US09094587B2
An image processing apparatus includes a calculation unit configured to calculate a first gain for adjusting brightness of a first image and a second image based on the first image captured at a first exposure amount and the second image captured at a second exposure amount, a division unit configured to divide the first gain into a second gain which changes according to a position in an image and a third gain which does not change according to a position in an image, a first gain correction unit configured to perform gain correction on the second image with the second gain, and a second gain correction unit configured to perform gain correction on the second image with the third gain.
US09094586B2
A flash band correction apparatus includes a flash band detection unit and a frame rate conversion unit. The flash band detection unit is configured to detect a start line and an end line of a flash band in a frame on the basis of a difference in an exposure period for each line of an image signal output for each frame at a predetermined frame rate by an image pickup element with a rolling shutter system. The flash band is an unevenness in brightness level for each line which is generated in the frame due to flash light. The frame rate conversion unit is configured to determine a combination of the frames of the image signal before a frame rate is converted on the basis of the start line and the end line and convert the frame rate to 1/n thereof.
US09094582B2
The subject matter discloses a system for communicating between a customer at a retail store and a mirror point used to generate media files at the retail store using a capture device, the system comprises a storage for storing contact information of the customer; a processor for enabling access of a customer's device to the mirror point; a communication module for transmitting the media files generated by the mirror point at the retail store to the customer's desired destination using the contact information stored at the storage structure.
US09094580B2
Integrating a plurality of security imaging units for an airport security checkpoint into networked common workstations, including: scanning items with a first security imaging unit at a primary inspection area, wherein the first security imaging unit is coupled to a first networked common workstation; displaying the scanned items as a displayed image on a display of the first networked common workstation located at the primary inspection area; re-scanning the items with a second security imaging unit coupled to the first networked common workstation when a possible concealment is observed, wherein the first networked common workstation includes a conversion unit which converts outputs of the first and second security imaging units into a common format for the displayed image; routing the displayed image to a second networked common workstation located at a secondary inspection area when the possible concealment is observed, wherein the secondary inspection area is remote from the primary inspection area.
US09094574B2
An information processing apparatus which controls transmission and reception of information is provided. The information processing apparatus includes a transmitting and receiving unit which transmits and receives, as the information, at least one of voice information, video information, and screen information; a necessity identifying information defining unit which allocates necessity identifying information for detecting a state of the information processing apparatus and identifying presence/absence of a necessity of transmitting and receiving the voice information, the video information, and the screen information in accordance with the detected result; and a bandwidth control unit which determines a bandwidth to be allocated to each of the voice information, the video information, and the screen information to be transmitted and received, based on the necessity identifying information. The transmitting and receiving unit transmits and receives the voice information, the video information, and the screen information in accordance with the determined bandwidth.
US09094568B1
Firmware is installed in a cable modem, enabling detection of the presence or absence of a cable trap in the feed of a customer location. Such a cable modem includes a trap-detection module and a trap-detection object. The trap-detection module is configured to determine whether a video signal is present at a cable-television frequency. The trap-detection object is configured to store data as to whether the video signal is present. For example, a first piece of data is stored if the video signal is present, indicating absence of a properly functioning cable trap between a cable head-end and the cable modem. A second piece of data is stored if the video signal is absent, indicating presence of a properly functioning cable trap between the cable head-end and the cable modem.
US09094559B2
An image processing apparatus includes a display unit, a reception part configured to receive a print job requested by a user and identification information that identifies the user from a information processor, an authentication part configured to subject the user to an authentication process based on input information from the user, a storage part configured to store an operating screen in correlation with the user on a user-by-user basis, the operating screen being displayed on the display unit in response to the user being authenticated by the authentication part, and a display control part configured to, in response to the user being authenticated by the authentication part, causer a shortcut of the print job and the operating screen stored in correlation with the authenticated user to displayed on the display unit based on the identification information of the authenticated user.
US09094555B2
The reading device includes an image reading unit, a document feeder unit, a table document detection unit for detecting presence or absence of a document on the place-reading contact glass, a document set sensor for detecting setting of the document, a size detection unit for detecting a size of the document on the document tray, and an open/close detection unit for detecting open and close of the document feeder unit. In a determination necessary state in which setting of the document is not detected while an object on the document tray is detected, it is determined to execute feed reading, or to execute place reading, or to be disabled to confirm to execute the place reading or the feed reading, based on whether or not there is a document on the place-reading contact glass and based on history information.
US09094550B2
A mark detection apparatus includes a reading unit, a converter, and a determination part. The reading unit reads an image on a document. The converter compares respective portions of the image read by the reading unit with a plurality of preset reference patterns, and converts a portion of the image to a character associated with a corresponding reference pattern. The determination part determines that the portion of the image to have been compared on the document is a mark in a case in which the character converted by the converter is a preset first reference character, and that the portion of the image to have been compared on the document is not a mark in a case in which the character converted by the converter is not a preset first reference character.
US09094534B2
An electronic device, while in a restricted interaction mode in an application other than a call application, displays a first user interface that includes a plurality of user interface objects, and receives an incoming call. The electronic device determines whether the incoming phone call satisfies predefined signaling criteria. In accordance with a determination that the incoming call satisfies the predefined signaling criteria, the electronic device outputs a signal that indicates the incoming call. In accordance with a determination that the incoming phone call does not satisfy the predefined criteria, the electronic device foregoes outputting the signal indicating the incoming call.
US09094533B2
Systems, methods and interfaces are disclosed for managing communications associated with a mobile communication device. Mobile communication devices process environmental inputs and transmit mobile communication device context information to a communication management system. The context information may, for example, reflect the motion and/or geographic location of the mobile device, and may reflect the risk associated with using the device to handle a call or other communications session. The communication management system uses the context information, optionally in combination with communication device profiles, to determine how to manage incoming and/or ongoing calls or other communication sessions. Mobile device users may also be inhibited from initiating communication sessions.
US09094531B1
The mobile phone comprising a voice communication implementer, a multiple language displaying implementer, a mobile phone updating implementer which updates a mobile phone battery controller, a mobile phone camera unit controller, a mobile phone microphone controller, a mobile phone speaker controller, a mobile phone vibrator controller, and language data.
US09094527B2
Seamlessly transferring a communication. At least one communication is established between a first device and a second device. The at least one communication is transferred from the second device to a third device without interrupting the at least one communication and without disconnecting the at least one communication from the first device.
US09094512B2
Embodiments of the invention are directed to a system, method, or computer program product for determining an appropriate course of action for a representative working to recover payment in arrears. Embodiments may determine at least one customer preference regarding limitation of representative-customer interactions; and, based on the at least one customer preference, present assistance information to the representative before or during the representative-customer interaction, the assistance information configured to at least one of inform the representative of the at least one customer preference, present the representative with at least one proposed question for presentation to the customer, or present the representative with at least one proposed method for representative-customer interaction.
US09094507B2
A system, method, and computer program product for providing information local to a called party located in a different geographic location is disclosed. In one embodiment, the computer implemented method includes the steps of receiving, at the communication device, a communication identifier; sending a request to a network device to determine a current location of a second communication device associated with the communication identifier; receiving location information identifying the current location of the communication device associated with the communication identifier; and presenting at least a portion of the information corresponding to the current location of the communication device associated with the communication identifier.
US09094506B2
Methods and apparatuses to provide telephonic connections to members of a social network. One embodiment includes: identifying a first member connected to a second member in a social network; determining whether profile data of the first member of the social network includes a telephonic reference of the first member; presenting a user interface element to the second member over a data communication network in response to a determination that the profile data of the first member includes the telephonic reference of the first member; and responsive to a selection of the user interface element, initiating a first telephonic connection to the first member using the telephonic reference of the first member and a second telephonic connection to the second member to provide a telephonic connection between the first member and the second member.
US09094502B2
A user terminal in a telecommunications network includes a circuit-switched (CS) telephony device and a packet-switched (PS) data processing device. The CS telephony device receives a CS-alert signal from the network for an incoming CS call and derives from the CS-alert signal that an associated PS signal is to be expected within a predetermined time interval. The terminal postpones generation of a call-received alarm for a user during the predetermined time interval. The PS data processing device receives the associated PS signal within the predetermined time interval, wherein the PS signal includes a request that the user terminal automatically answer the incoming CS call. In response to the request, the PS data processing device passes a control signal to the CS telephony device causing the CS telephony device to switch to an automatic answering mode and transmit a CS-answer signal to the network without input from the user.
US09094500B1
Embodiments receive an indication of initiation of communication from a controlled-environment facility resident, using a communications device, with another controlled-environment facility resident. A determination is made whether the residents are allowed to communicate and the communication is established between the communications device and another communications device in use by the other resident. The residents may be residents of different or the same controlled-environment facility(ies). The communication may be monitored and/or a database of residents that communicate with one another may be compiled. The communication between the controlled-environment facility residents may proceed, even despite a determination or predetermination that the residents are not allowed to communicate with one another, so the communication may be monitored. At least one of the residents may be charged for the communication, such as by charging a community communications account maintained to the benefit of at least one of the residents.
US09094499B2
A method, computer program product, and computer system for inferring quality of unified telephony calls based on real-time bi-directional exploitation of a full reference algorithm. A client copy of an audio file may be received from a client device associated with a unified telephony call. The client copy of the audio file may be compared to a local copy of the audio file using a reference algorithm. A quality of service associated with the client device may be determined based upon, at least in part, a difference between the client copy of the audio file and the local copy of the audio file.
US09094495B1
Each charging member in a group identifies a docking connection. Each charging member, responsive to identifying the docking connection, transmits information to other charging members in the group and receives information transmitted from another charging member in the group. Each charging member generates a list using the information transmitted to the group and received from the group. Each charging member also includes a ranking component for filtering, sorting, and ranking entries in the list according to a predefined selection filter and/or ranking filter. Each entry in the list is associated with a charging member with a docking connection and in the group. Each charging member determines based on a predefined indication filter that an entry in the list that is associated with the charging member is ranked at a predefined position in the list and provides an indication.
US09094492B2
A communication system, including a mobile communicator including a modem for conducting a communication with a remote party, an input unit for inputting communication data to the modem, and an output for outputting communication data from the modem, a display device including an input unit, an output unit, a connector for engaging the mobile communicator and for exchanging data with the mobile communicator, and a display for displaying party-specific information about the remote party involved in the communication, wherein the modem switches to receive its communication input via the display device input unit and directs its communication output to the display output unit when the mobile communicator is engaged with the connector, and wherein the modem switches back to receive its communication input via the mobile communicator input unit and directs its communication output to the mobile communicator output unit when the mobile communicator is disengaged from the connector.
US09094491B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a terminal device and molds of a button shell and an inner shell of the terminal device, which can be applied to the technical field of electronic devices. According to the embodiment of the present invention, the button shell and the inner shell can be connected without using an intermediate medium, and the button shell and the inner shell are fixedly connected by sliding between a slide rail on the button shell and a sliding slot on the inner shell, so that materials of the terminal device are saved, and an assembly process of the button shell and the inner shell of the terminal device can be simplified.
US09094490B2
A cover mechanism is provided for an opening and closing device, which includes a fixed plate arranged at a first housing; a moving plate arranged at a second housing; a hinge arm that is arranged between the two plates and rotates to move the moving plate between a closed position where the first and second housings overlap and an open position where surfaces of the first and second housings are substantially coplanar; and a recess formed at the second housing that prevents the hinge arm from interfering with the second housing in the open position. The cover mechanism includes a cover arranged at the moving plate that covers the recess when the moving plate is positioned at the closed position and moves from the covering position by engaging with and being urged by the rotating hinge arm; and an urging part that urges the cover toward the covering position.
US09094465B2
A server device includes: a receiving unit configured to receive, from each of a plurality of information-processing devices, location information showing a respective location of each information-processing device; a setting unit configured to set a condition showing that one information-processing device is close to another information-processing device, based on a predetermined parameter; a determining unit configured to determine whether a first information-processing device and a second information-processing device from among the plurality of information-processing devices satisfy the condition based on the location information received by the receiving unit; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit information determined at the determining unit to the first information-processing device and the second information-processing device, in a case that the determining unit determines that the first information-processing device and the second information-processing device satisfy the condition.
US09094461B2
A system and method for filtering a stream of content based on the time available to a user is disclosed. A filter application includes a timing module, a determination module and a user interface engine. The timing module receives a request for a stream of content from a user. The determination module calculates a viewing time for each post in the stream of content and determines one or more posts from the stream of content based on the viewing time of each post and an available time for the user. The user interface engine provides the one or more posts to the user.
US09094459B2
In one embodiment, a system for classifying traffic in an overlay network includes a processor adapted for executing logic, logic adapted for receiving an overlay packet, logic adapted for determining at least one characteristic of the overlay packet and/or one or more inner packets of the overlay packet in order to classify the overlay packet, logic adapted for associating a flow identifier to the overlay packet, logic adapted for determining one or more policies to associate with the flow identifier, wherein the one or more policies are based on the at least one characteristic of the overlay packet and/or the one or more inner packets of the overlay packet, and logic adapted for storing the flow identifier in a header of the overlay packet. More systems, methods, and computer program products for classifying traffic in an overlay network are presented in accordance with other embodiments.
US09094449B2
A survivable network is described in which one or more network device includes enhanced functionality to fight through cyber attacks. A Fight-Through Node (FTN) is described, which may be a combined hardware/software system that enhances existing networks with survivability properties. A network node comprises a hardware-based processing system having a set of one or more processing units, a hypervisor executing on each one of the processing units, and a plurality of virtual machines executing on each of the hypervisor. The network node includes an application-level dispatcher to receive a plurality of transaction requests from a plurality of network communication session with a plurality of clients and distribute a copy of each of the transaction requests to the plurality of virtual machines executing on the network node over a plurality of time steps to form a processing pipeline of the virtual machines.
US09094446B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide an approach to repair vulnerabilities (e.g., security vulnerabilities) in images (e.g., application images) in a networked computing environment (e.g., a cloud computing environment). Specifically, an image is checked for vulnerabilities using a database of known images and/or vulnerabilities. If a vulnerability is found, a flexible/elastic firewall is established around the image so as to isolate the vulnerability. Once the firewall has been put in place, the vulnerability can be repaired by a variety of means such as upgrading the image, quarantining the image, discarding the image, and/or generating a new image. Once the image has been repaired, the firewall can be removed.
US09094444B2
Disclosed herein is an anomaly detection method for a packet-based network which includes several network resources, also called network-related software objects. The method includes monitoring the network resources of the packet-based network, ordering the monitored network resources according to a given ordering criterion, and detecting an anomaly in the packet-based network based on the ordered network resources. In particular, detecting an anomaly includes forming a detection feature vector based on the ordered network resources, and feeding the detection feature vector to a machine learning system configured to detect an anomaly in the packet-based network based on the detection feature vector. The detection feature vector includes detection feature items related to corresponding monitored network resources, and arranged in the detection feature vector depending on the ordering of the corresponding monitored network resources. Conveniently, the machine learning system is a one-class classifier, preferably a one-class Support Vector Machine (OC-SVM).
US09094437B2
A system, policy nodes, and methods are described herein for establishing a policy session (e.g., IP-CAN session) for a user equipment between a first policy node (e.g., BPCF) which is associated with a fixed broadband access network (e.g., non-3GPP access network) and a second policy node (e.g., PCRF) which is associated with an evolved packet core network (e.g., 3GPP access network).
US09094432B2
In one example embodiment, a power storage management system includes a user terminal, a power storage apparatus and an information processing apparatus. In one example embodiment, the information processing apparatus is configured to, using a mobile communication network (e.g., Global System for Mobile Communications or the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), communicate with the power storage apparatus.
US09094422B2
One embodiment of the present invention is a method for deregistering multiple addresses of record. The method comprises receiving a session initiation protocol request to deregister addresses of record, the session initiation protocol request comprising a plurality of addresses of record to be deregistered and a contact address for a session initiation protocol endpoint. The method further comprises disassociating the contact address for the session initiation protocol endpoint from each of the plurality of addresses of record.
US09094417B2
A system and method for designating and administering authority in a trusted environment is provided. In some embodiments, a determination is made that a transfer of the authority to a second computing entity is warranted. The second computing entity is opportunistically contacted, and during the opportunistic contact, the authority is passed from the first computing entity to the second computing entity. The passing of the authority from the first computing entity to the second computing entity tasks the second computing entity with updating members of the group of the passing of the authority. The passing of authority may include providing an outstanding group update to the second computing entity and may also include tasking the second computing entity with completing the outstanding group update.
US09094406B2
The invention provides a system, a method and a computer program product that facilitate access to one or more applications by a computing device. The invention includes determining one or more contexts associated with at least one of the computing device and a user of the computing device, such that the one or more contexts describe at least one of an environment and an activity of the at least one of the user and the computing device. Thereafter at least one contextual tag corresponding to the one or more contexts is generated. Subsequently, the one or more applications associated with the at least one contextual tag are identified and the computing device is enabled to access the one or more applications.
US09094403B2
A method and system for the distribution of electronic media content to employees of a subscriber include an electronic display for displaying electronic media content that may be selected, modified and/or generated by the subscriber. The system allows for increased subscriber control of the media content presented as well as for increased security for any confidential media content to be presented on the customer display. The system further provides remote access for the subscriber to select, modify and/or generate electronic media content from any geographic location via a mobile device. In addition, the system provides for individual control of multiple displays that may be located in differing geographic locations while at the same time providing for ease of information management.
US09094398B2
Systems and methods are provided for authenticating and authorizing network access requests using directory services in which the directory service authentication and authorization procedures are enhanced using contextual information.
US09094387B2
An authentication system for authenticating a human requester requesting a service, wherein the authentication system is configured to establish via a first and a second port of the authentication system an authentication communication channel comprising a first communication channel to the requester and a second communication channel to a human authenticator, such that at least one of an audio stream of a voice of the requester, a video stream of a face of the requester and a 3D-data stream of the face of the requester is transmittable between the end node device of the requester and the end node device of the authenticator; and to record a confirmation message of the authenticator, wherein the confirmation message confirms or rejects at least one of the claimed identity and the requested service.
US09094386B2
A method for reprogramming a node of an electronic communication system includes transmitting a signal from a first node to a second node. The signal requests that the second node be reprogrammed. The signal includes an identification of the first node. The second node is used to broadcast the identification of the first node to other nodes in the communication system. The second node is reprogrammed only if a predetermined quantity of the other nodes confirm, based on the identification, that the first node is legitimate.
US09094383B2
The present invention relates to a system and corresponding method for a secure end-to-end patient healthcare system which includes wireless medical sensors adapted to be attached to a patient's body and in communication with each other forming a body sensor network within a wireless medical sensor network including one or more body sensor networks; λ-secure keying means incorporated into each wireless medical sensor for enabling secure communications between the wireless medical sensors, and a personal security manager within the body sensor network and in communication with the wireless medical sensors within the body sensor network, the personal security manager providing secure communications with backend services and providing security relationships within the body sensor network by means of the λ-secure keying means, wherein the λ-secure keying means are such that a coalition of no more than λ compromised wireless medical sensors conceals a pairwise key between any two non-compromised wireless medical sensors and provides protection against node compromise until λ+1 wireless medical sensors have been compromised.
US09094382B2
An immobilizer ECU transmits a vehicle ID code and a SEED code, which is read from an electronic key, to a data center online. The data center generates an encryption key from the received SEED code and a first logic, and generates a further SEED code from the encryption key, the vehicle ID code, and a second logic. The immobilizer ECU obtains the further SEED code online from the data center, generates the encryption key from the obtained further SEED code, the vehicle ID code, and the second logic, and stores the encryption key.
US09094378B1
Homomorphic cryptography on numerical values in digital computing is described, including converting a numerical value encoded in a bit string of a first size to another bit string of a second size, which is different from the first size; encrypting the numerical value in the another bit string to produce a ciphertext; and storing the ciphertext.
US09094375B2
A physical layer device provides security processing on communication frames that may include tags or headers that are for use in a wide area network. As frames pass through the physical layer device, the frames are classified for a type of security processing. Depending on the classification a cipher is applied to the frames for integrity checking of data in the frames. Some frames are also encrypted. The security processing may exclude some of the tags or headers. The frames may also be filtered and buffered.
US09094369B2
Provided are an apparatus and method of restoring a remote user interface (RUI) in a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) environment. In the apparatus and method, an RUI client requests an external storage server to store the state information of the RUI by using a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) object processing a HTTP request without reloading a web page, and restores the original state of the RUI by using the stored state information. Accordingly, it is possible to apply a method of storing and restoring state information of a remote user interface, in a UPnP environment, to a HTTP-based remote protocol model having stateless characteristics which do not allow state information of a remote user interface to be stored.
US09094362B2
Systems and methods for implementing a subscription-based social media or fan club platform are provided. A content creator generates live content on a mobile device and sends requests to a server for initializing a live stream from the mobile device. The server sends requests to encoding service providers. The encoded live content is send to a content storage server. Subscribers of the social media or fan club platform can access the live content on their mobile devices from the content storage server.
US09094361B2
A device and a method are disclosed including Conversation-Integrated Action System (CIAS) having networking facilities to allow multiple remote users of a social network to enter into a social conversation. CIAS is further configured to allow specific and relevant actions to be presented to achieve specific and definite results. Such integrated actions may include, but are not limited to, marking the status of the conversation, marking a part of the conversation as a decision with which the users agree, deleting the conversation, managing the conversation, editing the conversation, granting various action permissions to various users, opening or closing the conversation, concluding the conversation, saving the conversation, searching for previous conversations, generating statistical and measured data based on the conversation, starting another related conversation, triggering actions by a third party work flow system, and the like.
US09094354B2
A method is provided in which a message board server receives a message that is posted by a first user and transmits a link to another user of the message board. When the link is activated, a communications session is established between the user who activated the link and a telecommunications session recipient.
US09094352B2
A computer system includes one or more devices that are capable of multitasking (performing at least two tasks in parallel or substantially in parallel). In response to detecting that one of the devices is performing a first one of the tasks, the system prevents the devices from performing at least one of the tasks other than the first task (such as all of the tasks other than the first task). In response to detecting that one of the devices is performing a second one of the tasks, the system prevents the devices from performing at least one of the tasks other than the second task (such as all of the tasks other than the first task).
US09094349B2
A network node for reserving resources for data flows in a communication network. The node detects a request for resource reservation for a new data flow and computes an admission test count based on descriptors of the new data flow and reservation counts, which represent reservation functions of descriptors of previously admitted data flows and which specify resources of the admitted data flows. The new data flow is admitted if the admission test count is smaller than a maximum allowable count. The reservation counts are then updated based on the descriptors of the new data flow. A plurality of admission formulas may thus be used to maintain aggregated reservation counts for data flows, the number of counts being independent from the number of flows.
US09094341B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and a device for updating a port index in a multi-device system, and a multi-device system. The method includes: detecting whether a device ID of a device is changed in a multi-device system, where the detecting is performed by comparing device IDs of each device in the multi-device system before and after the detection; and for a device whose device ID is changed in the system, updating a port index of the device according to the device ID after the change, where the port index is used to acquire configuration data of the port. The embodiments of the present invention solve the problem of failing to find correct port configuration data by using the port index because the device ID is changed.
US09094340B2
A network element that has a broadcast interface to a broadcast network becoming operational determines whether at least one alternate path exists to the broadcast network. The broadcast interface is to carry traffic on a label switched path. If an alternate path exists, the broadcast interface will not be advertised to the broadcast network until label distribution protocol (LDP) is operational with all neighbors on the broadcast interface.
US09094338B2
A system and method for capturing objects and balancing systems resources in a capture system are described. An object is captured, metadata associated with the objected generated, and the object and metadata stored.
US09094329B2
In one embodiment, micro-loops are avoided in ring topologies of packet switching devices by changing the order of propagation of link state information concerning failed communications between a particular packet switching device and a neighbor packet switching device. In one embodiment, the particular packet switching device communicates link state information of a high cost of the particular communications (e.g., in the direction from particular to neighbor packet switching devices) such that this link state information will propagate towards the particular packet switching device from at least from the furthest packet switching device in the ring topology that is currently configured to forward packets having a destination address of the neighbor packet switching device through the particular packet switching device.
US09094326B2
Systems and methods for prioritizing transmission control protocol (TCP) flows for communication devices in a network are described herein. The systems and methods herein may further allocate bandwidth to the flows based on the priority of the flows. Further, the systems and methods herein allow devices to determine whether particular flows share a traffic flow constraint or bottleneck that limits the overall available bandwidth to the flows. Therefore, allocation of bandwidth for one flow may be adjusted based on allocation of bandwidth to another flow if the flows share a traffic flow constraint. Further, the systems and methods herein allow for target data rates to be determined for the flows based on shared traffic flow constraints.
US09094324B2
In one embodiment, a node determines an intention to transmit a diversely forwarded packet through a computer network, and as such, transmits a first version of the packet having a packet identifier (ID) and a first distinguisher value to a first next-hop node, and transmits a second version of the packet having the same packet ID and a second distinguisher value different from the first distinguisher value to a second next-hop node different from the first next-hop node. In another embodiment, a next-hop node that receives the packet determines whether any previously received packet at the next-hop node had a same packet ID and a different distinguisher value. In response to determining that no previously received packet has the same packet ID and different distinguisher value, the next-hop node stores the packet ID and the distinguisher value, and forwards the packet to a selected next-hop node.
US09094323B2
In one embodiment, probe-packet discovery of entropy values causing specific paths to be taken through a network is performed. One embodiment sends, from a first network node to a second network node in a network, a plurality of Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP) path-taken probe packets, each with a different entropy label, to determine a particular entropy label for each particular ECMP path of a plurality of different ECMP paths between the first network node and the second network node that will cause a packet including the particular entropy label to traverse said particular ECMP path. The ECMP paths taken by the plurality of ECMP path-taken probe packets is analyzed to determine one or more entropy labels for each different ECMP path of the plurality of different ECMP paths that will cause a packet including one of said one or more entropy labels to traverse said different ECMP path.
US09094318B2
A method, system and computer readable medium for remote mirroring are described. The method can include receiving a customer data frame and making two copies of the customer data frame. An outer header, such as a mac-in-mac header, can be added to each copy. The outer header of the first copy can be configured for normal processing, while the outer header of the second copy can be configured for remote mirroring. A switch can recognize the header configured for mirroring in the second copy based on a service identifier in the header and process the second copy for mirroring on one or more ports on one or more bridges.
US09094315B2
According to one exemplary embodiment, a method for determining the forward and reverse available capacity or tight link capacity of an IP path from a single endpoint includes the steps of: transmitting, from a source IP endpoint node toward a destination IP endpoint node, a forward packet train including a first plurality of IP test packets over the forward IP path; and receiving, at the source IP endpoint node, a corresponding reverse packet train from the destination IP endpoint node, the reverse packet train including a second plurality of IP test packets over the reverse IP path each of which correspond to a respective one of the first plurality of IP test packets. For those IP path capacity measurements embodiments which are TWAMP-based, no changes are needed to the TWAMP control protocol, e.g., since exemplary embodiments make use of padding octets to transfer additional information which can be used for available IP path capacity and tight IP link capacity calculations.
US09094314B2
Aspects of the invention may provide a system and method for access point aggregation and resiliency in a hybrid wired/wireless local area network. Access point aggregation and resiliency may include determining one or more available switch ports having a capability to handle a first access point group, the first access point group having a first default switch port. One or more available switch ports may be provisioned to provide service to the first access point group. Information may be communicated between the first default switch port and/or any of the provisioned switch ports, while maintaining client status and connection information. Available switch ports may be selected from a reserved pool of available switch ports and upon abatement of a need to utilize the provisioned switch ports, the provisioned switch ports may be returned to the reserved pool of available switch ports.
US09094309B2
Mechanisms are provided for identifying transparent network communication interception appliances in a network topology. The mechanisms collect network configuration data from a plurality of devices in the network topology and analyze the collected network configuration data using one or more heuristics to identify patterns in the collected network configuration data indicative of the presence of a transparent network communication interception appliance. The mechanisms calculate a confidence measure value based on results of the analysis of the collected network configuration data. The mechanisms further send a notification of a detected presence of a transparent network communication interception appliance to a computing device in response to the calculated confidence measure value meeting or exceeding at least one threshold value.
US09094308B2
Techniques are described for determining latency in a physical network that includes a number of network devices over which packets travel. A virtual network controller receives a plurality of messages from a plurality of network devices in a network, each of the messages including a packet signature comprising a hash of an invariant portion of an original packet that uniquely identifies the original packet, an identifier of one of the plurality of network devices from which the respective message was received, and a timestamp indicating a time an original packet was processed by the network device from which the respective message was received. The virtual network controller determines a latency of a physical network path in the network based on analysis of contents of the identified messages having a common packet signature.
US09094306B2
Network power fault detection. At least one first network device is instructed to temporarily disconnect from a power supply path of a network, and at least one characteristic of the power supply path of the network is measured at a second network device connected to the network while the at least one first network device is temporarily disconnected from the network.
US09094294B1
Method and system for reporting out-of-credit condition for a network device connected to a network. An indication to an out-of credit logic is provided that a first sub-port operating using a first protocol is out of credit to transmit information from a transmit segment. The first sub-port is a part of a base-port that includes a plurality of sub-ports that can be configured to operate at more than one operating speed to process packets complying with different protocols. The out-of-credit logic determines when the first sub-port is out-of-credit for a threshold period of time, and reports that the sub-port is out-of-credit to a processor of the network device.
US09094292B2
A graphical user interface may be used to display a plurality of computing resources which are provisioned across at least one cloud provider and/or at least one data center, where the plurality of computing resources may implement a virtual machine, a plurality of virtual machines of a cloud computing environment, etc. In response to a selection of the computing resources using the graphical user interface, the plurality of computing resources may be launched and/or configured on the at least one cloud provider and/or at least one data center which provide the computing resources. Access to the plurality of computing resources may then be provided using the graphical user interface.
US09094291B1
A method for calculating a partial risk score for a data object may include identifying a request to calculate a partial risk score for a data object, the request including a partial risk score filter, and the data object being associated with one or more policies. The method may further include for each policy associated with the data object, determining whether characteristics associated with the policy match a parameter in the partial risk score filter, and when the characteristics associated with the policy match information in the partial risk score filter, including a data object risk score associated with the policy in the partial risk score for the data object.
