US09071608B2
Techniques are disclosed for load balancing in networks such as those networks handling telephony applications. By way of example, such techniques direct requests associated with calls to servers in a system comprised of a network routing calls between a plurality of callers and at least one receiver wherein a load balancer sends requests associated with calls to a plurality of servers as follows. A request associated with a call, a caller, or a receiver is received, depending on the particular load balancing technique. A server is selected to receive the request. A subsequent request is received. A determination is made whether or not the subsequent request is associated with the call, the caller, or the receiver, depending on the particular load balancing technique. The subsequent request is sent to the server based on determining that the subsequent request is associated with the call, the caller, or the receiver, again depending on the particular load balancing technique.
US09071602B2
A biometric authentication method is executed by a biometric authentication system comprising a server device to store biometric data of a plurality of users in a registering unit; and a client device to retain the biometric data sampled from the user and authenticated by the server device in a retaining unit together with user information. The method comprises verifying the biometric data sampled from the user with the cache biometric data retained in the retaining unit when in authentication; acquiring synthesized information of the cache biometric data of which the verification gets successful and the biometric data sampled from the user; and authenticating the synthesized information by use of the biometric data specified by the user information of the biometric data of which the verification gets successful in plural sets of biometric data registered in the registering unit.
US09071599B2
A method of configuring a terminal including initializing the terminal, and which automatically triggers at least: detecting presence of a memory by a basic input/output system of the terminal, accessing the memory by the basic input/output system, starting up an operating system stored in the memory, and starting up a driver of a telecommunication network access module, the driver of the access module being stored in the memory and configured to drive the access module through a communication link between the terminal and a telecommunication device including the access module.
US09071594B2
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for providing user credentials over a network to a remote computer application. User credentials for the remote computer application are stored in a central repository that is accessible through the network. A request is sent to a service to perform, on behalf of a user, a particular task involving the remote computer application. It is determined whether the service has been granted permission to act on behalf of the user with respect to the remote computer application. When the service has permission to act on behalf of the user, the service is used to retrieve the user's credentials for the remote computer application from the central repository and to supply the retrieved user credentials to the remote computer application.
US09071588B2
A device for use in a system with multiple receiving units, and multiple intermediate units each configured to communicate with the device and at least some of the multiple receiving units, includes a communication module configured to send information toward and receive information from the receiving units and the intermediate units, a memory, and a processor coupled to the memory and the communication module. The processor is configured to: cause the communication module to send information toward each of the receiving units sufficient for the receiving units to obtain a key chain corresponding to that receiving unit, each key chain containing a plurality of keys, each key in each key chain being related to other keys in the respective key chains by at least one inverse of a one-way function; select a key from a key chain associated with a particular receiving unit and stored in the memory; and cause the communication module to send the selected key, and an indication of which receiving unit the selected key is associated with, toward the intermediate unit associated with the particular receiving unit.
US09071586B2
A method of processing a web service in a Non-Real Time (NRT) service and the broadcast receiver are disclosed herein. A method of providing an NRT service in a broadcasting receiver may include receiving first signaling information, identifying whether a service type of an NRT service is a web service based upon the first signaling information, identifying a web page type and a web page version of the NRT service and browsing the NRT service. The method may further include connecting a service signaling channel, parsing the received first signaling information, determining whether the NRT service is supported in the broadcasting receiver and consuming the web contents of the NRT service. The NRT service may include at least one of a fixed NRT service and a mobile NRT service. The first signaling information may be a data casting description table (DDT) if the NRT service is the fixed NRT service. The first signaling information may be a service map table (SMT) if the NRT service is the mobile NRT service. The DDT may include a first field identifying the NRT service and a second field identifying a type of the NRT service. The type of the web service may include at least one of a web document of text HTML and a web document of CE-HTML. The third field and the fourth field may be valid if the type of the received service is the web service based upon the second field.
US09071579B1
A system and method for submission and receipt of communications and information including sending, receiving, and responding to mood related, time-sensitive and/or secretive messages or information, through a one-step submission to communication networks and/or social media platforms, through a anonymous submit and targeted authorized receipt process, having the generating, assigning, and utilizing of unique identifiers, and corresponding actionable and searchable administrative report generating process.
US09071578B2
A method, apparatus, and computer-readable media are presented that provide a configuration that sets up and maintains communication connections through the use of Network Address Translation. The configuration includes communicating, by a device, packets from and/or to another device, in which the communication involves a network address translation, and maintaining the network address translation by transmitting, by the device, packets using the network address translation frequently enough to prevent any intermediate device from deleting a mapping for the network address translation from a cache of the intermediate device.
US09071575B2
In one exemplary embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes receiving a request to block a host, wherein the host provides a prohibited content via a computer network. A spider program can verify that the host provides the prohibited content. An abuse route list can be generated. The abuse route list can include an internet protocol address of the host. The abuse route list is provided to a network operator with a computer networking protocol. A search engine of a database of infringing hosts can be provided. The database of infringing hosts can include the internet protocol address of the host. Whether the host provides the prohibited content can be reverified with a third-party review. The host from can be removed from the abuse route list if the third-party review determines that the host does not provide prohibited content.
US09071573B2
A method for providing article information includes the following steps: an article request for obtaining an article to be read is received through a network from a present client. The article is analyzed to obtain several potential keywords from the article. An internal database is searched to obtain at least one representative keyword, which the potential words belong to, and transformation information between the at least one representative keyword and each potential keyword. A number of search results of the at least one representative keyword is obtained by searching an external database for calculating a number of search results of each potential keyword. Article-related information related to the article is generated according to the number of search results of the potential keywords. The article and the article-related information are combined to generate a web page for being transmitted to the present client through the network.
US09071570B2
A portlet may be selected from among one or more portlets rendered by an origin server. The origin server may have an object listening for pointer activity wherein a user event triggers selection of a portlet. The origin server, in response, may send state information of the portlet in the form of a key to a client, often operated by a user. Client may later send the key to a disjoint server, wherein the key is integrated into a portal containing services that the client subscribes to. Thus a persistent session may exist between the disjoint server and the origin server based on the user's preferences.
US09071567B2
Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with generating social networks are described. In one embodiment, a method includes generating recommendations for expanding a social network for a user based at least in part on the user's membership to a workspace and other members of the workspace.
US09071549B2
There are included an opposite-side transmitter unit for transmitting the same messages to plural communication paths, respectively; and a host-side receiver unit for receiving the messages flowing through the plural communication paths, respectively; wherein, the receiver unit, compares the plural received messages to perform verification using error-detection code on any one of the messages when they are identical, or on all of the messages when there is a mismatch; and when detected error of message due to error inclusion or reception failure, discards all of the messages received at that time, and calculates an accumulated number of error detections for each of the communication paths through which the messages has been transmitted, so as to stop receiving the control-related message, when the number of error detections has reached a given number, from the communication path where the number of error detections has reached the given number.
US09071542B2
The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for providing multi-level classification of a network packet. In some embodiments, network performance may be enhanced and optimized by providing QoS and acceleration engines with packet- or data-specific information. In addition to source and destination IP addresses and port numbers, packet- or data-specific information can include direction of traffic (client to host or server; server or host to client; or both), Virtual LAN (VLAN) ID, source or destination application or associated application, service class, ICA priority, type of service, differentiated service code point (DSCP), or other information. Some or all of this information may be used to classify the network packet at a plurality of layers of a network stack, allowing for deep inspection of the packet and multiple levels of granularity of classification.
US09071541B2
Routers balance network traffic among multiple paths through a network according to an amount of bandwidth that can be sent on an outgoing interface computed for each of the paths. For example, a router receives a link bandwidth for network links that are positioned between the first router and a second router of the network, and selects a plurality of forwarding paths from the first router to the second router. Upon determining that one of the network links is shared by multiple of the plurality of forwarding paths, the router computes a path bandwidth for each of the plurality of forwarding paths so as to account for splitting of link bandwidth of the shared network link across the multiple forwarding paths that share the network link. The router assigns packet flows to the forwarding paths based at least on the computed amount of bandwidth for each of the forwarding paths.
US09071540B2
A proxy server and a hierarchical network system and a distributed workload management method. According to one embodiment of this disclosure, the proxy server includes: a rate controller configured to, based on measured request-related information and service quality parameters relative to service levels of requests, periodically determine a dispatch rate for requests of each service level, wherein the sum of the dispatch rate for respective service levels is less than or equal to a predetermined rate; and a request dispatcher configured to dispatch the requests of the corresponding service level in accordance with the dispatch rate determined by the rate controller. One aspect of the disclosure realizes a low overhead, highly scalable, simple and efficient workload management system to achieve QoS assurance and overload protection.
US09071532B2
A method and system for path computation in a communications network having multiple domains are disclosed. According to one aspect, a method of path computation across multiple domains includes identifying a plurality of border nodes at borders of a plurality of domains, each domain having at least one border node. The method includes providing a path computation element at each of the plurality of border nodes of the domains of the network. The locations of the path computation elements are known to be at the border nodes prior to determining a path in response to a path computation request.
US09071531B2
Methods and apparatus for controlling the forwarding of a flow (12) of data units across a network from a sender node (11) to a receiver node (19) via at least one intermediate node (15), the data units each having one of a plurality of different types of class indication associated therewith, each type of class indication providing, to an intermediate node currently processing the data unit with which the class indication is associated, an indication denoting a particular class of treatment, selected from a plurality of different classes of treatment, according to which the data unit is to be processed by that intermediate node, such that different proportions of the data units of the flow are forwarded as different sub-flows each comprising data units having class indications of different types thereby providing indications denoting different classes of treatment.
US09071529B2
A network element acting as a forwarding plane within a software-defined network to reduce negative effects of slow-path packet processing is described. The network element, upon receiving a first packet, determines whether it matches any flow entry within a set of flow tables. When the first packet does not match any flow entry of the set of flow tables, the network element performs a miss procedure including inserting at least a portion of the first packet into a packet miss table of the network element, which is accessed by a controller. The controller may access the packet miss table using a pull mechanism. The miss procedure may also include accessing a configurable default rule table of the network element, which includes rules enabling limited forwarding for those packets that do not match any entry of the set of flow tables.
US09071528B2
An enhanced general input/output communication architecture, protocol and related methods are presented.
US09071527B2
A method and apparatus for providing subscriber load distribution in networks are disclosed. For example, the method receives capacity data and user equipment (UE) resource consumption data from a plurality of devices that process call control signaling messages within the communication network. The method receives a first request from one of the plurality of devices to re-register one or more selected user equipment, and selects at least one available device from the plurality of devices. The method then re-registers the one or more selected user equipment on the at least one available device.
US09071520B2
Systems and methods for presentation of value distributions in a graphical user interface are provided. The method comprises computing a plurality of value distributions based on measurements performed for target values for one or more positions spread across a space, wherein a series of measurements are performed for at least a target point in the space; computing a cumulative distribution for the plurality of value distributions associated with the target point along predetermined time intervals; dividing the cumulative distribution into bins for one or more time periods corresponding to said predetermined time intervals; mapping attributes associated with the target point into shapes; and using a scaling function, assigning a color attribute from a color scheme to each bin.
US09071519B1
A system, method, and computer program product are provided for rating network transmissions based on user requested data. In use, a transmission of data over a network is identified, where the data includes user requested data and additional data. Additionally, a size of the user requested data is determined. Furthermore, the transmission of the user requested data is rated based on the size of the user requested data. The transmission of additional data may be charged to third parties such as advertisers.
US09071518B2
Utilizing a server-based rules-based action framework, methods and systems gather status and configuration information about each of a plurality of mobile devices, which include devices from different mobile platforms. At the server, software processes monitor status information and respond automatically to changes, causing administrator-selected rules to be evaluated to determine if an action should automatically be initiated.
US09071510B2
Determining root causes of network issues includes identifying a previous network issue, comparing a first behavior of network components during the previous network issue with a second behavior of the network components during a current issue of a network, and obtaining a previous user input about a previous root cause of the previous network issue collected while diagnosing the previous issue.
US09071507B2
A registration method includes acquiring, by a second CIMOM, parameters of a CIM provider from a first CIMOM by using information of a namespace to which a device to be configured belongs or device information of the device to be configured. The second CIMOM obtains identification information of the CIM provider in the parameters of the CIM provider through matching according to the device information or model information of the device to be configured. The second CIMOM acquires the CIM provider from the first CIMOM by using the obtained identification information of the CIM provider, and registering the CIM provider.
US09071505B2
Access services are dynamically allocated for processing received data traffic by creating routing information for data traffic associated with a particular subscriber, subscriber equipment and/or network address information. The routing information identifies services that the data traffic can be subjected to and the order in which the services are provided. When an attached request is received, appropriate services for the requesting subscriber are retrieved from a database based on particular identifying information which may include the identification of the subscriber, subscriber equipment, network address or other information. The services are organized in a routing path and the allocated network address and the routing path are transferred to a smart router. Data traffic, associated with the allocated network address is then routed through servers to provide the identified services.
US09071493B2
Methods and apparatus for correcting frequency errors between a carrier frequency of a signal received by a wireless device and a reference frequency local to the device. For certain aspects, such a method generally includes receiving a signal in a receiver having an LO producing a reference frequency, a radio frequency (RF) phase-locked loop (PLL), and a digital rotator, estimating a frequency difference between a carrier frequency of the received signal and the LO reference frequency, and applying the estimated frequency difference to the RF PLL and the digital rotator.
US09071492B2
A first error-correcting decoder, adapted to decode the data bits of a received OFDM symbol; a re-encoder, to receive decoded bits and adapted to re-encode a leading portion of the decoded bits; a mapper, to receive the re-encoded leading portion of bits, map these bits to a corresponding subset of the plurality of sub-carriers, and thereby estimate a modulation symbol that was applied to each sub-carrier of said subset a channel estimator, to produce a channel estimate by comparing the sub-carrier modulation symbols with the corresponding sub-carriers actually received by the receiver; and an equalizer, to process the received signal to remove distortions introduced by the transmission channel, using the channel estimate, the re-encoder is adapted to begin re-encoding the leading portion of the bits before a trailing portion of the bits has been decoded by the decoder.
US09071488B2
The present specification relates to a method/apparatus for extending and transmitting a reference signal, and to a method and apparatus for transmitting a cyclic shift (hereinafter, referred to as CS) parameter. In generating the extended reference signal, the CS is determined as a function for both a basic CS parameter and an extended CS parameter.
US09071484B1
A system for managing delivery of video content. The system includes a controller and one or more players. The controller may be configured to control generation of a plurality of streams containing the video content based upon feedback regarding decoding at least one of the plurality of streams. The one or more players may be configured to select a stream from the plurality of streams, generate decoding statistics for the selected stream, and send the decoding statistics to the controller as the feedback.
US09071472B1
According to the teachings herein, one or more signal parameters for received data symbols are estimated by determining a statistical representation for the data symbols based on the magnitude distribution of initial symbol estimates. The statistical representation is compared to a number of reference representations that were formed in like manner from respective sets of data symbols parameterized according to the signal parameters to be estimated for the received data symbols, or according to signal parameters from which the parameters of interest can be derived. Basing the comparison on symbol magnitude distributions provides robust operation at low symbol qualities. Further, one or more embodiments disclosed herein increase the estimation robustness by using a pilot-assisted approach, whereby the reference representations used in the comparison are selected from a larger set in dependence on a quality range estimated from reference symbols received in conjunction with the data symbols of interest.
US09071471B2
Disclosed are methods and structures for soft symbol and variance estimation for QAM constellations including a big-flipping framework and efficient methods for soft symbol estimation and variance estimation for QAM. Disclosed are efficient Gray mapping which provides a much lower complexity, i.e., log N for N-QAM for both squared and non-squared QAM constellations. Also disclosed is an approximation method that avoids multiplications completely while exhibiting only a slight performance degradation. Finally, a low complexity method for variance estimations, particularly second moment estimations for both squared and non-squared QAM constellations with Gray mapping are disclosed. Advantageously—using the disclosed methods—the complexity of the second moment estimation is reduced to O((log N)^2) for an N-QAM symbol for both squared and non-squared QAM.
US09071463B2
A method and system are presented for sorting alert and offer messages on a mobile device. One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method including receiving alert messages at a mobile device where each alert message contains transaction data associated with a transaction conducted with a merchant. Upon receiving the alert messages, the mobile device receives alert message sorting criteria from a user associated with the mobile device, sorts the alert messages according to the received offer sorting criteria, and displays the sorted alert messages.
US09071457B2
A provider edge apparatus comprises an ingress processing unit to generate an encapsulated frame to be transmitted to another provider edge apparatus coupled to another customer edge apparatus, wherein the encapsulated frame includes a frame directed to the another customer edge apparatus, an egress processing unit to extract a frame to be forwarded to the specified customer edge apparatus, a storage to store an identifier of the provider edge apparatus and an identifier of the another provider edge apparatus when the specified customer edge apparatus is coupled to the another edge apparatus via a second access line, wherein the identifiers corresponds to a group identifier indicating an access line group belonging the first access line and the second access line, and a filter to discard the encapsulated frame or a frame in the encapsulated frame satisfying a filter condition.
US09071455B2
The present invention provides for devices and methods for the transmission of data over nodes of a specific network. A device may comprise at least two network nodes, a bus having a transmitting line and a receiving line for interconnecting the network nodes. The respective network node has a fault protection circuit which is to bypass the network node in the event of a fault and is capable of reversing the polarity of the transmitting line and of the receiving line, a detection means for detecting a reverse in polarity of the transmitting line and of the receiving line by the respective upstream network node, and a fault-locating means for locating a fault in the upstream network node when a reverse in polarity of the transmitting line and of the receiving line has been detected.
US09071452B2
A high-speed communication system according to the present invention includes: a plurality of nodes disposed on a communication path; and a plurality of communication connections established between the plurality of nodes. The plurality of nodes exchange a plurality of pieces of performance model information between the nodes, the plurality of pieces of performance model information representing communication performances achievable by each of the plurality of communication connections. Each of the plurality of nodes executes communication control based on any one of the plurality of pieces of performance model information.
US09071432B2
A method of handling transmission and reception involving an almost blank subframes (ABS) subframe for a mobile device in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method comprises the mobile device being configured the ABS subframe by a network of the wireless communication system; and the mobile device stopping receiving a first packet transmitted by the network in a subframe, when the subframe is the ABS subframe.
US09071430B2
This disclosure includes embodiments of a radio frequency (RF) transceiver having a distributed duplex filtering topology. The RF transceiver includes a power amplifier and a tunable RF duplexer. The tunable RF duplexer is configured to input an RF transmission input signal from the power amplifier, generate an RF transmission output signal that operates within an RF transmission band in response to the RF transmission input signal from the power amplifier, and simultaneously output the RF transmission output signal to an antenna and input an RF receive input signal that operates within an RF receive band from the antenna. The power amplifier includes a plurality of RF amplifier stages coupled in cascode and an RF filter coupled between a first one of the RF amplifier stages and a second one of the RF amplifier stages. Accordingly, the RF filter is configured to provide tuning within the RF receive band.
US09071429B1
Customers accessing resources and/or data in a multi-tenant environment can obtain assurance that a provider of that environment will honor only requests associated with the customer. A multi-tenant cryptographic service can be used to manage cryptographic key material and/or other security resources in the multi-tenant environment. The cryptographic service can provide a mechanism in which the service can receive requests to use the cryptographic key material to access encrypted customer data, export key material out of the cryptographic service, destroy key material managed by the cryptographic service, among others. Such an approach can enable a customer to manage key material without exposing the key material outside a secure environment.
US09071425B2
A quantum communication system including a sending unit and a receiving unit, said sending unit comprising a photon source assembly configured to output a stream of pulses of light having at least two different intensities and a memory configured to store information for determining which pulses should be reference pulses and which pulses should be data pulses, the average intensity of reference pulses being different to the average intensity of data pulses, the receiving unit comprising a memory for storing information for identifying the position of reference pulses within the stream of pulses and a processor for determining the calibration of the quantum communication system from the reference pulses.
US09071421B2
Encrypted content streaming is provided by a method comprising holding an encrypted content stream that is cryptographically encrypted from a content stream with a content key, and holding an encrypted content key that is cryptographically encrypted from the content key with one or more intermediate encryption keys. The method further comprises serving the encrypted content stream to a plurality of content consumption devices, wherein the encrypted content stream is embedded with a leaf license comprising the encrypted content key, and wherein the encrypted content stream is cryptographically decryptable by a content consumption device having a scalable root license providing one or more intermediate root keys from which the content consumption device derives the one or more intermediate decryption keys paired to the one or more intermediate encryption keys.
US09071420B2
An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to identify a data length that is longer than a data length of plain text data and that is a multiple of a predetermined block length; calculate a data length difference of the data length of the plain text and the data length; generate a first code that indicates the calculated data length difference; generate a second code that is calculated from the plain text data and is of a data length that is within a remaining data length acquired by subtracting a data length of the generated first code from the data length difference; create padding that includes the generated second code, has the first code at an end, and is of a length equivalent to the data length difference; concatenate the created padding to an end of the plain text data to generate concatenated data; and output the concatenated data.
US09071414B2
Methods and apparatus for processing and generating broadcast messages determined by a subband and OFDM symbols of frames in which signals are received. Overhead messages indicating resources used by broadcast messages in a wireless communication system are generated. Signals are received over a wireless system and broadcast messages are determined from the signals as designated by a subband and OFDM symbols of frames of an ultraframe in which signals are received.
US09071413B2
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, particularly, a method in which a terminal transmits control information in a CA-based wireless communication system and an apparatus for the method, the method comprising: configuring a first cell and a second cell having different subframe configurations, wherein the second cell has any one of UL-DL configuration #0 to #6; receiving a DC) format including a DAI field, for the second cell; and transmitting HARQ-ACK information relating to the downlink DCI format. For HARQ-ACK timing, in cases where a reference UL-DL configuration applied to the second cell is any one of UL-DL configurations #1 to #6, the DAI field is used in a process of transmitting the HARQ-ACK information. For HARQ-ACK timing, in cases where a reference UL-DL configuration applied to the second cell is #0, the DAI field is not used in a process of transmitting the HARQ-ACK information.
US09071404B2
To reduce interference that a user terminal connecting to a base station apparatus forming a large-scale cell undergoes from a base station apparatus forming a small-scale cell in a radio communication system in which the small-scale cell is provided in the large-scale cell, a femto-base station forming a femto-cell provided in a macro-cell receives cell identification information of a macro-base station, determines cell identification information of the femto-base station based on the received cell identification information of the macro-base station so as to reduce interference to a control format indicator channel assigned to radio resources by the macro-base station, and controls assignment of control channels to radio resources based on the determined cell identification information of the femto-base station.
US09071394B2
A system, method, and optical switch for communicating timing. A determination is made whether one of a number of data streams are available. Packets are received at a remote node in response to determining one of the number of data streams is available. A timing characteristic of the at least one of the packets is associated with a tick of a reference clock. The tick of the reference clock is extracted utilizing the timing characteristic of the at least one of the packets. A secondary clock is disciplined with the reference clock by adjusting the secondary clock based on a difference between times measured by the reference clock and the secondary clock to generate a clock signal. The clock signal is communicated to one or more interfaces for distributing.
US09071387B1
An apparatus (100) includes a canine harness (101) with a radio frequency inhibitor (400). A leash (1002) can serve as a control device (102). The leash can selectively mechanically couple to the canine harness and electrically couple an actuator (114) to the radio frequency inhibitor. When the actuator is actuated, the radio frequency inhibitor is to emit one or more radio frequency inhibition signals (405), which can include the emission of all programmed signals simultaneously. Radio frequency inhibitors can also be integrated into clothing or armor (1802), as well as equipment (1901). The radio frequency inhibitor can interrupt, suppress, or halt electronic detonation communications to an explosive device.
US09071386B2
A communication system includes an omnidirectional antenna to receive a wideband primary signal, a nulling antenna to receive a secondary signal and a controller. The nulling antenna is oriented to place a null in a direction of a desired communication signal and the controller subtracts a processed secondary signal from a processed wideband primary signal to produce a jamming cancelled signal.
US09071381B2
The present invention discloses a system for signalling within optical or combined optical/electronic networks wherein a first transmission node executes polarization multiplexing on transmitted traffic, and at one or more intermediate nodes one or more of the following processes are carried out on the sent traffic: demultiplexing by polarization and/or polarization and/or SOP-alignment. Further a method for packet handling within optical packet switched networks where, at a first transmission node carries out polarization demultiplexing of transmitted traffic, and at one or a number of intermediate nodes carries out one or more of the following processes on the transmitted traffic; demultiplexing by polarization, and/or polarization and/or SOP-alignment. Said separation into states of polarization is used in separation of QoS-classes.
US09071378B2
A superimposed signal detection circuit detects a signal superimposed on an optical signal in a WDM system. The superimposed signal detection circuit includes: an optical filter having wavelength-dependent loss to filter a plurality of optical signals on which a corresponding superimposed signal is superimposed by frequency modulation; a photo detector to convert the plurality of optical signals filtered by the optical filter into an electric signal; and a detector to obtain information indicated by the superimposed signal respectively superimposed on the plurality of optical signals from the electric signal obtained by the photo detector.
US09071375B2
In a signal transmitting apparatus, an upper m bits (m≧8) are defined to have the same value in a forbidden code in video data areas channels included in serial digital interfaces of one or plural channels of N bits (N≧10). A mapping unit makes at least a lower 2 bits among the upper m bits different from each other, multiplexing video data of an upper m−2 bits included in compressed data compressed to the amount of data of the one or plural channels of the serial digital interfaces, in which the number of pixels in one frame is equal to or more than that of pixels defined by an HD format into upper m−2 bits in the video data areas of the first and second channels, and multiplexing video data of lower 2 bits in the compressed data into lower N−m bits in the video data areas of the first and second channels.
US09071374B2
A communication system, network, interface, and port architecture are provided for transferring data via a network. The network can be configured by connecting ports in a daisy chain arrangement to achieve a ring architecture or topology. The network transmits data according to a specific protocol. A first port transmits frames containing frame count information which is divided into several pieces, with each piece being transmitted in a single frame. A second port receives the frames, stores them in a frame buffer, and reassembles the frame count information from a plurality of frames.
US09071373B2
Systems, methods, and devices are provided for a multiplexed serial media independent interface (110-1, 110-N, 210). One system for handling data includes a physical layer (PHY) circuit (102-1, 102-N, 202-1, 202-N) operating at a first rate including a number of ports (104-1, 104-P), a media access control (MAC) circuit (108, 208-1, 208-N) operating at the first rate including a number of ports, and a multiplexed serial media independent interface (110-1, 110-N, 210) between the MAC circuit (108, 208-1, 208-N) and the PHY circuit (102-1, 102-N, 202-1, 202-N) operating at a second rate, which is greater than the first rate. The interface (110-1, 110-N, 210) includes a number of conductors and is configured to communicate data between the MAC circuit (108, 208-1, 208-N) and the PHY circuit (102-1, 102-N, 202-1, 202-N) via four conductors per up to eight ports (104-1, 104-P) of the PHY circuit (102-1, 102-N, 202-1, 202-N).
US09071372B2
Methods and devices for presenting an interactive media guidance application are provided. In some embodiments, methods for presenting an interactive media guidance application in a user equipment device are provided, the methods comprising: determining a location of the user equipment device; determining a destination of the user equipment device; determining an arrival time for the user equipment device to be located at the destination; selecting, as guide listings, listings corresponding to media available at the destination at/after the arrival time; and presenting the guide listings on the user equipment device.
US09071359B2
The present invention relates to a method and arrangement in a wireless communication system, e.g. an evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network, for improved scheduling and admission control of the uplink by providing an improved determining of power-related quantities, e.g. neighbor cell interference levels, for specific tones and providing more accurate determination of noise-related quantities, e.g. noise floor power estimates, for specific tones. The method and arrangement obtains a neighbor cell interference measure for each subset of tones from at least a noise floor measure for each subset of tones based on combined power quantities from the total uplink power per subset of tones and dividing said noise floor measure into sub noise floor measures for each subset of tones, said dividing dependent on the bandwidth of each subset of tones.
US09071351B2
An optical switch include a switch unit including a light reflection unit of which the reflection direction is changeable, the switch unit configured to optically connect an input port to an output port via the light reflection unit by changing the reflection direction of the light reflection unit; a determining light input unit configured to input into a first predetermined port a determining light for determining malfunctions in the light reflection unit; a light detection unit configured to detect the determining light from the output from a second predetermined port; and a malfunction determining unit configured to determine that abnormalities have occurred when the determining light is detected by the light detection unit.
US09071345B2
The present disclosure provides a method and an apparatus for obtaining an idle spectrum. The method includes: obtaining, by a central management unit, configuration information of a transmitter of an authorized system, and obtaining geographic location information of candidate sense nodes; selecting, by the central management unit, sense nodes from the candidate sense nodes according to the configuration information and the geographic location information, and informing the selected sense nodes to perform spectrum sensing; and receiving, by the central management unit, sensing results of the selected sense nodes, and obtaining information of an idle spectrum according to the sensing results.
US09071343B2
A system that incorporates the subject disclosure may perform, for example, a method that determines at least one threshold for detecting signal interference in a first plurality of segments occurring in a first radio frequency spectrum of a first wireless communication system, detecting a pattern of recurrence over time of signal interference in a segment of the first plurality of resource blocks according to the at least one threshold, and performing one or more mitigation steps to mitigate the signal interference without filtering the signal interference where the one or more mitigation steps include at least one of transmitting signals out of phase from the signal interference, adjusting transmit power, increasing power in a resource block of a long term evolution communication session, performing beam steering, or changing time parameters for the resource block without changing to a new resource block. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09071340B2
Provided is a method of generating an orthogonal set in a quasi-synchronous spread spectrum system, the method including selecting a two-level autocorrelation sequence at a sequence selector, selecting a first indices set and a second indices set from the two-level autocorrelation sequence, and generating two quasi-orthogonal sets using the first indices set and the second indices set, at an orthogonal code generator.
US09071335B2
Disclosed are devices and methods related to radio-frequency (RF) shielding of RF modules. In some embodiments, tuned shielding can be achieved by utilizing different structures and/or arrangements of shielding-wirebonds to increase shielding in areas where needed, and to decrease shielding where not needed. Such tuning of shielding requirements can be obtained by measuring RF power levels at different locations of a module having a given design. Such tuned RF shielding configurations can improve the overall effectiveness of shielding, and can also be more cost effective to implement.
US09071334B2
A method for reducing far-end crosstalk in an xDSL system is provided. The method includes transmitting, by a first DSL transceiver over a first line to a second DSL transceiver, a noise statistic related value that reflects a signal-to-noise ratio of the first line and receiving, by the first DSL transceiver over the first line from the second DSL transceiver, a synthesized signal pre-coded on the second DSL transceiver using filtering parameters associated with the noise statistic related value. The method further includes transmitting, by the first DSL transceiver over the first line to the second DSL transceiver in response to the reception of the synthesized signal, an updated noise statistic related value. A corresponding device for remote crosstalk cancellation is also provided.
US09071332B2
An enhanced base station and clock synchronization method are provided. The method includes scanning to discover a satellite transmitting a satellite signal and a master base station providing clock synchronization signal, entering, when a satellite having a signal that fulfills predetermined conditions is found, a master mode for receiving the satellite signal to acquire clock synchronization and transmitting a clock synchronization signal to at least one slave base station, and entering, when no satellite having a signal that fulfills the predetermined conditions is found, a slave mode for receiving the clock synchronization signal from the master base station to acquire clock synchronization. The method allows the base station to switch between the master and slave modes dynamically according to variation of the communication environment, resulting in efficient clock synchronization.
