US09521640B2

A mobile terminal displays, in a common format, a first list for a first registered facility information, which is managed by a database in a memory unit of the mobile terminal itself, and a second list for a second registered facility information, which is managed by a database in an external server. An operation input unit of the mobile terminal receives an input of a switch operation for switching between the first and second list for displaying information on a display unit. A control unit of the mobile terminal controls the display unit by changing the display of the registered facility information on the display unit according to the input of the switch operation from the operation input unit. The control unit controls the display unit to have the registered facility information from different databases displayed in a common format.
US09521639B2

Orthogonality between signals is maintained in direct communication between a mobile station UE#1 and a mobile station UE#2. In a mobile communication system according to the present invention, a radio base station eNB is configured to transmit a data signal to the UE#1 and the UE#2 through a Uu interface at a frequency f1, the UE#1 and the UE#2 are configured to transmit the data signal to the radio base station eNB through the Uu interface at a frequency F2, the UE#1 and the UE#2 are configured to transmit and receive the data signal to and from each other in a time-division manner through a Ud interface at the frequency F2, and predetermined gaps are configured to be provided before and after timing in which the UE#1 and the UE#2 transmit the data signal through the Ud interface.
US09521632B2

A method and apparatus for power allocation for overlapping transmissions is provided herein. During operation, user equipment will determine if transmissions to a single base station, on various frequencies, will be overlapping. If so, a determination is made to back off the power for at least one transmission on one frequency.
US09521619B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for wireless communication including transmitting information regarding pending data to be transmitted using a first wireless protocol with a second wireless protocol to facilitate power conservation by allowing circuitry associated with the first wireless protocol to remain in a power save mode.
US09521613B2

A wireless base station (1) includes a wakeup device (13) and a main device (14). When the main device (14) is in a sleep mode, the wakeup device (13) is connected to the antenna (11). Then, when the wakeup device (13) receives a wakeup signal for activating the wireless base station (1) from a terminal device assigned to the wireless base station (1) in a communication band used for wireless communication with the terminal device and when the information for identifying a wireless base station to be activated contained in the received wakeup signal is identical with the identification information of the wireless base station (1), the wakeup device (13) outputs a driving signal to the main device (14). The main device (14) transitions from the sleep mode to an operating mode in response to the driving signal from the wakeup device (13).
US09521612B2

Methods, systems, and devices are described for indicating, by a multimode access point, an availability of a service on a first RAT to a mobile device via a second RAT. The multimode access point may determine whether a service is available from a base station on the first RAT, e.g., a VoLTE service from a LTE base station. The multimode access point may send an indication to the mobile device of the available services. The mobile device may configure a voice call session based on the available services and initiate the voice call session accordingly.
US09521608B2

A mesh network includes a controller, root access points (APs), and mesh APs assigned to different groups of APs. The controller creates for each group a distinct subset channel list of backhaul channels used by root APs of the group that are connected to the controller. The controller updates, for each group, the subset channel list as root APs assigned to the group connect with and disconnect from the controller. The controller sends, for each group, the subset channel list to the mesh APs assigned to the group that are connected with the controller through respective root APs when the subset channel list is created and updated.
US09521602B2

Wireless communication systems and methods are described where communication is established with a user device at a low frequency. Coarse channel information, such as pathloss, power delay profile, and multipath direction information, regarding the communication between a wireless network device and the user device at the low frequency may then be used to establish communication with the user device at a high frequency.
US09521599B2

The present invention relates to a method of, and device in the form of a radio access network supervising entity for, adapting to delay in a communication link established between the radio access network supervising entity and at least one radio base station communicating with a mobile terminal. The method comprises associating a target Connection Frame Number (CFN) to each transmitted data frame, said target CFN being calculated by offsetting an expected CFN with a counter value corresponding to a current communication link delay, repeatedly determining delay of the communication link, and adapting to the delay of the communication link by adjusting transmission time of the transmitted frame, and/or adjusting the target CFN of the transmitted frame, said target CFN being calculated by offsetting the expected CFN with a counter value corresponding to a determined new delay.
US09521587B2

