterioration of a sealing member even though the sealing member contacts ester oil, and is excellent in reliability and durability at high temperatures. A periphery of an outer ring of the rolling bearing for use in the tenter clip of a film-stretching apparatus is lubricated with the ester oil. In the sealing member which covers openings disposed at both axial ends of an inner ring and the outer ring of the rolling bearing, at least a portion of the sealing member which contacts the ester oil is made of (A) a fluororubber molding of a vulcanizable fluororubber composition which comprises a copolymer containing tetrafluoroethylene (TFE), propylene, and a to-be-crosslinked monomer consisting of unsaturated hydrocarbon, having two to four carbon atoms, in which a part of hydrogen atoms is substituted with fluorine atoms or (B) a fluororubber molding of at least one fluororubber composition selected from a vulcanizable fluororubber composition containing a TFE-propylene binary copolymer and a vulcanizable fluororubber composition containing a vinylidene fluoride-TFE-propylene ternary copolymer.
US08043008B2
The invention relates to a rolling-element bearing unit for rotatably bearing two components, nested into each other, which rotate about separate rotational axes that are at an angle to each other, especially the roll core and roll sleeve of a width stretching roll for a paper machine. The rolling-element bearing unit according to the invention comprises an outer rolling-element bearing for rotationally bearing the outer component, a pivoting bearing carrying the outer rolling-element bearing and allowing adjustment of the angle of the outer rolling-element bearing, an angularly adjustable inner rolling-element bearing for rotationally bearing the inner component, and an eccentric which consist of an inner and an outer eccentric ring via which eccentric rings the centers of the two rolling-element bearings can be adjusted in relation to each other.
US08042991B2
Novel dispenser means are provided for mixing and dispensing two-part curable compositions wherein the mixer elements are isolated from the curable components.
US08042987B2
Twist kneading disks are arranged such that the width of a piece of disk is 0.1 to 0.5 times the cylinder inner diameter D, a helix angle θ as an angle between a vertex of the front surface side of the disk and vertex of the rear surface side of the disk at the tip portion is in a range of 0°<θ<90° in the reverse rotating direction of the screws as viewed from a cross section of the disk in the end direction of the screw shaft, and a phase angle E as an angle in correlation between the disks around the screw shaft is in a range of 0°
US08042982B2
This present invention relates to a lighting device for vehicles which comprises a flat type light conducting body having two opposed flat sides at which light is transmitted from a light coupling or input side of said body to a light decoupling or output side thereof by total reflection, and a narrow side at the light input end along which a plurality of spaced-apart light elements are fitted for light input into the light conducting body, wherein said narrow side extends in at least an extension plane perpendicular to the flat sides and the narrow side is uneven at least in a light input section thereof that constitutes a light input position.
US08042969B2
A lighting device and a method of assembling the same are disclosed herein. The lighting device may include a lens assembly having a plurality of condensing lenses, a reflector having a plurality of openings, and a light emitting module having a plurality of LEDs. The condensing lenses, the plurality of openings, and the LEDs may be positioned to correspond to each other. The reflector may reflect light emitted from the light emitting elements to maximize light distribution efficiency of the lighting device.
US08042966B2
A hand-held power tool includes a housing with a tool fitting for receiving an insertion tool, and at least one illuminating element for illuminating the working area of the hand-held power tool; wherein the at least one illuminating element is located in the region of the tool fitting.
US08042965B2
A display includes a panel and a backlight module. The backlight module includes a reflective board, a shell, at least two lenses and a light source. The lenses are installed on the reflective board. The reflective board is installed on the shell. The light source is installed in the shell and the light from the light source passes through the lenses. Each lens includes a bottom portion on the reflective board and an extending portion protruding slantwise from the bottom portion. The extending portion includes a reflective surface opposite to the reflective board approximately. A light from the light source is reflected onto the reflective board via the reflective surface, and then reflected onto the panel via the reflective board.
US08042958B2
A protective automatic darkening filter (ADF) includes automatic power management capabilities. The ADF includes a power management control unit that controls power to the ADF based on whether or not the ADF is currently in use. In one embodiment, to determine whether the ADF is in use, the power management control unit includes a motion sensor that senses movement of the ADF and controls power to the ADF based on the sensed movement.
US08042944B2
An apparatus for observing an eye comprises an imaging device (9) that is provided with a magnification unit (11) and an observation unit (10). The magnification unit (11) has an objective lens (12) for receiving observation light rays from the eye. The apparatus includes an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system (15) comprising an OCT light source (16) for emitting OCT light, as well as splitting means (17) for splitting the OCT light into a reference beam and a sample beam. The OCT system (15) comprises transferring means (33) for directing the sample beam from the splitting means through the objective lens to the eye. The OCT system comprises an OCT module (19) that is detachably connected between the magnification unit (11) and the observation unit (10).
US08042937B2
A temple for an eyeglass frame exerts an urging force onto a facial surface, and has a simple structure to make the manufacture and assembly thereof easy. The temple can be provided at an inexpensive cost. The temple comprises four surfaces of an inner surface 20, an outer surface 30, an upper surface 40, and a lower surface 50 on one end side, which end is linked to armor 70 with a hinge 60 put between the end and the armor 70. The outer surface 30 has outer surface concave portions 31, 32, and 33, each formed in a curved surface parallel to the rotation axis of the hinge 60. The portions of the inner surface 20 corresponding to the outer surface concave portions 31, 32, and 33 are formed in curved surfaces parallel to the curved surfaces of the outer surface concave portions 31, 32, and 33 to form an almost uniform thickness between the portions.
US08042936B2
A sideshade for reducing peripheral glare that is removably attachable to a temple of spectacles such that the wearer of the spectacles is not required to remove the spectacles in order to attach the sideshade to or detach the sideshade from the temple of the spectacles. The detachable sideshade is optical or near-optical quality so as not to degrade the wearer's peripheral vision. The sideshade is lightweight and easy to attach and remove.
US08042935B2
Micro-fluid jetting devices and methods for ejecting fluid mixtures on a substrate are disclosed. Embodiments of the invention show fluid-flow architecture whereby fluid channels direct a plurality of fluids from their respective reservoirs to be ejected through the nozzles of a nozzle plate.
US08042933B2
In a digital printer the elements involved directly in the print process, which are located on a shuttle assembly are mounted upon a metrological frame which is isolated from the base frame by vibration dampers. Because the elements of the shuttle drive systems, such as a belt drive system having a motor and pulleys, are mounted upon the base frame, the drive and reaction forces from the motor drive systems are led to the base frame while the shuttles assembly is guided by the force-free, vibration free metrological frame. This allows for higher accuracy during printing as the metrological frame serves as a vibration free reference element.
US08042923B2
When each of an energy acting chamber and a second ejection port portion is partitioned by a first virtual plane into an area positioned on a first side of the first virtual plane and an area positioned on a second side of the first virtual plane, the energy acting chamber has a larger volume in the first side area than in the second side area. Conversely, the second ejection port portion has a smaller volume in the first side area than in the second side area. The first virtual plane is parallel to both a supply direction of a liquid flowing to the energy acting chamber and an ejection direction, and passes through a center of a heating element. The first virtual plane divides each of the energy acting chamber and the second ejection port portion into two parts in an orthogonal direction orthogonal to the supply direction.
US08042910B2
A web press printer includes a frame spaced above a media support and at least one printbar removably secured to the frame. The at least one printbar supports an array of printheads extending generally transverse to the media support. The at least one printbar also includes a connector and a routing mechanism. The connector is configured to releasably connect to an element supply that is external to the at least one printbar. The routing mechanism is in communication with the element supply via the connector and configured to separately route the supplied element to each respective printhead.
US08042905B2
An inkjet recording apparatus has: a head having a plurality of nozzles which eject an ink onto a recording medium; a conveyance device which conveys the recording medium; a droplet ejection control device which controls ink ejection of the head; a test image forming device that forms a test image on the recording medium by causing the ink to be ejected from every n (where n is a natural number equal to 2 or higher) nozzles in an X direction perpendicular to a direction in which the recording medium is conveyed, and causing the ink to be ejected so as to form vertical lines forming n columns which shift by one nozzle in the X direction and each extend continuously in terms of a Y direction parallel to the direction in which the recording medium is conveyed; and a reading device which is provided on a conveyance path of the recording medium, reads in a test image on the recording medium and has an image reading structure covering a length corresponding to full width of the recording medium in a breadthways direction which is perpendicular to the direction in which the recording medium is conveyed, wherein in the test image, an arrangement pitch in the X direction of the vertical lines is equal to or exceeding a reading pitch in the X direction of the reading device, an arrangement pitch in the Y direction of the vertical lines is N times a reading pitch in the Y direction of the reading device (where N is a natural number), and an interval corresponding to variation in a conveyance of the recording medium is provided between the vertical lines in such a manner that a length in the Y direction of each of the vertical lines is less than the reading pitch in the Y direction of the reading device.
US08042895B2
A method for restoring ink conductivity of ink in an ink reservoir comprises detecting an ink conductivity of an ink volume in an ink reservoir, and comparing the detected ink conductivity to a predetermined ink conductivity operational range. A flush routine is performed in response to the measured ink conductivity being outside of the predetermined ink conductivity operational range. The flush routine includes: disabling ink supply operations to the ink reservoir; emptying the ink reservoir of ink; refilling the ink reservoir with ink; measuring an ink conductivity of an ink volume in the refilled ink reservoir; and comparing the detected ink conductivity to the predetermined ink conductivity operational range. The imaging device is returned to a normal operating mode in response to the measured ink conductivity being within the predetermined ink conductivity operational range after a flush routine has been performed.
US08042885B2
A brake control apparatus for a vehicle includes a controlling device for actuating the pressure modulating device and the motor, calculating a target braking force corresponding to an operation amount, and driving the motor and the pressure modulating device, wherein, in an electric power supply stopped situation, in which electric power is not supplied by the battery, while an operation amount detected by the operation amount sensor increases, the controlling device starts driving the motor by means of electric power supplied by the capacitor, only when a target braking force corresponding to the operation amount reaches memorized target braking force memorized in the memorizing portion.
US08042881B2
A bicycle wheel securing structure includes a bicycle fork, an adapter and a holding member. The bicycle fork has two axle support portions that are spaced apart for receiving a bicycle hub therebetween. The adapter is disposed in an adapter receiving bore in one of the axle support portions. The adapter includes a threaded axle mounting opening. The holding member is operatively coupled between the adapter and the one of the axle support portions with the adapter. The holding member prevents both rotational movement of the adapter with respect to the bicycle fork and axial movement of the adapter with respect to the bicycle fork along an axis of the axle mounting opening when the holding member is in a retaining position. The adapter is rotatable within the adapter receiving bore without moving axially with respect to the bicycle fork when the holding member is in a releasing position.
US08042878B2
Interface disc for a vehicle wheel, comprising: at least one substantially central attachment element designed to allow the said disc to be attached to a wheel; a plurality of substantially radial arms connected to the attachment elements and extending radially outwards from a substantially central portion of the said disc as far as a substantially peripheral portion of the said disc; an energy absorption surface collaborating with the said arms and configured to form a wall between the said substantially central portion of the disc and its substantially peripheral portion; at least one circumferential reinforcing element collaborating with the said arms and the modulus of which is substantially higher than that of the energy absorption element.
US08042871B2
A chair mounting device for mounting a chair on a mounting frame of a motor-driven wheeled vehicle includes a seat post mounted on the mounting frame, a seat stem mounted on a seat of the chair, a locking member movable relative to the seat stem between a locking position to guard against swiveling movement of the stem relative to the seat post and an unlocking position to permit the swiveling movement, a lever mounted on and operable relative to an anchored mount located above the seat, a biasing member disposed to bias the locking member to the locking position, and a pulling cord coupled with the locking member and the lever.
US08042865B2
The tent chair includes a folding frame supporting a folding cover, with the frame attached to a folding or portable chair. The chair has a single rearward frame bow which is radially flexible but rigid orthogonal to the lateral bow pivot axis of the chair. A series of similar bows is pivotally attached at or toward the front of the chair. The axially orthogonal rigid rearward bow supports the cover and prevents the forward bows from collapsing the cover forwardly as it is pulled taut. One use of the device is as a hunting blind, with a quick release optionally allowing the cover to be rapidly opened. Other configurations provide for use as a photography blind, a privacy shelter for camping or beach use, ice fishing, as a wheelchair or beach lounge chair cover, etc., and may have sufficient room for more than one person.
US08042864B2
A roof module for motor vehicles is disclosed having an exterior skin, a material layer adjacent thereto, a spacer layer, and a circumferential plastic material.
US08042842B2
A tubular joint, with a first male tubular element, with a male thread, a first annular lip, with a first axial abutting surface, a first internal surface, a section of a first external surface, a second abutting surface and a second female tubular element, with a female thread, matching the male thread, a second annular lip, with a third abutting surface, a second external surface, arranged to face the first internal surface, a second internal surface and a fourth axial abutting surface, supporting the first abutting surface and defining, in particular with the second external surface, an annular housing, matching the first lip. The second and third abutting surfaces being conical with effectively identical inclines and which permit generating a first radial sealing contact of the first internal surface or external surface against the second external surface, or the third internal surface, and, with expansion, provides a second sealing contact.
US08042841B2
A connection element for producing a fluid-tight screw connection of a line, having a thread includes a thread groove, delimited by a thread base and neighboring thread flanks, a sealant situated in the thread groove at least over one complete revolution of the thread groove, and an adhesive bond being implemented between the sealant and the thread groove, wherein the sealant contains at least one material selected from the following group: silicones, fluoropolymers, in particular perfluoroalkoxypolymers, epoxide resins, and polyurethanes. The connection element can further be utilized in a pipe part and/or a valve.
US08042839B2
The invention relates to a joining arrangement for connecting a pipe to a system, especially a hydraulic clutch disengagement system. The joining arrangement comprises a joining member which can be fixed to a final section of the pipe and is to be connected to an opposite piece that is fastened to the system. The joining member positively embraces at least one radially prominent protrusion of the pipe for fastening purposes.
US08042826B1
A trailer hitch carriage assembly for reducing downward force on a tow vehicle and facilitating hitching of a trailer includes an axle having pivotable distal end portions and a tow bar pivotally coupled to a central portion of the axle. The tow bar has a proximal end and a distal end. A tie rod assembly is coupled to the distal end of the tow bar and has a pair of distal end portions. Each distal end portion of the tie rod assembly is pivotally coupled to a respective one of the distal end portions of the axle. A pair of hubs is included, each hub being rotationally coupled to a respective one of the distal end portions of the axle and wheels are coupled to the hubs. A trailer hitch receiver is coupled to the proximal end of the tow bar and a ball hitch is coupled to the axle.
US08042823B2
A bicycle seat post assembly that dampens movement between a seat and a bicycle frame. The seat post assembly includes a seat post, a collar that passes through the seat post, and a dampener that is disposed between the collar and the seat post. The collar is pivotably connected to the seat post so that the collar can rotate relative to the seat post. The collar rotates about an axis that extends in a crossing direction relative to both a longitudinal axis of the bicycle frame and a longitudinal axis of the seat post.
US08042816B2
The invention relates to the external sealing and joining of piping. More particularly, the invention provides an improved seal profile which is suitable for use inside pipe couplings. The invention provides a twin-lip seal profile particularly useful in combination with a pipe coupling, the seal comprising: a substantially flat base element, having a first (inner) face and a second (outer) face and two outer edges. Two spaced-apart support blocks projecting upwardly from the first face of the base element, each support block having an outer and an inner face. Two lip members projecting from the outer edges of the base element, the lip members overlapping and resting on the closest support block and leaving a hollow space between the base element, the lip member and the outer face of the support block. The seal profile being characterized in that the plane or line of contact between the lip member and the support block, when extended towards the center of the profile, slopes to more closely approach the substantially flat base element, thus forming a wedge-like effect when pressure is applied to the lip members, the wedge-like effect preventing undesired outward movement of the lip members.
US08042813B2
A shaft-sealing device includes a seal cover (3) attached to a pump housing (2) in which a rotary shaft (1) is mounted. The seal cover (3) includes a shaft-sealing section (381) and a coolant outlet (326) intersecting the shaft-sealing section (381) at an opening (329). A fender (34) projects from a side (328) of a circumference of the opening (329) into the shaft-sealing section (381). The fender (34) has a side face (340) facing the opening (329) and guiding a coolant into the coolant outlet (326) through the opening (329) when the coolant fed into the shaft-sealing section (381) flows through the opening (329) and encounters the side face (340). A shaft sleeve (4) extends through the seal cover (3) and is mounted around the rotary shaft (1) to rotate therewith. A pumping ring (6) is mounted in the shaft-sealing section (381) and securely mounted around the shaft sleeve (4). A gap (341) is formed between the pumping ring (6) and the fender (34) in a radial direction perpendicular to an axis of the rotary shaft.
US08042809B2
A lottery game incorporates player direction in determining the outcome of the game and allows a player to reveal one or more elements in a lottery game area according to rules associated with the lottery game. According to one embodiment of the invention, the player may expose initially any element of the lottery game area, and every exposable element includes an indication of at least two other exposable adjacent elements that may next be selected. The player's progression through the lottery game is not predetermined such that the player has significant ability or flexibility to control or direct the play of the lottery game and to influence or direct the outcome of the lottery game (e.g., embodied by the card).
US08042803B2
The present invention relates to a medium stacking apparatus for an automatic medium dispenser. A medium stacking apparatus according to the present invention comprises a medium box provided with a seating space allowing medium to be pulled and stacked therein, inlet rollers provided to face each other and to rotate in opposite directions relative to one another so that the medium are pulled into the seating space, a damping unit colliding against the medium pulled into the seating space by the inlet rollers, and a pressing unit for pressing down a trailing end of the medium. The damping unit and the pressing unit are connected to both ends of a link by the pins to cooperate with each other. Thus, the medium are stacked in the seating space, so that the following medium can be pulled therein without any interference. According to the present invention, there is an advantage in that a stacking reliability is enhanced when medium are stacked.
US08042800B2
A sheet pick-up device of an automatic document feeder is used for feeding a sheet into a sheet feeding path. The sheet pick-up device includes a sheet pick-up module and a sustaining element. The sheet pick-up module includes a driving shaft and a sheet pick-up arm coupled to the driving shaft. The sheet pick-up arm is driven by the driving shaft to be rotated to either a standby position or a sheet feeding position. The sustaining element is pivotally coupled to the sheet pick-up arm. When a distal end of the sustaining element is rotated to be in contact with the sheet feeding path, the sheet pick-up arm stays in the standby position.
US08042790B2
A liquid-vapor distribution device for use in two-phase stream concurrent down-flow vessels including: a plurality of BOXVLTs fabricated in form of self-supporting structures (beams) and tray panels when installed forms a tray which will be essentially leak free at the junctions and between the tray and the vessel wall; the horizontal self-supporting structure consisting of a bottom plate being perforated with at least one row of apertures of equal size, wherein each aperture is fitted with an elongated down-flow channel (downcomer) being in form of a tube or any other geometric shape with the same geometrical cross sectional shape as the apertures in the beam and the down-flow channel is provided with an inlet for the concurrent two-phase stream, and wherein at least two of the down-flow channels are fitted with a common riser cap being attached to and along at least one wall portion of each down-flow channel and mounted over and spaced apart the inlet of the down-flow channel.
US08042789B2
A valve for distributing fluids includes a housing, a bobbin disposed within the housing having a bore, a coil disposed on the bobbin wall, and an armature disposed within the bore of the bobbin. The armature includes a point region and a main body that is integral to the point region. The armature moves between a first position and a second position. The solenoid valve further includes a pole piece having a cylindrical bore and a valve body disposed within the cylindrical bore of the pole piece. The solenoid valve also includes a spool disposed within the valve body bore, and a spring member operatively disposed within the spool bore.
US08042786B2
A locking system 24 for securing adjacent concrete form panels 20a, 20b together during assembly of a concrete form 22 is disclosed. The locking system 24 includes a mounting block 50 which is removably attachable to one of the adjacent panels 20a, 20b. A slide member 52 is mounted for sliding movement relative to the mounting block 50 between a first position retracted from aligned apertures 48 in side members 30 of the adjacent panels 20a, 20b and a second position extending through the aligned apertures 48. The slide member 30 includes a bolt member 92 mounted to rotate within the mounting block 50 in its extended position between locked and unlocked positions to secure the adjacent panels 20a, 20b together. Alternatively, the bolt member 206 is configured to receive a wedge member 204 at its projecting end or has a clamping member 304 mounted to rotate on the bolt member 306 for securing the adjacent panels 20a, 20b together.
US08042777B2
A bracket includes a planar body portion having an edge and a surface, a flange extending generally perpendicularly from the edge, the flange including a plurality of mounting openings, and at least one finger projecting from the flange and along and spaced from the body portion surface. Also a method of using the bracket and an assembly including the bracket and a rack.
US08042772B2
A flight control system for an airfoil comprises a control surface, a chamber connecting the control surface to the airfoil, and a pneumatic mechanism fluidly connected to the chamber. The chamber may be comprised of at least two cells that may be fluidly separated by a membrane. The pneumatic mechanism is configured to provide differential pressure to the cells in order to alternately increase volume/pressure of the cells to cause deflection of the control surface. The cells may have a stretchable outer surface to allow for changes in the length of the outer surface in response to inflation/deflation of the cells. The outer surface of the cells may be substantially continuous with outer mold lines of the airfoil and of the control surface.
US08042765B1
A system for use in monitoring, measuring, computing and displaying the rate of compression of aircraft landing gear struts experienced while aircraft are executing either normal or hard landing events. A high speed computer attached to high speed cameras, or range-finders, mounted in relation to each of the landing gear struts are used to monitor, measure and record the landing gear compression rates and aircraft touch-down vertical velocities experienced by landing gear struts, as the aircraft landing gear initially comes into contact with the ground. The system also determines through landing gear strut compression rates if aircraft landing limitations have been exceeded.
US08042764B2
A nut system including a nut including a main thread with pitch p1 and arranged along a screwing axis of the nut. A threaded device is coupled in rotation with the nut, the threaded device including a secondary non-screwed thread on the main thread from which it is separated, the secondary thread being arranged along the screwing axis and having a pitch p2 different from p1. Such a nut system may find application with a device for resistance of thrusts generated by an aircraft engine.
US08042759B2
A winding machine for electrical coils to be wound into layers has a device which supplies a material to the coil to be wound in order to separate adjacent layers of the coil from one another. The device has a device for producing a predetermined breaking point in the material, and a measuring unit. The measuring unit determines when the device for producing a predetermined breaking point is to be activated in order to produce a predetermined breaking point in the material. The device also has a guide device which fixes the material on the coil to be wound in the vicinity of the predetermined breaking point at a predetermined time, in order to sever the material at the predetermined breaking point. The winding machine therefore anticipates when a layer change is required, in order to then produce a predetermined breaking point in the material at a distance from the coil. The predetermined breaking point is pulled through as far as the coil, and this enables the material to be guided in a controlled and reliable manner. The material is torn off at the predetermined breaking point only after the material is secured on the coil.
