US08161567B2
Improved techniques to control utilization of accessory devices with electronic devices are disclosed. The improved techniques can use cryptographic approaches to authenticate electronic devices, namely, electronic devices that interconnect and communicate with one another. One aspect pertains to techniques for authenticating an electronic device, such as an accessory device. Another aspect pertains to provisioning software features (e.g., functions) by or for an electronic device (e.g., a host device). Different electronic devices can, for example, be provisioned differently depending on different degrees or levels of authentication, or depending on manufacturer or product basis. Still another aspect pertains to using an accessory (or adapter) to convert a peripheral device (e.g., USB device) into a host device (e.g., USB host). The improved techniques are particularly well suited for electronic devices, such as media devices, that can receive accessory devices. One example of a media device is a media player, such as a hand-held media player (e.g., music player), that can present (e.g., play) media items (or media assets).
US08161564B2
A processing system to serve as a source device for protected digital content comprises a processor and control logic. When used by the processor, the control logic causes the processing system to generate cipher data, based at least in part on (a) a session key and (b) at least one constant value obtained from a certificate authority. The processing system may use the cipher data to encrypt data, and the processing system may transmit the encrypted data to a receiving device via a wireless connection. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08161559B2
Methods, computer networks, and computer program products that reduce the vulnerability of network user devices to security threats include scanning a user device connected to a network to determine whether the user device contains a particular version of an application; downloading the particular version of the application via the network in response to verifying that the user device does not contain the particular version of the application; installing the downloaded application on the user device; scanning the user device for security vulnerabilities; downloading a patch via the network in response to detecting a security vulnerability, wherein the patch is configured to remedy the security vulnerability; and executing the downloaded patch on the user device to remedy the detected security vulnerability.
US08161556B2
A computer-implemented method for determining, in response to an event of interest, whether to perform a real-time file scan by examining the full context of the event of interest may comprise: 1) detecting an event of interest, 2) identifying at least one file associated with the event of interest, 3) accessing contextual metadata associated with the event of interest, 4) accessing at least one rule that comprises criteria for determining, based on the event of interest and the contextual metadata, whether to perform a security scan on the file, and then 5) determining, by applying the rule, whether to perform the security scan on the file. Corresponding systems and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08161544B2
A method to identify a child process to a parent process in an operating system includes obtaining a token and login identifier from the operating system. The parent process creates a remote procedure call communications endpoint to communicate with the child process. Thereafter, a child process is spawned by the parent process. A child-initiated request to communicate with the parent process is then received by the parent process. In order to verify the identity of the child-initiated request, the parent process impersonates the child process and receives as identifier that identifies the requestor child process. The requestor process identifier and the spawned child identifier are compared. Based on the comparison, the parent process responds to the child-initiated request. In another embodiment, process identifiers are used by the parent process to verify the identity of a child process the requests communication with the parent process.
US08161532B2
A system for managing a subscription-based computer independent of an operating system of the computer may include a security module that accesses, decrements, and stores subscription data during operation of the subscription-based computer. Additionally, the system may include a network module in communication with the security module and comprising a network stack, a web server, and a user interface in an operating system independent format. A web browser of the computer may request the user interface from the network stack. The interface may be populated with the subscription data, and a network driver may retrieve the populated user interface from the network module. The populated interface may then be sent to the web server to be served back to the requesting web browser.
US08161527B2
The security enhanced data platform is comprised of two primary subsystems and a host of supporting subsystems. The first primary subsystem is a document management system. A set of client side tools provides the user a way to specify classifications and compartments for selected areas of a document, and a way to save the document in the format required by the system in order to allow the system to enforce the rules and privileges dictated to the system. The second subsystem is a security enhanced database management system. In documents the system allows different user privilege requirements on the document as a whole as well as on pages, paragraphs, sentences, words, and/or letters of a word. A history of document changes is maintained to provide an audit trail after the fact of who did what changes, where those changes were made and when those changes were made.
US08161524B2
A method for extending a secure area in a portable storage device and the portable storage device therefore are provided. The method includes allocating a secure area for storing data to be received within an insecure area, sending position information regarding the secure area allocated within the insecure area to a host device, receiving the position information and data to be stored in the secure area from a secure application of the host device, and encrypting and storing the data in the insecure area based on the position information.
US08161519B2
An advanced multiplexer designed and optimized for next generation on-demand video distribution is described. Features and capabilities include low-latency client interactions, quality of service management, session based encryption management, support for multiple video formats, and support for multiple video decoding standards. Indicators are embedded in new video segments to identify start-of-segment transition points, enabling rapid transitions from one video segment to another. Low-latency operation is achieved by rapid switching, and by coordinating flushing of video buffers and buffer restoration.
US08161514B2
An interactive television program guide system is provided in which a viewer may direct a television to simultaneously display a selected television program and a program guide display. A viewer may use the program guide display to browse available video-on-demand (VOD) while continuing to view a previously selected program in the background. The viewer may browse through video-on-demand programs on the program guide display using a variety of keys on a remote control unit. The viewer may direct the program guide to order a given video-on-demand program; and set a desired broadcast time for that program.
US08161512B2
A method of receiving a broadcast signal including a Non-Real-Time (NRT) Receiver Targeting service is disclosed herein. A method of receiving a broadcast signal including a Non-Real-Time (NRT) Receiver Targeting service, the method comprises receiving broadcast signal including first signaling information and second signaling information, identifying an NRT service based on the first signaling information, parsing a Receiver Targeting Descriptor from the second signaling information, determining validity of the NRT service or an NRT content based on a targeting_criterion_type_code included in the Receiver Targeting Descriptor, and downloading the NRT service or the NRT content when a receiver determines the NRT service or the NRT content to be valid.
US08161511B2
A digital broadcast receiver and a control method thereof are disclosed. The digital broadcast receiver includes a reception unit for receiving a broadcast signal which mobile service data and main service data are multiplexed, an extractor for extracting transmission parameter channel signaling information and fast information channel signaling information from a data group in the received mobile service data, an acquirer for acquiring a program table describing virtual channel information and a service of an ensemble, using the extracted fast information channel signaling information, the ensemble being a virtual channel group of the received mobile service data, a detector for detecting a descriptor defining additional information of an image file, using the acquired program table, and a controller for controlling such that the image file is displayed, based on the additional information of the detected descriptor.
US08161502B2
Method and apparatus for implementing a task-based interface in a logic verification system is described. In some examples, a task server and a context memory are implemented in a hardware accelerator for a task. The task server is configured for communication with the logic design. A task stub configured for execution by a computer for the task is generated. Calls to the task are received from a test bench in the computer at the task stub. Remote procedure call (RPC) channels are established in response to the calls. Values of input arguments for the calls are transferred to the context memory through the RPC channels. Execution of threads of the task in the task server is triggered using the values of the input arguments in the context memory as parametric input.
US08161497B2
An improved hold-off algorithm that assures that all data associated with all trigger events in a data signal are displayed uses a designated interval starting with a first trigger event to determine whether any subsequent trigger events occurred within the designated interval. A first display frame is drawn based upon the first trigger event. A next display frame is drawn based either on a next trigger event that occurs outside the designated interval, or based on the last trigger event that occurred within the designated interval. In the latter case the two display frames provide an overlap to assure that no data related to the trigger events is lost on the display.
US08161488B2
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for propagating resources during a distributed build process. Subscription of interest is registered in resources needed during a distributed build process. Build data is analyzed to determine what resources will be needed. The subscriptions of interest are stored in a data store that is accessible by all build machines participating in the distributed build process. A status of subscriptions of interest is monitored in the data store. When the status of respective subscriptions of interest indicates that a publication notice was registered for a respective resource, the respective resource is retrieved from a machine that contains the resource. When a new resource is created that is needed by other build machines, a publication notification is registered with the data store so the other build machines can determine that the new resource is now available.
US08161487B2
A controller for controlling a logical resource of a storage system comprises a virtual resource preparation section for preparing a virtual resource which is a virtual logical resource, and a real resource assignment section that assigns a real resource which is a logical resource of a real entity to the prepared virtual resource. One or more backup resources which are virtual resources that have not yet been used by a higher-level section that is on a higher level than the controller are prepared by the virtual resource preparation section for one or more of the higher-level section.
US08161484B2
A system for preventing deadlock in a distributed computing system includes a memory and at least one processor coupled to the memory. The processor is operative: to receive as input a sorted set of containers defining a unique global sequence of containers for servicing process requests; to populate at least one table based at least in part on off-line analysis of call graphs defining corresponding transactions for a given order of the containers in the sorted set; to store within each container at least a portion of the at least one table; and to allocate one or more threads in a given container according to at least a portion of the at least one table stored within the given container.
US08161471B2
A method and apparatus for optimizing required memory of an embedded system. The method may include identifying one or more applications to be installed on a target embedded system, and estimating the amount of memory required for the operation of the embedded system. The method may further include comparing the estimated amount of the required memory with the amount of memory available on the embedded system.
US08161467B2
A compiler includes a register allocator for allocating registers for instructions in a program to be compiled, and a code generator for generating object code based on the register allocation results performed by the register allocator. The register allocator allocates logical registers for instructions in the program to be compiled. The register allocation further allocates, to physical registers, the logical registers that are allocated to the instructions of the program, so that the physical registers that are live at a procedure call in the program to be compiled are allocated from the bottom of the register stack.
US08161466B2
Provided is a method of pre-processing a conditional region. By analyzing and designating code lines according to the present invention, when a conditional region included in a pre-processing region of an arbitrary file is compiled, the compiling can be efficiently performed, and when the arbitrary file is executed, an execution result can be derived in a short time.
US08161465B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates performing conditional compilation. The system operates by analyzing programming language source code prior to compilation to locate a preprocessing directive that specifies a condition to be evaluated, and also identifies source code to be conditionally included during compilation of the source code. Next, the system generates evaluation source code that evaluates the condition. The system then evaluates the condition by evaluating ordinary programming language and environmental variables within the evaluation source code. Note that the run-time variables are also available at run-time during execution of a compiled version of the original source code. Next, the system conditionally includes source code associated with a result of the evaluation and compiles the revised source code. Finally, the system records the use of any variables during condition evaluation in a persistent manner and automatically restarts the entire processing if any of the recorded variables may have been changed subsequent to the original compilation.
US08161443B2
A sensitivity analysis system has a memory device in which an interconnect structure data indicating an interconnect structure included in a semiconductor device is stored. The interconnect structure has: a main interconnection; and a contact structure electrically connected to the main interconnection and extending toward a semiconductor substrate. Parameters contribute to parasitic capacitance of the interconnect structure, and variation of each parameter from a design value caused by manufacturing variability is represented within a predetermined range. The sensitivity analysis system further has: a parameter setting unit that sets the variation to a plurality of conditions within the predetermined range; a capacitance calculation unit that calculates the parasitic capacitance of the interconnect structure in each of the plurality of conditions; and a sensitivity analysis unit that analyzes, based on the calculated parasitic capacitance, response of the parasitic capacitance to variation of the each parameter.
US08161440B2
A computer software product is provided. The product includes a computer-readable medium in which computer program instructions are stored, which instructions, when read by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method for functional verification of a design, having an operational space comprising the steps of accepting as an input a test template that specifies test parameters directed to a function of the design, the template comprising constraints and variables covering a working space within the operational space, associating an exemption mode of operation with at least one of the constraints or at least one of the variables, wherein a domain of the at least one of the variables is modified or the at least one of the constraints is disabled in the exemption mode of operation, producing a test case that lies in the operational space of the design by enabling the exemption mode of operation, the test case comprising a series of transactions originating from the template, wherein the transactions exercise the function of the design, wherein the working space is modified in the exemption mode of operation and submitting the test case for execution by the design, wherein the exemption mode of operation is associated with only a portion of the template.
US08161427B2
A complementary logic circuit contains a first logic input, a second logic input, a first dedicated logic terminal, a second dedicated logic terminal, a first logic block, and a second logic block. The first logic block consists of a network of p-type transistors for implementing a predetermined logic function. The p-type transistor network has an outer diffusion connection, a first network gate connection, and an inner diffusion connection. The outer diffusion connection of the p-type transistor network is connected to the first dedicated logic terminal, and the first network gate connection of the p-type transistor network is connected to the first logic input. The second logic block consists of a network of n-type transistors which implements a logic function complementary to the logic function implemented by the first logic block. The n-type transistor network has an outer diffusion connection, a first network gate connection, and an inner diffusion connection. The outer diffusion connection of the n-type transistor network is connected to the second dedicated logic terminal, and the first network gate connection of the n-type transistor network is connected to the second logic input. The inner diffusion connections of the p-type network and of the n-type network are connected together to form a common diffusion logic terminal.
US08161423B1
An apparatus and method for optical lithography verification includes filtering a lithography simulation of proposed sub-lightwave pattern formations during at feast one design phase or manufacturing phase of an article of manufacture having sub-lightwave structures and then detecting design phase or manufacturing phase defects in response to the filtering of the lithography simulation.
US08161416B2
Various embodiments include apparatus, methods, and systems for column navigation within a view of a table or other source of two-dimensional data. Various embodiments include method comprising displaying a first column of data from a plurality of columns of data included in table and having one or more rows across each of the plurality of columns of data, displaying a second column of data from of the plurality of columns of data directly beside the first column of data so that the one or more rows in the second column of data align with the same one or more rows in the first column and displaying with the second column of data a symbol that when actuated provides an overview menu including a list of selectable columns of data included in the plurality of columns of data included in the table.
US08161414B2
A method, system, and computer program products are provided for updating the location of a cursor in a display window on a trading screen when certain events occurs. In a preferred embodiment, as market conditions change, the market information may be rearranged on a screen. To reduce the chances of missing a market opportunity by sending orders or managing them, the cursor moves in association with the market information such that the cursor appears fixed to the market information until a user moves the pointer device.
US08161410B2
A method, in one embodiment, of displaying items arranged in a hierarchy, the hierarchy having predetermined levels and divisions. The method comprising: displaying divisions of a first level of the hierarchy along a first direction; and displaying the items on a plane in perspective view, each item arranged at a position corresponding to the division with which it is associated in a respective second direction at an angle to the first direction. It is preferred that each of the items has associated with it a value, such as a time value, that can be represented on a scale. The divisions of the first level of the hierarchy are first units of the scale, such as years, and the items are arranged at positions corresponding to their value with respect to the first units.
US08161409B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for using rewritable sheets. In one embodiment, the method comprises representing a first collection of media objects using a first sheet having a first identifier and a first graphical content representing the media objects, creating a second collection of media objects from the first collection of media objects, and re-marking the first sheet to include a second identifier and to have a second graphical content representing the second collection of media objects.
US08161399B2
An automated learning system for improving graphical user interfaces. Information about a user transaction which caused an error is obtained from an input to an element in a graphical user interface. Associations are created between the error and one or more elements in the graphical user interface which generated the error to form association rules. The association rules are applied to a set of control rules to create user interface preference rules. A corrective action may then be performed on the one or more elements in the graphical user interface according to the user interface preference rules.
US08161395B2
A method and device for entering data in an application is disclosed. The method may comprise displaying a graphical user interface (GUI) keyboard within the application, the keyboard comprising multiple identifier keys. A detection module may monitor the position of a pointer of a pointing device in relation to the multiple identifier keys and detects that the pointer of the pointing device has been positioned over one of the multiple identifier keys for a predetermined period of time, thereby detecting the selection of the identifier key. In response to detecting the selection, data associated with the selected identifier key may be generated and indication data representative of the generated data may be displayed in a data field.
US08161390B2
A display apparatus is designed for displaying formation of a network on a screen. The network is composed of a plurality of nodes and is capable of transferring either of musical performance information and an audio signal through communication paths connecting the plurality of the nodes. In the display apparatus, an acquiring section acquires a type of each node and an arrangement of the communication paths arranged among the nodes for transmitting and receiving the musical performance information and the audio signal. An allocating section allocates a display area to each node within the screen according to the acquired type of each node. A drawing section draws a plurality of index images indicating the respective nodes on the screen at the display areas allocated to the respective nodes, and draws lines connecting the displayed index images of the nodes on the screen according to the acquired arrangement of the communication paths.
US08161382B2
Provided is a method of providing font services by using an item server and a service server, including: the item server maintaining font providing information including font information and area information associated with the font information, for each user in a user database; the service server maintaining service page database including text associated with each area of the service page associated with the user; the service server receiving the font providing information associated with the user from the item server; generating the service page in which a text image, corresponding to the text associated with a certain area of the service page and generated according to the font information associated with the certain area, is displayed in the certain area, based on the received font providing information; and providing the generated service page by transmitting to a user terminal.
US08161381B2
A system and method for presenting message threads is provided. A main body and one or more excerpts are parsed from each of a plurality of messages into nodes structured to form a message tree through a procedural top-down recursive descent. The nodes in the message tree are related by determining line-group types for the main body and the excerpts of each message, which are enumerated into partitions for each of the line-group types. An output network of alternative paths through the messages is created based upon the partitions of the message tree. A document is formed from the output network to identify and remove redundant components in each message.
US08161379B2
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for fitting and filling pictures in documents. A selection is received from a user to perform a fill or fit to placeholder operation to insert a picture into a placeholder. A visible image area is calculated which determines what portion of the picture will appear in the placeholder. The user is able to slide the picture back and forth within the placeholder until a desired crop is achieved. The picture is cropped so that the placeholder is kept intact and original aspect ratios of the placeholder and picture are both preserved. When a rotation of the placeholder is different than a rotation of the picture being inserted, then an axis-aligned bounding box is calculated for the picture or the placeholder to complete the fit or fill operation.
US08161376B2
A method for transforming a heterogeneous compound document to a desired format based on a prescribed model is provided. The method comprises the steps of: (i) specifying the components of the heterogeneous compound document as a hierarchical tree structure in multiple formats and specifying the input sources of information for each of the components as part of the model; verifying and composing the heterogeneous compound document using a modeling language parser and a document composer by dynamically obtaining input information from the sources specified in the model and (iii) converting the input compound document to the desired format using the document composer. A system for performing the abovementioned method is also provided.
US08161374B2
A method for multi-dimensional performance analysis may be provided. A plurality of data may be displayed in a butterfly diagram comprising a data grid, a histogram associated with column sorting criteria, and a histogram associated with row-sorting criteria. Additional information depth may be provided with conditional formatting of the cells of the data grid.
US08161366B2
A method and system for using a magnitude comparator circuit and a flag bit, for detecting and preventing errors from occurring in the FSM state bits that could otherwise cause the system to hang. Preferably, the flag bit is set with all the valid state transitions, and a magnitude comparator is used to continuously monitor the value of the current state bits. When a FSM state transition occurs based on the flag bit and the output of the magnitude comparator, a potential error condition can be detected and the FSM transition can be blocked or the FSM can be safely transitioned into a predetermined “reset state”.
US08161350B2
A communication method and a communication system including a first entity (3) including an information source (9) and a coder device (11) connected by a channel (7) transmitting data to a second entity (5) including a decoder device (13), the coder device (11) coding a data sequence sent by the information source (9) to form a set of code words from a parity check matrix including two matrix areas, each matrix area including a processing matrix, a connecting matrix including only one “1” per column and only one “1” per row, and a triangular matrix, and the decoder device (13) decoding a coded reception signal that is received by the second entity and is derived from the set of code words constructed in accordance with said parity check matrix.
US08161347B1
A method of satisfying a specified run length constraint is disclosed. A systematically error correction encoded sequence of received symbols is received, wherein the received symbols include data symbols and parity symbols. The parity symbols are interleaved with the data symbols to produce interleaved symbols that satisfy the specified run length constraint.
US08161341B2
A method of transmitting control information in a wireless communication system and transmission window updating method using the same are disclosed, by which transmission efficiency in a transmitting side can be enhanced. The present invention includes the steps of receiving a first control information block including a first status report information from a receiving side, the first status information providing reception acknowledge information for a plurality of data blocks transmitted to the receiving side, receiving a second control information block including a second status report information placed as a last status report information in the second control information block, and updating the transmission window using the reception acknowledge information in the first status report information.
US08161340B2
An apparatus and method for recording and/or reproducing data on a disc are provided using padding information, and a corresponding information storage medium. The recording method includes recording a recording unit block in which invalid data is padded in part of the block and recording padding information indicating that the invalid data is included. According to the method, a disc drive becomes able to distinguish valid data from invalid data in an error correction block such that reliability of reproduction increases and stability of the system is improved.
US08161334B1
Disclosed is a system comprising a memory device, a controller to maintain remap information regarding the memory device, and a storage unit to store the maintained remap information, wherein the storage unit is external to the memory device and the controller.
US08161329B2
Random sequences are generated based on a stochastic generative model having multiple random variates. Inputs representative of the stochastic generative model are received. The inputs include a first random variate having a finite set of alphabets, a second random variate having a set of alphabets, and a third random variate having a finite set of alphabets. Outputs representative of the random sequences are generated based on the stochastic generative model. The outputs include a first random sequence that is a finite-length random sequence of alphabets randomly selected from the first random variate, a second random sequence having a set of alphabets selected from the second random variate, and a third random sequence having a set of alphabets randomly selected from the third random variate.
US08161323B2
Techniques for proactively and reactively running diagnostic functions. These diagnostic functions help to improve diagnostics of conditions detected in a monitored system and to limit/quarantine the damages caused by the detected conditions. In one embodiment, a health monitor infrastructure is provided that is configured to perform one or more health checks in a monitored system for diagnosing and/or gathering information related to the system. The one or more health checks may be invoked pro-actively on a scheduled basis, reactively in response to a condition detected in the system, or may even be invoked manually by a user such as a system administrator.
US08161318B2
Systems and methods are described for service availability that provides automated recovery of server service in a timely and application intelligent manner, maintaining application consistency and integrity, while preserving server identity. The systems and methods, referred to herein as a Service Preservation System (SPS), manage complete recovery of server data and preserve continuity of server service, reestablishing user access to server(s) after an event or disaster in which in which primary or other server(s) fail. The failures, disasters, and losses referred to herein can be at many levels and include, but are not limited to, accidental deletion of an item, loss of an entire mailbox, loss of an entire disk drive, loss of an entire server, and/or loss of an entire server site.
US08161311B2
An apparatus and method for fault-tolerant and spread spectrum clocking. In one embodiment a master clock synthesizer circuit generates an output clock signal of varying frequency within a predetermined range of frequencies. A slave clock synthesizer circuit is provided to track the output clock signal generated by the master clock synthesizer circuit. If the master clock synthesizer circuit fails or generates an invalid output clock signal, the slave clock synthesizer circuit takes over and functions as the master clock synthesizer circuit. In one embodiment a method of fault-tolerant spread spectrum clocking includes generating a first digital data stream; receiving the first digital data stream, a first input reference signal and a first clock signal in a master clock synthesizer circuit; generating an first output clock signal of varying frequency by the master clock synthesizer circuit in response to the first digital data stream and the first clock signal.
US08161308B2
A circuit includes: an input buffer for storing input data; a plurality of processing sections connected in series including a head processing section and a tail-end processing section to sequentially process the input data; and a power supply controller for controlling power supply to each of the plurality of processing sections depending on a lapse of time during which no input data is stored in the input buffer.
US08161307B2
Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for reducing power consumption while synchronizing a plurality of compute nodes during execution of a parallel application that include: beginning, by each compute node, performance of a blocking operation specified by the parallel application, each compute node beginning the blocking operation asynchronously with respect to the other compute nodes; reducing, for each compute node, power to one or more hardware components of that compute node in response to that compute node beginning the performance of the blocking operation; and restoring, for each compute node, the power to the hardware components having power reduced in response to all of the compute nodes beginning the performance of the blocking operation.
US08161295B2
Method for storing data in the memory (1.2) of an electronic device (1), wherein the data to be stored is encrypted with an encryption key (Ks). The electronic device (1) is provided with an identification card (2) equipped with a cryptographic algorithm and an individual identifier (ID). In the electronic device (1), at least one seed value (RAND1, RAND2, RAND3) is generated, and the at least one seed value is transmitted to the identification card (2). The cryptographic algorithm is performed on the identification card (2), with the seed value (RAND1, RAND2, RAND3) being used as the input, wherein at least one derived value (Kc1, Kc2, Kc3) is produced in the algorithm. The at least one derived value (Kc1, Kc2, Kc3) is transmitted to the electronic device (1), wherein the at least one derived value (Kc1, Kc2, Kc3) is used in the formation of the encryption key (Ks). The invention also relates to an electronic device (1), module, and computer software product.
US08161294B2
A method of protecting an executable program from reverse engineering and/or tampering. The method includes receiving a copy of the executable program together with a debug database, the database storing the locations of functional blocks within the executable program. A protection code is inserted into the executable program so as to overwrite at least part of a functional block of the executable program. Subsequent execution of the functional block causes the protection code to be executed. The protection code, when executed, performs an operation and executes a copy of the overwritten part of the functional block.
US08161288B2
A user access security subsystem of a computer information database system utilizes computer grouping criteria and user type criteria to control user access to both computer profile data and system administrative features. Computer grouping criteria determine profile data access for the respective users. User type criteria determine which administrative features are accessible to the respective users, thus what administrative authority is delegated to the users. Combining computer grouping and user type criteria restricts a given user to exercising the delegated administrative authority only with respect to the particular grouping of computers to which the user has been granted access through the associated login group. To maintain access security, a given user may grant to another only those access rights that are equal to or more restrictive than the given user's rights. The subsystem enforces access restrictions by tailoring the user interface based on the associated login group and user type.
US08161286B2
A method for applying a digital watermark to a content signal is disclosed. In accordance with such a method, a watermarking key is identified. The watermarking key includes a binary sequence and information describing application of that binary sequence to the content signal. The digital watermark is then encoded within the content signal at one or more locations determined by the watermarking key.
US08161279B2
A digital certificate is provided to a customer having an electronic account linked to the customer's physical address. Using the digital certificate, the customer performs electronic transactions with a third party. A proofing workstation receives a request from a third party to validate the digital certificate. The proofing workstation communicates with a proofing server that maintains a list of valid certificates and a list of revoked certificates. The proofing server sends a response to the proofing workstation, where it is received by the third party.
US08161272B2
The memory unit is compatible with a plurality of operation modes. The plurality of operation modes include the normal mode allowing access and the standby mode consuming a lower power than the normal mode. The branch detection section detects a branch instruction from an instruction fetched from the memory unit by the CPU. The mode control section changes an operation mode of the memory unit according to a detection result by the branch detection section.
US08161268B2
Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for performing an allreduce operation on a plurality of compute nodes of a parallel computer. Each compute node includes at least two processing cores. Each processing core has contribution data for the allreduce operation. Performing an allreduce operation on a plurality of compute nodes of a parallel computer includes: establishing one or more logical rings among the compute nodes, each logical ring including at least one processing core from each compute node; performing, for each logical ring, a global allreduce operation using the contribution data for the processing cores included in that logical ring, yielding a global allreduce result for each processing core included in that logical ring; and performing, for each compute node, a local allreduce operation using the global allreduce results for each processing core on that compute node.
US08161267B2
Hardware and software techniques for interrupt detection and response in a scalable pipelined array processor environment are described. Utilizing these techniques, a sequential program execution model with interrupts can be maintained in a highly parallel scalable pipelined array processing containing multiple processing elements and distributed memories and register files. When an interrupt occurs, interface signals are provided to all PEs to support independent interrupt operations in each PE dependent upon the local PE instruction sequence prior to the interrupt. Processing/element exception interrupts are supported and low latency interrupt processing is also provided for embedded systems where real time signal processing is required. Further, a hierarchical interrupt structure is used allowing a generalized debug approach using debut interrupts and a dynamic debut monitor mechanism.
US08161256B2
A remote copy system includes: a host computer; a first storage system connected to the host computer; and a second storage apparatus connected to the first storage system. At least one of the first storage system and the second storage system holds, in a storage part thereof, path information used for performing a remote copy of data therebetween. The host computer references the path information in the storage part; determines whether or not a path required for conducting an operation instructed by a user exists, based on at least one of a type of the remote copy and a direction of the path; and, if the required path does not exist, displays, on a display part, that the necessary path does not exist and why the necessary path does not exist.
US08161255B2
One aspect of the present invention includes an optimized simultaneous storage operation for data objects onto a combination of deduplicated and non-deduplicated storage pools. In one embodiment, a data object is provided for storage onto destination storage pools in a storage management system, and placed into a source buffer. The data object is first divided into data chunks if the data object has not previously been chunked within the storage management system. The data object is then simultaneously copied from the source buffer to each destination storage pool (deduplicating and non-deduplicating) with the following operation. If the destination pool utilizes deduplication, then the individual data chunks are only transferred if copies of the individual data chunks do not already exist on the destination storage pool. If the destination pool does not utilize deduplication, then all chunks of the data object are transferred to the destination storage pool.
US08161248B2
A method and apparatus for managing coherence between two processors of a two processor node of a multi-processor computer system. Generally the present invention relates to a software algorithm that simplifies and significantly speeds the management of cache coherence in a message passing parallel computer, and to hardware apparatus that assists this cache coherence algorithm. The software algorithm uses the opening and closing of put/get windows to coordinate the activated required to achieve cache coherence. The hardware apparatus may be an extension to the hardware address decode, that creates, in the physical memory address space of the node, an area of virtual memory that (a) does not actually exist, and (b) is therefore able to respond instantly to read and write requests from the processing elements.
US08161245B2
A method and apparatus for performing data prefetch in a multiprocessor system are disclosed. The multiprocessor system includes multiple processors, each having a cache memory. The cache memory is subdivided into multiple slices. A group of prefetch requests is initially issued by a requesting processor in the multiprocessor system. Each prefetch request is intended for one of the respective slices of the cache memory of the requesting processor. In response to the prefetch requests being missed in the cache memory of the requesting processor, the prefetch requests are merged into one combined prefetch request. The combined prefetch request is then sent to the cache memories of all the non-requesting processors within the multiprocessor system. In response to a combined clean response from the cache memories of all the non-requesting processors, data are then obtained for the combined prefetch request from a system memory.
US08161244B2
A first portion of an identifier can be used to assign the identifier to a slot in a first directory. The identifier can identify a cache unit in a cache. It can be determined whether assignment of the identifier to the slot in the first directory will result in the identifier and one or more other identifiers being assigned to the same slot in the first directory. If so, then the technique can include (1) using a second portion of the identifier to assign the identifier to a slot in a second directory; and (2) assigning the one or more other identifiers to one or more slots in the second directory. In addition, it can be determined whether a directory in a cache lookup data structure includes more than one pointer. If not, then a parent pointer that points to the subject directory can be removed.
US08161233B2
A computer system and process restores files on multiple disk drives from a plurality of backup files on a plurality of media types and at a plurality of locations. The system receives at a processor a restore command, and partitions the restore command into two or more sub-jobs. The system determines a location for each of the plurality of media types, and matches each sub-job with a different media type at a different location. The system then restores the files from each different media type at a different location to the multiple disk drives in parallel.
US08161215B2
A system including a network interface module, a first processor, a hard disk control module, and a second processor. The network interface module is configured to communicate with a network. The first processor is configured to communicate with the network interface module and perform processing related to communication of a hard disk drive with the network via the network interface module. The hard disk control module is configured to communicate with the first processor and control operation of the hard disk drive. The second processor is configured to communicate with the hard disk control module and perform processing related to storing data on the hard disk drive. The second processor and the hard disk control module are configured to process packets communicated via the network interface module using a hyper-text transfer protocol, a peer-to-peer sharing protocol, and an Internet protocol-based small computer system interface standard.