US09094285B2
Controllers in a Software Defined Network (SDN) automatically discover and authenticate each other as part of the control plane operations, without any need for manual configuration of other controllers. The new capability of such controllers is based on Controller-Advertisement messages transferred between controllers in the same or different SDNs. In doing so, multiple controllers can be used for load sharing, improved reliability under failure of a controller by enabling seamless take over and recovery. Moreover, controllers can cooperate to enable end-to-end services to work across multiple SDNs. Controller-Advertisement messages are also used to check the health statuses of discovered controllers in the same or different SDNs.
US09094281B2
Provided is a method of identifying a transmission control protocol (TCP) packet loss, including transmitting at least one TCP data packet to a TCP receiver, estimating wireless channel status information using the TCP receiver by interaction between a TCP layer and a physical layer, and receiving an acknowledgement (ACK) packet including the estimated wireless channel status information from the TCP receiver.
US09094276B2
The present invention relates to a method of transmitting and receiving signals and a corresponding apparatus. One aspect of the present invention relates to a method of receiving a signal, which includes interleaving in an appropriate manner for a channel bonding system. The interleaving can allow decoding a user requested service at a random tuner window position.
US09094271B2
The disclosure discloses a method for reducing mutual interference of multi-carrier, comprising: adjusting the delay of at least one modulation signal; respectively modulating each adjusted modulation signal onto each modulated signal; and comparing the performance indices of modulated signals with set performance indices, wherein the delay of at least one modulation signal is adjusted when the set performance indices are not reached, until the performance indices of modulated signals reach the set performance indices, and each current modulated signal is set as an output signal, or each current modulation signal is set as an input signal when the set performance indices are reached. The disclosure further discloses an apparatus for reducing mutual interface of multi-carrier. The disclosure can improve the performance obviously under the circumstance of arranging the multi-carrier adjacent to each other, and enable the multiple carriers to operate simultaneously in the coverage area of one radio signal, thereby greatly improving the frequency spectrum utilization ratio.
US09094260B2
A method and a system is described for controlling a service in a service provisioning network. The method including the steps of: a serving network node associated with a user terminal receiving a registration message, the user terminal having one or more of services, preferably VoIP services; and, the serving network node retrieving in response to the registration message service routing information associated with the first user terminal, the service routing information being arranged to route service messages associated with the first user terminal via a stateless application server, the stateless application server being adapted to perform control actions on said service messages.
US09094255B2
The invention concerns a method for partial amplitude modulation of a carrier wave between 8% and 14%, the carrier wave being emitted by a contactless transceiver device (10) designed to remotely exchange data with a contactless portable object, the method comprising: a) delivering two digital radiofrequency signals Tx1 (20) and Tx2 (22), b) phase shifting the second signal Tx2 by 180 degrees in relation to the first signal Tx1 when there is no information to be transmitted (idle state), c) phase shifting the two Tx2 signals in relation to Tx1 or Tx1 in relation to Tx2 by an additional angle φ when there is information to be transmitted (modulated state), d) having the digital signals pass through a filtering and adapting stage (13), e) adding, at the antenna, the first and second filtered and phase-modulated signals (Tx1f and Tx2f) and obtaining an amplitude modulated resultant radiated signal.
US09094243B2
A method and apparatus for estimating phase noise, a receiver, and a communication device are provided. The method includes: obtaining a transmitted symbol estimation value ã(k) which is corresponding to a equalized symbol r(k) of received data, where k=0, . . . , K−1, and K is the number of symbols in one received data frame; obtaining a public phase noise estimation value according to r(k) and ã(k); obtaining a residual phase noise estimation value according to r(k), ã(k), and the public phase noise estimation value; obtaining a phase noise estimation value according to the public phase noise estimation value, the residual phase noise estimation value and a basis function matrix of Discrete Cosine Transform. The technical solution of the disclosure can estimate the phase noise effectively, then compensate the receiving signals which are influenced by the phase noise, achieve the purpose for accurately detecting the transmitted symbol, and improve system performance.
US09094218B2
A power sourcing equipment is connected to a powered device via a cable. The power sourcing equipment is configured to provide power to different types of devices and the powered device is configured to receive power from different types of power sourcing equipment. The power sourcing equipment has a control system for determining the type of powered device that is connected to the cable and furnishes power in response to the determination. The powered device has a detection resistance that is detectable by different types of power sourcing equipment. Also described is a powered device capable of establishing communication with PSEs of multiple types.
US09094217B2
A credential store provides for secure storage of credentials. A credential stored in the credential store is encrypted with the public key of a user owning the credential. A first user may provide a credential owned by the first user to a second user. The first user may add credentials owned by the first user to the credential store. An administrator may manage users of the credential store without having the ability to provide credentials to those users.
US09094216B2
A method for adjusting the frequency of updating certificate revocation list is provided. The method is used in a certificate authority. The method includes: receiving a first information indicating security levels from neighbor certificate authorities in a neighborhood or a central certificate authority; detecting whether the certificate authority has received a signal indicating that a user is using a revoked certificate and generating a second information of a security level; calculating an index value or a set of index values by the first information indicating the security levels of neighborhoods and the second information indicating its own security level; and adjusting the update frequency of updating the certificate revocation list according to the calculated index values or the set of index values.
US09094210B2
The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for providing secure support to virtual appliances delivered to customer sites without passwords or enabled ports for service. A virtual appliance may be established on a first device. The virtual appliance may comprise a self-contained virtual machine with a pre-installed operating system and may be established with no root password enabled and a remote access port disabled. An administration tool may receive from a requestor a request to enable maintenance for the virtual appliance. The administration tool may generate, responsive to the request, a random password. The administration tool may enable, responsive to the request, the remote access port. The virtual appliance may wait for a connection to the remote access port for a predetermined period of time. The administration tool may transmit the random password to a service of a second device remote to the first device.
US09094205B2
Embodiments of methods of provisioning an electronic circuit enable security of sensitive data in a design and manufacturing process that includes multiple parties. In an illustrative embodiment, a method of provisioning an electronic circuit includes generating at least one secret value, embedding the at least one secret value into the electronic circuit, programming into the electronic circuit a private key derivation function that derives the private key from the at least one secret value and a trust anchor, and programming into the electronic circuit a public key generation function that generates a public key matching the private key. The method can further include receiving for execution trust anchor-authenticated logic that contacts a predetermined actor of the plurality of distinct actors and communicates to the predetermined actor a message signed with the private key.
US09094202B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate utilizing hybrid automatic repeat/request (HARQ) in system access communications. A HARQ entity is provided that manages a plurality of HARQ processes, which can typically use new data indicators (NDI) to determine when received data is a new transmission or retransmission. For resource grants, the HARQ entity can determine whether the communication is a new transmission or retransmission based on the type of message that contains the grant. In addition, an address comprised within the message, a previous use of the HARQ process, and/or the like can further be utilized to determine whether the message is a new transmission or retransmission. Once determined, the HARQ entity can provide the message to the appropriate HARQ process along with the indication of new transmission or retransmission.
US09094199B2
A method in a terminal for providing an ACK/NAK message to a base station is provided. The terminal counts the number of assigned downlink subframes detected from the base station resulting in k. The terminal then establishes whether each of a number of transport blocks comprised in the counted k downlink subframes is correctly received or not. In the case when each one of the transport blocks, comprised in the k downlink subframes is estimated as correctly received the terminal provides to the base station an encoded ACK message for the k subframes, which comprises k, the number of subframes.
US09094198B2
A method in a terminal for providing an ACK/NAK message to a base station is provided. The terminal counts the number of assigned downlink subframes detected from the base station resulting in k. The terminal then establishes whether each of a number of transport blocks comprised in the counted k downlink subframes is correctly received or not. In the case when each one of the transport blocks, comprised in the k downlink subframes is estimated as correctly received the terminal provides to the base station an encoded ACK message for the k subframes, which comprises k, the number of subframes.
US09094196B2
Disclosed herein are a systems and method for using frequency tones to schedule full-duplex communications between at least two full-duplex communication nodes. Communication nodes having data to transmit send, as part of two contention rounds, two separate and randomly selected frequency tones. In the first contention round, all nodes having data to transmit simultaneously transmit a frequency tone. Based on these first frequency tones, groups of nodes are formed. Each group of nodes in turn transmits a second set of frequency tones, and a schedule of full-duplex communications is created based on the second frequency tones.
US09094190B2
A method and apparatus for managing a key for secure storage of data. The apparatus includes a main controller configured to process a command, a cipher unit configured to encrypt a first key to form an encrypted key or encrypt data to form encrypted data based on a result of the main controller processing the command, and decrypt the encrypted key or the encrypted data based on the result of the main controller processing the command, a hash unit configured to hash the first key according to control of the main controller, a decrypted key memory configured to store the first key, and an encrypted key memory configured to store the encrypted key.
US09094189B2
A cryptographic method for communicating confidential information m between a first electronic entity (A) and a second electronic entity (B), includes a distribution step and a reconciliation step, the distribution step including a plurality of steps, one of which consists of the first entity (A) and the second entity (B) calculating a first intermediate value PA and a second intermediate value PB, respectively, such that: PA=YA·SB=YA·XB+YA·f(YB), and PB=YB·SA=YB·XA+YB f(YA), such that, during the reconciliation step, the first entity (A) can retrieve the confidential information by a process of decrypting a noisy message composed by the second entity (B) in particular from the second intermediate value PB.
US09094187B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a link adaptation feedback method, including: receiving, by a transmitting device, a link adaptation feedback frame sent by a communication peer end, where the link adaptation feedback frame includes a modulation and coding scheme request sequence identifier (MSI), where the MSI is configured to indicate space-time block coding type information; determining, according to the space-time block coding type indication information, use information about use of space-time block coding by a data frame related to the link adaptation feedback frame, and selecting, according to the use information, a space-time stream, modulation and coding scheme used when the transmitting device sends a data frame.
US09094175B2
Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to a technique for power saving at mobile stations in Very High Throughput (VHT) systems using signal field bits of a preamble with a limited transmission overhead. The present disclosure proposes a method of indicating to a destination through a preamble cyclic redundancy check (CRC) checksum that the destination may be the intended destination of a transmission packet. The present disclosure also proposes a method of indicating to a destination through a preamble CRC that the destination may not be the intended destination of a transmission packet. In this case, decoding of the received packet can be terminated in order to save power at a receiving device.
US09094174B2
A system and method transmits data and receives data packets within a bonding engine. The data packets are fragmented into a plurality of packet fragments for communication across a bonded group of subscriber lines. A Frame Check Sequence (FCS) in the data packet is inverted on one direction of the bonding group to prevent any data packets from propagating towards the network during a loopback condition.
US09094164B2
A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided. The apparatus generates a codeword, determines at least one puncture to the codeword based on allowing a legacy receiver to decode the codeword without knowledge of the at least one puncture, replaces each of the at least one puncture with a pilot, and transmits the codeword. The apparatus may also generate an IEEE 802.11 codeword having pilots in a first set of subcarriers, and puncture the codeword with additional pilots unknown to a legacy receiver in a second set of subcarriers. Accordingly, when an original set of pilot symbols is insufficient or inappropriately placed in a resource structure, a codeword may be transmitted with a new pilot structure capable of being decoded by legacy receivers not aware of the new pilot structure.
US09094156B2
A method of transmitting, by a transmitter, information in a wireless communication system, the method includes generating first and second symbols; generating first and second transmit vectors on the basis of an Alamouti code from the first and second symbols; and transmitting the first transmit vector through a first antenna and transmitting the second transmit vector through a second antenna. The first transmit vector consists of a first transmit symbol and a second transmit symbol. The second transmit vector consists of a third transmit symbol and a fourth transmit symbol. The first, second, third, and fourth transmit symbols are transmitted based on first and second resource indexes. The first symbol is a first modulation symbol for first information, and the second symbol is a second modulation symbol for second information.
US09094145B2
A communications method implemented in a transmission point (TP) used in a coordinated multipoint transmission and reception (CoMP) system is disclosed. The communications method comprises transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), attributers for up to four indicators indicating at least physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) resource element (RE) mapping, and transmitting, to the UE, one of the four indicators, each of which is conveyed in 2 bits, wherein the four indicators comprises ‘00’, ‘01’, ‘10’, and ‘11’ corresponding to a first set, a second set, a third set, and a fourth set of parameters, respectively. Other methods, apparatuses, and systems are also disclosed.
US09094141B2
A personal media device including a broadcast receiver that receives broadcast media and broadcast media data from a broadcast source where the broadcast media data includes a media identifier associated with the broadcast media. The media device also includes a data transceiver that sends a retrieval request to a media server for enhanced media data where the retrieval request includes the media identifier and receives the enhanced media data via a wireless data channel. The media device further includes a processor that performs a media device operation in response to the received enhanced media data.
US09094140B2
Methods and apparatus for accurate, secure and uniform exchange of audience research data. In one embodiment, viewership data is provided in real-time and offers the ability to monitor audience activities regarding, among others, broadcast, VOD or DVR content. A standardized message configuration is optionally used also to permit maximum uniformity and accessibility of the data. Accuracy of data exchange is enforced by implementing a method of detecting system failures, and the transmission of incomplete messages. Subscriber privacy and anonymity is also maintained via e.g., hashing or encrypting data relating to the CPE and/or subscriber, thus ensuring that stored data is not traceable to a specific user account. The methods and apparatus may also be utilized in conjunction with systems enabling the insertion and/or recommendation of content or advertising based on data collected regarding user actions or events. Business methods are also disclosed.
US09094132B1
Methods, systems, and devices are described for modulating data for optical transmissions and demodulating data from optical transmissions. During modulation, bits are mapped to symbols using an 8-ary modulation scheme. The modulation scheme may be based on 8 Phase Shift Keying (8-PSK), Dual Polarization 8-PSK, or 7-1 PSK for which one of the symbols is located at or near the origin of the constellation. Streams with the symbol-mapped bits are modulated onto a waveform in the digital domain that is converted into a waveform in the analog domain before is output for conversion to an optical signal. The streams may be filtered at baseband with at least one discrete pulse-shaping filter. During demodulation, pulse-shaped data received from an optical signal and comprising symbol-mapped bits based on the 8-ary modulation scheme is sampled. The sampled data is filtered with at least one discrete pulse-shaping filter, and then equalized and demodulated.
US09094131B2
A signal generating method and apparatus in the field of signal technologies are provided. The method includes: adjusting an incident angle of an optical signal entering a polarization beam splitter, so that the polarization beam splitter outputs a first optical signal and a second optical signal that have a preset power ratio; performing QPSK modulation on the first and second optical signal respectively by using a first and second externally input data streams, to obtain a first and a second QPSK optical signal; before the first QPSK optical signal and the second QPSK optical signal are input into a polarization beam combiner, adjusting a polarization state of the first or the second QPSK optical signal; when the polarization states of the two QPSK optical signals are the same, outputting a 16QAM signal; and when the polarization states of the two QPSK optical signals are orthogonal, outputting a DP-QPSK signal.
US09094126B2
The present invention is directed to a QoS-aware unified protocol that is applicable in the control plane of software defined networks, which can bring following benefits and includes optical burst switching protocol mainly requires four key operations; burst assembling, burst routing, burst scheduling, and control packet signaling protocols.
US09094121B2
An optical transmission apparatus includes transmitters configured to correspond to the polarization multiplexing optical signals, each of at least two of the transmitters including a first computing unit that computes, based on information regarding an optical transmission line including a plurality of spans and a polarization multiplexing optical signal, data waveform information regarding the transmitter and transmits the data waveform information to at least one another transmitter provided for at least one another polarization multiplexing optical signal, and a second computing unit that receives data waveform information from the at least one another transmitter provided for the at least one another polarization multiplexing optical signal and pre-equalizes or reduces cross phase modulation occurring in the optical transmission line of a transmission signal based on the data waveform information received from the at least one another transmitter provided for the at least one another polarization multiplexing optical signal.
US09094120B2
An information communication method that enables communication between various devices includes: determining a plurality of patterns of a change in luminance, by modulating a respective plurality of signals to be transmitted; and transmitting, by each of a plurality of light emitters changing in luminance according to any one of the determined plurality of patterns of the change in luminance, a signal corresponding to the pattern, wherein in the transmitting, each of the plurality of light emitters changes in luminance at a different frequency so that light of one of two types of light different in luminance is output per a time unit predetermined for the light emitter and that the time unit predetermined for the light emitter is different from a time unit predetermined for an other one of the plurality of light emitters.
US09094118B2
Disclosed are a system for providing a WDM-based wireless optical transport network and a method for transmitting a wireless optical signal using the same. The system for providing a WDM-based wireless optical transport network, includes: a central office terminal (COT) for bilaterally transmitting wireless optical signals of different unique wavelengths; and a plurality of remote terminals (RTs) connected to the COT in a ring, for dropping a wireless optical signal having a corresponding unique wavelength from the wireless optical signals transmitted from the COT, for adding a corresponding optical transmission signal to wireless optical signals of the remaining unique wavelengths except for the corresponding unique wavelength of the dropped wireless optical signal, and for bilaterally transporting the wireless optical signals to which the corresponding optical transmission signal is added.
US09094107B1
Various embodiments of the invention are directed to orthogonal frequency chirp multiple accessing (OFCM) systems and methods. For example, various embodiments of the OFCM transmitter may utilize an architecture comprised of a baseband modulation subsystem, a subsystem for generating multiplicity N orthogonal frequency chirp waveforms, and a bank of multiplicity N spread spectrum modulators. Various embodiments of the OFCM receiver may comprise of a subsystem for generating complex conjugates of multiplicity N orthogonal frequency chirp waveforms, a bank of multiplicity N spread spectrum demodulators, a symbol estimator, a symbol timing estimator, a frequency offset estimator, a carrier phase tracking loop, a multi channel estimator, and a baseband demodulation subsystem.
US09094104B2
A transceiver front-end of a communication device comprises a frequency blocking arrangement, which may be either a transmit frequency blocking arrangement or a receive frequency blocking arrangement. The frequency blocking arrangement has a blocking frequency interval associated with one of a transmit frequency and receive frequency, and a non-blocking frequency interval associated with the other of the transmit frequency and receive frequency. The frequency blocking arrangement is configured to block passage of signals in the blocking frequency interval between said signal transmission and reception node and either said receiver node or said transmitter node. The frequency blocking arrangement comprises a network of passive components comprising at least one transformer and a filter arrangement adapted to have a higher impedance value in the blocking frequency interval than in the non-blocking frequency interval.
US09094101B2
RF signal amplifiers are provided that include an RF input port, a switching device having an input that is coupled to the RF input port, a first output and a second output, a first diplexer having an input that is coupled to both the first output of the switching device and the second output of the switching device, and a first RF output port that is coupled to an output of the first diplexer. These amplifiers further include an attenuator that is coupled between the second output of the switching device and the input of the first diplexer.
US09094099B2
A mobile device includes an electronic card slot to be connected to an electronic card, and a baseband module. The baseband module includes a baseband unit, a switching unit, and a control unit. When it is determined by the control unit that the electronic card conforms with a subscriber identification communication protocol, the baseband unit and the electronic card slot are electrically interconnected via the switching unit such that the baseband unit is able to communicate with the electronic card that is connected to the electronic card slot. When the determination is otherwise, the baseband unit and the electronic card slot are electrically interconnected via the control unit.
US09094091B2
A method and apparatus for performing hands-free profile (HFP) control and associated computer program product are provided. The method is applied to an electronic device. The method includes: establishing a plurality of Bluetooth (BT)-Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL) links between the electronic device and a plurality of wireless accessory devices, respectively; and dynamically updating a default-active-device parameter in a device information table to be a unique identification of a specific wireless accessory device of the plurality of wireless accessory devices, in order to maintain a single BT-Synchronous Connection-Oriented (SCO) link between the electronic device and the specific wireless accessory device according to the default-active-device parameter, where the device information table includes unique identifications of the wireless accessory devices of which the BT-ACL links are established with the electronic device. For example, the electronic device can be an Audio Gateway (AG) device, and the wireless accessory devices can be Hands-Free Unit (HF) devices.
US09094078B2
A method of removing a noise signal from an input signal, the method including receiving a pure noise signal and an input signal including the noise signal; determining whether the pure noise signal is a static noise signal or a non-static noise signal; and removing the noise signal from the input signal according to whether the noise signal is determined to be the static noise signal or the non-static noise signal.
US09094073B2
There is provided a communication device including: a first radio communication unit capable of radio communication in accordance with a first communication method; and a second radio communication unit capable of radio communication in accordance with a second communication method using a higher frequency band than the first communication method, wherein the first radio communication unit transmits an instruction signal instructing to learn a beam directionality to another communication device, and the second radio communication unit transmits a beam reference signal used for learning a beam directionality to said another communication device after completion of transmission of the instruction signal by the first radio communication unit and before reception of a response signal to the instruction signal.
US09094047B2
Data that are stored in cells of a multi-bit-per cell memory, according to a systematic or non-systematic ECC, are read and corrected (systematic ECC) or recovered (non-systematic ECC) in accordance with estimated probabilities that one or more of the read bits are erroneous. In one method of the present invention, the estimates are a priori. In another method of the present invention, the estimates are based only on aspects of the read bits that include significances or bit pages of the read bits. In a third method of the present invention, the estimates are based only on values of the read bits. Not all the estimates are equal.
US09094035B2
There is provided a signal processing device comprising a combination unit (3) configured to combine plural element signals based on plural physical quantity signals including signal components in accordance with desired physical quantities, respectively, by the number of times equal to or greater than a number of the plural physical quantity signals, and to output combined signals different from each other; a measuring unit (4) configured to sequentially receive the combined signals output from the combination unit (3); and a computing unit (5) configured to compute signal components based on the desired physical quantities from signals that are generated based on the combined signals sequentially output from the measuring unit.
US09094020B2
An integrated circuit comprises a circuit module, a first function circuit, and a second function circuit. The first function circuit is configured to be operational in response to a first type logic signal at a first pin and the second function circuit is configured to be operational in response to a second type logic signal at the first pin. The type of logic signal at the first pin is determined by the circuit module. Based on the determined type of logic signal, the circuit module is configured to activate the appropriate function circuit and provide function related signaling for operation at a second pin. The circuit module allows the pins of the integrated circuit to be shared between the first and second function circuits, thus minimizing the number of pins required for multi-functional circuits on the integrated circuit.
US09094018B2
A method for charging an intermediate-circuit capacitor for a welding device, includes feeding a voltage from a first chopping section of a first half-cycle of an AC voltage into the intermediate circuit capacitor, the first chopping section beginning at a first phase-related starting time; and feeding a voltage from a second chopping section of a second half-cycle of the AC voltage following the first half-cycle into the intermediate circuit capacitor, the second chopping section beginning at a second phase-related starting time, which is earlier than the first phase-related starting time.
US09094016B2
Provided is a touch sensor stable against environmental variation comprising an oscillator which outputs a periodical operation signal, an antenna electrode which has a electrostatic capacitance straining the operation signal to form an output signal, a detection circuit which generate a detection value corresponding to a difference between the output signal and a predetermined reference voltage, a determination means which determines whether a human body is proximate to the antenna electrode, based on the detection value, wherein a frequency of the operation signal is varied so that the detection value gets closer to a predetermined standard value.
US09094012B2
A driving circuit of the present invention drives a switching element connected to a main current circuit. The driving circuit includes a driving potion applying on/off-voltage to a gate of the switching element, a common inductor disposed in an interconnection part commonly connected to the driving circuit and a source side of the switching element in a loop formed of the main current circuit and the switching element, and a capacitor connected between the gate side and the source side on the driving portion side with respect to the common inductor.
US09094008B2
A high voltage analog switch operable by a binary signal is implemented in a low voltage semiconductor process. The switch has three parallel circuit paths, with each path comprising at least three series connected transistors. Control signals are selectively applied to the control terminals of the transistors to control the switch and selectively turn on or turn off each of the three circuit paths depending on the input voltage range, so that the breakdown voltage of all of the transistors is never exceeded in any mode of operation.
US09093996B2
A DDS achieved in size and cost reductions by removing a ROM for storing a table and the like and suppressing an operation amount is provided. A DDS includes an NCO, a DAC, and a BPF. The NCO outputs a sawtooth wave. The DAC converts either one of the sawtooth wave outputted from the NCO and a triangle wave signal converted by a waveform converting circuit based on the sawtooth wave, from a digital signal into an analog signal. The BPF receives the signal converted into the analog signal by the DAC and extracts a sine wave at a predetermined frequency from the inputted signal, by allowing a signal at a frequency within a fixed range to pass therethrough.
US09093995B2
A circuit includes a pulsed-latch circuit. The pulsed-latch circuit includes a first plurality of transistors. One or more of the first plurality of transistors is length-of-diffusion (LOD) protected.
US09093991B2
A line driving circuit in which a signal characteristic is improved and a semiconductor device including the same are provided. The semiconductor device includes: a line controller arranged in a first portion of at least one line; a first driver arranged in the first portion and configured to output through the at least one line a first signal according to a control of the line controller; and a second driver arranged in a second portion of the at least one line and configured to output through the at least one line a second signal according to a level of the first signal.
US09093990B2
This disclosure relates generally to devices, systems, and methods that include conductive lines configured to transmit electrical signals between a first electronic component and a second electronic component between which the conductive lines are coupled. The devices, systems, and methods further include a transmitter, configured to generate the electrical signals, the transmitter including a source impedance based, at least in part, on a resistive coupling between individual ones of the conductive lines, a source impedance matrix of the source impedance being substantially proportional to the characteristic impedance matrix of the plurality of conductive lines.
US09093982B2
A sampling circuit is provided that includes a first sampling circuit that shifts a frequency, at which a gain of a frequency characteristic is maximized, to a lower frequency side, and a second sampling circuit that shifts the frequency, at which the gain of the frequency characteristic is maximized, to a higher frequency side. The sampling circuit also includes an output section provided in an output side of the first sampling circuit and an output side of the second sampling circuit, and outputs a sum or a difference between an output from the first sampling circuit and an output from the second sampling circuit.
US09093981B2
A circuit substrate includes: a laminate substrate in which a conductive layer and an insulating layer are laminated; a filter chip that has an acoustic wave filter and is provided inside of the laminate substrate; and an active component that is provided on a surface of the laminate substrate and is connected with the filter chip, at least a part of the active component overlapping with a projected region that is a region of the filter chip projected in a thickness direction of the laminate substrate.
US09093963B2
An amplifier circuit is provided. The amplifier circuit includes an operational amplifier, a feedback resistor for changing gain and cutoff frequency characteristics of the operational amplifier, and a feedback variable capacitor for changing the cutoff frequency characteristics of the operational amplifier, wherein a capacitance of the feedback variable capacitor increases exponentially according to a digital control code, and the cutoff frequency of the operational amplifier is inversely proportional to the capacitance of the feedback variable capacitor and varies linearly on a logarithmic scale.
US09093953B2
Provided is an oscillator including a piezoelectric vibrator (10), a vibration member (20) that constrains the piezoelectric vibrator (10) on one surface thereof, an elastic member (40) that is provided on one surface of the vibration member (20) or the other surface opposite to one surface and provided so as to be located between edges of the piezoelectric vibrator (10) and the vibration member (20) when seen in a plan view, a fixing member (42) that is provided on one surface or the other surface of the vibration member (20) and provided so as to be located between the piezoelectric vibrator (10) and the elastic member (40) when seen in a plan view, and a supporting member (30) that supports the vibration member (20) through the elastic member (40) and the fixing member (42).
US09093952B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor device including a first terminal and a second terminal respectively coupled to both ends of a crystal resonator, an inverter circuit having an input coupled to the first terminal and an output coupled to the second terminal, a feedback resistor which couples between the first terminal and the second terminal, a variable capacitor coupled to at least one of the first and second terminals, and a control circuit. The control circuit performs control to increase both of the drive capability of the inverter circuit and the capacitance value of the variable capacitor in a second mode rather than a first mode.
US09093947B2
A zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) piezoelectric driving circuit, suitable for use in a switching type power converter. It receives an input DC voltage from a half-bridge driving circuit, and through switching of an high-side switch set and a low-side switch set of the half-bridge driving circuit, converts it to an AC voltage and provides it to a piezoelectric element to drive a load. Wherein, a shunt circuit is connected electrically between the half-bridge driving circuit and the piezoelectric element for zero-voltage-switching (ZVS). Namely, when the high-side switch set and the low-side switch set are both switched off, the shunt circuit resonates with its parasitic capacitance, so that the high-side switch set and the low-side switch set perform ZVS, thus realizing ZVS in a wide range of frequency and a large range of load.
US09093946B2
A method of controlling an output voltage of an inverter driving an electric motor may include removing harmonic components of an output current, which is output to the electric motor, by using a low pass filter and obtaining a fundamental component of the output current; calculating a current total harmonic distortion by using the fundamental component of the output current; comparing the current THD with a reference current THD; determining a pulse width modulation method to be changed from a first modulation method for reducing the harmonic components of the output current to a second modulation method for reducing a switching frequency of the inverter if the current THD is less than the reference current THD, the PWM method modulating a pulse width of a control pulse signal for controlling the output voltage of the inverter; and/or generating the control pulse signal based on the determined PWM method.
US09093943B2
A switched reluctance machine having salient stator and rotor poles. Alternating ones of the stator poles having windings and the others having permanent magnets attached on their pole faces. The alternate stator pole windings are provided with polarities that are suitable for unidirectional and bidirectional current operation of the switched reluctance machine. The alternate poles with permanent magnets in the switched reluctance machines can have also concentric windings placed on them and excited with currents to further augment the flux linkages in the stator poles. The windings on the poles with permanent magnets can be excited from the same source as the windings on the poles without permanent magnets to enhance power output or provide power factor correction.
US09093935B2
A motor control device supplies a drive control signal to a drive circuit that drives a motor at a constant period using a motor drive signal based on the drive control signal, and shuts off the motor drive signal when a count value counted by a counter that reset the count value if a state of the motor changes exceeds a threshold corresponding to a plurality of driving periods of the motor. The motor control device includes: a control unit that controls a setting unit to set a rotational direction of the motor to a first rotational direction and a second rotational direction reverse to the first rotational direction at the constant period alternately, when a drive mode of the motor is a position holding mode to drive the motor so as to hold a rotational position of the motor.
US09093931B2
A driving apparatus including an inverter unit for energizing the coil by switching ON and OFF of the switching element, an energization pattern determination unit for selecting a plurality of energization patterns, each of which indicates a direction of a current that flows through the coil, one by one when driving of a motor is started, and energizing the coil by switching ON and OFF of the switching element based on a selected energization pattern at a duty ratio corresponding to a value of a maximum current capable of being supplied by the power supply apparatus, a current applied time measurement unit for measuring an energization time, which is a time until a value of the current flowing through the coil reaches a predetermined target current value for each energization pattern, and a rotor stop position estimation unit for estimating a position at which the rotor stops.
