US09198257B2
A method of retrieving status information of a lighting system includes propagating a command signal from a controller to a node of the lighting system by operating upstream transceivers that are upstream of the node in a transmitting mode and operating downstream transceivers that are upstream of the node in a receiving mode; propagating a reply signal including the status information of the LED unit of the node from the node to the controller by operating the upstream transceivers that are upstream of the node in a receiving mode and operating each of the downstream transceivers upstream of the node in a transmitting mode and reversing an operating mode of an upstream transceiver of a network segment from operating in a transmitting mode to operating in a receiving mode only when the downstream transceiver is operating in transmitting mode.
US09198256B2
A light driver having a primary side driver configured to convert an input from a mains power supply to a primary side output, and a secondary side driver coupled to the primary side driver and configured to rectify and filter the primary side output to provide a driver output current for driving a light load. A microcontroller controls the light driver at start-up so that the secondary side driver is powered-on and the primary side driver is in a non-powered state during a soft-start period, and subsequent to the soft-start period the secondary side driver is set to be in a low output state when powered-on and thereafter set to a state so that driver output current of the secondary side driver increases the light output from the light load from an initial dim level to a nominal dim level without flicker.
US09198255B2
Various aspects of the present disclosure include a controlled current path having a load that draws current from the controlled current path. In response to a modulating voltage signal, current is controlled through the load which causes a transistor circuit, including a transistor, to switch between two current modes. Switching will subject the transistor to voltage stresses due to current in the controlled current path spiking towards a breakdown threshold of the transistor. In response to a first aspect of the modulating voltage signal and in one of the current modes, the current in the controlled current path is directed through the first current branch. In response to a second aspect of the modulating voltage signal and in the other current mode, the current in the controlled current path is diverted from the first current branch to a second current branch.
US09198249B1
A driving device of a lighting system includes a rectifier circuit, a voltage reducing circuit, a dimmer circuit, and a driver module. The rectifier circuit outputs a pulsating direct current voltage. The voltage reducing circuit is operable to output a reduced direct current voltage associated with the pulsating direct current voltage. The dimmer circuit generates a dimmer signal based on detected occurrence of an interruption to the pulsating direct current voltage. Based on the dimmer signal, the driver module generates a pulse width modulated signal for driving a lighting appliance to generate light with an intensity corresponding to the dimmer signal.
US09198247B2
A current controller 42 compares a first coil current IL1 flowing in an output inductor L1 with a first upper threshold value and a first lower threshold value. A current limiter 44 compares a second coil current IL2 flowing in an input inductor L2 with a second upper threshold value and a second lower threshold value. A duty controller 46 (i) switches a switching transistor M1 based on the first coil current in a cycle where the first coil current IL1 exceeds the first upper threshold value before the second coil current IL2, exceeds the second upper threshold value. According to the current controller 42, it is possible to stabilize an output current and to limit a current.
US09198243B2
An LED driver circuit for supplying a TRIAC holding current by using a controllable current source has a single-stage power factor correction circuit architecture, and the circuit receives an input voltage received by a conversion module of the controllable current source to form an operating current for driving an LED light source to emit light and monitoring the change of the input voltage by a control chip, and adopts a switching method of a fixed cut-off time of a switch unit, so that the controllable current source outputs a constant operating current in a standard peak value to achieve the constant current status during the operation of the LED light source while assuring the operating current is always greater than a holding current required by the TRIAC element when the TRIAC element is conducted.
US09198239B2
A driver system for driving at least one LED, the driver system includes an LED driver including a current source connected to the at least one LED for providing an LED drive current to the at least one LED, and a control module for controlling a flow of the LED drive current through the at least one LED. The driver system further includes a power supply having a power output terminal connected to a power input terminal of the current source for providing an electrical power to the current source. The control module includes a control signal output connected to a control signal input of the power supply for controlling an operation of the power supply.
US09198236B1
A light-emitting structure, comprising: a ground path; a first current path receiving a control current; a first light-emitting element receiving the control current from the first current path and generating light within a first wavelength range based on the control current; a first conductive substrate portion formed over the first light-emitting element, and receiving the control current from the first light-emitting element; a first connection element receiving the first control current from the first conductive substrate; a second current path receiving the control current from the first connection element; a second light-emitting element receiving the first control current from the second current path, and generating light within the first wavelength range based on the control current; a second conductive substrate portion receiving the first control current; and a grounding element receiving the control current from the second substrate portion, and passing the control current to the ground path.
US09198230B2
A radio base station 1 used in an FDD radio communication system in which an uplink frequency band is different from a downlink frequency band, comprises: an antenna 110; a duplexer 130 configured to extract a signal component of the uplink frequency band from a radio signal received by the antenna; a frequency converter 120 provided on a signal path between the antenna 110 and the duplexer 130 and is configured to convert a signal component of the downlink frequency band contained in the radio signal received by the antenna 110 to a signal component of the uplink frequency band; and a measurement unit 210 configured to perform a measurement on the signal component of the uplink frequency band extracted by the duplexer.
US09198221B2
Multiple mobile cellular network (MCN) communication systems can be networked together to form a network of MCN communication systems (NOM). Each MCN communication system within the NOM can operate as an independent cellular network to provide communications between user equipment within a covered area. When a UE in one MCN of the NOM moves into a different MCN of the NOM, the corresponding MCN communication systems can handover the UE. The UE can also be handed over between MCN communication systems when the MCN communication systems move.
US09198218B2
A method and apparatus for controlling Discontinuous Reception (DRX) by a User Equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system is provided. The UE receives a DRX configuration parameter from an evolved Node B (eNB), and determines whether to start an on-duration timer based on the DRX configuration parameter, after a change in DRX cycle is completed in a subframe, thereby preventing system performance degradation caused by transmission mismatch between the eNB and the UE.
US09198215B2
Reciprocal wireless connections may be established between a pair of devices to support failover, load balancing, traffic distribution, or other peer-to-peer connectivity features. Each device of a pair of devices may implement both a local wireless access point and a local wireless station to communicate with the other device of the pair of devices. Establishment of a second wireless connection between the pair of devices may be coordinated using a protocol extension of a first wireless connection. A multiplexing (MUX) component may coordinate traffic among the reciprocal wireless connections.
US09198202B2
A device obtains a geographic position of a mobile telephone. The device retrieves geographic locations associated with multiple different civic addresses from memory, and determines if the geographic position is within a certain proximity of one of the geographic locations. The device retrieves a civic address of the multiple different civic addresses, that is associated with the one of the geographic locations, from the memory for use in identifying the civic address at which the mobile telephone is located.
US09198201B2
Referring to FIG. 4, if the direct communication terminal 120, among the direct communication terminals 120 and 130 receiving a downlink multicast service from the base station 200 through the forwarding terminal 110, wants to be a talker, the direct communication terminal 120 performs a unicast connection establishment procedure with the forwarding terminal 110, in order to transmit an uplink unicast packet.
US09198199B2
At least one transport data block is transmitted from a first sector of a network over a downlink to a wireless terminal during a time resource element for a multi-flow downlink transmission to the wireless terminal, and at least one transport data block is transmitted from a second sector of the network over a downlink to the wireless terminal during the time resource element for the multi-flow downlink transmission. A feedback message is received for the time resource element from the wireless terminal, wherein the feedback message includes a HARQ-ACK codeword selected from a HARQ-ACK codebook providing HARQ-ACK feedback for the at least one transport data block transmitted from the first sector and for the at least one transport data block transmitted from the second sector. The HARQ-ACK codeword is interpreted for the at least one transport data block transmitted from the first sector based on the first sector being a primary sector for the multi-flow downlink transmission.
US09198194B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate increased communication channel bandwidth efficiency in association with scheduled time periods that allocate channel access to particular stations. According to various aspects, systems and methods are described that facilitate providing and/or utilizing reverse direction grants in connection with scheduled channel access. Such systems and/or method can mitigate an amount of unused channel access time after a station completes data transmission prior to an end of the allocated period.
US09198186B2
A method for operating resources by a base station in a communication system is provided. The method includes transmitting at least one beam to at least one terminal, receiving strength information of the at least one beam from the at least one terminal, determining at least one of resources which are not used for communication between the at least one terminal and the base station, and resources, whose interference to communication between the base station and the at least one terminal is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold, based on the strength information of the at least one beam, and allocating the determined resources as resources for communication which is performed between terminals without the base station.
US09198180B2
An opportunistic receive diversity scheme for VAMOS and similar deployments is disclosed. Receive diversity may be conditionally enabled when a VAMOS call is assigned to one of the SIMs of a mobile device. For example, receive diversity may be enabled when VAMOS data does not overlap with a time slot that is used by another subscription of the mobile device for receiving page messages. Also, receive diversity for a VAMOS call may be limited to situations where the VAMOS channel conditions are poor. Receive diversity may be enabled in cases where multiple subscriptions are assigned the same VAMOS channel, where VAMOS channel conditions have deteriorated, or where one of the subscriptions is not on a VAMOS channel. Also, receive diversity may be dynamically enabled for multiple subscriptions in cases where the subscriptions are assigned to different VAMOS channels.
US09198170B2
The present invention relates to a transmission diversity technique for channel selection. According to the present invention, even if a transmission device transmits a signal using channel selection through a plurality of antenna ports, the overhead of a resource for channel selection, which occurs in proportion to the number of antennas, is reduced. Additionally, as the number of antenna ports participating in signal transmission is increased, multiplex capacity is reduced. According to the present invention, the degree to which the multiplex capacity is reduced according to the increase in the number of antenna ports is decreased.
US09198166B2
A wireless communication system controls a transmission timing in each cell so that a control channel of a first cell and a data channel of a second cell temporally overlap each other. The wireless communication system includes a base station of the first cell. The base station of the first cell includes a first control unit and a first communicating unit. The first control unit notifies a base station of the second cell information used to specify a resource of the control channel of the first cell. The first control unit sets a resource of the control channel of the first cell. The first communicating unit notifies the mobile station of the first cell of information for decoding the first resource and transmits a control signal to the mobile station of the first cell by using the first resource.
US09198163B2
A system comprising a source node (11) and a relay node (15a, 15b 15c). The relay node senses a radio spectrum to provide first sensing data indicating the availability of a signal channel at the relay node. The source node senses the radio spectrum to provide second sensing data indicating the availability of the signal channel at the source node. The source node or relay node generates a channel availability parameter based on the first or second sensing data, respectively. The channel availability parameter comprises fewer bits of information than whichever of the first or second sensing data is used to generate the channel availability parameter. The source node determines whether to send message information to the relay node based on a sensing result obtained by combining the channel availability parameter with whichever one of the first and second sensing data is not used to generate the channel availability parameter.
US09198151B2
A wireless communication terminal (100) includes a TCP connection keep-alive timer, and a controller configured to optimize keep-alive timer operation by reducing the frequency with which the terminal transmits keep-alive messages. In one implementation, the controller re-sets the keep-alive timer, before expiration thereof, upon sending or receiving a message at the terminal during a TCP connection, wherein the terminal transmits a TCP connection keep-alive message only upon expiration of the keep-alive timer. The terminal may transmit a register request message indicating whether the terminal supports optimized keep-alive timer operation.
US09198143B2
Various methods and devices are provided to address the need for improved management of service-impacting events. In one method, network equipment determines (201) for a network node that a traffic overload situation is present or that a service-impacting event is imminent or has occurred to establish an operating condition. It then reduces (202) transmit power to a lower level when the operating condition has been established. The network equipment then determines (203) for the network node that the operating condition no longer applies because the traffic overload situation is no longer present or an event subsequent to the service-impacting event has occurred. It then restores (204) transmit power when this operating condition no longer applies.
US09198126B2
A method is provided that enhances the throughput of data broadcasts in a multi-beam satellite communication system by taking advantage of target users whose normal environment or equipment provide a better channel performance than that of the nominal environment or equipment for which the system is tuned, which enables a larger coverage area per beam than the nominal design supports. A system is provided that operates the method. A preferred embodiment is described using the Iridium Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) system as a basis.
US09198124B2
A method for performing a selection of a public land mobile network identity in a shared network environment, in which environment at least two public land mobile network identities are available for providing circuit switched based service to user equipment. The method includes at least a step of deter-mining a capability of the user equipment and a step of selecting the public land mobile network identity at least partly on the basis of the capability of the user equipment among the at least two public land mobile network identities. Information on the capability of the user equipment is either received from the user equipment or from a database including capability information on the user equipment. Furthermore, a network element and a system for implementing at least partly the method are described.
US09198118B2
A method includes, receiving a first set of media access control (MAC) addresses from one or more wireless communication detection devices of a network. The method also includes receiving a second set of MAC addresses from one or more wired devices of the network. The second set of MAC addresses corresponds to devices with wired connections to the network. The method further includes, determining that a wireless device having a first MAC address of the first set of media access control addresses is a potential rogue wireless device when a numeric value of the first MAC address and a numeric value of a second MAC address of the second set of MAC addresses differ by no more than a threshold amount and when a first location associated with a device that detects the first MAC address matches a second location associated with the second MAC address.
US09198109B2
A system for channel handover includes a mobile radio device and a server storing polygon operating area information for a plurality of overlapping polygon operating areas for wireless communication. The mobile radio device receives the polygon operating area information, and determines the device location. Based on the polygon operating area information, the mobile radio device selects a first channel of operation corresponding to a channel that is available for use within a first polygon operating area. The travel of the mobile radio device is tracked to determine when the mobile radio device has exited the first polygon operating area and entered a second polygon operating area. When this occurs, the device selects a second channel of operation corresponding to a channel that is available for use within the second polygon operating area. Alternatively, the channel selection may be determined by the server and transmitted to the mobile radio device.
US09198093B2
A method of facilitating identification of a user equipment (UE) is disclosed. A first network control node (NCN) receives an radio link failure (RLF) indication message including a first mobile identity indicator (MII) of a UE. The first NCN determines a second MII of the UE, the second MII being associated with the first MII, and a second NCN associated with the second MII. And the first NCN sends the second MII to the second NCN.
US09198087B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a base station handover method, which includes: detecting, by a base station controller, that a mobile terminal is handed over from a first base station with low configuration to a second base station with high configuration; and instructing, by the base station controller, the mobile terminal to switch a radio configuration mode between the mobile terminal and the second base station to a high-capacity radio configuration mode. The embodiments of the present invention further disclose a base station controller and a mobile terminal. By adopting the embodiments of the present invention, the capacity of a base station can be increased.
US09198086B2
In a mobile communication system, a relay station connects to a first or second base station, and communicates with a mobile station at a timing corresponding to the destination base station. Before execution of a handover for switching a destination of the relay station from the first base station to the second base station, the relay station transmits a signal regarding the second base station. The mobile station synchronizes with the relay station after execution of the handover, on the basis of the signal regarding the second base station which is received from the relay station before the handover.
US09198074B2
A wireless end-user device has a configurable wireless wide-area network (WWAN) modem capable of connection to both a home WWAN and a roaming WWAN. One or more processors classify whether an application is interacting with a user in a user interface foreground of the device. At a time when Internet service activities are communicated through the roaming WWAN, the processors use a differential traffic control policy list to determine whether or not to apply a differential traffic control policy to an application requesting Internet service access. When the policy is applicable, and the application is not classified as interacting with a user in the device user interface foreground, the Internet service access request is blocked.
US09198068B1
A method and apparatus of a terminal and a base station in a mobile communication system are provided. The method for measurement by the terminal includes receiving, from a base station, measurement information including a measurement interval for a deactivated cell, determining a measurement period using the measurement interval, and measuring a signal of the deactivated cell. The measurement period is equal to a value acquired by multiplying the measurement interval by a predefined value greater than 1.
US09198064B2
Methods, systems, and computer readable media for simulating channel conditions are disclosed. According to one method, the method includes storing a plurality of system level metrics associated with various channel conditions. The method also includes receiving data from a device under test (DUT). The method further includes for each of a plurality of user devices or simulated user devices during a test period: identifying, using information about the received data and a precomputed channel type configuration, a first system level metric from the plurality of system level metrics, and providing the first system level metric to the DUT.
US09198061B2
An industrial process control system including a process control device, a first wireless communication network, a second wireless communication network and a first group of wireless field devices interfacing the industrial process and being associated with the first network. The network supervisor device investigates if the field devices of the first group are able to communicate with the process control device via the first network while meeting a communication restriction requirement, and redirects, in case the requirement is not met, communication between some of the field devices in the first group and the process control device to the second network so that the requirement is met for a first part of the field devices using the first wireless communication network and for a second part of the field devices using the second wireless communication network.
US09198057B2
Provided is a wireless communication device including a receiving unit for receiving information based on measurement of radio conditions transmitted from a base station in association with identification information; and a control unit for controlling communication by using the information received by the receiving unit when the wireless communication device corresponds to the identification information received by the receiving unit.
US09198045B1
A method of maintaining a lock state of a mobile communication device is disclosed. The method comprises a provisioning server receiving a request to unlock a mobile communication device. The method further comprises, in response to the request, the provisioning server provisioning the mobile communication device with a payload. The payload comprises unlock instructions to be executed, and a list of pre-approved telecommunications service providers. The payload further comprises instructions that lock the device if the mobile communication device attempts to activate or connect to a service provider that is not identified in the list of pre-approved service providers. The payload further comprises instructions to block attempts by applications installed on the mobile communication device to connect to a domestic network while the mobile communication device is communicatively coupled to a foreign network.
US09198035B2
An integrated circuit radio transceiver and associated method comprises a multi-mode device operable to support personal area network communications as well as traditional wireless local area network communications. In one embodiment, IEEE 802.11 protocol IBSS communications are used to transport Bluetooth communication data packets. In another embodiment, a direct link comprising direct packet transfers without beaconing is performed between the multi-mode device and another multi-mode device. Thus, the multi-mode device is operable to establish traditional BSS communications with an Access Point in addition to establishing peer-to-peer communications with another multi-mode device to transport the Bluetooth communications over the 802.11 IBSS communication link or over an IEEE 802.11 direct communication link.
US09198032B2
A method and system are proposed for establishing a requested connection between a source node and a destination node in a telecommunications network. The system and method are described in relation to a 3GPP network, but are applicable to other types of networks. The method includes generating a source application identifier for the connection within the source node, retrieving a source node identifier for the source node and transmitting the source application identifier and the source node identifier to the destination to provide a source connection identifier for the requested connection between the source node and the destination node.
US09198028B2
A communication system, a mobile communication apparatus and a switching method of subscriber identification information are disclosed. The switching method includes following steps. First subscriber identification information of a first subscriber identification card is stored into a home location register (HLR) of a mobile telecom network by a first mobile communication device. A request instruction is sent by a second mobile communication device. The request instruction is verified by the mobile telecom network. If the request instruction passes the verification, the first subscriber identification information is duplicated and transmitted to the second mobile communication device.
US09198026B2
An apparatus with a memory and computer program code configured, with a processor, to start an application; to read a file from a first subscriber module and to determine if there is an active subscriber module lock of the first subscriber module; in response to determining that there is an active subscriber module lock of the first subscriber module executing the application; otherwise if it is determined that there is not an active subscriber module lock of the first subscriber module, to determine if there is an active subscriber module lock of a second subscriber module and continuing until an active subscriber module lock of another subscriber module is determined, and then executing the application using that subscriber module having the active subscriber module lock, otherwise terminating the method without executing the application if no active subscriber module lock of any other subscriber module is determined to be present.
US09198023B2
Disclosed are methods and apparatuses for initially configuring a wireless device using a wireless gateway in an Internet environment. A method of initially configuring a wireless device using a wireless gateway in an Internet environment may include receiving pairing information by a smart device from the wireless gateway, and completing pairing with a target device, the pairing information including information on the target device emitting a pairing signal to the wireless gateway.
US09198013B2
One or more devices may receive information that identifies a format of an identifier of a network device. The format of the identifier may indicate a portion of the identifier that identifies a type of the network device. The one or more devices may receive the identifier of the network device based on a user device connecting with the network device to communicate via the network device; determine the type of the network device connected to the user device based on the portion of the identifier and a format of the identifier that identifies the type of network device; and execute a processing instruction based on the type of network device connected to the user device.
US09197999B2
Providing location information on a mobile device includes receiving signals from external devices. Each signal includes information that specifies a geographic location for the external device that has provided the signal. A geographic location for the mobile device is calculated by using the information contained in each of the received signals. A representation of the geographic location of the mobile device is generated. The representation of the geographic location is included within an electronic message that provides information describing a user of the mobile device to other users of an electronic communications system. The electronic message is transmitted to another device to provide an indication of the geographic location for the user to one of the other users of the electronic communications system.
US09197997B2
Provided are a method for performing a position update in machine to machine (M2M) communication, and an apparatus using the method. In an idle mode, an M2M apparatus receives a paging message from a base station. The paging message comprises an action code, a network access type, and a resource offset. The action code is an indication for the M2M apparatus to perform a position update; the network access type is an indication for the allocation of resources for a ranging request; and the resource offset is an indication for an offset for uplink allocation. The M2M apparatus transmits the ranging request message to the base station by means of the uplink allocation.
US09197981B2
A computer-implemented method is proposed for coordinating communication amongst wireless communication devices in a wireless network. The coordination scheme creates a side channel between heterogeneous wireless devices to enhance their cooperation. At the transmitter, the coordination scheme appends a customized preamble to a data payload, where the preamble is comprised of a sequence of energy pulses separated by a gap and the duration of the gap encodes coordination data for the receive device. At the receiver, the coordination scheme detects the preamble of the data packet; extracts the coordination data from the preamble of the data packet; and coordinates communication between the transmit device and the receive device using the coordination data.
US09197967B2
A microphone includes two backplates. A membrane is located between the two backplates. A voltage source applies a first bias voltage to the membrane and the first backplate and applies a second bias voltage to the membrane and the second backplate. A control unit adjusts the first and the second bias voltage. A method to center the membrane in a final electro-mechanic equilibrium position between the two backplates in a microphone is also disclosed.
US09197965B2
The invention provides a planar-magnetic transducer with a frame and a primary magnet row structure of elongated magnets adjacent and air gapped from a first surface side of a mobile portion of a thin film or thin structure diaphragm with conductive traces incorporated with the diaphragm. An additional pair of magnetic sources attached to the frame outside of the vibratable region of the diaphragm and mounted above the plane of the opposite, second surface side of the diaphragm to enhance magnetic energy near the second surface side of the film diaphragm, without any magnet rows attached directly in front of the second surface side of the vibratable region of the diaphragm between the additional pair of magnetic sources. The additional magnetic sources can increase the drive force to the outer portions of the vibratable diaphragm, or across the diaphragm, to provide more control near the termination edge of the diaphragm and to create a more planar displacement of the diaphragm and increase transducer efficiency.
US09197963B1
A sound system processor for converting left and right channel signals from an audio source into composite left and right signals and employing at least one low and high pass filters, a plurality of sum processors, and at least one difference processor so as to create at least two or more composite signals for delivery to speaker drivers to generate a broad sound field from a compact multi-speaker sound system source.
US09197958B2
A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to facilitate the listener's configuration of a filter for audio signals to be output by a headphone. In the context of a method, an indication of a size of a headphone is received, such as an indication of a large size including circum-aural and supra-aural headphones or an indication of a small size including intra-concha and in-ear headphones. The method also includes receiving an indication of a gain for a respective frequency band, such as an indication of a balance between high and low frequencies. The method also determines, with a processor, a filter dependent upon the size of the headphone and the gain for the respective frequency band. The method also filters audio signals utilizing the determined filter.
US09197955B2
There is provided a microphone unit having a plurality of miniature microphones for respectively recording audio signals and a carrier unit. The miniature microphones can be arranged on a side of the carrier unit.
US09197952B2
A protective speaker cover includes a main body and a securing mechanism for releasably securing the protective cover to an audio speaker grille. The main body includes a faceplate having sidewalls extending from an outer perimeter edge of the faceplate and being sized to cover the speaker grille surrounding the audio speaker. In one embodiment, the securing mechanism is a plurality of aligned clips extending from the inner facing side of the faceplate and having protrusions at a distal end being sized for snap-lock engagement within the open grooves of the speaker grille. In another embodiment, the inner facing surface of the sidewalls includes at least one spring-loaded member for securing the main body against the outer facing wall of the speaker grille. In another embodiment of the securing mechanism, the inner facing surface of the sidewalls includes a rubberized gasket for frictionally engaged receipt of the speaker grille.
US09197949B2
An appliance network connectivity apparatus includes a voltage sensor that generates a signal at an output that is proportional to a voltage provided to the appliance. A current sensor generates a signal at an output that is proportional to a current flowing through the appliance. A processor determines the electrical characteristics of power consumed by the appliance and executes web server software for communicating data through a network. A relay controls power from the power source to the appliance. A memory stores the electrical characteristics. A network interface provides the electrical characteristics to the network.
US09197940B2
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, an Internet Protocol Television system having a controller to create a template defining a format of presentation of an webpage or HTML page using an iTV or IPTV application system, receive a request for the page from a subscriber of the iTV or IPTV system. The system can access application system subscriber data for the subscriber and a presentation of the page is dynamically adapted according to the application system subscriber data. In one alternative at, the page can be dynamically adapted by changing in content or by changing a look and feel of an HTML page or webpage. In another alternative, the webpage or HTML page can be dynamically adapted by modifying graphic user interface elements based on the application system subscriber data. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09197936B2
Systems and methods for providing remote access to interactive media guidance applications are provided. In particular, the systems and methods for providing remote access to interactive media guidance applications provided herein generally relate to enhancing remote access capabilities by providing algorithms and techniques for managing and correcting disparities that may be found between program listings data used by the interactive media guidance application and the remote access server.
US09197930B2
Methods and apparatus to detect spillover in an audience monitoring system are disclosed. An example method includes sampling a first audio signal from a first source received by a first microphone; sampling a second audio signal received by a second microphone from the first source, wherein the second microphone is separated from the first microphone by a first distance; calculating an origin direction of the first source based on a time difference between receipt of the first and second audio signals; when the origin direction is within a threshold angle, retaining the media associated with the first source; and when the origin direction exceeds the threshold angle, ignoring the media associated with the first source.
US09197928B2
Techniques are disclosed herein that provide a TV receiver that supports a set of existing iTV standards and proprietary iTV implementations. Further, the TV receiver can be extended to support additional iTV standards and proprietary iTV implementations. A digital television data stream is received and processed by a client. The digital television data stream is analyzed to determine which interactive television format is present. A registry of interactive television virtual machines is searched to determine whether a virtual machine is registered for the interactive television format. Each of the interactive television virtual machines is adapted for one of the interactive television formats. If a virtual machine that matches the interactive television format is found, it is loaded and hosted. Hosting the virtual includes providing services to the virtual machine through common application programming interfaces (APIs) machine includes. The common APIs may be used by any virtual machine that is loaded.
US09197918B2
Methods and systems for producing ambient light effects based on video content are provided. A method of producing an ambient light effect includes providing a receiving device including a processor configured to parse incoming video content and receiving the video content including a plurality of scenes at the receiving device. The method further includes parsing the incoming video content and detecting at least one scene in the video content for association with at least one ambient light effect. The method also includes generating a command specifying at least one ambient light effect to be associated with at least one scene and sending the command from the receiving device to at least one lighting device in communication with the receiving device to generate at least one ambient light effect associated with at least one scene when the scene is displayed to a user.
US09197913B2
Provided are systems and methods for improving a viewing experience of a user during consumption of streamed content. In one implementation, the systems and methods relate to a model of polling a live streaming event by a management server of a service provider server and using that model to feed into future polling. The polling response returns up-to-date information about an event to be viewed. The system and method model the polling frequency and enter the same in an algorithm such as a supervised machine learning algorithm. This algorithm is presented as a mathematical formula and provides an input to the polling system to determine when to poll and how frequently to poll.
US09197905B2
A video system includes a first video device. The first video device includes a video output port and an arbitrary data scrambler. The first video device transmits a video stream through the video output port. The video output port is configured to insert video timing reference values into the video stream. The arbitrary data scrambler is configured to scramble non-video data for transmission in the video stream such that unscrambled non-video data containing video timing reference values is transformed, without information loss, to scrambled non-video data containing no video timing reference values.
US09197904B2
A distributed image/video processing system is disclosed herein wherein one or more of digital image/video recorders (e.g., a digital cameras, video recorders, or smart phones, etc.) are in network communication with central network site for transmitting image or video data thereto. The recorders process their image/video data dependent upon an estimate of a measurement of network bandwidth that is available for transmitting image or video data to the central network site.
US09197898B1
A method for signaling sample adaptive offset (SAO) band offset syntax elements in a video encoder is provided that includes receiving a plurality of band offset syntax elements, entropy encoding an absolute value of a magnitude of each band offset syntax element in a compressed video bit stream, and entropy encoding a sign of each non-zero band offset syntax element in the compressed video bit stream following the absolute values of the magnitudes.
US09197897B2
Provided is a moving picture coding apparatus for increasing a compression ratio of a moving picture signal while maintaining high image quality. To minimize the number of bits required for a residual block, quantized transform coefficients are adaptively divided into a plurality of subsets according to a size of a transform block, and non-zero quantized transform coefficients of each subset are scanned and encoded. Also, an intra prediction mode of the current block is determined using reference pixels obtained by filtering reference pixels of the current block. Accordingly, it is possible to minimize the amount of data required for the residual block of the current block.
US09197892B2
A system (and a method) are disclosed for intelligently fetch one or multiple reference blocks from memory for each block to be motion compensated or motion estimated within a video processing system. The system includes a reference block configuration evaluation unit and a motion compensation memory fetching unit. The reference block configuration evaluation unit analyzes the reference block configuration of the block being motion compensated with a plurality of reference block configurations of its neighboring blocks. In response to a reference block configuration evaluation result, the reference block configuration evaluation unit decides the configuration of reference blocks to be fetched from a memory. The motion vector memory fetching unit fetches the number of reference blocks for motion compensation accordingly.
US09197889B2
A video transmitter comprising a plurality of encoders may be operable to determine, for a transport stream, a constant overall number of bits per time interval corresponding to a frame in the transport stream. For each time interval corresponding to a start and an end of encoding of each of frames using each of the encoders, the video transmitter may allocate a target number of bits to each of the frames to achieve the constant overall number of bits. The allocation of the target number of bits may be based on frame types of the frames and CODEC types of the encoders, where the allocated target number of bits for each of the frames meets buffer overflow/underflow requirements associated with each of the encoders. A quantization parameter (QP) may be calculated and adjusted at each of one or more layers for generating an actual number of bits during encoding.