US08161213B2
A storage medium connectable with an external device includes a data communication unit performing data communication with the external device, a data storing unit storing therein data received from and/or to be sent to the external device via the data communication unit, a first device information output unit sending first device information for making the external device recognize the storage medium as a storage to the external device via the data communication unit, and a second device information output unit sending second device information for making the external device recognize the storage medium as a printer to the external device via the data communication unit. When the data communication unit receives print data transmitted by the external device in cases where the second device information is sent, the data storing unit stores the print data in a state readable externally via the data communication unit.
US08161211B2
The present invention aims for efficient use of storage capacity in a storage system by reducing the amount of time taken for processing including removing redundancy and data compression executed with respect to transferred data.Focusing on data patterns included in transferred data, the most suitable pattern is detected, and de-duplication processing is gradually executed. Data compression is then executed with data after de-duplication as a target. Determination of the decision for execution of gradual de-duplication processing, or execution of compression processing is made depending on the amount of data remaining at each processing stage and the system load.
US08161200B2
In one general aspect, methods and devices for use with multiple communications protocols automatically determine which communications protocol to use when connected to a system bus. Signals transmitted on the system bus are monitored to determine what communications protocol the system bus is using. After determining which communications protocol the system is using, a compatible communications protocol is selected from one of several communications protocols stored in a device's memory. As a result, a user may connect a device to the system bus without having to determine which communications protocol is used by the system bus. Furthermore, suppliers may stock a single type of device that is compatible with multiple communications protocols reducing overhead associated with stocking devices. In addition, a device may be switched between systems without regard to the communications protocol of the device or system.
US08161195B2
Synchronization of two or more items can be optimized through the use of parallel execution of synchronization tasks and adaptable processing that monitors and adjusts for system loading. Two or more synchronization tasks required to be performed for an item can, if not inherently serial in nature, be performed in parallel, optimizing synchronization of the item. Even if multiple synchronization tasks required for one item must be serially executed, e.g., download the item prior to translating the item, these synchronization tasks can be executed in parallel for different items, optimizing a download request involving two or more items. Moreover, multiple threads for one or more synchronization tasks can be concurrently executed when supportable by the current operating system resources. Rules can be established to ensure synchronization activity is not degraded by the overextension of system resources.
US08161189B2
A method for providing a UICC embedded in a wireless Mobile Equipment (ME) with an operator DNS IP address in a Wireless communication Network, said method comprising the following steps: defining a specific Mobile Equipment (ME) event that the UICC may monitor, defining a new data structure that will comprise the DNS IP address to be sent to the UICC, registering the UICC to said event via predefined Setup Event List proactive command, generating said specific event by said ME when a PDP context is activated between the ME and the Network, including the DNS IP address in said new data structure, sending said new data structure (including the DNS IP address) from the ME to the UICC via a new Envelop command when said generated event occurs.
US08161188B2
Disclosed are devices and methods for providing network access control utilizing traffic-regulation hardware, the device including: at least one client-side port for operationally connecting to a client system; at least one network-side port for operationally connecting to a network; a logic module for regulating network traffic, based on device-related data, between the ports, the logic module including: a memory unit for storing and loading the device-related data; and a CPU for processing the device-related data; and at least one relay, between at least one respective client-side port and at least one respective network-side port, configured to open upon receiving a respective network-access-denial command from the logic module. Preferably, the logic module is configured to maintain an open-relay line-rate when at least one relay is open, and to maintain a closed-relay line-rate when at least one relay is closed.
US08161180B1
A method and apparatus for routing a data stream through a plurality of data movers independent of a network interface type is provided. In one embodiment, the method for routing the data stream to a destination with indifference to network interface type includes segregating the data stream into a plurality of data blocks at an application layer, wherein the plurality of data blocks are to be routed to a destination through the plurality of data movers and coordinating data path selection for communicating the plurality of data blocks to the plurality of data movers over a plurality of data paths.
US08161177B2
Formulating multimedia content of an on-line interview, including transmitting during the on-line interview, over a data communications network from a first client device to a second client device, a media stream of content from an interviewee; simultaneously with the transmitting of the media stream from the interviewee, recording the media stream from the interviewee in a media file on the first client device; recording during the on-line interview in a media file on the second client device, a media stream of content from an interviewer; transmitting after the on-line interview, from the first client device to the second client device, the media file containing the recorded media stream from the interviewee; and merging the recorded media files into a single media file on the second client device for transmission to viewers of the on-line interview.
US08161174B1
A method and system are provided to derive time attributes for a device. An embodiment of the method includes obtaining a time attribute based on a device-mode and a corresponding time attribute based on a device-location. The corresponding time attributes are compared. Upon comparison, if the time attribute based on a device-mode differs from the time attribute based on a device-location, an update indication to modify the first time attribute to conform with the second time attribute is communicated.
US08161171B2
Video on demand (VoD) and other video streaming and delivery mechanisms are provided using a messaging protocol (e.g., a session initiation protocol (SIP))-based approach that builds upon existing service delivery platforms. In one example, SIP functionality is extended to provide the ability to control and alter a delivery mode of a content stream, such as to change a playback mode or quality of service, by providing such requests as part of the instruction or payload of existing SIP messages, or by providing new SIP messages. Using SIP allows for third party control, such as by IPTV applications, which is not provided by current Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)-based systems. SIP also can establish a peer-to-peer connection between a client and a SIP-enabled content server to allow the client to directly control the media stream. As an advantage over RTSP, SIP provides for bi-directional messaging between SIP endpoints.
US08161164B2
Services of a multi-tier application can authorize (e.g., including authenticating) each other with one or more service access tokens provided by a security token service. In one implementation, an end-user can authenticate with the security token service to obtain one or more security tokens for communicating with an upstream application service. Requests that involve further processing from downstream services of the application can also involve service authorization/authentication measures. Thus, the upstream application service can also authenticate with the security token service to obtain one or more security tokens, such as a session token, and a service access token. The service access token for the upstream service can also include one or more signed policy settings. The upstream service can then use the one or more security tokens to prove authority to communicate with a downstream service in accordance with the policy settings.
US08161163B2
A stateless distributed computer architecture allows state-caching objects, which hold server state information, to be maintained on a client or network rather than on a server. In one implementation, the computer architecture implements object-oriented program modules according to a distributed component object model (DCOM). Using an object-oriented network protocol (e.g., remote procedure call), a client-side application calls through an application program interface (API) to a program object residing at a server computer. The program object, responsive to the call, creates a state caching object that contains state information pertaining to the client connection. The server inserts the state-caching object into a local thread context and processes the request to generate a reply. The server subsequently attaches the state-caching object to the reply and returns them both to the client. The client stores the state-caching object for later communication with the server.
US08161160B2
Techniques for XML (Extensible Markup Language) web feeds for web access of remote resources are described. In one embodiment, a method includes obtaining information regarding one or more available resources from one or more resource hosts, rendering the information regarding one or more available resources into an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document, and providing the XML document to a user device.
US08161153B2
A method, system, and program product for communicating with machines and end users connected to a network. Information sent to or from the machines is transmitted using electronic mail or a via a direct connection. The electronic mail may be transmitted over the Internet to a service center or from a service center to a resource administrator, but also may remain within a local or wide area network for transmission between a machine and an end user or a resource administrator. E-mail messages may be transmitted from a computer which is attached to a device which is being monitored or controlled and include information regarding the status, usage or capabilities of the attached device. The device may send status messages and usage information of the device by an end user to either a resource administrator or to a service center on the Internet through a firewall. The message may be sent directly to the resource administrator station if an urgent need of the end user is indicated, so that a communication may be sent either directly to the end user or to a device driver so that the device driver may communicate the message to the end user. For example, an end user may have exceeded a predetermined limit of resource usage, and needs to be informed. For routine information, the service center may manage all the resources on an intranet and may send predetermined types of information such as summary information regarding usage of network resources to the end user using e-mail.
US08161138B2
A replication system rapidly switches from a normal-system site to a standby-system site in the event of a problem and reliably maintains functions, and moreover, reduces drops in performance. A first site provides system functions that accompany writing and reading of data. A relay transfer device receives update information from the first site, causes completion of processes for replication in the first site, and continuously executes processes for successively transferring the update information to a second site. The second site receives the update information of the first site and applies this update information to itself to retain a replica of the data of the first site. If, when executing a write request command or a read request command to provide at least a portion of the system functions, the second site has not yet retained the most recent data that are the target of the command, the second site acquires the necessary update information and then executes the command.
US08161131B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for delivering dynamic media content to collaborators. Embodiments include providing collaborative event media content, wherein the collaborative event media content includes a grammar and a structured document; providing data identifying a client's location; storing, in the context server in a data structure comprising a dynamic client context for the client, the data identifying the client's location; detecting an event in dependence upon the dynamic client context; identifying one or more collaborators in dependence upon the dynamic client context and the event; and selecting from the structured document a classified structural element in dependence upon an event type and a collaborator classification; and transmitting the selected structural element to the collaborator. In many embodiments, detecting an event in dependence upon the dynamic client context includes detecting a change in a value of a data element in the dynamic client context, and applying event detection rules base to the dynamic client context.
US08161127B2
A method of mapping processes to processors in a parallel computing environment where a parallel application is to be run on a cluster of nodes wherein at least one of the nodes has multiple processors sharing a common memory, the method comprising using compiler based communication analysis to map Message Passing Interface processes to processors on the nodes, whereby at least some more heavily communicating processes are mapped to processors within nodes. Other methods, apparatus, and computer readable media are also provided.
US08161118B2
Methods, systems, and machine-readable media are disclosed for soliciting and facilitating a response to an electronic communication. According to one embodiment, a method of soliciting and facilitating a response to an electronic communication can comprise receiving from an originator a request for the electronic communication with one or more recipients. Based on the request, a determination can be made as to whether to solicit a response from the one or more recipients. In response to determining to solicit a response from the one or more recipients, one or more possible responses to the electronic communication can be determined, at least one message that includes the one or more possible responses can be generated, and the at least one message can be sent to the one or more recipients to initiate the communication.
US08161117B2
Methods, systems, and machine-readable mediums are disclosed for creating multimedia messaging service (MMS) messages. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving a message in a first format, adapting the message to a MMS message, and sending the MMS message to a user device.
US08161116B2
A method and system for forwarding information such as data files to a recipient across disparate or incompatible communication networks, which are not constrained by incompatible user devices. The sender sends information such as a data file to an intended recipient via a messaging server. The messaging server communicates with the intended recipient using basic communication tools that are generally compatible regardless of the network that the recipient is subscribed to. The messaging server stores the information, creates and sends a notification message to the intended recipient that she has information to be retrieved. The notification message includes a unique access address associated with the message, at which the recipient can retrieve the information. Different unique access addresses are associated with different messages.
US08161107B2
Technologies for roaming personal information items across multiple computing devices using an IMAP server are provided. When a change is detected to a personal information item maintained by a PIM program one computing device, the data representing the personal information item is uploaded from the computing device to an IMAP server, where it is stored as a message in a user mailbox designated to hold personal information items. A second computing device then downloads the message storing the data representing the personal information item from the IMAP server and makes it available to a PIM program executing on the second computing device.
US08161089B1
An algorithm to detect a broad class of signals in Gaussian noise using higher-order statistics. The algorithm detects a number of different signal types. The signals may be in the base-band or the pass-band, single-carrier or multi-carrier, frequency hopping or non-hopping, broad-pulse or narrow-pulse etc. In a typical setting this algorithm provides an error rate of 3/100 at a signal to noise ratio of 0 dB. This algorithm gives the time frequency detection ratio that may be used to determine if the detected signal falls in Class Single-Carrier of Class Multi-Carrier. Additionally this algorithm may be used for a number of different applications such as multiple signal identification, finding the basis functions of the received signal and the like.
US08161085B2
Approaches described herein may be used for provisioning of databases that requires a bulk transfer of data within a distributed computing environment, such as a grid. The approaches do not require the manual intervention of a DBA to, for example, transfer a tablespace between the file systems of operating systems. Instead, the tablespaces may be provisioned automatically and dynamically by a grid computing system whenever it determines the need to dynamically provision a database. In addition, as copies of tablespaces are provisioned, synchronization mechanisms can also be automatically provisioned to keep the tablespaces and their copies in sync.
US08161084B2
A garbage collector determines a target amount of heap space to deallocate, estimates an amount of heap space reachable by a plurality of soft references by determining a cumulative size of no more than an exploration bound N number of objects reachable from each soft reference, and deallocates heap space based on the target amount and the estimate of the heap space reachable from the soft references. Deallocating heap space may include clearing at least one soft reference. If the estimate is inaccurate, it may be utilized regardless or modified to account for inaccuracy. The least-recently-used or the largest soft reference may be cleared until the total cleared space reachable exceeds the target amount. By performing a bounded analysis, the garbage collector may be able to make a more informed decision about whether to clear a soft reference without consuming the full amount of resources consumed by an exhaustive analysis.
US08161078B2
An EDI data dictionary management and versioning system is provided having reusable EDI building blocks that are stored in relational format. Reusable EDI elements include, but are not limited to, data types, simple data elements, composite data elements, segments and loops. Storage of EDI building blocks is performed such that building blocks of new Schema are compared to existing building blocks to encourage re-use of building blocks, and to avoid duplicating blocks in storage. An EDI data dictionary editor tool is also provided that hides the complexity of an additional type system, such as an XSD Schema representing a TSD, so that only the EDI elements pertaining to the relevant TSD are displayed so that users are relieved from knowing about the additional type system.
US08161067B2
A method and apparatus for managing complex presentation objects using globally-unique identifiers. Downloaded objects are identified by globally-unique identifiers to maintain object integrity and to facilitate capturing downloaded objects for reuse without additional download time overhead. An object may be referenced by selected indicia, such as a name, a globally-unique identifier or a globally-unique identifier and an object locator, The object is located by the selected indicia. Then, a decision is made whether to allow capture of the object based upon whether the selected indicia includes a globally-unique identifier and is secure.
US08161062B2
A method of analyzing customer behavior, where customers are engaged in customer-to-customer transactions in the third-party network, includes the transformation of data representing the customer-to-customer transactions from a data representation to a network representation, and then analyzing the network representation. The network representation includes a set of nodes and a set of links where each node represents a customer and each link represents a transaction between two of the customers.
US08161061B2
A module and method for determining a named entity of a terminology using a named entity dictionary and a mining rule combined with an ontology schema is provided. The module includes a named entity dictionary and mining rule database storing the named entity dictionary and a mining rule database; a mining pattern generation unit recognizing a terminology from a text and converting the terminology into a mining pattern; a named entity and mining rule search unit searching for a corresponding named entity and a mining rule respectively from the named entity dictionary and the mining rule database using the recognized terminology and the mining pattern; and a names entity selection unit selecting, if two or more named entities corresponding to the recognized terminology are searched, a named entity matching to the concept configuring the RDF triple of the searched mining rule as a named entity of the terminology among the searched named entities.
US08161060B2
Methods and systems for identifying, assessing and clearing conflicts of interest are described herein. Consistent with some embodiments, a conflicts management system receives a conflict search request, and processes the request utilizing a risk matrix that encompass and represents the risk tolerance or risk profile of a law firm. The risk matrix maps certain request types to different search queries and rules that are to be evaluated for a given request type. Based on the execution of the queries and the rules for the request, a score is assigned to a party, such that the score represents the level of risk that would be undertaken if the party was engaged as a client.
US08161054B2
Techniques are disclosed for determining a dynamic breaking point in a sequence of records generated in response to a user request. The sequence may include a first result and an ideal breaking point. In particular, a current, prior, and next record may be analyzed to determine a page-change factor indicating similarities between the records. The prior, current, and next records are sequential and the current record may be located within a pre-determined distance from the ideal breaking point. If the page-change factor indicates that the current record is more similar to the next record than to the prior result, the dynamic breaking point is inserted prior to the current record.
US08161053B1
Systems and methods for eliminating duplicate events are described. In one embodiment, an event is captured, wherein the event comprises a user interaction with an article on a client device and it is determined whether the event is a duplicate of a stored event.
US08161051B2
In a database management apparatus for managing a database where an index is used in a search for data, the data is stored in a table that has attributes of the data as columns. The index is created in association with at least one column. The columns include an index key column for which the index is created without data being stored. Upon reception of a request to register the data in the table including the index key column, the data in columns other than the index key column is registered. An index of the index key column is updated using data corresponding to the index key column.
US08161050B2
Generating and displaying an enhanced list of search results appropriate for web searching are described. A method for generating an enhanced list of search results includes identifying web pages that are relevant to a query, identifying other web pages hyperlinked to the relevant web pages, creating a graph of the web pages and connecting hyperlinks, and displaying a list of search results ordered in part by the connecting hyperlinks and showing the connecting hyperlinks as part of the list. The method also includes the ability to regenerate the list based on an indication of subjective relevance of a one of the list items. The method enhances the experience of a user in World Wide Web searching and browsing.
US08161040B2
A plurality of linkable nodes may be ranked based on their intrinsic scores. The intrinsic scores may be assigned to each node based on an analysis of the respective node with respect to one or more criteria. Links may be identified between the nodes, and a ranking score for each node may be generated based on the intrinsic scores of nodes linked therewith.
US08161038B2
A method, apparatus, system, and signal-bearing medium that, in an embodiment, collect previous and current statistics based on previous and current access plans, respectively, and a query. The previous and current statistics are compared in response to an event, and the differences between the previous and current statistics are presented. In various embodiments, the event may be a change to logic in a database management system that performs the query, a degradation in performance of the query, or a user request. In various embodiments, the difference may be a change to the previous access plan that causes performance degradation of the query, such as missing an index. The previous access plan is copied into the current access plan if an estimated processing time for the current access plan is greater than an estimated processing time for the previous access plan. The current access plan is used to perform the query.
US08161037B2
A database query optimizer allows specifying a performance specification for a query. When an access plan is created, the actual performance for executing the query using the access plan is determined and compared to the performance specification for the query. If the actual performance does not satisfy the performance specification for the query, the query optimizer autonomically generates a different access plan to see if the performance improves. If an access plan that meets the performance specification is generated, the new access plan is stored in the access plan cache for the query. If no access plan can be generated that meets the performance specification for the query, the access plan that provided the best performance is selected and stored in the access plan cache for the query.
US08161032B2
A thread ranking system includes: a thread collector for collecting a thread from a bulletin board website, a thread information storage for storing the collected thread, an event extractor for extracting the event from respective threads by using the event knowledge stored in the event knowledge storage, a related expression extractor for extracting a related expression characterizing the thread from expressions contained in the thread every thread, an input/output controller for presenting information that calls upon the user to input an evaluation of a predetermined thread to the user and inputting an evaluation of the user, a related expression importance calculator for calculating importance based on the input evaluation of the user every related expression, and a thread ranking unit 8 for deciding ranks of respective threads based on the extracted event and the calculated importance every related expression.
US08161022B2
The principles of the present invention extend to efficiently and reliably providing message related data. Generally, data fields of electronic messages and attachments are created in accordance with an electronic message schema hierarchy. An electronic message can include links to folder items that represent message folders. An electronic message can also include links to contact items that represent message participants. Message applications can register for folder spaces such that each message application is aware of folders that are primarily controlled by other message applications. A link to a contact item can be selected to access current contact related data for a message participant, even when the contact related data has changed since an electronic message containing the link was received.
US08161017B2
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for identifying relevant database indexes is provided. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method includes determining the importance of a particular database transaction and storing an index name related to the transaction along with an indicator of the importance. A database transaction is initiated and the importance indicator is received in an index advisor. The index advisor then makes an index recommendation based on the index importance.
US08160996B2
A sequence online analytical processing (S-OLAP) system 50 for analysing an event database (41) storing events (12), the system (50) comprising: an S-OLAP engine (53) to compute an S-cuboid (49) for a query on the event database (41); a sequence query engine (54) to form part of the S-cuboid (49) by performing the steps of: selection, clustering, sequence formation and sequence grouping; a cuboid repository (52) to store computed S-cuboids (49) and to be searched by the S-OLAP engine (53) for an S-cuboid query to determine whether an S-cuboid has previously been computed; and a sequence cache (56) to cache constructed sequence groups.
US08160994B2
System for simulating events in a real environment containing static objects and dynamic objects: a) position locating unit for continuously determining the real environment the position of the dynamic objects in relation to the static objects within a time period in which the even takes place; b) storage elements for storing data describing the dynamic and static objects of the environment; c) processing elements for processing (b1) data from the storage elements describing the static and dynamic objects (b2) data from the position locating unit indicating at a certain moment the mutual positions of the static and dynamic objects of the environment, the processing elements being loaded with simulation software; d) display elements for displaying a simulated view from a selected viewpoint on the simulated environment as a result of the processing by the processing elements; e) control elements to repeat the functioning of the processing and display elements for a range of consecutive time moments which together determine the above-mentioned time period wherein the position locating unit includes a satellite navigation system, or a thereto-related system.
US08160986B2
A method and a system identify information placed on a good to be processed, and the way of processing the good depends on this information. With regard to the method, the following steps are performed reading the information by an identifier and speaking the information as a voice message into an information retrieval system; delivering the voice message to a plurality of voice recognition systems; analyzing the voice message in each of the plurality of voice recognition systems and identifying a preliminary result; evaluating the preliminary results utilizing conditional probabilities of correct recognition in order to identify the most probable result among the preliminary results best matching the initial information; and assigning the most probable result to the respective good. The system provides a reliable, high-speed multi speech recognition even in high ambient noise environments without the cost and complexity of introducing an OCR.
US08160985B2
When a mobile telephone requests a web server for HTML page data containing a link, the server generates an identifier and appends the identifier to the link. An HTML page containing the link with the appended identifier is generated by the server and is transmitted to the telephone. If content of the link is requested by the telephone, then the content is transmitted to the telephone and an access log entry is recorded at the server. The log entry includes the identifier and the content request. If identifiers are found to be in common, the number of times this content was accessed is construed to be a single time. Even if a single item of content is divided into multiple portions and requested multiple times, the number of multiple times is treated as being a single time. The number of times access was performed can be calculated comparatively accurately.
US08160983B2
A user data engine residing on an endpoint machine generates a current user context reflecting a specific flow of operations performed by an end-user when interacting with a software application. A context engine residing on a sever machine compares the current user context to one or more stored user contexts included in a context database and generates a similarity value based on each comparison. A resource engine identifies resources in a resource database that are associated with the stored user contexts and then generates a relevance score for each resource based on the similarity scores corresponding to the stored user contexts with which those resources are associated. The resource engine transmits a resource list reflecting the identified resources to the user data engine based on the relevance scores. The user data engine displays on a display screen of the endpoint machine information associated with resources reflected in the resource list.
US08160980B2
An information system based on time, space and relevance is provided. The system comprises a client that displays information in a user-friendly manner and is located in a domestic environment; a proxy that handles the collection and parsing of data; a server that gathers usage data from the client; a database data mining cluster that allows for user profiling and time, space and relevance analysis; a set of information channels, which are periodically updated, and upon which automatic suggestions are given based on a user profile.
US08160972B1
A traveler can subscribe to a pick-up service (consolidator) that will pick-up purchases made at any number of different locations while the traveler is visiting a location, or series of locations. The consolidator then bundles all of the purchases from the various locations into appropriate sized packages for delivery to the traveler's desired location. The consolidator gathers the various purchases over a period of time and coordinates ultimate delivery to the traveler according to a pre-arranged itinerary of the traveler.
US08160965B2
Apparatus, techniques and systems for preventing illegal use of software and other digital files based on operations of a data storage device controller in a computer or computer system. For example, a method for preventing illegal use of software includes: configuring a computer to use a data storage device controller to control use of each digital file stored on one or more data storage devices; before a use of each digital file, operating the data storage device controller to access a storage device on which the digital file is stored to check whether the digital file meets a condition for use; and operating the data storage device controller to block use of the digital file when the condition is not met and to allow execution of the digital file when the condition is met. The digital file can be an application software or other digital documents.
US08160955B2
Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for capturing commercial loan application data and assigning a commercial loan request are disclosed herein. Embodiments of the invention provide mechanisms for capturing commercial loan application data, assigning a commercial loan request, monitoring an approval process, and administering association of accounts with approved requests via a series of user interface displays communicated to a user via a network communication link. In addition, the network environment of the invention provides for the storage of data in a relational database management system that enables previously entered data to populate data fields of applets within the user interface displays without the necessity to re-enter the data. Moreover, the status of the review process may be monitored to more quickly respond to requests for such information by the customer.
US08160952B1
Systems and methods described herein pertain to providing price protection programs related to the purchase of a commodity to a consumer. Embodiments of such a program may provide price protection related to the purchase of a commodity to the consumer so that when a consumer purchases the commodity, the price the consumer pays for the commodity may be determined under the provided program. Embodiments of these programs may be quite useful in incentivizing consumers in certain ways, including to seek or obtain employment from a particular employer.
US08160949B2
Systems and methods are provided for processing derivative product orders at an exchange. Traders provide derivative product order risk data to the exchange. The order risk data may include maximum delta, gamma and/or vega utilization values for derivative product contracts based on the same underlying product. Before executing a trade, a match system analyzes the trader's current utilization state and the utilization that would result after the trade. The match system may then execute all or a portion of the trade.
US08160946B2
A method for processing data related to a life insurance product having a death benefit amount payable to a beneficiary upon death of an insured includes receiving data indicative of certification that the insured is chronically ill, and responsive to receipt of the data indicative of the certification, providing output signals having data indicative of instructions to pay an owner of the life insurance product periodic payments, during the lifetime of the insured, each of which periodic payments reduces the death benefit amount.
US08160944B2
A system for providing a registered land asset includes a property transaction database in communication with a computer network the property transaction database provides information related to transactions associated with each registered land asset parcel, each land parcel having a registered land asset identifier representing global coordinates particular to the parcel. The system also includes a location characteristic database in communication with the computer network. The location characteristic database provides socioeconomic data regarding the location wherein the land parcel associated with the registered land asset is situated. A registered land asset contract may give a leaseholder an option to purchase the land by the end of a given term. A computer receives data from the property transaction database and the location characteristic database via the computer network and calculates prices and values associated with a registered land asset contract associated with the land parcel and a registered land asset contract is recorded in association with the land asset identifier corresponding to the land parcel in an electronic land title registry in communication with the computer network.
US08160942B2
An automated billing workflow system receives credit valuation adjustment (CVA) amounts associated with derivatives trades. The automated billing workflow system interacts with an Accounting System in order to make appropriate Profit and Loss (P&L) entries for the CVA amounts. The CVA amounts are billed to the business units which actually created the risk. The invention employs a plurality of Workflow Queues. As an item makes it way through the billing workflow, it may be slotted in one or more of these queues where further action will take place.
US08160941B1
Embodiments of the invention are directed to a computer-implemented interactive account management system operated in cooperation with a financial institution on behalf of multiple account holders. The interactive account management system may include a financial networking engine implemented by a processor for defining a financial network for each account holder and for identifying each member of an account holder financial network based on stored account information and account holder input. The system may additionally include interactive processing components for processing information to provide collaborative interaction between the members of the account holder financial network defined by the financial networking engine and user interface presentation tools for displaying financial guidance and collaborative interaction interfaces and inviting active participation from the financial network members.
US08160939B2
A system and methods for web based graphical internet searching for locating unique items sought by buyers of designs, furnishings and accessories through use of the internet. The invention includes a search interface where both a seller and buyer will use the same graphical alphabet, which divides an item into its component parts, to decipher the language of design which has an infinite number of stylistic combinations.
US08160936B2
Variants of the invention are directed to Internet-based shopping networks which provide information to consumers who desire to purchase locally-produced or locally-manufactured products or services. In one variant, an Internet-based shopping network utilizes a website home page to interface with consumers. The website home page may include consumer-oriented components such as a product search component, a product rank component and/or a product purchase component. The network may include vendor-oriented components such as hyperlinks to predetermined vendors based on products offered by the predetermined vendor and the percentage of sales that is returned by the vendor for recirculation within a local economy.
US08160931B2
The demand aggregation system includes deal room sponsored by a third party host. The third party host facilitates commercial transactions between a plurality of buyers and at least one seller. In exchange for sponsorship of such a deal room, the third party host can receive an incentive such as a percentage of sales, seller discount or the like. Furthermore, mechanisms are provided to aid discovery of sellers and/or offers that can be included in a group buying event for a buying group. The buying group receives a greater discount as the total purchase amount in the group buying event increases.
US08160930B2
A system and method for providing services to users in vehicles based on radio broadcasts received by a vehicle's radio receiver. The system includes a computer-based vehicle unit located in a vehicle, a gateway configured to wirelessly send and receive information to and from the vehicle unit, and a computer-based server in communication with the gateway over a network. The vehicle unit includes a user interface component that presents the received content and radio broadcast and records user requests. The server processes the requests and sends confirmation messages back to the unit via the gateway when a request is completed or other information needs to be sent to the unit. The vehicle unit wirelessly receives a radio broadcast from a radio station, transmits user requests and vehicle information to the server via the gateway, and receives content back from the server.
US08160929B1
Techniques are described for determining merchants that are able to provide items of interest. In some situations, consumers or other users supply requests for information about particular items of interest, and appropriate local merchants that are currently available to provide those items are identified and indicated to the users who made the requests. The identification of such appropriate local merchants may include automatically contacting human representatives of potentially appropriate merchants in order to automatically solicit information about the merchant, such as quantity and pricing information for items currently available in local inventory and current operating hours. The described techniques may be performed in an automated manner by an item availability information system, such as to provide a corresponding item availability information service to users (e.g., in exchange for fees from users).
US08160926B1
Methods, systems and apparatus, including computer program products, for generating cookies. Multiple advertisements for multiple advertisers are stored on an ad server. Hostnames specific to each of the multiple advertisers are generated dynamically. The generated hostnames identify the ad server. A reference is generated identifying a particular advertisement of the multiple advertisements and the ad server. The ad server is identified in the reference with the generated hostname associated with the advertiser of the advertisement. The reference is provided to a client. A request is received from the client for the advertisement. The request includes the generated hostname. In response to the request, a client cookie, which includes a unique identifier, is sent to the client.
US08160923B2
A query including one or more keywords is received. An advertisement associated with the one or more keywords is identified, and display data for displaying the advertisement is generated and a determination is made as to whether the advertisement is associated with a video. Video selection data is generated for displaying the video proximate to the advertisement if the advertisement is determined to be associated with the video, and the display data and the video selection data are provided.
US08160922B2
A method and system for making a donation to a third party, wherein a user executes a purchase transaction using a card linked to a reward point account If a user donation is desired, then the user's reward point account is decreased and corresponding value is transferred to a designated third party as a donation. In another aspect referred to as “topping off”, the donation amount is the difference between the tender amount and the purchase amount, and is transferred to a designated third party as a donation to the third party in lieu of providing change for the transaction back to the user.
US08160920B2
In one embodiment the present invention includes a computer-implemented method of measuring process compliance. The method includes storing an adopted reference model of a business process and storing process instances of the business process. The method further includes generating an as-is model from the plurality of process instances. The method further includes calculating a sequence-based compliance measurement between the adopted reference model and the as-is model. The method further includes outputting the sequence-based compliance measurement. The sequence-based compliance measurement may be used to evaluate or to improve the business process.
US08160918B1
A method for determining brand preference of a consumer includes presenting the consumer with a number of brand choices and determining a brand selected by the consumer from the number of brand choices. The method also includes determining an emotional response and a rational response of the consumer to the selected brand. The method may include generating a graph(s) indicative of the brand preference, the emotional responses, and/or the rational responses of the consumer to the selected brand. The graph(s) may be indicative of such preference and/or responses at a point in time or over a period of time. Additionally, the method may include determining the emotional and rational responses of the consumer to non-selected brands of the number of brand choices presented to the consumer.