US08042739B2
A wireless tamper detection sensor is defined by a perforated electrical conductor. The conductor is shaped to form a geometric pattern between first and second ends thereof such that the conductor defines an open-circuit that can store and transfer electrical and magnetic energy. The conductor resonates in the presence of a time-varying magnetic field to generate a harmonic response. The harmonic response changes when the conductor experiences a change in its geometric pattern due to severing of the conductor along at least a portion of the perforations. A magnetic field response recorder is used to wirelessly transmit the time-varying magnetic field and wirelessly detecting the conductor's harmonic response.
US08042737B2
In various embodiments, a method for tracking objects includes receiving an internal identifier associated with an object. A first key or external identifier for a tag is associated with the internal identifier. A second external identifier is generated and the second external identifier is then written to the tag. The second external identifier is associated with the internal identifier associated with the object.
US08042736B2
The invention provides a system of devices and a set of methods for accurately characterizing, tracking and controlling bulk material flows. Measurements of input material properties, dynamical measurements involving identifiable tags, and fast, discrete simulations are combined to predict and control the composition of bulk material exiting a container, such as a silo, bunker or hopper. In one embodiment, a system is provided for a coal-fired power plant where the properties of coal are assessed, then the coal is marked and tracked to provide the plant's operators improved control over the coal mixture and target bulk properties as it makes its way from a coal receiving station to delivery for combustion in a furnace.
US08042726B2
To form high performance bonding connections suitable for producing micro-structured components made of a plurality of individual layers, bonding by the steps; providing at least two work pieces; forming a metal bonding layer on at least one side of at least one of said at least two work pieces by chemical or electrolytic metal plating method; the metal bonding layer being a nickel/phosphorous alloy having a prescribed phosphorous content and prescribed thickness; forming a bonding arrangement comprising said work pieces so that there is at least one metal bonding layer between said at least two respective work pieces; heating at a prescribed heating rate to a temperature above the melting temperature of the bonding layer; bonding the two work pieces by applying contact pressure within a prescribed range; and cooling at a prescribed rate.
US08042725B2
The invention provides a wire bonding method which enables formation of a low loop having a height not exceeding two times the wire diameter and secures sufficient pull strength of the wire even with the low loop shape. After having formed a contact-bonded ball at a first bonding point, a capillary moves upward and then toward a second bonding point to press a side surface of an upper portion of the contact-bonded ball, so that a protruded portion is formed on a top portion of the contact-bonded ball on the side of the second bonding point. After having formed the protruded portion of the contact-bonded ball, the capillary moves upward, and then downward while moving toward the second bonding point to press the protruded portion, so that a wire drawing portion for drawing the wire from the top portion of the contact-bonded ball horizontally is formed.
US08042724B2
A method is provided for making an electrical connection with a microelectronic component arranged on or embedded within a surface of a circuit board layer or a substrate. The microelectronic component has an electrical contact face that is accessible on a surface of the microelectronic component. An electrically conducting bump is applied to the electrical contact face of the microelectronic component. A metal foil or metal coat is applied via a coating of an insulating binder to the surface of the circuit board under an action of pressure and/or heat so that the electrically conducting bump penetrates the coating of the insulating binder to make the electrical connection between the metal foil or metal coat and the electrical contact face.
US08042722B2
A conductive ball arraying apparatus includes an arraying jig having ball insertion parts at a predetermined array pattern, a ball cup that has an opening part on a lower surface thereof and is capable of housing a plurality of conductive balls, moving means that moves the arraying jig and the ball cup relatively and moves the ball cup relatively along an upper surface of the arraying jig and dropping off the conductive balls into the ball insertion parts of the arraying jig. The apparatus includes means for detecting a quantity of the conductive balls in the ball cup and detects as to whether the quantity of the conductive balls in the ball cup reaches at least one of an upper limit and a lower limit and/or means for detecting leakage of the conductive balls from a clearance between the ball cup and the arraying jig.
US08042719B2
A powder-actuated fastener-driving device includes a hollow body including a tubular portion and a handle, and an inner tube movable forwardly and rearwardly within the tubular portion and having a front end disposed outwardly of the tubular portion, and a slot. The front end of the inner tube has an outer surface formed with a position-limiting groove. A stop member is disposed within the tubular portion, and extends into the slot. A sound-absorbing sleeve is sleeved movably on a portion of the tubular portion disposed outwardly of the handle, and has an inner surface formed with a position-limiting block, which is movable forwardly and rearwardly within the position-limiting groove. When the front end of the inner tube is pressed forwardly against an object, the sound-absorbing sleeve comes into contact with the handle.
US08042717B2
A fastener driving device includes a housing, and a nose assembly carried by the housing. The nose assembly has a fastener drive track. The fastener driving device also includes an engine carried by the housing and configured to drive a fastener out of the drive track and into a workpiece during a drive stroke, a contact trip that includes an electrical actuator constructed and arranged to move a portion of contact trip to sense whether the workpiece is in front of the nose assembly, and a trigger configured to activate the electrical actuator to move the portion of the contact trip.
US08042711B2
A receiving device in a dosage-dispensing device, which serves to receive any insertion unit that can be inserted in the receiving device, includes a plurality of support arms that are arranged parallel to each other and extend in their lengthwise direction substantially orthogonal to the direction of gravity. At least two support arms are arranged in planes lying above one another relative to the direction of gravity. Each support arm includes at least one support location, so that, when the dosage-dispensing device is in its operating state, the insertion unit can be supported through the support locations against the force of gravity. Each support arm includes at least one protrusion which serves to position the insertion unit in a plane that extends orthogonal to the direction of gravity. The main dimension of the protrusion is directed essentially against the direction of gravity. When the insertion unit is inserted in the receiving device, the protrusions reach into recesses that are formed on the insertion unit.
US08042700B1
A shelf system adapted to be attached and removed from end cap supporting walls in limited vertical headspace situations by providing a separate thin walled connector strip which is releasably attached to the rear wall of the shelf and on which the end cap wall connection means are positioned as opposed to the shelf rear wall itself.
US08042696B2
Reactive geocomposite mats, and their method of manufacture, for treating contaminants in soil or water that allow the passage of essentially non-contaminated water therethrough. The geocomposite mat includes a pre-formed woven or non-woven geotextile, having a thickness of about 6 mm to about 200 mm, and having, a porosity sufficient to receive a powdered or granular contaminant-reactive material, contaminant-sorptive material, or a contaminant-neutralizing material (hereinafter collectively referred to as “contaminant-reactant material” or “contaminant-reactive material”) throughout its thickness, or in any portion of the thickness across its entire major surface(s). The powdered or granular contaminant-reactive material is disposed within the pores of the previously formed, high loft geotextile mat to surround the fibers, e.g., by vacuum or vibrating the high loft mat while in contact with the contaminant-reactive material to allow the powdered or granular contaminant-reactive material to flow by gravity into the pores of the previously formed geotextile and vibrational forces. Liquid-permeable cover sheets are adhered to the upper and lower major surfaces of the filled geotextile to prevent the powdered or granular material from escaping from the geotextile during transportation and installation.
US08042694B2
A filter media including a gathered sheet of porous filter material, is provided, together with an apparatus and method for fabricating such a gathered sheet of porous filter material. An improved filter apparatus incorporating such gathered porous filter material is also provided. By gathering the porous filter material, rather than forming convolutions through corrugating or pleating, as was done in the past, a desirable convoluted shape is achieved with little or no compression of the filter media.
US08042693B2
A fuel system comprising: a fuel line coupled to an engine; a fuel pump having an inlet coupled to a fuel tank and an outlet coupled to the fuel line; and a water scavenging system having an inlet for collecting water and an outlet coupled to the fuel line in parallel with the pump. The water scavenging system is powered by the hydraulic action of fuel in the fuel line using for example a venturi arrangement or a motor/pump combination.
US08042687B2
Hemostatic clip cartridge having a plurality of individual compartments for holding preformed hemostatic clips. Each individual compartment progressively increases in width from the centerline of the cartridge. Flexible retaining fingers extend into each individual compartment and secure the hemostatic clip to a pedestal. Harvesting the hemostatic clip from that particular individual compartment by a clip applicator moves at least one of the retaining fingers from a first position to a post-harvest position. Subsequent removal of the clip applicator with the harvested hemostatic clip from that particular individual compartment leaves at least one of the retaining fingers in the post-harvest position different from the first position so that the post-harvest position of the at least one of the retaining fingers indicates that the particular individual compartment has been accessed by the clip applicator.
US08042684B2
A receiving element for a dental implant is provided. The receiving element has a hollow body extending along a center axis of the receiving element, and a first plate and a second plate extending substantially perpendicular to the center axis of the receiving element and configured to fix a dental implant releasably in a stable position. The first plate and the second plate each has a front end, a rear end opposite to the front end, a first lateral end and a second lateral end opposite to the first lateral end. The receiving element further has an open portion disposed between the first plate and the second plate to partially separate the first plate and the second plate. The open portion extends from the front end substantially up to the center axis of the receiving element. The open portion has a first gap extending from the first lateral end substantially up to the center axis and a second gap extending from the second lateral end substantially up to the center axis, each gap allowing communication along the entire length thereof between an interior of the body and an exterior of the body.
US08042681B2
A drive roller controller for accumulating conveyor system has a casing and a circuit board. The casing has a front face, two opposite sides and multiple openings respectively defined on opposite sides. The circuit board is mounted inside the casing and has at least a processor, a first and second communicating ports and an input device. The first and second communicating ports are respectively mounted inside openings on the opposite sides of the casing, so a wire is connected between the first and second communicating ports on opposite sides of the adjacent two drive roller controllers. Therefore, the wire is not easily protruded outside the accumulating conveyor unit, so the connection of wire and the drive roller controller is not easily disconnected.
US08042678B2
A device for stripping soiling from a belt webbing in a conveyor belt system includes at least one lamella support disposed on a system carrier so as to be pivotable about a first axis and at least one stripping lamella disposed on the at least one lamella support so as to be pivotable about a second axis, the at least one stripping lamella having a first arm facing the belt webbing and a second arm facing away from the belt webbing. The device further includes at least one spring device attached to the first axis and having at least one spring element configured to bias the at least one stripping lamella towards the belt webbing such that in a stripping position the first arm lies flush against the belt webbing and at least one coupling element.
US08042676B2
A buffer conveyor for conveying and buffering products comprises a first elongated conveyor and a second elongated conveyor that can be driven in an opposite direction. The first and the second conveyor extend in a path at least substantially parallel to each other and beside each other. A transfer unit is movable at least substantially parallel to the first and the second conveyor in the aforesaid path and is provided with a transfer device for transferring the products from the first conveyor to the second conveyor. The transfer unit comprises a drive unit for moving the transfer unit, preferably in dependence on the velocities of the first and the second conveyor.The drive unit of the transfer unit comprises a drive motor, which follows the movements of the transfer unit at least in part.
US08042673B2
A torque transmitting apparatus includes a cover portion generally defined by a first axis. The cover portion includes a plurality of adjustment apertures. The apparatus also includes a flywheel coupled to the cover portion for rotation therewith, wherein the flywheel is restrained from axial movement relative to the cover portion. The apparatus also includes a pressure plate coupled to the cover portion for rotation therewith. The pressure plate is axially moveable relative to the cover portion. The apparatus also includes a clutch disk at least partially interposed between the flywheel and the pressure plate. The apparatus also includes a plurality of first members extending between the pressure plate and the cover. Each first member exerts a biasing outward radial force on the adjustment aperture to resist axial movement therebetween. A portion of the first member exerts a biasing axial force on the pressure plate thereby biasing the pressure plate toward the flywheel.
US08042672B2
A hydraulic arrangement for controlling a twin-clutch transmission of a motor vehicle. The hydraulic arrangement has a hydraulic energy source for supplying the hydraulic arrangement with hydraulic energy with a hydraulic medium; a pressure accumulator for storing the hydraulic energy; and a clutch cooling device for cooling clutches of the twin-clutch transmission with the hydraulic medium. A transmission lubrication process and/or a transmission cooling process for cooling and/or lubricating a transmission of the twin-clutch transmission with the hydraulic medium is/are carried out, in addition to a prioritization process for prioritizing the supply of the pressure accumulator before the clutch cooling, and the clutch cooling before the transmission lubrication and/or transmission cooling by means of the hydraulic medium.
US08042667B2
A hydrodynamic torque converter device comprising a torsional vibration damper, an impeller, a turbine, a stator, and a converter lockup clutch. The torsional vibration damper has first and second energy accumulating devices with one or more first energy accumulators, and second energy accumulators, respectively. The converter lockup clutch and the first and second energy accumulating devices are connected in series. The turbine has an outer shell that is rotationally fixed to an intermediate part between the first and second accumulating devices. An input element of the first energy accumulating device is used to transmit torque via the lockup clutch for loading the first energy accumulating device. The input element of the first energy accumulating device has at least one lug having a free end and a non-free end, with the non-free end of the lug radially inside the free end of the lug.
US08042662B2
A trunk able to fix articles in position includes a trunk body and a cover connected together and respectively provided with an air bag in an interior. The trunk body has one outer side formed with an accommodating groove installed therein with an inflation apparatus provided with an inflating pipe communicating with the air bags. In using, the air inflation apparatus is taken out of the accommodating grove and then pressed or trodden for pumping air into the air bags through the inflation pipe to let the soft air bags expand and fill up the space in the trunk body. Thus, the inflated air bags can function to press and restrictedly position the articles stably in the trunk and also protect the articles in the trunk from being moved, bumped with each other and damaged.
US08042657B2
A one-way load self-control spiral type brake, including a reel, two bearing frames on the reel, a brake shaft set between the two bearing frames, and two ends of the brake shaft connecting a transmission shaft. A front end of said brake shaft equipped with a fixing apparatus. Behind the fixing apparatus, a first inner friction piece, a first external friction piece, a second inner friction piece, a second external friction piece, an internal screw thread pressure plate, a tension spring, a connection piece and a brake shaft coupling are provided in sequential order around the brake shaft, and are fixed together by a socket and spigot joint. The inner friction piece and the brake shaft mesh. An external tooth is set on an outer circle of the external friction piece. A front end of the brake shaft coupling is fixed outside of an internal screw thread pressure plate.
US08042649B2
A vehicular muffler is configured and arranged to smoothly introduce exhaust gas into a sound-absorbing material disposed inside of an outer case which has a plurality of relatively short inner sleeves therein. The muffler includes a porous plate which is disposed inside of the outer case, and which is connected to an exhaust pipe, and the porous plate is operatively connected to an outlet pipe which discharges an exhaust gas to the outside environment through an opening formed in an outlet side of the outer case. In one embodiment, the inner sleeves are arranged substantially parallel to each other, and are fluidly connected to a joint exhaust feed pipe disposed inside the outer case. The inner sleeves are connected to the outlet pipe on the outlet side of the outer case.
US08042645B2
A parallel shaft gear mechanism (19a) for a steering assist of the present electric power steering apparatus (1) includes an idle gear (26) rotatably supported via a rolling bearing (39), on an outer peripheral surface (37d) of an intermediate shaft (37) supported by a rack housing (15). The idle gear (26) is arranged in an annular synthetic resin member (43) fixed on the outer peripheral surface (44a) of an outer ring (44) of the bearing (39). On the outer peripheral surface (44a) of the outer ring (44), a regulating portion (53, 53A, 53B, 53C, 53D, 53E, 53F, 53G, 54, 54A, 54B, 54C, 54D, 54E, 54F, 55, 56, 56A, 56B, 59, 59A, and 59B) for regulating relative rotation between the outer ring (44) and the synthetic resin member (43) is arranged. The synthetic resin member (43) is formed in a manner to cover the regulating portion on the outer peripheral surface (44a) of the outer ring (44), as a result of a molding process using a mold.
US08042642B2
A vehicle with a primary driveline that is configured to distribute rotary power to a first set of vehicle wheels, a power transmitting device and a secondary driveline that is configured to distribute power to a second set of vehicle wheels. The power transmitting device has an input member, which is driven by the primary driveline, and an output member that is selectively coupled to the input member to receive rotary power therefrom. The secondary driveline has a propshaft, an axle input, a pair of axle shafts and at least one torque transfer device. The propshaft transmits rotary power between the output member of the power transmitting device and the axle input. The axle shafts are rotatably coupled to an output of the differential and configured to transmit rotary power to the second set of vehicle wheels. The at least one torque transfer device is configured to selectively inhibit torque transmission between the axle input and the second set of vehicle wheels.
US08042638B2
Ample spaces are secured on a rotating table frame, in front of and behind a control valve. A rotary working machine where a step is placed on a rotating table frame, at the front of the frame, and a control valve is placed below the step. The step has operation levers and pedals mounted on it. The control valve is connected to the operation levers and the pedals to perform drive control of a hydraulic actuator, and is placed at an incline so as to be high at the front and low at the rear.
US08042636B2
A water-cooled engine mounted on a vehicle wherein a mass concentration keeps the center of mass at a low position. In a saddle-ride type four-wheel vehicle, a radiator and a fuel tank are supported on lower frames, and are arranged, side by side, so as to be distributed respectively on the right-hand side and on the left-hand side so as to overlap each other when viewed from a side. In addition, the fuel tank and the radiator are disposed at the rear of a front suspension arm and at the rear of an engine. As a result, the concentration of mass and the keeping of the mass at a lower position are achieved. Moreover, the fuel tank and the radiator are allowed to stretch outwards beyond the upper frames. Consequently, the fuel tank can have a larger capacity and a ventilation path that leads to the radiator can be secured.
US08042635B2
Safety of passengers may be improved by a front end module of a vehicle that includes: a front end module carrier that extends transversely in front of a vehicle a front end module carrier that extends transversely in front of a vehicle engine compartment and forms a frame for mounting vehicle accessory part; and an intercooler assembly that cools an air that is drawn into an engine, wherein the intercooler assembly is assembled with a bottom of the lower member of the front end module carrier.
US08042619B2
A fire control system according to various aspects of the present invention includes an extinguishant having a suppressant and a thermal absorbant. The suppressant is configured to suppress the fire. The thermal absorbant is configured to absorb heat from the fire. In one embodiment, the thermal absorbant is configured to absorb thermal radiation from the fire and inhibit reflection of thermal radiation from the suppressant and/or other surfaces back into the fire. In additional and alternative embodiments, the thermal absorbant may be configured to transfer heat into the surface and/or interior of suppressant particles or droplets to promote activation of the suppressant.
US08042617B2
A system and method for deploying one or more tools in a wellbore according to which a clamp is coupled to a flexible interconnect.
US08042608B2
A heat exchanger (10) has an outer housing (16) and a first helical fluid flow path or coil (12) located in the housing (16) defining a plurality of turns and having an inlet (24) and an outlet (22) for entry and exit of fluid into the flow path to be heated or cooled. A second helical coil (14) defining a second fluid flow path is located within the housing (16) adjacent to the first coil. The second coil also has an inlet (24) and outlet (22) for a passage for hot or cold service media. A conductive or non-conductive sheath (18) is disposed between the coils. A transfer medium is disposed in the housing for transfer of heat between the first and second flow paths. A plurality of baffles (20) are located between the outer housing and sheath and disposed between turns of the first coil. A plurality of baffles (21) are also disposed between turns of the second coil (14). By interposing a transfer medium between the two fluid flow paths rather than having one of the fluid flows as the medium itself, control over the cooling or heating of the fluid to be heated or cooled is possible. The fluid being cooled or heated and fluid transfer medium may be at different temperatures. The sheath (18) and baffles (20, 21) help control the transfer of heat and improve the efficiency of the heat exchanger.
US08042599B2
The invention relates to a method and to a device for sing out this method, during which the shell molds (3) are filled with a melt (11) in a clocked manner, the respectively required amount of melt being currently provided at the same time. The casting process ensues by marrying the crucible (6), which is filled with a melt (11), with a shell mold (3) so that the crucible (6) and shell mold (3) form a common cavity (10), and this arrangement is subsequently tilted 180°, so that the melt (11) falls into the shell mold (3).
US08042589B2
An apparatus for efficiently cleaning a platen roller of a printer. A cleaning unit is attached to a main unit in place of a removal unit for an intermediate transfer sheet. A cam is turned by means of turning an arm UP/DOWN lever, and the arm is turned from an UP position to a DOWN position by means of the cam, to thus bring a cleaning pad on a leading end of the arm into contact with a platen roller and perform cleaning operation. When an operation mode is set to a cleaning mode and when attachment of the cleaning unit UC is detected, the platen roller is rotated, thereby allowing cleaning operation.
US08042585B2
An apparatus for controlling tire inflation pressure includes an outlet side end portion of a supplying passageway provided in an axle hub that is opened on an outer end surface of a vehicle in a flange portion of the axle hub, and an inlet side end portion of an introducing passageway provided in a wheel that is opened on an inner end surface of the vehicle in the wheel of a vehicle wheel assembly, and by mounting the wheel onto the flange portion, the outlet side end portion and the inlet side end portion are air tightly joined each other. Thus, easiness in mounting the vehicle wheel assembly relative to the flange portion of the axle hub can be improved.
US08042576B2
The present invention provides a test plug for use with a clean-out that extends at an angle from a pipe section of a pipe system. In general, the test plug includes a sealing assembly that is actuated by an actuating member extending at an angle from the sealing assembly. The sealing assembly includes a first plate, a second plate, a valve that is configured to draw the first and second plates together, and a ring-shaped sealing member located between the first and second plates. In various embodiments, the actuating member is configured to move the valve between an open position, in which test media may be communicated through at least one opening in the first plate and through at least one opening in the second plate, and a closed position, in which the valve seals the opening of the first plate and in which the sealing member extends outwardly to seal against an internal surface of the pipe section.
US08042569B2
A fuel selector valve (100) in communication with at least first and second fuel tanks and an engine is provided. The fuel selector valve (100) includes a drive system (106), and a fuel draw valve (102) coupled to the drive system (106). The fuel draw valve (102) includes a first fuel tank draw port (108) adapted to be coupled to the first fuel tank, a second fuel tank draw port (110) adapted to be coupled to the second fuel tank, and an engine draw port (112) adapted to be coupled to the engine. The fuel selector valve (100) further includes a first closure element (120) operably coupled to the drive system (106). The first closure element (120) is selectively displaceable between a first position, wherein the first closure element (120) sealingly engages the first fuel tank draw port (108), and a second position, wherein the first closure element (120) sealingly engages the second fuel tank draw port (110).
US08042552B2
A tobacco smoking mixture including an ammonia-release compound adapted to be formed into a lit-end cigarette is provided. The ammonia-release compound is incorporated in or on tobacco cut filler in an amount effective to reduce the cytotoxicity, and/or selective smoke constituents of cigarette smoke. Exemplary ammonia-release compounds include ammonium acetate, ammonium hydroxide, hexammine cobalt (III) chloride, hexammine cobalt (III) acetate, and combinations thereof. The ammonia-release compounds can release ammonia at temperatures between about 60° C. and about 400° C. Ammonia-release compounds can be combined with additives, such as glycerine, cobalt acetate, copper (II) acetate, zinc acetate, other metal salts or combinations thereof, to further reduce the cytotoxicity of cigarette smoke.