In one embodiment, a method for setting a clear channel assessment (CCA) threshold includes receiving, by a station from a first access point, a first message including an information element and determining a CCA threshold in accordance with the information element. The method also includes detecting a power level of a channel between the station and the access point to produce a first detected power level and comparing the first detected power level and the CCA threshold. Additionally, the method includes transmitting, by the station to the first access point on the channel, a second message when the detected power level is less than the CCA threshold.
US09521584B2

Traffic streams through mesh points in a mesh network are managed. Data arriving at the mesh point are aggregated in packet queues. The packet queues segregate arriving data by the data's Quality of Service (QoS) requirement. An appropriate communication channel is selected. The communication channel is accessed through a contention access schema. An M-Request-To-Send (MRTS) message is sent to potential receiving mesh points with receiving mesh points responding with an M-Clear-to-Send (MCTS) message. Data from the packet queues is transmitted to the next mesh point. A mesh point power save mode allows battery operated mesh points to sleep preserving power.
US09521583B2

Disclosed are a method and device for implementing load balancing, when a first Access Point (AP) is to transmit data of a Station (STA) accessing the first AP, the first AP determines other APs for load sharing and transmits data desired to be offloaded to said other APs. Technical solutions for implementing load balancing according to the present disclosure can offload data of an STA to one or more APs and transmit the data to the Internet by virtue of other APs of a same ESS when conditions of a wireless network where a wireless AP of a MiFi or Eufi type is located is relatively poor or a load of the wireless AP is relatively heavy. Therefore, when too many STAs access the wireless AP, cases will not arise that the load of the wireless AP is too heavy or a 3G/4G network where the wireless AP is located experiences deterioration of its conditions or even an decrease in its performance. In addition, the load balancing can effectively improve user experiences for STAs to use a wireless network while improving utilization rate of wireless APs of the same ESS.
US09521578B2

A wireless end-user device has wireless wide-area network (WWAN) and wireless local-area network (WLAN) modems. A WWAN-specific differential traffic control policy includes aspects that are user-configurable for specific applications, including a background/foreground operation-based policy. One or more processors implement an application program interface that allows an application to access one or more aspects of the policy that are applicable to that application, including one or more user-configurable aspects of the policy.
US09521576B2

Embodiments described herein relate generally to a communication between an element manager and a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point (AP). The WLAN AP may be configured with one or more counters. The one or more counters may measure events, such as data transmission and/or reception at the WLAN AP or statistics based on association of user equipment (UE) with the WLAN AP. The element manager may be configured to read one or more of these counters and compute one or more values based on the values read from the one or more counters. The element manager may be configured to communicate the one or more computed values to a network manager. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.
US09521569B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a fault diagnosis method and apparatus. A service in the fault diagnosis method relates to at least one user, and the fault diagnosis method includes: determining whether a terminal of each user allows performing fault diagnosis for the service; and performing fault diagnosis for the service if the terminal of each user allows performing fault diagnosis for the service. In the embodiments of the present invention, fault diagnosis for the user related service cannot be performed unless allowed by a user terminal or allowed by both the user terminal and a system side. Thereby, it is ensured that fault diagnosis is performed in a secure environment, which better complies with security laws and regulations.
US09521564B2

A wireless automation test apparatus for a mobile device includes a user setting unit, a test management and control unit, a test execution unit, a test result processing unit, and a communication interface unit. Also provided is a test method involving downloading a test case as well as a configuration file and an index file corresponding to the test case from a server; receiving a user custom test operation mode, and operating the test case according to operation mode information; collecting a site log, collecting and packing a test result, and uploading the test result to the server; and finally, after the test result is analyzed by the server, showing the test result and an error log on a Web interface.
US09521562B2