US08160916B2
A mobile marketing campaign platform and method including: a planning module including: a definition module for setting budget and objectives; and a design module for designing the campaign utilizing a plurality of templates; an execution module including: design tools for designing an executable campaign from the campaign design made from the templates; and operating tools for causing the executable campaign to execute over multiple mobile services; and a reporting module including: tracking means for tracking at least one of a campaign activity, the campaign performance objectives; and the brand performance objectives.
US08160903B2
A method for determining a premium for insuring a security comprising the steps of determining an insurance risk premium based upon a security to be insured, determining an expense and profit load, and combining the insurance risk premium and the expense and profit load to determine a total gross premium. A system for determining a premium for insuring a security comprises a computer system capable of having entered information related to a security to be insured, the computer system having a program for calculating an insurance risk premium based upon a security to be insured, for calculating an expense and profit load, and for combining the insurance risk premium and the expense and profit load to determine a total gross premium.
US08160902B2
A system and method for buying and selling life insurance policies includes an online database for storing information concerning in-force policies as needed for evaluation by a potential buyer. Owners of policies, either directly or through agents, who might be willing to sell their policies, register with the online website with critical financial and medical underwriting information relating to their policies, as needed for evaluation by a potential buyer. In the online database such information is organized and categorized as to parameters of various medical and financial information, to be reviewed online in an orderly manner by investors and potential buyers of policies. A membership preferably is required for a potential buyer to have access to the online information. In a preferred implementation of the system, an auction is held online to obtain essentially the best price for each policy.
US08160896B2
The subject invention is a Patient Care Monitoring System which employs a novel method and system for monitoring the care provided to a patient at a health care facility. In one embodiment, the subject invention includes a central processor in communication with a health care facility's computer systems, receiving data therefrom. This data is arranged and correlated to enable the subject invention to filter through the data and detect if a particular treatment, diagnostic test, or course of action has been or is in danger of being overlooked.
US08160888B2
A decoder (115) generates a multi channel audio signal, such as a surround sound signal, from a received first signal. The multi-channel signal comprises a second set of audio channels and the first signal comprises a first set of audio channels. The decoder (115) comprises a receiver (401) which receives the first signal. The receiver (401) is coupled to an estimate processor (405) which generates estimated parametric data for the second set of audio channels in response to characteristics of the first set of audio channels. The estimated parametric data relates characteristics of the second set of audio channels to characteristics of the first set of audio channels. The decoder (115) furthermore comprises a spatial audio decoder (403) which decodes the first signal in response to the estimated parametric data to generate the multi-channel signal comprising the second set of channels. The invention allows use of spatial audio decoding with signals that are not encoded by a spatial audio encoder.
US08160885B2
The present invention is disclosed a voice signal encoding/decoding methods. It is judged whether the time-point at which the voices signal is about to be encoded is one of the synchronous time parameters in the steps of voice signal encoding. If yes, output an output port code to activate a task; otherwise, then output a voice signal coded value that corresponds to the encoded voice signal at the same time. Moreover, it is judged whether the time-point at which the voice signal coded value being about to be decoded corresponds to the voice signal is one of the synchronous time parameters. If yes, output the output port code to the output port to activate a task; if not, then output a voice subsignal that corresponds to the decoded voice signal coded value at the time-point.
US08160884B2
The invention is a method of improving the performance of a speech recognizer. The method generally involves: providing a lexicon for the speech recognizer; monitoring a user's interaction with a network; accessing a plurality of words associated with the monitored interaction; and including the plurality of words in the lexicon.
US08160878B2
A speech recognition system uses Gaussian mixture variable-parameter hidden Markov models (VPHMMs) to recognize speech under many different conditions. Each Gaussian mixture component of the VPHMMs is characterized by a mean parameter μ and a variance parameter Σ. Each of these Gaussian parameters varies as a function of at least one environmental conditioning parameter, such as, but not limited to, instantaneous signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). The way in which a Gaussian parameter varies with the environmental conditioning parameter(s) can be approximated as a piecewise function, such as a cubic spline function. Further, the recognition system formulates the mean parameter μ and the variance parameter Σ of each Gaussian mixture component in an efficient form that accommodates the use of discriminative training and parameter sharing. Parameter sharing is carried out so that the otherwise very large number of parameters in the VPHMMs can be effectively reduced with practically feasible amounts of training data.
US08160875B2
Disclosed are systems, methods, and computer readable media for performing speech recognition. The method embodiment comprises selecting a codebook from a plurality of codebooks with a minimal acoustic distance to a received speech sample, the plurality of codebooks generated by a process of (a) computing a vocal tract length for a each of a plurality of speakers, (b) for each of the plurality of speakers, clustering speech vectors, and (c) creating a codebook for each speaker, the codebook containing entries for the respective speaker's vocal tract length, speech vectors, and an optional vector weight for each speech vector, (2) applying the respective vocal tract length associated with the selected codebook to normalize the received speech sample for use in speech recognition, and (3) recognizing the received speech sample based on the respective vocal tract length associated with the selected codebook.
US08160869B2
Provided are a method and apparatus for encoding an audio signal and a method and apparatus for decoding an audio signal. The method includes performing sinusoidal analysis on an audio signal in order to extract a sinusoidal signal of a current frame, determining continuation sinusoidal signal information indicating a number of continuation sinusoidal signals of next frames, which continue from the sinusoidal signal of the current frame, by performing sinusoidal tracking on the extracted sinusoidal signal of the current frame, and encoding the determined continuation sinusoidal signal information by using different Huffman tables according to index information of the current frame, thereby allowing efficient encoding with a low bitrate.
US08160866B2
The present invention can recognize both English and Chinese at the same time. The most important skill is that the features of all English words (without samples) are entirely extracted from the features of Chinese syllables. The invention normalizes the signal waveforms of variable lengths for English words (Chinese syllables) such that the same words (syllables) can have the same features at the same time position. Hence the Bayesian classifier can recognize both the fast and slow utterance of sentences. The invention can improve the feature such that the speech recognition of the unknown English (Chinese) is guaranteed to be correct. Furthermore, since the invention can create the features of English words from the features of Chinese syllables, it can also create the features of other languages from the features of Chinese syllables and hence it can also recognize other languages, such as German, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, etc.
US08160860B1
Method, apparatus, and computer readable medium for simulating a logic design having power domains are described. In some examples, a switchable power domain of the power domains is identified, the switchable power domain having primary inputs and having a power state switchable between a power-on state and a power-off state. The logic design is traversed to analyze driver and load logic of each of the primary inputs to the switchable power domain to identify any pure pass-through nets each of which has no driver and no load logic in the switchable power domain. An implicit logic device is inserted at each of the primary inputs not coupled to a pure pass-through net, each implicit logic device being in a corrupting state when the switchable power domain is in the power-off state and in a bypassing state when the switchable power domain is in the power-on state, the corrupting state corrupting the respective primary input with an undefined logic state, the bypassing state driving the respective primary input with a logic state of respective driver logic. An event-driven simulation of the logic design is performed.
US08160848B2
A sample atomic configuration creation part in a control section creates the atomic arrangement data of a sample, and a sample surface height calculation part calculates a sample surface height for every mesh. A probe profile creation part creates the atomic arrangement data of a probe, and a probe surface height calculation part calculates the height of the probe surface for every mesh. A probe scanning part supplies the coordinate of a scanning start position in the scanning range to a collision height specification part. The collision height specification part calculates the distance between the sample surface and the probe in each mesh. Calculation of this distance is repeated for all meshes of the probe at the coordinate of this measuring position.
US08160847B2
The hybrid artificial immune system consists of three main layers, including a solution application layer that interacts with the environment, a solution generation layer that solves combinatorial optimization problems and a modeling layer that analyzes problems and presents solution scenarios. The system solves evolutionary multi-objective optimization problems in network computing, robotics, artificial neural networks, protein network modeling, evolutionary systems and evolutionary hardware.
US08160840B2
A characteristic thumbprint is extracted from a data signal, the thumbprint based on statistics relating to the data signal. The data signal can be compared indirectly by matching this thumbprint against one or more reference thumbprints. The data signal may be any type of signal, including streaming digitized audio or obtained from static files. A database may contain a number of these characteristic thumbprints, and the database can be searched for a particular thumbprint.
US08160835B2
A method for measuring unidirectional transmission properties, e.g., packet delay, delay-time fluctuations, and results derivable therefrom, in a telecommunications network. Test packets are transmitted from a first measuring computer via a measurement path to a second measuring computer. The first measuring computer records the departure time of the outgoing test packet. This clock time is transmitted along with the test packet. The second measuring computer records the arrival time of the test packet. In a subtraction operation between the departure time from the first measuring computer and the arrival time in the second measuring computer, the delay time of the test packet, i.e., the measuring result, is determined. To determine the measuring result, the two measuring computers are synchronized in time by satellite systems, e.g., GPS (global positioning system), in that the clock time is continuously transmitted to both measuring computers.
US08160826B2
A method and a system for estimating use time of electric appliances are provided. In the present method, all time points corresponding to an appliance power on event or an appliance power off event are obtained according to a value-time curve of at least one electric characteristic. A characteristic value of each of the time points is calculated according to the value-time curve, so as to pair the time points corresponding to the appliance power off event with the time points corresponding to the appliance power on event appropriately. After the pairing process is accomplished, the use time of each of the electric appliances can be calculated by the paired time points and thereby the power consumption of the electric appliances can be figured out.
US08160815B2
A method and device are disclosed for navigation. In at least one embodiment, the method includes displaying a plurality of selectable point of interest entries on an integrated input and display of a navigation device; and displaying, upon receipt of an indication of a selection of one of the point of interest entries, an informational screen including display of a location of the selected point of interest entry relative to a current location of the navigation device, at least a phone number of the selected point of interest entry, and a prompt to dial the phone number of the selected point of interest entry. In at least one other embodiment of the present application, a device includes an integrated input and display device to display a plurality of selectable point of interest entries; and a processor to receive an indication of selection one of the point of interest entries, the integrated input and display device being further useable to display, upon the receipt of an indication of a selection of one of the point of interest entries by the processor, an informational screen including display of a location of the selected point of interest entry relative to a current location of the navigation device, at least a phone number of the selected point of interest entry, and a prompt to dial the phone number of the selected point of interest entry.
US08160810B2
The route search system of the present invention receives the provision request of the information about route search from a route search terminal. The information included in the provision request from a route search terminal is acquired, calculation processing of the environmental load value of the relevant vehicle and the environmental load value of other vehicle by which it is generated with movement of a relevant vehicle from the acquired information is carried out using an environmental load calculation unit.
US08160808B2
A navigation device receives a destination location to automatically calculate a route to the destination location over a wireless network. The destination location may be generated by a third party at a remote computer or wireless device. The destination location may be entered into the remote computer or wireless device, or may be automatically generated by the device. The destination location is transmitted from the remote computer or wireless device to the navigation device. Once received, the user of the navigation device may have the option of accepting or rejecting the destination location. The navigation device then uses the destination location to calculate a route which is communicated to the user with minimal to no user interaction. Multiple destinations may be sent to the navigation device, thus allowing advanced programming of an entire trip.
US08160805B2
Techniques are described for assessing road traffic conditions in various ways based on obtained traffic-related data, such as data samples from vehicles and other mobile data sources traveling on the roads, as well as in some situations data from one or more other sources (such as physical sensors near to or embedded in the roads). The assessment of road traffic conditions based on obtained data samples may include various filtering and/or conditioning of the data samples, and various inferences and probabilistic determinations of traffic-related characteristics of interest from the data samples. In some situations, at least some of the mobile data sources are configured to frequently acquire and store data samples, and to occasionally make multiple such data samples available together for use in the road traffic condition assessment (e.g., by acquiring a data sample every minute and by transmitting a group of stored data samples every 15 minutes).
US08160795B2
A drive power control apparatus for a vehicle includes a controller that adjusts the drive power for driving a vehicle to compensate for a parameter that affects the running state of the vehicle. When the vehicle enters a region where the acceleration of the vehicle needs to be changed based on the running environment or when the vehicle is traveling in the region in which the acceleration of the vehicle needs to be changed based on the running environment, the controller makes the amount by which the drive power is adjusted less than the amount by which the drive power is adjusted when the vehicle is traveling in a region other than the region in which the acceleration of the vehicle needs to be changed based on the running environment.
US08160778B2
A hydraulic steering unit 5 generates a control pressure corresponding to the rotational quantity and rotational direction of the steering wheel 109 on the basis of pressurized oil of a pilot pump 13. Signals of pressure sensors 6a and 6b used to detect the control pressure, and a signal of a front operation detection unit 31, are inputted into a controller 132. A controller 32 and solenoid valves 33a and 33b control a stroke of a steering valve 4 so that the stroke becomes larger with increase in control pressure detected by each of the pressure sensors 6a and 6b. In addition, when the operation of a front work device is detected, the controller 32 and the solenoid valves 33a and 33b control the stroke of the steering valve 4 so that the stroke becomes larger than that provided when the operation of the front work device is not detected.
US08160767B1
An analysis tool which extracts all the available parameter identifications (i.e. PIDS) from a vehicle's power train control module for diagnostic decisions. This is done by checking these PIDS and other information (e.g., calculated PIDS, Break Points, charts and algorithms) in three states; key on engine off, key on engine cranking, key on engine running. In all three modes the tool is comparing the live data from PIDS and voltage to the other information (e.g, Break Points). If any of this data are outside the programmed values a flag is assigned to the failure or control problem. The relationship between a particular PID and its associated preprogrammed value(s) may be indicated by a light. The depth of the problem (if any) is conveyed by the color of the light. Also included are tests/charts for fuel trim, engine volumetric efficiency, simulated injector, power, catalyst efficiency, and engine coolant range.
US08160753B2
An automated method of controlling a power managed system, such as a power over Ethernet system. The method is constituted of: establishing a power consumption budget for a plurality of loads; defining an overbudget limit and an associated time window; monitoring power consumption of the plurality of loads; determining, at a plurality of time intervals over the associated time window, an indication of excess power consumption for each of the plurality of time intervals, the indication of excess power consumption being a function of the monitored power consumption and the defined power consumption budget; and in the event that an integral over the associated time window of a function of the determined indications of excess power consumption exceeds the overbudget limit, disabling at least one load from consuming power.
US08160748B2
A method and apparatus for removing wires from a bale includes a conveyor system for moving one or more bales and a de-wiring station positioned adjacent the conveyor system. The de-wiring station includes a robot with an end tool. A bale that is bound by one or more wires is transferred by the conveyor system to a position proximate the de-wiring station. The robot with end tool moves to sense the location of the wires, cut the wires, collect the wires and deposit the wires in a collection hopper.
US08160747B1
Systems and methods as described for providing visual telepresence to an operator of a remotely controlled robot. The robot includes both video cameras and pose sensors. The system can also comprise a head-tracking sensor to monitor the orientation of the operator's head. These signals can be used to aim the video cameras. The controller receives both the video signals and the pose sensor signals from the robot, and optionally receives head-tracking signals from the head-tracking sensor. The controller stitches together the various video signals to form a composite video signal that maps to a robot view. The controller renders an image to a display from that portion of the composite video signal that maps to an operator view. The relationship of the operator view to the robot view is varied according to the signals from the pose sensors and the head-tracking sensor.
US08160737B2
A machine tool is fitted with a position detector for detecting a position of a moving axis of the machine tool and an on-machine measuring device for measurement on the machine tool. An axial position detection signal output from the position detector and a measurement signal output from the on-machine measuring device are received through interfaces by a numerical controller that controls the machine tool. These interfaces are designed so that the numerical controller receives the axial position detection signal and the measurement signal with the same timing.
US08160735B2
A method of generating a general recipe for an industrial process that is not site or resource specific to from a master recipe that is site and resource specific, comprises: a) deleting any process elements of the master recipe that are support segments that relate only to resources assigned to the master recipe; b) creating records in the general recipe for any process properties that are designated as not site specific; c) creating records of resource requirements and requirement groups for process elements associated with such resource requirements; and d) determining scheduling relationships for the process elements of the general recipe so generated by: (i) determining which process elements are primary and which are secondary; (ii) determining the processing relationship of other process elements with respect to primary process elements; and (iii) storing data defining whether the processing relationships are general or site specific.
US08160730B2
A control system (300) for optimizing a power plant includes a chemical loop having an input for receiving an input signal (369) and an output for outputting an output signal (367), and a hierarchical fuzzy control system (400) operably connected to the chemical loop. The hierarchical fuzzy control system (400) includes a plurality of fuzzy controllers (330). The hierarchical fuzzy control system (400) receives the output signal (367), optimizes the input signal (369) based on the received output signal (367), and outputs an optimized input signal (369) to the input of the chemical loop to control a process of the chemical loop in an optimized manner.
US08160713B2
The present invention is an electrode array for neural stimulation. In particular it is an electrode array for use with a visual prosthesis with the electrode array suitable to be positioned on the retina. The array includes multiple attachment points to provide for even pressure across the electrode array surface. The attachment points are arranged so as to not damage retinal tissue stimulated by the electrode array.
US08160711B2
A device and method is provided for therapeutic stimulating, augmenting, manipulating and/or controlling breathing, in combination with stimulation of auxiliary respiratory nerves or muscles including the upper airway tract, chest wall muscles or abdominal muscles. Stimulation may be provided, for example, to augment breathing or to prevent closing of the upper airway during therapeutic stimulation. Stimulation may be also provided to the Hypoglossal nerve during exhalation.
US08160707B2
An implantable medical device is provided including a housing, an external circuit element extending outwardly from the housing, an internal circuit enclosed by the housing, a feedthrough array disposed along the housing having at least one filtered feedthrough and at least one unfiltered feedthrough, wherein the unfiltered feedthrough is adapted for connection to the outwardly extending circuit element; and including means for minimizing electromagnetic coupling between the filtered feedthrough and the unfiltered feedthrough.
US08160702B2
A cardiac rhythm management apparatus includes a proximal housing, a distal housing and a lead. The proximal housing includes a first energy storage device. The distal module is implantable within a patient's heart, and includes a second energy storage device, at least one electrode, and a control module. The control module controls the delivery of at least one electrical stimulus from the second energy storage device to a location in communication with the patient's heart. The lead connects the proximal housing to the distal module and is configured to communicate one or more digital signals between the proximal housing and the distal module.
US08160699B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides an implantable cardioverter defibrillator for subcutaneous positioning between the third rib and the twelfth rib within a patient, the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator including a housing; an electrical circuit located within the housing; a first electrode coupled to the electrical circuit and located on the housing; and a second electrode coupled to the electrical circuit.
US08160698B2
An automatic external defibrillator including: a sensor for detecting when a rescuer is delivering a CPR chest compression to the patient; electrodes for application to the thorax of the patient for delivering a defibrillation shock to the patient and for detecting an ECG signal; defibrillation circuitry for delivering a defibrillation shock to the electrodes; and a processor and associated memory for executing software that controls operation of the defibrillator. The software provides: ECG analysis for analyzing the ECG signal to determine if the cardiac rhythm is shockable; CPR detection for analyzing the output of the sensor to determine when a CPR chest compression has been delivered, and integration of the ECG analysis and CPR detection so that the determination of whether the cardiac rhythm is shockable is based only on time periods of the ECG signal during which there has not been a CPR chest compression delivered.
US08160688B2
An apparatus and method for the recording of physiological variables in small animals are described. The apparatus is an integrated self-contained recorder including a converter of biological signals into a digital form, a data storage unit, a data output for transporting the stored data from the recorder after the end of recording session, a power source and an electrical connector arranged for connection of the recorder with at least one sensor of biological signal and mechanical fixation of the recorder at the head of an animal. The recorder may contain a sensor, which receives signals from an external source for synchronization of the stored data with external equipment or observed/registered animal behavior.
US08160684B2
A method of detecting a cardiac event in a medical device that includes sensing cardiac signals from a plurality of electrodes forming a first sensing vector and a second sensing vector, and determining whether the sensing of cardiac signals along the first sensing vector and along the second sensing vector is corrupted by noise. If the cardiac signals sensed along both the first sensing vector and the second sensing vector are not corrupted by noise, a determination is made as to whether the cardiac signals sensed along the first sensing vector and along the second sensing vector are one of a first cardiac event and a second cardiac event. The determination of whether the cardiac signals sensed along the first sensing vector and along the second sensing vector are one of a first cardiac event and a second cardiac event is then confirmed.
US08160683B2
There is provided a system and method for integrating voice with a medical device. More specifically, in one embodiment, there is provided a medical device comprising a speech recognition system configured to receive a processed voice, compare the processed voice to a speech database, identify a command for the medical device corresponding to the processed voice based on the comparison, and execute the identified medical device command.
US08160680B2
Apparatus, devices, methods, systems, computer programs and computing devices related to autofluorescent imaging and ablation are disclosed.
US08160676B2
A method for planning a procedure, which can include determining anatomical landmarks is disclosed. The anatomical landmarks can be used to determine anatomical targets of a patient. The plan can include a path or trajectory to reach a selected target.
US08160672B2
The present invention provides method and system for data communication in the human body and a sensor therefor. The method and system transmit information through the human body to a receiver located outside the human body using low current and voltage polarity, so that they cause no damage to the human body and achieve low power consumption and better receiving sensitivity. In addition, the sensor contains a CMOS image sensor on which all circuits are integrated without radio transmitter and antenna, so that it achieves a low-priced and small-sized capsule type endoscope.
US08160670B2
An analyte sensor including an antiglycolytic agent or a precursor thereof and a chelating agent that stabilizes the antiglycolytic agent positioned proximate to the working electrode of the sensor. Also provided are systems and methods of using the electrochemical analyte sensors in analyte monitoring.
US08160668B2
A method of manufacturing a pulse oximeter configured to classify patient data is disclosed. The method includes collecting a set of sample data and classifying the sample data as either pathological or normal using human expertise. The method also includes generating statistics representative of the saturation traces. A linear discriminator is composed having a non-linear transform that accepts the statistics as input and a pulse oximeter is programmed to compute the linear discriminator using a kernel function.
US08160657B2
A mobile wireless communications device may include a housing having an opening therein and an inwardly extending housing ring adjacent the opening, and a switch carried by the housing and being aligned with the opening. The mobile wireless communications device may further include a backing member within the housing adjacent the opening, and an elastomeric switch membrane comprising a body covering the switch, and a flange coupled to the body and compressed between the backing member and the housing ring to define a seal therewith. The flange may include a flange base, and a pair of flange rings extending inwardly from the flange base and defining a valley therebetween aligned with the housing ring. In another embodiment, the flange may include a flange base and a first flange ring on a first surface thereof, and a pair of second flange rings on a second surface of the flange base and defining a valley therebetween aligned with the first flange ring.
US08160656B2
A vehicle Telematics unit includes a cellular transceiver and a satellite receiver. At least one controller controls the transceiver and the receiver and determines which one to use to communicate with a source of Telematics service. If the transceiver is to be used, the controller receives messages in cellular communications from the source with a cellular network. If the receiver is to be used, the controller receives messages in satellite communications from the source with a satellite network. The controller can programmably control power from a battery to the transceiver and receiver when the vehicle is turned off using discontinuous reception parameters, designated on/off times, a controlled duration, and programmable timers. The transceiver is used to return acknowledgments of messages received. If a message is received with the receiver, the acknowledgment is stored so it can be sent at another time when the transceiver is to be used.
US08160655B2
A wireless headset has a body, an ear clip, and at least two devices for converting at least two different sources of energy into electrical power. The body includes an RF integrated circuit in electrical communication with an antenna and a baseband circuit, the baseband circuit being in electrical communication with a microphone and a speaker. The at least two devices for converting at least two different sources of energy into electrical power are in electrical communication with the RF integrated circuit and the baseband circuit. The ear clip is engaged to the body. The at least two sources of energy are selected from the group consisting of solar energy, thermoelectric energy, piezoelectric energy, and vibration energy.
US08160654B2
A power reception device utilizing non-contact power transmission causes a PMOS transistor as a switch circuit to be turned ON when a secondary battery is in a heavy-load state to form a path which bypasses a series regulator (LDO) as a power supply circuit, and supplies a charging current to the secondary battery through the bypass path. An offset may be provided between ON/OFF control threshold values of the PMOS transistor. The series regulator (LDO) may be entirely or partially set in a non-operating state when forming the bypass path.
US08160653B2
A portable phone includes a handset and a data projection system configured to form a visual image of data, such as caller waiting ID data, on a viewing surface viewable by a user during a two way conversation. The handset also includes a speaker, a microphone, conventional phone circuitry and a keyboard. The data projection system is configured to receive signals from the phone circuitry, to generate a pattern representative of the data, to process the pattern into a mirror image of the visual image, and to project the mirror image from a bottom end surface of the handset. The projection system includes an electro optic system for generating the pattern, and an optics system for projecting the mirror image onto the viewing surface. A method for projecting data in a portable phone includes the steps of: providing the handset with the data projection system, conducting a two way conversation with the handset held against the head of the user, and forming the visual image on the viewing surface during the two way conversation with the handset held against the head. The method can also include the steps of manipulating the handset and a body part to locate and focus the visual image, sensing an orientation of the handset during the two way conversation, and orienting the visual image as a function of the sensing step.
US08160648B2
Receiver diversity in a wireless device is controlled in response to operating conditions, transmission requirements, and control settings. The control of diversity reduces power consumption by enabling receive diversity on given conditions. Operating conditions, transmission requirements, and control settings are used separately or used in conjunction to determine whether benefits of multi-antenna receive diversity, such as higher link capacity, higher data throughput, lower transmit power, and lower error rate, warrant the higher power cost of the diversity.
US08160641B2
A portable electronic device is provided. The portable electronic device comprises a housing, a printed circuit board, an amplifier and a lens module. The housing comprises a loudspeaker division and a continuous wall. The continuous wall surrounds and defines the loudspeaker division, wherein the continuous wall comprises a notch. The printed circuit board comprises a loudspeaker area and a lens module connector, wherein the loudspeaker area corresponds to the loudspeaker division, and the lens module connector is disposed in the loudspeaker area.
US08160640B2
A mobile communication device includes a motion sensor for generating motion signals in response to motion of the mobile communication device. A motion data generation module generates motion data based on the motion signals. At least one transceiver sends the motion data to a game device in a gaming mode of operation and transceives wireless telephony data with a wireless telephony network in a telephony mode of operation.
US08160630B2
This invention relates to a method and arrangement for controlling transmission power in a mobile communications system, and to a network element. In the method according to the invention a certain target level is defined for a value representing the quality of a signal, which target level should be reached by the received signal. According to the invention this target level is advantageously limited so as to be smaller than or equal to a first predetermined limit value and/or greater than or equal to a second predetermined limit value. In accordance with the invention the quality of the signal may be measured e.g. by means of an SIR value. In the method according to the invention the quality of the received signal is checked and, based on the check, a first SIR target level is given to a comparing element (21). By means of the comparing element (21) it is ensured that the said first SIR target level falls within predetermined limits. Based on the comparison, a final SIR target level is given to a power control element (12) which produces a power control signal in order to adjust the transmission power.
US08160618B2
A method in a wireless communication system (100) dynamically updates paging gap times (314, 324) associated with a plurality of addresses (312, 322) of at least one wireless device (110) in a two phase paging system included in the wireless communication system (100). The method includes updating a first paging gap time (314) associated with a first address (312) of the at least one wireless device (110) in a two phase paging system, and updating a second paging gap time (324) associated with a second address (322) of the at least one wireless device (110), the second paging gap time (324) being different than the first paging gap time (314).
US08160616B2
A wireless communication method includes identifying a location of a dead spot region within an expected route of a vehicle. It is estimated whether the vehicle will arrive at the dead spot region before a wireless application is completed. It is determined whether an expected time period that the vehicle will be disposed within the dead spot region is greater than a maximum allowable disconnection time. A dead spot mitigation technique is initiated dependent upon the estimating and determining steps.
US08160615B1
A method is provided for generating associations between a user profile and a wireless device. The method comprises storing information about a location of a first wireless device associated with a first user profile and storing information about a location of a second of wireless device associated with a second user profile. The method also comprises determining the second wireless device is substantially collocated with the first wireless device based on the information about location of the first wireless device and the information about the location of the second wireless device. The method also comprises generating an association between the first user profile and the second wireless device based on the determining and displaying on a screen of the second wireless device a content selected based on the first user profile.
US08160614B2
A method and system for providing automated concierge services to end users communicates with users over network devices, such as telephones and wireless devices, and utilizes third party network location-based service (LBS) applications, such as Internet/Web locators, to obtain location information based on user requests. On receipt of a request from a mobile device, the location of the mobile device is identified. A network application related to the requested service is identified and the user location is translated into an input parameter compatible with the network application which is provided to the network applications. A response to the input parameter is received and processed in order to generate an answer to the user's request. Finally, the application sends the answer to the user.
US08160606B2
A mobile location sharing system comprising: enabling a sender wireless device to send a payload including a location descriptor and a list of target identifiers to a group of targets; identifying a preferred communication mode for each in the group of targets; selecting a transmission format for the preferred communication mode; and sending the location descriptor in the transmission format selected for each in the group of targets for audio-visual output.
US08160602B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate scheduling uplink transmissions. For instance, a time sharing scheme can be utilized such that differing mobile devices can be scheduled to transmit during differing time slots; however, it is also contemplated that a static scheme can be employed. Pursuant to an illustration, an interference budget can be combined with a time varying weighting factor associated with a base station; the weighting factor can be predefined and/or adaptively adjusted (e.g., based upon a load balancing mechanism). Moreover, the weighted interference budget can be leveraged for selecting mobile devices for uplink transmission (e.g., based at least in part upon path loss ratios of the mobile devices). Further, disparate interference budgets can be utilized by differing channels of a sector at a particular time. Also, for example, a base station can assign a loading factor to be utilized by wireless terminal(s) for generating channel quality report(s).
US08160601B2
The selection of the spatial mode together with modulation and encoding schemes based on channel condition measurements requested from MS forms a basis for selecting a best transmission data rate in a wireless link in every channel conditions. A method and network element comprising multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) capable antenna technology allows the use of a best transmission data rate in the channel if selection of transmission mode has been made correctly. The thresholds for transmission mode selections are pre-determined and compared to instantaneous channel quality information. The practical MIMO solution based on correct selection procedure provides also continuous sufficient channel condition for terminal users when the user moves from LOS situation to NLOS situation.
US08160593B2
Apparatus (58), and an associated method, for facilitating delivery of network-specific dialing codes to a mobile node (12). When a mobile node (12) is registered to a network part (18) of the network infrastructure of a radio communication system (10), a request (62) is generated by the mobile node (12), requesting download thereto of the dialing codes used in the network part (18) to call service centers (42) associated therewith. The requested dialing codes are downloaded to the mobile node (12). And, the downloaded dialing codes are indexed (68) together with the dialing codes normally used by the mobile node (12) to call the corresponding service centers (42). Subsequently, when a call is placed to a service center, the dialing codes are transposed (74), if necessary, to permit the call to a designated service center (42) to be completed.
US08160586B2
Mobile link selection method for establishing highly efficient communications between mobile devices
The present invention provides a new solution to reliable communication between automobiles and other communications devices. It relies on multiple available wireless bands and the addition of significant memory buffering to automobiles. The memory buffering is used to enable a new communications model for messages that is referred to as Mobile Message Memory Queues (M3Qs). A significant benefit of the communication device is the ease in which it can be incorporated into an automobile.