US09071328B2
Typical transceivers have multiple near-end and multiple far-end crosstalk cancellation filters. Crosstalk cancellation is one of the largest contributors to power dissipation in the DSP portion of high speed Ethernet transceivers. By detecting the cable type, a transceiver could automatically turn off its crosstalk cancellation filters when driving shielded twisted pair (STP) cables and substantially reduce the overall power dissipation in this configuration. Adaptive digital crosstalk cancellers automatically adjust the coefficients of a digital filter to match the coupling function between two channels. The impulse response of an optimal crosstalk cancellation filter can be used to determine a metric indicating the amount of coupling between the two channels. STP cables will have a much lower amount of coupling between wire-pairs than unshielded twisted pair cables.
US09071320B1
Apparatus and methods calibrate and control detector gain in a Mueller-Muller timing detector. A Mueller-Muller circuit obtains timing information for a received signal in which the receiving device samples the signal once per baud period.
US09071309B2
The present implementation is directed to a system and method of mobile transmit diversity and, more particularly, to a device which can operate in any of several modes, including a transmit diversity mode whereby two or more antennae transmit signals to at least one base station with relative phase difference, or in a non-diversity mode whereby one antenna is turned off and the other transmits at full or requisite power.
US09071308B2
A method for determining codebook generation mode is disclosed by the present disclosure, comprising: A: grouping M kinds of ranks among N kinds of ranks supported by a user equipment (UE) into Z sets of rank, and for each set, respectively selecting a codebook generation mode from at least two preset codebook generation modes, where N, M and Z are integers greater than or equal to 1, M is less than or equal to N, and Z is less than or equal to M; B: informing the UE or a serving cell thereof of the selection. The present disclosure also discloses a UE and a base station. The system performance can be improved by adopting the method and devices of the present disclosure.
US09071305B2
Methods and systems are provided for timing synchronization for reception of highly-spectrally efficient communications. An example method may include, filtering, in a receiver, a received inter-symbol correlated (ISC) signal to generate a filtered ISC signal. The method may further include locking to a timing pilot signal of the filtered ISC signal. The timing pilot signal may include a sub-harmonic frequency of a clock signal associated with the received ISC signal. A timing pilot estimate signal of the timing pilot signal may be generated. The timing pilot estimate signal may be cancelled from the filtered partial response signal to generate an output ISC signal. The timing pilot signal includes a signal at ±(1/n*Fbaud), where n is an integer greater than 2, and Fbaud is a symbol rate of the clock signal. The clock signal may be recovered from the filtered ISC signal.
US09071296B2
Provided is a communication system using a space division multi-user multiple input multiple output (SD-MIMO) communication method. A transmission apparatus may transmit, to each of terminals included within a coverage, common control information commonly transmitted to the terminals and individual control information individually transmitted to each of the terminals. The transmission apparatus does not precode the common control information and transmits the non-precoded common control information. The transmission apparatus precodes the individual control information and transmits the precoded individual control information.
US09071295B1
In a method for decoding plurality of information streams corresponding to a plurality of layers, where the plurality of information streams have been transmitted via a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication channel, a plurality of received signals are processed to decode information corresponding to a first layer. A plurality of modified received signals are generated using the decoded information corresponding to the first layer and the plurality of received signals. Bit metric values are generated for a second layer using MIMO maximum likelihood (ML) demodulation and using the plurality of modified received signals and channel and modulation information for interfering signals. Information corresponding to the second layer is decoded using the generated bit metric values.
US09071294B2
A use signal determining section determines the use of a first known signal for array transmission control, when a downlink priority is higher than a threshold value. The use signal determining section determines the use of a second known signal for the array transmission control, when the downlink priority is lower than the threshold value. When the first known signal is used for the array transmission control for a communication terminal performing downlink communication therewith, a scheduling executing section determines to perform uplink communication with the communication terminal. When the second known signal is used for the array transmission control for a communication terminal performing downlink communication therewith, the scheduling executing section determines whether or not to perform uplink communication with the communication terminal by using an uplink priority for the communication terminal.
US09071293B1
The present disclosure provides a means to adjust the relative location of output rising and falling transitions to reduce single-ended duty cycle distortion (DCD) effects in the output data stream originating from the transmitter data path. This serves to improve high-speed single-ended signal characteristics and reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI). Another feature enabled by embodiments of the present disclosure is polarity skew (also referred to as differential skew) reduction between transmitter outputs. In an embodiment, the disclosed method and apparatus for transmitter data path single-ended DCD correction describes a closed-loop calibration system including the actuation apparatus within the transmitter, a sensing block at the output of the transmitter to measure the amount of single-ended DCD, and a calibration block operating on the sensor output to devise correction control inputs to the actuator in the transmitter to correct the data path single-ended DCD present.
US09071288B2
A transmitting circuit that includes a driving circuit that drives an inductor to transmit data to a semiconductor chip insulated from a semiconductor chip on which the transmitting circuit is mounted. The driving circuit receives an outgoing data, compensates wave distortion of the outgoing data generated from the self-resonance of the inductor, generates a compensated outgoing data, and outputs the compensated outgoing data to drive the inductor, such that the outgoing data is transmitted at a data rate higher than the self-resonant frequency of the inductor.
US09071284B2
This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus for detecting an impedance of a wireless power transmitter load. In one aspect, a method of determining a reactive condition of a wireless power transmitter apparatus is provided. The method comprises determining a value correlated to a voltage of a drain of a switching element of a driver circuit of the wireless power transmitter. The method further comprises determining a reactance load change based on the determined voltage.
US09071281B2
Embodiments of apparatuses, methods, and storage medium associated with selectively providing error correction to memory are disclosed herein. In one instance, an apparatus may include a memory controller configured to control access to a non-volatile memory having storage locations. The controller may be configured to provide a first error correction arrangement to provide a first level of error correction capability for data stored in the non-volatile memory. The memory controller may include a control/error correction block configured to provide a second error correction arrangement with a second level of error correction capability for data stored in the non-volatile memory. The second level of error correction capability enables correction of at least one bit error more than the first level. The memory controller may be configured to selectively employ the second error correction arrangement to complement the first error correction arrangement. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US09071280B1
An integrated circuit including a first decoder, a second decoder, a sensor, and a controller. The first decoder generates first data by performing a first number of decoding iterations and generates second data after performing all of the first number of decoding iterations. The second decoder performs a second number of decoding iterations and generates soft information based on input samples and/or the second data. Each of the second number of decoding iterations is performed after all of the first number of decoding iterations. The first decoder generates the first data based on the soft information and/or the first data from one of the first number of decoding iterations. The sensor senses a temperature of the integrated circuit. The controller controls, based on the temperature of the integrated circuit, at least one of the first number of decoding iterations or the second number of decoding iterations.
US09071270B2
A time-interleaved Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) includes a set of time multiplexed sub-ADC circuits, each sub-ADC circuit comprising a sample-and-hold circuit. Each sample-and-hold circuit includes a bootstrap circuit for maintaining a constant voltage level between an input terminal of a switch and a gate terminal of the switch, the switch for switching between a track mode and a hold mode, and a capacitor bank associated with the bootstrap circuit such that a setting of the capacitor bank affects the voltage level.
US09071265B1
A SAR ADC includes capacitors, a comparator, and a SAR logic circuit. The capacitors include a first set of capacitors and an error-detection capacitor. The first set of capacitors generates a first set of voltage signals that are compared with a common-mode voltage signal (VCM) by the comparator during a first set of comparison cycles. The comparator generates a first set of control signals that is used by the SAR logic circuit to successively approximate the first set of voltage signals and generate a first set of bits. An error-detection capacitor generates an error-detection signal that is compared with the common-mode voltage signal VCM by the comparator to generate an error-detection control signal. The SAR logic circuit compensate for an error in the first set of bits based the logic state of the error-detection control signal.
US09071264B2
An automated sequencer for a microcontroller is provided which makes a CVD conversion process a hardware function. The sequencer controls the charging/discharging of the sensor and ADC sample-and-hold capacitances, as well as the voltage division process. It also initiates the ADC conversion, with an optional second conversion for greater resolution, or a differential conversion.
US09071259B2
An input signal is quantized by a quantizer after being passed through plural loop filters. A last-stage loop filter is formed of an operational amplifier for generating an output signal, a sampling capacitor for sampling the input signal, an integrating capacitor for integrating the signal sampled by the capacitor and plural switches for switching over signal paths. A control circuit controls on/off states of the switches to discharge the sampling capacitor and the integrating capacitor and causes the loop filter to repeat a sampling operation and an integrating operation plural times. The control circuit lastly connects the sampling capacitor and the integrating capacitor to a state, which is opposite to the state of the integrating operation time and turns on a converting switch so that the A/D converter A/D-converts the output signal of the loop filter.
US09071253B2
Automatic digital sensing and compensation of frequency drift caused by temperature, aging, and/or other effects may be provided by including a compensation capacitor array and a sensing logic. The sensing logic may be configured to detect a drift in a first control signal and to provide the compensation capacitor array with a second control signal. The second control signal is configured to cause an adjustment of capacitance in the compensation capacitor array based on the detected drift in the first control signal.
US09071246B2
A system including a configurable memory controller, a memory interface, and a configurable high speed communications fabric comprising a plurality of interconnect stations arranged in an array and operable to implement a plurality of pipelined buses, where the configurable memory controller is operably coupled to the configurable high speed communications fabric using a first interconnect station of the plurality of interconnect stations, where the memory interface is operably coupled to the configurable high speed communications fabric using a second interconnect station of the plurality of interconnect stations, where the plurality of interconnect stations are configured to satisfy a timing requirement of the memory interface, and where the configurable memory controller, the memory interface, and the configurable high speed communications fabric are associated with a configurable integrated circuit.
US09071244B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a mechanism for transmitting and receiving ground-referenced single-ended signals. A transmitter combines a direct current (DC) to DC converter including a flying capacitor with a 2:1 clocked multiplexer to drive a single-ended signaling line. The transmitter drives a pair of voltages that are symmetric about the ground power supply level. Signaling currents are returned to the ground plane to minimize the generation of noise that is a source of crosstalk between different signaling lines. Noise introduced through the power supply is correlated with the switching rate of the data and may be reduced using an equalizer circuit.
US09071242B2
A method of making a level shifter includes coupling a driver stage between an input end and an output end, the driver stage comprising a first transistor and a second transistor. An inverter having an input is coupled with the input end. A third transistor having a gate end is coupled with an output of the inverter, the third transistor having a terminal coupled to a pumped voltage (VPP). Additionally, the method includes coupling a fourth transistor with the output end, the fourth transistor having a terminal coupled to the pumped voltage. A fifth transistor is coupled with the input end, the fifth transistor having a terminal coupled to the third and fourth transistors. A sixth transistor is coupled with the input end, the sixth transistor having a terminal.
US09071222B2
A microacoustic component includes an active layer and an electrode. The electrode includes a first metal layer facing the active layer, a second metal layer facing away from the active layer, and a third layer arranged between the first metal layer and the second metal layer. The third layer serves as a diffusion barrier.
US09071206B2
An audio amplification circuit comprises an amplifier having an input and an output, as well as an audio output to which a load can be connected. It additionally comprises a first driver stage having an input and an output which is not coupled to the audio output, and a second driver stage having an input and an output which is coupled to the audio output. The output from the amplifier is selectively coupled to the input of the first driver stage in a first phase of operation and then selectively to the input of the second driver stage in a second phase of operation following the first phase of operation.
US09071203B2
A circuit includes a first CMOS device forming a gain stage of a power amplifier and a second CMOS device forming a voltage buffer stage of the power amplifier. The first CMOS device includes a first doped well formed in a substrate, a first drain region and a first source region spaced laterally from one another in the first doped well, and a first gate structure formed over a first channel region in the first doped well. The second CMOS device includes a second doped well formed in the semiconductor substrate such that the first doped well and the second is disposed adjacent to the second doped well. A second drain region and a second source region are spaced laterally from one another in the second doped well, and a second gate structure formed over a second channel region in the second doped well.
US09071200B2
A power module at least includes an ET (Envelope Tracking) module. The ET module includes a buck converter, an inductor, and a capacitor. The buck converter is coupled to a work voltage. The buck converter has a first input terminal for receiving a first control signal, a second input terminal coupled to a supply node, and a buck output terminal The inductor is coupled between the buck output terminal of the buck converter and the supply node. The capacitor is coupled between the supply node and a ground voltage. The ET module is configured to supply a first adaptive supply voltage at the supply node. The first adaptive supply voltage is determined according to the first control signal.
US09071193B1
A system and method are provided for augmenting frequency tuning resolution in an L-C oscillatory circuit which comprises a source of electrical energy, and a tuned section energized by said source of electrical energy for oscillatory conduction of a resonant current therethrough. The tuned section includes an inductor portion extending in substantially looped manner between first and second connection points to define at least one turn. A primary capacitor portion is connected across at least a primary segment of the conductive member delineated by the first and second connection points. The tuned section further includes a secondary capacitor portion connected across a secondary segment of the conductive member intermediately tapped from the primary segment. The secondary capacitor portion defines a base tuning capacitance for the tuned section, which is down-converted to a fine tuning capacitance when reflected to a calibration capacitance of the primary capacitor portion for adjustable combination therewith.
US09071183B2
A control system is described that includes a first rotating machine, a second rotating machine, and a motor controller physically mounted to and communicatively coupled with the first rotating machine and communicatively coupled with the second rotating machine. The motor controller includes a first PWM generator operable to generate a first set of pulse width modulated signals for application to the first rotating machine, and a second PWM generator operable to generate a second set of pulse modulated signals for application to the second rotating machine.
US09071163B2
A hybrid DC-to-AC conversion system includes a first DC input voltage, a second DC input voltage, a power conversion apparatus, and a comparison unit. The power conversion apparatus is connected in parallel to the first DC input voltage and the second DC input voltage to convert the first DC input voltage or the second DC input voltage into an AC output voltage. The comparison unit receives the AC output voltage and an external reference voltage. The comparison unit outputs a control signal to make the first DC input voltage supply a load when an absolute value of the AC output voltage is less than or equal to the external reference voltage, whereas the comparison unit outputs the control signal to make the second DC input voltage supply the load when the absolute value of the AC output voltage is greater than the external reference voltage.
US09071158B2
A power supply apparatus includes a power supply circuit and a power-on circuit. The power-on circuit detects a remotely transmitted control signal and causes a transition of the power supply circuit to a turned on state. The power-on circuit includes a transducer configured to provide a power-on signal in response to the remote control signal. The transducer triggers transition to the turned on state through a switch driven by the power-on signal output from the transducer and arranged to supply a power supply circuit enable signal. A DC blocking capacitor is connected between an output of the transducer and a control terminal of the switch.
US09071157B2
A high-voltage (HV) startup device is disclosed. The HV startup device is connected with a control circuit of a switching power supply and receives a high voltage to provide and increase a triggering voltage received by the control circuit, wherein the control circuit is a pulse width modulator (PWM) or a pulse frequency modulator (PFM). When the triggering voltage reaches to a preset voltage of the control circuit, the control circuit sends out a control signal and the switching power supply uses the control signal to generate a sense signal. The HV startup device receives the control signal or the sense signal to stop providing the triggering voltage.
US09071154B2
This DC/DC converter includes a first DC/DC converter, and a second DC/DC converter for carrying out a DC/DC conversion of voltage supplied from the first DC/DC converter. One of either the first DC/DC converter or the second DC/DC converter is a fixed-factor DC/DC converter, and the other of either the first DC/DC converter or the second DC/DC converter is a variable-factor DC/DC converter.
US09071150B2
A method of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) uses an MPPT algorithm to determine a switching frequency for a resonant power converter, including initializing by setting an initial boundary frequency range that is divided into initial frequency sub-ranges bounded by initial frequencies including an initial center frequency and first and second initial bounding frequencies. A first iteration includes measuring initial powers at the initial frequencies to determine a maximum power initial frequency that is used to set a first reduced frequency search range centered or bounded by the maximum power initial frequency including at least a first additional bounding frequency. A second iteration includes calculating first and second center frequencies by averaging adjacent frequent values in the first reduced frequency search range and measuring second power values at the first and second center frequencies. The switching frequency is determined from measured power values including the second power values.
US09071144B2
In at least one embodiment, an electronic system adapts current control timing for half line cycle of a phase-cut input voltage and responsively controls a dimmer current in a power converter system. The adaptive current control time and responsive current control provides, for example, interfacing with a dimmer. The electronic system and method include a dimmer, a switching power converter, and a controller to control the switching power converter and controls a dimmer current. In at least one embodiment, the controller determines a predicted time period from a zero crossing until a leading edge of a phase-cut input voltage and then responsively controls the dimmer current to, for example, reduce current and voltage perturbations (referred to as “ringing”), improve efficiency, and reduce an average amount of power handled by various circuit components.
US09071141B2
DC link capacitance in a bi-directional AC/DC power converter using a full-bridge or H-bridge switching circuit can be greatly reduced and the power density of the power converter correspondingly increased by inclusion of a bi-directional synchronous rectifier (SR) DC/DC converter as a second stage of the power converter and controlling the second stage with a control loop having a transfer function common to both buck and boost modes of operation of the bi-directional SR DC/DC converter and a resonant transfer function to increase gain at the ripple voltage frequency (twice the AC line frequency) to control the duty cycle of the switches of the bi-directional SR DC/DC stage and controlling the duty cycle of the switches of the full-bridge or H-bridge switching circuit using a control loop including a notch filter at the ripple voltage frequency.
US09071119B2
A device for reversing the direction of rotation and/or for adjusting the carbon brushes for a reversible electric motor, in particular for an electric hand tool, with a base and with a mount, which is mounted pivotably on the base and on which brushholders for the carbon brushes wiping over the collector of the electric motor are arranged. The electric motor can be driven by means of power electronics, such as a pulse width controller, a phase gating controller, a phase chopping controller or the like. The power electronics are arranged on the base and/or on the mount. The device furthermore has fixed contacts and switching contacts, which interact with alternate contact-making for reversing the direction of rotation of the electric motor as the mount is pivoted.
US09071102B2
The present invention is directed to the method of utilizing magnetic materials in permanent magnets and permanent magnet discs and surfaces, as a source of magnetic fields for producing rotational means, to produce a permanent magnet machine and utilizing this method to produce a powered means for use in remote pumping stations, geologic sensing stations both undersea and mountain top, remote electrical generating stations for inhabited areas of the planet off the power grid, power units for space stations, repair robots, planetary and lunar land rovers, astronomical research stations, electric generators, stabilization gyros and generators for autonomous robots, power units for motorized vehicles, and single person aircraft.
US09071094B2
An electric machine includes a housing, a bearing and a securing device. The housing defines a bearing seat and a support surface. The bearing cooperates with the bearing seat and defines a bearing clamping surface. The securing device is connected to the housing and includes a fastener and a member defining a member clamping surface. The member and the fastener secure the bearing to the housing. The securing device has a first position for assembly of the bearing into the bearing seat and a second position for constraining the bearing in the housing. The member clamping surface overlies the bearing clamping surface when the member is in the second position. The member provides continuous movement from the first position to the second position. The support surface engages the member when the member is in the second position.
US09071093B2
A base structure for cooling fan includes a seat, a circuit board and a motor assembly. The seat has an inner side served as a supporting surface. The circuit board has a first side attached to a top of the supporting surface and an opposite second side having a plurality of electronic elements provided thereon. The motor assembly includes a plurality of stacked silicon steel plates located on the circuit board and above the electronic elements. With the first side of the circuit board being attached to the supporting surface of the seat and the electronic elements on the second side of the circuit board being located in spaces between the motor assembly and the circuit board, more silicon steel plates can be stacked in the motor assembly to enable upgraded motor working efficiency and reduced electric current needed by the cooling fan to operate.
US09071091B2
A rotor can for a wet running electric motor includes an inner layer (2) made from a thermoplastic material which is at least partly surrounded by a supporting layer (4) in form of a thermoplastic tape layer attached to the outside of the inner layer (2).
US09071084B2
A control system includes first and second fundamental control units for generating first and second fundamental commands, and a compensation control unit. The compensation control unit includes first and second calculation elements and a comparator for comparing first and second modulation indexes. When the first modulation index is less than the second modulation index, the first calculation element generates a first source-side compensation command. When the first source-side compensation command is not sufficient to balance the neutral point voltage, the first calculation element further generates a first line-side compensating command. When the first modulation index is greater than the second modulation index, the second calculation element generates a second line-side compensation command. When the second line-side compensation command is not sufficient to balance the neutral point voltage, the second calculation element further generates a second source-side compensating command.
US09071081B2
A vehicle power source device which can improve the accuracy of battery deterioration detection. The vehicle power source device (100) is provided with: generator (110) which is in-built in a vehicle; high-voltage first battery (120) which stores the electricity generated by the generator (110); DC/DC converter (140) which is provided between the generator (110) and the first battery (120), and electrical component (180); second battery (130) which is connected to the first battery (120) via the DC/DC converter (140), and which has a lower voltage than the first battery (120); and power source ECU (150) which controls the DC/DC converter (140). If the current drawn from the first battery (120) satisfies predicted conditions, the power source ECU (150) increases the output voltage of the DC/DC converter, measures the parameters required to detect the deterioration of the first battery (120), and determines the deterioration of the first battery (120).
US09071077B2
Vampire energy loss occurs when an electronic or mechanical machine consumes energy while not being utilized for any useful purpose. Vampire energy losses in consumer electronic devices are under intense scrutiny for needlessly wasting an estimated 20% of the electric power production in the United States. It is also estimated by the US Department of Energy that by 2015 vampire electronics could be responsible for nearly 30 percent of the total household power consumption in the United States. Smarter vampire proof technologies are needed to address this growing problem.
US09071074B2
A multi-standard compatible electric vehicle supply equipment includes a plurality of different electric vehicle connectors each of which corresponds to one of a plurality of different electric vehicle standards. A power converter inputs alternating current power and includes an output to output direct current power. A circuit is structured to selectively electrically connect a source of alternating current power to a number of the electric vehicle connectors, selectively electrically connect the output of the power converter to a selected one of the different electric vehicle connectors, employ a plurality of different communication protocols for the different electric vehicle connectors, detect connectivity of one of the different electric vehicle connectors with an electric vehicle and responsively select one of a plurality of different charging modes, and communicate with the electric vehicle through the selected one of the different electric vehicle connectors.
US09071068B2
An estimation unit estimates the amount of power consumption for each unit period of time. A rechargeable battery control unit controls the rechargeable battery such that an exceeding amount of power worth the amount of power exceeding a target amount of power during a unit period of time is charged into the battery, and power is discharged from the battery during a time zone wherein the target amount of power is exceeded, on the basis of the result of the estimation. When the battery needs to be charged in excess of the upper-limit value, the control unit charges the battery up to the upper-limit value during a time zone wherein the amount of power consumption estimated is light, and the amount of power that exceeds the upper-limit value is charged during a time zone that is close to the time zone wherein the target amount of power is exceeded.
US09071067B2
A system and method includes detecting whether a fast charger is coupled to a system having a processor and a memory, providing current to a battery from an internal charger circuit if no fast charger is detected, and providing current to the battery from the fast charger if the fast charger is detected.
US09071063B2
In a wireless power supply system, a first capacitor is arranged in series with an antenna. A second capacitor and a switch are arranged in series on a path arranged in parallel with the first capacitor. A control unit adjusts the duty ratio of the switch according to the frequency of an electric power signal.
US09071058B2
A charger capable of charging an electronic apparatus includes a charger main body having a power output unit which output charging power, a connection unit which is attached to the charger main body, which is configured to be connected to the electronic apparatus, and which is configured to supply the charging power from the power output unit to the electronic apparatus in a state that the connection unit is connected to the electronic apparatus, and a temperature sensor which is provided in the connection unit, and which is configured to detect a temperature in the vicinity of the connection unit.
US09071054B2
A power control apparatus and method according to a load of a hybrid excavator including an H-ECU is disclosed. If a difference between an actual power value actually used in a load (SW PEC and ISAM PEC) or in an ESS and a power value required for an actual use in the load is equal to or larger than a set error value, a power that is supplied from the ESS to the PECs and a power that is supplied between the PECs are controlled to be cut off, and thus high voltage is prevented from being continuously supplied to circuits to thereby prevent secondary problems (e.g., fire, trouble of equipment, and the like) from occurring due to the high voltage.
US09071052B2
Disclosed is a unit rack for power storage having a plurality of cell modules which are series- or parallel-connected with each other; a housing for accommodating the cell modules; a receiving part of a circuit breaker, formed or installed in the housing, and having a ground clearance higher than the highest ground clearance of the cell modules; a circuit breaker received in the receiving part and connected between the connection lines; and a receiving part cover for closing the receiving part of the circuit breaker.
US09071050B2
Even when a large-current, high-voltage load is applied, damage is prevented. A current generating device (1) supplies a current simulating a current flowing when lightning occurs to a test piece (9) subjected to a lightning resistance test using power supplied from a power supply device (2). The current generating device (1) includes electric double-layer capacitors that store and discharge power supplied from the power supply device (2), a semiconductor switch (3) that switches between supplying and not supplying the power stored in the electric double-layer capacitors to the test piece (9), and a protection unit (4) that is connected between the semiconductor switch (3) and the test piece (9) and that cuts the connection between the semiconductor switch (3) and the test piece (9) when a current larger than a predetermined value flows through the semiconductor switch (3).
US09071048B2
Disclosed are various embodiments of voltage protectors that include a first voltage clamping device configured to clamp a voltage of an input power applied to an electrical load, and a second voltage clamping device configured to clamp the voltage applied to the electrical load. A series inductance separates the first and second voltage clamping devices. Also, a switching element is employed to selectively establish a direct coupling of the input power to the electrical load, where a circuit is employed to control the operation of the switching element.
US09071039B2
An optical device includes a gallium nitride substrate member having an m-plane nonpolar crystalline surface region characterized by an orientation of about −1 degree towards (000-1) and less than about +/−0.3 degrees towards (11-20). The device also has a laser stripe region formed overlying a portion of the m-plane nonpolar crystalline orientation surface region. In a preferred embodiment, the laser stripe region is characterized by a cavity orientation that is substantially parallel to the c-direction, the laser stripe region having a first end and a second end. The device includes a first cleaved c-face facet, which is coated, provided on the first end of the laser stripe region. The device also has a second cleaved c-face facet, which is exposed, provided on the second end of the laser stripe region.
US09071037B2
A pulsed laser comprises an oscillator and amplifier. An attenuator and/or pre-compressor may be disposed between the oscillator and amplifier to improve performance and possibly the quality of pulses output from the laser. Such pre-compression may be implemented with spectral filters and/or dispersive elements between the oscillator and amplifier. The pulsed laser may have a modular design comprising modular devices that may have Telcordia-graded quality and reliability. Fiber pigtails extending from the device modules can be spliced together to form laser system. In one embodiment, a laser system operating at approximately 1050 nm comprises an oscillator having a spectral bandwidth of approximately 19 nm. This oscillator signal can be manipulated to generate a pulse having a width below approximately 90 fs. A modelocked linear fiber laser cavity with enhanced pulse-width control includes concatenated sections of both polarization-maintaining and non-polarization-maintaining fibers. Apodized fiber Bragg gratings and integrated fiber polarizers are included in the cavity to assist in linearly polarizing the output of the cavity. Very short pulses with a large optical bandwidth are obtained by matching the dispersion value of the fiber Bragg grating to the inverse of the dispersion of the intra-cavity fiber.
US09071026B2
The present disclosure provides an energy-saving control device, the control method and a power adapter including the energy-saving control device. The energy-saving control device comprises a mechanical switch having a first end and a second end, wherein the second end is an output end of the switch; a controller of which an input terminal is connected to the output end of the mechanical switch and an output terminal outputs a switching control signal; and a power converter for receiving the switching control signal from the controller, wherein the power converter is operated according to the switching control signal. When a connection cable is plugged into or removed from a cable interface, the first end and the second end of the mechanical switch are contacted or separated.
US09071013B2
An electrical plug comprising: a connector body having a first and second axial end, the first axial end electrically connectable in use to a jack; a ferrule extending from the second axial end of the connector body, to which a cable is electrically and/or physically connectable in use; and an elongate sleeve rotatably mounted on the connector body and having a first and second axial end, wherein the first axial end of the sleeve has at least one bayonet slot for engagement, in use, with a respective lug of a jack, and the second axial end of the sleeve terminates at the second axial end of the connector body, such that the sleeve substantially encloses the connector body.
US09071006B2
A seal structure includes a connector-lower-surface-side flat seal portion constituted by a surface-joint portion between a lower surface of a connector and a lower housing member; and a groove seal portion constituted between a groove and a protrusion fitted into the groove. The groove is provided in one of inner surfaces of outer circumferential edge portions of an upper housing member and the lower housing member. The protrusion is provided in another of these inner surfaces. The seal structure further includes a linking seal portion connecting the connector-lower-surface-side flat seal portion with the groove seal portion. The linking seal portion includes a deep-bottom portion having a seal groove continuous with the groove seal portion, a shallow-bottom portion having a seal groove shallower than the seal groove of the deep-bottom portion and continuous with the connector-lower-surface-side flat seal portion, and a connecting portion linking the deep-bottom portion to the shallow-bottom portion.
US09070996B2
In a connector, a flange portion is provided at an end portion of an electric wire fixing portion. A rib is provided on outer surface of the electric wire fixing portion. A biding band winding space is provided between an end of the rib and the flange portion. An interval therebetween has a width equal to a width of the binding band. The electric wire is fixed by the binding band wound on the binding band winding space. A band passing hole is formed between the end of the rib and the flange portion. A plurality of side ribs are symmetrically provided at both sides of the rib. The binding band is inserted through the band passing hole, in response to a volume of the electric wire or in response to a size of a radius of curvature of the electric wire led out from the connector housing.
US09070987B2
A connector includes a connector body, a plurality of wafers arranged within the connector body, and a weld tab defined by a unitary member that includes a plurality of weld tab legs and a plurality of weld tab arms. The plurality of weld tab arms are arranged to engage with corresponding weld tab arm holes included in the connector body, and the plurality of weld tab legs are arranged to engage with a circuit board when the connector is mounted to the circuit board. The weld tab prevents the plurality of wafers from withdrawing from the connector body when the plurality of weld tab arms are engaged with the corresponding weld tab arm holes.
US09070986B2
A coaxial cable connector includes a shell having an inner side wall defining a bore and an end opening at a first end of the shell, and a post is slidably mounted in the bore. The post includes a base engaging the shell inner side wall and a tube projecting from the base, the tube having an interior and an end aperture, and at least one of the post and the shell has a first detent for releasably holding the post in a first position in the bore and a second detent for securing the post at a second position in the bore.
US09070982B2
A millimeter wave transceiver including a plate forming an interposer having its upper surface supporting an interconnection network and having its lower surface intended to be assembled on an electronic device; at least one integrated circuit chip assembled on the upper surface of the interposer; at least one antenna including at least one track formed on the upper surface of the interposer; and at least one block attached under the plate and including in front of each antenna a cavity having a metalized bottom, the distance between each antenna and the bottom being on the order of one quarter of the wavelength, taking into account the dielectric constants of the interposed materials.