US09093930B2
An embodiment linear actuator for an electrically adjustable piece of furniture includes a brushless DC motor arranged to effect a linear movement of the linear actuator, as well as a control device for controlling the motor.
US09093923B2
A three-level converter includes at least one phase bridge arm, each including an upper-half and a lower-half bridge arm circuit modules. The upper-half bridge arm circuit module includes a first and a second switch units that are in series connection, and a first diode unit. The lower-half bridge arm circuit module includes a third and a fourth switch units that are in series connection, and a second diode unit. The first and second diode units are connected to the neutral point of the capacitor unit; the second and third switch units are connected to the alternating-current terminal; The first and the fourth switch unit is respectively connected to the positive terminal and negative terminal of the direct-current bus; the capacitor unit is connected to the direct-current bus between the positive and negative terminals. The two modules are disposed side by side and facing each other.
US09093921B2
A substation has a converter comprising a first set (S1) of series connected converter valve elements provided between a first (V1) and a second (V2) potential, where the absolute value of the second potential is higher than the absolute value of the first potential, and a second set (S2) of converter valve elements, comprising at least one converter valve element, provided between the second and a third potential (V3), where the absolute value of the third potential is higher than the absolute value of the second potential and all converter valve elements of the second set are placed inside one or more casings (28) placed on elongated post-like insulation (24), where the potential of the end of the post-like insulation on which the casings are placed is in a range between the second and the third potential, while the other end of the post like insulation is at ground potential.
US09093918B2
The present invention provides a control circuit for a power converter. The control circuit includes a switching circuit, an input-voltage detection circuit and a current-limit threshold. The switching circuit generates a switching signal coupled to switch a transformer of the power converter for regulating an output of the power converter in response to a feedback signal. The input-voltage detection circuit generates a control signal when an input voltage of the power converter is lower than a low-input threshold. The feedback signal is generated in response to the output of the power converter. A maximum duty of the switching signal is increased in response to the control signal. The current-limit threshold is for limiting a maximum value of a switching current flowing through the transformer. The current-limit threshold is increased in response to the control signal. An input of the power converter doesn't connect with electrolytic bulk capacitors.
US09093911B2
A switched mode power converter includes a feedback mechanism by which a coded train of pulses with well defined integrity is generated on a secondary side of the power converter and transmitted to the primary side for decoding and application by a waveform analyzer to regulate the power converter output. The pulse train is modulated by a secondary side controller and transmitted across an isolation galvanic barrier. The main transformer is used as the signal transmitter from the secondary side to the primary side of the power converter. The coded pulse train is recognized by a controller on the primary side and translated into a regulating driving signal for a main switching element. The transmitted coded pulse train can be embedded with very high frequency modulation that allows the isolation galvanic barrier to act as a capacitive signal transmitter.
US09093906B2
Methods and apparatuses are disclosed for providing improved feedback sampling in a primary-side regulated power converter. A test sample may be taken prior to the default feedback sample. The voltage of the test sample may be compared to the voltage of the default feedback sample to determine if the voltage difference between the two samples exceeds a threshold. If the default sample is lower than the test sample by more than the threshold, the default sample may be flagged as being a potential false sample. If more than a set number of potentially false samples are obtained, the power converter may enter an auto-restart mode.
US09093904B2
A winding voltage arising in a first winding on the primary side of a transformer is detected in a winding voltage detector unit formed of a second winding, and current flowing through a resonant circuit is detected in a resonant current detector unit formed of an auxiliary capacitor and a resistor. The timing at which the polarity of the detected winding voltage is inverted is detected in a control and drive unit, and the time at which the polarity of the resonant current, whose phase is delayed with respect to that of the winding voltage, will be inverted is determined in advance. In the event that there is a switch in an on-state when the timing immediately before the inversion of the polarity of the resonant current is detected from the output of the resonant current detector unit, the control and drive unit forcibly turns off the switch.
US09093903B2
The present disclosure discloses a power converter providing a low output voltage from an offline AC. The power converter defines a voltage window for the input AC signal. Inside the voltage window, the rectified DC waveform is passed through to the output and the storage capacitor; outside the voltage window, the power converter is idle (or the output is blocked from input) and let the output storage capacitor alone supply the load.
US09093902B2
The Scalable and Redundant Mini-inverters as described in this invention include double, triple, or quadruple redundant capabilities so that the Mini-inverters can work in a harsh environment for a prolonged period of time. A number of regular, redundant, triple redundant, or quadruple redundant Mini-inverters with one, two, three, or multiple input channels in a mixed variety can easily connect to one, two, three, or multiple DC power sources such as solar PV modules, invert the DC power to AC power, and daisy chain together to generate AC power to the power grid.
US09093901B2
This invention provides a switching converter having a number N of outputs providing N output signals, said switching converter being operable in at least a boost mode. The switching converter has at least one inductor, a number of switches, and a controlling device for controlling a charging time of the at least one inductor at least by the switches such that a discharging time of the at least one inductor is constant.
US09093899B2
A control circuit in a PFM/PWM boost switching regulator includes a timer based PFM exit control circuit configured to receive a first control signal for controlling a main power switch, a zero-cross signal indicative of an inductor current having reached zero current value, and a timer reference signal indicative of a timer threshold duration. The timer based PFM exit control circuit assesses an idle time of the inductor current based on the first control signal and the zero-cross signal. The timer based PFM exit control circuit asserts the PFM exit signal in response to the idle time decreasing below a level being equal to or less than the timer threshold duration, and the boost switching regulator transitions out of the PFM mode and into the PWM mode in response to the PFM exit signal being asserted.
US09093887B2
A bicycle generator hub stator has a hub shaft, an annular member and three yokes. The annular member includes a first axial end, a second axial end and a through hole extending between the first and second axial ends. The hub shaft extends through the through hole. The first and second yokes are non-rotatably arranged relative to the annular member. The third yoke is non-rotatably connected to both the annular member and the hub shaft. The first yoke includes a first extended section that extends in an axial direction from the first axial end to the second axial end of the annular member. The second yoke includes a second extended section that extends in the axial direction from the second axial end to the first axial end of the annular member. The third yoke is disposed in the through hole and magnetically couples the first and second yokes together.
US09093875B2
An apparatus and a method for generating electrical power are disclosed. The apparatus includes a mud motor including a rotor. The rotor is capable of eccentric motion and has a rotor end. The apparatus further includes an inverse magnetostrictive device having a magnetostrictive element. The magnetostrictive element has a flexing end that is affixed to the rotor end.
US09093870B2
A flat motor has a standard cylindrical bearing and the structure for fastening the bearing by sufficient strength. The flat motor has a rotor frame that is rotatably supported by a bearing through which the shaft passes, and the frame has: flat portion which is formed by a flat plate and which has central hole; outer cylindrical portion which is formed in a cylindrical shape on the side of central hole of flat portion by bending the flat plate and lengthening in an axial direction of the shaft; and inner cylindrical portion to which bearing is fastened, and which is formed in a cylindrical shape on the inner circumstance side of outer cylindrical portion by bending the flat plate at the end opposite to the end of flat portion on the inside of rotor frame and lengthening in a direction contrary to the direction in which outer cylindrical portion lengthens.
US09093867B2
A power system for an alternating current power bus includes an electret operatively associated with the alternating current power bus. The electret includes an output having an alternating current voltage when the alternating current power bus is energized. A rectifier includes an input electrically interconnected with the output of the electret and an output having a direct current voltage responsive to the alternating current voltage of the output of the electret. A powered device includes an input electrically interconnected with the output of the rectifier. The powered device is powered responsive to the direct current voltage of the output of the rectifier.
US09093863B2
A smart circuit breaker for an AC power supply circuit that has a limited capacity for supplying power to one or more electrical loads. Smart circuit breaker includes a sensing circuit to dynamically determine the available load capacity of the AC power supply circuit. A reporting circuit reports the dynamically available load capacity to a controller, an existing electrical load, and/or a potential electrical load on the AC power supply circuit. The AC power supply circuit, the existing electrical load, and/or the potential electrical load can adjust operations based on the reported availability of load capacity.
US09093855B2
A portable device charger is disclosed, which is able to charge portable devices whether it is connected to an external power supply or not. The charger connects to household AC power as well as USB DC power, and further has a photovoltaic cell. It manages the input power from these three sources to charge a portable device and/or recharge the charger's battery, by supplementing the input power with battery power if the device demands more power than the input source, and charging the battery with remaining power if the device demands less power than is provided by the input source. The charger turns off the AC/DC converter and draws no power from the AC source if the battery is full and there is no attached device.
US09093854B2
A damping circuit for an energy storage device. The damping circuit comprises a current detection device designed to detect an output current of energy supply strings or the energy storage device and to generate an output current signal dependent on the output current. The damping circuit also includes a closed-loop control circuit coupled to the current detection device. The closed-loop control circuit designed to adjust the output current signal to a setpoint current signal and to output a corresponding current control signal. A first winding of a transformer is coupled to an output connection of the energy storage device. A second winding is galvanically isolated from the first winding. A compensation current generation device is coupled to the closed-loop control circuit, and is designed to feed a compensation current into the second winding of the transformer depending on the current control signal.
US09093853B2
Described herein are improved configurations for a wireless power transfer for electronic devices. In embodiments reconfigurable or flexible attachment between a source and a device is realized using permanent magnets or electromagnets. Magnetic material may be positioned on or around one or more of the resonator to provide for locations for attaching permanent magnets. A permanent magnet attached to or near one of a source or device or repeater resonators may be used to flexibly attach to the non-lossy magnetic material of another resonator structure. In embodiments, replacing lossy permanent magnets and/or electromagnets in even one of the resonators of a wireless power system may be advantageous to system performance.
US09093850B2
A charging dock adapted for charging a hand-held device includes a pedestal defining an opening, an electrical connector, a fastening plate slantwise disposed to a rear of the electrical connector, a plurality of first elastic elements restrained between the pedestal and the insulating housing, a metal braking piece disposed to a bottom of the pedestal, and a plurality of second elastic elements respectively restrained between button caps and the pedestal. The electrical connector is telescopically and slantwise disposed to the bottom of the pedestal and partially projects in or out of the opening. The hand-held device is capable of pressing on or being apart away from the button caps to make the button caps stretch out or draw back to drive the attaching portions to be attached to or apart away from the magnetic elements under the elasticity function of the second elastic elements.
US09093849B2
A universal charging dock for charging a mobile device includes a base portion defining an opening, a back support portion connected to the base portion, a connector housing within the opening, and a wall mount module. The base portion has grooved sidewalls adjacent a track within the opening, and the connector housing has a grooved track that locks into the track and allows lateral movement along the track. The grooved track further allows the connector housing to rotate within the opening. A male connector, for connecting to a charging port of the mobile device, extends from the connector housing and may move vertically into or out of the connector housing to adjust an extension of the male connector. The universal charging dock may also be placed on either side, to achieve portrait or landscape orientations.
US09093843B2
An electric hand-held power tool includes at least one electrical drive, at least one electrical device that requires electrical energy in order to operate, a shut-off delay device for the electrical drive and/or the electrical device, at least one rechargeable battery for supplying electrical energy to the drive and the electrical device and an exhaustive-discharge safeguard device. The exhaustive-discharge safeguard device specifies the delay time (Δt) of the shut-off delay device as a function of the state of charge of the rechargeable battery it has determined.
US09093842B2
A power flow problem (OPF) in an electric power network is globally optimized using a branch and bound tree of nodes connected by edges. The BB initially includes at least a root node, and each node represents a feasible region of limits on voltages and powers. An upper bound on the OPF problem is solved for selected nodes using nonlinear programming, while a lower bound is solved using a convex relaxation. The lowest upper and lower bounds are updated using the current upper and lower bound. If a difference between the lowest upper and lowest lower bound is less than a threshold, then outputting the voltages and the powers for the electric power network as represented by the feasibility region for the selected node. Otherwise, the feasible region of the node is partitioned to replace the node. The process is repeated until the tree is empty.
US09093840B2
A system tool merges different load forecasts for power grid centers. A plurality of load forecast engines are coupled to a load forecast interface and a relational data base that saves load forecast engine data as an input through the load forecast interface. A comprehensive operating plan is coupled to the load forecast engines and the relational database. The comprehensive operating plan is configured to integrate individual load forecasts into a composite load forecast to present a comprehensive, synchronized and harmonized load forecast. A program interface provides access to the composite load forecasting schedule.
US09093837B2
An abnormal voltage detecting device monitors abnormal decrease in monitoring voltage during a start up period of a voltage generating apparatus. The abnormal voltage detecting device comprises a level shift circuit that generates a reference voltage for a start up period by reducing, in a predetermined amount, voltage from a reference voltage for soft starting, and further comprises a three input comparator that receives a monitoring voltage, a reference voltage Vref, and the reference voltage for the start up period, and that reverses a logical output when the monitoring voltage is lower than the reference voltage Vref and the reference voltage for the start up period. An abnormality detecting signal is delivered when the logical output of the three input comparator is reversed, and operation of an output circuit is inhibited until the reference voltage for the start up period exceeds a predetermined start up determining voltage.
US09093836B2
A description is given of a method for the pulsed control of a transistor which has a control terminal and a load path. The load path of the transistor is connected in series with a load. A control circuit is provided for a transistor. In the method, the transistor is controlled with a control pulse of a first type, which has a first control level at least for a first time duration, before a control pulse of a second type, which has a second control level, which is higher in comparison with the first control level. A voltage across the load path of the transistor is evaluated and the pulsed control is terminated if the voltage across the load path exceeds a predefined threshold value.
US09093835B2
The described embodiments relate generally to portable computing devices such as notebook computers and more particularly to failsafe mechanisms designed to prevent electrical shorts in the event that a portable computing device comes in contact with a liquid. A plurality of liquid sensors can be positioned within a computing device and electrically coupled to a controller. The controller can respond to varying amounts of liquid by immediately decoupling the system electronics from the power supply, performing a controlled shut-down of the computing device, or taking no action. In some embodiments, the controller can also limit the ability of a user to reactivate the computing device following a spill until any remaining liquids are removed from the computing device.
US09093834B2
The present invention relates to protection of floating roof tanks from the effects of lightning. In prior floating roof tanks, even if the floating roof is electrically connected to the tank wall shell at a number of locations by shunts and additionally with by-pass conductors above or below the liquid level, this may not prevent streamer discharges in gaps subject to induced potentials due to the penetrating electromagnetic waves and thus fires remain a real possibility. The present invention solves this problem by providing a lightning protection apparatus including an electrode; and a plurality of conductors, each conductor having a first end electrically bonded to the electrode and a second opposite terminal end electrically bonded to an outer side wall of the floating roof tank. The conductors emanate radially from the electrode and are spaced from each other so as to provide electromagnetic shielding to the floating roof tank from electromagnetic waves caused by a lighting strike.
US09093829B2
A terminal platform is provided that can be stably supported by a bracket, and that avoids electrical contact between the bracket and a terminal fitting. Terminal fittings that form an L shape by wire connection portions and terminal main bodies are supported on a terminal platform. A platform main body of the terminal platform has (i) support-receiving portions that are supported by a support portion formed on a metal bracket, (ii) a terminal fixing portion that is positioned at a side opposite to the support-receiving portions and fixes the terminal main bodies, and (iii) a surface portion that is arranged to intersect the terminal fixing portion and the support-receiving portions, and that is along the wire connection portions. Additionally, a partition wall of the terminal platform extends to the surface portion and is arranged facing a tip end of the support portion, and separates the wire connection portions.
US09093827B2
The current disclosure describes and teaches a wire pulling device having a base member. A vertical post and a horizontal post are attached to the base member, serving as anchoring posts for a clevis that may be opened and closed. The device may be attached to installation sites for wires and cables. Using an attachment mechanism, the base member may be affixed to a joist, a rafter, or an angle iron. Wires or cables may be threaded or disposed into the clevis and suspended to the installation sites. An installer may pull the wire or cable to proper positions before permanent affixations such as wire ties may be applied. The current device and its associated method facilitate the wire installation process.
US09093824B2
A spark plug having a connecting portion that electrically connects a center electrode with a metal terminal within an axial bore in an insulator. The connecting portion of the spark plug includes a resistor. A center electrode-side resistance, which is the resistance of a portion of the resistor that extends from the center thereof toward the center electrode in the axial direction, is larger than a metal terminal-side resistance, which is the resistance of a portion of the resistor that extends from the center thereof toward the metal terminal.
US09093822B1
A multi-band scalable output power laser system configured to have high brightness and output power in each band is accomplished by combining multiple laser modules, with each producing at least one band, and wherein at least one of the laser modules is based on a wavelength beam combining (WBC) system, into a multi-band free-space cavity.
US09093805B2
This disclosure relates to a glow plug connector for a sensor glow plug, comprising a housing made of plastic, a plurality of contact elements made of metal, which form contact surfaces bearing against a circumferential wall of the housing, wherein the contact elements protrude on the glow-plug side from a base of the housing. The contact surfaces are embodied as segments of a circle that protrude from a strip-shaped section of the contact elements. This disclosure also relates to a connector for a cylinder pressure sensor for measuring the pressure in a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine.
US09093797B2
An electrical connector comprising an insulative housing, a plurality of terminals retained in the insulative housing, and a metal package enclosing the insulative housing, said metal package comprising a first metallic shell and a second metallic shell covering the first metallic shell, said first metallic shell having an upper wall, a bottom wall and a pair of side walls, said second metallic shell having a top board, a floor board and a pair of side boards. Said second metallic shell is formed with a plurality of first soldering legs extending downwardly from a back-end of the top board, second soldering legs extending outwardly from the side boards, and said first metallic shell is formed with a plurality of fixed legs extending outwardly from a rear-end of the side walls; wherein said fixed legs are located between the first soldering legs and the second soldering legs along a front-to-back direction.
US09093793B2
An electrical connector has a conductive shell provided with a locking hole adapted to be engaged with a mating object in a disconnection direction. An insulator is received inside the shell. Between the shell and the insulator, a conductive shielding plate covering the locking hole is provided so that the insulator is not visible through the locking hole. The insulator holds a conductive contact.
US09093757B2
A multi-frequency circularly polarized antenna (100) comprises a substrate and multi-frequency antennas (900, 901). The multi-frequency antennas (900, 901) comprise antenna elements (120, 220, 30, 420), shunt-inductor conductors (170, 270, 370, 470), series-capacitor conductors (160a, 160b, 260a, 260b, 360a, 360b, 460a, 460b), series-inductor capacitors (140, 240, 340, 440), a center point (199) and input/output terminals (1q0, 210, 310, 410). The multi-frequency circularly polarized antenna (100) is constructed by connecting the shunt-inductor conductors (170, 270, 370, 470) of the multi-frequency antennas (900, 901) at the center point (199) in a substantially perpendicular manner.
US09093746B2
A wireless communication device includes a base board, an antenna, a metal assembly, and a conductive assembly. The base board includes a feed portion and a ground portion, and defines a keep-out-zone. The antenna is located above the keep-out-zone, and is electronically connected to the feed portion and the ground portion. The metal assembly is located at the keep-out-zone, and is spaced from the antenna. The metal assembly is electronically connected to the feed portion and the ground portion through the conductive assembly.
US09093741B1
In one embodiment, a repeater for wireless sensing includes a base substrate, a front substrate, a rear substrate, a receive antenna formed on the front substrate, a transmit antenna formed on the rear substrate, and a frequency multiplier formed on the base substrate between the antennas.
US09093738B2
An antenna includes an oscillating member and a grounding member arranged toward each other. The oscillating member includes a main body and a first extending section. The first extending section is projected from a first end of the main body toward the grounding member. The grounding member includes a main body, a second extending section, a third extending section, a fourth extending section and a grounding section. The second extending section is projected from a third end of the main body toward the oscillating member; the third extending section is projected from a fourth end of the main body toward the oscillating member; the grounding section is projected from the main body toward the oscillating member. The second extending section is the only one to electrically connect the oscillating member and the grounding member. The grounding section has a grounding point as a ground of the antenna.
US09093737B2
An assembly includes a self-contained, adjustable shrouding for a MIMO or SISO, or combination thereof, retransmission system enclosure. The enclosure ensures proper coverage areas of small to large facilities. The proper coverage is achieved through cake layer pie designs that previously often resulted in capacity and sector overlay issues. The antenna enclosure has a directional nature that allows for dividing stadiums, arenas, tracks, (or other large groups) into manageable smaller coverage areas through controlled directional zoning.
US09093736B2
Disclosed herein are a common mode filter and a method for manufacturing the same. The common mode filter includes a first insulator sheet; a first circuit layer having a first-layered first coil and a first-layered second coil alternately and separately arranged; a second insulator sheet laminated on the first circuit layer; and a second circuit layer having a second-layered first coil and a second-layered second coil alternately and separately arranged, the second-layered first coil being connected to the first-layered first coil and the second-layered second coil being connected to the first-layered second coil through the plurality of penetration holes.
US09093733B2
A signal transmission device includes a differential driver, a first single-ended driver circuit block, a second single-ended driver circuit block, a control circuit, and a common-mode filter. In the case where two-channel single-ended transmission is performed by using the first and second single-ended driver circuit blocks, the control circuit controls a driving capability of the first single-ended driver circuit block and a driving capability of the second single-ended driver circuit block in accordance with a combination of a change in a logical value of an output signal of the first single-ended driver circuit block and a change in a logical value of an output signal of the second single-ended driver circuit block.
US09093731B2
Embodiments of the invention include a combiner for an RF amplifier comprising wiring and a transmission line transformer. The transmission line transformer may include a ferrite core having a hole defined therein; a coaxial cable having a first dielectric constant and routed through the hole of the ferrite core; and a stripline having a second dielectric constant and routed around the ferrite core. In some embodiments, an electrical length of the stripline is matched to an electrical length of the coaxial cable. The electrical length of the coaxial cable may be defined by the first dielectric constant and the electrical length of the stripline may be defined by the second dielectric constant.
US09093723B2
A rechargeable battery according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a case, an electrode assembly received by the case, a cap plate combined with the opening of the case, a protective circuit board electrically connected with a first electrode of the electrode assembly, and a protective device attached on a top surface or side surface of the protective circuit board, electrically connected with a second electrode of the electrode assembly, and electrically connected with the protective circuit board.
US09093714B2
The invention has an object of providing catalysts that are not corroded in acidic electrolytes or at high potential, have excellent durability and show high oxygen reducing ability. An aspect of the invention is directed to a process wherein metal carbonitride mixture particles or metal oxycarbonitride mixture particles are produced from an organometallic compound of a Group IV or V transition metal, a metal salt of a Group IV or V transition metal, or a mixture of these compounds using laser light as a light source.
US09093713B2
The present invention relates to a method for producing a lead-base alloy grid for lead-acid battery having excellent mechanical strength, corrosion resistance and growth resistance, including two-step heat treatment of a Pb—Ca—Sn alloy grid containing 0.06% by mass or less of calcium, the first heat treatment being conducted at a temperature of 40° C. to 110° C., the second heat treatment being conducted at a temperature of 90° C. to 140° C., and the first heat treatment being conducted at a lower temperature than the second heat treatment.
US09093711B2
An active material for a rechargeable lithium battery and a rechargeable battery, the active material including an active material core; and a thin film graphite layer on the core.
US09093709B2
The present invention relates to electrode materials for electrical cells, containing, as component (A), at least one polymer including polymer chains formed from identical or different monomer units selected from substituted and unsubstituted vinyl units and substituted and unsubstituted C2-C10-alkylene glycol units and containing at least one monomer unit -M1- including at least one thiolate group —S− or at least one end of a disulfide or polysulfide bridge —(S)m— in which m is an integer from 2 to 8, the thiolate group or the one end of the disulfide or polysulfide bridge —(S)m— in each case being bonded directly to a carbon atom of the monomer unit -M1-, and, as component (B), carbon in a polymorph containing at least 60% sp2-hybridized carbon atoms. The present invention also relates to electrical cells containing the inventive electrode material, to specific polymers, to processes for preparation, and to uses of the inventive cells.
US09093708B2
The main object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a cathode active material layer, which allows a high-purity lithium complex oxide by restraining impurities from being produced, allows a flat film, and allows orientation control. The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems by providing a method for producing a cathode active material layer, in which a cathode active material layer is formed on a substrate and contains LiXaOb (X is a transition metal element of at least one kind selected from the group consisting of Co, Ni and Mn, a=0.7-1.3, and b=1.5-2.5), characterized in that the method comprises the steps of: forming a cathode active material precursor-film on the above-mentioned substrate by a physical vapor deposition method while setting a temperature of the substrate at 300° C. or less, and performing an annealing treatment for the cathode active material precursor-film at a temperature of a crystallizable temperature of the LiXaOb or more, and characterized in that the substrate has orientation property in a surface.
US09093697B2
A fuel cell stack is provided in which a plurality of single cells each including a membrane electrode assembly are stacked in a stacking direction. The fuel cell stack includes a plurality of electrical insulation members each connected to an outer peripheral portion of a corresponding one of the membrane electrode assemblies. The fuel cell stack further includes a first displacement absorbing member disposed between each insulation member and an adjacent insulation member.
US09093695B2
A lithium-ion storage battery includes LiFePO4 as an active material for a positive electrode, an active material for a negative electrode having a lithium insertion/extraction potential equal to or greater than 0.5 V vs. Li+/Li, and a separating element placed between the positive and negative electrodes. The active material for the negative electrode is a lithiated titanium oxide, a derivative of a lithiated titanium oxide, a non lithiated titanium oxide, a derivative of a non lithiated titanium oxide or a mixture thereof. The separating element is formed from a non-woven fabric comprising cellulose fibers or glass fibers of nanometric and/or micrometric size.
US09093689B2
The present disclosure relates to a battery for use in various applications including starting, lighting, and ignition and other purposes in vehicles such as automobiles and boats. The disclosed battery design includes a number of battery cell elements connected in series by a number of straps. The present disclosure describes a system of connecting the cells that minimizes the size and weight of the straps and increases the operating efficiency of the battery.
US09093687B2
A sealing case including a main body, a cover and a sealing member is disclosed. The main body has a first surface opened to a housing space therein. The cover is disposed over the first surface. The sealing member is interposed between the main body and the cover. The main body includes a first fastening portion protruding toward the sealing member. The cover includes a second fastening portion protruding toward the sealing member. The first and second fastening portions are spaced apart from each other. The main body and the cover are coupled together to be water-tight.
US09093680B2
A secondary battery including: an electrode assembly; a battery case accommodating the electrode assembly; a lead terminal that is extended from the electrode assembly and across the battery case, where the lead terminal is withdrawn from the battery case; an encapsulation tape formed on a portion of the lead terminal crossing the battery case; and an insulation member that is formed on the lead terminal to overlap with at least a portion of the encapsulation tape.
US09093671B2
A battery case for a secondary battery and a secondary battery using the same. The secondary battery includes an electrode assembly and the battery case. The electrode assembly is composed of a first electrode plate, a second electrode plate and a separator interposed therebetween. The battery case is provided with an accommodating portion that accommodates the electrode assembly. In the secondary battery, the depth of the accommodating portion is approximately 70% to approximately 80% of the thickness of the electrode assembly.
US09093669B2
Provided are an organic light emitting display device and a method for manufacturing the same. The organic light emitting display device includes a plurality of pixels, each including a set of sub pixels. Each of the sub pixels has an emissive area for emitting light and a transmissive area for passing the external light. At least two sub pixels are symmetrically arranged on each side of an auxiliary electrode, and share the auxiliary electrode.
US09093662B2
A sealing inspection device for detecting a bonding error at a sealing region of an upper and a lower plate in a flat panel display apparatus in which the upper and lower plates are bonded to each other by a sealing member, the sealing inspection device includes a light source configured to emit light, a polarizer configured to polarize the light emitted from the light source, the polarized light being incident on and reflected from the sealing region of the flat panel display, an optical spectrum analyzer configured to analyze the light reflected from the sealing region with respect to wavelength ranges and to determine whether a bonding error exits at the sealing region, and a beam splitter configured to change a path of the reflected light toward the optical spectrum analyzer.
US09093660B2
An organic light emitting diode display device includes: a substrate defining a plurality of pixels having a luminous area and a non-luminous area; an antireflection layer formed on the substrate and including at least one metallic layer and at least one insulating layer; a thin film transistor formed on the antireflection layer in the non-luminous area and including a gate electrode or a metal line on the antireflection layer in the non-luminous area; a passivation layer formed on the thin film transistor; a color refiner formed on the passivation layer in the luminous area; a light blocking member on the passivation layer in the non-luminous area; an organic light emitting layer; and a cathode and an anode electrodes.
US09093658B2
Devices are provided that include a flexible OLED panel and a connection between points of the flexible OLED panel that causes the flexible OLED panel to be disposed in a non-planar configuration. Alternatively or in addition, the connection may be a flexible component connected to the flexible OLED panel, which is configured to maintain the flexible OLED panel in the non-planar shape.
US09093636B2
Electronic apparatus, systems, and methods include a resistive random access memory cell having an oxygen gradient in a variable resistive region of the resistive random access memory cell and methods of forming the resistive random access memory cell. Oxygen can be incorporated into the resistive random access memory cell by ion implantation. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US09093624B2
A silicone resin sheet is formed from a resin composition containing a thermosetting silicone resin and microparticles. The complex viscosity thereof at a frequency of 10 Hz is 80 to 1000 Pa·s and the tan δ thereof at a frequency of 10 Hz is 0.3 to 1.6 obtained by a dynamic viscoelastic measurement at a frequency of 0.1 to 50 Hz at 30° C.; a rate of frequency increase of 10 Hz/min; and a distortion of 1% in a shear mode.
US09093619B2
The light emitting device comprises a substrate (2), a positive electrode (6) and a negative electrode (4) formed on the substrate (2), a light emitting diode (8) connected to the positive electrode (6) and the negative electrode (4), the transparent resin (12 and 14) that covers the light emitting diode (8), a fluorescent material (16) that absorbs at least part of light emitted by the light emitting diode (8) and converts it to light of longer wavelength, and the lens that changes the direction of light emission from the light emitting diode (8) and/or the fluorescent material (16). The resin (12 and 14) includes the fluorescent material (16) and is formed so as to constitute the lens of substantially semi-cylindrical shape, and the fluorescent material (16) included in the resin (12 and 14) is distributed with a higher concentration in a region near the surface of the light emitting diode (8) than in a region near the surface of the portion that constitutes the lens.