US08160583B2
A method and apparatus for best service rescan scheduling on a mobile device operating in an EVDO hybrid mode, the method comprising the steps of: blocking a best service rescan on the mobile device if the mobile device in an EVDO traffic state, the mobile device characterized by blocking means, the blocking means enabled to block a best service rescan on the mobile device if the mobile device in an EVDO traffic state.
US08160579B1
Performing deep packet inspection (DPI) includes facilitating a communication session for an access terminal. The access terminal is associated with a home network. A DPI policy is installed at an edge router. The DPI policy includes one or more DPI facets, where a DPI facet comprises a packet classifier. Packets that match the packet classifier are detected and inspected in accordance with the DPI facets.
US08160568B2
A mobile terminal may be remote controlled by setting a condition for the mobile terminal to enter a remote-control mode, receiving a call connection request, and entering the remote-control mode when the call connection request is received at the mobile terminal and the call connection request corresponds to the set condition. A function control signal may be received by the mobile terminal while the mobile terminal is in the entered remote-control mode, and a remote-control function may be performed that corresponds to the received function control signal.
US08160565B2
An electronic device and a telecommunication device that are locally connected and methods of utilizing those devices are described herein. The electronic device detects a pattern or duration of user interactions with a multidirectional control of the electronic device. Based on the pattern or duration and association data mapping patterns or durations to commands, the electronic device selects a command and then transmits the command to the telecommunication device. The telecommunication device enables a user to associate actions to be performed by the telecommunication device with patterns or durations of user interaction with the multidirectional control. Also, the telecommunication device receives a signal from the electronic device that is recognized as a command to perform an action, the recognition being based on association data mapping the signal to a pattern or duration of user interaction. The telecommunication device then performs the action.
US08160556B2
Systems and method for determining if a network of a call page has been ported to another network. The mobile communications network associated with a received call page is determined based on caller identification (CID) included in the call page and information of local exchange codes and associated mobile carriers stored in local memory of the mobile device. The method determines if the mobile communications network associated with the received call page is valid with regard to an exceptions list. Next it is determined if the determined mobile communications network associated with the call page matches the mobile communications network associated with the mobile device based on the validity determination. The exceptions list identifies phone numbers that have been ported to a mobile communications network that is different that the determined network.
US08160554B2
System and method for determining reporting to a subscriber whether an incoming call originates from inside or outside of a mobile carrier's network. An example system performs a GTT (global title translation) on an incoming number to determine the hosting carrier of any mobile phone number. When the result matches the subscriber's carrier, the mobile device then indicates to the subscriber (i.e. mobile device) that the call is an “in network call.”
US08160553B2
Disclosed is a method for managing data in a mobile terminal, which includes storing data generated in the mobile terminal in a data log corresponding to the area in which the data was generated, among a plurality of data logs classified according to areas; and displaying data stored in each data log classified according to the areas.
US08160546B2
Coincident with the evolution, maturation, etc. of wireless messaging ecosystems an infrastructure that supports offering to mobile subscribers different types of rewards (for example, possibly inter alia, cash, free service offerings, product coupons and/or discounts, popularity indicators, etc.) for specific mobile subscriber behaviors including, possibly inter alia, a mobile subscribers' creation and sending of increasing numbers of certain types of messages. The infrastructure may optionally leverage the capabilities of a centrally-located Messaging Inter-Carrier Vendor.
US08160543B2
Techniques in a mobile communication device configured to operate using a wireless communication network are described. The mobile device operates to establish an emergency call with a public safety answering point entity, and subsequently monitors to receive an incoming call message which indicates whether the incoming call message is for emergency call back. If data indications in the data fields indicate that the incoming call message is for emergency call back, then the mobile device causes the emergency call back to be answered automatically.
US08160539B1
A call processing system is configured to receive a call request for a first call from a mobile device operated by a user, wherein the call request comprises a user input and a caller identification, transfer a key and the caller identification to a call conference server, transfer the caller identification, the key, and a service number to a public safety answering point, and transfer the service number to the mobile device. The call conference server is configured to store the key and the caller identification, receive a second call from the public safety answering point that includes the key, receive a third call from a telecommunications relay service that includes the caller identification, and connect the third call to the second call based on the caller identification and the key.
US08160536B2
A broadcast receiver and a method of processing data are disclosed. The broadcast receiver includes a signal receiving unit, a known sequence detector, and a channel equalizer. The signal receiving unit repeats, when an operating mode of the broadcast receiver has been switched to a Discontinuous Receive (DRx) mode, preset wake-up and sleep sections, and receives a broadcast signal containing main broadcast service and mobile broadcast service data in the wake-up section. The known sequence detector detects known data included in the received broadcast signal. The channel equalizer uses the detected known data, thereby channel-equalizing the received mobile broadcast service data.
US08160525B2
Aspects of a method and system for compensating for using a transmitter to calibrate a receiver for channel equalization are provided. Various embodiments of the invention may be applicable wireless devices in TDM systems, Bluetooth, and/or WLAN applications, for example. Transmit tones may be generated by a transmitter PLL and the baseband response may be measured for each of the injected tones. The tones may be swept over a frequency range and a corresponding oscillator signal may be mixed with the received signal to determine the response of, for example, the receiver filters. Adjusting any of a plurality of receiver and/or transmitter parameters based on baseband measurements may provide appropriate channel compensation or calibration. Accordingly, the baseband circuitry may generate equalization signals, which may be utilized to adjust receiver and/or transmitter circuitry. This approach may be provide I/Q balancing and transmit filtering calibration after receiver calibration is completed.
US08160520B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes an apparatus having at least two gain stages to receive incoming signals and to output amplified signals, along with multiple regulators. More specifically, a linear regulator can be coupled to the first gain stage to provide a first regulated voltage to the first gain stage, and a switching regulator coupled to the second gain stage to provide a second regulated voltage to the second gain stage.
US08160511B2
In a first high frequency switch, a current path and a current path are connected in parallel. When a positive voltage is applied to a control terminal, a current flows through a path passing through (Vc2)→(DL)→(DSL1)→(DDI)→(GSL2)→(DL) and a path passing through (Vc2)→(DR)→(DD2)→(DL). In a second high frequency switch, a current path and a current path are connected in parallel. When a positive voltage is applied to a control terminal, a current flows through a first path and a second path. Thus, the transmission signal is switched with a low control voltage and deterioration of insertion loss characteristics or harmonic distortion characteristics is prevented.
US08160510B2
There are provided a transmitter/receiver circuit and a transmission/reception method that can reduce the insertion loss of a circuit in a hybrid operation and are suitable for reducing the cost, size, and power consumption. An antenna switch 119 includes attenuation filters 201 to 203 for attenuating the frequency bands corresponding to a plurality of receiving systems, e.g., the frequency band of an 800 MHz band system, the frequency band of a 2 GHz band system, and GPS reception frequency components. These filters 201 to 203 are connected between a primary (main) antenna connection terminal T204 and a first switch group SWG201 through connection switches 204 to 206.
US08160508B2
A wireless communication device uses operational parameters stored in a capabilities list to control operation of the device. The device may also provide auxiliary services, such as reception of broadcast television signals and location detection using network assisted GPS. When auxiliary services are selected, the cellular operation may cause interference with the auxiliary services. The wireless communication device includes a reduced set of capabilities to control operation of the wireless communication device when an auxiliary service is requested. The particular set of reduced capabilities may depend on the specific type of auxiliary service that has been requested. Upon termination of the auxiliary services, the full capabilities list may be restored and the operation of the wireless communication device is thereafter controlled by the full set of operational capabilities.
US08160506B2
Aspects of a method and system for transmission and/or reception of signals up to EHF utilizing a delay circuit are provided. In this regard, a transceiver may comprise at least one delay circuit which may, in turn, comprise a plurality of delay elements and a variable capacitance. The delay circuit may be enabled to delay a first signal, via at least a portion of the delay elements and via the variable capacitance, to generate a second signal that is 90° phase shifted relative to said first signal. Additionally, the delay circuit may be enabled to mix the first signal with the second signal to generate a third signal that is twice a frequency of the first signal. The third signal may be utilized for up-conversion and/or down-conversion of signals to and/or from baseband, intermediate frequencies, and/or RF frequencies of up to EHF.
US08160500B2
A method for processing signals in a wireless communication system includes determining at a receiver, a maximum one of a plurality of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) values for a received wireless signal. The plurality of SINR values may be calculated using a corresponding plurality of weight values. A particular one of the corresponding plurality of weight values may be fed back to a transmitter of the received wireless signal. The particular one of the corresponding plurality of weight values may be associated with the determined maximum one of the calculated plurality of SINR values. The particular one of the corresponding plurality of weight values may be communicated to the transmitter via at least one uplink communication channel. The at least one uplink communication channel may include a high-speed dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH). Each of the plurality of SINR values may include at least one inter-path interference (IPI) value.
US08160494B2
Methods and apparatus for use in switching communications associated with a user account from a first (“source”) mobile communication device to a second (“target”) mobile communication device are disclosed. The source and target devices may be possessed and/or owned by the same end user. The source device is initially enabled to maintain data synchronization with a host server over a wireless communication network via a first wireless transceiver (e.g. a cellular transceiver) for user data of an application program (e.g. an e-mail application program) associated with the user account. To enable the target device for the communications associated with the user account, the source device is operative to establish a programming session with the target device via a second wireless transceiver (e.g. a short-range wireless transceiver). During the programming session, the source device causes user account data (e.g. at least one encryption/decryption key for the data-synchronized communications) for the user account to be transmitted to the target device via the second wireless transceiver. Preferably, the user account data is encrypted based on a passkey for the programming session. The user data associated with the application program may also be transferred from the source device to the target device during the programming session, over-the-air or via a removable memory card such as a secure digital (SD) card. With this data, the target device is thereby enabled to maintain data synchronization with the host server for the user data of the application program associated with the user account. Advantageously, most if not all of the account switching steps may be facilitated by the end user “on-the-fly” without third-party involvement.
US08160486B2
A blade for an electrophotographic apparatus is provided which is prevented from turning up, achieves wear resistance, and has excellent cleaning properties. The blade is composed of a support member and a blade member formed of a thermosetting polyurethane elastomer, which are joined together. The blade member has a structure in which a nitrogen concentration continuously increases from the inside of a contact part coming into contact with a counterpart member toward the surface of the contact part.
US08160480B2
An image forming apparatus includes first and second rotatable image bearing members, a rotatable belt member which can abut on the first and second image bearing members, a drive mechanism to attach or separate the second image bearing member to or from the belt member, a rotation drive mechanism, and a controller controlling a rotational speed of the second image beating member so that the second image bearing member rotates with a predetermined circumferential speed difference with respect to the belt member at least when image formation is performed by the second image bearing member. When the second image bearing member abuts on or separates from the belt member, the controller controls the rotational speed of the second image bearing member so that a circumferential speed difference between rotational speeds of the second image bearing member and the belt member is smaller than the predetermined circumferential speed difference.
US08160478B2
A process cartridge is detachably mountable to a main assembly of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus. The process cartridge includes an electrophotographic photosensitive drum, a drum unit containing the electrophotographic photosensitive drum, a developing roller for developing an electrostatic latent image formed on the electrophotographic photosensitive drum, and a developing unit swingably supported by the drum unit and containing the developing roller. The process cartridge also includes an urging member for urging the drum unit and the developing unit to each other so as to press the developing roller against the electrophotographic photosensitive drum. A space keeping member keeps space between the electrophotographic photosensitive drum and the developing roller by engaging with the developing unit and limiting swing of the developing unit against an urging force of the urging member.
US08160467B2
An apparatus (100) and method (200) for print apparatus rotational assembly cleaning blade adjustment is disclosed. The apparatus can include a printer rotational transport assembly (110) configured to transport a substance in a printer. The apparatus can include a cleaning blade (120) coupled to the printer rotational transport assembly and a cleaning blade sensor (130) coupled to the cleaning blade, where the cleaning blade sensor can be configured to sense cleaning blade stress condition information. The apparatus can include a controller (140) coupled to the cleaning blade and the cleaning blade sensor, where the controller can be configured to adjust cleaning blade parameters of operation based on the sensed cleaning blade stress condition information.
US08160458B2
The present invention provides an optical phase modulation evaluating device that can measure and evaluate the precise degree of modulation in phase of an optical phase modulation signal in comparison with the conventionally-known optical phase modulation evaluating device. The optical phase modulation evaluating module includes: a bit delay device located on optical paths of the third and fifth light beams, and adapted to change the length of the optical paths to delay the third and fifth light beams by one bit per second; and an optical phase difference setting means for delaying either or both the ninth and tenth light beams by a designated phase angle which is not equal to zero, the optical phase difference setting means having a light transmissive plate located on an optical path for the ninth light beam, and a light transmissive plate located on an optical path for the tenth light beam.
US08160457B2
A system is disclosed for an improved ROSA that has increased sensitivity for permitting greater numbers of ONTs to be connected to an optical network per defined transmission line distances. The ROSA configuration includes a digital optical module with improved performance characteristics. This digital optical module has replaced a conventional photodiode with a PIN detector that is coupled with the TIA. The resulting digital optical module containing this PIN/TIA configuration when incorporated in a ROSA provides a single ROSA solution that will meet or exceed the ITU/IEEE FTTx standards for short and long distances under substantially all operating conditions.
US08160456B2
A bias controller for an optical modulator. The modulator includes a bias electrode that is operable when appropriately biased by an applied bias voltage to configure the modulator to operate at quadrature, and the bias controller includes: a generating arrangement for generating power signals indicative of the optical output power of the modulator; and a processor operably connected to the generating arrangement and said bias electrode and arranged to receive said power signals from said generating arrangement and to control the bias voltage applied to said bias electrode. The processor is configured to vary the bias voltage applied to said bias electrode and to determine from power signals received from said generating arrangement a peak optical output power for said modulator, and to determine in dependence upon said peak optical power a target optical power for quadrature with reference to a store of predetermined values for peak output power and respective corresponding values of target optical power for quadrature. Other embodiments relate to a multi-channel bias controller, and to a method for controlling voltage bias in a modulator.
US08160454B2
Disclosed herein is a visible-light communication system according to one embodiment of the invention. The system comprises two apparatus. One apparatus emits a visible light beam on which is superimposed transmission data. From the void data represented by the visible light beam, the other apparatus generates a retroflected light beam, superimposes transmission data on the retroflected light beam, and applies the retroflected light beam to the apparatus. On receiving the retroflected light beam, the apparatus identifies the transmission data coming from the other apparatus, on the basis of the identification data superimposed on the retroflected light beam.
US08160442B2
Systems and methods are described that measure the OSNR of an optical channel. Embodiments provide OSNR measurement methods that distinguish the intensities of the coherent modulated signal from the incoherent noise intensity occupying the same optical band using a calibration factor ζ.
US08160426B2
Systems and methods for managing the storage of recordings in a recording device in which the recordings were requested by several users are provided. Each user may be assigned a storage space limit defining the amount of storage space each user is entitled to use. In some embodiments, the storage space limit may be flexibly increased to take advantage of extra space available from other users. The system may intelligently borrow space from other users to limit the risk that a requested recording is canceled due to unavailable storage resources. In some embodiments, the system may jointly allocate a recording to several users who commonly requested a recording. The system may also set aside space in the recording device that is saved exclusively for a particular user. In some embodiments, the recording device may allocate the storage resources based on the usage of the recordings.
US08160425B2
A method of storing different video data in a video file is disclosed. The method processes a display of video windows (eg 621) each for displaying the different video data in an arrangement, and a user interface (eg 601) for selecting a period of the different video data to be stored for display in the video windows (eg 621) The method stores a portion of the different video data, corresponding to the selected period, in the video file. The video file maintains the arrangement of the video windows (eg 621) for displaying the portion of video data.
US08160417B2
Disclosed herein is a printed circuit board for an optical waveguide, including a base board, and an optical waveguide formed on the base board. The optical waveguide includes a lower clad layer formed on the base board, an insulation layer formed on the lower clad layer and having a core-forming through-hole, a core part formed on a region of the lower clad layer, which is exposed through the through-hole, and an upper clad layer formed in the through-hole and on the insulation layer.
US08160405B2
Consistent with the present disclosure, a non-adiabatic polarization rotator is provided that can rotate the polarization of an incoming over a relatively short length. Light is supplied to the polarization rotator via a polarizer, which insures that the optical input to the polarization polarization rotator has a desired polarization. Preferably, the polarization rotator has a structure that is readily implemented with semiconductor materials and can be fabricated with known processing techniques. In addition, the polarization rotator and polarizer may include similar materials and/or layers, such that both may be readily integrated on a common substrate, such as an indium phosphide (InP) substrate.
US08160402B2
An image of a character string composed of M pieces of characters is clipped from a document image, and the image is divided character by character, and image features of each character image are extracted. On the basis of the image features, N (N>1, integer) pieces of character images in descending order of degree of similarity are selected as candidate characters from a character image feature dictionary which stores the image features of character image in units of character, and the first index matrix of M×N cells is prepared. A candidate character string composed of a plurality of candidate characters constituting the first column of the first index matrix, is subjected to a lexical analysis according to a predetermined language model, whereby a second index matrix adjusted into a character string which makes sense is prepared to be utilized for searching.
US08160395B2
A method is provided for synchronizing corresponding landmarks among a plurality of images of an elastic object. The method includes identifying a plurality of landmarks in a first image of the object and a second image of the object, determining a correspondence between the landmarks in the first image and the landmarks in the second image, determining a distance transformation between a pair of adjacent landmarks in the first image and the corresponding pair of adjacent landmarks in the second image, and when displaying the first and second images, using the distance transformation to smoothly navigate between the adjacent landmarks such that corresponding landmarks of the first and second images are arrived at about simultaneously during navigation.
US08160390B1
Motion picture scenes to be colorized/depth enhanced (2D→3D) are broken into separate elements, backgrounds/sets or motion/onscreen-action. Background and motion elements are combined into composite frame which becomes a visual reference database that includes data for all frame offsets used later for the computer controlled application of masks within a sequence of frames. Masks are applied to subsequent frames of motion objects based on various differentiating image processing methods, including automated mask fitting/reshaping. Colors and/or depths are automatically applied to masks throughout a scene from the composite background and to motion objects. Areas never exposed by motion or foreground objects in a series of images may be partially or fully realistically drawn or rendered and applied to the occluded areas of the background and then automatically applied throughout the images to generate of minimal artifact or artifact-free secondary viewpoints when translating foreground objects horizontally during 2D→3D conversion.
US08160379B2
A method that reconstructs an image function (r), which represents an object function (ƒ) of an object imaged by periodically structured illumination with an illumination grating. It includes: provision of a group of optical sectional images, which are formed after folding operations of the object function (ƒ) with an illumination point spread function (hI), from recorded intermediate images (gi) of the object, wherein the group of optical sectional images contains sub-images (gck, gsk) whose contributions in the image function (r) are formed by kth Fourier components (k>1) of the illumination grating, and demodulation of the group of optical sectional images in order to generate the image function (r). Also described are an imaging method and devices in which the reconstruction method is used.
US08160375B2
Lossless image compression is performed by receiving and opening an original image file representing an image. A pixel path is determined in the image by analyzing one or more complex structures in the image. The one or more complex structures are represented using a mathematical expression. Each of the pixels along the determined pixel path is replaced to minimize the complex structure, thus providing a compressed image file having a smaller file size than the original image file. A comment is inserted in the compressed image file specifying the determined pixel path. The compressed image file is stored on a computer-readable storage medium.
US08160368B2
The image feature extraction method of the present invention includes: the step of performing k2 dividing process at least once on a given image so as to convert the given image into a multi-divided image, where the k2 dividing process comprises the steps of: a) creating matrix T based on image matrix X; b) computing singular values of the matrix T; c) determining whether or not minj|σj−σj−1|>ε; d) if the result of the determination in the step c) is “No”, returning to the step c) subsequent to computing the singular values of the enlarged matrix Tα; e) if the result of the determination in the step c) is “Yes”, obtaining U which satisfies T=USVT; f) obtaining matrix T1=UTT; and g) creating image matrix X1 based on matrix T1.
US08160365B2
Aspects of the present invention relate to methods and systems for determining image characteristics in a digital image.
US08160364B2
An image registration system for aligning first and second images. The novel system includes a first system for extracting a region of interest (ROI) from each image and a second system for coarsely aligning the regions of interest. The first system determines the size and location of the ROI based on the number of features contained within the region. The size of the ROI is enlarged until a number of features contained in the ROI is larger than a predetermined lower bound or until the size is greater than a predetermined upper bound. The second system computes a cross-correlation on the regions of interest using a plurality of transforms to find a coarse alignment transform having a highest correlation. The image registration system may also include a third system for performing sub-pixel alignment on the regions of interest.
US08160363B2
Disclosed is a device and method for inputting characters or drawings on a mobile terminal using a virtual screen. To input characters or drawings through a virtual screen, the mobile terminal includes an electronic pen, a virtual screen generator, a position detector for detecting the electronic pen position, and a character recognition algorithm for recognizing a trail as a character. When a signal is input from the electronic pen, the mobile terminal detects the originating position of the signal and its trail. The mobile terminal recognizes the detected trail as a character and generates a virtual screen with the recognized character.
US08160357B2
According to one embodiment there is provided a method of selecting a plurality of M atlases from among a larger group of N candidate atlases to form a multi-atlas data set to be used for computer automated segmentation of novel image data sets to mark objects of interest therein. A set of candidate atlases is used containing a reference image data set and segmentation data. Each of the candidate atlases is segmented against the others in a leave-one-out strategy, in which the candidate atlases are used as training data for each other. For each candidate atlas in turn, the following is carried out: registering; segmenting; computing an overlap; computing a value of the similarity measure for each of the registrations; and obtaining a set of regression parameters by performing a regression with the similarity measure being the independent variable and the overlap being the dependent variable. The M atlases are then selected from among all the N candidate atlases to form the multi-atlas data set, the M atlases being those atlases determined to collectively provide the highest aggregate overlap over all the training data image sets.
US08160354B2
An image-based pattern recognizer and a method and apparatus for making such a pattern recognizer are disclosed. By employing positional coding, the meaning of any feature present in an image can be defined implicitly in space. The pattern recognizer can be a neural network including a plurality of stages of observers. The observers are configured to cooperate to identify the presence of features in the input image and to recognize a pattern in the input image based on the features. Each of the observers includes a plurality of neurons. The input image includes a plurality of units, and each of the observers is configured to generate a separate output set that includes zero or more coordinates of such units.
US08160342B2
A signal processing method include steps initializing a residual data signal representative of an acquired data signal, determining a significant coefficient corresponding to the residual data signal, updating the residual data signal using the significant coefficient to generate updated residual data signal, iteratively determining significant coefficients to generate a plurality of significant coefficients using the updated residual data signal, updating the plurality of significant coefficients by using a successive approximation technique, to improve the numerical accuracy of the significant coefficients and reconstructing a data signal using the updated plurality of significant coefficients.
US08160338B2
An apparatus includes a transformation table acquiring unit, a blood-flow information acquisition unit and a blood-flow image generating unit. The transformation table acquiring unit obtains a transformation table for transforming unspecified information representing a concentration of a contrast medium in a myocardium into an unspecified blood flow value image based on a CT image acquired in a concentration transition period. The blood-flow information acquisition unit obtains information representing the concentration of the contrast medium based on a CT image acquired during a constant concentration period. The blood-flow image generating unit generates a blood flow value image based on the information representing the concentration of the contrast medium according to the transformation table.
US08160335B2
Computer-aided diagnosis techniques may be combined with techniques to obtain derived images from radiographic images to provide enhanced computer-aided diagnosis of, for example, lung nodules.
US08160334B2
A method for optically measuring an object by means of an optical recording apparatus includes a triangulation method. A first shutter means is used to produce a first pattern and to project the first pattern as a first projection beam onto the object to be measured. At least one further shutter means is used to produce a further pattern and to project the further pattern as a further projection beam onto the object to be measured. The first pattern and the further pattern are passed back from the object as observation beams and are recorded by at least one recording means in order to obtain a three-dimensional data record of the object. The projected first pattern and the further pattern are recorded at the same time in at least one triangulation recording using the at least one recording means.
US08160331B2
An image processing apparatus includes a spectral-characteristic estimating unit that estimates, based on a pixel value of a pixel of a stained sample image, a spectral characteristic value of each wavelength at a corresponding point on a stained sample corresponding to the pixel, the stained sample image being obtained by imaging the stained sample that is stained with a plurality of dyes. The image processing apparatus also includes a weight setting unit that sets a weight value of each wavelength based on the spectral characteristic value of each wavelength estimated by the spectral-characteristic estimating unit; and a weighted dye-amount estimating unit that estimates an amount of dye at the corresponding point on the stained sample as a weighted dye amount based on the spectral characteristic value of each wavelength estimated by the spectral-characteristic estimating unit using the weight value of each wavelength.
US08160325B2
A method for surgical planning is disclosed. A set of related two-dimensional (2D) anatomical images or 3D images is displayed. A plurality of anatomical landmarks are identified on the set of anatomical images. A three-dimensional (3D) representation of a parent prosthesis is scaled to match a scale of the 2D anatomical images based at least in part on a relationship between the anatomical landmarks. A 2D representation of the scaled 3D parent prosthesis is displayed on at least one of the 2D anatomical images. A system for surgical planning is also disclosed. The system has a prosthesis knowledge-based information system, a patient anatomical-based information system, a user interface, and a controller. The controller has an anatomical landmark identifier. The controller also has a prosthesis-to-anatomical-feature relator. The controller is configured to display a set of related two-dimensional (2D) anatomical images from the patient anatomical-based information system on the user interface.
US08160318B2
A method for processing images in interventional radioscopy for detecting guiding instrumentation equipment. The method of the invention enables objects of longilinear or very curved shapes to be detected within the radioscopic image having very low contrast to noise ratios. In one embodiment, an algorithm enables the measured contrast to noise ratio of long or curved structures in the image to be considerably improved. To do this, an embodiment of the invention uses oriented, separable, recursive and rapid steerable detection filters. Said detection filters have a low calculation cost, even for long filters having several orientations.
US08160317B2
The invention relates to a method for the topographical presentation of structural alterations in an examined brain using volume data records. In line with the invention, this method is distinguished in that functional areas are mapped by extracting profiles, where the profiles record boundaries for two functional areas in the examined brain, in that the boundaries of the two functional areas are recorded by calculating a multivariant distance measurement, and in that a microstructure in the region of the boundaries of the two cortical areas is recorded and is compared with at least one microstructure in a boundary region of a reference brain. To increase the comparability of various areas in various brains taking into account the interindividual variability, it is expedient for the volume data records to be transformed to a target volume data record using an elastic registration method.
US08160313B2
An apparatus for input and fingerprint recognition comprises a touch surface, a processor coupled to the touch surface, and instructions stored on the apparatus. The touch surface comprises a first region and a second region. The first region has a first sensor resolution, and the second region has a second sensor resolution that is greater than the first sensor resolution. The instructions configure the processor to selectively operate the touch surface in one of a touch input mode and a fingerprint mode. In the touch input mode, the processor detects a touch input anywhere on the touch surface by sampling the first and second regions at the first sensor resolution. In the fingerprint mode, the processor reads a fingerprint on the second region by sampling the second region at the second sensor resolution.
US08160305B2
Method and apparatus for measuring deposition of particulate contaminants in pulp and paper slurries
A method and an apparatus for measuring the depositability of particulate contaminants present in a pulp or paper mill fluid stream and evaluating interactions of such particulate contaminants with other contaminants collects the particulate contaminants on a suitable substrate, such as a plastic film coated with an adhesive or coated with organic contaminate, placed in contact with the pulp or paper mill fluid stream for at least five minutes up to several hours. The amount of contaminants collected on the substrate is quantified and evaluated by taking one or more scanned images of the substrate with a resolution of at least 2,000 dots per inch (DPI) and analyzing the scanned images with image analysis technique.
US08160297B2
A system for processing an image of a surrounding of a vehicle is provided. The system includes an image generator that is configured for generating an image, the image having at least a first and a second portion. The first and second portions of the image differ from each other and the first portion of the image is generated for further processing earlier than the second portion of the image. Additionally, the system includes an image processor for processing the first and second portions of the image, where the image processor is configured for processing the first portion of said image while awaiting for the second portion of the image to become available to the image processor.
US08160293B1
Apparatus and method to verify the integrity of a digital image (i.e., deciding whether or not the entire image or just a portion has been tampered with, and/or finding the doctored area in the image). One first determines the imaging sensor's reference pattern noise, which serves as a unique fingerprint that identifies the imaging sensor that captured the image. To verify the integrity of the content in a region of the image, a correlation detector determines the presence or absence of the imaging sensor's reference pattern noise in that region, thereby verifying whether or not the image has integrity. The correlation detector can also find automatically one or more regions in the image that were tampered with. In another embodiment, one determines the pattern noise of only the image in question and tests that noise to determine whether or not the image has integrity.
US08160292B2
In a loudspeaker, three magnets are disposed to provide magnetic gaps therebetween and a voice coil is fit therein. The magnets disposed at both sides are magnetized so that their opposing poles exhibit the same magnetic polarity. The magnet in the middle has its magnetic poles in the direction perpendicular to the line connecting the poles of the side magnets. The side magnets are fixed to a plate made of non-magnetic material. Those magnetic poles of the side magnets and the middle magnet not facing the magnetic gaps are magnetically coupled by a magnetic member.
US08160291B2
A voice coil includes a bobbin formed of a wooden sheet obtained by slicing natural wood to a predetermined thickness and a coil that surrounds an outer circumference of the bobbin.
US08160283B2
In order to reduce feedback in a hearing aid, a hearing aid receiver is provided that comprises a housing having an inside surface and an outside surface, a motor, an active armature that is attached to the motor and attached to the inside surface of the housing, the active armature being driven in a vibrational manner by the motor, and an external passive component that is attached to the outside surface of the housing, the external passive component designed to vibrate in a direction opposed to vibrations of the active armature. A corresponding method for operating such a hearing aid receives is also provided.
US08160282B2
An automatic sound system equalizer adjusts a sound system to a target sound, where the sound system includes at least two groups of loudspeakers supplied with electrical sound signals to be converted into acoustical sound signals. The equalizer sequentially supplies each group with the respective electrical sound signal; sequentially assesses the deviation of the acoustical sound signal from the target sound for each group of loudspeakers, and adjusts at least two groups of loudspeakers to a relatively small, preferably minimum deviation from the target sound by equalizing the respective electrical sound signals supplied to the groups of loudspeakers.
US08160269B2
In one embodiment, the methods and apparatuses adjust a listening area of a microphone includes detecting an initial listening zone; capture a captured sound through a microphone array; identify an initial sound based on the captured sound and the initial listening zone wherein the initial sound includes sounds within the initial listening zone; adjust the initial listening zone and forming the adjusted listening zone; and identify an adjusted sound based on the captured sound and the adjusted listening zone wherein the adjusted sound includes sounds within the adjusted listening zone.
US08160259B2
An audio signal processing apparatus includes a localization direction detector that detects localization directions of two-channel input audio signals, a localization direction distribution calculator that calculates a distribution of the localization directions detected by the localization direction detector, a gain table information recording unit that records gain table information defining weights corresponding to respective localization angles, a gain generator that generates a gain corresponding to an output audio signal on the basis of the distribution calculated by the localization direction distribution calculator and the gain table information recorded in the gain table information recording unit, and a synthesizing unit that synthesizes the two-channel input audio signals using the gain generated by the gain generator.
