US09183320B2

A data management apparatus includes a storage device; and a processor that executes a procedure, the procedure including selecting a data group, each data in the data group including one of a plurality of tags, among a plurality of data, compressing the data group into a compressed data group, and storing the compressed data group in the storage device, the stored compressed data group being associated with tagging information which indicates that each data of the data group includes the certain tag.
US09183318B2

Interaction is provided between a first content set and a second content set, both of which are loaded into a data structure. When an event associated with loading of the second content set is detected, the second content set is parsed to identify at least one sub-set of the second content set. The identified sub-set is checked against a first data set associated with the first content set to determine whether the identified sub-set matches the first data set. If a match is found, an action associated with the least one identified sub-set is executed and the data structure is modified.
US09183316B2

Action links for a web document may be dynamically generated by a third party. In one implementation, a method may include receiving a request from a client device relating to a document being processed by the client device, the request including a request for content in which the content defines action links that are to be inserted into the document. Action links may be determined for the document based on preferences of a user and content may be generated that describes the determined action links.
US09183313B2

A system for providing position-related information to a mobile user includes a mobile unit and a central site server. The mobile unit includes circuitry for determining present position information from position signals which may emanate from, for example, GPS satellites. The mobile unit further includes circuitry for establishing a wireless bidirectional communications link with the central site server via a terrestrial network, which may be accessed via a cellular telephone network. The central site server includes circuitry for receiving the present position information from the mobile unit. A table stored at the central site server includes different response information in correspondence with possible positions of the mobile unit. The response information may further be in correspondence with user preferences. The central site server uses the received present position information to retrieve corresponding response information from the table, and sends the retrieved response information to the mobile unit via the bidirectional communications link. The mobile unit further includes circuitry, such as a loudspeaker, for supplying the response information to the mobile user. In another aspect of the invention, communications between the mobile unit and the central site server are encrypted. Furthermore, the mobile unit may include components for preventing position information from being supplied to the loudspeaker, thereby eliminating distracting noise from being presented to the user.
US09183299B2

A method, apparatus and computer program for a search engine to rank a set of pages returned as search results from a search query. The search query and a first origin page are received. The search query includes one or more keywords and the first origin page is chosen based on information associated with the search query. A set of results is generated based on the one or more keywords. The click distance from the first origin page to each page in the returned set is then calculated. The click distance represents the number of intermediate pages that a user would need to traverse in order to progress from the first origin page to a page in the set of search results. The set of search results are then ranked based on the calculated click distance from the first origin page to a page in the set of results.
US09183296B1

Systems and methods are provided herein relating to video classification. A text mining component is disclosed that automatically generates a plurality of video event categories. Part-of-Speech (POS) analysis can be applied to video titles and descriptions, further using a lexical hierarchy to filter potential classifications. Classification performance can be further improved by extracting content-based features from a video sample. Using the content based features a set of classifier scores can be generated. A hyper classifier can use both the classifier scores and the content-based features of the video to classify the video sample.
US09183291B2

A system and a method is provided for collecting information and discovery of the information based on an augmented user identity. A note creation function allows a user of a computer device to create notes. A note interaction function allows the user to interact with notes and/or Cloud information available via the Internet. An annotiation function annotates content to the notes, which could be context traits and/or user identity traits. User identity traits are augmented through information obtained from the creation process and/or the interaction process with notes or Cloud information. Using a discovery function, notes can be discovered for a user from a note database/store using aspects of the context traits and/or the augmented user identity traits.
US09183286B2

A method for analyzing predefined subject matter in a patent database being for use with a set of target patents, each target patent related to the predefined subject matter, the method comprising: creating a feature space based on frequently occurring terms found in the set of target patents; creating a partition taxonomy based on a clustered configuration of the feature space; editing the partition taxonomy using domain expertise to produce an edited partition taxonomy; creating a classification taxonomy based on structured features present in the edited partition taxonomy; creating a contingency table by comparing the edited partition taxonomy and the classification taxonomy to provide entries in the contingency table; and identifying all significant relationships in the contingency table to help determine the presence of any white space.
US09183282B2

A method and system for inferring user attributes in a social networking system. The method includes maintaining a social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges between the nodes. An unknown, incomplete, or inaccurate user attribute for a user is identified, and a plurality of probability lists are generated using a corresponding plurality of probability algorithms that utilize known user attributes and the social graph. The probability lists include a set of probability entries, each including a prediction value for the unknown, incomplete, or inaccurate user attribute and a confidence score. Using the probability lists and a plurality of weights corresponding to the probability algorithms, an inferred user attribute value is generated and stored. The weights may be adjusted based upon learning the correct value of the unknown, incomplete, or inaccurate user attribute, and search results may be modified to include the user for search queries seeking information about the inferred user attribute.
US09183279B2

Methods, computer program products and systems are directed to receiving a query regarding an information architecture, selecting a set of nodes based on the query, from a plurality of nodes in a weighted linked graph, the weighted linked graph comprising the plurality of nodes and a plurality of pathways, each of the plurality of nodes comprising a source of information regarding the information architecture, each of the plurality of pathways connecting one of the plurality of nodes to another of the plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of pathways comprising a weight, determining a path from the plurality of pathways that passes through all of selected nodes, and presenting the path in response to the query.
US09183268B2

Techniques to perform an incremental backup of a large-scale distributed database, such as a massively parallel processing (MPP) database, are disclosed. In various embodiments, a set of table partitions each of which satisfies one or more criteria to be included in a current incremental backup is determined at backup time, at least in part by comparing a current table partition meta-information with corresponding meta-information from a prior backup. The table partitions in the set are included in the incremental backup, while other table partitions not in the set are not backed up. In some embodiments, certain tables are designated to be of a type such that existing records are not modified. Tables are partitioned in a manner that isolates changes, e.g., added rows, in a relative few table partitions, leaving others unchanged and therefore able to be omitted from subsequent incremental backups.
US09183267B2

Several local databases may be linked together to form a large database. Each database may share a common type definition, but may contain only a portion of the large database. When a local database queries information from another database, the result may be stored locally using the type system. Across the entire database, items may be identified as their local or home database along with an identifier provided by that database. Cached information may be stored locally and may refer to the source for that information through the identifier. Once the cached information is present, queries that reference the record may be satisfied by the cached information. The cached information may be refreshed from the source database or may expire to avoid stale or changed data in the cache.
US09183258B1

Various features are provided for assisting users in efficiently locating and viewing network content of interest, including but not limited to particular portions of web pages. The features are particularly useful for users of mobile computing devices having a limited display size, but may be used with any type of client device. Some features identify popular content items by collectively analyzing the interactive behaviors of a population of users, such as zooming interactions. The results of such analyzes can be used in various ways to improve users' browsing experiences. For example, popular content items can be highlighted on a web page, an option to zoom in automatically on popular content items can be provided, popular content items may be rendered at relatively high resolution, and caching of content items may be based partly on a measure of their popularity.
US09183254B1

A database system optimizes database queries that comprise subqueries. The database system factors out computation from two or more subqueries to a reusable subquery. The reusable subquery returns a result set. The subqueries are rewritten to use the result set and the database query modified to use the rewritten subqueries. The modified database query performs efficiently since the result set is computed only once for each subquery that uses the reusable query. The database system also composes nested subqueries that compute aggregate values. The database system identifies an inner subquery nested within an outer subquery, each subquery computing an aggregate value. The database system determines a new aggregate function corresponding to a composition of aggregate functions of the inner and the outer queries. The database system determines a composed query using the inner query with the outer query. The composed query uses the new aggregate function.
US09183245B2

First k log buffers, in a data storage application including a plurality of log buffers are each loaded with exactly one transaction. Each log buffer is written to one of a plurality of log partitions. Thereafter, each of the log buffers is sent to an input/output (I/O) subsystem when they are respectively loaded with a single transaction. Transactions are subsequently accumulated in respective new current log buffers after sending the k log buffers to the I/O subsystem. The accumulated transactions are sent to the I/O subsystem when the earlier occurs of (i) the respective current log buffer being full or (ii) a number of incomplete input/output requests handled by the I/O subsystem falls below k. Related apparatus, systems, techniques and articles are also described.
US09183244B2

A system, apparatus, and method are provided for modifying rules in-place atomically from the perspective of an active search process using the rules for packet classification. A rule may be modified in-place by updating a rule's definition to be an intersection of an original and new definition. The rule's definition may be further updated to the rule's new definition and a decision tree may be updated based on the rule's new definition. While a search processor searches for one or more rules that match keys generated from received packets the in-place rule modification prevents periods of incorrect rule matching of the keys thereby preventing packet loss and preserving throughput.
US09183235B2

A computer displays a graphical user interface on its display. The graphical user interface includes a schema information region and a data visualization region. The schema information region includes a plurality of fields of a multi-dimensional database that includes at least one data hierarchy. The data visualization region includes a columns shelf and a rows shelf. The computer detects user actions to associate one or more first fields with the columns shelf and to associate one or more second fields with the rows shelf. The computer generates a visual table in the data visualization region in accordance with the user actions. The visual table includes one or more panes. Each pane has an x-axis defined based on data for the one or more first fields, and each pane has a y-axis defined based on data for the one or more second fields.
US09183233B2

A method of managing a central data repository including updating the central data repository from a disconnected nomadic device by receiving a request from a first nomadic device for access at the central data repository, authorizing the first nomadic device and sending a check out template to the first nomadic device. The server receives a checkout selection from the first nomadic device, authenticates the first nomadic device, and presents a list of authorized items to the first nomadic device; receives a request for selected items from the list and check out the selected items to the first nomadic device. This prohibits other nomadic devices from checking out the selected items checked out to the first selected nomadic device. The first nomadic device is disconnected and the checked out selected items are updated. After updating, a check in request is received at the central data repository from the first nomadic device for the updated checked out selected items The device is and authenticated and authorized, and the updated checked out selected items are returned to the central data repository.
US09183232B1

Systems and methods which provide organization of content using robust content information to enable presenting content to a user organized in a highly relevant way are disclosed. According to embodiments, a user does not control the organization of the particular content (although the user may establish some level of preferences), but rather content organization rules may be autonomously applied through analysis of robust content information and provide content organized in a thematic organizational structure which is highly relevant to the user. Such content organization rules may identify content connection points which are not readily apparent, but which nevertheless provide a collection of content which is relevant. Such content organization rules may operate to provide organization of content related through a thematic thread, such as may comprise a temporal aspect, a geographic aspect, a subject matter aspect, a content file aspect, a setting aspect, a general aspect, and/or the like.
US09183230B2

Techniques are disclosed for a software as a service (SaaS) provider to host a content analytics tool used to evaluate data collections for multiple customers (referred to as tenants) using one dedicated and expandable computing infrastructure, without requiring that the service provider obtain, install, license, and manage a separate copy of the content analytics tools for each tenant. Customers are provided access to resources dedicated to their enterprise, but do not have access, or even awareness, of data collections or analytics resources hosted for other customers. That is, embodiments presented herein allow a provider to host content analytics tools used by customers to evaluate their enterprise data in a secure and timely manner.
US09183229B2

There is disclosed a system and method for geotagging objects on a mobile handheld communication device. In an embodiment, the method comprises: providing a user interface with a plurality of user selectable options for obtaining geographic location coordinates; receiving a user selection of one of the plurality of options; and tagging an object with the geographic location coordinates obtained from the selected one of the plurality of options. In another embodiment, the method may further comprise obtaining from an active global positioning system (GPS) module the geographic location coordinates for a current location to tag the object. The method may further comprise providing previously saved geographic location coordinates to tag the object. The object may be an image object.
US09183228B2

An image retrieval method is provided. The method includes detecting an outline of an image and obtaining an outline feature of the image, generating an index list in an image database according to the outline feature, and obtaining a sketch input by a user and retrieving images containing the sketch from the index list. The various embodiments of the present disclosure also provide an image retrieval device and a real-time drawing prompting method and device. The various embodiments of the present disclosure can rapidly and precisely retrieve image information based on contents, and the user can rapidly retrieve desired images by inputting a sketch. The real-time drawing prompting method and device can provide the limner with real-time guidance based on the retrieval of a sketch map.
US09183218B1

Techniques for deduplicating structured datasets using hybrid chunking and header removal. According to one embodiment, a request is received to deduplicate a file having a plurality of data blocks, each data block having a header and a data portion. The data blocks are anchored using first anchors to indicate block boundaries based on their headers. At least one second anchor is added within a data portion of at least one data block if the data portion of at least one data block satisfies a predetermined condition. The data blocks are then deduplicated based on the first and second anchors.
US09183214B2

The present invention discloses a data storage method, a data downloading method, and a related apparatus. The data storage method includes: receiving a storage request containing a uniform resource locator (URL) for a storage operation; acquiring the URL in the storage request; determining whether a URL schema corresponding to the URL is in a storage, the URL schema corresponding to different URLs for a same file under a same domain name; when the URL schema is in the storage, completing the storage operation without storing the URL; when the URL schema is not in the storage, determining a hash value of a file corresponding to the URL and a hash value of the URL schema, and storing mapping relationship information between the file hash value and the URL schema hash value in the URL index database. The storage resource usage of the URL index database is reduced.
US09183209B2

According to one embodiment, a communication device includes a data storage device and following units. The reception unit receives data from another communication device. The data storage device includes a data area controlled by a file system and a temporary area beyond control of the file system. The processing unit operates in one of first and second start modes, the processing unit being started faster in the second start mode than in the first start mode. The processing unit operating in the second start mode writes the received data to the temporary area, copies the received data in the temporary area to the data area after completion of data reception, and erases the received data in the temporary area after copying.
US09183202B2

Methods and systems for retrieving information from an unrelated application that includes receiving automatically, non-programmatically collected application data from a mapped location of a mapped source reference of the unrelated application; querying a computer-readable storage medium collected application data without user intervention; retrieving identifying data associated with documents stored in the computer-readable storage medium based upon the query; monitoring the collected application data from the mapped location for a change in the collected application data; and upon detecting the change, re-querying the computer-readable storage medium using the changed collected application data and retrieving identifying data associated with the documents based upon the re-query.
US09183191B2

A process for forwarding selected passages from an electronic document being presented on a portable electronic reader, where the electronic document has been previously downloaded into a memory of the electronic reader. The process permits a user of the electronic reader to electronically identify and select the passages from an electronic document being presented on the portable electronic reader. The process also includes the automatic association of metadata with a selected passage, where the metadata includes citation information identifying the presented electronic document as the source document. The selected passages and associated metadata are stored in the portable electronic reader, for subsequent transmission over the communications network to a designated recipient.
US09183185B2

Information relating to an exclusion zone to be provided on a page is received (102), where the exclusion zone defines a corresponding area of the page that is free of content to be inserted in the page. A layout defining plural partitions on the page is produced (104), where the layout includes the exclusion zone and the content having a plurality of elements that are inserted by recursively defining the plural partitions on the page, where the exclusion zone and content elements are provided in respective ones of the plural partitions, and where recursively defining the plural partitions considers presence of the exclusion zone.
US09183184B2

Embodiments of the present invention include a configurable template definition which improves the self-service supplier registration and update process by providing a tailored request to match the needs for the particular type of supplier and collect all the relevant information from them. According to one embodiment, a template page can be made available where the administrator can specify which attributes or attribute groups can be applicable for each type of supplier when registering or updating their data. Profile questions can be selected from the master list and associated to the template. The registration process can then be coded to hide or show individual attributes or groups of attributes and individual profile questions based on the selection in the related template.
US09183178B2

Another detection device reduces the time needed for travel motion information about another vehicle obtained by an accurate detector device, and to continues supplement for the other vehicle in the event that detection is lost. All onboard controller is connected to a communication device as a first detector device for outputting the travel motion information about another vehicle, and a sensor as a second detector device. When the difference between first travel motion information from the first detection device and second travel motion information from the second detection device is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, and the period of continuous detection of the second travel motion information from the second detection device is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value, the controller determines the first travel motion information and the second travel motion information to be travel motion information for the same vehicle.
US09183176B2

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a driver-customized service. The present invention is configured to collect bio-signal information of a driver from a first sensor, collect current health condition information of the driver based on data stored in a health information DB, collect environmental condition information of an interior of a vehicle from a second sensor, collect environmental condition information of an exterior of the vehicle from a third sensor, generate a driving index based on the pieces of information collected from the first to third sensors and the health information DB, and perform a vehicle control operation corresponding to the driving index. Accordingly, the present invention not only enables the accident risk of drivers to be decreased, but also allows the drivers to drive their vehicles, which were considered to be only transportation means, in a safer and more comfortable environment.
US09183172B1

Communications from digital content consumers may be entered on reader devices as social media posts. Rather than specifying a particular recipient, a consumer may enter a reserved keyword, such as @author, as the recipient. Upon submission, this keyword is automatically replaced with the recipient identifier, such as with the user identifier of the actual author of the currently rendered content item.
US09183170B2

An asynchronous bridge includes a transmission unit and a receiving unit. The transmission unit receives a write valid signal and input data from a master circuit, outputs write addresses increment under control of the write valid signal, sequentially stores the input data in memory cells, as directed by write addresses, and then sequentially outputs the stored input data, as directed by read addresses. The receiving unit receives a read ready signal from a slave circuit, determines whether memory cells are valid, based on the write addresses and the read addresses, and then outputs a read valid signal and the input data, based on the determination.
US09183167B2

Disclosed herein is a method for improving Input/Output (I/O) performance in a host system having multiple CPUs. Under this method, various interrupt affinity schemes are provided, which associate multiple processors, interrupts, and I/O channels for sending the interrupts, thereby allowing the interrupts to be almost evenly loaded among the multiple I/O channels and processors. Also, data locality (“warm cache”) can be achieved through the interrupt affinity schemes that associate each interrupt to its source processor, namely, the processor originating the I/O request that results in the interrupt.
US09183145B2

Described embodiments provide a method of coherently storing data in a network processor having a plurality of processing modules and a shared memory. A control processor sends an atomic update request to a configuration controller. The atomic update request corresponds to data stored in the shared memory, the data also stored in a local pipeline cache corresponding to a client processing module. The configuration controller sends the atomic update request to the client processing modules. Each client processing module determines presence of an active access operation of a cache line in the local cache corresponding to the data of the atomic update request. If the active access operation of the cache line is absent, the client processing module writes the cache line from the local cache to shared memory, clears a valid indicator corresponding to the cache line and updates the data corresponding to the atomic update request.
US09183131B2

A memory control device that transfers data from an external memory to a data processing unit having plural processing mechanisms, includes an absolute address storage unit that stores an absolute address serving as a common reference value in a given data transfer period; a differential address storage unit that stores plural differential addresses therein; a differential address selection unit that selects any one of the plurality of differential addresses in a given order; a memory address generation unit that combines any differential address selected by the differential address selection unit with the absolute address to generate a memory address; and a data transfer unit that inputs the memory address generated by the memory address generation unit to the external memory, reads the data from the memory address, and transfers the data to the data processing unit.
US09183126B2

A system that includes a memory, a tilelet data structure entry, a first tile freelist, and an allocation subsystem. The memory includes a first tilelet on a first tile. The tilelet data structure entry includes a first tilelet preferred pagesize assigned to a first value. The first tile freelist for the first tile includes a first tile in-bounds page freelist, and a first tile out-of-bounds page freelist. The allocation subsystem is configured to detect that a first physical page is freed, store, in the first tile in-bounds page freelist, a first page data structure, detect that a second physical page is freed, store, in the first tile out-of-bounds page freelist, a second page data structure, and coalesce the memory using the second page and at least one of the physical pages associated with the plurality of out-of-bounds page data structures into a third physical page.
US09183124B2

An automation controller for next generation testing system includes a database including a plurality of scripts and modules, a business layer component, and an automation component. The automation component includes an automation agent and an automation worker. The business layer component is operable to determine a next script from the plurality of scripts and modules and send the next script to the automation component in response to a get next script request sent by the automation component. The automation agent is operable to send the get next script request to the business layer, receive the next script from the business layer, and send the next script to the automation worker for execution. The automation worker is operable to execute the next script or section thereof, obtain a result, send status updates, send proof of life notifications and the result of execution to the automation agent.
US09183116B1

Embodiments profile usage of memory and other resources. Stack traces have lifespans, resource impacts, and constituent call chains. Aggregation unifies shared call chains and sums resource impacts after assigning traces to snapshot sets based on trace lifespans and user-defined snapshot request timestamps. Traces are assigned using either active aggregation or precursor aggregation. Traces spanning a snapshot request may be split. A sampled resource trace lifespan begins when the resource is sampled and ends at the next snapshot request. An allocated resource trace lifespan begins when a portion of the resource is allocated and ends when the allocated portion is freed. Resource portions not yet freed are implicitly freed when program execution ends. Call chain interval resource impact aggregation performed with multiple snapshot requests and stack trace sets creates snapshot aggregations. Two aggregations are differenced by subtracting the summed call chain resource impacts of one aggregation from those of another aggregation.
US09183114B2

A method of detecting runtime errors relating to a stack of a computer program can include during compilation of the computer program, inserting dummy variables between declarations in the stack. During execution of the computer program, if at least one of the dummy variables is accessed, a determination can be made that a runtime memory access error has occurred.
US09183110B2

A method may include, in a computing device comprising at least one processor and a memory, generating at least one information beacon from each of a plurality of applications installed on the computing device. Each information beacon may include application analytics data associated with a corresponding application while the corresponding application is running on the computing device. The at least one information beacon from each of the plurality of applications may be stored in a common location in the computing device. The stored at least one information beacon may be dispatched from each of the plurality of applications to a network device communicatively coupled to the computing device. The generating may be triggered by beacon generation code implemented in each of the plurality of applications installed on the computing device.
US09183109B2

A method and system to provide an analysis model to determine the specific problem(s) of a multi-threaded application. In one embodiment of the invention, the multi-thread application uses a plurality of threads for execution and each thread is assigned to a respective one of a plurality of states based on a current state of each thread. By doing so, the specific problem(s) of the multi-threaded application is determined based on the number of transitions among the plurality of states for each thread. In one embodiment of the invention, the analysis model uses worker threads transition counters or events to determine for each parallel region or algorithm of the multi-threaded application which problem has happened and how much it has affected the scalability of the parallel region or algorithm.
US09183097B2

Systems, methods and procedures to capture, format and process configuration information needed for a Managed Recovery Program (MRP) solution that supports orderly handling of virtual machines in an information technology production environment. An MRP automation package is portable and contains all of the required configuration data to bring virtual infrastructure on line in a recovery environment as well as associated scripts that can be executed to automatically process the configuration data.
US09183088B2

Embodiments enable reduction of database downtime in a live production environment of an on-demand database service during repair and/or maintenance tasks. A source database and a target database are provided. Data is copied from the source database to the target database to create a mirrored set of data. Access is limited to one or more designated tables in the target database. General traffic is redirected from the source database to the target database, wherein the redirection occurs for a duration of a maintenance period. Data modifications that occur in the target database during the maintenance period are captured and then replicated into the source database. Finally, general traffic is redirected from the target database to the source database.
US09183085B1

Apparatus and methods provide relatively low uncorrectable bit error rates, low write amplification, long life, fast and efficient retrieval, and efficient storage density such that a solid-state drive (SSD) can be implemented using relatively inexpensive MLC Flash for an enterprise storage application. Predefined gears correspond to different predefined ECC schemes. Based on an observed bit error rate, a gear from a set of predefined gears is selected for use for a particular region of memory. Each gear of the set of predefined gears includes a lower-latency ECC decode option and one or more higher-latency ECC decode options.
US09183084B2

The level one memory controller maintains a local copy of the cacheability bit of each memory attribute register. The level two memory controller is the initiator of all configuration read/write requests from the CPU. Whenever a configuration write is made to a memory attribute register, the level one memory controller updates its local copy of the memory attribute register.
US09183081B2

Systems and methods for performing defect detection and data recovery within a memory system are disclosed. A controller of a memory system may receive a command to write data in a memory of the memory system; determine a physical location of the memory that is associated with the data write; write data associated with the data write to the physical location; and store the physical location of the memory that is associated with the data write in a Tag cache. The controller may further identify a data keep cache of a plurality of data keep caches that is associated with the data write based on the physical location of the memory that is associated with the data write; update an XOR sum based on the data of the data write; and store the updated XOR sum in the identified data keep cache.
US09183078B1

In some implementations, a memory controller is configured receive a data word to be stored in the memory, generate error checking and correcting (ECC) information for the data word, the data word and ECC information forming an encoded word, and distribute bits of the encoded word across the plurality of concurrently accessible memory devices in accordance with one or more indications specifying a number of the bits of the encoded word to store in a wordline of each of the plurality of concurrently accessible memory devices, wherein bits of the data word are to be stored in two or more memory devices of the plurality of memory devices, and bits of the ECC information are to be stored in two or more memory devices of the plurality of memory devices.
US09183074B2

An information handling system for resolving integrated business process system errors includes a processor executing instructions to scrub an error message for an integrated business process system error from an integrated business process event to remove user specific information. The information handling system further includes a processor interface device for transmitting a search request to a multi-user community scrubbed system error database at a storage device for scrubbed resolution articles using the scrubbed error message. The information handling system includes the processor interface device sending the scrubbed resolution articles in a rank-order to display, via an error resolution graphical user interface.
US09183073B2

A method begins by a processing module generating a transaction number and generating at least a threshold number of dispersed storage network (DSN) concurrency requests, wherein each of the at least the threshold number of DSN concurrency requests includes a header section and a payload section; each of the payload sections includes the transaction number, a last known slice revision number, and a slice name section, wherein a first slice name section of a first one of the payload sections includes one or more first slice names that includes a first slice name corresponding to a first encoded data slice of a set of encoded data slices; and a second slice name section of a second one of the payload sections includes one or more second slice names that includes a second slice name corresponding to a second encoded data slice of the set of encoded data slices.
US09183068B1

Various methods and apparatuses are described for a server that includes at least a server starter program, a monitor program, and a service program. The server starter program runs resident on a computer readable storage medium. The server starter program contains code scripted to start and stop server applications. The monitor program also runs resident on the computer readable storage medium. The monitor program contains code scripted to detect a failure associated with a first server application and to communicate to the server starter program to re-start one or more server applications based upon the detected failure associated with the first server application. The service program registers as an operating system service with the operating system. The service program controls requests and communicates to the operating system on behalf of the first server application in the server.
US09183065B1

An API calling process creates a named pipe through which a program can submit data to an application programming interface (“API”). Appropriate permissions are set on the named pipe such that only authorized applications can write data to the named pipe. When data is written to the named pipe, the written data is piped to the API calling process. The API calling process may process the written data, such as by placing the data into an appropriate format for submission to an API. The API calling process then utilizes appropriate credentials to call an API with the data written to the named pipe. For example, the API calling process might utilize service credentials to make a Web services API call to submit the data written to the named pipe to a Web services API exposed by a network service.
US09183062B2

Techniques, systems, and articles of manufacture for automated application reconfiguration. A method includes identifying, for each of one or more configuration files in a pre-configured source virtual machine, a corresponding configuration file in a target virtual machine, identifying one or more mis-configured and/or missing points of variability in the one or more identified configuration files in the target virtual machine based on information derived from the one or more configuration files in the source virtual machine, and reconfiguring the target virtual machine by replacing each identified mis-configured point of variability with a given value based on the information derived from the one or more configuration files in the source virtual machine, and adding each identified missing point of variability at a given location with a given value and a given format based on the information derived from the one or more configuration files in the source virtual machine.
US09183052B2

The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for spillover threshold management in a multi-core system. A pool manager divides the spillover threshold limit of connections for vServers into an exclusive quota pool and a shared quota pool. Each vServer operating on a core is allocated an exclusive number of connections from the exclusive quota pool. If a vServer wishes to create connections beyond its exclusive number, the vServer can borrow from the shared quota pool. When the vServers are using at least a first predetermined threshold of their exclusive number of connections and the number of available connections in the shared quota pool has reached a second predetermined threshold, the multi-core system establishes a backup vServer.
US09183050B2

Method and system for determining the total processing time required for executing a plurality of jobs (n). The plurality of jobs along with a mean processing time (μ), and a queue length (k) are received. A number of preliminary jobs (p) of the plurality of jobs (n) are distributed across computing resources based upon the queue length (k). A first processing time (TF) required for the execution of the number of preliminary jobs (p) is determined. Further, a number of remaining jobs (n−p) of the plurality of jobs (n) are distributed for execution across the plurality of computing resources. A second processing time (TS) required for the execution of the set of remaining jobs (n−p) is computed. Finally, the total processing time is determined by summing TF and TS.
US09183048B2

The systems and methods described herein may implement scalable statistics counters that are adaptive to the amount of contention for the counters. The counters may be accessible within transactions. Methods for determining whether or when to increment the counters in response to initiation of an increment operation and/or methods for updating the counters may be selected dependent on current, recent, or historical amounts of contention. Various contention management policies or retry conditions may be applied to select between multiple methods. One counter may include a precise counter portion that is incremented under low contention and a probabilistic counter portion that is updated under high contention. Amounts by which probabilistic counters are incremented may be contention-dependent. Another counter may include a node identifier portion that encourages consecutive increments by threads on a single node only when under contention. Another counter may be inflated in response to contention for the counter.
US09183047B2

A method and apparatus for improving application processing speed in a digital device which improve application processing speed for a digital device running in an embedded environment where processor performance may not be sufficiently powerful by detecting an execution request for an application, identifying a group to which the requested application belongs, among preset groups with different priorities and scheduling the requested application according to the priority assigned to the identified group, and executing the requested application based on the scheduling result.
US09183046B2

A method and system for managing network addresses of a guest during live migration in a virtual machine system. A computer system hosts a guest that is to migrate from a source hypervisor in the computer system to a target hypervisor during operation of the computer system. In response to the indication, the source hypervisor retrieves an address list of the guest from a network device, where the address list identifies one or more network addresses of the guest in one or more networks. The source hypervisor then forwards the address list to the target hypervisor, which notifies the one or more networks of the migration of the guest.
US09183045B2

A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for collecting and exchanging data are disclosed. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises a non-volatile memory device, which includes an interface for coupling the non-volatile memory device to a host system; non-volatile memory for storing data, including a plurality of executables at least two of which are executable on different operating systems or devices. The plurality of executables includes a data collection executable and a data transfer executable. The non-volatile memory device also includes a controller to cause execution of at least one executable in the plurality of executables, including the data collection executable and the data transfer executable, where execution of the data collection executable causes data to be collected and stored in the non-volatile memory, and execution of which causes the collected data to be transferred to a location external to the non-volatile memory device.
US09183043B2

Particular techniques for improving the scalability of concurrent programs (e.g., lock-based applications) may be effective in some environments and for some workloads, but not others. The systems described herein may automatically choose appropriate ones of these techniques to apply when executing lock-based applications at runtime, based on observations of the application in the current environment and with the current workload. In one example, two techniques for improving lock scalability (e.g., transactional lock elision using hardware transactional memory, and optimistic software techniques) may be integrated together. A lightweight runtime library built for this purpose may adapt its approach to managing concurrency by dynamically selecting one or more of these techniques (at different times) during execution of a given application. In this Adaptive Lock Elision approach, the techniques may be selected (based on pluggable policies) at runtime to achieve good performance on different platforms and for different workloads.
US09183040B2