US09093612B2
A provided light includes a semiconductor chip including a p-type semiconductor layer and an n-type semiconductor layer, the semiconductor chip being adapted to emit light between the p-type semiconductor layer and the n-type semiconductor layer; a p-side pad electrode disposed on an upper surface side of the semiconductor chip and over the p-type semiconductor layer; an n-side pad electrode disposed on an upper surface side of the semiconductor chip and over the n-type semiconductor layer; a resin layer disposed to cover the upper surface of the semiconductor chip; a p-side connection electrode and an n-side connection electrode disposed at an outer surface of the resin layer and positioned on the upper surface side of the semiconductor chip; and a metal wire disposed in the resin. The metal wire is adapted to make connection at least one of between the p-side pad electrode and the p-side connection electrode, and between the n-side pad electrode and the n-side connection electrode.
US09093611B2
An LED chip is disclosed. The LED chip includes a substrate and a semiconductor element formed on the substrate. A recess is formed on the semiconductor element so as to expose a first-type of semiconductor layer thereof to the environment. The LED chip also includes a conductive layer disposed on a second-type semiconductor layer of the semiconductor element, a first electrode disposed in the recess and electrically connected to the first-type of semiconductor layer, and a second electrode disposed on the conductive layer. In addition, the LED chip includes a first circular electrode disposed on the conductive layer and extending along an edge of the substrate and electrically connected to the second electrode.
US09093610B2
A display apparatus includes a display panel, a gate driver, and a data driver. The display panel includes a display area in which an image is displayed and a non-display area disposed adjacent to the display area. The display panel includes an insulating substrate which has a groove. The gate driver is disposed to overlap with the display area when viewed in a plan view. At least part of the gate driver is formed on the groove.
US09093608B2
The process for the manufacture of a light-emitting diode comprises the following stages: the formation of a stack (1) of layers intended to emit light comprising first (2), second (3) and third (4) layers of aluminum gallium nitride, the said second layer (3), positioned between the first and third layers (2, 4), having an aluminum gallium nitride composition different from that of the first and third layers (2, 4); and the implementation of a demixing of the second layer (3) of aluminum gallium nitride carried out after formation of the said second layer.
US09093601B2
An object is to provide a photoelectric conversion device which has little loss of light absorption in a window layer and has high conversion efficiency. A photoelectric conversion device including a crystalline silicon substrate having n-type conductivity and a light-transmitting semiconductor layer having p-type conductivity between a pair of electrodes is formed. In the photoelectric conversion device, a p-n junction is formed between the crystalline silicon substrate and the light-transmitting semiconductor layer, and the light-transmitting semiconductor layer serves as a window layer. The light-transmitting semiconductor layer includes an organic compound and an inorganic compound. As the organic compound and the inorganic compound, a material having a high hole-transport property and a transition metal oxide having an electron-accepting property are respectively used.
US09093599B2
Vapor deposition apparatus for forming stacked thin films on discrete photovoltaic module substrates conveyed in a continuous non-stop manner through the apparatus are provided. The apparatus includes a first sublimation compartment positioned over a first deposition area of said apparatus, a second sublimation compartment positioned over a second deposition area of said apparatus, and an internal divider positioned therebetween and defining a middle seal member. An actuator is attached to the internal divider and is configured to move the internal divider to control intermixing of first source material vapors and second source material vapors within the first deposition area and the second deposition area. Methods are also generally provided for depositing stacked thin films on a substrate.
US09093594B2
A semiconductor device includes a substrate, suspension structures extending from the upper surface of the substrate, and an absorber stack attached to the substrate by the suspension structures. The suspension structures suspend the absorber stack over the substrate such that a gap is defined between the absorber stack and the substrate. The absorber stack includes a plurality of metallization layers interleaved with a plurality of insulating layers. At least one of the metallization layers has a thickness of approximately 10 nm or less.
US09093586B2
A photovoltaic power generation system that includes a solar panel that is free of bypass diodes is described herein. The solar panel includes a plurality of photovoltaic sub-modules, wherein at least two of photovoltaic sub-modules in the plurality of photovoltaic sub-modules are electrically connected in parallel. A photovoltaic sub-module includes a plurality of groups of electrically connected photovoltaic cells, wherein at least two of the groups are electrically connected in series. A photovoltaic group includes a plurality of strings of photovoltaic cells, wherein a string of photovoltaic cells comprises a plurality of photovoltaic cells electrically connected in series. The strings of photovoltaic cells are electrically connected in parallel, and the photovoltaic cells are microsystem-enabled photovoltaic cells.
US09093584B2
A solar cell array includes solar cell modules arranged in a first-direction, and a mounting member for securing adjacent ones of the solar cell modules. The mounting member comprises a first supporting member extending in the first-direction, a second supporting member provided on the first supporting member and extending in a second-direction, a first restraint provided on one side of the second supporting member in the first-direction and configured to restrain the second supporting member from moving in the second-direction and in a height direction, and a second restraint provided on another side of the second supporting member in the first-direction and configured to restrain the second supporting member from moving in the height direction. The first restraint is movable together with the second supporting member in the first-direction on the first supporting member. The second restraint restrains the second supporting member from moving in the first-direction.
US09093582B2
A structure capable of folding into a compact form for transporting, and for simple unfolding for attachment to a base, the structure including: two or more hingably interconnected solar panel arrays each having a two or more of solar panels, a solar panel support channel, and a support beam; wherein the two or more solar panels are attached to top portions of the solar panel support channel, and a bottom portion of the solar panel support channel is attached to a top portion of the support beam, the support beam having a hinged joint for cooperating in folding into mutual, near coplanar juxtaposition; and where the structure, when unfolded includes a solar canopy and is T-shaped viewed on end.
US09093569B2
In a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the same, a mesh shaped lower electrode of a peripheral region is used as a reservoir capacitor to increase the size of a region contacting a dielectric film, such that Cs deterioration is minimized. An exemplary semiconductor device may include a line-type storage node contact plug formed over a semiconductor substrate, a mesh shaped lower electrode formed over the storage node contact plug, and a dielectric film and an upper electrode formed over the lower electrode.
US09093566B2
Disclosed are a FinFET diode of high efficiency, designed to resolve the degradation problem with a conventional FinFET diode arising from reduced active area, and a method of fabrication. The FinFET diode has a doped substrate, two spaced-apart groups of substantially parallel, equally-spaced, elongated semiconductor fin structures, dielectric layers formed between the two groups and among the fin structures for insulation, a plurality of substantially equal-spaced and parallel elongated gate structures perpendicularly traversing both groups of the fin structures, and two groups of semiconductor strips respectively formed lengthwise upon the two groups of the fin structures. The two groups of semiconductor strips are doped to have opposite conductivity types, p-type and n-type. The FinFET diode further has metal contacts formed upon the semiconductor strips. In an embodiment, the semiconductor strips may be integrally formed with the fin structures by epitaxial growth and in-situ doped.
US09093565B2
A fin diode structure and method of manufacturing the same is provided in present invention, which the structure includes a substrate, a doped well formed in the substrate, a plurality of fins of first conductivity type and a plurality of fins of second conductivity type protruding from the doped well, and a doped region of first conductivity type formed globally in the substrate between the fins of first conductivity type, the fins of second conductivity type, the shallow trench isolation and the doped well and connecting with the fins of first doped type and the fins of second doped type.
US09093563B2
An improved electronic module assembly and method of fabrication is disclosed. A patterned array of adhesive is deposited on a laminate, to which a chip is attached. Each region of adhesive is referred to as a lid tie. A lid is placed on the laminate, and is in contact with the lid ties. The lid ties serve to add stability to the laminate and reduce flexing during thermal processing and mechanical stress.
US09093550B1
Semiconductor manufacturing processes include forming conventional channel field effect transistors (FETs) and deeply depleted channel (DDC) FETs on the same substrate and selectively forming a plurality of gate stack types where those different gate stack types are assigned to and formed in connection with one or more of a conventional channel NFET, a conventional channel PFET, a DDC-NFET, and a DDC-PFET in accordance a with a predetermined pattern.
US09093546B2
An object is to provide a semiconductor device having improved reliability by preventing, in forming a nonvolatile memory and MOSFETS on the same substrate, an increase in the size of grains in a gate electrode. The object can be achieved by forming the control gate electrode of the nonvolatile memory and the gate electrodes of the other MOSFETs from films of the same layer, respectively, and configuring each of the control gate electrode and the gate electrodes from a stack of two polysilicon film layers.
US09093543B2
To improve switching characteristics of a transistor in which a channel is formed in an oxide semiconductor layer. A parasitic channel is formed at an end portion of the oxide semiconductor layer because a source and a drain of the transistor are electrically connected to the end portion. That is, when at least one of the source and the drain of the transistor is not electrically connected to the end portion, the parasitic channel is not formed at the end portion. In view of this, a transistor having a structure in which at least one of a source and a drain of the transistor is not or less likely to be electrically connected to an end portion of an oxide semiconductor layer is provided.
US09093537B2
A display device and method for manufacturing the same are discussed. The display device according to an embodiment includes a substrate, a gate metal line disposed on the substrate, a gate insulating film configured to insulate the gate metal line, a data metal line disposed on the gate insulating film, and a protection film disposed at an area where the gate metal line and the data metal line overlap each other between the gate metal line and the data metal line.
US09093536B2
A thin film transistor substrate includes a substrate, a gate electrode disposed on the substrate, a gate insulation layer disposed on the gate electrode, an oxide semiconductor pattern disposed on the gate insulation layer, where the oxide semiconductor pattern includes a first area whose carrier concentration is in a range of about 1017 per cubic centimeter to about 1019 per cubic centimeter and a second area whose carrier concentration is less than the carrier concentration of the first area, an etch stopper disposed on the oxide semiconductor pattern, where the etch stopper covers the first area and the second area of the oxide semiconductor pattern, a signal electrode partially overlapping the etch stopper and the second area, and a passivation layer which covers the etch stopper and the signal electrode.
US09093534B2
An array of stacks containing a semiconductor fins and an oxygen-impermeable cap is formed on a semiconductor substrate with a substantially uniform areal density. Oxygen-impermeable spacers are formed around each stack, and the semiconductor substrate is etched to vertically extend trenches. Semiconductor sidewalls are physically exposed from underneath the oxygen-impermeable spacers. The oxygen-impermeable spacers are removed in regions in which semiconductor fins are not needed. A dielectric oxide material is deposited to fill the trenches. Oxidation is performed to convert a top portion of the semiconductor substrate and semiconductor fins not protected by oxygen-impermeable spacers into dielectric material portions. Upon removal of the oxygen-impermeable caps and remaining oxygen-impermeable spacers, an array including semiconductor fins and dielectric fins is provided. The dielectric fins alleviate variations in the local density of protruding structures, thereby reducing topographical variations in the height of gate level structures to be subsequently formed.
US09093533B2
Silicon and silicon germanium fins are formed on a semiconductor wafer or other substrate in a manner that facilitates production of closely spaced nFET and pFET devices. A patterned mandrel layer is employed for forming one or more recesses in the wafer prior to the epitaxial growth of a silicon germanium layer that fills the recess. Spacers are formed on the side walls of the patterned mandrel layer followed by removal of the mandrel layer. The exposed areas of the wafer and silicon germanium layer between the spacers are etched to form fins usable for nFET devices from the wafer and fins usable for pFET devices from the silicon germanium layer.
US09093532B2
A semiconductor structure that includes a semiconductor fin comprising an III-V compound semiconductor material. A functional gate structure straddles a portion of the semiconductor fin. A semiconductor channel material having an electron mobility greater than silicon and comprising a different semiconductor material than the semiconductor fin and is located beneath the functional gate structure. The semiconductor channel material is present on at least each vertical sidewall of the semiconductor fin. A dielectric spacer is located on each vertical sidewall surface of the functional gate structure. A doped semiconductor is located on each side of the functional gate structure and underneath each dielectric spacer. A portion of the doped semiconductor material located beneath each dielectric spacer directly contacts a sidewall surface of semiconductor channel material located on each vertical sidewall of the semiconductor fin.
US09093530B2
A fin structure disposed over a substrate and a method of forming a fin structure are disclosed. The fin structure includes a mesa, a channel disposed over the mesa, and a convex-shaped feature disposed between the channel and the mesa. The mesa has a first semiconductor material, and the channel has a second semiconductor material different from the first semiconductor material. The convex-shaped feature is stepped-shaped, stair-shaped, or ladder-shaped. The convex-shaped feature includes a first isolation feature disposed between the channel and the mesa, and a second isolation feature disposed between the channel and the first isolation feature. The first isolation feature is U-shaped, and the second isolation feature is rectangular-shaped. A portion of the second isolation feature is surrounded by the channel and another portion of the second isolation feature is surrounded by the first isolation feature.
US09093523B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor device includes a switching element and a diode provided on a substrate. The switching element includes a first semiconductor layer, a drain region, a source region, a channel region, a gate insulating film, and a gate electrode. The diode includes a second semiconductor layer, an anode region, and a cathode region.
US09093517B2
A radiation-hardened transistor is formed in a p-type body. An active region is disposed within the p-type body and has a perimeter defined by a shallow-trench isolation region filled with a dielectric material. Spaced-apart source and drain regions are disposed in the active region, forming a channel therebetween. A polysilicon gate is disposed above, aligned with, and insulated from the channel region. A p-type isolation ring is disposed in the p-type body separating outer edges of at least one of the source and drain regions from the perimeter of the active region. A body contact is disposed in the p-type isolation ring.
US09093515B2
A method for bonding a wire to a substrate includes forming a wire ball at a working tip of a capillary and contacting the wire ball to a substrate via the capillary. The method also includes driving a protrusion at the working tip of the capillary into contact with a region of the substrate surrounding the wire ball. A capillary for wire bonding includes a working face, an annular chamfer section, and a cylindrical bore offsetting the annular chamfer section from the working face. A capillary for wire bonding includes a capillary body comprising a working tip having a working face. The capillary body defines an axial passage extending from the working face along a longitudinal axis of the capillary. The axial passage includes a cylindrical bore extending internally from the working face, and a first annular chamfer having a major diameter defined by the cylindrical bore.
US09093506B2
Systems, apparatuses, and methods related to the design, fabrication, and manufacture of gallium arsenide (GaAs) integrated circuits are disclosed. Copper can be used as the contact material for a GaAs integrated circuit. Metallization of the wafer and through-wafer vias can be achieved through copper plating processes disclosed herein. Various protocols can be employed during processing to avoid cross-contamination between copper-plated and non-copper-plated wafers. GaAs integrated circuits can be singulated, packaged, and incorporated into various electronic devices.
US09093500B2
A bowing control pattern is formed on an intermediate layer. A hardmask pattern is formed on the bowing control layer. The hardmask pattern has a first opening, and the bowing control pattern has a second opening. A third opening passes through the intermediate layer and is connected to the second opening. The bowing control pattern includes first and second edges on a lower end of the second opening, and a third edge on an upper end of the second opening. When a first point on the first edge, a second point on the second edge, and a third point on a horizontal line passing through the third edge are defined, an intersecting angle between a first side from the first point to the second point, and a second side from the second point to the third point is from about 50° to about 80°.
US09093493B2
A wide bandgap insulated gate semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate made of semiconductor having a bandgap wider than silicon; n− drift layer over the semiconductor substrate; p-channel regions selectively disposed over the drift layer; n+ semiconductor regions selectively disposed in respective surfaces in the channel regions; a plurality of p+ base regions in contact with bottoms of the respective channel regions; a protruding drift layer portion that is n-type region interposed between the p-channel regions and the p+ base regions thereunder; a gate electrode formed, through a gate insulating film, on the protruding drift layer portion and on respective surfaces of the p-channel regions; a source electrode in contact with the n+ semiconductor regions in the channel regions; and a p+ floating region inside the protruding drift layer portion, having side faces respectively facing side faces of the second conductivity type base regions, wherein respective gaps between the p+ base regions and the p+ floating region defined by the respective side faces have a wide portion and a narrow portion.
US09093485B2
By a transport robot having a hand provided with stationary clamp members and a movable clamp member which pinches a to-be-transported object S between the movable clamp member and the stationary clamp members, after transporting the to-be-transported object-S in a horizontal posture to a transport destination, the hand is lowered in a state in which the movable clamp member is receded to an unclamped position, thereby transferring the to-be-transported object onto a plurality of supporting pins which are disposed at the transport destination. In the method mentioned above, an arrangement is made that, even if the stationary clamp members give rise to dents due to wear, the to-be-transported object is arranged to be transferred onto the supporting pins without problems.
US09093482B2
In an apparatus and process for treating wafer-shaped articles, a spin chuck holds a wafer-shaped article in a predetermined orientation relative to an upper surface of the spin chuck. A heating assembly comprises a housing containing at least one infrared heating element. The heating assembly is mounted above the upper surface of the spin chuck and adjacent a wafer-shaped article when mounted on the spin chuck. The housing also contains a conduit having an inlet connected to a source of cooling fluid and an outlet returning cooling fluid to the source of cooling fluid.
US09093470B1
Producing a vertical transistor includes providing a conductive gate structure having a reentrant profile on a substrate. A conformal dielectric material layer is formed on the conductive gate structure. A conformal semiconductor material layer is formed on the dielectric material layer, over the conductive gate structure. An electrode is formed located over the conductive gate structure and in contact with a first portion of the semiconductor layer and another electrode is formed vertically separated from the electrode and located in contact with a second portion of the semiconductor layer by printing an inhibitor that wicks along the reentrant profile of the conductive gate structure and depositing a conductive inorganic thin film using an atomic layer deposition process where the inhibitor is absent to form a channel in the semiconductor layer along the reentrant profile between the electrodes by inhibiting deposition of conductive material between the electrodes with the wicked inhibitor.
US09093468B2
The embodiments of mechanisms for forming source/drain (S/D) regions of field effect transistors (FETs) described uses Cl2 as an etchant during the epitaxial formation of the S/D regions. The mechanisms involve using an asymmetric cyclic deposition and etch (ACDE) process that forms a preparation layer enable epitaxial growth of the following epitaxial layer with transistor dopants. The mechanisms also involve soaking the surface of substrate with dopant-containing precursors to enable sufficient incorporation of transistor dopants during the epitaxial growth of the S/D regions. By using Cl2 as etchants, the mechanisms also enables high throughput of the epitaxial growth of the S/D regions.
US09093467B1
One method and device disclosed includes, among other things, forming a recessed sacrificial gate electrode having a recessed upper surface, performing at least one second etching process to define recessed sidewall spacers positioned adjacent the recessed sacrificial gate electrode, forming a plurality of sidewall spacers within a gate opening above the recessed sidewall spacers, wherein one of the spacers comprises a low-k insulating material that is positioned laterally between two other spacers and a gate cap layer, removing the recessed sacrificial gate electrode and forming a replacement gate structure in its place.
US09093454B2
In a method of forming a semiconductor device, a feature layer is provided on a substrate and a mask layer is provided on the feature layer. A portion of the mask layer is removed in a first region of the semiconductor device where fine features of the feature layer are to be located, the mask layer remaining in a second region of the semiconductor device where broad features of the feature layer are to be located. A mold mask pattern is provided on the feature layer in the first region and on the mask layer in the second region. A spacer layer is provided on the mold mask pattern in the first region and in the second region. An etching process is performed to etch the spacer layer so that spacers remain at sidewalls of pattern features of the mold mask pattern, and to etch the mask layer in the second region to provide mask layer patterns in the second region. The feature layer is etched using the mask layer patterns as an etch mask in the second region and using the spacers as an etch mask in the first region to provide a feature layer pattern having fine features in the first region and broad features in the second region.
US09093450B2
A chip package includes a substrate having an upper and a lower surface and including: at least a first contact pad; a non-optical sensor chip disposed overlying the upper surface, wherein the non-optical sensor chip includes at least a second contact pad and has a first length; a protective cap disposed overlying the non-optical sensor chip, wherein the protective cap has a second length, an extending direction of the second length is substantially parallel to that of the first length, and the second length is shorter than the first length; an IC chip disposed overlying the protective cap, wherein the IC chip includes at least a third contact pad and has a third length, and an extending direction of the third length is substantially parallel to that of the first length; and bonding wires forming electrical connections between the substrate, the non-optical sensor chip, and the IC chip.
US09093438B2
A method of assembling a semiconductor device includes providing a substrate having an array of substrate elements linked by substrate corner elements and separated by slots extending between the corner elements. Semiconductor dies are positioned on the substrate elements. A cap, frame and contact structure is provided that has a corresponding array of caps supported by corner legs linking the caps to frame corner elements, frame elements linking the frame corner elements, and sets of electrical contact elements supported by the frame elements. The cap, frame and contact structure is fitted on the substrate with the caps extending over corresponding dies, the frame corner elements extending over the substrate corner elements, and the sets of electrical contact elements disposed in the slots. The dies are connected electrically with the electrical contact elements and the assembly is encapsulated and singulated. Singulating removes the frame elements.
US09093435B2
A method of making a microelectronic package includes forming a dielectric encapsulation layer on an in-process unit having a substrate having a first surface and a second surface remote therefrom. A microelectronic element is mounted to the first surface of the substrate, and a plurality of conductive elements exposed at the first surface, at least some of which are electrically connected to the microelectronic element. Wire bonds have bases joined to the conductive elements and end surfaces remote from the bases and define an edge surface extending away between the base and the end surface. The encapsulation layer is formed to at least partially cover the first surface and portions of the wire bonds with unencapsulated portions of the wire bonds being defined by at least one of the end surface or a portion of the edge surface that is uncovered thereby.
US09093430B2
A semiconductor device includes a first layer including a number of first layer metal pads, a second layer formed on top of the first layer, the second layer including a number of second layer metal pads, and vias connecting the first layer metal pads to the second layer metal pads. A surface area overlap between the first layer metal pads and the second layer metal pads is below a defined threshold.
US09093429B2
A semiconductor device comprising a substrate, a power bus, a heat source circuit, a heat sensitive circuit, and a plurality of electrically and thermally conductive through-silicon-vias (TSVs) in the substrate. The TSVs are electrically coupled to the power bus and positioned between the heat source circuit and the heat sensitive circuit to absorb heat from the heat source circuit.
US09093426B2
A semi-conductor electronic device for mounting in a pressed stack assembly. The device comprises a box comprising a lower plate, an upper plate and a lateral wall mechanically connecting the lower plate to the upper plate, the lower and upper plates being electrically conductive, several semi-conductor components, each component comprising a first electrode and a second electrode, the first electrodes being electrically connected to the lower plate and the second electrodes being electrically connected to the upper plate, and elastic parts positioned between the components and a supporting plate chosen from the lower plate and the upper plate. The device comprises, in addition, an intermediate sealing wall positioned inside the box, between the components and the elastic parts, the intermediate sealing wall electrically connecting the components, the intermediate sealing wall being adapted to separate the components from an electrically insulating cooling liquid, adapted to circulate around the elastic parts, between the intermediate sealing wall and the supporting plate.
US09093424B2
The embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the fabrication of integrated circuits, and more particularly to a structure and method for fabricating more particularly to a structure and method for fabricating silicides with different compositions and/or thicknesses on a single structure having more than one type of device using laser annealing. A method is disclosed that includes using a photoresist compatible with a laser annealing process to protect a region of a semiconductor substrate from silicide formation.
US09093413B2
Under one aspect, a circuit for heating a battery includes the battery including a parasitic damping component and a parasitic current storage component, a switch unit, a switching control component coupled to the switch unit, and a charge storage component. The charge storage and current storage components are at least parts of an energy storage circuit. The damping component, the current storage component, the switch unit, and the charge storage component are connected to form at least a part of a loop. The switching control component is configured to turn on and off the switch unit so as to control a current flowing from the battery to the charge storage component and flowing from the charge storage component to the battery. The circuit for heating the battery is configured to heat the battery by at least discharging and charging the battery.
US09093410B2
A display apparatus includes a base substrate, a data line, and a pixel. The data line is disposed on the base substrate to transmit a data signal and has a multi-layer structure including at least three conductive layers stacked one on another. The data line includes a lower conductive layer, an intermediate conductive layer, and an upper conductive layer. The lower conductive layer is disposed on the base substrate, the intermediate conductive layer is disposed on the lower conductive layer and includes copper and aluminum, and the upper conductive layer is disposed on the intermediate conductive layer and includes copper. The pixel is driven in response to the data signal from the data line.
US09093404B2
The light-emitting device includes a first lower electrode, a second lower electrode, a partition, a layer with high conductivity, light-emitting layers, and an upper electrode. The conductivity of the layer with high conductivity is higher than the conductivity of each of the light-emitting layers and lower than the conductivity of each of the lower electrodes and the upper electrode. The partition includes a first slope located on a first lower electrode side and a second slope located on a second lower electrode side. The thickness of the layer with high conductivity located over the first slope in a direction perpendicular to the first slope is different from the thickness of the layer with high conductivity located over the second slope in a direction perpendicular to the second slope.
US09093403B2
An organic light-emitting display apparatus includes a first substrate. Pixels are formed on the first substrate. The pixels have a light-emitting region and a non-light-emitting region. A second substrate faces the first substrate. A reflective member is disposed on the second substrate. The reflective member includes openings corresponding to the light-emitting regions of the pixels and reflective portions corresponding to the non-light-emitting regions of the pixels. Each pixel includes a first electrode in the light-emitting region, a second electrode facing the first electrode, an organic layer between the first electrode and second electrode, and a pixel-defining layer covering edges of the first electrode. The pixel-defining layer is formed in the non-light-emitting region, and has a sidewall slope that provides an external light reflection path that is similar to that of the light-emitting region.
US09093402B2
A manufacturing method of an active matrix light emitting device in which the active matrix light emitting device can be manufactured in a shorter time with high yield at low cost compared with conventional ones will be provided. It is a feature of the present invention that a layered structure is employed for a metal electrode which is formed in contact with or is electrically connected to a semiconductor layer of each TFT arranged in a pixel area of an active matrix light emitting device. Further, the metal electrode is partially etched and used as a first electrode of a light emitting element. A buffer layer, a layer containing an organic compound, and a second electrode layer are stacked over the first electrode.
US09093398B2
A brightness enhanced self-luminous type display including a self-luminous display panel and a brightness enhancement stacked layer is provided. The self-luminous display panel includes pixels arranged in array, wherein each pixel includes light-emitting sub-pixels displaying different colors. The brightness enhancement stacked layer is disposed on the self-luminous display panel. The brightness enhancement stacked layer includes an absorptive polarizer layer, a phase retardation layer and a reflective polarizer layer. The reflective polarizer layer is between the self-luminous display panel and the phase retardation layer. The phase retardation layer is between the absorptive polarizer layer and the reflective polarizer layer. The reflective polarizer layer includes reflective polarizer blocks arranged in array. Each reflective polarizer block is disposed over one of the light-emitting sub-pixels correspondingly, and a wavelength of maximum intensity of each light-emitting sub-pixel is respectively within a wavelength band of light effectively reflected and polarized by the corresponding reflective polarizer block.
US09093394B1
A semiconductor device comprises one or more transistors and two or more layers of dielectric material encapsulating a front side of said one or more transistors. The gate of each of said one or more transistors is located within a cavity, or air-box, in at least one of the dielectric layers, so that the gate terminal is physically separated from said dielectric material. Such an arrangement may reduce parasitic capacitance. In another arrangement, a semiconductor device comprises one or more gallium nitride high electron mobility transistors and one or more dielectric layers encapsulating a front side of said one or more transistors, wherein the gate terminal of each of said one or more transistors is located within a cavity in at least one of the one or more dielectric layers, separated from said dielectric material.
US09093384B2
A substrate capable of achieving a lowered probability of defects produced in a step of forming an epitaxial film or a semiconductor element, a semiconductor device including the substrate, and a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device are provided. A substrate is a substrate having a front surface and a back surface, in which at least a part of the front surface is composed of single crystal silicon carbide, the substrate having an average value of surface roughness Ra at the front surface not greater than 0.5 nm, a standard deviation σ of that surface roughness Ra not greater than 0.2 nm, an average value of surface roughness Ra at the back surface not smaller than 0.3 nm and not greater than 10 nm, standard deviation σ of that surface roughness Ra not greater than 3 nm, and a diameter D of the front surface not smaller than 110 mm.
US09093379B2
A silicidation blocking process is provided. In one aspect, a silicidation method is provided. The method includes the following steps. A wafer is provided having a semiconductor layer over an oxide layer. An organic planarizing layer (OPL)-blocking structure is formed on one or more regions of the semiconductor layer which will block the one or more regions of the semiconductor layer from silicidation. At least one silicide metal is deposited on the wafer. The wafer is annealed to react the at least one silicide metal with one or more exposed regions of the semiconductor layer. Unreacted silicide metal is removed. Any remaining portions of the OPL-blocking structure are removed.
US09093378B2
To fabricate patterns of a semiconductor device, a mask film is formed on a substrate. A plurality of first patterns and a plurality of second patterns are formed on the mask film. The plurality of first patterns is spaced apart from each other at a first distance. The plurality of second patterns is spaced apart from each other at a second distance. The second distance is different from the first distance. A spacer film is conformally formed on the plurality of first patterns and the plurality of second patterns to a predetermined thickness. The spacer film fills spaces between the plurality of second patterns. A part of the spacer film is partially removed to form a plurality of spacer film patterns are formed on side walls of the plurality of the first patterns. The plurality of first patterns and the plurality of second patterns are removed. A plurality of patterns is formed on the substrate using the plurality of spacer film as a mask.
US09093377B2
A system for self-aligning diamagnetic materials includes first and second magnets contacting each other along a contact line and having a diametric magnetization perpendicular to the contact line and a diamagnetic rod positioned to levitate above the contact line of the first and second magnets.
US09093350B2
A member for a solid-state image pickup device having a bonding plane with no gaps and a method for manufacturing the same are provided. The manufacturing method includes the steps of providing a first substrate provided with a photoelectric converter on its primary face and a first wiring structure, providing a second substrate provided with a part of a peripheral circuit on its primary face and a second wiring structure, and performing bonding so that the first substrate, the first wiring structure, the second wiring structure, and the second substrate are disposed in this order. In addition, at least one of an upper face of the first wiring structure and an upper face of the second wiring structure has a concave portion, and a conductive material forms a bottom face of the concave portion.
