US08950687B2

An HVAC system includes an HVAC unit having a cooling mode and a heating mode for conditioning the air in an inside space, and a programmable thermostat located remotely from the HVAC unit. The HVAC unit may have an onboard controller configured to control when the HVAC unit is in the cooling mode or heating mode, and whether the HVAC unit is activated or not. In some cases, the onboard controller of the HVAC unit may use a common temperature setpoint when controlling in the cooling mode and the heating mode. The programmable thermostat may have a programmable schedule with a plurality of time periods, where each time period has a heating setpoint and a cooling setpoint separated by a dead band. The onboard controller of the HVAC unit may be configured to accept input signals from the remotely located thermostat. The remotely located thermostat may send one or more input signals to the onboard controller of the HVAC unit in accordance with the programmable schedule, where the one or more input signals cause the onboard controller of the HVAC unit to set the HVAC unit to a particular one of the cooling mode and the heating mode, and to activate the HVAC unit so as to condition the air in the inside space in the particular one of the cooling mode and the heating mode.
US08950685B1

A stylized QR code generating apparatus is provided, which includes: an image adjusting module having an image detecting unit and a shape distorting unit; and a code stylizing module having a boundary matching unit and a boundary adjusting unit. The image detecting unit detects an error value generated in a QR code when a predetermined image is embedded in the QR code, and the shape distorting unit distorts a plurality of meshes converted from the image to adjust a shape of the image and thereby correct the error value in the QR code. The boundary matching unit matches a plurality of first boundary sections of the QR code with second boundary sections of a predetermined pattern, and the boundary adjusting unit adjusts the first boundary sections to the matched second boundary sections, respectively.
US08950677B2

A barcode reading method and a barcode reading device are provided. An image sensor is utilized to capture an image of a barcode via an optical lens, and then a triangulation method and an ideal lens imagining method are collocated to calculate the digital image so as to produce an optimum image distance. A distance between the image sensor and the optical lens is then adjusted in accordance with the optimum image distance, so that the barcode can be immediately and clearly imaged on the image sensor.
US08950672B2

Techniques are addressed for control of an imaging scanner to supplement a laser scan line based scanner. Upon detection of the imaging scanner in a docked position, a lighting arrangement is automatically lit and the imager is triggered. Upon detection of the imaging scanner not in the docked position, the imaging scanner is not automatically lit, but rather is only lit upon manual trigger activation. As an alternative to the automatic lighting when docked, the lighting may be cued upon the imaging scanner being docked and an analysis of laser scan video detecting a barcode like object or upon detecting a barcode like object in the image field of the imaging scanner.
US08950671B2

A method for item scanning in a shopping cart includes detecting a change in a weight of one or more items within a shopping cart. The weight is sensed by a weight sensor disposed in the shopping cart. Each of the one or more items includes a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag. The method includes switching an RFID reader to an active state and scanning RFID tags of the one or more items with the RFID reader in response to detecting the change in weight. The RFID reader is disposed on the shopping cart. The method includes switching the RFID reader to an inactive state subsequent to scanning the RFID tags with the RFID reader. The method includes determining an inventory of the one or more items based on information from the scanned RFID tags. The inventory includes an item quantity and an item identity.
US08950667B2

In one embodiment, a computing device of a social-networking system may receive from a computing device of a first user of the social-networking system information acquired by the computing device of the first user from a tag associated with a second user of the social-networking system. The tag may encode a time stamp, a signature, and a social action on the social-networking system. The computing device of the social-networking system may verify the signature and, if the signature is verified, then initiate the social action.
US08950664B2

A quality management system for products including a multiplicity of barcode indicators, each operative to provide a machine-readable indication of exceedance of at least one threshold by at least one product quality determining parameter, the at least one threshold being at least one of a time duration threshold and a combined temperature and time threshold, a barcode indicator reader operative to read the barcode indicators and to provide output indications and an indication interpreter operative to receive the output indications and to provide human sensible, product unit specific, product quality status outputs.
US08950654B2

The present invention provides a carton constructed from a single blank of paperboard material featuring an auto-erecting bottom. The carton includes first through eighth sides panels, a glue flap attached along a fold line to a first side edge of the first side panel, a first bottom flap attached along a fold line to a bottom edge of the second side panel, and a second bottom flap attached along a fold line to a bottom edge of the sixth side panel.The carton includes a first bottom folding assembly attached to a bottom edge of the third and fourth side panels, a second bottom folding assembly attached to a bottom edge of the seventh and eighth side panels, a third bottom folding assembly attached to the first side panel, and a fourth bottom folding assembly attached to the fifth side panel.
US08950653B2

A sintering method allows components to be joined to each other in a stable way at a processing temperature of less than 200° C., producing stable contact points having low porosity and high electrical and thermal conductivity. The method includes (a) providing a sandwich arrangement having at least a first component, a second component, and a metal paste located between the first and second components, and (b) sintering the sandwich arrangement. The metal paste includes (A) 75-90 wt. % of at least one metal present in the form of particles having an organic compound-containing coating, (B) 0-12wt % of at least one metal precursor, (C) 6-20wt % of at least one solvent, and (D) 0.1-15 wt % of at least one sintering agent selected from (i) salts of C1-C4 organic acids, (ii) esters of C1-C4 organic acids, and (iii) carbonyl complexes.
US08950650B2

A tool driving section of a friction stir spot welding device is configured to cause each of a pin member and a shoulder member to advance and retract, and is controlled by a tool driving control section. A press-fit reference point setting section sets a position where the pin member or the shoulder member contacts an object to be welded as a press-fit reference point, and the tool driving control section controls the position of the pin member with respect to the shoulder member on the basis of the press-fit reference point, thereby controlling the press-fit depth of a rotating tool press-fitted from the surface of the object to be welded. This achieves the excellent welding quality at suitable precision according to welding conditions especially in a double-acting friction stir spot welding method.
US08950643B2

The present invention relates to bags, including backpacks and messenger bags. Specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for converting a bag between backpack and over-the-shoulder configurations. A combination bag may comprise a bag body having a front panel, a back panel, a bottom panel, and an opening opposite the bottom and a strap, wherein the strap is fixedly attached to the bag body at a first connection point and slideably coupled to the bag body at a second connection point, thereby enabling a wearer to alternate between an over-the-shoulder and a backpack configuration without requiring that the wearer disconnect or reconnect the strap.
US08950637B2

A fluid flow-control valve is housed within a fluid transport container or vessel. The valve is operated by a trigger actuating a plunger or shaft. The trigger is located in the handgrip space of a pouring handle so as to resiliently provide one-handed control of fluid flow from the vessel. The valve is resiliently biased to a closed state. A telescopically extendable spout is attached to and housed within the main body of the valve and may include an integral breather passageway. When the spout is retracted it locks out the operation of the trigger.
US08950634B2

A simplified pump system may include a bellow having a suction valve, a stem, and a fluid lock wherein the product flow into and out of a pump chamber formed by the bellow and stem is controlled by the suction valve and fluid lock.
US08950633B2

Provided is a foam dispenser that is capable of preventing water or the like from entering an air cylinder. In the foam dispenser, a liquid piston is fitted in a liquid cylinder portion, and an air piston is fitted in an air cylinder portion, and upward and downward displacement of the actuator causes a content liquid within the liquid cylinder portion and air within the air cylinder portion to be mixed and foamed and then dispensed from a nozzle, and a partition wall is provided with an ambient air introducing hole, and from at least a portion of a hole periphery of the ambient air introducing hole, a water entering prevention side wall portion stands for preventing water from entering the ambient air introducing hole.
US08950632B2

A wearable dispenser is provided having an elongate body having a first end and a second end and extending from the first end to the second end in an arc forming at least a portion of an ellipse, oval or circle and extending through greater than 180 degrees so as to fit over a wrist. A product is retained interiorly of the body, and a pump assembly fluidly communicates with the product in the body. The pump assembly includes a movable dispensing tip that, upon reciprocal movement, dispenses a dose of product from the pump assembly and draws another dose of product into the pump assembly.
US08950630B2

A can with an internal divider for separating multiple items to be dispensed, and a dispensing cap having one-handed operation for opening and closing and suitable for effectively dispensing one or more items from a container which may or may not have an internal divider.
US08950628B2

A through surface hybrid apparatus for dispensing a fluid either in an automatic mode or a manual mode.
US08950627B2

A material dispensing assembly (100) and method of operation for converting a portable cartridge dispensing tool to a bag-type dispensing tool is provided in which the assembly includes a single piece piston (110) for advancing material though a material housing (104). The single piece piston (110) includes a substantially square-shaped receptacle (140). The assembly further includes a square shaped drive rack (112) for attaching to the piston (110) at the substantially square-shaped receptacle (140) at a connection end (128). The drive rack (112) further includes a plurality of teeth (142) located thereon. The assembly (100) further has a support (127) with a substantially square profile for receiving and supporting the drive rack (112) during operation such that the construct of the drive rack and piston (110) are prevented from rotating during operation.
US08950626B2

The invention relates to a device (D) for storing and dispensing parts (P) of the type that comprises a rigid parallelepiped container (100) receiving at least one winding of a flexible storage pipe (200), wherein at least one end (220) of said pipe (200) opens to the outside and said end (220) is provided with a dispensing head (300), while the other end (210) is supplied with movement fluid, characterized in that the pipe (200) used for storing the parts (P) is made of a polyether-based polyurethane of about 64 shore D.
US08950625B2

An apparatus for dispensing sorbent canisters into containers includes a first wheel and a second wheel, disposed to rotate with each other. A first plate is disposed between the first and second wheels and a second plate is disposed on a side of the second wheel opposite the first wheel.
US08950621B2

A cooking utensil with a reconfigurable handle is described. The cooking utensil can include a cooking body having an outer wall; a mounting bracket attached to the outer wall; and a handle rotatably coupled to the mounting bracket. The handle can be coupled to the mounting bracket in a manner that the handle can be rotated between a cooking position where the handle extends in a radial direction from the outer wall and a storage position where the handle follows at least a portion of said outer wall.
US08950612B2

A shipping container comprising a cradle portion, including a plurality of upright members, formed of a first material and a basket formed of a second material wherein when a first shipping container is stacked on a second shipping container the load of the first shipping container is transferred through the plurality of upright members of the second container.
US08950605B2

The invention relates to a monitoring and alarm device for construction machinery having long and heavy booms, such as cranes, in particular mobile cranes, is characterized in that a monitor system is provided, which monitors parameters that may change in case of an undesired lowering of the boom or of boom sections in a non-operating condition, and triggers an optical and/acoustic and/or wireless alarm system if the parameters change.
US08950596B2

In one embodiment there is provided a long gun rack system. The system includes an L-shaped frame; a butt cap secured to the side to accommodate a butt end of the gun; a handcuff ratchet lock mechanism secured to the frame at a position to accommodate the barrel, the lock mechanism configured to unlock in response to the receipt of an electronic code or in response to a key; an electronic security mechanism secured to the frame and is in communication with the lock mechanism; and a side plate having a cut-out region is secured along the frame at a position defined between the lock mechanism and the frame, such that the cut-out region permits the plate to mount in close proximity to the long gun and blocks the removal of the takedown pins and/or the full movement of a charging handle.
US08950592B1

An articulatable bicycle rack includes a rack arm that is coupled to a support structure in an elevated position. The rack further includes a bicycle support tray that is coupled to a shuttle that is movably engaged along a length of the rack arm. The bicycle support tray is articulatable about a pivot member that is coupled to the rack arm so as to selectively position the support tray between the storage position and a loading/unloading position.
US08950591B1

A ponytail holder apparatus has a base, an elongate support element extending upwardly from the base, and a holder element operably mounted on the elongate support element so that the holder element is positioned above the base. The holder element is comprised of a front surface and a rear hook element extending downwardly from the holder element. The drawstring ponytail may be hooked by the rear hook element and draped over the front surface to hang from the holder element over the base.
US08950583B2

A method of supplementing a diet and ameliorating oxidative stress in a mammal includes administering a pharmaceutically effective amount of an active compound having the chemical structure: where n=1-4 and X is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, lithium sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium and francium.
US08950577B2

Provided is an implant fixture storage case capable to prevent mistake in combination. The implant fixture storage case comprises an implant fixture holding member (20) for holding an implant fixture and which has a length based on the implant fixture to be held, and a storage main body (10) on which a value related to the length of the implant fixture is displayed, and which holds the implant fixture holding member thereinside and has at least one part being transparent, and a position display means (12) provided to the storage main body based on a position of an end portion of the implant fixture holding member, wherein the end portion of the implant fixture holding member and the position display means are viewable at the same time.
US08950576B2

The present invention relates to bags made from medical-grade paper for sterilization, with sterilization-process indicators and pigmented-adhesive-based safety features, which is easy to handle and use and can be used to store materials, more particularly surgical medical material, for sterilization. Such bags are produced using medical-grade paper that is treated on the surface thereof with a microbiocide for sterilization, and, owing to the structure and design thereof, allow safe, rapid handling of the sterilized material placed within, since there are visual indicators that guarantee the hermetic closure and sealing thereof. Furthermore, generally, the invention has printed indicators that change color depending on the sterilization process carried out on the bags and on whether said process was carried out correctly.
US08950570B2

A solids supply system having a solids deaeration zone and a solids pump zone, and a method for supplying the solids e.g., pulverized dry coal, to an application, e.g., gasification process. The solids deaeration zone includes a container having a passageway defined by one or more sloped walls. The solids deaeration zone is operable to deaerate and convey the solids to the solids pump zone. In the solids deaeration zone, the solids become sufficiently compacted prior to and upon entry into the solids pump zone to be effectively conveyed through the solids pump zone.
US08950568B2

A support (1), module (101, 201) to be placed on the support, transport system is for displacement of people/goods modernized with the module and modernization method of transport systems is for displacement of people/goods. The support (1) has fixings (11) to fix the support (1) to a bearing structure (10) of the transport system, horizontal tie plates (12) to support and horizontally place the module (101, 201), lateral tie plates (13) to support and laterally place the module (101, 201), longitudinal tie plates (14) to support and longitudinally place the module (101, 201). The module has positioning and verification equipment (101A, 201A, 301A) to place the module (101, 201, 301) maintaining within tolerances the system lines of the transport system. The transport system has a support (1) and an entrance (101)/exit (201)/central (301) module on an entrance (100)/exit (200) finished floor/in a central section.
US08950565B2

An anti back-drive coupling (5) comprises an input (20) driveable about an axis A in a clockwise and anticlockwise direction in torque transmitting communication, via a mechanism, with an output (40) driveable about the axis by the input in either of the rotational directions, the mechanism including: a tube (29), driveable by the input, carrying two cages (21) and (23) spaced along the axis A, each cage housing rollers (26) and (28) respectively; an output member 48 for driving the output (40), including two flattened formations (42) and (44) adjacent each cage in use, for engagement with the rollers (26) and (28) respectively; and a back-torque reaction freewheels (30) and (32) engageable with the rollers, for reacting back-torque transmitted through said output member (48) and into the rollers.
US08950563B2

A transmission is provided with an engagement member rotationally moved between an engagement position where the engagement member is engaged with a parking gear to restrict the rotation of a drive shaft, and an engagement release position where the engagement member is disengaged from the parking gear to permit the rotation of the drive shaft; a support member provided in a case to be distanced from a rotational axis of the engagement member; and a pair of urging members urging the engagement member in a direction in which the engagement member rotationally moves from the engagement position toward the engagement release position, and supported on the support member respectively at symmetrical positions that are on both sides of the engagement member in a rotational axis direction of the engagement member.
US08950554B2

Provided is an elevator governor capable of achieving, with a simple configuration, an overspeed detection mechanism to which rotation dependence is added while preventing a decrease in reliability due to the generation of vibrations and noises and the wear of parts. For this purpose, the elevator governor includes: a sheave on which a rope moving in response to the movement of an ascending and descending body of an elevator is wound, and which changes the rotation speed in one direction in response to the ascent speed of the ascending and descending body and changes the rotation speed in the other direction in response to the descent speed of the ascending and descending body; a fly-weight which is provided in the sheave and increases and decreases an outward moving quantity in response to an increase and decrease in the rotation speed of the sheave; a detector which is provided in proximity to the fly-weight and performs overspeed detection of the sheave when the fly-weight has moved outward by a predetermined quantity; and a stopper which is provided in proximity to the fly-weight and prevents the fly-weight from moving outward more than or equal to the predetermined quantity while the sheave is rotating in a predetermined direction which is either of the two rotation directions.
US08950551B2

A safety device for use in a fall arrest system, has a safety line drum mounted for rotation and a speed responsive engagement mechanism responsive to the speed of rotation of the drum, which is activated above a predetermined rotational speed of the drum to deploy an energy absorber. A rotational transmission member (which may be in the form of a shaft) is coupled, via the speed responsive engagement mechanism, when activated, to rotate with the drum. The energy absorber is deployed in response to operation of the rotational transmission member. The speed responsive engagement mechanism may be mounted intermediate the drum and the energy absorber for ease of replacement.
US08950550B2

An ascender/descender appliance for ascending and descending on a rope, comprising a body having attachment means to be connected to the user's harness and a clamping device able to be released on load. The clamping device is arranged outside the body and comprises a chain of metal links constituted by a succession of friction elements articulated on one another by connecting rods to form a series of gaps for the rope to pass in zigzag manner. Means are associated with the top link to trigger clamping of the ascender device.
US08950543B2

The present invention relates to an electric power steering apparatus. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an electric power steering apparatus configured to be capable of being assembled in a state in which the tension of a belt is correctly tuned without using a separate process of measuring the tension of the belt, to substantially reduce the number of steps at the time of assembling a motor housing and a rack housing and hence the manufacturing costs, and to reduce vibration and noise to provide a pleasant steering feeling to a driver.
US08950537B2

A battery system for a vehicle. The battery system includes: a battery module; a junction box which connects the battery module to other electronic components; and a case which includes the battery module and the junction box. The junction box is integrally mounted on a side surface of the battery module which is fixed to the case, and at least the junction box is non-contact with an inner surface of the case.
US08950534B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for improving the aerodynamic efficiency (e.g., reduce drag) on vehicles, such as class 8 tractors. In some disclosed examples, the systems and methods utilize exhausted gases from an internal combustion engine of the vehicle to direct a stream of gas forwardly of the vehicle. In other disclosed examples, the systems and methods utilize generated air flow from, for example, electric fans, engine driven or pneumatically/hydraulically driven pumps, etc., to direct a stream of gas forwardly of the vehicle for reducing the aerodynamic drag on vehicles. In yet other disclosed examples, the systems and methods utilize a unique configuration of the vehicle's radiator fan(s) in order to direct a stream of gas forwardly of the vehicle.
US08950511B2

An apparatus and method for forming a borehole in an earthen formation includes a side cutting device comprised of a laterally extendable side cutting element that can be actuated from a retracted position to an extended position in which the side cutting element is selectively employed to create a larger borehole diameter in a down hole location than the remaining portion of the borehole that is closer to the borehole opening.
US08950510B2

Embodiments relate generally to drill cuttings conveyance systems comprising a collection tank, a port, and a pump. The collection tank comprises a chamber operable to accommodate drill cuttings and a screw conveyor. The screw conveyor extends along a longitudinal axis of the collection tank from a first end of the chamber to a second end of the chamber. The port comprises a channel operable to direct drill cuttings from the chamber of the collection tank to the pump. The pump comprises an inlet operable to receive drill cuttings from the port, an outlet, and a pumping mechanism operable to direct drill cuttings through the outlet of the pump.
US08950507B2

A device and a method for preventing vibrations (19) in a rotating spindle (1) mounted in at least one front 8 and one rear bearing (9) in a machine tool, wherein the device comprises measuring units (2, 3, 4, 5) for detecting the vibrations (19) and correction device (6) for preventing the vibrations (19) disposed directly about the periphery (10, 11) of the spindle (1) in a contacting or non-contacting manner and that a control unit (7) for processing the measuring units (2, 3, 4, 5) and for calculating the correction values for the correction device (6) is assigned to this device.
US08950504B2

A disintegrable tubular anchoring system comprises a frustoconical member; a sleeve with at least one first surface being radially alterable in response to longitudinal movement of the frustoconical member relative to the sleeve, the first surface being engagable with a wall of a structure; a seal with at least one second surface being radially alterable; and a seat having a land being sealingly engagable with a removable plug runnable thereagainst. The frustoconical member, sleeve, seal, and seat are disintegrable and independently comprise a metal composite which includes a cellular nanomatrix comprising a metallic nanomatrix material; and a metal matrix disposed in the cellular nanomatrix. A process of isolating a structure comprises disposing the disintegrable tubular anchoring system in the structure; radially altering the sleeve to engage a surface of the structure; and radially altering the seal to the isolate the structure.
US08950499B2

An apparatus is disclosed which provides fluid communication between the inner bore and the annular space in a pipe-in-pipe system. Other embodiments disclose an apparatus which provides fluid communication between adjacent segments of the annular space, between the inner bore or the annular space and an external source in a pipe-in-pipe type system. Methods and systems are disclosed utilizing the various apparatus embodiments to transport well fluids in an offshore or onshore hydrocarbon production operation.
US08950498B2

Disclosed are pipeline systems, methods and apparatus for handling fluids in offshore oil and gas production. The systems disclosed allow subsea functional lines having diameters which differ by more than 2 standard API 5L pipeline diameters to be placed in fluid communication in such a way that the systems are piggable. Pipeline connection terminations are installed to facilitate connection of such functional lines. Such systems offer solutions to problems related to installing subsea pipeline in rough terrain, over subsea canyons and subsea scarps, installing marine risers, and long tiebacks.
US08950492B2

An invert emulsion treatment fluid comprises: (A) an external phase, wherein the external phase comprises a hydrocarbon liquid; (B) an internal phase, wherein the internal phase comprises a hygroscopic liquid; (C) a suspending agent, wherein the suspending agent is a polymer, and wherein the polymer comprises urea linkages; and (D) a particulate, wherein the particulate has a density less than 3.5 g/cm3, wherein a test fluid consisting essentially of the external phase, the internal phase, the suspending agent, and the particulate, and in the same proportions as the treatment fluid, and after static aging for 2 months at a temperature of 200° F. (93.3° C.), has a 10 minute gel strength of at least 30 lb/100 ft2 (1,436 Pa) at a temperature of 120° F. (48.9° C.). A method of using the invert emulsion treatment fluid comprises: introducing the treatment fluid into a portion of a subterranean formation.
US08950491B2

A downhole assembly for delivering chemical treatment to a wellbore at the level of a hydrocarbon-bearing formation is provided. The chemical treatment is in solid phase, and slowly dissolves when exposed to wellbore fluids. A method of treating a wellbore using a solid chemical is also provided.
US08950482B2

This application relates to methods and apparatus for monitoring hydraulic fracturing during oil/gas well formation. A fiber optic cable (102) deployed down a well bore (106), which may be the well bore in which fracturing is performed, is interrogated to provide a distributed acoustic sensor. Data is sampled from at least one longitudinal sensing portion of the fiber and processed to provide at least fracturing characteristic. The fracturing characteristic may comprise the characteristics of high frequency transients indicative of fracturing events (606). The intensity, frequency, duration and signal evolution of the transients may be monitored to provide the fracturing characteristic. Additionally or alternatively the fracturing characteristic may comprise the longer term acoustic noise generated by fracture fluid flow to the fracture sites. The intensity and frequency of the noise may be analyzed to determine the fracturing characteristic. The method allows real-time control of the fracturing process.
US08950477B2

The present invention relates to hydraulic jars which include a jar body; a spindle axially movable within the jar body and coupled to the jar body by means of a helical splined coupling; the spindle being connectable to a pipe string and the stuck object; a cylinder concentrically placed within the jar body with a radial gap, and having chambers for filling with a work fluid, the chambers being separated by a piston and fluidly connected by a channel, wherein the channel is provided by a back valve. The piston is axially movable within the cylinder, and is connectable to the spindle by means of a tractive rod, and to the body by means of a compensative rod. The piston is further provided with elastic split compression rings having initial gaps equal or close to zero.
US08950476B2

According to the present invention, there is provided a well pumping system comprising a length of coiled tubing extending to the surface of the well, a first electric pump, a first electric motor, and a sealing means that seals against the side of the well. The sealing means include a first fluid path through which coiled tubing is in fluid communication with the well beneath the sealing means, and a second fluid path through which first electric pump is in fluid communication with the well beneath the sealing means.
US08950473B2

The device is a counterbalance system and method to reduce the work of conventionally balanced, reciprocating cantilevered beam pumping units, and comprises a pair of transversely oriented support mounts attached to the cantilevered beam or walking beam of a pre-existing reciprocating pumping unit, attaching on either side of the pivoting-fulcrum, mounting point of the cantilevered walking beam. These transverse mounting points terminate individually on either side of said walking beam in channel-like saddles that support independent, parallel beams, which in turn cantilever themselves in tandem with said walking beam of the pumping unit; moreover, the position of the parallel beams by virtue of the transverse mounts creates a new center of gravity corresponding to the center of the pivoting mounting point of the walking beam, eliminating counter-productive torque forces on the walking beam as it tilts from horizontal.
US08950460B2

A retractable awning with is moveable between an extended position where the awning is deployed for use and a retracted position where the awning is stowed out of use. The awning includes a light source mounted on a roller tube, with the light source being exposed to a living area beneath the awning when the awning is in the extended position. A contact assembly provides electrical power to the light source, with the contact assembly comprising engaging rotatable and stationary segments.
US08950459B2

Described methods and apparatus provide a controlled perturbation to an adhesive bond between a device wafer and a carrier wafer. The controlled perturbation, which can be mechanical, chemical, thermal, or radiative, facilitates the separation of the two wafers without damaging the device wafer. The controlled perturbation initiates a crack either within the adhesive joining the two wafers, at an interface within the adhesive layer (such as between a release layer and the adhesive), or at a wafer/adhesive interface. The crack can then be propagated using any of the foregoing methods, or combinations thereof, used to initiate the crack.
US08950455B2

A pneumatic tire comprises a tread portion provided with a plurality of blocks, each of the block having a block wall surface facing a transverse groove inclined at an angle (theta) of from 5 to 40 degrees with respect to the tire axial-direction so as to define an acute-angled corner and an obtuse-angled corner on the block. The block wall surface between the acute-angled corner and the obtuse-angled corner is provided with at least two slits having a width of from 0.3 to 2.0 mm. A distance P2 measured from the acute-angled corner to one of the at least two slits which is nearest to the acute-angled corner is more than a distance P1 measured from said obtuse-angled corner to one of said at least two slits which is nearest to the obtuse-angled corner; each distance is measured along the radially outer edge of the block wall surface to the widthwise center of the slit.
US08950450B2

A pair of nested handbags includes an outer handbag and an inner handbag that is contained within an inner compartment of the outer handbag. The outer handbag has a reversible body and thus offers two different appearances depending upon how the outer handbag is worn. The outer handbag includes first and second handles that are attached to the outer handbag is such a way that the handles have the same appearance when the outer handbag is worn in either the first or second appearance.
US08950442B2

A system (10) and method for accurately delivering controlled amounts of viscous fluid to one or more fluid delivery devices (31). There is a fluid reservoir (12), a variable-volume fill chamber (18), and structure (171, 173) that fluidly interconnects the reservoir (12) to the fill chamber (18). Valving (22) is used to channel fluid flow from the reservoir (12) to the fill chamber (18). There is a device (20) that dispenses fluid from the fill chamber (18). Valving (24) is used to channel fluid flow from the fill chamber (18) to a fluid delivery device (31). A controller (28) automatically controls operation of the device (20) that dispenses fluid from the fill chamber (18), and may also control operation of the valving (22, 24).
US08950434B2

A flow restrictor for use in a cooling system of an internal engine comprises a housing enclosing an elongate body, a number of alternating first and second circumferentially extending passages formed in the elongate body. Each first passage is separated from a respective adjacent second passage by a respective land and at least one transfer passage extending across each land so as to connect the first and second passages on each side of the land and provide a significant loss in fluid momentum.
US08950432B2

The hollow valve plate (1) of a piston compressor includes a single half-shell (3) with cooling channels (4, 5) that are open toward the side of the pressure valves (8), with said half-shell being covered by a reed plate 2 that is preferably welded or glued at least along the cooling channels (4, 5), and that is formed as a lift-stop (9) for the inserted closing plates (10) in the area or the pressure valves (8). This results in a simplification of the production and assembly of such valve plates.
US08950428B2

An automatic rain barrel is disclosed, providing the ability to easily use a mix of rainwater and water from another source for tasks such as watering landscaping.
US08950426B2

There is disclosed a water discharge device that has a water flow path that extends from an inlet through an outlet chamber to an outlet spout; a valve assembly for opening and closing the water flow path; a heating element for heating the outlet chamber and spout to evaporate moisture on internal surfaces of the outlet chamber and spout when the flow path is closed by the valve assembly, the heating element being remote from the flow path; and a controller for controlling operation of the valve assembly and the heating element, the controller including a switch that is operated directly or indirectly by a user to control the opening of the water flow path.
US08950422B2

A valve actuating mechanism has an actuator housing and an actuator drive. A spring is connected between them so that when the actuator drive is in a lock position, the spring biases the actuator drive toward an unlock position. A locking member is movable from a first position received in a locking aperture of the actuator drive and in a hole in the actuator housing so as to hold the actuator drive relative to the housing in the locking position and to a second position in which the locking member is outside of the locking aperture so that the spring can move the actuator drive to the unlocked position. A blocking device blocks movement of the locking member but can release the locking member to allow the actuator drive to turn.
US08950417B2

A pole hub for a collapsible shelter, such as a tent, canopy, or sun-shade is configured and adapted to connect at least two pairs of poles to each other in manner such that the pairs of poles are able to pivot relative to each other about an axis, while each pair of poles remains generally rigid.
US08950416B1

A collapsible and removable cover for an object, including a collapsible, lightweight, waterproof cover member configured to cover a portion of the object, a lightweight support frame which is configured to be manipulated by a user between an expanded operative shape and a collapsed storage shape, and which connects to the cover member in the expanded operative shape such that the support frame and the cover member jointly form a self-supporting cover unit having a stable configuration, and retainers which are configured to secure parts of the support frame to the object. The retainers include first portions which are configured to be secured to the object and second portions which securely connect to the parts of the support frame, and the retainers function as a sole source of connection between the cover unit and the object.
US08950411B2

The present invention relates to processes for neutralizing relaxed hair. Still further, the present invention relates to neutralizer compositions for use on relaxed hair. Still further, the present invention relates to a system for neutralizing relaxed hair. Yet further, the invention relates to relaxed hair neutralized by the compositions and methods disclosed herein. The present invention also relates to compositions and methods to simultaneously neutralize and color relaxed hair.
US08950402B2

The present invention is concerned with a system for the oxygen supply of persons in an aircraft. In order to provide the simplest possible system, which is suitable in particular for a reconfiguration of the seat devices (12), the system has at least one oxygen line, one oxygen feed, and multiple attachment points for oxygen masks (24), the oxygen line extending in the longitudinal direction and the attachment points being connected to the oxygen line. The attachment points are preferably situated linearly and are spaced apart from one another in the longitudinal direction.
US08950399B2