Methods, systems, and devices are described for wireless communication. A first device, such as a user equipment (UE) may be configured with a peak data rate that corresponds to the radio frequency (RF) capacity of a modem and a sustained data rate that corresponds to the baseband capacity. The first device may receive a set of data blocks during a transmission burst from a second device. The quantity of data blocks in the burst may be based on the peak data rate. The first device may store time domain samples or frequency tones for the data and then power down the RF components for an interval based on how long it will take to process the data. The first device may then process the data at the sustained data rate. After the rest interval, the first device may power up the RF components and receive another burst of data.
US09521559B2

Methods and systems disclosed provide for clear channel assessment of first and second communication channels. In one aspect, a first primary channel has a first frequency spectrum bandwidth and a second primary channel has a second frequency spectrum bandwidth including the first frequency spectrum bandwidth. A method may include performing a first back-off procedure based on whether the first primary channel is idle if a transmission bandwidth for a wireless message is the first frequency spectrum bandwidth, performing a second back-off procedure based on whether the second primary channel is idle if the transmission bandwidth for the wireless message is greater than the first frequency spectrum bandwidth, and transmitting the wireless message based on a completion of the performed back off procedure.
US09521558B2

A computing system includes: an inter-device interface configured to communicate a coordination report for representing a receiver signal associated with an interference-aware receiver capable of recognizing an interference signal from an interference node device and included in the receiver signal; a communication unit, coupled to the inter-device interface, configured to: generate a rate coordination profile based on the coordination report for coordinating the interference signal with the interference node device, and generate a beam-forming mechanism based on the rate coordination profile for communicating a serving signal coordinated with the interference signal.
US09521556B2

A communication method using a direct link in a wireless network and an apparatus therefor are provided. Accordingly, it is determined whether the quality of a link channel is lower than a level during communication using the direct link or whether a signal which is received through the channel includes a radar signal, and the direct link channel is selectively changed to a new channel based on the determination result.
US09521551B2

Systems and methods are provided for persistent cross-application mobile device identification. A mobile device may have a plurality of sandboxes in memory containing applications. The mobile device may have a shared storage which may be accessible by applications from different sandboxes. A storage location identifier may be used to access information in shared storage. A universal device identifier may be stored in the shared storage to identify the mobile device and may be accessible by multiple applications and updates to applications. The universal device identifier may be used to track the mobile device for advertising, fraud detection, reputation tracking, or other purposes.
US09521546B2

A method, terminal and secure RF communication system are provided. The method for radio frequency secure communication of the invention comprises: generating magnetic channel data, and transmitting the magnetic channel data via a magnetic channel; establishing a radio frequency link with a peer device which feeds back a response information of the magnetic channel data; generating first radio frequency data, encrypting the first radio frequency data using the magnetic channel data, and transmitting the encrypted first radio frequency data to the peer device via the radio frequency link; and/or receiving encrypted second radio frequency data transmitted by the peer device via the radio frequency link, and decrypting the encrypted second radio frequency data using the magnetic channel data. By the above technical solution, the invention avoids the risk that a preset key is intercepted or decrypted, and enhances the security of the radio frequency link data exchanging process.
US09521543B2

A method of providing a secure element of a mobile terminal with a subscription profile in which the mobile terminal is configured to communicate with a cellular communications network and the subscription profile comprises a network specific portion related to the cellular communications network or a different cellular communications network as well as a hardware specific portion related to the hardware of the mobile terminal and/or the secure element. The method comprises the steps of: assembling the subscription profile, wherein the network specific portion of the subscription profile is provided by a first server and the hardware specific portion of the subscription profile is provided by a second server; and providing the subscription profile over-the-air to the secure element. A corresponding secure element, mobile terminal and subscription management backend system involves features of the method.
US09521540B2