US08042544B2
Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) may be prevented in a patient, or its occurrence reduced in a population of patients, by disposing in a patient airway an anti-VAP device or an anti-VAP material. By reducing the problem of bacterial-containing secretions that otherwise build up in the airway of the intubated patient, VAP can be prevented from occurring in intubated patients, such as patients intubated with an endotracheal tube (ETT) or a nasogastric tube.
US08042541B2
A patient mask assembly for positive pressure ventilation includes a brace (12) which clips to the mask and provides attachment locations (17) for headgear straps (14) in alternative positions to those attachment locations (17) which may be provided by the mask. The brace may also provide a mask stabilizing portion (20).
US08042535B2
Apparatus for treatment of obstructive sleep apnea includes a CPAP device and a detachable humidifier. The humidifier includes a tank that is removably insertable into a humidifier base. A sealed air flow path from the CPAP device and through the water tank is established when the water tank is placed in the humidifier base.
US08042529B2
A device for eliminating oil particles from the crankcase ventilation gas of an internal combustion engine. The device is located in the flow duct of the gas that runs from the crankcase to an induction tract of the engine. The device includes an oil separator in the form of an outlet for the gas with a deflection of the flow, causing the oil particles to be deposited on a baffle surface and thus to be eliminated from the crankcase ventilation gas flow. The device has an infeed cross-section, which lies upstream of the baffle surface when viewed from the flow direction of the crankcase ventilation gas, and which is sub-divided into several infeed sub-sections. The baffle surface is a solid surface that is devoid of perforations. The baffle surface is configured on a valve body, which lies downstream of the infeed sub-sections when viewed in the flow direction of the gas, and which is pre-tensioned by a force. The valve body can be displaced in the opening direction in opposition to the pre-tension, as a result of the differential pressure in the gas between the crankcase and the induction tract.
US08042524B2
An emission control device for an air induction system of an internal combustion engine having high adsorption capacity, yet low flow resistance is disclosed. The AIS emission control device comprises a first case including an outlet-opening connected to an intake manifold of the engine; a second case including an inlet-opening for the intake air; and an adsorbent element positioned in a plane across the intake airflow, wherein the adsorbent element has an opening area such that the control device has a pressure drop of less than about 1 inch H2O at the air flow rate of about 300 cfm and % reduction in vapor emission of at least about 75% after one day of the vapor generation rate of about 220 mg/day.
US08042513B2
A method of camshaft scheduling is disclosed which includes measuring a driver input; calculating a driver requested torque based on a measured driver input; and scheduling the camshaft based upon the driver requested torque. In one example, the driver input is an accelerator pedal position, which is related to a percentage of driver torque requested. The cam position is selected based on the driver requested torque and the cam position is adjusted to provide one of a best fuel economy cam position and a best torque output cam position based upon the percentage of driver torque requested.
US08042506B2
A cylinder head has a cylinder head body, a camshaft housing mounted on the cylinder head body, and cam caps mounted on the camshaft housing. The camshaft housing has through holes into which bolts are inserted to secure the camshaft housing and the cam caps together to the cylinder head body when assembling the engine. Internal threads are formed on the inner surfaces of the through hole, respectively. When rounding the cam holes before assembling the engine, second bolts are temporarily tightened to the internal threads of the through holes to secure the cam caps to the cam housing.
US08042505B2
The invention relates to an internal combustion engine comprising a valve drive which is arranged in the region of the cylinder head and is used to actuate a valve. Said internal combustion engine comprises a first drive means that can be rotated about a first rotational axis, a connecting rod that is connected to the first drive means in an articulated manner by means of a first connecting rod articulation, and a guiding element which is used to guide the connecting rod, can be pivoted about a guiding axis, and is connected to a second articulation of the connecting rod in an articulated manner. The position of the first rotational axis can be modified in relation to the cylinder head.
US08042495B2
A device for preventing initial hot water from being discharged from a double pipe heat exchanger and a method of controlling the same, which can temporarily mix cold water with hot water so as to decrease the temperature of the discharged hot water when the high temperature water is initially discharged from the double pipe heat exchanger.
US08042489B2
The present invention provides an animal waste collection sheet effectively inhibiting the leakage of urine, the unclean appearance and the damp or chill surface without increasing the thickness and weight of the top sheet unnecessarily, thus improving the handling property thereof. For example, the animal waste collection sheet is planar and is consisted of a top sheet which is liquid permeable, a back sheet which is liquid impermeable and an absorbent sheet disposed between the top sheet and the back sheet. The top sheet is consisted of a non-woven fabric with convex and concave portions on the surface thereof. The top sheet is preferably a non-woven fabric alternately having a plurality of groove portions and a plurality of convex portions formed in a fixed direction.
US08042473B2
A device for sorting railroad tie plates comprises hopper, singulator and chute assemblies mounted to a main frame capable of rolling movement along a railroad track. The device receives a plurality of tie plates from an upstream supply, e.g., a railroad gondola, and deposits the tie plates on the hopper assembly positioned above the singulator. Upon discharge from the hopper the tie plates are directed onto a central hub for guidance into a rotating track within the housing. The track width is selected so that the field and gage ends transverse the track upon the tie plates falling flat onto the track. Structure projects into the track to tip over the tie plates to a flat position during track rotation. Rotation of the track moves the tie plates towards a baffled opening for discharge from the opening. A chute assembly receives the tie plates and maintains the tie plate orientation for delivery to downstream devices, such as a conveyor belt. Upon rolling movement of the main frame tie plates are sequentially deposited along the course of the railroad track to enhance railroad track maintenance.
US08042467B2
A printing press includes a first rotary body with a first bearer ring and a second rotary body with an axle which eccentrically supports a second bearer ring. The second bearer ring is in rolling contact with the first bearer ring and is rotatably coupled to the second rotary body.
US08042456B2
Methods and device for frothing milk. The device includes a main body forming a container for the milk, a cover fitting onto the main body, agitation means and drive means for driving the agitation means. The drive means are received at least partially in the cover. The device further includes a base plate provided with a first electric contact. The main body is provided with a second electric contact, which makes electrical contact with the first electric contact when the main body is placed on the base plate. The drive means are provided with a third electric contact. The main body is provided with a fourth electric contact, which makes electrical contact with the third electric contact when the cover is placed on the main body. The main body is provided with an electric conductor which forms an electrical connection between the second electric contact and the fourth electric contact.
US08042449B2
A structure or vehicle protection system including a removable frame on the structure or vehicle, and a net within the frame and spaced from the structure or vehicle and having a mesh size designed to disarm an incoming threat.
US08042445B2
A cutting mold for removing two opposite superfluous rigid circuit boards from a rigid-flexible circuit board. A first cutter is connected to a first moldboard. A first barricade is connected to the first moldboard. The maximum vertical distance from the first barricade to the first moldboard exceeds that from the first cutter to the first moldboard. A second moldboard is opposite the first moldboard. The first and second moldboards move with respect to each other. A second cutter is connected to the second moldboard and corresponds to the first cutter. A second barricade is connected to the second moldboard and detachably abuts the first barricade. The maximum vertical distance from the second barricade to the second moldboard exceeds that from the second cutter to the second moldboard. The first and second cutters cut the superfluous rigid circuit boards when the first and second moldboards move toward each other.
US08042426B2
A steering column includes a steering shaft connected to a steering wheel; a block, housing the steering shaft; a column tube, housing the block; a main housing, mounted at an exterior of the column tube, and including a telescoping guide hole for a telescoping operation, and a fixing portion for pressing the column tube; a tilt bracket mounted on the main housing and including a tilt guide hole for a tilting operation; a fixing unit combined with the block through the tilt bracket and the main housing, for fixing a position of the column tube; and an operation lever for controlling an operation of the fixing unit, the operation lever being disposed at an exterior of the tilt bracket and connected to the fixing unit.
US08042424B2
Reducing number of components in a case where a plurality of locking mechanism is being used. The system includes an input cable (84) driven when pulled by an electric motor (10) via a hook (81); a connecting member (110) rotatably connected to a vehicle body, an output end of the input cable (84) is connected thereto; and a branched driving cable (100) having a first driving cable (503), an input end of which is connected to the connecting member (110) while an output end of which is connected to a link restricting mechanism (500) for transmitting a pulling force of the input cable (84) to the link restricting mechanism (500), and second driving cable (514), an input end of which is connected to the connecting member (110) and an output end of which is connected to the stored state locking mechanism (510) for transmitting a pulling force of the input cable (84) to the stored state locking mechanism (510), wherein the link restricting mechanism (500) and the stored state locking mechanism (510) are driven by the electric motor (10) via the branched driving cable (100).
US08042416B2
A linear module includes a baseplate unit, a table part, a spindle drive device, and a telescoping tube arrangement that encompasses the spindle and that has two tube elements that engage with each other in telescoping fashion in a movement direction, namely a tube element connected to the baseplate unit and a tube element connected to the table part. The tube element connected to the table part is connected to the table part over a portion of its length by at least one bridge piece and the tube element connected to the baseplate unit has at least one slot embodied to accommodate the at least one bridge piece.
US08042414B2
A wipe sampling assembly used for an ion mobility spectrometer is disclosed. The wipe sampling assembly comprises three layers in which the upper layer and the lower layer are protective paper sheets, while the middle layer is a sampling swab. The swab will not be contaminated when not in use as it is covered by the two protective paper sheets. The hand can only contact the protective paper and will not contact the swab while sampling to prevent the swab from being contaminated. The above wipe sampling assembly is used with no need for any additional device, thus making it easy to operate and carry.
US08042412B2
A fiberoptic multi-parameter sensing system for monitoring turbomachinery system shaft static and dynamic torques, vibration modes and associated operation status includes a multi-furcated fiber bundle based optical splitter configured to transmit light to a surface of at least one turbomachinery system shaft through a plurality of optical fiber bundles disposed at a plurality of locations in proximity to the surface of the at least one shaft, in which the plurality of locations together are arranged in a substantially axial direction between the ends of the at least one shaft. The system further includes an array of high-temperature bifurcated fiber bundle based reflectance probes to receive reflectance signals from the shaft surface and send to an array of photosensitive detectors, configured to detect dynamic light reflected from the at least one turbomachinery system shaft surface in response to the transmitted light during rotation of at least one turbomachinery system shaft and generate dynamic reflected light signals there from. A sensing mechanism is configured to determine a torque or vibration on at least one turbomachinery system shaft in response to the dynamic reflected light signal signatures based on time-domain and frequency-domain signal processes.
US08042409B2
This invention relates to a method of measuring mass flow of a first gas component in a gas consisting of one or more known gas components. Typically such methods assume that certain parameters were constant, such as the gas composition, pressure and/or temperature, and likewise the heat capacity, density, etc., of the gas were presumed to be such that they could be determined to have a constant value. However, it has been found that the determination of the mass flow is associated with a comparatively high degree of measurement uncertainty, when it is assumed that the parameters are constant. The core of the invention relies on this discovery and on a method wherein all of the gas parameters that are used in the determination of the mass flow of the first gas component and that may vary considerably as a function of the gas composition, pressure and/or temperature are determined continually.
US08042408B2
The invention relates to a coupling system, a coupling arrangement, a method for mechanically coupling a coupling system and a method for measuring the mechanical loading of a coupling system. The coupling system according to the invention includes a first coupling part, at least one second coupling part, which can be coupled with the first coupling part by way of at least one coupling, and at least one sensor, wherein the first coupling part has an evaluation unit (5), which can be connected to the at least one sensor for sensing measuring signals, and the measuring signals that are sensed by the evaluation unit (5) can be called up by way of the evaluation unit, wherein the coupling in the coupling area can be checked by means of the at least one sensor.
US08042398B2
An ultrasonic receiver according to the present invention includes: a wave propagating portion 6, which defines a first opening 63 and a waveguide 60 that makes an ultrasonic wave, coming through the first opening 63, propagate in a predetermined direction; and a propagation medium portion 3, which has a transmissive interface 61 and which is arranged with respect to the waveguide 60 such that the transmissive interface 61 defines one surface of the waveguide 60 in the direction in which the ultrasonic wave propagates. The interface 61 is designed and arranged with respect to the waveguide 60 such that as the ultrasonic wave propagates along the waveguide 60, each portion of the ultrasonic wave is transmitted into the propagation medium portion 3 through the interface 61 and then converged toward a predetermined convergence point. The receiver further includes a sensor portion 2, which is arranged at the convergence point 33 to detect the ultrasonic wave converged. The propagation medium portion includes a propagation medium that fills a space between the interface and the convergence point. The waveguide is filled with an environmental fluid and acoustic velocities Cn and Ca of the ultrasonic wave propagating through the propagation medium portion 3 and the environmental fluid 4, respectively, satisfy Cn/Ca<1. If a distance from the first opening of the waveguide to a point P, which is set at an arbitrary location on the transmissive interface, is La as measured in the ultrasonic wave propagating direction and if a distance from the point P to the convergence point is Ln, then La/Ca+Ln/Cn is always constant irrespective of where the point P is located.
US08042396B2
A driving mass of an integrated microelectromechanical structure is moved with a rotary motion about an axis of rotation, and a sensing mass is connected to the driving mass via elastic supporting elements so as to perform a detection movement in the presence of an external stress. The driving mass is anchored to a first anchorage arranged along the axis of rotation by first elastic anchorage elements. The driving mass is also coupled to a pair of further anchorages positioned externally thereof and coupled to opposite sides with respect to the first anchorage by further elastic anchorage elements; the elastic supporting elements and the first and further elastic anchorage elements render the driving mass fixed to the first sensing mass in the rotary motion, and substantially decoupled from the sensing mass in the detection movement, the detection movement being a rotation about an axis lying in a plane.
US08042395B2
A method for operating a vibrating gyroscope, wherein the vibrating gyroscope is used as a resonator and forms part of at least one control circuit that excites the vibration gyroscope by feeding an excitation signal with its natural frequency. An output signal can be tapped from the vibrating gyroscope from which the excitation signal is deriveable by filtering and amplification. Upon switching on a sensor arrangement that includes such a vibrating gyroscope, the frequency of the excitation signal is adjusted by exciting the vibrating gyroscope, before the excitation signal is fed, to oscillate freely, measuring the frequency of the free oscillation and feeding the excitation signal to the vibrating gyroscope with the measured frequency.
US08042392B2
An acceleration sensor has a semiconductor acceleration sensor chip and a case. The semiconductor acceleration sensor chip has a fixed portion, a plummet portion surrounding the fixed portion without contacting the fixed portion, and a beam portion connecting the fixed portion and the plummet portion, the thickness of the beam portion being thinner than the thickness of the fixed portion. The case has a cavity housing the semiconductor acceleration sensor chip, and a projection portion formed on the bottom face of the cavity, the bottom face of the fixed portion being fixed to the top face of the projection portion.
US08042391B2
An inertia sensing module is connected to a portable electronic device. The inertia sensing module includes an accelerometer unit for generating at least one of acceleration sensing signals ax, ay, az corresponding to the directions of X, Y, Z respectively; a gyroscope unit for generating at least one of angular rate sensing signals ωx, ωy, ωz corresponding to the axes of X, Y, Z respectively; and a connector module having a plug that is inserted into a docking connector of the portable electronic device. With the inertia sensing module being connected to or disconnected from the portable electronic device, a user can control a specific cursor or graphic user interface on a picture of an electronic game player via his/her own motions.
US08042390B2
An inertial device that is integratable in a portable electronic device includes: an inertial sensor for generating at least one raw acceleration signal in response to accelerations caused by movements of walking and running of a user of the pedometer; and a processing unit, associated to the inertial sensor for counting a number of steps of the user of the pedometer on the basis of the raw acceleration signal. The inertial sensor and the processing unit are both encapsulated within a single package for integrated circuits, which can be coupled to a circuit board of an electronic device and is provided with at least one connection terminal for making the number of steps available to the outside world.
US08042386B2
A test section for a wind-tunnel testing apparatus has a mounting section that mounts an automobile along the internal floor surface of a wind tunnel. Tests are conducted by applying an airflow blown in the wind tunnel to the automobile mounted on the mounting section. The test section includes a slit that is disposed on the floor surface located on the upstream side of the mounting section with respect to the airflow direction so as to extend in the intersecting direction intersecting the airflow direction and that sucks in a portion of the airflow near the floor surface, and lateral suction portions, disposed at both sides of the mounting section, that suck in the incoming airflows R flowing in from the sides of the mounting section.
US08042385B2
An engine controller diagnostic system includes a cylinder identification (ID) comparison module and a synchronization diagnostic module. The cylinder ID comparison module compares a first cylinder ID associated with a first controller with a second cylinder ID associated with a second controller. The synchronization diagnostic module determines a synchronization status of the first controller based on a comparison between the first cylinder ID and the second cylinder ID.
US08042374B2
A multi-tool having a plurality of tool-receipt openings adapted to receive respective tools. The multi-tool can be used on turret presses, single-station presses, other industrial presses, or other fabrication equipment.
US08042371B2
In a rolling stand (1), especially a plate rolling stand, with a right housing column (2), a left housing column (3), an upper column crosshead (4) that connects them, at least one pair of work rolls and one pair of backup rolls and associated chocks, a balancing device with brackets (5, 6) and a piston rod (7) that extends upward through the column crosshead (4) beyond the upper surface (8) of the column crosshead (4), the piston rod (7) has a yoke (10) at its outer end (9), which yoke (10) is oriented in the rolling direction and engages the brackets (5, 6) of the balancing device, and a rotating sleeve (11), which encloses the piston rod (7), is arranged between the upper edge (12) of the balancing cylinder (22) and the lower edge (13) of the yoke (10), is supported on the column crosshead (4), and has at least one open slot (14) into which the yoke (10) can drop.
US08042369B2
A tool for deburring cut edges on workpieces has a pressure body in the form of a rolling body, by means of which, as relative longitudinal movement of rolling body and workpiece takes place, pressure can be applied to the burr on the relevant cut edge in the direction towards the workpiece while the rolling body rolls along the cut edge.A machine for deburring cut edges on workpieces is provided with a tool of the above-mentioned kind.In the course of a process for deburring cut edges on workpieces, a rolling body is moved along the relevant cut edge with a rolling motion. In that movement, pressure is applied by means of the rolling body to the burr on the cut edge in the direction towards the workpiece.
US08042367B2
A tumbler-type key verification system including a tumbler-type key and a lock apparatus. The lock apparatus includes a support member, a movable member movable relative to the support member, tumblers which are biased by tumbler springs and are arranged to engage with the support member and the movable member, and a lock mechanism that reinforces the locking strength of the tumblers. The lock mechanism having a two-piece structure including a first piece movably accommodated in the movable member and a second piece movably accommodated in the support member. The lock mechanism reinforces the locking strength of the tumblers by having the first piece or the second piece engage both the movable member and the support member before the tumbler-type key is inserted into the lock apparatus or when the tumbler-type key is being inserted into the lock apparatus.
US08042356B2
A thermally conductive polymeric drinking surface for a beverage container is provided. The thermally conductive polymeric drinking surface may be an insert for a bottle or other covering configured to be formed around the mouth of a drinking container, such as a cup. The high thermal conductivity of the drinking surface contributes to the transfer of the temperature of the contents of the container to the mouth or lips of the consumer by reducing the time and energy consumption of the chilling processes being applied via the beverage or an external cooling mechanism.
US08042341B2
An accessory gear box driveshaft in a turbojet engine with intermediate casing, designed to be mounted in a radial arm of the intermediate casing is disclosed. The shaft is mechanically connected, at a first end, to a an engine shaft of the turbojet engine, and is mechanically connected, at a second end, to a gear box. The shaft includes a bevel gear between the two ends, to provide mechanical transmission to an additional accessory. This shaft is notable in that, together with the gear, it is contained in a case forming an oil circuit sealed against the arm. The accessory includes a drive shaft collaborating with the gear of the transmission shaft and forming a modular assembly therewith.
US08042339B2
The present invention is directed to a lean direct injection (LDI) combustion system for a gas turbine using a shell and tube heat exchanger concept to construct a shell and tube lean direct injector (“LDI”) for the combustion system. One side of the LDI injector, either the shell side or the tube side, carries an oxidizer, such as air, to the combustor, while the other side of the LDI injector carries fuel to the combustor. Straight or angled holes drilled in an end plate of the combustor allow the fuel to enter the combustor and mix with air being injected into the combustor.
US08042335B2
Intake air heating and exhaust cooling is provided by a double wall exhaust system serving as an exhaust-to-air heat exchanger, sourcing hot air to the intake manifold for intake stroke pumping benefit and cooling the exhaust system during high load operation by routing excess boost air through an interstitial space of the double wall.
US08042324B2
The invention relates to an apparatus for winding a roving provided with a protective twist onto a roving bobbin, containing a bobbin mounting for the rotatable mounting of a roving bobbin and a traversing device for traversing in the bobbin axial direction the roving to be wound. The traversing device comprises a driven pair of winding delivery rollers arranged directly in front of the roving bobbin and having a nip line through which the roving to be wound is guided.
US08042323B2
An apparatus and associated method for spinning staple fibers on a ring spindle machine includes a ring spindle disposed downstream of a drawing frame outlet. A thread guiding device is disposed between the drawing frame outlet and the ring spindle and includes a twisting apparatus that is magnetically coupled with the ring spindle so as to rotate at the same speed as the ring spindle. The twisting apparatus has a thread braking device configured along a path of the thread through the twisting apparatus. An attachment configured at a top of the ring spindle has a plurality of circumferential grooves configured to catch the thread coming from the twisting apparatus and being wound onto the ring spindle.
US08042318B2
A process for preparing a water-soluble container comprising at least two compartments which comprises: a. forming a first pocket in a first water-soluble film by thermoforming or vacuum forming the first water-soluble film in a mould; b. filling the first pocket with a first composition; c. closing the first pocket with a second water-soluble film to produce an intermediate container; d. moving the intermediate container by deforming the mould to provide a second pocket; e. filling the second pocket with a second composition; and f. closing the second pocket with a third water-soluble film.
US08042315B2
A reinforced panel, made of a composite material, includes a single base layer. A first plurality of mutually parallel ridges is affixed to the surface of the base layer. A second plurality of mutually parallel ridges is also affixed to the surface of the base layer, but oriented transverse to the first plurality. Structurally, the ridges and the base layer are co-cured to create an integral, continuous structure that provides stiffness and rigidity to the panel.
US08042311B2
Floor panels are provided with a mechanical locking system including a flexible locking element in a locking groove, which during a horizontal motion is displaced vertically.
US08042310B2
The present invention aims to provide a fastening member excellent in strength of fastening a decorative external panel and capable of constructing an external wall surface excellent in design appearance, and an external wall structure. The fastening member 1 is used for fastening the decorative external panel 6 to a plurality of the underlying panels 5 disposed in front of the construction frame 3 of a building. This fastening member 1 has a base plate portion 11, a supporting portion 13, an upper panel engaging portion 131, and a lower panel engaging portion 132. The base plate portion 10 has, at its portion above the supporting portion 13, a first screw hole 110 and a second screw hole 120 differing in the distance from the supporting portion 13. A first base plate portion 11 of the base plate portion 10 in which the first screw hole 110 farther away from the supporting portion 13 is formed and a second base plate portion 12 of the base plate portion 10 in which the second screw hole 120 closer to the supporting portion 13 is formed form an obtuse angle therebetween. The first base plate portion 11 is inclined rearward with respect to the second base portion 12 toward an upper side of the first base portion 11.