A method is provided for automatically controlling a ventilation or breathing system with a ventilation unit (7), which is controlled by a control unit (5), in order to deliver an assist pressure preset by the control unit, wherein the current values of the tidal volume flow Flow(t) and those of the volume V(t) are detected in the control unit. The control unit (5) may carry out a proportionally assisting ventilation method (PAV: Proportional Assist Ventilation) by a factor for a degree of compensation (PPSp) being selected by the control unit and by the parameters for the volume assist (VA) and the flow assist (FA) being determined by: VA=PPSp·ΔE FA=PPSp·ΔR, wherein ΔE is the deviation of a measured or assumed elastance (Emeasured) of the patient from an ideal elastance (Eideal) and ΔR is the deviation of a measured or assumed resistance (Rmeasured) of the patient from an ideal resistance (Rideal). The assist pressure PS(t)=VA·V(t)+FA·Flow(t) is determined from this by the control unit with the flow delivery device (ventilation unit (7)) being set such as to deliver this assist pressure.
US08950392B2

A system for converting solar energy to chemical energy, and, subsequently, to thermal energy includes a light-harvesting station, a storage station, and a thermal energy release station. The system may include additional stations for converting the released thermal energy to other energy forms, e.g., to electrical energy and mechanical work. At the light-harvesting station, a photochemically active first organometallic compound, e.g., a fulvalenyl diruthenium complex, is exposed to light and is photochemically converted to a second, higher-energy organometallic compound, which is then transported to a storage station. At the storage station, the high-energy organometallic compound is stored for a desired time and/or is transported to a desired location for thermal energy release. At the thermal energy release station, the high-energy organometallic compound is catalytically converted back to the photochemically active organometallic compound by an exothermic process, while the released thermal energy is captured for subsequent use.
US08950376B2

A multilink-type internal combustion engine includes a power transmission structure capable of transmitting rotation of a crankshaft to a pivot shaft. The power transmission structure comprises: a planet gear mechanism having a sun gear mounted on the crankshaft; a drive gear provided on a ring gear section of the planet gear mechanism; a driven gear mounted on the pivot shaft and meshing with the drive gear; and an adjustment mechanism for switching a rotation direction of a carrier of the planet gear mechanism to thereby adjust a meshing phase of the driven gear relative to the drive gear.
US08950369B2

A device for varying the angular position of a camshaft relative to a crankshaft of an internal combustion engine. The device has a drive element, which is driven by the crankshaft via a gearwheel and which is supported so that it can rotate in relation to the camshaft. The device also has at least two hydraulic chambers, to which a hydraulic fluid can be admitted in order to set a defined relative rotational position between the drive element and the camshaft, formed between the drive element and the camshaft. In order to produce an optimum axial support of the camshaft in terms of weight and cost, the gearwheel form a bearing face for the axial contact of the camshaft or of a component rotationally fixed to the latter.
US08950362B2

An otter habitation section, an overland section, an inclined-surface section, a first spawning section, a second spawning section and a roost are all provided. Accordingly, otters and birds can sufficiently obtain preys, and fishes secure a spawning ground suitable for spawning characteristics. Therefore, the otters, the fishes and the birds can inhabit together. Further, since frames are made of wood for providing buoyant force or the frames are made of stainless steel for reinforcing strength and wood for providing buoyant force, a small amount of polyethylene foam is required. Accordingly, it is possible to obtain floating wetland equipment with a simple structure. Furthermore, the wooden frames itself provide a spawning ground of fishes.
US08950358B2

A milking device for milking a dairy animal, including at least one teat cup including a flexible cup liner around a teat space, and a single pulsation space and a milk line, a milking vacuum pump connected to the milk line, for providing a milking vacuum, a pulsator connected to the pulsation space, for providing a controllable air pressure therein, and a control device for controlling at least the pulsator during at least a milking action. The control device is configured to cause the pulsator and/or the milking vacuum pump to provide, in a period of time consecutive to a milking action wherein a dairy animal is milked and a teat is located in the teat space, such a substantially stable, non-pulsating pressure difference between the pulsation space and the teat space, that the cup liner shuts off the teat space from the milk line.
US08950344B2

A surgical support device can provide members for attaching various medical accessories in a safe, stable and secure manner. The surgical support device can also configured to isolate the sterile field from the non-sterile field to better enhance infectious control measures. The surgical support device may include at least two side supports configured to extend vertically from the side rail, each side support including a support member; a transverse member disposed between the two side supports; at least two support members; at least one platform configured to be pivotable between the transverse member and the support member; and at least one accessory arm extending from at least one of the at least two side supports and configured to pivot around the at least one of the at least two side supports; and a plurality of accessory attachment members configured to secure and/or support one or more accessories.
US08950343B2

An adjustable table includes a table board, a first foot, a second foot, an air pressure bar and an assistant device. The first foot crossly and pivotally connects with the second foot, wherein one end of the first foot pivotally connects with a first fastener on the bottom side of the table board, and one end of the second foot pivotally connects with a pivot joint. The assistant device is fixed between the first fastener and a second fastener, wherein one end of the air pressure bar is fixed on the second fastener while the other end fixed on the assistant device. Therefore, when the air pressure bar is operated, smooth sliding of the air pressure bar is provided, whereby the structural strength of the table is reinforced.
US08950339B2

An encoder device for use in a magnetic sensor arrangement, comprising: a metallic ring having a set of clearances in a ferromagnetic material, wherein said clearances are arranged around a circumference of the metallic ring, wherein the metallic ring is configured to generate an oscillating magnetic induction in a nearby magnetic sensor upon rotation of the metallic ring, wherein the metallic ring is made of at least one flat and strip-like sheet metal material, two ends of which are joined to form a loop.
US08950338B2

A self propelled autonomous pipeline tool for use in straight pipe comprising a first part and a second part, a hydraulic system comprising at least one hydraulic piston and means for operating the piston, and a control unit. The hydraulic system is operable to returnably separate the first and second part of the device from each other. The hydraulic system further comprises a plurality of pipeline engaging means positioned along an exterior surface of the device which are operable by the hydraulic system to be engagable with the interior surface of the pipeline. The control unit is in communication with the hydraulic system to control the movement of the pipeline engaging means and the first and second parts such that the pipeline tool is moveable within a straight pipeline. The pipeline tool further comprises a communications module which enables the pipeline tool to utilize ELF communications.
US08950332B1

A non-lethal, hand or rifle fired grenade which widely disperses non-lethal pellets—using a flexible multipocket bladder type device which is mounted on a rigid internal frame. The grenade provides a wide distribution arc of rotation for the pellets, as the pellets are located in pockets about the bladder, which is blown outward to expel the pellets. Further, as the propellant is located within the flexible multipocket bladder, the hot gases and embers cannot escape—thereby helping to protect the target individuals from exposure to such potentially hazardous materials.
US08950331B1

The Broadhead-Bullet is a new type of sub-sonic hunting projectile combining capabilities of an expandable broad head arrowhead with that of a firearm-fired projectile. The Broadhead-Bullet is for use in shorter ranges akin to shotgun slug ranges but is able to utilize the cost effectiveness, utility, and ease of use of existing firearms.
US08950330B2

The present invention is directed to a mobile platform for the delivery of bulk explosives to a blast hole. One embodiment of the platform provides the ability to obtain weight information relating to the contents of a tank that is associated with the platform and that, in operation, contains either the bulk explosive or a constituent of the explosive. The platform comprises a vehicle with a frame, a tank, a load cell structure for connecting the frame and the tank and providing weight data relating to the contents of the tank, and a suspension system that prevents relative movement of the frame and the tank that could compromise the load cell structure. Another embodiment of the platform provides a tank for holding an explosive composition and a rotary shaft that supports a mixing blade that mixes the explosive composition within the tank. The platform further comprises bearing structure for supporting the rotary shaft that is located to deter any of the explosive composition from entering the bearing. A further embodiment of the platform comprises a conduit structure for discharging a bulk explosive into a blast hole that includes a substantially rigid tube with an outlet port for discharging a bulk explosive into the blast hole. The tube is adapted to rotate about a vertical axis such that the outlet port can be moved towards and away from the vehicle along an arc of less than 180°. In one embodiment, the outlet port can be positioned substantially adjacent to an operator's station to allow an operator to readily view the loading of the explosive into the blast hole.
US08950314B2

An embodiment the invention relates to a yoke position sensor system (7) for a hydraulic device (1), such as a pump or motor, provided with a moveable yoke (3) which is used for varying the displacement of the hydraulic device (1) and to a method for sensing the position of a yoke (3) relative to a housing (2). The housing (2) and the yoke (3) are movably and rotatably connected to each other. When the yoke (3) is rotated, there is a yoke angle sensor (5) indicating the degrees of rotation of the yoke and a yoke angle of zero corresponds to a zero displacement volume. The hydraulic device (1) includes a second yoke angle sensor (7) constructed to indicate when the yoke angle is within or outside an interval including the zero displacement angle.
US08950313B2

A gas system for an autoloading firearm wherein the gas used to cycle the weapon can be restricted automatically through a mechanical shutoff actuated by the installation of a suppressor on the weapon. The gas system could be used to actuate either a piston to mechanically operate the weapon or a gas impingement mechanism wherein the gas is redirected into the bolt carrier assembly to directly actuate the unlocking and cycling of the bolt and bolt carrier group. A gas block for the firearm includes a spring-loaded plunger assembly positioned within a bore of the gas block and oriented parallel to a bore of a barrel of the firearm, the plunger assembly including a regulator plunger, a regulator bushing, a regulator spring, and a regulator cap. Mounting a suppressor over the muzzle depresses the regulator plunger driving it rearward, the rearward movement of the regulator plunger blocking one of gas ports in the gas block to automatically reduce the volume of propellant gases directed into the gas system.
US08950312B2

An improved bolt and bolt carrier with integral gas key having an extension nozzle threadedly secured and pinned to the gas key for use with a direct gas operated firearm is provided. The extension nozzle is designed to receive a portion of the host firearm's gas operating system. The firing pin retaining pin is oriented so as to expose its widest profile to the firing pin's annular flange, increasing its service life. The bolt has a plurality of lugs extending from its forward end. The extractor recess is constructed so that the face of the bolt is round and the adjacent lugs fully supported. The extractor engages approximately 17% more of a seated ammunition cartridge's rim as compared to the prior art AR15/M16 extractor. The result is an improved bolt and bolt carrier which provides for increased operational reliability.
US08950310B2

A suppressor assembly for connection to the muzzle of a firearm includes an injector portion for connection to the muzzle and a suppressor portion for connection to the injector portion. The injector portion has a chamber for holding a quantity of fluid. When a firearm is discharged and the projectile passes through the injector portion, fluid is drawn from the chamber and into the suppressor portion to thereby shield the suppressor portion from full impact of gases associated with the fired projectile. The injector and suppressor portions can be operated independently and the injector portion can also function as a muzzle break, flash suppressor, and so on.
US08950304B2

A tape cutting device includes a main body having a slot for guiding the tape therethrough. At least one finger is hingedly connected to the main body adjacent the slot, and a blade attached to the finger at a surface closest to the slot. A method of cutting a strip of tape includes moving the strip of tape through a main body along a path, and selectively pressing one or more fingers which each support a blade to move the blade into the path.
US08950298B2

A device for assembling and disassembling an oil filter tank has a clamp module, a base plate, two elbow plates, two restricting elements, and a rotating base. The clamp module has a pair of clamp plates. Each clamp plate has a slipping portion, and the slipping portion has a restricting hole. The base plate is mounted on the clamp plates. The elbow plates are pivotally mounted on the slipping portions respectively. The restricting elements are inserted slidably in the restricting holes respectively and are fixed on the base plate. The rotating base is pivotally mounted on the elbow plates and has an adapter. When the clamp plates are separated from each other, the restricting elements can ensure that the clamp plates move parallelly, such that stability and strength of the device can be enhanced.
US08950297B2

A socket includes a body and a reinforcing sleeve. The body includes first and second coupling ends for respectively coupling with a fastener and a driving tool. The first coupling end includes a conical section having a small diameter end and a large diameter end. A spacing between the small diameter end and the second coupling end along the longitudinal axis is smaller than a spacing between the large diameter end and the second coupling end along the longitudinal axis. The conical section has increasing diameters perpendicular to the longitudinal axis away from the second coupling end. The reinforcing sleeve is mounted around the conical section of the body to reinforce the socket.
US08950293B2

An open-ended ratchet wrench includes a body having a fixed jaw, a first pivotal portion, and a second pivotal portion. A driving member is rotatably mounted to the fixed jaw. The driving member includes an inner periphery for holding an object to be driven. A first movable jaw includes a first pivotal end pivotably connected to the first pivotal portion and a first movable end having a first toothed portion meshed with a toothed portion on an outer periphery of the driving member. A second movable jaw includes a second pivotal end pivotably connected to the second pivotal portion and a second movable end having a second toothed portion meshed with the toothed portion of the driving member.
US08950286B2

A structure with six degrees of freedom for a robot or haptic interface including a base, two branches in parallel, and a wrist joint. The branches are installed articulated between the base and the wrist joint, the branches including a shoulder, an arm, and a forearm supporting the wrist joint. The wrist joint includes a connecting segment onto which a handle holder is articulated about a first rotation axis. A handle is articulated in rotation on the handle holder about a second rotation axis, the handle capable of being moved in rotation about the first axis, the second axis, and a third axis, and a mechanism gears down the rotation of the handle holder about at least the first rotation axis relative to rotation of the connecting segment.
US08950282B2

A linear ball screw assembly and method of construction thereof is provided. The assembly includes a screw having a helical external groove and a ball nut having a through bore configured for receipt of the screw therethrough and including a helical internal groove radially aligned with the external groove of the screw to form a helical raceway. A plurality of axial load balls are disposed in the helical raceway. The nut includes a pair of non-grooved internal cylindrical surfaces extending in axially opposite directions from the internal groove along the external groove of the screw to provide outer surfaces of a pair of radial load raceways. A plurality of radial load balls are disposed in the radial load raceways. The radial and axial load balls have different diameters and/or the internal cylindrical surfaces are provided by a pair of sleeve inserts.
US08950273B2

Method and thermal, flow measuring device for determining at least one variable dependent on at least the chemical composition of a measured medium, wherein the measured medium has n components, wherein n is greater than or equal to two, wherein each mole fraction, volume fraction and/or mass fraction of m components of the medium is measured, wherein m is smaller than or equal to n minus one, wherein the mole fractions, volume fractions and/or mass fractions of the k components of the measured medium which are not measured, and wherein k is equal to n minus m, are established in such a manner, that the sum of the mole fractions, volume fractions and/or mass fractions of the n components amounts to one.
US08950252B2

A rock core flow test system comprises a first high pressure accumulator, a second high pressure accumulator, and a fast opening flow control device coupled to a wellbore facing end of the rock core. The fast opening flow control device opens when a pressure differential across the flow control device exceeds a predetermined threshold. The first high pressure accumulator is coupled to at least one of a pore end of the rock core and a radial surface of the rock core. The second high pressure accumulator is coupled to the fast opening flow control device. The system further comprises a pressure sensor coupled to the rock core flow test system between the fast opening flow control device and the second high pressure accumulator.
US08950251B2

A method for determining the flux of methane newly generated through manipulation of a sub-surface environment. The method comprises: (a) measuring a baseline isotope ratio (Rrm) in methane pre-existing in the reservoir; (b) manipulating the reservoir to facilitate biogenic production of new methane in the reservoir; (c) injecting a substance labeled with the isotope into the reservoir; (d) measuring a flux (Fm) and isotope ratio (Rpm) of methane from the reservoir; (e) measuring an isotope ratio (Rpw) of a methane precursor in a liquid or vapor sample at one or more time periods; and (f) calculating a flux (Fnm) of the new methane from the reservoir according to an isotope mass balance, such as wherein α=isotope fractionation factor between the methane pre-cursor and the new methane.
US08950249B2

Fault detection and response systems and processes can be used for pumps, e.g., pump/motors used in hybrid vehicles. The fault detection systems determine when certain operating conditions, which may affect the proper operation of the system, occur. The response systems take appropriate action based on which fault conditions are triggered. Example fault detection systems and processes include detection systems for different types of leaks, sensor malfunctions, or operation errors.
US08950246B2

A method and an apparatus for nucleating bubbles in an oil-gas mixture, including introducing a sample comprising an oil-gas mixture into a chamber; and heating the sample with a heater until at least one bubble is thermally nucleated in the chamber. The bubble point (BP) pressure of the sample can be determined by detecting pressure at two points in a system, which includes the chamber and the heater, and by determining the behavior of the nucleated bubble as the pressure on the bubble is varied.
US08950245B2

A value of ignition delay and a value of a flame spread rate are measured with respect to fuel which is an object to be determined. When the measured value of the ignition delay falls within a range which is smaller than a reference line and constitutes a first range or falls within a range which is larger than a reference line and constitutes the first range, goodness or badness of quality of fuel is determined based on goodness or badness of quality of fuel which is decided in accordance with the first range. When the measured value of ignition delay falls within a range between the reference line and a reference line which constitutes a second range, goodness or badness of quality of fuel is determined based on whether or not a measured value of a flame spread rate falls within a good product range.
US08950244B2

An evaporation system leak diagnostic apparatus that purges fuel vapor from a fuel tank into an intake system of an internal combustion engine via a canister, includes: a first closed system leak diagnostic unit that executes a leak diagnostic on a first closed system based on a tank internal pressure detected by a tank internal pressure detecting device while the first closed system is formed with a first closed system forming device; and a second closed system leak diagnostic unit that introduces pressure in the first closed system into a second closed system by forming a second closed system with a second closed system forming device, and executes a leak diagnostic on the second closed system based on the tank internal pressure detected by the tank internal pressure detecting device, after the leak diagnostic by the first closed system leak diagnostic unit.
US08950234B2

Disclosed are a bending roller apparatus and methods for use thereof for repairing a control arm of automotive suspension. An example apparatus includes a base having a saddle supporting a matrix to which the control arm is removably affixed. The matrix provides longitudinal and lateral movements and rotation of the control arm in a horizontal plane. The apparatus includes a matrix position calibration means for calibrating longitudinal, lateral and rotary positions of the matrix. The apparatus includes a bending roller positioning means for calibrating vertical and longitudinal positions of a bending roller to bring the bending roller in a contact with the upward-extending flange. The apparatus further includes bending roller means for bending the upward-extending flange inwards by rolling the bending roller along the circumference of the flange while applying a downward force on the flange thereby bending it inwards and sealing off the ball stud in the receptacle.
US08950232B2

A swaging press (30) includes a piston member (16) and a plurality of die shoes (18), the piston member (16) in use driving the die shoes (18) inwardly during a swaging process in response to axial movement of the piston member (16), the piston member (16) defining a plurality of substantially flat die shoe engaging surfaces (31) configured to provide a polygonal shape in transverse cross-section, each die shoe (16) being located at each corner (32) of the polygonal shape whereby a portion of each dies shoe (16) engages a corresponding die shoe engaging surface (31) on either side of the corner (32).
US08950231B2

A floor support for a grain bin floor made from a sheet of galvanized steel having a top surface, a bottom surface and flat ends. The floor support has a plurality of flanges and notches disposed within the top surface and a plurality of openings disposed through the sheet of galvanized steel. Positioned between each opening is a first bend. Positioned on either side of selected first bends is a second bend thereby forming a z-shaped floor support.
US08950226B2

A cylinder lock assembly including a plug rotatable in a cylinder lock body and including a plurality of chambers, each of the chambers having a chamber depth axis, and a plurality of plug locking elements received in the chambers, each of the plug locking elements including a key cut interface probe for interfacing with a key cut formed on a key, and wherein each of the plug locking elements is arranged to move along the chamber depth axis and not rotate about the chamber depth axis, and each of the key cut interface probes has a predetermined orientation with respect to the chamber depth axis.
US08950221B2

One exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to a motor assembly for a washing machine. The motor assembly includes a rotor and a stator. The stator includes an inner diameter and an outer diameter with the inner diameter including an insulator. The insulator defines a fastening opening for joining the stator to the washing machine. The insulator includes a locating pin that is separate and in a different plane from the fastening opening and configured to mate with a bearing retainer in the washing machine.
US08950219B2

A washing machine which improves performance of balancers, and a control method thereof. The washing machine includes a drum accommodating laundry and rotated by rotary force transmitted from a drive source, balancer housings mounted on the drum, each of the balancer housings including a disc-shaped channel formed therein, balancing modules movably disposed in the channels of the balancer housings, vibration sensors to sense unbalance applied to the drum during rotation of the drum, position sensors to sense the positions of the balancing modules, and a controller controlling movement of the balancing modules to positions to compensate for the unbalance sensed by the vibration sensors.
US08950218B2

A heating apparatus of an induction furnace used for stretching large-diameter preformed rods of optical fibers, said heating apparatus of the induction furnace comprising a furnace casing, a graphite exothermic sleeve, an insulating layer and an induction coil. At the upper end of the graphite exothermic sleeve is provided a floating seal gland, the inner bore thereof being adapted to the upper end of the graphite exothermic sleeve, and the outer periphery of the floating seal gland being adapted to the top cover plate furnace hole of the furnace casing. The use of the floating seal gland increases furnace stability and prolongs furnace life.
US08950217B2

A method of cutting an object to be processed comprises the steps of irradiating an object to be processed with a laser light which is an elliptically-polarized light having an ellipticity other than 1 such that a direction of polarization of the laser light intersects a line to cut the object and a thickness direction of the object, while locating a converging point of the laser light within the object, so as to form a modified region within the object along the line and generate a fracture from the modified region in the thickness direction of the object, and causing the fracture to reach front and rear faces of the object so as to cut the object along the line.
US08950216B2

In a method for manufacturing a glass sealed body, a paste including powdered glass and a binder is discharged from an outlet whose shape is a closed curve to form a partition whose shape is a closed curve over a first glass substrate; the partition is heated so that the binder is volatilized and the powdered glass is fused to be a frit glass; and the frit glass and a second glass substrate are heated while disposing in close contact with each other, so that the frit glass and the second glass substrate are welded together to form a closed space by the frit glass, the first glass substrate, and the second glass substrate. A light-emitting element is sealed with the glass sealed body, so that the sealing is hardly broken even when impact or external force is applied.
US08950213B2

A receiver includes a cylindrical main tank; a cylindrical internal thread component having an internal thread; a cap having a male thread threaded with the internal thread; a sealing attached to the cap; and a filter portion arranged in the cap. The internal thread component is coaxially arranged to an inner circumference face of the tank. The filter portion includes an internal passage extending inside of the cap, and a net that collects a foreign matter contained in refrigerant flowing through the internal passage.
US08950202B2

A heat pump system includes a refrigerant circuit and a controller. In a heating operation, the usage-side expansion valve is controlled so that a degree of subcooling of outlet refrigerant of the usage-side heat exchanger is equal to a predetermined target degree of subcooling. In a refrigerant recovery control, the heat-source-side expansion valve is controlled so that a degree of superheat of outlet refrigerant of the heat-source-side heat exchanger is equal to a predetermined target degree of superheat, the predetermined target degree of superheat is changed so that the outlet refrigerant of the heat-source-side heat exchanger is wet when the usage-side expansion valve is opened greater than a predetermined opening degree at a start of refrigerant recovery, and change in the predetermined target degree of superheat is cancelled when the usage-side expansion valve is closed smaller than a predetermined opening degree at an end of refrigerant recovery.
US08950198B2

A method of filling refrigerant into a refrigeration system by means of a filling system comprising a tank includes the step of pressurizing the tank by means of a conditioning process to a predetermined differential pressure above the saturation pressure of the actual ambient temperature before the refrigerant is filled into the refrigeration system.
US08950196B2

Contemplated power plants and LNG regasification facilities employ a combination of ambient air and non-ambient air as continuous heat sources to regasify LNG and to optimize power production. Most preferably, contemplated plants and methods are operable without the need for supplemental heat sources under varying temperature conditions.
US08950187B2

A premix burner of the multi-cone type for a gas turbine, that includes a plurality of shells, which are arranged around a central burner axis and are parts of a virtual, axially extending common cone, which opens in a downstream direction, whereby the parts are displaced perpendicular to the burner axis such that a tangential slot is defined between each pair of adjacent shells. A disadvantageous transition piece between the shells and a downstream mixing tube is avoided by bordering the downstream ends of the shells by intersecting planes, which are defined by intersecting the shells with a virtual coaxial cylinder of a predetermined radius.
US08950181B2

Energy can be stored by directing fluid into an expandable receptacle that has a relatively heavy mass above it. The fluid fills the receptacle such that it expands and lifts up the heavy mass above it. At a time when energy is needed, the fluid can be allowed to flow out of the receptacle and through a turbine or hydraulic motor to generate power or electricity. Intermittent or unreliable sources of power can be used to fill the receptacle, or power from a power grid can be used to fill the receptacle at times that are off-peak. During peak-load times, the potential energy of the fluid in the receptacle can be converted to power. The receptacle can also be used to control water flows and can provide a source of power and potable water to a community.
US08950178B2

An exhaust device for a multi-cylinder engine for connecting both exhaust passage members with a communicating hole formed in each one when the two exhaust passage members are to be spaced apart. A base plate has a through hole communicating with the communicating hole and a cover plate for covering the outside of the base plate. The outer circumferential area of the through hole of the base plate overlaps the outer surface of the exhaust pipe with the entire outer circumferential area of the through hole is welded to the exhaust pipe. The edge portions on both sides of the cover plate are welded to the base plate so as to surround the outer side of the through hole. The area extending between edge portions on both sides of the cover plate is welded to the front and rear edge portions of the base plate.
US08950177B2

A control system includes a heater control module and a particulate matter (PM) load module. The heater control module selectively activates an electric heater to initiate regeneration in a zone of a particulate filter and deactivates the electric heater after the regeneration is initiated. The regeneration continues along a length of the particulate filter after the electric heater is deactivated. The PM load module determines a PM load based on an outlet temperature of the particulate filter after the regeneration is initiated.
US08950167B2

Riding lawn mower switchable between mulching and bagging modes includes: a delivery passage for delivering grass, cut by cutting blades in a housing, from the housing to a receptacle by delivering air; and a scroll guide provided in an entrance of the passage for directing the grass clippings to the passage. An overall shape of the scroll guide as viewed in top plan is a substantial isosceles triangle extending into the housing while tapering forward from a scroll guide's base section located in the entrance and as viewed in side elevation is a substantial triangle tapering forward from the base section. Left and right side surfaces of the scroll guide each comprises lower and upper slanting surfaces formed as different slants, each of which gradually increases in area from the distal end of the scroll guide toward the base section.
US08950166B2

A machine for packaging solid pharmaceuticals includes a plurality of storage locations for storing a variety of pharmaceutical dispensing canisters and a robotic arm for retrieving said dispensing canisters and providing the canister at a location proximate the package to be filled thus minimizing the distance which the pharmaceutical travels from the dispensing canister and the package cavity.
US08950160B1

Pre-filled mortar packages are positioned between masonry construction elements (such as stones, blocks or bricks) when forming a wall (such as a dry-stack stone wall). Each mortar package includes an outer covering with a porous outer surface, a mortar mixture covered by the outer covering, and (optionally) an adhesive incorporated onto or in the porous outer surface. Both the adhesive and the mortar mixture are activated by a liquid, such as water. The mortar packages may be pre-wetted and placed on masonry construction elements when stacking the masonry construction elements. Alternatively, the mortar packages may be dry when placed on masonry construction elements, and activated by applying water or by wetting from rain water. Mortar packages are more convenient and efficient than adhesives or mortar alone, and create walls and other structures with increased strength and improved aesthetics.
US08950158B2

An antenna tower structure for wireless communication antennas includes an antenna cupola mounted on a tower based on at least one standardized ISBU shipping container that has been modified and erected to stand upright on a foundation. The modifications may include longitudinal reinforcements along at least two longitudinal edges of the container, mounting hardware at the two ends of the container, an access door on a side of the container, an access hatch in the upper end of the container, a ladder extending longitudinally inside the container, and a floor extending perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the container. The container provides a weather-protected climate-controlled interior space for sheltering electronics equipment. The cupola has antennas installed on at least one level, and may include shutters, a clock, a bell etc. to hide the antennas and disguise the tower. The exterior of the structure may be finished to match surrounding buildings.
US08950154B1

A thermal break device minimizes the transfer of heat from a building with a concrete slab floor. The thermal break device comprises a hollow conduits fabricated from a synthetic polymeric material. An insulating material completely fills the hollow conduit. The insulating material comprises a polymeric foam material. A weatherstrip seal is secured to a top surface of the thermal break device. The thermal break device is positioned within a concrete slab across an opening for an entry door such that the closed door contacts the weatherstrip seal of the thermal break device.
US08950137B2

The invention comprises a foam insulating panel having an outer surface and a reinforcing member adhered to at least a portion of the outer surface of the foam insulating panel. An insulated concrete form and a method of using the insulated concrete form are also disclosed.
US08950121B2

A vehicle door assembly includes a door inner panel that has a header portion that at least partially defines a window opening. A reinforcement panel is configured to abut the door inner panel along the header portion and further defines the window opening. The door inner panel and the reinforcement panel each have a respective first flange extending at least partially outboard and a respective second flange extending at least partially inboard. The first flange of the door inner panel abuts the first flange of the reinforcement panel and the second flange of the door inner panel abuts the second flange of the reinforcement panel. A trim member is secured to the reinforcement panel and to the header portion to cover the second flanges without contacting the second flanges and has an inboard-facing planar portion as a furthest inboard extent of the trim member.
US08950120B2

A latch load distribution system and method for assembling such for a vehicle are disclosed. The latch load distribution system may comprise a window, a door, a latch bracket and a door handle. The door may include a window and a door frame surrounding the window. The door frame may include an inner panel and an outer panel joined to the inner panel. The outer panel may define a cavity having an inner sidewall and a mouth with a mount width. The latch bracket may have a latch bracket length, and may include a primary end, a body and a secondary end. The primary end may be disposed in the cavity and may be coupled to the outer panel. The door handle may be coupled to the door frame and the latch bracket.
US08950113B1

A potted tree support assembly includes a housing with a bottom wall and a perimeter wall. A plurality of interlocking slats is positionable in the housing to define a plurality of compartments each configured for receiving a base of a tree therein. A plurality of slots extends into an inner surface of the perimeter wall. Each of the slots has an associated opposing slot extending into the perimeter wall to define an aligned pair of the slots. Each of the slats has a pair of opposed ends and the opposed ends of each of the slats is removably positionable in a selectable one of the aligned pair of the slots. A plurality of legs is coupled to and extends downwardly from a bottom surface of the bottom wall.
US08950110B2

The present invention relates to a foldable planter or holder. The planter or holder of the present invention includes one or more foldable compartments defined by an array of panels. Each compartment includes one or more upright panels to form an upright core; one or more movable panels to form a trough used for planting or storing belongings; and one or more fold lines, wherein at least one fold line is between the one or more upright panels and the one or more movable panels. In an embodiment, each panel is attached to at least one adjacent panel along a fold line. When the planter or holder is not in use, the movable panel pair folds at a fold line between the upright panel and the movable panel.
US08950099B2