US09093343B2
The present invention discloses an image sensor device and a method for making an image sensor device. The image sensor device includes an optical pixel and an electronic circuit. The optical pixel includes: a substrate; an image sensor area formed in the substrate; a masking layer formed above the image sensor area, wherein the masking layer is formed during a process for forming the electronic circuit; and a light passage above the masking layer for increasing light sensing ability of the image sensor area.
US09093340B2
A solid-state imaging apparatus includes: a read out circuit configured to convert the analog signal generated by a pixel into a digital signal. The read out circuit includes an analog circuit, a digital circuit and a logic circuit arranged between the analog circuit and the digital circuit. The analog circuit is formed within first and second semiconductor regions of first and second conductivity type. The logic circuit is formed within third and fourth semiconductor regions of the first and second conductivity types. The digital circuit is formed within a fifth and sixth semiconductor regions of the first and second conductivity types. The first to sixth semiconductor regions are isolated one from another. And, a number of elements included in the logic circuit is smaller than a number of elements included in the digital circuit.
US09093338B2
A semiconductor device includes: a first semiconductor chip held on a substrate and including an expanded portion expanding outward from a side surface of a body of the first semiconductor chip; a first wire connecting the expanded portion of the first semiconductor chip to the substrate; and a second wire connecting the body of the first semiconductor chip to the substrate.
US09093334B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor chip, wiring that is included in the semiconductor chip and has a coupling part between parts with different widths, a pad being formed above the wiring and in a position overlapping the coupling part, a bump being formed on the pad, a buffer layer being formed in a position between the coupling part and the pad so as to cover the entire coupling part, and inorganic insulating layers being formed between the wiring and the buffer layer and between the buffer layer and the pad, respectively. The buffer layer is made of a material other than resin and softer than the inorganic insulating layer.
US09093316B2
A semiconductor device includes: diffusion layers formed at the front surface of a substrate; low-resistance parts formed at the front surfaces of the diffusion layers so as to have resistance lower than the diffusion layer; and rear contact electrodes passing through the substrate from the rear surface of the substrate to be connected to the low-resistance parts through the diffusion layers.
US09093310B2
A semiconductor device including a semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type in a cell region, a first base layer of a second conductivity type on the semiconductor layer in the cell region; a second base layer of the second conductivity type on the semiconductor layer in an intermediate region; a conductive region of a first conductivity type in the first base layer; a gate electrode on a channel region placed between the conductive region and the semiconductor layer; a first electrode connected to the first and second base layers; a second electrode connected to the semiconductor layer; and a gate pad on the semiconductor layer via an insulating film in a pad region and connected to the gate electrode, an impurity concentration gradation in the gate pad side of the second base layer has a gentler VLD structure than an impurity concentration gradation in the first base layer.
US09093302B2
One method disclosed includes performing a selective etching process through a gate cavity to selectively remove a portion of a first semiconductor material relative to a second layer of a second semiconductor material and a substrate so as to thereby define a space between the second semiconducting material and the substrate, filling substantially all of the space with an insulating material so as to thereby define a substantially self-aligned channel isolation region positioned under at least what will become the channel region of the FinFET device.
US09093301B2
A semiconductor device includes a depletion mode GaN FET and an integrated driver/cascode IC. The integrated driver/cascode IC includes an enhancement mode cascoded NMOS transistor which is connected in series to a source node of the GaN FET. The integrated driver/cascode IC further includes a driver circuit which conditions a gate input signal and provides a suitable digital waveform to a gate node of the cascoded NMOS transistor. The cascoded NMOS transistor and the driver circuit are formed on a same silicon substrate.
US09093298B2
An integrated circuit includes a PMOS gate structure and a gate structure on adjacent field oxide. An epitaxy hard mask is formed over the gate structure on the field oxide so that the epitaxy hard mask overlaps the semiconductor material in PMOS source/drain region. SiGe semiconductor material is epitaxially formed in the source/drain regions, so that that a top edge of the SiGe semiconductor material at the field oxide does not extend more than one third of a depth of the SiGe in the source/drain region abutting the field oxide. Dielectric spacers on lateral surfaces of the gate structure on the field oxide extend onto the SiGe; at least one third of the SiGe is exposed. Metal silicide covers at least one third of a top surface of the SiGe. A contact has at least half of a bottom of the contact directly contacts the metal silicide on the SiGe.
US09093290B2
A method for forming nanostructures includes bonding a flexible substrate to a crystalline semiconductor layer having a two-dimensional material formed on a side opposite the flexible substrate. The crystalline semiconductor layer is stressed in a first direction to initiate first cracks in the crystalline semiconductor layer. The first cracks are propagated through the crystalline semiconductor layer and through the two-dimensional material. The stress of the crystalline semiconductor layer is released to provide parallel structures including the two-dimensional material on the crystalline semiconductor layer.
US09093289B2
A method for assembling a device on two substantially parallel taut threads. The device includes an electronic chip and two substantially parallel grooves open on opposite sides of the device. The distance separating the grooves corresponds to the distance separating the threads. The device presents a penetrating shape along an axis perpendicular to the plane of the grooves, having a base at the level of the grooves and an apex of smaller size than the distance separating the threads. The method includes the steps consisting in placing the apex of the device between the two threads; in moving the device between the two threads resulting in the threads being separated from one another by the penetrating shape of the device; and in continuing movement of the device until the threads penetrate into the grooves reverting to their initial separation distance.
US09093287B2
A method of manufacturing a diode is provided. An N-type well region is formed in a first upper portion of an N-type epitaxial layer. A P-type drift region is formed in a second upper portion of the N-type epitaxial layer. An N-type doping region is formed in the N-type well region. A P-type doping region is formed in the P-type drift region. An isolation structure is formed in the P-type drift region. The isolation structure is disposed between the P-type doping region and the N-type well region. A first electrode is formed on a portion of the N-type epitaxial layer. The portion of the N-type epitaxial layer is disposed between the N-type well region and the P-type drift region. The first electrode overlaps a portion of the isolation structure. A connection structure is formed to electrically couple the N-type doping region and the first electrode.
US09093282B2
An electronic component mounting device having high productivity while enhancing the electromagnetic shielding effect, and a method for manufacturing the same, including a housing formed by a conductive metal material and electronic components to be mounted inside the housing. The housing is configured by a first box body and a second box body fixed so that respective openings face each other and has a conductive layer stacked through an insulating layer arranged on an outer side of the first box body. The first box body includes a through-hole for retrieving a conductive wire connected to the electronic component to the conductive layer, and the through-hole is arranged at a position covered by the conductive layer.
US09093274B2
According to one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device. The method includes introducing an inert gas and a material gas into a predetermined space, applying a voltage to generate plasma in the space after introducing the inert gas and the material gas so as to form a semiconductor layer on a substrate, introducing an oxidation-reduction gas in the predetermined space after the voltage is applied, and stopping the introduction of the material gas, the inert gas, and the oxidation-reduction gas after the voltage is applied.
US09093269B2
Methods for low temperature cleaning of a semiconductor surface prior to in-situ deposition have high throughput and consume very little of the thermal budget. GeH4 deposits Ge on the surface and converts any surface oxygen to GeOx. An etchant, such as Cl2 or HCl removes Ge and any GeOx and epitaxial deposition follows. A spike in Ge concentration can be left on the substrate from diffusion into the substrate. All three steps can be conducted sequentially in-situ at temperatures lower than conventional bake steps.
US09093264B2
Described are apparatus and methods for forming silicon interfacial layers on germanium or III-V materials. Such silicon layers may be deposited by atomic layer deposition at specific temperatures to avoid interdiffusion of silicon and the germanium or III-V material.
US09093253B2
Mass spectrometers and methods for measuring information about samples using mass spectrometry are disclosed.
US09093247B2
An x-ray tube includes a casing having a cathode and an anode enclosed therein, and a separator attached to an inner wall of the casing and having a conductance limiter therein, the separator positioned to separate the anode from the cathode.
US09093245B2
An electron source for an X-ray scanner includes an emitter support block, an electron-emitting region formed on the support block and arranged to emit electrons, an electrical connector arranged to connect a source of electric current to the electron-emitting region, and heating structure arranged to heat the support block.
US09093241B1
An apparatus comprising a spring-biased translatable member extending through a collar; a gripping unit including a platform member attached to the translatable member, the platform member configured to receive an adhesive member; and a capture cone attached to an upper portion of the collar. In one version, the gripping unit includes an adhesive member configured to fit into a recessed area of the platform member. The adhesive member has a “tacky” surface for gripping and controlling a light bulb during removal and installation.
US09093240B2
A method, system, and computer program product for detecting and interrupting a ground fault in a direct current (DC) power circuit are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A first value of a first current flow over a first part of the DC power circuit is compared with a second value of a second current flow over a second part of the DC power circuit. A voltage is generated, wherein the voltage is proportional to a difference between the first and the second values. Responsive to the voltage exceeding the threshold voltage for a threshold time, a signal output is produced, the signal configured to cause a short-circuit in the first part of the DC power circuit. The first part of the DC power circuit is interrupted responsive to the short-circuit.
US09093236B2
An illuminated keyboard comprises a fixing sheet, a membrane switch circuit module, a supporting plate, a light guide plate, a sensing circuit, a sensing chip, a light-emitting element, and an illumination circuit board. The sensing circuit is formed on the fixing sheet or the membrane switch circuit module. The sensing chip and the light-emitting element are disposed on the illumination circuit board. In addition, the sensing chip is accommodated within corresponding openings of the fixing sheet, the membrane switch circuit module, the supporting plate and the light guide plate. The illuminated keyboard uses the sensing circuit and the sensing chip to sense the presence of an object. Since the illuminated keyboard does not need an additional space to accommodate the sensing circuit and the sensing chip, the illuminated keyboard can meet the requirement of slimness.
US09093231B2
The present invention provides a switch having a small longitudinal size of movable contacts and reduced size. The switch includes a base, a pair of fixing terminals standing on an upper surface of the base, an insulating wall section integrated with at least one of the fixing terminals, a push button arranged to be upward and downward movable in the axial direction, and a slider movable upward and downward with the push button. The slider has elastic arm sections in both ends thereof, the elastic arm sections being provided with movable contact portions to be brought into sliding contact with the fixing terminals or the insulating wall section while pressing the fixing terminals or the insulating wall section from one side The switch is configured to enable the movable contact portions to connect to and separate from the fixing terminals based on operation of the push button upward and downward.
US09093224B2
Disclosed herein is an electrode structure for an energy storage device, the electrode structure including a current collector and an active material layer formed on the current collector, the active material layer including a carbon material and metal particles formed on the carbon material.
US09093215B2
This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus for transferring power wirelessly via a wireless power transmitter. In one aspect, the transmitter comprises a first circuit configured to generate a first signal, where the first circuit includes a first inductor. The transmitter further comprises a second circuit configured to generate a second signal out of phase with the first signal. The second circuit includes a second inductor inductively coupled with the first inductor. The first inductor and the second inductor may have a leakage inductance of at least a minimum value so as to not produce a substantially square waveform at an output of the first circuit and an output of the second circuit. The transmitter further comprises a filter circuit configured to filter the first signal and the second signal.
US09093212B1
A core apparatus for a magnetic component includes first and second E-cores stacked with legs extending in the same direction. The first E-core includes a middle first core leg having a middle first core leg length, and the second E-core includes a middle second core leg having a middle second core leg length greater than the middle first core leg length such that a step is formed between the distal ends of the middle legs of the first and second E-cores. A third E-core may be positioned opposite the stacked first and second E-cores forming a stepped air gap between the middle first and second core legs and the middle third core leg.
US09093209B2
The invention relates to a magnet structure for a superconducting isochronous cyclotron for use in particle therapy. The cyclotron according to the invention is using two sets of three or more superconducting sector coil elements for generating an azimuthally varying magnetic field across the acceleration region. In this way, high-field (e.g. above 4 T) isochronous cyclotrons are provided which do not suffer the problem of a low flutter amplitude.
US09093204B2
Disclosed herein is an electrical component comprising a segment having a diameter in the range of about 1 micrometers to about 10 cm, the segment comprising a plurality of non-metallic, resistive fibers in a non-metallic binder. The segment is precisely trimmed to impart to the segment an electrical resistance within 1% of the desired resistance value. A manufacturing system and methods of manufacturing components having precise specifications also are disclosed.
US09093200B2
A superconducting cable and connection structure includes one or more superconducting cables. Each cable has superconducting tapes wound about a former in a plurality of phases. Superconducting tapes of a first phase extends further toward a distal end of each cable end than the superconducting tapes of the second phase. The first and second cable ends of one superconducting cable (or a first end of a first superconducting cable and a second end of a second superconducting cable) are arranged with the first phase of the second cable end electronically coupled to the second phase of the first cable end. Connector structures may couple the cable ends together. The cable(s) form one or more loops within a cryostat, to form a degaussing coil.
US09093194B2
An insulated composite power cable having a wire core defining a common longitudinal axis, a multiplicity of composite wires around the wire core, and an insulative sheath surrounding the composite wires. In some embodiments, a first multiplicity of composite wires is helically stranded around the wire core in a first lay direction at a first lay angle defined relative to a center longitudinal axis over a first lay length, and a second multiplicity of composite wires is helically stranded around the first multiplicity of composite wires in the first lay direction at a second lay angle over a second lay length, the relative difference between the first lay angle and the second lay angle being no greater than about 4°. The insulated composite cables may be used for underground or underwater electrical power transmission. Methods of making and using the insulated composite cables are also described.
US09093191B2
A composite core for an electrical cable, the composite core defining a longitudinal axis that defines a center of the composite core, the core comprising a plurality of longitudinally extending reinforcing fibers embedded in a resin matrix, the fibers oriented substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis and a non-conductive insulating layer surrounding the plurality of longitudinally oriented fibers. The insulating layer may further comprise a plurality of glass fibers. The insulating layer may also comprise a type of resin, including for example, thermosetting resin or thermoplastic resin.
US09093185B2
A radioactive substance is effectively suppressed by an oxide-film removal step of removing an oxide film on a metallic material surface with which a coolant containing the radioactive substance comes in contact, and a titanium-oxide deposition step of depositing a titanium oxide on the metallic material surface after the oxide film has been removed.
US09093184B2
A spacecraft and spacesuit having a radiation shield are disclosed. The shield comprises a hydrogen-containing material encapsulated or bound in a polymer. The hydrogen-containing material has a higher hydrogen content than polyethylene. The hydrogen-containing material may be: encapsulated in a polymer container, sandwiched between layers of polymer, mixed with a polymer as binder, or held in the pores of a polymer foam. The hydrogen may be a hydride or borohydride such as beryllium borohydride, ammonium octahydrotriborate, lithium borohydride tetramethyl ammonium borohydride and beryllium hydride. Methods of manufacturing the shield are also disclosed.
US09093178B1
An integrated circuit may include a first programmable storage cell group suitable for storing program validity information, second to N-th programmable storage cell groups suitable for storing a plurality of data, wherein N is an integer equal to or more than 3, and a validity determination unit suitable for determining whether the program validity information read from the first programmable storage cell group is valid or not so that read operations for the second to Nth programmable storage cell groups is performed or skipped based on the determined result.
US09093175B2
Apparatus and methods for signal margin centering for single-ended eDRAM sense amplifier. A plurality of DRAM cells is connected to an input side of a multiplexer by a first bitline. A single-ended sense amplifier is connected to an output side of the multiplexer by a second bitline. The single-ended sense amplifier has a switch voltage. The second bitline is precharged to a selected voltage level. The multiplexer passes a signal voltage from a selected one of the plurality of DRAM cells to the second bitline. The selected voltage level is selected such that reception of the signal voltage of a first type adjusts a voltage of the second bitline in a first direction and reception of the signal voltage of a second type adjusts the voltage of the second bitline in a second direction opposite from the first direction, centering the signal voltage around the switch voltage.
US09093173B1
A semiconductor memory apparatus may include a refresh counting portion configured to count the number of times a refresh signal is received by the refresh counting portion, and configured to generate a smart refresh enable signal when the number of times the refresh signal is received by the refresh counting portion reaches a predetermined number and an address arithmetic portion configured to latch an address, and, when the smart refresh enable signal is enabled, configured to perform an arithmetic operation of addition and subtraction on the latched address and output a result of the arithmetic operation as an arithmetic address. The semiconductor memory apparatus may also include an address selection portion configured to output one of the arithmetic addresses and one of the addresses as a selection address in response to the smart refresh enable signal.
US09093169B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory apparatus includes a memory cell block, a plurality of page buffers, and a reference page buffer unit. The memory cell block includes a plurality of memory cell strings each of which includes a plurality of memory cells and a dummy memory cell string which includes a plurality of dummy memory cells. The page buffers sense data stored in the memory cells and apply the sensed data to an output node. The reference page buffer unit senses the dummy memory cells and adjusts the timing to apply the values sensed by the page buffers to the output node.
US09093167B2
A semiconductor memory includes a plurality of memory blocks each comprising a plurality of memory cells, and a plurality of charge pumps each located near one of the plurality of memory blocks. In an access to the semiconductor memory, depending on the selected memory block, a subset or all of the plurality of charge pumps are activated in one of a predetermined number of sequences.
US09093165B2
A nano-magnetic element array having a conductive line adjacent to a group of nano-magnetic elements and a multi-level current driver connected to an input node on the conductive line. The current driver is controlled by a pair of voltage clock signals and a voltage reference so as to selectively change the current amount at the input node between a first level that erases the state of the elements, a second level that switches the state of the elements and a third level that maintains the state of the elements. The current driver is further configured so that the transition from the second to the third level is gradual. Optionally, a bias generator can selectively adjust the voltage reference and thereby, the current amount at the input node. Also, optionally, the same voltage clock signal and voltage reference lines can be used to control multiple multi-level current drivers within the array.
US09093163B2
A method of operating a magnetoresistive device is described. The device comprises a ferromagnetic region configured to exhibit magnetic anisotropy and to allow magnetisation thereof to be switched between at least first and second orientations and a gate capacitively coupled to the ferromagnetic region. The method comprises applying an electric field pulse to the ferromagnetic region so as to cause orientation of magnetic anisotropy to change for switching magnetisation between the first and second orientations.
US09093161B2
An improved method and apparatus for programming advanced nanometer flash memory cells is disclosed.
US09093160B1
The embodiments described herein are used to execute staggered memory operations. The method includes, at each of a plurality of distinct memory portions of the storage device, establishing a non-zero command delay parameter distinct from a command delay parameter established for one or more of the other memory portions in the plurality of distinct memory portions. The method further includes, after establishing the non-zero command delay parameter in each of the plurality of distinct memory portions of the storage device, executing memory operations in two or more of the plurality of distinct memory portions of the storage device during overlapping time periods, the executing including, in each memory portion of the plurality of memory portions, delaying execution of a respective memory operation by an amount of time corresponding to the command delay parameter established for that memory portion.
US09093152B2
Apparatuses and methods are disclosed, including an apparatus with rows of vertical strings of memory cells coupled to a common source and multiple data lines associated with each row of vertical strings. Each data line associated with a row is coupled to at least one of the vertical strings in the row. Additional apparatuses and methods are described.
US09093151B2
A regular expression matcher system, including: a deterministic finite state machine (DFSM); a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) matcher to compare a word stored at the TCAM matcher to an input stream, wherein the word determines a state-to-state transition of the DFSM from a comparison result; a programmable logic connected to an output of the TCAM matcher to identify a next state in the DFSM based on the comparison result; a state register to update a current state of the DFSM to the next state; and a collection data structure coupled to the TCAM matcher and the programmable logic to store a sequence of required state transitions for the DFSM, wherein the programmable logic determines a next required state transition to be matched from the sequence.
US09093140B2
A semiconductor memory device includes: a plurality of word lines extending in a first direction; first to third bit lines extending in a second direction that intersects with the first direction; a plurality of variable resistance elements each having a first terminal connected to either one of the first and third bit lines; a plurality of active areas extending in a direction oblique to the first direction while intersecting with the first to third bit lines; a plurality of select transistors provided on the active areas and each having a gate connected to a corresponding one of the word lines, and a current path whose one end is connected to a second terminal of a corresponding one of the variable resistance elements; and a plurality of contact plugs each connecting the other end of the current path of a corresponding one of the select transistors to the second bit line, wherein each of the active areas includes two select transistors sharing a diffusion region, the variable resistance elements includes a first variable resistance element group and a second variable resistance element group, the first variable resistance element group including variable resistance elements aligned in the second direction below the first bit line, and each disposed between adjacent two of the word lines, the second variable resistance element group including variable resistance elements aligned in the second direction below the third bit line, and each disposed between adjacent two of the word lines, and the contact plugs are aligned in the second direction below the second bit line, and are each disposed between adjacent two of the word lines.
US09093133B2
A buffer for ordering out-of-order data includes a memory with a plurality of memory locations for temporarily storing data and a detection circuit configured for generating a control signal when the memory locations contain valid data. The detection circuit includes a first block configured for generating validity signals that identify the memory locations containing valid data and a search circuit configured for determining a search pointer as a function of the validity signals. In the case where each memory location contains valid data, the search pointer indicates the last memory location. In the case where at least one memory location is still free, the search pointer indicates the first memory location that is free.
US09093114B2
There is provided with a method of identifying a frequency response of a controlled object at a sampling period of control input in a multiplexed-input multirate system in which a sampling period of control output is even “P” multiples of the sampling period of control input wherein the control object is represented by FIR filter, an M-series signal corresponding to an acquisition data length Mp×P−1 is generated, the Mp indicates a period of the M-series signal, an impulse response value of the controlled object is estimated based on the M-series signal and output data outputted from the controlled object by inputting the M-series signal thereto, and the frequency response of the controlled object is identified by performing a discrete Fourier transform on the impulse response value.
US09093103B2
A mechanism is provided for a structure with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. A bottom oxide layer is disposed, and a magnetic layer is disposed adjacent to the bottom oxide layer. The magnetic layer includes iron and is magnetized perpendicularly to a plane of the magnetic layer. A top oxide layer is disposed adjacent to the magnetic layer.
US09093101B2
A stack including a crystallographic orientation interlayer, a magnetic zero layer disposed on the interlayer, and a magnetic recording layer disposed on the magnetic zero layer is disclosed. The magnetic zero layer is non-magnetic or has a saturation magnetic flux density (Bs) less than about 100 emu/cc. The magnetic zero layer and the magnetic layer include grains surrounded by a non-magnetic segregant. The magnetic zero layer provides a coherent interface between the interlayer and the magnetic layer with a lattice mismatch less than about 4%.
US09093096B2
Improved flaw scan circuits are provided for repeatable run out data. RRO (repeatable run out) data is processed by counting a number of RRO data bits detected in a servo sector; and setting an RRO flaw flag if at least a specified number of RRO data bits is not detected in the server sector. The RRO flaw flag can also optionally be set by detecting an RRO address mark in the servo sector; counting a number of samples in the servo sector after the RRO address mark that do not satisfy a quality threshold; and setting the RRO flaw flag when the counted number of samples that do not satisfy the quality threshold exceeds a specified flaw threshold. If the RRO flaw flag is set, the RRO data can be discarded, and/or an error recovery mechanism can be implemented to obtain the RRO data.
US09093094B2
Approaches to a rotary actuator assembly configured for use in a hard disk drive (HDD) include a voice coil interleaved between the pivot bearing and the actuator arm, providing a longer pivot-to-head dimension which reduces the radius of curvature of the arc in which the head slider travels over the disk for accessing portions of the disk. Reducing the arc radius of curvature reduces the maximum skew angles of the read-write head in association with the disk tracks. The width of the actuator arm can be widened to provide improved operating characteristics even in view of the longer pivot-to-head dimension.
US09093090B2
A suspension board with circuit includes a conductive pattern on a top surface thereof. A folded-back portion that is capable of being folded back toward a back surface side is provided therein. At the circumference edge of the folded-back portion, a part of the circumference edge is continuous to the suspension board with circuit around the folded-back portion via a bent portion and the remaining portion of the circumference edge is disposed apart from the suspension board with circuit around the folded-back portion by a penetrating space that penetrates the suspension board with circuit in a thickness direction. The conductive pattern at least includes a top-surface-side terminal that is disposed on the top surface of the suspension board with circuit and a back-surface-side terminal that is disposed in the folded-back portion.
US09093085B1
According to one embodiment, there is provided a magnetic disk device including a light source, a light irradiation element, and a controller. The light irradiation element is configured to receive light from the light source to irradiate light onto a magnetic disk. The controller is configured to switch between a first control and a second control according to a pulse width of data to be written onto the magnetic disk. The first control keeps an output of the light source at a first value. The second control makes the output of the light source change periodically between the first value and a second value lower than the first value.
US09093082B2
A data storage device comprises a substrate having oppositely disposed surfaces and a plurality of volumes arranged along tracks between the surfaces; a plurality of micro-holograms each contained in a corresponding one of the volumes; and, at least one groove in at least one of the surfaces and being operative to diffract light through the at least one surface and into the volumes; wherein, the presence or absence of a micro-hologram in a stacked layer in each of the volumes is indicative of a corresponding portion of data stored.
US09093079B2
A maximum-kurtosis, distortionless response (MKDR) technique and an extension, the maximum-kurtosis, Wiener estimate (MKWE) technique, are provided. In one form, blind estimates of the speech source's channel response are made from the microphone data and MVDR is applied. The source direction is estimated by finding weights that maximize output kurtosis, or the fourth central statistical moment, in the frequency domain. The MKWE approach approximates the Wiener filter by using MKDR-output noise power estimates to compute a Wiener post-filter. These approaches can be extended to block-adaptive versions if the speech source is not quickly moving in space.
US09093077B2
A reverberation suppression device includes an analyzer configured to analyze change over time in the power of an input signal obtained from a microphone in response to sound input, and thereby compute the decrease per unit time in the power of the input signal in a reverb segment following the end of a segment in which the sound is produced; and a suppression controller configured to control a suppression gain which indicates the rate at which the input signal is attenuated, on the basis of analysis results from the analyzer.
US09093075B2
A method is disclosed herein for recognizing a repeated utterance in a mobile computing device via a processor. A first utterance is detected being spoken into a first mobile computing device. Likewise, a second utterance is detected being spoken into a second mobile computing device within a predetermined time period. The second utterance substantially matches the first spoken utterance and the first and second mobile computing devices are communicatively coupled to each other. The processor enables capturing, at least temporarily, a matching utterance for performing a subsequent processing function. The performed subsequent processing function is based on a type of captured utterance.
US09093073B1
A method, a computer readable medium and a system for tagging automatic speech recognition that comprises, collecting an utterance, analyzing the utterance, and assigning a tag to the analyzed utterance.
US09093072B2
The recognition of user input to a computing device is enhanced. The user input is either speech, or handwriting data input by the user making screen-contacting gestures, or a combination of one or more prescribed words that are spoken by the user and one or more prescribed screen-contacting gestures that are made by the user, or a combination of one or more prescribed words that are spoken by the user and one or more prescribed non-screen-contacting gestures that are made by the user.
US09093067B1
The subject matter of this specification can be implemented in a computer-implemented method that includes receiving utterances and transcripts thereof. The method includes analyzing the utterances and transcripts to determine certain attributes, such as distances between prosodic contours for pairs of utterances. A model can be generated that can be used to estimate a distance between a determined prosodic contour for a received utterance and an unknown prosodic contour for a synthesized utterance when given a distance between attributes for text associated with the received utterance and the synthesized utterance.
US09093064B2
Example methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to implement down-mixing compensation for audio watermarking are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to compensate for audio channel down-mixing when embedding watermarks in a multichannel audio signal include obtaining a watermark to be embedded in respective ones of a plurality of audio channels of the multichannel audio signal. Such example methods also include embedding the watermark in a first one of the plurality of audio channels based on a compensation factor that is to reduce perceptibility of the watermark when the first one of the plurality of audio channels is down-mixed with a second one of the plurality of audio channels after the watermark has been applied to the first and second ones of the plurality of audio channels.
US09093063B2
An apparatus for extracting a direct and/or ambience signal from a downmix signal and spatial parametric information, the downmix signal and the spatial parametric information representing a multi-channel audio signal having more channels than the downmix signal, wherein the spatial parametric information has inter-channel relations of the multi-channel audio signal, is described. The apparatus has a direct/ambience estimator and a direct/ambience extractor. The direct/ambience estimator is configured for estimating a level information of a direct portion and/or an ambient portion of the multi-channel audio signal based on the spatial parametric information. The direct/ambience extractor is configured for extracting a direct signal portion and/or an ambient signal portion from the downmix signal based on the estimated level information of the direct portion or the ambient portion.
US09093060B2
The present invention relates to a sound-proof material containing a first sound-absorbing material disposed facing a sound source, a first soft sound-insulating layer laminated on a face of the first sound-absorbing material opposite to the sound source and having an air permeability measured in accordance with JIS L1018 of 10 cc/cm2·sec or lower, a second sound-absorbing material laminated on the first soft sound-insulating layer, and a second soft sound-insulating layer laminated on the second sound-absorbing material and having an air permeability measured in accordance with JIS L1018 of 10 cc/cm2·sec or lower and a Young's modulus measured in accordance with JIS K7127 greater than or equal to five times that of the first soft sound-insulating layer, in which at least the second soft sound-insulating layer is partially or entirely bonded to the second sound-absorbing material.
US09093041B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for compensating a liquid crystal display for changes in brightness level. The apparatus comprises a variable brightness back-light optically coupled to a display panel whose properties depend upon back-light brightness. An electrical circuit measures back-light brightness and/or display flicker and sends this information to a controller. The controller automatically determines a display panel compensation signal based on back-light brightness and/or display flicker, and sends this compensation signal to the display panel to optimize the display panel properties for the commanded or observed back-light brightness level or flicker level so as to, for example, minimize display panel flicker and/or ghost image retention. Such automatic compensation is especially useful for head-up displays that must accommodate large variations in display brightness, e.g., from starlight to full sun, and/or for large, bright projection displays adapted to operate in different ambient light conditions where back-light brightness variation is desirable.
US09093039B2
Disclosed is a liquid crystal display device and a method of driving the same, which prevent image-quality defects due to charge variation. In the method of driving the liquid crystal display device including a pixel consisting of first to third sub-pixels which share one data line and are connected to first to third gate lines, one sub-pixel is turned off on a per frame basis, another sub-pixel is charged with a polarity inverted data voltage for a first charge time including a charge time of the turned-off sub-pixel, and the other sub-pixel is charged with a data voltage having the same polarity as a previous data voltage for a second charge time less than the first charge time. The turned-off sub-pixel, the sub-pixel charged with the polarity inverted data voltage, and the sub-pixel charged with the polarity maintained data voltage alternately vary on a per frame basis.