A registry object in a service oriented architecture (SOA) is manipulated by an application. A mapping is defined between a registry object type and an application object type. The application object type is instantiated in the application. The instantiated object facilitates manipulation of the registry via the defined mapping.
US09183029B2

A mechanism for synchronizing backend peripheral devices with a virtual machine (VM) running state is disclosed. A method of the invention includes modifying a running state of a (VM managed by a hypervisor of a host machine, and updating a VM state indication associated with the VM to reflect the change in running state of the VM, wherein a peripheral device associated with the VM accesses the VM state indication to determine wh her to continue processing a VM state changing instruction.
US09183011B2

A method for runtime environment emulation involves loading an application class of an object-oriented application, where the object-oriented application is executing in a runtime environment, and where the application class includes a method call that is unsupported by the runtime environment. The method further involves translating, during loading of the application class, the unsupported method call into one or more method calls that are supported by the runtime environment, to obtain a translated class, where the one or more supported method calls emulate the unsupported method call.
US09183001B2

Embodiments are directed to providing a simulation of a type-level construct on an interface instance and to maintaining a token-based event handling system. In one scenario, a computer system instantiates an interface instance that includes an instance object and multiple instance members. The computer system also instantiates a separate typed object which is configured to maintain one or more simulated type-level parameterized constructors. The computer system then associates the instantiated interface instance with the separate typed object. The typed object routes method invocations from the interface instance to various simulated type-level parameterized constructors and static members of the type.
US09183000B2

According to one embodiment, a memory system includes a nonvolatile semiconductor storage able to hold data, a temperature measurement section configured to measure the temperature of the semiconductor storage, a temperature varying section configured to change the temperature of the semiconductor storage, and a control circuit including a transmitter configured such that data received from a host is transferred to the semiconductor storage, and a temperature storage configured to store temperature information received from the temperature measurement section.
US09182997B2

Telecommunication network management operations are performed based on accessing network management data (NMD) files via GUIs and general purpose computers including a network management system (NMS) server, and automatic routines for transferring binary NMD files between the general purpose computers and remote network elements (NEs) being managed. A system user produces configuration files at the NMS server for NEs using a network management GUI, and the hardware of NEs automatically complete the network management operations indicated by the NMD files transferred to them from the NMS server and produce their status files to the NMS server. The network management GUI displays network status based on the latest NE status files at the NMS server. This provides direct, binary file transfer based NMS communication that avoids the complexity and restrictions of intermediate messaging protocols or transaction languages and conversions thereof.
US09182989B1

A system and method allows a legacy program to call a distributed service in the manner of the legacy program calling another legacy program. The call is translated and sent to the distributed system in a secure manner, with potential timeout issues potentially handled faster than would be handled by the distributed system, and the response is returned to the legacy program in the format that another legacy program would have used.
US09182987B2

Method, apparatus, and program means for performing bitstream buffer manipulation with a SIMD merge instruction. The method of one embodiment comprises determining whether any unprocessed data bits for a partial variable length symbol exist in a first data block is made. A shift merge operation is performed to merge the unprocessed data bits from the first data block with a second data block. A merged data block is formed. A merged variable length symbol comprised of the unprocessed data bits and a plurality of data bits from the second data block is extracted from the merged data block.
US09182985B2

Method, apparatus, and program means for performing bitstream buffer manipulation with a SIMD merge instruction. The method of one embodiment comprises determining whether any unprocessed data bits for a partial variable length symbol exist in a first data block is made. A shift merge operation is performed to merge the unprocessed data bits from the first data block with a second data block. A merged data block is formed. A merged variable length symbol comprised of the unprocessed data bits and a plurality of data bits from the second data block is extracted from the merged data block.
US09182984B2

A computer implemented instruction is executed. One or more translation table entry locations (TLB) are specified by the instruction. Based on a local-clearing (LC) control specified by the instruction being a first value, the processor selectively clears TLBs in a plurality of the CPUs in a configuration of entries corresponding to the determined translation table entry location. Based on the local-clearing (LC) being a second value, the processor selectively clears only the TLBs of the CPU executing the instruction of entries corresponding to the determined translation table entry location. A computer program product, computer system and computer implemented method are provided.
US09182977B2

A software application includes work order resources, each of which defines an atomic operation for the software application, and a construction service resource, which processes the work order resources in response to all interaction requests for the software application. Each interaction request is received from a client and identifies a corresponding work order, which the construction service processes to dynamically construct a set of deliverables, which can include a custom representation of the work order. While processing the interaction request, the construction service, as directed by the work order, can make one or more requests to context resources for context information corresponding to an activity for which the interaction was requested to construct the set of deliverables. The work order resource can comprise a reflective program that enables the construction service to dynamically determine and construct the set of deliverables, including the next appropriate interaction(s) using the context information, thereby directing a set of atomic operations as part of an activity being performed and enabling the dynamic context-based construction of interaction deliverables.
US09182968B2

In a method for determining signatures for a software package, a processor compares files on a computer system after an installation of a software package to files on the computer system before the installation. The processor determines a signature of the software package. The signature includes an indication of files on the computer system after the installation of the software package that were not present on the computer system before the installation. The processor compares files remaining on the computer system after an uninstall of the first software package to the files on the computer system after the installation of the first software package. The processor determines one or more files indicated in the first signature not remaining on the computer system after the uninstall of the first software package.
US09182967B2

A method for safely downloading an application, including: after a successful mutual authentication of a card and a card connector, adopting an all-cipher text communication means, and controlling the number of installations of an application by a card activation operation, so as to realize secure downloading of the application. The present invention realizes all-cipher text communication of a card and a card connector, and the issuing frequency of the card is controllable; by means of such a method, the independence and security of the application can be ensured when issuing a card, while the issuing frequency of the card is limited, intermediaries and clients are prevented from arbitrarily downloading an application, and the security is relatively high.
US09182964B2

There is provided a system and method of deploying software into a computing environment by a processor. An exemplary method comprises providing, by a processor, a model of software to be deployed and providing, by a processor, a model of the environment into which the software is to be deployed. The exemplary method also comprises customizing, by a processor, a plan for deploying the software into the computing environment. The exemplary method additionally comprises deploying, by a processor, the software into the computing environment according to the customized deployment plan.
US09182963B2

A computerized system, method, and computer program product for migrating applications are disclosed. A processor is configured to execute the stored instructions. The instructions may cause the processor to perform the steps including: analyzing a legacy application to be migrated to a new platform; generating one or more reports showing results of the analysis of the legacy application; migrating a schema of the legacy application to the new platform; and migrating a content of the legacy application to the new platform.
US09182961B1

A system and method accepts source code including one or more variables or constants, and, for those variables or constants flagged as those that are to be automatically provided to a gateway, generates or provides communication code and a description that allows the values to be sent to a gateway for retrieval using a variety of formats. More specifically, certain containers within the source code are marked to indicate that the certain containers are remotely retrievable. These marked containers are linked to an entry in the profile. Then responsive to the source code indicating that at least one of the devices is a wireless portable device, a new profile is generated and is used along with the source code to generate a set of code for at least one of the one or more devices that can repeatedly providing, to a gateway, a value named in the source code.
US09182954B2

A web browser has a user interface that includes a content rendering area within the web browser user interface and a control layout area adjacent the content rendering area. The control layout area includes a user-selectable icon that is always available to the user in the control layout area and which is user-configurable. For example, the user-configurable icon may be configured with one of two pre-defined functions. In one illustrative implementation the two pre-defined functions may be a tabs function and a favorites function.
US09182948B1

Navigating hierarchical levels of a design using graphical preview images. In one aspect, a method for providing a preview image for a design includes causing a display of a main image depicting a first portion of the design, the design organized into multiple hierarchical levels, each level having a different amount of abstraction of graphical information of the design. A preview image smaller than the main image is displayed, portraying a second portion of the design at a different hierarchical level than the first portion. The preview image is receptive to a selection causing the second portion to be displayed as the main image. Some embodiments allow the preview image to include one or more hotspots that cause a display of another preview image at a different hierarchical level, or to show a connected object connected to a probed first object.
US09182947B2

A computer determines a cursor location within source code displayed on a display screen. The computer determines a keyword based at least on the cursor location. The cursor location may include: line number, column number, designated non-word location, and/or reserved word. The computer takes an action based on the keyword including, but not limited to the following actions: jumping to the first occurrence of the keyword search term, extracting a COBOL copybook data set, and/or sending an EXPLAIN query to a database manager.
US09182944B2

A system and computer program product for managing the lifecycle of an object, where the lifecycle involves a plurality of states of the object, at least one transition between the plurality of states and at least one role who has authority to execute the at least one transition. At least one of the plurality of states, the at least one transition and the at least one role is mapped to Web Ontology Language (OWL) elements. The role related control information is obtained using the reasoning ability of OWL itself according to the above mapping. Furthermore, the lifecycle is managed according to the above role related control information. Using the principles of the present invention, the access control information of roles can be embedded into the lifecycle description and therefore the lifecycle management can be realized easily.
US09182941B2

Systems and methods are described herein that include flow control mechanisms that provide a receiving device with the ability to reclaim buffers that have been previously advertised to a sending device. Data structures and communication methods are described that facilitate the communication of flow control messages between sending and receiving devices that allow an advertised window to be reduced, and buffers to be released, by a sending device in response to a flow control message from the receiving device.
US09182939B1

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method for managing a power state of an audio device resident in a graphics processing unit. The method includes the steps of directing audio data originated from a client application via an audio path in an audio driver stack to the audio device, determining whether an active stream of audio data along the audio path is present in response to a notification of an attempt to shut down the graphics processing unit, and requesting a plug and play manager to disable the audio device, if no active stream of audio data is present along the audio path.
US09182926B2

A storage apparatus coupled to a host device comprises a virtual volume which is a virtual logical volume configured of multiple virtual areas and a pool configured of multiple actual area groups of different performances. A controller manages pool status information which is the information showing which actual area is allocated to which virtual area and access load related to the virtual areas. A management system of the storage apparatus, with reference to the pool status information at multiple points of time from past to present and an access load threshold which is equal to or larger than 1, estimates the used capacity of each actual area group at points of time in the future, calculates the installed/removed amount of each actual area group which is the difference between the estimated used capacity and the current storage capacity, and performs the processing based on the calculated result.
US09182916B1

A non-volatile storage subsystem regulates energy consumption by controlling or “throttling” the rate at which memory operations are performed. During relatively idle periods in which few or no memory operations are performed, energy allotments or “counts” are accumulated to reflect unused energy. These accumulated energy counts may then be effectively allocated for use during bursts or other periods of relatively heavy memory activity, such that the memory operations are performed at a relatively high rate without causing a maximum average power consumption to be exceeded.
US09182914B1

An apparatus, computer program product, and associated method/processing unit are provided for utilizing a memory subsystem including a first memory of a first memory class, and a second memory of a second memory class communicatively coupled to the first memory. In operation, data is fetched using a time between a plurality of threads.
US09182907B2

A mobile phone terminal includes a touch panel that detects a gesture with respect to a display surface thereof, and a control unit that displays a plurality of buttons on the display surface of the touch panel. When the touch panel detects a gesture in which touch is started at a first position on the touch panel and is maintained to a second position on the touch panel, the control unit displays a character string obtained by prediction processing or conversion processing based on a character string including characters corresponding to buttons displayed on a trajectory obtained by connecting each position in which the touch is detected from when the touch is started at the first position to when the touch is maintained to the second position in a predetermined area on the touch panel as a candidate of a character string input by the gesture.
US09182905B2

The present disclosure is related to a method of inputting a command in a mobile terminal comprising; storing a table including at least one drawing pattern and a command on the each drawing pattern; receiving a user drawing on a touch screen; and determining a drawing pattern matching with the user drawing pattern by comparing the user drawing pattern and the table to execute a command corresponding the determined drawing pattern, and a mobile terminal using the same.
US09182897B2

The methods and devices of the various aspects provide a visual indication in a graphical user interface that a document boundary is or will soon be reached, and a mechanism for wrapping the list on the display so that it appears to snap to the other end of the list (i.e., from beginning to end if scrolling up, or end to beginning if scrolling down) when sufficient user input is applied. The displayed snap to the end or beginning of the list may also be implemented in response to a momentum list scroll initiated by a flick gesture when the momentum scroll would otherwise scroll the list a threshold distance beyond a list boundary.
US09182887B2

A user interface apparatus for path search and a method thereof are disclosed. The interface apparatus for path search includes an interface unit configured to provide a first user interface comprising a plurality of image objects, the first user interface configured to implement sweeping transition between the image objects in at least one direction, wherein the interface unit displays an image associated with at least one place which is an object for path search on the image objects.
US09182878B2

A method for processing data received from at least one input device associated with a computer, the method comprising: determining if received data is associated with a location-aware event, and in dependence on said data being associated with a non-location-aware event, forwarding the data to be processed by an operating system of the computer; and in dependence on said data being associated with a location-aware event, forwarding the data to be processed by an application running on the computer; on receipt of the data at the application, determining if the event is coincident with the location of a displayed window associated with the application, and in dependence on the event not being coincident with the application window, transmitting the data for delivery to the operating system; and in dependence on the event being coincident with the application window, processing the data at the application.
US09182871B2

A method of controlling a touch input of a terminal is provided. The method includes determining, when a touch input is sensed, a touch position, and setting a partial area of a touch panel including the determined touch position as an effective touch area of the touch panel. The method may further include determining, when the touch input is sensed, whether the touch input is a pen touch input, and sensing the touch input through a touch panel for sensing a user touch and an Electro Magnetic Resonance (EMR) panel for sensing the pen touch input, wherein the touch position is determined when the touch input is a pen touch sensed through the EMR panel.
US09182861B2

Embodiments of the invention generally provide an input device that includes a plurality of sensing elements that are interconnected in desired way to acquire positional information of an input object, so that the acquired positional information can be used by other system components to control a display or other useful system components. One or more of the embodiments described herein, utilizes one or more of the techniques and sensor electrode array configuration disclosed herein to reduce or minimize the number of traces and/or electrodes required to sense the position of an input object within a sensing region of the input device.
US09182859B2

A capacitive type touch sensing device includes a first electrode array including a plurality of drive electrodes and a plurality of sense electrodes, and a second electrode array spaced apart from the first electrode array and including a plurality of discrete, electrically floating conductive regions. At least part of the second electrode array positionally overlaps with at least part of the first electrode array to define a separation distance therebetween, the separation distance varying with a force applied to a surface of the touch sensing device. Further, each conductive region is positioned relative to a respective drive electrode and sense electrode of the first electrode array so that a capacitance between certain pairs of drive and sense electrodes is more sensitive to a variation in the separation distance than a capacitance between other pairs of drive and sense electrodes.
US09182852B2

A projection apparatus is configured to cooperate with a pointing device. An image input unit inputs an image signal from an external device. A projection unit projects, on a screen, an image on which coordinate information has been superimposed, according to the image signal input to the image input unit. A coordinate acquisition unit acquires, from the pointing device, a part of the coordinate information superimposed on the image projected by the projection unit. A correction unit corrects the coordinate information acquired by the coordinate acquisition unit. A transmission unit transmits the coordinate information corrected by the correction unit to the external device.
US09182849B2

A capacitive touch system includes a touch panel, a detection circuit, and a microprocessor. The touch panel includes a plurality of scan areas. Each scan area of the plurality of scan areas includes a plurality of sensing units. The detection circuit is coupled to the touch panel for utilizing the Wheatstone bridge principle to transmit driving signals to the plurality of scan areas in turn to generate a detection result corresponding to each scan area of the plurality of scan areas according to a predetermined timing. The microprocessor is used for generating the predetermined timing to the detection circuit, and determining whether each area is touched according to a detection result corresponding to each scan area.
US09182848B2

The embodiments herein relate to a method and device for labeling a touch region, in which adjacent raw data are labeled in groups for reducing a labeling time period as well as a memory size for storing the labeled data.
US09182843B2

The drive circuit operable to output a drive pulse pattern to drive electrodes of a touch panel is arranged so that it can change the pulse frequency of the drive pulse pattern for each drive electrode. The detection circuit operable to detect signal changes arising on detection electrodes of the touch panel for each drive pulse pattern output by the drive circuit is arranged so that it can change the sampling frequency of signal change for each detection electrode. The range to make higher the pulse frequency of the drive pulse pattern for each drive electrode, and the sampling frequency of signal change for each detection electrode is variably controlled according to a touch position where a touch has been detected by use of a detection signal detected by the detection circuit.
US09182840B2

A stylus, configured for interactive use with a surface such as but not limited to a display, includes a stylus housing that supports a control circuit. The control circuit is configured to selectively effect at least two different non-passive location modalities wherein each of the non-passive location modalities imparts location-determination information. The plurality of non-passive location modalities can be selectively used in combination with one another or in a singular fashion as desired.
US09182837B2

Methods, systems and devices implement changes in operating mode for a media player, wireless telephone, portable computer or other device having a force sensor and a proximity sensor. A force indication is received from the force sensor and a proximity indication is received from the proximity sensor responsive to user input. The device is then switched from a second operating mode to a first operating mode in response to an occurrence of user input being indicated by both the force and proximity indications. A trigger event occurring during one of the operating modes evokes a response by the device that is not evoked by the trigger event in the other of the first and the second operating modes.
US09182835B2

A combination touch and transducer input system is provided, which facilitates user input into an electronic system with a finger and/or a transducer (e.g., a stylus). The system includes a transducer configured to generate an electric field, and a sensor including an array of electrodes and a controller. The transducer is configured to transmit digital data, such as pen pressure data and switch status data, to the sensor. For example, the transducer comprises electronic circuitry configured to encode the digital data in a signal for transmission to the sensor. The sensor controller is configured to operate both in a touch sensing mode and in a transducer sensing mode. During the touch sensing mode, the controller determines a position of a proximate object (e.g., a finger) by capacitively sensing the object with the array of electrodes. During the transducer sensing mode, the controller determines a position of the transducer based on a signal received by the array of electrodes from the transducer, and also receives and decodes the digital data encoded in the received signal. Digital data can be encoded in a signal using any suitable digital modulation techniques, such as a Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) technique.
US09182832B2

A display device includes a display unit to display a video screen on a display surface, a information detection unit to detect position information of a plurality of detection points arranged on a stationery tool imitating a shape of a stationery, and identification information added to the plurality of detection points respectively and different among the plurality of detection points, and an angle determination unit to determine a rotation angle of the stationery tool on the display surface based on the position information of the plural detection points.
US09182823B2

In one aspect, an apparatus includes a housing, a haptic element on at least a portion of the housing that has a non-discrete configuration and at least a first discrete configuration, a processor, a touch-enabled display operatively coupled to the processor, and a memory accessible to the processor. The memory bears instructions executable by the processor to initiate a function at the apparatus, and at least in part in response to initiation of the function, actuate a portion of the haptic element.
US09182818B2

A communication system of a motor vehicle includes: a first image recording apparatus arranged in the motor vehicle and oriented toward a driver, a first evaluating module for determining a detected viewing direction of the driver from the image recorded by the first image recording apparatus, a determining unit that determines a point of intersection of the detected viewing direction and a windshield of the motor vehicle, and a projection device, connected to the determining unit, for projecting a marking onto the windshield. The position of the marking includes the point of intersection.
US09182803B2

A method and apparatus for load step, or instantaneous current spike, mitigation are provided. In the method and apparatus, load steps are mitigated if a computer system a whole is lightly load, which may be determined by the power consumption of the computer system. Further, load steps are mitigated if a number of processor cores capable of inducing a load step is higher than a threshold. The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) performance state of the cores is used to determine a core's potential for generating a load step. A processor core is instructed to mitigate load steps if conditions are met for the mitigation.
US09182802B2

A method and device include a power pin, a ground pin, and a communications pin. A communications module receives power from the power pin and utilizes an edge counting communication protocol over the communication pin.
US09182797B2

Embodiments of the inventive subject matter include setting minimum and maximum performance operating limits for each of a plurality of controllers. The operating limits are set in accordance with performance rules imposed on the system. In response to a request to change operation of a processing unit to a requested operational setting, it is determined whether the requested operational setting complies with the minimum and maximum performance operating limits. The minimum performance operating limit is sent to a performance controller if the requested operational setting does not comply with the minimum performance operating limit. The maximum performance operating limit is sent to a performance controller if the requested operational setting does not comply with the maximum performance operating limit. The requested operational setting is sent to a performance controller if the requested operational setting complies with the minimum and maximum performance operating limits.
US09182793B2

A tablet storage device includes a module on a cart frame that includes a wheeled base. A cart module defines a selectively accessible interior space having multiple storage slots within the interior space for holding tablets. In some cases a tablet storage device holds multiple tablets using two or more modules in a stacked arrangement on a wheeled base. Each module can hold a portion of the multiple tablets within storage slots within an interior space inside the module. The storage slots may have connectors for connecting to tablets, and the cart frame can have a network connection system that is adapted to provide a network connection for each tablet that is connected to one of the connectors. The cart frame may also have a power supply system for charging each tablet that is connected to one of the connectors.
US09182786B2

A system includes a docking station and a handheld device. The docking station has four walls and a bathtub shape following the contours of the handheld device tightly. The inner part of the four walls is curved so that the handheld device is guided during docking.
US09182776B2

There is set forth in one embodiment an apparatus and method for imparting a phase shift to an input waveform for output of a converted waveform. In one embodiment, a phase shift can be provided by four wave mixing of an input waveform and a pump pulse. In one embodiment, there is set forth an apparatus and method for generating a high resolution time domain representation of an input waveform comprising: dispersing the input waveform to generate a dispersed input waveform; subjecting the dispersed input waveform to four wave mixing by combining the dispersed input waveform with a dispersed pump pulse to generate a converted waveform; and presenting the converted waveform to a detector unit. In one embodiment a detector unit can include a spectrometer (spectrum analyzer) for recording of the converted waveform and output of a record representing the input waveform.
US09182770B2

A voltage regulator includes a current bridge and first and second current paths coupling a current mirror to respective first and second voltage-to-current converters. The current mirror controls a second current dependent on a first current. The first voltage-to-current converter controls the first current dependent on either a reference voltage or a feedback voltage derived from the regulator's output voltage, and the second voltage-to-current converter controls the second current dependent on the other of the feedback and reference voltages. Voltage-to-current conversion by the first converter is independent of voltage-to-current conversion by the second converter. An output transistor stage coupled to the second current path controls the output voltage dependent on the voltage in the second current path indicative of a deviation of the second current from a target current value dependent on the reference voltage.
US09182767B2

A device includes a snapback clamp circuit configured to clamp a supply voltage in response to the supply voltage exceeding a trigger voltage level. In at least one embodiment, the snapback clamp circuit includes a clamp transistor and a programmable resistance portion that is responsive to a control signal to calibrate the trigger voltage level. Alternatively or in addition, the snapback clamp circuit may include a programmable bias device configured to calibrate the trigger voltage level by biasing a gate terminal of the clamp transistor. In another particular embodiment, a method of calibrating a snapback clamp circuit is disclosed. In another particular embodiment, a method of operating an integrated circuit is disclosed.
US09182765B2

A system to adjust a predetermined dosage of main livestock feed products in a predetermined feed recipe, which includes one or more feed dosages, each indicative of a predetermined amount of a corresponding main feed product in said feed recipe. The system includes a memory for storing the recipe, a meteorological monitoring system suitable for determining one or more meteorological parameters in the storage areas of the feed products and a processing unit, configured to: determine a first value indicative of the humidity in each feed product as a function of meteorological parameters associated with the related storage area, determine a differential value indicative of the difference between the first value and a second value indicative of a reference humidity of said feed product, and adjust the feed dosage associated with each feed product in the recipe based on the differential value of humidity in the main feed product.
US09182754B2

This invention relates to an apparatus and method for output current control in an Industrial Process Control System, The output module comprises two management units each of which calculates the current demand for the module independently from one another. One management unit controls an output current controller whilst the other unit monitors the current produced by the output current controller against an independently calculated demand. The output module has multiple output modules. However rather than one module providing a backup for the other modules, or alternating between use of each module, in normal operation, each module provides a portion of the required output current, the total output current being equal to the sum of the currents output by each module. In the event of failure on one of the modules, the other module or modules switch to providing the total current required.
US09182745B2

A timepiece movement for a watch, including a main plate and a bar holding a wheel set in a reference position, and a device to adjust the height of this bar in relation to the plate in the direction of the axis of rotation of the wheel set, at a first point remote from the reference position, and this height adjustment device includes a screw or a worm rotatably movable about an oblique control axis in relation to the axis of rotation, and a cone or a curved surface for transforming motion between this screw or worm and a pusher movable in a parallel direction to the axis of rotation.
US09182738B2

An image forming device includes: a main casing; a retaining unit; a feed tray; and a pickup roller. The retaining unit retains a plurality of photosensitive drums juxtaposedly arrayed and spaced away from each other in an array direction. The retaining unit is movable in the array direction between a mounted position in which the retaining unit is mounted in the main casing and a pulled-out position in which the retaining unit is pulled out of the main casing. The feed tray is configured to accommodate a first transferred medium. The pickup roller is configured to pick up the first transferred medium accommodated in the feed tray. The pickup roller is arranged to overlap with the retaining unit in the array direction.
US09182725B2

A drive switching device includes a driving source and a switching unit. The driving source is rotationally driven in one direction. The switching unit is linked with the driving source such that a driving force therefrom is intermittently transmittable to the switching unit, and switches a transmission direction of the driving force from the driving source between a first direction and a second direction every time the switching unit is linked with the driving source.
US09182719B2

A moving device assembly includes a moving device and a shield. The moving device is movable between a first position and a second position, to move a detector including a detection surface relative to an opposing member disposed opposite the detector. The shield shields the detection surface of the detector. As the moving device is at the first position, the detector is at a proximal position at which the detector is near the opposing member, and as the moving device is at the second position, the detector is at a shield position at which the detector is separated from the opposing member and the detection surface of the detector is shielded by the shield.
US09182714B2

A fixing member used for fixing toner includes a base, an elastic layer provided on an outer circumference of the base, and a release layer provided on an outer circumference of the elastic layer. The elastic layer includes silicone rubber, carbon fibers, saturated hydrocarbon having a liquid form at room temperature, and hole portions.
US09182712B2

A fixing device includes an endless fixing belt, a first roller provided on an inner circumference side of the fixing belt, a second roller provided on the inner circumference side of the fixing belt and located upstream of the first roller in a conveying direction of a recording medium, a heat source provided on the inner circumference side of the fixing belt, a first reflecting portion provided between the heat source and the first roller, and a second reflecting portion provided between the heat source and the second roller. The second reflecting portion is provided apart from the first reflecting portion.
US09182710B2

A fixing device includes a fixing member, a heating device for heating the fixing member, a pressure member, and a separation unit. The pressure member is pressed against the fixing member to form a fixing nip for receiving a recording medium carrying an unfixed toner image and fixing the unfixed toner image on the recording medium. The separation unit has a surface facing the fixing member and having an opening therein. The separation unit includes a separation member and a removable rubbing member. The separation member disposed in the opening in the separation unit to be located near an exit of the fixing nip separates the recording medium from the fixing member. The rubbing member is housed in the separation unit and contactable with the fixing member through the opening in the separation unit, and rubs against a surface of the fixing member.
US09182708B2

A high-voltage generation apparatus raises, when switching from a state where a voltage having a predetermined polarity is output to a state where a voltage having a polarity opposite to the predetermined polarity is output, the voltage having the predetermined polarity in change amounts corresponding to the voltage having the predetermined polarity and a target voltage having the opposite polarity in a transient-state period elapsed until the voltage reaches the target voltage.
US09182701B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer; a charger to charge the image bearer; an electrostatic latent image former to form an electrostatic latent image on the image bearer; an image developer to develop the electrostatic latent image with a toner to form a visual toner image; a transferer to transfer the toner image on a transfer material; a toner concentration calculator to calculate a concentration of the toner; and an optical detector. At least a toner patch image is formed on the image bearer with an irradiation quantity set such that an irradiated part potential is larger than a developing condition, the toner patch image is read by the optical detector, and the charging condition is corrected on the basis of a difference between a toner concentration of the toner patch image and a target toner concentration.
US09182698B2

A method of transferring an image includes the steps of; bringing an image bearer bearing an image thereon as a transfer origin in contact with a transferring objective (onto which the image is transferred) as a transfer destination; moving at least one of the image bearer and the transferring objective in a prescribed direction; and sequentially transferring the image borne on the image bearer onto the transferring objective in a contacting section in which the image bearer and the transferring objective contact each other in a direction in which the image does not pass through the contacting section.
US09182696B2

A magnetic toner for developing an electrostatic latent image of the present disclosure includes toner particles each having a toner core containing a binder resin and a magnetic powder, and a shell layer coating a surface of the toner core. The shell layer contains a unit derived from a monomer of a thermosetting resin and a unit derived from a thermoplastic resin. The thermosetting resin is one or more resins selected from the group of amino resins consisting of a melamine resin, a urea resin, and a glyoxal resin. The amount of iron eluted from the toner core (iron concentration in a filtrate) measured by a specified method is 10 mg/L or less.
US09182685B2

An exposure apparatus exposes a substrate by irradiating exposure light onto the substrate via a projection optical system and a liquid. The exposure apparatus has a stage which includes a substrate holder for holding the substrate, a detachable member detachably disposed on the stage so that its upper surface contacts an immersion region, and a sensor having a light transmissive member. The detachable member, on which an opening is formed in the upper surface, is disposed on the stage so that the light transmissive member is arranged within the opening.
US09182683B2

A lithographic apparatus, includes an illumination system configured to condition a radiation beam, a first support constructed to support a first patterning device and a second support to support a second patterning device, the first and second patterning device being capable of imparting the radiation beam with a pattern in its cross-section to form a patterned radiation beam, a substrate table constructed to hold a substrate, and a projection system configured to project the patterned radiation beam onto a target portion of the substrate. The first support and second support are movable in a scanning direction and in a second direction substantially perpendicular to the scanning direction. By movement of the first support and second support in the second direction the first support and second support can selectively be aligned with the projection system.
US09182682B2

In order to determine whether an exposure apparatus is outputting the correct dose of radiation and a projection system of the exposure apparatus is focusing the radiation correctly, a test pattern is used on a mask for printing a specific marker onto a substrate. This marker may be measured by an inspection apparatus, such as, for example, a scatterometer to determine whether errors in focus, dose, and other related properties are present. The test pattern is arranged such that changes in focus and dose may be easily determined by measuring properties of a pattern that is exposed using the mask. The test pattern of the mask is arranged so that it gives rise to a marker pattern on the substrate surface. The marker pattern contains structures that have at least two measurable side wall angles. Asymmetry between side wall angles of a structure is related to focus (or defocus) of the exposure radiation from the exposure apparatus. The extent of defocus may thereby be determined by measuring an asymmetry in side wall angle of the printed marker pattern structures.
US09182679B2

Liquid is supplied to a space between the projection system of a lithographic apparatus and a substrate. A flow of gas towards a vacuum inlet prevents the humid gas from escaping to other parts of the lithographic apparatus. This may help to protect intricate parts of the lithographic apparatus from being damaged by the presence of humid gas.
US09182677B2