US08160257B1
A security appliance that encrypts and decrypts information is installed in each of redundant multi-paths between a host system and a back up tape storage system. The host system is arranged to detect failures in a primary path to the tape system being used. When the failure is detected, the host system enables transfers to the same tape system through an alternative path. Encryption keys and host/tape designators (identifiers) are broadcast among the security appliances in the alternative data paths. When the host system switches from the primary path to the secondary path, even though the secondary security appliance did not generate the encryption keys, the secondary path security appliance will have such keys and will properly encrypt and transfer data from the host to the tape system. The secondary will also properly retrieve encrypted data from the tape system, decrypt it and deliver it to the host. All of these operations will be transparent (invisible) to a running application in the host.
US08160255B2
Various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter provide methods and systems for improved efficiency and security in secure gateway-to-secure gateway network communication. Embodiments provide systems and methods for generating a sender secure gateway private identity, obtaining a receiver secure gateway public identity, generating an encryption key using the sender secure gateway private identity and the receiver secure gateway public identity, encrypting a data packet using the encryption key, and sending the encrypted data packet to a receiver secure gateway. Embodiments also provide systems and methods for generating a receiver secure gateway private identity, obtaining a sender secure gateway public identity, generating a decryption key using the receiver secure gateway private identity and the sender secure gateway public identity, receiving an encrypted data packet from a sender secure gateway, and decrypting the data packet using the decryption key.
US08160253B2
A method for wireless data transmission between a base station and a transponder is provided, whereby a message, comprising at least one command and one data sequence, is transmitted by the base station, the message is received and evaluated by the transponder, at least one key is provided in the transponder after receipt of the command and before complete receipt of the message and the key is transmitted to the base station, the key is detected by the base station, and parts of the message, still to be transmitted, and/or subsequent messages are encoded by the base station with the key.
US08160252B2
Disclosed is a method for generating a Short Term Key Message (STKM) for protection of a broadcast service being broadcasted to a terminal in a mobile broadcast system. The method includes transmitting, by a Broadcast Service Subscription Management (BSM) for managing subscription information, at least one key information for authentication of the broadcast service to a Broadcast Service Distribution/Adaptation (BSD/A) for transmitting the broadcast service, generating, by the BSD/A, a Traffic Encryption Key (TEK) for deciphering of the broadcast service in the terminal and inserting the TEK into a partially created STKM, and performing, by the BSD/A, Message Authentication Code (MAC) processing on the TEK-inserted STKM using the at least one key information, thereby generating a completed STKM.
US08160239B2
An echo canceller used for hands-free communication systems in which hands-free communication is performed by using a speaker and a microphone is disclosed. The echo canceller includes a step size control unit calculating a step size value in an adaptive filter and an adaptive filter unit estimating an echo component of a feedback path from an input signal to the feedback path by adaptively identifying an impulse response of the feedback path formed by an acoustical coupling and the like of the speaker and the microphone, and subtracting the echo component from an output signal from the feedback path, in which the step size control unit calculates a step size value by using an echo reduction amount defined based on the ratio between the output signal from the feedback path and a residual signal and outputs the value to the adaptive filter unit.
US08160238B2
The present invention discloses a double-talk detection method and apparatus. The method includes: obtaining a far-end signal frame and a near-end signal frame; and detecting a talk state according to a spectrum difference between the far-end signal frame and the near-end signal frame. The apparatus includes: an obtaining module, adapted to obtain a far-end signal frame and a near-end signal frame; and a spectrum detecting module, adapted to detect a talk state according to a spectrum difference between the far-end signal frame and the near-end signal frame. With the present invention, the talk state is detected according to the spectrum difference between the far-end signal and the near-end signal. Even if nonlinear distortion exists, the precision of detection is not impacted, whereas, the greater the distortion is, the more precise the detection result and the better the detection performance will be.
US08160237B2
A multi-stage differential amplifier and method provides a gain versus frequency warping response characteristic that equalizes a transmission line of a given length to compensate for frequency-dependent attenuation. The warping response characteristic comprises the inverse of the attenuation versus frequency characteristic of the line, and affords a substantially flat system gain response over a predetermined frequency spectrum. The individual amplifier stages employ operational amplifiers, and are designed using SPICE simulations such that the individual responses of the stages are tailored so they combine to provide the required overall warping response to compensate the line.
US08160221B2
A cellular telephone receives a wireless signal containing Caller ID and a picture or video message. The picture or video message may be encrypted, compressed or encoded. The received Caller ID may be used to establish the identity of the originator of the picture or video message.
US08160219B2
An inmate calls a call processing system and provides two phone numbers to it. The first phone number is for a 2nd Party who will accept the inmate's collect call and who will agree to pay any additional charge for adding a third party to the collect call. The second phone number is for a 3rd Party the inmate would like added to the collect call. The call processing system places the inmate on hold while the system dials the 2nd Party. When the 2nd Party accepts the inmate's collect call and agrees to pay for an additional fee for establishing a three-way call during the collect call, the inmate is taken off hold and is connected to the 2nd Party.
US08160211B1
An IVR signature detection and event management system facilitates real-time discovery and notification of abnormal behavior within an IVR system. The system collects metrics associated with usage of the IVR system. The system uses the collected metrics to define a baseline. Having defined a baseline, the system collects evaluation metrics for comparison to the baseline. Where the evaluation metrics deviate from the baseline beyond a threshold deviation, the system detects aberrance. The system triggers an event in response to the detected aberrance. The event may be a message, one or more corrective actions, or the like.
US08160201B2
The aim of the method is to characterize an element (21) comprising a plurality of superposed layers separated from one another by interfaces. It comprises at least the following steps: The element (21) is illuminated with radiation (15) emitted by a source (13); radiation (23) transmitted through the element (21) is collected on a detector (17), this transmitted radiation forming an experimental image of the element (21) on the detector (17), the detector (17) being placed at such a distance from the element (21) that interference fringes appear on the experimental image at the interfaces between the layers; and an approximate value of at least one physical characteristic of at least one given layer is determined by calculation from the experimental image, the determination step being implemented by minimizing the difference between the experimental image and a simulated image of at least part of the experimental image of the element (21).
US08160200B2
A technique for acquiring desired image data in an imaging system comprising at least one radiation source and a detector is described. Initially, preliminary image data corresponding to an object may be acquired. Further, at least one parameter associated with the radiation source and corresponding to a particular view angle of the radiation source may be determined based on the preliminary image data and a priori information. Similarly, at least one parameter associated with the detector and corresponding to the particular view angle may be determined based on a priori information and the preliminary image data. Efficient operating modes of the radiation source and the detector corresponding to the particular view angle may be selected based on the determined parameters to achieve a desired system performance. Subsequently, the final image data may be acquired using the selected operating modes of the radiation source and the detector.
US08160195B2
Methods for processing a signal of interest in an electrical power system are provided, as well as systems and computer program products for carrying out the methods. The methods include obtaining a representative window of data points from the signal of interest; obtaining a window of interest containing data points from the signal of interest; and comparing a phase drift compensated window to the representative window, wherein the compensated window is calculated in accordance with the window of interest and a phase drift that is present in the window of interest relative to the representative window.
US08160191B2
Embodiments of the invention are concerned with correction of quadrature errors associated with digital communications systems, and in particular in a wireless transmit chain in which an up-converter and a down-converter both have a direct conversion architecture. One embodiment comprises a correction network for correcting a difference between a transmission characteristic of an in-phase signal path and a transmission characteristic of a quadrature signal path, said quadrature signal path being for the transmission of in-phase and quadrature parts of a signal and the signal comprising frequency components within a base band, wherein the correction network comprises an in-phase input port, a quadrature input port, an in-phase output port and a quadrature output port, wherein each input port is connected to each output port by a digital filter network, the digital filter network comprising a set of filter tap coefficients and configuration means for configuring values of said set of filter tap coefficients. Since each input port is connected to each output port by a digital filter network comprising a set of filter tap coefficients and having configuration means for configuring values of said set of filter tap coefficients, frequency dependent quadrature impairments, for example due to the analogue components of a quadrature up-converter or down-converter, may be corrected by suitable control of the coefficients.
US08160188B2
Method and system for wireless communication in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication system is disclosed. The method involves receiving a plurality of receive-signals over a first set of antennas. Further, one or more of the plurality of receive-signals are cyclically delayed to generate one or more cyclically delayed receive-signal. Subsequently, one or more of the plurality of receive-signals are combined with one or more of the cyclically delayed receive-signals. In other words, the method involves performing receive Cyclic Delay Diversity (CDD).
US08160178B2
A transmitter has a transmission modulator including first and second modulators, a phase comparator and a controller. First and second non-inverted local signals supplied to the modulators are set to have a predetermined phase difference. In a calibration action for reducing carrier leakage, the phase comparator is supplied with the first or second local signals, and carrier signals leaking at an output of the transmission modulator. The controller keeps changing the ratio of DC biasing currents to paired transistors of each modulator until the predetermined phase difference is detected with the phase comparator. When the predetermined phase difference is detected, the controller stops changing the ratio of DC biasing currents. The chip footprint of a transmitter on the direct up-conversion (DUC) architecture is reduced, and carrier leakage owing to local signals supplied to the transmission modulator are decreased.
US08160175B2
To improve the reliability of channel estimation, data symbols at determined positions of the transmitted data stream are replaced by quasi-pilot symbols. The quasi-pilot symbols carry data modulated onto the carrier with a different modulation scheme than the original symbols. The modulation scheme for the quasi-pilot symbols has a lower amplitude and/or phase ambiguity than the modulation scheme for the original data symbol.
US08160172B2
A method from transmitting data via multiple antennas. In this method, four information bits to be transmitted are multiplexed by using either one of a code division multiplexing scheme or a second code division multiplexing scheme combined with a real and imaginary multiplexing scheme, to generate a code division multiplexed symbol including four vectors. Then, the code division multiplexed symbol is repeatedly transmitted by alternatively applying two transmit diversity schemes via four transmission antennas.
US08160165B2
A communications device includes communication data and a training sequence corresponding to a preamble. A modulation and mapping circuit modulates the communications data and training sequence into a plurality of multiple subcarriers that are orthogonal to each other to form an OFDM communications signal having modulated subcarriers carrying the communications data forming a data payload and modulated subcarriers forming the preamble. A pseudo-random signal generator is operative with the modulation and mapping circuit and generates pseudo-random signals based on an encryption algorithm for frequency hopping each subcarrier at an OFDM symbol rate. The modulation and mapping circuit applies a quadratic modulation to the subcarriers carrying the training sequences to produce a low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) preamble with a PAPR value of approximately 2.6 decibels (dB).
US08160146B2
A method and apparatus for coding an image includes calculation of motion vectors of vertices of a patch in an image being encoded and transmitting information of horizontal and vertical components of the motion vectors of the vertices and information specifying that values of the horizontal and vertical components of a motion vector for each pixel in the patch are integral multiples of 1/d of a distance between adjacent pixels, where d is an integer not less than 2.
US08160144B1
Motion estimation in video encoding switches among motion estimation methods for successive predicted pictures depending upon statistics of prior pictures. Locally averaged motion vectors, fraction of intra-coded macroblocks, average quantization parameter, and so forth provide tests for applicability of particular motion estimation methods, such as ones which perform better for large motion or perform better for small motion with complex texture.
US08160140B2
There are provided methods and apparatus for transmitting multiple video streams over a video channel. A video encoder is provided for encoding a plurality of streams corresponding to a plurality of programs. The video encoder includes an encoder (300) for encoding each of the plurality of streams for transmission over a communication channel. The encoder imposes a relative positioning on intra-coded frames among the plurality of programs to meet individual stream delay requirements corresponding to the plurality of streams.
US08160132B2
Techniques and tools are described for reducing key picture popping effects. In some embodiments, an encoding system filters a video picture that is to be encoded as a key picture using intra-picture compression. The filtering reduces detail in the picture relative to other video pictures that are to be encoded using inter-picture compression. In many cases, the filtering reduces key picture popping effects by selectively attenuating detail in the picture that is to be encoded as a key picture. The encoding tool can use a key picture filter strength parameter to control strength of the filtering. The tool encodes the filtered video picture using intra-picture compression and encodes the other video pictures using inter-picture compression.
US08160118B2
A dual burst transmitter for ultra-wideband (UWB) communication systems generates a pair of precisely spaced RF bursts from a single trigger event. An input trigger pulse produces two oscillator trigger pulses, an initial pulse and a delayed pulse, in a dual trigger generator. The two oscillator trigger pulses drive a gated RF burst (power output) oscillator. A bias driver circuit gates the RF output oscillator on and off and sets the RF burst packet width. The bias driver also level shifts the drive signal to the level that is required for the RF output device.
US08160116B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor laser including a first conductive type of a lower clad layer 12, an active layer 14 provided on the lower clad layer 12, the active layer 14 including a plurality of quantum dots, and a second conductive type of an upper clad layer 18, the upper clad layer 18 being provided on the active layer 14 so as to have an isolated ridge portion 30 such that W1≦Wtop+0.4 μm where Wtop is the width of a top of the ridge portion 30 and W1 is the width of the ridge portion 30 at a height of 50 nm from a bottom of the ridge portion 30. The present invention also provides a method for manufacturing such a semiconductor laser.
US08160108B2
A method and apparatus for managing a user schedule, the method including: receiving a reservation message from a service provider with which a service reservation by a user is registered; updating the user schedule by adding an entry to the user schedule according to information included in the reservation message; and providing the updated schedule of the user. According to the apparatus and method, the user can conveniently manage the schedule even when the user schedule information is not input manually.
US08160107B2
A data transmission apparatus for sequentially transmitting data in units of packets each containing transmission data to the receiving end. The apparatus including a reception unit receiving the transmission data as an input signal, a packet formation unit receiving the transmission data, and forming an uncompressed packet in which predetermined transmission data is stored as uncompressed data, and a compressed packet in which at least a portion of transmission data that follows the predetermined transmission data is compressed and stored as compressed data. The apparatus also including a reference information management unit holding and managing as reference information related to the uncompressed packet, and a transmission unit transmitting the packets formed by the packet formation unit. The packet formation unit forming compressed data to be stored in a compressed packet, based on the transmission data of the uncompressed packet and the reference information.
US08160105B2
An apparatus and method for processing IP packet fragmentation in a routing system using a network processor includes an ingress network processor receiving a packet, and if the received packet is greater than MTU, fragmenting the packet rather than sending the packet to a control processor to fragment the packet. All packets are processed using a fragmentation-based packet-processing method as a result of packet encapsulation, which is caused for mobility support in an IPv4 router. In addition, all the packets are processed by micro-engines, a data plane processor, irrespective of whether fragmentation is to be performed. Accordingly, the same packet-processing rate can be supported to mobile nodes irrespective of mobility or packet size.
US08160094B2
The present invention provides methods and devices for implementing a Low Latency Ethernet (“LLE”) solution, also referred to herein as a Data Center Ethernet (“DCE”) solution, which simplifies the connectivity of data centers and provides a high bandwidth, low latency network for carrying Ethernet and storage traffic. Some aspects of the invention involve transforming FC frames into a format suitable for transport on an Ethernet. Some preferred implementations of the invention implement multiple virtual lanes (“VLs”) in a single physical connection of a data center or similar network. Some VLs are “drop” VLs, with Ethernet-like behavior, and others are “no-drop” lanes with FC-like behavior. Some preferred implementations of the invention provide guaranteed bandwidth based on credits and VL. Active buffer management allows for both high reliability and low latency while using small frame buffers. Preferably, the rules for active buffer management are different for drop and no drop VLs.
US08160088B2
A method of bandwidth efficient distribution of multiple transport streams with partially the same content solves the centralized way of distribution of multiple transport streams with partially the same set of TV, radio programs, with the distribution network having significant bandwidth reduction, presenting network adapter to other layers.
US08160078B2
An on-demand method of routing data between a plurality of local peer groups (LPG). Each LPG includes a plurality of moving nodes. The method comprises transmitting a route request message from a source node, relaying the route request message to a native boundary node; forwarding the route request message to a foreign boundary node, determining if the destination node is within an LPG for the foreign boundary node; relaying the route request message to another boundary node if the destination node is not within the LPG, relaying the route request message to the destination node if the destination node is within the LPG, receiving the routing request message at the destination node, transmitting a routing response to the source node, relaying the routing response to the source node through a path discovered by the route request, receiving the routing response at the source node, and transmitting the data, upon receipt of the routing response.
US08160077B2
A system and method for establishing communications channels between and among peers in a peer-to-peer networking environment. Pipes may be used as communication channels for sending and receiving messages and other data between services or applications over input and output endpoints. Pipes may be asynchronous, unidirectional, stateless and unreliable. Bidirectional pipes may also be supported. Pipes may have ends that may be moved around and bound to different peers at different times. Point-to-point and propagate pipes may be supported. Pipes may connect peers that have a direct physical link and peers that do not have a direct link. Peers may communicate through pipes without knowing on which peer a pipe endpoint is bound. A message is sent to all peer endpoints currently connected (listening) to the pipe. The set of connected endpoints may be obtained from a pipe service using a pipe binding protocol.
US08160070B2
A fibre channel proxy proxies storage operations in a fibre channel storage network. A first set of fibre channel proxy ports are configured to receive storage operations from one or more initiators. A second set of fibre channel proxy ports are configured to forward the storage operations to one or more storage targets. Fibre channel port identifiers for the storage targets are used to communicate with the initiators during the storage operations over the first set of fibre channel proxy ports. Fibre channel port identifiers for the initiators are used to communicate with the storage targets during the storage operations over the second set of fibre channel proxy ports. This scheme allows the fibre channel to operate transparently in the fibre channel network.
US08160056B2
Certain exemplary embodiments comprise a method, which can comprise providing a preferred route for a predetermined block of traffic to a router. The predetermined block of traffic can be destined for a predetermined destination. The predetermined destination can be coupled to a network via a plurality of routers. The preferred route can be adapted to override an initial route.
US08160052B2
A method, a system and an apparatus for synchronizing the stream between the bearer control layer and bearer layer devices. Bearer layer device returns information corresponding to the stream synchronizing information distributed by the resource manager RM of the bearer control layer back to the resource manager RM (101, 102); when the resource manager RM determines that there is information needed to be synchronized included in the information returned by bearer layer device (103), it compares the information with the one held by itself (105), and performs synchronization to the information within the bearer layer devices that need to be synchronized according to the result of the comparison.
US08160050B2
A mobile communication terminal and multicasting method using the same are disclosed, by which an inter-multiuser multicasting function can be performed without using an access point. The present invention includes a user interface unit, a multicast group management module managing subscriber information based on information delivered via the interface unit, the multicast group management module playing a role in generating and transferring a multicast packet, an internet multicast protocol module delivering a message for joining or leaving a specific group according to a control signal provided by the multicast group management module, and a wireless LAN driving unit performing a multicast traffic action of transmitting the message provided by the internet multicast protocol module in a packet format to a joining group terminal by an ad-hoc system and delivering a packet received from a group terminal to the internet multicast protocol module.
US08160049B2
A method and apparatus for dynamically configuring a memory for hybrid automatic repeat request (H-ARQ) processes in a receiving node to permit a more flexible H-ARQ memory configuration and improve the performance of H-ARQ processes. An H-ARQ memory in the receiving node is reserved for a plurality of H-ARQ processes. A transmitting node dynamically configures the H-ARQ memory in the receiving node for each H-ARQ transmission so that the memory requirement for a plurality of H-ARQ processes exceeds the H-ARQ memory capacity. If there is insufficient H-ARQ memory available to support H-ARQ transmissions, only a subset of the plurality of H-ARQ processes may be activated at a time. When there is insufficient H-ARQ memory for processing H-ARQ transmissions, a negative acknowledgement (NACK), an acknowledgement (ACK), nothing, and/or information indicating the reason for a failed transmission may be transmitted to a transmitting node.
US08160040B2
In a method of downlink operation in a communication system having a network controller, a base station and a terminal, one communication channel is scheduled by the base station; and one communication channel is scheduled by the network controller. The terminal listens to the channel scheduled by the base station at predetermined times known to the terminal and the network controller. Information is signalled from the network controller to the base station, relating to the predetermined times.
US08160039B2
Methods and apparatus for performing peer to peer communications with access routers and non-access router peer devices are described. An access terminal generates a channel estimate estimating the channel between the access terminal and an access router. For at least some communication with the access router, a channel compensation operation is performed on a symbol to be transmitted prior to its transmission to the access router. In contrast, symbols transmitted to other access terminals are not subject to a channel compensation operation prior to transmission with the receiving access terminal being responsible for implementing a channel compensation operation on the received signal.
US08160035B2
The invention relates to a method and a system for creating an optimized communications link (SC/DC) between at least two mobile network nodes (10, 11), whereby corresponding interface management modules (40, 41) create lookup tables (401, 411) of available network interfaces (30, 31), whereby configuration data are transmitted between the mobile network nodes via an available signaling channel (sSC), whereby at least one signaling channel (SC) is created via one of the available network interfaces (30, 31) based on the configuration data by means of corresponding signaling router modules in order to transmit configuration data, and whereby at least one data channel (DC) is created via one of the available network interfaces (30, 31) based on the configuration data by means of corresponding data router modules 60, 61.
US08160031B2
Power control of mixed voice and data transmissions is disclosed. A voice signal is transmitted at a dynamically-adjusted voice transmit power capped at a maximum voice transmit power limit. Concurrently, data bursts are transmitted on top of the voice signal. Data noise is inserted between the data bursts transmissions. The data burst and inserted data noise are transmitted at a dynamically-adjusted data transmit power based on the voice transmit power to restrict the rate of change of the data transmit power until a maximum data transmit power limit is reached.
US08160021B2
A system for media independent handover using a session identifier in which a session identifier is used for identifying a media independent handover registration session across different MIH transport instances between a pair of communicating MIHFs. A point of service maintains a single registration state for a mobile node across the multiple transport instances. A session identifier is assigned by a point of service at the time of initial registration, and is valid only during the lifetime of the registration. A registration state includes local handles to transport instances that are used when sending and receiving media independent handover messages related to the registration.
US08160019B2
Disclosed are a method and system for transmitting and receiving traffic, by a plurality of backhaul collector sites, to and from transceivers associated with sectors of a backhaul frequency reuse plan using a backhaul portion thereof. The method and system further transmit and receive traffic, at a backstretch super collector site of a backstretch cell, to and from alternate or a subset of backhaul collector sites of the plurality of backhaul collector sites surrounding the backstretch collector site.
US08160018B2
Methods of a slot-level remapping physical uplink control channels into two resource blocks respectively located at two slots of a subframe, are generally adapted to a 3GPP LTE physical uplink where ACK/NAK resource blocks may be applied by the extended cyclic prefix, adapted to a complex 3GPP LTE physical uplink where mixed resource blocks (where the ACK/NAK and CQI channels coexist) may be applied by the normal cyclic prefix, and adapted to a complex 3GPP LTE physical uplink where mixed resource blocks (where the ACK/NAK and CQI channels coexist) may be applied by the extended cyclic prefix.
US08160012B2
A method of establishing a channel in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method of establishing a dedicated channel of a user equipment in a wireless communication system includes, receiving channel configuration information which is required for establishing the dedicated channel from a network, transmitting a first status report to the network if at least one first condition is satisfied, and establishing the dedicated channel using the channel configuration information after transmitting the first status report. As a result, the wireless communication system can increase its scheduling efficiency using buffer status information of the UE.
US08160010B2
A scheduling method for a time division multiplex time slot including: establishing a first list of terminals to transmit and connected to one or more stations; while the first list contains one or more terminals: selecting a terminal from the first list; adding the selected terminal to a second list; determining two or more stations to which the selected terminal is connected, and if the first list contains one or more other terminals also connected to the determined stations, deleting the other terminal(s) from the first list; when the first list is empty, commanding transmission during the time slot to terminals of the second list; and if a terminal from the second list is connected to at least two stations, commanding transmission from the two stations.
US08160004B2
A group of nodes used for sensing in a cooperative sensing communication system (100) are selected from nodes (104-112) associated with a base station (102) operating in secondary communication mode. The group has a spatial diversity gain, as determined by a cooperative sensing index (306) that initially meets a minimum threshold. To optimize the spatial diversity gain, nodes not in the initial set are individually added to the set (408), and the index is recomputed (608). The additional node having the highest effect on spatial diversity is added to the group (614). To maintain group size, each of the original nodes is individually removed from the group (706) and the index is recomputed (708) with each initial node removed to determine which of the initial nodes provided the smallest spatial gain contribution, and is removed from the group (714).
US08160001B2
A communication method includes establishing a first communication session over a first connection between a wireless terminal and a base station (BS) of a long-range wireless data network, which operates in accordance with a first protocol that defines a sequence of time frames. Based on the time frames defined by the BS, time slots are allocated for establishing a second communication session over a second connection between the wireless terminal and a peripheral wireless device, which operates in accordance with a second, short-range time-slotted communication protocol different from the first protocol.Time intervals are allocated within the time frames for communication between the BS and the wireless terminal over the first connection, such that the allocated time intervals are interleaved with and do not overlap the allocated time slots. The first and second communication sessions are concurrently conducted in the allocated time intervals and the assigned time slots, respectively.
US08159997B2
A wireless communication system includes a multi service supplying unit which transmits the same data to a plurality of user equipment and a quality evaluation result collecting unit which collects quality evaluation results of a multi service from the plurality of user equipment. The wireless communication system includes a resource controlling unit which controls shared wireless communication resources used for the multi service according to the quality evaluation results.
US08159991B1
A wireless local area network module including an input configured to receive a control signal, wherein the control signal indicates whether a vehicle is in a parked position. The wireless local area network module further includes a wireless local area network transceiver associated with the vehicle. The wireless local area network transceiver is configured to i) receive data packets via a first wireless communication channel, and ii) in response to the control signal indicating that the vehicle is in a parked position, repeat the data packets over the first wireless communication channel.
US08159985B2
A system and method of registering or exchanging information about the availability of multimedia information and services is disclosed. Access devices in a wireless local area network (WLAN) and/or personal area network (PAN) may register, with a wireless broadband access gateway, selected information about multimedia information and services that they have and may share. Information about the available multimedia information and services may be shared by the wireless broadband access gateway with other access devices within the coverage area of the WLAN or PAN. Access devices may then access the multimedia information and services of other access devices via the wireless broadband access gateway, based upon information identifying and authenticating the recipient. A broadband connection permits the gateway to pass multimedia information and service activity to and from the access devices within the coverage area of the WLAN or PAN.
US08159984B1
A wireless network comprises a plurality of nodes. An access point wirelessly communicates with the plurality of nodes, generates a table comprising a list of the plurality of nodes, and transmits the table to a first node of the plurality of nodes. The first node determines a hidden status of a second node in the table relative to the first node.
US08159979B2
A method of providing uplink and downlink transmissions between a mobile terminal and a base station in a mobile communication system is provided. The method increases the flexibility and efficiency of a mobile communication system utilizing one or more relay entities and provides new frame structures to support legacy and new transmissions in a mobile communication system.
US08159978B2
A method and apparatus of transmitting a feedback message in a wireless communication system is provided. A mobile station receives information on a first period and a second period from a base station and transmits a first feedback message in every first period or a second feedback message in every second period to the base station over a primary fast feedback channel (PFBCH). The first feedback message comprises a channel quality indicator (CQI) for a subband selected from a plurality of subbands, and the second feedback message comprises a subband index of the selected subband.
US08159976B2
A self healing ad hoc communications network and method of training for and healing the network. The network includes wireless devices or nodes that include a neural network element and the ad hoc network operates as a neural network. Some of the nodes are designated as healing nodes that are identified during network training and are strategically located in the network coverage area. Whenever one group of nodes loses connection with another a healing node may reposition itself to reconnect the two groups. Thus, the network can maintain connectivity without constraining node movement.
US08159974B2
One embodiment includes monitoring, for each communication node, at least one factor of interest and a plurality of potential influencing factors associated with the factor of interest. The factor of interest characterizes an operating condition of the communication node, and the plurality of potential influencing factors each have a potential influence on the operating condition. For each factor of interest for each communication node, a predictor coefficient for one or more of the potential influencing factors associated with the factor of interest is determined. The predictor coefficient indicates a predicted level of influence the potential influencing factor has on the factor of interest. For each communication node, interfaces are configured between the communication node and other communication nodes based on the determined predictor coefficients.
US08159973B2
The invention provides an ultra-scalable supercomputer based on MPU architecture in achieving the well-balanced performance of hundreds of TFLOPS or PFLOPS range in applications. The supercomputer system design includes the interconnect topology and its corresponding routing strategies, the communication subsystem design and implementation, the software and hardware schematic implementations. The supercomputer comprises a plurality of processing nodes powering the parallel processing and Axon nodes connecting computing nodes while implementing the external interconnections. The interconnect topology can be based on MPU architecture and the communication routing logic as required by switching logics is implemented in the FPGA chips while some modular designs for accelerating particular traffic patterns from applications and meliorating the communication overhead are able to be deployed as well.
US08159971B2
The present system includes a system, method and device for inferring connectivity between unconnected network segments. In operation, unconnected network segments are identified. Configuration data related to the unconnected network segments may be examined to facilitate inferring configuration data for an external network connected between the unconnected network segments. The inferred configuration data may be rendered, such as exported or visualized. The inferred configuration data may be related to a communication protocol and/or may be related to network bandwidth. The examined configuration data may be captured directly from one or more of the unconnected network segments and/or may be retrieved from a configuration data file, such as a network configuration model.
US08159956B2
The serial communication device includes a first module coupled to a second module via a serial cable. Each of the first and second modules comprise one or more of: a power interface, a controller, memory, a first interface, and a second interface. The power interface is configured to receive operating power for the respective module from an external power source. The controller is configured to obtain digital diagnostic data representative of operational characteristics of at least the respective module. The memory is configured to store the digital diagnostic data. The first interface is configured to allow an external host to read the digital diagnostic data from the memory. The second interface, which is distinct and separate from the first interface, is configured to serially communicate data to the second module via the serial cable.
US08159953B2
To manage resource allocation between users of a wireless or wireline network, recent resource usage by each user is determined and priorities are assigned accordingly. Then, the network resources are allocated according to the assigned priorities. A respective priority of a user may be inversely proportional to the recent resource usage by that user. To facilitate continuous fair distribution of the network resources, the users may be re-prioritized and resources are re-allocated accordingly. Information about recent resource usages by the users is continuously accumulated, including about users moving from one access point of the network to another. When resource allocation for a particular access point is determined, recent resource usage for a user that has joined the access point from another access point in the network may include prior resource usage by that user at the other access point.
US08159928B2
Interference management is provided through use of a user-based interference control and/or a network-based interference control. For user-based interference control, the terminals are informed of the inter-sector interference observed by the neighbor sectors and can adjust their transmit powers accordingly so that the inter-sector interference is maintained within acceptable levels. For network-based interference control, each sector is informed of the inter-sector interference observed by the neighbor sectors and regulates data transmissions for its terminals such that the inter-sector interference is maintained within acceptable levels. Each system may utilize only user-based interference control, or only network-based interference control, or both.
US08159926B2
An information recording medium in which bottoms of a guide groove and a pit array formed on a disc substrate are allocated on a same flat plane and shaped in flat. Further, in a transition area from a pit array to a guide groove or from a guide groove to a pit array, the information recording medium is provided with an intermediate area composed of a pit array of which height changes from a height between a bottom and a side of a groove to another height between the bottom and a side of the pit array.
US08159920B2
According to one embodiment, an optical recording medium is provided in which interlayer crosstalk is low and in which stable and high-quality recording characteristics can be obtained. To this end, an optical recording medium comprises a first recording part which includes a first recording layer and a first light reflecting layer and which is disposed on a side closer to a light receiving surface, and a second recording part which includes a second recording layer and a second light reflecting layer and which is disposed on a side farther from the light receiving surface, the first recording part and the second recording part being stacked, wherein the thickness of the second light reflecting layer is larger than the thickness of the first light reflecting layer.