A method of identifying a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN) comprises a proximity service (ProSe) function in a home PLMN (HPLMN) of an announcing user equipment (UE) receiving a match report message comprising a ProSe Application Code from a ProSe function in a HPLMN of a monitoring UE; and the ProSe function in the HPLMN of the announcing UE transmitting a match response message comprising a ProSe Application ID Name of the ProSe Application Code and a PLMN ID of a VPLMN registered by the announcing UE to the ProSe function in the HPLMN of the monitoring UE to respond to the match report message.
US09521534B2

In an emergency, a gateway application, which has been installed on a mobile communications device, is actuated to advise a public safety answering point (PSAP) in a public safety (PS) network of the emergency, and to disable restrictions on application downloading to the mobile device. Once the emergency has been confirmed by the PSAP, an emergency application, which has been selected by the PSAP, is downloaded to the mobile device. The downloaded emergency application can be executed by the PSAP and/or by a PS person, to remotely control the mobile device to help remedy the emergency. The downloaded emergency application can be removed from the mobile device upon closing of the emergency.
US09521518B1

A method, a system, and a computer-readable recording medium for object location tracking are provided. The system includes a server, at least one case, multiple objects, and a mobile electronic device. The method is adapted to the mobile electronic device and includes the following steps: transmitting a lookup request for a target object to the server; when obtaining location information of the target object from the server, transmitting a search request to the server, where the target object is located in a target case; in response to a distance between the mobile electronic device and a target case detected by a distance sensor of the target case, displaying a prompt signal corresponding to a first prompt signal signaled by a case prompt device of the target case; and in response to the distance determined by the server to be less than a distance threshold, displaying a prompt object.
US09521515B2

A method of obtaining media content of an event, comprising: identifying a real-life event and, a time of said real-life event a geographic location of the real-life event; identifying a subset of a plurality of client terminals of users located in proximity to the geographic location of the real-life event at said time of said real-life event; sending a message to the subset of client terminals containing a request to acquire media content documenting the real-life event; and receiving at least one media content item documenting the real-life event from at least one client terminal of the subset of client terminals, the at least one media content item acquired by at least one user of the users using the at least one client terminal in response to the message.
US09521512B2

In one embodiment, a system determines a designated wireless device lacks a fixed geographic location, and uses the determination that the designated wireless device lacks a fixed geographic location to improve location estimates. The system determines one or more neighboring wireless devices have relationships with the designated wireless device, wherein a relationship is established when wireless signals from a neighboring wireless device and the designated wireless device are detected by a same receiver. A measure of likelihood is calculated that the designated wireless device lacks a fixed geographic location based at least in part on a number of the relationships or a duration of the relationships. Based on the measure of likelihood, the designated wireless device is excluded from being used in the wireless positioning system as a beacon for estimating the location of a client device.
US09521510B2

A system may be configured to allow for storage of location information regarding a set of user devices. The location information may be updated relatively frequently, and without introducing additional traffic into a wireless telecommunications network associated with the user devices. The location information may be made available to internal devices associated with the wireless telecommunications network and/or to external third party devices (such as banks, payment card processors, or advertisers) with user consent. Since the information is obtained and stored prior to requests, the location information may be provided, in response to requests, relatively quickly.
US09521508B2

A mobile device and a method and circuit for determining a position of the mobile device is disclosed. A positioning signal is received at a communication circuit of the mobile device. The received positioning signal is sent from the communication circuit to a position-determining module for determining the position of the mobile device from the positioning signal. A switch may be configured to selectively couple the position-determining module to the communication circuit.
US09521507B2

A wireless communication system, and an apparatus and method for controlling communication connections with a plurality of user terminals in the system are disclosed. The terminal device includes a communication unit, a storage unit, and a control unit. The communication unit receives a signal, broadcast by at least one beacon device, via wireless communication. The storage unit stores data that is transmitted and received to and from the beacon device. The control unit is functionally connected with the communication unit, scans a signal transmitted from the beacon device, performs an operation for a communication connection with the beacon device using the scanned signal, receives a bit mask via the communication unit and also stores the bit mask in the storage unit when the communication connection has been established, transmits data to the beacon device via the communication unit, and immediately releases the communication connection.
US09521503B2