US09197886B2
A method implemented in a computer system for detecting performance degradation in a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) cable plant having customer premises equipment (CPE) elements, active elements, and passive elements. The method collects radio frequency (RF) metric values, computes absolute deviation values of the RF metric values from reference RF metric values, computes relative hierarchical deviation values of the RF metric values, and computes relative peer deviation values of the RF metric values. The method sends an alarm message to an operator when the absolute deviation value, relative hierarchical deviation value, or relative peer deviation value for any element exceeds a threshold value.
US09197862B2
A position and a posture of a virtual face is searched so that a total cost E of a first cost E1 and a second cost E2 is approximated to a smallest value or a minimum value. A first cost E1(e1) corresponds to a sum of elastic energy with a first deviation e1(s) as a deformation amount, of a virtual spring group having a value of a first coefficient function w1(e1(s)) in a target region of a standard image as a spring coefficient. A second cost E2(e1, e2) corresponds to a sum of elastic energy with a second deviation e2 as a deformation amount, of a virtual spring group having a value of a second coefficient function w2(e2(s) of each pixel s included in the target region of the standard image as a spring coefficient.
US09197861B2
Video analytics is used to track an object of interest represented in video data representing the field of view of a scene observed by a video camera. A multi-dimensional virtual beam is used to detect whether the tracked object of interest is continually present in a detection zone within the field view of the scene. An occurrence of an event is signaled when the tracked object of interest is continually present in the detection zone during a period beginning when the tracked object of interest enters the detection zone and ending when the tracked object of interest leaves the detection zone through the opposite side, after having completely crossed through the detection zone. Use of a virtual beam detection zone reduces false alarms as compared to the numbers of incidences of false alarms of traditional detection methods, while adding several features and benefits.
US09197859B2
A device (101) for determining the presence, absence, concentration, or count of rare cell or cell-like objects in a turbid fluid consisting of a light source (103) for illuminating a chamber (123) containing a solution including complexes of suspended cells or cell-like moieties (261) and an optically-active agent, and further including an imaging detector (145) and an output (147) for providing a determined or displayed result. Methods of enumeration are also disclosed.
US09197852B2
A system and method for integrating a personal computer based presentation with a videoconferencing system. A coupling device includes a card, insertable into a PCMCIA slot of a laptop computer or like machine, which includes a cable coupled to the card at a first end and to a connector coupled at a second end. The card includes firmware for loading into RAM of the computer and software operable to execute code.
US09197851B2
A videotelephony image modulation apparatus and method detects an event having a possibility of information leakage by analyzing an image and provides a secured calling mode of masking all or a part of the image and transmitting a masked image obtained through the masking.
US09197850B2
A display apparatus for a computer system has a webcam integrated in the display apparatus, a first housing portion having a recording opening for the webcam and an opaque second housing portion movably connected to the first housing portion, wherein the second housing portion covers the recording opening in a first position and exposes the recording opening in a second position.
US09197841B2
A method includes identifying a scheduled video program recording conflict between video programs. The video programs are scheduled to be recorded at a same time. The method also includes determining whether there is at least one alternative recording opportunity for one of the video programs. The method includes determining a conflict status of a video program slot based on whether there is at least one alternative recording opportunity for the one of the video programs. The conflict status provides information applicable to determining a resolution of digital video recorder (DVR) scheduling for the video programs. The conflict status identifiers are provided to video program slots based on the conflict status of the video program slots. The method includes providing an option to manually resolve the scheduled video program recording conflict based on the conflict status identifiers, and resolving the scheduled video program recording conflict based on manual input.
US09197836B2
Techniques involving anonymous content promotion are described. In an implementation, content, which may include one or more advertisements embedded by a content provider, is promoted to clients who anonymously indicate behaviors. A client may generate behavior data matching behaviors of the client to unique codes. The client communicates the behavior data having the matched behaviors/unique codes anonymously to a network operator. A network operator collects behavior data from multiple clients. The network operator associates unique codes corresponding to a behavior to content to promote the content to clients who anonymously indicate the behavior through the unique codes in the behavior data. The network operator may output a promotion having the associated unique codes to multiple clients to enable each client to identify its own unique codes and obtain corresponding content recommendations and/or content.
US09197833B2
A photoelectric conversion apparatus includes plural pixel arrays arranged side-by-side in a first direction, each of the plurality of pixel arrays including a plurality of pixels that perform photoelectric conversion. A pulse controlling unit supplies control pulses to the pixel arrays of each color, according to color offset quantities formed in the first direction.
US09197826B2
Charges accumulated in pixels contained in one or a plurality of readout object rows that form a partial region of a photodetecting region are selectively read out in each of the L times (L is an integer not less than 2) of imaging frames, and in each of the L times of imaging frames, resetting of charges accumulated in pixels contained in only a part of non-readout object rows is performed, as well as, resetting is performed at least once in a period of the L times of imaging frames for each of the two or more non-readout object rows. Accordingly, a control method for a solid-state imaging element capable of reducing the time required per one imaging frame and reducing load on the peripheral circuit when selectively reading out charges accumulated in pixels in a partial region of the photodetecting region is realized.
US09197821B2
Systems and methods for transmitting and receiving image data captured by an imager array including a plurality of focal planes are described. One embodiment of the invention includes capturing image data using a plurality of active focal planes in a camera module, where an image is formed on each active focal plane by a separate lens stack, generating lines of image data by interleaving the image data captured by the plurality of active focal planes, and transmitting the lines of image data and the additional data.
US09197806B2
An Internet direct device comprises an imaging system to capture at least one of audio, still images and video images, and a microprocessor. The microprocessor transmits at least one of the captured audio, the captured still images and the captured video images to a website archive and review center and/or another Internet direct device upon image capture over a communications network. The Internet direct device automatically connects to the communications network on power-up using one of a plurality of available modes of connection, which is designated as a primary mode of connection. The Internet direct device automatically switches to another available mode of connection when the communications network is unavailable.
US09197802B2
There is provided a camera module including: a lens barrel including at least one lens disposed on an optical axis; a housing having the lens barrel disposed therein; and first and second elastic members elastically supporting upper and lower portions of the lens barrel, respectively, wherein the first and second elastic members include a fixed side coupled to the housing and a driving side coupled to the lens barrel, respectively, the fixed side and the driving side being disposed to face each other based on the optical axis.
US09197799B2
Light field imaging systems, and in particular light field lenses that can be mated with a variety of conventional cameras (e.g., digital or photographic/film, image and video/movie cameras) to create light field imaging systems. Light field data collected by these light field imaging systems can then be used to produce 2D images, right eye/left eye 3D images, to refocus foreground images and/or background images together or separately (depth of field adjustments), and to move the camera angle, as well as to render and manipulate images using a computer graphics rendering engine and compositing tools.
US09197798B2
Methods and apparatus for capturing and rendering high-quality photographs using relatively small, thin plenoptic cameras. Plenoptic camera technology, in particular focused plenoptic camera technology including but not limited to super-resolution techniques, and other technologies such as microsphere technology may be leveraged to provide thin form factor, megapixel resolution cameras suitable for use in mobile devices and other applications. In addition, at least some embodiments of these cameras may also capture radiance, allowing the imaging capabilities provided by plenoptic camera technology to be realized through appropriate rendering techniques.
US09197789B2
A method of removing fog from the images/videos independent of the density or amount of the fog and free of user intervention and a system for carrying out such method of fog removal from images/videos are disclosed. The removal of fog from images and video involve airlight estimation and airlight map refinement based restoration of foggy images and videos. Advantageously, removal of fog from images and videos of this invention would require less execution time and yet achieve high perceptual image quality with reduced noise and enhanced contrast. The proposed method is adapted for RGB Color model and advantageously also for HSI color model involving reduced computational requirements and be user friendly and supposed to have wide application and use.
US09197781B2
A processor performs acquiring counterpart information corresponding to destination of transmission data; acquiring a re-execution command for controlling a reader to repeatedly perform reading of an original document; acquiring a transmission command for transmitting the transmission data; in response to acquisition of the transmission command, controlling a communicator to transmit the transmission data in accordance with the counterpart information; in response to not to acquire the transmission command, storing the transmission data in a storage unit; and acquiring an addition execution command for performing reading of an original document of a data portion that is added to the stored transmission data. In response to acquisition of the transmission command after the addition execution command is acquired, the communicator is controlled to transmit new transmission data in accordance with the counterpart information. The new transmission data is acquired by adding the data portion to the stored transmission data.
US09197779B2
An image forming apparatus includes a function performance information storage section, a function performance information receiving section, and a function selection section. The function performance information storage section stores function performance information of the image forming apparatus. The function performance information receiving section receives the function performance information of the mobile terminal. The function selection section compares the function performance information of the image forming apparatus with the function performance information of the mobile terminal to select the function for which the performance of the image forming apparatus is determined to be superior. The image forming apparatus transmits the information representing the function which is not selected by the function selection section to the mobile terminal, and performs the processing of the function selected by the function selection section.
US09197778B2
When a printing apparatus including a wireless communication unit receives a print job, a power saving mode of the wireless communication unit becomes temporarily disabled. When reception of the print job is completed, the power saving mode returns to an enabled state.
US09197775B2
An image reading device includes: a placement stage on which document sheets bearing respective images are placed; a pair of guide members that hold the document sheets placed on the placement stage between them and guide a document sheet when it is conveyed, at least one of the pair of guide members being movable in a width direction that is perpendicular to a conveying direction of the document sheets placed on the placement stage; an interval-between-guide-members detecting unit that detects an interval between the pair of guide members; a document sheet conveying unit that conveys the document sheets placed on the placement stage sequentially one by one and thereby causes the document sheets to pass a reading position; a document reading unit as defined herein; a first inclination correction unit as defined herein; and a correction mode switching control unit as defined herein.
US09197770B2
A method and apparatus for performing an image forming job by maintaining a cover, which covers a scan area and has adjustable transparency, in a transparent state until a job for acquiring image data of a scan object starts in an image forming apparatus. If the job for acquiring the image data of the scan object positioned in the scan area starts, the image forming apparatus converts the cover into an opaque state and acquires the image data of the scan object. If the job for acquiring the image data of the scan object is ended, the image forming apparatus reconverts the cover into a transparent state. Therefore, efficiency of a job for acquiring image data of a scan object is improved.
US09197765B2
A management apparatus includes a reception unit configured to receive file information about a file input into a folder, a transmission unit configured to generate print job information including the file information and transmit the print job information to an image forming apparatus that is associated with the folder in advance, a job monitoring unit configured to monitor whether printing of a job corresponding to the file information included in the print job information by the image forming apparatus has finished based on printing progress information received from the image forming apparatus, and a folder management unit configured to, if printing of the job is determined by the job monitoring unit to have finished, delete the file information corresponding to the job from the folder.
US09197754B2
Methods and systems are described for allowing a calling party to provide a provisional message for a called party. In one aspect, when the calling party places a call to the called party and does not receive an answer, the calling party may choose to have the provisional message delivered.
US09197750B2
A system for assuring agent connection for outbound calls placed in an automated outbound calling campaign includes an outbound dialing server, a digital data repository coupled to the outbound dialing server, the data repository storing outbound dialing records for automated outbound dialing, and software executing on the outbound dialing server from a non-transitory physical medium, the software providing a first function for determining for a specific outbound dialing record if the connection to a live agent must be an assured connection, a second function for dialing and engaging an agent via an internal call for reservation of the agent, and a third function for bridging the call connections forged between the system and the agent and the system and the outbound party upon answer of the outbound call.
US09197743B2
Provided are a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway device, a control method thereof, and a VoIP gateway system. The VoIP gateway device includes: a connector which is connected to a first terminal; a communication unit which communicates with a proxy server that relays a VoIP communication; a storage unit which stores a ringtone corresponding to a call received by a call back function; and a controller which transmits an invite message to the proxy server for connecting a call from a first terminal to a second terminal corresponding to the call back function upon request from the first terminal for the call back function, and transmits the stored ringtone to the first terminal upon receiving a ringing message from the proxy server in response to the invite message.
US09197730B2
A mobile terminal and controlling method thereof are disclosed, which facilitates display screen space of mobile terminal to be flexibly utilized in consideration of user's convenience and necessity. The present invention includes displaying 1st screen on 1st region within touchscreen, if 1st gesture is detected, forming 2nd region within the touchscreen, displaying at least one portion of the 1st screen of the 1st region at a timing point of detecting the 1st gesture as 2nd screen, when touch input to the 1st region is detected or the 2nd region is formed, changing the 1st screen of the 1st region into 3rd screen automatically, if 2nd gesture is detected, generating merged screen including at least one portion of the 3rd screen of the 1st region and at least one portion of the 2nd screen of the 2nd region, and displaying the merged screen on 3rd region.
US09197720B2
Method, system, and programs for determining a point of execution for applications that are interoperable across different device platforms is disclosed. An application capable of being executed in a plurality of different device formats is deployed to a client device. The application is hosted for execution at a server. A dynamic determination is made regarding whether a request to the application should be executed by the client device or the server.
US09197713B2
A computer-implemented method and system for pre-fetching remote resource data from a remote mapping system for display on a client computing device is disclosed. Data received at a client device from an online mapping system in response to a query from the client device includes vector and remote resource data. Vector data is rasterized by the client device to depict graphical elements that are easily described by mathematical formulas. Remote resource data includes digital map elements that are not easily described by vectors, but instead, must be relayed to the client device as either bitmaps or references (e.g., URLs) to remote resources that are resolved at the backend or the client device. This remote resource data is prefetched to a client device so that it will be available for subsequent mapping application searches without resolving a corresponding reference to the remote resource data for each search.
US09197708B2
The present invention relates to a UDDI server and method in a UDDI server for mediating Web services provided by a number of service providers to a number of service requesters. The UDDI server according to the present invention is adapted to provide support for taking dynamic quality of service into account in the mediation of Web services. The UDDI server comprises a Web service register which includes data sets for storing QoS status information. The QoS status information is information on the current QoS that an associated Web service can offer to a service requester. The QoS status information stored in the data sets is updated periodically based on dynamic service status information received from the service providers. The UDDI server may optionally include a decision making function for selecting a Web service that satisfy a set of QoS requirements of a service requester.
US09197703B2
An MDS (metadata server) in a distributed storage system includes data servers (DSs) storing file contents and one or more MDSs performing metadata operations in response to metadata requests of different types, the MDS including a controller having a processor and a memory, the MDS storing file system metadata. The controller is configured to: classify the metadata operations into different categories, which include a normal category and one or more special categories different from the normal category, the normal category having a primary stage which does not involve communication between the MDS and a component external to the MDS; for each special category, partition each metadata operation into a plurality of stages at least one of which involves communication between the MDS and a component external to the MDS; and dynamically assign resources to each of the partitioned stage based on monitored workloads of the different types of metadata requests.
US09197688B2
Timestamps for streams of media that transition from one media source to another (such as from live content to on-demand content, and vice versa) can be rewritten by a server to help ensure error-free streaming by the client. Embodiments can coordinate the creation of a client manifest with the dynamic creation of a requested segment of media (i.e., “chunk”) to determine how to rewrite timestamps of requested chunks such that they are continuous through the transition.
US09197680B2
Methods, systems, and devices are described for using a back channel for communicating in a Wi-Fi peer-to-peer remote display connection. A Wi-Fi peer-to-peer remote display connection may be established with a source device. Communications may be transmitted from a sink device to the source device using a back channel of the Wi-Fi peer-to-peer remote display connection. The sink device may connect with a plurality of source devices. A plurality of input streams may be multiplexed into a single output stream. The single output stream may be distributed to the plurality of source devices using back channels of the Wi-Fi peer-to-peer remote display connection. In addition, a source device may connect, via a wired connection, with a sink device. Wi-Fi connection parameters may be exchanged with the wired connection. A Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connection may be established based at least in part on the Wi-Fi connection parameters.
US09197675B2
Transferring data over a network includes identifying an application flow and mapping the application flow to a network bound connection.
US09197672B2
A method and system for selective application of device policies are described herein. The method can include the step of receiving one or more policies from a messaging server in which the policies are intended to be indiscriminately applied to a computing device. Out of the received policies, one or more container policies that are to be applied to a container of the computing device can be identified. The identified container policies can be applied to the container such that the identified container policies may be prevented from being indiscriminately applied to the computing device.
US09197668B2
The present invention is a security tool for protection of data on a mobile computing device. The security tool provides a plurality of security policies to be enforced based on source information for the data and a location associated with a network environment in which a mobile device is operating. The security tool may be either located at the mobile computing device or at the server. The security tool includes a file access module for determining whether files are visible or accessible. The file access module comprises a tag generator, an association module, and a policy enforcement module. The tag generator creates source information for the file being accessed and the policy enforcement module determines what actions, if any, can be performed on the file and under what conditions such as location and network environment, type of file and other factors.
US09197667B2
IP reflection comprising double static NAT (network address translation) is disclosed. In some embodiments, a packet having a public IP address is received at a protecting network. The public IP address of the packet is translated to a corresponding protected IP address associated with a protected network, and the packet is forwarded to the protected network for servicing. The protected IP address of a response to the packet from the protected network is translated back to the public IP address at the protected network before sending.
US09197666B2
An approach for mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks includes assigning a set of temporary network addresses to a hostname for a finite period and assigning one or more other sets of temporary network addresses to the hostname in one or more following finite periods, responding to a hostname lookup request based on the set of temporary network addresses, the one or more other sets of temporary network addresses, or a combination thereof that are active, responding to a network address lookup request based on at least one of the set of temporary network addresses and the one or more other sets of temporary network addresses that is associated with a current one of the finite period or the one or more following finite periods, and retiring the set of temporary network addresses, the one or more sets of temporary network addresses, or a combination thereof after a configurable number of finite periods, wherein no further network address or hostname lookup request is served based on the retired set of temporary network addresses, the retired one or more sets of temporary network addresses, or a combination thereof.
US09197664B1
Systems and methods for malware containment on connection is provided. In exemplary embodiments, digital devices are quarantined for a predetermined period of time upon connection to the communication network. When a digital device is quarantined, all network data transmitted by the digital device is temporarily directed to a controller which then analyzes the network data to identify unauthorized activity and/or malware within the newly connected digital device. An exemplary method to contain malware comprises detecting a digital device upon connection with a communication network, temporarily redirecting network data from the digital device, and analyzing the network data to identify malware within the digital device.
US09197659B2
The present disclosure provides a computer-readable medium, method and system for determining security vulnerabilities for a plurality of application programs used to provide television services to a customer device over a communications network. The method includes running a first scanning program against a first application program relating to a control panel for the customer device; running a second scanning program against a second application program that provides Internet content to the customer device; running a third scanning program against a third application program that relates to a component management system of customer premises equipment; and correlating security vulnerabilities identified utilizing the first, second, and third scanning programs.
US09197658B2
Methods of detecting anomalous behaviors associated with a fabric are presented. A network fabric can comprise many fungible networking nodes, preferably hybrid-fabric apparatus capable of routing general purpose packet data and executing distributed applications. A nominal behavior can be established for the fabric and represented by a baseline vector of behavior metrics. Anomaly detection criteria can be derived as a function of a variation from the baseline vector based on measured vectors of behavior metrics. Nodes in the fabric can provide a status for one or more anomaly criterion, which can be aggregated to determine if an anomalous behavior has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur.
US09197656B2
Preventing execution of viruses or malware on a computing device includes compiling an inventory recordation of legitimate applications and terminating execution of any application not on the inventory recordation while in a protected mode. An instantaneous and unprompted inventory recordation known as a “snapshot” can be performed by the computer program. A user may further train the computer program to identify legitimate applications routinely accessed by the user and to be updated to the inventory recordation, such that the inventory recordation is personal to the user. After training, the protected mode can be activated. A smart icon graphical user interface is utilized, that automatically toggles between locked and unlocked depending on if the computing device is at risk or not, to place the computing device in a protected or unprotected mode.
US09197645B2
Methods and systems described herein may provide for the updating, maintenance, and/or transference of a CSG White List that is stored on a user equipment. The CSG White List may be implemented to store information related to the access of CSG cells, such as, for example, femto cells. Additionally, methods and systems described herein may provide for the updating, maintenance, and/or transference of an access control database. The access control database may be stored in one or multiple devices in a communication system. The access control database may be implemented to store information regarding home nodes and which user equipment is allowed to access the femto cell or CSG cell provided by each home node.
US09197636B2
Devices, systems and methods are disclosed for determining an electromagnetic signature for authenticating a device, a user, and/or a location. In exemplary embodiments, a magnetometer captures an electromagnetic signature which is then compared with one or more authorized electromagnetic signatures. If the electromagnetic signature matches an authorized electromagnetic signature, then access is granted. The magnetometer is integrated into a communication device having a processor and a logic. The magnetometer captures an electromagnetic signature of a surrounding environment and detects motion of the communication device through the captured electromagnetic signature. The logic on the communication device locks or unlocks features of the device based upon the captured electromagnetic signature. In further embodiments of the subject disclosure, the magnetometer is in communication with a server which authenticates a user or communication device to provide access to a remote location.
US09197635B2
A system for verifying the presence and identity of a user on a remote computer having a server connected to a network, the network being connected to one or more remote computers. The system further includes a microcontroller connected to the remote computer by means such as USB, and registered with the server. The USB microcontroller is authenticated upon being inserted into a remote computer and is continuously authenticated thereafter until the user disconnects the USB microcontroller from the computer. When the proper authentication is satisfied, the system runs a secure web browser that is used to access websites that may have a user's confidential and sensitive data. Upon disconnecting the USB device, the secure web browser closes and none of the session data is stored locally on the computer.
US09197633B1
The present invention provides methods and apparatuses that utilize a portable apparatus to securely operate a host electronic device. Typically, each portable apparatus includes a data storage unit which stores an operating system and other software. In one example, a portable apparatus can provide a virtual operating environment on top of a host's operating system for a host device. In another example, a portable apparatus containing its operating system can directly boot a host device with one or more hardware profiles. Furthermore, a device-dependent protection against software piracy, a user-dependent protection against sensitive data leaks, a controllable host operating environment to prevent unwanted information exposure, and a secure restoration procedure to prevent virus infection between the host device users may be incorporated. Moreover, a pre-defined information may also be utilized to authorize a connected-state guest operation environment in the host device.
US09197632B2
The longstanding problems of user password management and security, and user authentication are addressed. Disclosed is a system and method for providing a means for a user to identify themselves with configurable levels of authentication in order to receive limited access or services while protecting user privacy. As a user inputs information related to their identity into an interface, the system searches an indexed database which may include both registered users and/or unregistered customers indexed from disparate data sources. The system presents the user matching results from the search in an obscured form from which the user selects and authenticates his or her identity. Unregistered users identified during the process may be automatically registered in certain embodiments, or no account may be needed in other embodiments.
US09197630B2
A certificate management system provides automated management of certificate lifecycles and certificate distribution. Rather than depend upon an administrator to manually distribute and manage certificates, the system self-generates certificates, distributes the certificates to appropriate servers or other parties, and transitions from old certificates to new certificates in a well-defined manner that avoids breaking functionality. After generating one or more certificates, the system securely shares certificates in a way that parties that use them can find the new certificates without an administrator manually distributing the certificates. When it is time to update certificates, the system generates new certificates and shares the new certificates in a similar way. During a transition period, the system provides a protocol by which both old and new certificates can be used to perform authenticated access to resources, so that the transition from an old to a new certificate does not break services.
US09197622B2
Techniques are disclosed herein for systematically tracking the entire forwarding flow of an electronic message, such as an email. A determination is made to track an electronic message prior to it being relayed to an intended recipient. When the electronic message is forwarded by the intended recipient, a feedback message is sent by the forwarder to the originator of the electronic message. This may be used to allow the original author to review and authorize recipients of the forwarded message. The original author need not know up front to whom the message might be forwarded. Note that this not only provides security, but also provides for fine grained system for tracking the flow of messages, such as sensitive emails. The system can automatically assess the risk of authorizing the recipient to whom the message was forwarded to have access to the content based on machine learning, rules, etc.
US09197619B2
A system and method for managing electronic devices based on user identity information is presented. An authenticating entity authenticates and provides secure user identity data and a first electronic device. The first electronic device includes memory that stores first secure user identity data provisioned to the first electronic device and a communication module that discovers a second electronic device and initiates a wireless connection with the discovered second electronic device, in which the second electronic device is provisioned with second secure user identity data, logic that has the first and second electronic devices exchange and validate their respective first and second secure user identity data, and a discovery list that stores attributes of the second electronic device. Upon determining that the first and second electronic devices are associated with the same user, the logic adds self-property to the stored attributes of the second electronic device.
US09197618B2
An approach is provided for determining a request from a user for an access to at least one user group. The at least one user group is associated with at least one reference location. Consequently, the point of interest platform determines location information associated with the user and/or the device associated with the user. Subsequently, the point of interest platform causes, at least in part, a granting of the access to the user group if the location information indicates that the user and/or the device associated with the user is within a predetermined proximity of the reference location.
US09197605B2
A method and system for controlling a recipient's access to a user's information. The method includes receiving a plurality of contact information, registration information and access information from the user. Only person's knowing the user's registration information can update the contact and access information of the user. The contact information entered by a user is about that user. The access information defines accessible sets of contact information to be made accessible to recipients. A telephone exchange is associated with each recipient; and a local server is associated with each telephone exchange. The accessible set of information is stored in the local server for access by the recipient. The system handles updates to information on the local servers when a user updates their contact information. The system can automatically place calls for a recipient to a user that has granted the recipient access to a number for communicating with the user.
US09197604B1
A network services platform provides services to remote enterprise networks. The services platform provides a control module to a computer in the enterprise network. The control module executes on the computer and interacts with the services platform to establish an Internet Protocol (IP) tunnel between the services platform and the computer. The control module also establishes a bridge between the IP tunnel and the enterprise network. The services platform allocates a unique private IP address space to the enterprise network, and translates IP addresses in network communications between enterprise network addresses and corresponding services platform addresses in the allocated unique private address space. The services platform provides network services to the enterprise network via the IP tunnel and bridge.
US09197592B2
A social network service system includes a server wherein a terminal of a member is connectable to the server. The server includes a memory configured to store a home screen includes top image data for each member, a selector configured to select a type of an image processing, and a processor configured to process, at a predetermined timing, the top image data of a member in accordance with the type of the image processing which is selected by the selector.
US09197580B2
Work assignment methods and systems are provided that dynamically redistribute a percent allocation of contacts after an outage at a contact center. In general, a work assignment mechanism, upon receiving information that a contact center is removed from a system of available contact centers, dynamically recalculates a percentage allocation of each available contact center in the system. Subsequently received contacts are distributed among the available contact centers in accordance with the recalculated percentage allocation. When a contact center is returned to the system from an outage, the percentage allocation of contacts can be incrementally increased to the returning contact center.
US09197578B2
A method may include receiving, in a first server from a second server, a request for a service of a network by a device; sending, from the first server to the second server, a response to the request for the service to permit access to the service; and sending state information about the response to a third server for storage in a database.
US09197571B2
A communication apparatus communicating with an external apparatus via a relaying device is provided. The communication apparatus includes a communication unit configured to perform communication with the relaying device, and a control unit configured to reduce a communication speed of the communication unit to a lower speed if the communication apparatus is to be shifted from a first power mode to a second power mode in which power consumption is lower than that in the first power mode. The communication unit, if the communication apparatus shifts to the second power mode, transmits identification information of the communication apparatus to the relaying device using a first method, and after a predetermined time has passed, transmits the identification information to the relaying device using a second method.
US09197570B2
A method is provided for managing congestion of traffic in a packet switch, which comprises the steps of: providing more than two different congestion levels at the switch for handling traffic associated with at least two different priorities, one being a low priority traffic and another being a high priority traffic; for each traffic flow having a specific destination and priority, determining a current congestion level that matches a congestion control level which is selected from among the more than two congestion control levels, and associating a different set of operations for handling each respective traffic flow, depending on its priority and its current congestion level, and for each traffic flow, performing operations that match the respective associated set of operations, and wherein a rate at which these operations are performed for each respective traffic flow increases when a higher congestion level occurs at that respective traffic flow.
US09197542B2
The present disclosure may include a method of reconfiguring a network. The method includes collecting a plurality of network demands, each of the plurality of network demands having a possible resource release by rerouting the network demand from its current path to a new path. The method further includes selecting a subset of the plurality of network demands that, if rerouted, has the highest resource release without resource contention. The method additionally includes rerouting the subset of the plurality of network demands, and, in response to rerouting the subset of the plurality of network demands, releasing resources no longer used by rerouted demands. The present disclosure may further include associated systems and apparatuses.
US09197532B2
To obtain a communication analysis apparatus and a communication analysis method that are allowed to analyze a communication message and a waveform signal in such a manner that the communication message and waveform signal are associated with each other. A communication analysis apparatus includes division organization information addition means for adding, to a plurality of division data obtained by dividing data into predetermined lengths, division organization information 300 including a division unit 3011 for defining the predetermined lengths and a division position 3013 that is information about the start position and end position of division data in the data.
US09197526B2
A mesh network (such as a mesh Ethernet network) is subdivided into rings. For each ring, a network utilization is assessed in both the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions around the ring. A user requests a particular network service. The network rings that would be utilized by the network service are determined. A maximum utilization of all the network rings utilized by the network service in both clockwise and counter-clockwise directions is determined. The determined maximum utilization is used to determine the feasibility of provisioning the requested network service.
US09197524B2
A network device and network device recognition method are provided. The method includes: receiving a Continuity Check Message (CCM) by a local Maintenance Association End Point (MEP); determining whether the CCM is transmitted from an unknown remote MEP; setting the unknown remote MEP to a dynamic MEP if the CCM is transmitted from the unknown remote MEP; and recording the dynamic MEP and the receiving count of the CCM corresponding to the dynamic MEP in a storage unit.
US09197518B2
Provided is a quality-deteriorated part analyzing system capable of analyzing a quality-deteriorated part in a network while increasing the degree of freedom of precision (coverage ratio, sectioning divisions, etc.) independently of the number and installation locations of devices transmitting and receiving flows. Path calculation means 71 determines paths, each passing through one or more directed links between nodes in the network and being regarded as a target of communication quality measurement, and generates a path table which indicates directed links included in each communication quality measurement target section. Quality measurement means 74 measures communication quality based on the flows corresponding to the paths determined by the path calculation means. Analysis means 75 analyzes a communication quality-deteriorated part in the directed links in the network based on the path table and the communication quality.