An optical system of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus comprises at least one mirror arrangement, having a plurality of mirror elements which are adjustable independently of one another for varying an angular distribution of the light reflected by the mirror arrangement, a polarization-influencing optical arrangement, by which, for a light beam passing through during the operation of the projection exposure apparatus, different polarization states can be set via the light beam cross section, and a retarder arrangement, which is arranged upstream of the polarization-influencing optical arrangement in the light propagation direction and at least partly compensates for a disturbance of the polarization distribution that is present elsewhere in the projection exposure apparatus, wherein the polarization-influencing optical arrangement has optical components which are adjustable in their relative position with respect to one another, wherein different output polarization distributions can be produced by this adjustment in conjunction with the mirror arrangement.
US09182673B2

Methods are disclosed for depositing a template for directed self-assembly of a self-assemblable block polymer on a surface of a substrate. The method involves providing a chemical epitaxy pattern of alternating first and second regions having differing chemical affinities for first and second blocks of the polymer on the surface by photolithography, and providing spaced graphoepitaxy features on the surface by photolithography. The chemical epitaxy pattern is aligned with and located between pairs of spaced graphoepitaxy features. The spaced graphoepitaxy features and chemical epitaxy pattern are arranged to act together to direct self-assembly of the self-assemblable block copolymer. The resulting template may be used to direct self-assembly of a suitable self-assemblable polymer and the resulting aligned and oriented self-assembled polymer may itself be used as a resist for lithography of the substrate.
US09182664B2

A sulfonate resin having a repeating unit of the following general formula (3): where X each independently represents a hydrogen atom or a fluorine atom; n represents an integer of 1 to 10; R1 represents a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, a C1-C3 alkyl group or a C1-C3 fluorine-containing alkyl group; R2 represents either RAO or RBRCN; and M+ represents a monovalent cation. The sulfonate resin has an onium sulfonate incorporated in a side chain thereof with an anion moiety of the sulfonate salt fixed to the resin and can suitably be used as a resist resin having a high solubility in propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate.
US09182662B2

A copolymer comprising the polymerized product of an electron-sensitizing acid deprotectable monomer, such as the monomer having the formula (XX), and a comonomer: wherein Ra is H, F, —CN, C1-10 alkyl, or C1-10 fluoroalkyl; Rx and Ry are each independently a substituted or unsubstituted C1-10 alkyl group or C3-10 cycloalkyl group; Rz is a substituted or unsubstituted C6-20 aromatic-containing group or C6-20 cycloaliphatic-containing group; wherein Rx and Ry together optionally form a ring; and wherein at least one of Rx, Ry and Rz is halogenated. A photoresist and coated substrate comprising the copolymer, and a method of making an electronic device using the photoresist, are also disclosed.
US09182660B2

A method for electron-beam patterning includes forming a conductive material layer on a substrate; forming a bottom anti-reflective coating (BARC) layer on the conductive material layer; forming a resist layer on the BARC layer; and directing an electron beam (e-beam) to the sensitive resist layer for an electron beam patterning process. The BARC layer is designed such that a top electrical potential of the resist layer is substantially zero during the e-beam patterning process.
US09182652B2

An apparatus including a flashlamp; a lens member connected to the flashlamp; and a reflector connected to the lens member. The lens member is located between the flashlamp and the reflector. A method includes connecting the lens member to the flashlamp, where the lens member substantially surrounds the flashlamp, and connecting the reflector around an exterior side of the lens member, where an exit side of the lens member is not covered by the reflector.
US09182649B2

In an optical network system: control light is generated by optical modulation based on a modulated data signal which is generated by modulation of a carrier signal with a data signal; and the control light is optically combined with an optical carrier which is to propagate through a nonlinear optical medium, so as to cause cross phase modulation of the optical carrier with the control light in the nonlinear optical medium.
US09182644B2

Electrochromic device laminates and their method of manufacture are disclosed.
US09182639B2

According to one embodiment, a liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a liquid crystal layer, pixels a first polarizer having a first absorption axis, a second polarizer having a second absorption axis, a first retardation film having a first slow axis, and a second retardation film having a second slow axis. Each of the pixels includes a primary pixel electrode and a pair of primary common electrodes. Re1
US09182635B2

A liquid crystal display device includes: a pair of substrates that are bonded together with a sealing member having a closed loop shape that is formed around a display region with a space maintained from the display region; and a liquid crystal layer that is disposed between the pair of substrates so as to maintain a cell gap of a predetermined thickness, wherein, between the display region and the sealing member, a cell thick area, in which a cell gap larger than the cell gap of the display region is formed, is formed.
US09182634B2

A display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate and liquid crystals therebetween, the first substrate having a flat portion, an alignment film, and a concavo-convex pedestal formed in a pixel region, wherein the concavo-convex pedestal having at least two convex portions and recessed portions, and the at least two convex portions of the concavo-convex pedestal are at a position lower than a position of the flat portion. A thickness of the alignment film on the convex portions is less than a thickness of the alignment film on the recessed portions, and a second substrate has a columnar spacer which contacts the at least two convex portions of the concavo-convex pedestal.
US09182633B2

A display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a space layer, and a protective film. The first substrate has a first surface, and the second substrate comprises a visible region and a non-visible region. The second substrate has a second surface, and the second surface is opposite to the first surface. The space layer includes a plurality of spacers and at least one space component. The spacers are located on the visible region, and the space component is located in the non-visible region. The protective film has water vapor barrier property. The protective film covers the space component, and forms at least one barrier wall. The barrier wall touches the first surface and the second surface.
US09182623B2

A process for manufacturing a liquid crystal display panel comprises: mixing negative liquid crystals, UV polymerizable monomers, and a photoinitiator to obtain a liquid crystal mixture; sealing the liquid crystal mixture in a liquid crystal cell formed from an array substrate and an opposed substrate to form the liquid crystal display panel; and radiating the liquid crystal display panel using UV light and heating the liquid crystal panel.
US09182619B2

A liquid crystal display device having high impact resistance and good display properties is provided. The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal panel, a transparent substrate having rigidity, and a fusion bonding layer including a thermoplastic resin, where the transparent substrate is bonded to a viewing-side surface of the liquid crystal display panel with the fusion bonding layer interposed therebetween.
US09182616B1

In one aspect, a photonic band gap (PBG) structure comprises: a first conducting layer; a second conducting layer; and a nanocomposite layer between the first conducting layer and the second conducting layer, the nanocomposite layer comprising one or more composite materials and one or more nanoparticles dispersed within the one or more composite materials, with the one or more composite materials comprising a material that is optically transparent.
US09182614B2

A large-area transmissive type optical image modulator, a method of manufacturing the same, and an optical apparatus including the transmissive type optical image modulator are provided. The large-area transmissive type optical image modulator includes: a base substrate; a first expitaxial layer formed on the base substrate; a second expitaxial layer formed on the first expitaxial layer; a first electrode formed on the first expitaxial layer and spaced apart from the second expitaxial layer; a second electrode formed on the second expitaxial layer; and a transparent substrate covering the second expitaxial layer and the second electrode, wherein the base substrate includes a through hole corresponding to a light emitting area, and the first expitaxial layer may include an n-type or p-type doping material.
US09182608B2

A speckle reducing device includes: a polarization splitter element with a polarization splitter portion that splits incident light into first and second light containing a first and a second component respectively, which outputs the first and the second light along different directions; a first reflecting member that reflects the first light to reenter the polarization splitter element; a first conversion member disposed between the first reflecting member and the polarization splitter element, which converts the first light to third light containing the second component; a second reflecting member that reflects the third light to reenter the polarization splitter element; and a second conversion member disposed between the second reflecting member and the polarization splitter element, which converts the third light to fourth light containing the first component, wherein: the polarization splitter element outputs the second and the fourth light along one direction.
US09182598B2

Display control that extends a user's visual ability is accomplished. By wearing an eyeglass-type or headgear-type mounting unit, he or she is allowed to see display means disposed in front of his or her eyes. By causing a part of a screen area of the display means to be in a through-state and a display with a display image signal to be executed, the user can see an image of a scene different from a scene that he or she ordinarily sees with a display of the display image signal while he or she can see the ordinary visual scene with the through-state area.
US09182595B2

An image display device may include a varifocal optical element that condenses a light beam emitted from a light source and scans a projection surface with the light beam from the varifocal optical element. The varifocal optical element may include lenses located side by side in a direction orthogonal to their optical axes that are in parallel with each other; an orthogonal plane mirror that reflects the beam that passes through one of the lens to the other lens; and an actuator that moves the orthogonal plane mirror in parallel along the optical axes of the lenses. The displacement of the actuator may be controlled based on the scanning angle.
US09182589B2

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to an electrowetting display comprising: a transparent substrate including glass spacers surrounded by recessed regions corresponding to pixel regions, a layer of transparent conductive material on the glass spacers, color filter material in the recessed regions, and a transparent support plate covering the recessed regions and the glass spacers, wherein the transparent support plate includes an electrowetting oil.
US09182587B2

The invention relates, in various aspects, to systems and methods for MEMS actuated displays that can be driven at high speeds and at low voltages for improved image quality and reduced power consumption.
US09182579B2

A device for taking long-distance images includes, successively: a catadioptric optical system and an optical system to shape the beam positioned close to the first image generated by the catadioptric system, which adjusts the exit aperture of the catadioptric system on a second image of the aperture in an image space of a variable focal length optical system. The catadioptric optical system and the optical system to shape the beam generates a third image of the observed scene. A focal plane is superposed over an image plane of the catadioptric optical system and the optical system to shape the beam. A projection lens receives the light beam output by the variable focal length system and forms a fourth image of the observed scene at the focal plane of the projection lens. An image sensor is positioned at the focal plane of the projection lens.
US09182576B2

The present invention provides an image pickup lens with a large focal depth from the center to the outer part of an image plane formed on an image sensor and capable of maintaining its focal depth within a practical range and thus suppressing a decline in the resolution. An image pickup lens 7 includes, in order from the object side to the image plane side, an aperture stop 5, a first lens 1 that is a biconvex lens having positive power, a second lens 2 that is a meniscus lens having negative power and whose lens surface facing the object side is convex, a third lens 3 that is a meniscus lens having positive power and whose lens surface facing the object side is concave, and a fourth lens 4 that is a biconcave lens having negative power. The image pickup lens 7 includes a multifocal lens on the lens surface of the first lens 1 facing the object side. D and Ymax satisfy the following conditional expression (1): 0≦D/Ymax≦0.1  (1) where D is an absolute value of the distance between the multifocal lens surface and a surface of the aperture stop on the optical axis, and Ymax is the absolute value of the maximum image height on an image plane formed on the image sensor.
US09182570B2

A fish eye lens system and a photographing apparatus including the same, the fish eye lens system including, in an order from an object side to an image side: a first lens group having a negative refractive power; an aperture stop; and a second lens group having a positive refractive power, wherein the first lens group includes, in the order from the object side to the image side, a (1-A)-th lens group having a negative refractive power, a (1-B)-th lens group having a negative refractive power, and a (1-C)-th lens group including at least one positive lens, and wherein the (1-B)-th lens group is moved to perform focusing.
US09182566B2

The present invention provides optical-fiber communication cables with an improved water-blocking element that reduces or eliminates microbending caused by the water-swellable particulate powders by employing such water-swellable powders in conjunction with a smooth but perforated compression-resistant carrier tape. The water-blocking element is deployed within optical-fiber buffer tubes to water-block the buffer tubes and to minimize microbending that can occur when water-swellable particulate powders press against optical fibers.
US09182552B2

Techniques related to optical devices are described herein. In an example, an optical device includes (a) an input optical channel and a corresponding output optical channel, and (b) an assembly of sub-wavelength grating layers aligned to optically couple the input optical channel to the output optical channel.
US09182548B2

A plurality of regions for a plurality of optical waveguides are defined on a substrate. Then, optical waveguide under-cladding layers are formed on the respective regions, and dummy under-cladding layers are formed between adjacent ones of the optical waveguide under-cladding layers in a spaced relationship to the optical waveguide under-cladding layers. After cores are formed on the optical waveguide under-cladding layers and the dummy under-cladding layers, an over-cladding layer formation photosensitive resin is applied on the resulting substrate. Subsequently, portions of the resulting photosensitive resin layer for the respective optical waveguides are selectively exposed, and the exposed portions are defined as over-cladding layers. Thus, the optical waveguides are produced as each including the optical waveguide under-cladding layer, the core and the over-cladding layer, and separated from the substrate.
US09182539B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal panel, a backlight unit that faces the liquid crystal panel and that includes a light source, a light guide plate, and an optical sheet unit, a mold frame that encloses the backlight unit and that includes a main body part and a protrusion, which protrusion is disposed between the liquid crystal panel and the backlight unit and protrudes from the main body part in a lateral direction, and an adhesive member that bonds the mold frame to the liquid crystal panel.
US09182537B2

Disclosed are a backlight unit and a liquid crystal display device including the same with a light guide plate of a reduced size to enable driving at a low power and manufacture at a low cost despite using fewer light sources, and realizing high-brightness and high quality-driving. The backlight unit includes a lower case having a bottom surface and side walls extending upward extended from edges of the bottom surface. A supporter on the bottom surface is placed along a side surface of the side wall which forms an accommodation area in conjunction with the supporter. A light guide plate is disposed in the accommodation area.
US09182536B2

A light source device has a light emitting element, a light guide plate which light from the light emitting element enters, and wiring which extends from the light emitting element side along the edge (a second side surface or a third side surface) of the light guide plate and supplies power to the light emitting element. The light guide plate has a stopper which is located on an arrangement side of the wiring from the light emitting element and which restricts movement of the light emitting element to the arrangement side of the wiring.
US09182533B2

A light guide plate structure includes a light guide plate, a first medium layer, a micro structure, a second medium layer, and a reflection layer. The light guide plate has a light exit surface and a bottom surface opposite to the light exit surface. The first medium layer is formed on the light exit surface. The micro structure is formed on the bottom surface for redirecting light inside the light guide plate to emit from the light exit surface. The second medium layer is formed on the micro structure. The refractive index of the first medium layer and the refractive index of the second medium layer are less than the refractive index of the light guide plate but greater than the refractive index of air. The reflection layer is formed on the second medium layer for reflecting light inside the light guide plate to emit from the light exit surface.
US09182524B2

An autostereoscopic apparatus for providing a 3D image to a viewer at a range of vertical eye locations. The apparatus includes a projection screen with a light receiving surface that is horizontally retroreflective and vertically diffusive. The apparatus includes a projector assembly including at least two projectors arranged side-by-side such that projection lenses of the projectors are horizontally aligned in a row. The apparatus includes a controller selectively operating the projectors to project at least two differing point-of-view images. The projection screen may take a number of useful embodiments to implement the autostereoscopic apparatus. For example, the projection screen may include a bottom layer including a retroreflective film that is retroreflective at least in the horizontal direction such as a brightness enhancement film and a top layer formed of a transparent sheet of lenticular material arranged for vertical diffusing.
US09182523B2

An optical sheet having a single sheet structure for an edge-lighting backlight unit using a printless light guide plate, a method of manufacturing the same, and a liquid crystal display apparatus using the same are provided. The optical sheet having a single sheet structure includes a first prism sheet having a prism pattern formed on the upper surface thereof, and a second prism sheet having a prism pattern formed on the upper surface thereof. Further, prism ridges of the first prism sheet are attached to the bottom surface of the second prism sheet by means of an adhesive so that the prism pattern of the first prism sheet and the prism pattern of the second prism sheet are directed in the same direction.
US09182518B2

In some embodiments, an apparatus and a system, as well as a method and an article may operate to move fluid from at least one fluid container into a flow line so as to cause the fluid to contact at least one surface having a condition affecting sensor information provided by a sensor. Additional activities may include adjusting operation of a fluid transport mechanism based on the sensor information and baseline information, to continue moving the fluid and change the condition until the fluid is depleted from the at least one fluid container or the sensor information conforms to the baseline information to a selected degree. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US09182517B1

A drilling rig for geo-steering during directional drilling of a wellbore including a processor, a data storage, and client devices in communication with the processor through a network. The processor can receive data from directional drilling equipment and can present that data to users in an executive dashboard. Users can send data and/or commands to the directional drilling equipment. The executive dashboard can present a portion of interest in a stratigraphic cross section for user identification of the drill bit in the stratigraphic cross section, formations in the stratigraphic cross section, and other formation data. The system can be used to identify a projected path for the drill bit, import data, compute wellbore profiles and stratigraphic cross sections, plot actual drilling paths, overlay the actual drilling path onto the projected path, and present control buttons to the user.
US09182516B2

The present specification discloses an inspection system for detecting objects being carried by a person. The inspection system is highly modular and capable of being assembled by a two person team using conventional tooling equipment. In one embodiment, the inspection system has three primary modules—two detection modules and one radiation source module—that can be readily attached and detached from each other or to a frame and connected to a signal processing system to provide for a quick set up and tear down process.
US09182508B2

A neutron detector composed of a matrix of scintillating particles imbedded in a lithiated glass is disclosed. The neutron detector detects the neutrons by absorbing the neutron in the 6Li isotope which has been enriched from the natural isotopic ratio to a commercial ninety five percent. The utility of the detector is optimized by suitably selecting scintillating particle sizes in the range of the alpha and the triton. Nominal particle sizes are in the range of five to twenty five microns depending upon the specific scintillating particle selected.
US09182502B2

Provided is an analysis apparatus for a high energy particle and an analysis method for a high energy particle. The analysis apparatus for the high energy particle includes a scintillator generating photons with each unique wavelength by the impinging with a plurality of kinds of accelerated high energy particles, a parallel beam converting unit making the photons proceed in parallel to one another, a diffraction grating panel making the photons proceeding in parallel to one another enter at a certain angle, and refracting the photons at different angles depending on each unique wavelength, and a plurality of sensing units arranged on positions where the photons refracted at different angles from the diffraction grating panel reach in a state of being spatially separated, and detecting each of the photons.
US09182495B2

A system and method for monitoring integrity of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) are provided. Integrity of a GNSS location is assessed based on a comparison of the GNSS location with one or more locations received from at least one other GNSS. Integrity of the GNSS location is also assessed based on a comparison of the GNSS location with one or more locations obtained from signals generated by one or more known located emitters. Integrity of the GNSS location is also assessed based on a comparison of the GNSS location with historical data, which may include contextual information of recent GNSS locations of a user equipment, measurements made by an inertial navigation system of the user equipment, and prior measurements made by the user equipment during similar paths. An integrity warning is outputted when one or more of the integrity assessments indicate a loss of integrity of GNSS.
US09182489B2

The configuration includes a laser range finder (110), a scan mechanism (120), a distance-data acquiring unit (130), a memory (160), which stores installation state information and detection-area information for each measurement direction, a human-body determining unit (140), a detection area-information updater (140), which updates detection-area information under a predetermined condition, and the alert-output control unit (150). The human-body determining unit (140) extracts a portion that possibly corresponds to a human body in an object that has invaded or moved, which is found out by comparison with the detection-area information based on the acquired distance information, and determines whether or not a rest of the respective extracted portions is a human body based on a movement state of each of the extracted portion in chronological order. The rest of the extracted portions excludes the extracted portions where a movement distance within a predetermined time is within a predetermined distance.
US09182488B2

This disclosure provides a target object detection device for outwardly transmitting a detection pulse and detecting a target object based on a returned reception signal. The device includes a first peak holding module for extracting, at every predetermined cycle, a maximum value of the reception signals obtained in the predetermined cycle, a second peak holding module for extracting, at the same predetermined cycle, a minimum value of the reception signals obtained in the predetermined cycle, and a target object determiner for determining a level rising and a level falling of the reception signal indicating the target object by using a gradient between the minimum and maximum values extracted at different peak holding positions.
US09182480B2

An information technology (IT) equipment positioning system comprises a plurality of wireless transponders distributed in multiple locations in the data center and a controller. The controller is adapted to operate the transponders using triangulation to identify and detect positioning according to three-dimensional coordinates for wireless-tagged IT equipment located in the data center.
US09182474B2

A method for localizing an object, including the acts of: transmission of a first signal by a first transmitter assigned to the object and of a second signal by at least one second transmitter; reception of the first and of the second signal by at least three receivers; in each receiver and for the first and the second signal: a) generation of a first and of a second reference signal; b) correlation between the first signal and the first reference signal and between the second signal and the second reference signal; c) interpolation of samples resulting from the correlation; d) deduction of the propagation time of the first and of the second signal; e) calculation of the difference between the propagation times of the first and of the second signal; and, by triangulation, deduction of the position of the object.
US09182470B2

Embodiments of the invention relate to an inclinometer for use in tracking movement of a moveable structure such as a solar array. The inclinometer includes a magnetometer for sensing changes in a magnetic field indicative of movement of the movable structure. This movement information is then used to determine a current position/orientation of the moveable structure. In the context of a solar array, this information is used to determine the current position/orientation of the solar array. In some embodiments where the movable structure is a solar array, sun position data either from a database listing sun position information for different times of day or data based on algorithmic calculations may be used to determine a difference between current position of the sun and a current position/orientation of the solar array. The solar array may then repositioned based on this determined difference.
US09182468B2

There is provided a technique for improving quality of images obtained with an MRI apparatus by using the geometric structures of the conventional RF transmission coil and RF reception coil and without increasing burden on patients or MRI technicians. A conductor loop of an RF reception coil disposed between a subject and an RF transmission coil is used also as a loop for magnetic field adjustment in order to shield or enhance a rotating magnetic field B1 generated by the RF transmission coil. Further, the conductor loop operated as a conductor loop for magnetic field adjustment among the conductor loops constituting the RF reception coil is driven so that inhomogeneity of the rotating magnetic field B1 is reduced.
US09182461B2

An MRI device for providing high-contrast, high-resolution images of a fluid. The device includes: an envelope for at least partially confining the fluid; a plurality of magnets located at least partially around the envelope; and a CPU to process the images, including a computer readable medium containing instructions for generating at least one third image superimposing at least one image of the first images with at least one image of the second images, whereby a high-contrast, high-resolution real-time continuous images of the fluid is obtained.
US09182460B2

A method of fabricating a magnetoresistive element, the method comprising: forming a first plurality of layers without breaking a vacuum, the first plurality of layers sequentially comprising: a first nonmagnetic conductive layer; a first ferromagnetic layer comprising an amorphous structure and a first magnetization direction; a nonmagnetic tunnel barrier layer; a second ferromagnetic layer comprising an amorphous structure and a second magnetization direction, and a getter layer having a direct contact with the second ferromagnetic layer; annealing the first plurality of layers; removing the getter layer and a portion of the second ferromagnetic layer adjacent to the getter layer; forming above the second ferromagnetic layer a second plurality of layers such that interface between the second ferromagnetic layer and the second plurality of layers is formed without breaking a vacuum after removing the getter layer and the portion of the second ferromagnetic layer, the second plurality of layers sequentially comprising: a third magnetic layer comprising a third fixed magnetization direction directed substantially perpendicular to a substrate surface, and a second nonmagnetic conductive layer; wherein the first ferromagnetic layer, the tunnel barrier layer, and the second ferromagnetic layer crystallize during annealing into a coherent body-centered cubic (bcc) structure with (001) plane oriented, the first magnetization direction and the second magnetization direction are directed substantially perpendicular to the substrate surface, the second magnetization direction is fixed and is directed antiparallel to the third magnetization direction, and the first magnetization direction is reversible.
US09182459B2

In one example, a position sensor is provided. The position sensor comprises an integrated circuit, and a magnetic field sensor that provides a detected signal indicative of a position of a magnetic field source to the integrated circuit. The magnetic field sensor comprises a tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) sensor. The position sensor further comprises a wireless circuit coupled to the integrated circuit, wherein the wireless circuit comprises an antenna configured to radiate a position signal based on the detected signal.
US09182457B2

A transducer is disclosed for detecting the AC and DC voltage difference between two nodes in an electrical circuit and electronically transmitting the measured voltage difference to an electrical system that is electrically isolated from the common mode potential of the two nodes. The voltage drop between two points in a circuit under test is determined by detecting the current flowing through a resistive shunt coil connected in parallel to the test points. Current through the resistive shunt coil is linearly proportional to the voltage difference between the test points, and it is detected by using a magnetic sensor that is separated from the shunt coil by an insulating dielectric barrier. The transducer can be packaged in a standard integrated circuit package in order to provide a small and low cost voltage transducer for test, measurement, control, and signal-isolation applications.
US09182442B2

A semiconductor module is provided in a power system of an apparatus. The semiconductor module includes a semiconductor switch, a voltage applying device configured to apply a first voltage that is equal to or higher than a rated voltage of the apparatus to the semiconductor switch in an off-state in a case where the apparatus is not in practical use, and a leak detecting circuit configured to detect a leak current from the semiconductor switch. The rated voltage of the apparatus is a rated voltage when the apparatus is in practical use.
US09182441B2

A transmission line system, a device for fault protection and computer programs, and a method for locating a fault in a series-compensated two-terminal power transmission line including a compensating bank for providing series-compensation to the transmission line. Different subroutines are utilized for locating faults on line segments from the first terminal to the compensating bank and line segments from the second terminal to the compensating bank. A selection is then made in order to determine a valid result. The subroutines utilize three phase currents synchronized measurements from both terminals and a three phase voltage measurements from one terminal for determining the respective per unit distance to a fault.
US09182437B2

A method and circuit assembly for the diagnosis of a load path in a vehicle. The load path comprises a DC voltage source, a switchable load permanently connected to a negative pole and a load switch permanently connected to a positive pole, controlled by a load control signal, wherein in the closed state of the load switch a load current can be conducted through the switchable load (34). During diagnosis a test current having a defined level is generated and is output to the switchable load in accordance with a test control signal via a test switch on an output terminal, wherein a resulting voltage is detected, processed and evaluated at the output terminal, wherein the load switch (36) is opened during the diagnosis, and wherein at least two different diagnostic cases are generated via the test control signal and the resulting switching state of the test switch.
US09182432B2

A differential amplifier has an output and differential first and second inputs. A switch disposed between a sensor electrode and the second input is opened to initiate a reset phase where the sensor electrode and the differential amplifier are decoupled. A feedback capacitance disposed between the second input and the output is reset to a first level of charge. The switch is closed to initiate a measurement phase where the second input and sensor electrode are coupled. In the measurement phase: charge is balanced between the sensor electrode and the feedback capacitance such that a sensor electrode voltage equals a voltage of the first input equals a voltage of the second input, and the sensor electrode is charged; and the differential amplifier is utilized to integrate charge on the sensor electrode, such that an absolute capacitance corresponding to a coupling between the sensor electrode and an input object is measured.
US09182415B2

Provided herein are methods and compositions for the prognostic evaluation of a patient suspected of having, or having, cancer by assessing the expression of IMP3 in a biological sample of a patient. Methods can be used at the time of initial diagnosis of malignant tumors to identify a group of patients with a high potential to develop progression or metastasis later. Therefore, methods not only are able to provide very useful prognostic information for patients but also can help clinicians to select a candidate patient likely to benefit from early and aggressive cancer therapy. Methods and compositions for the treatment of cancer associated with expression of IMP3 are also provided.
US09182394B1

Method for providing a nanopipette array for biosensing applications. A thin substrate of anodizable metal (“AN-metal,” such as Al, Mg, Zn, Ti, Ta and/or Nb) is anodized at temperature T=20-200° C., chemical bath pH=4-6 and electrical potential 1-300 Volts, to produce an array of anodized nanopipette channels, having diameters 10-50 nm, with oxidized channel surfaces of thickness 5-20 nm. A portion of exposed non-oxidized AN-metal between adjacent nanopipette channels, of length 1-5 μm, is etched away, exposing inner and outer surfaces of a nanopipette channel. A probe molecule, is deposited on one or both surfaces to provide biosensing capability for K(≧1) target molecules. Target molecule presence, in an above-threshold concentration, in a fluid passed through or adjacent to a nanopipette channel, produces characteristic detection signals associated with the probe molecule site.
US09182393B2

A microdeposition pin having a contact surface with at least one concave edge for creating microarrays and the like. The microdeposition pin may be used either alone or with a plurality of microdeposition pins in conjunction with a holder. The concave edge of the pin is especially adapted for helping to control the spreading of a deposited material. By selectively controlling the spread of the reagent composition from the microdeposition pin, the flow of the reagent composition from the deposition target area may be reduced. Sensor strips having raised substrate features with limited or no spreading of the reagent composition beyond the target area are disclosed.
US09182392B2

Disclosed herein is a method of: treating an organic polymer with an electron beam-generated plasma; exposing the treated polymer to air or an oxygen- and hydrogen-containing gas, generating hydroxyl groups on the surface of the polymer; reacting the surface with an organosilane compound having a chloro, fluoro, or alkoxy group and a functional or reactive group that is less reactive with the surface than the chloro, fluoro, or alkoxy group; and covalently immobilizing a biomolecule to the functional or reactive group or a reaction product thereof.
US09182388B2

The present invention provides methods of calibrating a fluidic device useful for detecting an analyte of interest in a bodily fluid. The invention also provides methods for assessing the reliability of an assay for an analyte in a bodily fluid with the use of a fluidic device. Another aspect of the invention is a method for performing a trend analysis on the concentration of an analyte in a subject using a fluidic device.
US09182379B2

A method of carrying out a vibratory fatigue test of a mechanical part having a fatigue endurance limit, the part including a repair extending partly on a first zone of the part, the method including a preliminary test phase including: selecting a loading mode of the part; determining a cutting of the part defining a truncated part, the cutting of the part being defined to obtain a loading level in the repaired zone equal to the maximum value of an abatement to be validated; selecting a measuring device for the fine control of the fatigue test by the measurement of a stress applied to a point of the part; determining a resonance frequency of the truncated part according to the selected loading mode; implementing a loading according to the selected mode at a given level of the truncated part at the resonance frequency up to rupture of the part.
US09182377B2

An ultrasonic transducer drive circuit for driving an ultrasonic transducer by outputting pulses including a positive pulse and a negative pulse to an output line is provided. The ultrasonic transducer includes a positive voltage supply circuit, a negative voltage supply circuit, a current-inflow-type ground clamp circuit configured to operate when voltage in the output line is positive voltage, and a current-outflow-type ground clamp circuit configured to operate when voltage in the output line is negative voltage, wherein the current-inflow-type ground clamp circuit is configured to enter an operation state at a time of generating the negative pulse in a state where the voltage in the output line is positive voltage, and the current-outflow-type ground clamp circuit is configured to enter an operation state at a time of generating the positive pulse in a state where the voltage in the output line is negative voltage.
US09182368B2

A method of manufacturing a sensor for sensing analytes, the method including: with a dicing saw, removing material from a substrate, thereby forming an array of columnar protrusions at a first surface of the substrate; forming an insulating layer coupled to exposed surfaces of the substrate and exposed surfaces of the array of columnar protrusions; removing a portion of the insulating layer at a second surface of the substrate, directly opposed to the first surface of the substrate; with the dicing saw, removing material from a distal end of each columnar protrusion in the array of columnar protrusions, thereby defining a sharp tip, uncovered by the insulating layer, at the distal end of each columnar protrusion in the array of columnar protrusions; and coupling a conductive layer to the sharp tip of each columnar protrusion in the array of columnar protrusions.
US09182355B2