An audio player with a Bluetooth function and an audio playing method thereof are provided. The audio player includes a master Bluetooth speaker and a plurality of slave Bluetooth speakers. The master Bluetooth speaker receives and decodes a compressed digital audio to generate a decoded time. The slave Bluetooth speakers receive and decode the compressed digital audio to generate another decoded time. After the slave Bluetooth speakers receive the decoded time from master Bluetooth speaker and determine a time difference between the master Bluetooth speaker and the slave Bluetooth speakers, the slave Bluetooth speakers adjust timing for playing an audio from each of the slave Bluetooth speakers. Therefore, the timing for playing the audio from each of the slave Bluetooth speakers can synchronize timing for playing audio from the master Bluetooth speaker.
US09521501B2

Audio content coded for a reference speaker configuration is downmixed to downmix audio content coded for a specific speaker configuration. One or more gain adjustments are performed on individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration. Loudness measurements are then performed on the individual portions of the downmix audio content. An audio signal that comprises the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration and downmix loudness metadata is generated. The downmix loudness metadata is created based at least in part on the loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content.
US09521498B2

Provided is an assembling method for a micro-loudspeaker assembly. The method comprises the steps of: (a) preparing a chuck ring material plate and a vibrating diaphragm material plate, and stamping a number of chuck ring inner holes in the chuck ring material plate; (b) coating an adhesive on the upper surface of the chuck ring material plate stamped with the chuck ring inner holes; (c) bonding the vibrating diaphragm material plate to the upper surface of the chuck ring material plate coated with an adhesive; (d) downwards stamping the part of the vibrating diaphragm material plate corresponding to the chuck ring inner holes into the central part of a vibrating diaphragm; and (e) stamping to form the outer edge of the assembly around the chuck ring inner holes, and removing the assembly from the material plate.
US09521487B2

Embodiments described herein involve configuring a playback device based on the detection of a barrier in proximity to the playback device. An example implementation may involve configuring the playback device for audio output in a given environment by calibrating the playback device to at least partially offset acoustic effects of the given environment. After the playback device is configured for audio output, the playback device may detect a barrier within proximity of the playback device by detecting a change in the acoustic effects of the given environment. In response to detecting the barrier within proximity of the playback device, the playback device may adjust the calibration.
US09521482B2

A sound receiving device includes a microphone array, a plurality of time delay circuits and a sound-mixing output device. The microphone array includes a plurality of microphones longitudinally arranged along a straight line in order, an output terminal of each microphone is connected with a time delay circuit, and an output terminal of the time delay circuit is connected to an input terminal of the sound-mixing output device; and an i-th time delay circuit has a delay time Ti defined by adding a (n−i) times of unit time to a delay time of a last time delay circuit. The device can increase the output of the forward acoustic wave actuation, decrease the output of the oblique acoustic wave within a certain frequency bandwidth, and obtain nearly the same directional characteristic at the central frequency and adjacent frequencies.
US09521479B2

Headphones or a headset comprise a pair of electro-acoustic transducers (1, 2), both ear-pieces and an earpiece and a microphone are carried at opposite ends of a curved headband (3) that is formed by a chain of links (500-511) that are hinged to one another and the transducers (1, 2). Each link (5) involves a shell-casing (8) that on an underside has a first pair of mutually-spaced projecting lugs (9) and has a second pair of mutually-spaced projecting lugs (10) that nest with the first pair of lugs (9) of the next-following link (5). The nested lugs (9, 10) are pierced transversely and pivot pins (11) are inserted in the piercings to establish hinges (7) between the links (5). The transducers (1, 2) are hinged to the ends of the headband (3) to enable the headphones or headset to be rolled up lengthwise of the headband (3).
US09521477B2