US08159917B2
A signal processor includes an operational amplifier performing an operation on first and second signals, and amplifying a signal resulting from the operation based on an amplification control signal to remove an offset voltage, a buffer buffering an output signal of the operational amplifier and outputting a result of the buffering as differential signals, an automatic gain amplifier automatic gain amplifying the differential signals output from the buffer and outputting an automatic gain amplified signal as a single ended signal, a level shifter level shifting a level of the single ended signal including the offset voltage and outputting a level shifted signal as level shifted differential signals, and an offset voltage compensation unit converting a difference between the level shifted differential signals to a digital signal, detecting the offset voltage based on the digital signal, and outputting the amplification control signal to compensate for the detected offset voltage.
US08159905B2
Portable device, of all types, comprising a watch (1) with mechanical winding, characterized in that a mechanical device doing away with the need for the user to manually wind, uses the power of kinetic energy provided with simple actions making up normal usage of the device in order to carry out mechanical winding of the watch (1).
US08159903B2
Underwater communication system comprising a plurality of communication modules, each provided with a microprocessor, a memory, a transmitter and a receiver unit; these communication modules are incorporated in an underwater computer and in a plurality of underwater equipment devices; the underwater computer and the underwater equipment devices form an underwater master/slave communication network for short and long ranges, in which each device forms a node and communicates in a bidirectional way with the other nodes of the network administered by a main underwater computer or master unit; each node of the network is identified by a unique identification code which is assigned dynamically by the master unit of the network, and is provided with at least one of said communication modules for short-range communication; a data and message transmission protocol is provided for this network, for administering the bidirectional network between the various nodes of the network.
US08159901B2
A computer-implemented method of discriminating a surface from a subsurface sound-generating target in the water includes identifying an arrival angle of sound generated by the sound-generating target and received by a sound receiver at a known depth in the water. The method also includes generating a probability density function about the measured arrival angle having a corresponding plurality sound arrival angles and mapping the probability density function about the measured arrival angle to a probability density function of vertex depths. The method also includes calculating a probability that the depth of the sound-generating target is greater than a threshold depth by integrating the probability density function of vertex depth. A computer readable storage medium has instructions for implementing the above method and a system has modules for implementing the above method.
US08159891B2
A sensing characteristic evaluating apparatus for a semiconductor device includes a test current supply unit configured to supply a test current to an input/output line during a test mode for evaluating a sensing characteristic, and a sensing amplifying circuit configured to receive the test current from the input/output line, to compare and amplify a sensing input voltage corresponding to the test current with a reference voltage, and to output an amplified voltage as a sensing output voltage.
US08159875B2
Methods of storing multiple data-bits in a non-volatile memory cell are carried out by trapping carriers in a composite trapping layer formed over a tunnel insulator layer. The composite trapping layer contains a plurality of band engineered sub-layers providing a plurality of charge trapping layers.
US08159873B2
There is provided a semiconductor integrated circuit including a state detection enhancement circuit which includes an input terminal and an output terminal and has a function of generating an electric potential of a magnitude capable of performing nonvolatile memory writing into a nonvolatile memory circuit based on an electric potential input to the input terminal and outputting the electric potential of the magnitude to the output terminal, and the nonvolatile memory circuit has a nonvolatile memory function and an input terminal of the nonvolatile memory circuit is connected to the output of the state detection enhancement circuit. The state detection enhancement circuit is a positive or negative logical state detection enhancement circuit which includes a control signal terminal and a switch circuit which is turned on or off by a control signal applied to the control signal terminal, and has a function of either applying an output potential of the same logical state as or an inverse logical state of an input potential applied to the input terminal to the output terminal or completely breaking off a correlation between the input potential and the output potential when the switch circuit is in an OFF state, and has a function of applying an output potential which has the same logical state as or an inverse logical state of the input potential and has a larger highest-lowest potential range including a possible highest-lowest potential range of the input potential to the output terminal when the switch is in an ON state.
US08159865B2
In a method of writing information into and reading information from an information storage element which includes a strip-shaped ferromagnetic material layer, a first electrode disposed at an end of the ferromagnetic material layer, a second electrode disposed at another end of the ferromagnetic material layer, and an antiferromagnetic region composed of an antiferromagnetic material and disposed in contact with at least a part of the ferromagnetic material layer, the method includes the steps of applying a current between the first electrode and the second electrode to cause a current-induced domain wall motion; in the ferromagnetic material layer, writing a magnetization state into a magnetization region as information or reading a magnetization state from a magnetization region as information; and eliminating or decreasing exchange coupling between the ferromagnetic material layer and the antiferromagnetic region at the time of the motion of a domain wall.
US08159861B2
A compact dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cell and highly efficient methods for using the DRAM cell are disclosed. The DRAM cell provides reading, writing, and storage of a data bit on an ASIC chip. The DRAM cell includes a first transistor acting as a pass gate and having a first source node, a first gate node, and a first drain node. The DRAM cell also includes a second transistor acting as a storage device and having a second drain node that is electrically connected to the first drain node to form a storage node. The second transistor also includes a second source node and a second gate node. The second source node is electrically floating, thus increasing the effective storage capacitance of the storage node.
US08159860B2
A data path circuit includes a bit line sense amplifier, a local input/output line precharger connected to a local input/output line pair, a global input/output line precharger connected to a global input/output line pair, a column selector connecting a bit line pair connected to the bit line sense amplifier and the local input/output line pair to each other in response to a column selection signal, and a local input/output line selector connecting the local input/output line pair and the global input/output line pair to each other in response to a multiplexing control signal. A discharge path generator decreases the potential on the global input/output line pair down to a predetermined level in response to a data masking control signal which is activated earlier than the column selection signal during a data masking operation mode.
US08159858B2
A configuration for biasing conductive array lines in a two-terminal cross-point memory array is disclosed. The configuration includes applying a read voltage to a selected X-conductive array line while applying an un-select voltage thru a biasing element to a remaining plurality of un-selected X-conductive array lines. A plurality of Y-conductive array lines are initially biased to some voltage (e.g., 0V) and then allowed to float unbiased after a predetermined amount of time has passed, some event has occurred, or both. As one example the event that triggers the floating of the plurality of Y-conductive array lines can be the read voltage reaching a predetermined magnitude. The array can be formed BEOL and include a plurality of two-terminal memory cells with each memory cell including a memory element and optionally a non-ohmic device (NOD) that are electrically in series with each other and with the two terminals of the memory cell.
US08159857B2
One or more embodiments relate to an electronic device comprising a circuitry and a programmable resistive element. The programmable resistive element comprises a first and a second state, wherein the programmable resistive element is configured to allow switching from the second state into the first state in response to a signal comprising at least a predefined level. The circuitry is configured to provide signals up the predefined level, wherein the circuitry is configured to provide a switch signal to the programmable resistive element, wherein the switch signal causes switching from the first into the second state.
US08159856B2
A resistive sense memory apparatus includes a bipolar select device having a semiconductor substrate, a plurality of collector contacts disposed in a first side of the of the semiconductor substrate, an emitter contact layer disposed in a second side of the semiconductor substrate, and a base layer separating the plurality of collector contacts from the emitter contact layer. Each collector contact is electrically isolated from each other. A resistive sense memory cells is electrically coupled to each collector contacts and a bit line. The base layer and the emitter contact layer provide an electrical path for the plurality of collector contacts.
US08159855B2
A switchable element. The element includes a source electrode, a drain electrode, a conducting channel between the source electrode and the drain electrode, and a gate with multiferroic material being switchable, by application of an electrical signal to the gate, between a first switching state with a first spontaneous polarization direction and a second switching state with a second spontaneous polarization direction. The conducting channel is magnetoresistive, and a magnetic field strength at the conducting channel in the first switching state is different than a magnetic field strength in the second switching state, whereby a current-voltage characteristic of the conducting channel is dependent on the switching state of the multiferroic material.
US08159842B2
The present invention discloses a power converter with extremely low standby power consumption for converting an input AC power to an output DC power, comprising: a DC supply voltage generating unit, used for generating a DC supply voltage; a pulse width modulation controller, used for generating a pulse width modulation signal according to a feedback voltage of the output DC power; and an isolated actuating switch, placed between the DC supply voltage generating unit and the pulse width modulation controller, for controlling the supply of the DC supply voltage to the pulse width modulation controller, according to a switch signal from a loading device.
US08159836B2
Conductor body comprising a first outer component extending in the longitudinal direction and provided with at least one tooth projecting in the transverse direction from the inner surface, the tooth having an inner recess; at least one middle component having a mating recess and tooth, the same as the outer component; a closing component provided with at least one opening able to engage with the at least one tooth of the middle component, wherein each of the components are packed together in a transverse direction so as to form a multi-layer body.
US08159834B2
An electronic mobile device comprises a base forming an inner surface and having a base hinge end. A cover having a cover hinge end is engaged with the base hinge end, and the cover is pivotable about a hinge axis that is substantially parallel to the inner surface of the base. The cover is movable from a closed position to an open position and vice versa relative to the base. In the closed position the cover is disposed proximate the base, and in the open position the cover is disposed away from the base. A base magnet having a first magnetic axis is supported at the base hinge end, and a cover magnet is supported at the cover hinge end so as to move with the cover relative to the base. The cover magnet has a second magnetic axis and interacts with the base magnet. Interaction of the base magnet and the cover magnet tends to align the first magnetic axis and the second magnetic axis and thereby bias the cover towards at least one of the closed position and the open position.
US08159830B2
A device includes a carrier and an integrated circuit chip having a first side supported by the carrier and a second side having contacts. The carrier has multiple carrier contacts supported by the carrier and separated from the integrated circuit chip. Multiple leads are coupled between the contacts on the integrated circuit chip and the multiple carrier contacts. A resin encapsulates the integrated circuit chip leaving the multiple carrier contacts at least partially uncovered for attaching to a card or board.
US08159827B2
When U-shape formed electronic components having an axial lead shape are mounted upright on a printed board, two U-shape formed electronic components having an axial lead shape are arranged so as not to be in the same straight line, and a wiring pattern is formed in a state where bent-side lead wires have the same electric potential, and the electronic components are inclined so as to place the bent-side lead wires close to each other, whereby the electronic components that tend to fall in the inclined direction can be mutually supported by the bent-side lead wires. Thus, the electronic components can be prevented from falling without spoiling a heat dissipation performance of the electronic component and the board, and without greatly deteriorating an assembly performance of the board.
US08159822B2
The invention relates to a power semiconductor module including a module housing and at least one substrate populated with at least one power semiconductor chip. The module housing has a bottom side and a top side spaced away from the bottom side in a positive vertical direction. In addition, the substrate has a bottom side facing away from an interior of the module housing. The substrate is arranged in an opening of the module housing configured in its bottom side and attached to the module housing by a resilient bonding agent for freedom of movement of the substrate parallel to the vertical direction in relation to the module housing. In the non-mounted condition of the power semiconductor module, the substrate assumes a resting position in relation to the module housing. To deflect the substrate from the resting position parallel to the vertical direction, a deflection force of 0.1 N to 100 N per mm is applied.
US08159819B2
A modular thermal management system that allows one or a few heat sink and fan combinations to transfer heat away from a heat zone of a variety of graphics processing cards is provided. The thermal management system includes a mounting bracket configured to attach to the graphics processing card in thermal contact with the heat zone, the mounting bracket having a first opening that corresponds to a processor in the heat zone, a heat sink configured to attach to the mounting bracket, wherein the heat sink overlies the first opening and is in thermal contact with at least a portion of the processor through the first opening, and a fan configured to attach to the mounting bracket adjacent the heat sink.
US08159792B2
In a motor control device that drives a plurality of motors with one DC power supply, detection of a short circuit fault occurring in the motors is realized with an inexpensive configuration. In order to drive the plurality of motors (105, 106), a current detection resistor (404, 405) is arranged between a connection point on positive terminal sides of a plurality of electric power converters (401, 402) connected in parallel to a DC power supply (403) and a positive terminal of the DC power supply, or also between a connection point on negative terminal sides of the plurality of electric power converters and a negative terminal (ground) of the DC power supply, to thereby detect the short circuit fault based on a voltage of the current detection resistor.
US08159788B2
An actuator latch system of a hard disk drive (HDD) retains a rotatable swing arm of the HDD in place when a magnetic head of the HDD is parked. The actuator latch system includes a portion of the swing arm that defines a notch at an end portion of a swing arm, and a latch lever that has first and second hooks at one end thereof. The latch lever is disposed on the base member adjacent the end portion of the swing arm and is supported so as to be rotatable. The first hook is disposed to contact the swing arm within a short period of time after a shock transmitted to the swing arm while the magnetic head is parked causes the swing arm to rotate in one direction. Thus, the impulse on the swing arm is minimized and the reliability of the actuator latch system is enhanced.
US08159783B2
A thin-film magnetic head substrate according to the present invention includes: a ceramic base with a principal surface; and an undercoat film, which covers the principal surface of the ceramic base. An electrical/magnetic transducer is provided on the undercoat film. The substrate further includes an intermediate layer between the principal surface of the ceramic base and the undercoat film. The intermediate layer is made of a material other than an aluminum oxide and has been patterned so as to make a portion of the principal surface of the ceramic base contact with the undercoat film.
US08159777B2
A hard drive for a portable electronic device is provided that contains a multipurpose circuit board. The multipurpose circuit board may be mounted within a hard drive housing. System components and hard drive controller components may be mounted to the multipurpose circuit board. The multipurpose circuit board may be formed from a rigid flex structure or other structure that is able to accommodate translation of the multipurpose circuit board relative to the remainder of the portable electronic device in the event of an impact event. Components may be mounted to the multipurpose board in accordance with their heights. The portable electronic device may include components such as a battery, display, buttons, and other input-output devices that are connected to the multipurpose circuit board via flex circuit portions of a rigid flex or other electrical paths.
US08159774B2
According to one embodiment, a disk device comprises a memory, detector, calculation module, and deactivation module. The memory is configured to store an offset control amount at a time of manufacture. The detector is configured to detect a disk run-out. The calculation module is configured to obtain an offset control amount when the detector detects the disk run-out. The deactivation module is configured to deactivate the offset control based on a difference between the offset control amount obtained by the calculation module and the offset control amount at a time of manufacture stored in the memory and based on the offset control amount obtained by the calculation module.
US08159770B2
A sequential information storage medium, comprising a plurality of servo patterns encoded lengthwise thereon, wherein each servo pattern encodes at least one LPOS bit and comprises a width less than 187 microns.
US08159766B2
An information-processing apparatus includes a processing unit that compresses inputted data to produce compressed data of a first compressed format. The information-processing apparatus also includes a storage unit that stores the compressed data in a storage medium. The processing unit decompresses data, stored in the storage medium, of a second compressed format to produce decompressed data. Further, the processing unit controls the storage unit to store the compressed data of the first compressed format in the storage medium while the processing unit simultaneously decompresses the data, stored in the storage medium, of the second compressed format and reproduces the decompressed data. The first compressed format is different than the second compressed format.
US08159765B2
A barrel module and an imaging apparatus including the same. The barrel module includes: a base having a surface on which an image pickup device is disposed; a lens barrel disposed on the base; a driver for providing driving power to move the lens barrel up and down over the base; a clip connected to the driver to be disposed between the driver and the lens barrel; and an elastic member for providing elasticity between the lens barrel and the clip, wherein the lens barrel moves from an original position toward the base according to an external force is applied, and when the external force is removed, the lens barrel goes back to the original location due to the elasticity of the elastic member.
US08159743B2
The invention relates to a surgical microscope having a microscope main objective for the visualization of an object plane in an object region. The objective is passed through by a first stereoscopic component beam path and by a second stereoscopic component beam path. The ophthalmologic surgical microscope includes an adjustable illuminating arrangement which makes illuminating light available. The illuminating arrangement has an illuminating optic having a beam deflecting unit which is mounted on the side of the objective facing away from the object region in order to direct the illuminating light through the objective to the object region. In a first position of the illuminating arrangement, the illuminating light passes through the cross sectional area of the objective in an area section, which at least partially surrounds the optical axis of the first stereoscopic component beam path and/or the optical axis of the second stereoscopic component beam path.
US08159741B2
An electronic paper display device and a method of manufacturing the electronic paper display device are disclosed. The method can include forming a plurality of relievo patterns on a lower board, in which the relievo patterns are formed to be independent and separated from one another, disposing a display unit in between the plurality of relievo patterns, and attaching an upper board on the plurality of relievo patterns such that the display unit is covered. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the method can improve the freedom of disposing the display units by allowing partition walls to form only at areas to fix the display units.
US08159740B2
A method for forming an optical deflection device includes providing a semiconductor substrate comprising an upper surface region and a plurality of drive devices within one or more portions of the semiconductor substrate. The upper surface region includes one or more patterned structure regions and at least one open region to expose a portion of the upper surface region to form a resulting surface region. The method also includes forming a planarizing material overlying the resulting surface region to fill the at least one open region and cause formation of an upper planarized layer using the fill material. The method further includes forming a thickness of silicon material at a temperature of less than 300° C. to maintain a state of the planarizing material.
US08159738B2
A large-aperture direct-view high-speed electro-optic shutter includes an electro-optic polymer material constructed to form a Pockels cell and an integrated photoconducting semiconductor switch. A chromophore-doped polymer material or chromophore copolymer, wherein the chromophore is oriented within the polymer material, exhibits a linear electro-optic effect when an electric field is applied to the device. In one embodiment, the polymer host material comprises one or more of a polycarbonate, amorphous polycarbonate, or polymethylmethacrylate polymer hosts. The optically active chromophore comprising one or more coumarin and coumarin derivatives, stilbene or tolane derivatives is incorporated within the polymer host, forming a guest-host polymer. In another embodiment, the chromophore is chemically bonded to the monomer that forms the polymer, resulting in an optically active copolymer. The electro-optic shutter device is then activated by incident light through the photoconducting semiconductor switch, rendering the Pockels cell to have an optical density of at least 3.0.
US08159733B2
A method of forming an image comprising providing a device for imparting respective phase shifts to different regions of an incident wavefront, wherein the phase shifts give rise to an image in a replay field, and causing zero-order light to be focused into a region between the replay field and the device.
US08159729B2
An image reading apparatus includes a first image generation unit configured to scan a document set with one edge aligned with a reference position of a document positioning plate to generate a first image, a second image generation unit configured to scan the document set with a second edge, side opposite to the first edge, aligned with the reference position of the document positioning plate to generate a second image, a detection unit configured to perform matching processing to match image data of the first image with image data of the second image to detect an offset between the first image and the second image, and a determination unit configured to determine a size of the document based on the offset detected by the detection unit. The second edge may be opposite the first. Alternatively, corners may be used instead of edges.
US08159726B2
An image processor includes a reading unit that moves a scanning optical system toward a reference white sheet to read the reference white sheet from a direction along which the scanning optical system returns to the carried document reading glass before reading one sheet of a document mounted on a carried document reading glass by an automatic document feeding unit in a sheet document reading mode of forming an image of the document carried by the automatic document feeding unit by an image sensor through the scanning optical system facing the carried document reading glass.
US08159723B2
A print control device capable of controlling a printer to execute a printing operation is provided with a data converting module configured to convert job data output by an application and print setting data set by the control device into print data, a search condition defining module configured to define a search condition, a searching module configured to search the print setting data based on the search condition set by the search condition setting module, and an executing module configured to execute a predetermined operation when the print setting data meets the search condition.
US08159722B2
An image forming apparatus capable of accurately compensating an increase or decrease of a toner area coverage resulting from shifting that is performed to correct skew is provided. A color density of image data represented by a correction target pixel is corrected such that the increase or decrease in the toner area coverage on the correction target pixel is compensated excluding a toner area coverage on the correction target pixel covered by a toner image that would be formed based on a color density of image data to be represented by a neighboring pixel of the correction target pixel. This effectively reduces banding noise on an output of the image data and prevents degradation in image quality.
US08159719B2
A method for correcting gray balance of a printing process includes imaging printing forms assigned to color separations with a test form, printing a printing material using the printing forms in a printing press and calorimetrically measuring the test form printed onto the printing material. It is undesirably possible to produce a new color error in other tonal value ranges due to changing the layer thickness of a process ink to correct the gray balance. In order to perform a gray balance correction without disruptive secondary effects, a test form is imaged with colored gray areas, after their colorimetric measurement, at least two of the colored gray areas are selected and, based on their color values, a corrected tonal value of a non-black chromatic process ink is determined, and this corrected tonal value is recorded as a corrected set point of the process ink for imaging following printing forms.
US08159715B2
This disclosure provides methods, apparatus and systems for generating a profile for a printing device. Specifically, the profile is generated by selecting a GCR profile from a plurality of GCR profiles and mapping a plurality of nodes to a device dependent color space as a function of the selected GCR profiles.
US08159712B2
A sheet resizing module operating in cooperation with an automatic imposition module provides for the automatic imposition of fold out sheets using an imposition template tailored for regular sized sheets. The imposition module can impose the pages of a document as if all the pages are regular sized. A sheet resizing module automatically adjusts the size of those sheets onto which fold out pages have been imposed. The sheet resizing module can employ a number of resizing rules to determine which of the sheet's four edges to move and how much to move them.
US08159711B2
It is determined whether fixed data used for a plurality of pages is merged with variable data different from the fixed data on a page-by-page basis or on a record-by-record basis. If it is determined that the fixed data is merged with the variable data on the page-by-page basis, the fixed data is merged with the variable data and print data composing printed pages into which at least one insertion page is inserted for every predetermined number of pages is generated.
US08159710B2
An image scanning apparatus according to the invention includes a face-side scanning unit and a back-side scanning unit that simultaneously scan both sides of an original, a page memory in which each image element outputted from the face-side scanning unit and the back-side scanning unit is stored at a required memory address and thus a scanning output image of the face-side image and the back-side image is constructed, and a face-side address calculating unit and a back-side address calculating unit that calculate a memory address at which each image element should be stored. The memory address at which each image element should be stored is decided in accordance with information of the main scanning direction of the face-side scanning unit and the back-side scanning unit, and the information of whether the original type of an original to be scanned is a booklet type or a tablet type.
US08159706B2
When an information processing apparatus is present in a communication area of a first communicating unit, the first communicating unit transmits communication setting information and setting information indicating a process on substance information to the information processing apparatus. A second communicating unit establishes a communication with the information processing apparatus based on the communication setting information, and transmits the substance information to the information processing apparatus. A determining unit determines which of a communication by the first communicating unit or a communication by the second communicating unit is possible.
US08159704B2
Disclosed herein is a reception method for an online print ordering system. In the reception method, the case in which a single image file includes various types of print entities is determined to be normal and then composition files are enabled to be created for the respective entities, thereby improving the efficiency of the print ordering system and customers' convenience of use.
US08159700B2
A print system comprises a bookbinding unit that is capable of executing a bookbinding job of sheets printed by a print unit, and which controls the processes such that the print unit and the bookbinding unit perform their respective processes separately from one another, rather than in series, based on identification information, when a specified instruction is received.
US08159699B2
A printing apparatus which is capable of eliminating a burden on an operator in managing a copy number on a printout and improving security for the printout when a function for printing the copy number on the printout is realized. Printing based on a print job is performed, and a copy number set in units of copies on a printout generated by the printing is printed. Number of printed copies information corresponding to the number of printed copies of the print job is stored, in association with the print job. When the print job stored in a memory section 27 is printed, a printer section 26 prints the copy number on the printout based on the number of printed copies information associated with the print job.
US08159696B2
An image forming apparatus driven by a single processor. The image forming apparatus includes an engine mechanism to perform a printing operation with respect to print data, a video unit to convert the print data into an image data format readable by the engine mechanism, and an engine control unit to control the engine mechanism to perform the printing operation with the image data under the control of the video unit. The video unit includes a processor provided therein, and the video unit and the engine control unit are driven by the processor of the video unit. The engine control unit is directly connected with the processor through a system bus, and drives the engine mechanism in accordance with the control of the processor.
US08159694B2
An image processor and an image processing method which can minimize variation of color tone or density in an image after screen processing, even if semi-transparency has been specified. The image processor generates semi-transparent image data by overlaying a semi-transparent object on the PDL data to be rendered semi-transparent. Subsequently, screen processing is performed on the semi-transparent image data, by dither processing. Subsequently it is determined whether or not to define the screen processed semi-transparent image data as the image data for printing. If the result of determination is No, the halftone value of the semi-transparent object is modified to be larger than the current value.
US08159691B2
In a composite machine provided with a copy mode and a print mode, an operation history of each operation mode is accurately timed and log information concerning an electric power of the composite machine for processing various jobs such as the copy mode and the print mode is prepared based on a timed value.
US08159688B2
Methods and systems for adaptively deferring prepress operations are disclosed. A prepress workflow system may analyze a workflow to determine whether the performance of one or more prepress operations in the workflow can be deferred to a printing device. A deferred operations ticket may be stored corresponding to the workflow. The deferred operations ticket may contain one or more deferrable prepress operations. The prepress workflow system may receive a document to be processed by the workflow. The document and the deferred operations ticket may be sent to the printing device. The printing device may perform the one or more deferrable prepress operations contained in the deferred operations ticket on the document to produce a processed document and print the processed document.
US08159687B2
A method and system for automatically generating page exception programming based on user-defined rules is disclosed. A page specific metadata in a PDL file can be evaluated against specific rules to automatically create page exception programming. An embedded PDL device control instructions can also be evaluated and converted into page exception programming thereby producing an integrating representation of all page exception programming for a print job. The PDL page extracted as an exception page can then be displayed on a graphical user interface which provides an operator to confirm pages for editing.
US08159686B2
To keep track of which process each process job currently exits and when it comes in own charge or which job must be processed, it is necessary to use a workflow system on a PC, and this necessitates to move back and force between the PC and the apparatus, thereby leading to the deterioration of the operational efficiency. An object of the invention is to provide a system in which the apparatus and the workflow server are connected, and by moving forward the processing by using the operation unit of the apparatus, the workflow of the operator in the centralized copy room and the print center of the company can be smoothly moved forward.
US08159669B2
A particle detector is provided, the particle detector including a spherical Cherenkov detector, and at least one pair of detector stacks. In an embodiment of the invention, the Cherenkov detector includes a sphere of ultraviolet transparent material, coated by an ultraviolet reflecting material that has at least one open port. The Cherenkov detector further includes at least one photodetector configured to detect ultraviolet light emitted from a particle within the sphere. In an embodiment of the invention, each detector stack includes one or more detectors configured to detect a particle traversing the sphere.
US08159666B2
Methods in a spectral measurement apparatus are disclosed. Light is received with a plurality of sensors. Each sensor generates an output signal having a frequency proportional to an intensity of light received by the sensor. First, second and third signals are generated each having a frequency proportional to an intensity of light received by a sensor of a wavelength or spectral band. A spectral characteristic of the received light is determined based on at least the first, second and third signals, which are are coupled to a processing element and input in parallel. The spectral characteristic is determined based on measuring a frequency or period of the at least first, second and third signals. Spectral data based on the determined spectral characteristic is generated by the processing element and displayed on a display device for perception by a viewer or transmitted to a data interface for transmission to an electronic device external to the spectral measurement apparatus.
US08159665B2
An improved apparatus and method for fluorescence subtraction in Raman spectroscopy, where a narrow band light source and a broad band light source are utilized to stimulate Raman scattering and fluorescence emission from the same subject to produce two Raman/fluorescence spectra. The two light sources, with matched output power, produce similar level of fluorescence emission, yet the Raman scattering signal produced by the broad band light source has much lower spectral intensity than that produced by the narrow band light source. By subtracting the two Raman/fluorescence spectra, the weak Raman signal can be extracted from a strong fluorescence background.
US08159664B2
Apparatus and methods for detecting Raman spectral features non destructively from sub-surface regions of a diffusely scattering sample are disclosed. Incident radiation is supplied at one or more sample surface entry regions, and light is collected from one or more collection regions spaced from the entry regions. Raman features are detected in the collected light, and depth information is derived according to the entry-collection spacings.
US08159660B2
A method and system for determining a level of a substance in a container, the method comprises emitting one pulse from a light source in a field of illumination toward a surface of said substance in said container. A backscatter signal of said pulse is detected by an optical detector. A lidar trace is created from said backscatter signal, said lidar trace including at least one reflection peak; A surface reflection is identified among said at least one reflection peak in said lidar trace, said surface reflection being a reflection of said pulse from said surface. The surface reflection is signal-fitted to provide a fitted surface trace. A level of said substance is determined in said container using said fitted surface trace.
US08159644B2
There is provided a display area made up of a pixel array with a non-rectangular shaped outer circumference and the pixel array is made up of a plurality of non-rectangular pixels wherein a first conductor line group including a plurality of first conductor lines and a second conductor line group including a plurality of second conductor lines, and a third conductor line group including a plurality of third conductor lines are arranged so as to intersect with one another. Thus, without sacrificing brightness, viewability, and fidelity of an image, pixel array (display device) with the non-rectangular outer circumferential shape being excellent in design characteristics is realized.
US08159639B2
A liquid-crystal display device comprising a liquid-crystal cell comprising a liquid-crystal layer that aligns vertically to the substrate thereof in the black state, first and second polarizing elements that are disposed to sandwich the liquid-crystal cell therebetween so that their absorption axes are orthogonal to each other, a retardation film A and a retardation film B, wherein the retardation films A and B are equivalent to each other in terms of retardation in plane at a wavelength of 548 nm, Re(548), and retardation along thickness direction at a wavelength of 548 nm, Rth(548) thereof, but differ from each other in terms of the wavelength dispersion characteristics of retardation in plane Re and/or retardation along thickness direction Rth thereof in a visible light region, is disclosed.
US08159633B2
An exemplary optical plate includes a transparent layer and a light diffusion layer. The transparent layer and the light diffusion layer are integrally formed. The transparent layer includes a light input interface, a light output surface opposite to the light input interface, and a plurality of curved, elongated, V-shaped micro-protrusions are formed on the light output surface. The light diffusion layer is located adjacent to the light input interface of the transparent layer. A plurality of V-shaped micro-protrusions are formed on an outer surface of the light diffusion layer. A liquid crystal display device using the optical plate is also provided.
US08159632B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a surface light source element configured to enhance projection light from an opening boundary of a supporting frame (12), wherein the projection light is required as a surface light source element, so that the surface light source element makes it possible to clearly illuminate an observation direction even in the case where the surface light source element is made large in size or thin in thickness. In the surface light source element using a light-guiding plate (1) provided with a prism pattern of a groove (9) that is V-character-like in section on a side of the bottom surface (7), the light-guiding plate (1) is characterized in comprising the prism pattern that enters from the edge of an opening of a supporting frame (12) to the incident edge surface side, wherein the prism pattern is arranged in a central direction of the light guide plate from a position of an angle θ ranging from 20° to 60° expressed by the following equation: L=T×tan θ where T: a thickness (mm) of the light guide plate (1), and L: a distance (mm) entering from the edge of the opening at the supporting frame (12) on an inner side of a liquid crystal panel to a back surface of the supporting frame (12).
US08159630B2
A backlight assembly and a liquid crystal display which may provide improved reliability are disclosed, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. The backlight assembly includes, in one embodiment, a light guide plate guiding light, and a lamp unit positioned on one side of the light guide plate. The lamp unit includes first and second lamps extending in parallel to each other in a first direction, and a first holder having a body fixing the first and second lamps and a projection part projected from the body and between the first and second lamps. The backlight assembly includes a lower receptacle accommodating the light guide plate and the lamp unit therein.