Disclosed are systems and methods for analyzing a flow of a fluid at two or more discrete locations to determine the concentration of a substance therein. One method of determining a characteristic of a fluid may include containing a fluid within a flow path that provides at least a first monitoring location and a second monitoring location, generating a first output signal corresponding to the characteristic of the fluid at the first monitoring location with a first optical computing device, generating a second output signal corresponding to the characteristic of the fluid at the second monitoring location with a second optical computing device, receiving first and second output signals from the first and second optical computing devices, respectively, with a signal processor, and determining a difference between the first and second output signals with the signal processor.
US09182343B2

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a method for generating from a light source a light signal operating in a region of the light spectrum, modifying the light signal with a first polarization device having a first polarization state to generate a polarized light signal directed to a target, modifying a substantially specular reflection and a substantially diffused reflection of the polarized light signal generated from the target with a second polarization device having a second polarization state to generate mixed polarized light signals having a mixed polarization state, and adjusting the mixed polarization state to modify an observable range of subsurfaces of the target. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09182341B2

An optical scanning system may include a moving sample positioning stage that supports the sample during an optical measurement of the sample using the light source and the spectrometer. The moving sample positioning stage may move the sample in at least one direction during the optical measurement of the sample. A scatterometer system may include collection imaging optics for imaging the reflected light onto a multi-pixel sensor that collects and analyze the reflected light.
US09182336B2

An analytical instrument may have multiple distinct channels. Such may include one or more illumination sources and sensors. Illumination may be delivered to specific locations of a specimen holder, and returned illumination may be delivered to specific locations of a sensor array. Illumination may first pass a specimen, and a mirror or reflector may then return the illumination past the specimen. Optical splitters may be employed to couple pairs of fiber optics proximate a specimen holder. Such channels may further include a plurality of illumination sources positioned on one side of a specimen holder and a plurality of sensors on the other side. The plurality of sensor may capture image of a specimen and a spectrophotometer may concurrently scan the specimen. A plurality of specimens may be imaged and scanned in a single pass of a plurality of passes. Spherical or ball lenses may be placed in an optical path of the illumination to achieve a desired illumination pattern.
US09182330B2

There is provided an apparatus for compression testing. The apparatus has a base assembly having an end load element attached to the base assembly, the base assembly being rigid. The apparatus has a support assembly attached to the base assembly, and having a plurality of window portions. The apparatus has a core assembly installed within the support assembly, the core assembly being crushable and configured to protect the support assembly and the base assembly from fracture loads generated during compression testing. The base assembly, the support assembly, and the core assembly together form an apparatus for compression testing of a test specimen having a notch portion. The apparatus is configured for use with an optical strain measurement system. When the test specimen is installed in the support assembly, the test specimen and the notch portion are visible to the optical strain measurement system through the plurality of window portions.
US09182315B2

Lens module testing device for testing a lens module includes a testing platform, a light source, a testing board, a sensing element, a processor, a driving element, and a position feedback unit. The light source, the testing board, and the sensing element are arranged in order on the testing platform along an optical axis of the lens module. The lens module is positioned between the testing board and the sensing element. The light source emits testing light to the testing board, and the sensing element senses an image of the testing board and sends the image to the processor. The processor determines whether the testing board is in a focal plane of the lens module, controls the driving element to adjust a position of the testing board relative to the lens module, and obtains position information from the position feedback unit to generate a focal length of the lens module.
US09182312B2

The present invention relates to a control system for a hybrid excavator including an engine, a hydraulic pump driven by the engine to drive a hydraulic actuator by hydraulic fluid, a generator driven by the engine to generate electric energy, and an energy storage device charging the electric energy generated by the generator and supplying the electric energy to an electric actuator, the control system comprising: a required torque detection means for detecting a torque that is required to drive the hydraulic pump; a charge amount detection means for detecting a charge rate (or charge amount) of the electric energy storage device; a memory storing a generation degree (or generation amount) in accordance with the torque and the charge rate (or charge amount); and a hybrid control means for controlling the generator in accordance with the torque value detected by the required torque detection means and the generation amount in a memory means that corresponds to the charge rate value (or charge amount) detected by the charge amount detection means. According to the control system, the fuel efficiency is optimized by driving the electric generator attached to the engine based on the required torque of the hydraulic pump and the preset generation amount value corresponding to the SOC (State Of Charge).
US09182300B2

A measuring system including a sensor positioned to a belt to measure an oscillation or vibration of the belt based at least in part on a trigger threshold. Also, the measuring system may include a diagnostic tool coupled the sensor to receive a plurality of measurements of the oscillation or vibration of the belt, wherein the diagnostic tool may determine a tension of the belt based at least in part on an average of the plurality of measurements of the oscillation or vibration of the belt.
US09182283B2

An imaging interferometric transform spectropolarimeter configured to simultaneously collect four polarizations. In one example, an spectropolarimeter includes a dual-beam interferometric transform spectrometer configured to receive electromagnetic radiation from a viewed scene, and including first and second focal plane arrays that are spatially registered with one another, a first polarizer coupled to the first focal plane array and configured to transmit only a first pair of polarizations to the first focal plane array, and a second polarizer coupled to the second focal plane array and configured to transmit only a second pair of polarizations to the second focal plane array, the second pair of polarizations being different than the first pair of polarizations.
US09182282B2

The present subject matter relates to methods of high-speed analysis of product samples. Light is directed to a portion of a product under analysis and reflected from or transmitted through the product toward an optical detector. Signals for the detector are compared with reference signals based on a portion of the illuminating light passing through a reference element to determine characteristics of the product under analysis. The products under analysis may be stationary, moved by an inspection point by conveyor or other means, or may be contained within a container, the container including a window portion through which the product illuminating light may pass.
US09182273B2

The imaging device includes a sensor substrate, a light-blocking substrate, a light-collecting substrate, a sealing material, and a light-transmitting member. The light-transmitting member includes a light-transmitting base disposed to be in contact with either the sensor substrate or the light-blocking substrate, and a light-transmitting resin which is filled between the base and the sensor substrate or the light-blocking substrate. A void is formed in at least a part of a space between the sealing material and the light-transmitting member.
US09182267B2

A fuel gauge (15) provided with an inner structural body (27) that is formed of an insulator; an outer structural body (23) that is formed of an insulator and disposed on the outer circumference side of the inner structural body (27) over the entire circumference thereof; an inner electrode (29) that is attached to an outer circumferential surface of the inner structural body (27); and an outer electrode (25) that is attached to an inner circumferential surface of the outer structural body (23). The fuel guage measures the capacitance between the inner electrode and the outer electrode and detects the level of fuel that exists between the inner electrode and the outer electrode. The outer structural body is provided with a plurality of outer through-holes (31) that allow electric charge to move from an outer circumferential surface thereof to the outer electrode.
US09182253B2

An optical fiber attenuation sensor that includes a first protrusion movable between a first position and a second position, a second protrusion movable between a third position to a fourth position, and an elastic object coupled to the first protrusion that causes the first protrusion to move from the first position to the second position. When the first protrusion moves from the first position to the second position, the second protrusion moves from the third position to the fourth position. The second protrusion is configured and positioned to cause an event in a signal in an optical fiber when the second protrusion moves from the third position to the fourth position.
US09182250B2

A circular vertical Hall (CVH) sensing element and an associated method provide a plurality of output signals from a respective plurality of vertical Hall elements in the CVH sensing element at the same time.
US09182242B2

Systems and methods for time management and multipoint navigation adapted to receive at least one task to be performed by the user; calculate a time schedule; allow the user to view said time schedule and target information via a graphical user interface; allow for an automatic or semi-automatic periodic re-calculation of said time schedule according to information retrieved from a remote computing device; and allow the user to export said calculated orders and target information to a navigation aid.
US09182240B2

Techniques and mechanisms for providing information to represent a course traversed by a mobile device. In an embodiment, navigation logic of the mobile device determines context data other than any geodetic data that specifies a position of the mobile device. With such context data, the navigation logic determines a sequence of estimates each for a respective position of the device on a course traversed by the mobile device. In another embodiment, determining the sequence of estimates includes determining a first estimate of a first position of the mobile device independent of any geodetic data that specifies the first position. Course information representing such a determined sequence includes timestamp information for the first estimate.
US09182237B2

A navigation system for use with moving vehicles includes target points proximate to a rendezvous site located on a first moving vehicle. One or more transmitters broadcast target point positioning information. A navigation unit on a second moving vehicle utilizes a camera to capture images that include the target points or a detector system that emits one or more beams to the target points. The navigation unit determines the relative position and orientation of the rendezvous site at the second vehicle. The navigation unit utilizes the relative position and orientation and an absolute position and orientation of the rendezvous site calculated from the target position information and calculates an absolute position and orientation corresponding to the second vehicle. The navigation unit then initializes its component inertial subsystem using a local position and orientation that are based on the calculated absolute position and orientation of the second vehicle.
US09182236B2

A system for performing post processing of GNSS and INS measurement data and image data to provide highly accurate location information for a camera, an INS measurement unit or both performs first processing operations using the GNSS and INS measurement data, to determine position, velocity and attitude solutions. The system then analyzes the solutions to determine which measurement data provide sufficiently reliable solutions from which to determine the precise position, velocity and attitude of the camera, and thus, which measurement data do not provide sufficiently reliable solutions. The system and method then performs more time consuming and processing intensive processing operations using the measurement data and camera image data that are associated with solutions that are not sufficiently reliable.
US09182232B2

A magnetically actuated node apparatus and methods of its operation are described involving interaction with a master node that communicates with a server in a wireless node network. As part of magnetically altering an operation of a node in a wireless node network having a master node operative to communicate with a server, the node detects one or more magnetic field changes in a proximate environment of the node (such as a sensing an altered configuration of a magnetic switch integrated within the node). The node then alters a management function of the node (such as changing a power condition of the node that may override a prior power setting) in response to the detected one or more magnetic field changes. The node further transmits to the master node information about the altered management function (such as a movement alert and/or location information) to be forwarded to the server.
US09182229B2

Novel solutions for position measurement, including without limitation tools and techniques that can be used for land surveying and in similar applications. One such tool is a greatly enhanced position measurement system that takes the form of a surveying rod with substantial independent functionality, which can be used with or without a total station or similar device.
US09182218B2

The disclosure relates to devices for the completely automated detection and characterization of a resin flash in a part consisting of a composite material, the device including an OCT measuring head including an OCT measuring module, a manipulator capable of moving the OCT head in space, a control for the manipulator, and a computer including a memory for acquiring the definition of the geometry of the area to be tested, for recording the measurements, for storing a criterion file, and for performing calculations pertaining to the comparison of the recording with the criterion file. The disclosure also relates to a method for detection and characterization of such a resin flash.
US09182216B2

Provided are a method for observing protein crystal, wherein the growth process of the protein crystals is nondestructively and three-dimensionally monitored on a real-time basis and the growth of the crystals is controlled at a high accuracy to thereby enable the formation of single crystals having good qualities, which comprises observing the protein crystals, said protein crystals having been produced by a crystallization method using a gel, by an OCT measurement using light emitted from an ultrawideband light source;a method for observing protein crystals wherein the ultrawideband light source is an ultrawideband supercontinuum light source;a method for observing protein crystals wherein the center wavelength of the light emitted from the ultrawideband supercontinuum light source is a 0.8 μm band; anda method for observing protein crystals wherein the monitoring of the protein crystals is a monitoring by an in situ measurement.
US09182213B2

The invention relates to a path measuring apparatus comprising at least a first measuring path and a second measuring path, these measuring paths each having an extension in a longitudinal direction and being oriented parallel to one another in at least a measuring range, at least one position indicator which couples to the measuring paths in a non-contact manner, and a measuring path holder which extends in the measuring range and has recesses, each recess having a measuring path arranged therein.
US09182211B2

A calibration method comprises providing a mounting fixture including a tray coupled to a frame, and an alignment measurement sensor removably coupled to the tray. An angular orientation of the tray is determined using the alignment measurement sensor removably coupled to the tray in a first position. The alignment measurement sensor is then moved to a second position on the tray that is rotated from the first position, and the angular orientation of the tray is determined using the alignment measurement sensor at the second position. An axis misalignment for at least two of a pitch axis, a roll axis, or a yaw axis of the alignment measurement sensor is then calculated to determine one or more misalignment factors. The one or more misalignment factors are then applied to correct for misalignment of the alignment measurement sensor.
US09182210B2

A caliper is arranged for applying predetermined constant pressure to a joint or other anatomy under measurement. The caliper includes an elongate housing, a first jaw connected to the housing, a second jaw slidably connected to the housing, the first and second jaws spaced apart by a predetermined minimum distance, and a constant force spring engaging the first and second jaws. The constant force spring biases the first and second jaws toward one another. A method includes using the caliper to measure anatomical dimensions.
US09182209B1

One or more specific embodiments disclosed herein includes a method for manually measuring the distance between a first and second point, comprising: providing a measuring device, placing the measuring device between the first and second points, moving the first or second elongated members, or both, from the first position to the second position, and determining the distance between the first and second points. The measuring device comprises: a first and second elongated member, wherein the first and second elongated members are disposed in substantially parallel relation to each other and are movable in relation to one another between a first and second position and a first scale that provides a first distance measurement and a second scale that provides a second distance measurement, wherein the distance between the first and second points is based at least in part on the combination of the first and second distance measurements.
US09182198B2

A personal protection apparatus includes a glove; a reservoir supported on the glove, and housing a sprayable repellant therein; a valve electrically operable to control the flow of fluid from the reservoir into a delivery tube; and a switch for actuating the valve. The switch includes contacts on thumb and index finger portions of the glove so as to close the switch and activate the spray of repellant when the thumb is positioned between the index finger and middle finger.
US09182190B2

A clutch for use with an arrow rest is mounted intermediate the arrow rest and the bow. The clutch includes a body having a first end configured to operatively connect to the arrow rest cord and a second end that receives a moveable shaft. The moveable shaft has a first end received in the body and a second end configured to connect to a bow. A spring is received on the shaft and positioned between the shaft and the clutch body. The clutch is moveable between a first position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body first end to facilitate the movement of an arrow rest launcher arm out of an arrow support position, and a second position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body second end to facilitate movement of the arrow rest launcher arm into an arrow support position.
US09182183B2

Fluid is circulated through a heat exchange system for heat exchange to occur at a bundle of tubes making up a portion of the heat exchange system. Heat exchange efficiency at the bundle of tubes requires debris and fouling deposits accumulated therewithin to be substantially removed. Taking the heat exchange system off-line for physical flushing is not only ineffective but also disallow use of the heat exchange system for the duration it remains off-line. Described herein is an embodiment of a cleaning system which uses a displacement system for displacing cleaning balls carried in fluid into the bundle of tubes for cleaning thereof. A flow diverting system is configured and operable for introducing the cleaning balls to the bundle of tubes when in a first operating mode and for retrieving the cleaning balls from the plurality of tubes when in a second operating mode.
US09182179B2

The current invention provides a tube-grasping body for grasping an insert tube in a heat exchanger, and heat exchanger production methods and apparatuses utilizing the tube-grasping body, wherein the tube-grasping body enables to enlarge and connect an insert tube to a heat radiating fin for producing a heat exchanger, still keeping the total length of insert tubes at an almost same level even after the enlargement; and the tube-grasping body is connected at its exterior to the guide-pipe.
US09182177B2

Two phase heat transfer systems including integrated fluid transfer paths for exchange of a working fluid between an evaporator and condenser. Separate fluid transfer paths may be defined for communication of working fluid between the evaporator and condenser, wherein at least one of the fluid transfer paths is integrated with the evaporator and/or condenser. In one embodiment, both first and second fluid transfer paths are integrally provided to establish direct fluid communication between the evaporator and condenser to facilitate flow of vaporized and condensed working fluid respectively.
US09182175B2

A heat exchanger for cooling fluid passing through the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger includes a hot fluid flowpath and a cold air flowpath. At least a portion of the cold air flowpath has a thermally conductive wall transferring thermal energy from hot fluid flowing through the hot fluid flowpath to cold air flowing through the cold air flowpath. The cold air flowpath includes a separator for separating ice particles from the cold air flowing through the cold air flowpath. The separator includes a passage having a bottom wall, an end wall, and a side wall including a porous wall through which a majority of cold air entering the separator passes. The end wall has an ice particle discharge opening adjacent the bottom wall permitting a minority of the cold air entering the separator to carry ice particles separated from the majority of cold air through the opening.
US09182174B2

A component is treated in a fluidized bed by insertion of only a treatment part of the component into the treatment chamber of a fluidized bed apparatus. The non-treatment part of the component is located substantially outside the treatment chamber and out of contact with the fluidized bed. The boundary between the treatment part and the non-treatment part of the component is defined by a boundary containment surface at a fixed location with respect to the component. The boundary containment surface may be a seal which seals between the component to be treated and an aperture in a side wall of the treatment chamber.
US09182167B2

Disclosed herein are a switch module and a refrigerator having the same. In the refrigerator with a dispenser installed on a door, a switch module to operate the dispenser includes a switch to operate the dispenser, a push button moving backwards by external force and applying pressure to the switch to operate the switch, and a switch case provided with a front surface on which the push button is arranged and receiving the switch therein, and the push button is installed on the switch case by a link assembly to simultaneously move upper and lower portions of the push button forwards and backwards. Therefore, the push button is uniformly operated regardless of a position to which the external force is applied.
US09182162B2

An apparatus, method, and system for automatically turning off an electrically powered actuator in a refrigeration mechanism upon detection of an unwanted condition. In one aspect of the invention, the electrically powered actuator can be the motor of an ice maker/dispenser. The detection can be accomplished by sensing the presence of an object along or near an ice dispensing pathway from the ice maker/dispenser. The unwanted condition could be the presence of the object for more than a preset time period. This would allow to distinguish between an unwanted object such as silverware or clogged ice versus a wanted object such as flowing ice cubes, crushed ice, or shaved ice.
US09182160B2

A dedicated heat recovery chiller/heater having a two step heat transfer arrangement is set out. A refrigerant to refrigerant heat transfer steep allows for higher temperature lift as compared to prior dedicated heat recovery systems.
US09182158B2

An appliance that includes a vacuum insulated cabinet structure having an exterior wall and an interior wall with a vacuum therebetween that forms at least the back wall, bottom, right side, left side, and top of the appliance; and a dual cooling system that includes at least one vapor compression system portion configured to operate during a pull down mode and a thermoelectric portion configured to operate in a steady-state mode without the vapor compression system operating while providing sufficient cooling to offset the steady-state heat load of the appliance.
US09182153B2

A low friction ball bearing tracker assembly for use in spatial object, particularly solar tracking, the assembly including a housing, having a base and top cover affixed to the housing, the housing further including a spherical chamber for receiving a rounded orb and ball bearings sufficient to surround at least fifty percent of the surface area of the orb, for allowing the orb to swivel, and translate, while tracking the spatial object, the orb being affixed to a solid shaft having an oval cross section, such as an ellipse, with major and minor axes, whereby the solid shaft holds a plate for retaining an array of panels, the top cover of the assembly further including a recessed channel along the inner circumference of the top cover to accommodate additional ball bearings to allow additional range of low friction motion.
US09182146B2

It is to heighten the heat collecting efficiency of a linear type solar heat collecting apparatus.A plurality of reflection lines and one reception line are included. The reflection lines are arranged in parallel substantially in the south-north direction on earth. Each reflection line L1, L2, . . . has a heliostat 1. The heliostat 1 is composed of a plurality of mirror segments disposed in series on each reflection line L1, L2, . . . . The reception line C extends in the east-west direction perpendicular to the reflection lines L1, L2, . . . , and is disposed at a predetermined position above the reflection lines L1, L2, . . . . The reception line C has a single receiver. The mirror segments disposed on each reflection line L1, L2, . . . radiate reflected light of sunlight that has impinged on the mirror surface toward the reception line C. The receiver 2 disposed on the reception line C collects the heat of the reflected light of sunlight radiated from the mirror segments disposed on each reflection line.
US09182145B2

A solar cooking appliance comprising a solar heat collector to collect and store solar heat, a heat storage and conducting material partially filling said solar heat collector and a set of solar cooking utensils, where each utensil is sized to fit a shape and size of the internal shape and size of the solar heat collector. The utensil has a wall which is heatingly connected to the heat storage and conducting material and an internal wall of the solar heat collector to receive solar heat for cooking food. The utensil further comprises a removable part for opening and closing said utensils during cooking.
US09182137B1

A low profile, high volume window fan has a large air filter mounted horizontally therein. The fan is enclosed in a rectangular box-like frame having a sloped top cover. The front section includes a squirrel cage blower, a front louvered section for directing the flow of air into the room, and a horizontally opening door for controlling the flow of air through the fan from either the outside air or the inside air, and for the insertion of the filter therein. The bottom surface includes an external opening for outside air. A double plenum is provided within the frame with the filter dividing the two plenums. When the door is closed, outside air is forced to flow into the second plenum, being in the bottom of the frame and under the filter and through the filter. When the door is opened, interior air is then filtered and circulated.
US09182133B1

A wall construction system comprises a number of courses of masonry construction blocks stacked one atop another in any desired pattern, such as a running bond pattern. One or more fluid conduits are disposed in thermal communication with one or more of the masonry construction blocks and one or more fluids are passed through the fluid conduits. The fluid(s) may comprise one or more liquids, one or more gases, or a combination of liquid(s) and gas(es). The fluid(s) can transfer heat between an enclosed environment, such as a room, and the material of the masonry construction blocks.
US09182130B2

A retractable ventilation system for a household appliance includes a lifting motor for moving the ventilation system in two opposing directions, and a switch controlling movement of the lifting motor. A first actuation of the switch moves the ventilation system in a first (or preferred) of the two directions, and a second actuation of the switch moves the ventilation system in a second direction opposing the first direction. Furthermore, a household appliance includes an extractor hood, a cooking appliance or a combination thereof, and at least one of the proposed retractable ventilation systems. A method for operating the retractable ventilation system is also described.
US09182129B2

Devices, systems, and methods are provided for baking a food product in a portable baking oven. The baking oven includes a main body, lower and upper stones, a heat shield suspending the upper stone above the lower stone, and a heat element emanating heat upward to a rotating flat panel having the lower stone thereon. Convection heat from the heat element moves upward from below the rotating flat panel and past a periphery of the flat panel, channeled by the heat shield to the upper stone, to move along the upper stone, and then down along the heat shield, on the opposite side. With this arrangement, the heat element heats the upper and lower stones with convection heat moving between the lower and upper stones in a side-to-side manner.
US09182125B2

Embodiments of the disclosure include a combustor assembly. The combustor assembly may include one or more fuel plenums. The combustor assembly may also include one or more fuel distribution plates disposed within the fuel plenums. Moreover, the combustor assembly may include a number of mixing tubes disposed at least partially within the fuel plenums and extending through the fuel distribution plates. In certain aspects, the mixing tubes may each include a reduced diameter about the fuel distribution plates to form an annulus therebetween.
US09182115B2

A fluid heat exchange system with a fluid flow circuit having a heat exchange fluid flow loop, a heat absorption component (as in a domestic hot water tank inclusive of small commercial use tanks as in tanks of 20 to 120 gallons), a heat exchanger and preferably also a pump. A controlled and automated fuel supply source based heater (as in a pellet stove) is in heat passage communication with the said heat exchanger. A control unit triggers activation of the pump upon fluid in the heat absorption component reaching or dropping below a preset temperature, and the fluid flow circuit is arranged such that, during times of non-activation of the pump, fluid is free to flow in a unidirectional flow within the fluid circuit based on thermodynamic temperature differentials alone. A retrofitting of a domestic hot water tank is also featured preferably making use of preexisting drain and safety vent porting for in-feed and out-feed porting in the exchange loop side. Also, the flow circuit preferably is free of check valves and steam accommodation equipment.
US09182106B2

A device for adjusting an optical tube, which is disposed in a housing of a spotlight or optical device and which is guided in the housing in the direction of the optical axis of the spotlight or optical device is provided. An adjustment drive, an operating element and a brake device is disposed between the tube and the housing, which with the adjustment drive not activated connects the tube to the housing in a non-positive locking and/or positive-locking manner and which on activation of the adjustment drive releases the connection between the tube and the housing and enables adjustment of the tube along the optical axis of the spotlight or optical device.
US09182092B2

A lighting fixture includes first and second elongated lamp carriage assembles supporting respective first and second elongated lamps and an enclosure including first and second spaced plates. The first lamp carriage assembly is fixedly coupled between the first and second plates for directing light output by the first lamp in a first direction. The second lamp carriage assembly is slidably and pivotally coupled at its ends to the first and second plates for directing light output by the second lamp in a second direction that crosses the first direction. The lighting fixture can further include a third elongated lamp carriage assembly supporting a third elongated lamp. The third lamp carriage assembly is slidably and pivotally coupled at its ends to the first and second plates for directing light output by the third lamp in a third direction that crosses the first and second directions.
US09182091B2

Devices, systems, and methods are provided for both retrofitting existing lighting fixtures with LED panels and for installing ceiling tiles having LED modules incorporated therewith. In one exemplary embodiment, a thin panel includes an LED module integrated therewith and the panel is disposed over an opening in a troffer to provide light from the panel-module combination. In another exemplary embodiment, a ceiling tile includes an LED module integrated therewith and the tile is placed in a ceiling grid so light can be provided from that tile. Exemplary configurations of the systems, devices, and kits, as well as methods for installing the same, are also provided.
US09182085B2

A lighting device, or LED lamp 10 is described with a base element 12 for electrical contacting and mechanical mounting and an LED arrangement 20 with at least one LED element 70. The LED arrangement 20 is spaced from the base element 12 along a longitudinal axis L. In order to provide a lighting device and a lighting arrangement with a matched optical and thermal design, i. e. where both effective heat dissipation and an advantageous light intensity distribution are achieved, an upper heat dissipating structure 60 is arranged next to the LED arrangement 20 with at least one heat dissipation element 62 made out of a heat conducting material. The upper heat dissipating structure 60 is shaped to include at least a first end 64a and a second end 64b spaced from the first end 64a along a traverse axis T. The traverse axis T is substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis L. The LED arrangement 20 is arranged between the first and second ends 64a, 64b.
US09182084B2

An LED element includes an LED and a lens located over the LED. The LED has a rectangular light outputting face. The lens has a light outputting face. The light outputting face of the lens includes a first light outputting portion and two second light outputting portions. The first light outputting portion performs a convergent function to light output along a long side of the rectangular light outputting face of the LED. The second light outputting portion performs a divergent function to the light output along a short side of the rectangular light outputting face of the LED. The light emitted from the lens has an energy intensity distribution the same along each of two perpendicular directions of the long side and short side of the rectangular light outputting face.
US09182080B2

Systems and methods to create and store a liquid phase mix of natural gas absorbed in light-hydrocarbon solvents under temperatures and pressures that facilitate improved volumetric ratios of the stored natural gas as compared to CNG and PLNG at the same temperatures and pressures of less than −80° to about −120° F. and about 300 psig to about 900 psig. Preferred solvents include ethane, propane and butane, and natural gas liquid (NGL) and liquid pressurized gas (LPG) solvents. Systems and methods for receiving raw production or semi-conditioned natural gas, conditioning the gas, producing a liquid phase mix of natural gas absorbed in a light-hydrocarbon solvent, and transporting the mix to a market where pipeline quality gas or fractionated products are delivered in a manner utilizing less energy than CNG, PLNG or LNG systems with better cargo-mass to containment-mass ratio for the natural gas component than CNG systems.
US09182079B2

The invention relates to a housing part containing a lubricant reservoir and at least one respective inlet and outlet opening for filling and draining a lubricating fluid into and from the lubricant reservoir. The inlet and outlet openings are sealed by releasable closure devices each comprising a sensor means for determining the operation parameters in a lubricant contained in the lubricant reservoir and for generating and/or storing sensor signals, as well as a transceiver for the transmission of the sensor signals to an external processing unit.
US09182064B2

A connector structure for a fluid tube is provided. The connector structure comprises: a first connector body connected to a fluid tube; a second connector body, the first connector body and the second connector body being connectable to each other and comprising mating surfaces to create a fluid tight seal between the first connector body and the second connector body, wherein the mating surfaces comprise only vertical and/or oblique parts and are configured to press tightly against each other and form a fluid tight seal with the locking mechanism; and a locking mechanism, wherein the first and the second connector body are configured to detach from each other when the locking mechanism is not used.
US09182058B2

Elbow and tee fittings for joining pipe elements together include housing portions held preassembled in spaced apart relation to permit pipe elements to be inserted without disassembly of the fitting, the fittings having a receptacle of varying depth for receiving a sealing element.
US09182055B2

A cable drag chain includes a first chain including a plurality of first connecting members each including a base plate and two mounting plates each defining a slot, a second chain including a plurality of second connecting members each including a base board and two mounting boards each defining a through hole, and two latching members each including a post. The base plates are coupled with each other end-to-end to form the first chain, and the base boards are coupled with each other end-to-end to form the second chain. The two posts of the two latching members detachably engage in the two slots of the first connecting member and the two slots of the second connecting member located at two opposite ends of the cable drag chain.
US09182054B2

An apparatus for feeding an elongate article (6) from a floating vessel and suspending a first portion (6a) of the elongate article in a body of water below the vessel, comprises a cylindrical body (10) rotatably supported on the vessel and driving means (85, 86) for controlling the rotation of the cylindrical body. The cylindrical body (10) further comprises a spooling-on region (P) and a spooling-off region (U) for the elongate article, and a cylindrical contacting surface (18) for interaction with at least a portion of the elongate article (6); the contacting surface (18) being configured so as to support the first portion (6a).
US09182050B2

A flushometer having a cap with a substantially central exhaust passage adapted to remove air from the control chamber. The exhaust passage provides for communication between an upper pressure chamber and an interior piston chamber wherein during a flush cycle a portion of the contents of the upper pressure chamber is evacuated through the exhaust passage into the interior piston chamber and ultimately through the outlet of the flushometer.
US09182041B2

In order to provide a seal for sealing a sealing gap between a first component and a second component, comprising a seal body with at least one sealing portion and at least one spring element for biasing the sealing portion against at least one of the components to be sealed, the spring element being at least partially arranged in a receiving space of the seal body, which seal is simply constructed and easily producible and nevertheless ensures a secure retention of the spring element in the receiving space, it is proposed that the spring element has at least one claw element, by means of which the spring element is interlocked with the seal body.
US09182037B2

When an operating point that is determined by the engine speed (Ne), the engine torque (Te), and the vehicle speed falls within the zones of both a first vibration risk region (α1) and a second vibration risk region (α2), the dwell time (ΔT1) thereof is measured, and once this dwell time (ΔT1) reaches a predetermined vibration assessment time (ΔT1_Lim), the gear ratio of the continuously variable transmission is corrected towards the large side (low side) so that the operating point is moved out of the vibration risk regions (α1, α2).
US09182030B2

A slew drive with mounting structure includes a slew drive having a housing with a bottom side. A mounting structure includes a plate assembly coupled to the bottom side of the housing. A bottom surface of the plate assembly is formed as a convex surface forming a sphere section. A base plate has a concave top surface adjustably receiving the sphere section of the bottom surface of the plate assembly and a convex bottom surface. A post coupling is carried by the base plate for coupling the base plate to a post. A clamp ring has a central opening receiving the post coupling therethrough and has a concave top surface adjustably receiving the convex bottom surface of the base plate. Fasteners couple the plate assembly and clamp ring and are movable between a clamp position and an unclamped position.
US09182027B2