US09070981B2
A multi layer electromagnetic wave absorber is provided. The absorber includes a surface layer comprising at least one of a dielectric lossy mixture and a magnetic lossy mixture, an absorption layer, laminated on a rear side of the surface layer, comprising: a dielectric lossy mixture having a higher loss than the dielectric lossy mixture for the surface layer, and a magnetic lossy mixture having a higher loss than the magnetic lossy mixture for the surface layer, and a boundary layer, laminated on a rear side of the absorption layer, comprising a conductive material.
US09070980B2
A radiator is provided with a looped radiation conductor, a capacitor, an inductor, a feed point on the radiation conductor, and a dielectric block provided in a portion where the radiation conductor and the ground conductor are close to each other. At a low-band resonance frequency, a current flows through a path extending along an inner perimeter of the loop of the radiation conductor and including the inductor and the capacitor. At a high-band resonance frequency, a current flows through a path including a section extending along an outer perimeter of the loop of the radiation conductor, including the capacitor but not including the inductor, and extending between the feed point and the inductor, and a parallel resonant circuit is formed from: a capacitance between the radiation conductor and the ground conductor between which the dielectric block is provided; and an inductance of the radiation conductor.
US09070979B2
In various embodiments, a booster antenna for a chip arrangement, for example a smart card, is provided. The booster antenna can have: a first electrical circuit, which forms a first resonant circuit with a phase resonance; and a second electrical circuit, which forms a second resonant circuit with a phase resonance and/or absolute resonance; wherein the first electrical circuit and the second electrical circuit are coupled to one another.
US09070977B2
Embodiments of wireless antenna array systems to achieve three-dimensional beam coverage are described herein. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US09070958B2
Battery systems and modules having external thermal management systems are provided. In one embodiment, a battery module includes a housing and at least one electrochemical cell disposed within the housing. The battery module also includes a thermal interface having a first side in contact with the at least one electrochemical cell. The battery module also includes a heat sink in contact with a second side of the thermal interface. The thermal interface is adapted to enable heat transfer from the at least one electrochemical cell to the heat sink.
US09070957B2
A power supply device for a linear actuator apparatus, which includes a control module and a battery module. The power supply device further provides a battery module including a box, a primary power supply unit and a standby power supply unit. The box has a first chamber, a second chamber and a separating plate formed between the first chamber and the second chamber. The primary power supply unit is provided in the first chamber. The standby power supply unit is provided in the second chamber.
US09070954B2
The present invention pertains to electrochemical cells which comprise (a) an anode; (b) a cathode; (c) a solid porous separator, such as a polyolefin, xerogel, or inorganic oxide separator; and (d) a nonaqueous electrolyte, wherein the separator comprises a porous membrane having a microporous coating comprising polymer particles which have not coalesced to form a continuous film. This microporous coating on the separator acts as a safety shutdown layer that rapidly increases the internal resistivity and shuts the cell down upon heating to an elevated temperature, such as 110° C. Also provided are methods for increasing the safety of an electrochemical cell by utilizing such separators with a safety shutdown layer.
US09070953B2
Provided is a zinc-air secondary battery capable of preventing both of the short-circuiting between positive and negative electrodes caused by zinc dendrites and the carbon dioxide incorporation. This zinc-air secondary battery includes an air electrode (12) functioning as a positive electrode; an inorganic solid electrolyte body (14) provided in direct contact with one side of the air electrode and having hydroxide ion conductivity; a metal negative electrode (16) provided opposite to the air electrode with respect to the inorganic solid electrolyte body and comprising zinc or a zinc alloy; and an electrolyte solution in which the metal negative electrode is immersed, the electrolyte solution being separated from the air electrode by the inorganic solid electrolyte body.
US09070934B2
A fuel cell has an anode and a cathode with anode enzyme disposed on the anode and cathode enzyme is disposed on the cathode. The anode is configured and arranged to electrooxidize an anode reductant in the presence of the anode enzyme. Likewise, the cathode is configured and arranged to electroreduce a cathode oxidant in the presence of the cathode enzyme. In addition, anode redox hydrogel may be disposed on the anode to transduce a current between the anode and the anode enzyme and cathode redox hydrogel may be disposed on the cathode to transduce a current between the cathode and the cathode enzyme.
US09070928B2
The present invention discloses a high temperature-proof device for a lithium battery, which is installed in a casing of a lithium battery. The casing has a sealing board on one face thereof. The sealing board has at least one through-hole where a pressure relief module is installed. The pressure relief module has a top cover protruding from the sealing board. The top cover has at least one exhaust hole and an engagement member arranged inside the top cover. The engagement member has a first exhaust channel. A low-melting point compound is arranged inside the first exhaust channel. The present invention releases the high-temperature gas generated by inappropriate chemical or electric reaction inside a lithium battery. Thus, the present invention can prevent a lithium battery from burning or explosion caused by the high-temperature gas. Therefore, the present invention can effectively promote safety of lithium batteries.
US09070926B2
Disclosed herein is a battery module including a plurality of battery cells, the battery module including the battery cells being stacked in a state in which electrode terminals are electrically connected to each other, a pair of cell covers coupled to each other to surround the entirety of an outside of a battery cell stack including two or more battery cells excluding the electrode terminals of the battery cells, and fixing members mounted at the cell covers in contact with the outside of the battery cell stack to properly fix the battery cells in the cell covers.
US09070918B2
This disclosure relates to module level redundancy for fuel cell systems. A monitoring component monitors a set of operational parameters for a fuel cell group. The fuel cell group includes a set of fuel cell units, each having a set of fuel cell stacks. The fuel cell stacks include a set of gas powered fuel cells that convert air and fuel into electricity using a chemical reaction. The monitoring component determines that the set of operational parameters do not satisfy a set of operational criteria, and, in response, a load balancing component adjusts the electrical output capacity of the set of fuel cell units included in the fuel cell group.
US09070901B2
The invention relates to an OLED device with a stack comprising: a light emitting organic layer (2), a cathode layer (1), and a transparent anode layer (3), the organic layer (2) being arranged between the cathode layer (1) and the anode layer (3), wherein a macro extractor layer (5) is arranged on top of a transparent substrate (4), wherein the macro extractor in optical contact with the transparent substrate (4), and wherein the macro extractor (5) layer comprises a plurality of mirror surfaces which extend from the bottom to the top of the macro extractor layer (5), preferably embedded in a matrix which has a refractive index matching the one of the transparent substrate. Preferably, the macro extractor layer comprises a crash glass device with a pre-stressed crash glass pane (6) having air-filled cracks (9). Since these cracks (9) act as mirrors for the light emitted by the organic layer (2), trapping of light is avoided and, thus, light extraction from the device is enhanced.
US09070898B2
An organic light emitting display device is disclosed which includes: an element substrate provided with a thin film transistor; an organic light emitting element electrically connected to the thin film transistor and formed on the element substrate; a protective layer formed on the organic light emitting element; an adhesive film configured to include a first adhesive layer and a second adhesive layer which are sequentially stacked on the protective layer, the first adhesive layer including a resin layer and the second adhesive layer including another resin layer and a filler; and a sealing substrate disposed on the second adhesive layer and combined with the element substrate, which is provided with the organic light emitting element, by the adhesive film. One of the resin layers of the first and second adhesive layers within the adhesive film is formed from a non-hardening resin layer.
US09070897B2
A display panel includes a substrate, a TFT device, a patterned dielectric layer, a patterned metal layer and a bridge line. The TFT device is disposed in a display region. The patterned dielectric layer includes an ILD layer disposed over the TFT device, and a sealant stage disposed in a peripheral region. The patterned metal layer includes a signal line disposed on the ILD layer, and a first connecting line and a second connecting line. The first connecting line is disposed in an inner side of the sealant stage facing the display region, and the first connecting line is electrically connected to the signal line. The second connecting line is disposed in an outer side of the sealant stage opposite to the display region. The bridge line is disposed under the sealant stage, and the first connecting line and the second connecting line are electrically connected through the bridge line.
US09070891B2
A white color light source of an organic light emitting diode is provided and is suitable for irradiating on plants. The white color light source includes a first color light and a second color light. A peak in the frequency spectrum of the first color light is within a first wavelength range. A peak in the frequency spectrum of the second color light is within a second wavelength range. The white color light source is at least formed by mixing the first color light and the second color light, wherein an intensity of a frequency spectrum of a wavelength range from 520 nm to 580 nm is substantially equal to or less than 20% of a total intensity of a frequency spectrum of the white color light source.
US09070888B2
A photoelectronic device includes a first electrode, a second electrode facing the first electrode, an active layer between the first electrode and the second electrode, and an auxiliary layer between the first electrode and the active layer, the auxiliary layer including a first auxiliary layer including a metal oxide and a metal and a second auxiliary layer including a first organic material having a HOMO energy level of greater than or equal to about 6.0 eV.
US09070878B2
The present invention is a method for forming a vertically oriented element having a narrower area near its center away from either end. The present invention will find applicability in other memory cell structures. The element will have a narrow portion towards its center such that current density will be higher away from the ends of the element. In this way, the heating will occur away from the ends of the storage element. Heating in a phase-change or resistive change element leads to end of life conditions, including the condition whereby contaminants from the end point contacts are enabled to migrate away from the end point and into the storage element thereby contaminating the storage element material and reducing its ability to be programmed, erased and/or read back. By keeping the greatest heating towards the center of the element where it is surrounded by more of the same material and away from the ends of the element where end point contact material can be heated and potentially activated, the lifetime of the element will be increased.
US09070873B2
A system and method for sensing torque and angular position of a rotating shaft may include a shaft with a magnetostrictive ring affixed to the shaft. The magnetostrictive ring may generate position-dependent magnetic fields relative to the shaft's rotation. A first sensor may measure a magnetic field that varies with angular position. A second sensor may measure a magnetic field that varies with torque.
US09070871B2
A magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) element includes a bottom electrode embedded in a first insulating layer; an annular reference layer in a first via hole of a second insulating layer on the first insulating layer, the annular reference layer being situated above the bottom electrode; a first gap fill material layer filling the first via hole; a barrier layer covering the annular reference layer, the second insulating layer and the first gap fill material layer; an annular free layer in a second via hole of a third insulating layer on the second insulating layer, the annular free layer being situated above the annular reference layer; and a top electrode stacked on the annular free layer.
US09070860B2
A resistance memory cell is provided and includes a first electrode, a tungsten metal layer, a metal oxide layer, and a second electrode. The tungsten metal layer is disposed on the first electrode. The metal oxide layer is disposed on the tungsten metal layer. The second electrode includes a first connection pad, a second connection pad, and a bridge portion electrically connected between the first connection pad and the second connection pad. The bridge portion is disposed on the metal oxide layer or surrounds the metal oxide layer. The resistance memory cell adjusts a resistivity of the metal oxide layer through a first current path, passing through the metal oxide layer and the tungsten metal layer, or a second current path extending from the first connection pad to the second connection pad.
US09070858B2
Embodiments disclosed herein may relate to forming an interface between a selector transistor and a phase change material storage cell in a memory device.
US09070853B2
A package for an optoelectronic semiconductor component is disclosed. The package includes a package body, a first connecting lead and a second connecting lead. The first connecting lead and the second connecting lead each extend in a vertical direction through the package body. A semiconductor component with such a package and a semiconductor chip are also disclosed.
US09070851B2
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a wafer-level light emitting diode (LED) package and a method of fabricating the same. The LED package includes a semiconductor stack including a first conductive type semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a second conductive type semiconductor layer; a plurality of contact holes arranged in the second conductive type semiconductor layer and the active layer, the contact holes exposing the first conductive type semiconductor layer; a first bump arranged on a first side of the semiconductor stack, the first bump being electrically connected to the first conductive type semiconductor layer via the plurality of contact holes; a second bump arranged on the first side of the semiconductor stack, the second bump being electrically connected to the second conductive type semiconductor layer; and a protective insulation layer covering a sidewall of the semiconductor stack.
US09070850B2
An LED package includes a submount having a top and bottom surface with a plurality of top electrically and thermally conductive elements on its top surface. An LED is included on one of the top elements such that an electrical signal applied to the top elements causes the LED to emit light. The electrically conductive elements also spread heat from the LED across the majority of the submount top surface. A bottom thermally conductive element is included on the bottom surface of said submount and spreads heat from the submount, and a lens is formed directly over the LED. A method for fabricating LED packages includes providing a submount panel sized to be separated into a plurality of LED package submounts. Top conductive elements are formed on one surface of the submount panel for a plurality of LED packages, and LEDs are attached to the top elements. Lenses are molded over the LEDs and the substrate panel is singulated to separate it into a plurality of LED packages.
US09070849B2
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, an article of manufacture includes a side-emitting light emitting diode configured to emit light from more than two surfaces. The article of manufacture includes a first sheet electrically and thermally coupled to a first side of the light emitting diode, and a second sheet electrically and thermally coupled to a second side of the light emitting diode. The article of manufacture further includes a plurality of reflective surfaces configured to reflect light from all of the surfaces of the light emitting diode through holes in the first sheet. The light may be reflected via total internal reflection.
US09070844B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor light emitting element includes: a first conductive pillar extending in a first direction; a second conductive pillar extending in the first direction; a first semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type provided on the first conductive pillar; a light emitting layer provided on the first semiconductor layer; a second semiconductor layer of a second conductivity type provided on the light emitting layer and on the second conductive pillar; a sealing unit covering a side surface of the first conductive pillar and a side surface of the second conductive pillar; and a light transmissive layer provided on the second semiconductor layer and having light transmissivity, a hardness of an upper surface portion of the light transmissive layer being higher than a hardness of a lower portion between the upper surface portion and the second semiconductor layer.
US09070835B2
A semiconductor light emitting device including a light emitting structure including a first conductivity type semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a second conductivity type semiconductor layer; a first electrode connected to the first conductivity type semiconductor layer; a second electrode including a contact layer connected to the second conductivity type semiconductor layer, a capping layer disposed on the contact layer, and a metal buffer layer disposed on the capping layer, the metal buffer layer encompasses an upper and lateral surface of the capping layer; a first insulating layer disposed on the light emitting structure such that the first and second electrodes are exposed; and a second insulating layer disposed on the first insulating layer such that at least a portion of the first electrode and at least a portion of the metal buffer layer are exposed.
US09070833B2
An LED device includes a strip-shaped electrode, a strip-shaped current blocking structure and a plurality of distributed current blocking structures. The current blocking structures are formed of an insulating material such as silicon dioxide. The strip-shaped current blocking structure is located directly underneath the strip-shaped electrode. The plurality of current blocking structures may be disc shaped portions disposed in rows adjacent the strip-shaped current blocking structure. Distribution of the current blocking structures is such that current is prevented from concentrating in regions immediately adjacent the electrode, thereby facilitating uniform current flow into the active layer and facilitating uniform light generation in areas not underneath the electrode. In another aspect, current blocking structures are created by damaging regions of a p-GaN layer to form resistive regions. In yet another aspect, current blocking structures are created by etching away highly doped contact regions to form regions of resistive contact between conductive layers.
US09070830B2
An LED electrode contact structure for an LED is provided. The LED includes a plurality of N-type electrodes, an N-type semiconductor layer, a light-emitting layer, a P-type semiconductor layer, a mirror layer, a buffer layer, a binding layer, a permanent substrate and a P-type electrode that are stacked in sequence. The N-type semiconductor layer has an irregular surface and a plurality of contact platforms. The contact platforms are formed and distributed on the N-type semiconductor layer in a patterned arrangement, and the irregular surface is formed at areas on the N-type semiconductor layer without the contact platforms. The N-type electrodes are respectively formed on the contact platforms. The contact platforms have roughness between 0.01 μm and 0.1 μm, such that not only voids are not generated but also good adhesion is provided to prevent carrier confinement and disengagement. Therefore, satisfactory electrical contact is ensured to thereby increase light emitting efficiency.
US09070829B2
An LED package includes a substrate, a buffer layer formed on the substrate, an epitaxial structure formed on the buffer layer, and a plurality of carbon nanotube bundles formed in the epitaxial structure.
US09070828B2
In a semiconductor device 100, it is possible to prevent C from piling up at a boundary face between an epitaxial layer 22 and a group III nitride semiconductor substrate 10 by the presence of 30×1010 pieces/cm2 to 2000×1010 pieces/cm2 of sulfide in terms of S and 2 at % to 20 at % of oxide in terms of O in a surface layer 12 with a front surface 10a having a specific plane orientation. Accordingly, a high-resistivity layer is prevented from being formed at the boundary face between the epitaxial layer 22 and the group III nitride semiconductor substrate 10. Consequently, it is possible to improve the emission intensity of the semiconductor device 100.
US09070814B2
The sapphire substrate has a principal surface for growing a nitride semiconductor to form a nitride semiconductor light emitting device and comprising a plurality of projections of the principal surface, wherein an outer periphery of a bottom surface of each of the projections has at least one depression. This depression is in the horizontal direction. The plurality of projections are arranged so that a straight line passes through the inside of at least any one of projections when the straight line is drawn at any position in any direction in a plane including the bottom surfaces of the plurality of projections.
US09070813B2
A method for detecting polarized light is disclosed. Providing a polarized light detection system including a photoresistor, a power source and a detection apparatus. The photoresistor includes a first electrode layer and a photosensitive material layer. The detection apparatus includes a current detection device and a computer analysis system. An incident light is irradiated onto a surface of the photoresistor. Polarization information of the incident light is identified by the photoresistor. Current change in the photoresistor is detected by the current detection device. The polarization information of the incident light is analyzed by the computer analysis system.
US09070801B2
It is advantageous to create texture at the surface of a photovoltaic cell to reduce reflection and increase travel length of light within the cell. A method is disclosed to create texture at the surface of a silicon body by reacting a silicide-forming metal at the surface, where the silicide-silicon interface is non-planar, then stripping the silicide, leaving behind a textured surface. Depending on the metal and the conditions of silicide formation, the resulting surface may be faceted. The peak-to-valley height of this texturing will generally be between about 300 and about 5000 angstroms, which is well-suited for use in photovoltaic cells comprising a thin silicon lamina.
US09070799B2
A CCD image sensor, being a solid state imaging device, has four types of pixels, first to fourth pixels. The first to fourth pixels are arranged in a predetermined pattern. Each of the pixels has a PD and a microlens. Each of the microlens is arranged with its optical axis center eccentric or shifted in a predetermined direction from a center of a light receiving surface of the PD. A part of the microlens overlaps one or more adjacent pixels.
US09070791B2
Disclosed are embodiments of a design structure transistor that operates as a capacitor and an associated method of tuning capacitance within such a capacitor. The embodiments of the capacitor comprise a field effect transistor with front and back gates above and below a semiconductor layer, respectively. The capacitance value exhibited by the capacitor can be selectively varied between two different values by changing the voltage condition in a source/drain region of the transistor, e.g., using a switch or resistor between the source/drain region and a voltage supply. Alternatively, the capacitance value exhibited by the capacitor can be selectively varied between multiple different values by changing voltage conditions in one or more of multiple channel regions that are flanked by multiple source/drain regions within the transistor. The capacitor will exhibit different capacitance values depending upon the conductivity in each of the channel regions.
US09070789B2
A semiconductor device has a semiconductor body with a semiconductor device structure including at least a first electrode and a second electrode. Between the two electrodes, a drift region is arranged, the drift region including charge compensation zones and drift zones arranged substantially parallel to one another. At least one charge carrier storage region which is at least partially free of charge compensation zones is arranged in the semiconductor body.
US09070786B2
A hybrid transistor is produced to have a substrate with a first (e.g., P type) well region and a second (e.g., N type) well region with an NP or PN junction therebetween. A MOS portion of the hybrid transistor has an (e.g., N type) source region in the first well region and a gate conductor overlying and insulated from the well regions. A drain or anode (D/A) portion in the second well region collects current from the source region, and includes a bipolar transistor having an (e.g., N+) emitter region, a (e.g., P type) base region and a (e.g., N type) collector region laterally separated from the junction. Different LDMOS-like or IGBT-like properties are obtained depending on whether the current is extracted from the hybrid transistor via the bipolar transistor base or emitter or both. The bipolar transistor is desirably a vertical hetero-junction transistor.
US09070768B2
A depletion type DMOS transistor comprises a gap in electrode material allowing incorporation of a well dopant species into the underlying semiconductor material. During subsequent dopant diffusion a continuous well region is obtained having an extended lateral extension without having an increased depth. The source dopant species is implanted after masking the gap. Additional channel implantation is performed prior to forming the gate dielectric material.
US09070765B2
A semiconductor device includes an epitaxial layer of semiconductor material of a first conductivity type, a body region of a second (opposite) conductivity type extending into the epitaxial layer from a main surface of the epitaxial layer, a source region of the first conductivity type disposed in the body region, and a channel region extending laterally in the body region from the source region along the main surface. A charge compensation region of the second conductivity type can be provided under the body region which extends in a direction parallel to the main surface and terminates prior to a pn-junction between the source and body regions at the main surface, and/or an additional region of the first conductivity type which has at least one peak doping concentration each of which occurs deeper in the epitaxial layer from the main surface than a peak doping concentration of the device channel region.
US09070751B2
A semiconductor device and a method of manufacture are provided. The semiconductor device includes one or more layers having channels adapted to carry signals or deliver power. The semiconductor device may include at least two channels having a substantially equivalent cross-sectional area. Conductors in separate channels may have different cross-sectional areas. A spacer dielectric on a side of a channel may be included. The method of manufacture includes establishing a signal conductor layer including a first channel and a second channel having a substantially equivalent cross-sectional area, introducing a spacer dielectric on a side of the second channel, introducing a first conductor in the first channel having a first cross-sectional area, and introducing a second conductor in the second channel having a second cross-sectional area where the second cross-sectional area is smaller than the first cross-sectional area.
US09070744B2
Shallow trench isolation structure, manufacturing method thereof and a device based on the structure
The present invention relates to a shallow trench isolation structure, manufacturing method thereof and a device based on the structure. The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a shallow trench isolation (STI) structure, characterized in comprising the following steps: providing a semiconductor substrate; forming an insulating medium on said semiconductor substrate; etching a part of the insulating medium by using a mask to expose the semiconductor substrate thereunder, the unetched insulating medium forming STI regions; and epitaxially growing a semiconductor layer on said semiconductor substrate between said STI regions as an active region. With the method provided by the present invention, the problem of filling a small-size trench is solved and the problem of STI step height is overcome.
US09070742B2
Methods for fabricating FinFET integrated circuits with uniform fin height and ICs fabricated from such methods are provided. A method includes etching a substrate using an etch mask to form fins. A first oxide is formed between the fins. A first etch stop is deposited on the first oxide. A second oxide is formed on the first etch stop. A second etch stop is deposited on the second oxide. A third oxide is deposited overlying the second etch stop. An STI extends from at least a surface of the substrate to at least a surface of the second etch stop overlying the fins to form a first active region and a second active region. The first etch stop overlying the fins is removed. The third oxide is removed to expose the second etch stop. A gate stack is formed overlying a portion of each of the fins.
US09070734B2
Fabrication methods, device structures, and design structures for a heterojunction bipolar transistor. A trench isolation region and a collector are formed in a semiconductor substrate. The collector is coextensive with the trench isolation region. A first semiconductor layer is formed that includes a of single crystal section disposed on the collector and on the trench isolation region. A second semiconductor layer is formed that includes a single crystal section disposed on the single crystal section of the first semiconductor layer and that has an outer edge that overlies the trench isolation region. The section of the first semiconductor layer has a second width greater than a first width of the collector. The section of the second semiconductor layer has a third width greater than the second width. A cavity extends laterally from the outer edge of section of the second semiconductor layer to the section of the first semiconductor layer.
US09070727B2
A substrate processing system 10 includes a multiple number of substrate processing units 40A and 40B having substrate processing modules 40a and 40b, respectively; substrate buffers 30a and 30b which respectively correspond to the substrate processing units 40A and 40B; and a first substrate transfer device 50 configured to take out substrates W from substrate receptacles 20 on substrate mounting tables 25 into substrate buffers 30a and 30b. When a second substrate transfer device 60b of the substrate processing unit 40B is broken down, a substrate W remaining in the substrate buffer 30b corresponding to the substrate processing unit 40B is delivered into the substrate buffer 30a corresponding to the substrate processing unit 40A by a substrate delivery device 35.
US09070726B2
A temperature control method of a chemical vapor deposition device including: a chamber; a susceptor positioned on the inner side of the chamber allowing rotation therein, a wafer stacked on an upper side; a gas supplier disposed on the inner side of the chamber, and sprays gas toward the wafer; a heater disposed on the inner side of the susceptor, and heats the wafer; and a temperature sensor positioned in the chamber, and measures the temperature. The temperature control method includes: (a) calculating the temperature distribution of the susceptor based on a measured value of the temperature sensor, and dividing a section with relatively high temperature as a susceptor section and a section with relatively low temperature as a wafer section from the temperature distribution; and (b) controlling the heater by comparing a reference temperature with the temperature of a selected position of the susceptor section or the wafer section.
US09070724B2
A plasma processing apparatus includes a processing chamber, a wafer table, a refrigerant passage disposed inside the wafer table in which a refrigerant flows, a refrigeration cycle comprising the refrigerant passage in the wafer table as a first evaporator in which the refrigerant is evaporated as a result of a heat-exchange therein, a compressor, a condenser and an expansion valve, a second evaporator, and a controlling unit which adjusts a number of rotations of the compressor based upon a degree of dryness of the refrigerant at a position on the refrigeration cycle after passing through the first evaporation in a range in which dry-out does not occur in the first evaporator, and the dryness of the refrigerant being determined based upon an amount of a heat exchange during the evaporation of the refrigerant in the second evaporator.
US09070721B2
In one embodiment, methods for making semiconductor devices are disclosed.
US09070717B2
A method of fabricating an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device having a thin film transistor including a polysilicon layer. The method of fabricating a polysilicon layer includes forming a buffer layer on a substrate, forming a metal catalyst layer on the buffer layer, diffusing a metal catalyst into the metal catalyst layer to the buffer layer, removing the metal catalyst layer, forming an amorphous silicon layer on the buffer layer, and annealing the substrate to crystallize the amorphous silicon layer into a polysilicon layer. The thin film transistor includes a substrate, a buffer layer disposed on the substrate, a semiconductor layer disposed on the buffer layer, a gate insulating layer disposed above the substrate and on the semiconductor layer, a gate electrode disposed on the gate insulating layer, a source electrode and a drain electrode both electrically connected to the semiconductor layer, and a metal silicide disposed between the buffer layer and the semiconductor layer.
US09070714B1
Semiconductor devices are described that include a dual-gate configuration. In one or more implementations, the semiconductor devices include a substrate having a first surface and a second surface. The substrate includes a first and a second body region formed proximal to the first surface. Moreover, each body region includes a source region formed therein. The substrate further includes a drain region formed proximal to the second surface and an epitaxial region that is configured to function as a drift region between the drain region and the source regions. A dual-gate is formed over the first surface of the substrate. The dual-gate includes a first gate region and a second gate region that define a gap there between to reduce the gate to drain capacitance. A conductive layer may be formed over the first gate region and the second gate region to lower the effective resistance of the dual-gate.
US09070712B2
A method of fabricating a field-effect transistor is disclosed. In one aspect, the method includes forming a channel layer comprising germanium over a substrate. The method additionally includes forming a gate structure on the channel layer, where the gate structure comprises a gate layer comprising silicon, and the gate layer has sidewalls above a surface of the channel layer. The method additionally includes forming sidewall spacers comprising silicon dioxide on the sidewalls by subjecting the gate structure to a solution adapted for forming a chemical silicon oxide on materials comprising silicon. The method further includes forming elevated source/drain structures on the channel layer adjacent to the gate structure by selectively epitaxially growing a source/drain material on the channel layer.
US09070700B2
An integrated circuit assembly is provided that includes an integrated circuit (IC) package substrate including a package ground rail that is divided into a plurality of segments that are electrically isolated from each other. An IC die is disposed on the IC package substrate, the IC die including a plurality of circuit blocks and an IC ground rail. The IC ground rail is divided into a plurality of segments, where each segment of the IC ground rail is coupled to another segment of the IC ground rail by one or more diodes. The plurality of circuit blocks have corresponding ground nodes electrically connected to corresponding segments of the IC ground rail. The segments of the IC ground rail are electrically coupled to corresponding segments of the package ground rail by corresponding first connections.
US09070687B2
A semiconductor device with the metal fuse is provided. The metal fuse connects an electronic component (e.g., a transistor) and a existing dummy feature which is grounded. The protection of the metal fuse can be designed to start at the beginning of the metallization formation processes. The grounded dummy feature provides a path for the plasma charging to the ground during the entire back end of the line process. The metal fuse is a process level protection as opposed to the diode, which is a circuit level protection. As a process level protection, the metal fuse protects subsequently-formed circuitry. In addition, no additional active area is required for the metal fuse in the chip other than internal dummy patterns that are already implemented.
US09070683B2
An electronic apparatus includes a semiconductor substrate, outer and inner guard rings disposed along a periphery of the semiconductor substrate, and first and second contact pads electrically coupled to the outer and inner guard rings, respectively. The outer and inner guard rings are electrically coupled to one another to define a conduction path between the first and second contact pads. Each of the outer and inner guard rings includes an Ohmic metal layer having a plurality of gaps and further includes conductive bridges across the gaps. The gaps of the outer guard ring are laterally offset from the gaps of the inner guard ring such that the Ohmic metal layers of the outer and inner guard rings laterally overlap.
US09070682B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor element, a lead, and a wire including a first bonding portion bonded to the semiconductor element and a second bonding portion bonded to the lead. The semiconductor element includes a first bonding surface which faces to a first side in a first direction and to which the first bonding portion is bonded. The lead includes a second bonding surface and a third bonding surface both facing to the first side in the first direction and forming an angle larger than 180° on the first side in the first direction. The semiconductor device further includes a ball bump extending onto both the second bonding surface and the third bonding surface. The second bonding portion is bonded to the lead via the ball bump.
US09070678B2
A chip-sized, wafer level packaged device including a portion of a semiconductor wafer including a device, at least one packaging layer containing silicon and formed over the device, a first ball grid array formed over a surface of the at least one packaging layer and being electrically connected to the device and a second ball grid array formed over a surface of the portion of the semiconductor wafer and being electrically connected to the device.
US09070676B2
An apparatus relating generally to a substrate is disclosed. In this apparatus, a first metal layer is on the substrate. The first metal layer has an opening. The opening of the first metal layer has a bottom and one or more sides extending from the bottom. A second metal layer is on the first metal layer. The first metal layer and the second metal layer provide a bowl-shaped structure. An inner surface of the bowl-shaped structure is defined responsive to the opening of the first metal layer and the second metal layer thereon. The opening of the bowl-shaped structure is configured to receive and at least partially retain a bonding material during a reflow process.
US09070672B2
Exemplary semiconductor device packaging structure and packaging method are provided. The packaging method uses an adhesive layer to bond multiple wafer pieces onto a first surface of a carrier substrate, each adjacent two of the wafer pieces having a gap formed therebetween for exposing a part of the adhesive layer. A packaging layer is filled in each of the gaps. At least one through silicon via is formed each of the wafer pieces to expose a bonding pad formed on an active surface of the wafer pieces. Redistribution circuit layers are formed on back surfaces of the respective wafer pieces and filled into the through silicon vias for electrical connection with the bonding pads. A sawing process is performed to saw starting from each of the packaging layers to a second surface of the carrier substrate, and thereby multiple semiconductor device packaging structures are obtained.