US09093035B2
An LCD device has a reflective area that reflects light incident from a polarizing film side using a reflection film, and a transmissive area that transmits light of a backlight incident from a TFT substrate side. The drive voltages of the reflective area and transmissive area are Vr and Vt, the black voltage in the reflective area is Vr (K), the black voltage in the transmissive area is Vt (K). The reflectance R, the transmittance T, characteristics of R with respect to drive voltage [Vr (K)−Vr] and characteristics of T with respect to drive voltage [Vt−Vt (K)] substantially match each other.
US09093032B2
Systems and methods for inaudible enhanced pulse width modulation (PWM) backlight dimming are provided. By way of example, an electronic display backlight system according to the present disclosure may include a backlight element and backlight driver circuitry. The backlight driver circuitry may drive the backlight element at various brightness levels using at least two individual duty cycles that occur immediately after one another. The backlight driver circuitry may vary the individual duty cycles such that none will ever reach 100% unless all are 100%, thereby preventing the occurrence of audible noise that might otherwise arise if an “on” PWM period from one individual duty cycle continued into the next.
US09093022B2
A power supply device includes an SMPS circuit including an electric transformer having first and second stages, the SMPS circuit generating a second stage output voltage using the electric transformer, a power switcher receiving and switching the second stage output voltage to generate a first power voltage having logic high and low levels in one frame, and a PWM controller controlling a voltage level of the second stage output voltage by providing a control signal to the first stage. The first power voltage is simultaneously provided to a plurality of pixels, and a magnitude of the logic low level is increased or decreased according to a magnitude of an image load, where the magnitude of the image load is dependent on a color and a gradation level of an image to be displayed in a next frame.
US09093020B2
According to an example embodiment, a display driving integrated circuit (IC) includes a timing controller and a plurality of source drivers. The timing controller is configured to output a plurality of signals to the plurality of source drivers, and at least one of the timing controller and the plurality of source drivers operates in a power down mode in at least one of an initializing period, a data transmission period, and a vertical blank period. According to an example embodiment, a mode conversion method used in a display driving IC includes switching between a normal mode to a power down mode in response to a standby control signal. The power down mode is implemented on at least one of a timing controller and a plurality of source drivers included in the display driving IC in at least one of an initializing period, a data transmission period, and a vertical blank period.
US09093015B2
Embodiments disclose a display apparatus including: an image processing device which processes an image signal; a display device which displays an image based on the processed image signal; a connection device which connects to an upgrade apparatus which processes the image signal; a power supply device which supplies power to each component of the display apparatus and the upgrade apparatus through the connection device; and a first controller which controls the connection device to receive the processed image signal from the upgrade apparatus when the upgrade apparatus is connected through the connection device, wherein the power supply device is controlled by the upgrade apparatus connected through the connection device.
US09093013B2
In an image processing system, a selecting unit selects a group of reference parallax images to be used as a reference, from among a plurality of groups of parallax images generated from image data taken chronologically; an image quality changing unit changes an image quality of at least one selected from between the selected group of reference parallax images and a group of parallax images contained in the groups of parallax images; and a display control unit causes images to be displayed that are formed by combining the group of parallax images contained in the groups of parallax images with the image-quality-changed group of reference parallax images, or by combining the selected group of reference parallax images with the image-quality-changed group of parallax images, or by combining together the image-quality-changed group of reference parallax images and the image-quality-changed group of parallax images contained in the groups of parallax images.
US09092999B1
An identification device includes a one-sheet carbonless paper system having a carbonless paper layer with a top surface and a bottom surface, wherein a mark is made on the top surface of the carbonless paper layer when a corresponding impression is made on the carbonless paper layer. The identification device further includes a desensitizing ink portion disposed on the top surface of the carbonless paper layer. The desensitizing ink portion is defined by desensitizing ink applied to a portion of the top surface of the carbonless paper layer. A mark is substantially prevented from being made on the top surface of the carbonless paper layer in the desensitizing ink portion.
US09092990B2
An apparatus assists educators in selecting achievement tools to meet an applicable one of a plurality of sets of educational standards. A first table holds a plurality of educational standards and a plurality of linked keywords. A second table holds a plurality of achievement tools, such as lesson plans, assessments and resources, and a plurality of linked keywords. A table manipulator program permits an educator to select an educational standard and shows achievement tools applicable to the selected educational standard by having a matching of keywords linked to the achievement tools to keywords linked to the educational standards.
US09092982B2
An apparatus for measuring speed of movement of an object deforming lines of Earth's magnetic field includes a first and second magnetometer disposed on either side of a traffic roadway for the object and substantially perpendicular to the object. The magnetometers are configured for measuring deformation of Earth's magnetic field by the object travelling over the roadway. The apparatus also includes a processing unit configured for extracting, from each of the magnetometers, a measurement value corresponding to a quotient defined by a distance of the object with respect to the magnetometer divided by a speed of movement of the object, and for calculating a speed of the object from the measurement values and a geometrical disposition of the magnetometers with respect to one another and with respect to the traffic roadway.
US09092981B2
The present invention provides a road condition management system that can grasp an accurate state of a road condition and reduce a burden on a checker. A road facility management system for managing road facilities includes an on-board device and an information server. The on-board device includes a camera attached to a vehicle to photograph the outside of the vehicle, an image recognition unit that applies image recognition for detecting road facilities to a photographed image, a transmission image information generation unit that generates transmission image information including the photographed image, a road facility information database having stored therein road facility information, and a transmission unit that outputs the transmission image information if a recognition result by the image recognition unit is different from the road facility information stored in the road facility information database.
US09092970B2
Metering of a physical characteristic is described, in which a stochastic approach is taken. A random signal is generated on the basis of a metering signal, with a view to maximising a statistical distance between the two. The random signal and the metering signal are mixed together to obscure characteristics of the metering signal which could otherwise divulge private information to third parties.
US09092959B2
Disclosed is a multipurpose alarm apparatus which includes a smoke sensing unit configured to sense a smoke using a first sensor and a second sensor, each of the first and second sensors including a temperature-sensitive smoke sensor portion disposed between a first electrode and a second electrode; a smoke level measuring unit configured to generate a smoke level measurement signal by comparing a difference between first and second smoke detection signals from the first and second sensors with a reference signal; and a sensing control unit configured to generate a fire alarm signal when the smoke level measurement signal corresponds to a fire generation condition.
US09092954B2
A wearable device may be configured to generate feedback based on an event that occurs in an environment related to the wearable device. The wearable device may include, for example, a processor configured to generate a control signal representative of an event occurring in an environment related to the wearable device and at least a first haptic output device disposed at a first position at the wearable device. The first haptic output device may be configured to provide haptic feedback based on the generated control signal.
US09092950B2
A method of allowing a player to play a gaming machine is described herein. The method includes displaying the game including a plurality of symbols at a plurality of symbol positions including at least one special symbol. A game outcome is randomly generated and displayed. An award is provided to the player if a winning combination is displayed in the generated first game outcome. The method further includes determining if a first special symbol is displayed in the generated first game outcome and responsively retaining the first special symbol during a subsequent second game, generating the second game outcome including the retained first special symbol, determining if a second special symbol is displayed in the second game outcome and responsively releasing the retained first special symbol in a subsequent third game if the second special symbol does not appear in the second game outcome.
US09092945B2
Systems, apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture provide for the distribution of a payout amount associated with a lottery ticket being conditioned or otherwise based on the payout amount. Some embodiments provide for determining a positive payout amount associated with a lottery ticket and determining at least one recipient and/or beneficiary of the positive payout amount based on (i) the positive payout amount and/or (ii) a recipient or beneficiary associated with the lottery ticket and/or the payout amount. In one embodiment, larger prizes (e.g., a jackpot prize, a prize greater than a predetermined threshold payout amount) are awarded to the player(s) of a virtual lottery ticket (e.g., shared by the players), and smaller prizes are distributed to a charitable organization (e.g., other than any of the players) selected by one or more players of the lottery ticket.
US09092943B2
An example method of gaming includes selecting symbols appearing in a game event. The selected symbols are stored in a symbol store arranged to store a plurality of symbols. The symbol store is arranged such that, once a maximum number of symbols is reached, storage of a further symbol in the symbol store results in the removal of a stored symbol from the symbol store in accordance with a removal rule. The method includes determining whether the stored symbols meet an award criterion.
US09092940B2
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. In an implementation, the system may select a set of wager parameters that define a given wager. Such wager parameters may specify a type of wager, including various types of horse race wagers, a number of wagers to place, where to place the wager, an amount of the wager, and/or other parameters. The wager parameters may be selected based on a level of risk associated with a wager and/or a level of risk associated with a user for whom the wager is placed.
US09092939B2
The invention relates to systems and methods of placing real-world wagers, obtaining outcomes of the real-world wagers, facilitating user interactions with various interactive media, and revealing the outcomes of the real-world wagers based on invitations to give an appearance that the outcomes of the real-world wagers resulted from the invitations even though the outcomes resulted from the real-world wagers and were determined before the invitations. The system may provide an invitation to participate in a reveal opportunity. For example, the system may invite the user to play a specific game (e.g., “play this game to claim five dollars”), interact with multi-media content (e.g., “watch a video to win ten dollars”), challenge one or more other players (e.g., “challenge another player to win two dollars”), engage in some other objective, and/or otherwise accept an opportunity to reveal at least a portion of a payout that has not yet been revealed.
US09092926B2
An apparatus includes one-side reels rotatably arranged, one-side tapes wound around the one-side reels, a drum arranged to rotate in one direction to wind and store a medium with the medium being laid over the one-side tapes and in an opposite direction to pull out the wound medium, and retainers opposed to the one-side tapes with respect to the medium wound by or pulled out from the drum for abutting against a surface of the medium to hold the medium, the one-side tapes having a tape width shorter than the width of the medium corresponding to the length of the medium in a direction perpendicular to a transfer direction of the medium, the one-side tapes being arranged in parallel and spaced with a spacing shorter than the width of the medium in a direction of the width of the medium to abut against another surface of the medium.
US09092923B2
A system for remotely monitoring a plurality of ballot tabulation devices is provided. The ballot tabulation devices are located at a plurality of polling locations, each of which is operable to process a plurality of marked paper ballots and maintain health status information for the device. The system includes a central server located remotely from the ballot tabulation devices that is operable to periodically receive the health status information for each device and generate an alert that identifies any irregularities associated with each device based on the received health status information. Preferably, the health status information is encoded in a machine-readable code that is displayed on a display screen of the ballot tabulation device, and a reading device is used to read the machine-readable code from the display screen and transmit the health status information to the central server.
US09092916B2
A remote lock-out, tag-out system for controlling multiple buckets in a motor control center employs a safety network providing serial communication between one or more remote lock-out, tag-out stations and individual buckets of the control center permitting remote disconnection of power without the need for protective gear.
US09092911B2
Methods and apparatus for a predictive rendering component that may generate a rendering of a character based at least in part on predictive information regarding the background into which the character is to be rendered. Using such predictive information, the predictive rendering component may produce a rendering of a character that blends into the character background more smoothly than if the predictive background information were not used. In this way, the predictive rendering component improves upon previous implementations of font smoothing.
US09092909B2
A method, apparatus, system, article of manufacture, and computer readable storage medium provide the ability to scale a diagram. An image is selected and utilized as a background image. Full geometry is obtained and is displayed with the background image. The full geometry is a first geometry and remaining second geometry. The first geometry is selected and a reference length for the selected first geometry is specified. The remaining second geometry is in the diagram is scaled based on the specified reference length.
US09092908B2
Embodiments of the invention include a system, method and computer-readable medium for viewing images in a three-dimensional environment. A user is identified. A social graph of the identified user and a plurality of other users is accessed. Based on the social graph, a plurality of images associated with one or more of the other users in the social graph are determined. The plurality of images and data are provided to a client device, wherein the data enables the display of the images in the 3D environment, at the client device.
US09092903B2
Metabrushes for digital painting (such as 3D painting) are provided. Metabrushes may be defined by 3D paint strokes embedded on an elementary piece of geometry. Paint strokes are replicated in 3D over a user's painting gesture, allowing a fast embedding of numerous strokes using only a few user input gestures. Hierarchical metabrushes are further provided for providing faster and more diverse creation of digital paintings.
US09092887B2
Techniques for generating a composite spatial representation are presented. For example, a method includes obtaining a plurality of source spatial representations from a plurality of source applications, and forming the composite spatial representation by combining the plurality of source spatial representations. The composite spatial representation is operative to interact with at least one behavioral element that is separate from the composite spatial representation. The obtaining of the plurality of source spatial representations and the forming of the composite spatial representation are executed on a computing system comprising a processor and a memory. One or more computer program instructions for implementing the obtaining of the plurality of source spatial representations and the forming of the composite spatial representation are obtained from the memory and executed by the processor device.
US09092884B2
Tilt is reduced or eliminated in captured digital images. Edges in a first image are detected. Angles corresponding to the detected edges are determined. A dominant angle is selected from the determined angles. The first image is rotated according to the selected dominant angle to generate a second image. The second image is a de-tilted version of the first image.
US09092883B2
Image processing device, image processing method and storage medium storing image processing program
Among a plurality of CFA images obtained by shooting the same subject, one image is a standard image, and another image is a reference image, and the displacement amount calculation portion calculates the displacement amount of the reference image with respect to the standard image. A synthesis processing portion performs a synthesis processing based on the displacement amount calculated by the displacement amount calculation portion, according to the pixel values of a standard image pixel and a reference image pixel that are corresponding pixels between the standard image and the reference image, so as to generate a combination CFA image. Here, when colors of the corresponding pixels differ between the standard image pixel and the reference image pixel, the synthesis processing portion generates, from the reference image, the pixel value of the same color as the color of the standard image pixel by interpolation processing, and performs the synthesis processing according to the pixel value generated by the interpolation processing and the pixel value of the standard image pixel.
US09092876B2
Disclosed herein is an object-tracking apparatus and method in the environment of multiple non-overlapping cameras. Color rendering values are divided into a plurality of sub-color regions. RGB pixels of objects in a first image and a second image are converted into first hue values and second hue values, respectively. The first hue values are assigned to corresponding sub-color regions, and then a first color histogram is generated. The second hue values are assigned to corresponding sub-color regions, and then a second color histogram is generated. An area of the first color histogram is extended. It is determined whether the second color histogram is included in the extended area of the first color histogram. It is determined that the object in the first image is identical to the object in the second image if the second color histogram is included in the extended area of the first color histogram.
US09092870B2
An image processing apparatus includes an operating unit configured to calculate a tangent-line direction of an edge and a normal-line direction of the edge by using a vertical-direction derivative value and a horizontal-direction derivative value of a pixel value of a pixel in an input image; a converting unit configured to convert local coordinates positioned within a predetermined area with respect to a target pixel in the input image into rotated coordinates, by rotating the local coordinates according to an angle formed by the horizontal direction and the tangent-line direction of the edge; and a fitting unit configured to perform, at the rotated coordinates, a fitting process that employs a least-squares method by using a curved surface model expressed with the pixel value of the target pixel in the input image.
US09092867B2
It relates to a method for segmenting images, to a method for detecting specific structures, and to a related computer device. The method for segmenting a three-dimensional image of a subject includes dividing the image into a plurality of regions, and then hierarchically merging the regions resulting from the division in order to obtain a three-dimensional image partitioned into regions of interest. The hierarchical merging includes a merging step using shape and size criteria of the regions so as to avoid merging small regions. The method for detecting specific structures in an image, for example tumors, includes a step of segmenting an image into regions of interest. The method further includes calculating, for each region of interest, a plurality of criteria, including a shape criterion, of the regions of interest in order to discriminate the specific structures to be detected from the regions of interest of the segmented image.
US09092861B2
Embodiments of the present application use motion information of an imaging device in encoding video or image frames captured by the imaging device. In one embodiment, a video encoding system that processes image data captured by an image sensor comprises at least one encoder that receives motion information describing motion of the imaging sensor during capturing of the image data and that encodes the image data with assistance of the motion information.
US09092858B2
A method and system for determining void pantograph settings is presented. The method includes obtaining electronic images of one or more predefined test sheets having a plurality of void pantograph settings, modeling one or more regions of the electronic images, predicting the sensitivity of the plurality of void pantograph settings to a print/scan process, the predicting being based at least in part on the one or modeled regions, and identifying characteristics for a candidate void pantograph setting using the prediction step results. The system includes a controller, a modeling unit, a measuring unit and a prediction unit configured to perform a method in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. A computer readable medium containing executable instructions is also described.
US09092857B2
A method for noise suppression in images of an image sequence, where an iteratively better adapted noise suppression can be ensured for images of the image sequence, in particular in a rising number of images in the image sequence. The method for noise suppression includes a low-pass filter algorithm: p i,jn+1=αi,jn+1*pi,jn+(1−αi,jn+1)*Qi,jn+1 with an attenuation function αi,jn+1=αi,jn+1(α0i,jn+1,Γi,jn+1).
US09092849B2
Embodiments relate to segmenting blood vessels in angiogram images. An aspect includes a method that includes receiving and preprocessing at least one angiogram frame and preprocessing. In one embodiment, at least one angiogram frame is received and preprocessed. Bottom-up filtering of the preprocessed angiogram frame and top-down segmentation of the preprocessed angiogram frame are performed based on the results of the bottom-up filtering. The bottom-up filtering and the top-down segmentation are iteratively repeated until the difference between results of the top-down segmentation from consecutive iterations is equal to or below a threshold value. Based on determining that a difference between results of the top-down segmentation from consecutive iterations is below or equal to the threshold value, the results of the top-down segmentation are outputted.
US09092840B2
An image processing apparatus for generating an image of an arbitrary viewpoint using a plurality of input images obtains image information of a projection position at which a point along a first straight line passing through the arbitrary viewpoint and a pixel position on the image of the arbitrary viewpoint is projected onto each of the plurality of input images, defines parallax information of the plurality of input images at the pixel position, using the image information obtained for the point along the first straight line, and generates the image of the arbitrary viewpoint, by defining the image information of the pixel position from the plurality of input images using the parallax information for the pixel position.
US09092838B2
A method of processing an image is disclosed. The method comprises obtaining an image decomposed into a set of scaled images, each being characterized by a different image-scale; and calculating, for each of at least some scaled images, a relative luminance between the scaled image and another scaled image of the set, using intensities in the scaled image and intensities in the another scaled image. The method further comprises processing each scaled image using an adaptation procedure featuring an image-specific effective saturation function of the relative luminance, thereby providing a processed scaled image; combining at least some of the processed scaled images to provide a combined image; and outputting the combined image to a computer readable medium.
US09092832B2
Apparatus and method use a Markov decision process (MDP) to reduce the cost of variations in electric power usage. The user notifies a power company of a predicted value for a period. The period is divided into subsections. For each subsection, on the basis of a MDP including a state that depends on an electric power usage amount error, charge amount, and set target, the amount of charging and discharging of a storage battery as an action at any given time is optimally decided depending on the electric power usage amount error, charge amount, time, and set target at that time. A predetermined time in a subsection is a target setting time, at which a future target is further set as the action. The action includes deciding the charging and discharging amount in that subsection and deciding a future target in a subsection whose target should be set.
US09092826B2
A social networking system provides a short, unbiased biographical summary for a user of the social networking system. The short biography includes a few relevant biographical information items selected from the user's profile and is displayed on the profile page. The short biography may be displayed with a set of photographs also selected from the profile for their relevance. Relevance may be based on various information including temporal relevance and relevance to the viewing user. Display of the short biography allows a viewer to easily find current biographical information about the user in an abbreviated format.
US09092825B2
A computer system including a service provider server invokes an evaluation service that causes a metric application to obtain a plurality of market transaction data sets responsive to attributes of at least one item identified in a product specification data set and/or a price data set. Each market transaction data set is defined by at least one parameter value and represents market reference price data of a particular time or period of time. At least one adjustment value is generated and applied to the market reference price data associated with the at least one item in one or more of the market transaction data sets, transforming the market reference price data and producing normalized market reference price data sets. A synthetic market value is generated for the at least one item in the product specification data set and/or the price data set, and one or more evaluation metrics generated therefrom are communicated via a network interface.
US09092823B2
A method of detecting malware on a computer and comprising scanning a system memory of the computer, and/or code being injected into the system memory, for known strings indicative of banking trojans. These strings may be Universal Resource Locators and/or partial Universal Resource Locators.
US09092821B2
In economic networks, it is not currently possible to observe all flows between entities. Only a portion of relationships between firms is known publicly, and only a portion of those relationships is assigned values through reporting requirements by the regulating public institutions. Therefore, obtaining a plurality of documents that describe companies and their known connections through public sources will necessarily result in an incomplete matrix of customer-supplier relationships containing some mixture of known relationships with known values, known relationships with unknown values, and unknown relationships with unknown values. A method and system is presented to obtain a best estimate of all unknown values given the known information in the network, including an amount that is assigned to unknown entities to be discovered later.
US09092820B2
The present invention discloses a method for interchanging date between the 3D shopping platform and the external platform is disclosed. The advantageous effects of this invention are but not limited to, 3D models are adopted to present the street blocks which arranges kinds of stores in mobile terminal, which is easy for user to choose store and buy goods due to intuitive vision and easy operation. Meanwhile, it enriches the function of the online shopping platform and accomplishes a closer information exchange with external platform so as to assist to prompt the shopping experience of the consumers.
US09092819B2
Systems and a method to facilitate a purchase of an item on a network-based marketplace are described. The method generates, at a network-based marketplace platform, a virtual gift based on an item for sale at the network-based marketplace platform and communicates interface information to a network-based social platform that includes the virtual gift.
US09092809B2
A sales system according to an embodiment includes a sales management device and a license management device. When a recording medium on which a digital content is recorded has been sold from a final seller to an end user through the distribution channel of the recording medium, the sales management device communicates the sales information to the license management device. On condition that the sales information has been communicated from the sales management device, the license management device provides a license for enabling the use of the digital content to the user terminal. When the recording medium has been sold to the end user, the sales management device supports transferring part of the sales price of the recording medium to the intermediate seller involving the distribution of the recording medium.
US09092801B2
Customer journey prediction and resolution is accomplished via a predictive model in which each user is mapped onto all available user journey information corresponding to a specific business. The predictive model is analyzed to understand the characteristics, preferences, and lowest effort resolution for the user related to the services that are subscribed to by the user. The predictive model is analyzed to predict the service or collection of services for each user. Embodiments interact with, provide and receive information from, and react to and/or deliver action to the customer across channels and across services. All customer and system behavior, data, and action is tracked and coordinated and leveraged for continuous feedback and performance improvement.
US09092800B2
A click detection method, apparatus and system is provided. An embodiment includes a method that receives a request from a client destined for a server and a unique identifier for the client. The method also includes generating a representation of the unique identifier, and forwarding the representation of the unique identifier and the request to the server.
US09092794B2
An electronic infrastructure consisting a plurality of client mobile devices, a distribution server and network that communicatively couples the plurality of client mobile devices and distribution server, wherein the distribution server collects survey questionnaires from a questionnaire source, distributes survey questionnaire to the plurality of client mobile devices. Then, the distribution server receives responses from the users of plurality of client mobile devices and analyzes the responses based upon several criteria. The criteria include region based analysis, race based analysis, age based analysis, other criteria based analysis, high priority analysis and/or satisfaction level analysis.
US09092792B2
A system is configured to perform a method of customizing an application. The method includes receiving a connection from a client machine that is executing an application configurable by configuration information. The method also includes determining that the application has not been customized by the configuration information. The method further includes transmitting the configuration information to the client machine in response to the determining that the application has not been customized by the configuration information. In response to the transmitting of the configuration information, the application is configured to include a category structure for the application. In some example embodiments, the configuration information includes a software module upgrade of the application.
US09092789B2
A method and system for semantically analyzing unstructured data in a customer feedback is provided. The method includes extracting data related to customer feedback from one or more input sources. The method further includes assigning weights to the one or more input sources and extracting relevant text from the feedback data. Further, sentences are detected from the customer feedback and are annotated. Thereafter, relevant adjectives are determined and are associated with sentence types. A rating is calculated for each sentence of the relevant text and output is provided in a pre-determined format.
US09092782B1
Techniques are provided for evaluating compromised credential information. A method for evaluating compromised credentials comprises the steps of: collecting data regarding previously compromised credentials that were used to commit an unauthorized activity; applying one or more statistical learning methods to the collected data to identify one or more patterns; and evaluating a risk of credentials that have been compromised by one or more attackers using the identified patterns. According to a further aspect of the invention, a risk score is generated for one or more users and devices. The risk scores are optionally ordered based on an order of risk. The data can be collected, for example, from one or more of anti-fraud servers and information sources.
US09092781B2
This application discloses systems, methods, and processes for providing a secure, voice-authenticated form of electronic payment from a device. The described exemplary system provides an infrastructure for receiving an electronic payment request, verifying the request using voice authentication, and allowing or denying the request based on the authentication or non-authentication of the user.
US09092772B2
The invention relates to a smart integration of dual Architecture Contact-less SIM into mobile devices and describes the method of performing various economic transactions more efficiently using a smart and interactive poster device.
US09092771B2
A computer-readable medium contains computer-executable instructions. When the instructions are performed by a processor in an electronic device having embedded contactless payment functionality, the performance of the instructions causes the processor to provide data for a contactless payment transaction. In particular, various systems and methods utilize authentication schemes that already exist on a device in which the contactless payment functionality is embedded. One example of such authentication schemes is the use of password protection to lock or unlock the device in which the contactless payment functionality is embedded. Using the password protection functionality may provide varying levels of authentication protection based on the desires of the user. A number of exemplary uses of such a method and apparatus are disclosed herein.
US09092768B2
Systems, apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture for machine retrofits and interactive soda fountains are provided.
US09092766B1
A payment terminal, including: a display, an input device configured to generate input signals indicative of a user input, a payment instrument reader configured to receive payment instrument data from a financial payment instrument, a secure processor connected to the payment instrument reader, a main processor connected to the display, the main processor separate and distinct from the secure processor, a secure input processor connected to the input device and the secure processor, wherein the secure processor is operable between an unsecured mode, wherein the secure processor sends input coordinates based on the input signals received from the secure input processor to the main processor; and a secured mode, wherein the secure input processor ceases input coordinate forwarding to the main processor.
US09092748B2
An electronic flight strip system and method of operation are disclosed. One such method receives a non-stylus touch on a touchscreen display that displays an electronic flight strip having a plurality of fields. A context-based reaction to the electronic flight strip is caused in response to which field of the plurality of fields received the non-stylus touch.
US09092745B2
Systems and methods for adapting an incremental information object (IIO) to accommodate a change in a workflow are provided. A method includes analyzing an IIO, wherein the IIO comprises a plurality of tiles, and wherein the plurality of tiles comprise a code. The code is confirmed and, if the confirmation is successful, a determination is made as to whether the workflow has changed. If the workflow has changed the IIO is modified to change the information density of the IIO, a new code comprising a bitstream is generated, and the bitstream is overwritten on the plurality of tiles.
US09092741B1
This invention is a platform and method for using cognition for managing enterprise energy needs. Cognitive platform allows for dynamic management of energy consumption, demand and baseline calculations by use of a cognitive platform and cognitive device. Employees as well as internal and external stakeholders can set performance indicators and monitor the parameters against the energy performance indicators. Based on the initial knowledge, the system identifies improvements in order to reach the energy key performance indicators. Depending on the feedback, the system learns and improves the accuracy of the predictions and suits them to a given industry or given enterprise scenario. Enterprise-wide energy and/or environmental management covers policies, planning, key performance indicators, goals, targets, works flows, user management, asset mapping, input-output energy flows, conservation options, performance management, analytics. The system and method allow for monitoring and verification by internal and/or external stakeholders.
US09092738B2
A simple format is disclosed and referred to as Elementary Network Description (END). The format can fully describe a large-scale neuronal model and embodiments of software or hardware engines to simulate such a model efficiently. The architecture of such neuromorphic engines is optimal for high-performance parallel processing of spiking networks with spike-timing dependent plasticity. The software and hardware engines are optimized to take into account short-term and long-term synaptic plasticity in the form of LTD, LTP, and STDP.
US09092736B2
Certain embodiments of the present disclosure support techniques for training of synapses in biologically inspired networks. Only one device based on a memristor can be used as a synaptic connection between a pair of neurons. The training of synaptic weights can be achieved with a low current consumption. A proposed synapse training circuit may be shared by a plurality of incoming/outgoing connections, while only one digitally implemented pulse-width modulation (PWM) generator can be utilized per neuron circuit for generating synapse-training pulses. Only up to three phases of a slow clock can be used for both the neuron-to-neuron communications and synapse training. Some special control signals can be also generated for setting up synapse training events. By means of these signals, the synapse training circuit can be in a high-impedance state outside the training events, thus the synaptic resistance (i.e., the synaptic weight) is not affected outside the training process.
US09092731B1
Methods, and systems, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable storage mediums, including a method for determining accuracy measures for predicted expansion directions for content item environments. The method includes, identifying a predicted expansion direction for the content item environment; generating a serving data log entry for the request specifying the predicted expansion direction and a unique identifier for the request; providing an expandable content item having the predicted expansion direction and response data specifying the unique identifier; receiving reporting messages specifying the display configurations of the resources and content item environments; determining pairs of serving data log entries and reporting messages based on the unique identifiers, each pair having a matching unique identifier; and determining an accuracy measure for the respective predicted expansion direction based on a comparison of the respective predicted expansion direction and the display configurations of the respective resource and content item environment.
US09092729B2
Systems and methods for controlling frequency output of an electronic oscillator to compensate for effects of one or more parameters experienced by the oscillator incorporate artificial neural network processing functionality for generating correction signals. A neural network processing module includes one or more neurons which receive one or more inputs corresponding to parameters of an electronic oscillator, such as temperature and control voltage (or correction voltage). One or more sets of weights are calculated and applied to inputs to the neurons of the neural network as part of a training process, wherein the weights help shape the output of the neural network processing module. The neural network may include a linear summation module configured to provide an output signal that is at least partially based on outputs of the one or more neurons.
US09092728B2
A rule based analysis of content is provided to manage activation of a web extension. A user interaction with the content launches a process to match a rule from the manifest to a portion of the content. The rule and the detected content are loaded into memory. The content is processed using the rule and by accessing the memory containing the content to determine a match. An application may choose to process the content using the rules on a background thread to avoid impacting user's experience. An activation control is displayed for the web extension associated with the rule within a web extension pane upon matching the rule to an item in the content.