A solitary chainring of a bicycle front crankset for engaging a drive chain, including a plurality of teeth formed about a periphery of the chainring, the plurality of teeth consisting of an even number. The plurality of teeth includes a first group of teeth and a second group of teeth arranged alternatingly between the first group of teeth. The first group of teeth and the second group of teeth are equal in number. Each of the first and second group of teeth include an outboard side and an inboard side opposite the outboard side and each tooth of the first group of teeth includes at least a first protrusion on the outboard side thereof and each tooth of the second group of teeth are free of the first protrusions on the outboard side and the inboard side.
US09182026B2

A cam follower assembly includes a housing. The cam follower assembly includes a first cam follower and a second cam follower to contact a cam surface. The cam follower assembly includes a first holding element coupled to the first cam follower, and a second holding element coupled to the second cam follower. The second holding element is assembled with the first holding element and received in an opening of the housing, where the first holding device moves relative to the second holding device. An adjusting element of compressible material determines the relative movement between the first holding device and the second holding device. The first cam follower moves relative to the second cam follower according to the relative movement between the first holding element and the second holding element. The first cam follower and the second cam follower maintain contact with the cam surface according to their relative movement.
US09182019B2

A thermoforming trim press and a drive assembly for a thermoforming trim press are provided. The drive assembly includes a frame, a drive motor, a drive linkage, a first bevel gear, and a second bevel gear. The drive motor is supported by the frame. The first bevel gearbox is supported by the frame and has an input shaft coupled with a drive gear, an output shaft coupled with a ring gear, and a housing supporting the input shaft, the output shaft, the drive gear and the output shaft in meshed gear rotation. The second bevel gearbox is supported by the frame in opposed relation with the first bevel gearbox and has an input shaft coupled with a drive gear, an output shaft coupled with a ring gear, and a housing supporting the input shaft, the output shaft, the drive gear and the output shaft in meshed gear rotation, the second bevel gearbox driven via the drive linkage with the output shaft driving in counter-rotation relative to the output shaft of the first bevel gearbox. A method for driving a moving platen on a trim press is also provided using opposed, identical beveled gearboxes.
US09182018B2

An infinitely variable transmission (IVT) having a rotatable input shaft arranged along a longitudinal axis of the transmission. In one embodiment, the input shaft is adapted to supply a lubricant to the interior of the transmission. In some embodiments, a stator assembly is coupled to, and coaxial with, the input shaft. The IVT has a plurality of planets operably coupled to the stator assembly. The planets are arranged angularly about the longitudinal axis of the transmission. In one embodiment, a traction ring is operably coupled to the planets. The IVT is provided with a housing that is operably coupled to the traction ring. The housing is substantially fixed from rotating with the input shaft. The traction ring is substantially fixed from rotating with the input shaft. In some embodiments, the IVT is provided with a lubricant manifold that is configured to supply a lubricant to the input shaft.
US09182006B2

A hydraulic shock absorber includes a valve body having a second valve which is fixed to the valve body on a central axis CL side of the second valve and covers an open end of a second oil passage in the valve body. The second valve is deformable in a direction away from the valve body when the valve is applied with force from the valve body side. The second valve is configured: (a) to include a first through-hole formed in a circumferential direction thereof, (b) have lower stiffness, with respect to force from the valve body side, on a second through-hole side than on a third through-hole side and (c) such that a first corner portion C1 of the first through-hole has higher stiffness than a second corner portion C2 of the first through-hole positioned on the third through-hole side.
US09181996B2

A backspin reducing device for reducing an amount or a rate of backspin of a rod string when lifting the rotor apart from the stator of an oil or gas downhole progressive cavity pump. The backspin reducing device includes a substantially cylindrical housing having one or more threaded pin receptacles holding respective threaded pins in threaded engagement around a polished rod portion of the rod string of the progressive cavity pump. Turning threaded pins in their respective threaded pin receptacles causes the interior ends of the threaded pins to move towards or away from the polished rod in the center of the housing. Attached to the interior end of each threaded pin is a friction roller.
US09181994B2

The invention relates to a freewheel hub for a bicycle including an axle and housing rotatably mounted thereon. A sprocket arrangement is mounted on the hub axle and a freewheel is arranged between the hub and the sprocket arrangement. The freewheel has a first coupling ring which couples to the hub and a second coupling ring which couples to the sprocket arrangement. The first and second coupling rings have respective tooth systems facing one another which are arrangeable into and out of mutual torque-transmitting engagement.
US09181982B2

A blade bearing for mounting a blade of a wind turbine to a hub of the wind turbine comprises inner and outer rings arranged next to each other. One of the inner and outer rings is configured to mount to the blade, and the other is configured to mount to the hub. At least two rows of rolling elements are positioned between the inner and outer rings. Upper and lower rows of the rolling elements are located in respective upper and lower planes. A support structure is secured to the inner ring and extends in a substantially radial direction between the upper and lower planes. The support structure has non-uniform stiffness characteristics in a circumferential direction. A method of manufacturing a blade bearing is also provided.
US09181977B2

The present invention provides an air-foil bearing including a damper body, a front welding plate, and a front top foil for increasing durability, and which has a first bending mode. The damper body includes a front body portion, a rear body portion, and a front protruded portion protruded upward from the front body portion to have a flat protruded surface, and the front welding plate includes a front first contact portion in surface contact with a top surface of the front protruded portion and a front second contact portion which is a portion that is bent from the front first contact portion in surface contact with the front welding plate.
US09181974B1

A device to semi-permanently attach suction cup mounts that previously lost functionality is provided. Further, the device provides attachment without marring a mounting surface, or substrate. The present invention consists of a thin barrier preferably metal foil of circular shape with a pressure sensitive adhesive on one side. An additional adhesive is provided to apply between the barrier assembly and a suction cup. This structural barrier assembly provides a cost effective way to make use of nonfunctioning suction cup mounts or mounted devices without replacing the mount or device.
US09181969B1

The ornamental fastener assembly for enhancing an appearance of an object includes a head. The head has an outer edge defining an ornamental shape. A shaft is coupled to the head. The shaft penetrates the object. The head is coupled to the object.
US09181961B1

A number of variations may include a product for use with a turbocharger system may include a compressor wheel for charging a flow stream. A housing may be disposed around the compressor wheel, defining an inlet passage and a discharge passage. The flow stream may extend through the inlet passage, around the compressor wheel and through the outlet passage. The inlet passage may be configured to impart a supersonic speed to the flow stream to inhibit sound from propagating against the flow stream through the inlet passage.
US09181960B2

A break-away fitting facilitates installation and removal of a pump in wet well system, along at least one guide rail. When installed, the fitting mates an outlet of the pump to an outlet pipe of the wet well. The fitting has a body with a first and a second surface, the surfaces arranged to be substantially perpendicular to each other. A flanged opening in the first surface is sized and adapted for attaching the body to the outlet flange of the pump. The second surface has indentations for engaging the at least one guide rail, so that the body slides in the vertical channel. To minimize the dangers from static electricity in the wet well, the body may be formed from a non-sparking material, such as brass or bronze, or a surface of the indentations may be covered by a non-sparking material, including high-density polyethylene or poly(tetrafluoroethylene).
US09181955B1

A product and method for use with a turbocharger system may include a housing with a shaft rotatably supported by the housing. The shaft may extend in an axial direction. A bearing assembly may support the shaft in the housing. A wheel may be connected to the shaft and may rotate relative to the housing. A clearance opening may be defined in the axial direction between the wheel and the housing. A thrust washer may be engaged with the bearing assembly. The thrust washer may have an outer circumference and may be movable relative to the housing. An efficiency washer may be disposed around the outer circumference of the thrust washer and may determine the clearance opening by defining a space within which the thrust washer moves relative to the housing in the axial direction.
US09181950B2

A motor-driven compressor that suppresses the transmission of vibration and noise to the exterior, while obtaining heating performance that is sufficient for use in a heat pump. The motor-driven compressor includes a compressor mechanism, which compresses a refrigerant, and a motor mechanism, which actuates the compressor mechanism. The motor-driven compressor further includes an inner housing, which accommodates the compressor mechanism and the motor mechanism in a sealed state, and an outer housing, which accommodates the inner housing. The outer housing includes a mounting portion that can be mounted to another member. A first intermediate member is arranged between the inner housing and the outer housing. The first intermediate member includes anti-vibration and thermal insulation properties.
US09181938B2

A compressor assembly that has a compressed air tank having a vibration absorption member. The vibration absorption member can exert a pressure on a portion of the compressed air tank. A method of controlling sound emitted from a compressor assembly, by using a vibration absorber which applies a force against the compressed gas tank. Controlling the sound level of the compressed gas tank is accomplished by absorbing vibration from the compressed gas tank by which exerting a pressure on a portion of the compressed gas tank.
US09181935B2

A plasma thruster includes a plasma chamber having first and second axial ends, the first of which is open, an anode located at the second axial end, and a cathode. The cathode and anode are arranged to produce an electric field having at least a component in the axial direction of the thruster. A magnet system including a plurality of magnets is spaced around the thruster axis, each magnet having its north and south poles spaced around the axis.
US09181934B2

A gridded ion propulsion system comprising two power controllers, four ion thrusters, and two switch assemblies. One switch assembly is connected to the two power controllers and to two of the four ion thrusters. The other switch assembly is connected to the two power controllers and to the other two ion thrusters. Each switch assembly has first and second switching states which can be selected to enable either power controller to supply power to any one of the four ion thrusters. Each switch assembly comprises a respective movable body and a respective multiplicity of switches which change state in unison when the movable body changes position. For example, the movable body may be a rotatable hollow shaft driven by a stepper motor.
US09181932B2

A system for raising water for OTEC and desalination is provided. The system includes at least one submerged platform positioned within a body of water, wherein the at least one submerged platform is buoyantly held up from a bottom surface of the body of water, and wherein the at least one submerged platform is held below a top surface of the body of water by at least one mooring attached to the bottom surface of the body of water. At least one cable is movably connected to the at least one submerged platform. At least one container is held by the at least one cable, wherein a quantity of water is emptied from the at least one container.
US09181916B2

A Start-Stop method and system for optimizing a selected set of parameters to provide an ideal balance between cabin thermal comfort and fuel economy performance is disclosed. The method and system include several parameters to manage how long and when the engine OFF time will occur. Such parameters include, but are not limited to, outside ambient temperature, cabin temperature, cabin humidity, engine coolant temperature, and evaporator thermistor temperature. A control logic monitors inputs such as cabin humidity and, under certain conditions, sends a request for the engine to be ON. Other factors influencing engine ON time include inputs from the wiper(s), the heated windshield, the heated back light, the HVAC blower, and the temperature control setting. The disclosed system has utility in both electronic automatic temperature control (EATC) systems as well as in manual temperature control (MTC) systems.
US09181915B2

An inventive system and method for managing vehicle power is presented. The novel technology provides a means to automatically shutdown a vehicle's engine when conditions are such that engine power is not needed, reducing fuel consumption as well as lowering noise and emissions. A series of conditions are examined to determine whether engine power is needed and hence whether shutdown can be safely performed. The inventive system and method can also determine when power is again needed by the engine and can re-start the engine automatically at such times.
US09181911B2

A gas engine system has a control unit including: a first determination section for determining, as a first determination, whether the gas pressure is a low pressure less than a predetermined pressure, while the control device recognizes the gas valve is closed; a second determination section for determining, as a second determination, whether the gas pressure is a high pressure equal to or more than the predetermined pressure, while the control device recognizes that the gas valve is open, if the first determination determines the gas pressure is the low pressure; a start-up section for performing the first and second determinations before start of engine operation when receiving a start-up command; and an operation start section for opening the valve and starting the engine, if the first determination determines the gas pressure is the low pressure, and if the second determination determines the pressure is the high pressure.
US09181900B1

Disclosed is a high-power, fully-superconducting electric machine and major subcomponents including a dual (twin) superconducting, counter rotating, sub-scale bypass fan machine, 13-stage switched reluctance turbo-motor, electric compressor, annular ion-plasma combustor with electromagnetic electrodes, and a five stage superconducting counter-rotating turbine power generation machine which is capable of developing 2.5 MW per stage.
US09181898B2

A thrust reverser includes a slider movable along an actuator shaft. An inner linkage is mounted to the slider and the inner thrust reverser door and an outer linkage is mounted to the slider and the outer thrust reverser door.
US09181894B2

A control system for an internal combustion engine having a throttle valve disposed in an intake passage of the engine is provided. A wide-open intake air amount, which is an intake air amount corresponding to a state where the throttle valve is fully opened, is calculated according to the engine rotational speed, and a theoretical intake air amount, which is an intake air amount corresponding to a state where no exhaust gas of the engine is recirculated to a combustion chamber of the engine, is calculated according to the wide-open intake air amount and the intake pressure. An intake air amount of the engine is detected or estimated, and an amount of the evaporative fuel/air mixture supplied through the evaporative fuel passage to the intake passage is calculated. An intake gas amount is calculated by correcting the intake air amount using the evaporative fuel/air mixture amount, and an exhaust gas recirculation ratio is calculated using the theoretical intake air amount and the intake gas amount. The engine is controlled using the calculated exhaust gas recirculation ratio.
US09181888B2

Systems, apparatus, and methods for selectively, preferentially, and/or actively removing or trapping SO3 from un-oxidized sulfur constituents in an exhaust gas effluent produced by an internal combustion engine are disclosed. Also disclosed are embodiments for regenerating an SO3 trap.
US09181885B2

A method for drive control of a motor vehicle in a drive train which comprises a drive engine built as a turbo-charged internal combustion engine, a startup and shifting clutch built as an automated friction clutch, and a transmission built as an automatic stepped transmission. The method overcomes drive engine torque deficiencies while traveling in which such torque deficiencies occur when the driver demands power corresponding to a target torque of the drive engine which is above the spontaneously attainable maximum torque. To avoid downshifting or starting from standstill, initially the clutch is disengaged up to slipping operation, the drive engine is then accelerated to the boost threshold speed or an engine speed which is slightly above the boost threshold speed, and the drive engine is then loaded up to substantially the full load torque with a substantially constant engine speed before the slipping operation of the clutch ends.
US09181884B2

An engine control device, while executing a fuel-cut control, calculates a target intake air amount (Qat) from a basic intake air amount (Qabase) and an added intake air amount (Qaadd) commensurate with an accessory torque (step S14). Next, the engine control device acquires a coolant temperature (Tw) (step S15), and then sets a lower-limit intake air amount (Qamin) (step S16). When the target intake air amount (Qat) is smaller than the lower-limit intake air amount (Qamin) (NO in step S17), the engine control device updates the target intake air amount (Qat) with the lower-limit intake air amount (Qamin). (step S18), and adjusts the degree of throttle opening so that the actual intake air amount (Qa) becomes equal to the target intake air amount (Qat) (step S19).
US09181880B2

The invention provides devices, systems and methods for filling, capping and electronically monitoring the closure of a fuel tank. In some embodiments, the invention provides devices, systems and methods for filling, capping and providing an ignition disconnect mechanism upon uncapping of a natural gas fuel tank.
US09181876B2

A gas turbine includes a compressor, a combustor downstream from the compressor and a heat transfer system, wherein the heat transfer system receives a compressed working fluid from the compressor. A fluid coupling between the heat transfer system and the combustor, wherein the fluid coupling receives the compressed working fluid from the heat transfer system. A conditioner in fluid communication with the compressor and a fluid coupling between the heat transfer system and the conditioner, wherein the fluid coupling receives a cooling media from the heat transfer system. A method for operating the gas turbine includes flowing a compressed working fluid from the compressor to the heat transfer system, transferring heat energy from the compressed working fluid to the heat transfer system, flowing the compressed working fluid from the heat transfer system to a combustor, and flowing a cooling media from the heat transfer system to a compressor inlet.
US09181862B2

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for adjusting an exhaust gas recirculation rate to provide accurate air-fuel ratio. The disclosure provides a method for calculating an exhaust-gas recirculation rate based on a measured exhaust-gas lambda and a turbocharger speed. Through the use of the exhaust-gas lambda and the turbocharger speed it is possible to calculate an exhaust-gas recirculation rate while dispensing with the difficult and unreliable determination of the mass air flow for determining an exhaust-gas recirculation rate, thus providing a stable method which further reduces fuel consumption and emissions.
US09181854B2

The present invention relates to a turbocharger (1) for an internal combustion engine (2) having at least one exhaust-gas recirculation line (3) which enters via an exhaust-gas mixing-in opening (12) into an intake line (10) of the internal combustion engine (2); having a turbine (4); and having a compressor (5); which is drive-connected to the turbine (4) and which has a compressor wheel (6) which is arranged in a compressor housing (7) into which the intake line (10) opens via a compressor inlet (11), having a mixing device (18) for mixing recirculated exhaust gas and fresh air, with the mixing device (18) having at least two guide plates (21, 22) in the shape of truncated cone shell segments which are arranged radially offset with respect to one another and which delimit in each case one inflow gap (23, 24) at their longitudinal edges arranged offset with respect to one another.
US09181853B2

Methods and systems are provided for removing condensate from a charge air cooler. Condensate may be drained from the charge air cooler and introduced into a positive crankcase ventilation flow or an engine oil sump. Introducing condensate into the engine oil sump may be controlled based on conditions of the engine oil sump and stored condensate.
US09181852B2

A misfire prevention water agitator system and method are disclosed. The system may include a boosted engine having a charge air cooler arranged in an engine intake passage downstream of a compressor and upstream of an intake manifold. The system may also include a bypass coupling an outlet tank of the charge air cooler with the intake manifold, the line including an agitator mounted within 45 degrees of vertical.
US09181851B1

An engine system is disclosed. The engine system may have an engine block at least partially defining a cylinder bore, and a cylinder liner disposed within the cylinder bore. The engine system may also include a fuel injector configured to pass radially through the cylinder bore and threadingly engage the cylinder liner.
US09181850B2

A hybrid accessory drive system having two operational modes, a mechanical mode and an electric mode. The accessory is typically a cooling fan. A continuously variable mechanical belt drive mechanism drives the accessory as one mode of operation. An electric motor along with a planetary roller screw mechanism which converts rotary motion to axial motion is used to change the sheave position and thus the drive ratio. Upon disengagement of the mechanical drive mode, the electric motor can be used to drive the accessory in a second mode.
US09181849B2

Disclosed is an oil jet device for cooling a piston, including: an oil cooler 4 that is disposed upstream of an oil injection nozzle 8; an oil pump 5 that is disposed upstream of the oil cooler 4; a first switching adjustment valve 6 that is disposed between the oil injection nozzle 8 and the oil cooler 4 and adjusts a flow dividing ratio at which the cooling oil from the oil cooler 4 is distributed to the oil injection nozzle 8 side and to an oil pan side; and a control unit that has an oil quantity adjustment map 4 for switching the first switching adjustment valve 6 based on a piston temperature calculation map 20 for calculating the temperature of the piston 1 using detection values acquired respectively by a cooling water temperature sensor 35, a rotation speed sensor 36 and a load sensor 37.
US09181847B2

Disclosed is a coating material for parts of an engine exhaust system and a method for manufacturing the same. The coating material includes a second junction layer made of CrN or Ti(C)N, a support layer made of TiAlN/CrN disposed on a surface of the second junction layer, and a functional layer made of TiAlN/CrSiN or TiAlN/CrSiCN disposed on a surface of the support layer. The coating material improves abrasion resistance and seizure resistance of the parts of the engine exhaust system.
US09181841B2

A method is provided for monitoring the light-off temperature of a diesel oxidation catalyst of a combustion engine. The method includes, but is not limited to measuring the temperature of the exhaust gas upstream and downstream of the diesel oxidation catalyst during a post injection phase or after injection phase of the combustion engine, determining whether a catalyst light-off occurred by using the temperature data of the exhaust gas, calculating the surface temperature of the diesel oxidation catalyst by using the measured temperature data of the exhaust gas, and defining the calculated temperature as light-off temperature of the diesel oxidation catalyst in the case that a catalyst light-off is determined. By means of the method, it is possible to determine the actual light-off temperature of the diesel oxidation catalyst for instance after each engine start by means of calculating the surface temperature of the diesel oxidation catalyst. Since the light-off temperature is not considered as a constant but as a changing variable, the aging of the diesel oxidation catalyst is sufficiently considered. Thus, it is provided a means for monitoring the light-off temperature of a diesel oxidation catalyst considering an aging of the diesel oxidation catalyst.
US09181839B2

An exhaust gas purification catalyst, using a reducing agent, is provided on an inside of an exhaust pipe via a support member. A baffle portion for preventing the reducing agent from penetrating the exhaust gas purification catalyst is provided on a portion of an internal surface of the exhaust pipe, which is upstream of the exhaust gas purification catalyst.
US09181837B2

A secondary air supply system includes an electric air pump that supplies secondary air to a location upstream of an exhaust gas purification catalyst arranged in an exhaust passage; a control valve that opens/closes a secondary air supply passage; a pressure detector that detects a pressure between the pump and the control valve; and a control unit that detects a first pressure in a first operating state where the control valve is closed, and detects a second pressure in a second operating state where the control valve is open, using the pressure detector. The control unit corrects at least one of the first and second pressures based on a first driving voltage for the pump in the first operating state and a second driving voltage in the second operating state, and estimates a secondary air flow rate based on the first and second pressures after correction.
US09181834B2

In a method and a device for adapting the injection agent supply for an emission control system, the following steps are carried out: a) setting of a agent pressure target value in the line upstream of the pump in relation to the ambient pressure; b) opening of the pressure relief valve for a predetermined time t; c) determining the pressure difference between the target and the injection agent pressure, caused in step b), immediately after step b); d) setting a target value for the agent pressure in the line downstream of the pump in relation to the exhaust gas pressure in the system; e) opening of the injector for a predetermined time t; f) determining the pressure difference between the target and the agent pressure, caused in step e), immediately after step e); g) comparing the pressure differences from steps c) and f); and h) optional adaptation of the injector opening time.
US09181828B2

The description relates to an internal combustion engine having a turbocharger, having a first particle filter in the intake section of the internal combustion engine and having a low-pressure EGR line that comprises a second particle filter. A fast-reacting low-pressure exhaust gas recirculation system with small dimensions can be realized by virtue of the EGR line branching off from the exhaust section upstream of the first particle filter, and the second particle filter being provided with a heater. The description also relates to a corresponding EGR method.
US09181827B2

A variable valve lift apparatus for changing a lift of an intake or exhaust valve in at least two stages may include a lever body, a piston, a cylinder, a hydraulic pressure chamber, an active portion, a hinge portion, a roller, a rotation shaft, a guide slot, a hydraulic pressure supply portion, and an elastic member, in which the lever body may make a lever motion at an end with the intake valve or the exhaust valve connected thereto, the piston may make reciprocal motion in the cylinder, the rotation shaft may pass through the hinge portion and the roller and be a rotation center of the roller, moving together with the roller, the hydraulic pressure supply portion may supply hydraulic pressure to the hydraulic pressure chamber for moving the piston, and the elastic member may return the piston if the hydraulic pressure being supplied to the hydraulic pressure chamber is removed.
US09181824B2

The invention concerns a method for making a unitary spark ignition valve, characterized in that it consists in preparing and casting a steel made up in wt. % of: 0.45%≦C 0.55%; 12%≦Cr≦18%; 1%≦Si≦2.5%; traces≦Mn≦2%; 0.2%≦V≦0.5%; traces≦Mo≦0.5%; 0.05%≦N≦0.15%, with 0.55%≦C+N≦0.70%; traces≦Ni≦1%; traces≦Cu≦0.25%, or Cu≦0.5 Ni if Cu>0.25%; traces≦Co≦1%; traces≦W≦0.2%; traces≦Nb≦0.15%; traces≦AI≦0.025%; traces≦Ti≦0.010%; traces≦S≦0.030%; traces≦P≦0.040%; traces≦B≦0.0050%; the balance being iron and impurities resulting from the preparation; in transforming by hot thermomechanical process, for example, by rolling and/or forging between 1000 and 1200° C.; optionally soft annealing, between 650 and 900° C. for 2 to 8 hours followed by air or furnace cooling; and performing the final thermal or thermomechanical treatments which will impart to the valve its shape and its final properties, including hot-shaping by forging or extrusion, and in a final manufacturing step a localized surface quenching, such as a high-frequency quenching, a plasma or a laser shock quenching, performed on certain parts of the valve. The invention also concerns a unitary spark ignition engine valve obtained by said method.
US09181808B2

A blade or a vane component of a turbomachine includes an inner space between two opposite inner walls of the component, and a plurality of ribs projecting from the two opposite inner wall forming a plurality of channels on each of the two opposite inner walls to guide the cooling fluid towards the trailing edge. The inner space is divided into a leading section towards the leading edge of the component and a trailing section towards the trailing edge of the component. The ribs are arranged in the leading section. A plurality of pin-fins projecting from the two opposite inner walls is arranged in the trailing section in a discrete manner.
US09181804B1

A method of balancing a core assembly of a turbocharger. The core assembly may include a rotor assembly having a compressor wheel and a turbine wheel connected for common rotation by a shaft. A first bending critical speed of the rotor assembly may be determined. The core assembly may be mounted in a balancing machine. A drive source may be engaged with the core assembly to impart rotation. The rotor assembly may be rotated at an initial phase speed that is between approximately 5500 revolutions per minute and the first bending critical speed. A state of imbalance of the rotor assembly may be determined at the initial phase speed.
US09181800B2

A compact monitoring device for monitoring the state of rotation of a disk cutter of a shield tunnel boring machine is integrated into a clamping element for fastening the disk cutter. A sensor module of the monitoring device is arranged in close proximity to the disk cutter but without touching so that a state of rotation of the disk cutter generated by transmitters mounted in the disk cutter is reliably ensured even under the rough environmental conditions prevailing in shield tunnel boring.
US09181797B2

A well-bore downhole data logging signal transmission apparatus having: a signal transmitter at a drill bit on a drill string; a receiver at a drill bore head, a generator places a carrier current on the drill string with the drill bit; the transmitter places signal pulses; the receiver senses the pulses; the pulses have a duration less than 10 ms.
US09181792B2

Present embodiments are directed to a drilling system and method for evaluating energy consumption to determine the onset of drilling issues and identify mitigation strategies for more efficient drilling. The drilling system receives drilling parameter values and a drilling performance value from sensors located on a drilling rig, and calculates an energy value based on the drilling parameter values and drilling performance value. The drilling system determines a deviation of the calculated energy value from a desired energy value and identifies one drilling parameter that significantly correlates with the deviation. Further, the drilling system determines an adjustment to the one drilling parameter that, when applied, causes the calculated energy value to approach the desired energy value. The drilling system then indicates the desired adjustment to the drilling operator so that appropriate actions may be taken to mitigate the drilling issue.
US09181790B2

The detonation of one or more explosive charges and propellant charges by a detonator in response to a fire control signal from a command and control system comprised of a command center and instrumentation center with a communications link therebetween. The fire control signal is selectively provided to the detonator from the instrumentation center if plural detonation control switches at the command center are in a fire authorization status, and instruments, and one or more interlocks, if included, are in a ready for firing status. The instrumentation and command centers are desirably mobile, such as being respective vehicles.
US09181789B2

A method for fracturing a downhole formation, includes: preparing an energized fracturing fluid including mixing gaseous natural gas and a fracturing base fluid in a mixer; injecting the energized fracturing fluid through a wellhead and into a well; and continuing to inject the energized fracturing fluid until the formation is fractured. An apparatus for generating an energized fracturing fluid for use to fracture a downhole formation, the apparatus includes: a fracturing base fluid source; a natural gas source; and a mixer for accepting natural gas from the natural gas source and fracturing base fluid from the fracturing base fluid source and mixing the natural gas and the fracturing base fluid to generate the energized fracturing fluid.
US09181784B2

An apparatus for characterizing well effluents comprises coiled tubing, an artificial lift mechanism attached to the coiled tubing and a logging tool fitted with sensors capable of characterizing well effluents associated with operation of the artificial lift mechanism. Also a method for characterizing well effluents that includes lowering a logging tool fitted with a multitude of sensors capable of characterizing well effluents with a cable and lowering an artificial lift mechanism on coiled tubing capable of flowing well effluent past the logging tool. Further a method for treating a well including characterizing well effluents by lowering a logging tool fitted with a multitude of sensors capable of characterizing well effluents on a cable and lowering an artificial lift mechanism on coiled tubing capable of flowing well effluent past the logging tool; and injecting a treatment into a desired formation selected using information obtained while characterizing the well effluents.
US09181762B2

A device for vertically holding pipes for elevator systems on oil drilling platforms has a basic element with a pivotable door element. A closing movement for forming a cylinder liner is carried out by a lockable adjusting cylinder. The cylinder liner is formed by interchangeable cylinder segments to form a cylinder liner of different size diameters in the basic element and door element. The cylinder segments are arranged interchangeably via rear guide profiles and associated profile rails in the basic element and door element. Upper sides of the cylinder segments are connected to corresponding receptacles via retaining rings which are able to be pushed on horizontally. By receiving pipes in the cylinder liner and an occurring load, a spring-loaded actuating arm is adjustable in height via a cylinder segment. Locking of the hydraulic adjusting cylinder for the closing movement is controllable via an associated load sensor.
US09181758B2

A latch assembly for a diamond core drill wire line. Included is a cylindrical main body having a main body interior, an outer wall, a main body end and a latch end. A ball hole is defined through the main body. An inner shaft ball lock is contained within the main body. A spring is disposed on the inner shaft ball lock. A main body top is attached to the main body end to contain the inner shaft ball lock within the main body and limit upstream movement of the inner shaft ball lock. A steel ball is then captured between the inner shaft ball lock and the outer wall of the main body such that upon axial movement of the inner shaft ball lock the ball penetrates up through the outer wall to extend past the main body to thereby latch onto an outer tube assembly.
US09181757B2

The present disclosure relates to a fiberglass rod with connectors on each end. Each connector has a rod-receiving receptacle having an open end, a closed end, and axially spaced annular wedge shaped surfaces such that the compressive forces between the rod and the respective connector are defined by the shape of the wedged surfaces.
US09181754B2

Pulsed-electric drilling systems can be augmented with multi-component electromagnetic field sensors on the drillstring, at the earth's surface, or in existing boreholes in the vicinity of the planned drilling path. The sensors detect electrical fields and/or magnetic fields caused by the electrical pulses and derive therefrom information of interest including, e.g., spark size and orientation, bit position, at-bit resistivity and permittivity, and tomographically mapped formation structures. The at-bit resistivity measurements can be for anisotropic or isotropic formations, and in the former case, can include vertical and horizontal resistivities and an orientation of the anisotropy axis. The sensors can illustratively include toroids, electrode arrays, tilted coil antennas, magnetic dipole antennas aligned with the tool axes, and magnetometers. The use of multiple such sensors increases measurement accuracy and the number of unknown model parameters which can be derived using an iterative inversion technique.
US09181753B2