US09070669B2
Methods of manufacturing a flat-pack no-lead microelectronic package (2100) coat exposed base metal at a cut end of a lead frame of the package with solder (1001). One method coats the exposed base metal with solder when the package is in a strip (200, 300). Another method coats the exposed base metal with solder after the package is singulated. As a result, all portions of leads of the package that may receive solder during mounting of the package to a printed circuit board are solder wettable. A solder wettable lead end (504) on the package facilitates formation of a solder fillet during mounting of the package.
US09070664B2
A device includes a substrate and a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) device. The MOS device includes a gate dielectric over the substrate, a gate electrode over the gate dielectric, a source/drain region adjacent the gate dielectric, and a source/drain silicide over and contacting the source/drain region. The source/drain silicide comprises silicon, nickel, and a secondary metal. A ratio of a volume percentage of the secondary metal to a volume percentage of the silicon in the source/drain silicide is between about 0.005 and about 0.1. The secondary metal has a density between about 5,000 kg/m3 and about 15,000 kg/m3.
US09070658B2
A p anode layer (2) is formed on one main surface of an n− drift layer (1). An n+ cathode layer (3) having an impurity concentration more than that of the n− drift layer (1) is formed on the other main surface of the n− drift layer (1). An anode electrode (4) is formed on the surface of the p anode layer (2). A cathode electrode (5) is formed on the surface of the n+ cathode layer (3). An n-type broad buffer region (6) that has a net doping concentration more than the bulk impurity concentration of a wafer and less than that of the n+ cathode layer (3) and the p anode layer (2) is formed in the n− drift layer (1). The resistivity ρ0 of the n− drift layer (1) satisfies 0.12V0≦ρ0≦0.25V0 with respect to a rated voltage V0. The total amount of the net doping concentration of the broad buffer region (6) is equal to or more than 4.8×1011 atoms/cm2 and equal to or less than 1.0×1012 atoms/cm2.
US09070650B2
An organic light emitting display apparatus includes: a substrate on which a display area and a non-display area are defined; a first electrode disposed over the display area; an intermediate layer that is disposed over the first electrode and includes an organic emissive layer; a second electrode disposed over the intermediate layer; and a plurality of detection patterns displaced over the non-display area, each of which includes a first electrically conductive pattern layer formed of the same material as the first electrode and a second electrically conductive pattern layer that is formed over the first electrically conductive pattern layer.
US09070641B2
An assembly method that includes providing a first semiconductor device and positioning a second semiconductor device at least partially over the first semiconductor device is disclosed. Spacers space the active surface of the first semiconductor device substantially a predetermined distance apart from the back side of the second semiconductor device. Discrete conductive elements are extended between the active surface of the first semiconductor device and the substrate prior to positioning of the second semiconductor device. Intermediate portions of the discrete conductive elements pass through an aperture formed between the active surface of the first semiconductor device, the back side of the second semiconductor device, and two of the spacers positioned therebetween. Assemblies and packaged semiconductor devices that are formed in accordance with the method are also disclosed.
US09070637B2
A via hole is formed on a base substrate before a device circuit is formed, and thermal oxidation is performed to form a thermal oxidation layer on a surface of the base substrate on which the device circuit is formed and a surface in the via hole. The device circuit having a conductive section is formed on the base substrate after the thermal oxidation, and then, a conductive body is embedded in the via hole.
US09070632B2
An aqueous polishing composition comprising (A) abrasive particles and (B) an amphiphilic nonionic surfactant selected from the group consisting of water-soluble or water-dispersible surfactants having (b1) hydrophobic groups selected from the group consisting of branched alkyl groups having 10 to 18 carbon atoms; and (b2) hydrophilic groups selected from the group consisting of polyoxyalkylene groups comprising (b21) oxyethylene monomer units and (b22) substituted oxyalkylene monomer units wherein the substituents are selected from the group consisting of alkyl, cycloalkyl, or aryl, alkyl-cycloalkyl, alkyl-aryl, cycloalkyl-aryl and alkyl-cycloalkyl-aryl groups, the said polyoxyalkylene group containing the monomer units (b21) and (b22) in random, alternating, gradient and/or blocklike distribution; a CMP process for substrates having patterned or unpatterned low-k or ultra-low-k dielectric layers making use of the said aqueous polishing composition; and the use of the said aqueous polishing composition for manufacturing electrical, mechanical and optical devices.
US09070621B2
In a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device, there is provided a technique which promotes microfabrication by reducing a thickness of the device as suppressing an OFF current of a polysilicon diode which is a selective element. A polysilicon layer to which an impurity is doped at low concentration and which becomes an electric-field relaxation layer of the polysilicon diode which is a selective element of a resistance variable memory is formed so as to be divided into two or more layers such as polysilicon layers. In this manner, it is suppressed to form the crystal grain boundaries thoroughly penetrating between an n-type polysilicon layer and a p-type polysilicon layer in the electric-field relaxation layer, and therefore, it is prevented to generate a leakage current flowing through the crystal grain boundaries in application of a reverse-bias voltage without increasing a height of the polysilicon diode.
US09070618B2
A resistance structure including: a conductive layer provided at a surface layer portion of a semiconductor substrate; a first resistance element having long sides and short sides provided over the conductive layer with an insulating film interposed; a second resistance element having long sides and short sides provided over the conductive layer with the insulating film interposed and disposed such that one long side thereof opposes one long side of the first resistance element; first wiring that is connected to one end of the first resistance element; second wiring that is connected to one end of the second resistance element; third wiring that connects the other end of the first resistance element with the other end of the second resistance element; and a connection portion that connects any of the first wiring, the second wiring and the third wiring with the conductive layer.
US09070611B2
An image sensor includes front-side and backside photodetectors of a first conductivity type disposed in a substrate layer of the first conductivity type. A front-side pinning layer of a second conductivity type is connected to a first contact. The first contact receives a predetermined potential. A backside pinning layer of the second conductivity type is connected to a second contact. The second contact receives an adjustable and programmable potential.
US09070604B2
A semiconductor device with high reliability is provided using an SOI substrate. When the SOI substrate is fabricated by using a technique typified by SIMOX, ELTRAN, or Smart-Cut, a single crystal semiconductor substrate having a main surface (crystal face) of a {110} plane is used. In such an SOI substrate, adhesion between a buried insulating layer as an under layer and a single crystal silicon layer is high, and it becomes possible to realize a semiconductor device with high reliability.
US09070595B2
A display device includes a pixel portion including a plurality of pixels each including a first transistor, a second transistor, and a light-emitting element, in which a gate of the first transistor is electrically connected to a scan line, one of a source and a drain of the first transistor is electrically connected to a signal line, and the other of them is electrically connected to a gate of the second transistor; one of a source and a drain of the second transistor is electrically connected to a power supply line and the other of them is electrically connected to the light-emitting element, and the first transistor includes an oxide semiconductor layer. A period when the display device displays a still image includes a period in which output of a signal to all the scan lines in the pixel portion is stopped.
US09070592B2
Disclosed herein is a fabrication method of a semiconductor device to order to increase an operation liability of the semiconductor device. A method for fabricating a semiconductor device comprises forming a buried-type wordline in an active region defined on a SOI substrate, forming a silicon connection region for connecting an upper silicon layer to a lower silicon layer between neighboring buried type wordlines, and recovering the upper silicon layer on the silicon connection region.
US09070591B2
Among other things, a system and method for adjusting the intensity of a laser beam applied to a semiconductor device are provided for herein. A sensor is configured to measure the intensity of a laser beam reflected from the semiconductor device. Based upon the reflection intensity, an intensity of the laser beam that is applied to the semiconductor device is adjusted, such as to alter an annealing operation performed on the semiconductor device, for example.
US09070588B2
A non-volatile memory structure, including a substrate, a plurality of stacked structures, a plurality of first conductive type doped regions, at least one second conductive type doped region, a conductive layer, and a first dielectric layer, is provided. The stacked structures are disposed on the substrate, and each of the stacked structures includes a charge storage structure. The first conductive type doped regions are disposed in the substrate under the corresponding charge storage structures respectively. The second conductive type doped region is disposed in the substrate between the adjacent charge storage structures and has an overlap region with each of the charge storage structures. The conductive layer covers the second conductive type doped region. The first dielectric layer is disposed between the conductive layer and the second conductive type doped region.
US09070583B2
Provided are a semiconductor device and a method of fabricating the semiconductor memory device. A contact plug is formed by wet etching. An aspect ratio of SAC is decreased and SAC fail is reduced so that a process margin is secured. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate comprising an active region and a device isolation layer defining the active region, a conductive pattern formed on the semiconductor substrate, and a nitride layer formed on the semiconductor substrate perpendicularly to the conductive pattern.
US09070561B2
Provided are a semiconductor device and a bonding structure thereof, in which an inter-metal compound is not formed with a semiconductor die or a lead frame, thereby improving electrical and mechanical properties and wettability and suppressing conglomeration of a die bonding material. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor die, a barrier layer formed on a surface of the semiconductor die, a first metal layer formed on the barrier layer, a central metal layer formed on the first metal layer, and a second metal layer formed on the central metal layer. Here, the first and second metal layers have a first melting temperature, and the central metal layer has a second melting temperature lower than the first melting temperature.
US09070559B2
According to one embodiment, first, a core pattern is formed above a hard mask layer that is formed above a process object. Then, a spacer film is formed above the hard mask layer. Next, the spacer film is etch-backed. Subsequently, an embedded layer is embedded between the core patterns whose peripheral areas are surrounded by the spacer film. Then, the core pattern and the embedded layer are removed simultaneously. Subsequently, using the spacer pattern as a mask, the hard mask layer and the process object are processed.
US09070556B2
A technique for forming nanostructures including introducing a plurality of molecular-size scale and/or nanoscale building blocks to a region near a substrate and simultaneously scanning a pattern on the substrate with an energy beam, wherein the energy beam causes a change in at least one physical property of at least a portion of the building blocks, such that a probability of the portion of the building blocks adhering to the pattern scanned by the energy beam is increased, and wherein the building blocks adhere to the pattern to form the structure. The energy beam and at least a portion of the building blocks may interact by electrostatic interaction to form the structure.
US09070555B2
Described are methods of making silicon nitride (SiN) materials on substrates. Improved SiN films made by the methods are also included. One aspect relates to depositing chlorine (Cl)-free conformal SiN films. In some embodiments, the SiN films are Cl-free and carbon (C)-free. Another aspect relates to methods of tuning the stress and/or wet etch rate of conformal SiN films. Another aspect relates to low-temperature methods of depositing high quality conformal SiN films. In some embodiments, the methods involve using trisilylamine (TSA) as a silicon-containing precursor.
US09070554B2
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes supplying a precursor gas to a substrate; supplying a reaction gas to a plasma generation region; supplying high frequency power to the plasma generation region; and generating plasma of the reaction gas by adjusting a pressure of the plasma generation region to a first pressure before the reaction gas is supplied and adjusting the pressure of the plasma generation region to a second pressure lower than the first pressure while the reaction gas and the high frequency power are supplied.
US09070552B1
A standard cell CMOS device includes a first power rail extending across the standard cell. The first power rail is connected to one of a first voltage or a second voltage less than the first voltage. The device further includes a second power rail extending across the standard cell. The second power rail is connected to an other one of the first voltage or the second voltage. The second power rail includes a metal x layer interconnect and a set of metal x−1 layer interconnects connected to the metal x layer interconnect. The device further includes a set of CMOS transistor devices between the first and second power rails and powered by the first and second power rails. The device further includes an x−1 layer interconnect extending under and orthogonal to the second power rail. The x−1 layer interconnect is coupled to the set of CMOS transistor devices.
US09070545B2
An integrated circuit system includes a first chip including a first node and configured to generate first identification information indicating the first chip in response to a voltage of the first node, a second chip including a second node and configured to generate second identification information indicating the second chip in response to a voltage of the second node, and a channel connected to the first node and the second node and generate a voltage difference between the first node and the second node.
US09070541B2
An ion source (12, 102) for a mass spectrometer comprising an ionizer (18, 106) receiving an ionizer gas from an ionizer gas supply (16), a conditioner (20) in communication with the ionizer (18, 106), a reactor (22, 110) in communication with the conditioner (20) and adapted for communication with the mass spectrometer, the reactor (22, 110) adapted to receive a sample from a sample supply in communication with the reactor (22, 110), wherein the conditioner (20) is sized to remove fast diffusing electrons from a flow of the ionizer gas from the glow discharge ionizer (18, 106) to the reactor (22, 110).
US09070540B2
An ion-ion reaction cell is provided comprising a plurality of electrodes forming an ion guide. A transient DC voltage wave is applied to the electrodes in order to load reagent anions into the ion guide. Analyte cations are then subsequently transmitted through the ion-ion reaction cell by a subsequent transient DC voltage wave. Ion are arranged to undergo ion-ion reactions within the reaction cell and the resulting fragment ions which are formed within the reaction cell are then subsequently translated out of the reaction cell by means of a transient DC voltage wave.
US09070539B2
A mass spectrometer is disclosed wherein highly charged fragment ions resulting from Electron Transfer Dissociation fragmentation of parent ions are reduced in charge state within a Proton Transfer Reaction cell by reacting the fragment ions with a neutral superbase reagent gas such as Octahydropyrimidolazepine.
US09070538B2
A plasma flood gun for an ion implantation system includes an insulating block portion and first and second conductive block portions disposed on opposite sides of the insulating block portion. Conductive straps can be coupled between the first and second conductive block portions. The conductive block portions and the central body portion include recesses which form a closed loop plasma chamber. A power source is coupled to the conductive block portions for inductively coupling radio frequency electrical power into the closed loop plasma chamber to excite the gaseous substance to generate a plasma. The respective recess in the second conductive block portion includes a pinch region having a cross-sectional dimension that is smaller than a cross-sectional area of portion of the closed loop plasma chamber directly adjacent the pinch region. The pinch region can be positioned immediately adjacent an outlet portion formed in the second conductive block portion.
US09070530B2
An X-ray tube includes a cathode, an anode with an electron receiving surface, and a window facing the electron receiving surface of the anode. On the electron receiving surface of the anode it includes a layer of anode material. Deeper in the anode than the layer of anode material, there is a block of attenuator material. The atomic number of the attenuator material is less than one third of the atomic number of the anode material.
US09070526B2
A light source device is disclosed that can be regarded as a point light source and that emits vacuum ultraviolet light at a sufficiently high optical intensity. The device has a lamp housing to house a flash lamp and a parabolic mirror. Light emitted from the flash lamp is converted to parallel light by the parabolic mirror, and the parallel light exits the lamp housing from a quartz window. The flash lamp has a pair of electrodes, and the distance between the electrodes is 12.5 mm or less. The filler gas pressure is between 2 atm and 8 atm. A current is fed to the flash lamp from an electricity feeding unit. This current requires 8 μs or less from the start of discharge until the current value reaches the peak value. The peak current value is 1500 A or more. The flash lamp emits light including vacuum ultraviolet light.
US09070525B2
An electromagnetic switch for a starter. The electromagnetic switch includes a cylindrical slidable member that is separate from a plunger, loosely encompasses an outer circumferential periphery of a plunger rod, and is axially movable integrally with the plunger. The slidable member is at least partially axially inserted into an inner circumferential periphery of a cylindrical bore. The slidable member has a sliding surface such that, when the solenoid is in its inactive state, the sliding surface is entirely circumferentially in sliding contact with the inner circumferential periphery of the cylindrical bore, and has a vent groove axially extending on the outer circumferential periphery of the slidable member such that, when the solenoid is in its active state, a plunger compartment and the contact compartment are in fluid communication with each other via the vent groove.
US09070524B2
The present invention provides a capacitive MEMS device comprising a first electrode lying in a plane, and a second electrode suspended above the first electrode and movable with respect to the first electrode. The first electrode functions as an actuation electrode. A gap is present between the first electrode and the second electrode. A third electrode is placed intermediate the first and second electrode with the gap between the third electrode and the second electrode. The third electrode has one or a plurality of holes therein, preferably in an orderly or irregular array. An aspect of the present invention integration of a conductive, e.g. metallic grating as a middle (or third) electrode. An advantage of the present invention is that it can reduce at least one problem of the prior art. This advantage allows an independent control over the pull-in and release voltage of a switch.
US09070519B2
The circuit opening operation section of an embodiment of switchgear operation mechanism comprises: a circuit opening electromagnetic solenoid having a fitting structure that is provided with a step; and a solenoid spacer for adjusting the distance between a circuit opening trigger mechanism and the circuit opening electromagnetic solenoid. The circuit opening solenoid has: a solenoid housing fixed in position by way of the solenoid spacer; a plunger; and a stopper fitted to the solenoid housing so as to limit the sliding motion of the plunger in the plunger returning direction when the coil is not supplied with electric power. The limiting position of the stopper is adjustable.
US09070513B2
A method of manufacturing a chip-type electric double layer capacitor, including: forming a lower case having an opened housing space and first and second external terminals buried therein, the first and second external terminals having first surfaces exposed to the housing space, respectively, and second surfaces exposed to an outer region of the lower case, respectively; mounting an electric double layer capacitor cell in the housing space such that the electric double layer capacitor cell is electrically connected to the first surfaces of the first and second external terminals exposed to the housing space; and mounting an upper cap on the lower case so as to cover the housing space.
US09070511B2
A sealing member for a capacitor is formed of an elastic material, and has a circular cylindrical shape extending along an axial direction. The sectional view perpendicular to the axial direction shows a circular shape. Further, a pair of through-holes is formed parallel to the axial direction. The shape of each through-hole in the sectional view perpendicular to the axial direction of the sealing member is composed of a first arc and a second arc. The first arc protrudes toward the circumference of the sealing member. The second arc protrudes toward the center of the sealing member and has a curvature smaller than that of the first arc.
US09070510B2
A variable leaf capacitor is disclosed. In accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure, a variable leaf capacitor may comprise a first alternating current coupling capacitor having a first terminal coupled to a first differential node and a second terminal coupled to a first common-mode node, a second alternating current coupling capacitor having a first terminal coupled to a second differential node and a second terminal coupled to a second common-mode node, and a varactor having a bias terminal, a first common-mode terminal coupled to the first common-mode node, and a second common-mode terminal coupled to the second common-mode node, wherein the capacitance of the varactor is based on the voltage from the first common-mode terminal of the varactor to the bias terminal of the varactor and on the voltage from the second common-mode terminal of the varactor to the bias terminal of the varactor.
US09070509B2
A method for manufacturing a planar electronic device includes applying a non-conductive fluid polymer to a lower side of a planar substrate. The substrate includes a hole extending through the substrate. The method also includes curing the fluid polymer to form a solid centering layer on the lower side of the substrate, with the centering layer extending across the hole along the lower side of the substrate. The method further includes loading a ferrite material body into the hole of the substrate through the upper side of the substrate, embedding the ferrite material body in an encapsulating material in the hole, and forming one or more conductive loops around the ferrite material body. The ferrite material body is held within the substrate between the lower side and the upper side of the substrate by the encapsulating material.
US09070499B2
A light emitting key is disclosed. A through hole is made through piezoresistive layer; a light source is arranged under the bottom of the light emitting key. When the light source is turned on, light beams shall emit out of the top substrate. The light emitting effect of the key facilitates it to be used in a dark area such as an aircraft flying in the night sky.
US09070495B2
Impurities in an oxide superconducting layer or at a surface of the oxide superconducting layer at an intermediate layer side are reduced. A superconducting wire rod has a configuration that includes a metal substrate 10; an intermediate layer 20 formed on the metal substrate 10 and containing a rare-earth element that reacts with Ba; a reaction suppressing layer 28 formed on the intermediate layer 20 and mainly containing LaMnO3+δ1, wherein δ1 represents an amount of non-stoichiometric oxygen; and an oxide superconducting layer 30 formed on the reaction suppressing layer 28 and mainly containing an oxide superconductor containing Ba.
US09070491B2
Disclosed herein are nanocomposite materials, devices thereof and methods thereof with a dielectric constant and corona resistance while having an increased or substantially maintained energy density, breakdown strength and/or dissipation factor relative to the polymer.
US09070490B2
A transmission line portion of a flat cable that is bent at a position along the longitudinal direction includes a dielectric element body, a first ground conductor, and a second ground conductor. The dielectric element body includes a signal conductor at the middle position of the thickness direction. The first ground conductor includes elongated conductors and bridge conductors. The elongated conductors are spaced in the width direction of the dielectric element body, and extend in the longitudinal direction. The bridge conductors connect the elongated conductors at spacings along the longitudinal direction. The spacing of bridge conductors across the bending point in a bent portion is smaller than the spacing of adjacent bridge conductors located in a straight portion.
US09070487B2
A conductive member disposed as a power supply line and the like includes: a first conductive material and a second conductive material, at least one of which includes a conductive material having electrical resistance lower than that of aluminum; and a metal film formed by depositing powder including a metal, which is accelerated together with a gas and sprayed, in a sold state, onto a surface of a butting part, where the first conductive material and the second conductive material are butted against each other.
US09070486B2
A radiation shielded cockpit comprises a radiation blocking material which creates a semi-enclosed work space and which is provided with a structure for receiving and supporting an articulated robot arm and an articulated robot arm that engages the supporting structure in a readily removable manner.
US09070481B1
A method of operation in a non-volatile memory device, including executing a memory operation with respect to a portion of a non-volatile memory device, and measuring a current corresponding to current drawn by at least the portion of the non-volatile memory device during the memory operation. An age metric is determined for at least the portion of the non-volatile memory device based on age criteria including a characteristic of the measured current. In accordance with a determination that the age metric satisfies one or more predefined threshold criteria, one or more configuration parameters associated with the non-volatile memory device are adjusted. After the adjusting, data is read from and data to the portion of the non-volatile memory device according to the one or more adjusted configuration parameters.
US09070473B2
Methods and systems to refresh a non-volatile memory device, such as a phase change memory. In an embodiment, as a function of system state, a memory device performs either a first refresh of memory cells using a margined read reference level or a second refresh of error-corrected memory cells using a non-margined read reference level.
US09070469B2
A memory device that, in certain embodiments, includes a memory element coupled to a bit-line and a quantizing circuit coupled to the memory element via the bit-line. In some embodiments, the quantizing circuit includes an analog-to-digital converter having an input and output and a digital filter that includes memory. The input of the analog-to-digital converter may be coupled to the bit-line, and the output of the analog-to-digital converter may be coupled to the digital filter.
US09070453B2
To store, successively, in a plurality of memory cells, first and second pluralities of input bits that are equal in number, a first transformation transforms the first input bits into a first plurality of transformed bits. A first portion of the cells is programmed to store the first transformed bits according to a mapping of bit sequences to cell levels, but, if the first transformation has a variable output length, only if there are few enough first transformed bits to fit in the first cell portion. Then, without erasing a second cell portion that includes the first portion, if respective levels of the cells of the second portion, that represent a second plurality of transformed bits obtained by a second transformation of the second input bits, according to the mapping, are accessible from the current cell levels, the second portion is so programmed to store the second transformed bits.
US09070451B1
Flash memory stored data modification is described. In embodiments, a flash memory system includes flash memory and a memory controller that manages data write and erase operations to the flash memory. The flash memory includes a first flash memory region of single-write flash memory cells that are each configured for a data write operation and a corresponding erase operation before a subsequent data write operation. The flash memory also includes a second flash memory region of multiple-write flash memory cells that are each configured for multiple data write operations before an erase operation.
US09070448B2
Methods of forming a semiconductor device may include providing a feature layer having a first region and a second region. The methods may also include forming a dual mask layer on the feature layer. The methods may further include forming a variable mask layer on the dual mask layer. The methods may additionally include forming a first structure on the feature layer in the first region and a second structure on the feature layer in the second region by patterning the variable mask layer and the dual mask layer. The methods may also include forming a first spacer on a sidewall of the first structure and a second spacer on a sidewall of the second structure. The methods may further include removing the first structure while maintaining at least a portion of the second structure.
US09070444B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array including memory cells arranged therein. A first latch circuit temporarily holds data to perform a read operation and a write operation on the memory cell array. The second latch circuit temporarily holds a control signal. A control circuit controls the memory cell array, the first latch circuit and the second latch circuit. The control circuit limits an operation of the first latch circuit in a state after an operation on the memory cell array has been finished, and limits an operation of the second latch circuit based on a command supplied from external.
US09070440B2
According to one embodiment, a resistance change memory includes a first memory cell, a word line, a first bit line, first and second inverters, first to sixth MOS transistors, and a control circuit. The first transistor is connected to the first output terminal of the first inverter. The second transistor is connected to the second output terminal of the second inverter. The fifth transistor has a first current path whose one end is connected to the first voltage terminal of the first inverter. The sixth transistor has a second current path whose one end is connected to the third voltage terminal of the second inverter. The control circuit makes the first and second transistors a cutoff state by a first signal and makes the fifth and sixth transistors the cutoff state by a second signal in a standby state.
US09070439B2
One or more embodiments relate to an electronic device comprising a circuitry and a programmable resistive element. The programmable resistive element comprises a first and a second state, wherein the programmable resistive element is configured to allow switching from the second state into the first state in response to a signal comprising at least a predefined level. The circuitry is configured to provide signals up the predefined level, wherein the circuitry is configured to provide a switch signal to the programmable resistive element, wherein the switch signal causes switching from the first into the second state.
US09070438B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for programming a phase-change memory cell having s>2 programmable cell states. At least one control signal is applied to produce a programming pulse for programming the cell. At least one control signal is varied during the programming pulse to shape the programming pulse in dependence on the cell state to be programmed and produce a selected one of a plurality of programming pulse waveforms corresponding to respective programming trajectories for programming the cell states. The selected programming pulse waveform corresponds to a programming trajectory containing the cell state to be programmed.
US09070414B2
The present invention relates to a playback apparatus, a playback method, a program, a recording medium, and a data structure that enable interactive operations when playing back AV content. A controller 34 obtains an order list of audio stream numbers in advance. In response to an instruction to switch audio by a user, the controller obtains the audio stream number subsequent to the audio stream number which is being played back. It is then checked whether a stream that is found to be playable by the playback apparatus is included in a main clip or a sub clip, and the main clip referred to by the Main Path is read together with the clip in which the corresponding audio stream is multiplexed. Then, the audio stream file of the corresponding clip and the file to be played back included in the main clip are selected by the switches 57 through 59, and 77. The selected files are combined by a video data processor 96 and an audio data processor 97, and the combined data is output. The present invention is applicable to playback apparatuses.
US09070411B1
Systems and methods are disclosed for writable servo zone overlap regions on a disc memory. An apparatus may comprise a controller configured to determine a servo gate (sgate) timing for an overlap zone including servo patterns of a first servo super zone and a second servo super zone of a disc memory, the sgate timing based on servo pattern timing for the first servo super zone and the second servo super zone. The controller may initiate writing to the overlap zone based on the sgate timing. The controller may also reduce the impact of servo pattern frequency change between zones by calculating a trajectory error prior to the crossing, and providing 1/X of the trajectory error into a servo feedback loop for a following X servo sampling points.
US09070409B1
A system and method of visually representing a recorded audio meeting comprises a plurality of discrete microphones, each connected to an audio speaker as well as to a conventional digital mixing console, and a computer system connected to the digital mixing console. Captured audio is transmitted as audio signals to the audio speaker for broadcasting and to the mixing console where they are converted to a digital audio feed for transmission to the computer system. The computer system, which has associated a visual cue with audio signals based on their source, processes the digital audio feed signal to identify the sources of the captured audio therein and generates a visual cue associated with the identified audio source. This activity is represented in a composite visual representation that displays and records all session participants and indicates speaking participants in real time.
US09070400B2
A method of manufacturing a magnetic recording medium includes providing a substrate that is a magnetic recording medium substrate having a disc shape, having two main surfaces, and having defined therein a center hole; holding the center hole of the substrate from both main surfaces with two holding members that each have a disc shape to hold the substrate and to cover at least the periphery of the center hole adjacent to the two main surfaces of the substrate; and applying resist liquid simultaneously to both main surfaces of the substrate using spin coating to form a resist layer simultaneously on both main surfaces while maintaining the periphery of the center hole immediately adjacent to the two main surfaces of the substrate resist-free as an unapplied portion. The method enables efficient formation of uniform resist layers without defects on both faces of the substrate.
US09070398B2
Provided is a magnetic recording medium including a structure in which at least a soft magnetic underlayer, a non-magnetic intermediate layer, and a magnetic recording layer are sequentially laminated on a non-magnetic substrate, wherein the magnetic recording layer includes a first magnetic layer, a non-magnetic layer, and a second magnetic layer in order from the non-magnetic substrate side, has a structure in which the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer are magnetically separated from each other with the non-magnetic layer interposed therebetween, and consists of a plurality of patterns which are magnetically separated from each other, and the coercive force Hc of the second magnetic layer is larger than that of the first magnetic layer, and the coercive force Hc of the second magnetic layer is smaller than that of the first magnetic layer temporarily when the second magnetic layer is heated.
US09070397B1
A data storage device and method for improved flying height control (TFC) in a HAMR or MAMR system employing three heat sources to control the head protrusion: write coil current, TFC heater current, and media exciter power. The TFC heater is used to pre-heat the write head. The media exciter may be operated at a either a zero level or a low level below that required for the HAMR or MAMR process, optionally serving as an additional source of heat to the write head. The HAMR or MAMR data writing process commences only after the head protrusion has been increased and stabilized. During data writing, the media exciter power is increased to the higher level required to heat the disk medium in an HAMR or MAMR process and the TFC heater power is slightly reduced to maintain the total heat into the head approximately constant.
US09070395B1
According to one embodiment, there is provided a magnetic disk device including a magnetic disk, a magnetic head, a heater, and a control unit. The magnetic head reads out information recorded on the magnetic disk. The heater is configured to adjust a magnetic spacing of the magnetic head from the magnetic disk. The control unit is configured to change a bias amount of the magnetic head according to setting of current flow through the heater.
US09070390B2
Systems, methods, and firmware for operating data storage devices and storage processors are provided herein. In one example, a data storage device is provided. The data storage device includes magnetic storage media configured to store data, read heads configured to read data from the magnetic storage media at associated areal densities, and a storage processor. The storage processor is configured to monitor read error rates of the read heads during operation of the data storage device to identify a degraded one of the read heads, and process at least the read error rates and an areal density of the degraded one of the read heads to modify the areal density of at least the degraded one of the read heads.
US09070387B1
A structure includes a substrate, a metallization layer on the substrate, and a cap layer on the metallization layer, wherein the cap layer includes a cap platinum (Pt) layer on the metallization layer, and a cap gold (Au) layer deposited on the Pt cap layer. A method of bonding a laser diode submount assembly to a hard disk assembly slider includes disposing a first metallization layer on the slider, disposing a cap layer on the first metallization layer, wherein the cap layer includes a cap Pt layer on the first metallization layer, and a cap Au layer deposited on the cap Pt layer, disposing a second metallization layer on the laser diode submount assembly, and forming a solder bond between the cap layer on the slider and the second metallization layer on the laser diode submount assembly.
US09070385B2
An apparatus includes a solid immersion mirror with opposing, reflective, inner sidewalls having inner surfaces facing a focal region and outer surfaces opposite the inner surfaces. The solid immersion mirror also include opposing outer sidewalls spaced apart from and facing the outer surfaces of the inner sidewalls, and a fill material between the inner sidewalls and outer sidewalls. The apparatus also includes a near-field transducer located in the focal region proximate a media-facing surface.