US09197509B1
A system for configuring a network topology in a data center is disclosed. The data center includes nodes having ports capable of supporting data links that can be connected to other nodes. The system includes a memory and a processing unit coupled to the memory. The processing unit receives demand information indicative of demands between nodes. The processing unit determines a set of constraints on the network topology based on the nodes, feasible data links between the nodes, and the demand information. The processing unit determines an objective function based on a sum of data throughput across data links satisfying demands. The processing unit performs an optimization of the objective function subject to the set of constraints using a linear program. The processing unit configures the network topology by establishing data links between the nodes according to results of the optimization.
US09197504B2
A mechanism is provided for enhancing remote presence capabilities. An update event for a main management module that manages a set of remote presence sessions for remote media established by a plurality of client systems is identified. A determination is made as to whether the main management module is currently maintaining a remote presence session for a remote media established by one of the plurality of client systems. Responsive to the main management module maintaining a remote presence session for the remote media, a handoff of the remote presence session for the remote media is initiated to an auxiliary management module. An update associated with the update event is then permitted to be performed on the main management module while maintaining the remote presence session for the remote media via the auxiliary management module.
US09197503B2
A mechanism is provided for enhancing remote presence capabilities. An update event for a main management module that manages a set of remote presence sessions for remote media established by a plurality of client systems is identified. A determination is made as to whether the main management module is currently maintaining a remote presence session for a remote media established by one of the plurality of client systems. Responsive to the main management module maintaining a remote presence session for the remote media, a handoff of the remote presence session for the remote media is initiated to an auxiliary management module. An update associated with the update event is then permitted to be performed on the main management module while maintaining the remote presence session for the remote media via the auxiliary management module.
US09197498B2
Techniques for managing access control policies are described herein. According to one embodiment, access control policies (ACPs) and access control rules (ACRs) are downloaded from a management server to a network access device (NAD) over the Internet, where the network access device is one of a plurality of network access devices managed by the management server over the Internet. In response to a request from a network client device for entering a network, a device type of the network client device is detected and an ACP identifier is determined based on the device type using the ACRs An ACP is selected from the ACPs based on the ACP identifier and enforced against the network client device. At least the selected ACP is reported to the management server to distribute the selected ACP to other network access devices.
US09197483B2
Several different embodiments of a massively scalable object storage system are described. The object storage system is particularly useful for storage in a cloud computing installation whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand. In several embodiments, the object storage system includes a ring implementation used to associate object storage commands with particular physical servers such that certain guarantees of consistency, availability, and performance can be met. In other embodiments, the object storage system includes a synchronization protocol used to order operations across a distributed system. In a third set of embodiments, the object storage system includes a metadata management system. In a fourth set of embodiments, the object storage system uses a structured information synchronization system. Features from each set of embodiments can be used to improve the performance and scalability of a cloud computing object storage system.
US09197481B2
A cloud-based translation method for a mobile client is provided. The mobile client receives a translation instruction and sends translation request information to a cloud server based on the translation instruction, where the translation request information includes text information and translation type information. The mobile client receives a translation result returned from the cloud server. When the cloud server detects that the mobile terminal logins to an account, and a cloud glossary of the account contains a word entry corresponding to the text information, the cloud server returns the translation result in the cloud glossary. When the cloud server detects that the mobile terminal does not login to the account, or when the cloud server detects that the mobile terminal logins to the account but the cloud glossary does not contain the word entry corresponding to the text information, the cloud server translates the text information.
US09197478B2
A data processor selects a set of BOC correlations in accordance with a BOC correlation function for the sampling period if the primary amplitude exceeds or equals the secondary amplitude for the sampling period. An electronic data processor determines whether the receiver is operating in a steady-state mode by evaluating the detected primary amplitude. The data processor selects and/or processes a set of BOC correlations for the sampling period to track a carrier of the received composite signal if the receiver is operating in the steady-state mode. In one embodiment, the data processor forms a first code error using the selected BOC correlations with a first chip spacing to drive the code tracking.
US09197472B2
A broadcast signal receiver according to the present invention comprises: a demodulator for performing OFDM demodulation on a received broadcast signal including a frame for the delivery of a broadcast service: a frame demapper for outputting the frame, the frame including a preamble that contains first signaling information, and a plurality of link-layer-pipes (LLPs) that contain PLP data, second signaling information and third signaling information, with the PLP data including a base layer and an enhancement layer of the broadcast service; and a decoder for decoding the first signaling information, for decoding the second and third signaling information, and for selectively decoding the PLP data by using the third signaling information.
US09197467B2
The presently disclosed subject matter is directed to methods and apparatus for providing a multi-protocol receiver for use in a radio frequency (RF) network. The receiver is designed to listen for multiple different packet preambles in parallel and, upon detection of a particular preamble, shift to demodulating the data portion of the packet using the single modulation technique associated with the particular preamble. Transmission of packets may be performed using a single radio frequency for all network devices or by frequency hopping techniques but using the same hopping pattern for all network devices. The receiver may be used with general communications networks or more specific applications, such as Smart Grid and AMI networks, and meshed networks of metrology devices.
US09197465B2
System and method embodiments are provided for improving power efficiency in an outphasing amplifier with a non-isolating combiner. Some embodiments include a circuit comprising a signal decomposer configured to receive an input signal, a non-isolating combiner coupled to the signal decomposer and configured to provide an amplified output signal corresponding to the input signal, a first power amplifiers (PA) on a first branch between the signal decomposer and the non-isolating combiner, a second PA on a second branch between the signal decomposer and the non-isolating combiner, and a switch on the second branch between the signal decomposer and the second PA. The switch is configured to disconnect the second PA from the signal decomposer upon determining that the input signal is in a first condition, and further configured to connect the second PA to the signal decomposer upon determining otherwise.
US09197462B2
Apparatus and systems are provided for a single amplifier filter capable of a high quality factor. A filter comprises an amplifier having an amplifier input and an amplifier output, wherein the amplifier is configured to produce an output signal at the amplifier output based on a signal at the amplifier input. A first resistive element is coupled between an input node and the amplifier input, a second resistive element is coupled between a first node and the amplifier input, and a third resistive element is coupled between the amplifier output and the first node. A first capacitive element is coupled between the amplifier output and the amplifier input. The filter comprises a second node for an inverse of the output signal, wherein a second capacitive element is coupled between the first node and the second node.
US09197460B1
Described embodiments provide for, in a receiver circuit employing a data latch, circuitry to adjust trim offset of the data latch to account for latch functional features (e.g., hysteresis and metastability) that may interact with trim of the latch. In accordance with the described embodiments, a trim procedure runs in a pre-selected directions of offset voltage ramp in order to average out the effect of hysteresis and metastability on the final trim offset choice. Different thresholds for accumulated slicer “0” and “1” discrimination of the circuitry to adjust trim offset allows for significant reduction in the number of trim runs, accelerating the slicers' trim process allowing for relatively quick determination of trim offset whenever the slicers are idle.
US09197456B2
A method of blind tap coefficient adaptation includes receiving a digital data signal including random digital data, equalizing a first portion of the digital data signal using a first set of predetermined tap coefficients and a second portion of the digital data signal using a second set of predetermined tap coefficients. The method includes generating a first eye diagram and a second eye diagram from a first portion and a second portion of an equalized signal, respectively. The first eye diagram is compared with the second eye diagram to determine which of the sets of predetermined tap coefficients results in a data signal having a higher signal quality. The method includes inputting to an equalizer as an initial set of tap coefficients the first set of predetermined tap coefficients or the second set of predetermined tap coefficients according to the determination.
US09197450B2
An SS7-based call protocol conversion gateway that translates between circuit-switched SS7 protocols and session initiation protocol (SIP) oriented protocol, allowing an E911 call initiated over a switched network to be routed by a VoIP network. The SS7-based call protocol conversion gateway provides a PSAP with MSAG quality (street address) information about a VoIP dual mode phone user without the need for a wireless carrier to invest in building out an entire VoIP core. Thus, wireless carriers may continue signaling the way they are today, i.e., using the J-STD-036 standard for CDMA and GSM in North America, yet see benefits of a VoIP network core, i.e., provision of MSAG quality location data to a PSAP.
US09197447B2
In a case where session management information is created from request information concerning a Web-based e-mail transmitted as HTTP data, if the request information coincides with a previously defined session start event for each Web-based e-mail service, a relay server adds a new entry to the session management information. On the other hand, if the request information coincides with a previously defined data operation event for each Web-based e-mail service, the relay server updates entry data of the session management information. Consequently, an administrator can execute higher accurate mail browsing by extracting, from the request information concerning the Web-based e-mail, not only the content of the Web-based e-mail but also a mail creation start method and a transmission state of the Web-based e-mail.
US09197444B2
A selection method for transmitting network packets adapted to be executed by a multiple-interface network device is provided. The multiple-interface network device includes a plurality of network interfaces. Each of the network interfaces connects to one of multiple communication networks. The selection method includes the following steps: collecting a transmission status of each of the communication networks; analyzing transmission characteristics of a predetermined number of packets of a service flow to determine a traffic pattern type of the service flow; comparing the transmission status of each of the communication networks with the transmission requirements of the traffic pattern type of the service flow to select one of the network interfaces, and using the selected network interface to transmit packets of the service flow. The service flow is constituted by packets transmitted by the network interfaces through a port and packets received by the network interfaces through the same port.
US09197443B2
A method and Provider Edge Bridge for providing a C-tagged service interface or a port-based interface. In one embodiment, the Provider Edge Bridge includes a Customer Virtual Local Area Network (C-VLAN) component having a Customer Edge Port (CEP) and a plurality of Provider Edge Ports (PEPs). A first Service VLAN (S-VLAN) component is connected to the C-VLAN component and to a Metro Ethernet Network (MEN). A second S-VLAN component is connected to the C-VLAN component, to the first S-VLAN component, and to an External Network Network Interface (E-NNI). A plurality of ports on the first S-VLAN component facing the MEN are designated as S-VLAN Remote Customer Ports (RCPs) when the ports are connecting internal services in the MEN to provide the C-tagged service interface or the port-based interface to customers from a far side of the E-NNI.
US09197440B2
The invention relates to a method for controlling a sensor system (10) for a vehicle (100), comprising at least one or two sensors (11, 12) which have respective detection regions (11b, 12b) and metrologically detect changes in these detection regions (11b, 12b) and emit them as measured signals (11a, 12a), a control unit (15), especially in the form of a microprocessing unit which is connected to the sensors (11, 12), the control unit (15) evaluating the measured signals (11a, 12a) and generating at least one control signal (16) based thereon, at least one memory (18) in which at least the last control signal (16) is stored, and an interface (19) via which the control unit (15) forwards at least the last control signal to an external control module (21). At least one measured signal (11a, 12a) of a sensor (11, 12) is detected by the control unit (15) in a number of measurement steps (11.1-4, 12.1-4) and the control unit (15) transmits at least the last control signal (16) to the external control module (21) via the interface (19) between the individual measurement steps (11.1-4, 12.1-4).
US09197437B2
A home appliance, a home appliance diagnostic system, and an operation method are provided, which allow a user to easily perform smart diagnosis by image progress and simply operate an input device and to diagnose a status of a home appliance, by displaying setup of smart diagnosis in a menu image including characters and images and outputting explanation of progresses on a screen by stages in accordance with a set diagnosis method.
US09197429B1
Disclosed are methods in which a source device that may multicast a message to a plurality of destination devices. The source device may receive an acknowledgement from less than all of the plurality of destination devices. Each acknowledgement may include an indication of the destination device from which the acknowledgement is received. A destination device may process the multicast message and generate an acknowledgement in response. In response to a time period subsequent to transmission of the multicast message, the source device may generate an updated message that indicates an acknowledgement status of each destination device associated with the group identifier from which an acknowledgement has been received.
US09197425B2
The present invention relates to a method and terminal in a mobile communication system. The method includes transmitting a sponsor service request to a first server of a service provider, receiving a sponsor coupon from the first server, transmitting the received sponsor coupon to an entity of an operator, receiving a sponsor coupon validation result message from the entity, and transmitting a request for a sponsor service to a second server of the service provider. The sponsor coupon is used for the operator to charge the service provider for the sponsor service.
US09197409B2
Systems and methods for authentication generate keys from secret credentials shared between authenticating parties and authenticators. Generation of the keys may involve utilizing specialized information that, as a result of being used to generate the keys, renders the generated keys usable for a smaller scope of uses than the secret credential. Further, key generation may involve multiple invocations of a function where each of at least a subset of the invocations of the function results in a key that has a smaller scope of permissible use than a key produced from a previous invocation of the function. Generated keys may be used as signing keys to sign messages. One or more actions may be taken depending on whether a message and/or the manner in which the message was submitted complies with restrictions of the a key's use.
US09197387B2
A user equipment (UE) receives a signal comprising multiple resource blocks and configured for receiving a subframe comprising multiple time-frequency resources, the time-frequency resources comprising at least two control channel candidates. The UE determines a first control channel candidate of the at least two control channel candidates in the subframe, determines a first antenna port (AP) associated with the first control channel candidate, decodes the first control channel candidate based on the first AP, determines a second control channel candidate of the at least two control channel candidates in the subframe, determines a second AP associated with the second control channel candidate, and decodes the second control channel candidate based on the second AP, wherein the AP used for decoding the first control channel candidate is distinct from the AP used for decoding the second control channel candidate.
US09197365B2
Method, receiver and computer program product for decoding a coded data block received at the receiver are disclosed. A first plurality of coded data bits representing the coded data block are received. First soft information values are determined corresponding to respective ones of the received first plurality of coded data bits, wherein each of the soft information values indicates a likelihood of a corresponding coded data bit having a particular value. An attempt is made to decode the coded data block using the first soft information values. The first soft information values are compressed. The compressed first soft information values are stored in a data store. A second plurality of coded data bits representing the coded data block is received and second soft information values corresponding to respective ones of the received second plurality of coded data bits are determined. The compressed first soft information values are retrieved from the data store and decompressed. The decompressed first soft information values are combined with the second soft information values, and an attempt is made to decode the coded data block using the combined soft information values.
US09197363B2
The present invention relates to A METHOD AND A DEVICE FOR RECEIVING A DOWNLINK SIGNAL IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM. More specifically, the method of the present invention comprises the following steps: receiving first control information for downlink scheduling in the first slot of a resource block pair, wherein the first control information includes allocation information on at least one resource unit; receiving a data in the second slot of the resource block pair, when the allocation information on the resource unit having the resource block pair with the first control information has a first value; and attempting to detect second control information for uplink scheduling in the second slot of the resource block pair, when the allocation information on the resource unit having the resource block pair with the first control information has a second value.
US09197360B2
Systems and methods are provided for processing time-domain samples of a digitized signal in rectangular coordinates. The digitized signal can include a low power desired signal and a high power, approximately constant envelope interference signal that spectrally overlaps the desired signal. A rectangular to polar converter can obtain magnitude and phase of each time-domain sample in polar coordinates. An interference estimator can estimate a magnitude of the interference signal based on magnitudes of a predetermined number of time-domain samples in polar coordinates. A subtractor can obtain a difference magnitude for each time-domain sample in polar coordinates based on the magnitude of that sample and the estimated magnitude of the interference signal in polar coordinates. A polar to rectangular converter can obtain time-domain samples in rectangular coordinates of the desired signal with reduced power of the interference signal based on the difference magnitude and phase of time-domain samples in polar coordinates.
US09197359B2
A mobile station apparatus efficiently switches coding schemes when coding both information indicating an ACK/NACK and first control information. A mobile station apparatus 200 determines a number of bits of information on a HARQ based on a number of downlink subframes corresponding to the information on a HARQ transmitted in a certain uplink subframe, a number of set serving cells, and a transmission mode set in each serving cell, applies spatial bundling to the information on a HARQ in a case where the determined number of bits of the information on a HARQ exceeds a predetermined value, and selects one of a first coding scheme and a second coding scheme based on the number of bits of the information on a HARQ to which spatial bundling has been applied and a number of bits of a scheduling request and codes both the information on a HARQ and the scheduling request.
US09197356B2
A method and system for distributed spatial mode processing is disclosed where a plurality of optical signals is received via a plurality of spatial modes on a first optical link, spatial mode conversion is performed on the plurality of optical signals to switch the plurality of optical signals to different ones of the plurality of spatial modes and the plurality of optical signals is transmitted via the different ones of the plurality of spatial modes on a second optical link where spatial mode filtering may occur.
US09197349B2
The invention relates to a method of operating a primary optical node, particularly an optical line terminal (OLT), for an optical communications system, wherein said OLT is configured to receive at least one upstream optical signal (uos) from at least one secondary optical node, particularly an optical networking unit (ONU), within at least a first wavelength range (wr1), and to transmit at least one downstream optical signal (dos) to said at least one ONU within at least a second wavelength range (wr2), wherein said OLT determines a currently unused wavelength subrange (wsr2) within said first wavelength range (wr1), assigns a specific target wavelength (λt) within said currently unused wavelength subrange (wsr2) to said ONU, signals said target wavelength (λt) to said ONU, receives an upstream signal (us) from said ONU, and provides feedback information to said ONU.
US09197340B2
An apparatus for enabling simultaneous multimedia content and user data streaming from a handheld device to a display device is disclosed. The apparatus enables power charging of the handheld device while streaming the multimedia content and the user data from the handheld device. The apparatus comprises a data-multimedia-power interface (DMPI) connector installed in the handheld device and designed to enable the transport of at least high definition multimedia signals, data signals, a power signal, and control signals between the handheld device and the display device; and a DMPI circuit for multiplexing the high definition multimedia signals with the data signals, to enable simultaneous streaming of the respective multimedia content and the user data to the display device, wherein the DMPI circuit further extracts a power signal from the display device for power charging of the display device.
US09197339B2
Isolator devices for a class A evacuation system are provided. The isolators each have specific address in the system. This allows the isolators to report individually with address information and status information, for example related to errors in the system and the device in particular. In an embodiment, a speaker can be connected to the device. This allows the speaker to be addressed individually so dedicated information like alarms and spoken messages can be sent to specific speakers. Dedicated isolators are available for announcing, powering the network and routing network traffic. Routers provide a possibility to create multiple loops, reducing wiring and increasing redundancy. By sending data in different branches by means of spread spectrum modulation, more data can be sent and effects of crosstalk between branches is highly reduced.
US09197335B2
A system is disclosed for inserting selected content into a signal being broadcast by a broadcast station, and being received by a vehicle radio system. A vehicle radio system may be incorporated which has a processing system. A personal electronic device (PED) able to be carried by a user is also used. The PED may supply selected content to the processing system. The processing system may detect a first signal in the received broadcast signal that indicates a commercial break period of predetermined duration is to begin, and a second signal in the received broadcast signal that indicates that the commercial break period is to end. The processing system may obtain the selected content from the PED and insert the obtained, selected content into the broadcast signal for seamless playback through the vehicle radio system during the commercial break period.
US09197327B2
An optical transmitter may include a sample rate converter and a digital-to-analog converter operable to convert an inputted digital electrical signal to an analog optical signal. The signal converter may include a first interface operable to receive a digital electrical signal that may include a block of input data having N symbols in a time domain. The signal converter may also include: a first module operable to transform, via a Fourier Transform, the input data having N symbols from the time domain to a frequency domain; a second module operable to up-sample the N frequency domain samples so that there are 1.6N, 2N, or 2.67N frequency domain samples, for example; and then a third module operable to transform, via an inverse Fourier Transform, the 1.6N, 2N, or 2.67N frequency domain samples to an equivalent number of time domain samples at 1.6, 2.0, or 2.67 samples per symbol, respectively.
US09197326B2
The present application relates to comb frequency generator devices generally and more particularly to the use of comb generators for use in fibre optic communications. More particularly, the application provides a frequency comb generator device. The device comprises a laser (30), a biasing circuit for providing a DC bias current (26), an RF circuit (22) providing a RF signal and a drive circuit (28) for combining the RF signal with the DC bias current to provide a drive current to the laser (30). With the DC bias current below threshold of the laser diode and RF bias with a frequence close to the relaxation ascillation frequency of the laser diode, a periodic pulse train is emitted with constant phase.
US09197325B2
An optical transceiver (1) comprises: a ring resonator (6), a first waveguide (2) comprising, in succession, an input-output section (22), a coupling section (20) coupled to a first portion of the ring resonator and an amplification section (21) coupled to a first optical reflector (4) suitable for reflecting light toward the coupling section, a second waveguide (5) comprising, in succession, a reception section (52), a coupling section (50) coupled to a second portion of the ring resonator and a reflection section coupled to a second optical reflector (4) suitable for reflecting light toward the coupling section, a gain medium (7) arranged in the amplification section of the first waveguide and suitable for producing a stimulated light transmission, and an optical detector (8) coupled to the reception section of the second waveguide.
US09197324B1
The present invention is directed to data communication system and methods. More specifically, various embodiments of the present invention provide a communication interface that is configured to transfer data at high bandwidth using PAM format(s) over optical communication networks. A feedback mechanism is provided for adjusting the transmission power levels. There are other embodiments as well.
US09197323B2
Methods and systems for asymmetrically compensating degradation of an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) induced by polarization dependent loss (PDL) in dual-polarization optical system include using an OSNR compensator. The OSNR compensator may separate the dual-polarization components and determine which component has degraded OSNR. The degraded component may be OSNR compensated using a phase-sensitive amplifier and/or a regenerator with a phase-sensitive amplifier.
US09197319B2
There are provided a device for monitoring an optical link fault and a method thereof. According to an embodiment of the invention, the device for monitoring an optical link fault and the method thereof apply an optical link fault monitoring signal to an optical link and precisely identify a type of the fault using waveforms of a reflected signal returned from the optical link or a wavelength dependence of reflected signal intensity.
US09197318B1
A method and apparatus for modulating a beam from a laser with an electro-absorption modulator, and determining the optical power of the beam by measuring a back current produced by the electro-absorption modulator. The apparatus comprises an electro-absorption modulator and a back current detector. The electro-absorption modulator receives an electronic digital signal from an electro-absorption driver. The electro-absorption modulator modulates the beam of the laser according to the electronic digital signal. While modulating the beam, the electro-absorption modulator produces a back current. This back current is proportional to the optical power of the beam. The back current detector measures the back current to determine the optical power of the beam.
US09197316B1
An emergency locator beacon device that includes sending a test signal from a first satellite transmitter of the device to a Cospas-Sarsat emergency monitoring service; receiving from a beacon testing service a test confirmation signal corresponding to the test signal, the confirmation signal being received on a second satellite receiver of the beacon; wherein the emergency monitoring service and the beacon testing service are in communication over the Internet. The first satellite transmitter comprises a 406 MHz emergency transmitter configured to communicate with a Cospas-Sarsat satellite system. The second satellite receiver comprises a SEND receiver configured to communicate with a commercial satellite system. The emergency monitoring service is in communication with a rescue coordination center and the rescue coordination center is further in communication with the beacon testing service by way of the Internet. The test signal includes a beacon identification number which is pre-registered with the beacon testing service.
US09197303B2
A transmission method simultaneously transmitting a first modulated signal and a second modulated signal at a common frequency performs precoding on both signals using a fixed precoding matrix and regularly changes the phase of at least one of the signals, thereby improving received data signal quality for a reception device.
US09197300B2
Various wireless precoding systems and methods are presented. In some embodiments, a wireless transmitter comprises an antenna precoding block, a transform block, and multiple transmit antennas. The antenna precoding block receives frequency coefficients from multiple data streams and distributes the frequency coefficients across multiple transmit signals in accordance with frequency-dependent matrices. The transform block transforms the preceded frequency coefficients into multiple time domain transmit signals to be transmitted by the multiple antennas. The frequency coefficients from multiple data streams may be partitioned into tone groups, and all the frequency coefficients from a given tone group may be redistributed in accordance with a single matrix for that tone group. In some implementations, the frequency coefficients within a tone group for a given data stream may also be precoded. In some alternative embodiments, tone group preceding may be employed in a single channel system.
US09197297B2
An apparatus for generating at least one signal based on at least one aspect of at least two received signals is provided. The apparatus comprises: a diverse antennae array of M antennae, where M is greater than or equal to two; at least one multiple-input and multiple-output capable transceiver in communication with each antenna in the diverse antennae array of M antennae; encoding circuitry capable of causing first data to be encoded; decoding circuitry capable of causing second data to be decoded; and processing capable of causing diversity combining, where the processing circuitry is in communication with the multiple-input and multiple-output capable transceiver, the encoding circuitry, and the decoding circuitry. In operation, the processing circuitry is capable of causing the apparatus to: receive at least two first signals, combine at least two of the at least first two signals, generate at least two second signals based on at least one aspect of the at least two first signals, and simultaneously transmit the at least two second signals. Additionally, the apparatus is configured such that at least one of the at least two second signals is capable of being received by a multiple-input capable node.
US09197295B2
Disclosed are a double-stream beamforming method and device, which relate to communication technology. The method comprises: first, according to a DOA angle, determining an array response vector; then according to the array response vector, in accordance with the number of each group of transmission antennae of a base station, distributing parameters to generate two groups of coefficients, and according to the two groups of coefficients, conducting beamforming on the antennae. There is no need to conduct characteristic value decomposition to obtain a characteristic vector, thereby reducing the double-stream beamforming complexity.
US09197289B2
The present discloses a dynamic transmit power control method for a power line communication (PLC) system. The dynamic transmit power control method includes steps of collecting a data; and adjusting a compliant transmit power spectrum density (PSD) mask according to a non-flat transmit PSD mask and the data; wherein the compliant transmit PSD mask complies with the non-flat transmit PSD mask, which comprises a plurality of reference PSDs corresponding to a plurality of frequency bands.
US09197284B2
A wireless communication system is provided that spreads pilot signals, or channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs), using a spreading code chosen from a set of mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). The advantages of such spreading with MUBs are that multiple base stations can send their pilot signals on a same time-frequency resources, making the pilot signal design very efficient and also improving channel estimation at a user equipment through orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal spreading which gives a gain above noise and interference. A short spreading code chosen from MUBs may be used for spreading pilot signals transmitted from each antenna of a base station within a time-frequency resource comprising multiple closely-spaced subcarriers in frequency and/or multiple closely-spaced symbols in time.
US09197283B1
A method and apparatus for sampling a high bandwidth analog signal includes: splitting the high bandwidth analog signal into N parallel channels; randomly demodulating each of the signals; sampling each demodulated signal using a sub-Nyquist sampling rate; combining each sampled signal into a sub-Nyquist signal; compressive sensing the combined sub-Nyquist signal to estimate missing samples of a full Nyquist rate uniform sample set X(n); convolving X(n) with N analysis filters, each analysis filter having a different coefficient; decimating output of each analysis filter using decimation ratios of M:1 to generate a sub-banded signal set Yi (n), i=1, . . . , N; processing the sub-banded signal set; up-sampling each processed sub-band signal by M; convolving each up-sampled sub-band signal with a corresponding synthesis filter; and combining two or more of the convolved signals to generate a non-uniform spectral partitioning of the high bandwidth analog signal.
US09197282B2
An apparatus and method for generating a composite signal includes electronics configured to modulate a carrier utilizing a finite set of composite signal phases to generate a composite signal, the finite set of composite signal phases being determined through an optimization process that minimizes a constant envelope for the phase modulated carrier, subject to constraints on desired signal power levels of the signals to be combined and either zero or one or more relative phase relationships between the signals. The apparatus and method can be extended to generating an optimized composite signal of different frequencies.
US09197278B2
Systems and methods are described for controlling a reference oscillator shared by multiple subsystems of a communications system and arbitrating usage of the reference oscillator among these subsystems. By changing the properties of the reference oscillator (e.g., by tuning the reference oscillator) according to the needs of particular subsystem(s), the communications system can configure the reference oscillator to meet the specification requirements of these particular subsystem(s) and can later reconfigure the reference oscillator to meet the needs of other subsystems. Further, the controller can configure the subsystems based on parameters that impact multiple subsystems (e.g., by implementing geographic awareness, spectrum occupation awareness, and availability of Assisted GPS (AGPS) functionality) to achieve further optimization of the communications system.
US09197276B2
A semiconductor device according to the present invention includes a PLL circuit, in which the PLL circuit includes: a phase difference detection unit that detects a phase difference between a reference signal and a division signal; a filter that outputs a control signal according to a detection result of the phase difference detection unit; an oscillation unit that outputs an oscillation signal of a frequency according to the control signal; a division unit that divides the oscillation signal to output it as the division signal; a noise intensity detection unit that detects a noise intensity of a predetermined frequency component included in the control signal; and a phase difference adjustment unit that adjusts a phase difference between the reference signal and the division signal based on the noise intensity detected by the noise intensity detection unit.
US09197274B2
Novel tools and techniques are described for protecting an electronic device. In one aspect, an electronic device might comprise a housing defining an open front face, a chassis disposed within the housing, a panel disposed within the open front face of the housing and supported on the chassis, and an elastomeric overmold surrounding at least a portion of a perimeter of the panel and disposed between at least a portion of the chassis and at least a portion of the housing. In some cases, the overmold might be configured to provide a perimeter seal around the panel and to deform upon a frontal impact to the panel or housing. The overmold might be configured to prevent intrusion of liquids or particulates within the electronic device. In another aspect, a protective housing, which might comprise the housing, the chassis, and the overmold, may be provided for protecting a stand-alone electronic device.
US09197271B2
Detection of an increase in a mismatch of an antenna of a radio frequency (RF) device and/or a change in a capacitance value of the antenna indicates proximity of a body to the antenna. Upon detection of proximity of a body to the antenna, reduction of transmit power of the RF device may be done to meet Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) level regulations.
US09197270B2
Wireless electronic devices may include a ground plane, a double ring antenna and non-cellular antennas integrated within the double ring antenna. The double ring antenna may comprise first and second metal rings around the perimeter of a ground plane to operate as MIMO cellular antennas. At least one non-cellular antenna, such as a MIMO Wi-Fi antenna, may be integrated between the first and second metals rings on one or more sides of the wireless electronic device.
US09197267B2
Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to techniques and apparatus for performing joint demodulation using a Max-Log MAP algorithm in wireless communications systems. An exemplary method generally comprises receiving a signal comprising one or more serving streams and one or more interfering streams; and processing the signal by performing joint demodulation using a max log map (MLM) algorithm for at least one of the one or more serving streams or at least one of the one or more interfering streams.
US09197265B2
The present invention relates to a receiving device and method for removing a mismatch in a wireless communication system, and to a low noise amplifier (LNA) therefor. According to the present invention, the receiving method for removing the mismatch comprises the steps of: distinguishing the type of input signal received through a wireless network; controlling such that a common bias is applied to transistors within a low noise amplifier, if said input signal is a wideband signal; and outputting a signal from which said mismatch has been removed, by using a current mirror mode in which current paths within said low noise amplifier are crossed.