A collapsible stock assembly for a firearm includes a stock body defining a buffer tube passage for slidably accommodating a firearm buffer tube therein. An adjustment slit communicates with the buffer tube passage along a forward portion thereof. A first adjustment mechanism canied by the stock body includes a buffer tube engagement element that can extend into the buffer tube passage and is selectively positionable by a first operating lever. A second operating mechanism includes a second operating lever that is operable to selectively compress the adjustment slit. Disengaging the first adjustment mechanism automatically disengages the second adjustment mechanism. Excessive force on the stock in several embodiments automatically disengages both adjustment mechanisms and minimizes damage to stock assembly and/or buffer tube.
US08950098B2

Slip-on handgun grips which contribute to accuracy and speed of target acquisition and make shooting a handgun a more pleasant experience by providing a comfortable, secure grip; and by isolating a shooter's thumb from impact and reducing shock, muzzle jump, twist, and recoil when the handgun is fired. The grip is fabricated from a stretchable elastomeric material. This material plus breakaway technology, external grooving, and a thumb-isolating tab maximize the enumerated benefits.
US08950092B2

Disclosed are various exemplary embodiments of a lock for a ground engaging tool. The lock may include a head portion and a C-shaped portion extending from the head portion. The C-shaped portion may include an inner surface extending between a first circumferential end and a second circumferential end to define a lock slot. The inner surface may include a first inner surface extending from the first circumferential end to a midpoint between the first circumferential end and the second circumferential end and a second inner surface extending from the second circumferential end to the midpoint. The first inner surface and the second inner surface may be symmetrical with respect to a first plane substantially parallel to a lock rotation axis. On a plane substantially perpendicular to the lock rotation axis, a distance between the first circumferential end and the second circumferential end may be less than a maximum distance between the first inner surface and the second inner surface in a direction perpendicular to the first plane.
US08950090B2

An article of footwear with adjustable cleat members is disclosed. The heights of each cleat member can be adjusted independently. Each cleat member engages a cleat rotating member associated with the sole of the article. The cleat rotating member may be engaged through a hole in a top portion of a sole structure of the article of footwear. The cleat rotating member can be turned to adjust the height of the cleat member.
US08950089B2

The present application relates to an insulation pack in a wearable article, such as a footwear article. In one example embodiment, the insulation pack includes a perforated air retention and communication layer, an insulating compressible layer, and a reflective layer. In a compressed state, when the wearable article is worn by a wearer, the perforated air retention and communication layer and the insulating compressible layer maintain a lofted air space which is in air communication with an inner body space of the wearable article and acts as an insulating layer. Further, the reflective layer reflects radiated body heat. Thus, the insulation pack may provide a heat retention and insulation system for the wearable article by reducing body heat lost via radiation and conduction.
US08950088B2

An article of footwear includes a tongue. The tongue includes a medial portion, a lateral portion, a central portion, a top portion and an upper perimeter portion. The lateral portion, the central portion and the upper perimeter portion include holes. The top portion and medial portion are substantially solid portions without holes. Each portion of the tongue corresponds to a different pressure zone along a foot in order to provide differential cushioning and support against pressure applied by a fastening system.
US08950087B2

An article of footwear with an insert system is disclosed. The insert system can include an insert that may be introduced to a side portion of the upper. The insert is configured to adjust properties of a side portion of an upper. The insert system can include a lateral insert configured to be inserted into an upper and associated with an inner surface of the lateral side portion. The system can also include a medial insert configured to be inserted into the upper and associated with an inner surface of the medial side portion.
US08950081B2

Methods of removing moisture from a compressor using a sorbent technology are provided. A dehydration device incorporating the sorbent technology is disposed in a system that contains a hygroscopic fluid. By passing the hygroscopic fluid over the sorbent technology, moisture is removed from the hygroscopic fluid. The systems include sealed devices and integral components for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and refrigeration devices.
US08950077B2

A utility knife employing a blade having multiple cutting portions, and a housing for quickly and simply swapping out one cutting portion for another. In a preferred embodiment, a six-cutting-portion featured blade is employed. Each point of the six-cutting-portion featured blade features two distinct cutting portions, for a total of six cutting portions located on a single blade. The blade can be rotated about a central axis to expose new cutting portions as old portions wear and dull. In another embodiment, a single-edged blade featuring two cutting faces is housed in a knife handle. The blade can be flipped when the first edge is dull or worn to expose a second cutting face. The handle may optionally include a storage space for storing additional blades.
US08950074B2

A slider has an upper sliding element, a lower sliding element and a resilient tab. The upper sliding element has two first engaging segments disposed on an inner side of the upper sliding element. The lower sliding element has two second engaging segments disposed on an outer side facing the inner side of the upper sliding element and engaging the first engaging segments. A tab holding base is formed on and protrudes from the outer side of the lower sliding element and has a chamber defined in the tab holding base. The resilient tab is held in the chamber in the lower sliding element and has two legs. Accordingly, a slider having a structure in a closed condition is provided to prevent objects from entering into the chamber to interfere the operation of the resilient tab and the operation of the slider is smooth.
US08950071B2

During the manufacturing of heat-insulated pipes (1) with an inner duct (3) and an outer duct (2) and a foamed insulation (14) arranged in between, the inner duct is placed on a tension member (10). The latter is tensioned between tensioning means by means of a tensile force, such that it runs straight and that the inner duct is held straight. The latter is held on centering elements (16, 17) which are spaced from one another in a defined way by means of spacers (18). In this straight position the inner duct may be surrounded with foam inside of the outer duct, without needing spacers between the ducts.
US08950070B2

The present invention relates to a method of forging turbine blade, which comprises forging a plurality of turbine blades as an integrally connected body in a longitudinal direction, and then separating the integrally connected body into said respective turbine blades. According to the method of the invention, a yield of material can be improved as compared with the conventional art and the number of processes for forging work can be reduced. In addition, the turbine blades cab be forged into a favorable shape without occurring cracks. Further, it is possible to effectively reduce the cost for the die required for the forging work.
US08950069B2

A low leakage, integral fixed vane system for a gas turbine engine compression system which can accommodate the latest 3-D aerodynamic airfoil geometries and provide endwall ovalization control. A unitized construction wherein the vanes are integral with the case wall in the compression system.
US08950063B2

A method of manufacturing at least a portion of a printed circuit board. The method includes: applying a lamination adhesive on a first plural-layer substrate that includes a plurality of circuit layers with at least one first metal pad on a first side of the first plural-layer substrate; applying a protective film on the lamination adhesive; forming at least one via into the lamination adhesive to expose the at least one metal pad on the first side of the first plural-layer substrate; filling at least one conductive paste into the at least one via formed in the lamination adhesive; removing the protective film to expose the lamination adhesive on the first plural-layer substrate; and attaching the first plural-layer substrate with a second plural-layer substrate that includes a plurality of circuit layers with at least one second metal pad on a second side of the second plural-layer substrate.
US08950050B2

A door opening method and device are provided that can reduce the size of the installation location of a robot, as well as achieve a reduction in cycle time. In a dual arm robot, two arms are rotated by each of an shaft S1 and an shaft S2. As a result, a door opening action (Step ST2) is realized by rotation using the shaft S1. Then, a movement to enter an interior side of a door (91) in order to perform a bolt loosening action is realized by rotation using the shaft S1 and shaft S2. The movement in this case is movement such as to face the direction of the door (91). As a result, when moving to a door holding position (Step S26), the dual arm robot is at an attitude facilitating performing a bolt loosening action.
US08950044B2

A fastener stringer, is configured such that a fastener element of a continuous shape includes a plurality of fine projected rims which are continuously disposed on a peripheral surface of the monofilament (30); along a length direction of the monofilament and a plurality of fine concave grooves which are disposed between the projected rim and in a cross section of the monofilament, a cross-sectional area of a space region of the concave groove is set to be larger than that of the projected rim. With this configuration, when performing dyeing process employing a beam dyeing or a continuous dyeing method while appropriately securing the strength of the monofilament, it is possible to prevent dyeing irregularities and dyeing defects from arising. Further, when performing a coloring according to an inkjet, scheme, it is possible to finely form a desired pattern with clear outlines on the fastener element.
US08950041B2

The present invention relates to the field of sliding door systems. The invention relates to a second wheel holder (800) enabling using a flexible number of wheels in a wheel carriage (300) for a sliding door resting in sliding track (106). The second wheel holder (800) comprises one attachment means (810) adapted to be removably attached to the first wheel connection means (340) and at least two second wheel connection means (820) each adapted to connect one wheel (330). The invention also relates to a method for exchanging the wheels (330) and of a wheel carriage (300), by lowering a door panel and replacing the wheels, by removing the second wheel holder (800), while the wheel carriage (300) is resting in the sliding track (106).
US08950039B2

A surface cleaning apparatus has a cyclone unit comprising at least one cyclone having a cyclone inlet positioned in the air flow passage. A generally linear air flow path is provided from the cyclone outlet to the suction motor.
US08950031B1

A garment hung in a vertical orientation has at least one entire side of the garment exposed to steam from a steaming device including a planar steam panel having a steam emitting side with a surface area including restricted orifices distributed substantially uniformly over the steam emitting side. Jets of steam shoot under pressure from the surface area of the steam panel, this surface area being essentially the same as or greater than the area of the one entire side of the garment being treated. The hanging garment is placed next to the steam panel with the steam emitting side positioned to direct the steam jets from the orifices towards the garment so that essentially the one entire side of the garment is treated simultaneously as steam impinges against the entire area of this one side of the garment.
US08950024B1

An improved covering is described for use with a mattress. The improved covering comprises a top sheet securely or removably secured to a bottom sheet. Through the use of the improved covering, the time required for attending to the task of making a bed is reduced and the difficulty of such task is decreased. In addition, using the improved covering of the present disclosure, individuals such as, but not limited to children and those with difficulty attending to such a task, may now complete the task with an aesthetically pleasing result.
US08950015B2

A glove may comprise at least one laminated padded portions affixed to at least one other portion. A laminated padded portion may comprise an inner layer, an outer layer, and at least one pad. The at least one pad may be secured by laminating the outer layer to the inner layer with the at least one pad retained between the inner layer and the outer layer without stitching. The at least one pad may be positioned to protectively cover portions of the wearer's hand.
US08950014B2

An extendable collar stay that is substantially flat and adjustable to different lengths depending on the size and shape of the collar with which it is used. The extendable collar stay comprises an elongated body that is configured to fit into a collar pocket, with extensions at either end that can be extended to different lengths.
US08955154B2

Some embodiments provide an independent authentication system for authenticating entities that have registered accounts across different online service providers on behalf of the service providers. The authentication system maintains a database of previously verified entity information. A service provider requests authentication by providing the authentication system with unverified and basic identifying information used by an entity when registering with the service provider. The authentication system attempts to match the registration information against previously verified information for a known entity. When a match is found, the authentication system generates a series of challenge questions. The questions are submitted to the entity through the service provider and answers are processed in order to authenticate the entity. Authentication is thus provided on behalf of the service provider without the service provider accessing the previously verified information and without the service provider independently verifying the information within the generated challenge questions.
US08955149B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for granting permission to another user on a computer network to impersonate himself or herself on the network for duration of a specified period. One embodiment of such a method describes receiving instructions from a second user to grant impersonation permission to a first user to have access to user data of the second user; establishing an access policy authorizing access to the user data of the second user; and assigning the access policy to the first user.
US08955141B2

Provided is a method for digital rights management of a compressed file created by compressing one or more original files. The method include the steps of: generating right information on an encrypted compressed file during the encryption of the compressed file by a digital rights management server; checking the user right to the compressed file by controlling a predetermined compression application program by a controller module installed in a user terminal when the user terminal to which the encrypted compressed file is downloaded opens the compressed file using the compression application program; requesting the digital rights management server to provide a certificate to decrypt the encrypted file by the controller module of the user terminal; generating the certificate according to a certificate request from the user terminal and sending the generated certificate to the user terminal by the digital right management server; and decrypting the encrypted compressed file by the controller module of the user terminal based on the received certificate.
US08955138B1

A computer-implemented method for reevaluating apparently benign behavior on computing devices may include (1) receiving a plurality of reports from a plurality of computing systems that indicate that an attack that targeted each of the systems reached a specific stage on each system, (2) identifying behavioral data that includes, for each computing system within the plurality, a plurality of activities that the computing system observed before the attack reached the specific stage on the computing system, wherein the plurality of activities are of a type of activity that is relevant to detecting a prior stage of the attack, (3) analyzing the behavioral data to correlate the attack with at least one activity observed before the attack reached the specific stage, and (4) determining that the activity is suspect based at least in part on correlating the attack with the activity. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08955137B2

An upload and verification system allows a user to upload files which the user would like to attached to the electronic record of a certain event associated with the company, for example, an insurance claim. A quarantine server may receive the uploaded file and scan the file for malicious code. The quarantine server may transmit the file to temporary storage server. The temporary storage server may receive the file, may convert the file to a file format supported by the company system and may compress the file. The temporary storage server may also transmit a preview of the file back to the client device, where the user can verify that the correct document has been uploaded and no mistakes have been made.
US08955133B2

The subject disclosure is directed towards a technology by which antimalware detection logic is maintained and operated at a backend service, with which a customer frontend machine communicates (queries) for purposes of malware detection. In this way, some antimalware techniques are maintained at the backend service rather than revealed to antimalware authors. The backend antimalware detection logic may be based upon feature selection, and may be updated rapidly, in a manner that is faster than malware authors can track. Noise may be added to the results to make it difficult for malware authors to deduce the logic behind the results. The backend may return results indicating malware or not malware, or return inconclusive results. The backend service may also detect probing-related queries that are part of an attempt to deduce the unrevealed antimalware detection logic, with noisy results returned in response and/or other actions taken to foil the attempt.
US08955130B1

A system and method for detecting an intrusion or a bug in a vehicle data transmission system. A hardware-software complex (HSC) is used to find a bug or intrusion device in a vehicle electronic system. The HSC is connected to CAN-buses in the vehicle and also scans radio waves, which can be used to transmit data to a bug. This complex is a self-teaching CAN-system used to monitor and block harmful commands in the vehicle. Each vehicle (of each model, type and settings) has its own reference bus data (parameters), which is used to detect added modules and malicious data sent over the vehicle's CAN bus.
US08955128B1

A system and method of regulating network traffic based on information about packets is disclosed. Network traffic from undesirable countries, companies, and regions, for example, can be blocked with the click of a mouse. The system employs an appliance, a server and a computer with a user interface from which it can be controlled.
US08955120B2

System and method for analyzing a target object for similarity to classes of reference objects. A first and a second set of attributes of the target object is identified composed respectively of attributes having values that are common, and variable, among a class of similar objects. A first hash is computed representing the first set of attributes according to a first hashing algorithm that is sensitive to variations in the first set of attributes among the class of similar objects. A second hash representing the second set of attributes is computed according to a second hashing algorithm that is insensitive to variations in the second set of attributes among the class of similar objects. An aggregate representation of the target object that is based on the first hash and the second hash is generated.
US08955119B2

A method includes receiving one or more of user information, role information, or authorization information associated with a user accessing a network, selecting a traffic flow to monitor that is associated with the one or more of user information, role information, or authorization information, monitoring the traffic flow, determining whether an anomaly exists with respect to the traffic flow based on a traffic behavior pattern associated with the one or more of user information, role information, or authorization information, and performing a security response when it is determined that the anomaly exists.
US08955117B2

Method, system and computer-readable device to locate a prefix hijacker of a destination prefix within a one-hop neighborhood. The method includes generating one-hop neighborhoods from autonomous system-level paths associated with a plurality of monitors to a destination prefix. The method also includes determining a suspect set of autonomous system identifiers resulting from a union of the one-hop neighborhoods. The method further includes calculating a count and a distance associated with each autonomous system identifier in the suspect set of autonomous system identifiers. The count represents how often an autonomous system identifier appears in the one-hop neighborhoods. The distance represents a total number of autonomous system identifiers from the autonomous system identifier to autonomous system identifiers associated with the plurality of monitors. Yet further, the method includes generating a one-hop suspect set including autonomous system identifiers in the suspect set that have a greatest sum of the count and the distance.
US08955116B2

A device function to be used by an application is specified, a risk level of the specified device function is acquired, and a risk level of the application is calculated based on the acquired risk level of the device function.
US08955114B2

Methods and systems for application monitoring through collective record and replay are disclosed herein. The method includes recording a number of execution traces for an application from a number of user devices at a runtime library, wherein the number of execution traces relates to non-deterministic data. The method also includes replaying the number of execution traces to determine whether a behavior of the application creates a security risk.
US08955112B2

A network routing and service control design enables an internet protocol (“IP”) network to effectively divert, on-demand, a given set of IP traffic flow from its normally followed network path to a network-attached application service processing complex and then enable the IP network to re-inject post-processed (e.g., Distributed Denial of Service scrubbed) traffic back into the network for routing to an originally-intended destination. This design also provides a sophisticated control mechanism for application service providers and/or customers/users for service management purposes. For example, application service providers can manage network and service processing resources and customers/users can manage their service requests.
US08955111B2

A processor is adapted to manage security risk by updating and monitoring a taint storage element in response to receipt of taint indicators, and responding to predetermined taint conditions detecting by the monitoring. The processor can be operable to execute instructions of a defined instruction set architecture and comprises an instruction of the instruction set architecture operable to access data from a source and operable to receive a taint indicator indicative of potential security risk associated with the data. The processor can further comprise a taint storage element operable for updating in response to receipt of the taint indicator and logic. The logic can be operable to update the taint storage element, process the taint storage element, determine a security risk condition based on the processing of the taint storage element, and respond to the security risk condition.
US08955108B2

A security system collects an audit trail on a computer outside of a boundary created by one or more virtual machines. The security system uses a privileged virtual machine to collect audit logs for each protected virtual machine. As the protected virtual machines run, they send auditing information to the privileged virtual machine. The privileged virtual machine can collect auditing information from protected virtual machines much more quickly than a network server, as well as collecting auditing events from multiple protected virtual machines. Because the auditing destination is located on the same computer as the virtual machine monitored by the audit trail, no network dependency is present. Thus, the security system allows for monitoring the activity of administrators and other users while preventing tampering with the audit trail of each user's actions.
US08955106B2

Systems and methods for managing forwarded infectious messages are provided. Managing electronic message comprises receiving a message, forwarding the message, determining that the forwarded message is infectious after the message has been forwarded and preventing the infectious forwarded message from spreading.
US08955102B1

A computer-based system, method and computer program product for controlling access to protected personal information is disclosed. Protected personal information that is accessible by an information management application program is stored in a computer memory. In response to a request from an authenticated user for information, which includes protected personal information, information is displayed indicating that user has requested protected personal information, but the protected personal information is not displayed. In response to receiving user input requesting access to the protected personal information, a determination is made as to whether the user is authorized to access the requested protected personal information. If so, requested protected personal information is displayed to the user and information is stored relating to the user's access to protected personal information. Otherwise, requested protected personal information is not displayed to the user and information relating to the user's access to protected personal information is not stored.
US08955099B1

A device creates a pool of available licenses for secure network resources, and receives an unused license from a network device. The device also provides the unused license in the pool of available licenses, and receives a request for a license from another network device. The device further provides, to the other network device, the unused license from the pool of available licenses.
US08955092B2

A computer-implemented method for eliminating redundant security analyses on network data packets may include (1) intercepting, at a networking device, at least one network data packet destined for a target computing device, (2) identifying a security system installed on the target computing device, (3) determining that the security system installed on the target computing device does not satisfy a predefined security standard, and then (4) performing a security analysis that satisfies the predefined security standard on the network data packet at the networking device based at least in part on determining that the security system installed on the target computing device does not satisfy the predefined security standard. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08955081B2

An apparatus for, and method of, single sign-on collaboration among a plurality of mobile devices, includes a server for issuing a first identity token to subsequently authenticate a user of a first of the mobile devices to a service provider, and for generating and sending a collaboration key to the first device based on the first identity token or user authentication. The first device generates and sends a collaboration credential based on the collaboration key to a second device paired with the first device. The server also issues a second identity token to subsequently authenticate to the service provider the user of the second device based on the collaboration credential received from the first device, to support single sign-on collaboration for the user across the plurality of mobile devices.
US08955065B2

Disclosed are various embodiments for recovery and other management functions relating to security credentials which may be centrally managed. Account data, which includes multiple security credentials for multiple network sites for a user, is stored by a service in an encrypted form. A request for the account data is obtained from a client. The request specifies a security credential for accessing the account data. The account data is sent to the client in response to determining that the client corresponds to a preauthorized client and in response to determining that the security credential for accessing the account data is valid.
US08955062B2

A method including: assigning identifiers to respective domains, where each of the domains is allocated a corresponding set of resources, and where the resources in the sets of resources are accessible at respective physical addresses; storing permissions to access the physical addresses, where each of the permissions indicates which of the physical addresses one or more of the domains are permitted to access. The method also includes: assigning a code to a first domain, where the code includes instructions, and where each of the instructions includes a corresponding one of the physical addresses; tagging each of the instructions by adding the identifier assigned to the first domain to each of the instructions; and during execution of each of the instructions, comparing the identifier included in the corresponding instruction to one of the permissions; and based on the comparison, permitting access to the set of resources allocated to the first domain.
US08955060B2

A network device receives a request for a selected video from a first user at a client device, and determines similarities between a second user associated with the first user and other parents in a collaborative community, wherein the similarities are determined based on the second user's, and the other users', prior censoring of videos. The network device obtains all exclusions applied by the second user, and the other users, in the collaborative community to the selected video, wherein each of the exclusions comprises a portion of the selected video identified for censoring by one of the users in the collaborative community. The network device further selectively applies each of the determined exclusions to the selected video based on the determined similarities, and sends the selected video, with the selectively applied exclusions, to the requesting first user at the client device.
US08955059B2

An authentication system, an authentication method, and a network storage appliance are provided. The authentication system includes a client electronic device, the network storage appliance having an authentication proxy, and a directory server having an authentication service module and an account database. The client electronic device selects a data access service and transmits an encrypted data and a user data to the network storage appliance. The authentication proxy packs the encrypted data and the user data into an authentication login information and transmits the authentication login information to the directory server. The authentication service module receives the authentication login information and performs decryption and comparison on the authentication login information according to a corresponding authentication protocol and a corresponding account information in the account database, so as to determine whether the authentication is successful. Then, the authentication service module transmits an authentication response to the network storage appliance.
US08955058B2

User authentication is provided. At least one of a social network and a business network of each user in a plurality of users is accessed. User history data of each user in the plurality of users is monitored in the at least one of the social network and the business network. Challenge questions requiring a user response are generated based on monitoring the user history data of the users. The user response to a generated challenge question is evaluated. A set of events is triggered based on evaluating the user response.
US08955057B2

According to one aspect of the present disclosure a system and technique for managing access to application-based objects in a system utilizing a role-based access control framework is disclosed. The system includes a memory and a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to: determine, for each object class of an application, a privilege needed for invoking a privileged operation associated with the object class; create a privilege shell for a user running the application; set the determined privilege on the privilege shell; associate an authorization to the privilege shell; and invoke the privilege shell to run the application by the user.
US08955052B2

A method, system and computer-usable medium are disclosed for managing identity authorizations to access information processing system resources. An application thread requiring access to target resources is initiated and associated with an authenticated client identity and a server identity. The resource authorization attribute of a resource required for execution of the application thread designates the use of a client identity, a server identity, or a client identity and server identity when attempting authorized access of the resource. The client identity, the server identity, or the client identity and server identity is then respectively used to access the target resource and the application thread is executed.
US08955051B2

A method is proposed, for use e.g. in the context of WiMAX networks supporting the CMIPv6 function, for allowing the ASN-GW to become aware of the status of a control procedure, the CMIPv6 mobility binding procedure. The ASN-GW is not directly aware of its result since the procedure implies a message exchange at the U-Plane level, where the ASN-GW implements only a routing function. Nevertheless the ASN-GW needs to know the status of the procedure since it has to perform some subsequent actions depending on that status. The method includes signalling the status via a signalling mechanism between the Access Service Network and the Connectivity Service Network, thus avoiding packet inspection at the U-plane by the Access Service Network Gateway.
US08955047B2

A method for authentication of a high-security client and a low-security client in a high-security mobile radio network includes: transmitting a request for authentication from a base station to the high-security client, wherein the request for authentication comprises a random number as a challenge; receiving a response from the high-security client at the base station, wherein the response from the high-security client comprises a generated number generated by performing a keyed cryptographic function on the challenge; providing a fixed number to the low-security client; and receiving a response from the low-security client at the base station, wherein the response from the low-security client comprises the fixed number. Limited access to the mobile radio network is granted for the low-security client relative to an access of the high-security client.
US08955046B2

There is provided a method for distributing sensor data. The method includes receiving, from a requesting device, a request to access first sensor-collectable data associated with at least one package. The requesting device is authenticated to access the first sensor-collectable data. And when second sensor-collectable data is associated with a predetermined value, the method also includes denying the request for access.
US08955043B2

Described is a source program code language that facilitates the association of security proofs obtained from a solver (e.g., a Z3 theorem prover) with the program code. The code may include affine types, dependent types and/or refinement types. A derefinement procedure replaces each refinement type with a dependent pair type corresponding to the proof. A target code type checker verifies the target code with respect to the security policies. If verified as complying with security policy, a verified program corresponding to the translated program may then be installed and run.
US08955040B2

Disclosed are methods and devices for provisioning authorization claims, which are enforced to control access of users to objects (resources) in a computer system (330), and which are to be equivalent to an attribute-based access control (ABAC) policy. A policy converter according to the invention includes a policy processor (310) processing the policy by partial evaluation against attribute values of the users, objects or permission levels in the system and outputting simplified policies, which are subject to reverse evaluation in a reverse policy evaluator (320), whereby users, objects and permission levels to be associated by way of a single authorization claim are obtained. Responsible for the defining of the authorization claim and its distribution in the computer system are an authorization claim generator (330) and an authorization claim distribution interface (340). The invention may be so configured as to return a single authorization claim for each combination of an object and a permission level.
US08955030B2

A method and system for integrated personal content access have been disclosed. The system includes a gateway which is able to communicate across devices, coordinating media content distribution among the devices and users. The gateway can seamlessly switch or copy content streams from one device to another, even if the devices use different formats or protocols. Tags can be used for adding embellishments to content on the fly for viewing by the user or by others. Tokens for indicating the identity and source of content, along with a location within the content, can also be used when sharing content or when switching content viewing between devices. Additionally, a network of gateways is possible, where content may be shared between devices connected to different gateways.
US08955025B1

Disclosed herein is a system and method for rejoining a traffic log mode after a breakout in a broadcasting environment. One example method involves (i) receiving a traffic log including traffic log entries, each corresponding to a VC and a start time; (ii) operating in a traffic log mode; (iii) receiving a breakout-mode request; (iv) responsive to receiving the breakout-mode request, (a) terminating operation of the traffic log mode, (b) generating a simulation log, and (c) operating in a breakout mode; (v) receiving a rejoin request; (vi) determining a breakout termination time based on the received rejoin request; (vii) proximate the breakout termination time, terminating operation of the breakout-mode, and operating in a custom log mode; (viii) determining a rejoin position of the traffic log based on the received rejoin request; and (ix) operating in the traffic log mode.
US08955024B2

A video sequence is to be transmitted at a selectable quality from a server over a network. A network control protocol operates in response to a control parameter to allocate to the server a share of available transmission capacity in proportion to the value of the control parameter. First, one determines a plurality of transmission rate values that are needed over successive time periods of the sequence for successful transmission of the sequence at a reference quality; then the control parameter is set, proportional to the transmission rate value and communicated to the control protocol at corresponding time instants. The sequences can then be transmitted, encoded at a quality from time to time selected in dependence upon the actual transmission capacity made available by the network to the server.
US08955019B2

A network system in which a terminal apparatus, a recording apparatus, and a server apparatus are connectable via a network is disclosed. The server apparatus includes a service processing unit performing a service of reserving recording of a content to the recording apparatus by a request from the terminal apparatus, and an available service information provision unit managing information on the service available to the recording apparatus as available service information and transmitting the available service information to the terminal apparatus in response to a request from the terminal apparatus. The terminal apparatus includes a content guide acquisition unit acquiring a content guide which lists information to guide watching and listening of a plurality of contents, an available service information acquisition unit acquiring the available service information from the server apparatus, and a content guide display processing unit processing the content guide acquired by the content guide acquisition unit based on the available service information acquired by the available service information acquisition unit and displaying the processed one.
US08955015B2

One embodiment may take the form of an apparatus for providing separate user classifications and interfaces to multiple users of a set-top box of the television system. Each user classification may be configurable to provide different interfaces, menus and available features to the users of the set-top box. Further, each user classification may include several sub-classifications to further personalize the set-top box to the various users of the system. Also, each user classification may also monitor the habits and usage of each class and store such information for use by the set-top box to suggest settings of the set-top box that the user may be interested in, such as a favorite channel list.
US08955014B2

A method and apparatus for browsing a plurality of broadcast programs are provided. The method includes classifying a plurality of broadcast programs into one or more broadcast program groups with reference to electronic program guide (EPG) information or viewing records of a user regarding the broadcast programs, one-dimensionally arranging the broadcast programs so that the broadcast program groups are one-dimensionally arranged, displaying the broadcast programs and the broadcast program groups on a screen as a graphic image, and allowing the user to change a rule used for forming the broadcast program groups. Accordingly, it is possible to enable a user to effectively browse broadcast programs and to provide the user with a user interface customized for the user by using a simple one-dimensional input method and intuitively utilizing EPG information.
US08955012B1

Provided is a method and system for television channel selection, including a television controller operatively connected to an electronic memory and configured to process a video selection script. The television controller is also operatively connected to the television and to a television network comprising a plurality of channels. Also provided is a script authoring tool for authoring a video selection script in a Web-based scripting language by a viewer. The television controller is further configured to select a channel to display on the television based on the video selection script and to dynamically update the video selection script based on the occurrence of an event.
US08955010B2

A system provides personalized media in video for presentation using a video decoder in a device such as a video recorder, hardware or software player, computer system, or television. The personalized media may be embedded or hidden in a video stream or provided separately. A video decoder determines profile and preference information associated with a viewer, group, or demographic and personalizes commercial content using the profile and preference information. The system includes personalized media by introducing, embedding, overlaying, etc., media on video during commercial breaks. Personalized media may be provided during normal viewing or may be provided when a skip forward or fast forward request is received. The system may also evaluate personalization mechanisms using neuro-response measurements.
US08955009B2

Commercial break content that is viewed during fast-forwarding through a commercial break is provided by embedding one or more frames of commercial break content at various points in time during a commercial break segment. During fast-forwarding, the video stream for at least some of those points in time are displayed by the recording device to the viewer. Accordingly, multiple occurrences of frames that have been embedded are displayed during the fast-forwarding such that the commercial break content expressed by the frames is conveyed to the viewer during the fast-forwarding period.
US08954998B1

A system and method provides a managed resource instrumentation application on a network device to instrument a managed network device component. The managed resource instrumentation application includes an application programming interface (API) that is common to two or more management agents that are implemented on the device, the management agents being configured to process network management instructions that are in different respective protocols. The API is common to the management agents, to provide access by the management agents to the managed network device component via the common API.
US08954982B2