US09070384B1
A magnetic recording write head has a continuous electrically conductive plate with an aperture, a coil region around the aperture and heat-sink regions spaced from the coil region. A yoke stud is located in the aperture and connects the upper yoke layer to the main pole. The plate with the aperture replaces the multi-turn coil of the prior art and thus allows for a short yoke height. Write current is directed to the plate coil region and induces a magnetic field in the aperture, which generates magnetic flux in the yoke stud and the connected main pole. The heat-sink regions dissipate heat generated in the plate by the write current. A lower electrical lead layer is located below the plate and also has an aperture coincident with the aperture in the plate and a coil region around the aperture to assist in generating the magnetic field in the aperture.
US09070367B1
In a distributed automated speech recognition (ASR) system, speech models may be employed on a local device to allow the local device to process frequently spoken utterances while passing other utterances to a remote device for processing. Upon receiving an audio signal, the local device compares the audio signal to the speech models of the frequently spoken utterances to determine whether the audio signal matches one of the speech models. When the audio signal matches one of the speech models, the local device processes the utterance, for example by executing a command. When the audio signal does not match one of the speech models, the local device transmits the audio signal to a second device for ASR processing. This reduces latency and the amount of audio signals that are sent to the second device for ASR processing.
US09070362B2
The present disclosure provides an audio quantization coding and decoding device and a method thereof. In the method, before a quantization coding process is performed on a digital signal, the signal is pre-processed, the digital signal is split into multiple frames based on positive and negative half periods of the signal, and all audio data between two adjacent zero-crossing points belongs to the same positive and negative half periods, so as to have the same sign-bit. A pre-processing module groups the numeric data belonging to the same positive and negative half periods into the same frame. When coding, an audio quantization coding module only needs to record a sign-bit of the frame at a head of the frame, so the sign-bit of each batch of voice data in the frame may be omitted to reduce a data amount or improve a resolution of each batch of voice data.
US09070361B2
A method and apparatus for encoding a signal is provided herein. During operation a wideband signal that is to be encoded enters a filter bank. A highband signal and a lowband signal are output from the filter bank. Each signal is separately encoded. During the production of the highband signal, a downmixing operation is implemented after preprocessing, and prior to decimating. The downmixing operation greatly reduces system complexity. In fact, it will be observed that the highest sample rate in the prior-art implementation is 64 kHz whereas the sample rate in the system described above remains at 32 kHz or below. This represents a significant complexity saving, as do the reduced number of processing blocks.
US09070356B2
A method (300) and apparatus (100) generate a candidate code-vector to code an information signal. The method can include producing (310) a target vector from a received input signal. The method can include constructing (320) a plurality of inverse weighting functions based on the target vector. The method can include evaluating (330) an error value associated with each of the plurality of inverse weighting functions to produce a fixed codebook code-vector. The method can include generating (340) a codeword representative of the fixed codebook code-vector, where the codeword can be used by a decoder to generate an approximation of the input signal.
US09070350B2
A musical instrument tuner for string instruments is provided which comprises a signal classifier for determining a signal class of an input signal from a number of monophonic signal classes and a number of polyphonic signal classes, a signal analyzer for determining at least one representation of a pitch frequency of the input signal, and an indicator for displaying an output established on the basis of the signal class and the representation of a pitch frequency.
US09070339B2
In a liquid crystal panel, a reflective pixel electrode and a transmissive pixel electrode in a unit pixel are supplied with an image signal output from a data line drive circuit, the two mutually different scanning signals output from a scanning line drive circuit, and common signals output from a common line drive circuit. The phase of the image signal is set different from that of the common signal. Further, a period during which the two scanning signals are selected is set in one horizontal period, the ending of the selection period for one of the scanning signals is set to a point in time before an electrical potential of the common signal changes, and the ending of the selection period for the other scanning signal is set to a point in time after the electrical potential of the common signal changes.
US09070329B2
A method for driving a display device in which characteristics of a transistor including an oxide semiconductor can approximately be recovered to characteristics before deterioration is provided. In the method for driving the display device, by which images are displayed with the use of a plurality of frame periods, the display device is driven so that a voltage of 20 V or higher can be applied to a gate of a transistor, which is a driving element, for 1 millisecond or longer in a period, in which any one of scan lines is selected, in each frame period. For a plurality of frame periods, the rows are selected so that a voltage of 20 V or higher is applied to gates of all of the transistors which are driving elements for 1 millisecond or longer, whereby characteristics of the transistor can approximately be recovered to characteristics before deterioration.
US09070322B2
A display apparatus includes a plurality of electrofluidic chromatophore (EFC) pixel cells. Each pixel cell includes a fluid holder for holding a polar fluid and a non-polar fluid having differing display properties, the fluid holder including a reservoir having an orifice with a small visible area projected in the direction of a viewer onto the polar fluid, and a channel with a geometry having a large visible area projected in the direction of a viewer onto the polar fluid. The channel is connected to the reservoir via said orifice so as to enable free movement of the polar fluid and non-polar fluid between the channel and the reservoir. The reservoir is formed in a laminated resin structure of homogenous resin film layers, including an orifice film layer and a reservoir film layer.
US09070314B2
Methods, systems and apparatus are described to render map data according to texture masks. A rendering device may obtain map data, which may include one or more shapes described by vector graphics data. Along with the one or more shapes, embodiments may include mask indicators corresponding to the one or more shapes. Embodiments may render the map data by creating a mask shape based upon mask indicators corresponding to the shapes described by the vector graphics data. For each created mask shape, a texture source may be determined according to the mask indicator for the mask shape. Embodiments may obtain a texture from the texture source and may apply the mask shape to the obtained texture to render a fill portion of the corresponding shape described by the vector graphics data. Some embodiments may display the rendered map data as a map view.
US09070307B2
A system for simulating a surgical procedure, which includes a housing covering an anatomical model. The model is made up of simulated tissue supported on a base assembly that allows pivoting and rotation of the simulated tissue. The simulated tissue includes a portion that represents soft tissue, such as dermal tissue, muscle, connective tissue and the like, and a portion that represents hard tissue, such as osseous tissue. The housing includes apertures through which a surgical instrument may be inserted for simulating a procedure on the simulated tissue. Cannulas may be set within the apertures.
US09070304B2
Disclosed herein is a debris-flow simulation apparatus having a variable flume. The flume includes a plurality of flume bodies which are connected to each other in the longitudinal direction. The heights of the flume bodies can be easily adjusted, thus varying the angles of inclination of the flume bodies.
US09070302B1
A novel piano roll notation system corresponding to the keyboard of a novel Janko-type keyboard is provided.
US09070300B1
This invention relates to interlocking rectangular and triangular tiles for use in tessellating a plane, teaching certain aspects of geometry and trigonometry, and creating decorative objects. The tiles comprising the invention, some with a design on them, tessellate the plane with periodic and non-periodic patterns based on the design as the basic unit of repetition. In particular; the tiles can be assembled to create any of the 17 possible plane periodic patterns. The tiles of the present invention can be used as a teaching tool for a partially structured exploration of plane periodic patterns, and for learning the mathematical notation for these patterns. They can also be used for teaching basic geometry to younger children through exploratory play. This invention can also be used as a stencil assembly, so that the patterns created can be transferred to a plane surface and used as decorations.
US09070291B2
A system for predicting a travel time for a traffic route is disclosed. The traffic route comprises one or more road segments. A predicted travel time for each of those segments is calculated based, in part, on traffic speed data for each of the one or more road segments. A total travel time is then calculated for the route, the total travel time including a predicted travel time for each of the one or more road segments.
US09070288B2
Provided are an apparatus and a method that chooses an object to be preferentially controlled based on an accident risk degree and hazard and controls the chosen object. In the present invention, it is possible to choose and control a ship having high hazard calculated with trajectory prediction, current operation state information, and past history information under a traffic situation in which the ships are concentrated, by priority. The ship having high hazard is chosen by calculating and applying various history information including an accident record, an entry history of an operator, an aging degree history of the ship, and a steering feature history by using a collision risk on a real-time trajectory collision risk and past history information and different warnings are given during a control for each level.
US09070286B2
The present invention generally relates to techniques for traffic monitoring. The techniques utilize a relatively low cost sensing system, referred to here as “smart tape.” Smart tape is adhered directly to the roadway and provides the ability to temporarily monitor traffic. It can be applied in an appropriate length for the roadway condition. Smart tape is responsive to the pressure of a vehicle's tires passing over it. Furthermore, smart tape does not require an attached monitoring device, unlike certain known traffic monitoring techniques.
US09070285B1
A computerized aircraft system, such as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is provided with a cloud detection system. The UAS includes a monocular electro-optic or infra-red camera which acquires consecutively, in real time, a plurality of images within a field of view of the camera. The system identifies feature points in each of the consecutive images, and generates macro representations of cloud formations (3D representations of the clouds) based on tracking of the feature points across the plurality of images. A cloud avoidance system takes in nominal own-ship waypoints, compares those waypoints to the 3D cloud representations and outputs modified waypoints to avoid the detected clouds.
US09070284B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a turbulence avoidance operation assist device that automatically generates an optimal trajectory of emergency avoidance and reports this trajectory to a pilot when distant turbulence is detected during an aircraft flight. The turbulence avoidance operation assist device in accordance with the present invention includes: means for detecting the presence of a danger region such as a turbulence region ahead of aircraft in a flight direction; means for representing the danger region as an assembly of rectangular solids when the detection means recognizes the danger region, and generating a flight trajectory by a local optimum solution of an avoidance trajectory using a convex quadratic programming method in which deviation from a reference trajectory is the smallest on the basis of an initial estimation solution obtained by a semidefinite programming method; and means for reporting the flight trajectory to a pilot.
US09070281B2
Disclosed is a method for monitoring photovoltaic modules, which are used in an arrangement comprising several photovoltaic modules, which are connected in particular in series by means of electrical conducting means, wherein a separate microcontroller is associated with the respective photovoltaic module, an and in particular continual determination of at least one status parameter of the respective photovoltaic module is performed by the microcontroller, the data concerning the status parameter are transmitted to an evaluating unit, the data intended to be transmitted to the evaluating unit are designed in the form of data blocks, the electrical conducting means present for connecting the individual photovoltaic modules are used to transmit the data blocks, and the data blocks are transmitted independently of each other so that the probability of data blocks colliding with each other is greater than 0.
US09070278B2
A method for forming a fault tolerant detector assembly is presented. The method includes providing a sensor array having a plurality of sensor elements, providing an electronics layer having a plurality of electronics cells, where the plurality of electronics cells corresponds to the plurality of sensor elements in the sensor array, introducing a status indicator element in each of the plurality of the electronics cells, where the status indicator element is configured to store a status of a corresponding sensor element, scanning the plurality of sensor elements in the sensor array to identify the status of the plurality of sensor elements in the sensor array, generating a functionality map based on the identified status of the plurality of sensor elements in the sensor array, and selectively programming the status indicator elements based on the functionality map to form a fault tolerant detector assembly.
US09070269B2
An impact sensing device including a plurality of accelerometers orthogonally oriented with respect to each other and attachable at a body location, each capable of producing signals indicative of impacts. An integrated circuit is configured to determine the magnitude and direction of the impacts based on the signals and operative to activate an indicator when the magnitude exceeds a first threshold based on the direction of the impact and when the magnitude exceeds a second threshold more than a selected number of times. A head injury coefficient is determined based on the magnitude and a duration of the impact, and the threshold level of acceleration is expressed in terms of a head injury coefficient value, which is determined by empirically correlating a head injury coefficient measured at the body location and a head injury coefficient measured at the center of mass of a human head resulting from an impact.
US09070261B2
A merchandising system that improves the merchandising of product by limiting the number and the frequency with which product can be removed from, for example, a merchandising shelf. The merchandising system may include a base configured to support product and a housing configured to engage the base. The housing may comprise a top wall, a first side wall, a second side wall, and a front retaining wall. The system may further include a spring-urged pusher movably mounted on the base and a dampener assembly mounted to the spring-urged pusher configured to control the rate of speed at which the spring-urged pusher is urged forward.
US09070254B2
A gaming system includes a credit detector adapted to detect a wager to play a wagering game, one or more displays adapted to display, in response to the wager, a base game and a secondary game, the base game providing a trigger that provides an opportunity to play the secondary game, the secondary game including a plurality of decision points, each decision point requiring a selection of one of a plurality of paths and a controller operative to respond to the selection of the path at the one decision point and provide a next decision point for a subsequent selection of another path, a state of the secondary game remaining persistent during repeated plays of the base game so that selected paths in the secondary game are combined to provide non-linear unlocking of a bonus award.
US09070253B2
The invention relates to systems and methods of selecting and placing real-world wagers responsive to one or more wager triggers, obtaining outcomes of the real-world wagers, facilitating user interactions with various interactive media, and revealing the outcomes of the real-world wagers through the interactive media to give an appearance that the outcomes of the real-world wagers resulted from the user interactions even though the outcomes resulted from the real-world wagers and were determined before the user interactions. The system may obtain an outcome of a real-world wager and update an unrevealed balance of a user. The unrevealed balance may include an indication of an outcome (e.g., an amount of a payout or a loss) of a real-world wager that has not yet been revealed to the user. The system may reveal at least a portion of the unrevealed balance or a given outcome in a single or multiple reveals.
US09070249B2
A wagering game system and its operations are described herein. In some embodiments, the operations can include detecting a request to configure a wagering game machine for presentation of a wagering game effect. The operations can further include, in response to detecting the request, evaluating, a position of the wagering game machine against criteria for presentation of the wagering game effect. The operations can further include, based on the evaluating the position of the wagering game machine against the criteria for presentation of the wagering game effect, modifying an availability of at least one of a plurality of options to configure the wagering game machine for the presentation of the wagering game effect.
US09070238B2
The present disclosure provides a coin counting and sorting module comprising: a coin sorter; a coin bowl having an inner surface comprising a rotating surface adapted for being rotated when the module is in operation; a coin sensor for detecting and removing counterfeit coins; a coin separating rail knife for receiving coins one by one; an inclined rail block; and an anti-bounce block rigidly fastened to the inclined rail block by a finite number of fastening elements. This disclosure also provides a coin handling apparatus comprising such a coin counting and sorting module.
US09070237B2
A moire magnification device is disclosed, including a transparent substrate carrying: a regular array of micro-focusing elements on a first surface, the focusing elements defining a focal plane; and a corresponding first array of microimage elements located in a plane substantially coincident with the focal plane of the focusing elements. The pitches of the micro-focusing elements and the array of microimage elements and their relative locations are such that the array of micro-focusing elements cooperates with the array of microimage elements to generate magnified version of the microimage elements due to the moire effect. Along at least one axis across at least a first region of the device, the pitch between the microimage elements and/or between the micro-focusing elements continuously varies across the respective array(s), whereby the moire effect causes different degrees of magnification of the image elements to occur.
US09070223B2
An image processing device includes a map filtering processing unit which applies filtering to a parallax map based on a parallax value with respect to each pixel of an image; a blurred image generation unit which generates a blurred image of the image from the image; and an image composition unit which generates a composite image which is obtained by compositing the image and the blurred image based on the parallax map after the filtering by the map filtering processing unit.
US09070203B2
The identification and quantification of microtextured regions in orientation datasets is provided through the use of microstructure informatics based on n-point correlation functions, dimensionality reduction techniques, and a computer algebra system. Orientation information is extracted for materials and processing is performed on the orientation information along with other ancillary data that accompanies each piece of orientation information and a hybrid descriptor of orientation is formed. Representative descriptors are identified such that regions of microtexture are classified. This classification is mapped back onto the real space of the sample and a local clustering is done to identify continuous regions of microtexture. These labeled continuous regions of microtexture then provide a method for segmentation of the orientation data into their respective macrozones.
US09070202B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for autonomous driving with only a single camera by moving object localization in 3D with a real-time framework that harnesses object detection and monocular structure from motion (SFM) through the ground plane estimation; tracking feature points on moving cars a real-time framework to and use the feature points for 3D orientation estimation; and correcting scale drift with ground plane estimation that combines cues from sparse features and dense stereo visual data.
US09070200B2
A tile-based graphics processing system comprises a host processor 1 and a graphics processing pipeline 3. The graphics processing pipeline 3 includes a rasterizer, a renderer, a tile buffer comprising an allocated amount of memory for use as the tile buffer, and a write out stage configured to write data stored in the tile buffer to an external memory. The driver 4 for the graphics processing pipeline 3 on the host processor 1 determines the tile data storage requirements for each render target to be generated for a render output to be generated by the graphics processing system and allocates portions of the memory allocated for use as the tile buffer to respective ones of the render targets based on the determination.
US09070199B2
An electronic device selectively couples a head with links in a graphics processing unit to a currently selected display port in a pair of display ports. During operation, control logic in the electronic device monitors a pair of configuration signals from the pair of display ports, where the pair of configuration signals correspond to physical connections to the pair of display ports. Then, the control logic determines a selection control signal based on the monitored pair of configuration signals, a policy setting and a default display port, where the selection control signal specifies the currently selected display port. Moreover, the control logic provides the selection control signal to a multiplexer in the electronic device. Next, the multiplexer selectively couples the head with the links in the graphics processing unit to the currently selected display port based on the selection control signal.
US09070174B2
Devices, methods, and systems for providing a diagnosis of a system of a building are described herein. One method includes displaying a system of a building, wherein the display of the system includes an identification of a particular component of the system, identifying, within the display of the system, a number of components of the system related to the particular component, and identifying, within the display of the system, a relationship between the particular component and the number of components and a relative operational status of the particular component and the number of components.
US09070167B2
A sales portal system supports a plurality of buyer computers used by a corresponding plurality of buyers. The sales portal system supports a first seller's computer to support sales of a first plurality of products a second seller's computer to support sales of a second plurality of products. The sales portal accesses first product data from the first seller's computer and second product data from the second seller's computer and responds to a query received from one of the plurality of buyer computers by delivering selections from the associated first product data and the associated second product data. The sales portal manages a single sales transaction for a first product of a first seller and a second product of a second seller. The sales portal rates sellers. The sales portal apportions payment, fulfillment, delivery instructions, and other sales components to the first and second sellers.
US09070156B2
Various processes are disclosed for discovering item relationships between particular items, such as products represented in an electronic catalog, based on monitored user behaviors (e.g., item viewing activities, item purchases, shopping cart activities, etc.). The discovered item relationships may, for example, be used to generate personalized item recommendations for users, and/or to supplement item detail pages of an electronic catalog with lists of related items. Also disclosed are processes for generating personalized item recommendations based on users' search activities and browse node visits.
US09070155B1
In some embodiments, the instant invention provides an improved computer system programmed for searching which includes at least the following components: a specialized computer machine, at least one processor for executing a particular program code stored in a memory, where the particular program code is configured to perform the following operations upon the execution: obtaining business information regarding a plurality of businesses and a plurality of offerings offered by the plurality of businesses; generating a rating score for each business based on consumer ratings; associating each business with the rating score; and concurrently conducting a plurality of searches of the business information based on: business identifying search parameter(s) obtained from each consumer, a geographic indication, a plurality of ranked filtering criteria, a rating score filtering parameter.
US09070152B1
In some embodiments, the instant invention provides a programmed industry management computer system, having at least: a specialized computer machine, having a processor for executing program code, performing upon the execution: operating an electronic space, allowing: a plurality of consumers to submit ratings that rate on a merit a plurality of businesses in rating categories of: service, value, ethics, competence, environment, and price; generating sales opportunities for businesses by performing: personality matching between the consumers and the businesses, and allowing the consumers to search for the businesses; and providing services, products, or both, to the businesses to improve consumer service and consumer ratings; in real-time, determining a monetary amount to be paid by a particular consumer for a consumer activity; based on the consumer activity performed by the particular consumer, in real-time, determining a monetary amount to be paid by a particular business for a lead option.
US09070148B2
The machine or method buys gold or precious metal items. A housing with a vault is linked to a central office for tracking buy/no-buy sales events and uploading current exchange rate data. The item is placed on a platform leading to processing stations which weigh, image, assay and convey the item to the vault (buy) or return-route (no-buy). User display commands and offers-to-buy, capture user images, scan identity and biometric data and permit user-keyed input. A computer processor calculates a discounted market value based upon exchange rate, weight, assayed purity and discounts. A compiler stores seller's data including seller responses, images and scanner data and buy/no-buy data. An acceptance module initiates a credit event and delivers the item to the vault. A rejection module negates acceptance upon user command or if an error in gold purity, weight, discounted market value or size.
US09070146B2
The present invention generally relates to authenticating online transactions, and more specifically, to method and system for determining a potentially fraudulent online transaction request based on a risk parameter associated with a user in a networking platform such as, a social networking platform. The method comprises receiving an online transaction request from a user. Thereafter, determining the risk parameter of the user based on one or more profile parameters associated with the user or one or more peer users associated with the user in the community. Based on the risk parameter of the user the online transaction request of the user is authenticated.
US09070143B2
Server systems and methods to provide targeted advertising use tracking of digital content. The digital content may include real estate content. Responsive to digital content being presented on a client computing platform, information related to browsing activity on the client computing platform is gathered. Digital content (and/or attributes thereof) are associated with either individual ones of the (real estate) search servers through which the digital content is presented, or individual ones of the content providers of the pertinent digital content, or both. Content providers of digital content are compensated based on revenue that is generated through processing and/or analysis of the associations between users and the digital content that has been presented to them.
US09070132B1
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for the production and labeling of objects in a manner suitable for the prevention and detection of counterfeiting. Thus, the system incorporates a variety of features that make unauthorized reproduction difficult. In addition, the present invention provides an efficient means for the production of labels and verification of authenticity, whereby a recording apparatus which includes a recording medium, having anisotrophic optical domains, along with a means for transferring a portion of the recording medium to a carrier, wherein a bulk portion of the recording medium has macroscopically detectable anisotrophic optical properties and the detecting apparatus thereon.
US09070128B1
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for verifying account transactions. A transaction request is received that seeks to pre-approve a transaction for an account number. A verification character string is also received that is currently associated with the account number. If the transaction is pre-approved, then a new verification character string is assigned to the account number, such that the verification character string is changed with each transaction request.
US09070116B2
A communications device is configured to report spam on demand. The spam is reported to a spam reporting service center in a communications network. As content is received by the device, the user of the device analyzes the content to determine if the content comprises spam. If the user determines that the content comprises spam, the user triggers the device to report the spam. The content can be of any type of content or combinations of content type, such as SMS, SMS, VM, email, VVM, VVM, and advertisements. The device comprises multiple clients configured to processes, respectively, each content type. In response to receiving the trigger, the appropriate client encapsulates the content. The encapsulated content is sent to a Report Spam client to generate a spam report. The spam report includes the encapsulated content and a disposition instruction.
US09070115B2
Provided are an electronic mail server manager, and a system and method for coordinating operation of multiple electronic mail servers to efficiently store, process, and forward a high volume of electronic mail. The system for managing operation of multiple email servers in accordance with one embodiment may comprise an email message queue; a plurality of receiving email servers; a plurality of sending email servers; and an email server manager having a memory and a processor configured by the memory to perform the steps of storing received email messages in an email message queue; extracting destinations from the email messages; and delivering the email messages to the destinations by way of the sending email servers in correspondence to feedback received from the sending email servers and/or the destinations.
US09070102B2
An apparatus includes a memory and a processor. The processor receives, from a transporter device, an indication of a problem associated with locating a destination site associated with the first user device. In response to receiving the indication, the processor requests the geocoordinates of the first user device. The processor confirms that a second user device is located proximate the destination site, wherein the first user device requests the geocoordinates of the second user device in response to a determination that the first user device is not located proximate the destination site. The processor receives the geocoordinates of the second user device, and communicates, to the transporter device, the geocoordinates of the second user device.
US09070089B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for obtaining a plurality of model representations of predictive models, each model representation associated with a respective user and expresses a respective predictive model, and selecting a model implementation for each of the model representations based on one or more system usage properties associated with the user associated with the corresponding model representation.
US09070073B2
In a case of performing free size printing with a charging approach in which a charge classification is determined based on a color pixel utilization rate, the color pixel utilization rate calculating is performed using a total number of pixels in an image area cut out at a size for color pixel utilization rate calculation, rather than the generation image data on the whole, for a denominator. With this, the calculation result of the color pixel utilization rate is prevented from becoming inaccurate.
US09070069B2
Disclosed is an apparatus for providing an RFID device for integration into a tire. A printed circuit board (PCB) is provided with a pair of asymmetric arms forming notches in opposed ends of the PCB. Helically wound antenna elements are positioned in the notches such that the ends of the asymmetric arms are positioned adjacent the nearest approach of the individual helically wound antenna elements.
US09070063B2
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tag for an item having a conductive layer included or attached
An RFID device. The device comprises a conductive layer formed on a first substrate. An opening line (or two or more opening lines) is formed in the conductive layer to make the conductive layer a part of an antenna structure. An integrated circuit chip is placed over at least a portion the opening line and coupled to the conductive layer. The integrated circuit chip is electrically interconnected to the conductive layer.
US09070059B2
A portable electronic device 1 comprising a battery 14 coupled with an electronic circuit 10-12 through a switching circuit 15 for switching on or off the supply voltage Vcc to the electronic circuit using the battery. The portable device comprises at least one electromagnetic field detection circuit 13 coupled with the switching circuit 15 to start the power supply to the electronic circuit 10-12 if an electromagnetic field is detected.
US09070054B2
This disclosure discloses a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a printed matter production processing program for executing steps. The steps comprise an edition-screen display step, a database display step, a region-specification reception step, and a print-object arrangement step. In the edition-screen display step, an edition screen is displayed for receiving an input operation of the print object to be arranged in each of at least one block. In the database display step, a database that is stored in the memory and includes plurality of records is displayed. In the region-specification reception step, specification of a character-string including region is received. The character-string including region includes a plurality of character strings to be allocated as print objects. In the print-object arrangement step, the plurality of character strings included in the character-string including region are allocated to each of the block in accordance with a desired allocation rule.
US09070052B2
An image capturing unit includes a sensor unit that captures a predetermined area including a subject; a reference chart that is arranged in the predetermined area and captured together with the subject by the sensor unit; an optical path length changing member that is arranged on an optical path extending from the subject to the sensor unit and is capable of changing a length of the optical path.
US09070040B2
A video processing apparatus includes a first storage means unit which stores, in correspondence to a viewer, frame feature values to characterize each frame of scenes constituted by a series of frames in a video content viewed by the viewer; a second storage means unit which stores, as scene groups classified by attributes of the scenes, the frame feature values of scenes constituted by the series of frames; an interest level accumulation means unit which compares the frame feature values stored in the first storage means unit with the frame feature values stored in the second storage means unit, and in case the compared frame feature values match, increases a score about the viewer which represents the interest level with respect to the scene group of which the frame feature values match; and a viewer preference determination means unit which determines that the scene groups of the which the scores are higher are the scene groups preferred by the viewer.
US09070038B2
Methods are systems are provided that include obtaining a digital image from a digital photograph, such as may be taken by a digital camera or a camera phone. The digital image includes, for example, a URI or URL, which may be contained within a visible frame. A character recognition technique, such as an optical character recognition technique, may be used to recognize the URI or URL from the digital image. The URI or URL may be used to access a corresponding Web page. The character recognition technique may be applied on the digital camera or cell phone itself, or remotely.
US09070035B2
The disclosure provides a document processing apparatus, method and a scanner. The document processing apparatus includes: a text line extraction unit extracting a text line from an input document; a language classification unit determining whether an OCR process is necessary for a language of the input document; an OCR unit determining, by performing the OCR process, an OCR confidence in the case that it is determined that the OCR process is necessary; an graphic feature recognition unit determining an graphic feature recognition confidence; and a determination unit determining a combination confidence based on at least one of the determined graphic feature recognition confidences and the determined OCR confidences, and determining an orientation of the input document based on the combination confidences. This technical solution can determine better an orientation of the document, and is especially applicable when the quality of the image of the document is deteriorated.
US09070033B2
A stack barcode reader may include an imaging section configured to image the stack barcode in which character information is expressed with a bar and a space; an image memory configured to store image data of the stack barcode; a data processing section including a decoding unit and configured to decode the barcode of the stack barcode into the character information. The decoding unit may include a low-level decoding unit, a high-level decoding unit, and a decoded result selection unit for selecting a decoded result. The high-level decoding unit may include an error-correction unit. The decoded result selection unit may include a counter unit configured to count the number of error corrections and a selection unit configured to select a decoded result having the less number of corrections.
US09070017B2
Methods for determining a point-of-gaze (POG) of a user in three dimensions are disclosed. In particular embodiments, the methods involve: presenting a three-dimensional scene to both eyes of the user; capturing image data including both eyes of the user; estimating first and second line-of-sight (LOS) vectors in a three-dimensional coordinate system for the user's first and second eyes based on the image data; and determining the POG in the three-dimensional coordinate system using the first and second LOS vectors.
US09070010B2
Apparatus, methods and media for deriving a transaction record based on handwritten check content. The apparatus may include, and the methods and media may involve, a receiver device that is configured to receive a check image. The apparatus may include, and the methods and media may involve, a processor device. The processor device may be configured to define a check segment within the check image; translate content from the segment from handwriting to estimated block text; and store the block text in a transaction record in machine readable memory. The apparatus may include, and the methods and media may involve, a transmitter that is configured to transmit the block text to a financial institution product engine.
US09070001B2
A transponder (140) for communicating with a reader device (120), the transponder (140) comprising a processing unit (142) adapted for generating an identifier (210) during an initialization phase of a communication session with the reader device (120), the identifier (210) being generated as a combination of a first part (214) being a random number and of a second part (212) being identical to a portion (202) of a previous identifier (200) used during a previous communication session preceding the present communication session with the reader device (120), and a transmission unit (136) adapted for transmitting the identifier (210) to the reader device (120).
US09070000B2
An information handling system analyzes secondary information captured with an image of a two-dimensional barcode to perform a function. For example, a mobile phone camera captures an image of a QR code at a product plus characters printed next to the QR code, uses optical code recognition to determine the characters, and applies information from the QR code and the characters to register the product. As another example, a security indicator is captured with an image of the QR code and applied to access information of the QR code, such as by using GPS position information, local network information, or telephone number information to encrypt and/or decrypt information stored in the QR code.
US09069985B2
A flat file data organization technique is used for storing and retrieving geospatially organized data. The invention reduces transfer time by transferring a few large files in lieu of a large number of small files. It also moves the process of locating a given data file away from the file system to a proprietary code base. Additionally, the invention simplifies database management by having quadtree packets generated on demand.
US09069974B2
A system includes a first wireless-enabled device that transparently stores confidential information and a second wireless-enabled device that stores the same confidential information. The confidential information is to be used to secure a wireless communication link between the first device and the second device. One or both of the first device and the second device is to delete the confidential information upon fulfillment of one or more conditions related to the communication link. The conditions include general timeout, device inactivity, loss of connection over the communication link, a decline in signal strength, and a predefined number of transactions having occurred between the first device and the second device.
US09069961B2
A platform to support verification of the contents of an input-output device. The platform includes a platform hardware, which may verify the contents of the I/O device. The platform hardware may comprise components such as manageability engine and verification engine that are used to verify the contents of the I/O device even before the contents of the I/O device are exposed to an operating system supported by a host. The platform components may delete the infected portions of the contents of I/O device if the verification process indicates that the contents of the I/O device include the infected portions.