This invention relates to microphone accessories for use with a hand-held microphone, and to a method of using a microphone. The microphone accessory in accordance with the invention has a body comprising an attachment formation for attaching the microphone accessory to the handle of the microphone, a holding portion to be engaged by a hand of the user, a cover portion coupled to the holding portion and substantially spaced therefrom so as to define a holding zone between the holding portion and the cover portion for receipt of the hand of the user to engage the holding portion, in use, wherein the cover portion substantially shields or covers the holding zone and/or the hand of the user; and a static non-electronically variable display device and/or an electronically variable display device. The invention also relates to a wearable microphone accessory.
US09521461B2

An interactive television program guide system with program series reminder and recording capabilities is provided. The system allows a user to set a reminder or schedule a recording for a single episode or for each episode of a program series. In addition, other options may be provided that allow the user to determine, for example, whether to schedule reminders/recordings for episodes on all channels on which the program airs or only on a selected channels, whether to schedule reminders/recordings for all episodes including reruns or only new episodes, whether to schedule reminders/recordings for network or syndicated episodes, and whether to schedule reminders/recordings for episodes on all days or only on selected days of the week. Before the scheduled broadcast time of each episode of each selected program series, the system sends a reminder message to the user that reminds the user of the program episode or sends a record command to a videocassette recorder to initiate recording of the episode. The system allows a user to view a list of all currently requested program reminders and scheduled program recordings. The user may update, change, or cancel any entry in either list or the system may automatically update the lists to match new broadcast schedule information. If the user sets a reminder or schedules a recording that conflicts with an existing reminder or recording, the system may inform the user of the conflict and allow the user to resolve the conflict or the system may resolve the conflict.
US09521458B2

A network device executes a method to provide targeted messages to a subscriber of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) when a request of the subscriber to access an IPTV channel is denied. The method includes receiving the request of the subscriber from a customer premise equipment (CPE) to access a first multicast stream, where the first multicast stream is a multicast stream for an IPTV channel. The method further includes checking whether the request to access the first multicast stream should be allowed or denied, determining a reason for denial in response to determining that the request should be denied, determining a second multicast stream that corresponds to the reason for denial, sending a join message to a multicast source to receive the second multicast stream, and forwarding the second multicast stream to the CPE.
US09521456B2

Methods, apparatus, and systems to collect audience measurement data are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes collecting first media data. Audience identification data is collected with a people meter. Audience member behavior is developed data based on the first media data and the audience identification data. Second media data is collected after the people meter has been removed, the removal of the people meter occurring after the audience member behavior data has been developed. Audience members associated with the second media data are identified based on the audience member behavior data.
US09521455B1

Methods and systems are described for a media guidance application that enables a user to patch corrupted media. In particular, the media guidance application place-shifts a frame of a second version of the media corresponding to a corrupted portion of the media from a remote location and displays the place-shifted data at the local device.
US09521446B2

A method for providing remote access to segments of a transmitted program is presented. The program is recorded, and then stored at a communication server. Information specifying a segment of the stored program is transferred from a communication device to the communication server. Also, a request for access to the specified segment of the stored program is transferred from another communication device to the communication server. In response to the request, the specified segment of the program is transferred from the communication server to the requesting communication device.
US09521440B2

Various arrangements for encrypting multiple television channels are presented. A first television channel of a plurality of television channels to be protected via a first entitlement control message (ECM) using a first encryption scheme may be designated. The plurality of television channels may be transmitted using a single transponder stream. A second television channel of the plurality of television channels to be protected via a second ECM encrypted using a second encryption scheme while the first television channel of the plurality of television channels is protected using the first encryption scheme may be designated. The first and second ECMs may be transmitted to a plurality of television receivers. Data from the first ECM may be used for descrambling of the first television channel by the plurality of television receivers. Data from the second ECM may be used for descrambling of the second television channel by the plurality of television receivers.
US09521437B2