US09197258B1
A modulator and associated method includes a calculation block configured to receive a plurality of digital samples of a modulated baseband signal, and determine time instances associated with predetermined phase crossings of the modulated baseband signal. The modulator further includes a converter circuit configured to generate a data dependent clock signal having rising and falling edges associated with the determined time instances, and a digital to analog converter configured to receive the data dependent clock signal and generate a square wave output signal having transition times associated with the generated data dependent clock signal.
US09197257B2
Disclosed herein is a passive, voltage mode transmitter assembly and method of operation. The passive, voltage mode transmitter assembly comprises a baseband filter configured to filter a source baseband signal, a harmonics filter, connected to the baseband filter, configured to remove harmonics from the filtered, source baseband signal, a passive, voltage mode mixer, connected to the harmonics filter, configured to up-convert an output of the harmonics filter to a radio signal, and a power amplifier, connected to the passive, voltage mode mixer, configured to amplify the radio signal.
US09197254B2
A transmitter is provided that comprises an oscillator, a power amplifier, and a heating element. The power amplifier generates a high power signal according to the low power signal. The transmitter may be operated such that a heat production rate of the group consisting of the power amplifier and the heating element is substantially constant. The heating element may be a dummy power amplifier. A method of operating a transmitter is also disclosed.
US09197236B1
A method for producing sampled data, which as the requested sampling period is increased, each sample is the average of an increasing number of ADC samples such that a maximum number of ADC samples are evenly space across the sample period. The method can include choosing one of multiple ADC with varying speed versus resolution capabilities to further increase the quality of the sampled data as the sampling period increases.
US09197235B2
Sample-and-hold (S/H) circuitry operating in track and hold phases and having a first S/H circuit with a first hold capacitor at which a first voltage value is maintained in the hold phase, and a dielectric absorption (DA)-suppressing circuit connectable to the first hold capacitor for operating the S/H circuitry in an additional phase after completing the hold phase and before entering the track phase. The DA-suppressing circuit is configured to supply the first hold capacitor, during an operation in the additional phase, with a second voltage value that is negatively correlated with the first voltage value.
US09197234B1
A readout circuit includes a first analog circuit for receiving an output of a first sub-array of a pixel array, wherein the first analog circuit is configured to output a first analog signal. The readout circuit further includes a second analog circuit for receiving an output of a second sub-array of the pixel array, wherein the second sub-array comprises at least one pixel on a same row of the pixel array as at least one pixel of the first sub-array, and the second analog circuit is configured to output a second analog signal. The readout circuit further includes a first digital circuit for receiving the first analog signal and to convert the first analog signal to a first digital signal, wherein the first digital circuit is further configured to receive the second analog signal and to convert the second analog signal to a second digital signal.
US09197231B1
Systems and methods for electronically converting an analog signal to a digital signal are disclosed. The systems and methods may include, for a first bit value, setting a first conversion value to include a first offset; using the output of a first comparison, setting a second conversion value; and if the first bit value has a predetermined relationship to the first offset bit value, removing the first offset from the second conversion value, and, using the output of a second comparison, setting a third conversion value.
US09197218B2
An electronic device includes: a support member including a first terminal, a second terminal, and a support portion extending from the first terminal and coupling the first terminal with the second terminal; an electronic component; and a bonding member connecting the first terminal with the electronic component. In a plan view along a direction in which the first terminal and the electronic component overlap each other, a portion of the first terminal is adjacent to the support portion with a notch portion therebetween and protrudes toward the extending direction side of the support portion. The support portion is bent at a portion adjacent to the protruding portion of the first terminal along the overlapping direction.
US09197208B2
A capacitive touch sensitive device includes a matrix of pads patterned in a first electrically conductive material on a substrate. Horizontally adjacent pads within each even row of the matrix are electrically coupled to one another via channels to form a plurality of horizontally arranged electrodes. Insulators are positioned over respective channels. Conductive links are formed over respective insulators and are configured to electrically couple vertically adjacent pads between odd rows of the matrix to form a plurality of vertically arranged electrodes. The dimensions of the channels and the conductive links are configured such that an RC time-constant (RCtc) of each of the vertically arranged electrodes substantially matches an RCtc of each of the horizontally arranged electrodes.
US09197204B2
A driving circuit includes at least one output end, at least one driving voltage module, and at least one signal module. The output end receives and outputs an analog voltage. The at least one driving voltage module is connected with the at least one output end and generates a driving voltage, wherein the driving voltage module determines a voltage value of an output voltage according to a relation between an analog voltage and the driving voltage and transmits the output voltage to the at least one output end. The at least one signal module is connected with the at least one output end and outputs an analog data according to the analog voltage, wherein the at least one driving voltage module stores a residual voltage of the at least one signal module when the at least one signal module converts the analog voltage and the analog voltage is larger than the driving voltage.
US09197200B2
A level shifter does not require any DC (standby) current consumption and has a fast operation with low propagation delay. The level shifting from input to output voltage ranges is performed by a pair of level shifting capacitors. The input-output power voltages domains are unrestricted and flexible. DC isolation is deployed between power domains. Symmetrical rise/fall times are without duty cycle distortion. Over voltage stress is reduced by using metal capacitors. Finally the level shifter does not use high-voltage devices for level shifting purpose. Embodiments of level shifters provide one-way level shifting and bi-directional level shifting.
US09197197B2
A duty cycle protection circuit including a first synchronous device adapted to receive a first clock signal on an input line and to generate a first clock transition of a second clock signal in response to a first clock transition of the first clock signal; and reset circuitry coupled to the input line and adapted to generate a second clock transition of the second clock signal by resetting the first synchronous device a time delay after the first clock transition of the first clock signal.
US09197196B2
Systems and methods for state-based adjustment of power and frequency are described. A primary generator of a system includes a primary power supply for supplying a primary radio frequency (RF) signal to an electrode. The primary generator further includes an automatic frequency control (AFC) to provide a first frequency input to the primary power supply when a pulsed signal is in a first state. A secondary generator of the system includes a secondary power supply for supplying a secondary RF signal to the electrode. The secondary generator also includes an AFC to provide a second frequency input to the secondary power supply when the pulsed signal is in the first state. The secondary generator includes an AFC to provide a third frequency input to the secondary power supply when the pulsed signal is in a second state. The system includes a digital pulsing source for generating the pulsed signal.
US09197195B2
A driver includes a first driver stage having a first T-coil structure. The first T-coil structure includes a first set of inductors each being operable to provide a first inductance. The first T-coil structure further includes a second set of inductors electrically coupled with the first set of inductors, wherein the second set of inductors each are operable to provide a second inductance.
US09197188B2
A wide range tunable capacitor bank is provided. The capacitor bank comprises a variable capacitor, the capacitance value of which is adjustable within a predetermined capacitance range defined by a minimum capacitance value and a maximum capacitance value. The capacitor bank further comprises one or more switched capacitors each electrically connected in circuit to the variable capacitor. The variable capacitor is configured to allow the capacitance value thereof to be adjusted within the predetermined capacitance range and the one or more switched capacitors are configured to be selectively actuated to permit continuous tuning of the capacitor bank over a second capacitance range that is greater than the predetermined capacitance range. Applications in which the capacitor bank may be implemented, and a method of fabricating an integrated system comprising a plurality of passive components, such as, for example, those of the capacitor bank and high quality factor inductors, are also provided.
US09197187B2
A front-end circuit includes a diplexer and an impedance conversion circuit. The diplexer includes a feeding side common port through which a high-frequency signal in a high band and a high-frequency signal in a low band are input and output, a first port through which a high-frequency signal in a high band is input and output, and a second port through which a high-frequency signal in a low band is input and output, and demultiplexes or multiplexes the high-frequency signal in a low band and the high-frequency signal in a high band. The impedance conversion circuit is connected between the second port of the diplexer and an antenna port. The first port of the diplexer is directly connected to the antenna port through a transmission line.
US09197186B2
A duplexer comprising an improved matching circuit for matching between transmitting path and receiving path is specified. In this case, the matching circuit comprises a hybrid and matching elements.
US09197169B2
A current reuse amplifier is disclosed. The amplifier includes a first field effect transistor (FET); and a second FET with a source coupled with a gate of the second FET and a drain of the first FET through a first resistor in a DC mode but floated from a ground in an AC mode. A feature of the current reuse amplifier is that the amplifier further includes a shunt block connected in the source of the second FET to shunt a DC current flowing in the second FET to the ground. A DC current flowing in the first FET is smaller than a DC current flowing in the second FET, and the first FET has a size smaller than a size of the second FET.
US09197168B2
To generate amplitude modulation to phase modulation (AMPM) predistortion data that compensates for phase distortion in a power amplifier of a communication device, a test signal is amplified via the power amplifier. The amplified test signal is combined, by wave superposition, with a reference oscillator signal into a resultant signal. The resultant signal is an outcome of interference between the amplified test signal and the reference oscillator signal. The resultant signal power is measured using envelope information and, from the measurement, a predistortion phase shift is determined that when applied to the test signal maximizes the interference between the amplified test signal and the reference oscillator signal. AMPM predistortion data is generated to correspond with the predistortion phase shift.
US09197164B2
Methods and systems for vector combining power amplification are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a plurality of signals are individually amplified, then summed to form a desired time-varying complex envelope signal. Phase and/or frequency characteristics of one or more of the signals are controlled to provide the desired phase, frequency, and/or amplitude characteristics of the desired time-varying complex envelope signal. In another embodiment, a time-varying complex envelope signal is decomposed into a plurality of constant envelope constituent signals. The constituent signals are amplified equally or substantially equally, and then summed to construct an amplified version of the original time-varying envelope signal. Embodiments also perform frequency up-conversion.
US09197148B2
A semiconductor device includes first and second resistor groups, first and second switch groups, a register, and an amplifier. The first resistor group includes plural first resistors connected in series between a first terminal and an output of the amplifier. The first switch group includes plural first switches. Each of the first switches is connected between a corresponding one of the connection point between the first resistors and the inverting input terminal of the amplifier. The second resistor group includes plural second resistors connected in series between a second terminal of the amplifier and a reference voltage source. The second switch group includes plural second switches. Each of the second switches is connected between a corresponding one of the connection point between the second resistors and a positive input terminal of the amplifier. The register selects each of first and second switches.
US09197146B2
Brushless direct-current (“BLDC”) motor and control for a power tool. A BLDC motor of a power tool is controlled in either a pulse-width modulation (“PWM”) commutation mode or a centerline commutation mode. When the motor is rotating slowly, the motor is operated using PWM commutation. When the motor is rotating at a speed greater than a threshold speed value, the operation of the motor is transitioned to the centerline commutation mode. When operating in the centerline commutation mode, the high-side field-effect transistors (“FETs”) and low-side FETs can each be used for motor speed control. By switching between speed control using the high-side FETs and speed control using the low-side FETs, the heat generated by freewheeling currents can be approximately evenly distributed among the high-side and low-side FETs.
US09197144B2
A method and system for controlling a motor is provided. In particular, various embodiments of the present disclosure describe a method and system for controlling a spindle motor in a hard disk drive (HDD) A method of controlling a motor is provided, the motor including a 3-phase synchronous motor with three terminals of an electromagnetic winding configuration. The method includes providing an input voltage between two of the terminals and measures a resultant silent terminal voltage at the third terminal, which is thereafter used in determining a rotor position. A corresponding system for controlling a motor is further provided.
US09197141B2
Provided are embodiments of piezoelectric motors which comprise at least one piezo-electrically active part and one passive part which are mounted with the ability of relative movement with respect to each other and which interact with each other by friction. The piezo-electrically active part includes at least one oscillator of acoustic vibrations with one or more piezoelectric elements in the form of a planar ring with acoustically attached flat pushers made from materials such as steel or ceramic. The flat pushers are pressed to a flat surface of the piezoelectric element, either directly or through an elastic element.
US09197140B2
An inverter is proposed for providing an inverter output signal scalable in frequency. The inverter has a controller for controlling frequency of the inverter output signal according to a predefinable value. In order to generate a signal having a frequency value prescribed for the inverter output signal, the controller initiates a time delay of signals and superimposes the signals onto the signal having the frequency value prescribed for the inverter output signal. A low-complexity inverter concept for high voltages or high power is thus provided.
US09197138B2
A three phase step-up autotransformer construction is discussed herein. The passive 12-pulse AC-DC converter offers simplicity, high reliability and low cost solution to AC-DC power conversion. The autotransformer is a component of the passive 12-pulse AC-DC converter. The autotransformer converts three-phase AC power into six-phase AC power. With appropriate vector design, the autotransformer may be configured to draw a near sinusoidal 12-pulse current waveform from the three-phase voltage source. The six-phase output may be configured to drive a rectifier (non-linear) load.
US09197135B2
A bi-directional DC/DC converter comprises bridge circuits connected to DC voltage sources, an isolation transformer, an LC resonance circuit, and detection circuits for detecting voltages and currents of the DC voltage sources. A control circuit in the power flow from a first DC voltage source to a second DC voltage source changes over between fixed frequency control and frequency modulation control according to the magnitude of a control variable, and a control circuit in the power flow from a second DC voltage source to the first DC voltage source changes over between fixed frequency control and frequency modulation control according to the magnitude of another control variable. Thus, the bi-directional DC/DC converter can be applied to devices with a wide range of input and output voltages.
US09197130B2
A regulator device includes: a power input terminal; a power output terminal; a plurality of regulators each including an operating FET and a monitoring FET to be driven together with the operating FET, the plurality of regulators being arranged in parallel between the power input terminal and the power output terminal; and a controller configured to drive the operating FET and the monitoring FET included in one of the regulators, when the controller determines whether the monitoring FET included in the one of the regulators have degraded, the controller configured to stop driving the operating FET and the monitoring FET included in the one of the regulators and configured to drive the operating FET and the monitoring FET included in another of the regulators.
US09197127B2
A power supply controller includes a switch circuit to be provided between the power source and the power supply path, the switch circuit switches the power supply from the power source to the load between on and off, and a power-supply-path protection circuit. The power-supply-path protection circuit controls switching operation of the switch circuit according to a power-supply command signal that commands to start or terminate the power supply to the load, to calculate a temperature of the power-supply path, and if the calculated temperature reaches a predetermined upper limit, to inhibit the switch circuit from the power supply, thereby protecting the power-supply path. In a case where the power supply by the switch circuit is inhibited, if the temperature of the power supply path decreases to a predetermined threshold temperature, the power-supply-path protection circuit removes inhibition of the power supply by the switch circuit.
US09197123B2
There is provided a power supplying apparatus capable of determining whether to be normally operated by detecting whether a capacitor deteriorates with age based on a ripple voltage generated by switching of a primary side, the power supplying apparatus including a power supply unit switching input power to convert the input power into preset direct current (DC) power, a detecting unit setting a reference voltage based on the DC power of the power supply unit and comparing the reference voltage with a ripple voltage included in the DC power to detect a voltage level of the ripple voltage, and a controlling unit determining whether an abnormality has occurred according to a detection result of the detecting unit.
US09197109B2
An electric motor having a casing positioned between a head end cap and a tail end cap is provided. An output shaft passes through the head end cap and the tail end cap and a cooling fan is mounted for rotation relative to the output shaft. The electric motor includes a fluid distribution chamber adjacent the tail end cap, an inlet port for supply of fluid to the chamber, and a plurality of discharge apertures for distributing fluid from the chamber toward the cooling fan. The fluid distribution chamber facilitates the washing and cleaning of the electric motor.
US09197108B2
A housing of a driving device, in particular an electric motor adjustment drive for a motor vehicle, has a housing opening, which is covered by a gas-permeable membrane, in particular a membrane that is impermeable to liquid. The housing opening is surrounded by a collar contour, which is interrupted locally at the circumference and within which the membrane lies.
US09197102B2
The present invention relates to a stator assembly that includes: a stator core having a circular base, a plurality of teeth radially formed along an outer circumference of the base, and at least one coupling bushing formed along an inner circumference of the base; an insulation coating layer formed on an surface of the stator core; and a pair of base insulators coupled to top and bottom portions of the base, respectively.
US09197100B2
A PLC processing device includes: a filter; a first signal line; a second signal line; and a PLC-ECU. The filter removes noise from a signal transmitted using a power line. The filter is provided on the first signal line. In contrast, the second signal line bypasses the filter. The PLC-ECU communicates using a signal which has passed through the filter while the power storage device is being charged. The PLC-ECU communicates using a signal which has bypassed filter while the charging of the power storage device is stopped.
US09197097B2
A temperature-controlled power supply system is disclosed. The temperature-controlled power supply system comprises a power source, for supplying input power; a rechargeable battery module, for receiving the input power for power storage; a charging unit, coupled between the power source and the rechargeable battery module, for charging the rechargeable battery module with the input power; a temperature sensing unit, coupled to the rechargeable battery module, for sensing a temperature of the rechargeable battery module; and a current control unit, coupled to the temperature sensing unit and the charging unit, for controlling a current for charging the rechargeable battery module according to the temperature of the rechargeable battery module.
US09197093B2
A charging apparatus assigns an area ID, which is information that the charging apparatus uses to determine the presence of a vehicle, to a charging area BS and transmits the assigned area ID. Based on return of the transmitted area ID from the vehicle 200, the charging apparatus establishes pairing, which is a communication connection setting, between the charging apparatus and the vehicle. The charging apparatus then performs electric power management of the electric power transmitted from the charging area BS to the vehicle in a non-contact manner through wireless communication between the paired vehicle and charging apparatus.
US09197091B2
An electric charging system for a battery pack of an electric vehicle, including a charging station electrically coupled to the battery pack, the charging station transferring charging energy to the battery pack at a maximum fast charge rate in a first operational mode and transferring charging energy to the battery pack at a slower charge rate in a second operational mode; a data collection system acquiring a set of data indicating a state of charge (SOC) of the battery pack and one or more desired charge optimization parameters; and a station control, responsive to the set of data and to the desired charge optimization parameters, automatically establishing a charging profile for the battery pack to assert a control signal and operate the charging station in the second operational mode whenever the charging station is able to transfer sufficient energy to the battery pack at the slower charge rate to meet an SOC target and a charge completion time target, otherwise asserting the control signal and operate the charging station in the first operational mode.
US09197088B2
A module converting voltage between a high-voltage electrical network and at least one energy storage element an aircraft, the conversion module configured to reversibly convert between a DC voltage of the high-voltage electrical network and a DC voltage of the energy storage element, the DC voltage of the energy storage element floating relative to the DC voltage of the high-voltage electrical network and centered relative to the mass of the aircraft, the module including an input module including two filters each capable of receiving a DC voltage, a first arm and a second arm including switches, and a mechanism controlling the switches, operating per cycle of a switching period and capable of controlling at least one first switch and at least one second switch identically but offset by a half-period, whereby the first switch is open when the second switch is closed and vice versa.
US09197083B2
There is provided an electronic apparatus that can properly control a power state of an electronic apparatus by using a temperature of a battery pack. The electronic apparatus detects a temperature of a battery pack and a remaining capacity of the battery pack. If the temperature of the battery pack is less than or equal to a predetermined temperature, the electronic apparatus performs process for turning a power state of the electronic apparatus from ON to OFF based on the remaining capacity of the battery pack.
US09197074B2
A charging apparatus for an electric vehicle is provided with: a charging cable including a proximal end connected to a main body, a connector provided on a distal end, and an extra length absorbing section provided between the distal end and the proximal end; a measuring section configured to detect an elongation of the charging cable from an initial length thereof; and an electric current control section configured to start applying an electric current to the charging cable under a condition that an elongation of the charging cable exceeding a threshold value is detected by the measuring section.
US09197064B2
In a power equipment control system connected, via a communication network, to a system operation server of a power system and a single or a plurality of power equipments for performing power consumption or storage with interconnecting to the power system, to regulate power demand and supply balance of the power equipment, a contribution degree is obtained by preparing a demand plan of subsequent power of said power equipment; transmitting, to said power equipment, information relevant to demand regulation request to said power equipment, received from said system operation server, based on said demand plan; receiving demand regulation result of observation information on the demand regulation performed within said power equipment, based on said demand regulation request; and performing said demand regulation by said power equipment from said demand regulation result.
US09197062B2
Electricity service may be safely remotely connected to a site by a network computing device, such as an electricity meter, even when the network computing device is not accessible at the site. The network computing device may include a service switch capable of connecting electricity service to a site, a communication module capable of receiving commands to connect or disconnect electricity service, and a safety mechanism to monitor a circuit internal to the site and to prevent the service switch from connecting electricity service to the site while a potentially unsafe condition is detected.
US09197054B2
A circuit for controlling a latch mode of a pulse width modulation circuit includes a D flip-flop, a voltage generation unit, a comparator, and a logic unit. The D flip-flop generates a switch control signal according to a latch enable signal. The voltage generation unit generates a discharge current, and a voltage divider resistor group included in the voltage generation unit generates a first voltage when the voltage generation unit is turned on according to the switch control signal. A voltage of a predetermined pin of the pulse width modulation circuit is equal to a predetermined voltage when the discharge current is equal to the charge current. The comparator compares a reference voltage with the first voltage to generate a comparison signal. The logic unit generates a clear signal according to the comparison signal. The D flip-flop clears the switch control signal according to the clear signal.
US09197053B2
A retractable interconnect device is configurable to operate in an extended mode or a retracted mode. The retractable interconnect device includes a first (e.g., short) electrical path and a second (e.g., long) electrical path. The retractable interconnect device also includes a connector that is electrically coupled to the second electrical path and that is selectively electrically couplable to the first electrical path.
US09197052B2
An umbilical member guide device of an industrial robot including an umbilical member guide body interposed between a shaft member and an end effector. The umbilical member guide body includes a first plate part having a first through hole through which the umbilical member passing through the shaft member passes, a second plate part arranged facing the first plate part, and a connecting part connecting the first plate part and the second plate part together and forming an opening part between the first plate part and the second plate part, and the second plate part further has a second through hole and a communicating part communicating the opening part and the second through hole.
US09197049B2
The present disclosure is directed to a bracket and electrical assembly including such bracket for mounting or securing to a concrete masonry unit (CMU).
US09197038B1
A spark plug including a ground electrode body and an electrode tip that is resistance welded to the ground electrode body and that has a discharge surface. In a specific sectional plane, a welding surface is located in the first direction from an outer surface of the ground electrode body. The welding surface includes a flat portion whose distance to the point P1 in the first direction is 0.05 mm or smaller, and when a point E1 and a point E2 are defined as ends of the flat portion and a second direction is defined as a direction from the point E2 toward the point E1, in the second direction from the point E1, a distance between the welding surface and the discharge surface in the first direction is smaller than a distance between the discharge surface and the point E1 in the first direction.
US09197037B1
A spark plug includes a portion from a position at a distance of 0.1 mm from a base end to a distal end that is categorizable into a high hardness portion and a low hardness portion using a hardness distribution of a ground electrode, the high hardness portion being a portion from the position at a distance of 0.1 mm from a base end to a position at a distance of 0.1×n (mm) from a base end, the low hardness portion being a portion from a position at a distance of 0.1×(n+1) (mm) from the base end to the distal end, where “n” is a natural number. The low hardness portion includes a portion that has a largest curvature in the ground electrode. A highest hardness of the low hardness portion is lower than a lowest hardness of the high hardness portion.
US09197035B2
A semiconductor laser device includes an n-type clad layer, a first p-type clad layer and a ridge stripe. The device also includes an active layer interposed between the n-type clad layer and the first p-type clad layer, and a current-blocking layer formed on side surfaces of the ridge stripe. The ridge stripe of the device includes a second p-type clad layer formed into a ridge stripe shape on the opposite surface of the first p-type clad layer from the n-type clad layer. The ridge stripe is formed such that a first ridge width as the width of a surface of the second p-type clad layer exists on the same side as the first p-type clad layer and a second ridge width as the width of a surface of the second p-type clad layer exists on the opposite side from the first p-type clad layer.
US09197034B2
A vertical cavity surface emitting laser includes: a substrate; a first mirror layer which is provided over the substrate; an active layer which is provided over the first mirror layer; a second mirror layer which is provided over the active layer; a first electrode and a second electrode which are electrically connected to the first mirror layer and are separated from each other; and a third electrode which is electrically connected to the second mirror layer, wherein the first mirror layer, the active layer, and the second mirror layer configure a laminated body, the laminated body includes a resonance portion which resonates light generated in the active layer, in a plan view, an insulation layer surrounding the laminated body is provided, and in the plan view, the insulation layer is provided between the first electrode and the second electrode.
US09197025B2
A control unit housing has connector pins arranged therein. Each pin has a first contact end directed to the housing interior for a press-fit connection to a circuit board insertable therein, and a second contact end directed out of the housing for connecting an electrical plug connector or the like. The housing is designed as a header that is open on one side and has an access opening for inserting the circuit board. The access opening can be closed by a cover after mounting the circuit board. The connector pins are substantially right-angled pins arranged in the region of a side wall of the housing. The pins are anchored in the housing by the second contact ends running approximately at right angles to the first contact ends, such that the mounting forces acting on the first contact ends during press-fit connecting are received by the housing.
US09197017B2
A fore connection member, comprising a fore connection member body and engaging-disengaging members. The engaging-disengaging members are pivoted to side surfaces of the fore connection member body respectively, and each comprise a recess, a grab, an operating end, an abutting end and a pivoting end. The engaging-disengaging members each have the pivoting end thereof pivoted to a corresponding one of the side surfaces and pivots about the fore connection member body. The operating end and the abutting end are disposed at two sides of the pivoting end respectively, the grab is provided with a hook portion facing the abutting end, and a circular arc abutting portion disposed at the abutting end comprises a circular arc abutting surface smoothly connected to the recess. A rear connection member for use with the fore connection member and a connection member comprising the fore connection member and the rear connection member are also provided.
US09197014B2
An electrical connector module, includes a first connecting part and a second connecting part. The first connecting part includes a main body and a pair of protrusion portions. The second connecting part includes a base seat, a receiving portion on the base body; and a pair of latching assemblies. The latching assembly includes a pair of first blocking members, a pair of second blocking members and a latching member. The latching member is located between the pair of first blocking members and the pair of second blocking members. The latching member includes a base body, a latching portion protruding from the base body, and a pair of cam portions on the base body, each cam portion is rotatably retained between one first blocking member and one second blocking member.
US09197008B1
An electrical assembly includes a connector body extending along a body axis between a mating end and a cable end. The connector body has a body groove at the mating end having a deep groove section and a shallow groove section. A retaining ring is received in the body groove that is compressible between a relaxed state and a compressed state. The retaining ring is able to be compressed to the compressed state when aligned with the deep groove section and is blocked from being compressed to the compressed state when aligned with the shallow groove section. A coupling nut is rotatable about the mating end of the connector body and is configured to be coupled to a receiving connector. The coupling nut has a coupling nut groove receiving the retaining ring when the retaining ring is in the relaxed state.
US09197001B2
A clamping carrier element for flat assemblies includes a housing. In at least one embodiment, the clamping carrier element is configured on the upper face of the housing in such a manner that a plurality of clamping carrier elements can be stacked one above the other via a connection technique.
US09196997B2
A shuttered adapter is described that includes a shuttered housing, a shutter sub-assembly frame contained within the housing, a pair of shutter doors hingedly secured to the shutter sub-assembly frame, and a door spring configured to push the shutter doors outward from the shutter sub-assembly frame and away from each other. In addition, a shuttered adapter is described that includes a housing and a spring-like shutter attached to the front of the center wall of the housing. The shutter has a pair a door flaps extending into the ports of the adapter at a rearward angle.
US09196984B2
Provided is a substrate connection structure using a substrate connector capable of: ensuring a sufficient distance for adjusting positional misalignment even when the size and height of the substrate connector are reduced; preventing connector breakdown during the connecting operation thereof; and visually checking the connection thereof. A guide protrusion is provided at a mate-side end face of a guided portion so as to protrude farther beyond a mate-side substrate mounting surface when the plug is fitted into the socket. A first-side guide face is formed in an edge portion of an opening in a guide groove and the guide protrusion is provided with a second-side guide face slidable with the first-side guide face so as to lead the guided portion into the guide groove. Also, interference between the guide protrusion and the mate-side substrate is prevented from occurring.
US09196977B2
An apparatus for use in wiring a multi-configurable electrical device during installation thereof at point of operation includes a substrate defining a plurality of tabs separated by at least one gap. The tabs and the gap or gaps are arranged such that when the substrate is positioned proximate the electrical device, the tabs cover a first group of one or more wiring terminals of the electrical device and the gap or gaps provides access to a second group of one or more wiring terminals of the electrical device in accordance with a first wiring configuration of a plurality of possible wiring configurations. According to one exemplary embodiment, the substrate is generally rectangular and non-conductive. Visible indicia may be optionally disposed on the substrate (e.g., by adhering a label containing the indicia to the substrate) to provide information relating to wiring the electrical device according to the first wiring configuration.
US09196976B2
A ground strap shield connection includes a body member disposed between an insulation layer and a ground shield of a first cable. The body member has a first tapered portion and a first threaded portion on an outer surface thereof. A cap member has a second tapered portion and a second threaded portion on an inner surface thereof. The ground shield of the first cable is disposed between the first and second tapered portions of the body member and the cap member when the first and second threaded portions are engaged. A ground strap has a first end connected to the cap member and a second end connectable to another ground strap of another ground strap shield connector connected to a second cable.
US09196974B2
An underwater connection assembly comprises an underwater device and an optical cable segment. The optical cable segment is configured to be coupled to a first sea earth by means of a first sea earthing electrode and the underwater device is configured to be coupled to a second sea earth by means of a second sea earthing electrode. In use, the first sea earthing electrode and the second sea earthing electrode are disposed at separated locations from each other.
US09196969B2
A radiating element includes a supporting element and a plurality of radiating units formed at one end of the supporting element. Each of the radiating units has a lower surface facing towards the supporting element and an upper surface facing away from the supporting element. The radiating element further includes a first and second dividing pieces symmetrically disposed on each of the radiating units. The radiating element also includes a loading element formed on the lower surface of each of the plurality of radiating units, wherein the loading element extends outward from the supporting element and along an edge of the radiating unit. Moreover, the radiating element includes an electrical connecting element for connecting the radiating units to a feeding cable, the electrical connecting element being lower than the upper surfaces of the radiating units.
US09196964B2
A hybrid antenna including a piezoelectric device and an RF radiator. The hybrid antenna is capable of providing both RF and piezoelectric device functionality, e.g., radio frequency transmission/reception capabilities for radio frequency devices as well as sound-producing and/or energy-scavenging functionality via the piezoelectric device. The piezoelectric device may be in conductive contact with the RF radiator or may not be in conductive contact with the RF radiator.