System and method and computer program product implemented for a cloud computing infrastructure that allows a hypervisor to optimize resource allocation in a cloud computing environment by exploiting the application-level performance, O/S system performance, and hypervisor performance information through a reliable and efficient channel.
US08954973B2

A method and apparatus for transferring architected state bypasses system memory by directly transmitting architected state between processor cores over a dedicated interconnect. The transfer may be performed by state transfer interface circuitry with or without software interaction. The architected state for a thread may be transferred from a first processing core to a second processing core when the state transfer interface circuitry detects an error that prevents proper execution of the thread corresponding to the architected state. A program instruction may be used to initiate the transfer of the architected state for the thread to one or more other threads in order to parallelize execution of the thread or perform load balancing between multiple processor cores by distributing processing of multiple threads.
US08954971B2

The present invention provides a data collection method and apparatus and a network management device. The method includes: a network management device collecting data files to be processed reported by a network element device; assigning the data files to be processed as a plurality of tasks; adding the assigned tasks into a task queue and extracting tasks from the task queue one by one for processing. According to the present invention, the task work load can be automatically adjusted according to the computer configuration and parameter configuration, and the maximum efficiency of data processing can be achieved under different scenarios.
US08954969B2

Embodiments of the invention provide a method for assigning a home node to a file system object and using information associated with file system objects to improve locality of reference during thread execution. Doing so may improve application performance on a computer system configured using a non-uniform memory access (NUMA) architecture. Thus, embodiments of the invention allow a computer system to create a nodal affinity between a given file system object and a given processing node.
US08954959B2

A method and system for managing direct memory access (DMA) in a computer system without a host input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). The computer system hosts virtual machines and allows memory overcommit. The computer receives, from a guest operating system that runs on a virtual machine, a request for mapping a guest address to a bus address. The computer translates the guest address to a host address and pins a memory page containing the host address to keep the memory page in host memory. The host address is then returned to the guest operating system to allow a device to use the host address as the bus address for direct memory access (DMA) to a buffer managed by the guest operating system.
US08954955B2

A system and method for standardizing commands used for various application behaviors in an application regardless of the environment of the application. A client intercepts a user input standard command, retrieves a corresponding native command from a standardizing server and inputs the native command in the application.
US08954951B1

A communication device may determine whether an installed application should be updated based on an uninstall and/or reinstall history of the application and control distribution of updates to the installed application based on the determination. A frequency at which the application is uninstalled and/or reinstalled on the communication device or other device utilized by the user of the communication device may be determined based on the monitored usage of the application. The distribution of the updates to the application may be discontinued when the frequency exceeds a particular threshold. The distribution of the updates may continue when the frequency is below the particular threshold. A version number of the installed application may be compared to a corresponding version number of a version of the application that is stored on a remote server in order to determine when the update to the application is available for distribution.
US08954950B2

Web portal application customization methods and systems using profiles allow developers to expose different functionalities and a different look and feel to users belonging to different user profiles. Specifically, the method allows a developer to define default and profile-specific transitions as well as default and profile-specific states. Upon request of a transition by a workflow engine, the system transparently provides the workflow engine with a profile-specific transition if a profile-specific transition associated with the user is available. If a profile-specific transition is not available, the system provides the application with a default transition. Likewise, the system transparently provides the application with a profile-relevant state according to the profile of the user and the availability of a profile-specific state. Accordingly, the method may implement highly customizable functionalities and look and feel effectively and cost-efficiently.
US08954940B2

A method, computer program product, and system is described. Software code text associated with a software code editor and including one or more preprocessor statements is identified. The software code text is translated into a preprocessor output using one or more preprocessors associated with the software code text. One or more transformations of the one or more preprocessor statements is identified based upon comparing the preprocessor output with the software code text. One or more locations in the software code text associated with the one or more transformations is identified based upon comparing the preprocessor output with the software code text. The software code text is parsed, based upon lexing the software code text to generate an integrated token stream model including a first token stream representing the software code text and one or more other token streams representing the one or more transformations of the software code text.
US08954939B2

Concepts and technologies are described herein for extending the behavior of a software development tool. An extension can be accessed and consumed by a software development tool to configure the software development tool to perform an operation in an extended mode. In one example, an extension can extend a compiler based on the input source code. In one configuration, the compiler extension can provide a compiler with one or more runtime semantics of various source code elements for a particular programming language. The compiler can access an extensions list to determine if the compiler is to perform a compilation operation on a particular source code element or logical unit in an extended mode.
US08954936B2

A method that may include: building a dependencies graph representing dependencies between code elements of a computer code; associating portions of the computer code with corresponding design specifications or requirements derived from a design specifications document or a requirements document respectively which is associated with the computer code, to yield a design specifications or requirements-code tracing map; and analyzing the design specifications or requirements-code tracing map based on the dependencies graph to yield an ordered list of design specifications or requirements respectively, wherein the order is selected such that functional tests written for the computer code and addressing design specifications or requirements of a higher order, will yield a higher level of functional test coverage of the computer code in terms of design specifications or requirements.
US08954935B2

The current application is directed to crosscutting functionalities, including byte-code instrumentation, error logging, and other such crosscutting functionalities. These crosscutting functionalities generally violate, or run counter to, modern code-development strategies and programming-language features that seek to partition logic into hierarchically organized compartments and modules with related functionalities, attribute values, and other common features. In particular, the current application is directed to byte-code instrumentation introduced into a computer program for collecting data, such as execution traces, elapsed times for routine execution, and other information at run time for logging and subsequently manual, semi-automatic, or automatic analysis. The current application is particularly directed to byte-code instrumentation that automatically filters collected data in order to log only data having greatest value for subsequent analysis.
US08954915B2

Integrated circuit design uses a library of structured soft blocks (SSBs) composed of pre-defined sets of cells with their logic implementation and placement templates with their relative placement information. A compiler receives a circuit description which includes an instance of an SSB and unfolds the instance according to the placement template to generate a modified circuit description which includes the relative placement information. The placement of circuit objects is optimized while maintaining relative locations for cells of the SSB instance according to the relative placement information. The SSB may be hierarchical. Gate resizing of cells in the SSB instance may result in a change in its bounds. A timing optimization procedure for the modified circuit description may be carried out while hiding internal details of the SSB instance. For example, buffers may be inserted in nets external to the SSB instance while preventing insertion of buffers in any internal nets.
US08954910B1

A system, method, and computer program product for computing device mismatch variation contributions to circuit performance variation. Embodiments estimate which individual devices in a simulated circuit design have the largest impact on circuit performance, while requiring far fewer simulations than traditional multivariate linear regressions. When the samples exceed the mismatch parameters, a linear model is solved by least squares. Otherwise, a linear model is solved by orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP), and if that solution is too inaccurate then a new mixed method builds a better linear model. If the linear solution is too inaccurate, a full linear and quadratic model is made using OMP to select the most important variables, and the full model is fitted using OMP with selected cross terms. The embodiments summarize the output variance in each device, and rank the mismatch contributions based on the summarized contributions.
US08954906B1

A method for designing a system to be implemented on a target device includes performing a first synthesis run on an entire design of a system with a first setting to generate a first cell netlist for the entire design of the system. A second synthesis run is performed on the entire design for the system with a second setting and is performed in parallel with the first synthesis procedure to generate a second cell netlist for the entire design of the system. A merged cell netlist is generated that includes a first section of logic from the first netlist and a second section of logic from the second cell netlist.
US08954905B1

In one embodiment of the invention, a physical layout wire-load algorithm is used to generate a wire-load model based on physical data including aspect ratio and wire definitions defined in a physical library. The physical layout estimator is utilized to dynamically produce the physical layout wire-load model and to calculate net length and delay for each optimization iteration.
US08954904B1

A register transfer level (RTL) design is received which models a digital circuit in terms of the flow of digital signals. A power intent description is received which may include a description of power domains, identification of retention flops for each power domain, a list of isolation signals, and power switch definitions. A transformed RTL is produced accounting for functionality described in the power intent description. The transformed RTL includes flops designated as retention flops and non-retention flops. A retention flop module analyzes the flops to ensure that flops are properly designated as retention or non-retention flops. A verification module performs power aware sequential equivalence checking on various RTL and power intent descriptions to verify that RTL and power intent description outputs behave the same when accounting for power states.
US08954903B1

An electronic design automation (EDA) tool for adding a feature to a target parameterized cell (pcell) in an electronic circuit design includes a memory that stores the electronic circuit design, and a processor in communication with the memory. The processor defines a specification of an add-on pcell. The specification includes a feature to be added to the target pcell. The processor reads the properties associated with the target pcell and generates the add-on pcell based on its specification and the properties of the target pcell. The add-on pcell then is instantiated and bound to the target pcell, which adds the feature to the target pcell.
US08954884B1

Image analysis systems components, devices, and methods are provided for viewing the image data stack in less time with less effort and less repetitive motions. The navigation device, for example, can include: (i) an indexing state selector for independently selecting a desired subset within the independently viewable subsets, the desired subset indexed for an efficient image selection with a single click of the indexing state selector; and, (ii) a scrolling state selector for scrolling through the desired subsest as a data series of the discrete images. And, a graphical user interface can be operably connected to the processor for viewing the plurality of sets of discrete sets of images. The systems, components, devices, and methods provided are solutions to the problem of providing rapid, efficient process for viewing a data-stack of images by implementing, for example, “point-free” steps and less repetitive motions.
US08954881B2

A method and computer-storage media for minimizing application windows based on a triggering event are provided. Embodiments of the present invention include determining that a triggering event has occurred with respect to a target window, automatically minimizing all of the minimizable application windows except the target application window, and generating an undo record that may be used to restore the minimized windows upon the determination that a second triggering event has occurred with respect to the target window. In one embodiment, the triggering event is shaking the target application window.
US08954873B2

An information processing apparatus includes: a rule information output section that outputs rule information to a storage section in response to rule specifying operation for a screen on which display object information to be displayed is displayed, the rule information indicating a rule of altering enlarged-display portions one-by-one on the screen in the display object information; and a display content update section that updates content displayed on the screen in response to display content update operations sequentially accepted from a user so that the enlarged-display portions on the screen in the display object information alter one-by-one in order according to the rule indicated by the rule information when one of the enlarged-display portions is displayed on the screen.
US08954868B2

According to various exemplary embodiments, it is determined that a particular user is associated with a particular member segment of a networking website. Further, a task prioritization list associated with the particular member segment is accessed. The task prioritization list may include a prioritized list of profile update tasks associated with successful user profile pages of the particular member segment. Moreover, a prompt is displayed inviting the particular user to update the particular user profile page based on the task prioritization list (e.g., by referring to the member segment and at least one of the tasks in the task prioritization list).
US08954865B2

A stand-alone icon (i.e., an icon that is not part of an application interface) is provided to facilitate communications across a network between users of at least one communications program. The icon represents a contact or a set of contacts. Status information regarding the contact or set of contacts is received and displayed using the icon or in response to an operation performed on the icon. The icon additionally may provide an interface for performing actions related to the contact or set of contacts. The actions may generally include, for example, retrieving profile information about the contact, setting an alert to indicate that the contact's network/login status (e.g., login, logout, or idle) has changed, or performing communications with the contact.
US08954864B1

Systems, methods and computer readable media for integrating a contact list with a social network are disclosed. Some implementations can include displaying a user interface that permits a user to add a profile linked to a contact to one or more selected groups of the social network. The user interface can then be updated to display the groups of the social network to which the profile has been added.
US08954857B2

In general, this disclosure describes techniques that employ user-defined values of properties of sections of an electronic presentation. As described herein, a user may configure a presentation to include a plurality of sections. Each of the sections includes zero or more slides of the electronic slide presentation. In addition to the slides associated with each section, each of the sections is associated with one or more properties having values that can be defined by an author of the presentation. Because the values of the properties of the sections are user-definable, these properties may, in some implementations of these techniques, enable the author of the presentation to use the sections in ways not possible in presentation applications that merely use sections as a means of grouping thumbnail images of slides for navigation among slides in an authoring interface.
US08954853B2

An after-action, mission review tool that displays camera and navigation sensor data allowing a user to pan, tilt, and zoom through the images from front and back cameras on an vehicle, while simultaneously viewing time/date information, along with any available navigation information such as the latitude and longitude of the vehicle at that time instance. Also displayed is a visual representation of the path the vehicle traversed; when the user clicks on the path, the image is automatically changed to the image corresponding to that position. If aerial images of the area are available, the path can be plotted on the geo-referenced image.
US08954847B2

A method of displaying an on-screen graphical user interface, the method comprising providing a plurality of user-selectable icons, and a plurality of content icons representing respective items of contents; generating image data for the on-screen user-interface with a multi-dimensional array which includes a first axis comprising the plurality of user-selectable icons adapted to be arranged in a specific direction and which is also adapted to include a second axis comprising the plurality of content icons in a direction intersecting, or abutting, the first axis; and outputting the image data for the on-screen user interface related to displaying the contents to a display, wherein the generating displays the second axis to intersect, or abut, the first axis.
US08954837B2

Context sensitive delimiter insertion when adding references is disclosed. In some embodiments, a plurality of indications of selections of a cell or cell range while in a formula editing mode in a host cell into which a formula is being entered is successively received, and in response to receiving each indication of selection of the plurality a reference to the selected cell or cell range is successively inserted into the formula, wherein the references inserted into the formula are delimited by a first delimiter type if in a first context and wherein the references inserted into the formula are delimited by a second delimiter type if in a second context.
US08954831B2

A method includes accepting input including at least part of a codeword that has been encoded by an ECC defined by a set of parity check equations. The codeword includes data bits and parity bits. A decoding process is applied to the codeword using the data bits and only a first partial subset of parity bits in the input, and using only a second partial subset of equations. Upon a failure to decode the codeword using the partial subsets, the codeword is re-decoded using the data bits and all parity bits in the input, and using all equations. The set of parity check equations is defined such that any parity bit in the codeword appears in multiple equations, and any parity bit in the first partial subset of the parity bits appears in a plurality of equations in the second partial subset of the equations.
US08954830B2

Disclosed are an encoder, a transmitting device, a coding method and a transmission method with which the transmission amount is reduced and a deterioration in transmission efficiency is suppressed while improving reception quality when QC-LDPC or a like block coding is used. A puncture pattern setting unit searches for a puncture pattern for each integral multiple of the number of columns or for each divisor of the number of columns of a sub block matrix that forms a check matrix (H) of a QC-LDPC code, and a puncture unit (data reduction unit) switches the puncture pattern for each integral multiple of the number of columns or for each divisor of the number of columns of the sub block matrix that forms the check matrix of the QC-LDPC code.
US08954817B2

According to at least one embodiment, a storage apparatus reads first sector data and a first error correcting code. The storage apparatus performs first decoding for the read first sector data using the read first error correcting code. The storage apparatus stores an error correction result by the first decoding. The storage apparatus performs second decoding for decoding-data associated with a second error correcting code using the second error correcting code. The storage apparatus transfers the second error correcting code and the decoding-data via the first buffer storing the error correction result.
US08954815B2

A system for delivering content over a network includes a server. The server is configured to divide the content into multiple segments, to create multiple data streams using the segments of the content, and to transmit each of the data streams via a respective multicast session, wherein a copy of each of the multiple segments is transmitted during a single time slot of the multicast session.
US08954814B2

Aspects of the disclosure can provide a method and an apparatus to decode a data stream based on multiple transmissions with efficient usages of storage and power resources. The method can include receiving a first plurality of encoded code blocks corresponding to a first transmission of a transport block, decoding the first plurality of encoded code blocks into decoded code blocks, error detecting the decoded code blocks, and storing a decoding history of the decoded code blocks. Further, the method can include receiving a second plurality of encoded code blocks corresponding to a retransmission of the transport block. The second plurality of encoded code blocks can map the first plurality of encoded code blocks, respectively. The method can selectively decode a subset of the second plurality of encoded code blocks based on the decoding history. In addition, the method can include storing soft bits for code blocks that failed decoding.
US08954806B2

A method that determines the system impact of single event upset (SEU) and a single event upset (SEU) wrapper that controls a SEU controller is disclosed. The method injects faults into a component (e.g. FPGA, ASIC) of an operational system that is carrying live traffic and monitors the system's response to the faults to determine the impact of SEU on the system. The SEU wrapper sends the SEU controller a pattern scheme that includes information indicating when, where, how often, and/or how long to inject bursts of one or more faults into memory of the component of the system. A burst of faults contains faults that are consecutively injected into the array of memory blocks. After each fault in a burst is injected, one or more errors in one or more memory elements are detected and/or corrected. Information regarding the detection and/or the correction of an error is updated using registers that store counters. After injecting a burst of faults, the SEU controller waits for a predetermined amount of time. While waiting for a predetermined amount of time, the system monitors the system response to the burst of faults, such as monitoring the system for failures. After waiting, the SEU controller determines whether to inject another burst of faults. Bursts of faults are injected into the plurality of memory blocks until a system failure is detected or until the pattern scheme indicates to no longer inject bursts of faults into the memory.
US08954798B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide backup and restoration functions for a storage device of a PCI-Express (PCI-e) type that support a low-speed data processing speed for a host. Specifically, embodiments of this invention provide backup and restoration functions for one or more (i.e., a set of) semiconductor storage devices (SSDs). In general, the present invention provides an alarm unit and a secondary power supply coupled to a backup controller. The backup controller is coupled to a backup storage device. When a primary power supply is deactivated (e.g., fails), an alarm unit and the secondary power supply is activated. In response to this activation, the backup controller will backup any data stored on any SSDs of the storage system (as well as any data stored in main memory of the storage system or in main memory of any host server connected thereto). When the primary power supply is reactivated, the secondary power supply (and the alarm unit) is deactivated, and all data backed up is restored to its original source.
US08954793B2

A method and a storage server for backing up data, involves mass storage devices of users of the service that connect to the storage server of the service provider over a public data network. The customers store the data with their terminals. The data is stored to the file system of the mass storage device which encrypts the stored data and transfers the data in encrypted form over the public data network to the storage server. The storage server calculates error correction data from the encrypted data. The error correction data is stored in the mass memory of the storage server. When recovering the stored data of the users, the storage server requests the stored data of all the users whose data was used for the error correction data calculation over the public data network to be used for the recovery calculation.
US08954790B2

A semiconductor chip is described having different instances of cache agent logic circuitry for respective cache slices of a distributed cache. The semiconductor chip further includes hash engine logic circuitry comprising: hash logic circuitry to determine, based on an address, that a particular one of the cache slices is to receive a request having the address, and, a first input to receive notice of a failure event for the particular cache slice. The semiconductor chip also includes first circuitry to assign the address to another cache slice of the cache slices in response to the notice.
US08954762B2

A system and methods for delivering power to a multitude of portable electronic devices is provided. More specifically, the system and methods provide for powering different portable electronic devices through a central charging device. The method of delivering a power supply to a plurality of portable electronic devices includes determining a power requirement for each of the portable computing devices and supplying the power requirement to each of the portable computing devices in a daisy chain configuration using a central power device.
US08954756B2

Systems and methods for encrypting a plaintext logical data object for storage in a storage device operable with at least one storage protocol, creating, reading, writing, optimization and restoring thereof. Encrypting the plaintext logical data object includes creating in the storage device an encrypted logical data object including a header and one or more allocated encrypted sections with predefined size; encrypting one or more sequentially obtained chunks of plaintext data corresponding to the plaintext logical data object thus giving rise to the encrypted data chunks; and sequentially accommodating the processed data chunks into the encrypted sections in accordance with an order the chunks are received, wherein the encrypted sections serve as atomic elements of encryption/decryption operations during input/output transactions on the logical data object.
US08954750B2

A secure PIN entry device including a PIN entry assembly operative to receive a PIN from a user, a PIN entry prompter operative when actuated to prompt a user to enter a PIN via the PIN entry assembly, a PIN entry prompt security check enabled controller operative to prevent operation of the PIN entry prompter unless a predetermined security check has been successfully completed and security check functionality operative to check at least part of the PIN entry device for the presence of an unauthorized PIN eavesdropping element thereat and to provide an output to the PIN entry prompt security check enabled controller indicating whether the predetermined security check has been successfully completed.
US08954746B2

A communication apparatus is provided that encrypts content data that is to be uploaded to a server by using a first encryption key used in a process for sharing a communication parameter for communicating with other communication apparatus via a wireless network or a second encryption key based on the communication parameter shared in the sharing process. Consequently, the content data can be viewed only by a specific communication apparatus.
US08954738B2

A method for verifying the integrity of platform software of an electronic device is provided, the method comprising accessing a module of said platform software, obtaining a signature (S), obtaining a verification key (VK), said verification key (VK) corresponding to a signing key (SK), verifying if said signature (S) was derived by signing said platform software module with said signing key (SK), by using said verification key (VK), and establishing a positive verification of said platform software module if said verification is successful. The invention also provides a method for providing a platform software module to perform the aforementioned method, and a device on which the aforementioned method can be performed.
US08954730B2

Establishing trust according to historical usage of selected hardware involves providing a usage history for a selected client device; and extending trust to a selected user based on the user's usage history of the client device. The usage history is embodied as signed statements issued by a third party or an authentication server. The issued statement is stored either on the client device, or on an authentication server. The usage history is updated every time a user is authenticated from the selected client device. By combining the usage history with conventional user authentication, an enhanced trust level is readily established. The enhanced, hardware-based trust provided by logging on from a trusted client may eliminate the necessity of requiring secondary authentication for e-commerce and financial services transactions, and may also be used to facilitate password recovery and conflict resolution in the case of stolen passwords.
US08954726B1

A digital security bubble encapsulation is disclosed. A first key and a device identifier of at least one recipient is requested from a first server. A message containing one or more components is encrypted using a second key. The second key is encrypted using the first key. The encrypted message, the encrypted second key, and the device identifier are encapsulated in a digital security bubble encapsulation. The digital security bubble encapsulation is transmitted to a second server.
US08954722B2

A Set Top Box (STB) or client computer includes a communication interface operable to receive digital messages and digital content, memory operable, and processing circuitry coupled to the communication interface and to the memory. The STB is operable to receive a digital message, extract a key portion from the digital message, extract a rights portion from the digital message, determine a code version based upon the rights portion, read a stored code version from the memory, and compare the code version to the stored code version to validate the software instructions. Upon an unfavorable comparison of the code version to the stored code version, initiates an error action that may include sending a message to a service provider device for software instruction reloading, rebooting, and/or disable decryption of the digital content. Extracting the rights portion from the digital message may include decrypting the key portion to produce a decrypted result and decrypting the rights portion using the decrypted result to produce the decrypted rights portion.
US08954715B2

A multithreading processor 4 interleaves program instructions from different program threads to perform fine grained multithreading. Thread performance monitoring circuitry 30 monitors performance parameters of individual program threads to generate performance values. Issue control circuitry 28 reads these performance values to determine which program thread is next selected to be active when a thread switch event occurs. The performance parameters measured may include the proportion of cycles in which a program thread is able to provide a program instruction for execution by the execution circuitry 12 within the processor 4.
US08954706B2

A storage apparatus of an embodiment of the invention including one or more storage drives for providing real storage resources and a controller for controlling the one or more storage drives and accesses from a host computer. The controller initializes real storage resources and manages the initialized real storage resources. The controller receives an instruction for allocating an initialized real storage resource to a first virtual storage resource accessed by the host computer. In response to the instruction, the controller allocates a first initialized real storage resource which has been initialized in advance prior to the instruction to the first virtual storage resource.
US08954704B2

An approach is provided which a system selects a first virtual function from a plurality of virtual functions executing on a network adapter that includes a memory area. Next, the system allocates, in the memory area, a memory corresponding to the first virtual function. The system then stores one or more translation entries in the allocated memory partition, which are utilized to send data traversing through the first virtual function. As such, the system sends, utilizing one or more of the translation entries, the data packets from the network adapter to one or more destinations. In turn, the system dynamically resizes the memory partition based upon an amount of the memory partition that is utilized to store the one or more translation entries.
US08954700B2

A method, and corresponding apparatus, of managing processing thread migrations within a plurality of memory clusters, includes embedding, in memory components of the plurality of memory clusters, instructions indicative of processing thread migrations; storing, in one or more memory components of a particular memory cluster among the plurality of memory clusters, data configured to designate the particular memory cluster as a sink memory cluster, the sink memory cluster preventing an incoming migrated processing thread from migrating out of the sink memory cluster; and processing one or more processing threads, in one or more of the plurality of memory clusters, in accordance with at least one of the embedded migration instructions and the data stored in the one or more memory components of the sink memory cluster.
US08954697B2

A system configures page tables to cause an operating system to copy original page data in a data store when any one of the application processes makes a first write request for the original page data. The system detects a page fault from a memory management unit receiving a first write request from one of the application processes and creates the copy in physical memory to allow the application process to modify the page data copy. The other application processes have read access to the original page data. The system replaces the original page data in the data store with the page data copy in response to receiving a first synchronization request from the application process and updates a page table for one of the other application processes to configure access to the replaced page data in response to receiving a second synchronization request from the one other application process.
US08954694B2

A data storage device comprises a plurality of non-volatile memory devices configured to store a plurality of physical pages; a controller coupled to the plurality of memory devices that is configured to program data to and read data from the plurality of memory devices. A volatile memory may be coupled to the controller and may be configured to store a firmware table comprising a plurality of firmware table entries. The controller may be configured to maintain a plurality of firmware journals in the non-volatile memory devices. Each of the firmware journals may be associated with a firmware table entry and may comprise firmware table entry information. The controller may be configured to read the plurality of firmware journals upon startup and rebuild the firmware table using the firmware table entry information in each of the read plurality of firmware journals.
US08954690B2

Improved data management systems for managing and maintaining unstructured data in a computing system environment. Data content is associated with particular types of metadata to create data objects. In certain examples, the metadata is stored in various fields of the data objects, certain fields being designated as permanently read-only after their creation. Such fields can include, for instance, a unique identifier, a type of content and a classification governing copy permissions relating to the data object. Data objects, or didgets, can be grouped into logical containers referred to as chambers, which are further grouped by common control elements or attributes into domains. Chambers within a particular domain can generally freely share information therebetween, including copies of various types of didgets. A control program, or didget manager, in each domain manages the creation of didgets and subsequent operations directed thereto.
US08954685B2

A method, computer program product and computer system for virtualizing an SAS storage adapter, so as to allow logical partitions of a computer system to share a storage device. The method, computer program product and computer system includes assigning a logical storage adapter to an operating system of each of the logical partitions; creating a mapping from each of the logical partitions to a set of logical blocks in the storage device; and configuring the logical storage adapter using a hypervisor, so that a select partition can access a select set of logical blocks that the select partition is allowed to access.
US08954682B2

The present invention measures an actual utilization frequency of data and controls a location of this data in a storage apparatus in a case where a host computer makes joint use of a storage apparatus and a cache apparatus. A portion of data used by an application program 1A is stored in a storage apparatus 2 and a cache apparatus 3. A management apparatus 4 detects an I/O load of a page (4A), and detects an I/O load of cache data (4B). The management apparatus 4 determines a corresponding relationship between the page and the cache data (4C), and adds the I/O load of the cache data to the I/O load of the page.
US08954681B1

A command processing pipeline is coupled to a shared cache. The command processing pipeline comprises (i) a first command processing stage configured to sequentially receive and process first and second cache commands, and (ii) a second command processing stage coupled to the first command processing stage. The first and the second command processing stages are two consecutive command processing stages of the command processing pipeline. The first and second command processing stages may access different groups of cache resources, and the first and second cache commands may be processed during consecutive clock cycles of a clock signal. Processing of the second cache command may be performed independently of an outcome of processing the first cache command by the first command processing stage. A third command processing stage may write data associated with the first cache command to one of a valid memory and a data memory included in the cache.
US08954675B2

In one embodiment, a system includes a database; and a cache layer comprising one or more cache nodes, the one or more cache nodes operative to: maintain in a memory one or more data structures storing association information describing associations between nodes in a graph a plurality of distributed cache clusters for storing information in the form of a graph, the graph comprising a plurality of nodes, each uniquely identified by a node identifier, and edge information indicating associations between nodes; respond to queries for associations between nodes in the graph by accessing the memory; and forward other queries to the database for processing.
US08954674B2

A scatter/gather technique optimizes unstructured streaming memory accesses, providing off-chip bandwidth efficiency by accessing only useful data at a fine granularity, and off-loading memory access overhead by supporting address calculation, data shuffling, and format conversion.
US08954669B2

A method and system is disclosed for providing a heterogeneous data storage comprising a plurality of storage devices of different types with respect to device vendor, model, capacity, performance and/or function. The present invention employs data access mechanisms specific to the type of underlying storage and the type of data to be stored or retrieved, and provides for integrated remote mirroring, disaster recovery and hierarchical storage management (HSM), as well as improved I/O performance and life expectancy of storage disks. A method of writing to and reading from heterogeneous data volume is also disclosed.
US08954666B2

Provided is a storage subsystem capable of speeding up the input/output processing for a cache memory. Microprocessor Packages manage information related to a VDEV ownership for controlling virtual devices and a cache segment ownership for controlling cache segments in units of Microprocessor Packages, and one Microprocessor among multiple Microprocessors belonging to the determined Microprocessor Package to perform input/output processing for the virtual devices searches cache control information stored in the Package Memory without searching the cache control information in the shared memory, and if data exists in the cache memory, accesses the cache memory, and if it does not, accesses the virtual devices.
US08954663B1

A system, method and computer program product for synchronizing data written to tape so that the data can be recovered in case of failure. When writing data to tape, an index is kept in memory and updated to reflect change(s) to a file system mounted on tape. After a predetermined amount of data is written to a tape, a device may perform a sync operation, causing the index to be written into a data partition of the tape. If the sync operation is successful, the index in the index partition of the tape can be updated using a copy of the index in the data partition of the tape next time the tape is mounted. If the sync operation is not successful, the device may write the data to a different location on the same or another tape, update the index, and force another sync operation. This process can be repeated.
US08954660B2

Example embodiments for configuring a serial non-volatile memory device for an execute-in-place mode may comprise a non-volatile configuration register to store an execute-in-place mode value that may be read at least in part in response to power being applied to the memory device.
US08954654B2

A Virtual-Memory Device (VMD) driver and application execute on a host to increase endurance of flash memory attached to a Super Enhanced Endurance Device (SEED) or Solid-State Drive (SSD). Host accesses to flash are intercepted by the VMD driver using upper and lower-level filter drivers and categorized as data types of paging files, temporary files, meta-data, and user data files, using address ranges and file extensions read from meta-data tables. Paging files and temporary files are optionally written to flash. Full-page and partial-page data are grouped into multi-page meta-pages by data type before storage by the SSD. ramdisks and caches for storing each data type in the host DRAM are managed and flushed to the SSD by the VMD driver. Write dates are stored for pages or blocks for management functions. A spare/swap area in DRAM reduces flash wear. Reference voltages are adjusted when error correction fails.
US08954650B2