An offshore well drilling system for drilling a subsea well, including a floating platform, an external riser extending from the subsea well, and an internal riser extending from the subsea well to the platform. The internal riser is nested within the external riser. The system also includes an external riser tension device to apply tension to the external riser. The system also includes an internal riser tension device, separate from the external riser tension device, to apply tension to the internal riser.
US09181747B2

A door including a decorative panel is provided. The door may include a door liner, an outer door connected to the door liner, an insulation material disposed between the door liner and the outer door, and a decorative panel provided on an outer surface of the outer door. The decorative panel may include a front surface and a side surface extending at a bend from the front surface. The door may be coupled to a refrigerator or other home appliance.
US09181744B2

A door operator for operating a door includes a housing, an output shaft with a cam disc, an opening piston guided in the housing, which piston, on a first side, bears against the cam disc, an energy accumulator acting upon the opening piston for storing a closing energy for the door, and a damping piston guided in a cylindrically shaped hollow space of a cylinder element, and which piston, on a second side, bears against the cam disc, wherein the cylinder element is firmly connected to the opening piston.
US09181736B1

A door mechanism pulling a door closed for latching. A puller tongue is triggered to release when adjacent a strike plate or jamb of a door. The puller tongue pushes the door completely closed resulting in latching. A setting lever is rotated upon turning a door knob setting the puller tongue in a retracted position. A raising lever and pendulum selectively cause the releasing of the puller tongue when the latch contacts a strike plate or jamb of a door and prevents releasing of the puller tongue when a door knob is turned. A door is caused to securely latch even though the door is closing slowly and with little force.
US09181722B2

An automatic vehicle storage system includes an adjustable, self-guided vehicle satellite for moving a vehicle between a pick-up and drop-off bay, a vehicle carriage, and a storage bay. The vehicle carriage is typically movable along and by a vehicle crane, which carries the vehicle to a desired storage bay, where the vehicle satellite then moves the vehicle. Once the vehicle is in the storage bay, the satellite and returns back to the carriage at the vehicle crane. The vehicle storage system is also capable of rotating the vehicle, such that the vehicle is forward-facing in the pick-up and drop-off bay when it is retrieved by the user, and to facilitate the simultaneous operation of side-by-side cranes within a storage facility.
US09181719B2

An adjustable Formwork climber apparatus is described which may be used for casting walls having an overhanging portion. The climber is used for supporting both vertical and horizontal formwork on the same supporting brackets. Adjustment mechanisms are provided for positioning or tilting the vertical and horizontal formwork. The adjustable formwork climber can be used both for casting continuous vertical structures, and for structures having an overhanging or protruding portion such as a ring-beam.
US09181705B2

A protective covering helps to prevent fastener leaks from roof installed fasteners, which are used to mount roofing systems, such as a solar panel installation system, to roofs with a mounting bracket attached to the roof. The protective covering is a portion of flat, malleable waterproof material molded to form a cover, forming a rounded or peaked triangular-shaped structure when viewed from the side. The triangular shaped structure includes a base and a hypotenuse portion where the line of the roof acts as a side which is covered by at least the hypotenuse portion. The hypotenuse portion meets the roof at an angle. The covering is adapted for insertion under portions of a roof shingle, and extends back in a slight rise (downwardly with respect to the roof) to cover the fastener and L-shaped bracket, which the fastener fastens to the roof.
US09181702B2

A roof panel includes a planar body having top and bottom edges, with a downturn edge extending therebetween, and an opposing channel edge. The downturn edge overlays a channel edge of an adjacent panel. The bottom edge overlays a top edge of another adjacent panel. A plurality of courses extends between the channel and downturn edges. Each course includes a nesting ridge to receive the downturn edge of an adjacent panel and to position a top surface of the panel flush with adjacent panels. Surface channels and contoured ridges are defined within each course. A drain aperture of the drip edge aligns with an adjacent channel edge to direct material through the drain aperture and onto adjacent panels. A gable member engages an edge when the panel has one or fewer laterally adjacent panels, wherein the gable member is flush with the adjacent planar body.
US09181700B2

A tapered truss is provided. In one embodiment, the truss has a pair of base members configured to be attached to a top surface of a vertical support member. The truss may further have an upper pair of truss members and a lower pair of truss members. Each upper truss member each forms an acute angle with a respective base member and each lower truss member forms an obtuse angle from the respective base member such that the lower truss member is not parallel to the upper truss member. The truss may additionally include a ceiling joist member connected to each of the lower truss members. In one embodiment, the ceiling joist member is substantially parallel to the pair of base members.
US09181696B1

A connection assembly for mounting a ceiling panel to a grid support, including a saddle bracket for use in the same and a ceiling system incorporating the same. The connection assembly may comprise a mounting bracket assembly including a resilient element and a mounting bracket and a saddle bracket having stepped support flange. When coupled together the mounting bracket and the stepped support flange of the saddle bracket are in contact with one another and a flange portion of a strut of the support grid is sandwiched between and in contact with each of the mounting bracket and the stepped support flange.
US09181695B2

A noise muffler is configured to substantially surround a sound generating object, disposed in or to be disposed in, a structure including a wall or ceiling to be sound limited by, and attenuate sound emitted from the sound generating object, the wall or ceiling including a board having an exposed surface and an opposite surface. The noise muffler has front, rear, left and right sides and a bottom. The sound generating object is positioned in the muffler cavity. The front, rear, left and right sides, and the bottom of the muffler are formed with an outer barrier layer. At least one of the front, rear, left, right sides and bottom of the muffler are formed with a noise absorbing layer positioned adjacent the outer barrier layer to absorb a predetermined amount of sound emitted from the object. At least one of the front, rear, left and right sides includes a first opening into the inner volume of the muffler cavity, the size of which first opening is adjustable.
US09181693B2

The present invention is directed to an inside corner framing element for supporting wallboard at the intersection of two adjoining walls made from sheet metal framing members. The inside corner framing element may be characterized as either: (1) an elongated sheet metal strip bent lengthwise two times to define a truncated W-shaped cross-sectional profile with at least one linear receiving slot positioned at an end of the elongated sheet metal strip; or (2) an elongated sheet metal strip bent lengthwise three times to define a W-shaped cross-sectional profile with at least one linear receiving slot positioned at an end of the elongated sheet metal strip.
US09181691B2

An internally threaded anchor for use in poured concrete floors having a metal deck or a wood form. The threaded anchor provides quick and easy attachment to threaded support rods that carry racks for utilities, piping, or ceiling grid systems. Each threaded anchor is capable of accepting different diameter rods or bolts with different thread cuts. Each anchor accepts the different diameter threaded rods by a single insertion motion, without the need to thread the rod into the anchor. Full insertion is visually verifiable when the marked end of the rod inserted into the anchor is no longer visible. An authentication tag visible upon full insertion indicates that authorized rod is being used.
US09181688B2

A toilet valve float adjustment assembly, including: a dual flush valve; a pair of floats disposed within the dual flush valve, wherein the vertical position of one of the floats determines the flush volume for a full flush and the vertical position of the other float determines the flush volume for a partial flush; a pair of adjustment mechanisms, wherein each adjustment mechanism adjusts the vertical height of one of the floats; and a pair of locking mechanisms, wherein each locking mechanism inhibits movement of one of the adjustment mechanisms, thereby keeping its float at a preferred vertical height when locked, and wherein the adjustment and locking mechanisms are controlled at the top of the dual flush valve.
US09181685B2

A faucet is provided. The faucet has a spout and a sprayhead releasably coupled to the spout. A hose having a magnetically responsive collar thereon provides fluid through the spout to the sprayhead. A magnet is located in the faucet such that when the sprayhead is coupled to the spout, the collar magnetically couples to the magnet, thereby applying sufficient magnetic force to the hose to retain the sprayhead against the spout.
US09181680B2

A steering post has a post end part positioned at an upper end on the front surface of the steering post. A case section has a case end part positioned at a lower end on the front surface of the case section. A gap is provided between the post end part and the case end part. A cover member is disposed to cover the gap. The cover member has a shape that is curved to not intersect a locus of the case end part when the case section is tilted with respect to the steering post. A lower end part of the cover member is connected to the post end part. An upper end part of the cover member is disposed above the case end part inside the case section.
US09181675B2

A working mechanism (4) takes a traveling stance by a way that left and right boom cylinders (9, 10) are expanded to rotate a tip end of a first boom (5) to the rear side and a positioning cylinder (11) is compressed to rotate a tip end of a second boom (6) to the lower side. In the traveling stance of the working mechanism (4), a front surface plate (23A) of a right front housing cover (23) is inclined along a tilting angle (α) of the left and right boom cylinders (9, 10), and the front surface plate (23A) of the right front housing cover (23) is arranged in a position of lining with front ends (9A1, 10A1) of tubes (9A, 10A) in the left-right direction forming the respective boom cylinders (9, 10).
US09181670B2

A technique for protecting a structure from an impact with ice involves providing a horizontal spall initiator extending from the wall a distance of 1 to 10 cm, the horizontal spall initiator being resilient to the ice impact, and formed by blade segments having a blade width less than ½ a thickness of an expected hard zone of the ice; and situating the horizontal spell initiator at an elevation of the expected hard zone. Situating the horizontal spall initiator at an elevation of the hard zone may involve providing an elevation control mechanism (e.g. buoyancy, mechanical, or hydrodynamic), or may involve a panel with a plurality of horizontal spell initiators at respective elevations. The horizontal spell initiator may be driven.
US09181669B2

A bladder-containing wall assembly for use in containment berms is disclosed. A bladder contained in the wall assembly communicates with the interior area of the containment berm via one or more inlet ports. The bladder self-deploys from the wall upon a substantial spill or leak inside the containment berm in order to increase the fluid containment volume of the containment device. The bladder-containing wall assembly may be substituted for a wall section of either permanent or portable containment berms.
US09181668B1

A method for protecting and/or repairing a shoreline incorporates a liner material laid upon and following a contour of a scoured shoreline, a plurality of filled bags placed upon the liner material in a linear arrangement at or below an extreme low water shoreline and a volume of rock fill placed upon the liner material between a shore wall and the linear arrangement of the filled bags. An upper surface of the rock fill is preferably arranged forming a grading sloping downward from the shore toward the filled bags. A liner return segment is arranged covering the rock fill and secured to the shore. Vegetation is disposed upon and covering an exposed portion of the liner material to complete the restoration construction. The liner material can be a geotextile filter fabric paper. The filled bags can be concrete bags. The rock fill can include an aggregate of fifty-seven rock.
US09181656B2

A new fluorescent whitening agent (FWA) formulation containing 0.1%-99.9% fluorescent brightener #351 (FB #351) 4,4″-bis(2-sulfostyryl)biphenyl disodium salt (CAS #27344-41-8) and 0.1%-99.9% fluorescent brightener #71 (FB #71) 4,4′-bis[4-anilino-6-morpholino-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl]amino-2,2′-stilbene disodium salt (CAS #16090-02-1) is used on the wet-end papermaking process and coating papermaking process to increase the brightness of paper.
US09181640B2

Disclosed is a carbon-fiber chopped strand, and a manufacturing method of the same. The carbon-fiber chopped strand is composed of single filaments composed of 30,000-120,000 carbon fibers, and a sizing agent content 1-10% by weight that bundles the single filaments; the ratio of maximum diameter (Dmax) in the cross section and minimum diameter (Dmin) is 1.0-1.8, a length along a fiber direction is 3-10 mm, and a repose angle of 10-30°.
US09181632B1

The present invention provides polypeptide domains of C. difficile toxin B (B1, B2, B3, B4) and complexes between the polypeptides and antibodies that bind specifically for the polypeptide. Methods of using the polypeptides to generate antibodies are also provided.
US09181627B2

A method for coating workpieces which consist of two different metallic materials includes providing the workpiece in a nickel strike electrolyte with a nickel layer as substrate before the application of a corrosion-resistant layer.
US09181626B2

A coil scheduling system and a method for electrogalvanizing line in steel industry are disclosed. In addition to considering the minimum changeover of physical parameters such as post-processing mode, width, thickness between every two adjacent steel coils, the method of the present invention further considers the influence of selecting coils on the production system stability due to the changeover of post-processing mode, width and thickness, and, thereby less adjusting the production equipment. Thus, the coils are smoothly produced, and more reasonable production process is obtained. The result of comparing the coil production schedule controlled by coil scheduling system for electrogalvanizing line in steel industry of the present invention with that of the production schedule determined manually shows that the number of changeover is reduced by 31.51%, and the adjustment of the production equipment is effectively reduced. Thus, the product quality is improved, and the enterprise benefit is increased.
US09181624B2

Disclosed is an electrolysis method, whereby sodium chloride concentration of an aqueous caustic soda solution formed through electrolysis in a two-chamber ion-exchange membrane sodium chloride electrolytic cell, which is equipped with a gas diffusion electrode as a cathode and divided into an anode chamber containing an anode and a cathode gas chamber containing the cathode that are partitioned by an ion-exchange membrane, is lowered. In a two-chamber ion-exchange membrane electrolytic cell (1) using a gas diffusion electrode (7), electrolysis is performed while reducing the pressure difference between the liquid pressure in the anode chamber and the gas pressure in the cathode gas chamber, i.e., the pressure calculated by subtracting [oxygen-containing gas pressure in cathode chamber (measured by manometer (18))] or [gas pressure at oxygen-containing gas inlet (14)] from [(liquid pressure in anode chamber applied to ion-exchange membrane when anode chamber is filled up with aqueous sodium chloride solution) being equal to (depth of aqueous sodium chloride solution)(density of aqueous sodium chloride solution)/2].
US09181618B2

Provided herein is a method including conformally depositing a first layer over a patterned resist; depositing a second, thicker layer over the first layer; etching the second layer to expose the first layer; and patterning a magnetic layer by ion implantation in accordance with the patterned resist to form a patterned magnet layer.
US09181610B2

An object of the present invention is to provide air cooling equipment for a heat treatment process for a martensitic stainless steel pipe, which is capable of shortening the time required for the heat treatment process by enhancing the cooling efficiency at the time when the inner surface of steel pipe is air cooled in the heat treatment ent process.Air cooling equipment 100 for a heat treatment process for a martensitic stainless steel pipe P in accordance with the present invention comprises: a conveying device 10 for intermittently conveying the steel pipe P in the direction substantially at right angles to the longitudinal direction of the steel pipe P; and an air cooling device 20 provided with a nozzle 21 for spraying air Bi toward the inner surface of the steel pipe P, the nozzle 21 being arranged along the longitudinal direction of the steel pipe P at a stop position of the steel pipe P intermittently conveyed by the conveying device 10 so as to face to an end of the steel pipe P.
US09181596B2

The disclosure concerns a method for treating a material in a static magnetic field having an intensity of more than 1 Tesla, including the following steps: a first step to heat the material, a second step to apply to the material a thermal shock and/or thermomechanical treatment and/or chemical treatment, wherein during at least the second treatment step, the material is subjected to the magnetic field while being held in position within the magnetic field. The disclosure also concerns a device for implementing the method, the device including: a support to hold the material during the steps of the cycle, a device to apply the static magnetic field capable of generating a magnetic field of intensity higher than 1 Tesla, a first system allowing heating of the material, a second system for implementing the subsequent step of the cycle.
US09181583B2

Presented herein are methods and compositions for determining haplotypes in a sample. The methods are useful for obtaining sequence information regarding, for example, HLA type and haplotype. Also presented herein are methods of determining haplotypes in a sample based on a plurality sequence reads.
US09181573B2

The present invention relates to a method for improving protein yield. The method comprises modifying the value of a set of relevant protein features to fall within an optimal range or to become more close to an optimal value for one or more protein features in the eukaryotic host.
US09181569B2

The present invention relates to a method for producing acrylamide comprising: supplying a raw material water to a reactor, supplying acrylonitrile to the reactor, and hydrating acrylonitrile using a biocatalyst, wherein a temperature of the raw material water in the supplying step of the raw material water to the reactor is equal to or more than freezing point of the raw material water and lower than the reaction temperature by 5° C. or more. The present invention can be provided to the method of producing acrylamide which can be removed the reaction heat produced at the hydration reaction of acrylonitrile effectively with a low cost.
US09181568B2

The invention relates to methods for producing lipids such as fatty acid products in recombinant host cells engineered to express a non-native gene encoding a dehydrogenase. The recombinant microorganisms are able to proliferate at a higher rate as compared with microorganisms that do not express a non-native dehydrogenase gene, and cultures of microorganisms that are engineered for lipid production and that express a non-native dehydrogenase produce more lipid than cultures of control microorganisms that do not include a non-native dehydrogenase gene.
US09181554B2

The present invention relates to methods for detecting a target nucleotide sequence in a sample. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods for detecting a target nucleotide sequence in a sample which utilise a nuclease-aptamer complex. The present invention also provides nuclease-binding aptamers, nuclease-aptamer complexes and linker molecules that may be used in accordance with the methods of the present invention.
US09181553B2

A method for treating breast cancer in a subject having a breast cancer over-expressing the “SHP2 signature” genes, as compared to normal breast tissue samples, which method comprises the step of administering to said subject a therapeutically effective amount of a modulator of the protein tyrosine phosphatase, non-receptor type 11 (PTPN11) gene or of its gene product (Shp2).
US09181552B2

Materials and Methods for use in treating cell proliferative disorders related to asparagine metabolism are provided. Cell proliferative disorders include such cancers as forms of leukemia, ovarian cancers, melanomas, renal cancers, breast cancers, brain cancers, and other cancers. Methods include the use of RNA interference targeted at asparagine synthetase to enhance the efficacy of L-asparaginase therapies.
US09181546B2

Methods are described for the delivery of one or more small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to a eukaryotic cell using a bacterium. Methods are also described for using this bacterium to regulate gene expression in eukaryotic cells using RNA interference, and methods for treating cancer of cell proliferative disorders. The bacterium includes one or more siRNAs or one or more DNA molecules encoding one or more siRNAs. Vectors are also described for use with the bacteria of the invention for causing RNA interference in eukaryotic cells.
US09181543B2

Provided herein are modified OB-fold domains having desired properties; methods of producing libraries of modified OB-fold domains; the libraries of modified OB-fold domains produced by such methods; methods for screening such libraries of modified OB-fold domains for desired biological activities; and the modified OB-fold domains identified from such libraries. Provided herein are modified OB-fold domains obtainable from Pyrobaculum aerophilum that exhibit modified binding interactions.
US09181530B2

The invention relates to the discovery of an HEV strain from a chronically infected patient. The virus grow unusually well in numerous cell cultures. Thus, the invention provides cell cultures, vectors, and vaccine compositions based on the virus. The invention relates, in part, on the identification of a new strain of HEV genotype 3 virus. Strain Kernow-C1 (genotype 3) of HEV, which was isolated from a chronically infected patient, was used to identify human, pig and deer cell lines permissive for infection. Adaptation of the Kernow-C 1 strain to growth in human hepatoma cells selected for a rare virus recombinant that contained an insertion of 174 ribonucleotides (58 amino acids) of a human ribosomal protein gene and additional mutations.
US09181519B2

The invention relates to a bioreactor which comprises a closed housing with a housing wall and at least one chamber which is connected to the housing wall. The at least one chamber comprises a chamber inlet and outlet for respectively supplying and discharging material to and from the at least one chamber. The housing comprises a housing inlet for supplying material to the chamber inlet and a housing outlet for discharging treated material from the chamber outlet to the outside of the bioreactor. The bioreactor forms a closed volume in which a reactor pressure prevails in the bioreactor which is higher than the external pressure outside the bioreactor, in such a way that the bioreactor is self-supporting.
US09181503B2

A method of thermal treatment of material in a reactor with a high-temperature chamber and with a self-crucible wall, including at least determining liquidus temperature Tliq of ashes derived from the treated material, wherein the operating temperature of the reactor Tfonc in its steady state is then chosen such that Tfonc>Tliq.
US09181502B2

This invention relates to gasification of high ash bituminous coals that have high ash fusion temperatures. The ash content can be in 15 to 45 weight percent range and ash fusion temperatures can be in 1150° C. to 1500° C. range as well as in excess of 1500° C. In a preferred embodiment, such coals are dealt with a two stage gasification process—a relatively low temperature primary gasification step in a circulating fluidized bed transport gasifier followed by a high temperature partial oxidation step of residual char carbon and small quantities of tar. The system to process such coals further includes an internally circulating fluidized bed to effectively cool the high temperature syngas with the aid of an inert media and without the syngas contacting the heat transfer surfaces. A cyclone downstream of the syngas cooler, operating at relatively low temperatures, effectively reduces loading to a dust filtration unit. Nearly dust- and tar-free syngas for chemicals production or power generation and with over 90%, and preferably over about 98%, overall carbon conversion can be achieved with the preferred process, apparatus and methods outlined in this invention.
US09181498B2

A process for removing sulfur compounds from a liquid hydrocarbon stream includes the steps of feeding the hydrocarbon stream to a recirculation section of an extraction vessel wherein the recirculation section contains a first alkaline solution; passing the hydrocarbon stream through the recirculation section; recirculating at least a part of a first alkaline stream to a top deck of one or more liquid-liquid contacting decks of the recirculation section; passing the hydrocarbon stream from the recirculation section to an extraction section of the extraction vessel wherein the extraction section includes one or more liquid-liquid contacting decks; feeding a second alkaline stream to an upper deck of the one or more liquid-liquid contacting decks of the extraction section wherein the second alkaline stream includes a second alkaline solution; and withdrawing a hydrocarbon product stream from the extraction vessel. An apparatus for removing sulfur compounds from the hydrocarbon stream is also disclosed.
US09181496B2

One exemplary embodiment can be a process for modifying a fluid catalytic cracking unit. The process can include adding a carbon monoxide boiler to the fluid catalytic cracking unit to receive a bypassed flue gas stream from a power recovery expander for increasing capacity of the fluid catalytic cracking unit.
US09181495B2

The invention relates to a process for cracking a hydrocarbon-containing feed in a cracking furnace. A plurality of heat exchangers are arranged in the convection zone of the cracking furnace to utilize the heat of flue gas formed in the radiation zone by combustion. Depending on the type and state of matter of the hydrocarbon-containing feed, flow occurs through the heat exchangers to achieve, independently of the type and state of matter of the hydrocarbon-containing feed, an exit temperature of the flue gas in the range from 80° C. to 150° C.
US09181494B2

The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for purifying tall oil material for the production of biofuels and components thereof. The present invention relates further to hydroprocessing of the purified material to obtain biofuels and components thereof.
US09181492B2

The present invention provides a process for producing a hydrocarbon oil by performing a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reaction using a reactor for a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis including a reaction apparatus having a slurry containing catalyst particles and a gaseous phase located above the slurry to obtain a hydrocarbon oil, wherein the Fischer-Tropsch reaction is performed while controlling a temperature of the slurry so that a difference T2−T1 between the average temperature T1 of the slurry and a temperature T2 at the liquid level of the slurry in contact with the gaseous phase is 5 to 30° C.
US09181491B2

A process and system are described for producing a synthetic crude oil by contacting a synthesis gas with a combination of a synthesis gas conversion catalyst and a hydroconversion catalyst in a synthesis gas reactor. The synthesis gas can be obtained from gas associated with crude oil production, i.e., associated gas, in a synthesis gas generator. The synthetic crude oil can be blended with a natural crude oil to produce a blended stabilized crude oil having 2 wt % or more of the synthetic crude oil. The resulting blended stabilized crude oil has improved flow characteristics including a pour point of 30° C. or less.
US09181481B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate facing the first substrate, and a liquid crystal layer between the first and second substrates. The liquid crystal layer includes a liquid crystal composition including an alkenyl liquid crystal and an antioxidant component including at least one selected from an antioxidant and a derivative thereof. In an embodiment, the antioxidant component is present in an amount of greater than 0 ppm and equal to or less than about 10,000 ppm relative to the total weight of the liquid crystal composition.
US09181473B2

The present invention provides a thermoluminescent phosphor for obtaining a two-dimensional or three-dimensional dosimeter for measuring dose absorbed by biological tissues, which phosphor has superior handleability, superior biological tissue equivalence, and superior precision.It is produced by a method comprising (A1) mixing Li2B4O7, B2O3 and MnO2, (A2) firing the mixture at 770 to 840° C., and (A3) obtaining the thermoluminescent phosphor comprising lithium triborate as a base material and manganese as a luminescent center present in the base material by further adding and mixing Li2B4O7 into the fired product and then firing the mixture at 770 to 840° C., wherein the molar ratio of Li2B4O7:B2O3 in A1 is 1:X (1
US09181468B2

A method of extracting hydrocarbon-containing organic matter from a hydrocarbon-containing material includes the steps of providing a first liquid comprising a turpentine liquid; contacting the hydrocarbon-containing material with the turpentine liquid to form an extraction mixture; extracting the hydrocarbon material into the turpentine liquid; and separating the extracted hydrocarbon material from a residual material not extracted.
US09181467B2

Disclosed herein are methods for extracting a kerogen-based product from subsurface shale formations. The methods utilize in-situ reaction of kerogen involving liquid phase chemistry at ambient temperatures at pressures for the subsurface shale formation. These methods rely on chemically modifying the shale-bound kerogen to render it mobile using metal particulate catalysts. In the methods disclosed herein a fluid comprising metal is provided to the subsurface shale formation comprising kerogen in an inorganic matrix. A reducing agent is provided to the subsurface shale formation. The kerogen is converted by contacting the kerogen with a metal particulate catalyst formed from the metal; and a mobile kerogen-based product is formed. At least a portion of the mobile kerogen-based product is recovered. The kerogen-derived product can be upgraded to provide commercial products.
US09181465B2

Wiping products, such as facial tissues, contain a temperature change composition that can provide a cooling sensation when contacted with the skin of a user. The temperature change composition is structured emulsion that may include a phase change material, a carrier, a surfactant, and a crystalline initiator. The phase change materials, in one embodiment, can have a relatively high heat of fusion. When undergoing a phase change, the temperature change composition absorbs heat and thereby provides a cooling feeling or cooling sensation to the skin of a user.
US09181452B2

The present invention relates to a crosslinkable composition comprising at least one crosslinkable component and a latent base crosslinking catalyst, which crosslinkable composition has a solids content of typically at least 55 wt (dry weight after crosslinking relative to the total weight of the crosslinking composition) wherein the latent base catalyst is a substituted carbonate salt according to formula 1 wherein X+represents a non acidic cation, preferably a quaternary ammonium or phosphonium, and wherein R is hydrogen, alkyl, aryl or aralkyl group.
US09181449B2

Disclosed herein is an underlayer composition, wherein the underlayer is typically used for promoting the formation of self assembled structures, and wherein the underlayer formulation comprises: (a) a polymer comprising at least one monomer repeat unit having the structure (I) wherein X is a crosslinking group chosen from and wherein n is 0-5, p is 0-5, q is 1-2, m is 1-2 and R is H, C1-C4alkyl or tri(C1-C4alkyl)silyl; (b) at least one thermal acid generator; and (c) a solvent. The invention further relates to methods of making and using the composition.
US09181443B2

A resin for aqueous pigment dispersion that allows the production of an aqueous pigment dispersion for ink jet recording that contains only a few coarse particles and has excellent ejection stability, an aqueous pigment dispersion containing the resin for aqueous pigment dispersion, an ink jet recording ink, and a method for producing an aqueous pigment dispersion. A resin for aqueous pigment dispersion produced by copolymerization of a composition that contains (a) one or two or more compounds selected from the group consisting of alkenylsuccinic acids, alkenylsuccinic anhydrides, alkylsuccinic acids, and alkylsuccinic anhydrides, and (b) a styrene monomer, wherein the (a) component constitutes 5% by mass or more and the (b) component constitutes 30% by mass or more of the total amount of all the monomer component(s) and the (a) component of the composition.
US09181441B2

This invention provides a polymer film coating for use preferably with cold glue labels, particularly on the adhesive-receiving side of a label film. The coating includes a filler component and a binder component, at least one of which is hydrophobic. The coating imparts water resistance and solvent resistance to an adhered label, thereby improving resistance to label removal due to moisture or water contact. A coated label and method of applying the coating to a label film are also included.
US09181436B2

To provide cosmetic pigments that are human-body friendly with good skin adhesion and that provide good feeling, their production method, and cosmetics containing such cosmetic pigments which provide fresh and enriched feeling accordingly.Pigment surfaces are coated with mannosylerythritol lipid, which is glucolipids, consisting of mannose, sugar alcohol and a fatty acid as shown in the general expression (1) below: (Note: In the general expression, R1 and R2 denote aliphatic acyl group with carbon numbers 6 through 20, which can be either same or different. R3 and R4 denote hydrogen or acetyl group, which can be either same or different. n denotes an integer in the range of 2 to 4.)
US09181433B2

Thorough in-depth cure of RTV-2 silicone compositions is accomplished by including moisture-saturated molecular sieves into at least one of the two RTV-2 components.
US09181431B2

A thermoplastic composition comprises a polymer blend. The polymer blend comprises a first polyimide and a second polyimide. The first polyimide has repeating units derived from a first dianhydride and a first diamine. The second polyimide has repeating units derived from a second dianhydride and a second diamine. Either the first dianhydride and the second dianhydride are the same or the first diamine and the second diamine are the same.
US09181430B2

Disclosed herein are compositions comprising a polymer comprising polyetherimide, polyetheretherketone, polyamide, polyoxyalkylene, or polyalkylene terephthalate, or a mixture thereof, and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, wherein the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene comprises a surface modifier. Also disclosed are articles comprising one or more of the described compositions. This abstract is intended as a scanning tool for purposes of searching in the particular art and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention.
US09181412B2

A composition for the degradation of plastic in the form of an additive used during the manufacturing of plastic. The composition being comprised of a predetermined amount of heptane, cellulose, methyl rhenium trioxide, butylated hydroxytoluene, and polyphenol oxidase. The additive can be selectively programmed to cause the plastic to begin disintegrating at a predetermined time.
US09181410B2

A heat transfer system and method for controlling heat transfer to and from a container having thermal insulation disposed with respect to said container or compartment so as to inhibit the flow of heat into and/or out of the compartment, said insulation comprising a polymeric material having closed cells therein wherein said cells are formed from and/or contain a haloalkene according to Formula IA: where each R is independently Cl, F, H, or CF3, provided that the total number of carbon atoms is either 3 or 4, R′ is (CR2)nY, Y is CF3 and n is 0 or 1; and a heat transfer system for adding and/or removing heat from the compartment or container by use of a heat transfer fluid comprising a haloalkene Formula IB: where each R is independently Cl, F or H R′ is (CR2)nY, Y is CF3 and n is 0 or 1.
US09181405B2

A method for making lignin-amines is provided. The method comprises providing a lignin; then modifying the lignin with modifier to create a modified lignin; and then reacting the modified lignin with an amine to form a lignin-amine. Suitable modifiers comprise acrylates. A method for coagulating suspended materials in a water stream is also disclosed. The method comprises providing a water stream and contacting the suspended materials in the water stream with at least one lignin-amine.
US09181404B2

Polymer blends and/or adducts obtainable from protein hydrolysates and/or gelatins used as raw material for the manufacture of regenerated leather and fabrics. Polymer adducts and/or blends conveniently prepared, tanned and finished can replace natural leather or fabric in the manufacture of clothing and consumer articles with particular technological properties.
US09181402B2