US08159626B2
The present disclosure relates to the liquid crystal display device and the fabricating method thereof. The liquid crystal display device comprises: a first substrate including a ground line supplied with a ground voltage, and an extended ground line extending from the ground line, and attaching a first polarization plate; a second substrate joining to the first substrate with a sealant and attaching a second polarization plate; and a conductive upper-lower substrate connecting static electricity discharging path connecting to the extended ground line by forming at edges of the first polarization plate and the second polarization plate, and by intruding between the first and the second substrates.
US08159625B2
An active matrix substrate including a substrate, a plurality of scan lines, a plurality of data lines, a plurality of independent common line patterns, and a plurality of pixels is provided. The scan lines, data lines, and common line patterns are disposed on the substrate. The pixels are arranged in array on the substrate, wherein each pixel is electrically connected to corresponding scan line and data line, and the common line patterns are distributed under each pixel. Each pixel includes a plurality of active components and a plurality of pixel electrodes. Each of the pixel electrodes is electrically connected to corresponding scan line and data line through different active components. The capacitance coupling effect between each of the pixel electrodes and common line patterns are different. Additionally, an inspection method for the active matrix substrate and a liquid crystal display having the active matrix substrate are further provided.
US08159618B2
A method for searching a signal source suitable for a multimedia apparatus with multiple signal terminals is disclosed. The method provides an ordered search list of the signal terminals to save the search sequence of the signal terminals. The multimedia apparatus sequentially detects the signal terminals according to the ordered search list of the signal terminals to identify whether an input signal is available. When a specific signal terminal of the signal terminals is found to have an input signal, the sequence of the specific signal terminal in the ordered search list of the signal terminals is set as the first sequence position.
US08159608B2
A closed caption detection system includes a video line selector that outputs a selected line of a video signal, a luminance detector that outputs a luminance level of the selected line, and an alarm that compares the luminance level with a threshold level and provides an alarm based on the result. A method of detecting closed captioning data includes selecting a television channel, decoding closed captioning in the channel, detecting a luminance level of a closed captioning line of the television signal, comparing the luminance level with a threshold level, waiting for a time if luminance level of the selected line is less than the threshold luminance level, and then re-detecting luminance level and re-comparing the luminance levels, then, if the luminance level is less than the threshold level, indicating the absence of closed captioning data.
US08159604B2
An image acquisition device of a camera that has an electronic sensor chip, electrically connected to a circuit board, includes an objective situated in an objective carrier, and oriented in regard to situation and inclination in relation to an imager surface of the sensor chip. The situation and inclination of the objective are defined by a contact surface of the objective carrier. The contact surface of the objective carrier lies flat on the sensor chip, so that the imager surface is not covered by the contact surface.
US08159595B2
A camera module includes: a case including a first surface formed with a first opening for entering incident light, and a second surface opposite to the first surface, the second surface being formed with a second opening; a lens unit mounted in the case; a first substrate including a front surface and a back surface, wherein the case is bonded to the front surface of the first substrate to seal the second opening; a filter supported by the first substrate to face the lens unit; a circuit component disposed on the front surface of the first substrate; a second substrate including a front face and a back face, wherein the front face of the second substrate is bonded to the back surface of the first substrate; and an image pickup device disposed on the front face of the second substrate to face the filer.
US08159591B2
A dual sided viewing panel and a method of capturing and displaying images, is disclosed. The dual sided viewing panel includes a first viewing panel and a second viewing panel. The first and second viewing panels are controllable by a control device to capture an image and display an image. The first and second viewing panels are positioned in an aligned back to back relationship to each other. In a method, a first image is captured by the first viewing panel and a second image is captured by the second viewing panel. The first captured image is displayed on the second viewing panel and the second captured image is displayed on the first viewing panel. The viewing direction of the first viewing panel is opposed to the viewing direction of the second viewing panel.
US08159586B2
A solid-state imaging apparatus including: a pixel section having unit pixels arranged into a two-dimensional matrix, each unit pixel containing a photoelectric conversion section for effecting a photoelectric conversion and an amplification section for amplifying and reading signal charges generated at the photoelectric conversion section; a current supply provided for each column for flowing a bias current to the amplification section; a column processing section provided for each column for processing a signal from the amplification section column by column; an output section for sequentially reading signals processed column by column at the column processing section and outputting them to an external signal processing circuit; and a bias current controlling section for controlling the bias current of the current supply in accordance with a gain setting at the external signal processing circuit.
US08159585B2
A method for reading out an image signal, the method comprising: providing at least two photosensitive regions; providing at least two transfer gates respectively associated with each photosensitive region; providing a common charge-to-voltage conversion region electrically connected to the transfer gates; providing a reset mechanism that resets the common charge-to-voltage conversion region; after transferring charge from at least one of the photo-sensitive regions, disabling all transfer gates at a first time; enabling at least one transfer gate at a subsequent second time; and transferring charge from at least one of the photosensitive regions at a subsequent third time while the at least one transfer gate from the second time remains enabled.
US08159584B2
A solid-state imaging apparatus including a plurality of sensors that are formed on a substrate on a pixel basis and photoelectrically convert the light incident from a first surface side of the substrate, and a readout circuit that is formed on a second surface side of the substrate, which is the opposite side to the first surface side, and processes a signal from the plurality of sensors. The readout circuit includes a plurality of transistors and the transistors are disposed in a region between the pixels in an aligned manner.
US08159558B2
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing device that performs brightness conversion processing according to a brightness conversion coefficient on each pixel of an input image and produces an output image. The image processing device includes a division section dividing the region of the input image into a plurality of areas and a histogram calculation section calculating a histogram for each area. Here, the brightness conversion coefficient is determined based on the result of calculation by the histogram calculation section. With this configuration, it is possible to obtain, even when there is a portion of an image having a brightness level (or a brightness range) of low frequency in terms of an entire image, satisfactory contrast for the entire image including such a portion.
US08159550B2
Apparatus, methods and systems for creating mosaics are described. A method is provided that includes identifying an image for presentation as a mosaic; dividing the identified image into a plurality of tiles; scoring each tile; identifying a matching image from an image dataset using the score for each tile; and rendering the mosaic using the matching images.
US08159548B2
A device is described that includes an encoder/decoder (CODEC) in which functionality is partitioned between a video front end (VFE) and a video back end (VBE). The VFE encapsulates functionality and image processing operations to support a variety of applications, and presents a flexible inter-processor by which an external master device can easily control these operations. The video back end (VBE) operates as an encoder and/or a decoder to generate encoded and/or decoded video sequences. The VFE and VBE may execute within an operating environment provided by a slave device.
US08159547B2
An image pickup device 1A is constructed with a photodetecting section 10 having a plurality of pixels; a charge transfer section 12 having 16 segmental charge transfer sections T01 to T16; an A/D converting section 15 that converts signals from the charge transfer section 12 to digital data signals; and a digital signal processing section 20. The digital signal processing section 20 carries out, to a correction target of a data signal outputted first in a signal array from the segmental charge transfer section, a data correction by use of a plurality of correcting data signals including at least one of a first correcting data signal included in the signal array and a second correcting data signal included in another signal array from a segmental charge transfer section adjacent to an output end side of the segmental charge transfer section. Thereby, realized are an image pickup device that is capable of favorably reducing influence of an abnormal output produced in data signals and a microscope apparatus using the same.
US08159544B2
A method for adjusting photographing settings of a digital camera through motion detection, for determine to adjust the photographing settings of the digital camera according to vibrations of the digital camera or shaking of a photographed object. The adjusting method includes the following steps. At least two continuous pre-photographed images are captured. A central area and an edge area are set at same positions in the pre-photographed images respectively. Feature points are found in the pre-photographed images. A local motion vector and a camera motion vector are respectively determined according to a relation of the feature points on the central area and the edge area. A subject motion vector is generated according to a difference between the local motion vector and the camera motion vector. Adjustment of the photographing settings of the digital camera is determined according to a maximum value in the subject motion vector and camera motion vector.
US08159542B2
To provide an interchangeable lens, a camera body, a camera system, and a method for controlling the same, with which a highly efficient and stable image blur correction effect can be obtained. A camera system (1) has a camera body (10) and an interchangeable lens (20) which is attachable to and detachable from the camera body (10). The camera body (10) has an imaging unit (120) for imaging a subject through the interchangeable lens (20), and a sequence microcomputer (100) capable of sending and receiving information to and from a lens microcomputer (200) and for controlling the imaging operation of an imaging unit (120). The interchangeable lens (20) includes a shake detection unit (201) for detecting shake in the camera system (1), an image blur correction device (210) for adjusting the optical path from a subject to the camera body (10) and thereby correcting the blurring of an image caused by shaking of the camera system (1), and the lens microcomputer (200) capable of sending and receiving information to and from the sequence microcomputer (100), and for controlling the drive of the image blur correction device (210) according to the amount of shake detected by the shake detection unit (201). The imaging optical system of the interchangeable lens (20) includes an aperture unit (206) which can adjust the imaging condition. The lens microcomputer (200) actuates the shake correction device (210) once a first set time has elapsed since the receipt of an adjustment command from the sequence microcomputer (100).
US08159541B2
An image stabilization apparatus includes accelerometers, a proximity sensor and a processor. Each accelerometer determines acceleration along an axis of a plane parallel to a focal plane of an image capture device. The accelerometers output respective acceleration data to the processor. The proximity sensor obtains a measurement of the distance between the focal plane of the image capture device and an object plane. The proximity sensor outputs distance data to the processor. The processor processes the distance data and the acceleration data to produce correction data to correct image data captured during motion of the image capture device.
US08159536B2
A background image is generated based on a captured image. A data cluster is formed in pixel blocks of the background image using at least one feature of pixels in the pixel blocks. A data cluster formed in each pixel block includes a data distribution having a mean value and a standard deviation from the mean value. After generating the background image, each pixel of a subsequent captured image is compared with the data cluster of a pixel block of the background image to generate a first discrepancy value. A pixel of a subsequent image is compared with a data distribution of another adjacent pixel block of the background image to generate a second discrepancy value. Based on the discrepancy values, the pixels of the subsequent image are regarded as background or foreground pixels in a binary map, in which connected foreground pixels are marked to form a foreground object.
US08159531B2
Apparatus and methods are provided which allow the rapid collection of image data in situations where ancillary equipment must be controlled and co-ordinated as part of an image formation process, such as confocal microscopy for example. The apparatus includes control means (20′) for co-ordinating the operation of the apparatus, and operable to receive a first trigger signal (33, 33′, 37) indicating the completion of an operation from one component and transmit a second trigger signal (27, 27′) to start an operation by another component in response to the first trigger signal. Such a configuration is operate to reduce delays encountered in operation of the apparatus.
US08159527B2
At least one picture is shown on a plurality of displays according to the distance from a user to an object. Picture signals are classified based on depth values of pictures, a plurality of displays are chosen based on the classification, and the pictures are shown on the chosen displays in the form of moving pictures.
US08159525B2
Multiport multispectral portable imaging systems having at least two cameras with charge-coupled device sensors, a front lens unit, at least two rear lens units, a beamsplitter, and at least two bandpass filters is used to detect contaminants on food.
US08159520B1
A method and medium are provided for ensuring that a video stream communicated from a mobile device is communicated subject to a minimum quality level. A request to communicate a video stream at a minimum quality level from a mobile device is received. Signaling information from the mobile device is processed and utilized to establish a communications pathway from the mobile device to the target device. The communications pathway facilitates the communication of the video stream at the minimum quality level. The video stream is communicated to the target device contemporaneously to receiving the video clip by the mobile device.
US08159516B2
An image data is pre-processed in parallel by a pre-processing unit (A) and a pre-processing unit (B) arranged in parallel. The image data is transferred in synchronization with an image processing signal obtained by ORing a BD signal and an interpolation signal. Laser scanning for plural beams of a multi-laser beam is performed in synchronization with the BD signal. Color matching processing or zeronization processing for the multi-laser beam is performed in synchronization with the image processing signal.
US08159515B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit, an exposure unit, a detection unit, a storage unit, and a control unit. The image forming unit includes a photosensitive member on which an electrostatic latent image is formed. The exposure unit exposes the photosensitive member. The detection unit detects that a reference position disposed on the photosensitive member has reached a predetermined position. The storage unit stores correction data for correcting unevenness of potential characteristic in the photosensitive member. The control unit controls an exposure intensity of the exposure unit at each position on the photosensitive member based on the correction data.
US08159511B2
Sub-pixel rendering with gamma adjustment allows the luminance for the sub-pixel arrangement to match the non-linear gamma response of the human eye's luminance channel, while the chrominance can match the linear response of the human eye's chrominance channels. The gamma correction allows the sub-pixel rendering to operate independently of the actual gamma of a display device. The sub-pixel rendering techniques with gamma adjustment may be optimized for the gamma transfer curve of a display device in order to improve response time, dot inversion balance, and contrast.
US08159506B2
An operation displaying unit displays thereon a preview image of input information. A receiving unit receives a request for rotating displayed preview image. A processing unit rotates the displayed preview image in response to received request for rotating the displayed preview image, and displays rotated preview image on the operation displaying unit.
US08159503B2
A process that enables the user to select the type of display device to be adjusted. The user adjusts the brightness levels and color levels of the monitor to create a monitor profile for storage. The user then calibrates the selected monitor relative to a peripheral device such as a color printer device by comparing a printed test image to a displayed a gray scale image and a plurality of color images to establish a printer profile. The user then chooses to print an image by incorporating the printer profile or not.
US08159500B1
A method for color grading an image within RGB color space including color values includes receiving a source image having first pixels, wherein second pixels from the first pixels are associated with colors within a first gamut but not a second gamut, receiving a color grading signal, determining a graded image by automatically modifying the colors associated with second pixels to become modified colors in response to the color grading signal, wherein the modified colors are within the second gamut, and wherein at least one color component value of the colors of the second pixels is similar to at least one color component value of the modified colors of the second pixels, wherein ordinality of colors in the one color component of the second pixels in the source image are preserved in the modified colors in the graded image, and storing the color grading signal in a memory.
US08159499B2
Shadows are rendered automatically with a hand-painted appearance. The shadow region is divided into a core and a penumbra. A core perturbation zone is defined between the core and penumbra and a penumbra perturbation zone is defined between the penumbra and an unshadowed region. Within each perturbation zone, a texture is applied to each pixel to map the pixel as being inside or outside the core or penumbra boundary, thereby defining a displaced core boundary and a displaced penumbra boundary. The displaced boundaries can be non-linear and discontinuous. When shadows are rendered using the displaced boundaries, a hand-painted appearance can result. An additional texture can be applied in the penumbra to further enhance the painted appearance.
US08159495B2
Remoting sub-pixel defined text. Text is remoted at sub-pixel precision in a computing environment including a terminal server and a terminal client. At a terminal server text definitions are generated. The text definitions include character definitions defining character boundaries with colors so as to be able to define character boundaries using sub-pixel precision by defining colors at the boundaries so as to make use of sub-pixel color components of LCD pixels when the characters are rendered on an LCD screen. At the terminal server glyphs of individual characters are generated. The glyphs include the character definitions including definitions of colored character boundaries. At the terminal server, the glyphs are sent to a terminal client. At the terminal client, the glyphs are blended with background color information and rendered on an LCD screen.
US08159492B2
The invention relates to a simulation method, especially to a method for simulating spatial impressions which are produced by means of an image generator and one or several filter arrays.The method according to the invention essentially comprises the following steps: a) Specification of the geometry of the image generator, b) specification of the geometry of the filter array, c) specification of a spatial arrangement geometry in relation to the image generator and the filter array in a three-dimensional coordinate system (X,Y,Z), d) specification of two monocular positions of observation in front of the said arrangement geometry, e) specification of a combined image containing bits of partial information from several views Ak (k=1 . . . n) of a scene, f) determination of a first and a second secondary image containing image elements of the specified combined image which are visible to the eye of an observer in the specified first and second monocular position of observation on the basis of the specified filter array geometry in conjunction with the specified image generator geometry and the spatial arrangement geometry, and g) stereoscopic visualization of the first and second secondary images as a left and right stereoscopic image, respectively.
US08159488B2
A display apparatus includes a display panel, a printed circuit board, a data driver and a gate driver. The data driver includes a digital processor and an analog processor, and receives image data and a data control signal to provide the display panel with a data signal. The printed circuit board includes a first voltage interconnection which supplies a first source supply voltage to the digital processor of the data driver, and a second voltage interconnection electrically isolated from the first voltage interconnection and which supplies a second source supply voltage to the analog processor of the data driver.
US08159482B2
For making outputs of a drive circuits accurate, the drive circuit is composed of a plurality of current signal generation circuits for outputting a current signal to each of a plurality of output units, a current signal output line to which outputs of the plurality of current signal generation circuits are commonly connected, a correction value output circuit for outputting a correction value obtained by evaluating the output of one or more specific circuits of the plurality of current signal generation circuits on a basis of current values output through the current signal output line, and a correction circuit for correcting an image signal supplied to the current signal generation circuits by means of the correction value.
US08159480B2
An electro-optical device includes a plurality of scanning lines and a plurality of data lines, pixels arranged so as to correspond to intersections of the plurality of scanning lines and the plurality of data lines, and an electro-optical material in which a response speed at a time of halftone display is lower than those at a time of low-gray-scale-level display and at a time of high-gray-scale-level display. Each of the pixels includes at least two adjacent subpixels as a group. Each of the subpixels includes a pixel electrode, a common electrode arranged so as to face the pixel electrode, and a switching device which electrically connects a corresponding one of the data lines to the pixel electrode in accordance with a selection voltage supplied from a corresponding one of the scanning lines. The switching device is connected to the corresponding one of the scanning lines.
US08159474B2
An untethered stylus is configured to cooperate with a location sensing device that generates a drive signal. The stylus includes transceiver circuitry disposed in a housing, which is configured to receive the drive signal and transmit a stylus signal for reception by the location sensor. Energy circuitry is disposed in the housing and energized by the drive signal. A reference frequency generator, disposed in the housing and coupled to the transceiver circuitry and energy circuitry, is configured to generate a number of reference frequencies based on a source frequency of the drive signal, the reference frequencies indicative of a number of stylus states and synchronized to the source frequency of the drive signal. The transceiver circuitry is configured to mix the reference frequencies with the stylus signal.
US08159472B2
A data processor for an occupant identification system.
US08159459B2
A coordinate positioning system with in-the-air positioning function includes an illuminator and an image sensor. The illuminator produces a directional light. The image sensor receives the directional light produced by the illuminator and produces an image corresponding to the directional light to accordingly analyze the image and obtain a rotating angle corresponding to the directional light.
US08159451B2
According to one embodiment, a light-emission control device controls light emission of light sources of a light emitter including a plurality of light source areas each corresponding to one of the light sources, and includes a virtual light-value calculator, a light-value calculator, and a light controller. The virtual light-value calculator calculates a virtual light value for each virtual light source area including a light source area and a virtual area obtained by virtually dividing the light emitter into areas different in size from the light source areas. The light-value calculator calculates a light value of a light sources corresponding to the light source area based on the virtual light value. The light controller lights the light source based on the light value.
US08159448B2
Temperature-compensation network embodiments are provided to generate compensation signals which may be useful in improving the performance of a variety of important systems. An embodiment includes a limit current mirror configured to provide a limit current, a current generator to provide a slope current whose magnitude varies with temperature, and an output current mirror positioned to receive the limit current and the slope current and configured to provide a compensation current. In addition, a floating voltage reference is provided for use in various networks which include the temperature-compensation networks. The temperature-compensation networks may be used to improve performance in systems such as a panel driver which provides turn-on and turn-off gate voltages to transistors in liquid crystal displays.
US08159444B2
A gate driver includes a shift register part and an output control part. The shift register part sequentially shifts a first pulse signal in response to a clock to output a second pulse signal. The output control part converts the second pulse signal based on a first control signal to output a main pulse signal to a main gate line, and converts the second pulse signal in response to the first control signal and a second control signal to output a sub pulse signal having an adjusted output timing and an adjusted pulse width to a sub gate line. Thus, a liquid crystal display device having the gate driver may improve display quality thereof and reduce a size thereof.
US08159443B2
A display panel comprising a plurality of first and second signal lines, first and second detecting lines, a plurality of ESD protection circuits, and first and second common electrode lines. The first and second detecting lines are respectively coupled to the first signal lines and the second signal lines. Each ESD protection circuit is coupled to one of the first signal lines or one of the second signal lines. The first and second common electrode lines are respectively coupled to first and second voltage ports. Each first signal line is coupled to the first common electrode line through the corresponding ESD protection circuit. Each second signal line is coupled to the second common electrode line through the corresponding ESD protection circuit.
US08159439B2
A data driving circuit receiving an image signal and applying a data signal based on the image signal to a display panel, the data driving circuit includes a signal generator that generates a horizontal scanning identical signal based on the image signal and a load signal instructing an output of the data signal to the display panel; a signal amplifier that alternately converts a polarity of an offset compensation value from positive to negative and amplifies the image signal based on the offset compensation value; and a controller that counts pulses of the horizontal scanning identical signal and controls the signal amplifier to retain the converted polarity of the offset compensation value until a counted reaches a predetermined reference value.
US08159438B2
Liquid crystal display devices to suffer from low contrast at low temperatures because the frequency characteristics of the liquid crystal dielectric constant are degraded. An active matrix liquid crystal display device performs pre-charging in which a pre-charge signal Psig is written with a pre-charge switch before display signals are written to data lines of a display area with a dated driver. The pre-charge signal Psig is the gray-scale level as obtained when no voltage is applied to liquid crystal, such as a common voltage VCOM, thus increasing the contrast at low temperature.
US08159436B2
A data driver using a gamma selecting signal, a flat panel display with the same and a driving method therefor are provided. A first to a fourth data lines are electrically connected to a first left sub-pixel, a first right sub-pixel, a second right sub-pixel and a second left sub-pixel, respectively. The data driver includes a first, a second, a third and a fourth gray level generating units for outputting a first set of positive gray voltage, a second set of negative gray voltage, a second set of positive gray voltage and a first set of negative gray voltage, respectively. The data driver drivers these sub-pixels according to the first set of positive gray voltage, the second set of negative gray voltage, the second set of positive gray voltage and the first set of negative gray voltage under the control of a polarity inversion signal and a gamma selecting signal.
US08159432B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a plurality of pixels each connected to a signal line via a switching element. Each pixel includes first and second sub-pixels having voltage vs. luminance characteristics different from each other with respect to a signal voltage supplied from the signal line. A threshold signal voltage of the first sub-pixel is lower than that of the second sub-pixel. The pixels form color display pixels which are red, green pixel and blue pixels. Where the area ratio of the first sub-pixel in each of the red, green and blue pixels is SR1, SG1 and SB1, and the ratio of the lighting-up time period of the first sub-pixel of each of the red, green and blue pixels in one vertical scanning period is TR1, TG1 and TB1, the relationship of (SR1×TR1)>(SG1×TG1)>(SB1×TB1) holds.
US08159430B2
A liquid crystal display are provided, which includes: a liquid crystal panel assembly including a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix including a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, a plurality of gate lines, and a plurality of data lines, wherein the number of the data lines is larger than the number of the columns, the data lines are separated from each other in the panel assembly, each pixel is connected to one of the gate lines and adjacent to two of the data lines, and the pixels in each column are alternately connected to the adjacent data lines at least every one row.
US08159428B2
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for forming images on a display utilizing a control matrix to control the movement of MEMs-based light modulators.
US08159415B2
Provided are a display device and a driving method thereof, which is miniaturized thereby reducing manufacturing costs. The display device includes an interface which receives image information from at least one host device according to a specified or an unspecified transmission scheme to communicate with the host device, a memory which stores first recognition information corresponding to the specified transmission scheme and if the image information is applied according to the specified transmission scheme, which outputs the first recognition information through the interface to the host device, and a control unit which stores second recognition information corresponding to the unspecified transmission scheme and if the image information is applied according to the unspecified transmission scheme, which reads the second recognition information and outputs the read information through the interface to the host device.
US08159411B2
In one aspect, a rotary connector having a longitudinal axis includes a first metal portion including a groove about the longitudinal axis. The rotary connector also includes a second metal portion and a spring disposed in the groove and having metal contact with the first portion and the second portion. One of the first metal portion or the second metal portion is configured to rotate about the longitudinal axis and the other of the first metal portion or the second metal portion is configured to remain substantially rotationally fixed with respect to the longitudinal axis. The rotary connector may be used for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding with antenna pedestals.
US08159402B2
Disclosed is a wireless communication device capable of being positioned in a wearable position adjacent a user's head and including a deployable planar antenna rotatably supported by the housing. The antenna is configured to assume a plurality of orientations with respect to the housing, the plurality of orientations including an orientation being substantially parallel to the housing and one or more orientations being at an angle with respect to the housing. In one embodiment, each of the plurality of orientations coincides with at least one of the plurality of states of the device. A disclosed method of the device includes deploying a low profile planar antenna rotatably supported by the housing, the antenna being configured assume a plurality of orientations with respect to the housing and operating the device in one of the plurality of states depending upon the orientation of the antenna with respect to the housing.
US08159400B2
There are provided a chip antenna and a mobile telecommunication terminal having the chip antenna. The chip antenna includes: a dielectric block having opposing top and bottom surfaces and a plurality of side surfaces connecting the top and bottom surfaces; a first conductive pattern formed on at least one of the surfaces of the dielectric block and connected to an external feeding part; a second conductive pattern formed on at least one of the surfaces of the dielectric block to connect to the first conductive pattern, and having one end connected to an external ground part; and a third conductive pattern formed on at least one of the surfaces of the dielectric block, and spaced apart from the first and second conductive patterns to be capacitively coupled to the first and second conductive patterns, respectively, the third conductive pattern having a lower end connected to the external ground part.
US08159389B2
A system and method is provided for monitoring and possibly controlling radio frequency power levels within GNSS signal distribution networks. With respect to GNSS signal distribution networks that re-radiate the GNSS signal, limiting GNSS signals to an intended area is described.
US08159381B2
A dynamic element matching (DEM) scheme is implemented in a crawling code generator for converting a b-bit binary input code into a (2b−1)-bit digital output code. A random generator determines for every conversion step a direction. A decimal difference between the current and previous binary input is calculated. The new crawling output code is determined based on the previous crawling output code, the direction and the decimal difference. The DEM scheme is used in a digital-to-analog converter such that the crawling output code switches digital-to-analog converting elements that output analog signals that are then summed to be the final analog signal.
US08159380B2
A continuous-time sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter (CV) comprises i) a signal path (SP) which includes at least one combiner (C1) for combining analog signals to be converted with analog feedback signals, at least one integrator (H1) for integrating the combined analog signals, a quantizer (Q) for converting the integrated signals into digital signals, and ii) a feedback path (FP) comprising at least a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for converting the digital signals outputted by the quantizer (Q) into analog feedback signals intended for the combiner (C1). It also comprises at least one non-invasive filter (N1) associated to the integrator (H1), connected in parallel to the signal path (SP) at a chosen location and arranged to introduce a notch into its signal transfer function by suppressing unwanted analog interference signals having a chosen frequency band that corresponds to this notch.
US08159369B1
An aircraft hazard warning system configured to provide an indication of a hazard level to an electronic display includes an input configured to receive first input data and second input data. The first input data includes at least one of lightning detection data, radar reflectivity data, turbulence data, geographic location data, vertical structure analysis data, and temperature data. The second input data includes at least one of aircraft speed data and wing loading data. The system further includes processing electronics configured to determine a hazard level of the aircraft based on the first input data. The processing electronics updates at least one characteristic of the hazard level based on the second input data. The processing electronics provides an indication of the hazard level and updated characteristic to the electronic display. For example, the characteristic can be a color of indicators representing the first input data and can be modified based on the second input data.
US08159364B2
The wireless power transmission is a system for providing wireless charging and/or primary power to electronic/electrical devices via microwave energy. The microwave energy is focused to a location in response to receiving a beacon signal from a beacon device by a power transmitter having one or more adaptively-phased microwave array emitters. Rectennas within the device to be charged receive and rectify the microwave energy and use it for battery charging and/or for primary power.
US08159361B2
An arrangement for use in a safety notification system includes primary and secondary power sources and a voltage converter. The primary power source provides power to a notification appliance circuit of a notification system. The secondary power source includes at least one battery. The voltage converter is coupled between the battery and the notification appliance circuit of the notification system, and is configured to generate a regulated DC voltage from an output voltage generated by the second power source. In general, the secondary power source is employed when the primary power source is not available or otherwise is not functioning. However, the secondary power source may also be employed in other circumstances.
US08159360B2
A display for a faulted circuit indicator is disclosed. A plurality of light-emitting diodes is arranged so that at least two diodes are visible to a person approaching the faulted circuit indicator from a determined angle of approach. When a fault is detected, the faulted circuit indicator flashes the plurality of light-emitting diodes in a progression pattern to indicate the direction to the fault relative to the faulted circuit indicator.
US08159356B2
Apparatus and methods for protecting process equipment from a fire and/or an explosion are provided. In particular, the apparatus and methods utilize Seebeck sensors or thermoelectric generators to detect the propagation of a flame front or deflagration wave within the process equipment. Upon detection of the deflagration wave, the system controller activates mitigation apparatus which may be in the form of a chemical suppressant or isolation valves in order to protect the process equipment from damage.
US08159350B2
Method and system for localizing an object in a stack of objects. A passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is attached to each object. Each RFID tag includes a unique identifier of the object to which the RFID tag is attached. A RFID reader has multiple antennas. Each antenna is positioned to transmit a signal that can be detected by different RFID tags attached to the objects within a reading range of the transmitted signal from each antenna. The antennas are sequentially selected and powered to transmit to the stack a read signal including object's identifier for the object to be localized. If a response to the read signal is received by a selected and powered antenna from a RFID tag that matched the object's identifier with its unique identifier, then a light emitting diode (LED) is lighted to identify a location of the object being localized.
US08159349B2
The present invention includes novel systems and devices for commissioning wireless tags, RFID tags, and wireless sensors. The present invention benefits wireless sensors that are not directly part of a demand printed label. In one embodiment RFID tags or inlays are pre-loaded into cartridges prior to consumption and an encoder mechanism and corresponding antenna encodes and verifies the programmable RFID tags within the cartridges. This improvement adds significant convenience of loading RFID tags and enhances overall reliability of handling and applying the RFID tags. Accordingly, the present invention includes methods and devices that enable application and distribution of RFID tags in pre-loaded cartridges that are ready-to-use.
US08159348B2
A communication system for communicating with an implanted wireless sensor is provided. A transmit antenna element can propagate an energizing signal onto a communication medium and a receive antenna element can recover a responsive implanted sensor response signal. The antenna box includes a power amplifier for amplifying the energizing signal and timing regeneration circuitry for detecting an end to signals and outputting control signals for selecting mode operation. The antenna box can receive the energizing signal from the antenna cable in a transmit mode and provide the implanted sensor response signal to the antenna cable in a receive mode. The antenna box can communicate with an electronic box and/or conversion box that provide and receive signals and provide power via the antenna cable.
US08159347B2
A sensor is provided. The sensor comprises at least one sensing device comprising a first electrode and a second electrode, and a gap defined as a distance between one or more facing inner surfaces of the first and second electrodes, wherein the gap distance at least in part determines a threshold of one or more sensed parameters, and an antenna in operative association with the sensing device.
US08159346B2
When an RFID is attached to an object to assist testing operations, the following problems are encountered; (1) the RFID of write type tends to cause a failure and is troublesome due to the necessity of rewrite each time the situation is changed, (2) the incorporation of the reader function in a terminal block increases the cost, and (3) the known techniques are targeted for only the connecting operation and are not adapted for a sequence test that takes the most expense in time and effort. The operations are aided by using an RFID reader and a terminal having the function for accessing a database of circuit information, RFID information, and test procedure information.