Described are an apparatus, system, and method for improving read endurance for a non-volatile memory (NVM). The method comprises: determining a read count corresponding to a block of NVM; identifying whether the block of NVM is a partially programmed block (PPB); comparing the read count with a first threshold when it is identified that the block is a PPB; and when identified otherwise, comparing the read count with a second threshold, wherein the first threshold is smaller than the second threshold. The method further comprises: identifying a block that is a PPB; determining a first word line corresponding to un-programmed page of the PPB; and sending the first word line to the NVM, wherein the NVM to apply: a first read voltage level to word lines corresponding to the un-programmed pages of the PPB, and a second read voltage level to word lines corresponding to programmed pages of the PPB.
US08954641B2

A method and apparatus for establishing communication between a first device and a second device. In the method, the second device recognizes a mark representing the first device to establish communication with the first device, and establishes communication with the first device, based on information included in the mark.
US08954639B2

Integrating link calibration and dynamic topology discovery in a multi-processor system establishes a first of a plurality of processors in the multi-processor system as a director of integrated link calibration and dynamic topology discovery. A plurality of high speed interconnects connects the plurality of processors with each other. The director processor directs calibration of each of the plurality of high speed interconnects via a shared hardware resource. The shared hardware resource is shared among the plurality of processors. Topology of the multi-processor system is incrementally discovered as each of the plurality of high speed interconnects is calibrated based on a result of each of the plurality of high speed interconnects being calibrated.
US08954633B2

In an information processing apparatus in which data processing is performed in a predetermined sequence by processing modules connected to a ring bus, if an amount of data generated by input data in the ring bus is not considered, the data amount exceeds an amount of data that can be held by the processing modules on the ring bus, and a data collision often occurs, so that processing efficiency of the ring bus deteriorates. An amount of data input into the ring bus is controlled so that the total sum of data amounts output to the ring bus from processing units used for processing does not exceed a maximum amount of data that can be held by the processing modules on the ring bus.
US08954632B2

An apparatus includes an input/output (I/O) interface circuit that includes a memory and a controller. The memory stores a plurality of commands to regulate an input/output (I/O) interface. The commands indicate at least one I/O state of at least one I/O terminal of the I/O interface circuit and a time duration that is associated with the I/O state. The controller executes the commands to place the I/O interface in the the I/O state(s) in a predetermined sequence.
US08954621B2

A peripheral may be connected to a higher-level device. Firmware program data may be downloaded from the higher-level device to the peripheral. The peripheral may include a rewrite control unit for controlling rewriting the program data stored in the peripheral. The program data stored in the peripheral may be rewritten by use of the program data sent from the higher-level device, and then a response, notifying that data rewriting has normally been completed, may be returned to the higher-level device, if the download file includes rewriting permit data. A response, notifying that data rewriting has normally been completed, may be returned to the higher-level device, without rewriting the program data stored in the peripheral by use of the program data sent from the higher-level device, if the download file does not include rewriting permit data.
US08954610B2

A power management control system for an information handling system is disclosed. The power management control system includes a power management interface bus interfacing a plurality of devices, where one or more of the devices is each associated with a time clock. The power management control system further includes a management agent interfacing the power management interface bus. The management agent is configured to: receive a system time; synchronize the one or more time clocks based, at least in part, on the system time; and maintain synchronization of the one or more time clocks, at least in part, via a set of telemetric primitives.
US08954608B1

A method for synchronizing network clocks comprising the following steps: measuring with a first magnetometer the geomagnetic field at a first network node; processing data measured by the first magnetometer to generate first sensor spatially-coherent data; measuring with a second total field magnetometer the Earth's magnetic field at a second network node, wherein the second magnetometer is physically separated from the first magnetometer by a distance of up to one kilometer; processing data measured by the second magnetometer to generate second sensor spatially-coherent data; transmitting the first sensor spatially-coherent data from the first network node to the second network node; calculating a clock drift between the first and second network nodes based on the first sensor spatially-coherent data and the second sensor spatially-coherent data; and adjusting the second node system clock to match the first node system clock based on the calculated clock drift.
US08954604B2

A method for a client computer to find a network address of a server computer by searching for the network address using at a backup search procedure if the address of the server computer cannot be identified using a primary search procedure. The primary and backup search procedures can be performed in parallel and multiple backup search procedures can be performed to identify the address of the server computer. Alternatively, the primary and backup search procedures can be performed in serial wherein the backup search procedure is performed only when the primary search procedure does not identify the address of the server computer.
US08954603B2

In the gateway device, the global address (GA) of the host table is set to the same value, and the GA and the local port (LP) of the transfer table are respectively set to the same value. In the IP packet analysis unit, the sorting unit analyzes the packet from the WEB client and sorts the destination of the packet, the redirection unit supplies the GA and the global port (GP) to the WEB client that has made a request by the packet according to a result of analysis to perform redirection, and the translation/transfer unit analyzes the packets transmitted through the sorting unit, translates the addresses (GA/LA: local address) and the ports (GP/LP) respectively with each other and transfers the translated packets, and then the procedure after connection establishment is repeated.
US08954602B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for facilitating communication between enterprise software applications. Some enterprise software systems communicate using a message protocol designed for use with an exchange system. Those systems require the exchange system to communicate using that message protocol. To communicate with systems using that message protocol, a local system can build a message formatted in accordance with the message protocol, even without an exchange system. The local system stores configuration data and uses the configuration data to build the message.
US08954601B1

Techniques are described for providing encryption and authentication for different types of routing protocol communications based on a variety of factors. A method comprises configuring, on a network router, a set of logical interfaces for communicating routing protocol messages with one or more peer routing devices, maintaining a set of security associations that define corresponding authentication information and encryption information for the routing protocol messages, and maintaining one or more descriptor sets that each specify a set of criteria, wherein, for at least one of the descriptor sets, the set of criteria specifies one of the logical interfaces of the network router. The method further comprises selecting one of the descriptor sets having criteria that match an individual flow, selecting one of the security associations based on the selected descriptor set, and applying the selected security association to secure the outbound flow of the routing protocol messages.
US08954600B2

A system replicates Internet websites on a large number of user computers having browsers. The system includes a gateway platform having a gateway server and a cache. In the broadcast mode, the gateway server periodically or continuously images broadcast data (e.g., popular websites), compresses the website images, and stores the compressed website images in the gateway cache. The gateway server then broadcasts all of the compressed broadcast data to all (millions) of the user computers over a broadcast device (such as a satellite), for subsequent display by the user in the browser. In the unicast mode, the user requests unicast data (e.g., less-popular websites or websites having highly user-customized information) at the browser. The gateway server images that one web page, compresses the unicast data, and transmits the compressed unicast data over the broadcast device substantially in real time to the one requesting user computer.
US08954596B2

Techniques are disclosed for a client device to stream a user-selected media file from a content server. The client device may create a playlist of dynamic virtual chunks to represent a single media stream file on a streaming media server. The playlist itself may be generated from an index in the header of a given stream defining what chunks, or segments of multiplexed audiovisual content, are present within that stream. The playlist of dynamic virtual chunks provides the playback engine on the client device with a list of individual files that may be requested from the streaming server independently of one another, despite the stream being stored on the server as a single media stream file.
US08954593B2

Disclosed are a method and a device for remote control of a terminal, in which authentication information is requested from the control terminal after a control request for a controlled terminal is received; and when the identification information from the control terminal is correct, dynamic identification information of the controlled terminal for a control service is obtained and sent to the control terminal. The method and the device according to certain embodiments do not require a dedicated dynamic domain name resolution server. The communication costs of a user may be reduced. Since a successful authentication is a precondition for obtaining dynamic identification information, the communication security is improved.
US08954591B2

Techniques are provided for sending from a client in a first network device a first session-initiate message to a second network device that is configured to provide network layer, data link layer, or associated convergence layer based service connection information in order for the second network device to accept or reject a network layer, data link layer, or associated convergence layer based service connection with the first network device. The first session-initiate message is based on a messaging and presence protocol. A session-accept message is received at the client in the first network device that is configured to accept the service connection and provide a network layer, data link layer, or associated convergence layer based service connection information in order for the first network device to establish the service connection with the second network device. The session-accept message is based on the messaging and presence protocol. In response to receiving the session-accept message, the service connection is established.
US08954589B2

Systems and methods for multi-process browser architecture are described herein. In an embodiment, a system for providing multi-process browser architecture includes at least one rendering process for each browser instance that renders a content area; and at least one browser process that communicates with one or a plurality of rendering engine processes. In another embodiment, a method for providing a multi-process browser architecture includes instantiating a unique rendering process for each content area instance and instantiating a unique browser process. In this way browsers may avoid the effects of faulty processes affecting other browser processes. This may improve user efficiency while enhancing user experience.
US08954588B1

A method of transmitting digital content via a communication network. The method comprises receiving by a computer a request for a plurality of options for delivering the digital content via a communication network, determining by a computer a demand for resources of the communication network, and creating a congestion model modeling a congestion of the communication network. The method further comprises building by a computer a plurality of options for delivering the digital content based on the determined demand for resources of the communication network and based on the congestion model, transmitting by a computer the plurality of options, receiving by a computer a boundary reservation, creating by a computer at least one uncommitted reservation based on the boundary reservation, modifying by a computer the determined demand for resources of the communication network based on the uncommitted reservation.
US08954583B1

In an embodiment, a method comprises intercepting a first set of instructions from a server computer that define one or more objects and one or more original operations that are based, at least in part, on the one or more objects; modifying the first set of instructions by adding one or more supervisor operations that are based, at least in part, on the one or more objects; transforming the one or more original operations to produce one or more transformed operations that are based, at least in part, on the one or more supervisor operations; rendering a second set of instructions which define the one or more supervisor operations and the one or more transformed operations; sending the second set of instructions to a remote client computer.
US08954574B1

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to, among other things, providing resource allocation advice, configuration recommendations, and/or migration advice regarding data storage, access, placement, and/or related web services. In some examples, a web service may utilize or otherwise control a client instance to control, access, or otherwise manage resources of a distributed system. Based at least in part on one or more resource usage checks and/or configuration checks, resource usage information and/or configuration information of an account utilizing a web service, and/or user preferences and/or settings, resource allocation advice, system configuration recommendations, and/or migration advice may be provided to a user of an account. Additionally, in some examples, one or more remediation operations may be performed automatically.
US08954548B2

A system includes a name server, an edge cache server, and a local cache server. The name server is configured to provide an anycast IP address in response to a request for an IP address of an origin hostname from a client system. The edge cache server is configured to respond to the anycast IP address and a unicast IP address and to retrieve content from an origin. The local cache server includes a storage and is configured to respond to the anycast IP address, to retrieve content from the edge cache server, and provide the content to a client system.
US08954545B2

A method of determining compatibility of a virtual machine or virtual machine disk file with a host, including a storage host, is disclosed. A lookup matrix is created to provide a fast compatibility lookup. To create the lookup matrix, computing object properties are retrieved from each of the plurality of computing objects. The computing object properties include resource requirements of each of the plurality of computing objects. Further, host properties are retrieved from each of the plurality of hosts. The method further includes creating host logical groups of a subset of the plurality of hosts having substantially same host properties and creating a plurality of computing object logical groups of a subject of the plurality of computing objects having substantially same computing object properties. The lookup matrix answers whether each member of a selected computing object logical group can be transferred to a selected host logical group.
US08954538B2

A method and/or system are described in which a server communicatively coupled with a set-top-box (STB) may predict a location of a pointer on a web browser running on the STB. The server may render the pointer based on the predicted pointer location. The server may send the rendered pointer to the STB, wherein the STB may composite a web page on the web browser based on the rendered pointer. The server may be synchronized with the STB based on event information received by the server from the STB such as, for example, keystroke events, click event, or other like event. The prediction of the pointer location may be based on actual pointer location information provided by the STB. A predetermined number of pointer locations may be predicted based on an actual pointer location and/or on a latency of a connection between the server and the STB.
US08954533B2

A server unit includes a browsing request receiving device that receives a browsing request for a piece of content including one or multiple pages from a display unit; a user discriminating device that discriminates a user of the display unit issuing the browsing request; a delivery information generating device that generates a piece of delivery information by adding a piece of scenario information for each model representing a transition of a display range within each page of the content to which the browsing request is issued from the display unit, when an identical user discriminated by the user discriminating device has multiple display units of different models, the delivery information generating device generating the delivery information the content of which has added thereto multiple pieces of scenario information; and a delivery device that delivers the delivery information.
US08954532B2

A first communication device stores a transmission rate table including response times, and transmission rates associated with the response times, each first response time indicating a time for transmitting test data between the first and second communication devices, while transmitting load data between any pair of communication devices at one of different transmission rates. The first communication device determine a necessary transmission rate for actual data; detect a response time indicating a time for transmitting the test data between the first and second communication devices; determine a transmission rate associated with the response time, as a used transmission rate, based on the transmission rate table; determine an effective remaining transmission rate based on a maximum transmission rate of the communication network and the used transmission rate; and start transmission of the actual data when the effective remaining transmission rate is higher than the necessary transmission rate.
US08954529B2

Moving data to a remote system and performing computations at the remote system. A method includes receiving from one or more users a plurality jobs. The one or more jobs specify both data to be operated on and the operations to be performed on the data at the remote system. At a data service, one of the jobs to upload to the remote system in priority over other jobs in the plurality of jobs is selected. The method further includes beginning to upload the prioritized job including staging data from the job. At the remote system, once a portion of the data has been received, a service in the remote system begins to perform the specified operation on the data for the prioritized job. Beginning to perform the specified operation is performed prior to all of the data from the prioritized job being uploaded to the remote system.
US08954526B2

Generally described, the present invention is directed to a network operating system that provides more effective ways of leveraging the connectivity of computer networks. In one embodiment, an XML virtual machine is implemented that accepts high-level application code written in an XML programming language as input. Functionality is provided to interpret or translate the application code written in an XML programming language into code that is suitable for execution across computer platforms. Moreover, the XML virtual machine supports the Model View Controller (MVC) design paradigm that facilitates true data abstraction from applications to a common data model. Multi-instance applications, with each instance potentially supporting multiple views, may be created and executed.
US08954523B2

An apparatus and method is provided that ensures virtual content providers such as advertisers that their virtual content will reach every mobile device, every application within each mobile device and/or every user. Such functionality is referred to herein as a “guaranteed reach”. Guaranteed reach parameters including reach type parameters (mobile devices, applications and/or users) are specified in a memory. A server receives a virtual content request and a received target identification uniquely identifying, for example, the requesting device via a network. The server identifies virtual content candidates from the memory by comparing the received target identification to the stored target identification associated with the virtual content. The guaranteed reach parameters may also include frequency-based criteria that guarantee a frequency of impression(s) for particular virtual content and guaranteed priority criteria to ensure the guarantee will be met.
US08954518B2

A communication device comprising a processor arranged to select a first communication address for sending a first message to a first communication device and selecting a second communication address for sending a second message to the first communication device unless the first communication device has responded to the first message before the second message has been sent.
US08954507B2

Systems, methods, and user interfaces for gathering and using awareness information with common awareness functionality accessible to multiple applications are disclosed. Such systems, methods, and user interfaces may aggregate awareness information from multiple sources and provide awareness data and other derived information to multiple destinations. In some implementations, such systems and methods may provide additional functionality related to awareness information, such as common user interfaces that display awareness information or mechanisms for determining the relevance of particular pieces of awareness information.
US08954505B2

A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to support canceling audio streams leaked from a speaker to a microphone so that a clean audio stream of a presenter or viewer speaking at a conference call is transmitted. Here, the audio streams being canceled includes the computer audio stream of an application being run or a material being presented online during a web conference and/or the audio stream received from the rest of the group of participants at the conference call. The computer audio stream is then transmitted in addition to the presenter or viewer audio stream, and separate from any other audio stream captured by the hosting device during the conference call.
US08954499B2

A system is disclosed that includes a computer and software system for human user interaction to initiate jobs (e.g., Transcription, Translation, Data Entry, and Transaction Creation) and to utilize voice-mail through real-time voice and tone signal input. The system also includes a computer and software system for keeping the databases used to process Jobs and for keeping the statistical records of jobs for analysis, general ledger, payroll and billing. The system includes one or more computers that receive Job packets, selects Scribes for work (e.g. transcription), generates messages for information or action, updates Job Record status, and job processing steps. The system may further include a computer collects the statistical and financial data and provides general top level management decision making information.
US08954494B2

A method is disclosed for synchronizing operations of at least a first group on a first server and a second group on a second server. The method includes establishing an association between the first group and the second group using a pre-set association identifier, receiving operation information containing a type of operation and specifying an operation, and performing the operation specified by the operation information on the first group. The method also includes sending the operation information and the association identifier to the second server, receiving the operation information and the association identifier, and searching the second group corresponding to the association identifier. Further, the method includes performing an operation corresponding to the type of the operation information on the second group based on the type of the operation information.
US08954493B2

A method for establishing disjoint data connections between two clients by a network is proposed. The method comprises different steps at different devices. A first client device sends via a client-network interface one or more connection request messages to a network for requesting at least two disjoint data connections to a second client device. The one or more connection request messages contain first indicating data, indicating a first predetermined set of network resources, and second indicating data, indicating a second predetermined set of network resources, which is disjoint to said first set of network resources.
US08954489B2

A method and apparatus for activating a group widget by a widget client are provided. The method includes receiving widgets from at least one surrounding widget server, analyzing the received widgets and grouping the widgets according to the result of the analysis, generating grouped widgets as a group widget, if an event is received from a user, converting a received event into an event related to a configuration widget of a group widget, transmitting the converted event to a corresponding widget server, and receiving a processing result from the widget server which received the transmitted event.
US08954485B2

Mechanisms for utilizing a reduced lookup table circuit to perform an operation in a data processing device are provided. A first input value is input for selecting a subset of values from the reduced lookup table circuit. The reduced lookup table circuit stores only boundary cell values from a fully filled lookup table corresponding to the reduced lookup table circuit. The subset of values comprises only a subset of boundary cell values corresponding to the first input value. A second value is input and a comparison, by the reduced lookup table circuit, of the second value to each of the boundary cell values in the subset of boundary cell values is performed. The reduced lookup table circuit outputs an output value based on results of the comparison of the second value to each of the boundary cell values in the subset of boundary cell values.
US08954477B2

Some embodiments provide a method for defining a data structure for representing a media file imported into a media-editing application. The method defines a reference to an original version of a media file. The method defines references to one or more transcoded versions of the media file. Each of the transcoded versions has a different resolution. The method defines a set of metadata storing information regarding the media file. In some embodiments, the media file includes both audio and video. The method defines a video clip data structure for the media file that references the first data structure and an audio clip data structure for the media file that also references the asset data structure. The method defines a media clip data structure that contains the video clip data structure and the audio clip data structure. The media clip data structure is for editing into a composite video presentation.
US08954474B2

A method of maintaining data described in a plurality of data models. An ontology is used to describe the data models. The data models are managed using the ontology and using a validation schema to validate object(s) governed by the ontology and derived from data-centric component(s) of content that has a semantically independent structure. Management of the data models is neutral relative to implementation of the content.
US08954472B1

The invention relates to an online web-based medical database and collaboration tool that can be used by surgeons, hospitals, medical institutions, manufacturers and others to collect, store, analyze and harvest clinical and radiologic data. The clinical registry system includes a registry database and a registry processor in electrical communication with the registry database and performing operations on the registry database. The registry database stores patient data from a plurality of sites, a plurality of registry groups and an indicator for each of the plurality of sites identifying which of the plurality of registry groups each site is a member. The members of a registry group have access to aggregated data and comparative reports of all the registry group members in real-time. Each site may be a member of one registry group, multiple registry groups, or no registry groups.
US08954469B2

Methods, systems, and techniques for creating, managing, and using query templates to facilitate the execution of relationship queries are provided. Example embodiments provide a Query Template System “QTS”, which enables users, a system, program code, or other people or code to define search tips (i.e., predefined searches) through the generation of query templates that can be used by other users or code, to perform relationship searches using IQL. In one embodiment, the QTS includes a QT editor, a QT dispatcher, a QT creation and index management system, and one or more QT data repositories and indexes. These components cooperate to create and maintain query templates and to search for and retrieve matching query templates.
US08954466B2

Methods and arrangements for generating exploratory search results. A first search query is accepted in a browsing session, and first search result set is derived, comprising at least one search result from the first search query. A second search query is predicted, and a second search result set is derived, comprising at least one search result from the second search query. A final search result set is yielded via combining the first search result set and the second search result set.
US08954465B2

Methods and apparatus related to processing of at least one descriptive term of a query to obtain at least one query suggestion for a query. A descriptive term may be identified in a partial search query. A modified partial query suggestion request for the partial search query may be transmitted that omits the descriptive term. At least one query suggestion result for the modified partial query suggestion request may be received and the descriptive term reinserted into the query suggestion result.
US08954461B2

Generally, an application provider can use their understanding of the general problem domain to design an application that covers the majority of the functionality that is required by application users, e.g., the types and quantities of data that are required by an application and which are typically gathered and stored. By configuring the application with flexible data structures which can be mapped to a variety of different types of data by the application user, the application can be customized by the application user to meet his or her specific needs. When the application user wants to expand the data set that is stored by the application beyond what the application provider has provided, they can make use of a management interface to add mappings for custom attributes to the flexible data structures. The application users are not required to write any additional code or modify the application directly.
US08954459B1

Embodiments described herein provide systems and methods to streamline the mechanism by which data users access differently regulated data through the use of one or more integrated identifiers. The integrated identifiers lessen or eliminate the need to separately maintain one set of identifiers for regulated data and another set for non-regulated data. The methods and systems may be applicable in various credit and healthcare contexts where regulations over data use are prevalent. In one or more embodiments, a data user receives a unique integrated identifier for each of the data user's current or prospective customers, and the integrated identifiers can be used to persistently identify and track the customers over time and across applications that access regulated and/or non-regulated data. In the healthcare context, a healthcare provider may utilize a patient ID as the integrated identifier. To protect privacy, the integrated identifier may not include social security numbers or birthdates.
US08954458B2

Systems and methods are provided for identifying unsolicited or unwanted electronic communications, such as spam. The disclosed embodiments also encompass systems and methods for selecting content items from a content item database. Consistent with certain embodiments, computer-implemented systems and methods may use a clustering based statistical content matching anti-spam algorithm to identify and filter spam. Such a anti-spam algorithm may be implemented to determine a degree of similarity between an incoming e-mail with a collection of one or more spam e-mails stored in a database. If the degree of similarity exceeds a predetermined threshold, the incoming e-mail may be classified as spam. Further, in accordance with other embodiments, systems and methods may be provided to determine a degree of similarity between a query or search string from a user and content items stored in a database. If the degree of similarity exceeds a predetermined threshold, the content item from the database may be identified as a content item that matches the query or search string provided by the user.
US08954457B2

The present invention concerns a method for processing a structured document to render, such as XML or HTML files. The method comprises the steps of: parsing the structured document into parsed tokens TK of structured data; constructing a first tree structure DTree storing the structured data of parsed tokens; constructing a render tree structure RTree storing the document content to render, said render tree structure being synchronized with the first tree structure; rendering the structured document based on the render tree structure RTree; wherein constructing the first tree structure DTree comprises deciding, for each parsed token TK, whether or not the parsed token is to be stored in said first tree structure, and storing the structured data of the parsed token therein only in case of positive decision. Partial first (DOM) tree DTree is therefore stored in memory, reducing memory use and processing time before rendering the structured document.
US08954453B2

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for determining whether a developed application associated with an on-demand database service will operate properly with at least one other application. These mechanisms and methods for providing such determination can enable embodiments to ensure that new versions of developed applications will operate in the same application environment of a previous version. The ability of embodiments to make such determination may lead to an improved application migration development/runtime framework, etc.
US08954450B2

The present invention is directed to a computer implemented system for organizing electronic content data chronologically. In operation, application software, that is preferably hosted on a remote server, organizes the electronic communications data. The electronic communications data is transmitted from multiple sources or users associated with relationship identities or identifiers. The application software organizes the electronic communications data chronologically onto interactive and displayable time-lines. The application software also preferably organizes the electronic communications data into user accessible sub-files along the time-lines based on dates of transmission. The application software runs electronic communications applications, such as e-mail or social network applications, directly or alternatively interfaces with external electronic communications applications to generate the time-lines.
US08954446B2

A storage system according to certain embodiments includes a client-side repository (CSR). The CSR may communicate with a client at a higher data transfer rate than the rate used for communication between the client and secondary storage. During copy operations, for instance, some or all of the data being backed up or otherwise copied to secondary storage is stored in the CSR. During restore operations, copies of the data stored in the CSR is accessed from the CSR instead of from secondary storage, improving performance. Remaining data blocks not stored in the CSR can be restored from secondary storage.
US08954444B1

Search may be performed on a user device, such as a handheld electronic book reader device. A search query term may be received. Text of a collection of electronic items stored in memory of the user device may be searched, using an item index and/or a master index, for the queried term. Search results may be returned identifying locations in the electronic items at which the queried term appears.
US08954442B2

A method and search engine for classifying a source publishing a document on a portion of a network, includes steps of electronically receiving a document, based on the document, determining a source which published the document, and assigning a code to the document based on whether data associated with the document published by the source matches with data contained in a database. An intelligent geographic- and business topic-specific resource discovery system facilitates local commerce on the World-Wide Web and also reduces search time by accurately isolating information for end-users. Distinguishing and classifying business pages on the Web by business categories using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes is achieved through an automatic iterative process.
US08954440B1

Selectively delivering an article is disclosed. A user preference is received. A document is also received. An entity pair comprising a concept included in a concept taxonomy and a textual representation included in the document is determined. The document is categorized based at least in part on the concept. A user associated with the user preference is selectively notified of the document.
US08954438B1

Structured metadata extraction may include accessing one or more documents from which to extract the structured metadata from each of a plurality of hosts. A plurality of entity names can be extracted from the one or more documents from one of the plurality of hosts using an entity name pattern. A first element list can be extracted from the one or more documents based at least in part on the plurality of entity names and based at least in part on one or more heuristic rules. An element list pattern may be generated based at least in part on the first element list, and a second element list may be extracted from the one or more documents based at least in part on the element list pattern.
US08954431B2

Methods and a system are disclosed for a collaborate brainstorming interface that defines a collaboration session with a three dimensional holographic mind map. An intelligent agent guides a collaboration session that is structured by the interface. The intelligent agent detects key words, work flow steps and user interactions in the session to initiate searches that are filtered using artificial intelligence. The results are presented to developers interacting through the interface.
US08954426B2

A fact repository supports searches of facts relevant to search queries comprising keywords and phrases. A service engine retrieves the objects that are associated with facts relevant to a query. The query language described is designed for use with such a repository of facts and searches both the attributes of facts and the values of the attributes.
US08954417B2

A content management system (CMS) provides a way to include data from an external source as an object in the repository managed by the CMS. The CMS includes an external data mechanism that processes a document with a query to a data source external to the repository. The external data mechanism executes the query, and creates one or more objects in the repository according to the type of data returned. Each object containing data returned from the query is linked to that query via a formal relationship in the CMS. When an object that has a formal relationship with a query is checked out of the repository, the query corresponding to the object may be executed, and the data returned from the query may be stored in the object. Alternatively, the data may be used directly if a corresponding lifecycle policy indicates the corresponding query should not be executed.
US08954410B2

Techniques are provided for more efficient multi-row atomic, consistent, isolated and durable (ACID)-compliant transactions with snapshot isolation semantics (or just “multi-row transactions” for short). In some embodiments, the techniques are implemented in a computing system that includes a client application, a lightweight in-memory lease-based lock service, a multi-row transaction orchestrator, and an underlying database system. The transaction orchestrator implements a read protocol and a write protocol that provides support to the client application for carrying out multi-row transactions against the underlying database system irrespective of whether the database system itself supports multi-row transactions. The transaction orchestrator explicitly maintains transaction-level locks obtained from the lease-based lock service as part of the transaction protocol. Further, the transaction orchestrator is tolerant to lock service failure and unavailability without compromising ACID-compliance and snapshot isolation guarantees to the client application.
US08954408B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for allowing writes to complete without obtaining a write lock to a file. A lock is provided to a first request, comprising a read or write request, to access the file. A second write request is received while the first request maintains the lock. A temporary file associated with the file for the second write request is created. The second write request is controlled to write to the temporary file while the lock is held by the first request. In response to completing the first request, the lock is granted to the second write request to write the data in the temporary file to the file.
US08954399B1

Methods and systems for identifying candidates for de-duplication are disclosed herein. An example system may include: a de-duplication lister that coordinates with a kernel module to identify a unit of data for de-duplication and calculates a signature of the unit of data; a de-duplication queue that manages a de-duplication queue; a de-duplication tracker that maintains a de-duplication data structure including a plurality of entries corresponding to units of data and searches the de-duplication data structure to determine whether the signature of the identified unit of data matches the signature of at least one of the entries in the de-duplication data structure; a de-duplication maintainer that reviews the entries of the de-duplication data structure and removes obsolete entries from the de-duplication data structure; and a de-duplication engine that coordinates with the kernel module to perform de-duplication operations on the de-duplication queue.
US08954397B2

A method for replaying a simulation workload is provided. The simulation workload identifies a plurality of workload parts. Each workload part is at least a portion of a respective captured workload. In an embodiment, a first workload part is a portion of a first workload executed relative to a first capture database server and a second workload part is a portion of a second workload executed relative to a second capture database server. A portion of the first workload part and a portion of the second workload part may be replayed concurrently.
US08954395B1

Aspects of the present invention are directed to a system for next day reconciliation of transportation records. The system having a transportation record storage provider (TRSP) that receives and stores storage medium transportation requests; an outside service provider (OSP) inventory manager that receives and maintains records of transported storage mediums scanned at the OSP; and a reconciliation provider that receives a first list from the TRSP and a second list from the OSP inventory manger, for reconciliation. The reconciliation provider includes receivers for receiving the first and second list; a processing engine that reconciles the first list and the second list; and a reporting unit that reports the results of the reconciliation. The processing engine matches inbound and outbound records of the first list and second list, and processes invalid records; and analyzes and accounts for un-matched records.
US08954390B1

A data container replication method and system are provided. The data container includes a plurality of entries and is replicated from a source module to a destination module. The data container may be a directory that includes a plurality of files. Before replicating the directory, it is determined if the source module and the destination module use a same directory version and directory layout. If the directory version and layout are the same, then the entire directory is replicated “as is” without evaluating every directory entry. If the directory version or the directory layout is different, then each directory entry is evaluated, before being replicated.
US08954389B2

A method includes receiving a request to generate data which describes the data. A database of seed content and an algorithms database are searched. If both seed content and an algorithm are found, the algorithm is applied to the seed content, thereby generating data. Some embodiments may include advertising a content generation service. Users may register for the service.
US08954387B2

An application monitoring infrastructure that enables application configuration changes on multiple machines across multiple OS types to be tracked by identifying data containers that are to be monitored for changes, detecting a change to a monitored data container, and storing data representative of a changed version of the monitored data container responsive to detecting that the monitored container was changed. The data containers that are to be monitored for changes are identified from templates, and a unique template is provisioned for each of the applications.
US08954386B2