US09069946B2
Methods and systems for authentication of a device are disclosed. An exemplary method includes transmitting an energy towards the device including a material, monitoring a response of the device to the transmitted energy, generating a signature of the device based on the response of the device to the transmitted energy, comparing the device signature to an enrolled signature for the device, and indicating that authentication of the device is successful when the generated signature matches the enrolled signature. An exemplary system includes a transmitter configured to transmit an energy towards the device, a receiver configured to monitor a response of the device, and a processor configured to generate a signature of the device based on the response of the device, compare the device signature to an enrolled signature for the device, and indicate that authentication of the device is successful when the generated signature matches the enrolled signature.
US09069942B2
The identity of an end-user operating a computer is confirmed by analyzing user reactions to aberrations in output. More specifically, an aberration is caused in output that the computer provides to an output device, and the end-user's response to the aberration is received. An end-user characteristic is extracted from the response and compared to stored characteristic responses to find a match. A match is indicative of the identity of the computer user. It can also be checked whether, after causing an aberration in output the end-user responded differently to the output than if the output did not have the aberration. The lack of a different response can be interpreted as indicative that the end-user is a bot.
US09069938B2
A processor system comprising: performing a compilation process on a computer program; encoding an instruction with a selected encoding; encoding the security mutation information in an instruction set architecture of a processor; and executing a compiled computer program in the processor using an added mutation instruction, wherein executing comprises executing a mutation instruction to enable decoding another instruction. A processor system with a random instruction encoding and randomized execution, providing effective defense against offline and runtime security attacks including software and hardware reverse engineering, invasive microprobing, fault injection, and high-order differential and electromagnetic power analysis.
US09069926B2
Methods, layouts and chip design layouts that use annotations for communicating gate-length biasing amounts to post-layout tools are disclosed. One method includes receiving a chip design layout designed to includes select ones of a plurality of nominal cell layouts and an annotated cell layout. The chip design layout is defined by a plurality of layers and the plurality of nominal cell layouts define transistors, wherein each of the plurality of nominal cell layouts define nominal length transistors, and the annotated cell layout also defines transistors. The annotated cell layout is associated with an annotation layer that identifies a gate-length biasing to be applied to at least one transistor of the annotated cell layout. The gate-length biasing identifies an amount of change for a gate length and not width-sizing of a gate width of the at least one transistor of the annotated cell layout. The annotation layer is used to communicate design-specific directives that require implementation. The method uses a processor to process the chip design layout, with reference to the annotation layer, to apply the gate-length biasing to the annotated cell of the chip design layout.
US09069919B1
A method for providing port arbitration verification for a design under test (DUT) is provided. The method includes sampling the availability of ports at a predetermined number of clock cycles prior to an arbitration point. The method predicts a winner at each of the clock cycles and determines a verification result based on a match between one of the predicted winners and an actual arbitration winner for the DUT.
US09069915B2
A method for processing a stream of tuples may comprise receiving a stream of tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements operating on one or more computer processors. In addition, the method may include generating a model of performance for processing the stream of tuples at runtime, wherein one or more tuples from the stream of tuples potentially cause adverse performance. Further, the method may comprise predicting a parameter for a tuple from the stream of tuples, the parameter indicating a potential for adverse performance, the predicting including using the model. The method may also include modifying processing of the tuple if the parameter falls outside a threshold.
US09069914B2
A wax model of a required coping is produced using CNC machining techniques based on a virtual model of the coping created from digital data obtained from the intraoral cavity. The dental coping is then fabricated from the wax model.
US09069910B2
A mechanism is described for facilitating dynamic cancellation of signal crosstalk in input/output differential channels according to one embodiment. A method of embodiments may include detecting crosstalk between a first differential signal channel pair (“differential pair”) and a second differential pair of a plurality of differential pairs at a computing system, and switching polarity relating to the first transmission links of the first differential pair to cancel out the crosstalk with the second differential pair.
US09069899B2
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to assisting software development. In aspects, a software development environment may display code and information about the code on a user interface. In one example, the information includes diagnostic information about the code. The information may be represented by actionable tags that allow the software developer to drill-down and obtain more detailed information about the code. The information may be automatically obtained by the software development environment in a way that does not interfere with the development activities of the software developer. The actionable tags are displayed in close proximity to code with which they are associated.
US09069892B2
A method and associated systems for reducing false-positive errors in a software change-impact analysis of a basepoint variable. A processor of a computer system identifies a first generation of change-affected parts of one or more computer programs, where each identified part is affected by a change to the basepoint variable. The processor confirms the identification of each identified part by analyzing one or more characteristics of the basepoint variable and of the identified part. If the processor confirms that an identification is the product of a false-positive error, the falsely identified part is discarded. The processor then identifies a second generation of confirmed change-affected parts by repeating the procedure performed on the basepoint variable on each confirmed part of the first generation of parts. The processor continues this iterative process through additional generations until it identifies a generation that contains no confirmed change-affected parts.
US09069882B2
Aspects of the present invention provide a tool for retrieving data in response to a query in any format. In an embodiment, each query term of the query is analyzed to determine whether it corresponds to either a domain keyword or a formula designator. If a formula designator is retrieved, each formula term associated with the formula designator is mapped to a domain keyword. Each of the domain keywords, the formula designators, and the mapped formula terms are boosted. A dataset is searched using a structured search query that includes all boosted terms, as well as any remaining query terms that do not correspond to one of the boosted terms.
US09069880B2
Various embodiments pertain to techniques for predicting and isolating patterns or trends across datasets. In various embodiments, one or more Q-entities are extracted from a data seed, associated with one or more dimensions, and classified into one or more clusters for each dimension with which it is associated. In some embodiments, a Q-entity can exist in more than one dimension and/or more than one cluster within a dimension. Once information from the data seed is associated with a dimension and cluster, frequency analysis can be utilized to ascertain a pattern or trend in the data. In various embodiments, additional data can be processed, added to the dimensions and clusters, and frequency analysis can be performed on the updated dataset to provide additional information on the pattern or trend.
US09069869B1
User data used or generated by an online application is stored by the online application on the client device, rather than entirely on the system hosting the online application.
US09069867B2
Resource management system, method and program for selecting candidate tag are provided. The tag can be readily attached to a resource by presenting a candidate tag also to a resource newly registered in a database. The degree of similarity of a new registration resource to each of a plurality of already-registered resources that have been already registered in the database is calculated. A tag attached to an already-registered resource of which the degree of similarity is large is selected as a candidate for a tag to be attached to the new registration resource. Thereby, a candidate tag can be also presented to a resource newly registered in the database. A user can further readily attach a tag compared to a conventional system.
US09069862B1
A user query including one or more references to objects of various types and/or text keywords is received from a user and processed into sub-queries. Information sources execute the sub-queries and returns search results matching text keywords and/or relating to objects referenced in the user queries. The search results are organized based on their object types and relationships, and displayed in a manner exposing their relationships to the user.
US09069856B1
Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for processing data to control display of followers of an entity to viewers of an entity page of the entity in a social network. One method includes detecting a request to view the entity page by a viewer. Fetching a first row of data associated with the social network. The method processes the first row of data to read a set of bits to determine whether certain ones of the users that are following the entity are to be displayed as following the entity in the entity page. The method also fetches a second row of data to determine whether the viewer is in one of the groups of the users that are following the entity and not displaying the users that follow the entity to the viewer when the viewer is not in one of the groups.
US09069852B2
A search for content may be performed. A query may be received from a user who is interacting with a first device. A first collection of content that is stored on the first device may be searched to identify local content that is related to the query. A second collection of content that is stored on a second device may be searched to identify remote content that is related to the query. The second device may be different from the first device and may be accessible through a network. Results that refer to both the identified local content and the identified remote content may be displayed to the user.
US09069842B2
Methods and systems for accessing documents in document collections using predictive word sequences are disclosed. A method for accessing documents using predictive word sequences include creating a candidate list of word sequences where respective ones of the word sequences comprise one or more elements derived from the document corpus; expanding the candidate list by adding one or more new word sequences, where each new pattern is created by combining one or more elements derived from the document corpus with one of the word sequences currently in the candidate list; determining a predictive power with respect to the subject for respective ones of entries of the candidate list, where the entries include the word sequences and the new word sequences; pruning from the candidate list ones of said entries with the determined predictive power less than a predetermined threshold; and accessing documents from the document corpus based on the pruned candidate list. The expanding of the candidate list can include creating each new pattern as a gapped sequence, where the gapped sequence comprises one of the word sequences and one of said elements separated by zero or more words. Corresponding system and computer readable media embodiments are also disclosed.
US09069834B2
A control method executed by a first storage control apparatus comprises receiving, from the information processing apparatus, a request to change data stored in a storage unit provided in the first storage control apparatus so as to be synchronized to changed data, extracting address information, included in the request, that identifies an address at which data corresponding to the data to be synchronized has been stored in a storage unit provided in the second storage control apparatus, creating time information that identifies a time of the day at which the request was received, and transmitting a change request, which includes the extracted address information and the created time information, from the first storage control apparatus to the second storage control apparatus, the change request requesting the corresponding data stored in the second storage control apparatus to be changed to the changed data.
US09069808B2
Techniques for indexing provenance data and evaluating provenance data queries are disclosed. For example, a method for processing one or more queries directed toward data associated with a data processing system comprises the following steps. One or more data items of a first data set associated with the data processing system are mapped to a first representation type and one or more data items of a second data set associated with the data processing system are mapped to a second representation type. A bi-directional index of a data provenance relation existing between the data items of the first data set and the data items of the second data set is computed. The bi-directional index is computed in terms of the first representation type and the second representation type. A query evaluation is performed using the bi-directional index, in response to receipt of a provenance query. The bi-directional index is used for query evaluation whether the received provenance query is a backward provenance query or a forward provenance query. A response is generated for the received provenance query based on a result of the query evaluation. In one further example, the provenance query evaluation step may be performed by using only the bi-directional index and does not require access to base data or maintaining stored provenance data.
US09069805B2
The disclosure generally describes computer-implemented methods, computer-program products, and systems for modeling and deploying decision services. One computer-implemented method includes during uptime processing: generating at least one shadow database table corresponding to a new business object (BO) persistency model, establishing change recording for at least one database table associated with an old BO persistency model, retrieving, as changed data and using at least one computer, changed BO data from the at least one database table, transforming, as transformed data, the changed data to correspond to the new BO persistency model, writing the transformed data to the generated at least one shadow database table, and retrieving, as further changed data, BO data from the at least one database table upon a determination that the BO data has changed in the at least one database table after a prior retrieval of the BO data from the at least one database table.
US09069804B2
In accordance with a particular embodiment of the present invention, a method for generating a database model may include analyzing database configuration data for a database. The method may further include analyzing one or more database application programming interfaces for accessing the database. The method may also include generating one or more stubs based on the analyses, the one or more stubs configured to, when executed, model the database as if the database were populated with data.
US09069796B2
A first information processor executes a program or a routine which uses wireless communication and transmits, while the program or the routine is being executed, identification information for identifying the program or the routine to an unspecified apparatus. A second information processor receives the identification information transmitted from the first information processor to the unspecified apparatus and selects, from among a plurality of programs or a plurality of routines stored in the second information processor, a program or a routine corresponding to the identification information as a program or a routine to be executed.
US09069793B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, can be used to dynamically generate electronic maps with highlighted entity boundaries. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a request for an electronic map segment for a geographic region, with the request identifying a geographic entity to be highlighted in the requested electronic map segment. A plurality of layers of map data associated with the geographic region and data defining a boundary of the identified geographic entity are retrieved in response to the request. The electronic map segment is rendered based on the retrieved plurality of layers of map data and the data defining the boundary of the geographic entity, with one or more of the retrieved layers are rendered over a rendering of a highlighted boundary of the geographic entity. The rendered electronic map segment is transmitted in response to the request.
US09069791B2
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate database virtualization. In aspects, clusters of database servers may be located at various locations of the Internet. When a client seeks to access a logical database, the client may send a logical server and logical database name in a data structure. These names may be used to find a physical server(s) and database(s) that correspond to the logical database. Once the location is determined, a proxy component is used to intercept and/or forward communications between the client and the physical server(s) and database(s) corresponding to the logical database. Using this system, a client may access data from a logical database without knowing the physical address of the logical user database.
US09069787B2
A sampling based technique for eliminating duplicate data (de-duplication) stored on storage resources, is provided. According to the invention, when a new data set, e.g., a backup data stream, is received by a server, e.g., a storage system or virtual tape library (VTL) system implementing the invention, one or more anchors are identified within the new data set. The anchors are identified using a novel anchor detection circuitry in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention. Upon receipt of the new data set by, for example, a network adapter of a VTL system, the data set is transferred using direct memory access (DMA) operations to a memory associated with an anchor detection hardware card that is operatively interconnected with the storage system. The anchor detection hardware card may be implemented as, for example, a FPGA is to quickly identify anchors within the data set. As the anchor detection process is performed using a hardware assist, the load on a main processor of the system is reduced, thereby enabling line speed de-duplication.
US09069782B2
A checkpointing method for creating a file representing a restorable state of a virtual machine in a computing system, comprising identifying processes executing within the virtual machine that may store confidential data, and marking memory pages and files that potentially contain data stored by the identified processes; or providing an application programming interface for marking memory regions and files within the virtual machine that contain confidential data stored by processes; and creating a checkpoint file, by capturing memory pages and files representing a current state of the computing system, which excludes information from all of the marked memory pages and files.
US09069780B2
A storage system includes a distributed file system. An attribute of a particular entity in the file system relates to a snapshot. In response to an operation in the storage system, it is determined whether the snapshot attribute is to be propagated to another entity of the file system.
US09069774B1
A method is disclosed. A graphical representation is displayed of a network map of a network. A context indication is received for a network information specification for a first network segment of the network displayed on the graphical representation of the network map of the network. A first information is displayed on the graphical representation for the first network segment in response to the context indication. An action indication is received for a network management specification for the first network segment based at least in part on an interaction with the graphical representation of the network. The first network segment is modified based at least in part on the network management specification in response to the action indication.
US09069773B2
An information delivery method and system. The method includes receiving by a computer processor a video file, an audio file, associated data files, and associated message files The computer processor stores the video file in a first layer of a multimedia file, the audio file in a second layer of the multimedia file, the data files in first additional layers of the multimedia file, and the message files in second additional layers of the multimedia file. The computer processor stores the multimedia file on a computer readable storage medium.
US09069765B2
A system is described that implements symmetrical object profiles across one or more objects, wherein an object profile is influenced by other object profiles with which it interacts. In particular, the system includes a configuration for a first object profile that is associated with a first object, wherein the first object profile comprises a set of attributes having a first set of valuations. The system includes a configuration for a second object profile that is associated with a second object, wherein the second object profile comprises said set of attributes having a second set of valuations. The system includes a profile updater for managing the first object profile and the second object profile, wherein in a transaction involving the first and second objects, corresponding object profiles are updated based on valuations in the first and second set of valuations.
US09069764B2
Methods and systems are described herein for providing a media guidance application that identifies users accessing the same media asset, determines which users desire to communicate with each other, and provides an asset-integrated notification to each of the users desiring to communicate, facilitating communication between the users. For example, other users with a desire to communicate with an initial user that are accessing the same media asset as the initial user may be indicated by inserting a media element representative of the other users directly into the media asset watched by an initial user.
US09069752B2
A processor-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product measures and displays facets in context-based conformed dimensional data gravity wells. Conformed dimensional objects and synthetic context-based objects are parsed into n-tuples. A virtual mass of each parsed object is calculated, in order to define a shape of multiple context-based conformed dimensional data gravity wells that are created when data objects that are pulled into each of the context-based conformed dimensional data gravity well frameworks on a context-based conformed dimensional gravity wells membrane. Data from the multiple context-based conformed dimensional data gravity wells then populates nodes in a data model. A displayed appearance of the particular context-based conformed dimensional data gravity well is dynamically adjusted according to the how closely each of the multiple parsed synthetic context-based objects matches said at least one context object and/or at least one dimension object.
US09069742B1
A memory stores therein a program status word containing an address of data that is to be read when an interrupt process is executed. a processor determines whether or not the program status word stored in the memory is available, controls the memory to stores a determination result in the memory in association with the program status word, acquires the program status word and the determination result from the memory when the interrupt process occurs, and reads data on the basis of the address contained in the acquired program status word when the acquired determination result indicates that the program status word is available.
US09069740B2
Method for transformation between a discussion document and an online discussion forum including: dividing the discussion document into several portions, according to original headings contained in the discussion document and for each of the plurality of portions, creating a sub-forum of the online discussion forum, in a forum database, the description of which being a text of a respective heading; creating a topic for each paragraph and sub-heading of lower hierarchy; inserting a text of each paragraph into a discussion database, formatted according to rules of the online discussion forum; modifying the online discussion forum via a discussion forum software; creating a new version of the discussion document including the original headings; parsing the adapted online discussion forum starting with a first sub-forum; inserting titles of lower level sub-forums in the new version of the discussion document as sub-headings; and outputs the new version of the discussion document.
US09069733B1
An enterprise architecture storage and organization system is provided which includes user-editable webpages to display enterprise architecture content. The webpages are organized in a framework, such as the Zachman Framework. The framework may comprise a plurality of units grouped into a plurality of levels and a plurality of categories. Each unit may have a user-editable webpage associated with it. The level of detail included within each user-editable webpage is variant depending upon the location of its associated unit in the framework. Units at the top of the framework contain broad or general information and the level of detail downwardly increases. Users may selectably edit the content of the user-editable webpages using an editor. Users may edit the text and edit and attach graphics. In some embodiments, wiki-type functionality may be utilized. The content of the various user-editable webpages may be standardized based on level and category.
US09069731B2
Apparatus and method for automatic adaptation of an image of a print page into a version suitable for an electronic screen. An input obtains an electronic image of a page of the print publication, the page comprising items, such as headlines, images and articles, arranged in a print version layout. A layout parser parses the page layout, the parsing comprising identifying the items arranged therein, including identifying boundaries of the items within the layout, and text belonging to the items. A text sizing unit selects text sizes for respective items to render the items readable when the text is shown on screen as part of the page. The resized text may no longer fit into the boundaries so a text flowing unit flows text of the item dynamically, thereby to provide an electronic screen version of the image of the page, the screen version retaining the print version layout and having text sized to be readable when shown on a screen.
US09069725B2
A system and method is described herein for data filtering to reduce functional, and trend line outlier bias. Outliers are removed from the data set through an objective statistical method. Bias is determined based on absolute, relative error, or both. Error values are computed from the data, model coefficients, or trend line calculations. Outlier data records are removed when the error values are greater than or equal to the user-supplied criteria. For optimization methods or other iterative calculations, the removed data are re-applied each iteration to the model computing new results. Using model values for the complete dataset, new error values are computed and the outlier bias reduction procedure is re-applied. Overall error is minimized for model coefficients and outlier removed data in an iterative fashion until user defined error improvement limits are reached. The filtered data may be used for validation, outlier bias reduction and data quality operations.
US09069724B2
A set value management service receives a replace request for replacing configuration data of a first image forming apparatus, and searches the second image forming apparatus needs to update configuration data as a result of replacement of the first image forming apparatus. The set value management service updates configuration data of the searched second image forming apparatus.
US09069718B2
A transceiver is designed to share memory and processing power amongst a plurality of transmitter and/or receiver latency paths, in a communications transceiver that carries or supports multiple applications. For example, the transmitter and/or receiver latency paths of the transceiver can share an interleaver/deinterleaver memory. This allocation can be done based on the data rate, latency, BER, impulse noise protection requirements of the application, data or information being transported over each latency path, or in general any parameter associated with the communications system.
US09069717B1
An integrated circuit memory interface device coupled to a dynamic random access memory device is provided. The device includes an address match table. The address match table includes a plurality of first addresses. Each of the first addresses is associated with a memory cell having a refresh characteristic outside of a specification for a DRAM device. The device has a plurality of second addresses. Each of the second addresses is associated with a refresh characteristic within a specification of the DRAM device and outside of a predetermined refresh characteristic range characterized to eliminate accesses to memory cells not meeting the predetermined refresh characteristic range.
US09069715B2
A translation lookaside buffer coherency unit with Emulated Purge (TCUEP) fetches first instructions for execution in a multi-processor system. The TCUEP associates a first instruction timestamp with each of the first instructions. The TCUEP receives a multi-processor coherency operation and increments the first timestamp value in a master-tag register to form a second timestamp value after receiving the multi-processor coherency operation. The TCUEP fetches, by an instruction fetch unit in the first microprocessor, second instructions for execution in the multiprocessor system. The TCUEP associates a second instruction timestamp with each of the second instructions. The TCUEP enables an emulated purge mechanism to suppress hits in the translation lookaside buffers for the second instructions. The TCUEP after determining the first instructions are complete, purges entries in the translation lookaside buffers and disables the emulated purge mechanism.
US09069713B2
In general, techniques are described that provide for 4×4 transforms for media coding. A number of different 4×4 transforms are described that adhere to these techniques. As one example, an apparatus includes a 4×4 discrete cosine transform (DCT) hardware unit. The DCT hardware unit implements an orthogonal 4×4 DCT having an odd portion that applies first and second internal factors (C, S) that are related to a scaled factor (ξ) such that the scaled factor equals a square root of a sum of a square of the first internal factor (C) plus a square of the second internal factor (S). The 4×4 DCT hardware unit applies the 4×4 DCT implementation to media data to transform the media data from a spatial domain to a frequency domain. As another example, an apparatus implements a non-orthogonal 4×4 DCT to improve coding gain.
US09069708B2
Disclosed is an approach for implementing disaster recovery for virtual machines. Consistency groups are implemented for virtual machines, where the consistency group link together two or more VMs. The consistency group includes any set of VMs which need to be managed on a consistent basis in the event of a disaster recovery scenario.
US09069707B1
In general, in one aspect, a method for managing data in a data storage system includes receiving identifiers corresponding to different respective entries of a map stored in the data storage system, with a particular identifier corresponding to a particular entry of the map, the particular entry including a computed value corresponding to a particular portion of data stored in the data storage system and metadata indicating a location where the particular portion of data is stored in the data storage system, selecting, according to a first selection criterion, at least some of the identifiers for storage in a first portion of an index, and selecting, according to a second selection criterion, at least some of the identifiers for storage in a second portion of the index.
US09069699B2
Methods and apparatuses are described for identifying inconsistent constraints. During operation, a system can receive a set of constraints, wherein each constraint is defined over one or more random variables from a set of random variables. If an inconsistency or conflict is detected while solving the set of constraints, the system can identify a phase in a series of phases of the constraint solver where the inconsistency was detected. The system can then try to solve different subsets of the set of constraints to identify smaller subsets of the set of constraints that contain the inconsistency. When the system tries to solve a subset of the set of constraints, the system can determine whether or not an inconsistency is detected in the identified phase while solving the subset of the set of constraints. Next, the system can report the smallest subset of inconsistent constraints that was found to a user.
US09069695B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for correction block errors. In particular, a system can store a parity page per page-modulo, where a pre-determined number of pages of a block or a band of the NVM may be allocated as page-modulo XOR (“PMX”) parity pages. This can be a space efficient approach for recovering from single-block data errors such as, for example, single-page uncorrectable error-correcting codes (“uECCs”) and/or errors caused by word line shorts.
US09069688B2
Techniques are presented for dynamically optimizing the performance of the controller-memory (or “back-end”) interface of a non-volatile memory system. Memory systems are usually designed to have a certain amount of error tolerance for error that can then be corrected by ECC. In may circumstances, such as when a device is new, the ECC capabilities of the system exceed what is needed to correct data storage errors. In these circumstances the memory system internally allots a non-zero portion of this error correction capacity to the back-end interface. This allows for the interface to operate at, for example, higher speed or lower power, even though this will likely lead to transmission path error. The system can also calibrate the back-end interface to determine that amount of error that result from various operating conditions, allowing the operating parameters of the back-end interface to be set according to amount of error that is allotted to the transfer process.
US09069681B1
Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to a distributed event joining system for joining primary and secondary events based on a common key. In one example, a continuous stream of primary events may be stored at a cache layer. Each primary event may be associated with a primary event key which may be used to generate an index map for the cache layer. After a time T, the stream of primary events may be sent to long term memory. The system may also receive secondary events, each associated with a primary key. The primary key may be used to identify a primary event in the cache layer. If the primary event is not available in the cache layer, the long term memory may be searched for the primary key. Paired events may then be submitted to a distributed joined event storage system.
US09069676B2
A hardware search structure determines the status of cache lines associated with a large disk array and at the same time reduces the amount of memory space needed for tracking the status. The search structure is configurable in hardware to different cache line sizes and different primary and secondary index sizes. A maintenance feature invalidates state record entries based both on their time stamps and on associated usage statistics.
US09069671B2
Methods and apparatus relating to gather or scatter operations in a multi-level cache are described. In some embodiments, a logic may determine whether to perform gather or scatter operations at a first memory or a second memory, based in part on a relative performance of performing the gather or scatter operations at the first memory and the second memory. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
US09069665B2
A computer-implemented system and method for the definition, creation, management, transmission, and monitoring of errors in a SOA environment. An example embodiment includes: defining a common standard error data structure; automatically generating a unique identifier (ID) for each new error data instance; allowing customization of error data structure through extensions; creation and management of error instances that conform to this structure; ability to group errors across various dimensions; introducing the concept of an error library, the error library including a plurality of localizable error bundles, each of the error bundles including a plurality of error data instances for a particular domain, along with the associated metadata; automatically creating runtime artifacts for each error; ability to transmit errors either as faults or as part of the normal response payload; automatic error metric collection based on various error categories, and finally, tooling to help manage error libraries and reporting errors.
US09069664B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for providing a unified memory for access by execution threads in a processing system. Several logically separate memories are combined into a single unified memory that includes a single set of shared memory banks, an allocation of space in each bank across the logical memories, a mapping rule that maps the address space of each logical memory to its partition of the shared physical memory, a circuitry including switches and multiplexers that supports the mapping, and an arbitration scheme that allocates access to the banks.
US09069653B2
Methods for operating a vehicle as the vehicle approaches an intersection with a traffic control device are provided herein. One example method includes detecting a traffic control device at an intersection the vehicle is approaching, and releasing and applying a disconnect clutch arranged in a driveline of the vehicle intermediate an engine and a starter/generator based on a type of the detected traffic control device. Because releasing the disconnect clutch disconnects the engine from the vehicle driveline, the engine may be turned off to increase fuel efficiency while the disconnect clutch is released.
US09069636B2
Various embodiments receive, at a client device, selection of a website integration feature and initiate, on behalf of an associated website, a web application installation process. The process causes a web application file to be created on the client device and populated with web application content including a list that constitutes a set of relevant tasks or content that is configured to be presented to a user. The list defines one or more dynamic elements that can be dynamically updated by the website.
US09069635B2
A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and computer readable storage medium provide the ability to compress an application deployment. A master application to be deployed that has two or more files is obtained. The files in the master application are inventoried and two file instances that are identical are identified. An application deployment, based on the master application, is written by writing the first file instance and replacing additional identical file instances with links to the first file instance.
US09069628B2
The techniques herein provide for “time-shifting” of intercepted system calls to enable a one-to-many (1:n) or a many-to-one (n:1) mapping of intercepted-to-real system calls. Any action that needs to be applied on the logical boundaries of the data (instead of the physical boundaries) presented upon system call interception spools (buffers) the data before taking the action and then unspools the result when finished. The action may be quite varied, e.g., examining the data, redacting the data, changing the data, restricting the data, processing the data, and updating the data, among others. The technique may be implemented in a database access control system.
US09069604B2
In response to determining that an activity has been postponed (e.g., interrupted or deferred), a computer system stores a record indicating that the activity is postponed. In response to determining that another activity has become active, the computer system stores a record indicating that the other activity is active. The computer system reminds a user to return to the postponed in response to determining that a reminder condition associated with the postponed activity has been satisfied. For example, the computer system may remind the user to return to the postponed activity in response to determining that the other activity has been completed.
US09069603B2
A transactional memory (TM) receives an Atomic Metering Command (AMC) across a bus from a processor. The command includes a memory address and a meter pair indicator value. In response to the AMC, the TM pulls an input value (IV). The TM uses the memory address to read a word including multiple credit values from a memory unit. Circuitry within the TM selects a pair of credit values, subtracts the IV from each of the pair of credit values thereby generating a pair of decremented credit values, compares the pair of decremented credit values with a threshold value, respectively, thereby generating a pair of indicator values, performs a lookup based upon the pair of indicator values and the meter pair indicator value, and outputs a selector value and a result value that represents a meter color. The selector value determines the credit values written back to the memory unit.
US09069600B2
A virtualized computer platform is established and maintained by virtualization software on one or more physical computers. A multicomponent software application may execute on the virtualized computer platform, with different components of the application executing in different virtual machines, which are supported by the virtualization software. The virtualization software may also provide the provision of one or more services that may be beneficial to the operation of the multicomponent software application, such as automated provisioning, resource allocation, VM distribution, performance monitoring, resource management, high availability, backup, disaster recovery, alarms, security, etc. In some embodiments of the invention, some of these services are provided through coordinated efforts of a system resource manager, a VM manager, an application monitor and an application resource manager. In some of these embodiments, an application monitor and an application manager may be included with a multicomponent software application in a single installation package.
US09069590B2
Illustrative embodiments include a method for preprovisioning using a mutated template. A subset of templates is selected from a set of templates that can be provisioned to a data processing system, a template in the set of templates including data to create a virtual machine on the data processing system. The mutated template is constructed using the subset of templates. A manifest is constructed such that a template in the subset of templates can be reconstructed from the mutated template using the manifest. Instead of the subset of templates, the mutated template is preprovisioned to the data processing system.
US09069589B2
The present invention relates to a virtual machine system that includes a plurality of processors and executes a plurality of virtual machines in parallel with use of the plurality of processors. An aim thereof is to suppress power consumption without sacrificing the performance of the virtual machine system. When there are at least two processors that do not have any virtual machines allocated thereto, one of the at least two processors is supplied with power so as to be placed in a standby state, and a remaining one or more of the at least two processors are not supplied with power.
US09069582B2
A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer usable program are provided by the aspects of the present invention. Aspects of the present invention identify required classes of a software program in the import statements in the source code. Next, the aspects of the present invention identify an element in a classpath environment variable that contain only the required classes and generate a new classpath environment variable with the identified element. Aspects of the present invention then store the new classpath environment variable in a classpath file that is specific to the software program for subsequent invocation.
US09069573B2
Method for generating a reduced snapshot image for booting and a computing apparatus are provided. An embodiment of the method includes the following. In response to a shutdown request, it is determined whether a specific boot mode is enabled. When the specific boot mode is enabled, a threshold parameter set for process killing is assigned. If a first memory unit of the computing apparatus has at least one process satisfying a process killing condition, the at least one process satisfying the process killing condition is killed. The process killing condition includes a criterion based on the threshold parameter set. A hibernation process is entered, wherein the hibernation process generates a snapshot image for booting and stores the snapshot image in a second memory unit of the computing apparatus and the snapshot image includes at least one process reserved in the first memory after the killing step.
US09069567B1
The subject matter of this specification can be implemented in, among other things, a computer-implemented method for accessing a native application programming interface (API) of a computing device including receiving on the computing device one or more control objects from a first application written in a device-independent programming language. The control objects define a context for accessing the native API and the control objects include at least one control script. The method further includes compiling the control script on the computing device into a second application that is native to the operating system of the computing device. The method further includes executing the second application on the computing device. The executed second application accesses the native API of the computing device to generate an output through a hardware interface of the computing device based on the context.