US09092725B2
The present techniques extract attribute data of one or more classified members for one or more user attributes. With respect to a particular user attribute of the one or more user attributes, the present techniques determine initial attribute data intervals corresponding to the particular user attribute based on attribute data and classes of the classified members from the extracted attribute data. With respect to a classified member whose attribute data is missing for the particular user attribute, the present techniques set the attribute data as a preset missing value. The present techniques then merge the preset missing value into each of the initial user attribute data intervals and calculate a Maximum Posteriori Probability (MAP) Bayes estimate value respectively, and determine initial user attribute data intervals with a smallest MAP Bayes estimated value as final attribute data intervals corresponding to the particular user attribute.
US09092717B2
A data processing device includes: a data reading unit that reads a predetermined amount of data; a data-period selection unit that selects a data period in units of the predetermined amount of data; a data clipping unit that clips data from the read data with the data period; an intermediate-data conversion unit that converts the clipped data into intermediate data; and a coding processing unit that codes the intermediate data. The data-period selection unit has a match count unit that obtains count values of matches in data between pieces of divided data that are obtained by dividing the read data in units of respective predetermined periods, and selects one of the periods of divided data that provides largest one of the count values of matches or selects, when some of the count values are the same, largest one of the periods that provide the same count value.
US09092711B2
A method for producing a smartcard body for receiving a semiconductor chip includes forming at least one lead frame of the smartcard body in a carrier material connected by at least one material strip. Surrounding the at least one lead frame is an electrically insulating casing having a cavity for receiving the semiconductor chip. Either before or during the forming of the casing, the at least one material strip is separated or severed, so that the material strip is separated into a first strip part connected with the carrier material and a second strip part connected with the lead frame forming an interspace there between. When forming the casing at least a portion of the first strip part as well as at least a portion of the second strip part of the at least one material strip is comprised by the casing.
US09092708B1
An electronic transaction card communicates with an add-on slot of an intelligent electronic device. The add-on slot may be a memory card slot. The intelligent electronic device may be a mobile phone or other device with or without network connectivity. The electronic transaction card may have magnetic field producing circuitry compatible with magnetic card readers, smartcard circuitry, other point-of-sale interfaces, or any combination thereof.
US09092704B2
An image forming apparatus includes a storage unit that stores prohibited combination information, a display control unit that displays a user interface screen on a display unit, based on web page data that is received from a web server in the server apparatus, using a web browser that communicates with the web server, a first determination unit that determines, based on the prohibited combination information, whether or not the two or more settings that are prohibited from being combined are included in a plurality of current settings that include a content of change of settings received using the user interface screen, and a storage information control unit that stores a fact that the two or more settings prohibited from being combined are included in the current settings, in predetermined data. The display control unit, via the predetermined data, acquires the fact, and updates the user interface screen.
US09092700B2
A method of identifying a subject and a distractor in a target image is disclosed. The method receives a reference image comprising image content corresponding to image content of the target image. A first saliency map, which defines a distribution of visual attraction values identifying salient regions within the target image, and a second saliency map, which defines a distribution of visual attraction values identifying salient regions within the reference image, are determined. The method compares image content in salient regions of the first saliency map and the second saliency map. The subject is identified by a salient region of the target image sharing image content with a salient region of the reference image. The distractor is identified based on at least one remaining salient region of the target image.
US09092697B2
Embodiments for determining the similarity of different images are generally described herein. In some embodiments, image features of different images are converted to clusters, the clusters from each image are sorted based on one or more attributes of the clusters, and a plurality of three-point sets are generated for each image from a selected portion of the sorted clusters. Each three-point set defines a triangle. Matching triangles may be identified from the different images. The corresponding clusters of the matching triangles represent corresponding image features providing for a measure of the similarity of the two different images.
US09092694B2
The disclosed embodiments are related to a method and system for creating a digital image album implementable on a computing device. The method includes receiving a plurality of digital images. The method further includes creating a first signature corresponding to each of the plurality of digital images. The method further includes comparing the first signature corresponding to each of the plurality of digital images with one or more second signatures. Each of the second signatures corresponds to each of one or more prototype digital albums. The method further includes selecting one or more digital images from the plurality of digital images based on the comparison to create the digital image album.
US09092692B2
An approach to detecting objects in an image dataset may combine texture/color detection, shape/contour detection, and/or motion detection using sparse, generative, hierarchical models with lateral and top-down connections. A first independent representation of objects in an image dataset may be produced using a color/texture detection algorithm. A second independent representation of objects in the image dataset may be produced using a shape/contour detection algorithm. A third independent representation of objects in the image dataset may be produced using a motion detection algorithm. The first, second, and third independent representations may then be combined into a single coherent output using a combinatorial algorithm.
US09092689B2
The present invention is directed to an apparatus which can acquire, readout and perceive a scene based on the insertion, or embedding of photosensitive elements into or on a transparent or semi-transparent substrate such as glass or plastic. The substrate itself may act as the optical device which deflects the photons of an incident image into the photosensitive elements. A digital neural memory can be trained to recognize patterns in the incident photons. The photosensitive elements and digital neural memory elements may be arranged with light elements controlled in accordance with the patterns detected. In one application, intelligent lighting units provide light while monitoring surroundings and/or adjusting light according to such surroundings. In another application, intelligent displays display images and/or video while monitoring surroundings and/or adjusting the displayed images and/or video in accordance with such surroundings.
US09092673B2
Described is a technology for computing visual and textual summaries for tagged image collections. Heterogeneous affinity propagation is used to together identify both visual and textual exemplars. The heterogeneous affinity propagation finds the exemplars for relational heterogeneous data (e.g., images and words) by considering the relationships (e.g., similarities) within pairs of images, pairs of words, and relationships of words to images (affinity) in an integrated manner.
US09092670B1
A computer-implemented method for detecting features in an image. The method includes receiving first and second images at one or more processors. The method also includes processing the first and second images to detect one or more features within the first and second images respectively. The method further includes generating a third image based on processed portions of the first and second images and outputting the third image to another processor. A mobile computing device and GPU are also provided.
US09092661B2
There is described a method for facial features detection in a picture frame containing a skin tone area, comprising dividing (12) the skin tone area into a number of parts; and for each part of the skin tone area, constructing (14) a luminance map, constructing an edge map by extracting (18) edges from the luminance map, defining (20) an edge magnitude threshold, building (22) a binary map from the edge map by keeping only the edges having a magnitude beyond the defined edge magnitude threshold and eliminating the others; and then extracting (24) facial features from the built binary map. An inter-related facial features detector is further described.
US09092658B2
A method includes calculating, through a processor of a computing device communicatively coupled to a memory, correlation between two portions of an image and/or a video frame on either side of a reference portion thereof. The method also includes determining, through the processor, whether content of the image and/or the video frame is stereoscopic or non-stereoscopic based on the determined correlation.
US09092649B2
A data protecting method for a memory, which comprising a volatile memory and a non-volatile memory for storing data and data protection information, comprises the following steps. Firstly, load the data protection information to the volatile memory from the non-volatile memory. Next, protect the data stored in the memory according to the data protection information stored in the volatile memory.
US09092648B2
An information processing terminal sends a download request for content data to a server. The server transmits command data to a command encryption device. The command encryption device encrypts the command data in an encryption circuit. The server sends the content data and the encrypted command data to the information processing terminal. A control part of the information processing terminal transmits the content data and the encrypted command data to a memory controller. The memory controller decodes the command data in a decoder circuit and stores the content data to a memory array.
US09092644B2
A method and system to provide an effective, scalable and yet low-cost solution for Confidentiality, Integrity and Replay protection for sensitive information stored in a memory and prevent an attacker from observing and/or modifying the state of the system. In one embodiment of the invention, the system has strong hardware protection for its memory contents via XTS-tweak mode of encryption where the tweak is derived based on “Global and Local Counters”. This scheme offers to enable die-area efficient Replay protection for any sized memory by allowing multiple counter levels and facilitates using small counter-sizes to derive the “tweak” used in the XTS encryption without sacrificing cryptographic strength.
US09092640B2
A method, system, and computer program product for access control for a server application provided between a server executing an application and a client. Access control is added to an existing server application (for example, a legacy application) without changing the application or the database. The method includes: capturing a screen from the server application; determining if the screen includes sensitive content; and checking a client user's authorization before sending a screen including sensitive content to the client. Determining if the screen includes sensitive content may include: carrying out text recognition on the screen content; and analyzing the output of the text recognition to identify sensitive content.
US09092633B2
For authorizing removable medium access, a reassembly module retrieves a medium portion of an encryption key from a removable medium. The encryption key encrypts encrypted data stored on the removable medium and includes a plurality of portions. The reassembly module further retrieves the user portion of the encryption key assigned to a user requesting the removable medium. The reassembly module reassembles the encryption key using at least the medium portion and the user portion of the plurality of portions. The decryption module decrypts the encrypted data with the reassembled encryption key.
US09092631B2
Computer-implemented security evaluation methods, security evaluation systems, and articles of manufacture are described. According to one aspect, a computer-implemented security evaluation method includes accessing information regarding a physical architecture and a cyber architecture of a facility, building a model of the facility comprising a plurality of physical areas of the physical architecture, a plurality of cyber areas of the cyber architecture, and a plurality of pathways between the physical areas and the cyber areas, identifying a target within the facility, executing the model a plurality of times to simulate a plurality of attacks against the target by an adversary traversing at least one of the areas in the physical domain and at least one of the areas in the cyber domain, and using results of the executing, providing information regarding a security risk of the facility with respect to the target.
US09092628B2
Secure computer architectures, systems, and applications are provided herein. An exemplary computing system may include a trusted environment having a trusted processor and memory that provides a trusted computing environment that performs computing functions that could expose the computing device to a security risk, and a legacy environment having a secondary processor and memory for providing a legacy computing environment that manages computing functions exposed to unsecure environments.
US09092625B1
The execution of a process within a VM may be monitored, and when a trigger event occurs, additional monitoring is initiated, including storing behavior data describing the real-time events taking place inside the VM. This behavior data may then be compared to information about the expected behavior of that type of process in order to determine whether malware has compromised the VM. The trigger event may be analyzed in relation to a set of heuristics, and based on the analysis, a data collection process may be initiated wherein the data comprises information about events occurring in the first virtual machine.
US09092623B2
A system and method are described that will enable mobile smart devices, such as a cellular phones, PDAs, or iPads, smartphones, mobile payment systems, mobile healthcare systems, handheld law enforcement systems, and other types of tablet devices, to trust download applications and for the download applications to trust the mobile smart devices onto which they are downloaded. The system and method enables charging a mobile smart device and while charging the mobile smart device scans for malware and other viruses in the applications and the operating system on the mobile smart device.
US09092619B2
A data processing apparatus is provided, which detects falsification of software to data and rewriting of the data. The data processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises a security unit which has an encryption circuit for decrypting an encrypted signal including secrecy data. The security unit includes a compression circuit which compresses an access signal used in accessing the security unit and outputs the compression result, and a comparison circuit which compares the compression result outputted from the compression circuit with a previously-calculated expectation value of the compression result of the access signal.
US09092608B2
A method for low-level security based on the UID. In particular it enhances an RFID system by adding the ability to dynamically modify the UID of the smartcard or to randomly generate a new UID for the smartcard.
US09092604B2
A table storage unit stores a table that determines correspondence between information about another communication device and biological information of a user of the another communication device. A display unit displays one or a plurality of items. An input unit accepts operation using part of a biological body of the user. An instruction specification unit specifies data about an item displayed on the display unit that has been selected by operation on the input unit by the user. A fingerprint information generation unit generates first biological information representing a biological feature of the user who has selected the item. A device specification unit specifies a communication device corresponding to the generated first biological information by referring to the table. A communication unit transmits the specified data to the specified communication device.
US09092603B2
Methods, apparatus, systems and computer program products described and claimed that provide for automatically and positively determining that a customer interfacing with one business platform application using a platform-specific customer identifier is the same customer that is interfacing with another business platform application using another platform-specific customer identifier. Once the positive determination of same customer is made, a federated identifier key is generated and applied to all of the platforms, so as to globally identify the customer across multiple enterprise-wide platforms. As such, the present invention eliminates the labor-intensive need to manually analyze customer data to determine if a customer interfacing with one platform is the same customer interfacing with another platform.
US09092602B2
A pressure key includes a pressure sensor, a microprocessor chip, a storage device, a port, a record button and an enter button. When the pressure key is connected to a computing device and the record button is pressed, the pressure sensor is triggered to record a pressure signal input by a user. The microprocessor chip converts the pressure signal into a password, stores the password into the storage device, and sends the password to the computing device to lock the computing device. When the pressure key is connected to the computing device again and the enter button is pressed, the microprocessor chip retrieves the password from the storage device and sends the password to the computing device. The computing device is unlocked if the received password matches the password stored in the computing device.
US09092596B2
In a computer system having a hard drive and a processor, operating system software stored on the hard drive and implemented by the processor, and a display on which icons, features, lists and menus representative of executable programs of the operating system software are displayable, there is a method for preventing the disabling or circumventing of content blocking software functionality to be installed in the computer system at time of manufacture. In the method, system restore is turned off prior to installation of the content blocking software onto the computer system, and then content blocking software-related features are hid once the content blocking software is installed. The method includes preventing booting of the computer system from external sources, preventing modifying of BIOS settings of the computer system, and the disabling of selected advanced troubleshooting tools in the operating system software.
US09092590B2
An IC including first and second FDSOI UTBOX cells arranged in a row, the first having an nMOS transistor arranged plumb with and above a ground plane and an N-type well, and a pMOS transistor arranged plumb with and above a ground plane and a P-type well, the N-type well and the P-type well being arranged on either side of a row axis, wherein the second includes a diode protecting against antenna effects or a well tap cell, the second cell comprising a P-type well arranged in the alignment of the P-type well of the pMOS transistor and comprising an N-type well arranged in the alignment of the N-type well of the nMOS transistor, the second cell comprising a metal connection coupled to its P-type well and coupled to a higher-level metal connection element arranged plumb with the N-type well, the metal connection extending on either side of the axis.
US09092580B2
The present invention discloses a method for locating the reference frames of the reference lane on the transmitting data bus. The present invention addresses this object by disclosing a method whereby the relationship between the size of the reference frame transmitted over the reference lane and the width of the data bus is such that the reference frame is bit-shifted automatically until it is aligned with the data bus.
US09092579B1
System, method, and non-transitory medium for rating popularity of clusters of runs of test scenarios. An interface receives runs of test scenarios, run by users belonging to different organizations, run essentially on same packages of software systems. A clustering module clusters the runs into clusters that include similar runs of test scenarios. An organization counter counts the number of different organizations associated with a cluster; an organization may be considered associated with a certain cluster if the certain cluster includes a run of a test scenario run by a user belonging to the organization. A cluster rating module computes popularity ratings of at least some of the clusters based on the number of different organizations associated with the clusters; the higher the number of different organization associated with a cluster, the higher the popularity rating of the cluster.
US09092574B2
An installer application implemented in a computational device receives a command to install a test application in the computational device. The installer application determines whether a selected port of a plurality of ports of the computational device is to be blocked prior to installing the test application in the computational device. In response to determining that the selected port is to be blocked prior to installing the test application in the computational device, the installer application blocks the selected port, installs the test application by binding a socket to the selected port of the plurality of ports, and tests functions of the test application by executing one or more code paths of the test application, in response to installing the test application.
US09092557B2
A device adapted to determine an analyte concentration of a fluid sample using a test sensor. The device comprises a display adapted to display information to a user. The device further comprises at least one user-interface mechanism adapted to allow the user to interact with the device. The device further comprises a body portion including at least one opening formed therein, the at least one opening being of sufficient size to receive the test sensor. The device further comprises a memory adapted to store a plurality of stored analyte concentrations. The device further comprises a processing feature adapted to inhibit the stored analyte concentrations from being displayed on the display.
US09092555B2
Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with a patient activity alert tool are described. In one embodiment, a system includes a risk notification logic configured to receive a risk notification from a patient. The risk notification includes a threshold condition. The threshold condition may be a time interval during which the patient is at increased risk to experience an adverse event. The example system also includes a threshold logic configured to determine that the threshold condition has been met without receipt of a clearance notification from the patient. The threshold logic then generates an alert. An alert logic sends the alert to a caregiver selected by the patient.
US09092550B2
A method includes populating an auto suggestion field with objects of the same type based upon the type of object selected in the main area of the application. The auto suggestion field is set to have N levels. The method further includes placing a recently used object in a first position of the N levels of the auto suggestion field. Succeeding objects are placed in other positions of the N levels in the auto suggestion field, wherein the succeeding objects are ordered based upon recency and frequency of use and the populating is executed by at least one processor.
US09092547B2
Methods are disclosed for converting a directed graph to a taxonomy using guidelines from a user. An initial tree is output from a first pruning step in which subtree preferences (and other weights) are applied to preserve or remove paths from a node to one or more levels of descendent nodes. Subtree preferences (and infoboxes) may specify rules for automatically generating recommendations during application to nodes. In a second pruning step, the directed graph is again processed with additional weightings applied to edges in the graph in accordance with the recommendations. The recommendations may be human defined. Recommendations may specify a recommended ancestor for a particular node and may include a weighting to be applied to the recommendation itself, if there are multiple conflicting recommendations for the same node. Recommendations may also specify what standard weight to apply to the edge of the best parent.
US09092542B2
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for podcasting content associated with a user account. Embodiments include aggregating, for a user, content of disparate data types from disparate data sources; synthesizing the aggregated content of disparate data types into a podcast capable of being rendered on a digital media player; and providing the podcast for download from a URL. Embodiments also typically include receiving a request for the podcast; and transmitting in response to the request the podcast in a response to the request.
US09092540B2
The invention is directed to increasing interoperability between web-based applications and hardware functions of a mobile device. The invention includes a thick-client hardware compatibility wrapper (HCW), which renders web-based applications and manages communication between hardware functionality and the web-based application. Specifically, the HCW monitors the web-based application and identifies commands to the hardware components of the mobile device. These commands are interpreted by the HCW, which then uses native calls to perform the hardware-specific activities. The HCW is also capable of calling functions on a webpage within the web-based application in response to query commands to the web-based application or in response to hardware events from the hardware components.
US09092539B2
A method and a system for analyzing traffic on a website are disclosed. The website is arranged on a server and comprises at least two webpages. A plurality of visitors is allowed to visit the website. For each visit navigations and/or actions performed by the visitor during the visit are monitored, while accumulating value points in accordance with content viewed by the visitor and actions performed by the visitor, and in accordance with predefined value point settings associated with content of the website, thereby obtaining an accumulated value point score for the visit. Furthermore, an origin of the visit, leading the visitor to the website, and a landing webpage being the first webpage of the website which the visitor visits when arriving from the origin of the visit, said landing webpage being designated by the origin, are registered.Obtained accumulated value point scores and registered origins and landing webpages of the plurality of visits are analyzed, and, based on this, it is determined to redirect future website traffic originating from a specific origin, and having a specific landing webpage, to a target webpage of the website in the case that the analyzing step reveals that visits originating from the specific origin obtain higher accumulated value point scores when the first webpage visited by the visitor is the target webpage than when the first webpage visited by the visitor is the landing webpage which was designated by the origin.Expected value generated for the website owner by the future traffic to the website is thereby increased.
US09092534B2
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to embedded hyperlinks in method content for a process modeler and provide a method, system and computer program product for self-maintaining hyperlinks in method content for a process modeler. In one embodiment of the invention, a self-maintaining hyperlink management method can be provided. The method can include parsing a method element in a process model to locate a self-maintaining hyperlink, locating a unique identifier in the self-maintaining hyperlink, retrieving data for external content associated with the unique identifier and replacing placeholder content in the self-maintaining hyperlink with the retrieved data. Thereafter, the process model can be published with the retrieved data in place of the placeholder content in the self-maintaining hyperlink.
US09092529B1
This specification describes technologies relating to searching. In general, aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving, at a computing device, a search query from a user, receiving, at the computing device, search results responsive to the search query, the search results each associated with digital content stored in one or more computer-readable storage media, determining that a first search result of the search results is associated with a first endorsement generated by a first user, determining that the first user is a member of a social graph of the user, and transmitting instructions to display the search results to the user, the instructions including instructions to display a first endorsement annotation associated with the first search result.
US09092528B1
In general, one aspect of the subject matter described can be embodied in a method that includes, for a first document that is included in first search results responsive to a first user-submitted query, selecting a plurality of previously submitted queries for which the first document was a responsive search result. The method can further include determining whether second documents that are relevant to the previously submitted query have at least a threshold level of diversity in comparison to the first search results, wherein second documents are determined to be relevant to the previously submitted query based on data that is indicative of user behavior. The method can additionally include identifying one or more queries from the selected previously submitted queries to provide as first suggested queries, and providing the one or more identified queries as first suggested queries with the first search results for the first user-submitted query.
US09092527B2
In one embodiment, a search query is received from a computing device, the search query including one or more search terms. Based on the one or more search terms, one or more entities are identified from a set of multiple entities. Each of the one or more identified entities is associated with one or more application functionalities. In addition, a set of applications are identified based on the one or more search terms. Based at least on a type of at least one of the identified one or more entities, a determination is made that a particular application from the set of applications supports the at least one of the identified one or more entities. Thereafter, the applications in the set are ranked based in part on the determination that the particular application supports the at least one of the identified one or more entities.
US09092526B1
The present application describes performing a user initiated search query comprising receiving user input comprising description details of at least one desired object, retrieving a plurality of objects from a database sharing one or more of the description details of the user input, retrieving an image of the at least one desired object based on one or more of the plurality of objects, generating a contour of the image and comparing the generated contour with other related contours of other images stored in the database, displaying all of the available contours of all of the images that match the generated contour, receiving a selection of one of the available contours from the user and performing the search query based on the user selected contour.
US09092517B2
An approach is described for generating synonyms to supplement at least one information item, such as, in one case, a set of related items. The approach can involve an expansion phase, a clean-up phase, and a reduction phase. In the expansion phase, the approach identifies, for each related item, a set of initial synonym candidates. In the clean-up phase, the approach removes noise from the set of initial synonym candidates (if such noise exists), to provide a set of filtered synonym candidate items. In the reduction phase, the approach ranks and applies a threshold (or thresholds) to the set of filtered synonym candidate items, to generate, for each information item, a set of selected synonyms. The approach uses query log data at various points in its operation. The selected synonyms can be used to improve the effectiveness of user searches.
US09092504B2
Systems and methods for indexing information and for performing searches are disclosed. In these systems and methods information is “ingested” into the system by clustering the information using a clustering algorithm such as k-means or k-medoids clustering. During the clustering process, a hybrid distance measurement is used that allows the systems and methods to determine similarity across a number of different types of information. Once the information is clustered, it is stored and “mirrored” both in a structured (e.g., relational) data repository and in an unstructured data repository. Methods according to the invention allow the retrieval of both direct search results and search results including related concepts. After clustered information is stored, future searches can be performed by searching the stored results in whichever data repository is most appropriate for the context.
US09092501B2
Systems and methods for hosting variable schema data such as dynamic tables and columns in a fixed physical database schema. Standard objects, such as tables are provided for use by multiple tenants or organizations in a multi-tenant database system. Each organization may add or define custom fields for inclusion in a standard object. Custom fields for multiple tenants are stored in a custom data column within the object data structure, and this single custom data column may contain different data types for each tenant.
US09092498B2
A data distribution system, method and a computer program product therefor. Computers provisioned with operations centers supporting individual locations share resources with organizations in multiple locations. Each operations center receives and evaluates local information for the supported location and selectively provides evaluated information for reuse by other locations. A data exchange agent in each operations center publishes information available from a supported location to a publication subscription unit. The operations center also subscribes to the publication subscription unit for information available from other locations. The publication subscription unit identifies matches between subscriptions and publications. A negotiation unit negotiates matched information transfers between operations centers.
US09092497B2
System and method of event-driven synchronization of a database distributed among servers connected in a tree topology, including: transmitting, from a root server, a composition request to a first level of child servers of the root server; recursively transmitting, from each child server of a first level, a composition request to child servers at a second level, wherein the second level is lower than the first level; recursively transmitting, from each child server of the second level, a notification message to child servers at the first level, wherein the notification message comprises an identification of database fragments accessible to the child server; transmitting, from child servers at the first level, respective notification messages to the root server, wherein the root server synchronizes an availability of database fragments from the respective notification messages transmitted to the root server. Subtrees may be cut from or joined to the tree topology.
US09092495B2
Systems and methods for automatic object reference identification and linking in a browseable fact repository database are provided. In some implementations, a method includes, identifying a set of values from a plurality of facts associated with an entity. The plurality of facts are stored in a fact repository, and a respective fact includes: an attribute and a corresponding value. The method further includes, responsive to a search for a first value included in a first fact in the plurality of facts: identifying a second fact associated with the entity; and causing to be displayed to a user: a link associated with the second fact, and information representing a confidence value associated with the second fact. The link, when selected, invokes a search of the fact repository in accordance with one or more search parameters, which include a value corresponding to an attribute included in the second fact.
US09092489B1
A processing device computes scores for a plurality of media items. A score for a media item is computed by determining a plurality of positive user actions associated with the media item, combining a plurality of score contributions from the plurality of positive user actions to determine a value for the score, and applying an exponential decay to the value for the score. The media items are ranked based on the scores. One or more of the media items that have not been featured on any external website or that fail to satisfy another filtering criterion are filtered. A popular media item data set is then populated with highest ranked media items from a remainder of the plurality of media items.
US09092486B2
A method of managing peripherals is performed in a device coupled to a processor in a computer system. In the method, information associated with I/O activity for one or more peripherals is recorded in a first segment of a log. A second segment of the log is identified based on a next-segment pointer associated with the first segment of the log. In response to detecting a lack of available capacity in the first segment of the log, information associated with further I/O activity for the one or more peripherals is recorded in the second segment of the log.
US09092483B2
There is provided a computer-implemented method for user query reformulation. A graph is created to represent a relationship between previous user query terms. The graph may represent the previous user searches in n-grams that correspond to nodes. A random walk analysis is performed to determine probabilities that various n-grams corresponding to nodes of the graph could be used to effectively alter a user search term. The probabilities represent a quantification of relationships between nodes of the graph. A determination may be made regarding whether to reformulate the user query based on a relationship between a user search term in the user query and a graphed search term represented by a node of the graph. The determination takes into account a relationship between the user search term and the graphed search term.
US09092472B1
Described herein are systems, computer readable mediums, and methods for merging a source file with a target table using different merging processes. The source file may be logically segregated into new records and update records. The update records may be logically segregated into a first update record section and a second update record section. The target table may be logically segregated into a target table section. In one implementation, a server may use a hash merging process to merge the first update record section with the target table section and use an index merging process to merge the second update record section with the target table.
US09092468B2
A computer implemented method, computer program product and system for data quality monitoring includes measuring a data quality of loaded data relative to a predefined data quality metric. The measuring the data quality includes identifying delta changes in at least one of the loaded data and the data quality rules relative to a previous measurement of the data quality of the loaded data. Logical calculus defined in the data quality rules is applied to the identified delta changes.
US09092466B1
A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for managing a cloud computing environment. In some embodiments, this includes identifying a namespace, identifying an event handler, identifying a java class configuration, and storing the namespace, event handler, and java class configuration in an XML document.
US09092465B2
Example embodiments provide various techniques for collecting data associated with the performance of a storage system. In one method, an attribute associated with the storage system is detected and a data collection policy associated with the attribute is identified. Here, the data collection policy defines a type of data associated with the performance to be collected. With the data collection policy identified, the data are then collected based on the data collection policy.
US09092455B2
Image curation techniques are described. In one or more implementations, one or more modules are launched for execution on a computing device. Responsive to the launch, criteria are generated automatically and without user intervention through execution of the one or more modules by a computing device. Images are curated using the generated criteria automatically and without user intervention through execution of the one or more modules, the curated images identified from a plurality of different image sources that are associated with a user. The curated images are caused to be displayed by a display device of the computing device automatically and without user intervention through execution of the one or more modules.
US09092454B2
Described is a technology by which co-located query patterns are mined from a data space such as a geographic search log. An overall data space (basic) approach and/or a lattice-based approach may be used when mining. The data space contains objects, each comprising associated type and location information. The location information is used to determine the distance between different two or more types of objects, e.g., pairs. The frequency of occurrence of those pairs within the data space determines whether that pairing of object types indicates a co-located pattern. Also described is partitioning the data space into regions, including for the purpose of categorizing a co-located pattern as a local pattern or a global pattern based on how that co-located pattern is distributed among the regions.
US09092451B1
A request is received to perform a process on a set of data. A set of resources, including processing and storage, is obtained to run an appropriate Hadoop system to process the received request. The set of data is processed using the obtained set of resources. One or more storage resources associated with the distributed system are allocated where a total amount of storage associated with the distributed system is independent of a total amount of processing associated with the distributed system. The processing results are stored in the allocated storage resources.
US09092450B2
Described are embodiments for allowing clients that access a distributed file system to locally cache directory metadata. The client may request a read lease which allows the client to cache the directory metadata locally and service requests received from the same application which originally requested the directory metadata using the cache. In addition, the client may also request a handle lease which allows a client to delay the closing of a directory handle and allow the handle to be reused to service subsequent directory metadata requests from the same or a different application. A client may also request a write lease which allows an application on the client to modify the directory metadata, such as by creating or deleting new files in the directory, or changing their attributes, and cache those changes.
US09092443B2
Target file generation systems and methods are described, which are optionally for use by ordinary computer users enable those users to readily generate target files without the requirement that they know the internal layout structures of the target files. A user is enabled to select a template file from a plurality of template files via a user interface configured to be displayed on a computer display to the user, wherein the template files include changeable fields associated with corresponding field delimiters and prompting labels. An incomplete software program file containing variable name locations is accessed from memory. The program file is parsed to locate the variable name locations. The label names obtained from the template file selected by the user are inserted into the variable name locations to further complete the software program file. The software program file is stored in computer memory.
US09092441B1
Methods and systems are provided herein that facilitate cost-effective, scalable and reliable archival data organization and management. In an embodiment, data are redundantly encoded and stored to provide data reliability. Further, encoded data may be stored in self-describing storage entities that provide information describing data stored therein. Information provided by self-describing storage entities may be used to construct a limited map that is usable to facilitate data placement and data location services during data storage and retrieval. Data reliability and durability is provided because information about data stored in the system is mostly contained in the storage entities themselves. Cost efficiency is provided because only a limited map is provided for efficiency purposes instead of a potentially large global index data structure.