One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for editing a remotely stored image. A user can browse to a site comprising the image, and a preview (e.g., lightweight) version of the image can be loaded to a canvas component of the browser. One or more edits can be applied locally to the preview image, comprising one or more transformation. The one or more transformations can be recorded, and an edited version of the preview image, comprising the one or more image transformations, can be rendered in the canvas component. Once the user commits to one or more transformations, a request can be sent to a remote server comprising the image, to remotely edit the image, where the request comprises one or more delta changes that indicate the one or more committed image transformations, as opposed to requiring multiple bandwidth intensive transfers of the entire image.
US08954377B1

A system, a method and a computer readable storage medium for pre-processing data collected from one or more data sources more accurately summarize data. During the pre-processing, multiple raw data are summarized into a pre-processed datum. By using the pre-processed data entries, more accurate trend data may be generated. Alternatively, data entries are indexed and selectively retrieved based on indices. Decimation of data points are performed based on the indices without retrieving all the data sets from the database, reducing the data access time for returning a query result. Additional data sets may also be retrieved efficiently from the database using the indices.
US08954371B2

Certain example embodiments described herein relate to techniques for dynamically selecting rule processing modes. The processing mode does not need to be specified during rule design/authoring. Two sets of artifacts may be generated to support a desired processing mode. This may occur in the designer's local workspace, e.g., so that rule invocation can be tested locally. Additionally, or alternatively, both sets of artifacts may be installed on the rule engine running on a remote server when the project is deployed. The designer need not be aware that both sets of artifacts are being generated. In certain example embodiments, the designer may have the ability to sequence rules within metaphors (or decision entities such as decision tables), and/or the ability to sequence metaphors within rule sets. During rule invocation, a parameter may be provided to indicate the processing mode (e.g., sequential or inferential) to be used by the rule engine.
US08954365B2

Density estimation and/or manifold learning are described, for example, for computer vision, medical image analysis, text document clustering. In various embodiments a density forest is trained using unlabeled data to estimate the data distribution. In embodiments the density forest comprises a plurality of random decision trees each accumulating portions of the training data into clusters at their leaves. In embodiments probability distributions representing the clusters at each tree are aggregated to form a forest density which is an estimate of a probability density function from which the unlabeled data may be generated. A mapping engine may use the clusters at the leaves of the density forest to estimate a mapping function which maps the unlabeled data to a lower dimensional space whilst preserving relative distances or other relationships between the unlabeled data points. A sampling engine may use the density forest to randomly sample data from the forest density.
US08954357B2

A multi-task machine learning component learns a set of tasks comprising two or more different tasks based on a set of examples. The examples are represented by features of a set of features. The multi-task machine learning component comprises a digital processing device configured to learn an ensemble of base rules wherein each base rule is learned for a sub-set of the set of features and comprises a multi-task decision tree (MT-DT) having nodes comprising decision rules for tasks of the set of tasks. An inference component comprises a digital processing device configured to predict a result for at least one task of the set of tasks for an input item represented by features of the set of features using the learned ensemble of base rules.
US08954351B2

A novel vending machine system integrating a food storage container and a high speed stored energy cooking oven capable of cooking foods in under one minute such as that further described by U.S. Provisional Application 60/822,028 filed on Aug. 10, 2006 as well as co-pending application “Wire Mesh Thermal Radiative Element and Use in a Radiative Oven” filed on Dec. 30, 2008 by De Luca. The invention disclosing a novel configuration for the oven incorporating storage, a system allowing for the proper cooking of items and food positioning, an activation system, and an invoicing system.
US08954342B2

A data-driven mechanism of business rules is used to form associations between business sectors, industries, solutions, solution offerings, and industry business architecture models. The system and method includes use of a navigation hierarchy, and entity diagram to facilitate use by business consultants for access, viewing, navigation, publishing, and updating.
US08954339B2

An electronic clinical decision support system (CDSS) (10, 12) comprises: an inference engine (20, 22) configured to generate clinical decision recommendations for a patient based on information pertaining to the patient, the inference engine comprising rules (16) developed by a plurality of medical experts (14) and codified into software; an electronic outliers detector (52) configured to detect outlier cases that are probative of a potential flaw in the inference engine; an outliers database (60) configured to collect information pertaining to the outlier cases detected by the electronic outliers detector; and an outliers report generator (62) configured to generate a report (64) on the outlier cases detected by the electronic outliers detector, the generated report containing at least some information collected in the outliers database.
US08954338B2

A system and related methods of enhanced distribution of pharmaceuticals in long-term care facilities are provided. An embodiment of a system includes one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing machines each positioned in a long-term care facility remote from a long-term care facility pharmacy group management server and in communication therewith, and long-term care facility pharmacy management computer programs associated with the long-term care facility pharmacy group management server to enhance use of the one or more of pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing machines The long-term care facility management computer programs include a patient prescription receiver and a medication dispensing apparatus administrator and are configured and operable to transmit dispensing instructions to the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing machines when no drug conflicts exist to thereby initiate packaging and dispensing of one or more disposable patient dosing packages.
US08954332B2

A computer-implemented system and method for masking special data is provided. Speakers of a call recording are identified. The call recording is separated into strands corresponding to each of the speakers. A prompt list of elements that prompt the speaker of the other strand to utter special information is applied to one of the strands. At least one of the elements of the prompt list is identified in the one strand. A special information candidate is identified in the other strand and is located after a location in time where the element was found in the voice recording of the one strand. A confidence score is assigned to the element located in the one strand and to the special information candidate in the other strand. The confidence scores are combined and a threshold is applied. The special information candidate is rendered unintelligible when the combined confidence scores satisfy the threshold.
US08954328B2

Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices. Further disclosed are techniques and systems for providing a plurality of characters at least some of the characters having multiple associated moods for use in document narration.
US08954321B1

A Unified Speech and Audio Codec (USAC) that may process a window sequence based on mode switching is provided. The USAC may perform encoding or decoding by overlapping between frames based on a folding point when mode switching occurs. The USAC may process different window sequences for each situation to perform encoding or decoding, and thereby may improve a coding efficiency.
US08954317B1

A method and apparatus of processing communications with a mobile station are disclosed. One example method may include receiving a message from the mobile station and processing the message by parsing the message and performing a natural language interpretation of the message and processing the parsed message to determine the user's requested objective. In response, the method may further provide generating a response to the message based on the user's requested objective and sending the response to the mobile station acknowledging the user's requested objective. Live agents may be notified to check the status of a message and continually override automated message responses to ensure the integrity of the responses.
US08954314B2

Disclosed is subject matter that provides a technique and a device that may include an accelerometer, a display device, an input device and a processor. The input device may receive textual information in a first language. The processor may be configured to generate a plurality of probable translation alternatives for a translation result. Each probable translation alternative may be a translation of the textual information into a second language. The processor may present a first of the plurality of probable translation alternatives on the display device in an alternate translation result dialog screen. Based on an accelerometer signal, the processor may determine whether the device is being shaken. In response to a determination the device is being shaken, the processor may present a second of the plurality of probable translation alternatives on the display device in place of the first of the plurality of probable translation alternatives.
US08954313B2

There is provided a method and system for providing a media content in a selected language. The method comprises receiving a first input selecting a language, receiving at least one available media content from a media content server, receiving a second input selecting the media content for display from the at least one available media content, transmitting the first input and the second input to a language management server, receiving a language content corresponding to the media content from the language management server, and processing the media content with the language content. The processing of the media content may include synchronizing the language content to the media content. The language content may correspond to subtitles of the media content or audio dubbing of the media content in the selected language.
US08954309B2

Techniques for tuning systems generate configurations that are used to test the systems to determine optimal configurations for the systems. The configurations for a system are generated to allow for effective testing of the system while remaining within budgetary and/or resource constraints. The configurations may be selected to satisfy one or more conditions on their distributions to ensure that a satisfactory set of configurations are tested. Machine learning techniques may be used to create models of systems and those models can be used to determine optimal configurations.
US08954306B2

A behavior model is provided, which is configured to simulate one aspect of the behavior of a component apart from the component model for the component. The behavior model can be included in a circuit model used to simulate operation of a circuit. The circuit model can include a component model for a component and a corresponding behavior model, which is located in parallel or series with the component model. The component model and behavior model can collectively simulate all of the behavior of the component within the circuit. In an embodiment, the behavior model simulates snapback behavior exhibited by the component.
US08954301B2

The invention relates to a system (10) for configuring an aircraft passenger cabin, said system comprising a first database (12) that stores cabin equipment component data pertaining to cabin equipment components selected for and included in a configuration of the aircraft passenger cabin. In addition, said system (10) comprises a second database (14) that stores configuration rules pertaining to the configuration of the aircraft passenger cabin. Finally, the system (10) comprises a unit (16) for generating a documentation, configured in such a way that documentation of the configured aircraft passenger cabin is generated on the basis of at least one user-defined configuration parameter, on the basis of the cabin equipment component data stored in the first database (12), and on the basis of the configuration rules stored in the second database (14).
US08954293B2

The disclosure relates to a method for reconstructing the source of an electromagnetic field. Firstly, a measurement space separate from the source is selected so that the measurement space is connected to the source via a magnetically homogeneous spatial region. Measured values of the electromagnetic field emitted by the source are recorded on the surface of the measurement space so that the electromagnetic field in the measurement space can be uniquely determined in the context of an error bound determined by the discreteness of the measured values. A mathematical model of the electromagnetic source is developed which has a multiplicity of unknowns, and a system of equations is set up that relates the unknowns of the model to the measured values. The system of equations is solved in order to determine the characteristics of the electromagnetic source. The disclosure also relates to an arrangement for carrying out the method.
US08954267B2

Methods, apparatus, and computer program products for determining a mobile device location. An example of a method for determining a mobile device location includes receiving signals from a transmitter, measuring signal characteristics of the received signals, and downloading data from a database corresponding to a defined region associated with the transmitters. The downloaded data includes a set of position points, a classification of each position point, and expected signal characteristics for each position point. The method further includes comparing the measured signal characteristics with the expected signal characteristics for each position point, assigning a weight to position points based on the compared signal characteristics, and determining the mobile device location by selecting one position point from the set as a position point solution corresponding to the mobile device location based on the assigned weight. The position point solution is constrained by the classification of each position point.
US08954254B2

This invention relates to a computer network for calculating and distributing the true braking coefficient of aircraft on runways and taxiways using a computer which obtains data from an aircraft, including in some preferable embodiments dynamic aircraft properties recorded on the aircraft's flight data management system. Environmental and aircraft parameters may also be used to calculate the braking friction coefficient. A computer and network are used to obtain data and to calculate the friction coefficient, and may be used to distribute the result. The network may utilize, at least in part, wireless local area networks to facilitate data transfer and distribution of the result. The computer for calculating the braking coefficient may be located on the aircraft.
US08954251B2

A communication system comprises a pointable range finder to calculate a distance between the vehicle and an object, a recorder for recording a status of the vehicle and a control device. The range finder sends a signal to the control device corresponding to the vehicle's distance from the object and the control device operates the recorder in a manner dependent upon the signal from the range finder. The recorder is able to record the event if the vehicle is an unsafe distance from the object. The unsafe distance is able to be a programmed distance. In some embodiments, the unsafe distance increases with an increase in speed of the vehicle. In some embodiments, the unsafe distance is determined by a programmable constant. In these embodiments, the unsafe distance is determined according to a speed of the vehicle, the vehicle's distance from an object and a pre-defined safe zone threshold value.
US08954233B2

A vehicle body drifting suppression device including a steering torque detection unit which detects a steering torque of a vehicle, wherein a vehicle body drifting suppression is performed according to a vehicle body drifting suppression control-amount, and the vehicle body drifting suppression control-amount is adjusted according to a temporal sustention status of the steering torque.
US08954224B2

For creating an image database for an image evaluation procedure, preferably within an agricultural content, the individual images in the image database are generated during the working process of an agricultural working machine by at least one camera system assigned to the agricultural working machine, and the individual images generated by the at least one camera system are linked to specific data on the working process of the agricultural working machine, and every individual image, which is linked to specific data, is stored in the image database in a manner such that it may be repeatedly called up and edited.
US08954223B2

A charge guidance apparatus includes a history creation retaining unit 23 for creating history information about a charging spot, charge start time and charging duration of a battery 14 of a vehicle 1; a learning processing unit 24 for learning a usual charging spot and charging period of time of the vehicle 1 from the charging spot, charge start time and charging duration of the battery 14 of the vehicle 1 with the frequency of charges executed being not less than a prescribed number of times, which are extracted from the history information; a decision processing unit 25 for deciding whether to give charge guidance or not based on whether the vehicle 1 is in the usual charging spot and charging period of time; and a charge guidance processing unit 26 for giving charge guidance in accordance with a decision result of the decision processing unit 25.
US08954213B2

A machine comprising powertrain components, an engine that applies power to powertrain components, and a hybrid motor that applies power to powertrain components. The machine includes an electronic control module that controls the hybrid motor to apply power to powertrain components. The machine includes an engine parameter sensor. The engine parameter sensor senses engine performance parameters and sends engine performance parameter signals to the electronic control module. The electronic control module monitors engine performance parameters and control the hybrid motor to apply power to the powertrain components to provide hybrid performance parameters to counteract the engine performance parameters.
US08954207B1

A method of enhancing on-board state estimation for a spacecraft utilizes a network of assets to include planetary-based assets and space-based assets. Communication signals transmitted from each of the assets into space are defined by a common protocol. Data is embedded in each communication signal transmitted by the assets. The data includes a time-of-transmission for a corresponding one of the communication signals and a position of a corresponding one of the assets at the time-of-transmission. A spacecraft is equipped to receive the communication signals, has a clock synchronized to the space-wide time reference frame, and has a processor programmed to generate state estimates of the spacecraft. Using its processor, the spacecraft determines a one-dimensional range from itself to at least one of the assets and then updates its state estimates using each one-dimensional range.
US08954200B2

A power management apparatus includes an electric device including a plurality of operation algorithm information and power information for each operation level corresponding to each operation algorithm information, and a power management unit to receive power rate information from a power provider, determine an operation level of the electric device on the basis of the received power rate information and power information for each operation level of the electric device, and control an operation of the electric device at the determined operation level. As a result, the power management apparatus performs different operation algorithms according to power rate information, and controls power consumption of the electric device, such that energy efficiency at the user side can be maximized. In response to the changed power rate information, the currently-driven electric device and the electric device to be driven can be driven at the optimum operation level appropriate for their power consumption characteristics.
US08954198B2

Certain embodiments of the invention may include control systems and methods for monitoring environmental variables, performance variables and conditioning electrical power in energy-recapture sources of mechanical energy, which would otherwise be dissipated, as exemplified by farms for energy-harvesting to provide available electrical energy. Said farms may include one or more energy-recapture sources. One method for controlling may include measuring individual source energy output of one or more energy-recapture sources and measuring conditions of one or more energy-recapture sources via a controller that facilitates communication with one or more energy-recapture sources.
US08954173B1

A method and apparatus for profiling and identifying the source of a signal is provided. A first method includes receiving a signal produced by a known source and creating a matrix of wavelet coefficients corresponding to a wavelet transform of the signal. The method also includes profiling the signal according to an output of a wavelet transform utilizing a particular base function and a particular scale set. A second method includes performing a wavelet transform having a particular profile on a received signal and determining the presence of a particular signal-producing entity as a function of wavelet coefficients exceeding a threshold. An apparatus includes a receiver configured to receive a signal and a processor coupled to the receiver, such that the processor is configured to perform wavelet transforms on the signals. A database is coupled to the processor and configured to store wavelet transform profiles.
US08954166B2

The invention is directed to a method of treating movement disorders by the modulation of neuronal transmission using time-variant non-conservative magnetic fields. The invention is also directed to a method for treating dystonias.
US08954160B2

A medical device system and associated method for controlling a cardiac rhythm management therapy detect extracardiac stimulation. Cardiac pacing pulses are delivered, and a cardiac electrical signal comprising myocardial depolarization and repolarization signals is acquired. A processor is configured to, responsive to the cardiac electrical signal, detect extracardiac capture due to the cardiac pacing pulse.
US08954155B2

A skin rejuvenation device and method for the cosmetic or anti-aging reduction of wrinkles and other skin conditions is disclosed. The skin rejuvenation device comprises an array of positive and negative electrodes for the delivery of electrical microcurrents in the attoampere to milliampere range, light sources to deliver photonic stimulation and/or transducers to deliver ultrasonic stimulation to the skin and underlying tissues.
US08954142B2

A medical microelectrode includes an elongate electrode body including a tip section, a main body section and, optionally, a coupling section. The tip section, the main body section and, optionally, the coupling section are embedded in a first electrode matrix element, which is substantially rigid, biocompatible and soluble or biodegradable in a body fluid. Additionally the microelectrode includes a dissolution retarding layer on the first electrode matrix element and/or a second electrode matrix element disposed between the first electrode matrix element and the electrode. Upon dissolution or biodegradation of the first electrode matrix element a drug comprised by the first electrode matrix element or the second electrode matrix element is released into the tissue. Also disclosed are bundles and arrays of the electrodes and their use.
US08954138B2

A patient QRS duration can be received or determined, such as using one or more patient physiological sensors. A portion of the QRS duration can be determined, such as a right or left ventricular activation time. In an example, the right ventricular activation time can be determined by identifying an onset of a QRS complex and an R-wave peak in the QRS complex. In an example, when the QRS duration exceeds a threshold duration, and the RV activation time does not exceed a second threshold duration, an indication of a cardiac conduction dysfunction can be provided, such as for discriminating between left bundle branch block and right bundle branch block.
US08954131B2

A method for diagnosing certain types of cancers provides a nanoparticle agent to be uptaken by cancer cells for diagnosis and treatment of certain cancers. A compound containing nanoparticles is directed toward a tumor site, and then a predetermined time period passes to allow the nanoparticles to be uptaken by the cancer cells. Imaging is then performed on the nanoparticles by an appropriate imaging device to determine the concentration of nanoparticles uptaken by the cancer cells. Finally, image data provided by the imaging device is analyzed to determine the concentration of nanoparticles and thereby determine whether a tumor is present. The nanoparticle agent can further be employed as a treatment of certain cancers. After the uptake of nanoparticles into the cells, a predetermined field applied to the nanoparticles for a sufficient period of time activates the magnetic cores of the nanoparticles to include hyperthermia-mediated destruction of the cancer cells.
US08954129B1

An electrode wearable or harness permits for easy, quick, and unsupervised administration or self-administration of a resting 12-or-more-lead ECG. Various advantageous features of the electrode wearable or harness include: inflatable or padded cushions at the lateral sides of the torso that function to press LA and RA electrodes mounted on the cushions against the downward-resting arms of the subject, permitting good electrode abutment with distal electrode placement without the need for adhesives, straps, bands, bracelets, or gloves on the arms; padding over the sternum to avoid tenting in the V1, V2, V3 and V3R electrodes whenever present, easy-to-don, one-piece design with an adjustable single point of connection and an adjustable shoulder strap; Lund or modified Lund placement; dry electrodes; and various other features. Methods of use are also described.
US08954123B2

An object of the present invention is to make an inclination angle of a mobile type electronic device held surely without increasing components of the mobile type electronic device.A connector 201 is exposed on a surface of a chassis 102 of a cellular phone 101, and a cover member 103 covers the connector 201 to protect it. A plurality of cover members 103 are made of a non-slip member respectively, and are arranged at a corner 105 where at least two surfaces of the chassis 102 intersect. When the cellular phone 101 leans against a floor and a wall 202 in a state that the cellular phone 101 leans at a predetermined angle, the cellular phone 101 is held at the inclination angle through making the cover members 103 touch the floor and the wall 202 respectively. A television image or the like displayed on a display 104 is watched from a direction of an arrow A side.
US08954121B2

A radiation pattern recognition system and method for a wireless user equipment (UE) device wherein a set of benchmark radiation patterns are matched based on the wireless UE device's usage mode. In one aspect, the wireless UE device includes one or more antennas adapted for radio communication with a telecommunications network. A memory is provided including a database of benchmark radiation patterns for each of the one or more antennas in one or more usage modes associated with the wireless UE device. A processor is configured to execute an antenna application process for optimizing performance of the wireless UE device based at least in part upon using the matched set of benchmark radiation patterns.
US08954108B2

A mobile apparatus, a base station, a direct communication system and a power control method thereof are provided. The direct communication system includes the mobile apparatus and the base station. The base station transmits a power measurement request message to the mobile apparatus. The mobile apparatus determines a power adjustment reference between the mobile apparatus and another mobile apparatus according to the power measurement request message. One of the mobile apparatus and the base station generates a power adjustment request message according to the power adjustment reference. The mobile apparatus adjusts a communication power with the another mobile apparatus according to the power adjustment request message.
US08954101B2

Method and apparatus for using text messages, e.g., SMS messages, to trigger a device update and/or to update a communications device, e.g., cell phone, are described. The cell phone can be updated/programmed from a remote device. The updating can use SMS messages to accomplish the update. An SMS message may include a command and, optionally, other update information in the message body. Received SMS messages are checked to determine if they include an update command. If an update command is present the command is performed after a security check is satisfied. In some but not necessarily all embodiments, a simplified user interface is supported in addition to SMS update features.
US08954084B2

A method and system in which a UMTS base station determines if any UE has re-acquired a common Enhanced Dedicated Channel (E-DCH) resource, and responsively transmits a indicator toward an RNC that is adapted to cause the RNC to recognize the beginning of a new transmission session so that the RNC may responsively perform appropriate actions such as flushing the TSN re-ordering queue, restarting a MAC-is re-ordering algorithm and the like.
US08954080B2

Systems and methods for monitoring traffic across Diameter Core Agents (DCAs) such as, for example, Diameter Signaling Routers (DSRs) and/or Diameter Routing Agents (DRAs). In some embodiments, a method may include receiving a first set of one or more messages at a telecommunications monitoring system, the first set of one or more messages transmitted between a Diameter client and a Diameter device. The method may also include receiving a second set of one or more messages at the telecommunications monitoring system, the second set of one or more messages transmitted between the Diameter device and a Diameter server. The method may further include correlating the first set of one or more messages with the second set of one or more messages as part of a single Diameter call.
US08954077B2

Access control for an access point (e.g., a cell of the access point) may be based on an access mode associated with the access point. For example, depending on the access mode, access control may involve performing a membership check for the access point. Such a membership check may be performed at a network entity, a source access point, or some other suitable location in a network. In some aspects, access control may involve performing a membership check for an access point in conjunction with a context fetch procedure. Such a procedure may be performed, for example, when an access terminal arrives at the access point after experiencing RLF at another access point.
US08954074B2

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided in order to trigger a reselection of a serving cell in an instance in which a mobile terminal may be creating neighbor cell interference. Based upon received reselection data, the mobile terminal may release and/or suspend a network resource, such as an enhanced dedicated channel in order to trigger a reselection of a new serving cell. In this regard, a method is provided that includes determining the presence of a reselection condition based on reselection data. In an instance in which the presence of the reselection condition is determined, the method includes causing a network resource to be modified. The method also includes causing a reselection of a serving cell.
US08954066B2

A method of transmitting information related to a multicast service in a Mobile Telecommunications network is provided. In one embodiment, the information related to the presence of cells in a registration area which are part of a multicast service area for the multicast service is transmitted between radio network controllers. In another embodiment, the information related to the multicast service one or more user terminals have joined is stored in a radio network controller while the user terminal has joined said one or more multicast services.
US08954061B2

A method and apparatus for supporting data connectivity with a roaming partner when a communication device is outside a service provider's range of coverage is provided. In one aspect, a user can select and store a roaming partner that is capable of data communication. While roaming, the communication device will display the data-roaming partners that are currently available within the communication range of the device and the user can choose one of these data-roaming partners and store the data-roaming partner information in memory. Upon re-entering the region within communication range of that roaming partner, the device can communicate with the roaming partner of choice rather than the roaming partner ordinarily selected by the device as a default.
US08954060B2

A system provides GSM service over distributed mobile networks. A Network Area Controller (NAC) allows Global Titles (GT) and Mobile Station Roaming Numbers (MSRN) of the GSM network to be shared within a private GSM network. A processor within the Mobile Switching Center (MSC) of a mobile network transcodes voice data and maps the data to the proper bearer QoS to allow the use of Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) such as Iridium and Inmarsat.
US08954059B1

A second communication mode can be enabled for a source device and a destination device. Each device can be a mobile device having a first communication mode and a default number for the first communication mode. The default numbers for the source device and the destination device can be stored. A call request can be received from the source device operating in the second communication mode. The call request can be directed to the default number of the destination device. The destination device can be determined as a client based on the default number of the destination device. A communication session can be established between the source device and the destination device over a network upon determining the destination device is an active client.
US08954058B2

The specification and drawings present a new method, apparatus and software related product for handling interruptions, specifically passive interruption (or unintended interruption) for telephone communications (e.g., wireless) between users or user equipments (e.g., in LTE wireless systems). At least one monitoring electronic device can detect one or more unintended interruptions in an audio communication between at least two UEs in one or both communication directions before each of the one or more unintended interruptions occur. Upon this detection, at least one monitoring electronic device can provide an instruction to facilitate a shortened audio delay for audio data in at least one communication direction to offset the one or more unintended interruptions. The embodiments described herein may be applies to wireless/mobile communications and non-wireless/landline communications.
US08954057B2

A base station includes: an interface that transfers user data; a processor that controls the base station in accordance with a process including: obtaining a period of time from when a transfer unit receives the user data to when the interface transmits the user data; and detecting an abnormality in the interface based on the period of time.
US08954055B2

In a wireless network, a base station (BS) may send a primary synchronization signal (PSS) and a secondary synchronization signal (SSS). The synchronization signals may be used by user equipments (UEs) for cell detection and acquisition. A typical searching operation may involve first locating the PSS sequences transmitted by neighboring BSs, followed by SSS detection. Described further herein are algorithms that result in the detection of the PSS and the SSS from a BS. A method for detecting a BS generally includes sampling a received signal from receiver antennas to obtain a sampled sequence, analyzing the sampled sequence to detect a PSS in a current half-frame (HF), calculating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) metrics based on the detected PSS, combining the calculated SNR metrics with SNR metrics from previous HFs, analyzing the combined SNR metrics to obtain timing information, and analyzing the sampled sequence using the timing information to detect a SSS.
US08954050B2

A graphical user interface to provision business environments on mobile devices presents a navigation panel that displays a virtual phone template menu item and a policy setting menu item. Upon selection of the virtual phone template menu item, a template user interface is presented that enables an administrator to customize virtual phone image templates for users to be delivered to mobile devices that are configured to run the virtual phone image templates as virtual machines on the mobile devices in order to provide a business environment. Upon selection of the policy setting menu item, a policy user interface is presented that enables the administrator to set security policies, wherein each of the security policies specifies a time interval within which a mobile device running a virtual machine corresponding to one of the virtual phone image templates should communicate with an enterprise server to comply with the security policy.
US08954044B1

Many mobile devices can access websites on the Internet. A mobile device running a web server application can host websites and provide services. For a first mobile device to access services on a second mobile device, the first mobile device needs the IP address of the second mobile device. The first mobile device sends a connection request to the second mobile device. The first mobile device receives, from the second mobile device, the network address of the second mobile device, identification of services that are available on the second mobile device, and a security token. The first mobile device selects a service and sends an HTTP or HTTPS request for the service to the network address of the second mobile device, and also sends the security token. The second mobile device authenticates the request based on the token and allows the first mobile device to access the selected service.
US08954028B2

A Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) providing redundant cell broadcast centers (CBC). Multiple CBCs are interfaced to any given base station controller (BSC) or radio network controller (RNC) to provide geo-redundancy and high availability so that the failure of one CBC or a cluster of CBCs at one site will not cause service interruption for the area controlled by the associated BSC or RNC or for the entire service area in the public land mobile network (PLMN) network. The BSC or RNC interfaces to multiple CBCs at multiple sites without changes to the otherwise conventionally existing BSC/RNC, 3GPP 23.041 standard architecture.
US08954023B2

An Adaptive Polarization Array (APA) Algorithm is described for adjusting the polarization orientation of antennas, such as Dual-polarized array antennas. The APA Algorithm searches to find a polarization state that maximizes a signal quality of a received signal in the presence of interfering signals and noise. The search facilitates adjustment of a polarization state of, for example, receive antennas to maximize a signal quality metric. A proxy metric having no local maxima other than the global maximum is used to search the polarization search domain to find a best polarization state.
US08954021B2

A III-N semiconductor channel is formed on a III-N transition layer formed on a (111) or (110) surface of a silicon template structure, such as a fin sidewall. In embodiments, the silicon fin has a width comparable to the III-N epitaxial film thicknesses for a more compliant seeding layer, permitting lower defect density and/or reduced epitaxial film thickness. In embodiments, a transition layer is GaN and the semiconductor channel comprises Indium (In) to increase a conduction band offset from the silicon fin. In other embodiments, the fin is sacrificial and either removed or oxidized, or otherwise converted into a dielectric structure during transistor fabrication. In certain embodiments employing a sacrificial fin, the III-N transition layer and semiconductor channel is substantially pure GaN, permitting a breakdown voltage higher than would be sustainable in the presence of the silicon fin.
US08954012B2

Identifying an operation mode of a communication device in which the communication device is to comply with an interference requirement. In response to identifying the operation mode of the communication device in which the communication device is to comply with the interference requirement, reducing noise generated by the communication device by selectively increasing a root mean square (RMS) value of a time-varying current generated by a power source of the communication device.
US08954008B2

A medical device communication system transmitter may include a resonator coupled to a local oscillator for stabilizing an operating frequency of the local oscillator. A control device of the transmitter receives an open-loop control signal, and the local oscillator and the control device are configured to generate a direct modulated radio frequency transmission signal in response to the open-loop control signal.
US08954005B2

An apparatus for low-frequency signal detection and transmission in a short-distance communication field comprises: a PCB, a magnetic induction module for inducing low-frequency magnetic signal, and a low-frequency signal processing module for detecting low-frequency signal, the magnetic induction module and the low-frequency signal processing module being integrated onto the PCB. The magnetic induction module is connected with the low-frequency signal processing module. The PCB can be a SIM card PCB, a Micro-SIM card PCB, a TF card PCB, a SD card PCB, or a UIM card PCB, etc. This invention realizes low-frequency signal detection and transmission function of a SIM card, a TF card, a SD card, a UIM card, or any of other various memory cards mounted in a mobile phone.
US08954001B2

An inductive signal interface includes a coil assembly which has one or more inductive coils. The inductive signal interface also has a bridge circuit that couples to the coil assembly to a power input/output (I/O). The bridge circuit has components that operate to enable the inductive signal interface to selectively operate in either a power transmit mode or a power receive mode.
US08953998B2

A method of handling multimedia broadcast and multicast service (MBMS) transmission and reception for a mobile device in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method includes enabling a plurality of component carriers, and applying a multi-media broadcast over a single frequency network (MBSFN) allocation on a first enabled component carrier and not on the rest of the enabled component carriers when the mobile device receives the MBSFN allocation on the first enabled component carrier.
US08953995B2