US08042291B2
An aroma visual message carrier is shaped into a card device for carrying multisensory messages to deliver two interchangeable images with a scent releasing mechanism linked to the very act of image change by a recipient. The carrier comprises an image changing frame including a still image member with a first image printed on it and a sliding image member with a second image print partially interlaced with the still image member so that a manual sliding action of the still image member brings the two images interchangeably fade in and out laterally through each other. The still image member has a deposit of scent material formed rearward of its visual side.
US08042286B2
A fluid-filled chamber for an article of footwear and a method for manufacturing the chamber are disclosed. The chamber may be incorporated into a sole structure of the footwear and includes a central area and a plurality of lobes extending outward from the central area. The lobes are in fluid communication with the central area and are formed from a first surface, a second surface, and a sidewall. The sidewall joins with the first surface with the second surface to seal the fluid within the chamber, but no internal connections are generally utilized to join interior portions of the first surface with interior portions of the second surface. The fluid within the chamber may be air at a pressure that is approximately equal to an ambient pressure.
US08042285B2
A laundry dryer comprising a housing and a rotatably mounted laundry drum. A carbon contact holder assembly including a supporting part and includes a receptacle having a longitudinal axis disposed at an angle α with respect to a perpendicular cross sectional plane of the laundry drum. The supporting part includes an integrally supporting arm extending in a direction of the longitudinal axis of the receptacle. The supporting arm includes an attachment section configured to attach to the housing and a clamp strap configured to hold cables. A carbon contact is disposed in the receptacle and movable against a spring force along the longitudinal axis in a radial direction of the laundry drum. The dryer includes a latching receptacle disposed on the supporting part that includes a plug-in contact connected to the carbon contact by a flexible lead.
US08042282B2
A drum for a clothes dryer in which an internal structure, especially, a baffle structure, of the drum is improved to prevent target items from being entangled and damaged during a drying operation to thereby improve the drying efficiency of the clothes dryer. Rotatable balls are inserted in the baffles mounted on an internal surface of the drum, the mounting arrangement of the baffles is changed, or the baffles are modified to thus improve the drying operation. In addition, an absorbent is filled in the baffles to thus increase the drying efficiency.
US08042274B2
A multifunction scissor configured for cutting and scraping for use in, for example, eating shellfish. The multifunction scissor can include an extension that function as a scraper. The multifunction scissor also can be configured such that the blade tips form a fork.
US08042273B2
A slitter for slitting a guide catheter is assembled from a handle, a blade assembly coupled to the handle, and a holding mechanism coupled to the handle. The blade assembly includes a shroud for receiving an elongated body of a medical device and a slitting blade having an exposed cutting edge to slit the guide catheter.
US08042265B2
A method for manufacturing a multilayer FPCB includes the steps of: providing a first substrate, a second substrate and a binder layer; defining an opening on the binder layer; defining a first slit in the dielectric layer of the first substrate; laminating the first substrate, the binder layer and the second substrate; forming a second slit in the conductive layer of the first substrate, the second slit is configured to be aligned with the first slit, cutting the first substrate, the binder layer and the second substrate thereby forming a multilayer flexible printed circuit board having different numbers of layers in different areas.
US08042256B2
Respective divided segments of a collet are moved radially outward by moving an arbor axially. The respective divided segments thereby press an inner circumferential surface of a stator core of a stator from radially inside such that the stator is held coaxially by the collet. Next, shaping rollers are lowered so as to press an outer circumferential surface of the stator core. The stator is rotated by rotating the collet in that state. Thus, the inner circumferential surface of the stator core is compressed and plastically deformed so as to conform to the collet and the outer circumferential surface of the stator core is compressed and plastically deformed by the shaping rollers, correcting the inner circumferential surface and the outer circumferential surface of the stator core so as to be coaxial and so as to have a high degree of roundness.
US08042254B1
An edge-handling chuck, a system for holding and rotating a test substrate at a high speed and a method for chucking a rotating substrate are disclosed. The Chuck includes a plate having a central axis, a fluid opening and a top surface with a varied topography characterized by symmetry about the central axis. The topography is such that a volume flow rate of fluid between the fluid opening and a periphery of the top surface sufficient to counteract substrate sagging is significantly less than a volume flow rate needed for a similar but flat-surfaced chuck to similarly counteract such sagging. The system may further include a spindle motor and a gas system that supplies gas through the fluid opening to a gap between the top surface and a back surface of the substrate. A radial velocity of the fluid through the gap is approximately constant.
US08042241B2
There is provided a seat cover for accommodating a child safety chair upon a seat. The seat cover comprises a lower protective member which is disposable upon a seating portion of the seat. This lower member can accommodate the child safety chair when positioned in a rearward-facing direction to prevent it from permanently compressing the seating portion. The seat cover further comprises an upper protective member that is disposable against a seat-back portion of the seat. This upper member is selectively attachable with and detachable from the lower member. By doing so, the upper member can further prevent the chair from permanently compressing the seat-back portion when it is repositioned in a forward-facing direction and placed in contact therewith.
US08042238B2
Snap fastener part comprising an axis (30), a coupling means (10) for coupling with a complementary coupling means of the other snap fastener part, a fixing means (14) for fixing the coupling means (10) to a carrier material (32), a cap (12) for covering the coupling means (10) on a side facing away from the carrier material (32) and a protrusion (28) on the side of the coupling means (10) facing away from the carrier material (32), said protrusion (28) encircling the axis (30), the fixing means (14) comprising at least one leg (16, 18, 20, 22, 24) which engages behind the coupling means (10) on the side facing away from the carrier material (32) when assembled and which is placed between the surface of the coupling means (10) facing away from the carver material (32) and the cap (12). According to the invention the protrusion (28) is broken by the leg (16, 18, 20, 22, 24) and the surface of the protection facing away from the carrier material (32) is flush with the surface of the leg (16, 18, 20, 22, 24) facing away from the carrier material or surmounts it.
US08042230B2
A hinge assembly includes a shaft, a first bracket, a resilient member, and an engaging member. The shaft includes a limiting structure including a guiding groove and a limiting slot. The first bracket is rotatable relative to the shaft. The engaging member is rotatably sleeved on the shaft and non-rotatable relative to the first bracket. The engaging member forms a latching pole slidably received in the guiding groove and being engagable with the limiting slot of the shaft.
US08042228B2
An adjustable hinge block includes first and second complementary members, each defining therein a first and a second slit respectively. The members are adapted to mate with each other such that the first and second slits at least partially align with each other to define a third slit. First and second wing members protrude from the members respectively such that the wing members lie on opposite sides of the third slit when the members mate with each other. The wing members each define therein a first and a second aperture respectively, which first and second apertures are adapted to receive a fastener. First and second side members, each define therein a third and a fourth aperture respectively, such that the third and fourth apertures is adapted to align with the first and second apertures respectively.
US08042215B2
A cleaning system for removing abrading material adapted to remove and keep separated the abrasive contaminants from a wash rag, mitt, or brush which is capable of being mounted within a standard 5 gallon bucket for the purposes of washing a car, boat, recreational vehicle or the like. The cleaning system is a lattice structure including a scrubber grate which is positioned within the bucket such that a wash rag, mitt, or long handled brush is capable of being vigorously rubbed against the scrubber grate such that any abrasive grit or contaminants within the wash rag, mitt, or long handled brush will become dislodged and settle to the bottom of the cleaning fluid within the bucket. The lattice structure also has a receiver base to support the scrubber grate and is located near the bottom of the bucket. The lattice structure receiver base allows abrasive contaminants and debris to settle to the bottom of the bucket. The lattice structure receiver base cross-bar structure results in dampening the agitation of the cleaning fluid below the receiver base causing the abrasive contaminants to remain near the bottom of the bucket.
US08042213B2
A suspension bridge is supported by a cable having one or more cable bands. An anti-rusting device is comprised of one or more covers, each of the covers including an inner peripheral surface and covering the cable so as to leave a gap between the inner peripheral surface and an outer periphery of the cable, the gap being capable of conveying a gas along the outer periphery of the cable; and a ventilator configured to dry and feed the gas into the gap, the ventilator air-tightly communicating with the gap.
US08042211B2
An off-balance detection method comprises a plurality of off-balance detection schemes that utilize wash basket speed to detect an off-balance load condition at speed ranges that span the entire spin cycle and include speeds corresponding to natural frequencies of a mass comprising a wash tub and a wash basket. The schemes can be used alone or in combination with one or more of the other schemes. The off-balance detection method can further comprise a power limiting method to prevent motor overload when an off-balance condition is present.
US08042209B2
Techniques for improving treatment delivered to a target site in a patient include delivering a treatment from a treatment delivery device to a target site in a patient supported by a patient support structure. During the delivery of treatment, a state of the patient is measured to produce real-time measurement data. Measuring the state is non-invasive; and the measured state is a correlated surrogate for position of the target site. Compensating movement data is determined based on the real-time measurement data to cause the target site to maintain a particular spatial relationship with the treatment delivery device. Either the treatment delivery device, or the support structure, or both, are moved based on the compensating movement data. When the delivery device alone is moved, the correlation between measured state and target site is based on partial least squares applied to pre-treatment measurements of both.
US08042206B2
A bed exit detecting system cooperable with a mattress includes a pair of bolster air cells respectively positionable adjacent opposite sides of the mattress. A pressure source is provided in fluid communication with the bolster air cells, and a pressure sensor is connected to the air cells. A signal processor communicating with the pressure sensor and the pressure source includes an alarm that is activated when a predetermined pressure change in one of the air cells is detected by the pressure sensor.
US08042202B2
A bathroom flusher includes a body having an inlet in communication with a supply line and an outlet in communication with a flush conduit, a valve assembly in the body positioned to close water flow between the inlet and the outlet upon sealing action of a moving member at a valve seat thereby controlling flow from the inlet to the outlet, and an actuator for actuating operation of the moving member. The bathroom flusher includes one of several novel sensors and is controlled by one of several novel controllers, as described. The controller may execute a novel control algorithm.
US08046834B2
A computer program signature may be determined based on the function flow grammar for a given source code. The function flow grammar may be determined based on reduced control flow graphs generated based on control flow graphs for each function within the source code. A polymorph of a computer program may be detected by comparing the determined computer program signature with computer program signatures, which may be included in a database.
US08046825B2
A file authentication requesting device that stores a computer program for requesting authentication of files in digital systems, the device comprises a confirmation request system that generates a request for a confirmation receipt from a third party authenticator authenticating the attributes of a file; a transferring system that transfers attributes of at least one file to be authenticated to the third party authenticator from the device that requested the confirmation; and a receiving system that receives the confirmation receipt comprising authenticated file attributes, after authentication by the third party authenticator; wherein, at least one file authentication is received from the third party authenticator. Corresponding processing devices, media, systems and methods are also provided.
US08046812B2
A cable modem of a CATV system includes a proxy requesting unit. The proxy requesting unit requests a set top box to send relevant information about the set top box when the cable modem is requested to send the relevant information from at least one management device connected to the cable modem via a CATV network.
US08046805B2
A method for transmitting/receiving a broadcasting signal and a broadcasting signal receiver are disclosed. An identifier of a burst period is obtained from program table information of the broadcasting signal including mobile data and only the burst period in which a broadcasting program desired by a user is transmitted is received. Accordingly, when the broadcasting signal is received, only a desired burst period is received such that power consumption of the broadcasting signal receiver can be reduced.
US08046802B2
A method and system for ordering content includes a first device having an ordering interactive interface. The first device identifies a user account. The first device forms a content selection corresponding to the on-demand content from the interactive interface and generates a recording priority status. The first device communicates the content selection and the recording priority status to a content processing system. The content processing system forms a queue for the user account, inserts the content selection in the queue in response to the recording priority and communicates a control word to the user device. A user device receives the content corresponding to the selection in response to the control word.
US08046790B2
A system comprising a media player configured to play media content, a projector operatively coupled to the media player, and a control unit operatively coupled to the media player and the projector is provided. The control unit is configured to detect an on-screen display condition associated with the media player, and the control unit is configured to prevent first information associated with the on-screen display condition and provided by the media player from being displayed by the projector in response to detecting the on-screen display condition.
US08046788B2
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for presenting content. Programming content is received having a program and program control data. The program control data may has a default setting followed by a data record comprising a rating value and a content attribute value. Program presentation preferences of a viewer are received that block or modify the program. When, however, the rating value and the content attribute value are missing from the data record, and when the default setting equals or exceeds the program presentation preferences, then modification of the program is not allowed. An instruction to modify the program is, instead, interpreted as another instruction to block the program from presentation.
US08046787B2
A method for managing television advertisements. The method includes determining if a subscriber has reached a minimum level of advertisement viewing and curtailing the service level of the subscriber if the subscriber does not maintain the minimum level of advertisement viewing.
US08046784B2
An optical disc record system comprising an optical pickup actuator unit for transferring data to and/or from a rotating optical disc. The optical pickup actuator unit comprises a fixed part (1) and a movable part (2) carrying an objective lens (4) for focusing a light beam on the optical disc. The movable part (2) is connected to the fixed part (1) by a number of substantially parallel elastic suspension wires (5). The movable part (2) is provided with a number of coils (8, 9, 15, 16, 17) of electrically conductive wires, which coils (8, 9, 15, 16, 17) are at least partly present in a magnetic field generated by magnets (10, 11, 18). At least one electrically conductive stranded wire (22, 23) is present between said fixed part (1) and said movable part (2) in order to feed electric current to at least one coil (16, 17).
US08046773B1
A computer-implemented method and computer-readable medium for providing object-oriented communication between isolates is described. A request is received from a requesting Xlet for a remote reference to an exported object in a first isolate, the exported object having been exported by an exporting Xlet. A plurality of object registries are searched for the remote reference, each of the object registries being in a respective isolate. The remote reference is retrieved from one of the object registries and the remote reference is forwarded to the requesting Xlet.
US08046767B2
A method comprises receiving, by a capacity management tool, a capacity management operation request that specifies a resource pool-level operation desired for managing capacity of a resource pool that services workloads. The capacity management tool determines, in response to the received request, one or more actions to perform in the resource pool for performing the requested capacity management operation in compliance with defined operational parameters of the workloads. The method further comprises performing the determined one or more actions for performing the requested capacity management operation.
US08046746B2
Symbolic execution identifies possible execution paths of a computer program or method, each having certain constraints over the input values. The symbolic execution also records updates of memory locations, e.g. updates of the fields of symbolic objects in the heap of an object oriented program, involving a description of the previous heap, the updated symbolic object, a field identification, and a newly assigned symbolic value. The symbolic execution can also record calls to summarized methods, involving a description of previous calls, an identification of the summarized methods, and its symbolic arguments. The behavior of summarized methods can be expressed by axioms. Axioms describe the relationship between summarized methods under certain conditions. Axioms can be generated from parameterized unit tests. A parameterized unit test is a method with parameters which executes a sequence of calls to methods of an implementation under test; it asserts constraints over the inputs and outputs of the calls. A software testing program receives a parameterized unit test of an implementation under test, and symbolically executes the parameterized unit test. It can re-use axioms generated from other parameterized unit tests, and use them to emulate summarized methods.
US08046743B1
Methods and systems for remotely debugging a software program are provided. The methods and systems make use of a debugger application executing on a host computer and configured to communicate with a debugger module executing on a target computer via a distributed computing network, such as the Internet.
US08046741B2
A method, computer program product, and data processing system for exchanging information regarding software source code among a team of developers is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a developer associates commentary with a particular code feature, such as a function or object class. A list of intended recipients or readers of the commentary is obtained from the developer. Additional settings regarding such things as an expiration date for the commentary are also obtained from the developer. The source code with associated commentary is then made available to the intended readers. If desired, the source code with associated commentary may be transmitted the intended recipients via e-mail or an “instant message” or other form of notification can be transmitted to the intended recipients to notify them of the commentary to be read.
US08046733B2
A method and system for model composition. A business process model defined by a plurality of tasks may be accessed. A plurality of available executable elements capable of implementing the plurality of tasks may be identified. Each of the plurality of available executable elements may be capable of providing functionality to implement parts of the business process model. One or more executable elements may be selected among the plurality of available executable elements for each of the plurality of tasks. The selection may be based on functionality of an available executable element. The selected elements may be combined for the plurality of tasks to create an executable process for the business process model.
US08046727B2
The invention describes IP cores applied to 3D FPGAs, CPLDs and reprogrammable SoCs. IP cores are (a) used for continuously evolvable hardware using 3D logic circuits, (b) applied with optimization metaheuristic algorithms, (c) applied by matching combinatorial logic of netlists generated by Boolean algebra to combinatorial geometry of CPLD architecture by reaggregating IP core elements and (d) used to effect continuous recalibration of IP cores with evolvable hardware in indeterministic environments for co-evolutionary reprogrammability.
US08046720B2
A graphical system and method for creating and editing packets of data is disclosed, which displays on a first pane of a computer window a hierarchical order of all of the protocol layers and protocol fields of a data packets, and displays on a second pane of the same window the entire encoded data packet in standard hexadecimal notation. In the first pane, a user can select a field of data pertaining to any of the protocol layers from the hierarchical order, and change any of the protocol field values, change options within a protocol, or add additional protocol layers to the packet, and the portion of the encoded data pertaining to the changed data will be updated in the second pane.
US08046716B2
Technologies are described herein for creating, displaying, and editing a sub-process within a process diagram. A diagramming application provides for the grouping of existing process operations of a process diagram into a sub-process. The sub-process is displayed within the process diagram as a container that may be expanded and collapsed in-place within the diagram to display or hide the corresponding sub-process operations without leaving the context of the process diagram. Similarly, a single process operation within a process diagram may be selected for the creation of an associated sub-process. An expanded container including the newly created sub-process operations and a collapsed container representing the sub-process operations replace the single process operation and are concurrently hidden and displayed according to a user selection of a collapse or expand control.
US08046712B2
A method in a user interface, according to one embodiment, allows for the docking of window panels within a software application. A palette in the user interface can, in this embodiment, have three states: (i) the palette is open within a window panel; (ii) the palette is docked as a tab; and (iii) the palette is open in a area connected to the tab. User actions through the user interface can control transitions among these three states. Other methods are described, and systems and computer readable storage media are also described.
US08046709B2
An apparatus for providing multiple screens and a method of dynamically configuring multiple screens are provided. The apparatus for providing multiple screens includes a digital signal processing module which receives predetermined information and restores a service based on the predetermined information, a service processing module which displays one or more logical screens associated with the service, and an output module which arranges the logical screens provided by the service processing module at different locations on a display screen.
US08046687B2
A method, system, and computer-readable medium for performing direct manipulation of displayed content (e.g., dragging the displayed content or a portion thereof in a particular direction). A user may perform a variety of direct manipulations of displayed content to modify the display without separate content manipulation controls. Such direct manipulations modify the display by altering the value of content properties affecting the display. Properties can include an amplitude affecting the size or level with which information is presented (e.g., volume of audio, size of visual information), an information history that refers to a series of distinct groups of information that are related over time, and a channel that specifies which of multiple groups of information is displayed. The value of a property is modified according to the manipulations, and the display updated to reflect the new value of the property. The user can map which manipulations correspond to which properties.
US08046683B2
A markup language document has data entry fields corresponding to markup language nodes that are arranged in a hierarchical structure of parents having child nodes. The hierarchical position of each markup language node in the hierarchical structure is expressed as a corresponding fragment of the markup language. For each parent, a markup language fragment is formed so as to have a plurality of portions each corresponding to the fragment of a respective child node without repeating any fragment of the respective child nodes. Portions that respectively correspond to the child nodes are used for data entry with the data entry fields, where an electronic form is displayed on a user interface for interactive data entry. The electronic form has one or more data entry fields each corresponding to one of the data entry fields of the structured markup language document and into which data can be entered.
US08046682B2
A method and system for integrating business application elements of an external business application into an internal business application where the integration system maps the output of external business applications to a Extensible Markup Language (“XML”) format. The XML format defines a standard format for the business application elements generated by the external business applications and provided to the internal business applications by the integration system. When developing a new internal business application, developers can work with the XML formatted elements provided by the integration system without having to learn the different formats provided by the various external business applications. The integration system is responsible for converting the data generated by the external business application to the XML format.
US08046673B2
A computer readable medium with executable instructions to analyze a report value, includes executable instructions to select a report value and identify the formula evaluated to produce the report value. Formal parameters associated with the formula are determined. The actual parameters used to compute the report value are located. The formula, the formal parameters and the actual parameters are then displayed.
US08046668B2
A method for segmenting an information word into code blocks in a mobile communication system. The method includes setting a number C of code blocks to a minimum integer not less than a value obtained by dividing X by Z; when sizes K of all code blocks are determined to be equal when a length X of the information word is greater than a maximum length Z of each code block, determining a minimum integer value T not less than a value obtained by dividing a size of the information word by a number of code blocks, and determining, as K, a maximum value most approaching the value T among the values based on which a size of the code block can be set in units of eight bits; and generating a code block by inserting filler bits into a specific code block when a value obtained by multiplying K by C is greater than X.
US08046665B2
A memory device may include a memory core block, a data patch unit, a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) generating unit, and/or a serializer. The data patch unit may be configured to patch parallel data read from the memory core block in response to a first read pulse. The CRC generating unit may be configured to generate the CRC code based on the parallel data in response to a second read pulse, the second read pulse delayed by a period of time from if the first read pulse is generated. The serializer may be configured to convert the parallel data to serial data in response to the first read pulse, and/or arrange the CRC code in a order for a number of bits of the serial data to generate a systematic code.
US08046662B2
A method and system for decoding control data in GSM-based systems using inherent redundancy and physical constraints are presented. At least one estimated GSM-based bit sequence may be selected by performing searches that start from trellis junctions determined by the decoding algorithm. The estimated bit sequences may be selected based on corresponding redundancy verification parameters. At least one physical constraint test may be performed on the selected estimated GSM-based bit sequences to select a decoded output GSM-based bit sequence. A multilayer decoding process may comprise a burst process and a frame process. Results from a first burst process may be utilized to generate a decoded GSM bit sequence in the frame process. The frame process may utilize redundancy information and physical constraints to improve the performance of a decoding algorithm.
US08046661B2
Methods and apparatus for creating codewords of n-valued symbols with one or more n-valued check symbols are disclosed. Associating the codewords with a matrix allows for detection of one or more symbols in error and the location of such symbols in error. Methods to reconstruct symbols in error from other symbols not in error are also disclosed. Systems for using the methods of error detection and error correction by symbol reconstruction are also disclosed. Using two or more matrices to determine check symbols is also provided.
US08046655B2
An integrated test device reduces external wiring congestion to a memory. The integrated test device provides for separate decoder testing and debugging to find specific errors in the memory. The device also helps in reducing the complexity of the test of external BIST. Furthermore, the number of clock cycles required for the decoder testing for an N-address memory is reduced from 4N cycles to N clock cycles. Additionally, the access time for the memory is reduced as the test device is used as a pipelining device in normal operation mode.