US08159341B2
Provided is a system and method for providing monitoring of hazardous materials, including collecting environmental data via one or more sensors directed at the hazardous materials source, the environmental data including one or more environmentally detectable reference points; comparing the environmental data to a set of current ambient conditions, the environmental data detectable in a reference frame by the one or more sensors directed at the hazardous materials source, the reference frame including at least one of the one or more environmentally detectable reference points; performing an alert determination according to the comparison of the environmental data to the set of ambient conditions; and transmitting the alert determination to an existing fault detection system for the hazardous material source to enable the existing fault detection system to override a status rating of the hazardous materials source. Also included is a sensing system including modules operating on a processor to perform the method.
US08159335B2
Methods, apparatus, and computer program products for controlling a user's interaction with a keyboard of a multi-application electronic device such as a personal digital assistant. In one embodiment, a keyboard usage statistic for the user is determined and compared with a usage limit. Responsive to the comparison, an input mode capability of the device may be altered by throttling keyboard input to a first application such as a text input application while permitting unlimited input to a second application such as a speech input application. Altering an input mode capability may include at least one of: disabling a keyboard function, enabling an alternate input mechanism, and instructing the user to use the alternate input mechanism.
US08159334B2
A tangible computer readable medium includes instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to communicate with a multicast alert server to receive a multicast emergency alert message via a multicast-enabled network of an Internet Protocol television system. The multicast emergency alert message includes data related to a location code and data related to a set-top box action. The computer program further includes instructions to execute the set-top box action when the location code matches location information stored at a set-top box device.
US08159333B2
A method of reducing power consumption of a radio badge in a localization system is disclosed, in which the radio badge is carried by a tracked target and is provided with a pedometer for detecting a footstep count of the tracked target. The method includes: estimating a velocity of the radio badge according to the footstep count detected by the pedometer; calculating a sleep time from the velocity of the radio badge; and controlling the radio badge to discontinue emitting radio signals during the sleep time. An indoor localization system that performs the method is also disclosed.
US08159289B2
The present invention shows a contactless chip card comprising a controllable demodulation unit for demodulating an amplitude-modulated carrier signal, a measuring unit for determining a degree of modulation of the modulated carrier signal, and a control unit for controlling the demodulation unit on the basis of the determined degree of modulation of the carrier signal.
US08159285B2
A current supply circuit according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an operational amplifier having first and second input terminals and an output terminal, a transistor having a control terminal connected to the output terminal of the operational amplifier, and having first and second main terminals, a first resistance arranged between the first input terminal of the operational amplifier and the first main terminal of the transistor, a second resistance arranged between a predetermined node and a ground line, the predetermined node being between the first input terminal of the operational amplifier and the first resistance, first to Nth transistors, each of which has a control terminal connected to the control terminal or the second main terminal of the transistor, and has a main terminal outputting a current, where N is an integer of two or larger, and first to Nth switching transistors, each of which has a main terminal, the main terminals of the first to Nth switching transistors being respectively connected to the main terminals of the first to Nth transistors, a pulse width of a signal provided to a control terminal of the respective first to Nth switching transistors being set to be constant regardless of a pulse frequency of the signal.
US08159282B2
The present invention is directed to reduce increase in the level of a harmonic signal of an RF (transmission) Tx output signal at the time of supplying an RF Tx signal to a bias generation circuit of an antenna switch. A semiconductor integrated circuit includes an antenna switch having a bias generation circuit, a Tx switch, and an antenna switch having a bias generation circuit, a transmitter switch, and a receiver (Rx) switch. The on/off state of a transistor of a Tx switch coupled between a Tx port and an I/O port is controlled by a Tx control bias. The on/off state of the transistors of the Rx switch coupled between the I/O port and a receiver (Rx) port is controlled by an RX control bias. A radio frequency (RF) signal input port of the bias generation circuit is coupled to the Tx port, and a negative DC output bias generated from a DC output port can be supplied to a gate control port of transistors of the Rx switch.
US08159266B1
A metal programmable semiconductor device is disclosed. The semiconductor device, comprises: a metal programmable logic circuit; and a plurality of fixed interconnect geometries including metal and via structures; and a plurality of selectable interconnect geometries, each said interconnect geometry capable of coupling a first of said fixed interconnects to a second of said fixed interconnects; and a binary bitstream, each bit in the bitstream assigned to one or more of said selectable interconnect geometries, wherein the binary state of a said bit specifies if said assigned one or more selectable geometries is included or excluded in the selection; and a computer aided design tool that identifies one or more logic functions and an interconnect pattern to fully program the logic circuit to a user specification by identifying the bit states of said binary bitstream; and at least one custom mask comprising a portion of said fixed interconnect geometries and a portion of the bitstream selected geometries of said one or more selectable interconnect geometries, wherein the said at least one custom mask programs the programmable circuit to the customer specification during fabrication of the semiconductor device.
US08159261B2
A semiconductor circuit includes a pad, a pad driver connected to the pad at an output terminal thereof and configured to calibrate a voltage of the pad in response to code signals, a comparison section configured to compare a reference voltage and the voltage of the pad and generate a comparison signal, and a code generation section configured to calibrate code values of the code signals in response to the comparison signal.
US08159254B2
Crack sensors for semiconductor devices, semiconductor devices, methods of manufacturing semiconductor devices, and methods of testing semiconductor devices are disclosed. In one embodiment, a crack sensor includes a conductive structure disposed proximate a perimeter of an integrated circuit. The conductive structure is formed in at least one conductive material layer of the integrated circuit. The conductive structure includes a first end and a second end. A first terminal is coupled to the first end of the conductive structure, and a second terminal is coupled to the second end of the conductive structure.
US08159252B2
A test handler and method for operating a test handler for testing semiconductor devices are provided. The test handler includes a test tray located on one side of an opening apparatus in which a plurality of inserts are arrayed, wherein each insert comprises at least one semiconductor device loaded thereon, at least one opening unit for opening inserts at one part of the one side of the test tray, and a position changing apparatus comprises a motor including a driving pulley for moving at least one opening unit along a contact surface of the test tray such that the at least one opening unit changes positions on the test tray and is located at another part of the one side of the test tray in order to open inserts at the other part of the one side of the test tray.
US08159244B2
A method and system for testing a semiconductor package. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are methods comprising testing a semiconductor package unit (150, 420) by electrically coupling a top printed circuit board (208, 420) to a top-side of a semiconductor package unit (150, 420), the coupling using electrically conductive top-side pogo pins (201A, 420), and a pair of adjacent top-side pogo pins (201A, 420) bridged using an electrically conductive path (302, 420), electrically coupling a bottom printed circuit board (210, 430) to a bottom-side of the semiconductor package unit (150, 430), the coupling using electrically conductive bottom-side pogo pins (201B, 430), said top-side pogo pins (201A, 430) and said bottom-side pogo pins are of substantially equal height (201B, 430), and transmitting test signals from the bottom printed circuit board to the semiconductor device package by way of the bottom-side pogo pins (210, 440).
US08159242B2
A handling device for positioning a test head, in particular at a test station, is provided with a positioning means enabling the test head to be positioned with respect to three dimensions. The handling device also has a mounting on which the test head can be attached and which is connected to the positioning means. The handling device is also provided with a fastening plate which is movably mounted and a compliance module by means of which the fastening plate can be moved between a starting position (I) and an end position (II, III) against the effect of a return force. The compliance module includes a housing, a spindle, a first sliding bushing and a second sliding bushing which are arranged in a movable manner on the spindle between a first stop and a second stop, and a spring element arranged between the sliding bushings and which impinges on the sliding bushings. The sliding bushings are movable relative to the housing. The compliance module permits bi-directional compliance of the test head.
US08159241B1
Systems and methods are provided for optimizing operation of an integrated circuit. In one implementation, a system is provided for optimizing operation of an integrated circuit by adjusting an operational parameter of the integrated circuit based on a reference count stored in non-volatile memory fabricated on the integrated circuit. In another implementation, a method is provided for optimizing operation of an integrated circuit by generating, during operation of the integrated circuit, a first oscillator count of an oscillator, comparing the first oscillator count with at least one reference count stored on the integrated circuit, and activating, a control circuit to adjust an operational parameter of the integrated circuit based on a result of the comparison.
US08159221B2
A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus includes a data acquisition unit and an image generating unit. The data acquisition unit acquires MR data according to an imaging condition for obtaining a SSFP in flowing matter by applying excitation pulses having a same flip angle with a constant TR and gradient magnetic fields to an object. The image generating unit generates an image of the flowing matter based on the MR data.
US08159215B2
An induction detecting rotary encoder has first to third transmitting windings, first to third receiving windings, and first to third flux coupling winding. The first transmitting winding, the first receiving winding, and the first flux coupling body constitute a first angle detection track generating a cyclic change for N1 times per single rotation of the first rotor. The second transmitting winding, the second receiving winding, and the second flux coupling body constitute a second angle detection track generating a cyclic change for N2 times per single rotation of the first rotor. The third transmitting winding, the third receiving winding, and the third flux coupling body constitute a third angle detection track generating a cyclic change for N3 times per single rotation of the second rotor. N1, N2, and N3 are different from one another, and N3 is less than N1 and N2.
US08159214B2
A position detecting system includes a magnetic field generator, a detecting body, a magnetic field detector, a position/direction calculating unit, and a control unit. The magnetic field generator generates a magnetic field in a three-dimensional space. The detecting body is put into the three-dimensional space, and includes a resonance circuit for generating a resonance magnetic field. The position/direction calculating unit calculates a position/direction of the detecting body. If the resonance circuit is in the non-resonant state, the magnetic field detector detects an environmental magnetic field, and the control unit updates detection data of the environmental magnetic field. If the resonance circuit is in the resonant state, the magnetic field detector detects the spatial magnetic field in the three-dimensional space. The position/direction calculating unit executes processing using the detection data of the spatial magnetic field and updated detection data of the environmental magnetic field.
US08159213B2
A non-contact measurement method for a relative displacement or relative positioning of a first object relative to a second object, in which: at least one transmitting coil, placed on the first object, is excited by an alternating excitation signal, at least one alternating electronic output signal, generated by mutual inductance in at least one receiving coil, is detected; the at least one receiving coil being placed on the second object and in a magnetic field created by the at least one transmitting coil, and the relative displacement of the first object is determined relative to the second object using the at least one alternating electric output signal generated on the at least one receiving coil.
US08159210B2
There is disclosed a method of detecting the configuration of a network having a feeder line with a plurality of feeder meters and distribution transformer meters (DTMs) coupled thereto and with one or more customer meters and/or customer configuration modules coupled to the distribution transformers. The method includes the steps of having each of the feeder meters transmit a uniquely identifiable signal through the feeder line. The DTMs then identifying the phase of each of the uniquely identifiable signals and then transmitting the phase of each of the uniquely identifiable signals to a data collector along with a unique DTM identifier. The connectivity relationship between the feeder meters and distribution transformer meters is then extrapolated by comparing the phase information transmitted by the DTMs. The relationship of the customer meters relative to the DTMs can also be plotted by having each DTM transmit the DTM identifier to all of their respective customer meters, who then transmit this to the data collector along with their customer meter identifier. The method also permits the determination of which phase the DTM is connected to by analyzing the phase angle of a demodulated feeder meter signal.
US08159207B2
An LDO regulator (10) produces an output voltage (Vout) by applying the output voltage to a feedback input (6) of a differential input stage (10A) and applying an output (3) of the differential input stage to a gate of a first follower transistor (MP4) having a source coupled to an input (8) of a class AB output stage (10C) which generates the output voltage. Demanded load current is supplied by the output voltage during a dip in its value to a gate of a second follower transistor (MP5) having a gate coupled to the output of the input stage to decrease current in a current mirror (MN5,6) having an output coupled to a current source (I1) and a gate of an amplifying transistor (MN7). This causes the current source to rapidly turn on the amplifying transistor to cause it to rapidly turn on a cascode transistor (MN3), causing it to turn on a pass transistor (MP3) of the output stage.
US08159196B2
The present disclosure is related to a power control apparatus and a method for controlling power, more specifically to a power control apparatus that controls the risk of overcurrent in a power generator when the voltage in the power grid is low. In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, a power control apparatus that controls power in a power generation system including a generator generating power can include a current comparator, which calculates an error current by using a difference between a current measured at the generator and a rated current of the generator, a controlling unit, which calculates a real power value by receiving the error current and outputs a switch driving signal corresponding to the calculated real power value, a switch, which is operated by the switch driving signal, and a resistance device, which is coupled to the switch to consume the error current.
US08159193B2
A semiconductor device which can operate normally even when the communication distance is extremely short, and which stores excess electric power which is not needed for circuit operation of the semiconductor device when a large amount of electric power is supplied thereto. The following are included: an antenna; a first AC/DC converter circuit which is connected to the antenna; a second AC/DC converter circuit which is connected to the antenna through a switching element; a detecting circuit which controls operation of the switching element in accordance with the value of a voltage output from the first AC/DC converter circuit; and a battery which stores electric power supplied from the antenna through the second AC/DC converter circuit. When the switching element is operated, electric power supplied from outside is at least partly supplied to the battery through the second AC/DC converter circuit.
US08159188B2
A method for managing power limits for a battery includes the step of increasing a minimum operating state of charge after an initial power capability has decreased to the point where a predefined full discharge power is not available at an initial minimum operating state of charge. The increased minimum operating state of charge can be chosen such that the full discharge power is available. The increased minimum state of charge may not be chosen to provide the full discharge power if the increased minimum state of charge is greater than a maximum low limit state of charge.
US08159180B2
A battery charging device of the present invention has a rectifier portion that is formed by switching elements, and performs advance angle/delay angle control. An advance angle/delay angle amount in the advance angle/delay angle control is determined based on a differential voltage between the voltage of a battery and a predetermined target voltage. In this case, when a determined delay angle amount exceeds a delay angle limit value, delay angle control is performed using the delay angle limit value. Moreover, the power generation amount of an alternating current generator is detected, and the delay angle amount and power generation amount are stored. If the current delay angle amount is greater than the previous delay angle amount, and the previous power generation amount is greater than the current power generation amount, then the previous delay angle amount is set as the delay angle limit value.
US08159177B2
A system for realizing rotor variable frequency speed control asynchronously and simultaneously is disclosed. Multiple motors are driven via one inverter, which consists of a motor group, a rectifier group, a chopper group, an isolator group, an amperite group, a power capacitor group, a full-bridge or a half-bridge, a speed feedback voltage detector group, and a current feedback voltage detector group. Using inversion control theory, the voltage outputs by a full or half-bridge inverter are an inverse electromotive force of each functional motor, and each motor operates asynchronously and simultaneously. This system may be used in crane operations. As a crane rises, redundant electricity is fed back to the motor via an inverter; and as the crane lowers, the motor will generate electricity, and the electricity is fed back to the motor via the inverter.
US08159169B2
In a parking brake control device, the minimum value of a motor current is set as an idle current after a motor begins to be driven, specifically, in a period during which the idle current is being sampled. As a result, the idle current is set to a value which reflects the temperature of an electric parking brake and the dispersion of individual units of the motor. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a parking brake control device, which can set a target current value capable of coping with the dispersion of the individual units of the motor by calculating the target current value by adding a target effective current necessary to generate an actuation force to the idle current set as described above.
US08159159B2
An apparatus, method and computer program for controlling the tension in roll-based print media. The apparatus comprises: a motor arranged to apply torque to the roll of print media to create tension in the print media; and processing means arranged to detect first and second electrical drive parameters applied to the motor when the print media is displaced at a substantially constant velocity with a substantially zero tension and a predetermined tension created therein, respectively, and to determine a print media tension value based on a difference between the first and second detected electrical drive parameters.
US08159158B2
A system for accelerating particles includes an RF cavity that contains a ferrite core and a liquid dielectric. Characteristics of the ferrite core and the liquid dielectric, among other factors, determine the resonant frequency of the RF cavity. The liquid dielectric is circulated to cool the ferrite core during the operation of the system.
US08159143B2
A light generating module includes a light emitting part and a power supplying part. The light emitting part includes a first region and a second region. First and second lights having different wavelengths from each other are generated in each of the first and second regions. The first region is an outermost region of the light emitting part. The power supplying part applies different currents to the first region from the second region to generate the first and second lights having different intensities from each other. Therefore, color uniformity is increased so that an image display quality is improved.
US08159128B2
The invention is a sealed thick film dielectric display where the display comprises a thick film dielectric display structure and an adhesive layer provided over the display structure. The invention also provides a seal where the seal comprises an adhesive layer bonded to the underside of a cover plate and to the surface of a thick film dielectric electroluminescent display. The seal substantially inhibits the exposure of display components to atmospheric contaminants.
US08159126B2
A light emitting device with a light source to emit primary light and a light conversion layer to convert at least a part of the primary light into secondary light includes a CaAlSiN light converting material with a transmissivity of ≧10% to ≦80% for a light in the wavelength range from ≧580 to ≦1000 nm.
US08159107B2
A micro rotary machine may include a micro actuator and a micro shaft coupled to the micro actuator. The micro shaft comprises a horizontal shaft and is operable to be rotated by the micro actuator. A micro tool is coupled to the micro shaft and is operable to perform work in response to motion of the micro shaft.
US08159104B1
A motor-generator apparatus has a stator and a rotor in a cylindrical arrangement about a central longitudinal axis. The stator has a static circular magnetic surface spaced apart from, a static circular electromagnetic surface. The rotor has a cylindrical arrangement of radially oriented laminations positioned proximal to, and between the static circular magnetic, and the static circular electromagnetic surfaces. The rotor is supported for rotation relative to the stator. A circular arrangement of electromagnets are electrically interconnected for carrying an electrical current for energizing the circular electromagnetic surface which is discontinuous with a plurality of portions gapped apart.
US08159096B2
A magnetic absolute sensor for a geared motor comprises a dipole magnet and hall elements. The dipole magnet is fixed to a hollow portion of a hollow rotor shaft. A bracket attached to an end plate of a motor housing is coaxially inserted from the rear end side of the hollow portion. The dipole magnet is inserted from the front side in a cylindrical portion of the bracket. The hall elements are arranged at an interval of 90 degree on the circular inner periphery surface of the cylindrical portion. The hall elements face the circular outer periphery surface of the dipole magnet with a fixed gap therebetween. It is not necessary to increase a motor shaft length in order to incorporate the magnetic absolute sensor. The flux of a motor driven magnet is blocked by the hollow rotor shaft and the hall elements are not adversely affected.
US08159092B2
The present invention concerns an electrical installation or device equipped with a power supply unit comprising a voltage converter having primary and secondary parts respectively defining a primary side and a secondary side of this electrical installation or device. This power supply unit comprises a power management unit arranged on said primary side, the primary part of the converter being associated with a control circuit also arranged on said primary side and controlling the electrical energy flowing in the primary power path of said primary part. The control circuit receives from the power management unit at least a first control signal for switching OFF the electrical energy in said primary power path, said power supply unit entering a very low power mode (“Power-down” mode) when said first control signal is set to OFF so that the converter is not supplied anymore. The power management unit is arranged such that, in said very low power mode, it can receive or generate at least a wake-up signal and set to ON said first control signal in response to said wake-up signal for supplying again said primary and secondary parts of the converter.
US08159090B2
A system of providing energy includes a transmitter for sending wirelessly a first type of energy and at least a second type of energy different from the first type of energy. The system includes a receiver for receiving wirelessly the first type of energy and converting it to usable energy. A transmitter for transmitting power wirelessly. A receiver for receiving wirelessly transmitted power. A method for providing energy.
US08159084B2
A window power distribution device includes a housing with an extension attached to the housing. Together, the housing and extension are designed to form a seal in a window opening. The window power distribution device also includes an electrical input attached to the housing, a display, and a socket, where the socket is wired to the input. The display is designed to provide information relating to the power distribution device.
US08159082B2
A marine vessel power and propulsion system that provides a vessel-wide uninterruptible power supply is described. The power and propulsion system includes a propulsion system including a prime mover coupled to a motor/generator and a propulsion device. The motor/generator is configured to be driven by the prime mover and to generate alternating current (AC) electric power. The power and propulsion system also includes a ship-service electrical system including a generator set and a ship-service bus. The generator set is configured to generate ship-service electric power for distribution over the ship-service bus. The power and propulsion system also includes a bi-directional converter configured to couple the propulsion system to the ship-service electrical system and to convert AC electric power generated by the propulsion system to ship-service electric power for distribution over the ship-service electrical system.
US08159079B2
An environmental energy-saving power generator includes a power generation module, a control module, a power module, a power generator housing, and an I/O module. A processor unit of the control module controls the power management unit and the power management unit controls the power module to supply driving power required by a drive unit of the power generation module during operation; after the power generation unit of power generation module operates, the surplus power generated by the power generation unit, when generating power, can be re-charged to the power module. The environmental energy-saving power generator effectively manages and allocates the power of power module and that of power generation module to lengthen the time when the environmental energy-saving power generator supplies power to the load for operation. The power generation units of power generation module and the drive unit may generate high-efficiency power of voltage, current, and frequency.
US08159070B2
Chip assemblies are disclosed that include a semiconductor substrate, multiple devices in and on the semiconductor substrate, a first metallization structure over the semiconductor substrate, and a passivation layer over the first metallization structure. First and second openings in the passivation layer expose first and second contact pads of the first metallization structure. A first metal post is positioned over the passivation layer and over the first contact pad. A second metal post is positioned over the passivation layer and over the second contact pad. A polymer layer is positioned over the passivation layer and encloses the first and second metal posts. A second metallization structure is positioned on the polymer layer, on the top surface of the first metal post and on the top surface of second metal post. The second metallization structure includes an electroplated metal. Related fabrication methods are also described.
US08159064B2
Disclosed herein is a lead pin for a package substrate. The lead pin for the package substrate according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a head part having one surface opposite to the package substrate and the other surface that is an opposite side to the one surface; and a connection pin having a pin shape bonded to the other surface of the head part, wherein the head part has a concave depression part toward the package substrate.
US08159060B2
Each of a first substrate and a second substrate includes a surface having a diffusion resistant dielectric material such as silicon nitride. Recessed regions are formed in the diffusion resistant dielectric material and filled with a bondable dielectric material. The patterns of the metal pads and bondable dielectric material portions in the first and second substrates can have a mirror symmetry. The first and second substrates are brought into physical contact and bonded employing contacts between metal pads and contacts between the bondable dielectric material portions. Through-substrate-via (TSV) structures are formed through bonded dielectric material portions. The interface between each pair of bonded dielectric material portions located around a TSV structure is encapsulated by two diffusion resistant dielectric material layers so that diffusion of metal at a bonding interface is contained within each pair of bonded dielectric material portions.
US08159058B2
Miniaturization and high-performance of a semiconductor device are promoted, which has a package on package (POP) structure in which a plurality of semiconductor packages is stacked in a multistage manner. A testing conductive pad for determining the quality of a conduction state of a microcomputer chip and a memory chip is arranged outside a conductive pad for external input/output and thereby the route of a wire that couples the microcomputer chip and the memory chip to the testing conductive pad is reduced in length. Further, the wire that couples the microcomputer chip and the memory chip to the testing conductive pad is coupled to a pad in the outer row among conductive pads in two rows to be coupled to the microcomputer chip.
US08159054B2
The present invention provides a non-insulated type DC-DC converter having a circuit in which a power MOSωFET for a high side switch and a power MOSωFET for a low side switch are connected in series. In the non-insulated type DC-DC converter, the power transistor for the high side switch, the power transistor for the low side switch, and driver circuits that drive these are respectively constituted by different semiconductor chips. The three semiconductor chips are accommodated in one package, and the semiconductor chip including the power transistor for the high side switch, and the semiconductor chip including the driver circuits are disposed so as to approach each other.
US08159044B1
An integrated circuit is provided with a spiral inductor and a transition zone surrounding the spiral inductor. The transition zone may have a geometry that is substantially eight-sided or octagonal. Metal layers in the transition zone may have metal fill that is substantially octagonal and arranged in rows and columns. If desired, square or rectangular metal fill be tiled with the substantially octagonal metal fill. Metal layers may also contain halved or quartered octagonal metal fill. Substrate in the transition zone may have octagonal substrate regions separated by shallow trench isolation regions. A polysilicon layer above the substrate may have square regions of polysilicon fill directly above the shallow trench regions in the substrate. Such arrangements may provide more uniform densities in transition zones with certain geometries.
US08159038B2
Structures and methods of forming self aligned silicided contacts are disclosed. The structure includes a gate electrode disposed over an active area, a liner disposed over the gate electrode and at least a portion of the active area, an insulating layer disposed over the liner. A first contact plug is disposed in the insulating layer and the liner, the first contact plug disposed above and in contact with a portion of the active area, the first contact plug including a first conductive material. A second contact plug is disposed in the insulating layer and the liner, the second contact plug disposed above and in contact with a portion of the gate electrode, the second contact plug includes the first conductive material. A contact material layer is disposed in the active region, the contact material layer disposed under the first contact plug and includes the first conductive material.
US08159037B2
Provided are a stack structure including an epitaxial graphene, a method of forming the stack structure, and an electronic device including the stack structure. The stack structure includes: a Si substrate; an under layer formed on the Si substrate; and at least one epitaxial graphene layer formed on the under layer.
US08159034B2
N-type semiconductor region and P-type semiconductor region are provided in a surface region of a semiconductor substrate. Insulating film and silicon containing film are laminated on the semiconductor substrate. P-type impurities are introduced into a first portion of the silicon containing film above the N-type semiconductor region. The first portion of the silicon containing film is thinned in the thickness direction. N-type impurities are introduced into a second portion of the silicon containing film above the P-type semiconductor region. A mask is provided on the silicon containing film. The first and second portions of the silicon containing film are etched together using the mask as an etching mask to form gate electrode films above the N-type and P-type semiconductor regions respectively. P-type and N-type impurities are introduced into the N-type and P-type semiconductor regions to form P-type and N-type source and drain layers.
US08159029B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate, a source region and a drain region formed in the substrate, a gate structure formed on the substrate disposed between the source and drain regions, and a first isolation structure formed in the substrate between the gate structure and the drain region, the first isolation structure including projections that are located proximate to an edge of the drain region. Each projection includes a width measured in a first direction along the edge of the drain region and a length measured in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, and adjacent projections are spaced a distance from each other.
US08159023B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type, a first semiconductor region of the first conductivity type on the semiconductor substrate, and a plurality of second semiconductor regions of a second conductivity type disposed separately in the first semiconductor region. A difference between a charge quantity expressed by an integral value of a net activated doping concentration in the second semiconductor regions in the surface direction of the semiconductor substrate and a charge quantity expressed by an integral value of a net activated doping concentration in the first semiconductor region in the surface direction of the semiconductor substrate is always a positive quantity and becomes larger from the depth of the first junction plane to a depth of a second junction plane on an opposite side from the first junction plane.
US08159022B2
A power semiconductor component is described. One embodiment provides a semiconductor body having an inner zone and an edge zone. A base zone of a first conduction type is provided. The base zone is arranged in the at least one inner zone and the at least one edge zone. An emitter zone of a second conduction type is provided. The emitter zone is arranged adjacent to the base zone in a vertical direction of the semiconductor body. A field stop zone of the first conduction type is provided. The field stop zone is arranged in the base zone and has a first field stop zone section having a first dopant dose in the edge zone and a second field stop zone section having a second dopant dose in the inner zone. The first dopant dose is higher than the second dopant dose.
US08159020B2
The invention relates to a nonvolatile two-transistor semiconductor memory cell and an associated fabrication method, source and drain regions (2 ) for a selection transistor (AT) and a memory transistor (ST) being formed in a substrate (1). The memory transistor (ST) has a first insulation layer (3 ), a charge storage layer (4), a second insulation layer (5) and a memory transistor control layer (6), while the selection transistor (AT) has a first insulation layer (3 ′) and a selection transistor control layer (4*). By using different materials for the charge storage layer (4) and the selection transistor control layer (4*), it is possible to significantly improve the charge retention properties of the memory cell by adapting the substrate doping with electrical properties remaining the same.
US08159010B2
The present invention provides a solid-state image pick-up device without shading in the dark state, and capable of making a dynamic range and a S/N high. Reference numeral 505 denotes an N-type cathode of a photodiode, 506 denoting a surface P-type region for forming the photodiode into an embedded structure, 508a denoting an N-type high concentration region which forms a floating diffusion and which is also a drain region of a transfer MOS transistor. Reference character 508b denotes a polysilicon lead-out electrode brought into direct contact with the N-type high concentration region. Light incident from the surface passes through an aperture without a metal third layer 525 to enter into the photodiode. Among incident lights, light reflected by the top surface of a gate electrode 504 of the transfer MOS transistor is reflected by a first layer metal 521 right above the polysilicon, so as to repeats reflection a plurality of times to attenuate sufficiently before entering into the floating diffusion section, thereby making the aliasing extremely small.
US08159003B2
A III-nitride device having a support substrate that may include a first silicon body, a second silicon body, an insulation body interposed between the first and second silicon bodies, and a III-nitride body formed over the second silicon body.
US08159001B2
A graded junction space decreasing an implant concentration gradient between n-well and p-well regions of a semiconductor device is provided for enhancing breakdown voltage in high voltage applications. Split or unified FOX regions may be provided overlapping with the graded junction space. By using a p-well blocking layer to separate the p-well(s) and the n-well, breakdown voltage characteristic is improved without the cost of an additional mask or process change.
US08158995B2
An optoelectronic semiconductor chip is disclosed which emits electromagnetic radiation from its front side (7) during operation, comprising a semiconductor layer sequence (1) having an active region (4) suitable for generating the electromagnetic radiation, and a separately produced TCO supporting substrate (10), which is arranged at the semiconductor layer sequence and has a material from the group of transparent conductive oxides (TCO) and mechanically supports the semiconductor layer sequence (1).
US08158994B2
A first conductive film 104-1 of a light-transmissive conductive oxide film 104 and a positive pad electrode 105 are electrically connected through a second conductive film 104-2 of the light-transmissive conductive oxide film 104 in a GaN-based LED element 100. A contact resistance of the light-transmissive conductive oxide film 104 with a p-type layer 102-3 in a first contact portion 104A is lower than in a second contact portion 104B, so that a current supplied from the positive pad electrode 105 to the p-type layer 102-3 through the conductive oxide film 104 flows to the p-type layer 102-3 mainly through the first contact portion 104A.
US08158988B2
A CMOS image sensor pixel includes a conductive light shield, which is located between a first dielectric layer and a second dielectric layer. At least one via extends from a top surface of the second dielectric layer to a bottom surface of the first dielectric layer is formed in the metal interconnect structure. The conductive light shield may be formed within a contact level between a top surface of a semiconductor substrate and a first metal line level, or may be formed in any metal interconnect via level between two metal line levels. The inventive CMOS image sensor pixel enables reduction of noise in the signal stored in the floating drain.
US08158986B2
A system for displaying images including a display panel and a fabrication method thereof are provided. The display panel includes a substrate having a first, second and third areas, a first patterned semiconductor layer disposed over the first area of the substrate, a first insulating layer covering the first patterned semiconductor layer and the first, the second and the third areas of the substrate, a second patterned semiconductor layer disposed on the first insulating layer of the first and the third areas respectively, a second insulating layer covering the second patterned semiconductor layer and the first insulating layer, and a patterned conductive layer disposed on the second insulating layer to form a first thin-film transistor at the first area and a second thin-film transistor at the third area.