A process is disclosed for preparing a resin-linear organosiloxane block copolymer. The resin-linear organosiloxanes block copolymers prepared by the disclosed process may provide optically solid compositions which may be considered as “reprocessable”.
US09181387B2

Described are polyester compositions comprising (a) a dicarboxylic acid component comprising 80 to 100 mole % terephthalic acid residues; optionally, aromatic dicarboxylic acid or aliphatic dicarboxylic acid residues; 30 to 40 mole % of 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol residues, where said 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol residues comprise at least 55 mole % cis-2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol; and 60 to 70 mole % 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol residues.
US09181386B2

A polishing pad having a polishing layer comprising a thermoset polyurethane foam, wherein the thermoset polyurethane foam contains, as raw material components, an isocyanate component, and active-hydrogen-containing compounds, and the active-hydrogen-containing compounds comprise one or more polyol compounds (each) having two or more functional groups, and a monool compound having one functional group.
US09181385B2

A microcellular polyurethane or polyurethane-urea foam elastomer includes the reaction product of (A) with (B) and/or water, a blowing agent, a catalyst forming urethane and/or ureic groups wherein: (A) is a prepolymer having a —NCO free group content included between 2%-25% (% w/w), which includes the reaction product of (a1) one or more aliphatic, cycloaliphatic and/or aromatic diisocyanates excluding 3,3′-dimethyl-4,4′-diphenylene diisocyanate, or one or more polyisocyanates or mixture of diisocyanates and polyisocyanates; with (a2a) one or more polyester macrodiols, a number of —OH groups per molecule equal to about 2; (B) is a compound selected from (b1) a diol or polyol; (b2) a primary or secondary aliphatic, cycloaliphatic amine or aliphatic, cycloaliphatic aromatic disecondary diamine or a blocked amine; (b3) one or more polyester macrodiols having a number of —OH group per molecule equal to about 2; (b4) a mixture formed of two or more compounds (b1), (b2) and (b3).
US09181376B2

Provided is a copolymer of a conjugated diene compound and a non-conjugated olefin, the copolymer being a block copolymer, the conjugated diene compound unit having 1,2 adduct (including 3,4 adduct) content of 5% or less or the conjugated diene compound unit having a cis-1,4 bond content of more than 92%, in which preferred examples of the conjugated diene compound include 1,3-butadiene and isoprene, and preferred examples of the non-conjugated olefin include ethylene, propylene, and 1-butene.
US09181365B2

The exemplary embodiments disclosed herein relate to activating methods for initiation polymerization of methylene malonates and other polymerizable compositions. The polymerization may be activated by anionic or free radical mechanisms. Because the polymerization may occur very quickly upon contact between the activating agent and the polymerizable composition, methods are provide herein for separating or otherwise rendering the activating agent ineffective to initiate polymerization, until such a reaction is desired. The separation may be physical (separate packaging, separate application steps, encapsulation) or it may be based on latent-activation methods (activation precursors, UV activation). Products formed from the methods disclosed herein may include inks, adhesives, coatings, sealants, reactive moldings, fibers, films, sheets, medical polymers, composites, laminates and the like. Exemplary polymerizable compositions and products formed therefrom are environmentally sustainable, environmentally benign and/or biologically benign.
US09181364B2

The present invention provides a crosslinked amine and amide polymers effective for binding and removing bile salts from the gastrointestinal tract. These bile acid binding polymers or pharmaceutical compositions thereof can be administered to subjects to treat various conditions, including hypercholesteremia, diabetes, pruritis, irritable bowel syndrome-diarrhea (IBS-D), bile acid malabsorption, and the like.
US09181363B2

The invention relates to novel copolymers and to an associated preparation method, comprising recurrent units bearing a pendant chain of the polyoxyalkylene type.
US09181357B2

The invention describes a process for the production of EP(D)M in solution in a stirred reactor (CSTR) in which the reaction bath is kept in a boiling condition at a temperature of between 40 and 60° C. and at a pressure of between 0.6 and 1.3 MPa, and in which from 40% to 80% of the reaction heat is removed by boiling the reaction bath and the remaining reaction heat is removed by subcooling the fluids recycled to the reactor. The reactor is provided with a stirring system with three impellers, a device for distribution of the recycled fluids at the bottom of the reactor and a gamma ray level control device.
US09181348B2

An object of the present invention is to prepare an antibody that targets CAPRIN-1 specifically expressed on the surface of cancer cells and is superior in antitumor activity to conventional antibodies and to provide use of the antibody as a therapeutic and/or preventive agent for cancer. The present invention provides use of an antibody targeting an identified cancer antigenic protein specifically expressed on the surface of cancer cells as a therapeutic and/or preventive agent for cancer, specifically, a pharmaceutical composition for treatment and/or prevention of cancer, comprising as an active ingredient an antibody or a fragment thereof which has immunological reactivity with a CAPRIN-1 protein, the antibody or the fragment thereof comprising a heavy chain variable region comprising amino acid sequences represented by SEQ ID NOs: 5, 6, and 7 and a light chain variable region comprising amino acid sequences represented by SEQ ID NOs: 9, 10, and 11.
US09181346B2

A composition comprising a main species HER2 antibody that binds to domain II of HER2 and acidic variants thereof is described. Pharmaceutical formulations comprising the composition, and therapeutic uses for the composition are also disclosed.
US09181343B2

The present disclosure provides antibodies specific for an epitope present on CD22. The antibodies are useful in various treatment, diagnostic, and monitoring applications, which are also provided.
US09181341B2

The present invention provides antigen-binding proteins capable of binding to KIR3D polypeptides. The antibodies have increased activity in the treatment of disorders characterized by KIR3DL2-expressing cells, particularly CD4+ T cells, including malignancies such as Mycosis Fungoides and Sézary Syndrome.
US09181333B2

The present invention relates to RSPO-binding agents, particularly RSPO3-binding agents and methods of using the agents for treating diseases such as cancer. The present invention provides antibodies that specifically bind human RSPO3 proteins and modulate β-catenin activity. The present invention further provides methods of using agents that modulate the activity of RSPO3 proteins and inhibit tumor growth. Also described are methods of treating cancer comprising administering a therapeutically effect amount of an agent or antibody of the present invention to a patient having a tumor or cancer.
US09181330B2

This invention provides antibodies that specifically bind to and typically neutralize botulinum neurotoxins (e.g., BoNT/A, BoNT/B, BoNT/E, etc.) and the epitopes bound by those antibodies. The antibodies and derivatives thereof and/or other antibodies that specifically bind to the neutralizing epitopes provided herein can be used to neutralize botulinum neurotoxin and are therefore also useful in the treatment of botulism.
US09181326B2

The invention relates to antibody reagents that specifically bind to peptides carrying a ubiquitin remnant from a digested or chemically treated biological sample. The reagents allow the technician to identify ubiquitinated polypeptides as well as the sites of ubiquitination on them. The reagents are preferably employed in proteomic analysisusing mass spectrometry. The antibody reagents specifically bind to the remnant of ubiquitin (i.e., a diglycine modified epsilon amine of lysine) left on a peptide which as been generated by digesting or chemically treating ubiquitinated proteins. The inventive antibody reagents' affinity to the ubiquitin remnant does not depend on the remaining amino acid sequences flanking the modified (i.e., ubiquitinated) lysine, i.e., they are context independent.
US09181325B2

The present invention pertains to a method for isolating osteopontin from milk-derived feeds having a high concentration of protein. Particularly, the present method involves the use of a narrow window of pH and specific conductance of the milk-derived feed, which surprisingly has proven to provide a very efficient isolation of osteopontin from chemically complex feeds.
US09181322B2

The invention provides a natural killer cell, NK-92, modified to express an Fc receptor on the surface of the cell, such as CD16 (FcγRIII-A), or other Fcγ or Fc receptors. The modified NK-92 cell can be further modified to concurrently express an associated accessory signaling protein, such as FcεRI-γ,TCR-ζ, or to concurrently express interleukin-2 (IL-2) or other cytokines. Additional methods are disclosed for various assays, assessments, and therapeutic treatments with the modified NK-92 cells.
US09181321B2

Materials, formulations, production methods, and methods for delivery of CFTR mRNA for induction of CFTR expression, including in the mammalian lung are provided. The present invention is particularly useful for treating cystic fibrosis.
US09181313B2

There are provided antigens, vectors encoding the antigens, and antibodies and other binding compounds to the antigens and uses thereof in the prevention or treatment of malaria. In particular, compositions are provided comprising a Reticulocyte-binding protein Homologue 5 (PfRH5) antigen having at least 90% identity with SEQ ID NO: 1, or a fragment thereof; or which comprise a viral vector that expresses PfRH5 antigen having at least 90% identity with SEQ ID NO: 2, or a fragment thereof.
US09181310B2

The present invention provides compositions and methods for killing or suppressing growth of Gram-negative bacteria that infect, infest or cause disease in plants, including pathogenic, saprophytic and opportunistic microbes that cause disease in plants and food borne illness in people or in animal feed.
US09181304B2

The instant invention describes macrocyclic compounds having therapeutic activity, and the mechanism and methods of treating disorders such as autoimmune diseases, inflammation, and cancer, tumors and cell proliferation related disorders.
US09181303B2

The present invention relates to cyclic cationic peptides and their use in the treatment of microbial infections.
US09181295B2

The instant invention provides for novel cationic lipids that can be used in combination with other lipid components such as cholesterol and PEG-lipids to form lipid nanoparticles with siRNA, to facilitate the cellular uptake and endosomal escape, and to knockdown target mRNA both in vitro and in vivo.
US09181293B2

A method of synthesising Aspalathin and its analogues or derivatives is disclosed. The method comprises synthesising a compound of formula 1 or its analogues or derivatives: wherein each of R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9 and R10 is independently selected from the group consisting of —H, —OH, hydrocarbyl groups, saccharide moieties and —OR15; R15 is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, a hydrocarbyl group (e.g. methoxy or ethoxy), an acyl group and a benzyl group; and R11, R12, R13 and R14 are independently selected from the group consisting of —H, hydrocarbyl groups, saccharide moieties, an acyl group and a benzyl group. The method comprises the step of coupling a sugar to a dihydrochalcone, chalcone or flavanone, or coupling the sugar to an intermediate for producing a dihydrochalcone, chalcone or flavanone followed by coupling of the sugar-intermediate adduct to a further intermediate for producing a dihydrochalcone, chalcone or flavanone, and transforming the product thereof into a compound of formula 1 or an analogue or derivative thereof.
US09181289B2

The present invention relates to metal complexes and to electronic devices, in particular organic electroluminescent devices, comprising these metal complexes.
US09181284B2

Aminoalkylalkoxysilanes are prepared from halo(haloalkyl)silanes in the simultaneous presence of ammonia or primary organic amine and alcohol.
US09181280B2

The present invention relates to novel inhibitors of Factors VIIa, IXa, Xa, XIa, in particular Factor VIIa, pharmaceutical compositions comprising these inhibitors, and methods for using these inhibitors for treating or preventing thromboembolic disorders, cancer or rheumatoid arthritis. Processes for preparing these inhibitors are also disclosed.
US09181279B2

There is described a novel group of cyclic amine derivative compounds, having an EP4 receptor antagonistic activity and specifically pharmaceutical compounds which are useful for the treatment or alleviation of Prostaglandin E mediated diseases.The present invention therefore relates to novel compounds which are selective antagonists of the EP4 subtype of PGE2 receptors with analgesic and antinflammatory activity, processes for their preparation, pharmaceutical compositions containing them and their use as medicaments, inter alia for the treatment or alleviation of Prostaglandin E mediated diseases such as acute and chronic pain, osteoarthritis, inflammation-associated disorder as arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, migraine and endometriosis.
US09181273B2

The invention relates to morpholine spirocyclic piperidine amide compounds useful as inhibitors of ion channels. The invention also provides pharmaceutically acceptable compositions comprising the compounds of the invention and methods of using the compositions in the treatment of various disorders.
US09181272B2

The present invention relates to compounds of formula (I): and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof, wherein R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, W, Y, m and n are as defined herein. The invention also relates to pharmaceutical compositions comprising these compounds, methods of using these compounds in the treatment of various diseases and disorders, processes for preparing these compounds and intermediates useful in these processes.
US09181246B2

The present invention relates to compounds of formula (I) or pharmaceutical acceptable salts, wherein R1a, R1b, R1c, X, and Y are defined in the description. The present invention relates also to compositions containing said compounds which are useful for inhibiting kinases such as Cdc7 and methods of treating diseases such as cancer.
US09181245B2

The present invention is concerned with novel substituted 3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrido[1,2- a]pyrazine-1,6-dione derivatives of Formula (I) wherein R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, Z and X have the meaning defined in the claims. The compounds according to the present invention are useful as gamma secretase modulators. The invention further relates to processes for preparing such novel compounds, pharmaceutical compositions comprising said compounds as an active ingredient as well as the use of said compounds as a medicament.
US09181236B2

In its many embodiments, the present invention provides certain iminothiazine dioxide compounds, including compounds Formula (I): and tautomers and stereoisomers thereof, and pharmaceutically acceptable salts of said compounds, said tautomeros and said stereoisomers, wherein each of the variables shown in the formula are as defined herein. The novel compounds of the invention are useful as BACE inhibitors and/or for the treatment and prevention of various pathologies related thereto. Pharmaceutical compositions comprising one or more such compounds (alone and in combination with one or more other active agents), and methods for their preparation and use, including Alzheimer's disease, are also disclosed.
US09181232B2

Provided herein is a compound of formula I: as wells as a pharmaceutical composition, a process of making and a method of using a compound of formula I. The compounds of formula I are BACE1 inhibitors useful for the treatment of, for example, Alzheimer's Disease.
US09181224B2

The present invention is directed to new bifunctional compounds and methods for treating HIV infections. The bifunctional small molecules, generally referred to as ARM-H′ function through orthogonal pathways, by inhibiting the gp120-CD4 interaction, and by recruiting anti-DNP antibodies to gp120-expressing cells, thereby preventing cell infection and spread of HIV. It has been shown that ARM-H's bind to gp120 and gp-120 expressing cells competitively with CD4, thereby decreasing viral infectivity as shown by an MT-2 cell assay, the binding leading to formation of a ternary complex by recruiting anti-DNP antibodies to bind thereto, the antibodies present in the ternary complex promoting the complement-dependent destruction of the gp120-expressing cells. Compounds and methods are described herein.
US09181222B2

This disclosure concerns compounds which are useful as inhibitors of protein kinase C (PKC) and are thus useful for treating a variety of diseases and disorders that are mediated or sustained through the activity of PKC. This disclosure also relates to pharmaceutical compositions comprising these compounds, methods of using these compounds in the treatment of various diseases and disorders, processes for preparing these compounds and intermediates useful in these processes.
US09181217B2

The present invention provides an industrially advantageous method for producing an optically active naphthalene compound useful as a therapeutic agent for dermatitis or the like. Specifically, the present invention provides a method for producing an optically active naphthalene compound [I], which comprises: a step of reacting a compound [a-1] and a compound [b-1] with each other in the presence of a base and a catalyst that is composed of a Pd compound and a tertiary phosphine ligand (step a); a step of asymmetrically hydrogenating a compound [c-1] in the presence of a hydrogen donor and a complex that is prepared from a ruthenium compound and a chiral ligand, or alternatively in the presence of an optically active oxazaborolidine compound (a CBS catalyst) and a boron hydride compound (step b); and a step of treating a compound [d-1] with a reducing agent (step c). (In the above formulae, Ra and Rb represent the same or different lower alkyl groups; and X1 represents a halogen atom.).
US09181215B2

The invention relates to new crystalline forms of processes for manufacturing a compound of formula 5, or a stereoisomer, tautomer or a salt thereof, wherein the substituents are as defined in the specification. The invention further relates to new manufacturing processes for specific solid forms of Compound A and its salts, to such solid forms and to use of said solid forms for the therapeutic treatment of warm-blooded animals.
US09181212B2

An improved method is described for making single isomers of synthetic benzoprostacyclin analog compounds, in particular the pharmacologically active 314-d isomer of beraprost. In contrast to the prior art, the method is stereoselective and requires fewer steps than the known methods for making these compounds.
US09181206B2

In one aspect, the invention relates to compounds having the formula: wherein: Ar, Z, R3, R4 and R5 are as defined in the specification, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. These compounds have AT1 receptor antagonist activity and neprilysin inhibition activity. In another aspect, the invention relates to pharmaceutical compositions comprising such compounds; methods of using such compounds; and process and intermediates for preparing such compounds.
US09181204B2

The present invention relates to compounds of formula (I): A-T-Z  (I) in which: the group A is a bipyridine group capable of complexing at least one metal element; the group T is a triazole group directly bound to the group A; and the group Z is a halogen atom, a nitro group, a cyano group, an alkyl group, an aryl group, a heterocyclic group, a group of formula —NR1R2, a group of formula —SR1, a group of formula —S(═O)2(OR1), a group of formula —O—S(═O)2(OR1), a group of formula —O—S(═O)2(R1), a group of formula —S(═O)(OR1), a group of formula —S(═O)(R1), a group of formula —S(═O)2R1, a group of formula —PR1R2, a group of formula —P(═O)(OR1)(OR2), a group of formula —O—P(═O)(OR1)(OR2), a group of formula —O—P(═O)(OR1)(R2), a group of formula —OR1 or a group of formula —CO—R1.
US09181196B2

Compounds of formula (I): wherein: A, R, T, Q, L, Z, G, X and A′ are as defined in the description. B and D, equal to or different from each other, are selected between heteroaryl and aryl, wherein at least one of the hydrogen atoms of said heteroaryl and aryl are substituted with groups selected from SO3−, SO3H, COO−, COOH, and one or more of the other hydrogen atoms of said heteroaryl and aryl are optionally substituted as reported in the description.
US09181191B2

Compounds that have agonist activity at one or more of the S1P receptors are provided. The compounds are sphingosine analogs that, after phosphorylation, can behave as agonists at S1P receptors.
US09181189B2

The present invention relates to Formula (I), wherein—if X=NH, each of R1, R2, R3, R4 represents a hydrogen atom; if X=N, the core is aromatic, and R2, R3 and R4 represent hydrogen atoms, and R1=H, halogen, aryl, heteroaryl, alkenyl or acetylenyl; or R1, R2, R3, R4 are defined such that R1 or R2 or R3 or R4 represents a methyl group, and the three other radicals represent a hydrogen atom.
US09181185B2

The invention relates to aryl substituted compounds of Formula (I): and pharmaceutically acceptable salts, prodrugs, or solvates thereof, wherein Het, G, A, R, and n are defined as set forth in the specification. The invention is also directed to the use of compounds of Formula I to treat a disorder responsive to the blockade of sodium channels. Compounds of the present invention are especially useful for treating pain.
US09181182B2

The invention relates to novel compounds that have S1P receptor modulating activity and, preferably, apoptotic activity and/or anti proliferative activity against cancer cells and other cell types. Further, the invention relates to a pharmaceutical comprising at least one compound of the invention for the treatment of diseases and/or conditions caused by or associated with inappropriate S1P receptor modulating activity or expression, for example, cancer. A further aspect of the invention relates to the use of a pharmaceutical comprising at least one compound of the invention for the manufacture of a medicament for the treatment of diseases and/or conditions caused by or associated with inappropriate S1P receptor modulating activity or expression such as cancer.
US09181177B2

A method produces a cycloalkanone oxime by photonitrosation using light emitting diodes as the light source for the next generation that replaces an electric discharge lamp with, for example, mercury or sodium sealed therein. The method produces the cycloalkanone oxime by a photochemical reaction of a cycloalkane with a photo nitrosating agent in a liquid by light irradiation. The method uses a light source satisfying conditions that, in an emission energy distribution with respect to wavelength of the light source, a wavelength at which emission energy has a maximum value is in a range of 550 nm to 700 nm and a wavelength range outputting energy of or over 5% strength of the peak strength is equal to or less than 150 nm. An irradiation distance in the liquid is equal to or greater than 200 mm, and concentration of the photo nitrosating agent in the liquid is 0.1 mol % to 0.5 mol %.
US09181172B2

The conjugates of present invention are formed by the combination of rhein or their analogues with the organic bases or amino acids in molecular force between them. The methods for preparing the conjugates and their uses for manufacturing medicines in the treatment of diabetic nephrosis, recovery of gastrointestinal function and prevention of intestinal adhesion, as well as treatment of osteoarthritis, rheumatic arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are also described. Rhein or their analogues as the left part of general formula (I) is selected from (1) the compounds of rhein or their analogues, in which one or two substituents of R2˜R3 and R6˜R7 are COOH at least two substituents of R1˜8 are —H; or (2) the rhein-containing extract derived from plants. In general formula (I), M represents nitrogen-containing organic bases or basic amino acids.
US09181170B2

A method for preparing an unsaturated carboxylic acid comprising (a) preparing an aqueous solution comprising an ammonium salt of hydroxycarboxylic acid and a salt of inorganic acid; (b) contacting the aqueous solution with a cation exchange resin to prepare a conversion aqueous solution comprising a hydroxycarboxylic acid and an inorganic acid; and (c) dehydrating the hydroxycarboxylic acid using the inorganic acid as a catalyst is provided.
US09181167B2

A chemically-modified graphene includes a graphene layer and a plurality of functional groups that are grafted to the graphene layer and each of which is represented by —CO—R—COOH, wherein R is an optionally substituted C1-C5 alkylene group or an optionally substituted C1-C5 alkenylene group. A method for producing a chemically-modified grapheme includes subjecting a cyclic anhydride and graphite to a Friedel-Crafts reaction in the presence of a Lewis acid.
US09181166B1

Lignocelluloses are selectively hydrolyzed into only two kinds of products in an one-pot, quantitative reaction. Lignin is reduced into small molecular aromatics without using reductants. Simultaneously, cellulose and hemicellulose are oxidized into small organic acids without using oxidants. A catalytic method is invented for oxygen-transfer from lignin to cellulose or hemicellulose. There is neither gasification nor black tar formation observed during the hydrolytic depolymerization.
US09181158B2

Hydrothermal digestion of cellulosic biomass solids may produce a glycol reaction product for subsequent processing. Methods for digesting cellulosic biomass solids to form and process a glycol reaction product may comprise: providing cellulosic biomass solids and a slurry catalyst in a hydrothermal digestion unit, the slurry catalyst being capable of activating molecular hydrogen; heating the cellulosic biomass solids in the hydrothermal digestion unit in the presence of the slurry catalyst, a digestion solvent, and molecular hydrogen, thereby forming a liquor phase comprising soluble carbohydrates; performing a first catalytic reduction reaction on the soluble carbohydrates within the hydrothermal digestion unit, thereby at least partially converting the soluble carbohydrates into a reaction product comprising a glycol; at least partially drying the reaction product, thereby forming a dried reaction product comprising a dried glycol; and at least partially converting the dried glycol into a monohydric alcohol external to the hydrothermal digestion unit.
US09181150B1

Processes for the disproportionation and isomerization of a C5 hydrocarbon feed using a liquid catalyst comprising an ionic liquid and a carbocation promoter are described. The ionic liquid is unsupported, and the reactions occur at temperatures below about 200° C.
US09181143B2

The present invention relates to the process of production of olefins by means of the dehydration of light alcohols using ionic liquids as an acidic medium. Furthermore, the present invention relates to the use of such olefins, for example, for the production of polymers and ethylene glycol.
US09181139B2

Disclosed are compositions that include treated biodiesel glycerin. The disclosed compositions may be utilized as soil-amendments for controlling pests, weeds and for enhancing growth of plants. The biodiesel glycerin utilized in the disclosed compositions may be treated by one or more steps including neutralization, heating, refluxing, condensing, and distilling.
US09181133B1

The present invention discloses crystallized silicate-synthetic powder comprising a mullite (3Al2O3.2SiO2) crystalline phase, a anorthite (CaO.Al2O3.2SiO2) crystalline phase, and a corundum (Al2O3) crystalline phase, and discloses a high-strengthened porcelain body containing the above crystallized silicate-synthetic powder and formed by mixing the crystallized silicate-synthetic powder and kaolin mineral.
US09181125B2

A method of coloring optical fibers during the optical fiber drawing that includes the steps of feeding a natural fiber coating material and a colorant to a mixer; mixing the natural fiber coating material and the colorant in the mixer to obtain a colored coating material; and supplying the colored coating material to a coating die. The feeding step includes exerting on the natural fiber coating a first gas pressure variable with at least one fiber drawing parameter; and exerting on the colorant a second gas pressure variable with at least one fiber drawing parameter.
US09181124B2

The present invention provides transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin films with improved optical and electrical properties and methods of making the same. More specifically, the invention provides on-line processes for producing TCO thin films that allow for improvements in optical properties and post-production improvements in electrical properties of the TCO.
US09181121B2

Accurate temperature measurement during manufacturing a vitreous silica crucible is enabled. The present invention provides an apparatus for manufacturing a vitreous silica crucible including: a mold for forming a silica powder layer by supplying silica powder therein; an are discharge unit having carbon electrodes and a power supply unit and for heating and fusing the silica powder layer by arc discharge; and a temperature measurement unit for measuring temperature of a fused portion in the mold, wherein the temperature measurement unit is an radiation thermometer for measuring temperature by detecting radiation energy of a wavelength of 4.8 to 5.2 μm.
US09181115B2

Embodiments of the invention provide a method and system for providing a regeneration stage in a water treatment system. The method can include entering a first air bleed state to allow pressurized, deoxygenated air to exit the water treatment system, entering a second air bleed state to equalize a first air pressure of remaining deoxygenated air inside the water treatment system with a second air pressure outside the water treatment system, entering a backwash state to expel remaining deoxygenated air and particulates from inside the water treatment system, and entering an air draw state to allow oxygenated air to enter the water treatment system.
US09181110B2

A water softening system includes apparatus that recycles a substantial percentage of the solution used for regenerating the system. This system conventionally includes a brine tank and a softening tank through which hard water from a source passes during normal operation. During a regeneration mode, the solution of sodium or potassium ions in the brine tank passes through the softening tank acquiring hardness ions, and then through a nanofilter that passes a much higher proportion of the sodium or potassium ions than the hardness ions from a high pressure side to a low pressure side. The hardness ions flow from the upstream end of the nanofilter through an outlet and into a drain. The liquid passing through the nanofilter contains salt that returns to the brine tank for reuse. Concentration of sodium or potassium ions may be tested during a fast rinse portion of the regeneration cycle.
US09181105B2

A floating streambed comprising a circulation pump having an inlet hose or pipe, an inlet hose or pipe depth adjuster, and one or more treatment channels comprised of permeable matrix. The floating streambed floats on a water body. Water enters the inlet hose or pipe from the water body and is pumped by the circulation pump into the treatment channels. The treatment channels are comprised of permeable matrix, and water entering the treatment channels flows both horizontally through the treatment channel and into the water body and also vertically downward through the permeable matrix of the treatment channels.
US09181101B2

A method to recycle TiB2 articles, and in particular, a method to recycle a TiB2 feedstock including TiB2 articles and Ti-ore and/or Ti-slag by chlorination.
US09181098B2

An array of carbon nanotubes is prepared by exposing a catalyst structure to a carbon nanotube precursor. Embodiment catalyst structures include one or more trenches, channels, or a combination of trenches and channels. A system for preparing the array includes a heated surface for heating the catalyst structure and a cooling portion that cools gas above the catalyst structure. The system heats the catalyst structure so that the interaction between the precursor and the catalyst structure results in the formation of an array of carbon nanotubes on the catalyst structure, and cools the gas near the catalyst structure and also cools any carbon nanotubes that form on the catalyst structure to prevent or at least minimize the formation of amorphous carbon. Arrays thus formed may be used for spinning fibers of carbon nanotubes.
US09181091B2

Provided are a porous nanostructure and a method of manufacturing the same. The porous nanostructure includes a plurality of pores disposed on an exterior surface of a nanostructure, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of pores extend inside the nanostructure.
US09181089B2

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNFETs) have demonstrated extraordinary properties and are widely accepted as the building blocks of next generation VLSI circuits. A CNT crossbar based nano-architecture, includes layers of orthogonal carbon nanotubes with electrically bistable and charge holding molecules at each crossing, forming a dense array of reconfigurable double gate carbon nanotube field effect transistors (RDG-CNFETs) and programmable interconnects, which is addressed via a voltage controlled nanotube addressing circuits on the boundaries.
US09181086B1

A micromechanical structure, comprising a substrate having a through hole; a residual portion of a sacrificial oxide layer peripheral to the hole; and a polysilicon layer overlying the hole, patterned to have a planar portion; a supporting portion connecting the planar portion to polysilicon on the residual portion; polysilicon stiffeners formed extending beneath the planar portion overlying the hole; and polysilicon ribs surrounding the supporting portion, attached near a periphery of the planar portion. The polysilicon ribs extend to a depth beyond the stiffeners, and extend laterally beyond an edge of the planar portion. The polysilicon ribs are released from the substrate during manufacturing after the planar region, and reduce stress on the supporting portion.
US09181084B2

The invention provides an electronic device package and fabrication method thereof. The electronic device package includes a sensor chip. An upper surface of the sensor chip comprises a sensing film. A covering plate having an opening structure covers the upper surface of the sensor chip. A cavity is between the covering plate and the sensor chip, corresponding to a position of the sensing film, where the cavity communicates with the opening structure. A spacer is between the covering plate and the sensor chip, surrounding the cavity. A pressure releasing region is between the spacer and the sensing film.
US09181079B2

An adjustable horse bit that acts as a snaffle bit (direct-pressure) under normal circumstances and transforms into an elevator bit (leverage bit) when a threshold force is applied to a hingedly attached lever section of the horse bit cheek piece. Absent the threshold force, the lever section retracts to transform the elevator bit back to a snaffle bit.
US09181070B2

Provided is an apparatus provided in a working machine to lower a load, comprising a hydraulic pump, a hydraulic actuator, a manipulation device having a manipulation member, a meter-in flow control device, a meter-out flow control device, a back pressure valve, a regeneration fluid passage branched from the meter-out fluid passage at a position upstream of the back pressure valve and merged with the meter-in fluid passage, and a check valve. The meter-in flow control device controls a meter-in flow rate in a region of the meter-in fluid passage upstream of a merging point with the regeneration fluid passage. The meter-out flow control device controls a meter-out flow rate in a region of the meter-out fluid passage upstream of a branching point of the regeneration fluid passage so as to make the meter-out flow rate be greater than the meter-in flow rate.
US09181060B2

A recording apparatus includes a recording part configured to record onto a recording medium; a discharge part configured to discharge a recorded medium, which is the recording medium that has been previously recorded on; and a medium catcher part configured to catch the discharged recorded medium. The medium catcher part has a guide surface configured to guide a leading end of the discharged recorded medium toward a side (the direction of approach side) opposite to a discharge direction in which the recorded medium is discharged, at a lower side of the discharge part and is configured so that the guide surface is separable from the discharge part.
US09181058B2

A core tube holding device includes: a holding portion which holds a cylindrical core tube extending in an axial direction; a support portion which supports the holding portion; a shaft portion which rotates the support portion and the holding portion; and a bearing portion which is connected to the support portion and into which the shaft portion is inserted. The holding portion and the bearing portion are formed to be harder than the support portion.
US09181056B2