US09196962B2
A long-wave or medium-wave receiver receives a first signal from a first terminal of a loopstick antenna on a positive antenna input terminal of the receiver and receives a second signal from a second terminal of the loopstick antenna on a negative antenna input terminal of the receiver. The first and second signals are processed differentially in the receiver. The receiver may optionally be configured to operate in either a differential mode or a single-ended mode by setting switches to selectively connect one of the antenna input terminals to ground in single-ended mode.
US09196945B2
The disclosure describes a dual hybrid duplexer including two hybrid couplers, two intra-filters, a tunable isolation load, and a phase shifter. The phase shifter may be located at the isolation port. The phase shifter may be located at the antenna port. In one embodiment, a dual hybrid duplexer includes two hybrid couplers, two intra-filters, a tunable isolation load, a first phase shifter located at the isolation port, and a second phase shifter located at the antenna port. The first and second phase shifters have a difference of 90 degrees (plus or minus 10 degrees).
US09196943B2
A microwave filter includes a first adjustable coupling resonator connected via a first coupling iris to an input of the microwave filter, a frequency resonator configured to establish a transmission frequency of the microwave filter and connected to the first adjustable coupling resonator via a second coupling iris, and a second adjustable coupling resonator connected to the frequency resonator via a third coupling iris.
US09196938B2
A battery module includes a plurality of adjoining of battery cells; heat conductive sheets between at least some adjacent battery cells, the heat conductive sheets being in thermal co-operation with the battery cells; a heat dispersion member coupled with the heat conductive sheets and in thermal co-operation therewith; and a heat dissipation member coupled with the heat dispersion member and in thermal co-operation therewith.
US09196934B2
Disclosed is a multifunctional radiant heat plate and a battery cell module having the same. The multifunctional radiant heat plate includes a heat conductive plate, a first and second composite sheet, at least one electroconductive metal layer, and electrodes. The heat conductive plate may be sandwiched between the first and second composite sheets. The at least one electroconductive metal layer is stacked on the composite sheet. Electrodes may be connected to the heat conductive plate and the metal layer, respectively. According to the disclosure, the heat conductive plate, the composite sheet, the electroconductive metal layer, and the electrodes are radiant heat interfacial components disposed between battery cells, and the composite sheet includes a piezoelectric material and a heat conductive filler dispersed and filled in a matrix resin.
US09196931B2
Disclosed herein is a secondary battery pack including a battery cell, a protection circuit module (PCM) assembly having a connection member (A), an insulative mounting member having a connection member (B) embedded therein, and an insulative cap. The connection member (B) is coupled to a second electrode terminal of the battery cell by welding, such that the connection member (B) is electrically connected to the second electrode terminal of the battery cell, in a state in which the insulative mounting member is mounted on the battery cell. The connection member (A) is coupled to a first electrode terminal of the battery cell upward from a PCM, such that the connection member (A) is electrically connected to the first electrode terminal of the battery cell. The electrical connection between the PCM assembly and the connection member (B) is achieved in a physical contact fashion.
US09196919B2
A secondary battery, including an electrode assembly having a positive sheet and a negative sheet and a separator is interposed therebetween; a tape to wrap an outer surface of the electrode assembly; and a case to receive the electrode assembly. After a remainder of the tape is formed to extend beyond a lower surface of the electrode assembly and joined by a press, the remainder is positioned between a bottom surface of the case and the lower surface of the electrode assembly. According to the embodiment of the present invention, since a junction portion of the tape extended to the outside of the lower surface of the electrode assembly is bent and inserted into the case, a shock-absorbing action is provided to reduce an external shock applied to the secondary battery. Further, an additional tape process can be omitted to simplify a manufacturing process of the secondary battery.
US09196915B2
A fuel cell system and a control method therefor are provided. The fuel cell system includes: a fuel cell formed of a plurality of stacked power generating elements; a cell voltage measuring unit detecting negative voltage in any one of the power generating elements; a control unit controlling electric power output from the fuel cell; and an accumulated current value measuring unit measuring an accumulated current value obtained by time integration of current output from the fuel cell. The control unit prestores a correlation between accumulated current values and current densities that are allowable for the fuel cell in a period during which negative voltage is generated. When negative voltage has been detected, the control unit executes output restricting process of restricting electric power output from the fuel cell so as to fall within an operation allowable range defined by the accumulated current values and current densities of the correlation.
US09196914B2
A moving body, such as a vehicle, having one or more fuel cells mounted thereon. The fuel cells, which power the moving body, generate electricity and release water as a by-product. Accordingly, the moving body includes a water discharge module that releases water produced by the fuel cells to the atmosphere using a water outlet. The water outlet may be located in a front section of the moving body. The moving body may further include a water tank that temporarily stores water before releasing the water to the atmosphere.
US09196912B2
An electrically conductive adhesive is disclosed for bonding anode and cathode flow field plates together for use in fuel cells. The adhesive formulation comprises epoxy methacrylate resin and non-fibrous carbon particles but little to no carbon fibres. The adhesive provides suitable strength, bond gap, conductivity and other properties, particularly for flow field plates made of flexible graphite, carbon, or metal.
US09196905B2
A composite electrode and a lithium-based battery are disclosed, wherein the composite electrode comprises: a substrate and a conductive layer formed on the substrate, wherein the conductive layer comprises graphite powders, Si-based powders, Ti-based powders, or a combination thereof embedded in a conductive matrix and coated with diamond films, and the diamond films are formed of diamond grains. The novel electrodes of the present invention when used in the Li-based battery can provide superior performance including excellent chemical inertness, physical integrity, and charge-discharge cycling life-time, and exhibit high electric conductivity and excellent lithium ion permeability.
US09196901B2
Electrodes for lithium batteries are coated via an atomic layer deposition process. The coatings can be applied to the assembled electrodes, or in some cases to particles of electrode material prior to assembling the particles into an electrode. The coatings can be as thin as 2 Ångstroms thick. The coating provides for a stable electrode. Batteries containing the electrodes tend to exhibit high cycling capacities.
US09196880B2
A battery module including a plurality of battery cells, the battery cells being stacked along a first direction, wherein the battery cells are alternately offset in a second direction, the second direction being perpendicular to the first direction.
US09196873B1
A display panel pixel unit and display panel using the same is provided. The display panel pixel unit includes a first electrode layer, a light-emitting element, and a light-filtering layer. The light-emitting element is disposed on the first electrode layer. The light-emitting element has a light-emitting surface on the side opposite to the first electrode layer. The light-filtering layer is above the first electrode layer and forms a space with the first electrode layer to contain at least a portion of the light-emitting element. The light-filtering layer has a light-filtering area corresponding to the area of the first electrode layer that is exposed by the light-emitting element and light-transmissible area corresponding to the light-emitting surface.
US09196858B2
An object of the present invention to improve reliability of a light emitting device having a mixed layer including an organic compound and metal oxide without reducing productivity. The above object is solved in such a way that after forming the mixed layer including the organic compound and metal oxide, the mixed layer is exposed to a nitrogen gas atmosphere without being exposed to a gas atmosphere including oxygen, and then a stacked film is formed over the mixed layer without exposing the mixed layer to a gas atmosphere including oxygen.
US09196852B2
A method for manufacturing membrane layers of organic solar cells by roll to roll coating utilizes a roll to roll process for manufacturing an electron transferring layer and an active layer of the organic solar cells is disclosed. The roll to roll process adopted by the method cooperates with a particular solvent and accompanies a parameter control such as temperature and processing time during the sintering and baking steps. The method utilizes a slot-die coating technique in the interim, whereby a membrane layer of the solar cells can be manufactured with a large area for reducing the cost, and the formed membrane layers can have a good efficiency.
US09196848B2
A display device includes a display panel, a top member, and a bottom member. The top member is disposed on the display panel, and has a first groove region where at least a portion of an upper surface of the display panel is exposed. The bottom member is disposed under the display panel, and has a second groove region where at least a portion of a lower surface of the display panel is exposed. The first and second groove regions are located at a bending region of the display device.
US09196846B2
A novel electron acceptor based on bay-annulated indigo (BAI) was synthesized and used for the preparation of a series of high performance donor-acceptor small molecules and polymers. The resulting materials possess low-lying LUMO energy level and small HOMO-LUMO gaps, while their films exhibited high crystallinity upon thermal treatment, commensurate with high field effect mobilities and ambipolar transfer characteristics.
US09196841B2
An arylamine compound is represented by Formula 1 where R, X, Y, and n are further defined.
US09196839B2
There is provided an organic compound of excellent characteristics that exhibits excellent hole-injecting/transporting performance and has an electron blocking ability and a highly stable thin-film state with excellent heat resistance. The compound of the present invention is an arylamine compound having a triphenylamine structure. The arylamine compound is used as a constituent material of at least one organic layer in an organic electroluminescent device that includes a pair of electrodes, and one or more organic layers sandwiched between the pair of electrodes.
US09196823B2
A magnetoresistive effect element includes the following structure. A first ferromagnetic layer has a variable magnetization direction. A second ferromagnetic layer has an invariable magnetization direction. A tunnel barrier layer is formed between the first and second ferromagnetic layers. An energy barrier between the first ferromagnetic layer and the tunnel barrier layer is higher than an energy barrier between the second ferromagnetic layer and the tunnel barrier layer. The second ferromagnetic layer contains a main component and an additive element. The main component contains at least one of Fe, Co, and Ni. The additive element contains at least one of Mg, Al, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Mn, Zn, As, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb, Cd, In, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, Hf, Ta, and W.
US09196817B2
This patent document discloses high voltage switches that include one or more electrically floating conductor layers that are isolated from one another in the dielectric medium between the top and bottom switch electrodes. The presence of the one or more electrically floating conductor layers between the top and bottom switch electrodes allow the dielectric medium between the top and bottom switch electrodes to exhibit a higher breakdown voltage than the breakdown voltage when the one or more electrically floating conductor layers are not present between the top and bottom switch electrodes. This increased breakdown voltage in the presence of one or more electrically floating conductor layers in a dielectric medium enables the switch to supply a higher voltage for various high voltage circuits and electric systems.
US09196811B2
Provided are an optical device package and a method of manufacturing the same. The method of manufacturing the optical device package according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention comprises: forming a metal layer on an insulating layer on which via holes are formed; forming a circuit pattern layer by etching the metal layer; forming a boundary part in a predetermined part of the metal layer; mounting an optical device on the circuit pattern layer; and forming a molding part by applying a transparent material to the optical device, wherein the predetermined part is a part corresponding to a boundary of the molding part.
US09196800B2
The light-radiating semiconductor component has a radiation-emitting semiconductor body and a luminescence conversion element. The semiconductor body emits radiation in the ultraviolet, blue and/or green spectral region and the luminescence conversion element converts a portion of the radiation into radiation of a longer wavelength. This makes it possible to produce light-emitting diodes which radiate polychromatic light, in particular white light, with only a single light-emitting semiconductor body. A particularly preferred luminescence conversion dye is YAG:Ce.
US09196792B2
A semiconductor device includes a plurality of first conductivity type semiconductor nanowire cores located over a support, and an insulating mask layer located over the support. The nanowire cores include semiconductor nanowires epitaxially extending from portions of a semiconductor surface of the support exposed through openings in the insulating mask layer. The device also includes a plurality of second conductivity type semiconductor shells extending over and around the respective nanowire cores, a first electrode layer that contacts the second conductivity type semiconductor shells and extends into spaces between the semiconductor shells, and an insulating layer located between the insulating mask layer and the first electrode in the spaces between the semiconductor shells.
US09196766B1
Radiation detecting and sensing systems using graphene and methods of making the same are provided; including a substrate, a single or multiple layers of graphene nanoribbons, first and second conducting interconnects each in electrical communication with the graphene layers. Graphene layers are tuned to increase the temperature coefficient of resistance, increasing sensitivity to IR radiation. Absorption over a wide wavelength range (200 nm to 1 mm) is possible based on the three alternative devices structures described within. Devices can variously include (a) a microbolometer based graphene film where the TCR of the layer is enhanced with selected functionalization molecules, (b) graphene layers with a source and drain metal interconnect and a deposited metal of SiO2 gate which modulates the current flow across the phototransistor detector, and/or (c) tuned graphene layers layered on top of each other where a p-type layer and a n-type layer is created using a combination of oxidation and doping.
US09196758B2
Methods of fabricating solar cell emitter regions with differentiated P-type and N-type regions architectures, and resulting solar cells, are described. In an example, a back contact solar cell includes a substrate having a light-receiving surface and a back surface. A first polycrystalline silicon emitter region of a first conductivity type is disposed on a first thin dielectric layer disposed on the back surface of the substrate. A second polycrystalline silicon emitter region of a second, different, conductivity type is disposed on a second thin dielectric layer disposed on the back surface of the substrate. A third thin dielectric layer is disposed laterally directly between the first and second polycrystalline silicon emitter regions. A first conductive contact structure is disposed on the first polycrystalline silicon emitter region. A second conductive contact structure is disposed on the second polycrystalline silicon emitter region.
US09196757B2
A stack is obtained by stacking a glass plate, a first transparent resin sheet, a solar cell, a second transparent resin sheet, a colored resin sheet, and a first resin sheet. The stack is pressed under heat to fabricate a module including the glass plate, a first transparent bonding layer placed between the glass plate and the solar cell and formed of the first transparent resin sheet, a second transparent bonding layer placed between the first resin sheet and the solar cell and formed of the second transparent resin sheet, a colored bonding layer placed between the second transparent bonding layer and the first resin sheet and formed of the colored resin sheet, and the first resin sheet. A loss modulus of the colored resin sheet at a temperature of the pressing is higher than a loss modulus of the first transparent resin sheet at the temperature of the pressing.
US09196753B2
Methods, devices, and systems are provided for a select device that can include a semiconductive stack of at least one semiconductive material formed on a first electrode, where the semiconductive stack can have a thickness of about 700 angstroms (Å) or less. Each of the at least one semiconductive material can have an associated band gap of about 4 electron volts (eV) or less and a second electrode can be formed on the semiconductive stack.
US09196750B2
Embodiments of mechanisms of a semiconductor device structure are provided. The semiconductor device structure includes a substrate and a word line cell disposed over the substrate. The semiconductor device structure includes a substrate and a control gate formed over the substrate. The semiconductor device further includes an insulating layer formed on a sidewall of the control gate and a memory gate formed adjacent to the insulating layer. In addition, the insulating layer has a first height, and the memory gate has a second height shorter than the first height.
US09196749B1
A programmable device with a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) surrounded by a programmable substrate region is described. The MOSFET has a source and drain region separated by a channel region with an insulating region and gate disposed above the channel region. A junction disposed within the substrate region controls the programmable substrate region. Biasing the junction depletes the substrate region, which isolates the body of the MOSFET from a secondary well. When the junction is left unbiased, the body of the MOSFET is electrically coupled to the secondary well.
US09196741B2
A semiconductor device with significantly low off-state current is provided. An oxide semiconductor material in which holes have a larger effective mass than electrons is used. A transistor is provided which includes a gate electrode layer, a gate insulating layer, an oxide semiconductor layer including a hole whose effective mass is 5 or more times, preferably 10 or more times, further preferably 20 or more times that of an electron in the oxide semiconductor layer, a source electrode layer in contact with the oxide semiconductor layer, and a drain electrode layer in contact with the oxide semiconductor layer.
US09196737B2
Provided is a thin film semiconductor device such as an organic light-emitting display which includes a thin film transistor (TFT) having a lightly doped region. The thin film semiconductor includes a substrate, a first active pattern, a first lower conductive pattern, and a first upper conductive pattern. The first active pattern is disposed on the substrate and includes a channel region, a lightly doped region, and a heavily doped region. The first lower conductive pattern is disposed on the first active pattern and covers the channel region. The first upper conductive pattern is disposed on the first lower conductive pattern and covers the channel region and the lightly doped region.
US09196729B2
A semiconductor device and a method of fabricating a semiconductor device, the device including an active region on a substrate, the active region being defined by a field region; gate trenches in the active region of the substrate; gate structures respectively formed in the gate trenches; and at least one carrier barrier layer in the substrate and under the gate trenches.
US09196719B2
A device having a substrate defined with a device region is presented. The device region includes an ESD protection circuit having a transistor. The transistor includes a gate having first and second sides, a first diffusion region disposed adjacent to the first side of the gate and a second diffusion region displaced away from the second side of the gate. The device includes a first device well encompasses the device region and a second device well disposed within the first device well. The second device well encompasses the first diffusion region and at least a part of the gate. The device also includes a third well which is disposed within the second device well and a drain well which encompasses the second diffusion region and extends below the gate.
US09196718B2
A semiconductor substructure with improved performance and a method of forming the same is described. The semiconductor substructure includes a dielectric film over a substrate, the dielectric film including at least one metal dielectric layer, at least one oxygen-donor layer, and at least one nitride-incorporation layer.
US09196713B2
An object is to provide favorable interface characteristics of a thin film transistor including an oxide semiconductor layer without mixing of an impurity such as moisture. Another object is to provide a semiconductor device including a thin film transistor having excellent electric characteristics and high reliability, and a method by which a semiconductor device can be manufactured with high productivity. A main point is to perform oxygen radical treatment on a surface of a gate insulating layer. Accordingly, there is a peak of the oxygen concentration at an interface between the gate insulating layer and a semiconductor layer, and the oxygen concentration of the gate insulating layer has a concentration gradient. The oxygen concentration is increased toward the interface between the gate insulating layer and the semiconductor layer.
US09196707B2
At least one layer including a scavenging material and a dielectric material is deposited over a gate stack, and is subsequently anisotropically etched to form a oxygen-scavenging-material-including gate spacer. The oxygen-scavenging-material-including gate spacer can be a scavenging-nanoparticle-including gate spacer or a scavenging-island-including gate spacer. The scavenging material is distributed within the oxygen-scavenging-material-including gate spacer in a manner that prevents an electrical short between a gate electrode and a semiconductor material underlying a gate dielectric. The scavenging material actively scavenges oxygen that diffuses toward the gate dielectric from above, or from the outside of, a dielectric gate spacer that can be formed around the oxygen-scavenging-material-including gate spacer.
US09196703B2
A method for fabricating a semiconductor device, such as a GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) device, including etching a thermal via into a back-side of a semiconductor substrate and depositing a diamond nucleation seed layer across the back-side of the substrate. The method further includes coating the diamond nucleation with a mask layer and removing mask material outside of the thermal via on the planar portions of the back-side of the substrate. The method includes removing portions of the diamond nucleation layer on the planar portions and then removing the remaining portion of the mask material in the thermal via. The method then includes depositing a bulk diamond layer within the thermal via on the remaining portion of the diamond nucleation layer so that diamond only grows in the thermal via and not on the planar portions of the substrate.
US09196698B2
A semiconductor device according to an embodiment, includes a source electrode, a drain electrode arranged apart from the source electrode, an oxide semiconductor film, a gate dielectric film, and a gate electrode. The oxide semiconductor film is arranged below the source electrode and the drain electrode to connect the source electrode and the drain electrode. The gate dielectric film is formed below the oxide semiconductor film such that a thickness below at least one of the source electrode and the drain electrode is made thinner than a thickness below a channel region of the oxide semiconductor film between the source electrode and the drain electrode. The gate electrode is arranged below the gate dielectric film and formed in a position where one of portions of the gate electrode overlaps with the source electrode and another one of the portions of the gate electrode overlaps with the drain electrode.
US09196695B2
The present invention provides a high-voltage metal-oxide-semiconductor (HVMOS) transistor comprising a substrate, a gate dielectric layer, a gate electrode and a source and drain region. The gate dielectric layer is disposed on the substrate and includes a protruded portion and a recessed portion, wherein the protruded portion is disposed adjacent to two sides of the recessed portion and has a thickness greater than a thickness of the recessed portion. The gate electrode is disposed on the gate dielectric layer. Thus, the protruded portion of the gate dielectric layer can maintain a higher breakdown voltage, thereby keeping the current from leaking through the gate.
US09196690B2
Provided is an oxide semiconductor film which has more stable electric characteristics and essentially consists of indium zinc oxide. In addition, provided is a highly reliable semiconductor device which has stable electric characteristics by using the oxide semiconductor film. The oxide semiconductor film essentially consisting of indium zinc oxide has a hexagonal crystal structure in which the a-b plane is substantially parallel to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film and a rhombohedral crystal structure in which the a-b plane is substantially parallel to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film.
US09196683B2
The present disclosure discloses a method for manufacturing a TFT array substrate, comprising: depositing a gate metal layer, a gate insulating layer, a semiconductor layer and a source-drain electrode layer in this order on a base substrate, performing a first photolithograph process to form a common electrode line, a gate line, a gate electrode, a source electrode, a drain electrode and a channel defined between the source electrode and the drain electrode; depositing a passivation layer, performing a second photolithograph process to form a first via hole and a second via hole in the passivation layer; and depositing a pixel electrode layer and a data line layer in this order, perform a third photolithograph process to form a data line connected to the source electrode through the first via hole and a pixel electrode connected to the drain electrode through the second via hole.
US09196673B2
A method of forming capacitors includes providing first capacitor electrodes within support material. The first capacitor electrodes contain TiN and the support material contains polysilicon. The polysilicon-containing support material is dry isotropically etched selectively relative to the TiN-containing first capacitor electrodes using a sulfur and fluorine-containing etching chemistry. A capacitor dielectric is formed over sidewalls of the first capacitor electrodes and a second capacitor electrode is formed over the capacitor dielectric. Additional methods are disclosed.
US09196672B2
Semiconductor devices are described that include a capacitor integrated therein. In an implementation, the semiconductor devices include a substrate including a dopant material of a first conductivity type. A plurality of trenches are formed within the substrate. The semiconductor devices also include a diffusion region having dopant material of a second conductivity type formed proximate to the trenches. A capacitor is formed within the trenches and at least partially over the substrate. The capacitor includes at least a first electrode, a second electrode, and a dielectric material formed between the first and second electrodes.
US09196669B2
Disclosed herein is a substrate including: a base substrate; an insulating layer formed on an upper portion of the base substrate; a circuit layer formed in a form in which it is buried in the insulating layer; at least one electrode formed on upper portions of the circuit layer and the insulating layer and having a prominence and depression formed at a side thereof; and a dielectric layer formed in a form in which it surrounds the side of the electrode.
US09196656B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes a plurality of first electrode lines including upper portions that have convex top surfaces. A plurality of second electrode lines are disposed over the plurality of first electrode lines to cross the plurality of first electrode lines, and a plurality of memory patterns are disposed between the plurality of first electrode lines and the plurality of second electrode lines.
US09196654B2
The disclosure relates to a method of fabricating a vertical MOS transistor, comprising the steps of: forming, above a semiconductor surface, a conductive layer in at least one dielectric layer; etching a hole through at least the conductive layer, the hole exposing an inner lateral edge of the conductive layer and a portion of the semiconductor surface; forming a gate oxide on the inner lateral edge of the conductive layer and a bottom oxide on the portion of the semiconductor surface; forming an etch-protection sidewall on the lateral edge of the hole, the sidewall covering the gate oxide and an outer region of the bottom oxide, leaving an inner region of the bottom oxide exposed; etching the exposed inner region of the bottom oxide until the semiconductor surface is reached; and depositing a semiconductor material in the hole.
US09196652B2
A horizontal scanning period is divided into n parts (n is a natural number), so that horizontal scanning can be performed (n×y) times in one frame period. That is, n signals can be outputted from each pixel, and storage times of the n signals are different from one another. Then, since a signal suited to the intensity of light irradiated to each pixel can be selected, information of an object can be accurately read.
US09196651B2
A method includes forming a photodiode in a substrate and forming source and drain regions in the substrate. A first rapid thermal anneal (RTA) process is performed to anneal the source and drain regions in the substrate. After forming the source and drain regions, a thermal oxide layer is grown over the photodiode by performing a second RTA process. A thickness of the thermal oxide layer is limited to a thickness required to enclose a damaged portion of a surface of the photodiode.
US09196644B2
In a second image sensor 200 which has a plurality of phase difference detection pixels which generate signals for performing adjusted focus decision by way of phase difference detection and a plurality of image generation pixels which generate signals for generating images, a first pixel group which is formed by arranging part of phase difference detection pixels of the plurality of phase difference detection pixels in a specific direction, and a second pixel group which is formed by arranging part of image generation pixels of the plurality of image generation pixels in the specific direction are alternately arranged in an orthogonal direction orthogonal to the specific direction. Consequently, when an image capture element used to detect a phase difference and generate an image generates an image, it is possible to reduce a load of processing related to image generation.
US09196641B2
A method for making an electronic device, such as a MOS transistor, including the steps of forming a plurality of semiconductor islands on an electrically functional substrate, printing a first dielectric layer on or over a first subset of the semiconductor islands and optionally a second dielectric layer on or over a second subset of the semiconductor islands, and annealing. The first dielectric layer contains a first dopant, and the (optional) second dielectric layer contains a second dopant different from the first dopant. The dielectric layer(s), semiconductor islands and substrate are annealed sufficiently to diffuse the first dopant into the first subset of semiconductor islands and, when present, the second dopant into the second subset of semiconductor islands.
US09196630B2
Semiconductor devices, and methods of fabricating the same, include forming a trench between a plurality of patterns on a substrate to be adjacent to each other, forming a first sacrificial layer in the trench, forming a first porous insulation layer having a plurality of pores on the plurality of patterns and on the first sacrificial layer, and removing the first sacrificial layer through the plurality of pores of the first porous insulation layer to form a first air gap between the plurality of patterns and under the first porous insulation layer.
US09196629B2
A memory string includes: a first semiconductor layer formed in a columnar shape extending in a stacking direction perpendicular to a substrate; a tunnel insulating film formed surrounding a side surface of the first semiconductor layer; a charge accumulation film formed surrounding the tunnel insulating film and configured to be capable of accumulating charges; a block insulating film formed surrounding the charge accumulation film; and a plurality of first conductive layers formed surrounding the block insulating film and disposed at a predetermined interval in the stacking direction. The first semiconductor layer comprises carbon-doped silicon and being formed to have different carbon concentrations in upper and lower portions in the stacking direction.
US09196626B2
A semiconductor device with a novel structure in which storage capacity needed for holding data can be secured even with miniaturized elements is provided. In the semiconductor device, electrodes of a capacitor are an electrode provided in the same layer as a gate of a transistor and an electrode provided in the same layer as a source and a drain of the transistor. Further, a layer in which the gate of the transistor is provided and a wiring layer connecting the gates of the transistors in a plurality of memories are provided in different layers. With this structure, parasitic capacitance formed around the gate of the transistor can be reduced, and the capacitor can be formed in a larger area.
US09196624B2
Methods and systems of fabricating a wordline protection structure are described. As described, the wordline protection structure includes a polysilicon structure formed adjacent to a memory core region. The polysilicon structure includes first doped region positioned on a core side of the polysilicon structure and a second doped region positioned on a spine side of the polysilicon structure. An un-doped region positioned between the first and second doped regions. A conductive layer is formed on top of the polysilicon structure and arranged so that it does not contact the un-doped region at either the transition between the first doped region and the un-doped region or the second doped region and un-doped region.
US09196622B2
A semiconductor device having an SRAM which includes: a monolithic first active region in which a first transistor and a fifth transistor are disposed; a second active region separated from the first active region, in which a second transistor is disposed; a monolithic third active region in which a third transistor and a sixth transistor are disposed; and a fourth active region separated from the third active region, in which a fourth transistor is disposed. Each driver transistor is divided into a first transistor and a second transistor (or a third transistor and a fourth transistor) and these driver transistors are disposed over different active regions.
US09196609B2
A semiconductor device includes a first contact plug, a diametric dimension of an upper end portion thereof greater than the lower end portion thereof; a first insulating film above a substrate and covering the first plug; a second contact plug, a diametric dimension of an upper end portion thereof less than lower end portion thereof, the lower end portion contacting the upper end portion of the first plug; a second insulating film above the first insulating film and the first plug and covering the second plug; a wiring layer including a lower end portion contacting the upper end portion of the second plug; and a third insulating film above the second insulating film and the second plug and covering the wiring layer; wherein the upper end portion of the first plug displaced from the lower end portion of the second plug has a step.
US09196603B2
A method and apparatus is provided for self-assembly of micro-components such as microchips onto a carrier substrate, provided with assembly locations for the components. The components are supplied to the carrier by a liquid flow, while a template substrate is arranged facing the carrier. The template is a substrate provided with openings aligned to the assembly locations. The carrier and template are submerged into a tank filled with the liquid, while the liquid flow is supplied to the template side together with the components, so that the components are guided towards the openings by the flow of liquid. Once a component is trapped into an opening of the template, substantially no further liquid flow through the opening is possible, so that following components are guided towards the remaining openings, thereby establishing a fast and reliable self-assembly process.
US09196596B2
A method of manufacturing an interposer is provided, including forming a plurality of first openings on one surface side of a substrate, forming a first metal layer in the first openings, forming on the other surface side of the substrate a plurality of second openings that are in communication with the first openings, forming a second metal layer in the second openings, and electrically connecting the first metal layer to the second metal layer, so as to form conductive through holes. The conductive through holes are formed stage by stage, such that the fabrication time in forming the metal layers is reduced, and a metal material will not be accumulated too thick on a surface of the substrate. Therefore, the metal material has a smoother surface, and no overburden will be formed around end surfaces of the through holes. An interposer is also provided.
US09196594B2
An embodiment of the invention provides a chip package which includes: a carrier substrate; a semiconductor substrate having an upper surface and a lower surface, disposed overlying the carrier substrate; a device region or sensing region located on the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate; a conducting pad located on the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate; a conducting layer electrically connected to the conducting pad and extending from the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate to a sidewall of the semiconductor substrate; and an insulating layer located between the conducting layer and the semiconductor substrate.
US09196590B2
An electronic package includes an integrated circuit chip mounted to a support plate and encapsulated by an encapsulating body. The package includes at least one weakening deep perforation. The perforation is formed in either the support plate or the encapsulating body, and functions to reduce a resistance of the package to bending stresses perpendicular to the support plate.
US09196585B2
In some aspects of the invention, a first polysilicon fuse section for forming a cavity is provided in close proximity to a second polysilicon fuse section for adjusting circuit characteristics. By forming a cavity with the first polysilicon fuse section made to be blown, fused polysilicon is contained in the cavity when the second polysilicon fuse section is blown to make it possible to provide a polysilicon fuse capable of stably maintaining an electrical insulated state. This can provide a polysilicon fuse capable of stably maintaining the electrical insulated state when the fuse is blown, a semiconductor device having the polysilicon fuse and a method of severing the polysilicon fuse.