US09092440B1
A method performed by one or more processing devices includes obtaining a definition of a data structure; obtaining a definition of one or more operations to be performed on the data structure, the definition of the one or more operations being in accordance with a first syntax; receiving a request for instructions to perform the one or more operations on the one or more fields of the data structure, the instructions being in accordance with a second syntax; generating a translation of the definition of the one or more operations from the first syntax to the second syntax; generating instructions for accessing the one or more fields of the data structure; and generating the instructions in accordance with the second syntax for performing the one or more operations on the one or more fields of the data structure.
US09092435B2
A method is provided for extracting meta data from a digital media storage device in a vehicle over a communication link between a control module of the vehicle and the digital media storage device. The method includes establishing a communication link between control module of the vehicle and the digital media storage device, identifying a media file on the digital media storage device, and retrieving meta data from a media file, the meta data including a plurality of entries, wherein at least one of the plurality of entries includes text data. The method further includes identifying the text data in an entry of the media file and storing the plurality of entries in a memory.
US09092429B2
According to one example embodiment, a direct memory access (DMA) engine and buffer is disclosed. The vector buffer may be explicitly programmable, and may include advanced logic for reordering non-unity-stride vector data. An example MEMCPY instruction may provide an access request to the DMA buffer, which may then service the request asynchronously. Bitwise guards are set over memory in use, and cleared as each bit is read.
US09092427B2
A secure session of communication between two entities in a network is disclosed. Using client-server terminology, a client sends a connection-request to a server that authenticates the connection-request and transmits a session-request to the client in response. The client reverse-authenticates the session-request and then passively waits to receive a tunnel-request transmitted by the server. The tunnel-request sets up one or more overlapping tunnels between the client and the server to support the desired communications. Each of the tunnels exists only for a specified time and is replaced by another tunnel that is set up after a selected time delay after the start of a previous tunnel.
US09092425B2
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for predicting probabilities of words for a language model. An exemplary system configured to practice the method receives a sequence of words and external data associated with the sequence of words and maps the sequence of words to an X-dimensional vector, corresponding to a vocabulary size. Then the system processes each X-dimensional vector, based on the external data, to generate respective Y-dimensional vectors, wherein each Y-dimensional vector represents a dense continuous space, and outputs at least one next word predicted to follow the sequence of words based on the respective Y-dimensional vectors. The X-dimensional vector, which is a binary sparse representation, can be higher dimensional than the Y-dimensional vector, which is a dense continuous space. The external data can include part-of-speech tags, topic information, word similarity, word relationships, a particular topic, and succeeding parts of speech in a given history.
US09092422B2
Provided are methods, systems and apparatus which include computer program products, for generating topic models for text summarization In one aspect, a method includes receiving a first document of text that is associated with one or more category labels and that includes one or more sequences of one or more words, determining a category label that represents a first category associated with the first document, sampling the one or more sequences to determine a topic and a co-occurrence relationship between the topic and the category label, where a topic represents a subdivision within a category, sampling the one or more sequences to determine a co-occurrence relationship between a sequence in the first document and the topic, and generating a category-topic model that represents the co-occurrence relationships.
US09092420B2
Provided is an apparatus and method for automatically generating grammar for use in the processing of natural language. The apparatus may extract a corpus relevant to a target domain from a collection of corpora and may generate grammar for use in the target domain based on the extracted corpus. The apparatus may set one domain out of a plurality of domains as a target domain to be processed by an intention analysis system. The apparatus may extract a corpus relevant to the target domain from a collection of corpora and generate grammar based on the extracted corpus.
US09092417B2
A computer-implemented method of extracting data from a document in an electronic format. The method includes the steps of accessing a file in an electronic format from a memory module; extracting data from the file corresponding to a plurality of keys contained within a mapping structure stored in the memory module; organizing the extracted data into values, wherein each value maps to one of the plurality of keys to form a hash map; storing the hash map in a database; and providing a user access to the database via an output device. The output device allows the user to view a customizable document whose content is derived from the values and keys stored in the database.
US09092413B1
Access to first data is provided to a first user and to a second user. A specified change is received from the first user. Access to second data generated based on the first user's specified change is provided only to the first user. The first data is updated based on the specified change, in response to a selection by the first user of an option to apply the specified change to the first data. Simultaneous access to the updated first data is provided to the first user and to the second user.
US09092407B2
An exemplary method includes a virtual interface adjustment system detecting, based on user input data associated with user input received by way of a virtual interface of a user device, an erroneous input pattern that includes at least one unintentional input, determining, based on the erroneous input pattern, an adjustment procedure configured to adjust the virtual interface to avert future unintentional inputs that correspond to the at least one unintentional input of the erroneous input pattern, determining an adjustment procedure trigger for the adjustment procedure, activating the adjustment procedure trigger, detecting, after the activating, an occurrence of the adjustment procedure trigger, and executing, in response to the detecting of the occurrence of the adjustment procedure trigger, the adjustment procedure to avert the future unintentional inputs that correspond to the at least one unintentional input of the erroneous input pattern. Corresponding methods and systems are also described.
US09092406B2
Embodiments of a method for providing documents, which may be performed by a system, are described. During operation, the system determines presentation information for content in a first document. Note that the content may include characters, and that the presentation information may specify relative positions of the characters in a framework of the first document. Then, the system generates a second document that includes the presentation information. Next, the system outputs a third document that includes the characters in the first document, where the characters can be presented in the framework based solely on the third document using an interpreter program.
US09092398B2
Systems and methods presented herein provide for recovering a failed expander in a data storage switch to restore the switch to optimal. In one embodiment, a data storage switch includes a master expander having a first firmware module operable to link a plurality of logical volumes to at least one initiator through a first plurality of physical transceivers. The data storage switch also includes a slave expander having a second firmware module operable to link the plurality of logical volumes to the at least one initiator through a second plurality of physical transceivers. The slave expander is operable to detect a firmware failure of the master expander to link at least a portion of the logical volumes to the at least one initiator, to load a copy of second firmware module into the master expander, and to initiate the master expander to link to the logical volumes to the at least one initiator through the first plurality of physical transceivers based on the copy of the second firmware module.
US09092391B2
The present invention provides methods of determining a Genetic Composite Index score by assessing the association between an individual's genotype and at least one disease or condition. The assessment comprises comparing an individual's genomic profile with a database of medically relevant genetic variations that have been established to associate with at least one disease or condition.
US09092390B1
A computer-implemented method for handling electronic achievement information involves receiving, from a first user of an achievement aggregation system, a selection of a plurality of achievement tracking services that are operated by organizations that are separate from the operator of the achievement aggregation system; establishing an authenticated electronic communication connection between the achievement aggregator system and each of the one or more achievement tracking services; obtaining from each of the achievement tracking services, information sufficient to characterize one or more achievements obtained by the user; aggregating the information obtained from each of the achievement tracking services into a user achievement profile; and providing the user achievement profile for presentation to one or more users who request profile information about the first user.
US09092389B2
A method is provided in which determines user availability on the basis of the manner in which a person uses a computing device that is associated with a telecommunications terminal. Specifically, the present invention is for a method in which a telecommunications terminal determines whether its user is available to accept an incoming invitation to participate in a telecommunications session based on: (1) a characteristic of the use of a software application, (2) a characteristic of the use of a resource of a terminal, (3) a sensor input, (4) a characteristic of the incoming invitation or (5) any combination of (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5).
US09092388B2
There is provided a method and apparatus for bus negotiation. One such method includes determining a configuration of a first bond pad, the first bond pad indicating whether a host is configured to communicate with a fixed data storage device or a removable data storage device. If the first bond pad indicates the host is configured to communicate with a fixed data storage device, then the method additionally includes determining the configuration of a second bond pad. The second bond pad indicates the supported bus width of the fixed data storage device.
US09092380B1
A system for communicating and exchanging information between two or more parties, and method to accomplish same. The system and method includes a controlling third party. The system includes the use of a global computer network to which said parties are connected and a server. One of the parties can be a coordinator with control over software run by the server that controls and limits the nature and frequency of the communication and exchange of information between or among the parties. Parties can “connect” to the system via any one or more of the following: cell phones, telephones, computers, personal digital assistants, iPhones, audio devices such as mp3 players and/or iPods, etc.
US09092377B2
Backup operations for data resources can be managed as follows. At least one data resource residing on at least one data storage device is identified. An information processing system automatically determines that the at least one data resource fails to be associated with a backup policy. In response to the at least one data resource failing to be associated with a backup policy, at least one backup policy is associated with the at least one data resource.
US09092371B2
A signal parameter estimator includes curve fitting of multiple ideal spectral shapes.
US09092370B2
The various implementations described herein include systems, methods and/or devices used to enable power failure tolerant cryptographic erasure in a storage device having a first encryption key established as a current encryption key. The method includes performing a set of first stage operations including selecting first and second sets of memory blocks and obtaining a second encryption key. The method includes performing a set of second stage operations including storing, in the first set of memory blocks, first and second sets of metadata, encrypted using the second encryption key. The method includes performing a set of third stage operations, including storing, in the second set of memory blocks, the second set of metadata encrypted using the second encryption key. The method includes setting the second encryption key as the current encryption key for the plurality of memory blocks.
US09092354B2
According to one embodiment, storage device, a CRC generator device and a CRC generation method includes A storage device includes: a storage unit 1, a data reading unit 2, and a CRC generation device 3. The CRC generation device 3 includes a CRC generation unit 31 generates a first CRC value; an ECC unit 32 detects an error sequence in a reverse order; a CRC reverse operation unit 33 calculates a CRC reverse operation result for the error sequence; a CRC generation shift register group 34 to retain CRC conversion information; an error sequence CRC generation unit 35 obtains a second CRC value; and an XOR unit 36 obtains a CRC value for an errorless recording sequence.
US09092330B2
Embodiments relate to early data delivery prior to error detection completion in a memory system. One aspect is a system that includes a cache subsystem interface with a correction pipeline in a system domain. The system includes a memory control unit interface in a memory controller nest domain and a buffer control block providing an asynchronous boundary layer between the system domain and the memory controller nest domain. A controller is configured to receive a frame of a multi-frame data block and write the frame to the buffer control block. The frame is read by the cache subsystem interface prior to completion of error detection of the multi-frame data block. Error detection is performed on the frame in the memory controller nest domain. Based on detecting an error in the frame, an intercept signal is sent from the memory controller nest domain to the correction pipeline in the system domain.
US09092315B2
The present embodiments disclose a method and an associated computer program product for determining the quality of an information technology (IT) system including a plurality of hardware units and software modules. A total score value for the IT system is calculated from different score values ascertained independently of one another. The different score values are measures for deviations of the quality of the hardware units or the software modules from first predefinable target values. The total score value is a measure of a deviation of the quality of the IT system from a second predefinable target value.
US09092313B2
An embodiment described herein includes a method for input channel voting. The method includes steps for sorting the three input values by magnitude into a high input value, a middle input value, and a low input value. The three input values are then tested. The testing includes subtracting the middle input value form the high input value to calculate a first difference, and comparing an absolute value of the first difference to a failure threshold. A first intermediate value is determined based on the comparison of the first difference to the failure threshold. The testing also includes subtracting the middle input value from the low input value to calculate a second difference, and comparing the second difference to the failure threshold. A second intermediate value is determined based on this comparison. The first intermediate value and second intermediate value are averaged to produce an output based on the three input values.
US09092305B1
In one embodiment, a circuit for communicating with a memory is provided. The circuit includes a sorting circuit configured to receive a plurality of read and write transactions. The sorting circuit sorts the write transactions according to respective sizes of data to be written to the memory, and sorts the read transactions according to respective sizes of data to be read from the memory. A selection circuit is configured to select transactions for transmission to the memory, from the sorted read and write transactions, in an order that balances a quantity of data to be written to the memory over a first serial data link with a quantity of data to be read from the memory over a second serial data link. A transmitter is coupled to the selection circuit and is configured to transmit the selected transactions to the memory device on a serial data link.
US09092304B1
A hosts file manager is provided that displays a user interface with a list of selectable server groups. The list may comprise, for example, identifications server groups. Each server group corresponds to an IP address, and the hosts file manager has access to such IP address data. A user selection of a first server group may be made and received via said user interface. A computer's hosts file may then be modified to correlate a hostname with an IP address of the selected server group.
US09092296B1
An apparatus for managing telemetry sensor controllers identified by their respective communication port identifiers is disclosed. The apparatus may include a memory that stores a telemetry sensor controller mapping that associates an equipment identifier for a telemetry sensor controller with a communication port identifier, an equipment identifier mapping that associates an equipment identifier with a telemetry monitoring application, and a firmware mapping that associates a telemetry monitoring application with a firmware for a telemetry sensor controller. The apparatus may determine an equipment identifier for a connected telemetry sensor controller and instantiate a telemetry monitoring application for the connected telemetry sensor controller based on the equipment identifier mapping. The apparatus may then automatically transfer a firmware to the connected telemetry sensor controller when the firmware version installed on the connected telemetry sensor controller is determined to not be a current version of the firmware available.
US09092281B2
A method for performing a remote procedure call between an application processor and a digital signal processor within a computing device. The computing device may compile interface description language data to generate stub software that executes on the application processor and skel software that executes on the digital signal processor. When an application executing on the application processor invokes a remote procedure call, the application processor may pack argument data within stack memory and transmit an interrupt to the digital signal processor, which may map the physical memory addresses of the argument data into local address space such that no copies of the argument data is made. The digital signal processor may execute skel software that unpacks the argument data and executes a service related to the remote procedure call.
US09092278B2
A system for allocating incoming events among operational groups to create a multi-treaded computation process includes: incoming events; an event processing system configured to receive the incoming events; an event key generator within the event processing system, the event key generator being configured to generate event keys at run time, the event keys being associated with the incoming events; and a thread dispatcher, the thread dispatcher allocating the incoming events among the operational groups according to the associated incoming event keys.
US09092277B2
A method, apparatus, system, and computer readable medium for hosting an application participating in a workflow communication which generates a workflow step and translates the workflow step into a device instruction, the device instruction being based on device specifications and instructing the device to perform a function. The device instruction is sent to the device and feedback is received from the device, the feedback corresponding to the device instruction. The feedback is then processed and the workflow communication is updated based on the processed feedback.
US09092256B2
A method, circuit arrangement, and program product for executing instructions including denormal values for one or more operands in a vector execution unit. A denormal value operand may be prenormalized by a first processing lane of the vector execution unit upon detecting the denormal value. The prenormalized value and any other operands of the instruction may be communicated to a dot product adder of the vector execution unit. The dot product adder performs at least a portion of the floating point operation with the prenormalized value and any other operands of the instruction.
US09092245B2
There is provided an information processing apparatus including a message storage unit for storing a message sent to a component, and an execution processing unit for loading the component body into a computer in response to receiving an execution instruction on the component to execute the component body and process the message stored in the message storage unit prior to the execution instruction.
US09092242B2
A computing device to connect to a portable device. The computing device can establish a secure connection to the portable device and determine an application on the portable device. In one embodiment the computing device can present the application. In one embodiment the computing device can execute the application in a hardware virtualizer or in a dynamic translator.
US09092234B2
In a method for obtaining a system by combining program components, the relocation of the program components can be facilitated. When a component has been moved between upper and lower level composites by a relocation processing unit, if a move source composite has a wiring between an element and a component to be moved, a complement processing unit performs complement processing in which a service or a reference is added to the lower level composite, a wiring for connecting the added service or reference and the element is set to the move source composite, and a wiring for connecting the added service or reference and the component to be moved is set to a move destination composite.
US09092226B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for handling floating point exceptions in a processor that executes single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD) instructions. In one example a numerical exception is identified for a SIMD floating point operation and SIMD micro-operations are initiated to generate two packed partial results of a packed result for the SIMD floating point operation. A SIMD denormalization micro-operation is initiated to combine the two packed partial results and to denormalize one or more elements of the combined packed partial results to generate a packed result for the SIMD floating point operation having one or more denormal elements. Flags are set and stored with packed partial results to identify denormal elements. In one example a SIMD normalization micro-operation is initiated to generate a normalized pseudo internal floating point representation prior to the SIMD floating point operation when it uses multiplication.
US09092224B2
A method and system for automatically enforcing a hybrid branching strategy include receiving a changeset designated for a branch. In response to receiving the changeset, the system may automatically determine whether a merge conflict associated with the changeset exists between the branch and an associated protected branch, and the system may automatically determine whether the changeset is up to date. Upon determining that no merge conflict exists, the system automatically initiates execution of a continuous integration testing pipeline. The continuous integration testing pipeline includes a series of tests applied to the changeset. If the changeset passes the series of tests, the system automatically merges the changeset with the associated protected branch.
US09092216B2
A processing device receives a transactional object at runtime of a compiled application, the transactional object comprising first transactional logic. The processing device determines a locking strategy to use for the transactional object. The processing device generates a transactional proxy for the transactional object, the transactional proxy comprising a transactional marker, a pointer to the transactional object, and second transactional logic that supersedes the first transactional logic. The processing device passes the transactional proxy to the application, wherein the application is to make calls on the transactional proxy instead of on the transactional object.
US09092213B2
A method of performing vector operations on a semiconductor chip is described. The method includes performing a first vector instruction with a vector functional unit implemented on the semiconductor chip and performing a second vector instruction with the vector functional unit. The first vector instruction is a vector multiply add instruction. The second vector instruction is a vector leading zeros count instruction.
US09092209B2
A framework that enables a local computing cloud infrastructure for rural (and third world) populations with the ability to connect into the global cloud. The framework include is a low cost architecture of long distance, wireless based, renewable energy powered, and small datacenter (DC) (referred to as a pico-DC) nodes that can fully operate off-grid, both power-wise and Internet connection-wise at a very low cost. Additionally, the framework includes power management and storage techniques that effectively enable low power and efficient power use. Thus, systems are self-sufficient, low maintenance and weather proof with no need for power or data connections.
US09092199B2
An information processing apparatus includes a display panel unit and a top plate. The display panel unit has a first surface with a display screen and a second surface opposed to the first surface. The top plate has a third surface in contact with the second surface, a fourth surface opposed to the third surface, and a fifth surface connecting an end portion of the third surface and an end portion of the fourth surface, the top plate containing a fluorescent dye to collect light toward the fifth surface.
US09092196B2
A display apparatus includes a first display panel. The first display panel includes a first display area and a first non-display area. The first display area includes a first pixel part and a second pixel part. The second pixel part is configured to display a first image. The display apparatus further includes a second display panel. The second display panel includes a second display area and a second non-display area. The second display area including a third pixel part and a fourth pixel part. The fourth pixel part is configured to display a second image. The display apparatus further includes an optical member. The optical member includes a first set of optical units and a second set of optical units. The first set of optical units is connected to the second set of optical units. The first set of optical units is connected to the second pixel part for displaying a third image, the third image corresponding to the first image. The second set of optical units is connected to the fourth pixel part for displaying a fourth image, the fourth image corresponding to the second image.
US09092192B2
A key/display assembly includes a first switch and a display module disposed aside the first switch. A touch-sensitive input panel overlies the first switch and the display module, and the touch-sensitive input panel includes a first touch-sensitive region proximate the first switch. The electronic mobile device further includes a first key defined by the first switch and the first touch-sensitive region. As such, the first key is actuated by pressing the first touch-sensitive region to displace the first touch-sensitive region and thereby actuate the first switch.
US09092188B2
A display retraction assembly for a multi-display visualization device is provided comprising a first track in a first vertical plane, a second track in a second vertical plane offset from the first track, a display support member operably connected to the first track and second track and a display connected to the display support member wherein the display is movable simultaneously with the display support member along the first track and second track.
US09092179B2
A communication apparatus allows a user to set whether each of a plurality of services provided by the communication apparatus is or is not to be provided to an external device while the external device is connected with the communication apparatus via wireless communication.
US09092177B2
A Smart Phone specification is disclosed, the Smart Phone supports voice activated commands and may include a touch sensitive screen, a digital camera, a wireless communication unit supporting at least partly a protocol within IEEE802.11 standards, an operating system, a graphical user interface, an e-mail application, an Internet browsing application, and an application for playing audio or video content. The Smart Phone may provide an application programming interface (API) to support applications. The Smart Phone may further include a microphone, a speaker, and voice activated command functions for receiving voice commands from the user. In some examples, the digital camera of the Smart Phone may take a picture and transfer the picture to an output device. In other examples, the Smart Phone may stream or transfer digital content over the air or wirelessly in response to voice activated commands or selections over the touch sensitive screen.
US09092169B2
A non-transitory recording medium includes an installer program that causes a computer within an information processing device to function as a device list generation unit, a display control unit, and an installation processing unit. The device list generation unit generates a device list. The display control unit causes the device list to be displayed in a first display area; causes a driver list to be displayed in a second display area; causes the device selected from the device list to be displayed in a third display area; and causes the driver selected from the driver list to be displayed corresponding to the device displayed in the third display area. The installation processing unit installs, into the information processing device, the driver displayed corresponding to the device.
US09092166B2
A common setting screen through which a common setting that does not depend on an image processing apparatus model can be set, and an individual setting screen through which an individual setting that depends on an image processing apparatus model can be set, are controlled so as to be displayed on a print setting screen.
US09092159B1
Raw data is accessed from a storage device. A sample survey technique is used on the raw data to select a sample data. A data science technique is used on the sample data to determine a sample data category. The raw data is classified at least in part by considering the sample data category. A tier of storage is identified for the raw data on the storage device based on the classification.
US09092155B2
A method for performing a write to a volume x in a cascaded architecture is described. In one embodiment, such a method includes determining whether the volume x has a child volume, wherein each of the volume x and the child volume have a target bit map (TBM) associated therewith. The method then determines whether the TBMs of both the volume x and the child volume are set. If the TBMs are set, the method finds a higher source (HS) volume from which to copy the desired data to the child volume. Finding the HS volume includes travelling up the cascaded architecture until the source of the data is found. Once the HS volume is found, the method copies the data from the HS volume to the child volume and performs the write to the volume x. A method for performing a read is also disclosed herein.
US09092154B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a device information backup method, device, and system for information backup between a first device and a second device. The first device and the second device are directly connected through a cable, and the first device acquires, from the second device through the cable, information to be backed up and back up the information to be backed up. In this way, information backup can be completed quickly and simply, and shortcomings of a poor reliability and a poor security of a pluggable storage medium are avoided.
US09092150B2
A method includes determining, based on an indication from a host device operatively coupled to a data storage device that includes a controller, a non-volatile memory including a hibernate area, a volatile memory, a non-volatile memory interface, and a volatile memory interface, that the data storage device is to enter a low-power state. The method includes, in response to determining that the data storage device is to enter a low-power state, performing a data save operation. The data save operation bypasses the non-volatile memory interface and the volatile memory interface and copies data from the volatile memory of the data storage device to the hibernate area of the non-volatile memory of the data storage device.
US09092142B2
For first write request to a virtual volume, the first storage apparatus performs processing by a method of either a first write processing method that stores write data in a first logical volume associated with the virtual volume as well as transfers a first write request, to the second storage apparatus, for storing the write data in a second logical volume associated with the virtual volume of the second storage apparatus or a second write processing method that transfers a first write request, to the second storage apparatus, then selects a processing method according to a first IO load on a first area of the virtual volume of the first storage apparatus and a second IO load on the first area of the virtual volume of the second storage apparatus to perform a processing for the first write request.
US09092140B2
A dispersed storage (DS) method begins by issuing a plurality of write commands to a plurality of DS storage units. The method continues by receiving a write acknowledgement from one of the plurality of DS storage units to produce a received write acknowledgement. The method continues by issuing a plurality of commit commands to the plurality of DS storage units when a write threshold number of the received write acknowledgements have been received. The method continues by receiving a commit acknowledgement from a DS storage unit of the plurality of DS storage units to produce a received commit acknowledgement. The method continues by issuing a plurality of finalize commands to the plurality of DS storage units when a write threshold number of the received commit acknowledgements have been received.
US09092139B2
A management apparatus and management method capable of simplifying system management and constructing copy pairs with fault tolerance intended by a user are suggested.With a computer system for providing a host system with logical volumes in the system respectively as virtual volumes in one virtual storage apparatus, each storage apparatus is grouped in accordance with a designated grouping policy and a group ID specific to a storage group, to which the relevant storage apparatus belongs, is assigned to each storage apparatus; and when setting a copy pair, a part or whole of each logical volume is switched to an appropriate logical volume as needed in accordance with a copy pair setting policy, including a location relationship of the respective logical volumes associated with the respective virtual volumes constituting the copy pair, based on the group ID of each storage apparatus.
US09092138B2
Embodiments of methods and systems comprise collecting data associated with a library or library components and storing the collected data in repository. By collecting data associated with a library or library components and storing the collected data in a repository, the degradation of library components can be monitored and the reliability of library components determined, allowing unreliable components to be bypassed or replaced, enhancing the reliability of the library and preventing data loss.
US09092136B1
A projected button display system, including a detector system, a projector system, and a controller. The detector system includes: a coarse detector subsystem comprising a proximity sensor configured to detect an operator's hand in an activation region; and, a fine detector subsystem configured to detect the position of an operator's finger on a display surface. The projector system is operatively connected to the detector system configured to provide a projected keyboard on the display surface in response to the detection of the operator's hand in the activation region. The projected keyboard is responsive to the touch of the operator's finger on the display surface. The controller is operatively connected to the detector system and the projector system. The controller provides an output signal a control/management system.
US09092134B2
In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus comprising a user interface configured to: display a plurality of selectable objects on a display, each of the plurality of selectable objects having a selection area. The apparatus further comprises a processor configured to: receive a user input within the selection area to select a first object, the first object being at least one of the plurality of selectable objects. Further, the apparatus comprises the user interface further configured to display an expanded selection area for the first object based at least in part on the user input.
US09092131B2
Methods for highlighting tappable web page elements in response to a touch detect a touch to a touchscreen display, determine that a touched element displayed at the touch location, and determine whether and how the touched element is to be highlighted. Highlighting can be based on various touched element properties. In one embodiment, if a touched element is not tappable, the element is not highlighted. If the touched element is editable, the element is highlighted. A region around the touch location is highlighted if the touched element is an image map or SVG element and a portion of the element at the touch location is tappable. A touched element is also highlighted if the element has an inline display style or is a highlight element type. The touched element is not highlighted if its size and complexity exceed size and complexity thresholds.
US09092130B2
An electronic device displays at least a portion of an electronic document with a predefined page layout at a first magnification level on a display; detects a first input indicating a first insertion point in the document, where the first insertion point is proximate to a first portion of text in the document; and in response to detecting the first input: selects a second magnification level different from the first magnification level, where the second magnification level is selected so as to display the first portion of text at a target text display size, and, while maintaining the predefined page layout of the document, displays, at the second magnification level, a portion of the document that includes the first portion of text.
US09092129B2
A capture device for remote, virtual on screen data input by hand annotation comprises at least three functional layers including a bottom rigid layer, a middle pressure sensor layer and a top flexible layer. The bottom rigid layer has a surface that provides a mechanical support for writing. The middle pressure sensor layer is adapted to measuring a pressure array or map on the capture active area and to send data representing the measured pressure to a personal computer. The top flexible touch-sensitive passive LCD display layer includes an LCD surface by which whatever is written down on the LCD is impressed graphically due to its liquid crystal physical properties wherein applied pressure changes the crystal particles orientation and light properties, such that when a stylus presses against a writing surface thereof, it leaves a visible trace allowing the user to produce a drawing though no real ink has flown.
US09092126B2
A communication apparatus is configured to, and a computer-readable medium causes a communication apparatus to store position information, acquire content relational information including titles summary information, and display each title of each content relational information in a scrolling single-line form. An accepting section accepts a selection of the displayed content title, and a summary display control section displays the summary information corresponding to the selected title. A selection information storage section stores selection information corresponding to the selected title. A priority setting section sets a priority for each content title of the content relational information based on the corresponding selection information stored in the selection information storage section. The display control section displays and scrolls each title of each of content relational information in a single-line form in a descending order based on the priority of each title.
US09092124B2
The invention provides a facility monitoring system and method of using the system that allows for prioritization of performance parameters to be improved based on deviations from target performance parameters. Improvement incentives are provided to users on a user interface such that the user appreciates the value of the improvement to be conducted.
US09092120B2
A user interface associated with interactive, multi-dimensional gadgets that interact across and through one another—via programmatic interfaces made available by feeds from outside sources, and user input. The gadgets operate interactively to create work flows.
US09092114B2
Exemplary implementations may facilitate effectuating modifications within an instance of a virtual space presented via multiple disparate client computing platforms responsive to detection of a token associated with a single client computing platform. In some implementations, tokens may be detected based on signals received from token readers associated with individual ones of the multiple client computing platforms. A given token may be a standalone physical object. The given token may be detectable based on a signal conveying information associated with the given token. The information associated with the given token conveyed by the signal may be devoid of virtual space content.
US09092107B2
An electromagnetic pen with electromagnetic and ink writing functions is disclosed. The electromagnetic pen includes at least one pen tube assembly, a core mechanism, a pen tip, a ferrite core, a core holder, an elastic conductor and a circuit board. The pen tip and the core are configured in the pen tube assembly and are controlled by the core mechanism.
US09092091B2
An optical touch-sensitive device has the capability to determine touch locations of multiple simultaneous touch events. The touch events disturb optical beams propagating across the touch sensitive surface. With multi-touch events, a single beam can be disturbed by more than one touch event. In one aspect, a non-linear transform is applied to measurements of the optical beams in order to linearize the effects of multiple touch events on a single optical beam. In another aspect, the effect of known touch events (i.e., reference touches) is modeled in advance, and then unknown touch events are determined with respect to the reference touches.
US09092076B2
An electronic transaction card for completing an electronic transaction is provided, the transaction card includes an integrated stylus can be used to interact with a touchscreen. In one embodiment a transaction card is provided that is substantially rectangular and at least one of the corners has a shape that defines a stylus tip and differs from at least one or more of the other corners of the card. In another embodiment a transaction card is provided with an extendible stylus. Thus, the card can include a mount that supports a stylus that is movable between a stored position, in which the stylus tip does not protrude beyond the perimeter of the card, and an extended position, in which the stylus tip extends beyond the perimeter of the card.