US08046654B2
An image data test unit includes a data acquisition unit configured to acquire image data having individual frames, an image data temporary storage unit configured to receive the acquired image data from the data acquisition unit to store a certain amount of the image data, and a test calculation unit configured to sequentially receive the image data from the image data temporary storage unit to store a certain amount of the image data, and compare the stored image data with pre-set test elements. In addition, an image apparatus having the image data test unit and a method of testing image data using the image data test unit are also provided.
US08046653B2
Disclosed below are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems used to generate test patterns for testing integrated circuits. Embodiments of the disclosed technology can be used to provide a low power test scheme and can be integrated with a variety of compression hardware architectures (e.g., an embedded deterministic test (“EDT”) environment). Certain embodiments of the disclosed technology can reduce the switching rates, and thus the power dissipation, in scan chains with no hardware modification. Other embodiments use specialized decompression hardware and compression techniques to achieve low power testing.
US08046650B2
The disclosure describes a novel method and apparatus for making device TAPs addressable to allow device TAPs to be accessed in a parallel arrangement without the need for having a unique TMS signal for each device TAP in the arrangement. According to the disclosure, device TAPs are addressed by inputting an address on the TDI input of devices on the falling edge of TCK. An address circuit within the device is associated with the device's TAP and responds to the address input to either enable or disable access of the device's TAP.
US08046640B2
An industrial automation system for controlling the operating means of a technical process. The system includes fail-safe modules for interchanging process data with the operating means, i.e., actuating and measurement signals, stations having slots for modules, which slots are inter-connected by a backplane bus, a central processing unit at least for processing process signals from the technical process, and a field bus for transmitting data between the central processing unit and the stations. In accordance with the invention, the address relationship for the addressing of a fail-safe module by the central processing unit over the field bus for data processing purposes is permanently stored in a first memory in the respective module and is additionally permanently backed-up in the associated station. As a result, it is advantageously possible to safely and automatically recover the address relationships of fail-safe modules due to address relationships which have already been recognized as valid, such as during planning, being backed-up in a permanent, power-failure-safe manner at the station level. In addition, it is possible, when a module is exchanged, for a new module to reload the correct address relationships of the old module, which is no longer present, from the back-up means in the station.
US08046638B2
In an embodiment, a method is provided for tracking a test. In this method, a test session identifier is transmitted to a test system. The test session identifier identifies a particular test session. A test of a component is triggered at the test system, and this test provides test results, which are received from the test system. The test results include the test session identifier, which allows the tests to be associated with the particular test session.
US08046635B2
When data that has been saved outside a circuit is restored, a data control circuit, before resuming the processing that an electronic circuit had been performing before the data was saved, performs particular processing different from that processing. Moreover, the data control circuit has a data saving control function whereby it, via a debugging port (or a general-purpose data input/output port) of a volatile memory storing data to be processed by the electronic circuit, saves that data (or sends an instruction to save that data).
US08046634B2
An integrated circuit card includes a central processing unit, a memory and an abnormal condition detector. The memory stores data to be processed by the central processing unit. The abnormal condition detector detects whether at least one operating condition of the integrated circuit card is within one of a suspend region or a reset region. The abnormal condition detector controls an operation of the central processing unit in accordance with the detection.
US08046633B2
A system and method for managing shared resources is disclosed. The system includes a primary coherency processing unit which processes lock requests from a plurality of data processing hosts, the primary coherency processing unit also storing a first current lock state information for the plurality of data processing hosts, the first current lock state information including a plurality of locks held by the plurality of data processing hosts. The system further includes a standby coherency processing unit storing fewer locks than the primary coherency processing unit, the locks stored by the standby coherency processing unit being a subset of locks included in the first current lock state information, the standby coherency unit configured to perform a plurality of activities of the primary coherency processing unit using the subset of locks in response to a failure of the primary coherency processing unit.
US08046632B2
A storage management program is provided with a function of determining a suspension/continuation of a remote backup based on an operation-at-failure management table, and accomplishes the suspension/continuation of the backup based on the application in which a failure has occurred and the mode of this failure. The storage management program is also provided with a function of computing a change in the quantity of data from the last backup before the occurrence of the failure until the first backup after the occurrence of the failure, and determining the suspension/continuation of the backup, enabling to suspend/continue the backup in line with the operating status of the application.
US08046628B2
Memory devices and methods are described that include serially chained memory devices. In one or more of the configurations shown, a serial chain of memory devices includes a number of memory devices, and an error recovery device at an end of the chain. In one configuration shown, the serial chain of memory devices includes a chain of devices where each device is a stacked die memory device. Methods are described that show using the error recovery device in write operations and data recovery operations.
US08046626B2
A system and method for maintaining resiliency of subscriptions to an event server includes receiving a subscription request to establish a subscription to receive event state information of an event source, a primary event server providing the event state information. The event state information is received from the primary event server in accordance with the subscription request. The primary event server provides the event state information to an event consumer. It is determined whether the primary event server fails during the subscription.
US08046625B2
A healthcare communication system includes a first plurality of computer devices, such as patient stations, staff stations, and a master station, that are operable as a nurse call system. The first plurality of computer devices may have core nurse call functionality residing on an embedded computing platform. At least one of the first plurality of computer devices may have a graphical display screen. A second plurality of computer devices may be operable to provide the first plurality of computer devices with additional functionality via software plug-ins that are transmitted to the first plurality of computer devices. The first plurality of computer devices may be interconnected logically and/or physically in a tiered architecture arrangement to provide fault isolation among the tiers so that faults occurring in computer devices of one tier don't affect the operability of computer devices in other tiers and so that faults occurring in any of the second plurality of computer devices don't affect the core nurse call functionality of the first plurality of computer devices.
US08046624B2
Requests to send data from a first host within a network of hosts are monitored against a record of destination hosts who have been sent data in accordance with a predetermined policy. Destination host identities not the record are stored in a buffer. The buffer size is monitored to establish whether requests from the first host are pursuant to viral activity therein.
US08046619B2
A network apparatus includes an independent power supply providing a first power signal, and a data distribution device which is operably coupled to the independent power supply and a remote data distribution device, where the remote distribution data device exchanges data and provides a second power signal to the data distribution device, and further where the data distribution device selects the first power signal or the second power signal for operational power. A method includes scanning a plurality of sensors, each coupled to a plurality of power inputs, to ascertain if a power signal is present, determining whether a power signal associated with an independent power supply is present at a power input, sourcing power from the independent power supply if the power signal is associated with an independent power supply, and sourcing power from an alternative supply if the power signal is not associated with an independent power supply.
US08046617B2
An electronic device, such as a hand-held portable computer, is provided with capability to operate an application during a low power mode. During the low power mode, portions of hardware, software, services, and/or other components of the portable computer that are not necessary to the operation of the application is suspended or otherwise deactivated. As each task is performed by the application, the components that are no longer needed for subsequent tasks to be performed by the application are also deactivated and reactivated as needed. The deactivation can be performed in sequence from the highest-level components to the lowest-level components to ensure that components that are needed by other components are not prematurely deactivated. A specific set of events transitions the portable computer out of the low power mode.
US08046616B2
The present invention provides a method for controlling power change for a semiconductor module. Specifically, under the present invention power is applied to, or removed from a semiconductor module between a lower power state such as a zero power, nap or sleep state and a full power state over a predetermined time period. This allows the rate of movement and strain rate of the thermal interface material within the semiconductor module to be controlled, thus preserving the reliability of the material. Typically, the power is changed over time between the lower power state and the full power state in a linear fashion or incrementally.
US08046615B2
A sub-microcomputer having a sub-CPU and a power supply control section that controls the power supply to a main microcomputer is disposed in addition to the main microcomputer having a main CPU. A sub-clock section that supplies a sub-clock signal having a lower frequency to the sub-microcomputer can change over between a continuous mode and an intermittent mode. When the main CPU gives an operation stop notification to the sub-CPU, the sub-CPU recognizes the notification, stops the power supply to the main microcomputer, and sets the sub-clock section to the intermittent mode. The sub-CPU determines that the operation state condition is satisfied in the period of the intermittent mode, the sub-CPU changes over the sub-clock section to the continuous mode to restart the power supply to the main microcomputer.
US08046610B2
The present invention provides a mobile portable device comprising a network communication module, a power-on circuit, a switching power supply, a system power supply and external battery and a calculation unit, wherein the system power supply and external battery constantly supply power to the network communication module by using an external AC power supply or the power of the battery, when the mobile portable device is in a power-off/sleep state, and when the power-on circuit detects that the network communication module has received information from a network, it activates the switching power supply to supply power to the mobile portable device and thus put the mobile portable device into an operating state. By supplying power to the network communication module in the power-off/sleep state of the notebook computer, the computer can be in the network communication state at any time and thus will not miss any information transmitted over the network.
US08046607B2
In a computing network containing multiple computing devices, a network card in a computing device provides the ability for the computing device to transmit specific types of information while the computing device is in an inactive state. The network card contains processing capabilities that enable it to detect and receive an inquiry directed to that device, process the inquiry, retrieve the requested data which is stored in the network card and transmit that information to the requestor. The ability of the network card to perform this enables system administrators to perform certain system maintenance functions while a computer may be in a power off or hibernate state instead if having to power on the computing device.
US08046605B2
Methods are provided for maximizing the throughput of a computer system in the presence of one or more power constraints. Throughput is maximized by repeatedly or continuously or periodically optimizing task scheduling and assignment for each of a plurality of components of a computer system. The components include a plurality of central processing units (CPUs) each operating at a corresponding operating frequency. The components also include a plurality of disk drives. The corresponding operating frequencies of one or more CPUs of the plurality of CPUs are adjusted to maximize computer system throughput under one or more power constraints. Optimizing task scheduling and assignment, as well as adjusting the corresponding operating frequencies of one or more CPUs, are performed by solving a mathematical optimization problem using a first methodology over a first time interval and a second methodology over a second time interval longer than the first time interval. The first methodology comprises a short term heuristic solver for adapting to computer system changes that occur on a short time scale, and the second methodology comprises a long term solver having greater accuracy and greater computational complexity than the first methodology.
US08046604B2
A method and apparatus that allows for controlling operating time of a portable computer system and a peripheral device. A portable computing system that includes a rechargeable power supply and that includes a connection mechanism for coupling to a peripheral device is used to control operating time of the portable computer system and the peripheral device. In one embodiment, a user can choose between maximizing the operating time of the portable computer, maximizing the operating time of the peripheral device, or maximizing the life of the entire system (maximizing the operating time of the portable computer system and the peripheral device). When operating time of the portable computer system is to be maximized, power is sent from the peripheral device to the portable computer system to extend the operating time of the portable computer system. Similarly, when operating time of the peripheral device is to be maximized, power is sent from the rechargeable power supply of the portable computer system to the peripheral device to extend the operating time of the peripheral device. When operating time of the entire system is to be maximized, power is moved such that the operating time for the portable computer system is equal to the operating time of the peripheral device.
US08046602B2
A method, medium and implementing processing system are provided for controlling the number of Ethernet adapters connected in an EtherChannel depending upon the current bandwidth requirements of the system. This system reduces power consumption, inter alia, wherever possible while not sacrificing performance or flexibility of an EthernetChannel. An exemplary embodiment EtherChannel's total bandwidth utilization is monitored and controlled. When the bandwidth utilization is a predetermined amount less than or more than a predetermined threshold level, power supplied to one or more of the physical Ethernet adapters that are part of the EtherChannel is adjusted, i.e. reduced or increased, accordingly. In another embodiment, in systems where ethernet devices support different levels of power, the power supplied to one or more adapters can be systematically incrementally reduced or increased in response to reduced or increased bandwidth utilization.
US08046599B2
In a semiconductor integrated circuit device including a nonvolatile memory device and a semiconductor integrated circuit board which are mounted on a wiring board where the nonvolatile memory is enable to electrically program data therein at a first voltage and the semiconductor integrated circuit board is operable at a second voltage lower than the first voltage, the nonvolatile memory device has a first terminal supplied with the first voltage and a second terminal for outputting the second voltage, the semiconductor integrated circuit board has a third terminal which is electrically connected to the second terminal. The nonvolatile memory device includes a voltage converting circuit, disposed between the first terminal and the second terminal, for converting the first voltage into the second voltage. The nonvolatile memory device is stacked on the semiconductor integrated circuit board.
US08046597B2
Information handling system storage devices are managed to reduce power consumption by consolidating stored information to less than all of plural storage devices and powering down the storage devices that are no longer storing information. If a predetermined buffer of unused capacity is detected at the storage devices, then a powered down storage device is powered up to store additional information. The storage devices are consolidated to maintain desired performance parameters, such as by monitoring I/O performance for information stored on active storage devices.
US08046593B2
Access to a storage device, such as a disk, is controlled by performing a disk operation using a single cryptographic engine. Keys associated with each layer of a layered structure associated with controlling access to the storage device are combined. The resultant of this combination is used as the key to the cryptographic engine. Data to be retrieved from and written to the storage device are operated on by the cryptographic engine utilizing the combined key. Keys are combined by combining functions associated with layers of the layered structure. A combining function can include an exclusive or function, a cryptographic hash function, or a combination thereof.
US08046592B2
A data-handling system (20) is arranged to scan through data it holds for instances of sensitive information as identified by reference (35) to a set of sensitive-information identifiers held by the system. Each identifier identifies one or more items of sensitive information (25) and is so formed or protected as to not reveal any such item. Following an instance of sensitive information being found by the scan, it is replaced by a reference to an instance of the corresponding sensitive-information item (25) held in protected storage (21). As a result, in due course the only instances of, sensitive information held by the system (20) will be those in the protected storage (21).
US08046591B2
An information reproducing apparatus of the present invention includes a secure module and a main memory. The information in the secure module can not be accessed from outside. The secure module reads, using a direct access method, information relating to software stored in the main memory. The secure module checks a falsification of the software by comparing the information read with the information stored in advance in the secure module.
US08046590B2
The inventive method for protection of creative works is accomplished by creating a creative work, securing the creative work using biometric information of an author of the creative work, and restricting an access to the creative work to the author and select users, who are authorized by the author and whose biometric information is registered with a biometric security database.
US08046588B2
System(s) and method(s) that facilitate utilizing biometric sensors (e.g., fingerprint, hand scan, voice recognition . . . ) in manufacturing systems in order to maintain accurate safety audit trails. A safety audit system, utilizing a biometric sensing device, facilitates determining if a user is allowed to access and change the configuration of the manufacturing system. Once a user is allowed to change the configuration (e.g., programmable electronics, tooling changes, software updates, etc.) the changes are automatically recorded in a safety audit database. Automatic storage of configuration changes mitigates manual recording of changes thereby enhancing the safety audit data often necessary to meet safety standards for manufacturing systems.
US08046573B2
One of the processors of a multiprocessor system is chosen to be a boot processor. The other processors of the multiprocessor system execute masking code that generates electromagnetic and/or thermal signatures that mask the electromagnetic and/or thermal signatures of the actual boot processor. Such masking may involve running the same boot code as the boot processor but without obtaining access to security information, such as the security key for accessing the system. The electromagnetic and/or thermal signatures generated by the execution of the masking code preferably approximate the electromagnetic and/or thermal signatures of the actual boot code executing on the boot processor. In this way, it is difficult to distinguish which processor is the actual boot processor.
US08046570B2
Techniques and tools for supporting multiple operating systems in consumer electronic devices. For example, techniques and tools are described that allow quickly switching between operating systems in video disc players that support different media types while reducing wait time and mitigating possible negative impacts to user experience.
US08046567B2
A multi-threaded processor that is capable of responding to, and processing, multiple low-latency-tolerant events concurrently and while using relatively slow, low-power memories is disclosed. The illustrative embodiment comprises a multi-threaded processor, which itself comprises a context controller and a plurality of hardware contexts. Each hardware context is capable of storing the current state of one thread in a form that enables the processor to quickly switch to or from the execution of that thread. To enable the processor to be capable of responding to low-latency-tolerant events quickly, each thread—and, therefore, each hardware context is prioritized—depending on the latency tolerance of the thread responding to the event.
US08046565B2
Systems and methods for accelerators which may execute a program in conjunction with a PC are disclosed. In one embodiment, an accelerator includes a plurality of calculation units, each calculation unit operable to execute the program in parallel, an operation control unit configured to control an operation capability or a processing capability of at least one of the plurality of calculation units, and a control unit configured to determine a corresponding operation capability or processing capability for the plurality of calculation units based on load information on the program to be executed and control the operation control unit accordingly.
US08046557B2
A method and apparatus for constructing a memory-based database service platform, in which database can be on-loaded and off-loaded or unloaded as needed, and can reserve schedule and size of memory and other resources, including CPUs, network, backup, mirroring and recovery recourses. With the service platform, multiple different types of databases can be chosen by specifying data storage type and data operation interfaces, such as Relational Database (RDB), Biometric Database (BDB), Time Series Database (TDB), Data Driven Database (DDDB) and File-based Database (FDB) etc. Database types can be chosen either by user directly or by platform automatically or semi-automatically based on data types and data operation characteristics.
US08046551B1
Described are techniques executed in a data storage system in connection with processing an I/O request. The I/O request is received. It is determined whether the I/O request is a write request. If the I/O request is a write request, write request processing is performed. The write request processing includes: copying write request data of the write request to cache; destaging the write request data from the cache to a primary storage device; and copying, in accordance with a heuristic, the write request data from the primary storage device to an asynchronous mirror device including an asynchronous copy of data from the primary storage device, wherein the asynchronous mirror device is write disabled with respect to received write requests requesting to write data thereto, the asynchronous mirror device used for servicing data requested in connection with read requests upon the occurrence of a cache miss.
US08046549B2
In the storage controller of the present invention, different difference bitmaps are used for predetermined sections respectively, whereby the difference between the primary volume and the base volume is managed for each section, and the data are protected efficiently. The difference between the primary volume and the base volume is managed by using the difference bitmaps that are different for the respective sections. The journal data after a lapse of the targeted protection period are written to the base volume and then discarded. At the time of recovery, the difference bitmaps are merged to create a new difference bitmap, and the difference is copied from the base volume to the primary volume. Thereafter, the journal data up to the designated restoration point are written to the primary volume.
US08046546B2
A memory subsystem may include logic to make available to the device into which it is installed at least one portion of the volatile memory that will be backed up to the nonvolatile memory in the event of device power failure. The logic may make available to the device at least one portion of the volatile memory that will not be backed up to the nonvolatile memory in the event of device power failure, and make available to the device at least one portion of the nonvolatile memory that is not reserved for backups from the volatile memory.
US08046541B1
A memory integrated circuit (IC) includes first memory implemented by the memory IC. An operation management module implemented by the memory IC generates first initialization data and stores the first initialization data in the first memory before other data is stored in the first memory. Timing alignment of the memory IC is adjusted based on the first initialization data.
US08046535B2
When creating a storage pool with external volumes, it is not possible to put together the volumes that have the same level of reliability if consideration is only given to the physical attributes of such volumes. Further, the reliability demanded between a host computer and a storage apparatus does not necessarily match the reliability between storage apparatuses. When creating a storage pool in the data processing system of this invention, not only is consideration given to the characteristics of the physical disks themselves, consideration is also given to the connection status of the backend network between a storage apparatus and a switch loaded with external storage function, and an external storage apparatus. What is more, volumes are allocated to a host machine after said system considers both the redundancy of a backend network of between storage apparatuses and that of a network path between the host machine and storage apparatus.
US08046529B2
To control selection of content in a non-volatile memory, control information is stored in the non-volatile memory, where the control information is to control selection of content in the non-volatile memory. An algorithm is used to update the control information in the non-volatile memory to cause different content in the non-volatile memory to be selected, wherein the algorithm sets the control information to an initial value that enhances use of programming of the non-volatile memory to update the control information, and reduces use of erasing of the non-volatile memory to update control information.
US08046527B2
An apparatus and method are provided for using a page buffer of a memory device as a temporary cache for data. A memory controller writes data to the page buffer and later reads out the data without programming the data into the memory cells of the memory device. This allows the memory controller to use the page buffer as temporary cache so that the data does not have to occupy space within the memory controller's local data storage elements. Therefore, the memory controller can use the space in its own storage elements for other operations.
US08046522B2
Data files are assigned addresses within one or more logical blocks of a continuous logical address space interface (LBA interface) of a usual type of flash memory system with physical memory cell blocks. This assignment may be done by the host device which typically, but not necessarily, generates the data files. The number of logical blocks containing data of any one file is controlled in a manner that reduces the amount of fragmentation of file data within the physical memory blocks, thereby to maintain good memory performance. The host may configure the logical blocks of the address space in response to learning the physical characteristics of a memory to which it is connected.
US08046521B2
A hypervisor prepares a guest region identifier (RID)-physical region identifier (RID) mapping table for dynamically registering and managing items and performs RID conversion using the guest RID-physical RID mapping table. When the mapping table is used, since it is unnecessary to provide a specific information area representing logical partitions (LPARs) corresponding to respective guests in an RID to be converted, there is no limitation concerning the number of LPARs and a problem in operation can be eliminated.
US08046512B2
A master includes a unit configured to register, for each slave, an expected communication time needed to exchange control data; a unit configured to register a slave in which a communication error is detected during exchange of the control data in a communication period; and a unit configured to re-execute exchange of the control data with the registered slave in the same communication period as that in which the communication error is detected. The unit configured to re-execute exchange of control data calculates a remaining resending time that can be used to re-execute exchange of the control data and, when the remaining resending time is longer than the expected communication time of the registered slave, resends the control data.
US08046507B2
The present invention provides a computer, comprising: a processor for processing data; a system bus connected to the processor; a management unit connected to the system bus; and an external storage connected to the system bus through the management unit, wherein the external storage comprises: a buffer for buffering data; and storage areas connected to the buffer for storing data, and wherein the management unit is adapted to: receive an instruction sent by the processor from the system bus, said instruction corresponding to operations; read data information from the storage areas to the buffer; and execute at least one of the operations on the data information. Furthermore, the present invention provides an external storage and a method for processing data information in an external storage. According to the present invention, it is possible to scan the external storage with a large capacity in a short time.
US08046493B2
An asset management system includes one or more information processors having a communication function and a management device, the information processor includes a search unit which searches for a network address converter for converting between a local IP address and a global IP address in a network, and a position information transmitting unit which transmits positional information including at least one of the global IP address of the searched network address converter and a domain name corresponding to the global IP address and identification information of the information processor to the management device, the management device includes a positional information registration unit which records the positional information received from the information processor in a position recording unit.
US08046487B2
In order to be able to use a smaller routing table (4) and, thus, to reduce the costs and power consumption and to improve the performance of an IP router, it is proposed to extract a destination address identifier (ADR) from a data packet to be forwarded by the IP router, compress the extracted destination address identifier (ADR) by using a lossless data compression algorithm, and compare the compressed destination address identifier with entries stored in the routing table (4) so as to find a correspondence between the destination address identifier and one of the entries of the routing table (4). Each entry of the routing table (4) corresponds to a possible or available forwarding address of the IP router, the forwarding addresses having been compressed with the same data compression algorithm as the destination address identifier. After having found a correspondence between the destination address identifier and one of the compressed forwarding addresses stored in the routing table (4), a switch (6) of the IP router switches the respective data packet to one of its output links (OUT) which is associated with the respective forwarding address matching the destination address identifier (ADR).