US09196582B2
A memory comprises a first layer comprising a first line. The memory also comprises second layer comprising a series of bit-cells, a word line driver, and a word line coupled to the word line driver. The memory further comprises a first plurality of through vias coupling the word line to the first line. The word line has a resistance value based on a geometry of the word line, and the first line is configured to reduce the resistance value of the word line by a degree associated with a geometry of the first line.
US09196576B2
A semiconductor device has a die mounted on a die paddle that is elevated above and thermally connected via tie bars to a heat sink structure. Heat generated by the die flows from the die to the die paddle to the tie bars to the heat sink structure and then to either the external environment or to an external heat sink. By elevating the die/paddle sub-assembly above the heat sink structure, the packaged device is less susceptible to delamination between the die and die attach adhesive and/or the die attach adhesive and the die paddle. An optional heat sink ring can surround the die paddle.
US09196566B2
A semiconductor device includes a terminal case, a beam portion which has elasticity and is connected to the terminal case, divided insulating substrates with a conductive pattern, a fastener which is disposed at the center of the terminal case, and an elastic sealing resin which fills the terminal case.
US09196562B2
A semiconductor arrangement includes a silicon body having a top surface and a bottom surface, and a thick metal layer arranged on the top surface of the silicon body. The thick metal layer has a bonding surface facing away from the top surface of the silicon body. A bonding wire or a ribbon is bonded to the thick metal layer at the bonding surface of the thick metal layer. The thickness of the thick metal layer is at least 10 micrometers (μm), the thick metal layer comprises copper or a copper alloy, and the bonding wire or ribbon comprises copper or a copper-based material.
US09196557B1
A method for packaging an integrated circuit (IC) device in which conventional manufacturing steps of mechanically bonding a die to a corresponding interconnecting substrate, wire bonding the die, and encapsulating the die in a protective shell are replaced by a single manufacturing step that includes thermally treating an appropriate assembly of parts to both form proper electrical connections for the die in the resulting IC package and cause the molding compound(s) to encapsulate the die in a protective enclosure.
US09196549B2
A package structure is disclosed. The package structure includes a die; a substrate disposed corresponding to the die, wherein the substrate comprises a first dummy pad and a second dummy pad on a first surface of the substrate; and a first solder ball and a second solder ball on a second surface of the substrate and electrically connect the first dummy pad and the second dummy pad respectively.
US09196543B2
A method of forming a fin field effect transistor (FinFET) structure including forming a plurality of shallow trench isolation (STI) features in a semiconductor substrate, thereby defining a plurality of bulk-semiconductor areas separated from each other by the STI features. The method then forms a first hard mask layer on the semiconductor substrate, the first hard mask layer being patterned to have a plurality of openings over one of the bulk-semiconductor areas. A second semiconductor material is then grown on the semiconductor substrate within the plurality of openings of the first hard mask layer, thereby forming a multi-fin active region having multiple fin features within the one of the bulk-semiconductor areas.
US09196542B2
A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device is provided. A first stack structure and a second stack structure are formed to respectively cover a portion of a first fin structure and a second fin structure. Subsequently, a spacer is respectively formed on the sidewalls of the fin structures through an atomic layer deposition process and the composition of the spacers includes silicon carbon nitride. Afterwards, a interlayer dielectric is formed and etched so as to expose the hard mask layers. A mask layer is formed to cover the second stack structure and a portion of the dielectric layer. Later, the hard mask layer in the first stack structure is removed under the coverage of the mask layer. Then, a dummy layer in the first stack structure is replaced with a conductive layer.
US09196541B2
A SRAM cell and a method for manufacturing the same are disclosed. In one embodiment, the SRAM cell may include: a semiconductor layer; and a first Fin Field Effect Transistor (FinFET) and a second FinFET formed on the semiconductor layer, wherein the first FinFET includes a first fin formed by patterning the semiconductor layer, the first fin having a first top surface and a first bottom surface, wherein the second FinFET includes a second fin formed by patterning the semiconductor layer, the second fin having a second top surface and a second bottom surface, and wherein the first top surface is substantially flush with the second top surface, the first and second bottom surfaces abut against the semiconductor layer, and the height of the second fin is greater than the height of the first fin.
US09196540B2
A semiconductor device including field-effect transistors (finFETs) formed on a silicon substrate. The device includes a number of active areas each having a number of equally-spaced fins separated into regular fins and at least one edge fin, a gate structure over the regular fins, and a drain region as well as a source region electrically connected to the regular fins and disconnected to the at least one edge fin. The edge fins may be floating, connected to a potential source, or serve as a part of a decoupling capacitor.
US09196536B1
Methods of dicing semiconductor wafers, each wafer having a plurality of integrated circuits, are described. In an example, a method of dicing a semiconductor wafer having a plurality of integrated circuits involves forming a mask above the semiconductor wafer, the mask composed of a layer covering and protecting the integrated circuits. The mask is then patterned with a phase modulated laser beam profile laser scribing process to provide a patterned mask with gaps, exposing regions of the semiconductor wafer between the integrated circuits. The semiconductor wafer is then plasma etched through the gaps in the patterned mask to singulate the integrated circuits.
US09196532B2
A method includes forming an electrical connector over a substrate of a wafer, and molding a polymer layer, with at least a portion of the electrical connector molded in the polymer layer. A first sawing step is performed to form a trench in the polymer layer. After the first sawing step, a second sawing step is performed to saw the wafer into a plurality of dies.
US09196510B2
A semiconductor package includes a mold body having a first main face, a second main face opposite to the first main face and side faces connecting the first and second main faces, a first semiconductor module including a plurality of first semiconductor chips and a first encapsulation layer disposed above the first semiconductor chips, and a second semiconductor module disposed above the first semiconductor module. The second semiconductor module includes a plurality of second semiconductor channels and a second encapsulation layer disposed above the second semiconductor channels. The semiconductor package further includes a plurality of external connectors extending through one or more of the side faces of the mold body.
US09196506B2
A method for manufacturing an interposer includes forming a via hole in an insulation plate including a resin or a ceramic; simultaneously forming resists for a first upper redistribution layer on the top surface of the insulation plate, and a resistor for a lower redistribution layer on the bottom surface of the insulation plate; plating copper to fill the via hole and simultaneously forming the first upper redistribution layer and the lower redistribution layer along a designed circuit pattern; and forming a first upper protection layer and a lower protection layer to expose a portion of the first upper redistribution layer and a portion of the lower redistribution layer.
US09196502B2
A semiconductor device includes a substrate and memory cell transistors having a gate electrode above the substrate, and an oxide film. The gate electrode includes a charge storage layer above the substrate, a first insulating film on the charge storage layer, and a control gate electrode on the first insulating film, the control gate electrode including a metal film. The oxide film is disposed on the metal film.
US09196500B2
A method for manufacturing semiconductor structures includes providing a substrate having a plurality of mandrel patterns and a plurality of dummy patterns, simultaneously forming a plurality of first spacers on sidewalls of the mandrel patterns and a plurality of second spacers on sidewalls of the dummy patterns, and removing the second spacers and the mandrel patterns to form a plurality of spacer patterns on the substrate.
US09196489B2
A method of tailoring the dopant profile of a workpiece by modulating one or more operating parameters is disclosed. In one embodiment, the workpiece may be a solar cell and the desired dopant profile may include a heavily doped surface region and a highly doped region. These two regions can be generated by varying one or more of the parameters of the ion implanter. For example, the extraction voltage may be changed to affect the energy of the implanted ions. The ionization energy can be changed to affect the species of ions being generated from the source gas. In another embodiment, the source gasses that are ionized may be changed to affect the species being generated. After the implant has been performed, thermal processing is performed which minimizes the diffusion of the ions in the workpiece.
US09196479B1
A method of forming a semiconductor device that includes forming an at least partially relaxed semiconductor material, and forming a plurality of fin trenches in the partially relaxed semiconductor material. At least a portion of the plurality of fin trenches is filled with a first strained semiconductor material that is formed using epitaxial deposition. A remaining portion of the at least partially relaxed semiconductor material is removed to provide a plurality of fin structure of the first strained semiconductor material.
US09196477B2
A semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the device is disclosed. In one aspect, a method includes providing a substrate, providing a first epitaxial semiconducting layer on top of the substrate, and forming a one- or two-dimensional repetitive pattern, each part of the pattern having an aspect ratio in the range of about 0.1 to 50.
US09196468B2
An electrospray ion source method and system is provided for detecting emitter failure comprising a liquid chromatography column suitable for chromatographic separation of a sample. The column can have an inlet for receiving the sample; and an outlet for ejecting the sample. A make-up flow channel is provided for introducing make-up flow of liquid to the sample post-column, wherein the make-up flow normalizes the spray current. An electrospray ionization source is provided having one or more electrospray ionization emitter nozzles for receiving the make-up flow containing sample. A power supply can provide a voltage to the one or more emitter nozzles, and a measurement device can measure and monitor the spray current.
US09196460B2
A ratio between gas conductances of a main gas passage and a plurality of branch gas passages is increased. A plasma processing apparatus is an apparatus for plasma-processing an object to be processed by exciting gas, and includes a processing container; a gas supply source for supplying a desired gas; a main gas passage distributing the gas supplied from the gas supply source; a plurality of branch gas passages connected to a lower stream side of the main gas passage; a plurality of throttle portions formed on the plurality of branch gas passages to narrow the branch gas passages; and one, two, or more gas discharging holes per each of the branch gas passages, for discharging the gas that has passed through the plurality of throttle portions formed on the plurality of branch gas passages into the processing container.
US09196455B2
Ion beam sample preparation apparatus and methods are described. The apparatus has disposed in a vacuum chamber at least one tilting ion beam irradiating means with intensity control, a rotation stage with rotation control, a sample holder, and an adjustable positioning stage that has two axes of positional adjustment that are operable to move the region of the sample being prepared by the ion beam relative to the ion beam. The apparatus may also include a vacuum-tight optical window for observing the sample and a shutter for protecting the optical window from debris while the sample is prepared in the ion beam. The apparatus may also include an instrument controller responsive to the state of the apparatus and to the condition of the sample and is operable to control the preparation of the sample.
US09196454B2
Disclosed herein is a microcolumn with a double aligner. The microcolumn is configured such that when an axis of an aperture of a limiting aperture is spaced apart from an original path of a particle beam, the path of the particle beam can be effectively compensated for in such a way that the path of the particle beam is aligned with the axis of the aperture of the limiting aperture by the double aligner. The microcolumn includes a source lens. The source lens includes at least two aligner layers which compensate for the path of the particle beam.
US09196448B2
An electron tube includes a shell that encloses a helix inside, and a plurality of support rods that support and fix the helix inside the shell, a part of each support rod that is in contact with an inner wall of the shell being covered with a conductive material, another part of each support rod that is in contact with the helix being covered with a dielectric material. The widths of conductive material of one end and another end of each support rod in a longitudinal direction are different, the side surface not being in contact with the shell nor the helix.
US09196433B2
An arc runner has a pair of side panels covering movable contacts and fixed contacts from a width direction of a movable contactor, a back panel covering the movable contacts and the fixed contacts from a longitudinal direction of the movable contactor, and a top panel covering the movable contacts and the fixed contacts from above, is formed of a magnetic material, and guides arcs to be generated between the movable contacts and the fixed contacts when the movable contacts and the fixed contacts separate from each other, toward an upward direction of the movable contactor. Furthermore, the arc runner includes, in a central portion of the top panel, a top panel hole flow-path area which is larger than top-panel to side-panel gaps formed between the side panels and the top panel.
US09196432B1
In one embodiment the present disclosure relates to providing wireless speaker functionality in an electrical switch assembly, such as a light switch located in the wall of a building. The switch assembly includes a faceplate with a touch-sensitive speaker grille covering a sizeable portion of the faceplate. The disclosed designs enables the grille portion of the faceplate to provide sound transmission and electrical switch control, thereby allows for a larger speaker to be placed centrally in the junction box, while maintaining full electrical switch functionality. In some embodiments illumination components (e.g. electroluminescent regions) are arranged on a circuit board with a plurality of openings designed to align with the grille. The illumination components can illuminate regions of the faceplate, indicating the current state of one or more electrical switches.
US09196417B2
Several new and useful features for a magnetic structure are provided. One feature is that the magnetic structures are configured to help minimize the winding's AC losses, improving the system's efficiency. Another feature is that the combination of different magnetic hats creates a shaping path for the magnetic field. Still another feature is that a magnetic hat concept can be applied to a variety of magnetic core shapes.
US09196416B2
A bobbin for spacing windings around an inductor core includes an interior spacer defining an exterior surface for coupling interior spacer with an annular inductor core and an interior facing surface opposing the exterior surface for receiving inductor windings. The interior spacer has a thickness profile between the exterior and interior facing surfaces for spacing the windings inward from the inductor core to reduce magnetic fringe flux effects on the windings. An inductor body includes an inductor core coupled to bobbin. A wound inductor includes windings wrapped around the inductor body formed by the inductor core and bobbin.
US09196407B2
A transformer winding device, a method and a transformer are disclosed. The transformer winding winding device includes a rotary device configured to extend along an axis of rotation and configured to receive a transformer winding to be wound, at least one device configured to provide a plurality of insulation strips, and a comb-like guide device. The comb-like device is configured to deflect the plurality of insulation strips into at least one common winding plane and fed parallel to one another, at an angle to an axis of rotation, to the transformer winding to be wound. The comb-like guide device can include at least a first guide device element for a first group of insulation strips and a second guide device element for a second group of insulation strips, wherein the first and second guide device elements are offset with respect to one another in terms of axial length.
US09196394B2
An electric cable made from at least one elongated electric conductor and a multilayer insulation surrounding the electric conductor. The multilayer insulation has a first semiconducting layer and an electrically insulating layer, where the two layers are made from a silicone rubber based composition. The semiconducting silicone rubber based composition of the first semiconducting layer has carbon rovings as conductive filler.
US09196391B2
A polyurea electrolyte includes a polyurea resin formed by a polymerization of a first compound having two or more isocyanate groups and a second compound having two or more amino groups. The first compound or the second compound contains ten or more carbon chains, and the first compound or the second compound contains a sulfonic acid group or a carboxylic acid group. A method for manufacturing the polyurea electrolyte includes neutralizing the sulfonic acid group or the carboxylic acid group in the first compound or the second compound by a neutralizing agent; after the neutralizing, polymerizing the first compound and the second compound; and after the polymerizing, removing the neutralizing agent from a polymer of the first compound and the second compound.
US09196386B2
Disclosed herein is a spacer grid for a nuclear fuel assembly which is formed from grid strips of an improved structure, thus reducing flow-induced high-frequency vibration. The spacer grid has dimples or grid springs for supporting fuel rods and is formed from a plurality of grid strips assembled in a lattice shape to form lattice cells. Each of the grid strips has at least one slot formed in a planar portion of the grid strip separately from the dimple or grid spring. Therefore, characteristics of the vibration of the spacer grid can be set in a variety of different manners so that flow-induced high-frequency vibration can be reduced.
US09196384B2
A memory subsystem can test a memory device in situ, testing the performance of parameters of operation the device in the system it is built into during production. Thus, the system can detect the specific values that will work for one or more operating parameters for the memory device in actual runtime. A test component embedded in the memory subsystem can perform a stress test and identify specific bits or lines of memory that experience failure under one or more stresses. The system can then map out the failed bits or lines to prevent the bits/lines from being used in runtime of the system.
US09196376B2
A semiconductor device including a first latch unit suitable for storing a first address of a first memory cell tested in a first cell array block, a second latch unit suitable for storing a second address of a second memory cell tested in a second cell array block, a first selector suitable for receiving a first selection signal or a second selection signal to output any one of the first address and the second address as a selected address, and a program controller suitable for determining whether the selected address has to be stored in a fuse array and to control an operation for programming the fuse array.
US09196374B1
A control module for a memory system including a plurality of multi-bit memory cells. The control module includes a read module configured to receive, from a first storage region of a first memory cell of the plurality of multi-bit memory cells, a first signal, and generate a second signal based on the first signal. A signal detection module is configured to determine distances between the second signal and respective estimates of a plurality of noiseless signals associated with the first memory cell. The noiseless signals correspond to a combination of an ideal signal and an interference signal. The signal detection module is further configured to determine, from the estimates of the plurality of noiseless signals, a noiseless signal that matches most closely to the second signal. A data conversion module is configured to detect data stored in the first storage region based on the noiseless signal that matches most closely to the second signal.
US09196364B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes a plurality of vertical NAND flash memory cells arranged in a three dimensional (3D) structure, a first memory block disposed in the 3D structure and having memory cells selected by a first ground selection line and a second ground selection line, wherein the first and second ground selection lines are electrically separated from each other, a second memory block disposed in the 3D structure and having memory cells selected by a third selection line and fourth selection line, wherein the third and fourth ground selection lines are electrically separated from each other, and a pass transistor that transfers a driving signal to turn on ground selection transistors respectively connected to the first and third ground selection lines in response to a block selection signal.
US09196361B2
Provided is an operation method applicable to a resistive memory cell including a transistor and a resistive memory element. The operation method includes: in a programming operation, generating a programming current flowing through the transistor and the resistive memory element so that a resistance state of the resistive memory element changes from a first resistance state into a second resistance state; and in an erase operation, generating an erase current from a well region of the transistor to the resistive memory element but keeping the erase current from flowing through the transistor, so that the resistance state of the resistive memory element changes from the second resistance state into the first resistance state.
US09196358B2
The nonvolatile memory device using a variable resistance material and a method for driving the same are provided. A first clamping unit connected between a resistance memory cell and a first sensing node to provide a first clamping bias to the resistance memory cell. The first clamping bias changes over time. A first compensation unit provides a compensation current to the first sensing node. A first sense amplifier is connected to the first sensing node to sense a level change of the first sensing node. In response to if first data stored in the resistance memory cell, an output value of the first sense amplifier transitions to a different state after a first amount of time from a time point from where the first clamping bias starts. In response to second data that is different from the first data stored in the resistance memory cell, the output value of the first sense amplifier transitions to the different state after a second amount of time that is different from the first amount of time from the time point from where the first clamping bias starts.
US09196355B2
Embodiments include but are not limited to apparatuses and systems including memory having a memory cell including a variable resistance memory layer, and a selector switch in direct contact with the memory cell, and configured to facilitate access to the memory cell. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US09196350B2
Disclosed herein are an active control device, a semiconductor device and system including the same. The active control device may include a refresh control unit configured for outputting a refresh signal by controlling a delay time for a refresh start time when a refresh operation is performed and a precharge signal generation unit configured for generating a bank precharge signal for precharging a bank in response to the refresh signal. The refresh control unit may include a refresh delay unit for delaying a bank-active signal for a specific time and outputting a delay signal, and the refresh delay unit may be operably coupled with a plurality of banks in common.
US09196347B2
A method for selection of a DRAM refresh timing in a DRAM memory system is disclosed. The method may include running a workload for a first number of refresh intervals using a first DRAM refresh timing and making a first workload throughput measurement for the first number of refresh intervals. The method may also include running the workload for a second number of refresh intervals using a second DRAM refresh timing and making a second workload throughput measurement for the second number of refresh intervals. The method may further include deciding if the first throughput measurement is greater than the second throughput measurement, and then selecting the first DRAM refresh timing as a selected DRAM refresh timing, or deciding if the second throughput measurement is greater than the first throughput measurement, then selecting the second DRAM refresh timing as the selected DRAM refresh timing.
US09196338B2
According to one embodiment, a magnetoresistive memory device includes first and second bit lines, a memory cell, a power supply line, first and second transistors, and third and fourth transistors. The memory cell has first and second magnetoresistive elements and is connected between the first and second bit lines. The power supply line is connected between the first and second magnetoresistive elements. The first and second transistors have current paths inserted in the first and second bit lines, respectively, and have gate electrodes connected, respectively to the second and first bit lines provided on a side opposite to the memory cell. The third and fourth transistors are inserted in the first and second bit lines. Gate electrodes of the third and fourth transistors are cross-coupled, and the third and fourth transistors are controlled by current from the memory cell.
US09196333B2
There is disclosed a memory element including a memory layer that has a magnetization and a magnetization direction thereof varies corresponding to information; a magnetization-fixed layer that has a magnetization; and an insulating layer that is provided between the memory layer and the magnetization-fixed layer, wherein an electron that is spin-polarized is injected in a lamination direction of a layered structure, and thereby the magnetization direction of the memory layer varies and a recording of information is performed with respect to the memory layer, and a Ta film in contact with a face of the magnetization-fixed layer, the face of the magnetization-fixed layer is opposite to the insulating layer side.
US09196321B2
Apparatuses and methods are disclosed herein, including those, performed by a memory die, that operate to detect that a command on a bus connected to the memory die is addressed to another memory die responsive to a chip select signal, and to change the impedance of an on-die termination circuit of the memory die responsive to the detecting.
US09196320B2
An embodiment relates to a method for data processing and comprises determining an electrical variable for each cell of a data bit, transforming each electrical variable into the time domain, and determining a blank state for at least one data bit based on a comparison of the transformed electrical variables.
US09196311B2
A video recording device including: a format control section defining a video file record to produce a file via a format defined having a BDMV directory and at least directories to record the video signal and to record Play List data further arranged below the BDMV directory, and forms the format so one Play Item is produced in each of segments of video scenes to be acquired and a plurality of Play Items are arranged within one piece of the Play List data; and a recording control section recording the video information on the recording medium according to the format formed by the format control section, wherein when video acquired by the camera is recorded where a first piece of Play List data is produced, Items are produced within the first piece of the Play List data without generating a new piece of Play List data.
US09196297B2
The present inventions are related to systems and methods for data processing, and more particularly to systems and methods for detecting patterns in a data stream.
US09196291B2
A case includes a case wall, a locking member and a moving member. The case wall has an opening so as to connect inside and outside of the case. The locking member can move to a locking position set inside the case and to an unlocking position different from the locking position. The moving member can move the locking member from the unlocking position to the locking position when a housed object housed in the case goes outside of the case through the opening.
US09196287B2
An objective lens driving unit including a moving structure to which an objective lens and a driving coil are operatively installed, a static structure which includes a magnetic circuit corresponding to the driving coil, a plurality of suspension wires each of which has a first end and a second end, the first end being operatively connected to the static structure, and the second end being operatively connected to the moving structure, and circuit boards operatively installed to the moving structure, the circuit boards including a plurality of wiring layers, wherein the wiring layers include first terminals to which the driving coil is connected and second terminals to which the second end of each of the plurality of is connected.
US09196280B2
Disclosed herein are magnetic storage devices and uses therefore. The devices comprise an injection pad and a nanowire extending from an outer edge of the injection pad. The injection pad and the nanowire of the disclosed magnetic storage devices have a geometry that is designed to optimize high density memory storage via low magnetic field domain wall shifting. The devices may be utilized, for example, for generating and storing magnetic domain walls for application in memory devices, sensor devices, and logic devices.
US09196279B2
A method fabricating a near field transducer for a heat assisted magnetic recording head including forming a peg region of a near field transducer along a first portion of a substrate of a heat assisted magnetic recording head, removing a first portion of the peg region, fabricating a barrier material along a surface of the peg region created by the removal of the first portion of the peg region; and forming an enlarged region adjacent the surface such that the barrier material is disposed at least between the surface of the peg region and the enlarged region.
US09196274B2
Disclosed is an embodiment of a suspension for a disk drive having a slider configured for bonding with a gimbal using an adhesive. Embodiments of the slider include one or more cavities in a portion of a slider mounting surface of the slider. The one or more cavities are configured for increasing a volume of the adhesive between the slider mounting surface and the gimbal. A method of forming the one or more cavities on the slider mounting surface, and bonding together the gimbal and the slider is disclosed.
US09196269B2
A recording head includes a near-field transducer proximate a media-facing surface. The near-field transducer includes an aperture surrounded by walls of plasmonic material and a notch protruding within the aperture. The walls are oriented normal to the media-facing surface. A write pole is proximate the near-field transducer. The write pole has a back surface facing away from the media-facing surface and an aperture-facing surface proximate the aperture. A heat sink layer of the plasmonic material is disposed along the back surface and the aperture-facing surface of the write pole. The heat sink layer is thermally and optically coupled to the near-field transducer.
US09196268B2
According to one embodiment, a magnetic head includes a reproducing unit to detect a medium magnetic field recorded in a magnetic recording medium. The reproducing unit includes first and second magnetic shields, a stacked body, and a side wall film. The stacked body is provided between the first and second magnetic shields and includes first and second magnetic layer and an intermediate layer provided between them. The stacked body has a side wall. The side wall intersects a plane perpendicular to a stacking direction from the first magnetic shield toward the second magnetic shield. The side wall film covers at least a part of the side wall of the stacked body. The side wall film includes at least one of Fe and Co, and has a composition different from a composition of the first magnetic layer and different from a composition of the second magnetic layer.
US09196267B2
A data writer may be generally configured at least with a write pole adjacent to and separated from a side shield and a trailing shield. The side shield may be formed of a first material and configured with a trailing box region that is at least partially filled with a flux density insert formed of a second material that is different than the first material.
US09196265B2
One embodiment includes a pulse duration control system for a magnetic disk-drive system. A rise delay system generates first control voltages in response to a write data input signal changing between a first state and a second state. A fall delay system generates second control voltages in response to the write data input signal changing between the first and second states. A comparator system generates a rising-edge overshoot signal and a falling-edge overshoot signal based on a comparison of the first and second control voltages. The rising-edge overshoot signal can set a duration of a positive overshoot current pulse for a write current at a transition of the write data input signal from the first state to the second state, and the falling-edge overshoot signal can set a duration of a negative overshoot current pulse for the write current at a transition from the second state to the first state.
US09196260B1
The system and method generate a voice checklist template that contains at least one item. A revised voice checklist is generated from the voice checklist template. A request for input for an item in the revised voice checklist is sent. After receiving a response to the request the revised voice checklist is updated with the response. If the revised voice checklist is not complete, the process repeats until the revised voice checklist is complete. Once the process is complete, the revised voice checklist is stored.
US09196249B1
Disclosed herein is a method for classifying one or more components of an audio signal received from a communication device. In one embodiment of the present invention, a Goertzel calculation is used to identify different frequency components of a selected sample. The identified frequency components of the selected sample may be analyzed based on one or more predefined factors. The predefined factors pertain to the typical music and speech component of a typical audio signal. The analysis of the frequency component of the selected sample gives resulting values that is compared to a bottom threshold for determining whether the identified component is a music component or a speech component.
US09196236B1
An electronic music instrument comprises at least one rotary encoder with a knob configured for setting a value of a parameter of the instrument; at least one input configured for receiving at least one of a base value of the parameter and a modulation offset of the parameter; and a visual indicator associated with the encoder configured for indicating the base value of the parameter and the modulation offset of the parameter.
US09196234B2
A user interface for a virtual musical instrument presents a number of chord touch regions, each corresponding to a chord of a diatonic key. Within each chord region a number of touch zones are provided, including treble clef zones and bass clef zones. Each treble clef touch zone within a region will sound a different chord voicing. Each bass clef touch zone will sound a bass note of the chord. Other user interactions can modify or mute the chords, and vary the bass notes being played together with the chords. A set of related chords and/or a set of rhythmic patterns can be generated based on a selected instrument and a selected style of music.
US09196228B2
An image displaying apparatus is provided, which includes: a display unit that displays an image, and which has a horizontal width and a vertical width; an image processing unit which processes the image; and a controller which controls the image processing unit, if an aspect ratio of the image is different from an aspect ratio of the display unit, to extend the image in a first direction until a horizontal width or a vertical width of the image becomes identical to any one of the horizontal width and the vertical width of the display unit, to extend the image in a second direction to maintain the aspect ratio of the image, and to move the extended image in the second direction on the display unit.
US09196227B2
In a computer system having a display screen configured to display visual content, a plurality of techniques may be identified to be considered for enhancing visual accessibility of a particular collection of visual content to be displayed to an end user on the display screen. For each technique, an algorithm may be applied to compute one or more measures of health of the display of the particular collection of visual content resulting from applying the respective technique to enhance the visual accessibility of the particular collection of visual content. Based at least in part on the computed measures of health, one or more best techniques may be selected and applied to enhance the visual accessibility of the particular collection of visual content. The enhanced particular collection of visual content may be displayed to the end user on the display screen.
US09196221B2
A display device includes L number of display panels where L is a positive integer greater than 1; a driving circuit having L number of controllers for driving the respective display panels; and a central control unit configured to control the driving circuit. The controllers are configured to be synchronized with one another based on a clock signal from the central control unit, and each of the controllers is configured to sequentially and continuously select each one of K number of lines (where K is a positive integer greater than 1) arranged in a row in the corresponding display panel, and allow the selected line to emit light. Further, a direction for sequentially and continuously selecting each one of the lines is set to be the same in all the display panels.
US09196218B2
The present invention aims to provide a driving control circuit of a display device, which includes a plurality of data driving circuits each having a timing controller merged with a source driver. The data driving circuits are configured to synchronize data of the respective data driving circuits and compensate for a difference between a data enable signal and a gate output enable signal, when an abnormal display signal is received.
US09196213B2
A gate driving circuit includes: a plurality of driving stages configured to apply gate signals to a plurality of pixels of a display panel, one driving stage of the driving stages including: a thin film transistor including a first control electrode, an active part overlapping the first control electrode, an input electrode overlapping the active part, an output electrode overlapping the active part, and a second control electrode on the first control electrode and the active part; and a control voltage generator configured to supply a control voltage determined according to a channel characteristic of the thin film transistor to the second control electrode and to include a voltage generating thin film transistor including an active part having a same channel characteristic as the active part of the thin film transistor.
US09196210B2
The present invention discloses a driving module for a liquid crystal display device. The driving module includes a data line signal processing unit, for generating a plurality of data driving signals, a scan line signal processing unit, for generating a plurality of gate driving signals, and a control unit, for controlling the data line signal processing unit and the gate line signal processing unit, such that a plurality of sub-pixels corresponding to a data line are with different charging orders in different frames, or are charged with different charging periods in a same frame.
US09196208B2
The embodiments of the present disclosure discloses a gate drive method and a gate drive device of a liquid crystal display, which can avoid the influence by the voltage difference ΔVp between the pixel voltage and the data line voltage, and eliminate the flickering phenomenon and the residual image caused by the residual direct current effectively. The gate drive method of the liquid crystal display comprises: inputting a compensation voltage Vgc to the n-th row of gate line when the n-th row of gate line is turned off completely in the current frame; keep on inputting the compensation voltage Vgc; and stopping inputting the compensation voltage Vgc to the n-th row of gate line when a turn-on voltage Vgh is input to the n-th row of gate line in the next frame; wherein, N≦the total number of the gate lines.