US09069558B2
A lookup engine of a transactional memory (TM) has multiple hardware lookup structures, each usable to perform a different type of lookup. In response to a lookup command, the lookup engine reads a first block of first information from a memory unit. The first information configures the lookup engine to perform a first type of lookup, thereby identifying a first result value. If the first result value is not a final result value, then the lookup engine uses address information in the first result value to read a second block of second information. The second information configures the lookup engine to perform a second type of lookup, thereby identifying a second result value. This process repeats until a final result value is obtained. The type of lookup performed is determined by the result value of the preceding lookup and/or type information of the block of information for the next lookup.
US09069557B2
A business intelligence (BI) document preserves references to identities and formats of remote data sources and allows a local computing device to offload analytical operations to remote data sources. The BI document specifies a graph of entities connected by directed edges from the output of one entity to an input of another entity. An entity, for example, can represent without limitation a data structure, an external data source, a control element, an external event source, a visualization, or an update service. The entities of a BI document at a local computing device can reference data at an original data source—rather than extracting data from the original data source to a preferred local datastore. An entity of the BI document can direct a remote data source to execute transformations on the remote data before returning a solution to the local computing device.
US09069554B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for coordinating resource usage between applications in a tightly sandbox environment. A scheduling indicator can be left in a system file that multiple applications can use to align their requests for a system resource. Alternatively, IP loopback can be used to pass a scheduling indicator between applications that are otherwise sandboxed. If either of these approaches is not possible, then applications can schedule system resource requests using a common algorithm that selects a start time and optionally a period of subsequent system resource requests based on a common piece of information such as a system clock signal or IP address. In these ways the total amount of time during which the system resource is being utilized by various applications can be reduced, thus reducing power consumption, and network activity.
US09069551B2
A method may be performed by an electronic device coupled to a volatile system memory. The method includes entering a hibernation mode of the electronic device, where in the hibernation mode, the volatile system memory is powered off. The method further includes detecting a triggering event and, in response to detecting the triggering event, exiting the hibernation mode. While exiting the hibernation mode, the volatile system memory is powered and a pre-hibernation state of the volatile system memory is restored.
US09069546B2
A computer system assigns a particular counter from among a plurality of counters currently in a counter free pool to count a number of mappings of logical registers from among a plurality of logical registers to a particular physical register from among a plurality of physical registers, responsive to an execution of an instruction by a mapper unit mapping at least one logical register from among the plurality of logical registers to the particular physical register, wherein the number of the plurality of counters is less than a number of the plurality of physical registers. The computer system, responsive to the counted number of mappings of logical registers to the particular physical register decremented to less than a minimum value, returns the particular counter to the counter free pool.
US09069544B2
A method for controlling power distribution unit (PDU) by an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) has steps of allowing logging in the UPS through a network, providing a web-based user interface and allowing adding an identification of at least one PDU to use sockets on the added PDU to simulate additional sockets on the UPS, performing a handshaking task with the added PDU, receiving information from the added PDU during performing of the handshaking task, displaying the received information of the added PDU on the web-based user interface and allowing either operating the UPS or controlling the added PDU. The method allows the UPS to be capable of communicating with all connected PDUs so the user can merely login the UPS to control and manage all PDUs connected to the UPS.
US09069543B2
Techniques are described for predictively starting a processing element. Embodiments receive streaming data to be processed by a plurality of processing elements. An operator graph of the plurality of processing elements that defines at least one execution path is established. Embodiments determine a historical startup time for a first processing element in the operator graph, where, once started, the first processing element begins normal operations once the first processing element has received a requisite amount of data from one or more upstream processing elements. Additionally, embodiments determine an amount of time the first processing element takes to receive the requisite amount of data from the one or more upstream processing elements. The first processing element is then predictively started at a first startup time based on the determined historical startup time and the determined amount of time historically taken to receive the requisite amount of data.
US09069538B2
An information processing apparatus including an internal battery device including a secondary battery; a load device configured to receive power from the secondary battery; a switch section disposed externally to the battery device and configured to generate a control signal for preventing dark current from flowing from the secondary battery to the load device; and a first switching element configured to cut off a power source path from the secondary battery to the load device based on the control signal generated by the switch section.
US09069534B2
A data center (100) includes at least one rack room (in for example module 140) having a floor and a plurality of rack storage areas on the floor, each rack storage area being arranged to accommodate a plurality of racks (143) in which a plurality of rack-mountable electronic components may be housed, one or more controllable air circulation systems (in for example module 122), one or more cold aisles (144) in the rack room, each cold aisle being adjacent to a rack storage area, and one or more hot aisles (145) in the rack room, each hot aisle being adjacent to a rack storage area. There may be a large air duct, in the form of a personnel corridor (123), for transporting, under the control of the one or more air circulation systems, cooling air, above the floor, to the one or more cold aisles. The air supply corridor/duct (123) may have a height greater than 1.5 m above the floor and a cross-sectional area of at least 2 m2 and a maximum dimension in the plane of the cross-section of less than 3 m.
US09069528B2
A jacking device for assisting an electric apparatus with movement is operated in a labor-saving way, thereby simplifying complicated operational conditions occurred in conventional skills. The electric apparatus includes a machine body module, a motion module, and a support arm disposed between the motion module and the machine body module. The support arm includes a pivot end and a push end utilized to transmit power to the jacking device. The jacking device includes a slave portion receiving the power transmitted from the push end of the support arm and a link portion pivoted to the slave portion. The link portion includes a free end motioned between a first position and a second position to drive the motion module for rotation and upward or downward movement when the slave portion is motioned in response to the power transmitted from the push end of the support arm.
US09069521B2
A foldable display device includes a flexible display panel and a cover window on an outside of the flexible display panel. The cover window includes a foldable region between plane regions that are on opposite sides of the cover window, and the plane regions have a first hardness and the foldable region has a second hardness that is smaller than the first hardness.
US09069517B1
A graphical user interface for an interactive concurrent computing environment is discussed. The graphical interface conveys the concurrent nature of the computing environment and allows a user to monitor the status of the concurrent process being executed. The graphical interface may indicate the status of the process, the status of the various computing units of the process, or the status of groups of computing units. This allows the user to monitor the concurrent process as the process is executing including whether or not computing units of the concurrent process are idle, busy or stopped.
US09069516B2
An information processing apparatus includes a user interface unit configured to receive a function execution request for processes, the function execution request containing designations of an input function and an output function; a search and linkage unit configured to acquire pieces of specifications information indicating functions of an input device and an output device from the respective devices, and generate, based on the pieces of specifications information, a linkage flow indicating an execution sequence and a combination of an input device and an output device which respectively have an input function and an output function designated in the function execution request, the devices executing the functions, respectively, in linkage with each other; and a flow executing unit configured to send process requests to the input device and the output device designated in the linkage flow, respectively.
US09069513B2
A print control device, comprises: a receiving part for receiving an email; an address extracting part for extracting an address designated as a recipient of the email received by the receiving part; and an output controlling part for controlling production of a printed output based on the email when the receiving part receives the email. The output controlling part does not produce the printed output based on the email received by the receiving part if the multiple addresses are extracted by the address extracting part.
US09069510B2
A touch sensitive screen mobile information apparatus having a wireless communication unit for wireless device discovery is herein disclosed. Close proximity wireless device discovery is enabled by wireless searching near distance via radio frequency field for a wireless device, receiving information from the wireless device over the near distance wireless communication, and storing the received information at the information apparatus for future wireless connections. Authentication or pairing of devices may be eliminated due to close proximity of the direct wireless device discovery. After wireless device discovery, the information apparatus and the wireless device may become locked or paired for subsequent wireless communication over any number of wireless communication protocols or standards (e.g., Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, 2.4GHz) without the need to repeat wireless discovery or pairing. Examples of information apparatus include smart phones, digital camera, laptops, or information pads. Examples of wireless devices include televisions, audio output devices, or printers.
US09069509B2
A system and method for printing relevant content via a cloud print service upon completion of an entertainment event in media from an associated one of one or more entertainment devices are disclosed. In one example, the relevant content is obtained from an associated one of one or more entertainment device cloud services by the cloud print service upon completion of the entertainment event in the media. Further, the obtained relevant content is printed on a web connected printer by the cloud print service.
US09069506B2
Systems and methods for reallocating image processing devices receive usage data of each of a plurality of distributed devices, determine respective current usage rates of each of the distributed devices based on the usage data, calculate respective anticipated print counts of each of the distributed devices expected at a first predetermined time from the current usage rates, determine that one of the distributed devices is a high-usage device based at least on the anticipated print counts, determine at least one high-usage device and at least one low-usage device to reallocate so that the anticipated print count of the each of the distributed devices stays within a predetermined range of a target print count, and indicate the at least one high-usage device and the at least one low-usage device to reallocate.
US09069505B2
In the image-forming system, each image-forming device is selectively capable of performing a test print process to form a test image and an image print process to form an image based on image data. Each image-forming device is configured to be set an execution condition that defines a condition to execute the test print process. Each image-forming device executes the test print process when the each image-forming device satisfies the execution condition. The first detecting unit is configured to detect an execution condition of an image-forming device among the plurality of image-forming devices. The setting unit is configured to set an execution condition of an image-forming device among the plurality of image-forming devices based on the execution condition detected by the first detecting unit such that at least two execution conditions among execution conditions of the plurality of image-forming devices are different from each other.
US09069502B2
An image forming apparatus determines whether an import data receiving path is affected by import processing, imports import data when it is determined that the import data receiving path is not affected, outputs an import result log via the import data receiving path, and displays, when it is determined that the import data receiving path is affected, a warning screen indicating that the import data receiving path is affected by the import before the import data is imported.
US09069499B2
A method disclosed. The method includes downloading a first print job data stream from a cloud computing network, transmitting the first print job data stream to a printer, monitoring a printing status of the printer to determine when the printer is ready to receive a second print job and downloading a second print job data stream from the cloud computing network upon determining that the printer is ready to receive the second print job.
US09069498B2
One or more management components mediate a bi-directional interaction between applications. The components mediate interaction between a first application such as a word processing, video conference, or multimedia application, and a second application that is a virtualization of a physical device such as a printer, camera, or multimedia device. Further, embodiments also support a second application that provides an interface to a service provider, online business, and the like. The management component(s) may function as part of an operating system (OS), allowing the OS to mediate the interaction, and enable greater flexibility and a richer user experience, including presenting a common user experience for the interaction and/or acting as a broker to present a experience generated from the second application. Embodiments also include a unified application programming interface (API) to allow applications to interact with each other via the management component(s) of the OS.
US09069497B2
A print relay server relays print data generated by a print server to an image forming device. The print relay server includes a relay virtual printer that instructs the corresponding image forming device to print out print data and a functional relay virtual printer that has a function for realizing a specified print service not provided by the print server. The functional relay virtual printer acquires print data from the print server which has generated print data in response to a print request from a client, and instructs an image forming device, which executes a process for realizing the specified print service, to print out print data via the relay virtual printer.
US09069494B2
Method and systems maintain historical printing device information from a plurality of printing devices, maintain historical actions performed on the printing devices, and maintain historical print image quality produced by the printing devices within a storage medium of a computerized device. These methods and systems determine which of the historical actions increase the print image quality and which of the historical actions decrease the print image quality, using the computerized device. The methods and systems output an action effectiveness report from the computerized device. The action effectiveness report indicates which of the historical actions increase/decrease the print image quality.
US09069492B2
Complicating programs installed on a control device, and wasting recording media, are suppressed. A registration device driver that generates and outputs control commands instructing registering a static image in an inkjet printer based on input of information related to a static image from an application AP, and a device control driver that generates and outputs a control command to print the static image registered in the inkjet printer superimposed with the variable image based on input of information related to the variable image from an application, are installed on a host computer. An application calls the device driver appropriate to the process.
US09069490B2
A source device includes: a low-speed data supply section configured to supply, as low-speed data, data generated in synchronization with a low clock signal out of clock signals having different frequencies, the low clock signal having a frequency lower than a predetermined value; a high-speed data supply section configured to supply, as high-speed data, data generated in synchronization with a high clock signal out of the clock signals, the high clock signal having a frequency higher than that of the low clock signal; a dividing section configured to divide the low-speed data into a predetermined number of pieces of data in accordance with a ratio between the frequencies of the high and low clock signals; and a data transmitting section configured to store the high-speed data and the divided pieces of low-speed data in data having a predetermined data size, and to transmit the stored data.
US09069486B2
According to one embodiment, a data transfer control device complying with a communication protocol which executes an update of information from an attachment device in a predetermined area of a system memory, the device includes a receiving part receiving the information from the attachment device, a transferring part transferring the information in the predetermined area, the information from the transferring part overwritten in the predetermined area sequentially, and a determining part inhibiting a transfer of the information in the transferring part to omit the update of the information in the predetermined area.
US09069485B2
A method for processing commands includes receiving, for multiple commands, doorbells for writing to a send queue scheduler buffer on a host channel adapter (HCA). The send queue scheduler buffer is associated with a send queue scheduler. The method further includes detecting a potential deadlock of the send queue scheduler from processing a portion of the doorbells, writing a subset of the doorbells to a doorbell overflow buffer on a host, operatively connected to the HCA, based on detecting the potential deadlock, and discarding the subset by the send queue scheduler without processing the subset of the plurality of doorbells before discarding.
US09069481B1
A host computer automatically detects an encapsulating volume in a not ready device state and executes setup and synchronize operations, where the encapsulating volume is a virtualization of a physical volume. Setup applies access control to the encapsulating volume, and synchronize transitions the encapsulating volume to a protected device state. In response to a signal conveying an administrator's instruction to proceed, a commitment operation is automatically executed by atomically (a) removing the access control on the encapsulating volume to allow application access, (b) applying access control to the physical volume, and (c) remapping a device name to reference the encapsulating volume, the commitment operation also causing a transition of the encapsulating volume to a normal device state in which the encapsulating volume is available for normal application access. The technique can also include de-encapsulation and a data migration process employing the encapsulation and de-encapsulation.
US09069479B1
A method, system, and program product for creating a virtual LUN from data on a de-duplication device and exposing, via a DPA, the virtual LUN.
US09069478B2
Segment sizes are controlled by setting the size of a segment boundary in a hash-based deduplication system. A subsequence of size K of a sequence of characters S is set. An increasing sequence of n probabilities and a corresponding sequence of n decreasingly restrictive logical tests are chosen to be applied on the sequence of characters S. Segment boundaries are set by using the sequence of the decreasingly restrictive logical tests by deciding to declare a segment boundary at a current position if one of the sequence of the decreasingly restrictive logical tests, with a corresponding probability of the sequence of n probabilities, returns a true value when applied on the sequence of characters S.
US09069477B1
Overall memory requirements are minimized by performing copy on write and collapse on write operations using memory pointers when storing data within memory pages. Multiple memory pointers may refer to a primary page storing a definitive copy of data. When that data is to be modified, a copy on write operation creates a second copy in another memory page which may then be modified and updates memory pointers accordingly. When data within two or more memory pages is identical to data within a primary page, a collapse on write operation updates memory pointers to refer to the primary page and de-allocates the duplicative and now unused memory pages.
US09069474B2
A first page in a memory unit is programmed with one or more pages of the secondary memory. A first time corresponding to the start of the programming of the first page is recorded. A second time corresponding to the completion of the programming of the one or more pages is recorded. A time difference between the first time and the second time is determined. It is determined if the time difference is greater than a threshold. In response to the time difference being greater than the threshold, a retention based defecting process is for the memory unit is disabled.
US09069471B2
An information system comprises: a storage system including a processor, a memory, and a plurality of virtual volumes to be allocated pages from a storage pool of volumes; and a metadata server which, upon receiving from a client a write request containing file data to be written to a virtual volume in the storage system, returns the write request to the client with parallel information which is added to a data layout of the file data to be written in the virtual volume. The storage system, upon receiving the write request with the parallel information, allocates, based on the parallel information, pages from the storage pool to the virtual volume for writing the file data, so that the data layout is striped and the allocated pages fit striped data access according to the striped data layout.
US09069467B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems, methods, and computer storage media for concurrently maintaining a spanned virtual hard drive across two or more computer-storage media and a non-spanned virtual hard drive on one of computer-storage media. The method includes storing data of the spanned virtual hard drive across the computer-storage media utilizing volume spanning. While the spanned virtual hard drive is maintained on the computer storage media, the method includes storing data of the non-spanned virtual hard drive on one of the computer-storage media.
US09069460B2
Disclosed is a user interface that responds to differences in pressure detected by a touch-sensitive screen. The user selects one type of user-interface action by “lightly” touching the screen and selects another type of action by exerting more pressure. Embodiments can respond to single touches, to gestural touches that extend across the face of the touch-sensitive screen, and to touches in which the user-exerted pressure varies during the course of the touch. Some embodiments respond to how quickly the user changes the amount of pressure applied. In some embodiments, the location and pressure of the user's input are compared against a stored gesture profile. Action is taken only if the input matches “closely enough” to the stored gesture profile. In some embodiments, a notification is sent to the user when the pressure exceeds a threshold between a light and a heavy press.
US09069452B2
Systems and techniques are disclosed for morphing a first control object in a user-interface into a second control object. According to some implementations, the first control object is provided for display on a graphical user interface presented on a display of a device. The first control object can be configured to control a parameter of a presentation of media content in response to a first input. An interaction input is received indicating a user interaction with the first control object. In response to the interaction input, the first control object can be morphed into a second control object, replacing the first control object. A second input can be received, the second input indicating an intention of the user to change a value of the second control object. And, the value of the second control object can be adjusted according to the second input.
US09069443B2
A method and system for dynamically generating and displaying a home screen on a display of a user device are provided. The method comprises determining at least one estimated user intent based in part on at least one input variable; selecting a plurality of resources of information respective of at least the at least one estimated user intent, wherein each selected resource has a representative icon; providing the plurality of resources to the user device; receiving a selection of a desired resource from the user device; determining a definitive user intent from the at least one estimated user intent based on the selection; generating a new home screen respective of the definitive user intent; and causing the user device to replace a current home screen with the new generated home screen.
US09069441B2
Methods, apparatuses, and techniques for adjustment of game parameters based on users' performance are described. During play of a game a user's performance is monitored. It is then determined if the player's performance is within a desired range of performance, and game parameters are adjusted if the user's performance is outside the desired range. In a multi-player game, parameters can be adjusted differently for each of the players to make the overall game play more competitive.
US09069432B2
Data from multiple source applications may be coped and stored in a buffer as data items. A user may iterate through the data items stored in the buffer after the source applications have been closed. The user may select one or more of the data items in the buffer and copy the selected one or more data items into a target application.
US09069426B2
Methods and apparatuses are disclosed that allow measurement of a user's interaction with the housing of an electronic device. Some embodiments may measure the electrical characteristics of a housing of an electrical device, where the housing is capable of being temporarily deformed by the user's interaction. By measuring the electrical characteristics of the housing, such as the housing's capacitance, the user's interaction with the housing can be measured in a manner that is independent of the user's electrical characteristics and/or in a manner that may allow the pressure applied to the housing to be quantified.
US09069418B2
The formation of metal traces in the border areas of a touch sensor panel to provide improved reliability, better noise rejection, and lower manufacturing costs is disclosed. The metal traces can be coupled to rows on the touch sensor panel in an interleaved manner, so that any two successive rows can be coupled to metal traces in border areas on opposite sides of the touch sensor panel. In addition, by utilizing the full width available in the border areas in some embodiments, the metal traces can be formed from higher resistivity metal, which can reduce manufacturing costs and improve trace reliability. The wider traces can also provide better noise immunity from noise sources such as an LCD by providing a larger fixed-potential surface area and by more effectively coupling the drive lines to the fixed potential.
US09069414B2
Proposed is a touchscreen sensor for touchscreen devices such as iPhones, iPads, etc. The sensor comprises a substrate that supports an IR laser light source that transmits light to a light-delivery ridge waveguide formed on one side of the substrate and an array of photoreceivers on the opposite side of the substrate. The light-delivery waveguide and the photoreceivers of the array are interconnected by a plurality of strip-like illumination waveguides that are divided by touch-sensitive detectors into input and output waveguides. The touch-sensitive detectors are distributed under the external plate with a density that changes optical conditions of the touch-sensitive optical detector when an object, e.g., a finger, touches the external plate. The place of contact is detected and is then used to activate the appropriate command.
US09069408B2
A multi-stimulus controller for a multi-touch sensor is formed on a single integrated circuit (single-chip). The multi-stimulus controller includes a transmit oscillator, a transmit signal section that generates a plurality of drive signals based on a frequency of the transmit oscillator, a plurality of transmit channels that transmit the drive signals simultaneously to drive the multi-touch sensor, a receive channel that receives a sense signal resulting from the driving of the multi-touch sensor, a receive oscillator, and a demodulation section that demodulates the received sense signal based on a frequency of the receive oscillator to obtain sensing results, the demodulation section including a demodulator and a vector operator.
US09069397B2
The present invention discloses a timing controller and a liquid crystal display comprising the same, wherein, the timing controller comprises a data converting module (10) for converting inputted serial video stream data into parallel video stream data, and a memory (30) for storing the parallel video stream data, and also comprises an output module (50) connected with the memory (30) for generating a predetermined clock signal and outputting the parallel video stream data under the control of the predetermined clock signal. With the technical solution of the present invention, the problem in the prior art is solved that the rate of the outputted video stream data is affected by the input. In addition, as the outputted video stream data is controlled by the clock signal it generates, this solves the problem of long locking duration of the timing controller in the prior art.
US09069396B2
A data collection system controller that includes a housing such as a cover. The housing includes a user facing section and a support facing section defining a hole. The controller also includes a first input device adjacent the user facing section and a second input device. The second input device includes a knob comprising a third input device and a rotatable shaft extending through the hole and partially disposed within the knob. In one embodiment, the second input device is an XYZ joystick with a button. In one embodiment, the joystick and the first input device are angled relative to each other on either side of an elbow joint. In part, the invention relates to a method of controlling the display of image data obtained with respect to a blood vessel.
US09069391B2
A method for inputting a Korean character using a touch screen of a mobile device determines a vowel as a neutral vowel according to multi-touches centered around a consonant input key displayed on the touch screen. The method can minimize the number of character input keys arranged on the touch screen utilized in the mobile device, and can combine the Korean characters through the minimal touch action for inputting the Korean character.
US09069390B2
An intelligent touch-sensitive surface that is easy to clean, that self-monitors when it has become contaminated, and can discern when it has been cleaned. The surface incorporates a plurality of sensors that detect events that contribute to contamination and/or cleaning, including, but not limited to, detecting users' touches, movement of the surface, when liquid is present on the surface, when there has been a change of users, time passage since the last cleaning, and how well the surface was wiped. The surface then reports its cleaning status to software residing on a host computer, which in turn can transfer the information to a host server. In this way, the cleaning status of each surface can be monitored remotely and/or logged.
US09069389B2
A remote control having a housing with a top surface and bottom surface. The top surface has a first set of one or more inputs adapted to be used when the housing is held in one hand of a user. The bottom surface has a plurality of second inputs configured in a recessed portion of the bottom surface corresponding at least in part to an area adapted to be held in one hand of a user when activating the first set of inputs. The remote control also has at least one short range transmitter responsive to activation of the first and second inputs.
US09069384B2
An electronic device 10 according to an embodiment includes: a display section 12 for displaying an operation area 40; a touch panel 11 disposed on a display surface side of the display section 12; a vibration section 13 for vibrating the touch panel 11; a vibration control section 33 for controlling a vibration pattern of the vibration section 13; and a detection section 20 for detecting whether an operation to the touch panel 11 has been made with a has been made with a finger of a user or a pen. The vibration control section 33 varies the vibration pattern of the vibration section 13 depending on whether a finger or a pen is detected by the detection section 20.
US09069380B2
Techniques for media device, application, and content management using sensory input are described, including receiving input from one or more sensors coupled to a data-capable strapband, processing the input to determine a pattern, referencing a pattern library using the pattern, generating a control signal to a media application, the control signal being determined based on whether the pattern matches another pattern in the pattern library, and selecting a media file configured to be presented, the media file being selected using the control signal.
US09069379B2
A method for controlling a flexible display screen having a first curvature is provided. The method comprises: detecting target information to obtain a detection result (101); querying a database based on the detection result to determine whether the first curvature is included in a preset range of curvature values corresponding to the detection result (102), the database storing a correspondence between a range of target information values and a range of curvature values; and generating a control command to adjust the flexible display screen to a second curvature different from the first curvature when the first curvature is not included in the preset range of curvature values (103). With the present invention, the curvature of the flexible display screen can be adjusted as desired, such that a user of the display screen can have an optimized view angle. The present application solves a problem in the prior art that the curvature of the flexible display screen cannot be adjusted as desired and avoids unclear view of a picture due to view angle.
US09069378B2
A flexible display device and method for detecting a bend on the device are discussed. The method includes detecting a first bend on the flexible display device and measuring a first degree of the first bend; recognizing the first bend as a first valid flex input when the measured first degree of bend surpasses a first error threshold value; and recognizing an end of the first valid flex input when the measured first degree of bend falls below a first release threshold value, wherein a maximum degree of bend measured during the first bend is recognized as a first peak value, wherein the first error threshold value is determined based on a degree before the flexible display device is bent and the first release threshold value is determined based on the first peak value, and wherein the first release threshold value is different from the first error threshold value.
US09069360B2
An outlet valve (700) adapted for use with a pressurized fluid container includes an outlet valve chamber (701) including an upper groove (722) and a lower groove (725), an outlet valve member (760) configured to move between substantially open and substantially closed positions in the outlet valve chamber (701), and a non-return member (780) configured to be retained in one of the upper groove (722) or the lower groove (725) in a snap-fit arrangement. When the non-return member (780) is retained in the upper groove (722) the non-return member (780) does not contact the outlet valve member (760). When the non-return member (780) is retained in the lower groove (725) the non-return member (780) blocks the outlet valve member (760) in the substantially open position.
US09069351B2
A system and a method for controlling movements of an industrial robot during a work cycle including visiting and performing work on a plurality of workstations in a work cell. The system includes a set of predefined workstations. Each workstation includes preprogrammed robot code adapted to the workstation, an entry point defining the entrance position to the workstation, and one or more predefined paths to be followed by the robot at the workstation. A user interface is adapted to provide information about the predefined workstations and allows an operator to select one or more of the predefined workstations and to specify a desired part flow between the workstations. A scheduling unit is adapted during execution of the work cycle to schedule the execution order for the workstations based on the workstations selected from the predefined workstations and the desired part flow, and to control the movements of the robot based on the scheduled execution order and the predefined paths.
US09069346B2
The multi-axis motor driving apparatus includes an integrated controller that is configured to discriminate between a drive axis that uses the motor subjected to semi-closed control based on the motor control command and a detection position detected by the encoder and a drive axis that uses the motor subjected to full-closed control based on the motor control command, the detection position detected by encoder and a detection position detected by the linear scale, based on a change amount of the detection position of the encoder or the detection position of the linear scale obtained when the motor subjected to full-closed control is driven.
US09069345B2
A method, controller, and system for controlling a manufacturing process (batch-type or continuous-type) with a multivariate model are described. Dependent variable data and manipulated variable data are received. Dependent variable data represents values of uncontrolled process parameters from a plurality of sensors. Manipulated variable data represents controlled or setpoint values of controllable process parameters of a plurality of process tools. A predicted operational value, multivariate statistic, or both are determined based on the received data, and operating parameters of the manufacturing process are determined based on the predicted score, multivariate statistic, or both.
US09069339B2
Accurate and reliable techniques for determining a current status of an accessory device in relation to an electronic device are described.
US09069338B2
A building management strategy includes using exponentially weighted moving averages with statistical models to detect changes in the behavior of the building management system. Detected changes in the behavior of the system may indicate a detected fault, a change in a predicted behavior, or a need for the statistical models to be updated.
US09069337B2
A utility employs a method for estimating available operating reserve. Electric power consumption by at least one device serviced by the utility is determined during at least one period of time to produce power consumption data. The power consumption data is stored in a repository. A determination is made that a control event is to occur during which power is to be reduced to one or more devices. Prior to the control event and under an assumption that it is not to occur, power consumption behavior expected of the device(s) is estimated for a time period during which the control event is expected to occur based on the stored power consumption data. Additionally, prior to the control event, projected energy savings resulting from the control event are determined based on the devices' estimated power consumption behavior. An amount of available operating reserve is determined based on the projected energy savings.
US09069334B2
A radio clock including: an antenna configured to receive a satellite signal transmitted from GPS satellite; a receiving unit configured to perform a receiving process to acquire information contained in the satellite signal received by the antenna within a predetermine upper limit period; and a control unit configured to change the number of receiving processes to be performed in a predetermined period and change the upper limit period in accordance with a total sum of durations of the receiving processes performed in the predetermined period.
US09069325B2
An image forming apparatus includes an apparatus main body, and a visible image forming unit that forms a developer image. The visible image forming unit includes a first unit, a second unit detachably mounted to the apparatus main body, and a third unit. An image forming apparatus further includes a first mechanism that causes the first unit and the second unit to move toward or away from each other, a moving member that moves the first mechanism, and a second mechanism that causes the second unit and the third unit to move toward or away from each other in conjunction with a movement of the first mechanism.
US09069316B2
An image forming apparatus includes a main body, sheet discharge unit, fixing unit, and conveying guide. The fixing unit thermally fixes a developer image deposited on a sheet to provide an image-fixed sheet. The conveying guide defines at least a part of a conveying path. The conveying guide guides one surface of the image-fixed sheet. The conveying guide includes a fixed guide unit and movable guide unit. The fixed guide unit guides end portions of the image-fixed sheet in a widthwise direction orthogonal to a conveying direction of the image-fixed sheet. The fixed guide unit is immovable relative to the main body. The movable guide unit is disposed adjacent to the fixed guide unit in the widthwise direction and movable relative to the fixed guide unit. The movable guide unit guides the image-fixed sheet in a first position. The movable guide unit exposes the conveying path in a second position.
US09069313B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section that forms an image on a recording material; an image reading device that is disposed above the image forming section, and reads an image on an original; a connecting section that is disposed at either one of end sides of an apparatus housing in a lateral direction thereof, and that connects the image forming section and the image reading device to each other; an operating section that is disposed in front of the image reading device, and that is operated by a person; a human detecting device that detects the person operating the operating section; a discharging section that discharges the recording material on which the image has been formed by the image forming section to a placing section; and the placing section on which the recording material discharged from the discharging section is placed.
US09069305B2
A fixing device for thermally fixing a developing agent image to a sheet includes: a flexible tubular member having an inner peripheral surface defining an internal space; a heater; a nip member being in sliding contact with the inner peripheral surface of the flexible tubular member and having an electrically conductive surface; a stay supporting the nip member and being electrically conductive and electrically connected to the electrically conductive surface; a backup member nipping the flexible tubular member in cooperation with the nip member; a supporting member supporting the nip member and the stay, the supporting member being movable relative to the backup member; and a first grounding member disposed to be in contact with the stay for grounding the stay, the first grounding member being supported to the supporting member such that the first grounding member is integrally movable with the supporting member.
US09069302B2
A fixing device includes a fixing rotary body, an opposed member, a heater, and a heating controller. The opposed member opposes the fixing rotary body to form a nipping portion therebetween. The heater includes heat generators arranged in a width direction of a recording medium. When the recording medium fed to the nipping portion has an image area and a non-image area, the heating controller controls the outputs of the heat generators based on image information so that a first heat generator of the heat generators corresponding to the image area is higher in temperature and a second heat generator of the heat generators corresponding to the non-image area is lower in temperature. Based on information other than the image information, the heating controller temporarily shifts an area of the fixing rotary body corresponding to the non-image area to a temperature differing from a normal temperature.