US08046486B2
Active client buffer management methods, systems, and apparatus for transmitting electronic data from a server to a client having a limited receive buffer are disclosed. The receive buffer is managed by determining a consumption rate at the client and adjusting the transmission rate of the server responsive to the determined consumption rate to manage the fill level of the receive buffer.
US08046482B2
Systems and methods that manage multiple stack environments are provided. In one example, a system may include, for example, a first protocol processing stack, a second protocol processing stack and a mapper. The mapper may be coupled to the first protocol processing stack and to the second protocol processing stack. A first port number may be associated with the first protocol processing stack and a second port number may be associated with the second protocol processing stack. The mapper may store a correspondence between the first port number and the second port number.
US08046481B2
A conventional serial communications protocol that is limited to supporting only host-to-slave communications, such as SATA or SAS, is extended to support peer-to-peer communications, e.g., by adding a memory-map layer into the conventional protocol stack between the link layer and the protocol layer. The addition of the memory-map layer enables two (or more) non-host devices (i.e., peer devices) to communicate with one another without using a host computer and without relying on conventional protocol-bridging techniques.
US08046467B2
Described is a technology in a network load balancing system (node cluster), by which client affinity is preserved across cluster configuration changes, including for new connections from a previous client. Each node maintains a list of the clients that are to remain (have affinity, or “stickiness”) with that node, including following bucket redistribution resulting from convergence. Each affinity list is communicated during convergence so that other nodes may build an exception list or lists. Via a node's exception list, the node that owns a bucket corresponding to a client knows of the affinity with another node and thus drops any packets from that client. Affinity may expire, whereby the node having affinity with that client releases it and notifies the node owning the bucket for that client that the client is no longer to be treated as an exception.
US08046463B1
A method and apparatus control a double-ended soft permanent virtual circuit (SPVC) connection coupling from a source end to a destination end via a communications network. The method includes (a) receiving an SPVC connection message from a first network device for the source end, (b) accepting an SPVC connection in accordance with the SPVC connection message if a second network device receiving the SPVC connection has an association with the first network device, and (c) rejecting the SPVC connection if the second network device does not have an association with the first network device. The network device for the destination end includes a database memory adapted to store an access identifier of at least one predetermined source network device from which the network device is allowed to accept an SPVC connection.
US08046448B2
A distributed system architecture with components each having an autonomous “hub” or dependent “hub” and a related differential indexing method for obtaining data are disclosed.
US08046446B1
A system for ensuring availability using volume server sets in a storage environment employing distributed block virtualization includes a plurality of volume servers, one or more volume clients, one or more physical block devices and a volume server manager. The volume server manager may be configured to designate the plurality of volume servers as a volume server set with an associated volume server set management policy, and to verify each volume server in the volume server set has access to storage within each block device. In addition, the volume server manager may be configured to designate a first volume server of the volume server set to aggregate storage within the block devices into a logical volume, to make the logical volume accessible to the volume clients, and to share configuration information about the volume with the other volume servers of the volume server set.
US08046442B2
A method and a device to configure at least one firewall are provided comprising the steps of (i) transmitting at least one mobility report to a firewall controller; (ii) transmitting at least one session report to the firewall controller; and (iii) configuring the at least one firewall according to the information obtained by the at least one mobility report and by the at least one session report.
US08046441B2
The present technique includes a software framework which makes it possible for providing Business-to-Business (B2B) integration software as a service (SaaS). The framework follows a hub and spoke model wherein the hub and spoke communicate through web services. While the hub and spokes act as integration gateways with the enterprise systems, the hub also acts as a centralized remote command, control and configuration center for the entire setup. The hub software provides the ability to generate and remotely deploy the spoke environments and also manage them remotely. The generated spoke environment can be downloaded, installed and configured to connect to the local systems and act as a mediator for B2B integration between hub and the local systems. Once installed the environments are remotely managed through the management console provided by the hub software. This invention reduces the cost of B2B integration by amortizing the cost of remotely managing multiple trading partner gateways through a single management console.
US08046430B2
A method of load balancing network access requests comprises receiving a network access request from a serving node linked to a radio access network. The network access request identifies a mobile node receiving wireless service from the radio access network and identifies a data network to which the mobile node has requested access. The network access request requests a communication channel with the serving node for transporting data communications between the mobile node and the data network. The method further comprising determining one or more gateways providing access to the data network, selecting one of the gateways, and forwarding the network access request to the selected gateway.
US08046426B2
A method and computer program product for providing a random linear coding approach to distributed data storage is presented. A file is broken into a plurality of pieces. For every peer (peer means storage-location with limited storage space), the number of coded-pieces the peer can store is determined. Each of the coded-piece is determined by taking random linear combination of all the pieces of the entire file. The associate code-vector is stored for every coded-piece. The file is retrieved by collecting code-vectors and the coded-pieces from the peers and viewing the collected code-vectors as a matrix. When a dimension of the matrix is equal to the number of pieces of the file, the file is recovered using the collection of code vectors in the matrix.
US08046420B2
A method of controlling wireless communications is provided. A first call is received at a first distributed mobile architecture (DMA) server from a first mobile communication device. The first DMA server communicates with the first mobile communication device via a first wireless communication protocol. A second call is received at the first DMA server from a second mobile communication device. The first DMA server communicates with the second mobile communication device via a second wireless communication protocol. Voice information associated with the first call is converted to first packet data and voice information associated with the second call to second packet data. The first packet data and the second packet data are routed via a private Internet Protocol (IP) network to at least one second DMA device, where the first call is accessible to a first destination device and the second call is accessible to a second destination device via the at least one second DMA device.
US08046419B2
A method of processing an open asynchronous application service event and an open web service gateway implementing the method are provided. The open web service gateway includes: a plurality of SCFs (service capability features) operatively connected to an application service through a web service interface, receives an event registration request from the application service, and notifies an event occurring in a network to the application service; and an event broker registering the registration-requested based on a predetermined policy in correspondence with the SCFs, when the registration-requested event received from the application service is an asynchronous event, and notifies an occurrence of the event in the network to the SCFs according to a registered priority of the event. Accordingly, an asynchronous event is registered and notified based on a predetermined policy, so that it is possible to prevent event registration conflict between the SCFs and between the application services and to maximize network operation efficiency.
US08046413B2
Synchronized devices comprising a distributed system attempt to agree on a compatible sequence of commands to execute. Each device in the distributed system may act as a proposer, acceptor, or a learner. Each proposer proposes a command for each device to execute. The acceptors either accept or reject the proposed commands. The learners keep track of the proposed commands and determine, using a transactional substrate, whether the acceptors have a accepted sequences of commands that commute with respect to one another. Once the learners have determined that a quorum of acceptors have accepted sequences of commands that commute with respect to one another the accepted commands are executed by each device in the distributed system.
US08046411B2
A mobile device, system, and method are directed towards sharing multimedia information on a mobile device based at least in part on vitality information and other social networking information. Multimedia information may be received and/or synchronized on the mobile device based on a relationship between vitality information of members of a social network. The relationship may comprise a common membership in a group, a common multimedia usage behavior, a geographical proximity of members of the social network, a degree of separation of members of the social network, a common search behavior, or the like. Multimedia information captured on the mobile device may be manually and/or automatically annotated and shared with members of the social network. The multimedia information may be displayed in an integrated live view in conjunction with other social networking information.
US08046410B1
In one embodiment, the methods and apparatuses detect a user participating in a collaboration session; create a profile associated with the user; and detect an attribute associated with the profile based on the collaboration session.
US08046407B2
A method for processing a control message sent by a terminal is provided according to the present invention. The method includes determining whether or not to trigger a shortcut key analysis when the control message is sent from the terminal and accomplishing various extended control operations by a shortcut key analysis. A message processor, a media server, and a media service system are also provided. With the method of the present invention, the terminal may utilize the existing keys to send a series of control messages in accordance with a transmission sequence mechanism recognized by the server. The server may interpret the control message according to a predetermined rule and thus the purpose of extending the service control functions at the terminal side can be accomplished. Accordingly, no modification is needed to the software or hardware of the existing terminal, which bring convenience to the users.
US08046403B2
A method for providing, by a remote machine, access to functionality associated with a resource executing on a local machine includes receiving, by a remote agent executing on a remote machine, an identification of a shell extension associated with a resource provided by a local machine. The remote agent installs a proxy handler associated with the identified shell extension. The proxy handler receives a request for access to the shell extension and redirects the request to a shell extension invoker executing on the local machine.
US08046400B2
A microprocessor having a Precision Control (PC) field, an instruction dispatcher, and a Floating Point unit (FPU). The FPU receives an FP Add instruction from the instruction dispatcher, and generates a sum from its addends. The FPU determines whether any conditions exist in the addends with respect to their contribution to a rounding determination and relative to the PC field. If none of the conditions exists, the FPU makes the rounding determination based on the smaller addend and the PC field, and selectively rounds the sum based on the rounding determination. If any conditions exist, the FPU saves the sum and rounding information derived from the addends, and signals the instruction dispatcher to re-dispatch the instruction. On re-dispatch, the FPU makes the rounding determination based on the saved rounding information and the PC field, and selectively rounds the sum based on the rounding determination.
US08046398B2
A method for modulating a symbol in a transmitter of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. The symbol modulation method includes multiplying an input stream of an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) unit by a Twiddling factor for circular-shifting the input stream of the IFFT unit by a Cyclic Prefix (CP) length; performing IFFT on the input stream of the IFFT unit, which is multiplied by the Twiddling factor; buffering data corresponding to the CP length beginning from a front of an output stream of the IFFT unit; and generating an OFDM symbol by forward-copying the buffered data to a back of the output stream of the IFFT unit.
US08046397B2
A power function is approximated over an applicable data interval with polynomials determined by means of a Chebyshev minimax approximation technique. In some cases, multiple polynomials may be used to approximate the function over respective ranges of the desirable interval, in a piecewise manner. The appropriate polynomial that approximates the power function over the range of interest is derived and stored. When the power function is to be applied to a particular data value, the data value is first evaluated to determine where it lies within the applicable interval. The constants for the polynomial associated with that range of the interval are then retrieved and used to calculate the power of that data value.
US08046387B2
Disclosed herein, among other things, is a system comprising a content repository, a communication portal developer, a content manager, and an analytic engine. The content repository is adapted to store electronic content in a computer-readable storage medium. The communication portal developer includes at least one wizard to create a plurality of customizable portals without coding software. Each customizable portal is accessible to one or more selected visitors through a web browser. The content manager is adapted to publish selectable electronic content to selectable portals. The content manager includes at least one wizard to populate and manage the electronic content within the content repository. The analytic engine analyzes electronic content use and visitor behavior while logged into their customizable portal. In various embodiments, the analytics are provided in real time or near real time. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.
US08046385B2
In general, a method includes determining metric values associated with data quality for one or more child nodes. Metric values are determined for a parent node based on the metric values of at least some of the child nodes, and relationships between one or more parent nodes and one or more child nodes define a hierarchy. The determination of the metric value for the parent node is repeated for multiple instances.
US08046383B2
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for mapping deep structured data structures. Statements defining a mapping of source elements formatted in accordance with a first hierarchical structure to a target formatted in accordance with a second hierarchical structure are received. The first and second hierarchical structures may be different. A mapping of the source elements to the target in accordance with the statements may be performed, where the statement may be defined in accordance with a mapping language. The mapping language may define that a single statement may represent an iterative approach to mapping elements from the source to the target. The mapping language may support selection of source elements using a format that allows for navigation through a hierarchy of the source. The mapping language may also support nested statements which may allow for nested iterations in which to perform mappings.
US08046380B2
The present invention is directed to an archival data storage system. The archival data storage system includes write once and read many (WORM) capability, data redundancy, error correction, and access control. The combination of these capabilities enable the archival storage system to be secure, error proof, and reliable. Additionally, to provide fast data access time, solid state storage devices are used in place of conventional tape drive. Solid state storage devices such as, for example, flash memory devices are fast, versatile and reliable.
US08046376B2
There is provided a system to respond to a request for data. The system receives a request for the data, queries at least two data sources for the data based on the request and receives results that include the data that is populated to at least one data object.
US08046367B2
Identifying portions of an index related to prior search requests sent from a wireless data processing device and transmitting the portions of the index to the wireless data processing device to be used for local searches. Specifically, a method according to one embodiment comprises: collecting information related to a plurality of content located over a network; automatically generating and continually updating an index for the plurality of content as new content is identified; analyzing search requests transmitted from a wireless data processing device; based on the analysis, identifying portions of the index relevant to the search requests; transmitting the portions of the index to the wireless data processing device; and executing subsequent search requests using the portions of the index stored on the wireless data processing device.
US08046365B2
An apparatus stores one or more document information of which access right is managed by an access right management apparatus, and generates an index of stored document information. The apparatus receives user identification information, and sends the user identification information, and information for identifying document information of which index has not been generated to the access right management apparatus. The apparatus receives access right information associated with the user from the access right management apparatus, and generates index of the identified document information based on the received access right information.
US08046361B2
System and method for classifying tags of content using a hyperlinked corpus of classified web pages
An improved system and method for classifying tags of content using a hyperlinked corpus of classified web pages is provided. An anchor text index may be searched to find anchor texts that may match text of the tag, documents referenced by the matching anchor texts may be found, and the documents referenced by the matching anchor texts may be grouped to disambiguate multiple classifications that result from matching the anchor texts with the categories of the reference documents. To resolve ambiguity between multiple classifications, weighted classifications may be used where each document may be assigned a positive weight for a mapping to a category to indicate the confidence of the classification of the document to the category. The classification for the grouping of the documents referenced by the matching anchor texts with greatest frequency may be selected and output as the classification for the tag.
US08046354B2
A query facility for database queries saves and re-uses query execution strategies, and automatically detects that a strategy should be re-optimized as a result of changes to an indexed variable value. Preferably, the number of records evaluated and selected by the index value condition is dynamically monitored during execution, and an alternative query strategy is initiated when this number appears to be out of proportion to expectations. In an exemplary embodiment, an indexed search strategy is changed to a table scan strategy (or vice versa) as a result of a change to the number of records eliminated by the indexed value, although other examples are possible. Preferably, the query engine initiates an alternative search strategy and concurrently continues to execute the original search strategy as separate threads. Search results are obtained from whichever thread completes first.
US08046349B2
This invention relates to a method, a system, a device, a browser and a computer program product for informing on the validity of a character string as a document identifier. In the method, a character string comprising one or more characters is received, the validity of the character string as a document identifier is checked repeatedly, a valid part of the character string is indicated, by means of which the document identifier is defined, and a user is offered a possibility to send a request for a document relating to the document identifier defined by the valid part of the character string.
US08046346B2
A system and method are provided to receive a search query from a user, typically via a web browser, the Internet, and a web server. A search engine obtains a set of potential search results based on the search query. For each Internet domain or web site mentioned in the search results, a set of data sources is accessed to obtain information concerning the legitimacy of the business associated with the Internet domain or web site. The legitimacy information is used to reorder or to change or to augment the appearance or presentation of the search result for the Internet domain or web site. The processed search results are returned to the user.
US08046341B2
A system and method to protect uniquely extended metadata by others, while maintaining compatibility of metadata. An information processing apparatus determines if items included in entered metadata are defined in advance, and reproduces only items that are included in the metadata and determined as defined in advance, and rewrites or transfers the entered metadata when the metadata is rewritten or transferred.
US08046335B2
The Data Shadowing System comprises a memory module that is connected to the monitored computer system via an existing input/output port to store the shadowed data. The memory module includes a memory device for data storage as well as software, including a control software component that is automatically installed on the monitored computer system when the memory module is first connected to the monitored computer system, as well as associated module software for maintaining a record of the data stored on the memory device. The Data Shadowing System automatically stores the data on the memory module in a single format, while representing it in a data management database in two formats: disk sectors and files. The Data Shadowing System thereby efficiently tracks and stores the state of multiple file systems over time, while allowing for correct disk-level and file-level restoration to a point-in-time without storing redundant data.
US08046334B2
Various embodiments include one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures that allow dual access to concurrent data in a database management system including uncommitted updated data. Some embodiments include a dual snapshot of data in a multi-version concurrency control style database, but the embodiments described herein are equally applicable to virtually any other type of database and database management system.
US08046333B1
An embodiment of the invention provides a traversal engine that traverses (walks) through metadata containers (e.g., inodes) in a file system and determines the metadata containers that have been modified (added, changed, deleted, or renamed) within a particular time interval. A modified metadata container corresponds to a data container (e.g., file or directory) that has been modified within the particular time interval. The traversal engine records, into a table, information about the modified metadata containers. The traversal engine also records, into the table, parent information corresponding to an immediate parent of a modified data container.
US08046330B2
An image accumulation device is provided so as to include: an input unit that inputs, as input images, images of specific shot locations; an image database in which specific locations in a predetermined region, shot images relating to the specific locations, position information of shot locations of the shot images and shooting time information of the shot images are associated and stored; and an identification unit that identifies, on the basis of the input images and the image database, at least one of specific locations corresponding to the shot locations of the input images and shooting times of the input images.
US08046325B2
A method and system of associating product codes with product characteristics, and using those product codes to send and receive information about those characteristics to destinations on a network when the values of those characteristics change.
US08046321B2
A method and system to analyze rules is described. The system receives a query and applies a first plurality of rules to the query to identify a second plurality of rules that respectively identify at least one matching keyword in the query. Next, the system counts the first plurality of rules to identify a total quantity of rules applied to the query and further counts the second plurality of rules to identify a second quantity of rules that respectively identify at least one matching keyword in the query. Finally, the system determines a percentage of coverage for the query based on the total quantity of rules and the second quantity of rules.
US08046317B2
An improved system and method is provided for feature selection for text classification using subspace sampling. A text classifier generator may be provided for selecting a small set of features using subspace sampling from the corpus of training data to train a text classifier for using the small set of features for classification of texts. To select the small set of features, a subspace of features from the corpus of training data may be randomly sampled according to a probability distribution over the set of features where a probability may be assigned to each of the features that is proportional to the square of the Euclidean norms of the rows of left singular vectors of a matrix of the features representing the corpus of training texts. The small set of features may classify texts using only the relevant features among a very large number of training features.
US08046310B2
A system and method links one or more disparate community awareness management (CAM) datasets for a community awareness program (CAP) with one or more spatial layers to create linked CAM datasets. One or more data attributes common to a CAM dataset and a spatial layer are identified, and the link is defined between the CAM dataset and the spatial layer. The spatial layer and the linked CAM dataset then may be queried using a single input query. Features from the spatial layer and features from the linked CAM dataset that match the query are generated for display. In one embodiment, a system and method manage CAP assets, transactions, interest areas for the CAP, and buffer areas for the CAP. An audience utility enables entering and maintaining audience data for the CAP. A journal utility enables making journal entries for one or more audience members, CAP assets, transactions, and/or other CAM data. A link document utility enables linking one or more documents to CAM data.
US08046306B2
An appraisal system, method, and apparatus for property appraisals including a collector system, an appraisal database, an accounting system, and a scoring system. The collector system gathers data associated with a property and provides the data to the appraisal database. The collector system also reviews, edits, corrects, validates, and formats the data. The scoring system uses the collector system and appraisal database to access and analyze the data to calculate a score associated with the property. The score is calculated using one or more of a zone and market group associated with the property. The scoring system maps the score to one or more comparable sales of one or more other properties based on one or more of the zone and market group in order to generate an appraisal report for the property.
US08046303B2
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for providing electronic media to a customer. One method prompts a customer to license a right to electronic media. If the customer agrees to license the right, then the license is electronically stored on behalf of the customer. The licensed electronic media is communicated to the customer via a communications network.
US08046280B2
Managing risks of crop production can be performed by understanding the relative performance of different agricultural inputs under the same or similar environmental conditions. In addition, managing of crop production risks can be performed by understanding variations in the performance of the same agricultural inputs over a range of environmental conditions. By being able to describe and understand these variations in performance, decisions can be made which are consistent with overall business and/or production objectives and limit risk associated with variations in environmental conditions. In addition to producers there are other stakeholders in the crop production process, such as financial institutions, insurance providers, users of crops produced, and input suppliers. These and other stakeholders can provide financial incentives to producers for managing crop production risks through use of environmental classification and/or genotype-by-environment information.
US08046277B2
A computer-implemented method of managing reconciliation and write-off data in an accrual-based accounting environment may include steps of retrieving a plurality of transactions associated with a predetermined purchase order from a database coupled to a computer network; calculating an aggregate accrual balance of the retrieved plurality of transactions and associating the calculated aggregate accrual balance with a unique first identifier; when the aggregate accrual balance associated with the unique first identifier indicates that the predetermined purchase order is unbalanced, loading a first reconciliation table with first reconciliation information and storing the first reconciliation table in the database; enabling writing-off the aggregate accrual balance, and when the aggregate accrual balance has been written-off, removing the first reconciliation information from the first reconciliation table and storing the first reconciliation table in the database.
US08046276B2
A receiving section receives a supply request for product from a terminal set up at a shop or a terminal used by a client. A first determination processing section determines whether a product in stock can be reserved for an order. A first reserve processing section reserves the product in stock for the order when the first determination processing section determines that the product can be reserved. A second determination processing section determines whether a semifinished product necessary for manufacturing a final product can be reserved when the first determination processing section determines that the product reserve is inadequate. A second reserve processing section reserves the semifinished product for the order when the second determination processing section determines that the semifinished product can be reserved.
US08046271B2
A merchant generates a customized service strategy related to a suite of electronic transaction services hosted by a service provider. The custom strategy specifies services to perform, and possibly an order in which to perform the services, by a service provider in relation to an electronic transaction associated with the merchant. Through use of a user interface, the strategy can be represented as a graphical decision tree, with terminal nodes representing services or actions. A customized strategy is transmitted to a service provider, as is transaction related information, whereby the service provider can service the transaction according to the strategy and based on the transaction information. Scheduling information that specifies different strategies to apply to different transaction scenarios can be generated. A strategy is selected by a service provider based on the scheduling information and transaction information, and is used to service one or more electronic transactions.
US08046263B1
Methods of offering inspection services through retailers are described. Customers may obtain access to qualified home inspectors in a sub-contractor referral service area of a retailer through the use of a kiosk, service desk or similar point-of-purchase display. The retailer may partner with the inspector or inspection company for a fee. The retailer may offer Inspection Services Gift Cards for sale to customers. The retailer may also receive additional business from the inspection company's customers who may return to the retailer to purchase replacement items for those found deficient from the inspection.
US08046251B2
An automated employee selection system can use a variety of techniques to provide information for assisting in selection of employees. For example, pre-hire and post-hire information can be collected electronically and used to build an artificial-intelligence based model. The model can then be used to predict a desired job performance criterion (e.g., tenure, number of accidents, sales level, or the like) for new applicants. A wide variety of features can be supported, such as electronic reporting. Pre-hire information identified as ineffective can be removed from a collected pre-hire information. For example, ineffective questions can be identified and removed from a job application. New items can be added and their effectiveness tested. As a result, a system can exhibit adaptive learning and maintain or increase effectiveness even under changing conditions.