US09196207B2
Techniques for controlling the slew rate of a signal independently of RC time constants are disclosed. In one embodiment, a gate driver circuit for an LCD panel may include a rail-to-rail operational amplifier having an output stage configured to produce a gate activation signal for switching pixels of the LCD panel. A slew rate control circuit may be provided for adjusting the slew rate of the gate activation signal by varying a bias current of the output stage relative to a compensation capacitance and a gain of the operational amplifier. For instance, the slew rate may be increased by increasing the bias current, and decreased by decreasing the bias current without the need to adjust RC variables.
US09196190B2
The present invention provides a display module, an electronic device and a display control method. The display module may comprise: a first display unit disposed in a first area, configured to display first image information, wherein the first display unit has a first transmittance, and the first transmittance is higher than a specific transmittance; a second display unit disposed in a second area, configured to display second image information, wherein a first light reflected by the second display unit or a second light generated by the second display unit is able to transmit through the first display unit. By using the display module, a user can see the second image information presented by the second display unit while watching the first image information presented by the first display unit. A different display effect may be presented by combining the first display unit and the second display unit.
US09196189B2
A display includes pixels and a controller. The controller can cause the pixels to generate colors corresponding to an image frame. The controller can cause the display to display the image frame using sets of subframe images corresponding to contributing colors according to a field sequential color (FSC) image formation process. The contributing colors include component colors and at least one composite color, which is substantially a combination of at least two component colors. A greater number of subframe images corresponding to a first component color can be displayed relative to a number of subframe images corresponding to another component color. The display can be configured to output a given luminance of a contributing color for a first pixel by generating a first set of pixel states and output the same luminance of the contributing color for a second pixel by generating a second, different set of pixel states.
US09196188B2
An image processing unit includes a filter unit which performs high frequency emphasis processing on a image signal of a first sub-frame among a plurality of sub-frames, and performs high frequency suppression processing on a image signal of a second sub-frame different from the first sub-frame; and a level adjustment unit which performs level adjustment processing on the image signal of the first sub-frame, and performs level adjustment processing different from the level adjustment processing on the image signal of the second sub-frame. Alight source control unit controls light quantity of a light source during a period of a sub-frame in which the image signal subjected to the level adjustment processing is outputted, in accordance with the level adjustment performed on the sub-frame.
US09196183B2
A display device is provided. The display device includes: a timing controller and a data driver. The timing controller is configured to receive input data, a main clock signal, a synchronization signal, or a protocol signal, to generate an internal clock signal by using the main clock signal, to convert the input data into image data, and to transmit the synchronization signal or the protocol signal using the internal clock signal. The data driver is configured to recover the synchronization signal or the protocol signal from the internal clock signal, and to drive the image data by using the recovered synchronization signal or the protocol signal.
US09196181B2
The apparatus according to present invention comprises a combination of a drinking vessel and a geometrically shaped collar that is divided into at least two pieces such that the collar can encircle and snugly fit onto a stem or handle of a glass, cup or mug whereby when attached the collar is not movable relative to the stem or handle. When the at least two pieces of the collar are joined together to surround the stem of a glass, handle of a mug or the actual glass body itself, the geometrically shaped collar is restored to its original shape and form.
US09196177B2
A display assembly may be fitted with display advertisements. The assembly may be affixed to pre-existing cooler doors, including those that do not permit a bracket to completely surround it.
US09196176B2
Systems and methods for training users. Surgical data related to surgical procedures done by expert level users is collected from surgical robots. The surgical data is segmented into surgemes and dexemes. The training users are trained at a level of the surgemes and/or a level of the dexemes by guiding the training users with surgical simulators to practice the surgemes and/or the dexemes, wherein the surgical simulators simulate surgery done by an expert level user.
US09196175B2
A portable system is provided for sensing and training a user to maintain correct posture while seated in a chair with a seat portion and a back portion. The system includes a first pad attachable to the seat portion of a chair, said first pad having a front area and a rear area, and a second pad attachable to the back portion of a chair and having a lower area and an upper area. There is a first sensor located in the first pad capable of sensing that a user is seated in the seat portion of the chair, a second sensor located in the first pad capable of sensing whether the lower posterior portion of the user's body is in contact with the rear area of the first pad, a third sensor operably attached to the lower area of the second pad capable of sensing whether the user's lumbar region is in contact with the second pad, a fourth sensor operably attached to the upper area of the second pad capable of sensing the distance between the user's upper back and the upper area of the second pad and a neck-position sensor operably attached to the second pad and capable of sensing the distance between the neck-position sensor and the user's neck. The system also includes a microprocessor operably connected to the first sensor, second sensor, third sensor, fourth sensor and neck-position sensor and capable of collecting data from each of the first sensor, second sensor, third sensor, fourth sensor and neck position sensor. The system also includes software for a personal computer, which configures the personal computer to receive the data from the microprocessor and to display the data received from the microprocessor, so that the user can utilize the ergonomic seat pad to receive feedback regarding his posture and over time, improve his posture.
US09196165B2
The present disclosure relates to a method of assessing the feasibility of a desired four-dimensional trajectory to be flown by an aircraft. The method comprises converting a description of the desired trajectory into a kinematic description of aircraft intent that corresponds to the desired trajectory, and providing a trajectory computation engine with the kinematic description of aircraft intent, aircraft performance data that describes the performance of the aircraft and atmospheric data that describes the atmospheric conditions along the desired trajectory, and using the trajectory computation engine to attempt to calculate the desired trajectory from the kinematic description of aircraft intent, the aircraft performance data and the atmospheric data, and reporting whether or not the desired trajectory was calculated.
US09196157B2
The disclosed subject matter provides for traffic analysis employing timed fingerprint location information. In an aspect, TFL information can be associated with location characteristics for a UE. These location characteristics can describe the motion of the UE. As such, with proper analysis, the motion of the UE can be correlated to traffic patterns. Transportation analytics can employ TFL information to provide real time or near real time traffic information, forecast traffic conditions, or automate response to traffic conditions based on TFL information. Whereas TFL can provide advantages over other types of location information systems, leveraging TFL information in traffic analysis can reflect these advantages. Further, whereas TFL information can be gathered from nearly all modern and many legacy mobile devices, large volumes of TFL information can be employed in related transportation analytics.
US09196153B2
A method and apparatus for operating an electric motor unit. Information is received from the electric motor unit over a wireless communications link between the controller and the electric motor unit. Commands are identified for the electric motor unit from the information received. The commands identified are sent to the electric motor unit over the wireless communications link.
US09196151B2
Systems and methods for encoding location-based reminders are provided. Data indicative of a request for a location-based reminder can be received. The data indicative of the request can include data indicative of a user placement of a reminder in a visual representation of the geographic area, such as an image captured of the geographic area or a visual representation of the three-dimensional model of the geographic area. A selected location within a three-dimensional model of a geographic area can be identified based on the data indicative of the user placement of the reminder. Three-dimensional geographic coordinates corresponding to the selected location can be determined using the three-dimensional model and associated with the location-based reminder. The location-based reminder can then be triggered based at least in part on signals indicative of user position and/or orientation in the geographic area.
US09196148B1
Monitoring system alert technology, in which monitoring system data is accessed from a monitoring system that is located in a property of a user and the monitoring system data is analyzed against one or more rules that define alerts provided for the monitoring system. Based on the analysis, a determination is made that an alert for the monitoring system is needed and conditions for providing the alert are accessed. Location of a mobile device of a user associated with the monitoring system and timing related to providing the alert are monitored. The monitored location of the mobile device and the monitored timing are analyzed with respect to the accessed conditions. Based on the analysis, a determination is made that the accessed conditions for providing the alert are met and the alert is output at the mobile device.
US09196144B2
The social alarm system includes a fall detector unit, worn by the user, having an accelerometer to detect a fall. A controller monitors for an acceleration signal which exceeds a wake-up or starting threshold and, in response, distinguishes between a fall event and a non-fall event based at least on the acceleration signal. A counter unit maintains a count of the non-fall events over a monitored time period such as one day. An alarm signal unit generates an inactivity alarm signal when the count of non-fall events is below a count threshold within the monitored time period.
US09196131B2
An electronic gaming machine has an electronic game controller and a display where game symbols are arranged in an array of predetermined game positions. The appearance of a first special symbol causes a group of predetermined game positions to be selected where each game symbol occupying a predetermined game position in said group is changed into a second special symbol either during a play of a game or at the completion of said play, said change into said second special symbol being visible to said player. A gaming method is also provided.
US09196121B2
Portable wagering media may be utilized to alter play of wagering games.
US09196118B2
A reduction in amusement of gaming which may occur after providing a progressive bonus is suppressed. A gaming machine 1 conducts a revival drawing for a bonus game after finishing the bonus game. A revival winning probability after finishing a progressive bonus game is lower than that after finishing the other bonus games. In the gaming machine 1, it may be configured that the revival drawing after finishing the progressive bonus game is not conducted.
US09196110B2
A system generally for personalizing and synchronizing fob data in the context of a distributed transaction system is disclosed. A dynamic fob synchronization system may comprise point of service (POS) devices configured with transponder-readers to initiate a transaction in conjunction with a fob, an enterprise data collection unit, and a fob object database update system. In an exemplary embodiment, a dynamic synchronization system (DSS) may comprise a personalization system and an account maintenance system configured to communicate with a fob object database update system (FODUS). Personalization of multi-function fobs may be accomplished using a security server configured to generate and/or retrieve cryptographic key information from multiple enterprise key systems during the final phase of the fob issuance process.
US09196101B2
An automated control system for multi-level authority to operate electronic and electrical equipment, the system including one or more wireless or wired controlled devices and one or more separate communicator and/or transmitter devices for an operation authorizing code and/or separate user identifiers for communicating the codes to a customer or a device. In the process of granting authorities to operate, the system utilizes, as positional data for a user or a device, the base station information of a mobile phone network and/or at close range a wired or wireless communication link, such as a bluetooth communication link.
US09196094B2
A method for providing an augmented reality includes capturing a real image from information contained in a visible light; generating a virtual image from the captured image; displaying on an augmented reality device a view selected from the group consisting of the real image and the virtual image; displaying the view of the real image in response to detection of a motion; and displaying the view of the virtual image in the absence of detected motion. An augmented reality device and a computer program product are disclosed.
US09196091B2
A method of displaying images representative of image data includes providing a user interface for displaying a three-dimensional (3D) image and at least one two-dimensional (2D) image, setting a volumetric field of view for the 3D image, setting a respective further field of view for the at least one 2D image, and linking the volumetric field of view and the at least one further field of view so that a movement of the volumetric field of view of the 3D image automatically causes a corresponding movement of the further field of view of the at least one 2D image, and so that a movement of the further field of view or at least one of the field of view of the at least one 2D image automatically causes a corresponding movement of the volumetric field of view of the 3D image.
US09196087B2
An approach is provided for presenting geo-traces using a reduced set of points based on an available display area. The trace platform determines a reduced set of one or more points based on an available display area of a user interface. Next, the trace platform causes, at least in part, a presentation of at least one geo-trace in the user interface based, at least in part, on the reduced set.
US09196084B2
Techniques are described for analyzing images acquired via mobile devices in various ways, including to estimate measurements for one or more attributes of one or more objects in the images. For example, the described techniques may be used to measure the volume of a stockpile of material or other large object, based on images acquired via a mobile device that is carried by a human user as he or she passes around some or all of the object. During the acquisition of a series of digital images of an object of interest, various types of user feedback may be provided to a human user operator of the mobile device, and particular images may be selected for further analysis in various manners. Furthermore, the calculation of object volume and/or other determined object information may include generating and manipulating a computer model or other representation of the object from selected images.
US09196066B2
A method of rendering a graphical object on a page in a pixel sequential renderer (1100) processing a page having a plurality of scanlines, is disclosed. Each of the scanlines is divided into at least a first swathe and a second swathe. The method tracks a plurality of edges of the graphical object and sorts a first portion of the tracked edges on a first swathe of one or the plurality of scanlines using a first sorter to control first activation information. A second portion of the tracked edges on a second swathe of said one of the plurality of scanlines is sorted using a second sorter to control second activation information and the second activation information is synchronized with the first activation information. The graphical object is rendered on the page in the pixel sequential renderer (1100) using the first and the synchronized second activation information.
US09196059B2
A boundary intra coding flag is obtained according to a current macroblock type. When the boundary intra coding flag indicates that the current macroblock is coded in an intra prediction mode using boundary intra coding, boundary coding information is obtained, and a boundary in the current macroblock is induced based on the boundary coding information. Therefore, the regions divided by the boundary can be coded in the intra prediction mode. The accuracy of a predicted pixel value can be improved by performing the intra prediction for regions divided by the boundary. Accordingly, the residual data transmitted to a decoder can be reduced.
US09196057B2
An inner wall extractor extracts the inner wall of a vital tissue based on medical image data. An outer wall extractor extracts the outer wall of the vital tissue based on the medical image data. A first raised portion calculator obtains information including the presence of a first raised portion in which the inner wall of the vital tissue is raised inward, based on the extracted inner wall of the vital tissue. A second raised portion calculator obtains information including the presence of a second raised portion in which the outer wall of the vital tissue is raised outward, based on the extracted outer wall of the vital tissue. A display controller superimposes the information of the first raised portion obtained by the first raised portion calculator and the information of the second raised portion obtained by the second raised portion calculator on an image of the vital tissue, and causes the image to be displayed on a display unit.
US09196055B2
A method for providing a mechanism for gesture recognition may include causing down-sampling of image data received to generate down-sampled image blocks for a plurality of image frames, causing extraction of a plurality of features from the down-sampled image blocks, determining a moving status of the down-sampled image blocks based on changes in values of respective features in consecutive frames, and determining a direction of motion of an object in the image data based on movement of a first border and a second border of a projection histogram determined based on the moving status of respective down-sampled image blocks. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also provided.
US09196053B1
Described is a system for object detection from dynamic visual imagery. Video imagery is received as input, and the system processes each frame to detect a motion region exhibiting unexpected motion representing a moving object. Object-based feature extraction is applied to each frame containing a detection motion region. Each frame is then divided into feature-consistent regions. A motion seeded region (MSR) is identified in each frame containing a detected motion region, where the MSR corresponds to a spatial location of the detected motion region. Similar feature-consistent regions that are adjacent to and include the MSR are joined to compute a boundary around the plurality of similar feature-consistent regions. Finally, the system outputs a computed boundary surrounding an object in the detected motion region.
US09196045B2
A method for processing data includes receiving a depth map of a scene containing a humanoid form. The depth map is processed so as to identify three-dimensional (3D) connected components in the scene, each connected component including a set of the pixels that are mutually adjacent and have mutually-adjacent depth values. Separate, first and second connected components are identified as both belonging to the humanoid form, and a representation of the humanoid form is generated including both of the first and second connected components.
US09196040B2
A method for estimating movement of a mobile device includes: obtaining images from a camera communicatively coupled to a processor of the mobile device; identifying a stationary light source using at least one image of the images; calculating a displacement of the stationary light source based on a first location of the stationary light source in a first image of the images and a second location of the stationary light source in a second image of the images, the first image and the second image being captured at different times; and estimating movement of the mobile device based on the displacement.
US09196038B2
A computerized recipe station for time-lapse image analysis method includes the steps of inputting an image sequence and an initial recipe to a computer storage; performing by a computer program an incremental apply using the image sequence and the initial recipe to generate an incremental output; pausing the incremental apply; using the incremental output to perform an incremental output assurance operation, which may be an intermediate result analysis to generate an analysis output, a recipe update to generate an updated recipe, or a result editing to generate an edited incremental output; and continuing the incremental apply until pausing or completion to generate a processing output. The analysis output generated by the intermediate result analysis may be used to guide the recipe update step or used to guide the result editing step.
US09196037B2
Vascular territory segmentation using mutual clustering information from image space and label space
Methods, systems, computer programs, circuits and workstations are configured to generate at least one two-dimensional weighted CBF territory map of color-coded source artery locations using an automated vascular segmentation process to identify source locations using mutual connectivity in both image and label space.
US09196036B2
A device for determining objects in a color recording has an identifier, a feature extractor and a classifier. The identifier is implemented to identify the connected regions whose size or shape correspond to a predetermined condition from a plurality of connected regions existing in a binary image derived from a color recording based on a size or a shape of these connected regions. The feature extractor is implemented, for each of the identified connected regions, to extract a feature set from the color recording. The classifier is implemented to classify the identified connected regions into at least two disjunct groups based on the extracted feature sets for the identified connected regions.
US09196026B2
A system for producing thermal images acquires at least first and second thermal images comprising a plurality of pixels and a first and second dynamic range, respectively. The second dynamic range is such that its upper limit is higher than that of the first, and at least partially overlaps the first. A final thermal image is created comprising pixels from the first thermal image that are not saturated or nearly saturated with respect to the first dynamic range, and pixels from the second thermal image that are saturated or nearly saturated with respect to the first dynamic range. The resulting final image generally comprises both a large dynamic range and high signal-to-noise ratio.
US09196025B2
In an image processing apparatus, a conditional probability calculating element calculates the probability of existence of an attribute as to each region in an input degraded image, for each attribute. Optimization function determining element uses a conditional probability calculated by the conditional probability calculating element with regard to each region in the degraded image for each attribute, a-priori knowledge defined as a conditional probability of appearance of an attribute in a region of a candidate of a restored image when there is the attribute in the region, and the input degraded image to determine an optimization function using the candidate of the restored image as a variable and yielding a smaller value as the candidate of the restored image is closer to a true restored image. Restored image determining element adopts the candidate of the restored image with which the optimization function yields a minimum value as the restored image.
US09196024B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method and an apparatus for enhancing color, and relate to the image processing field, so as to solve a case of over enhancement on a region having high luminance in an original image which is caused after enhancement processing is performed. A specific solution is: obtaining a luminance component of a currently processed image; performing Gaussian filtering processing on the luminance component to obtain an illumination component; obtaining a first reflection component of the currently processed image according to the luminance component and the illumination component; performing enhancement adjustment on the first reflection component to obtain a second reflection component; obtaining a luminance gain according to the luminance component and the second reflection component; and performing enhancement processing on the currently processed image, to obtain a first enhanced image. The present invention is applicable to a process of color enhancement.
US09196014B2
According to one exemplary embodiment of a buffer clearing apparatus for computer graphics, a buffer clearing (BC) hardware agent is configured to interface between one or more system buses and a memory controller, to execute one or more frame buffer clearing operations while performing memory access or power of buffer-related operations at the same time. The BC hardware agent keeps track of a plurality of status to read from and/or write to a frame buffer. When the frame buffer is to be cleared, the BC hardware agent clears a clear tag table. When a background pixel of the frame buffer is to be read, the BC hardware agent returns a background value stored in itself.
US09196010B2
Apparatus and method use a Markov decision process (MDP) to reduce the cost of variations in electric power usage. The user notifies a power company of a predicted value for a period. The period is divided into subsections. For each subsection, on the basis of a MDP including a state that depends on an electric power usage amount error, charge amount, and set target, the amount of charging and discharging of a storage battery as an action at any given time is optimally decided depending on the electric power usage amount error, charge amount, time, and set target at that time. A predetermined time in a subsection is a target setting time, at which a future target is further set as the action. The action includes deciding the charging and discharging amount in that subsection and deciding a future target in a subsection whose target should be set.
US09196008B2
Social networking system users may create events where a group of other users invited to the event meet at a specified time and location. The social networking system suggests users to invite to an event based on a prediction that the users would attend the event if invited. Various factors may be used to make the prediction, such as an affinity between the inviting user and the other users, the availability of the other users at the time of the event and/or the proximity of the other users to the location of the event. An inviting user receives the suggested users and selects suggested users to invite to the event or invitations may be automatically sent to the suggested users by the social networking system.
US09196004B2
The invention provides methods and apparatus for detecting when an online session is compromised. A plurality of device fingerprints may be collected from a user computer that is associated with a designated Session ID. A server may include pages that are delivered to a user for viewing in a browser at which time device fingerprints and Session ID information are collected. By collecting device fingerprints and session information at several locations among the pages delivered by the server throughout an online session, and not only one time or at log-in, a comparison between the fingerprints in association with a Session ID can identify the likelihood of session tampering and man-in-the middle attacks.
US09196001B2
The present provides a mechanism of leaving, as a record, a fact that a correction of order details of an accepted order is proper in virtual shopping mall service.When modification of order details is received from a member store terminal 40 (S615), a virtual shopping mall management server 10 calculates the difference between an amount before the change and an amount after the change. When the difference is determined to be equal to or larger than a predetermined amount (Yes in S620), the server generates a settlement process request page and transmits it to the member store terminal 40 (S625a). When the settlement process request information is received from the member store terminal 40, the server transmits an e-mail requesting for approval on the change in the amount to a member terminal (S630a). When a response of approval or denial on the change in the amount is accepted from the member terminal on a selection page of approval/denial on the amount change (S635a), whether the change is approved or not is determined (S640a). When it is determined that the response from the member terminal is approval (Yes in S640a), the server determines that the modification in the order details is proper, fixes the change in the order details, and requests the bank to perform an account transfer process (S645a).
US09195995B2
A system that provides content and/or ad publishers the ability to sell and target content, including “deals,” to mobile devices of users when those users and their mobile devices are located within the defined geographic zone. The content may be targeted and mass distributed to all mobile devices having a registered address within the defined geographic area. The content creator and/or content distributor can manually define the regions where they desire to distribute content by plotting vertices on a map to form a polygon enclosing a geographic region. Regions may be defined by population, retail locations, content and/or ad categories and other relevant criteria. The System User can manage the type of message delivered based upon the time of day and day of the week. Such options provide the content creator with granular management of its content based upon the defined regions established by the content creator and/or content distributor.
US09195990B2
Methods, systems, and media for review content traffic are provided. In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention, a method, implemented on a processor, for reviewing advertisement placement on webpages is provided. The method can include: receiving a plurality of uniform resource locators (URLs) relating to the placement of a plurality of advertisements associated with an advertiser; obtaining, for the plurality of URLs, a plurality of images and a plurality of advertisement traffic and rating information relating to each of the plurality of URLs, wherein each of the plurality of images shows the placement of an advertisement on the page accessed by a URL; presenting a traffic display that includes the plurality of images for the plurality of pages, wherein the plurality of images are user selectable; and, in response to selecting one of the plurality of images, presenting the advertiser with the advertisement traffic and rating information for a URL corresponding to the selected image and providing the advertiser with an opportunity to provide feedback information for the rating information associated with the URL.
US09195986B2
Electronic-based systems and methods for enhancing a user's experience when shopping for components of a mechanical or electrical device or apparatus, which include downloadable software (i.e., a mobile device application) that provides access to component information/data using the mobile device, in particular component information/data provided by a manufacturer from its personal database, electronic devices that include such software, and methods of accessing the component information and optionally, acting upon the information to order the component.
US09195978B1
Determining sequences of queries for retrieving images of negotiable instruments such as checks. A request for a check image is received from a first computer such as an account holder computer at a second, intermediate computer that hosts an on-line banking program and is in communication with a third computer of a financial institution. A sequence program is executed to determine a first sequence of queries having respective query formats available to attempt to retrieve the requested image from an image server or data store. The first sequence is determined based on historical data of whether respective query formats were successfully used in the past to retrieve respective requested images from the data store and is dynamically updated to reflect whether queries were used to retrieve requested images. Thus, with embodiments, the order of queries to utilize is dynamic and can change as opposed to being pre-determined or static.
US09195975B2
A transaction processing system for sending user information data to a personal device, and an associated method are provided. The system comprises: a personal device, such as a balance display card; an interface device, such as a card reader for transmitting data to and from the card; a communications network connecting to the interface device; an issuer processor connected to the communications network; and a trusted network processor (TNP) processor connected to the communications network, interposed between the interface device and the issuer processor. The TNP processor is arranged to receive a transaction request message from a card user and to transmit a response message back to the personal device, the response message typically being a transaction authorization together with information for display on the card. The TNP processor is arranged to identify, dependent on properties of the transaction request message, whether the associated response message will require data to be sent to the user information device, and if so identified, to: route the transaction request message to the issuer processor using a standard message; receive the required data from the issuer processor using another standard message; match the received required data to the original request; generate an appropriate response message and script containing the required data; and transmit the response message back to the personal device thereby making the required information known to the user.
US09195970B2
A computer-implemented method, apparatus and computer-readable storage device for arranging a meeting in a networked environment having nodes assigned to respective individual users. Upon receiving a set of meeting requirements including at least a meeting time and a set of invitees from a user at one of the nodes, invitations for a meeting at the meeting time are sent to at least a subset of the invitees based on one or more of the meeting requirements. The meeting is confirmed at the meeting time responsive to receiving acceptances from a predetermined subset of the invitees, such as a set of invitees identified as being critical invitees or a number of invitees constituting a quorum, and is rescheduled or cancelled responsive to a failure to receive acceptances from the predetermined subset of the invitees.
US09195966B2
Systems, methods, and computer-readable mediums for managing a subset of user contacts on a telecommunications device are provided. In one embodiment, a software application executed by a processor of a telecommunications device determines at least two contact groups from a subset of contacts accessible by a telecommunications device. The software application executed by the processor of the telecommunications device also generates a contact display including at least one contact group associated with the subset of contacts based on a current context of a user of the telecommunications device. The current context can include, for example, one or more of a location, time, date, and the like.
US09195963B2
An electronic device including a communication unit configured to receive a social network formation history for a subscriber of a specific Social Networking Service (SNS) for other subscribers of the specific SNS in an SNS environment including the specific SNS; and a controller configured to change an application range of a function provided by an application for the specific SNS and to form a social network based on the social network formation history for the subscriber.
US09195958B2
A method for automatically developing a proposal of advertising segments from a plurality of available advertising segments offered by an owner of a media presentation containing the advertising segments. A plurality of representations of available advertising segments are stored, and actual and/or speculative presentation characteristics are associated to each of the plurality of representations. A proposal is developed comprising a subset of the representations based on media buyer specified variables. The proposal is validated by ensuring that the speculative characteristics are satisfied upon creation of the media presentation containing segments purchased by the media buyer.
US09195946B2
Machines, systems and methods for maintaining a representative data set in a document classification system, the method comprising: including an initial set of seed representative data in a representative data set (RDS) implemented for a knowledge base (KB), wherein the KB is trained to classify documents provided to a document classification system based on analysis of the representative documents included in the RDS and a set of rules, wherein the seed representative data includes a balanced number of representative data across a plurality of classes; updating the RDS by adding or removing representative data from the RDS based on feedback received about accuracy of classification of one or more documents by the classification system; and retraining the KB, wherein the retraining is performed based on occurrence of one or more events.
US09195942B2
A method and system for identifying information about people is provided. The information system identifies groups of people that have relationships based on their relationships to documents or more generally to objects. The information system initially is provided with an indication of which people have which relationships to which documents. The information system then identifies clusters of people based on having a relationship to the same objects. The information system may also identify clusters of related objects associated with a cluster of people. When a user wants to identify information about a person, the user can provide the name of that person to the information system. The information system then can retrieve and display the names of the other people who are in the same cluster as the person.
US09195935B2
More realistic neural networks are disclosed that are able to learn to solve complex problems though a decision making network, modeled as a virtual entity foraging in a digital environment. Specifically, the neural networks overcome many of the limitations in prior neural networks by using rewarded STDP bounded with rules to solve a complex problem.
US09195932B2
A booster antenna (BA) for a smart card comprises a card antenna (CA) component extending around a periphery of a card body (CB), a coupler coil (CC) component at a location for an antenna module (AM), and an extension antenna (EA) contributing to the inductance of the booster antenna (BA). A method of wire embedding is also disclosed, by controlling a force and ultrasonic power applied by an embedding tool at different positions on the card body (CB).
US09195924B2
The present invention relates to the field of radio frequency, and provides a band-gap reference self-starting circuit and a passive radio frequency identification tag. The self-starting circuit comprises: a first switch device unit, configured to generate a first leakage current in an off state; a second switch device unit, configured to generate a second leakage current lower than the first leakage current in the off state, and generate a control voltage according to the first leakage current and the second leakage current; a control unit, configured to generate a starting control signal according to the control voltage; and a band-gap reference generating unit, configured to generate a reference voltage according to the starting control signal, and control the second switch device unit to enter dormancy using the reference voltage. The present invention boosts the control voltage using the leakage current generated by a field effect transistor in the off state, thereby implementing self-starting and generating the reference voltage, and controls the starting control unit to enter dormancy after the reference voltage is generated, thereby reducing system power consumption.
US09195916B1
Color prediction for color printing is performed in response to loading media into a printer and initiation of a calibration sequence, using one or more sensors to measure physical properties of the media. Based at least upon the measured physical properties, an optimal preset is identified in a database and the optimal preset is loaded into the printer as a starting calibration. A difference from values in the optimal preset loaded into the printer and those of the measured physical properties is determined and the printer prints a chart. The sensors measure the chart and the measurements of the chart are used to fine tune the optimal preset. The fine tuned preset is then saved as a new media profile.
US09195915B2
Logical pages are laid out on a physical page according to setting of a multipage printing condition. When a user drags a logical page, a layout of logical pages is changed based on an area to which the logical page is dragged.
US09195911B2
A system for interaction with a the environment includes an initial manipulation module operable to orient a device in a general direction of a surface of an object and a range control module operable to converge the device and the surface. Once the device and surface are in the proximity of each other a contact sensor detects when physical contact between the surface and the device occurs. Thereafter, a proprioception module measures normal force disparities between the surface and device motion actuators and finally, an exteroception module to measure translational resistance disparities between relative motion of the surface and the device. The system uses these disparity measurements and actuator positions to modify the manipulation of the device.
US09195909B2
In various example embodiments, a system and method for using machine learning to define user controls for image adjustment is provided. In example embodiments, a new image to be adjusted is received. A weight is applied to reference images of a reference dataset based on a comparison of content of the new image to the reference image of the reference dataset. A plurality of basis styles is generated by applying weighted averages of adjustment parameters corresponding to the weighted reference images to the new image. Each of the plurality of basis styles comprises a version of the new image with an adjustment of at least one image control based on the weighted averages of the adjustment parameters of the reference dataset. The plurality of basis styles is provided to a user interface of a display device.