US09069299B2
An image heating apparatus includes an image heating unit including a pair of rotatable members between which a sheet is nipped and fed while heating a toner image thereon; and a retracting unit retractable from the image heating unit, the retracting unit including an air discharging portion configured to discharge air for separating the sheet from the rotatable member, and a feeding portion provided with a pair of rotatable members and configured to nip and feed therebetween the sheet heated by the image heating unit.
US09069296B2
A heater (A1) includes a substrate (1), a heating resistor (2) formed on the substrate (1) and a protective film (3) covering the heating resistor (2). The protective film (3) includes a crystallized glass layer (31) and an amorphous glass layer (33) covering the crystallized glass layer (31). The protective film (3) further includes a semi-crystalline glass layer (32) surrounding an edge (31a) of the crystallized glass layer (32). The semi-crystalline glass layer (32) intervenes between the substrate (1) and a portion of the amorphous glass layer (33) that projects relative to the crystallized glass layer (31).
US09069295B2
Provided is a cleaning unit including a removing member that contacts with a surface of a cleaning target and removes adherent matters on the surface of the cleaning target, a storage section that stores the adherent matters removed by the removing member, and a supply member that has a blade and rotates the blade in the storage section to supply some of the adherent matters stored in the storage section to the surface of the cleaning target.
US09069289B2
A developer container includes: a developer accommodating chamber, provided with an opening, for accommodating a developer; a sealing member including end portion sealing portions each for sealing an end portion of the opening and a central portion sealing portion for sealing a central portion of the opening; and a rotatable member, connected with the sealing member, for peeling off the sealing member from the opening by rotation thereof to expose the opening. With respect to a rotational axis direction of the rotatable member, an outer configuration of the rotatable member is different between a sealing-member-connected end thereof and a sealing-member-connected center thereof so that one of the end portion sealing portions is peeled earlier than the central portion sealing portion and so that the central portion is peeled earlier than the other one of the end portion sealing portions.
US09069266B2
In the present invention, the number of brightness changes detected at the same position while a substrate moves by a certain distance is added up, a plurality of edge count data arranged corresponding to the detected positions of the brightness changes is obtained, a plurality of correlation value data by performing a correlation operation for the plurality of calculated edge count data while moving a template is obtained, positions of the plurality of patterns based on a plurality of correlation value data exceeding a predetermined threshold value are identified, a position of a pattern close to a target position of an imaging device is selected, and a photomask is moved in the direction substantially orthogonal to the conveying direction of the substrate so that the amount of the position displacement between the selected position of the pattern and the target position of the imaging device is a predetermined value.
US09069256B2
A method of optical fabrication comprises coating a substrate with a photocuring material, controlling the application of light to the photocuring material so as to control the intensity and pattern of the light both in-plane and out of plane, and developing the photocuring material.
US09069249B2
A method for using self aligned multiple patterning with multiple resist layers includes forming a first patterned resist layer onto a substrate, forming a spacer layer on top of the first patterned resist layer such that spacer forms on side walls of features of the first resist layer, and forming a second patterned resist layer over the spacer layer and depositing a masking layer. The method further includes performing a planarizing process to expose the first patterned resist layer, removing the first resist layer, removing the second resist layer, and exposing the substrate.
US09069248B1
A conductive pattern can be formed using a polymeric layer that contains a reactive composition that comprises a reactive polymer that is metal ion-complexing, water-soluble, and crosslinkable. This reactive polymer comprises photosensitive non-aromatic unsaturated carbocyclic groups as well as metal ion-complexing and water solubilizing groups. The reactive composition can be patternwise exposed to suitable radiation to induce crosslinking within the reactive polymer. The reactive composition and reactive polymer in the non-exposed regions can be removed due to their aqueous solubility, but the exposed regions of the polymeric layer are contacted with electroless seed metal ions, which are then reduced. The resulting electroless seed metal nuclei are electrolessly plated with a suitable metal to form the desired conductive pattern. Various articles can be prepared during this process, and the product article can be incorporated into various electronic devices.
US09069243B2
A system for producing and viewing a three-dimensional/stereoscopic image comprises a two-dimensional substrate having a number of blank regions that has been filled in/colored by a user with selected colors calculated to produce a stereoscopic image when viewed through a stereoscopic viewer. The colored regions are separated by black lines and together operate to form a desired image. The image has a background that is predominately black. The black lines and/or background can be provided before or after the user has colored in the blank regions. When the colored image comprising the black lines and black background is viewed through a stereoscopic viewer, the user perceives a three-dimensional image.
US09069241B2
A device for optically focusing a projection image projected by a projector includes a detector for controlled creation of at least one observation shot of the projection image over a time period, a processing unit for defining at least one image section within the projection image generated by the projector, where the image section is modulated over the time period with respect to the optical power and/or the optical spectrum thereof, and the at least one image section of the projection image is essentially synchronous compared with the corresponding respective image section of the observation shot, where the processing unit also calculates a variable derived from the comparison of the respective image sections and a control signal derived from the derived variable, and outputs the control signal to a focusing device of the projector.
US09069231B2
A focal plane shutter includes: a board including an opening; a shutter opening and closing the opening; a drive source driving the shutter; a drive lever driven by the drive source; a drive arm connected to the drive lever and driving the shutter; a restriction portion defining a stop position of the drive lever; and a buffering member elastically deformable, wherein, when the drive lever drives, abuts the restriction portion, and stops, at least one of the drive arm and the shutter temporarily abuts the buffering member, is spaced from the buffering member, and stops.
US09069228B2
An acousto-optic device having a wide range of diffraction angle and an optical scanner, a light modulator, and a display apparatus using the acousto-optic device are provided. The acousto-optic device includes a core layer having a periodic photonic crystal structure in which unit cells of predetermined patterns are repeated, a first clad layer on a first surface of the core layer, the first clad layer having a refractive index that is different from a refractive index of the core layer, a second clad layer on a second surface of the core layer, the second surface being opposite the first surface, the second clad layer having a refractive index that is different from the refractive index of the core layer, and a sound wave generator configured to apply surface acoustic waves (SAW) to the core layer, the first clad layer, the second clad layer, or any combination thereof.
US09069217B2
A display panel includes a first substrate including a common electrode, a second substrate including a first solid pixel electrode and a second solid pixel electrode, and a liquid crystal layer including liquid crystal between the first substrate and the second substrate. The second solid pixel electrode is spaced apart from the first solid pixel electrode, and surrounds the first solid pixel electrode.
US09069208B2
An illumination device includes a light guide plate, a light source, and a light modulation element. The light guide plate has convex portions extending in a direction parallel to a normal to a face opposed to the light source among side faces of the light guide plate, and the light source is configured of light source blocks. The light modulation element includes a pair of transparent substrates disposed separately and oppositely to each other, a plurality of first electrodes provided on a surface of one of the transparent substrates, and extending in a direction crossing an extending direction of the convex portions, a second electrode provided on a surface of the other transparent substrate, and a light modulation layer provided in a gap between the transparent substrates, and exhibiting a scattering property or a transparent property to light from the light source depending on magnitude of an electric field.
US09069205B2
A touch display screen, a method for manufacturing a display electrode of the touch display screen, a display electrode and an electronic device are described. In the touch display screen, the electrode in the first direction and the electrode in the second direction are connected to the touch detecting unit, and the touch detecting unit and the display control unit operate in a time-sharing manner. Thus, a part of the display electrode can be multiplexed, and it is unnecessary to provide an additional touch-sensitive layer to detect the touch on the touch display screen, so the structure of the touch display screen is simplified; because the touch-sensitive layer is omitted, the touch display screen has better transmittance; and because the touch detecting unit and the display control unit operate in a time-sharing manner, the detection on the touch and the control on the display will not affect mutually.
US09069204B2
A touch display comprises a color filter substrate, an array substrate opposite to the color filter via a plurality of spacers and a voltage detection circuit. The color filter substrate comprises an upper substrate and a common electrode formed on the upper substrate, and the array substrate comprises a lower substrate and a gate line, a data line and a pixel electrode formed on the lower substrate. The plurality of spacers comprise a first spacer formed between the gate line and the common electrode and a second spacer formed between the data line and the common electrode, which are capable of electrically connecting the common electrode with the gate line and the data line respectively under an external pressure more than a threshold value. The voltage detection circuit is connected with the gate line and the data line so as to detect whether the voltage on the gate line and the voltage on the data line become equal to the voltage of the common electrode.
US09069200B2
An electro-optical devices includes: a first substrate; a second substrate having one surface opposite to the first substrate; a support member configured to hold the first and second substrates with the second substrate located outside the first substrate, and to include a frame portion surrounding the first and second substrates; a first conductive film formed on the other surface of the second substrate; and a conductor layer placed between the frame portion and the first and second substrates, and electrically connected to the first conductive film. The first conductive film is held at a constant potential via the conductor layer.
US09069192B2
An optical regenerator for regenerating a multi-level phase encoded signal. A first non-linear medium (HNLF1) generates a comb of frequency harmonics from the signal under the action of a coherent pump, each component bearing the phase encoded data. A filter selects the first and (M−1)th order components. The filtered signal is then input to a second non-linear medium (HNLF2) where a further pump is applied, to coherently add the first and (M−1)th order components and regenerate the signal by reducing phase noise.
US09069186B2
The present invention describes single-piece or multi-piece Rigid Inserts that may be included in an Ophthalmic Lenses or may comprise the Ophthalmic Lens, wherein the Rigid Insert may be formed through the processing of thin sheet material by thermoforming. Single piece annular Rigid Inserts may perform the function of providing a template for printed patterns to be included in Ophthalmic Lenses. Single piece full Rigid Inserts may perform the function of polarizing light or filtering light based on the properties of materials used to form the insert. Multi-piece Rigid Inserts may include activation and energization elements. The present invention also includes methods and apparatus for forming the Rigid Inserts.
US09069185B2
Ophthalmic lenses and methods for their design and use involve displacement functions based on the sum of a continuous cosine function and a continuous sine function, optionally over a plurality of echelettes. Exemplary monofocal and multifocal diffractive ophthalmic lenses provide reduced light scatter and/or improved light energy distribution properties. Such properties can be provided by diffractive profiles, often having subtlety shaped echelettes with appropriately curving profiles. Light scatter may be generated by the sharp corners associated with vertical steps between adjacent conventional diffractive echelettes. Smooth diffractive profiles of the invention reduce light scatter. Light energy directed toward non-viewing diffractive orders may have a unwanted effects on vision quality. Diffractive profiles as described herein may limit the light energy in certain, selected orders, thereby improving viewing quality and mitigating unwanted effects such as dysphotopsia. Diffractive profiles may also vary the light energy distributed between individual echelettes, providing additional advantages in various viewing situations.
US09069174B2
An optical scanning unit includes a rotatable multi-faceted mirror having a plurality of faces reflecting light flux emitted from a light source to scan a scanning area in a main scanning direction. A width of the light flux striking the rotatable multi-faceted mirror is smaller than a length of a face of the rotatable multi-faceted mirror. The entire of light flux striking the rotatable multi-faceted mirror is reflected at a first face when the light flux reflected by the rotatable multi-faceted mirror is directed to the center portion of the scanning area. A part of the light flux striking the rotatable multi-faceted mirror is reflected at the first face while the remaining of the light flux is reflected at a second face when the light flux reflected by the rotatable multi-faceted mirror is directed to a least one of the two end portions of the scanning area.
US09069169B1
The invention is an improved reflective element used with a heliostat or any application where a reflective surface is required to provide low cost, low weight, and will maintain a relatively high degree of planar integrity under changing environmental conditions. The invention is based on a pretensioned backplane with aligned peripheral edges to produce a planar surface that a membrane material can be extended across and the membrane is securely attached at the bottom of the peripheral edges. This configuration provides a constant tension to the membrane which prevents the membrane from deforming as thermal cycling occurs. The pretension placed on the backplane produces an arching effect that is captured when the membrane is securely attached and remains arched once the backplane is released from the tensioning form. The arching of the backplane provides added strength and rigidity sufficient to minimize the need for additional structural components.
US09069168B2
A method of utilizing raised parts on a keypad surface, called separation walls, is disclosed. Separation walls can help prevent unintended key hits so that keys can be smaller and be placed with higher densities on small devices. Separation walls with slits can also make light beam keypads operable with multiple fingers at a higher input speed.
US09069155B2
Disposing from an object side in the order of a positive first lens group which is fixed at the time of zooming, a negative second lens group which is moved at the time of zooming, an aperture stop, a positive third lens group which is fixed at the time of zooming, and a fourth lens group which is moved along the optical axis at the time of zooming to correct a change in image plane position arising from the zooming for focusing. The zoom lens is configured to simultaneously satisfy, when a focal length of the overall lens system at the telephoto end, an overall optical length, and an Abbe number of the second group first lens with respect to d-line are taken as ft, TL, and νd21 respectively, conditional expressions (1): 0.62
US09069151B2
A composite cable breakout assembly is disclosed. The assembly includes an enclosure for receiving a composite cable having a fiber optic cable with at least one optical fiber and an electrical power cable with at least one electrical conductor. The enclosure has at least one port providing passage to the exterior of the enclosure. The at least one optical fiber is terminated by a fiber optic connector and the at least one electrical conductor is terminated by an electrical connector. Alternatively, the at least one optical fiber and the at least one electrical conductor may be terminated by a composite optical/electrical connector. The fiber optic cable and the electrical power cable route to the at least one port enabling connection external to the enclosure for extension of optical signal and electrical power to components external to the enclosure.
US09069147B2
Cables have reduced freespace, reduced tube diameters, and reduced strength member diameters. The cables are designed to pass robustness testing such as GR-20 while using smaller amounts of raw materials to produce.
US09069144B2
An optical fiber ferrule has a plurality of guide holes therein for guiding a respective plurality of flat-sided fibers at an end of a multifiber optical fiber cable. The fibers' flat sides identify a particular rotational orientation of the fiber. Rotational alignment is achieved by urging the fibers' flat sides against a corresponding reference surface within the ferrule or within an alignment fixture. Also described is a fiber array block having a plurality of V-shaped grooves extending across an outer surface and terminating at an endface. The V-shaped grooves are shaped to guide a respective plurality of flat-sided fibers. A lid is installable across the plurality of V-shaped grooves, over fibers that have been loaded therein.
US09069143B2
Structures and techniques are described relating to the alignment of multicore fibers within a multifiber connector. These structures and techniques include: multicore fibers having a number of different shapes, including, for example, circular, elliptical, D-shaped, double D-shaped, and polygonal; multifiber ferrules, having a plurality of fiber guide holes therein of various shapes; alignment fixtures for aligning multicore fibers within multifiber ferrules; and various multicore fiber alignment techniques.
US09069137B2
A polarizer includes boric acid, potassium iodide, and a zinc salt. The zinc salt has a concentration gradient in which the concentration of the zinc salt gradually decreases from a surface of the polarizer to an interior thereof.
US09069130B2
In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus can be provided which includes at least one biological medium that causes gain. According to another exemplary embodiment, an arrangement can be provided which is configured to be provided in an anatomical structure. This exemplary arrangement can include at least one emitter having a cross-sectional area of at most 10 microns within the anatomical structure, and which is configured to generate at least one laser radiation. In a further exemplary embodiment, an apparatus can be provided which can include at least one medium which is configured to cause gain; and at least one optical biological resonator which is configured to provide an optical feedback to the medium. In still another exemplary embodiment, a process can be whereas, a solution of an optical medium can be applied to a substrate. Further, it is possible to generate a wave guide having a shape that is defined by (i) at least one property of the solution of the optical medium, or (ii) drying properties thereof.
US09069128B2
The present invention relates to a flexible opto-electric combined circuit board in which an optical waveguide film provided with a core and a clad is bonded to a flexible electric wiring board, wherein a reinforcing material is provided to at least a part of an optical waveguide film side in a bent part and electronic devices prepared by using the above flexible opto-electric combined circuit board.Capable of being provided are an opto-electric combined circuit board in which an optical waveguide film is bonded to a flexible electric wiring board and in which braking and cracking are not generated by bending or folding back and electronic devices prepared by using the above opto-electric combined circuit board.
US09069124B2
The present invention relates to a device for encoding a position of an object, comprising a first light source; a first collimating element adapted to form first collimated light from the first light source; a carrier adapted to guide light and comprising a first primary light redirecting structure and a second primary light redirecting structure; and a detector device for encoding the position of an object with respect to an active area of an encoding plane; wherein the first primary light redirecting structure is adapted to redirect at least a part of a first light beam through the active area into the second primary light redirecting structure; and wherein the second primary light redirecting structure is adapted to redirect light received from the first primary light redirecting structure onto the detector device. Thereby is achieved that a collimated light beam is propagated along the carrier and from the carrier into the active area via the first primary light redirecting means. The collimated light ensures a controlled part of the carrier is utilized for the propagation of the collimated light.
US09069122B2
A method of manufacturing an optical component may include providing a plate formed from a transparent material, cutting depth-wise through a planar surface of the plate along first and second linear directions to define first and second planar surfaces, and cutting depth-wise through the planar surface along a curved direction to define a curved surface such that an optical component is obtained including the first and second planar surfaces and the curved surface extending between an edge of the first planar surface and an edge of the second planar surface.
US09069116B2
A fan-in/fan-out device includes a plurality of single-core fibers which are connected to a plurality of first cores of a multicore fiber and which include an elongated portion extending in a longitudinal direction so as to reduce a diameter and being connected to a first end portion of the multicore fiber at a second end portion in an extending direction of the elongated portion, where a refractive index distribution of each of the single-core fibers has a single peak, a relative refractive index difference of a second core with respect to a second cladding in each of the single-core fibers is 0.8% or more; and a second mode field diameter of the second end portion of the elongated portion is greater than a first mode field diameter of the first end portion of the multicore fiber.
US09069113B2
A display device includes a display panel, a protective member, a light guide member, a light source, and a light leakage preventing member. The display device includes a display surface concavely curved in a first direction. The light leakage preventing member is coupled to the protective member to be movable according to expansion or contraction of the light guide member. The light leakage preventing member contracts and expands according to the expansion or contraction of the light guide member, and includes an elastic part to prevent the light source from being damaged by the expansion of the light guide member.
US09069110B2
A backlight unit according to an embodiment includes: a plurality of optical assemblies each including a light source generating light, a light guide plate having a first part through which light travels inside and a second part diffusing upward the light traveling inside through the first part; and a diffusion pattern selectively disposed at the portions corresponding to interfaces between the light guide plates on the optical assemblies.
US09069100B2
A method of modelling a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location comprises the steps of: providing geological data; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a distribution of rock physics probability with spatial dependencies; approximating the rock physics probability at the first location with at least one distribution per facies utilizing the spatial dependencies in the rock physics probability distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion at the first location using the approximation of the rock physics probability distribution. The method may also employ a window comprising the first location and at least one further location.
US09069097B2
Methods and related systems are described for making measurements of an electromagnetic field in a subterranean formation that has been induced by a current loop. The current loop uses one or more steel wellbore casings as electrodes. Receiver arrays are positioned either at surface/seafloor, in the same, or in nearby wells. In the most general case, the receivers are tri-axial. A section of metallic casing in one well can be used as a current source and the electromagnetic field at surface can be measured using an array of EM receivers placed at a range of distances from the wellbore.
US09069096B2
A method is provided for processing marine controlled source electromagnetic data. Inline and broadside marine controlled source electromagnetic data are provided, for example by means of one or more horizontal electric dipoles and one or more receivers disposed in a water column above a subsurface to be surveyed. A linear combination of the inline and broadside data is formed so as to reduce the airwave content.
US09069094B2
A locate transmitter and method for performing a locate operation to detect a presence or absence of an underground facility. An applied signal is generated to be applied along the underground facility. One or more environmental conditions of an environment in which the transmitted is located are detected and compared to a target value or range of values to determine if an out-of-tolerance condition exists.
US09069090B1
An apparatus and method for determining an optimal energy window for optimal positron emission tomography (PET) is disclosed. An optimal energy window determining apparatus may include a data corrector configured to correct data measured from an image quality phantom, an image quality measurer configured to measure an image quality for the corrected data, and an optimal energy window determiner configured to determine the optimal energy window based on the measured image quality. The data corrector may correct the measured data based on a difference between sensitivities measured using different radiopharmaceuticals in at least one energy window.
US09069081B2
Radiation detector for measuring one or more characteristics of a radiation, comprising one or more detector pixels, a clock pulse generator, each detector pixel comprising a sensor producing an electrical signal in response to an event of a photon or charged particle of said radiation impinging on said sensor; a pixel electronics adapted for receiving and processing said electrical signal, comprising an analog processing unit for amplifying and shaping said electrical signal and producing a shaped pulse said pixel electronics comprises time determination unit for counting the TOT-count, the TOT-count being the number of clock pulses occurring during the time interval when said shaped pulse is above a threshold. Said pixel electronics comprises a plurality of event counters, each event counter counting the number of events having a TOT-count in a predefined ranges.
US09069077B2
An ADS-B system associated with an aircraft is configured to furnish an indication whether the aircraft is within coverage of air traffic information transmitted by an air traffic control ground station. The ADS-B system receives transmissions from an air traffic control ground station that include air traffic information and a client list comprising identification addresses of aircraft included in the air traffic information. The ADS-B system determines whether the aircraft is within a range of a second aircraft and whether the second aircraft is included in the air traffic information by comparing an identification address of the second aircraft with the identification addresses in the client list. The ADS-B system furnishes an indication that the aircraft is within coverage of the air traffic information when the second aircraft is included in the air traffic information and the aircraft is within the range of the second aircraft.
US09069070B2
Systems and methods for the selection of antennas in aircraft navigation systems are provided. In one embodiment, a navigation receiver system for an aircraft comprises: a first aircraft antenna that receives transmitter signals from fixed-location ground transmitters and a second aircraft antenna that receives transmitter signals from the fixed-location ground transmitters, wherein the first aircraft antenna has a first gain pattern that is different from a second gain pattern of the second aircraft antenna; a switch coupled to a first receiver and the first and second aircraft antenna; and a switch controller coupled to the switch. The switch controller operates the switch to electrically couple the first receiver to either the first or second aircraft antenna based on a determination of whether the first gain pattern or the second gain pattern provides higher gain in a direction of a first fixed-location ground transmitter of the fixed-location ground transmitters.
US09069069B2
Methods for marking a consumer good at a distribution point are described that enable field authentication of the consumer good at an authentication point without connection to a remote database. Methods for authenticating a marked consumer good are described by scanning encrypted indicia without connecting to a remote database are described. Authentication methods for marked consumer goods, apparatus for carrying out the authentication methods, and systems based on the authentication methods are described.
US09069052B2
Determining a physical location of a client, including: determining a network transmission time associated with a first server and a network transmission time associated with a second server; determining a set of key parameters for the first server and a set of key parameters for the second server; determining a distance between the client and the first server and a distance between the client and the second server based at least in part on inputting the network transmission time associated with the first server, the network transmission time associated with the second server, the set of key parameters for the first server, and the set of key parameters for the second server into a data processing model; and determining the physical location associated with the client using the distance between the client and the first server and the distance between the client and the second server.
US09069051B2
Example apparatus and methods control a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus to acquire, from an object to be imaged, throughout a period of time, a partitioned non-Cartesian fully-sampled calibration data set. Different groups of lines in the calibration data set are acquired at different points in time under different gradient encoding conditions that yield phase encoding in the direction perpendicular to the non-Cartesian encoded plane. The MRI apparatus is controlled to acquire an under-sampled non-Cartesian data set from the object to be imaged and to reconstruct an image from the under-sampled data set based, at least in part, on a through-time GRAPPA calibration. A GRAPPA weight set can be computed from data in different groups of lines in the calibration data set because different groups of lines can be treated as unique calibration time frames due to phase encoding produced by the different gradient encoding conditions.
US09069043B2
A termination circuit includes a pMOS transistor configured to have a source connected with a signal terminal outputting or inputting a transmission signal, a drain connected with a grounding line, and a gate receiving a control signal, the pMOS transistor being turned on when enabling a characteristic impedance matching function and being turned off when disabling the matching function; and an inductor and a capacitor configured to be connected with the signal terminal for matching characteristic impedance.
US09069042B2
A circuit for efficiently testing digital shadow logic (504, 514) in isolation from an associated non-logic design structure (510) includes a width and delay matched bypass circuit (520) coupled to receive an n-bit input from shadow logic (504) and to generate therefrom an m-bit test output which is selectively connected to replace an m-bit output to the shadow logic (514) from the non-logic design structure (510) in a shadow logic test mode, thereby flexibly emulating the non-logic design structure to allowing separate isolated tests on the shadow logic and on the non-logic design structure.
US09069038B2
A main power supply is arranged such that its output terminal Po is connected to a power supply terminal of a DUT via a power supply line, and is configured to feedback control an output voltage VOUT output from the output terminal such that a detection value VDD′ that corresponds to a power supply voltage VDD at the power supply terminal approaches a target value VREF′. When a test pattern is supplied to the DUT, a power supply control unit is configured to feedforward control the main power supply such that the power supply voltage VDD approaches a predetermined target waveform VTGT.
US09069036B2
An electronic device having a printed circuit board is provided. In one embodiment, the printed circuit board includes a plurality of external pads to be coupled with an external device and a plurality of bypass pads for testing an electric circuit. The external pads are exposed and at least one of the plurality of bypass pads are not exposed from an outer surface of the PCB. A system using the electronic device and a method of testing an electronic device are also provided.
US09069023B2
A latent-image measuring device that measures the state of a photoconductor. The latent-image measuring device emits a charged-particle beam to the photoconductor to detects a charged-particle signal obtained through the emission of the charged-particle beam. The latent-image measuring device then exposes the photoconductor a plurality of times to form electrostatic latent images on the photoconductor, and measures an amount of change in latent-image depth while changing a time interval between a plurality of exposures.
US09069010B2
There is provided a pitch changing apparatus which can change a pitch of DUTs when the DUTs are transferred between trays by a shuttle revolving system. The pitch changing apparatus, which changes the pitch of DUTs, includes a plurality of shuttles which hold DUTs, a first guide rail which guides the plurality of shuttles, a second feeder which feeds the shuttles along the first guide rail at a first pitch, a third feeder which includes a plurality of pins receiving the shuttles from the second feeder and moves the pins along the first guide rail at a second pitch, and a controller which controls a feed rate of the second feeder and a receiving rate of the third feeder.
US09069009B2
In a power line takeoff clamp assembly and method of use thereof an electrical power distribution line is clamped to a body of the clamp assembly. A power takeoff supported by the body clamped to the power line generates direct current from alternating current flowing in the power line. One or more sensors supported by the body clamped to the power line sense one or more values related to an electrical current flowing in a power line. A wireless transceiver supported by the body clamped to the power line communicates data regarding the one or more sensed values. Each sensor and the wireless transceiver utilize direct current generated by the power takeoff for the operation thereof.
US09069008B2
An inspection apparatus is provided, which includes probes for front side electrodes, probes for back side electrodes, and a chuck stage. The probes for front side electrodes and the probes for back side electrodes are formed on the upper surface of the chuck stage, and the probe contact area electrically continues to the wafer holding area, and the probes for front side electrodes and the probes for back side electrodes are located leaving a distance in horizontal direction between them so that the probes for back side electrodes move relatively within the probe contact area when the probes for front side electrodes are moved relatively within the wafer under test by the movement of the chuck stage.
US09069005B2
A capacitance-to-frequency converter is configured to convert a difference between first and second capacitances produced of a teeter-totter capacitive transducer as a result of a rotational force being applied to the teeter-totter capacitive transducer to a first signal having a first frequency that is a function of the rotational force, and to convert a sum of the first and second capacitances produced as a result of an acceleration force to a second signal having a second frequency that is a function of the acceleration force. The capacitance-to-frequency converter includes a first oscillator having a first oscillator frequency that changes in response to a change in the first capacitance; a second oscillator having a second oscillator frequency that changes in response to a change in the second capacitance; and a mixer having first and second mixer inputs connected outputs of the first and second oscillators.
US09068998B2
A reference solution is provided, which comprises, in a liquid phase, at least one of a first compound and a second compound which are mutually convertible into each other, and at least one catalyst, which catalyzes the conversion between the first compound and the second compound.
US09068997B2
Disclosed is an apparatus for automatically extracting i2,6-diisopropylphenol (Propofol), from a complex sample matrix comprising cellular material, e.g. blood, the apparatus comprising a sample reception stage having on output for providing a defined quantity of the complex sample matrix; a mixing stage having a first input in fluidic connection with the output of the sample reception stage, a second input for receiving a lysing agent and an output for providing a mixture of the defined quantity of the complex sample matrix and the lysing agent; a delay stage having an input in fluidic connection with the output of the mixing stage and an output for providing the delayed mixture of the defined quantity of the complex sample matrix and the lysing agent; a filtering stage comprising a sorbent material for mechanically lysing the cellular material, said sorbent material having an affinity for binding Propofol, said filtering stage having an input in fluidic connection with the output of the delay stage; and a controller for controlling the flow rate of the mixture of the defined quantity of the complex sample matrix and the lysing agent through said delay stage. A method for such extraction is also disclosed.
US09068996B2
Disclosed is a method of determining the presence of an analyte of interest by means of a detection of a reaction product between the analyte of interest and a reactant, the method comprising extracting the analyte of interest from a complex sample matrix; transferring the analyte of interest to an initial reaction mixture; performing a background measurement on the initial reaction mixture comprising at most a negligible concentration of the reaction product, wherein the reaction conditions present in said initial reaction mixture at least reduce the reaction rate of the formation of the reaction product such that the background measurement can be performed without a measurable change in said negligible concentration; altering the reaction conditions in the initial reaction mixture to accelerate said reaction rate; continuing said reaction until the concentration of the reaction product has stabilized; performing a second measurement on the resultant reaction mixture to obtain a signal correlated to said concentration; and determining the presence of the analyte of interest from a difference between the background measurement and the second measurement. In a preferred embodiment, the analyte of interest is Propofol (2,6-di-isopropylphenol), and the reactant is the activated Gibbs reagent (2,6-dichloroquinoneimine).
US09068994B2
Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) immunoassays are performed using an ELISA sandwich assay that employs scavenging or sacrificial beads for reducing interference caused by cross-reacting endocrine glycoprotein hormone analogs such as Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), Luteinizing Hormone (LH) and Chorionic Gonadotropin (CG).
US09068990B2
Described are methods for diagnosing and predicting the risk of pregnancy loss in a subject based on the presence of an aberrant humoral response to three proteins, Apolipoprotein B-100, alpha2macrogloblin (alpha2M), and fibronectin. The presence or a detectable level of maternal IgG antibodies to trophoblast-derived fibronectin and/or ApoB-100, and/or the absence or a non-detectable level of antibodies specifically binding to alpha2M is associated with a history of RPL and an increased risk of pregnancy loss. Also described are methods for identifying subjects at risk of pregnancy loss, selecting subjects for participation in a clinical study, and methods of decreasing the risk of pregnancy loss in a subject which include detecting the presence or absence of antibodies to one or more of trophoblast-derived ApoB-100, alpha2M, and fibronectin. Also provided are kits that contain ApoB-100, alpha2M, and fibronectin.
US09068986B2
The present invention encompasses methods of producing influenza B viruses in cell culture. The influenza B viruses may have desirable characteristics, such as enhanced replication in eggs and may be used, for example, in vaccines and in methods of treatment to protect against influenza B virus infection.