A fixing device includes an endless flexible belt, a stationary pad, a rotary pressure member, and a reinforcing member. The endless flexible belt is looped into a generally cylindrical configuration extending in an axial direction thereof for rotation in a rotational, circumferential direction thereof. The stationary pad is stationarily disposed inside the loop of the belt. The rotary pressure member is disposed parallel to the belt. The rotary pressure member presses against the stationary pad via the belt to form a nip therebetween. The reinforcing member is stationarily disposed in contact with the stationary pad inside the loop of the belt for reinforcing the stationary pad. The stationary pad includes two or more contact portions spaced apart from each other in the conveyance direction, each generally extending in the axial direction of the looped belt and protruding toward the reinforcing member to contact the reinforcing member.
US08953992B2

A fixing device includes a fixing unit, a cleaning unit, and a controller. The fixing unit includes a pair of nipping members and a heat source that heats at least one of the pair of nipping members. The cleaning unit includes a cleaning web wound on a supply core to be supplied from the supply core and taken up on a take-up core, and a pressing roller that is pressed against one of the pair of nipping members. The controller causes the take-up core to rotate in such a manner that, when a leading portion of the cleaning web extending up to 2% of an overall length of the cleaning web from a leading end of the cleaning web is fed, a length of the cleaning web to be fed in one feeding is 10-30% larger than when a subsequent portion of the cleaning web is fed.
US08953990B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member and a transfer member, which form a transfer nip portion, and a guide member for guiding a sheet to the transfer nip portion. The guide member includes a rigid restricting member including a guide surface, a cut portion formed at a leading edge part of the guide surface, and a sheet-like elastic restricting member to cover the cut portion. The elastic restricting member includes an end edge portion extending straight in the sheet width direction on a downstream side in the sheet conveying direction. A ridge defining the leading edge part of the guide surface is a ridge extending straight in the sheet width direction, and the end edge portion of the elastic restricting member is arranged at a position shifted toward an upstream side in the sheet conveying direction from the ridge of the guide surface.
US08953989B2

A developing device includes a first developing roller, a second developing roller, a layer regulation member, a pair of division magnetic poles that divide a developer which is held by the second developing roller after passing through the layer regulation member and transfer the developer to the first developing roller, and a transfer amount regulation member that has a plate shape, is provided in a developer transfer path formed by the pair of division magnetic poles between the first developing roller and the second developing roller so as to extend in an axial direction of the first and second developing rollers, and is provided with a slit which regulates the amount of developer passing therethrough.
US08953965B2

An image forming apparatus includes: a first image forming unit which forms a first image on a first recording medium with a first material that is not thermally decolorizable; a second image forming unit which forms a second image on a second recording medium with a second material that is thermally decolorizable; a fixing device which is on a common carrying path shared by the first recording medium and the second recording medium and fixes the first image to the first recording medium; and a controller which controls the fixing device so that a temperature of the fixing device is lower than a decolorizing temperature of the second material when the second recording medium reaches the fixing device.
US08953959B2

A printing apparatus includes: a printing device configured to print an image on a sheet; a temperature detector configured to detect a temperature in the printing apparatus; and a controller. The controller executes: a first processing in which the controller changes a first indicator based on printing performed by the printing device; a second processing in which the controller changes the first indicator based on a first temperature detected by the temperature detector at a first point in time and a second temperature detected by the temperature detector at a second point in time; and a third processing in which the controller suppresses a rise in the temperature in the printing apparatus when the first indicator reaches a predetermined value.
US08953956B2

An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive drum; a charging rotatable member for charging the drum by applying a voltage comprising a DC voltage component and an AC voltage component; a current detector for detecting a current flowing when a predetermined inspecting voltage is applied to the charging rotatable member; a storing portion for storing information corresponding to a reference current; a supplying portion for supplying a signal for notifying information corresponding to a lifetime of the drum on the basis of information stored in the storing portion and an output of the current detector; and a renewing portion for renewing information stored in the storing portion in accordance with the output of the current detector.
US08953948B2

The present disclosure provides to Optical Transport Network (OTN_ synchronization systems and methods that maintain proper sequential ordering of events at nodes which may be utilized in performing root cause analysis or diagnosing network performance. In an exemplary embodiment, the systems and methods utilize functionality incorporated into OTN providing a cost effective and standards-based approach to nodal synchronization. Once synchronized, network events are logged with an appropriate timestamp enabling a determination of a sequential order of network events can be determined. Further, the node timestamps may be synchronized, with microsecond or even sub-microsecond of precession which is critical in diagnosing network failures or slow traffic recovery.
US08953946B2

A free space optical communication system (100) and method including: several optical beam expanders (414) for receiving incoming optical signals from ground sites and neighboring satellites; several optical preamplifiers (412) for preamplifying the received optical signals; one or more optical main amplifiers (404) for amplifying the preamplified optical signals; and an optical switch (408) for directing respective amplified optical signals to respective destinations via a respective optical beam expander. The respective amplified optical signals are inputted to a respective optical beam expander (414) for transmission to said respective destinations, as outgoing optical signals.
US08953933B2

Aerial photogrammetry is provided by using two or more flying vehicles, each equipped with a GPS device and an image pickup unit. This method comprises setting up two or more photographing points and setting up a photographing point area, respectively, with each of the photographing points as the center, measuring a position of the flying vehicle by the GPS device, a step where each of the flying vehicle reaches each corresponding photographing point area and maintains the position of the photographing point area, acquiring a time when the flying vehicle finally reaches the photographing point area, setting up a shutter timing time after a predetermined time from the moment when the flying vehicle has finally reached the photographing point area, and taking aerial photographs by the two or more flying vehicles at the shutter timing time.
US08953931B2

A video processing apparatus acquires audio-visual environment information that indicates an audio-visual environment of a viewer that views video. The audio-visual environment information includes information of a display size of the video that is being viewed, information of brightness around a display apparatus that displays the video, and information of a distance between the viewer and the display apparatus. The video processing apparatus corrects, depending on information indicated by the audio-visual environment information, a basic reduction amount to reduce a quantity of motion of the video that is being played back, and processes the video with use of a corrected reduction amount. In the case where the display size is large, in the case where it is dark around, or in the case where the distance from the viewer to the display apparatus is short, the reduction amount to reduce a motion is set to be large.
US08953924B2

Removable strain relief brackets for securing fiber optic cables and/or optical fiber to fiber optic equipment, and related assemblies and methods are disclosed. The removable strain relief brackets may be employed to secure fiber optic cable and/or optical fibers routed to fiber optic equipment. The removable strain relief brackets may also be employed to provide strain relief for fiber optic cable and/or optical fibers routed and secure to fiber optic equipment. Fiber optic cable discussed herein includes optical fiber whether disposed in a common cable jacket or disposed freely of each other outside a cable jacket.
US08953908B2

The present disclosure relates to signal processing. One claim recites a method comprising: receiving an imagery or audio file; utilizing a configured multi-purpose electronic processor, identifying perceptual features in the imagery or audio file; and based on the perceptual features or data representing the perceptual features automatically creating metadata for the imagery or audio file. The act of automatically creating metadata utilizes at least some data obtained from a process in a portable computing device, the process comprises communication with a device that is separate from an apparatus that is performing the method. Of course, other claims and are provided too.
US08953907B2

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with image scaling are described. According to one embodiment, a method acquiring a set of amplitude values describing pixels in an image. Image scaling is performed on the image. A target pixel is identified from the set of pixels. A preceding pixel is identified to the target pixel. An amplitude range of amplitudes is defined between the amplitude of the preceding pixel and the target pixel. It is determined whether the interpolation between the preceding pixel and target pixel will result in an interpolated pixel having an interpolated amplitude outside of the amplitude range. Based on this determination, an interpolation slope is selected that reduces overshoot or undershoot in interpolation pixels generated between the target pixel and the preceding pixel.
US08953904B2

An image processing apparatus includes a relative coordinate acquiring portion for acquiring a corresponding position over the input image to a predetermined pixel in a rectangular region obtained by dividing the output image, a reference region specifying portion for specifying a reference region including a corresponding region over the input image of the rectangular region for a plurality of rectangular regions arranged continuously over the output image respectively, a reading region determining portion for merging each reference region related to each of the rectangular regions, thereby obtaining a merging region, reading control means for reading a pixel value of each pixel included in the merging region in the input image, and correction processing means for executing the distortion correction processing by using a pixel value of a pixel which is read through the reading control means, thereby acquiring a pixel value of the output image.
US08953891B1

Presently described are systems and methods for identifying a black/non-black attribute of a current frame. One example embodiment takes the form of a method including the steps of (i) receiving the current frame, (ii) defining a region of the current frame, the region having a plurality of lumas, (iii) calculating a non-black luma percentage of the region based on the lumas, (iv) calculating a white luma percentage of the region based on the lumas, (v) calculating an average luma of the region based on the lumas, and (vi) identifying the current frame as having a black attribute responsive to three conditions being satisfied: the average luma being less than a max-black luma threshold, the non-black luma percentage being less than a non-black luma percentage threshold, and the white luma percentage being less than a white luma percentage threshold.
US08953888B2

An object detection system is disclosed herein. The object detection system allows detection of one or more objects of interest using a probabilistic model. The probabilistic model may include voting elements usable to determine which hypotheses for locations of objects are probabilistically valid. The object detection system may apply an optimization algorithm such as a simple greedy algorithm to find hypotheses that optimize or maximize a posterior probability or log-posterior of the probabilistic model or a hypothesis receiving a maximal probabilistic vote from the voting elements in a respective iteration of the algorithm. Locations of detected objects may then be ascertained based on the found hypotheses.
US08953886B2

Character recognition is described. In one embodiment, it may use matched sequences rather than character shape to determine a computer-legible result.
US08953885B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for performing optical character recognition. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a text image I. A set of feature functions are evaluated for a log linear model to determine respective feature values for the text image I, wherein each feature function hi maps the text image I to a feature value, and wherein each feature function hi is associated with a respective feature weight λi. A transcription {circumflex over (T)} is determined that minimizes a cost of the log linear model.
US08953882B2

The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for image data processing. In certain embodiments, an image processing pipeline may compute noise statistics associated with image data by receiving a frame of the image data having a plurality of pixels. The image processing pipeline may then identify a plurality of portions of the frame of the image data such that each portion of the plurality of portions has a flat surface. The image processing pipeline may then calculate a plurality of gradients for each portion of the plurality of portions, determine one or more dominant gradient orientations for each portion of the plurality of portions, and generate a histogram that represents a plurality of dominant gradient orientations that corresponds to the plurality of portions. After generating the histogram, the image processing pipeline may store the histogram, which may represent the noise statistics, in a memory.
US08953881B2

An image processing apparatus and an image processing method are provided. A storage unit of the image processing apparatus stores an image and a piece of intensity statistical information of the image. The piece of intensity statistical information records that the image has a first number of pixels having a first intensity value, a second number of pixels having a second intensity value, and a third number of pixels having a third intensity value. A micro-processing unit of the image processing unit calculates a centralization degree of the second intensity value in the image according to the first number, the second number, and the third number. If the centralization degree is greater than a threshold, the micro-processing unit adjusts the intensity value of a pixel having the second intensity value in the image according to the second intensity value and the intensity value of the at least one neighboring pixel of the pixel.
US08953880B2

An image processing apparatus including a dispersion calculation portion, an ε deriving portion, and a filtering portion, and eliminates mosquito noise from a digitally compressed image having a plurality of color components. The dispersion calculation portion is configured to calculate, for each of the color components of each pixel contained in the digitally compressed image, a dispersion of pixel values of a plurality of pixels contained in a first region in which that pixel serves as a representative pixel. The ε deriving portion is configured to derive, for each pixel contained in the digitally compressed image, a greatest value of the plurality of dispersions that respectively correspond to the plurality of color components of that pixel, or a corrected value of the greatest value, as an ε value of an ε filter for that pixel. The filtering portion is configured to apply the ε filter to the digitally compressed image.
US08953877B2

Implementations relate to estimating noise in images. In some implementations, a method includes extracting a plurality of sample blocks of pixels from a received image, where each sample block includes a subset of pixels of the image. One or more of the sample blocks are examined for texture content based on whether the sample blocks include one or more edges based on a predetermined threshold. At least one sample block determined to include texture content is removed. The method determines one or more average color variances based on the remaining sample blocks that have not been removed, where noise estimations for the image are based on the average color variances.
US08953867B2

A recording device and a control method for a recording device improve the accuracy of reading MICR information while also shortening the time required for recording media processing. A dot impact printer 10 has a magnetic head 34 that magnetically reads MICR information recorded on a recording medium S, a recording head 18 that is mounted on a different carriage than the magnetic head 34 and records images on the recording medium S, and a back scanner 112 that optically reads MICR information recorded on the recording medium S, disposed sequentially to the transportation path P of the recording medium S. When reading the MICR information by means of the magnetic head 34 does not succeed, the recording medium S is conveyed to the back scanner 112, the MICR information is read by the back scanner 112, the reading results are compared, and the MICR information is identified.
US08953866B2

Provided are methods for determining and analyzing photometric and morphometric features of small objects, such as cells to, for example, identify different cell states. In particularly, methods are provided for identifying apoptotic cells, and for distinguishing between cells undergoing apoptosis versus necrosis.
US08953862B2

According to one embodiment, a radiation detection data processing apparatus includes a data acquisition unit and a data processing unit. The data acquisition unit acquires a radiation detection data from a detector detecting radiation. The data processing unit generates a compressed data to be used for reconstruction of a tomographic image, compression distortion in the compressed data is nearly uniform independently of a signal value from the radiation detection data.
US08953853B2

To authenticate a user, fingerprint data for multiple fingers of the user fingers is sensed by a fingerprint sensor (504). Each of these multiple fingers is situated adjacent to at least one other of these multiple fingers while the fingerprint data is being sensed by the fingerprint sensor. Various characteristics of the user's fingers can be analyzed (506) as part of the user authentication, such as the length of the user's fingers relative to one another, the width of the user's fingers relative to one another, the locations of minutiae of one of the user's fingerprints relative to the locations of minutiae of other of the user's fingerprints, and so forth.
US08953850B2

A biometric authentication system includes an image database and a user database containing user profiles. Each user profile is associated with a selected image in the image database as an image key and with an ocular biometric data record obtained from an eye of the associated user. A user input terminal receives asserted user credentials, an eye scanning module obtains ocular biometric data, and a position detection module detects an eye position or eyelid position. An access control module communicates with the user database for obtaining a user profile associated with the asserted user credentials, communicates with a display device for displaying the image key associated with the obtained user profile, communicates with the position detection module for verifying the biometric authentication system by detecting whether the user is viewing the image key, and communicates with the eye scanning module for obtaining ocular biometric data and authenticating the user.
US08953845B2

A method of authenticating a user of a computing device is proposed, together with computing device on which the method is implemented. A plurality of objects is displayed on a display screen. The plurality of objects includes at least objects that make up a plurality of objects of the user's passcode. In response to a trigger signal an image of the user's face is captured while looking at one of the objects on the display screen. A determination of which object is in the direction of the user's gaze is made from the image and whether or not the gaze is on an object which is part of the passcode. A plurality of trigger signals may be generated to capture a plurality of images.
US08953834B2

The present invention relates to a flat-panel speaker, and more particularly, to a flat-panel speaker having a multilayer PCB pattern voice coil film, which enables induced electromotive force to be increased by controlling the impedance of the multilayer voice coil film. The flat panel speaker having the multilayer PCB pattern voice coil film according to the present invention is characterized in that the voice coil comprises: a PCB (printed circuit board) pattern printed thereon and voice coil films stacked in an even number of 4 layers or more. Two layers each of said voice coil films are mutually connected in series, and the serially-connected voice coil films are connected to each other in parallel.
US08953829B2

A behind the ear hearing aid is provided with a casing part comprising electronics adapted for signal processing where the casing is adapted for placing behind the ear of a user and a speaker is provided in or near the ear canal and leads are arranged between the speaker and the casing part. A plug and socket electrical and mechanical interconnection is arranged between the leads and the electronics inside the casing and the mutual motion between the plug and socket parts for establishing connection is in a direction essentially off axis to the axis of the leads at the casing part.
US08953819B2

Provided is a method and apparatus for focusing sound using an array speaker system. The method includes generating a plurality of delayed signals to be focused to a predetermined position from an input signal, filtering a low-frequency signal having a frequency that is lower than a reference frequency from the delayed signals, generating low-frequency focusing signals divided into 2 groups by adjusting a gain of the filtered low-frequency signal, and applying the low-frequency focusing signals divided into the 2 groups to speaker units of the array speaker system at both sides with respect to a center portion of the array speaker system and outputting the low-frequency focusing signals through the speaker units. In this way, the performance of sound focusing for the low-frequency signal can be improved and thus a listener located a predetermined distance from and in a predetermined direction relative to the array speaker system can clearly listen to the low-frequency focusing signals.
US08953809B1

A system and method for switching a mode of a receiver between a monophonic and stereophonic mode is disclosed. The method can include generating a residual signal indicative of a noise level associated with a pilot energy signal, calculating a residual block energy level of the residual signal over an observation interval, generating a monitor signal based on a number of times the pilot energy signal is less than a pilot energy threshold during the observation interval and switching the mode of the receiver based on the residual block energy level and the monitor signal.
US08953807B2

A virtual security coprocessor is created in a first processing system. The virtual security coprocessor is then transferred to a second processing system, for use by the second processing system. For instance, the second processing system may use the virtual security coprocessor to provide attestation for the second processing system. In an alternative embodiment, a virtual security coprocessor from a first processing system is received at a second processing system. After receiving the virtual security coprocessor from the first processing system, the second processing system uses the virtual security coprocessor. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08953806B2

A virtual security coprocessor is created in a first processing system. The virtual security coprocessor is then transferred to a second processing system, for use by the second processing system. For instance, the second processing system may use the virtual security coprocessor to provide attestation for the second processing system. In an alternative embodiment, a virtual security coprocessor from a first processing system is received at a second processing system. After receiving the virtual security coprocessor from the first processing system, the second processing system uses the virtual security coprocessor. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08953801B2

A system and method is provided which allows multicast communications encrypted using IPSec protocol to be received by receivers in a network. In order to allow the receivers to receive the encrypted multicast communication, the address information of the received multicast communication is modified to appear as a unicast communication being transmitted directly to the address of the receiver, such that the receiver may then decrypt the received multicast communication using IPSec decryption capabilities or may, alternatively, forward the received multicast communication in its encrypted state to other devices. The system and method further provide IPSec encryption key delivery to the receiver using an encrypted markup language file. Multiple keys may also be generated for a given IP address of a receiver with each key being generated for a particular multicasting hierarchical classification.
US08953793B2

A technique for generating a cryptographic key is provided. The technique is particularly useful for protecting the communication between two entities cooperatively running a distributed security operation. The technique comprises providing at least two parameters, the first parameter comprising or deriving from some cryptographic keys which have been computed by the first entity by running the security operation; and the second parameter comprising or deriving from a token, where the token comprises an exclusive OR of a sequence number (SQN) and an Anonymity Key (AK). A key derivation function is applied to the provided parameters to generate the desired cryptographic key.
US08953788B1

A method, system, and media are provided for securely communicating data. One embodiment of the method includes encrypting a data stream by way of a first algorithm; creating at least two subsets of data from the data stream by extracting one or more data portions from the encrypted data stream, thereby leaving a remaining portion and an extracted portion; communicating the remaining portion to a destination by way of a first communications channel; encrypting the extracted portion utilizing a second algorithm; communicating the encrypted extracted portion to the destination by way of a second communications channel; and providing for recombining the remaining portion and the encrypted extracted portion to facilitate recovery of the encrypted data stream.
US08953776B2

By using the adaptive filter, the reference input signal is processed so as to identify a pseudo-signal of a particular signal to be deleted. The pseudo-signal is subtracted from the mixture containing a target signal inputted from a microphone, the particular signal to be deleted, and a noise so as to obtain an error signal. A stationary noise is estimated to obtain a stationary noise estimated value. A non-stationary noise is estimated to obtain a non-stationary noise estimated value. The stationary noise estimated value is mixed with the non-stationary estimated value to obtain a mixed noise estimated value. An update amount is calculated according to a correlation value between the error signal and the reference input signal, and the mixed noise estimated value. According to the update amount, a coefficient of the adaptive filter is updated.
US08953770B2

In one embodiment, a method is provided for returning missed phone calls. In this method, a missed phone call is detected and a phone number associated with the missed phone call is identified. A physical button located on an apparatus is assigned to the phone number. An indication that the missed phone call is associated with the physical button is initiated and after which, a single selection of the physical button is detected. A phone call to the phone number is then initiated in response to the detection of the single selection.
US08953765B2

According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of allocating calls coming into a call center from a caller location remote from the call center, receiving a call from a caller which includes information from an RFID chip located in close proximity to the caller location; decoding the information from the RFID chip to determine one or more parameters relating to the information; using said one or more parameters to allocate the call from the caller at the call center to ensure calls are handled in accordance with the parameters. This has the advantage of much more efficient management of the of the calls within the call center and ensures that the calls are sent to the agent with the most appropriate skill set.
US08953764B2

Usage data associated with a user of a telephonic device is accessed by a remote learning engine. A first service or a first product is identified by the remote learning engine based on the accessed usage data. A first recommended voice bundle application is determined by the remote learning engine. A recommendation associated with the first recommended voice bundle application is transmitted to the telephonic device. The recommendation is presented by the telephonic device to the user through voice communications. A response from the user associated with the recommendation is received. In response to determining that the user has not accepted the recommendation, a second service or a second product is determined based on the received response. A second recommended voice bundle application is determined based on the second service. The second recommended voice bundle application is executed by the telephonic device.
US08953763B2

The present invention enables users of packet-switched network services, e.g., VoIP network services, to hear a very gentle whispering tone that quietly conveys the identity of the calling party when they are engaged in conversation and to receive a call-waiting signal. The tone is audible only to the called party but does not mute the ongoing conversation path. This enables subscribed users to hear their ongoing conversation while receiving the whispering tone.
US08953761B2

Embodiments of a method, system, and apparatus for inserting caller identifying information into a video signal includes receiving a digital video stream and receiving caller identifier information from an incoming call associated with a calling device. The method further includes converting the caller identifier information into caller identifying textual information, and inserting the caller identifying textual information into the digital video stream using a visual timecode video insertion format. The method further includes transmitting the digital video stream with the inserted caller identifying textual information.
US08953759B2

The present invention provides a system for recording an interaction including, a telephone call between a caller and a digital processing system placed over an interjurisdictional boundary, and may include a telephone call placed to at least one called recipient. For example, a caller may place a telephone call over an interjurisdictional boundary to a remote computer server. The server may use an interactive voice response (IVR) unit to obtain caller identification information, provide recording identification information to the caller, and receive authorization from the caller to record an interaction between the caller and a call recipient. The server can also obtain testamentary intent information. A telephone call may then be placed by the server to the recipient, and a two-party digital voice recording can be made on the remote server of a three-way telephone call, in which the server is one of the parties.
US08953751B2

Methods and systems for the storage and retrieval of originating caller location information in an emergency services system are disclosed. Subscriber information from a telephone service provider is received by a NG-911 service provider, the subscriber information including a subscriber telephone number and an associated subscriber address. The service provider generates geo-spatial coordinates corresponding to said subscriber address and stores the subscriber information and the corresponding geo-spatial data in a geographic information system (GIS) database, indexed at least according to said subscriber telephone number. In response to a query from a PSAP relating to an emergency service call originating from the subscriber telephone number, the NG-911 service provider queries the GIS database for the originating telephone number and returns the geo-spatial coordinates and the associated subscriber address.
US08953746B2

A source of X-rays including at least two cathodes and at least one common anode configured and arranged so as to generate at least two spaced apart beams of X-rays emanating from respectively different locations of the anode, and separately controlled so as to be generated independently of one another. The staggered focal spots can be generated simultaneously or alternately as required. An X-ray imaging system comprising such an X-rays source, and a method utilizing such a source are also disclosed.
US08953745B2

A solid-state image pickup apparatus 1A includes a photodetecting section 10A and a signal readout section 20 etc. In the photodetecting section 10A, M×N pixel units P1,1 to PM,N are arrayed in M rows and N columns. When in a first imaging mode, a voltage value according to an amount of charges generated in a photodiode of each of the M×N pixel units in the photodetecting section 10A is output from the signal readout section 20. When in a second imaging mode, a voltage value according to an amount of charges generated in the photodiode of each pixel unit included in consecutive M1 rows in the photodetecting section 10A is output from the signal readout section 20. When in the second imaging mode than when in the first imaging mode, the readout pixel pitch in frame data is smaller, the frame rate is higher, and the gain being a ratio of an output voltage value to an input charge amount in the signal readout section 20 is greater.
US08953729B1

Symbol sampling in a high time delay spread interference environment includes acquiring (602) a time varying baseband waveform. The waveform has a signal amplitude that varies between one of a plurality of symbol states. The waveform is sampled (603) at a rate of m times the symbol rate. During an evaluation time, an error value is calculated (604, 606) for each of m data sample positions. Each of the error values comprises an average distance between the measured value of the waveform as indicated by the data sample and a closest known symbol value. The error values are used to create an error surface. Thereafter, the error surface is modeled as a quadratic and an optimal sample time is determined (608, 610, 612) based on finding the time location where the quadratic surface is minimum. A sinc interpolator is then used to resample the data.
US08953725B1

Provided is a MIMO repeater system including a plurality of repeaters. Each of the repeaters includes: an Rx antenna; a receiver configured to convert a signal received through the Rx antenna into a digital signal; an interference cancellation unit configured to cancel interference from an output signal of the receiver; a transmitter configured to convert an output signal of the interference cancellation unit into an analog signal; and a Tx antenna configured to transmit an output signal of the transmitter, and the interference cancellation to unit provided in each of the repeaters receives the output signal of the receiver as an input signal, receives reference signals provided from the plurality of repeaters as a reference signal vector, outputs a prediction signal according to a current filter coefficient vector generated in response to the input signal and the reference signal vector, and cancels the prediction signal from the input signal.
US08953722B2

This disclosure relates to controlled transmission of data in a data transmission system. Data from data interface elements may be transmitted in a controlled manner during the guard intervals or cyclic expansions of received RF signals. The received RF signals may be initially analyzed by a receiver to gather its characteristics. Based on the characteristics, the data interface elements are instructed to transfer the data during the guard intervals of the incoming RF signals.
US08953716B1

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with a DC notch gear filter are described. According to one embodiment, an apparatus includes a digital high pass filter having a cutoff frequency and a gear mechanism configured to successively change the cutoff frequency of the high pass filter based on a sequence of cutoff frequencies. The apparatus also includes a direct current (DC) estimator configured to estimate a DC offset of a digital input signal to the high pass filter based, at least in part, on an output signal of the high pass filter as a cutoff frequency is successively changed. A direct current (DC) compensator is configured to subtract the estimated DC offset from the input signal to the high pass filter.
US08953709B2

A modulator generates a subcarrier modulation signal from an input signal, a parallel-serial converter generates a subcarrier modulation signal from the modulation signal. An IFFT calculator performs reverse Fast Fourier Transform on the subcarrier modulation signal, and a separator separates a calculation result into real part data and imaginary part data. A real part calculator performs a calculation on each element of the real part data to generate real part post-distribution data. An imaginary part calculator performs the data processing on the imaginary part data in the same manner, and generates imaginary part post-distribution data. A combiner combines the real part post-distribution data and the imaginary part post-distribution data to generate a baseband signal, and a transmitter which generates a transmission signal from the baseband signal to transmit generated transmission signal.
US08953704B2

In a MIMO system using a cross-polarized antenna structure, even if no ideal XPD can be obtained, the interference between different polarized waves can be reduced to allow an effective precoding to be executed. When a MIMO communication is performed between a transmitter and a receiver each using a cross-polarized antenna structure, a channel estimating and precoding selection section of the receiver performs a channel estimation of MIMO channels from the transmitter to the receiver, decides a precoding matrix of a projection matrix for mutually orthogonalizing or substantially orthogonalizing the channel response matrixes for respective different polarized waves, and feeds the determined precoding matrix back to the transmitter. In the transmitter, a precoding processing section applies the precoding matrix to the spatial stream corresponding to one of the polarized waves to perform a precoding, thereby allowing the transmitter to transmit the polarized waves with the orthogonality therebetween maintained.
US08953701B2

The present invention provides a precoding method for a cross-polarized antenna array, the cross-polarized antenna array comprising a first group of coplanar polarized antennas and a second group of coplanar polarized antennas, the method comprising the following steps: generating, for at least one layer of data stream, a feedback codebook comprising a plurality of codewords; receiving a selection of the codeword in the feedback codebook; determining a corresponding codeword from the feedback codebook according to the received selection; generating a precoding matrix based on the determined codeword to precode the at least one layer of data stream; wherein each codeword in the feedback codebook comprises a first coefficient portion corresponding to a first group of coplanar polarized antennas and a second coefficient portion corresponding to the second group of coplanar polarized antennas, and there is a complex scaling relation between the coefficients in the first coefficient portion and the second coefficient portion corresponding to the same layer of data stream. Correspondingly, the present invention further provides a precoder for a cross-polarized antenna array.
US08953691B2

An apparatus and method are provided for compensating a block error in an image frame. This may include a video codec decoder for decoding an inputted image frame, and outputting a decoded image frame. An error concealment block may detect an error-generated block in the decoded image frame and compensate the detected error block through a median filter, and output the compensated image frame.
US08953690B2

In various embodiments, a significance map of a matrix of video data coefficients is encoded or decoded using context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC). The significance map scanned line-by-line along a scanning pattern. Each line may be a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal section of the scanning pattern. Context models for each element processed in a particular line are chosen based on values of neighboring elements that are not in the line. The neighboring elements may be limited to those contained within one or two other scanning lines. Avoiding reliance on neighbors that are in the same scanning line facilitates parallel processing.
US08953677B2

Embodiments of the present invention comprise systems and methods for predicting high dynamic range (HDR) image blocks with block-specific prediction data, where the systems and methods may comprise low dynamic range (LDR) image data and HDR image data for a target image block, where a scaled, offset LDR image block may be combined with HDR residual image block to form an HDR image block corresponding to the target image block.
US08953673B2

Techniques and tools are described for scalable video encoding and decoding. In some embodiments, an input frame is downsampled in terms of sample depth and chroma sampling rate, encoded, and output from the encoder as a base layer bitstream. The base layer bitstream is also reconstructed and upsampled to produce a reconstructed bitstream which is subtracted from the original input frame to produce a residual layer. The residual layer is split and encoded as a sample depth residual layer bitstream and a chroma high-pass residual layer bitstream. To recover the encoded input frame, a decoder receives one or more of these bitstreams, decodes them, and combines them to form a reconstructed image. The use of separate codecs is allowed for the base layer and the enhancement layers, without inter-layer dependencies.
US08953663B2

Apparatuses, systems, and methods for calibration of quadrature imbalance in direct conversion transceivers are contemplated. A transceiver controller may perform a self-calibration to address quadrature imbalance. The controller may isolate the transmitter and receiver from any antennas, couple the radio frequency (RF) section of the transmitter to the RF section of the receiver via a loopback path, and inject a calibration signal into the transmitter. In the loopback path, the controller may phase-shift the signal that propagates through the transmitter using two different phase angles to produce two different signals that propagate into the receiver. By measuring the two different signals that exit the receiver, the controller may be able to calculate correction coefficients, or parameters, which may be used to adjust elements that address or correct the quadrature imbalance for both the transmitter and receiver.
US08953659B2