US08046250B1
Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as by an intermediary electronic marketplace or other task fulfillment facilitator system. In some situations, support is provided in various ways for using multiple human languages when supplying and performing tasks. For example, some tasks may have associated languages, and some tasks may further have multiple task variants that each have a distinct associated language. A user may then request information about tasks in a particular language, and receive information about tasks and/or task variants associated with that language. Furthermore, some tasks and task variants may further be associated with locales that include particular languages and/or various other factors, including geographical areas, and such locales may similarly be used to identify appropriate corresponding users that match the various locale factors.
US08046231B2
An speech processing apparatus comprises a setting unit that sets an association between a speech recognition target vocabulary and the shortcut data for transitioning to a state to which a transition is made, when a user makes a transition to a state among the plurality of states using an operation input unit, an speech input unit that inputs an audio, a speech recognition unit that employs the speech recognition target vocabulary to recognize the audio that is input via the speech input unit, and a control unit that employs the shortcut data that corresponds to the speech recognition target vocabulary that is a recognition result of the speech recognition unit to transition to the state, in order to improve speech recognition accuracy for audio shortcuts, while also preserving the convenience of the audio shortcuts.
US08046224B2
A phonetic vocabulary for a speech recognition system is adapted to a particular speaker's pronunciation. A speaker can be attributed specific pronunciation styles, which can be identified from specific pronunciation examples. Consequently, a phonetic vocabulary can be reduced in size, which can improve recognition accuracy and recognition speed.
US08046222B2
Systems, methods, and apparatuses including computer program products for segmenting words using scaled probabilities. In one implementation, a method is provided. The method includes receiving a probability of a n-gram identifying a word, determining a number of atomic units in the corresponding n-gram, identifying a scaling weight depending on the number of atomic units in the n-gram, and applying the scaling weight to the probability of the n-gram identifying a word to determine a scaled probability of the n-gram identifying a word.
US08046221B2
Disclosed are systems, methods and computer readable media for applying a multi-state barge-in acoustic model in a spoken dialogue system comprising the steps of (1) presenting a prompt to a user from the spoken dialog system. (2) receiving an audio speech input from the user during the presentation of the prompt, (3) accumulating the audio speech input from the user, (4) applying a non-speech component having at least two one-state Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to the audio speech input from the user, (5) applying a speech component having at least five three-state HMMs to the audio speech input from the user, in which each of the five three-state HMMs represents a different phonetic category, (6) determining whether the audio speech input is a barge-in-speech input from the user, and (7) if the audio speech input is determined to be the barge-in-speech input from the user, terminating the presentation of the prompt.
US08046220B2
A method includes crawling and indexing voice sites and storing results in an index; receiving a search request in voice from a user via a telephone; performing speech recognition on the voice search request and converting the request from voice to text; parsing the query; and performing a search on the index and ranking the search results. Search results may be filtered based on attributes such as location and context. Filtered search results may be presented to the user in categories to enable easy voice browsing of the search results by the user. Computer program code and systems are also provided.
US08046217B2
An audio decoder which reproduces original signals from a bit stream including (i) a downmix signal of the original signals, and (ii) supplementary information indicating a gain ratio D and phase difference θ between the original signals. The audio decoder includes: a decoding unit extracting the downmix signal; a transformation unit transforming the extracted downmix signal into a frequency domain signal; a phase rotator determination unit determining two phase rotators having, as the phase rotation angles, angles α and β respectively obtained by dividing a contained angle by a diagonal of a parallelogram; a separation unit separating the frequency domain signal into two separation signals respectively indicating angles α and β as phase differences between the signals and the decoded downmix signal; and an inverse transformation unit inversely transforming the respective two separation signals into time domain signals so as to reproduce the two audio signals.
US08046214B2
A multi-channel audio decoder provides a reduced complexity processing to reconstruct multi-channel audio from an encoded bitstream in which the multi-channel audio is represented as a coded subset of the channels along with a complex channel correlation matrix parameterization. The decoder translates the complex channel correlation matrix parameterization to a real transform that satisfies the magnitude of the complex channel correlation matrix. The multi-channel audio is derived from the coded subset of channels via channel extension processing using a real value effect signal and real number scaling.
US08046213B2
A driving directions system loads into memory a limited subset of prerecorded, spoken utterances of geographic names from a mass media storage. The subset of spoken utterances may be limited, for example, to the geographic names within a predetermined radius (e.g., a few miles) of the driver's present location. The present location of the driver may be manually entered into the driving directions system by the driver, or automatically determined using a global positioning system (“GPS”) receiver. As the vehicle moves from its present location, the driving directions system loads into memory new names from the mass media storage and overwrites, if necessary, those which are now geographically out of range. Based on the current location of the driving, the driving directions system can audibly output geographic names from the run-time memory.
US08046212B1
A method and computer software for rapid searching of text-containing documents and identifying and isolating chemical names and common chemical expressions from surrounding text. The chemical names are returned to the user in a list which is arranged in descending order based on the number of occurrences of each chemical name. The list can also contain all synonyms for each chemical name found.
US08046208B1
A simulation apparatus and method is provided for simulating complex high speed interconnects for which closed forms of the S-parameter are incorporated. Differential transmission lines are represented in a causal manner analytically using the 4-port S-parameter without concerns of passivity and stability. Difficult discontinuities of interconnect such as differential vias are represented in closed form and the present invention allows those interconnects to be characterized by 4-port S-parameter measurements or simulation. A complete method of combining causal transmission line models with discontinuities in cascade is provided.
US08046192B2
Monitoring and performance interfaces are disclosed for baler machines. The interfaces collect and analyze runtime and downtime data and present reports or varying detail to interested personnel that allow objective assessment of baler machine performance. Multiple baler machines may be monitored and analyzed to reveal human and machine-related issues that inhibit optimal performance but are otherwise extremely difficult to detect.
US08046191B2
A method is provided for the monitoring of heat transfer devices. The method includes the acts of receiving data from a heat transfer device, and computing a performance indicator indicative of an incipient anomaly condition of the heat transfer device based upon the received data, and/or computing a normalized efficiency of the heat transfer device. The normalized efficiency represents a corrected efficiency that isolates effects of a process parameter on performance of the heat transfer device. The data represents a measurable process parameter or a change in a measurable process parameter in the heat transfer device. The method receives the data and computes a performance indicator to predict performance degradation of the heat transfer device over time based upon the received data.
US08046190B2
A method of automatically applying a hypothesis test to a data set. The method reduces errors made in failing to appreciate predicate assumptions of various statistical tests, and elicits a series of indications from the user regarding characteristics of interest embodied by the data set to select an appropriate statistical test. The system also reduces errors in constructing competing null and alternative hypothesis statements by generating a characterization of the data and defining null and alternative hypotheses according to the indications, selected statistical test, and conventions adopted with respect to the tests. The system also establishes a significance level, calculates the test statistic, and generates an output. The output of the system provides a plain interpretation of the quantitative results in the terms indicated by the user to reduce errors in interpretation of the conclusion.
US08046178B2
A defect detection system identifies defects in weld seams. An exemplary system includes a scanner device, mounted on a displacement device of a processing unit and which can be displaced by the unit over at least one weld seam that is to be examined. The scanner unit scans the weld seam using a predefinable frequency, each scanning sweep being correlated with a time signal. The time signal is used to record the point in time when at least one location containing defects is scanned. An analysis module determines the co-ordinates of the defects from the signals that are obtained by the scanning sweeps and stores the co-ordinates of the defects and transmits them to a localisation module. The localisation module determines the spatial arrangement of the defects of the weld seam by evaluating a speed profile of the displacement device during the scanning sweeps, the time signal and the co-ordinates.
US08046176B2
A device and a method for determining material moisture by thermogravimetry. Included in the device are: a test chamber (2) delimited by a chamber cover (8); a microwave field that can be generated by a magnetron (5) and supplied to the test chamber by a waveguide (4); a tuning rod (22) arranged in the test chamber; a sample carrier (3) which is operatively connected to a weighing module (6) mounted upstream of the test chamber; and at least one sensor (24) arranged in the test chamber. The tuning rod is arranged centrally on the chamber cover, above the sample carrier, and the at least one sensor is arranged on the free end of the tuning rod, opposing the chamber cover.
US08046175B2
The invention discloses an analytical strip reading apparatus and the analytical strip used therein. The analytical strip reading apparatus comprises a housing, a monitor, a delivering device, an optical reader, a reaction signal reader and a control module. The analytical strip comprises at least one optically readable pattern which comprises identification information of the analytical strip.
US08046174B2
A system and method for identifying high order associations between variables in complex systems that is particularly useful where there is no correlation or weak correlation between variables due to the influence of a third variable, a ternary relationship. The ternary relationship describes how the variation in the pattern of association between a pair of variables, including its sign and strength, is mediated by a third variable. In one embodiment applied to gene expression data, the activity of pairs of correlated genes due to the activity of one or more third genes is shown.
US08046171B2
Rapid and definitive bioagent detection and identification can be carried out without nucleic acid sequencing. Analysis of a variety of bioagents and samples, such as air, fluid, and body samples, can be carried out to provide information useful for industrial, medical, and environmental purposes. Nucleic acid samples of unknown or suspected bioagents may be collected, optimal primer pairs may be selected, and the nucleic acid may be amplified. Expected mass spectra signal models may be generated and selected, the actual mass spectra of the amplicons may be obtained. The expected mass spectra most closely correlating with the actual mass spectra may be determined using a joint maximum likelihood analysis, and base counts for the actual mass spectra and the expected mass spectra may be obtained. The most likely candidate bioagents may then be determined.
US08046161B2
A computer, for planning moves of freight automatically receives a plan containing a number of trips to be performed to move freight using vehicles, and partially releases only a portion of the plan for execution instead of releasing the entire plan. The plan portion that is released includes a subset of trips that are selected by the computer from among all trips in the entire plan. Thereafter, the computer simply repeats the just-described acts. Iteratively releasing portions of a plan allows the computer to be instructed to release early certain trips that are satisfactory. Trips that are sub-optimal are re-generated in a next version of the plan, based on changes in orders in the interim. The computer may also be instructed to release a trip even if sub-optimal, if its time-to-departure becomes less than an advance notice needed by a truckload service that is to execute the trip.
US08046157B2
A control system (and a method of operating the system for an internal combustion engine. The control system has a trigger circuit for supplying trigger signals and an output stage having a plurality of output channels which supply actuating signals. The trigger circuit and the output stage are connected to one another by a selection interface and a trigger interface that is a single control line which supplies a time control signal.
US08046155B2
In a method of monitoring for a misfire event in an internal combustion engine signals representative of engine speed are monitored for successive engine revolutions subsequent to each firing event. The monitored signals are stored (e.g., in a buffer) and processed to detect changes in the monitored speed signals. Changes in monitored speed signals that are indicative of an actual misfire event are detected and a misfire count is changed in response thereto.
US08046152B2
A device for controlling an internal combustion engine which uses, as the fuel, a heavy fuel, a light fuel, an alcohol fuel and a mixture thereof, comprising a heavy fuel/light fuel ratio detector 39 capable of detecting the ratio of the heavy fuel and the light fuel, and an air-fuel ratio detector 41 for detecting the air-fuel ratio of the exhaust gas, wherein the amount of fuel injection is calculated based on the heavy fuel/light fuel ratio detector so that the air-fuel ratio becomes a target air-fuel ratio. The heavy fuel/light fuel ratio detector is diagnosed if it is in an abnormal condition based on a difference between the target air-fuel ratio and the air-fuel ratio detected by the air-fuel ratio detector while the engine temperature is in a particular temperature region. The heavy fuel/light fuel ratio detector can be correctly diagnosed if it is in an abnormal condition even when an alcohol-mixed fuel is used.
US08046132B2
A vehicle steering control system includes a controller for determining control angles for actuators used for steering the vehicle based on at least a speed of the vehicle and a steering signal. The controller includes a unit, a module, and a block. The unit determines an equivalent steering angle of a steered wheel of an equivalent bicycle model according to the steering signal, and also determines a transverse coordinate of an instantaneous center of rotation of the vehicle. The module controls a steering behaviour of the vehicle to enable a longitudinal coordinate of the instantaneous center of rotation of the vehicle to be determined from the speed of the vehicle and a maximum transverse acceleration parameter of the vehicle. The block determines the control angles from the longitudinal coordinate and the transverse coordinate. The maximum transverse acceleration parameter of the vehicle is fixed for the vehicle or is variable based on conditions of operation of the vehicle.
US08046131B2
Provided is a vehicular steering apparatus capable of improving a steering feeling and achieving a reduction in cost. The vehicular steering apparatus according to the present invention is equipped with an assist motor for generating an assist torque, a state quantity detector for detecting a steering shaft reaction torque and a road surface reaction torque, and a control unit for calculating a target current value of the assist motor. The control unit includes a friction compensation portion and a return compensation portion, which calculate a friction compensation torque for compensating for the assist torque and a return compensation torque for compensating for the assist torque from the steering shaft reaction torque and the road surface reaction torque respectively. The control unit compensates for an overall friction torque in a steering mechanism and a gradient of the road surface reaction torque, using the friction compensation torque and the return compensation torque.
US08046124B2
A control apparatus for an electric vehicle includes a road surface condition detection portion, a slip determination portion, a torque reduction device, and a voltage control device. The electric vehicle includes a motor that generates drive power for the electric vehicle, and a drive device that drives the motor. The road surface condition detection portion detects the condition of a road surface on which the electric vehicle is driven. The slip determination portion determines whether the electric vehicle is slipping. The torque reduction device reduces the torque of the motor when the slip determination portion determines that the electric vehicle is slipping. The voltage control device controls a voltage input to the drive device to reduce the voltage when the road surface condition detection portion determines that the road surface has a friction coefficient lower than a predetermined value.
US08046117B2
A controller for an adjustable bed manages at least one wireless communication function, such as Bluetooth, IEEE 802.x, and peer-to-peer functions in association with controlling the bed. The controller also can control a second system associated with the adjustable bed.
US08046108B2
A system and method for harnessing power associated with ocean waves and converting that power into electricity. The apparatus is a buoy that houses a vertically oriented central shaft, a pendulum, a generator mechanism, and other components that synergistically operate to optimize power output of the buoy. Both the load on the pendulum and the effective length of the pendulum may be varied in response to changing environmental conditions. Also, the buoy may be part of a network that shares environmental data and a series of best tuning responses to that data, across the network. A library of environmental data and associated tuning responses is built at a central location and shared across the network.
US08046106B2
A controlling method and a controlling system for saving energy of a building are provided. In the present method, a user environment requirement is obtained first. Then, a plurality of cover ratios of a sunshade device on an opening of a building is defined, and according to an environment parameter and the user environment requirement, a total electricity consumption required by air conditioning equipment and by lighting equipment in the building corresponding to each of the cover ratios is calculated. Finally, a cover ratio that produces the minimum total electricity consumption is obtained, and the sunshade device, the air conditioning equipment and the lighting equipment are adjusted according to the obtained cover ratio, so as to make the building meet the user environment requirement and maintain a status of the minimum total energy consumption.
US08046105B2
A vibrating plate system comprises at least two vibrating plates are mechanically coupled to one another via a coupling device and a controlling transmitter for outputting control data to the vibrating plates. Each of the vibrating plates comprises a receiving device for receiving the control data, a drive mechanism for propelling the vibration plate forwardly and rearwardly, and a position determining device for determining the position of the relevant vibrating plate within the group. A rule memory is also provided in which control rules are stored. One control rule defines a correlation between a control measure for controlling the traveling mechanism according to the position of the vibrating plate and an item of control information given by the control data. In each vibrating plate, a single control device selects a suitable control rule according to the position of the vibrating plate and to the control measure.
US08046100B2
The present invention provides for a vending system wherein a monitoring system verifies that a product ordered by a vending customer is actually delivered through a delivery area to the customer. If the product ordered is unavailable either because of an out of stock situation or a blockage of the delivery path for that product, the present invention allows the customer to request a refund or order a second product. Additionally, the present invention helps to prevent theft of product from the vending system.
US08046088B2
A semiconductor power supplying apparatus driven by a power source includes at least two driven circuits for performing prescribed data processing when electric power is supplied. An electric power supplying circuit is provided so as to convert power from the power source as needed to supply at least two driven circuits with electric power in accordance with voltages that the driven circuits need. A driven circuit power supplying condition signal generating device is provided so as to generate a driven circuit power supplying condition signal for determining a power supplying condition of all of the at least two driven circuits. A power supplying control signal generation circuit is also provided so as to generate a power supplying control signal for controlling operation of the power supplying circuit. The power supplying control signal is generated from the driven circuit power supplying condition signal and determines an order of supplying power to the at least two driven circuits so that the at least two driven circuits can receive dependent power supplying.
US08046085B2
A method for treating at least one of a plurality of disorders characterized at least in part by vagal activity includes positioning an electrode around a body organ innervated by the vagus. An electrical signal is applied to the electrode to modulate vagal activity. The electrical signal is applied at a frequency selected for the signal to create a neural conduction block to the vagus with the neural conduction block selected to at least partially block nerve impulses on the vagus. The application of the electrical signal is discontinued. The application of the signal and the discontinuing of the signal are repeated with durations of the discontinuing and the application selected to treat the disorder.
US08046083B2
Device for influencing brain functions of a human being by targeted stimulation of at least one region of the human body, comprising stimulating means that permit a stimulation of the region that is to be stimulated, characterized in that the stimulation is an electrical stimulation.
US08046082B2
Single-use electrical leads for a nerve stimulator include a status flag element such as a fuse, which is deliberately blown after use of the leads has begun to indicate that the leads are not to be reused. The nerve stimulator has a “test mode” that determines a current value for treatment, and a “therapy mode” that administers treatment with the chosen current value. If the fuse in the electrical leads is blown, then the stimulator assumes that the leads have already been used and does not enter therapy mode. If the fuse in the electrical leads is intact, then the stimulator assumes that the leads are as yet unused, and allows the user to enter either test mode or therapy mode. The fuse is deliberately blown after a particular amount of time spent in therapy mode. After the fuse is blown, the user may still complete the therapy mode.
US08046081B2
An implantable electronic system is described. An implantable power supply includes multiple power input ports for receiving an externally generated power supply signal, and multiple power output ports for developing a detected power signal. An implantable prosthetic processing module includes multiple prosthetic processing input ports connected by wire to the power output ports for receiving the detected power signal, and multiple prosthetic processing output ports for developing a prosthetic stimulation signal output for electrically stimulating target neural tissue. Each of the multiple ports is adapted to operate without developing a dc potential.
US08046068B2
A system and method for selectively treating a ventricular tachycardia based on sensed atrial and ventricular intervals from the patient's heart. A detection window of the ten most recent atrial and ventricular intervals are analyzed for the occurrence of either tachycardia or fibrillation. When a majority of the sensed intervals are satisfied, the apparatus starts a duration time interval. Ventricular intervals and atrial intervals are compare, ventricular interval greater than the atrial interval by a bias factor the system delivers tachycardia therapy to the heart. Alternatively, the method withholds tachycardia therapy to the heart when the atrial rate is classified as atrial fibrillation and the ventricular response is unstable.
US08046065B2
The disclosure provides methods and apparatus of left ventricular pacing including automated adjustment of a atrio-ventricular (AV) pacing delay interval and intrinsic AV nodal conduction testing. It includes—upon expiration or reset of a programmable AV Evaluation Interval (AVEI)—performing the following: temporarily increasing a paced AV interval and a sensed AV interval and testing for adequate AV conduction and measuring an intrinsic atrio-ventricular (PR) interval for a right ventricular (RV) chamber. Thus, in the event that the AV conduction test reveals a physiologically acceptable intrinsic PR interval then storing the physiologically acceptable PR interval in a memory structure (e.g., a median P-R from one or more cardiac cycles). In the event that the AV conduction test reveals an AV conduction block condition or if unacceptably long PR intervals are revealed then a pacing mode-switch to a bi-ventricular (Bi-V) pacing mode occurs and the magnitude of the AVEI is increased.
US08046064B2
Medical devices and methods are used to treat cardiac dysfunction conditions which involve delivery of stimulation pulses in cardiac refractory periods in order to modulate an effective refractory period (ERP). Such devices and methods may be used in conjunction with or in place of other therapies, including increased cardiac contractility (ICC) therapy, post extrasystolic potentiation (PESP) therapy, and other therapies to achieve increased heart contractility, provide a safer and more effective regimen for the corresponding stimulation therapies, and reduce the risk of inducing an arrhythmia.
US08046059B2
A mobile diagnosis device comprised of an ECG unit (1) to record an ECG signal (55), with the ECG unit (1) being connected or connectible to two or more ECG electrodes (27, 28) to dissipate electrical signals from a patient's body, and comprised of a pulsoximetry unit (2) for simultaneous recording of a volume pulse signal (56), with the pulsoximetry unit (2) comprising at least one light source (17, 18) and at least one light sensor (20) for optical measurement of blood perfusion in the vascular system of a patient's body tissue, and comprised of a program-controlled evaluation unit (4) to evaluate the ECG signal (55) and the volume pulse signal (56). To provide such a diagnosis device that is suitable for auto-diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, the device proposes that the evaluation unit (4) be appropriately equipped to allow for automatic recognition of R peaks (57) in the ECG signal (55), automatic recognition of extreme levels (58) in the volume pulse signal (56), and for determination of the time difference (60) between an R peak (57) and a successive extreme level (58) in the volume pulse signal (56). Furthermore, the evaluation unit (4) can be appropriately equipped to allow for determination of the time difference (61) between the main and secondary peak values (58, 59) in the volume pulse signal (56).
US08046056B2
A method measuring a body fat by using a body fat measurement device including an optical detector and at least two light sources, the method including: detecting an optical signal which is scattered by a biological tissue by the optical detector, and measuring a first optical signal intensity and a second optical signal intensity; calculating a slope the first optical signal intensity and the second optical signal intensity by using a distance between a first light source unit and a second light source unit, and a difference between the first optical signal intensity and the second optical signal intensity, the first optical signal intensity corresponding to the first light source unit and the second optical signal intensity corresponding to the second light source unit; and measuring a thickness of body fat of the biological tissue from the calculated slope.
US08046054B2
Disclosed is a computer-integrated surgery aid system for minimally invasive surgery and a method for controlling the same. The system includes a surgery planning system for creating three-dimensional information from two-dimensional images obtained by means of biplanar fluoroscopy so that spinal surgery can be planned according to the image information and a scalar-type 6 degree-of-freedom surgery aid robot adapted to be either driven automatically or operated manually.
US08046052B2
An image guided navigation system for navigating a region of a patient includes an imaging device, a tracking device, a controller, and a display. The imaging device generates images of the region of a patient. The tracking device tracks the location of the instrument in a region of the patient. The controller superimposes an icon representative of the instrument onto the images generated from the imaging device based upon the location of the instrument. The display displays the image with the superimposed instrument. The images and a registration process may be synchronized to a physiological event. The controller may also provide and automatically identify an optimized site to navigate the instrument to.
US08046049B2
Apparatus is provided for use with a steerable catheter that includes a thumb control adapted to control a deflection of a distal tip of the catheter. The apparatus includes a robot, including an end-effector, adapted to be coupled to the thumb control, and a controller, adapted to drive the end-effector to deflect the distal tip by manipulating the thumb control.