US09195905B2
A method and system for detecting a curve structure in a 2D fluoroscopic image is disclosed. A plurality of curve segments are detected in the image. A graph is generated based on the detected curve segments. A curve structure is detected in the image by determining a path between a source node and a destination node in the graph. A hyper-graph can be constructed from the graph in order to impose geometric constraints on segments of the detected the curve structure, and the curve structure can be detected by finding a shortest path in the hyper-graph.
US09195902B2
To detect a straight line using the Hough transform taking into consideration not only the number of points but also other properties of the straight line, the Hough transform unit performs a Hough transform on contour-enhanced binary image data. The Hough table stores a count after the Hough transform. The adjustment unit adjusts the count. The straight line detection unit detects a straight line based on the adjusted count. Additionally, to detect a straight line, independent of its direction or location in the image, for each straight line in the binary image data, the straight line calculation unit determines the intersections where that straight line cuts up the binary image data to calculate the intersection distance. The normalization unit divides the count stored in the Hough table by the intersection distance to normalize the count. The straight line detection unit detects a straight line based on the normalized count.
US09195896B2
A method and system for image recognition are disclosed. The method includes the steps of acquiring image information for a target object to be recognized at a terminal device; transferring said image information to a server, wherein the server applies feature recognition techniques to the image information, and returns a recognition result; and presenting the recognition result returned by the server at the terminal device. The method and system consistent with the present disclosure may simplify user operations and improve the efficiency and intelligence level of an image recognition system.
US09195887B2
According to an embodiment, an apparatus includes an acquirer, a divider, an extractor, a calculator, and a retriever. The acquirer is configured to acquire a plurality of first point sequences. The divider is configured to divide each of the plurality of first point sequences into a plurality of second point sequences. The extractor is configured to extract a feature vector of each of the plurality of second point sequences. The calculator is configured to calculate a distance between the plurality of first point sequences based on an optimal path among the plurality of second point sequences that belong to each of the plurality of first point sequences. The retriever is configured to retrieve data corresponding to the plurality of first point sequences using the distance.
US09195886B2
A system and method including software to aid in generation of panels and control instruments rapidly generates a station that can support a variety of control interfaces. Rapid-Prototyped Panels, or RP-Panels, replicate existing systems (for simulation, training, gaming, etc.) or from new designs (for human factors testing, as functional product, etc.). The controls have tactile and visual characteristics similar or identical to their functional component counterparts such as buttons, knobs, switches, pedals, joysticks, steering wheels, and touch panels but are modular and use alternative data transfer modes (potentiometers, fiber optics, RFID, machine vision, etc.) to track and analyze the response of the controls. The response is then transmitted to the host programs. With this method a user can design and fabricate a reconfigurable interface to interact with virtual environments for various applications such as simulation, training, virtual instrumentation, gaming, human factors testing, etc.
US09195881B2
An image transformation apparatus includes a detection unit which is configured to detect, from each of a user image and a reference image, feature points of a face and angle information of the face, a feature points adjusting unit which is configured to adjust the feature points of the user image or the reference image by using the detected angle information, a face analysis unit which is configured to compare facial features contained in the user image and the reference image by using the adjusted feature points, and an image transformation unit which is configured to transform the user image by using a result of the comparison of the facial features from the face analysis unit.
US09195865B2
An electronic baggage tag is self-reliant and self-regulating and provides the underlying foundation for a baggage tracking and management system, the center of which operates one or more tag service provider servers. The tag is attached to a baggage and is loaded with various data, including passenger itinerary, GPS data, and journey profile data. The tag has sensors, such for detecting different vibrations, electro-magnetic sensor, GPS, and others. As the baggage to which the tag is attached goes on its journey, the sensors detect stimuli and ascertain where in the journey the baggage is and use itinerary and other data to determine where the baggage should be. The tag service provider server communicates with the tag at various stages in the journey, providing up-to-date itinerary data to the tag. The tag automatically shuts off to be compliant with government regulations for devices in flight.
US09195864B2
A system obtains and transmits and stores information, including location information of an article associated with a chip. The system may contain at least: an article intimately associated with an electromagnetically interrogatable chip; a hand-held information receiving and transmitting device that can interrogate the chip, the hand-held information receiving and transmitting device comprising an RFID and/or NFC reader to electromagnetically interrogate the chip; the chip containing communicable information relating to the article; a distal server in wireless two-way communication with the hand-held information receiving and transmitting device, the distal server capable of receiving, storing and transmitting information from the chip transmitted through the hand-held device. Upon interrogation of the chip by the hand-held device, the hand-held device communicates data received in response from the interrogation of the chip to the server, the server containing information in memory that is transmitted to and receive by the hand-held device. The information contained in memory may include information specific to the article.
US09195863B2
One example of a magnetic card reader mounting system includes a card reader mounting system for attaching to a kiosk in which a tablet computer is housed. The card reader mounting system includes a swipe path accessory panel, a swipe path plate, and a reader head subassembly. The swipe path plate and the reader head subassembly are secured to the swipe accessory panel. The system also includes a swipe cap secured to the reader head subassembly, wherein the swipe path plate and the reader head subassembly are configurable to support a plurality of reader head geometries.
US09195857B2
A computational system is configured to protect against integrity violation. The computational system includes a processing unit and a critical resource, the critical resource being controllable by the processing unit so as to be locked or unlocked. The critical resource is configured to intermittently transmit a polling value to the processing unit, and the processing unit is configured to apply a transformation onto the polling value so as to obtain a response value and send the response value back to the critical resource. The critical resource is configured to check the response value on correctness so as to obtain a check result, and subject the controllability to a dependency on the check result.
US09195852B2
A Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) enforcement module (100) comprises: a monitor (110), (120, 130, 140) for monitoring the output of a policy controlled module or PEP (200) operating within a distributed computer system and a correction performer module (150). The PEP (200) is associated with one or more policies (400) which are applied to the PEP. Each policy specifies a trigger event or events and an action or actions to be performed as a result of the trigger event occurring as well as expected output from the PEP (200) when it performs a specified action or actions. The monitor monitors output produced by the PEP (200) as a result of operating in compliance with a policy, and it compares the monitored output with one or more specified expected outputs specified in the policy. In the event that the comparison indicates a divergence between the expected and observed outputs a correction evaluator (140) evaluates an appropriate corrective action to take and issues a request to the correction performer module to perform such corrective action. The correction performer module (150) then performs the corrective actions as specified by the correction evaluator (140).
US09195850B2
In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for sharing a single instance of a database stored using a tenant of a multi-tenant on-demand database system. These mechanisms and methods for sharing a single instance of a database stored using a tenant of a multi-tenant on-demand database system can provide a single instance of a database that is shared amongst tenants of a multi-tenant on-demand database system. The ability to provide a single instance of a database that is shared amongst tenants of a multi-tenant on-demand database system can enable the database to be managed or otherwise maintained in a central location.
US09195844B2
An approach is provided for securing data in a technical environment. In one embodiment, a processor obtains a first file, which when executed installs a first portion of a second file and an assembly key to assemble the second file. The processor executes this first file and then obtains the second portion of the second file. The processor assembles the second file using the first portion, the second portion, and the assembly key.
US09195843B2
Permissioned links for a novel method of credentialing users and assigning permissions to the user using the link to access repositories holding or intended to hold digital files. The permissioned links comprise a unique identifier that can be correlated to a specific repository of digital files and permission set. Users using the permissioned links for access need not enter a login or password. Moreover, permissioned links are portable, allowing multiple users to access the repository of digital files using the same permissioned link.
US09195838B2
A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and apparatus for securing user input and/or output on a mobile endpoint device. For example, the method receives an input on the mobile endpoint device, encrypts and authenticates the input in a trusted domain of the mobile endpoint device executing an application and sends the input that is encrypted and authenticated to an untrusted domain of the mobile endpoint device over a secure channel.
US09195825B2
A data content checker arrangement for protecting communication between a sensitive computer system (102) and an external computer system (104). The arrangement includes a store (108) connected to input and output sub-systems (106) and (114) and to content checkers (110) and (112) arranged in parallel. The input and output sub-systems (106) and (114) are connected to the external computer system (104) and the sensitive computer system (102) respectively. Data received from the external computer system (104) is encrypted by the input sub-system (106) using an encryption key to which the content checkers (110) and (112) have access. The content checkers (110) and (112) can therefore decrypt, read and check the data. If the data passes a content checker's checks, the checker digitally signs and stores it, decrypted, in the store (108); if the checks are not passed, the checker discards the data. The output sub-system (114) delivers data to the sensitive computer system (102) if the data has received both content checkers' digital signatures indicating acceptability.
US09195824B2
In one embodiment, a processor includes a microcode storage including processor instructions to create and execute a hidden resource manager (HRM) to execute in a hidden environment that is not visible to system software. The processor may further include an extend register to store security information including a measurement of at least one kernel code module of the hidden environment and a status of a verification of the at least one kernel code module. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09195817B2
A method for biometric authentication of a user of a mobile device, and a case for performing the method is provided. The method includes, by the case, coupling the mobile device to the case, receiving from the mobile device biometric data of the user of the mobile device that was captured by the mobile device, storing the biometric data, receiving a request from the mobile device for authenticating the user of the mobile device, the request including biometric data captured by the mobile device, comparing the biometric data stored in the case and the biometric data included in the request, and sending to the mobile device a response to the request for authenticating the user of the mobile device based on a result of the comparison, wherein the response to the request is for use by the mobile device to perform an operation based on the authentication of the user.
US09195816B2
Various embodiments of the invention may allow applications and information to be clustered together in ways that simplify and automate various tasks. Other embodiments may present a graphical user interface to the user that allows the user to choose from a matrix of information categories and applications that can help provide that information. Still other embodiments may provide different user interface methods based on status awareness.
US09195812B2
A method is provided for entering a password. The method includes: providing a display means which is coupled to a data processing means; displaying a timepiece with a first representation of a timepiece element on the display means, detecting a user input; and assigning an alphanumeric character of the password to the user input and the first representation of the timepiece element or a further representation of the timepiece element. In some instances, the first representation of the timepiece element is time dependent.
US09195809B1
In an embodiment, a method comprises downloading an application program to a first storage coupled to a first device, wherein the application program comprises an encrypted portion based on a set of personally identifying data stored on the first storage; configuring the application program to load and execute a pre-compiled library when the application program is launched and which when executed by the first device, causes storing an unencrypted version of the application program on the first storage; launching the application program.
US09195804B2
A group of locking medical storage are connected together using a daisy-chain connection based on i2C protocol. Each of the storage cabinets has one or more locking compartments. A control PC computer is connected to a first one of the cabinets, and that cabinet is connected to each of the other cabinets using i2C daisy chain cabling. The cabinets each have a control circuit module that controls locking and unlocking of doors and drawers, and sensors to detect open or closed status and locked or unlocked status. RFID readers detect which items or medications have been removed from the cabinet. Each cabinet is assigned a unique independent address for identification when it is joined to the daisy chain, which can include an unlimited number of cabinets.
US09195796B2
The invention provides for malignancy-risk gene signatures that predict the risk of developing breast cancer, the recurrence of breast cancer, and/or the metastasis of breast cancer. These signatures have numerous clinical applications including assessing risk of breast cancer development following routine breast biopsy, assessing the need for adjuvant radiotherapy after lumpectomy, and determining the need for completion mastectomy following lumpectomy for the breast cancer patient and other treatment plans that are personalized for the patient.
US09195791B2
Some embodiments of the present invention create a layout for a circuit design which includes one or more circuit modules. The system can receive a nominal implementation of a circuit module, and a user-defined module generator capable of generating one or more custom implementations of the circuit module from an existing implementation of the circuit module. Next, the system can create the layout for the circuit design by executing the user-defined module generator on at least one processor to generate one or more custom implementations of the circuit module from the nominal implementation. The system can then use the one or more custom implementations of the circuit module in the layout.
US09195784B2
The debug system described in this patent specification provides a system that generates hardware elements from normally non-synthesizable code elements for placement on an FPGA device. This particular FPGA device is called a Behavior Processor. This Behavior Processor executes in hardware those code constructs that were previously executed in software. When some condition is satisfied (e.g., If . . . then . . . else loop) which requires some intervention by the workstation or the software model, the Behavior Processor works with an Xtrigger device to send a callback signal to the workstation for immediate response.
US09195779B2
A device includes an input device configured to receive a plurality of user inputs including a predetermined user input. A display device is configured to display a graphical user interface. A memory device is configured to store device information. A help application is in communication with the input device, the display device, and the memory device and is configured to detect the predetermined user input and, in response, populate the graphical user interface with a list of selectable solutions associated with the device information in accordance with a performance rank associated with each solution.
US09195778B2
Systems, methods, and apparatus are herein disclosed for prefetching node data of a linked data structure into a processor's cache so as to decrease linked data structure traversal latency. In particular, as the linked data structure is created or modified, forward and reverse prefetch nodes are identified and links identifying locations of these nodes are written to nodes that will be traversed N nodes prior to the prefetch nodes. Once the linked data structure has been created, traversals of the structure use the prefetch links to prefetch node data into the processor cache, so that when traversal reaches a node, that node's data is read from processor cache rather than from memory.
US09195772B2
In one or more embodiments, a framework is provided in which image decoding can be delayed based on heuristics, and later initiated based on a use type associated with the image or the likelihood that the image is going to be used. For example, a use history and priority system can enable images that are currently being rendered and/or are likely to get rendered to be decoded before images that have a history of being downloaded but never used. Accordingly, by decoupling image download from image decoding, CPU resources and memory can be more efficiently utilized.
US09195766B2
A method includes recognizing an item within a first document based on a pattern associated with the item but not the exact content of the item. The method further includes identifying a link for the item and providing a second document that includes information associated with the item when the link for the item is selected.
US09195765B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed for providing content to a user. The method includes using sensor data from multiple sensors associated with the user to determine a trigger event, determining content associated with the trigger event, and causing the content to be presented to the user. A trigger rule is created which defines the trigger event, representing when content is to be presented. A number of different types of event criteria may be defined, such as position event criteria, movement event criteria, timing or duration criteria, time and/or date criteria, heart rate criteria, or the like, allowing each of the event criteria to be associated with a respective type of sensor. Also disclosed is a method and apparatus for charging for providing content to a user.
US09195764B1
Systems and methods for providing an online forum as a search result are provided. In some aspects an indication of a search query from a first user is received. A search result for the search query is determined, where the search result is associated with an online forum. That one or more users of the online forum include one or more social contacts of the first user in a social networking service is determined. A ranking of the search result is changed based on the users of the online forum comprising the one or more social contacts. An indication of the search result is provided for display, where displayed information associated with the search result indicates at least one of the one or more social contacts.
US09195753B1
Displaying communities associated with personalized data provides a user with access to relevant communities based on the user's activity with an electronic catalog. The communities include content which may be manipulated by user activity or non-user activity. The communities may facilitate user discussion or viewing of information related to the user's interests. The communities may be associated with elements associated with user interaction and/or based off recommended elements or categories associated with the user. Communities may be ranked or scored to improve the relevancy of the community for the user. Communities may be displayed with, for example, a personalized page for the user that may include other user recommendations, or the communities may be associated with other personalized pages within a website, among other possibilities.
US09195746B2
A plurality of queries associated with a plurality of user query object submissions to a scratch pad application executing asynchronously as a background application to a first user application may be obtained. One or more search requests may be initiated to one or more search engines based on each one of the plurality of obtained queries. Cumulative search results of the one or more search requests may be obtained, the cumulative search results accumulated over the plurality of obtained queries. A set of accumulated results metadata may be obtained based on an analysis of the accumulated cumulative search results. A display of a summary of the cumulative search results based on a relevance analysis of the accumulated results metadata may be initiated.
US09195745B2
A preliminary segment root and a final segment root are selected for each segment. Each time a search query is received, a set of nodes in each segment that will be used to resolve the search query is identified. A preliminary segment root is selected from the set of nodes. Based on statistical data from each node in the set of nodes indicating each node's capability to act as a final segment root that assembles query-execution data, the preliminary segment root algorithmically selects the final segment root. The other nodes in the set of nodes are notified regarding the identity of the final segment root.
US09195737B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for content categorization, where the method comprises transmitting, by a content categorization request entity, a categorization ability negotiation request to a content categorization providing entity to request the categorization ability of the content categorization providing entity; receiving the categorization capability of the content categorization providing entity returned by the content categorization providing entity. Furthermore, embodiments of the present invention disclose a system for content categorization, content categorization request entity and content categorization providing entity. Categorization ability negotiation or subscription helps to learn the content categorization ability so that the content categorization request entity or content categorization providing entity may mutually and accurately acquire content categorization capability information without delay.
US09195736B2
A system and method of content storage includes a content store for storing a plurality of first content blocks and one or more first indexes, a content manager including one or more first content analyzers, and an interface for receiving access requests for the plurality of first content blocks. Each of the one or more first indexes includes a plurality of first entries for organizing a plurality of second content blocks from the plurality of first content blocks according to a respective organizational structure. Each of the first entries includes a link to a corresponding content block from the plurality of second content blocks. Each of the plurality of content analyzers monitors the plurality of first content blocks for changes and updates a second index from the one or more first indexes based on information associated with the monitored changes.
US09195730B2
The invention provides for verifying correctness of a database system. A SQL instruction is received and access paths of the received SQL instruction are extended. The SQL instruction is executed by using the extended access paths, and the correctness of the database system is verified according to results of executing the SQL instruction. With the method and system of the invention, the object of verifying correctness of a database system by automatically extending access paths of SQL statement may be achieved, and the object of verifying correctness of a database system scientifically, effectively and purposefully based on ratio of error or defect present in database itself due to various data manipulation approaches (different values of access path elements) may also be achieved.
US09195720B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for receiving, from a user device, data indicating a user performed a user input gesture combining a first display object in a plurality of display objects with a second display object in the plurality of display objects; identifying attributes that are associated with both the first display object and the second display object; and performing a search based on the attributes.
US09195717B2
A system is configured to receive a search query; obtain search results, based on the search query, that identify documents relevant to the search query; identify image attributes associated with one or more of the documents; obtain classification metrics that include information for determining a measure of image intent associated with the one or more of the documents; determine the measure of image intent, associated with the one or more of the documents, based on the image attributes and the classification metrics; determine whether the measure of image intent satisfies a threshold; generate a search results document that selectively includes the image results or the search results based on whether the measure of image intent satisfies the threshold; and provide the search results document.
US09195716B2
Techniques for asynchronous rendering are described. An apparatus may comprise a character set converter application, an index server, and a ranking application. The character set converter application may receive a search string comprised of one or more first character set characters, and convert the search string to one or more second character set characters that are different than the first character set. The index server may execute a search on the converted search string to obtain ranked individual search results. The ranking application may compare any first character set characters in the ranked individual search results to the first character set characters in the search string and sub-rank the ranked individual search results based on the strength of any matches. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09195714B1
According to aspects of the disclosed subject matter, a method for identifying a set of documents from a document corpus that are potential duplicates of a source document, is provided. A source document is obtained. A list of queries corresponding to the source document is identified. Each query in the identified list of queries is executed on the document corpus, wherein the execution of each query yields a corresponding results set identifying an ordered set of documents in the document corpus. For each document identified in each results set, a document score is generated for the identified document based on the identified document's ordinal position in its results set. A subset of the identified documents of the results set is selected according to the generated document scores that satisfy predetermined selection criteria. The selected subset of identified documents are stored or displayed.
US09195690B2
A system includes determination of a dimension over which to iterate, determination of a first measure for which an aggregated value is determined per iteration, determination of a second measure for which a value is determined once per calculation of an iterative measure and against which to compare the aggregated value per iteration, and storage of the dimension, the first measure and the second measure as metadata of an iterative measure.
US09195686B2
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to versioning for databases. In aspects, two or more users may share the same version of data, such as a report, in a database. One of the users may seek to update the data. In response to a request from the user, a new version of the data is created. For data that is not updated via the request, the new version shares data with the previous version, thus saving space. For data this is updated, new segments within the database are created to store the updated data. Each user is allowed to access the data without blocking other users accessing the data.
US09195681B2
In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for transmitting a group of data elements. These mechanisms and methods for grouping a plurality of data elements can enable more efficient data transmission, improved synchronization and data management, etc.
US09195669B2
Methods and systems for providing destination-specific network management are described. One example method includes determining a normal data movement profile for a computing device based on observed normal data transfer behavior by the computing device; identifying a data movement rule associated with the computing device, the data movement rule including a deviation amount, and one or more actions to take when the computing device deviates from the normal data movement profile by more than the deviation amount; detecting a data movement associated with the computing device; determining that the detected data movement exceeds the deviation amount included in the data movement rule relative to the normal data movement profile for the computing device; and performing the one or more actions associated with the data movement rule upon determining that the data movement violates the data movement rule.
US09195668B2
A file shard store includes high performance encoding and compaction circuits. An apparatus and its method of operation avoids duplicate storage of file fragments. A plurality of tables control write operations into a plurality of log segments. Shard keys are transferred to uniquely identify fragments of files which may have been previously stored and associated with one or more of client subscribers. An apparatus comprises a plurality of location/subscription tables, a shard transfer circuit, a storage control circuit, an append-to-log circuit coupled to a large storage array, and a log segment compactor circuit.
US09195666B2
Managing data units by converting the data units into data segments and access files describing how to retrieve the data segments using hash values for the data segments. In a data store operation, the data unit is divided into data segments and an access file is generated. The access file includes segmenting scheme information for the data segments, hashing scheme information for the hash values, hash identification information describing the hash values, and location information identifying the locations at which the data segments are available. In a data retrieval operation, data from the data unit is retrieved by accessing the data segments and extracting the data therefrom, where the data segments are retrieved based on the access file for the data unit.
US09195665B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a system and method of document retention with policy-controlled deletion. Embodiments of the present invention comprise committing to a plurality of documents, deleting one of the plurality of documents, and providing a proof of authorized deletion of the one of the plurality of documents in response to an audit request.
US09195655B2
A method and system for transforming a source document to an output document is disclosed. The method includes preparing a first file that contains a fixed text and a variable text by generating a regular-expression code for the text in the source document. The variable text in the first file is translated from a source language to an output language, wherein the translation is performed on the basis of at least one of a translation dictionary look-up, and a phonetic transliteration. The method then generates the output document in a pre-decided format as required in the output document from the first file.
US09195654B2
A device is configured to receive a translation query that requests a translation of terms from a source language to a target language; determine translation features associated with the translation query; assign a feature value to each of the translation features to form feature values; apply a feature weight to each of the feature values to generate a final value; and determine whether to provide a dialog translation user interface or a non-dialog translation user interface based on whether the final value satisfies a threshold. The dialog translation user interface may facilitate translation of a conversation, the non-dialog translation user interface may provide translation search results, and the non-dialog translation user interface may be different than the dialog translation user interface. The device also configured to provide the dialog translation user interface for display when the final value satisfies the threshold.
US09195647B1
A system and methods and data structure for quantitatively assessing associations between terms or symbols in natural language and non-natural language contents. Some of the terms or symbols represent objects or concepts or semantic attributes; some other terms or symbols represent properties associated with the objects or concepts or semantic attributes. The methods include obtaining a first group of text contents or non-natural language data content, specifying a target term or symbol or semantic attribute, and identifying contextual attributes of the target term or symbol. The contextual attributes include grammatical and semantic attributes as well as positional and distance attributes. Association strength values are calculated for related terms or symbols based on the contextual attributes of the target term or symbol or semantic attribute.
US09195640B1
A method and system for finding content having a desired similarity to an input or source content includes using a similarity model including information and associations derived from content processed by one or more content analyzers to find and/or arrange content having a desired type and/or degree of similarity to the input or source content.
US09195634B2
Methods and apparatuses are described for assigning random values to a set of random variables so that the assigned random values satisfy a set of constraints. A constraint solver can receive a set of constraints that is expected to cause performance problems when the system assigns random values to the set of random variables in a manner that satisfies the set of constraints. For example, modulo constraints and bit-slice constraints can cause the system to perform excessive backtracking when the system attempts to assign random values to the set of random variables in a manner that satisfies the set of constraints. The system can rewrite the set of constraints to obtain a new set of constraints that is expected to reduce and/or avoid the performance problems. The system can then assign random values to the set of random variables based on the new set of constraints.
US09195625B2
A data processing device includes an interconnect controller operable to manage the communication of information between modules of the data processing device via an interconnect. In response to a transaction request the interconnect controller selects a tag value from a set of available tag values, assigns the tag to the transaction and reserves the tag value so that it is unavailable for assignment to other transactions. If an expected response to the transaction request is not received within a designated amount of time, the transaction enters a timed-out state and the interconnect controller locks the tag value, so that it remains unavailable for assignment to other transactions until an unlock event, such as a request from software.
US09195620B2
A computer system includes a serial advanced technology attachment dual-in-line memory module (SATA DIMM) device and a motherboard. The SATA DIMM device includes a control chip and an edge connector. The motherboard includes a memory slot and a light emitting diode (LED). When the edge connector is inserted into the memory slot, first power pins, first ground pins, and first indication pin of the memory slot are respectively connected to second power pins, second ground pins, and second indication pin of the SATA DIMM device. The motherboard outputs a voltage to the control chip through the first and second power pins. The control chip detects and calculates the storage capacity of the SATA DIMM device and outputs a control signal to control the LED to turn on or not, for displaying free memory capacity of the SATA DIMM device.
US09195619B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor memory device includes a memory and a controller. The controller controls the memory, communicates with a host device via a first signal line and a second signal line, and receives data items to be written in the memory from the host device on the first and second signal lines in a first period. The same group number is assigned to two data items which flow in parallel on the first and second signal lines. The controller transmits to the host device a response packet including an indication of a group number assigned to an unsuccessfully received one of the data items.
US09195613B2
Embodiments for managing read-only memory. A system includes a memory device including a real memory and a tracking mechanism configured to track relationships between multiple virtual memory addresses and real memory. The system further includes a processor configured to perform the below method and/or execute the below computer program product. One method includes mapping a first virtual memory address to a real memory in a memory device and mapping a second virtual memory address to the real memory. Here, the first virtual memory address is authorized to modify data in the real memory and the second virtual memory address is not authorized to modify the data in the real memory.
US09195607B1
A memory interface device comprising an address match table. The address match table includes a content entry input and a plurality of hash functions numbered from 1 through N, where N is an integer greater than 1. The address match table includes a first table comprising a plurality of lists numbered from 1 through N, each hash function (i) corresponds to a list (i), where (i) is a number in a set from 1 through N, and a second table coupled to the first table, the second table comprising a plurality of entries, each of the entries point to a different entry within the second table or a null entry in the second table. The interface device includes an index from list N in the first table points to the second table.
US09195601B2
An information handling system (IHS) includes an operating system with a release-behind component that determines which file pages to release from a file cache in system memory. The release-behind component employs a history buffer to determine which file pages to release from the file cache to create room for a current page access. The history buffer stores entries that identify respective pages for which a page fault occurred. For each identified page, the history buffer stores respective repage information that indicates if a repage fault occurred for such page. The release-behind component identifies a candidate previous page for release from the file cache. The release-behind component checks the history buffer to determine if a repage fault occurred for that entry. If so, then the release-behind component does not discard the candidate previous page from the cache. Otherwise, the release-behind component discards the candidate previous page if a repage fault occurred.
US09195592B1
A method of managing a non-volatile memory module, the method may include: allocating, by a memory controller, logically erased physical blocks of a non-volatile memory module to a spare block pool; allocating, by the memory controller, physical blocks from the spare block pool to become buffer blocks of a buffer of the non-volatile memory module; and controlling, by the memory controller, a utilization of the buffer blocks of the buffer by applying a page based buffer management scheme.
US09195582B2
A data storage method applied to a flash memory storage device is provided. The method includes: identifying a first tag pointing to a storage unit storing a first data, the first data being a newly updated data; locating the storage unit storing the first data according to the first tag; storing a second data to another storage unit; pointing the first tag to the another storage unit storing the second data. A relationship between the first tag and the storage unit storing the first data is first built. The second data is stored to another storage unit different from the storage unit pointed by the first tag, and a relationship between the first tag and the another storage unit storage the second data is rebuilt. Therefore, data is efficiently stored by using a plurality of storage units to prolong a lifespan of the flash memory.
US09195580B2
A system includes a device, a BIOS, and a processor. The BIOS includes a storage operable to store predefined identifier/user defined name pairs. The processor is operable to, detect the device, determine a predefined identifier for the device, and access the storage to locate a predefined identifier/user defined name pair corresponding to the predefined identifier. The processor is further operable to provide a user defined name of the predefined identifier/user defined name pair when the predefined identifier/user defined name pair is present, and provide the predefined identifier of the predefined identifier/user defined name pair when the predefined identifier/user defined name pair is not present.
US09195577B2
Dynamic operations for operations for 3D stacked memory using thermal data. An embodiment of a memory device includes memory having multiple coupled memory elements and multiple thermal sensors, including a first thermal sensor in a first area of the memory stack and a second thermal sensor in a second area of the memory stack. A memory controller is to provide operations to modify thermal conditions of the memory elements based at least in part on thermal information generated by the thermal sensors.
US09195573B1
A method for applying remediation policy to a cloud application package having a set of components is described. The method is initiated in response to discovery of a new vulnerability. It begins by comparing information from a deployment description against a data set of known problems associated with the one or more of the components. The deployment description represents the set of components and their interrelationships. For each of the one or more components, one or more known problems that satisfy a given severity and/or complexity criteria are identified. Thereafter, and with respect to at least one of the components for which one known problem satisfying the given criteria has been identified, the remediation policy (e.g., an update, a replacement, a patch, an additional installable) is applied to attempt to rectify the known problem. After applying the policy, the old version of the package is replaced with the new version.
US09195570B2
Testing computer software applications by performing a first black-box test on a computer software application, identifying any instructions of the computer software application that were reached by a payload of the first black-box test, determining a degree of success of the first black-box test in accordance with predefined success criteria, determining whether any of the instructions that were reached by the payload changed after performing the first black-box test, deciding whether to perform a second black-box test on the computer software application, where the deciding whether to perform the second black-box test is based on whether any of the instructions that were reached by the payload of the first black-box test changed after performing the first black-box test, and the degree of success of the first black-box test.
US09195569B2
The present technology is directed to accurately identifying code execution rhythms from a running program, even when they are occasionally irregular. The present technology is capable of detecting and inferring the rhythms without any prior knowledge or expectations of rates or number of rhythms present in a running program. These code execution rhythms can then be used to further understand and analyze the behavior of a running program, for example, by exposing various rhythms that might have been unknown/unrealized, irregularity of rhythms, or by analyzing the behavior of functions on a per frame basis under different rhythms.