Response frame modulation coding set (MCS) selection within single user, multiple user, multiple access, and/or MIMO wireless communications. With respect to any exchange between communication devices in which there is a response frame, a first frame (e.g., an eliciting frame) is a first transmitted from the eliciting communication device to the responding communication device, and a second frame (e.g., a response frame) is transmitted from the responding communication device to the eliciting communities device. Appropriate selection of MCS to be used within the response frame may be determined explicitly or implicitly. One or more parameters (e.g., a limit parameter, a reduction parameter, etc.) may be used to determine the MCS of the response frame. The MCS employed for a response frame may be selected from a basic MCS set that ensures all response frames from any responding communication device may be properly received by the eliciting communication device.
US08953651B2

Designs and techniques for constructing and operating femtosecond pulse lasers are provided. One example of a laser engine includes an oscillator that generates and outputs a beam of femtosecond seed pulses, a stretcher-compressor that stretches a duration of the seed pulses, and an amplifier that receives the stretched seed pulses, amplifies an amplitude of selected stretched seed pulses to create amplified stretched pulses, and outputs a laser beam of amplified stretched pulses back to the stretcher-compressor that compresses their duration and outputs a laser beam of femtosecond pulses. The amplifier includes a dispersion controller that compensates a dispersion of the amplified stretched pulses, making the repetition rate of the laser adjustable between procedures or according to the speed of scanning. The laser engine can be compact with a total optical path of less than 500 meters, and have a low number of optical elements, e.g. less than 50.
US08953650B2

A method to control the emission wavelength of a tunable laser diode (LD) is disclosed. The method measures the first derivative of the wavelength against the first stimulus, typically a current injected in the SG-DFB region, and the second derivative of the wavelength against the power supplied to the heater in the CSG-DBR region. The method adjusts the current so as to coincide the emission wavelength with the target wavelength, then, corrects the target power for the heater based on the derivative of the current multiplied by a ratio of two derivatives measured in advance to the control of the heater current.
US08953646B2

An apparatus and method for generating a multiplex of media streams, the method includes the steps of: (i) receiving a set of media streams that comprises first type media stream components and second type media stream components; (ii) applying a modification process that is not adapted to modify second type media stream components, such as to provide at least one modified first type media stream component; and (iii) multiplexing at least the second type media stream components and the modified first type media stream components.
US08953639B2

According to one embodiment, a method of processing a digital broadcasting signal in a transmitter includes: performing RS (Reed-Solomon) encoding on signaling data containing cross layer information between a physical layer and a upper layer; interleaving the RS encoded signaling data, wherein interleaving the RS encoded signaling data includes writing the RS encoded signaling data row-by-row from left-to-right and top-to-bottom in a signaling data block, and outputting the signaling data in the signaling data block by reading column-by-column from top-to-bottom and left-to-right; and transmitting the digital broadcasting signal including the mobile service data and the interleaved signaling data during slots.
US08953636B2

Techniques and mechanisms to communicate end-to-end feature compliance information. Network access requests may be accompanied by compliance/certification/compatibility information for the requesting device as well as intervening devices. A network authentication device may evaluate the request and associated compliance/certification/compatibility information to select one or more network features to allow the requesting device to utilize.
US08953633B2

A method and a device for managing resources in a wireless communication network are provided. In one embodiment, a Medium Access Control (MAC) superframe format for a wireless communication network includes a beacon frame including beacon information for synchronizing devices in the wireless communication network and for defining structure of the MAC superframe, where the beacon information includes superframe structure information and synchronization information. The MAC superframe format also includes at least one multi-node connection frame substantially following the beacon frame and including device specific information and network specific information for allocating resources to one or more of the devices and/or providing network configuration parameters to the devices.
US08953631B2

An embodiment may include circuitry to permit interruption, at least in part, of a first frame from a sender to an intended recipient in favor of transmitting, at least in part, a payload of a second frame from the sender to the intended recipient, and/or processing, at least in part, one or more incoming flow control notifications. The payload may be transmitted, at least in part, to the intended recipient in one or more frame fragments. Many modifications, variations, and alternatives are possible without departing from this embodiment.
US08953630B2

A circuit arrangement comprises an input circuit for reading in a serial data stream, which comprises a plurality of useful data bits, and for reading in a piece of information which indicates the start of the serial data stream. The circuit arrangement also comprises a data processing circuit for removing at least one useful data bit from the read-in, serial data stream. The data processing circuit is designed such that it removes the at least one useful data bit at a prescribed position after the start of the serial data stream. The circuit arrangement also comprises a first output circuit for outputting the read-in, serial data stream for the omission of the at least one removed useful data bit.
US08953624B2

Techniques are presented for distributing host route information of virtual machines to routing bridges (RBridges). A first RBridge receives a routing message that is associated with a virtual machine and is sent by a second RBridge. The routing message comprises of mobility attribute information associated with a mobility characteristic of the virtual machine obtained from an egress RBridge that distributes the routing message. The first RBridge adds a forwarding table attribute to the routing message that indicates whether or not the first RBridge has host route information associated with the virtual machine in a forwarding table of the first RBridge. The first RBridge also distributes the routing message including the mobility attribute information and the forwarding table attribute, to one or more RBridges in the network.
US08953622B2

A method and apparatus for performing jitter buffering is provided herein. During operation, a system will utilize variable-length jitter buffers within each receiver. Each receiver will then be assigned an appropriate jitter-buffer size based upon system constraints. In one embodiment of the present invention jitter-buffer size is adjusted on a per call (or even per call/speech segment) basis and is based on both the source and destination capabilities.
US08953621B2

An apparatus comprising an Edge Virtual Bridging (EVB) bridge coupled with an EVB station wherein the EVB bridge is configured to communicate to the EVB station a Filter Information (Info) field of a virtual station interface (VSI) discovery and configuration protocol (VDP) Associate Response message, and wherein the Filter Info field specifies a default Priority Code Point (PCP) value associated with at least one or all of a plurality of VID values carried by that VDP TLV Response.
US08953620B2

A method and system for selectively provisioning services between an access point, which supports telecommunications services over an IP network, and a carrier network includes a network connection and a telephone connector. At least one detection component detects whether a landline telephone is plugged in to the telephone connector. The access point and network are configured to provision telecommunications services based at least in part on an identifier stored in an identification module.
US08953618B2

A multicast cloud controller (“MCC”) in a cloud system implements a process to manage multicast traffic in a cloud network. The MCC is coupled to at least one virtualized server for hosting one or more virtual machines (“VM”), wherein the virtualized server comprises at least one virtual switch (“VS”) that supports multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and the virtual switch is coupled to a top of rack switch (“TORS”) that supports MPLS. MPLS is utilized to support multicast data traffic in the cloud system such that the system and method reduces state and is scalable.
US08953616B2

A method that improves multi-area routed Ethernet network design, in which multipath implementation in each of the areas is independent of each other area to allow optimal network design in each area. The network implements a shortest path bridging medium access control (SPBM) protocol. The areas include a Level 2 (L2) routing area coupled to a Level 1 (L1) routing area via multiple area border bridges (ABBs). The L1 routing area including a backbone edge bridge (BEB) coupled to the ABBs via multiple L1 multipath instances identified by respective backbone VLAN identifiers (B-VIDs). The ABBs receive an advertisement from the BEB that indicates a set of BEB identifiers, each of which identifies the BEB and is associated with a respective B-VID. Each of the BEB identifiers is unique. The ABBs also advertise into the L2 routing area, and translate the B-VIDs based on service identifiers for frames transiting the ABBs.
US08953615B2

A flexible OFDM/OFDMA frame structure technology for communication systems is disclosed. The OFDM frame structure technology comprises a configurable-length frame which contains a variable length subframe structure to effectively utilize OFDM bandwidth. Furthermore, the frame structure facilitates spectrum sharing between multiple communication systems.
US08953614B2

To set an IP address to an apparatus existing beyond a router, a first apparatus requests a second apparatus via the router to set an IP address to a third apparatus. Upon reception of the request, the second apparatus sets to the third apparatus the IP address instructed by the first apparatus.
US08953611B2

A technique for use in a communication device for communicating data involves receiving a plurality of transport data packets in an ordered sequence; rearranging at least some of the transport data packets in a group with a reordered sequence different from the ordered sequence, for increasing the total size of the group to be at or near a maximum transmissible unit size of a transport data frame; formatting the transport data packets of the group having the total size at or near the maximum transmissible unit size into the transport data frame, for data transmission from the communication device; and repeating, for a plurality of transport data frames, the acts of rearranging and formatting, for communicating the data.
US08953609B1

A wireless client terminal includes an application module, a service mapping module, and an address determination module. The application module determines first and second services requested by applications. The service mapping module stores a table that maps services to access point names. Each access point name identifies a respective packet data network. The address determination module transmits an address request message, including access point names corresponding to the services, to a media access gateway and receives an address response message. The address determination module determines first and second addresses based on address information in the address response message. The application module transmits a first packet to the media access gateway. The source address of the first packet is set to the first address when the first packet is related to the first service and to the second address when the first packet is related to the second service.
US08953607B2

In one embodiment, a system includes at least one local processor adapted for executing logic, logic adapted for receiving a packet from an access switch on a virtual link aggregation (vLAG) port of a first switch, logic adapted for modifying a source media access control (MAC) address of the packet to include a MAC address of the first switch, wherein a last byte of the modified source MAC address includes a trunk identifier of the vLAG port on which the packet was received, and logic adapted for forwarding the packet to an inter-switch link (ISL) port. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are presented according to more embodiments.
US08953604B2

A mechanism is provided to configure a plurality of transport trees in a transport network, each of which correspond to a native tree (e.g., a bidirectional multicast tree). In embodiments of the present invention, each of the plurality of transport trees has a unique root node so that in the event of a failure of any root node, the transport trees with surviving root nodes can be used to transport traffic from the native tree. The present invention provides for each transport network edge router being independently responsible for selection of a transport tree that the edge router will use to transmit a datastream, while also being capable of receiving packets from any transport tree. Through the use of such configured transport trees along with independent selection of a transport tree, the present invention provides a reduction in the disruption of datastream transmission due to a root node failure.
US08953601B2

A method comprising sending a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) message comprising an Identity Association for Prefix Delegation (IA_PD) Prefix option comprising a Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) prefix and a length of the IPv6 prefix to a device having a media access control (MAC) address, receiving from the device a packet comprising a source MAC address and a source IPv6 address, and dropping the packet when the MAC address is equal to the source MAC address and the leftmost bits of the source IPv6 address defined by the length are not equal to the IPv6 prefix.
US08953591B2

In a conventional “distributed” integrated network node architecture, specific judgment processes cannot be executed in any routing and transferring unit. The routing and transferring unit is required to share judgment process related information with an enhanced processing unit or other routing and transferring units. Thus, when using enhanced processing units, manufacturing costs increase, while processing speed decreases when routing and transferring units cooperate. If any flow is disposed during a transfer from a packet transferring unit in a routing and transferring unit to a processing unit, the packet is disposed regardless of packet priority. In the present invention, a packet related to a specific judgment process is always transmitted to a specific routing and transferring unit from a line interface unit. If an inputted flow is over the transferring capacity, the line interface unit analyzes the packet header and determines the type, transport priority, and disposal priority of the packet.
US08953590B1

This disclosure describes techniques for supporting an and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based Virutal Private Network (VPN) service that provides layer two (L2) connectivity between the customer edge device. In particular, the techniques support a Border Gateway (BGP) MPLS-based MAC VPNs (“MAC-VPN” or “MAC VPN”). The techniques provide a MAC VPN in which L2 MAC address learning occurs in the control plane via inter-device BGP signaling in the control plane rather than the data plane, in response to VPN traffic, as may be typical with other VPN technologies.
US08953584B1

In some embodiments, a non-transitory processor-readable medium includes code to cause a processor to receive, at a network management module, a request for data plane information associated with a set of access switches of a distributed switch. The non-transitory processor-readable medium includes code to cause the processor to send, in response to the request, an instruction to each access switch from the set of access switches such that a proxy module at each access switch accesses data plane information at at least one line card at that access switch. The non-transitory processor-readable medium includes code to cause the processor to receive, from each access switch from the set of access switches, the data plane information associated with that access switch, and then send a signal to output, on a single interface, the data plane information associated with each access switch from the set of access switches.
US08953581B1

A system for synchronizing nodes in a wireless network comprises a first node and a second node. The first node comprising a transmitter, a receiver, and a first time keeper. The second node comprising a transmitter, a receiver, a second time keeper, a timing error measurer for making a timing error measurement between the first time keeper and the second time keeper. The second timekeeper is adjusted to target minimizing the timing error measurement.
US08953574B2

A hybrid device can be configured to use WLAN communication links for bridging network traffic between any pair of network devices in a hybrid communication network, irrespective of whether the bridged network devices support WLAN communication. The hybrid device receives a first data frame in a first frame format for transmission to a destination device. The hybrid device accesses its hybrid forwarding tables and identifies a transmit interface from which to transmit the first data frame for transmission to the destination device. If the transmit interface is a WLAN interface, WLAN forwarding tables associated with the WLAN transmit interface are accessed to identify a receiving WLAN device to which the first data frame should be transmitted. The WLAN transmit interface converts the first data frame into a second data frame in a WLAN frame format and transmits the second data frame to the receiving WLAN device.
US08953566B2

Among other things, a system for use in wireless communication includes a first device communicating via a first protocol in a first network, a cellular device communicating via a second protocol in a cellular network, the second protocol being incompatible with the first protocol, and an access point in the cellular network, the access point being accessible by the cellular device and being configured to enable communication between the first device and the cellular device.
US08953558B2

The first communication system is configured to determine whether or not to provide information that instructs the UE 10 to connect to the second communication system, based on a subscriber identifier allocated to the UE 10. The subscriber identifier is configured to identify whether or not the UE 10 is allowed to utilize the second communication system.
US08953555B2

A cell reselection method and apparatus for a packet data service in a mobile communication terminal are provided. The cell reselection method for the packet data service in the mobile communication terminal includes if a Circuit Switch (CS) call ends, determining whether the ended call is a CS fallback call, if it is determined that the ended call is the CS fallback call, determining whether an accessible Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) cell exists by measuring signals received from neighbor cells, and reselecting the accessible E-UTRAN cell.
US08953554B2

A user equipment performs downlink measurement on neighbour cells, but the measurement performance on a target cell (in terms of measurement period/sampling/accuracy etc) is dependent on the relative performance difference between the target cell and a reference cell. The reference cell may be the serving cell, or may be the strongest cell. The network is thus able to keep track of the required number of target cells without degrading the measurement performance of important cells. The UE on the other hand is still able to save its battery as much as possible while making full use of DRX.
US08953548B2

A method and apparatus are described which perform bandwidth aggregation by simultaneously monitoring and processing a number of simultaneous, non-contiguous or contiguous component carriers in the downlink. A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) can be configured by an evolved Node-B (eNodeB) to support additional component carriers. A pre-configured additional component carrier may be used. Various methods for activating and deactivating the additional component carrier are also described.
US08953546B2

A method of handling long term evolution positioning protocol (LPP) data for a mobile device in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method comprises initiating a transmission for transmitting a protocol data unit (PDU) of a long term evolution positioning protocol (LPP) layer of the mobile device, to a base station of the wireless communication system; and retransmitting the LPP PDU to the base station when the transmission is failed.
US08953540B2

The present invention relates to a method for transmitting channel state information regarding downlink transmission through an uplink may comprise the steps of: receiving a downlink signal through a downlink channel; generating a rank indicator (RI) for the downlink channel, a first precoding matrix indicator (PMI), and a second PMI, and generating channel quality information (CQI) on the basis of pre-coding information which is determined by a combination of the first and second PMIs; and transmitting the RI, first PMI, second PMI, and/or CQI through the uplink channel. The CQI may comprises a first type of CQI calculated on the basis of the number N of layers in which the downlink signal is received and/or a second type of CQI calculated on the basis of the assumption that the number of layers in which the downlink signal is transmitted is K (where K>N).
US08953536B2

A method for transmitting or receiving an uplink signal is disclosed. If a user equipment is connected to a base station in accordance with a legacy system support mode, it performs permutation for an uplink signal on a frequency axis in accordance with a first rule. If the user equipment is connected to the base station in accordance with a legacy system non-support mode, it performs permutation for the uplink signal on the frequency axis in accordance with a second rule. Cell ID corresponding to a secondary advanced preamble (SA-preamble) received from the base station is used for permutation based on the first rule and/or the second rule.
US08953534B2

A method for avoiding interference of an interfering Base Station (BS) in an interfered BS of a mobile communication system includes determining an interference value of an interfering BS at a control region during a determination interval. When the interference value is greater than a threshold value, the method further includes operating in a modified Transmit/receive Transition Gap (TTG) mode. When the interference value is less than the threshold value, the method further includes operating in a general TTG mode.
US08953533B2

Provided is a wireless communication technique capable of supporting communication using a single component carrier, and communication using a plurality of component carriers. The communication using the plurality of carriers comprises a processing means for performing the signal processing in accordance with each of the carriers with respect to the common signal sequence used by the plurality of carriers. The present invention makes it possible to cope with the communication employing a single component carrier and the wireless communication employing a plurality of the component carriers. Further, PAPR of the reference signals can be made small because there is no possibility that the identical CAZAC sequence is used among the component carriers when a plurality of the component carriers are employed.
US08953531B2

A method and apparatus for managing resources for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication in a wireless communication system. A mobile station (MS) attempting to establish P2P communication receives a P2P amble signal transmitted on at least one adjacent P2P link, measures a signal strength for the P2P amble signal, reports the measurement results to a base station (BS), and performs the P2P communication using a P2P resource that is assigned by the BS according to the measurement results. The BS assigns a resource different from the resource assigned to a P2P link having a highest signal strength measured, as a resource for the P2P communication, thereby preventing possible interference caused by adjacent P2P links.
US08953530B2

A method for adaptively allocating resources of an uplink control channel according to a system situation is disclosed. If a base station (BS) recognizes the system situation, establishes control information for resource allocation, and transmits the control information to a mobile station (MS), the mobile station (MS) allocates resources for transmitting uplink control information using a specific block or a specific resource distribution method according to the corresponding control information. The system situation may be changed according to the number of users contained in the BS's coverage or the usage of a multi-antenna. The variation of the system situation is actively reflected so that the uplink channel resources can be effectively used.
US08953527B2

An OFDM communication system employs a cell time division time frame for a plurality of overlapping cells wherein the time frame comprises time slots with each time slot allocated to one of the overlapping cells and each time slot being either an information exchange time slot or a data time slot. Remote nodes (101-105) transmit resource requests for at least one subcarrier in a data time slot to one or more of the central nodes (107, 109) in the information exchange time slots of those nodes (107, 109). The central nodes (107, 109) broadcast information of uplink channel characteristics received in the request messages and the remote nodes (101-105) use this to determine whether to abandon or continue the resource request. Eventually, the remote node may decide to use the resource and thus to transmit in the associated data time slot. A distributed multi-cell resource allocation can be achieved based on distributed decisions in the remote stations.
US08953523B2

The present invention relates to a mobile communication system having a coordinated communication mode in which radio communication is performed between a user equipment and a plurality of base stations in a coordinated manner and an uncoordinated communication mode in which radio communication is performed between a user equipment and a base station without coordinating with another base station, in which radio communication is performed by selectively using any of the coordinated communication mode and the uncoordinated communication mode. The coordinated communication in which radio communication is performed between a user equipment and a plurality of base stations in a coordinated manner and the uncoordinated communication in which radio communication is performed between a user equipment and a base station without coordinating with another base station are selectively used in an appropriate manner, with the result that a mobile communication system capable of exerting its performance in accordance with a situation can be provided.
US08953515B2

A method for receiving cell broadcast messages is described. The method includes communicating with a first cell. The method also includes switching to communicating with a second cell. A cell broadcast channel is read after switching cells. The method further includes switching from a dedicated mode to a packet idle mode. The cell broadcast channel is reread once after switching from a dedicated mode to a packet idle mode. Other aspects, embodiments and features are also claimed and described.
US08953513B2

Methods, apparatus and data structures are provided for managing multicast IP flows. According to one embodiment, active multicast IP sessions are identified by a router. A data structure is maintained by the router and contains therein information regarding the multicast sessions, including a first pointer for each of the multicast sessions, at least one chain of one or more blocks of second pointers and one or more transmit control blocks (TCBs). Each first pointer points to a chain of one or more blocks of second pointers. Each second pointer corresponds to an outbound interface (OIF) participating in the multicast session and identifies a number of times packets associated with the multicast session are to be replicated. The TCBs have stored therein control information to process or route packets. Each second pointer points to a TCB that identifies an OIF of the router through which packets are to be transmitted.
US08953511B2

The invention relates to a technique for supporting a fast channel switching in broadcast systems or similar systems for the distribution of media data, for example mobile TV data, in a point-to-multipoint (‘PTM’) fashion. A method embodiment of the technique for supporting a fast channel switching in a system (100) comprising multiple PTM primary channels is performed in a transmitter (102) and comprises the steps of transmitting pictures (P) on each of the multiple PTM primary channels; and transmitting channel switching information (‘CSI’) items on a secondary channel for supporting a fast channel switching, wherein each CSI item allows a determination of an intra-coded picture of one of a pair of primary channels at a receiver side based on a picture of the other of the pair of primary channels.
US08953510B2

A method of power saving in a wireless local area network is provided. The method is performed by a wireless device that acquires TXOP (transmission opportunity) from an access point (AP), and the TXOP indicates an interval of time when the AP has the right to transmit at least one data block for multi user-multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) transmission. The method includes receiving a power saving indicator from the AP, the power saving indicator indicating whether the AP is allowed to enter doze state during the TXOP; and entering the wireless device into the doze state until the end of the TXOP if the power saving indicator indicates an allowance of entering the doze state.
US08953505B2

The present invention provides an embodiment of a method and system for applying a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) scheme to a system employing a relay station. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a frame including an access zone and a relay zone can be configured based on the HARQ timing which can be calculated based on the structure of the access zone and relay zone. Also, according to one embodiment of the present invention, the structure of the access zone and relay zone can be determined by multiplexing communication systems that support two kinds of systems different from each other. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the HARQ scheme can be applied even to a frame including an access zone and a relay zone, by calculating the HARQ timing.
US08953504B2

Embodiments herein relate to a repeater for time division duplexed signals. The repeater comprises, for each channel of the time division duplexed signal, a pair of access points. The first access point of the pair being configured in a first mode, and the second access point of the pair being configured in a second mode. The pair of access points being linked by a broadband serial wired data connection. The invention further relates to a multi-band regenerator and a network comprising such a repeater.
US08953497B2

In mesh networks having multiple nodes that communicate data to and from each other, a great number of data transmissions may be initiated and carried out to get data to a proper processing node for execution. To get data where it needs to go (e.g., the proper destination node), a routing algorithm is used to define a set of rules for efficiently passing data from node to node until the destination node is reached. For the purpose of assuring that all data is properly transferred from node to node in a reasonably efficient manner, a routing algorithm may define subsets of nodes into regions and then send data via the regions. Even greater overall efficiency may be realized by recognizing specific adjacency relationships among a group of destination nodes and taking advantage of such adjacencies by rerouting data through regions other than the region in which a destination node resides.
US08953492B2

A route determination device includes a memory to store a piece of route information of the route which is already calculated; and a processor to execute a process including: receiving a calculation request which requests route calculation; determining the route which conforms to the calculation request by performing the route calculation when the route information stored in the memory does not include the route which conforms to the calculation request; obtaining the route which conforms to the calculation request from the route information when the route information stored in the memory includes the route which conforms to the calculation request; storing the route information of the route determined by route determining processing in the memory; and sharing, with another route determination device which determines the route going through another node device among the plurality of node devices, the route information of the route determined by the route determining processing.
US08953490B2

A wireless communication device is configured to store a plurality of profiles associated with applications. Each profile includes at least a discovery mode property and a device type property. In response to an application being activated, the wireless device enables a discovery mode for performing discovery in accordance with the discovery mode property retrieved from a selected profile associated with the application. When one or more devices are available for discovery, the wireless device receives information from each device, filters the received information to provide filtered information associated with one or more devices having a device type that matches the device type property, and provides the filtered information to the application. The wireless device may then establish, in accordance with one or more properties retrieved from the selected profile, a Wi-Fi P2P wireless network connection with at least one of the devices.
US08953489B2

A distributed switch may include a plurality of special-purpose processors that control the different functions of the switch. To enable some special services, however, the distributed switch may need one of these processors to perform the role of a master. When a processor is powered on, the processor may publish a corresponding unique ID. Before electing the master, the special-purpose processors may use a discovery process to identify the network topology of the switch and evaluate the published IDs to determine which processor should be the master. If all the processors nominate the same master processor, then that processor is elected as the master and may finish configuring the distributed switch to enable the special services.
US08953474B2

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for improving user equipment performance in up-link transmission by implementing antenna selection based on channel measurements in the down-link. In various embodiments, first and second antennas are used to receive signals on a downlink and to transmit signals on an uplink. A plurality of signals received on the downlink are used to generate a plurality of antenna parameter measurements derived from multiple correlations of a known reference sequence of data signals transmitted on the downlink. The plurality of antenna parameter measurements is then used to select either the first antenna or the second antenna or a combination of both through splitting of the signal for transmitting data signals by said user equipment device on the uplink.
US08953468B2

A method, computer program product, and system for VoIP session quality is described. A method may comprise allowing a user to define a session quality threshold for a Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) session of a VoIP conference, the session quality threshold corresponding to a session quality characteristic of the VoIP session. The method may further comprise determining a session quality value for the session quality characteristic of the VoIP session. The method may additionally comprise determining if the session quality value for the session quality characteristic of the VoIP session is unacceptable based upon, at least in part, the session quality threshold that corresponds to the session quality characteristic of the VoIP session. The method may also comprise, in response to determining that the session quality value is unacceptable, initiating one or more predefined session quality actions.
US08953446B1

A network device receives a join request on a downstream interface, wherein the join request specifies a source device and multicast group, wherein the network device is positioned within a core network of a multicast virtual private network (MVPN) that transmits multicast traffic between the source device and a plurality of receivers associated with customer sites. The network device selects an upstream router to which to send the join request from among a plurality of upstream routers on paths leading to the source device, so as to avoid creating a join request loop in the core network. At least one of the upstream routers is positioned on an Exterior Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) path toward the source device, and at least one of the upstream routers is positioned on an Interior BGP (IBGP) path toward the source device. The network device sends the join request to the selected upstream device.
US08953443B2

A method and apparatus for providing a congestion management of a wireless communication network are disclosed. For example, the method projects dynamically a trend for a network element of the wireless communication network, using a functionality metric associated with the network element of the wireless communication network, and determines if there is a potential congestion in accordance with the trend. The method then provides a notification of the potential congestion, if there is a potential congestion for the network element of the wireless communication network.
US08953438B2

In a system that uses a switched network and virtual links (for example, an AFDX, TT-ETHERNET, or TT-Gigabit ETHERNET switched ETHERNET network), the system is configured so that, for at least one virtual link, the end system that sources frames for that virtual link can change (for example, when an end system that was previously sourcing frames for that virtual link fails). The switches used in such a system are configured to be able to accept frames if there is such a change.
US08953436B2

Network node modules within a vehicle are arranged to form a reconfigurable automotive neural network. Each network node module includes one or more subsystems for performing one or more operations and a local processing module for communicating with the one or more subsystems. A switch coupled between the one or more subsystems and the processing module re-routes traffic from the one or more subsystems to an external processing module upon failure of the local processing module.
US08953431B2

A method of operation of a transmitting node in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication system is provided. The method includes generating a frame including a plurality of physical layer zones, each of the plurality of physical layer zones applying different Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) sizes and different pilot patterns; and transmitting the frame.
US08953424B2

An optical-recording-medium driving apparatus includes: a light irradiating/receiving section configured to irradiate light on a medium so as to form a first side spot, a main spot, and a second side spot, and to receive reflection light from the individual spots; a first delay section configured to delay a light reception signal on the first side spot in accordance with a disposition interval between the first and the second side spots; a second delay section configured to delay a light reception signal on the main spot in accordance with a disposition interval between the main and second side spots; and a tracking-error-signal generation section configured to generate a tracking error signal on the basis of a correlation between delayed light reception signals on the first side spot and the main spot, and a correlation between the light reception signals on the second side spot and the main spot.
US08953414B2

An electromechanical transducer according to an embodiment of the present invention is capable of selectively performing a transmitting and receiving operation by using elements of different shapes. The electromechanical transducer has a plurality of cells, each of which has a vibrating film including two electrodes provided with a gap therebetween, two driving and detecting units, a potential difference setter, and a switch. Each of the driving and detecting units implements a transmitting and/or a receiving function. A first or second element includes first or second electrodes which are electrically connected and further connected to the common first or second driving and detecting unit, respectively. The potential difference setter sets a predetermined potential difference between the reference potentials of the first and second driving and detecting units, respectively, and the switch switches between the first and second driving and detecting units to perform the transmitting and receiving operation.
US08953410B2

The semiconductor integrated circuit includes a command decoder, a shift register unit and a command address latch unit. The command decoder is responsive to an external command defining write and read modes and configured to provide a write command or a read command according to the external command using a rising or falling clock. The shift register unit is configured to shift an external address and the write command by a write latency in response to the write command. The column address latch unit is configured to latch and provide the external address as a column address in the read mode, and to latch a write address, which is provided from the shift register unit, and provide the write address as the column address in the write mode.
US08953406B2

Disclosed herein is a device that includes a plurality of semiconductor chips mounted on a module substrate. Each of the semiconductor chips includes a reset terminal to which a reset signal is supplied, and an internal circuit that is initialized based on the reset signal. The module substrate includes a reset signal line connected commonly to the reset terminals of the semiconductor chips, and an anti-resonance element connected to the reset signal line.
US08953395B2

Embodiments of a memory are disclosed that may reduce the likelihood of a misread while reading a weak data storage cell. The memory column may include a number of data storage cells, a column multiplexer, and a sense amplifier. The sense amplifier may have two or more gain elements which can be individually selected to adjust the gain level of the sense amplifier.
US08953390B2

According to one embodiment, a semiconductor memory device includes n (n being a natural number of 2 or more) data retention circuits connected to a data input/output terminal; n buses connected respectively to the n data retention circuits; m×n data latch circuits connected to the buses, with m (m being a natural number of 2 or more) data latch circuits being connected per one of the buses; and a selection circuit configured to simultaneously perform data transfer from/to the data retention circuits for a plurality of the data latch circuits in units of a group including the plurality of the data latch circuits, the data latch circuits being divided into the groups so that not all the data latch circuits connected to the same bus are included in the same group.
US08953381B2

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array having memory cells coupled to a plurality of word lines and a peripheral circuit group configured to supply a pass voltage to unselected word lines among the plurality of word lines, wherein the peripheral circuit group stepwise raises the pass voltage supplied to the unselected word lines to a target level.