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for implementing a media sensing actuator for determining characteristics of a media stack including one or more medium located on an input unit. The media sensing actuator includes a switch and a bracket. The switch includes rotary members configured to drive an electronic circuit upon actuation. The bracket being biased to actuate the rotary members based on operative coupling with the media stack via at least one adjustment member on the input unit. The bracket is substantially curved.
US09181050B2

A sheet feeding apparatus comprises a conveying path formed between an upper and a lower units facing each other; a feed roller which feeds a sheet by a portion partially exposed from an upper surface of the lower unit to the conveying path; a separation member disposed to oppose the feed roller; a stopper which stops entrance of the sheet into the conveying path by abutting against a sheet end in a closed state in which the stopper is moved in a direction to intersect with an exposed surface of the feed roller; a driving unit which drives at least the feed roller and the stopper; and a control unit which controls the driving unit to rotate the feed roller through a predetermined angle in a sheet feeding direction and to then open the stopper when feeding of the sheet is started from the closed state of the stopper.
US09181044B1

A mechanically-controlled vacuum throttle for a continuous dense phase pneumatic conveying system and related method is provided. The system includes a pneumatic conveyance line, a particulate material insertion assembly, a positive displacement blower, a transport fluid intake assembly, and a vacuum throttling assembly. The vacuum throttling assembly is configured to control the flow of air mass density into the blower and through the conveyance line. A portion of the vacuum throttling assembly is tied in to the conveyance line pressure downstream of the blower and adjusts the air mass density flow depending on the downstream pressure. Preferably, the vacuum throttling assembly includes an obstruction element and an opening collar, where the obstruction element is moveable relative to the opening collar and the air mass density flow is adjusted depending on the amount of movement of the obstruction element relative to the opening collar.
US09181041B2

A conveyor for buffering products comprises at least first and second drivable curved conveyor parts, which are spaced from each other in horizontal direction. At least, the first conveyor part has at least an inner track and an outer track, wherein the outer track is adjacent to the inner track and disposed at the outside bend side of the inner track. The second conveyor part has at least a second conveyor part track, wherein one end of the outer track of the first conveyor part is coupled to one end of the second conveyor part track. An other end of the second conveyor part track is coupled to one end of the inner track of the first conveyor part. The first and second conveyor parts are at least partly helically-shaped.
US09181038B1

A bucket elevator adjustable guide system for efficiently dispensing grain from a bucket elevator with reduced grain dispersion. The bucket elevator adjustable guide system generally includes a head housing for a bucket elevator and a guide member attached to a lower portion of the head housing. The guide member is distally spaced from the head housing forming a lower vent and an upper vent between the exterior surface of the guide member and the head housing for air to pass through thereby preventing the accumulation of particulate material.
US09181035B2

The thin panel conveyance unit used for piling up and conveying a plurality of rectangular thin panels includes: resin cushion spacers inserted between the rectangular thin panels, each resin cushion spacer having a load-receiving upper surface for receiving load of the rectangular thin panel disposed above and a placement lower surface placed on an upper surface of the rectangular thin panel disposed below, and having an end part provided with a positioning body for the resin cushion spacer; a pallet having an upper surface configured to allow the rectangular thin panels to be piled up thereon; and a protection sleeve surrounding the piled rectangular thin pallets. The upper surface of the pallet is provided with a peripheral groove in which the protection sleeve can be fitted.
US09181033B2

A conveyor comprising a support frame, an inclined tube mounted to the support frame, a hopper at a lower end of the tube for receiving material, a spout at an upper end of the tube for discharging the material, a running plate extending inside the tube, and a cleated belt, supported by the running plate, that conveys the material from the hopper to the spout through the tube. The cleated belt comprises a plurality of spaced-apart cleats and wherein each cleat has a base extending transversely to a direction of travel of the belt and curved sides that curve upwardly and outwardly from the base.
US09181012B2

A multilayer film is described made of recyclable thermoplastic material comprising a layer (A) of unoriented amorphous PET combined with at least one barrier layer (B) which comprises unoriented amorphous PET, a salt of a transition metal and an oxidizable polyester-ether, in which the quantity of unoriented amorphous PET is at least 95% in weight of the total film and in which the permeability to oxygen is below 10 cc/m2/24 h/atm. The film is particularly suitable for the production of food-grade containers and packages with high barrier effect and high transparency which, at the same time, are fully recyclable in the same application.
US09181009B1

A cup with an outwardly protruding straw channel and nestable food container and cover that enables simultaneous or intermittent access of the contents of the container and attached cup without disengagement of the food container from the cup, wherein a portion of the cup that holds the food container may be utilized as a fill line when filling liquids into the cup to ensure that insertion of the food container does not result in overflow of liquid from the cup. Additionally, the food container may include at least one cavity that may hold at least one independent drop-in container. A simple domed cover or variable height domed cover may keep food items that are placed within the food container warm.
US09181007B2

A can end for a beverage container has a center panel with a stay-on tab opening system. A tear panel is defined by a first frangible score and a non-frangible hinge segment. A tab is attached to the center panel by a rivet. The tab has a void region partially surrounding a rivet island. A first circle has a first center point located at a center of the rivet and a first radius equal to a distance from the center of the rivet to a radially outermost point of the void region on a first axis running through the nose and lift ends of the tab and a center of the rivet. A second circle has a coincident center and a second radius less than 2.5 times first radius. A second frangible score is spaced completely radially outwardly from the rivet island and between the first and second circles.
US09180997B2

The present invention is directed to a container, forming a multi-tiered container when folded from a flat planar blank. The container includes a top having a planar top surface, a top front side, a top left side, a top right side, and a top back side. The container also includes a bottom having a planar bottom surface, a bottom front side, a bottom left side, a bottom right side, and a bottom back side. A horizontal opening edge extends parallel to the planar top surface and the planar bottom surface. The horizontal opening edge divides and separates the top from the bottom, more specifically, the top front side from the bottom front side, the top left side from the bottom left side, and the top right side from the bottom right side.
US09180986B2

A packaging machine includes a shaping device including a conveyor drive mechanism and a bottom tapping mechanism and shaping a packaging bag filled with article so that the bag has a predetermined thickness. The conveyor drive mechanism includes a pair of side conveyors movable forward and backward. The conveyors are capable of pressing the bag filled with the article when moved forward. The conveyors are configured to be run in parallel to the moving direction of the bag substantially in synchronization with movement of the bag. The tapping mechanism includes a receiving plate disposed over the filling step and one or more steps following the filling step. The receiving plate is moved up and down so that the bag bottom is tapped, when the bag filled with the article is stopped between the filling step and one or more steps following the filling step.
US09180985B1

A fission based nuclear thermal propulsion rocket engine. An embodiment provides a source of fissionable material such as plutonium in a carrier gas such as deuterium. A neutron source is provided, such as from a neutron beam generator. By way of engine design geometry, various embodiments may provide for intersection of neutrons with the fissionable material injected by way of the carrier gas, while in a reactor provided in the form of a reaction chamber. Impact of neutrons on fissionable material results in a nuclear fission in sub-critical mass reaction conditions in the reactor, resulting in release of heat energy to the materials within the reactor. The reactor is sized and shaped to receive the reactants and an expandable fluid such as hydrogen, and to confine heated and pressurized gases for discharge out through a throat, into a rocket engine expansion nozzle for propulsive discharge.
US09180983B2

An attitude control actuator of a spacecraft includes a first momentum wheel driven in rotation by a motor and a second momentum wheel. Both momentum wheels are movable in rotation about an axis and are mechanically coupled by coupling means imposing between a rotation speed ω1 of the first momentum wheel and a rotation speed ω2 of the second momentum wheel a ratio R=ω2/ω1, negative on the one hand and continuously modifiable by the coupling means in response to a command on the other hand so as to modify the total angular momentum of the actuator while the total kinetic energy of the wheels are kept constant. In one embodiment, both momentum wheels have the same inertia and are coupled through a toroidal variable rotation speed drive, where ratio R varies between −3 and −⅓. The motor drives the momentum wheels and operates as a generator for braking the momentum wheels.
US09180981B2

A pod for flights to and/or from space or near-space, including a pressurized body for hosting passengers, the pressurized body having a substantially ring-like shape provided around a central axis and having a central opening, wherein the pressurized body includes one or more windows.
US09180978B2

Described herein are systems and methods for allocating departure slots at an airport. One embodiment of the disclosure of this application is related to a method including calculating an estimated taxi time (“ETT”) based on airport data and flight plan data, allocating a departure slot time for the first flight based on the ETT, and populating the allocated departure slot time in an allocation grid. Another embodiment of the disclosure of this application is related to a system comprising a user interface displaying information related to flight plan data and airport data received from an airport network, and a departure allocation processor calculating an estimated taxi time (“ETT”) for the first flight based on the airport data and the flight plan data, allocating a departure slot time for the flight, and populating the departure slot time in an allocation grid via the user interface.
US09180977B2

A supplementary power supply apparatus for electric onboard consumers of a vehicle, in particular flying machines. The apparatus includes openly disposed visible solar surfaces of several solar cells that are arranged in areas on the surface of an outer skin of the vehicle or integrated in the latter in the manner of a layer. Each of the solar cells includes at least two electric terminals by means of which the solar cells may be interconnected to form a solar generator, and several ones of the electric terminals are configured as generator terminals of the solar generator for one or several predetermined voltages between two respective ones of these generator terminals.
US09180975B2

A linking device including two hinge pins and having flexibility allowing vibrations between these two shafts to be filtered. The device includes a stack of plates connected to one another by layers of elastomer material. Plates of a first type are coupled to one of the shafts in relation to the movements parallel to the plates, while the plates of a second type are coupled to the other shaft in relation to the movements parallel to the plates, so as to allow relative movement of the shafts parallel to the plates. This linking device may be used in particular as a connecting rod, spreader beam or three-point shackle used in connecting a turbine engine to a pylon in a propulsion system of an aircraft such as an airplane.
US09180956B1

The present disclosure is generally directed to an aircraft including an aircraft body having a number of body frame members on an outboard portion of the aircraft body, a wing assembly extending through a portion of the aircraft body. At least one pair of an attachment member and an attachment strap member are fixedly attached to an upper surface of the wing assembly proximate the portion of the aircraft body at a location of one of the number of body frame members. A number of fasteners fixedly attach the aircraft body via at least one body frame member to one attachment member and a corresponding attachment strap member, thereby securing the aircraft body to the wing assembly.
US09180942B2

A multifunction engagement apparatus for use with a water recreation device may include a foot pad and a multifunction strap. The multifunction strap may be positioned to overlie the substantially flat foot pad, and may be moveable between an uncollapsed position and a collapsed position. In the uncollapsed position, the multifunction strap may present a generally arcuate foot opening between the strap and the top surface of the foot pad. In the collapsed position, the multifunction strap may present a substantially flat contact cushion atop the foot pad. The multifunction strap may have elastic properties that allow for selective positioning of the multifunction engagement member for use by a towed rider as the rider transitions between prone, kneeling, and/or standing positions atop a water recreation device.
US09180936B2

Control device (10, 50) for controlling the position of an instrumented cable towed in water, such as a marine seismic streamer, and/or an instrumented towed cable array (streamer array) with the possibility of controlling the individual instrumented cables both with in shape and position in relation to other instrumented cables and by that counteract cross currents and/or other dynamic forces which affect a towed array behind a seismic survey vessel, which control device (10, 50) is provided with one or more acoustic means, such as acoustic transmitter/receiver elements (40), arranged to or integrated in the wings (11, 52), main body (12, 53) or motor and drive gear housings (51) of the control device for determination of position and distance.
US09180933B1

The invention is directed to an integrated stern bulb and flap for a water vessel, more particularly, a bulb having a main body section and a forebody section, the bulb positioned between first and second flap portions. The integrated stern bulb and flap provides improved power efficiency by reducing resistance at high speeds. The bulb of the integrated stern bulb and flap may be hollow, the interior being stowage space adding to the payload of the water vessel.
US09180922B2

Apparatus, systems, and methods involve a motorcycle stand for adjustably securing a motorcycle, such as for storing or transporting a motorcycle in an immobilized, upright position. A motorcycle stand in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention may include a stand base connected to an axle support post. At a top end of the axle support post, the axle support post includes an axle bar slot having a self-engaging latch. An axle bar may be inserted into the axle bar slot and engage the self-engaging latch. The self-engaging latch may include a release mechanism to disengage the latch, to release the axle bar from the axle bar slot, and to reset the self-engaging latch. A stand may include two axle support posts for engagement on either side of a wheel axle. A motorcycle stand system may include one or more stands and an axle bar.
US09180920B2

A mobile robot includes a robot chassis having a forward end, a rearward end and a center of gravity. The robot includes a driven support surface to propel the robot and first articulated arm rotatable about an axis located rearward of the center of gravity of the robot chassis. The arm is pivotable to trail the robot, rotate in a first direction to raise the rearward end of the robot chassis while the driven support surface propels the chassis forward in surmounting an obstacle, and to rotate in a second opposite direction to extend forward beyond the center of gravity of the robot chassis to raise the forward end of the robot chassis and invert the robot endwise.
US09180919B2

An aerodynamic drag reducing apparatus is adapted for mounting behind a vehicle. The aerodynamic drag reducing apparatus includes a side panel, an actuator arrangement, a top panel, and an interconnecting member. The side panel is adapted to move between a deployed position and a stowed position. The actuator is mounted between the side panel and the vehicle. The top panel is adapted to move between a deployed position and a stowed position. The interconnecting member is connected between the side panel and the top panel. The interconnecting member coordinates movement between the side and top panels such that they each move together between the deployed positions and the stowed positions, respectively. One or more of the panels may be mounted to a door of the vehicle via deformable hinges and/or deformably mounted hinges and thereby allow the door to open compactly against a side of the vehicle by deforming the panels, the hinges, and/or the mounts of the hinges.
US09180906B2

It is an object to provide a driving apparatus, which can be easily mounted to vehicles of different models. A circuit unit for controlling an operation of an electric motor is fixed to an axial end of a motor casing. A connector holding unit, which is integrally formed with a heat sink of the circuit unit, is composed of a first and a second arm portions and a connecting portion to form a connector accommodating space in such a radial outside position of the motor casing. The connector accommodating space extends in an axial direction of the motor casing. An inside connector unit is inserted into the connector accommodating space. The inside connector unit has a connector-insert hole into which an outside connector (a vehicle-side connector) is inserted for electrical connection.
US09180892B2

A method for controllably linking propulsion units in a vehicle consist includes transmitting a linking signal having an identity of a lead propulsion unit. A remote propulsion unit is remotely controlled by the lead unit when the identity matches a designated identity stored onboard the remote unit. A de-linking signal is transmitted from the lead unit when the lead unit is to be decoupled from the vehicle consist. The de-linking signal includes a replacement identity of a replacement propulsion unit. A replacement linking signal is transmitted from a second lead unit. The remote propulsion unit allows the second lead propulsion unit to remotely control the operations of the remote propulsion unit when replacement identity stored onboard the remote propulsion unit matches an identity that is communicated in the replacement linking signal.
US09180871B2

A hybrid vehicle including an engine having a catalyst in an exhaust passage, first and second motor generators, a battery and a power transmission mechanism coupling a drive shaft, the engine and the motor generators by a gear mechanism such that torque is transmittable, and its control method, are provided. When a coolant temperature is a threshold or below, catalyst warm-up operation for starting the engine and retarding an ignition timing by a retardation amount is executed. When a battery level is a threshold or below, forced charging operation for starting the engine and charging the battery by driving the first motor generator is executed. During the forced charging operation, an engine load is changed on the basis of the battery level. When the catalyst warm-up operation is executed during the forced charging operation, the retardation amount for facilitating warm-up of the catalyst is reduced as the engine load increases.
US09180870B2

A method for selecting an engine operating point in a multi-mode powertrain system includes monitoring a desired axle torque based on an operator torque request and vehicle speed. When an aftertreatment device used to purify regulated constituents within an exhaust gas feedstream output from the engine is determined to require an exhaust gas feedstream temperature to be increased to a predetermined temperature, an intrusive engine operation mode is enabled to increase the exhaust gas feedstream temperature to the predetermined temperature. A plurality of engine power is retrieved, wherein each engine power loss corresponds to respective ones of a plurality of intrusive engine operation points each achieving the predetermined temperature of the exhaust gas feedstream. A desired engine operation point is selected corresponding to one of the intrusive engine operation points having a lowest total power loss.
US09180866B2

A clutch device having an actuating device for a drivetrain of a motor vehicle having an internal combustion engine, an electric machine with a stator and a rotor, and a transmission device, where the clutch device is situated in the drivetrain between the internal combustion engine on the one side and the electric machine and the transmission device on the other side, the clutch device and the actuating device being integrated into the rotor of the electric machine, in order to improve the construction and/or the function of the clutch device.
US09180863B2

An oil pump system and method of a hybrid vehicle stably supplies an operating hydraulic pressure to an automatic transmission using only an electric oil pump. The oil pump system of the hybrid vehicle, which supplies an operating hydraulic pressure to an automatic transmission of the hybrid vehicle, includes: an automatic transmission control unit controlling operation of the automatic transmission; an electric oil pump pumping oil to generate an operating hydraulic pressure which is to be supplied to the automatic transmission; and an oil pump control unit receiving information on a state of the automatic transmission from the automatic transmission control unit and controlling operation of the electric oil pump. The operating hydraulic pressure supplied to the automatic transmission may be generated solely through the electric oil pump which is electrically operated.
US09180862B2

A vehicle dynamic control apparatus is designed to control a plurality of controlled objects based on a first parameter associated with a motion of a vehicle in a same direction to fulfill a request value of a second parameter associated with the motion of the vehicle in the same direction and outputted from a control requester. The vehicle dynamic control apparatus includes an availability obtainer configured to obtain an availability of the first parameter of each of the controlled objects, and to output the availability of the first parameter of each of the controlled objects to the control requester.
US09180852B2

An electric booster includes a housing having one end including a coupling surface where the housing is coupled to a master cylinder, and the other end including an attachment surface where the housing is attached to a vehicle. A controller includes a flat plate-like control board, and the control board is disposed so as to be positioned between a first plane including the attachment surface of the housing where the housing is attached to the vehicle, and a second plane including the coupling surface of the housing where the housing is coupled to the master cylinder.
US09180848B2

A vehicle brake force generation device is provided with an electric motor for applying drive force and regenerative brake force to the wheels of an electric vehicle, a brake hydraulic pressure generation device for generating the brake hydraulic pressure to be applied to the calipers of the electric vehicle, a slip information computation unit for computing the slip information of the wheels, a VSA device for controlling the friction braking of at least the brake hydraulic pressure generation device such that the slipping of the wheels is inhibited, a first diagnosis unit for diagnosing the VSA device, and a brake control unit for controlling the cooperative braking which includes controlling the regenerative braking of the electric motor and/or controlling the friction braking of the brake hydraulic pressure generation device.
US09180845B2

A vehicle for transporting passenger cars has an adjustable loading ramp for loading and unloading passenger cars. The loading ramp can be placed in at least two positions. One position is a travel position and is to be set when the passenger car transport is traveling. The passenger car transport also has an electronic monitoring system that includes at least one monitoring sensor operable to sense whether the loading ramp is in the travel position. The electronic monitoring system employs monitoring electronics configured to evaluate the signals of the monitoring sensor and to transmit to a display device corresponding information indicating whether or not the loading ramp is in the travel position.
US09180842B2

A multi-plate disc brake has interleaved rotatable and non-rotatable brake discs (11) within a brake housing (13) and a ball and ramp type brake actuator (12) comprising first and second relatively rotatable annular actuator discs (20, 21) with actuator balls (22) therebetween located in circumferentially ramped pockets (20a, 21a) on opposing faces of the actuator discs. A wedge-shaped actuator member (23) has an actuating means (24A, 24B) to displace the actuator member between confronting abutments (20b, 21b) on the respective actuator discs to relatively rotate the discs to cause the balls to rise up the ramped pockets and hence expand the actuator axially to move the brake discs (11) into engagement. Cooling oil is supplied into the brake housing through the wedge-shaped actuator member (23) when the brake is engaged.
US09180841B2

A disk brake including a mount member having a pin insertion portion integrally connected to a connection portion so as to outwardly protrude from an outer surface of the connection portion in a radial direction of a disk rotor. A tip of a pin insertion hole of the pin insertion portion is positioned at an inner side of a vehicle relative to an outer portion. Thus, it is possible to prevent a braking torque from affecting the pin insertion portion of the mount member. As a result, it is possible to prevent a slide pin from interfering with an inner wall surface of the pin insertion hole, thereby preventing a brake judder phenomenon from occurring during a braking operation.
US09180838B2

A motor control device is provided which controls a motor by performing switching between forward rotation and reverse rotation so as to cause an object to be controlled to reciprocate, the motor control device including a lead angle map storage unit configured to store a lead angle map in which a motor rotation speed and a lead angle to be set are associated for each of the forward rotation and the reverse rotation, a target rotation speed-setting unit configured to set a target rotation speed of the motor based on an input signal from outside, a lead angle-setting unit configured to obtain the lead angle associated with the set target rotation speed by referring to the lead angle map and set the lead angle as a lead angle of the motor, and a driving control unit configured to control rotation of the motor so as to achieve the set target rotation speed and the set lead angle.
US09180834B1

An occupant restraint system for a vehicle includes an airbag module disposed in a column cover. The column cover covers a steering column of the vehicle. The airbag module includes an inflator within the column cover and an airbag coupled to the inflator. The airbag is moveable between a deflated position within the cover and a deployed position exiting the cover to the left and upwardly for deployment toward an A-pillar of the vehicle during an oblique impact.
US09180833B2

An airbag for a vehicle of the present invention includes: an inflator; and an airbag cushion, in which first and second slits are formed in the airbag cushion so as to be spaced apart at a predetermined distance, and one end of the inflator is inserted into the airbag cushion through the first slit, and then protrudes to the outside of the airbag cushion through the second slit, and as a result, the inflator is securely and conveniently coupled to the airbag cushion.
US09180821B1

A bicycle rack that allows multiple bicycles to be secured in a fanned out position includes a mounting section, a main body, and a plurality of bicycle-receiving subassemblies. The mounting section provides a means for supporting the main body and attaching the bicycle rack to a vehicle, while the main body supports the plurality of bicycle-receiving subassemblies. Each of the plurality of bicycle-receiving subassemblies includes a frame-receiving cradle, a first pedal-receiving clamp, a second pedal-receiving clamp, and a pedal arm. The frame-receiving cradle provides a telescoping structure for supporting the down tube of a bicycle, while the first pedal-receiving clamp and the second pedal-receiving clamp provide a means for supporting the pedals of the bicycle, wherein the pedal arm offsets the second pedal-receiving clamp from the first pedal-receiving clamp. The main body includes a primary beam and a secondary beam; the secondary beam being detachable when fewer bicycles are transported.
US09180814B2

A 3D object detecting device includes a driving-lane detecting unit that detects a driving lane of a vehicle; a 3D-object detecting unit that detects, by using pattern recognition technology, a type of 3D object with respect to images captured by side cameras; and a recognition-priority setting unit that varies and sets a recognition priority for the detected type of 3D object, based on the detected driving lane. In accordance with the driving lane of the vehicle, the recognition-priority setting unit sets the priority for pattern recognition lower for a type of 3D object that is less likely to exist in rear left and right sides of the vehicle, to thereby reduce the possibility that a 3D object that should not be regarded as a warning target is erroneously detected from the images as a warning subject.
US09180812B2

A steering wheel cover with driver alert system is an apparatus that attaches to a vehicle's steering wheel. The apparatus utilizes a driver alert system to detect when a driver is falling asleep while operating a vehicle and signal an alarm. The driver alert system accomplishes this by monitoring a driver's grip on the steering wheel. When a driver's grip loosens, the driver alert system signals an alarm to wake the driver. The steering wheel cover with integrated driver alert system is fitted to an existing vehicle's steering wheel with minimal if any modifications and utilizes an external power source to charge the apparatus when the vehicle is not in use.
US09180810B2

The base of the present invention includes a fiber base layer containing fibers, and has a basis weight of 300 to 1,500 g/m2, a thickness of 1 to 10 mm, and a transmittance of 35% to 75%. A content of fibers is in a range from 20% to 70% by mass based on 100% by mass of the fiber base layer. The illumination apparatus of the present invention includes the base and a light source.
US09180807B2

The present invention provides an adjustable decking system for use within a cargo container. The system comprises vertical mounting posts that include a plurality of spaced openings and a slider track with obliquely angled guide channels. Decking beams are selectively adjustable in height along the posts by engaging the openings with end assemblies slidably disposed within the ends of the beams. The posts can accommodate alternative beam end configurations. One configuration includes a foot with angled guide edges slidably captured within the guide channels. An alternate configuration comprises coupled plates that fit directly into the openings and a swivel latched to provide a retaining force. This alternate configuration has an identical latch mechanism at both ends and is reversibly mountable within the decking beam.
US09180793B2

A movable seating arrangement includes a seat pan, a back support rigidly connected with the seat pan, and a seat member slidably mounted to the seat pan. The seat member can be moved from a retracted position proximate the back support to an extended position displaced forward of the upright position, without movement of the back support. In certain embodiments, a lumbar support is mounted to the back support, and motion of the seat member to its extended position causes a mid portion of the lumbar support to flex forward from a flattened position.
US09180785B2

A system and method of controlling a low-voltage DC/DC converter for an electric vehicle that include a battery sensor that senses information regarding a low-voltage battery during a stop of the electric vehicle for each first period when the electric vehicle stops and a controller that operates a low-voltage DC/DC converter to charge the low-voltage battery for a predefined time when an error occurs in the battery sensor. In addition, the controller determines a charge time of the low-voltage battery based on first SOC values of the information regarding the low-voltage battery sensed for each first period when no error in the battery sensor is detected and operates the low-voltage DC/DC converter for the determined charge time to charge the low-voltage battery.
US09180782B2

A non-contact power receiving apparatus includes a power reception unit for receiving electric power from a power transmitting apparatus outside of a vehicle in a non-contact manner, and a control device for controlling the electric power transmission from the power transmitting apparatus. The control device controls the electric power transmission based on a monitoring result obtained by monitoring the surroundings of the vehicle, and a door state detection result obtained by detecting whether or not a door of the vehicle is open. The control device causes, if the door state detection result indicates that the door is open, the power transmitting apparatus to reduce the power of the electric power transmission, and controls the electric power transmission without using the monitoring result.
US09180781B2

Even when a high voltage in electric railways is applied from power lines, an electric automobile makes it possible to apply an appropriate voltage lower than the high voltage to a motor and an inverter that supplies the motor with electric power. The electric automobile includes, a first DC/DC converter that steps up the battery voltage of a high-voltage battery to a level corresponding to an power line feeding voltage, a second converter connected between power line contact terminals, which are brought into contact with power lines to receive electric power from the power lines under the high power line feeding voltage, and the DC terminals of the inverter for energizing the motor. Therefore, even if the high power line feeding voltage is applied from the power lines, the second DC/DC converter functions as an electric damping device to prevent the high voltage from being applied to the inverter.
US09180779B2

An electrical powered vehicle includes a secondary self-resonant coil, a secondary coil, a rectifier, and a power storage device. The secondary self-resonant coil is configured to be magnetically coupled with a primary self-resonant coil of a power feeding device by magnetic field resonance, and allow reception of high frequency power from the primary self-resonant coil. The secondary coil is configured to allow reception of electric power from the secondary self-resonant coil by electromagnetic induction. The rectifier rectifies the electric power received by the secondary coil. The power storage device stores the electric power rectified by the rectifier.
US09180775B2

A molding method of blow-molding a hollow tank body with a built-in component is provided. The method molds the hollow tank body by molding the sheet parisons in the half molds. After the moving cooperation of the half molds, an expanding mechanism of a pre-molding template device, the template half plates and the bases, the half molds are respectively leaned against the closed template half plates, and the sheet parisons are leaned against the half molds by blowing and/or sucking so as to be pre-molded. The tank body is molded after placing the component into it. A pre-molding template device is also provided. An expanding mechanism and the template half plates are mounted on the bases, and the bases are mounted on a rail bracket, the bases are driven by a power device to move on the rail bracket.
US09180773B2

A vehicular exhaust structure is provided for exhausting gas used for cooling down a battery arranged under a seat in a vehicle into a luggage compartment of the vehicle behind the seat and including an underfloor storage box arranged under a deck board. The structure includes an exhaust duct and an exhaust conduit. The exhaust duct is arranged behind the battery with an inlet thereof located at a first end facing the battery and an outlet thereof located at a second end facing upward. The exhaust conduit includes a box section communicated with the outlet of the exhaust duct and defined by surfaces of a front portion of the underfloor storage box arranged over the outlet of the exhaust duct. One of the surfaces faces a back surface of a backrest of the seat and has a through hole that opens toward a front side of the vehicle.
US09180771B2

An in wheel motor driving device which has a deceased axial dimension and includes aluminum alloy housings having a minimum wall thickness for reduced weight while retaining good assemblability. An in-wheel motor driving device includes: a motor section which has an output shaft; a wheel hub bearing section C; and a speed reducer section which connects the output shaft of the motor section and the wheel hub bearing section coaxially with each other. A housing outer circumferential portion of the motor section and a housing outer circumferential portion of the speed reducer section are integral with each other, being provided by one, outer circumferential member. An outboard-side end member is fixed to an outboard-side end of the outer circumferential member by means of bolts, and the wheel hub bearing section has its fixing ring fixed to the outboard-side end member.
US09180770B1

Disclosed herein is a hybrid electric, turbine-powered, all wheel drive automotive platform or truck/military platform design that utilizes a hybrid electromagnetic segmented gas turboshaft engine, whereby all rotating turbomachinery components are segmented from one another electromagnetically. In some embodiments, the components may be levitated in magnetic bearings. In this way, the turbine stages have superconducting ring generators circumferentially surrounding the turbine core generating multi-megawatts of electric power for the land automotive platform. The hybrid turbine acts as an integrated superconducting generator. A plurality of electromagnetic transmission(s) connect to all-wheel drive wheel armatures that are adjacent to the superconducting stators in each wheel, which drive the wheels. Each wheel may be an electric powered-magnetic powered hybrid drive-energy storage unit architecture itself.
US09180764B2

A hydrostatic hybrid drive system for road vehicles includes a pump/motor unit (1) connected to the powertrain of the vehicle, controlled by a control unit (5) in a pump or motor operation, and connected to a high-pressure hydraulic accumulator via a first working line (7). The first working line can be closed by a control valve (45) and connected to a low-pressure hydraulic accumulator via a second working line (9). The high-pressure hydraulic accumulator and low-pressure hydraulic accumulator are formed by a double-piston accumulator (11), in which a high-pressure side and a low-pressure side having respective accumulator pistons (15, 17) are formed in an accumulator housing (13). The fluid chambers (23, 25) of the high-pressure side and the low-pressure side are separated by a central housing part (21) through which the common piston rod for both accumulator pistons (15, 17) extends. The control unit (5) of the pump/motor unit (1) having a control area can be supplied from the first working line (7) via a line connection (59) provided on the first working line (7) between the pump/motor unit (1) and the control valve (45).