US08046045B2
An anatomical feature condition assessment system includes an acquisition processor for acquiring data representing the velocity and direction measurements of individual segments of an anatomical feature of a patient. A repository contains mapping data associating averaged velocity and direction measurements within a predetermined particular segment of the anatomical feature with a set of values. A data processor averages the acquired velocity and direction measurements within the predetermined particular segment of the anatomical feature and uses the mapping data to identify a set of values associated with the averaged acquired velocity and direction measurements. The data processor uses the identified set of values to derive an assessment of the condition of the anatomical feature of the patient.
US08046042B2
The present disclosure describes a method and an apparatus for analyzing measured signals using various processing techniques. In certain embodiments, the measured signals are physiological signals. In certain embodiments, the measurements relate to blood constituent measurements including blood oxygen saturation.
US08046023B2
A mobile communication device includes a processor to identify a direction related to the geo-positioning signals; a display including a pre-defined shape to indicate the direction related to the geo-positioning signals, where the pre-defined shape is exhibited when an optical property of the pre-defined shape is altered; and a power source to supply voltage to the pre-defined shape, where the optical property of the pre-defined shape is altered by a burst of voltage.
US08046021B2
There is provided a communication control technique in which it is possible to avoid interference with another wireless communication system. This invention is characterized by a control station which controls wireless communication of dependent stations. When a dependent station newly starts, the control station determines whether a beacon transmitted by the dependent station is received by another wireless communication network. When determining that the beacon is received by the other wireless communication network, the control station instructs the dependent station to lower the transmission power until the beacon is not received.
US08046016B2
A method for indicating availability of outbound RF resources (ORFRs) of peer base stations is provided that uses peer busy indicator (PBI) messages transmitted from one peer base station to other peer base stations.
US08046015B2
A receiver is tuned to a transmission frequency of a data signal after the receiver has already locked onto a frequency carrying the data signal. A frequency offset between a locked frequency of a tuner on the receiver and the actual transmission frequency is determined by a comparator. If the frequency offset is greater than a threshold value, then the tuner is stepped to another frequency and the frequency offset is determined again. The direction of the tuning step can be determined by comparing multiple frequency offsets. An average value of multiple frequency offset measurements may also be used to determine if the tuner should retune to another frequency by comparison with the threshold value.
US08046010B2
A subscription manager module or message processing engine operating within a messaging inter-carrier vendor (MICV) provides value added services to both service users (e.g., mobile telephone users) and service providers (e.g., information brokers, vendors, news sources, etc.). The MICV is disposed between a plurality of service users and a plurality of service providers and messages sent between these parties are processed by a subscription manager module, or message processing engine, which is configured to, among other things, manage short codes, detect undesirable spam messages, operate service user opt-in and opt-out processes, and perform billing functions.
US08046001B2
A method of delivering advertising to a mobile unit via at least one wireless network, in association with a Location Based Service (LBS) is provided A LBS request is received. Location information associated with the mobile unit is requested. First location information is received. Location Based Advertising (LBA) is provided to the mobile unit based on the first location information while waiting for second location information. The second location information is received. Accuracy and results of the first and second location information is compared to determine which of the first and second location information provides a most probable location of the mobile unit. The LBS is provided to the mobile unit based on which of the first and second location information provides the most probable location of the mobile unit.
US08045989B2
Provided is a method and apparatus for reducing the number of times of measurements in a mobile communication terminal. According to the method, a signal receive level (“Srxlev”) and a signal quality (“Squal”) of a serving cell in an idle state are measured. When the serving-cell selection condition is not satisfied or an adjacent-cell measurement condition is satisfied as a result of the measurement, it is determined whether the number of times of cell reselections reaches a critical value. When the number of times of cell reselections reaches the critical value, the number of times of cell reselection is initialized to a value smaller than the critical value and the mobile terminal returns to an idle state. When the number of times of cell reselections does not reach the critical value, an adjacent-cell measurement for the cell reselection is performed. Therefore, unnecessary quiescent current consumption is reduced and a quiescent current performance is improved.
US08045988B2
Transmission patterns for pilot symbols transmitted from a mobile station or base station are provided. The patterns may be selected according to a location of the mobile station with respect to one or more antennas are provided. In some aspects, the pattern may be selected based upon the distance between the mobile station and the one or more antennas. In other aspect, the pattern may be based upon whether the mobile station is in handoff.
US08045982B2
A device detects a first signal on a channel that is one of a plurality of channels arranged in a first order on a list, with each channel being associated with a different site in a multi-site communication system. Upon detecting the first signal, the device attempts to measure and record signal strength of a signal at each channel on the list based on the first order beginning with the detected first signal, and selects as a home site the site associated with the channel having the signal with the highest recorded signal strength. The device rearranges the channels on the list into a second order based on the recorded signal strengths with the home site channel at the top. If necessary, the radio attempts to awaken its repeaters one after another based on the second order until a repeater is found to transmit a signal.
US08045975B2
Two satellite communications systems can use the same frequency or frequencies in geographically overlapping footprints, without creating undue interference in a given system that is caused by the same frequency signal(s) that is/are used by the other system. In particular, an aggregate Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) of the radioterminals and/or ancillary terrestrial components of a second satellite communications system in the common footprint is sufficiently low, and/or the receive antenna gain of a first satellite communications system is sufficiently low compared to the receive antenna gain of the second satellite communications system, so as to increase an aggregate receiver noise that is seen by the first satellite system receivers by an amount that does not substantially change a Quality of Service (QoS) of the first satellite communications system.
US08045972B2
A multimode Radio Access Network (RAN) for wireless communication is disclosed. The RAN separates the control signals from the data streams for their distributed processing. The control signals are transmitted between base stations and a Radio Resource Server (RRS), while the data streams are communicated between the base stations and Wireless Access Gateways (WAGs). The base station and WAG resources are managed by the RRS. Besides providing single and multiple radio mode access to a mobile user for efficient communication with other wireless communication networks, the RAN infrastructure has a high outage tolerance and can be scaled cost effectively for wider coverage and increased data traffic capacity.
US08045960B2
An access control system including a base station located near a stationary target site used to control access to the stationary target site and satellite access station coupled to the exterior of a satellite target site used to control access to the satellite target site. The base station includes an identification device, storage device, a control unit, a user interface and a transceiver. A master database containing a list of access information for all of the satellite access stations is stored in the storage device. Each satellite access station includes a second identification device, a second storage device, a control unit and a second transponder. A satellite database contains a list of access information for the satellite target site. Information contained in the master database for a particular satellite access station is provided to the particular satellite access station and stored in the satellite database.
US08045959B1
Assigning a serving-call session control function (serving-CSCF) to an access terminal includes receiving an access authorization request corresponding to the access terminal. The access terminal is authorized, and a serving-CSCF is assigned to the access terminal. An access authorization response comprising the serving-CSCF address is sent.
US08045957B2
Embodiments may comprise hardware and/or code within a cellular phone to process data related to charges for a call to indicate the charges to the user. In some embodiments, the charges may be presented in the form of an icon. The icon may indicate whether or not charges apply to the call, a range of charges, and/or a rate of charge. Further embodiments may display characters describing conditional charges for a call. In still further embodiments, the charges for a call may be indicated by an audible alert such as a volume, frequency, pattern of frequencies, or a voice generated. Embodiments may also include hardware and/or code of a cellular phone server such as an MTSO to gather and transmit account information to a cellular phone (or apparatus with similar functionality such as a mobile broadband card).
US08045952B2
A network-enabled audio device that provides a display device that allows the user to select playlists of music much like a jukebox is disclosed. The user can compose playlists from disk files, CD's, Internet streaming audio broadcasts, online music sites, and other audio sources. The user can also select a desired Web broadcast from a list of available Web broadcasts. In addition, the user can play standard audio CD's and MP3 encoded CD's and have access to local AM/FM stations. Further, the software, the user controls, and the display in the network-enabled audio device are operably configured and connected such that the user can listen to playlists that include CD's and other audio sources just as the user would choose a playlist in a jukebox. The user accesses a server site via a PC and the Internet. From the server site, the user obtains a list of the devices in his or her Internet Personal Audio Network (IPAN) and what songs are on those devices. The IPAN includes an IPAN server, an IPAN client, and IPAN software stored on the network-enabled audio device. Thus, the network-enabled audio device provides people who are or are not comfortable with computers a way of taking music from various sources and putting it into one place for listening pleasure. In one embodiment, the Personal Computer (PC) is used to compose the playlists, but the user is able to listen to playlists and other audio sources without using the PC.
US08045949B2
A noise cancellation circuit, which reduces noise in an output signal of an amplifier having an input resistance, a feedback resistance, and an operational amplifier, has: a first mixer circuit, which input an input signal across a first input terminal and a second input terminal of the operational amplifier, and performs frequency conversion of the input signal according to a first frequency signal; a noise cancellation amplifier, which amplifies an output signal of the first mixer circuit; a second mixer circuit, which performs frequency conversion of an output signal of the noise cancellation amplifier according to the first frequency signal; and a signal supply circuit, which supplies an output signal of the second mixer circuit to the first input terminal of the operational amplifier via an output resistance.
US08045947B2
In one aspect, the invention is a far-field power extraction circuit which includes an integrated antenna and impedance matching portion and a rectifier portion. The antenna and impedance matching portion includes an antenna configured to be responsive to a propagating electromagnetic signal and which provides a resonant response at a resonant frequency. In response to the electromagnetic signal, the antenna provides an electromagnetic output signal at an antenna port. The antenna and impedance matching portion is configured to match an antenna impedance with a remainder of the far-field power extraction circuit including the rectifier portion of the power extraction circuit coupled to the antenna and impedance matching portion. The rectifier is configured to rectify the electromagnetic output signal provided by the antenna to produce a direct current (DC) voltage at an output of the rectifier.
US08045946B2
A system includes a transceiver configured to receive a composite signal. The composite signal is a composite of a transmit signal and a receive signal. A replica transmitter is configured to generate a replica transmit signal based on the transmit signal. A transmit canceller is configured to recover the receive signal at least in part by resistively summing the composite signal and the replica transmit signal.
US08045932B2
Aspects of a double search user group selection scheme with range reduction for FDD multiuser MIMO downlink transmission with finite-rate channel state information feedback are provided. The method may comprise maximizing system capacity using feedback information for a plurality of signals in a frequency division duplex system to reduce a search range within which a group of signals having maximum channel gain are located. The feedback information may comprise quantized gain for the signals. Quantized channel direction for the signals within the reduced search range may be requested and received by the transmitter. One or two signals from the reduced search range that maximizes system capacity may be selected. The receivers associated with these signals may then be selected as the user group.
US08045922B2
A novel and useful apparatus for and method of providing a mechanism for achieving coexistence between a Bluetooth system and WLAN system collocated in the same communications device such as a mobile terminal. The coexistence mechanism of the present invention functions to monitor WLAN and Bluetooth system activity, determine the access priority of both WLAN and Bluetooth systems, predict Bluetooth high priority packet transmission patterns, allocate bandwidth to both the Bluetooth and WLAN systems in accordance with the traffic patterns predicted, and switch the antenna and control the Bluetooth and WLAN power amplifiers when required.
US08045921B2
A wireless audio delivery system and method are disclosed for distributing an audio signal to a plurality of headsets through short range wireless communication channels. An audio delivery method for a short range wireless communication network including a master device and a plurality of slave devices includes selecting, at the master device, one of the slave devices as a primary slave device, assigning a master control to the primary slave device, establishing a communication channel between the master and the slave devices and delivering audio data to the slave devices through the communication channel.
US08045920B2
In an access control device including a lock with a locking element, an actuating element for the locking element, an electronic key, a receiver unit for receiving key identification data and an evaluation circuit for determining access authorization based on the received identification data, the evaluation circuit cooperates with the actuating element and/or the locking element for selectively locking or unlocking the lock. The electronic key includes means for generating a capacitive near field via which the identification data is emitted. Furthermore, a device for coupling the capacitive near field to the person carrying the key is provided. The receiver unit is designed as a device separate from the lock and comprises at least one capacitive coupling surface such that, at a contact of the capacitive coupling surface or an approach of the capacitive coupling surface by said person, an alternating current circuit is closed and an electric flux is created across the receiver unit, which can be detected by the receiver unit.
US08045919B2
An underwater communications system is provided that transmits electromagnetic and/or magnetic signals to a remote receiver. The transmitter includes a data input. A digital data compressor compresses data to be transmitted. A modulator modulates compressed data onto a carrier signal. An electrically insulated, magnetic coupled antenna transmits the compressed, modulated signals. The receiver that has an electrically insulated, magnetic coupled antenna for receiving a compressed, modulated signal. A demodulator is provided for demodulating the signal to reveal compressed data. A de-compressor de-compresses the data. An appropriate human interface is provided to present transmitted data into text/audio/visible form. Similarly, the transmit system comprises appropriate audio/visual/text entry mechanisms.
US08045918B2
A proxy mobile station for retransmitting reverse channel signals from a mobile station to a base station of a wireless network. The proxy mobile station comprises: 1) a controller for receiving reverse channel data to be transmitted to the base station and transmitting the reverse channel data using an assigned mobile station identifier associated with the mobile station; and 2) a radio frequency transceiver for up-converting the encoded reverse channel data for transmission to the base station. The assigned mobile station is modifiable and may be modified by an external control device.
US08045911B2
An image forming apparatus, including an image carrier, a toner image forming section which forms a toner image on the image carrier, a transfer section which transfers the toner image formed on the image carrier to an intermediate transfer member or a recording sheet, a cleaning section which includes a brush and a blade to remove toner particles remaining on the image carrier after the toner image are transferred by the transfer section, and a control section executes a blade cleaning mode in which toner particles having an opposite polarity against the toner particles adhered onto the blade are sent to the cleaning section while an amount of toner particles to be removed by the brush is changed.
US08045905B2
In a belt transfer device according to an embodiment, rotation of a rear side detection roller or a front side detection roller, which contacts with a rib of a transfer belt and is rotated, is converted into linear driving by using a worm gear. The movement of a linear movement shaft is transmitted to a steering roller through a slider. The steering roller is tilted and meandering of the transfer belt is regulated.
US08045897B2
A developing device includes a developer tank configured to contain a developer including a toner and a carrier, the developer tank having a discharge port which is provided in a lateral side surface of the developer tank and configured to discharge the developer, a developing agent supplier configured to develop a latent image by using the toner contained in the developer tank, and a plate-shaped member configured to be formed in a direction of height from a lower end of the discharge port and partially cover the discharge port to regulate the discharge of the developer.
US08045896B2
A developing device includes a developing vessel for storing a developer, a first conveying passage, a second conveying passage, a first conveying member and a second conveying member to supply toner to a photoreceptor drum. The first conveying member includes a first rotary shaft and a first multi-helically structured blade. The first multi-helically structured blade includes a first inner helical blade and ring-shaped first outer helical blade. The first inner helical blade is formed so that the radius of the helical blade varies cyclically. The second helical pitch of the first outer helical blade is smaller than the first helical pitch of the first inner helical blade. The first outer helical blade inscribes the outer periphery of the first inner helical blade at its minimum radius portions.
US08045892B2
A developing unit used in an image forming apparatus with a latent image carrier includes a developer carrier, a supply compartment, a recovery compartment, a separation member, and a gap. The developer carrier facing the latent image carrier rotates while carrying two-component developer containing toner and carrier and supplies the toner to the latent image. The supply compartment includes a supply transport member to transport the developer in a first direction. The recovery compartment includes a recovery transport member to transport the developer in a second direction. The separation member includes one end portion facing the latent image carrier at a facing area. The separation member separates the supply compartment and the recovery compartment and is disposed above the recovery compartment behind the separation member. The gap is provided at the facing area. The gap has a width of not more than 1.4 millimeters.
US08045890B2
An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive body, and a plurality of developing devices to develop a color image on the photosensitive body. The plurality of developing devices include fixed-position developing devices, of which positions relative to the photosensitive body are fixed, and moveable developing devices, of which positions relative to the photosensitive body are changed. Accordingly, the image forming apparatus can be manufactured compactly, by mounting four developing devices, e.g., for yellow, magenta, cyan and black for the color printing such that three developing devices stand by at the respective development positions and one developing device variably moves to the development position so that the photosensitive body is reduced in diameter when compared to a conventional photosensitive body which opposes four developing devices.
US08045888B2
A conveying device conveys a sheet of non-blank recording medium recorded with an image formed in an image forming unit, and includes a container that is detachable and contains a sheet of blank recording medium, a feeding unit that feeds the blank recording medium from the container, and a recirculating path that leads the non-blank recording medium to the feeding unit. The recirculating path is disposed lateral to the image forming unit. A part of the recirculating path is integrated into the container and forms a reversing path that leads to the feeding unit. At least one of surfaces of the reversing path can be exposed.
US08045884B2
An imaging cartridge contains a wastebin and a hopper connected to the wastebin. A flat mounting surface on the wastebin receives a circuit board. A microswitch actuating tab is formed on the body of the imaging cartridge. A hopper is connected to the wastebin in a manner such that the hopper is supported entirely by the wastebin when the imaging cartridge is installed in the imaging cartridge receiving cavity of the imaging machine. The hopper is void of any protrusions adapted to rest on a supporting member in the imaging cartridge receiving cavity of the imaging machine.
US08045882B2
A process roller for use with an imagining cartridge, the process roller including sealing surfaces located at its distal ends. As the process roller rotates, the sealing surfaces of the process roller are sufficiently flexible to conform to the inner side walls of the imaging cartridge, thereby sealing the printing agent inside the imaging cartridge at the distal ends of the process roller.
US08045880B2
A sheet feeding device to feed a sheet in a sheet feeding path is provided. The sheet feeding device includes a plurality of feeding rollers to feed a sheet in the sheet feeding path, and a dust remover unit to remove dust adhered onto a surface of the sheet. The dust remover unit includes a dust absorber roller to absorb dust from a surface of the sheet, a dust remover member arranged to be in contact with a surface of the dust absorber roller to remove the dust from the surface of the dust absorber roller, a conveyer member, arranged to be opposed to the dust remover member, to convey the dust removed by the dust remover member, and a cutter member, arranged in an intervening position between the dust remover roller and the conveyer member, to cut the dust removed by the dust remover member into smaller pieces.
US08045879B2
Disclosed are a method of controlling moisture in an electrophotographic apparatus having a fuser assembly, and corresponding electrophotographic apparatus. The method includes measuring a cavity temperature of an inner portion of the electophotographic apparatus, measuring a cavity relative humidity of an inner portion of the electophotographic apparatus, calculating a cavity dewpoint temperature using the measured cavity temperature and the measured cavity relative humidity, determining a difference between the cavity temperature and the cavity dewpoint temperature, and if the difference between the cavity temperature and the cavity dewpoint temperature drops below a predetermined threshold, turning on a heater device in the fuser assembly to control moisture in the electrophotographic apparatus.
US08045876B2
A fixing device of this invention enables variable control of power to be supplied to a heat roller side or a press roller side in accordance with the temperature of the heat roller and the press roller while each mode is carried out. In a copy mode, the temperature of the heat roller and the press roller is finely controlled. In a copy standby mode, only the power required for maintaining a set temperature is supplied.
US08045874B2
An image forming apparatus includes a control device that calculates a developing ability of the developing device based on a detection value detected by an optical detection device from the plural toner patches. The control device adjusts an image formation condition based on the calculated developing ability. A factor detection device is provided to detect a contributing factor that causes the developing ability to largely change after the last adjustment of the image formation condition. The control device controls image formation such that when the factor detection device does not detect the contribution factor and a developing ability calculated this time is different from that calculated last time (as to a part of the plural toner patches), the plural toner patches are formed based on a prescribed fixed image formation condition so that an attraction amount of toner attracting to the plural toner patches enter a prescribed range detectable for the optical detection device. The remaining toner patches are formed (based on an image formation condition determined) in accordance with the image formation condition previously adjusted. When the detection device detects the contribution factor, the entire toner patches are formed based on the prescribed fixed condition.
US08045865B2
If the device-specific maintenance rate statistics is higher than the average maintenance rate statistics, method embodiments herein alter replacement warning thresholds for components of the device by extending the replacement warning thresholds to produce modified replacement warning thresholds. If the specific device incurs unscheduled maintenance visits more often than average, the embodiments herein extend the replacement warning thresholds for components of the device. The amount that the replacement warning thresholds are extended is different for different parts, and is based on part life, part cost, and part service cost. If the device-specific maintenance rate statistics is lower than the average maintenance rate statistics, method embodiments herein alter replacement warning thresholds for components of the device by shortening the replacement warning thresholds to produce modified replacement warning thresholds. If the specific device incurs unscheduled maintenance visits less often than average, the embodiments herein shorten the replacement warning thresholds for components of the device.
US08045864B2
Disclosed is a method for processing incoming signals of photo-detectors in a visible light communication system. The method includes: dividing symbol duration into divided durations according to an equal time interval to set the divided durations to a plurality of time slots, the symbol duration being a time required to transmit one of a symbol and a bit; receiving visible light signals through a photodiode array in a receiver; determining a gain value of each of the photodiodes during a time slot, in consideration of each photodiode area on the photodiode array during the time slot and the time slot position within the symbol duration; multiplying a gain value of each of the photodiodes by an output value of a corresponding photodiode; and summing up output values of each of the photodiodes by which the gain value has been multiplied and calculating a total of output values of the time slot.
US08045863B2
The present invention provides byte-interleaving systems and methods for Optical Transport Unit N (OTUN) (i.e. Optical Transport Unit 4 (OTU4)) and 100 Gb/s (100 G) optical transport enabling multi-level optical transmission. The byte-interleaving systems and methods of the present invention support the multiplexing of sub-rate clients, such as 10 Gb/s (10 G) clients, 40 Gb/s (40 G) clients, etc., into two 50 Gb/s (50 G) logical flows, for example, that can be forward error correction (FEC) encoded and carried on a single wavelength to provide useful, efficient, and cost-effective 100 G optical transport today. Signaling format support allows these two 50 G logical flows to be forward compatible with an evolving OTU4 and 100 G signaling format without waiting for optical and electronic technology advancement. Signaling format support also allows an evolving standard 100 G logical flow (i.e. OTU4, 100 Gb/s Ethernet (100 GbE), etc.) to be carried as 2×50 G logical flows, 4×25 G logical flows, or other lower rate formats on a single wavelength.
US08045855B2
The present invention provides systems and methods for the mitigation of PMD impairments in fiber optic links. The present invention utilizes synchronous polarization modulation and digital control of polarization modulation, instead of independent polarization modulators and analog control used in the current state of art. Also, the present invention utilizes a feedback loop to avoid identified bad polarization states instead of a random open loop operation. Further, the present invention includes a mechanism to continually update polarization states based on pre-corrected FEC error analysis from data receivers. Additionally, the present invention includes a mechanism for collecting and correlating error feedback signals from multiple geographically-diverse network nodes. Advantageously, the present invention provides a cost-effective and efficient way to implement mitigation of PMD impairments, while using only a small fraction of the FEC error correction capability.
US08045853B2
In one embodiment, techniques provide a mechanism for tracking wavelengths in a DWDM network. In particular, embodiments of the present invention also provide for connection tracking using a slowly modulated pilot tone in a DWDM network without dedicated hardware for the generation and the diction of the tone.