A method of operating a digital video service set top box system is provided. The set top box system accommodates playback of locally stored recorded secondary digital video content. The method begins by initiating playback of a primary digital video program. Insertion points associated with the primary digital video program are detected; these insertion points indicate frame-accurate transition points in the primary digital video program. During playback of the primary digital video program, the recorded secondary digital video program is inserted at any appropriate insertion point in a frame-accurate manner. The termination of the secondary digital video program is likewise marked and triggers a return to the primary digital video program, at the original insertion point or any other desired insertion point which may exist in the primary digital video program.
US09521436B2

A digital broadcasting system and a method of processing data are disclosed, which are robust to error when mobile service data are transmitted. To this end, additional encoding is performed for the mobile service data, whereby it is possible to strongly cope with fast channel change while giving robustness to the mobile service data.
US09521424B1

A method, apparatus, and manufacture for encoding a video sequence is provided. Encoding the video sequence includes performing a weighted prediction estimation between a reference frame of the video sequence and a target frame of the video sequence. Performing the weighted prediction includes performing an initial weighted prediction estimation for each block of the reference frame. Next, blocks are clustered according to their initial weighted prediction estimates. Then, each block of the target image is assigned to a corresponding region based on the clustering. During the video encoding, weighted-prediction is employed for each block according to its corresponding region.
US09521418B2

In one example, a video coder is configured to code one or more blocks of video data representative of texture information of at least a portion of a frame of video data, process a texture slice for a texture view component of a current view associated, the texture slice comprising the coded one or more blocks and a texture slice header comprising a set of syntax elements representative of characteristics of the texture slice, code depth information representative of depth values for at least the portion of the frame, and process a depth slice for a depth view component corresponding to the texture view component of the view, the depth slice comprising the coded depth information and a depth slice header comprising a set of syntax elements representative of characteristics of the depth slice, wherein process the texture slice or the depth slice comprises predict at least one syntax element.
US09521416B1

Systems and methods for image data compression in an array camera are disclosed. An array camera includes a processor, an array of cameras, and a compression module. The compression module is configured to receive image data from the array of pixels of a focal plane in a sequentially linear group of pixel data, analyze the received image data based upon truncation rules, compress the received data image based upon the analysis to generate compressed image data, and generate a bit mask identifying truncated image data in the compressed image data.
US09521410B2

A method of coding delta quantization parameter values is described. In one example a video decoder may receive a delta quantization parameter (dQP) value for a current quantization block of video data, wherein the dQP value is received whether or not there are non-zero transform coefficients in the current quantization block. In another example, a video decoder may receive the dQP value for the current quantization block of video data only in the case that the QP Predictor for the current quantization block has a value of zero, and infer the dQP value to be zero in the case that the QP Predictor for the current quantization block has a non-zero value, and there are no non-zero transform coefficients in the current quantization block.
US09521399B1

Dynamic projection of at least first and second patterns contributes detectable disparity onto a scene that includes a target object. The scene is imaged with two-dimensional cameras whose acquired imagery includes disparity contributions whose presence enable a three-dimensional reconstruction depth map to be rapidly and accurately generated. In one embodiment coherent light is input to a first DOE within whose near range output is disposed a second DOE, whose far range output projects an image. Electronically varying effective optical distance between the two DOEs varies the pattern projected from the second DOE. A processor system and algorithms enable dynamic intelligent selection of projected patterns to more readily discern target object characteristics: shape, size, velocity. Patterns can implement spatio-temporal depth reconstruction, spatio-temporal depth reconstruction, and even single-camera spatio-temporal light coding reconstruction. Target objects may be scanned or may make gestures that are rapidly detected and recognized by the system and method.
US09521383B2

An image processing apparatus includes a display control section that controls a projection device to project a correction image, a captured image data acquisition section that acquires the correction image, a judgment section that judges, when the correction image expressed by the captured image data is placed in a plane with a coordinate system, which of the following functions: a function representing a straight line; and a function representing a curved line is used to make image correction based on the distance between the correction image and at least one of a line expressed by the function representing a straight line and a line expressed by the function representing a curved line, and a presentation section that presents a user with an operation screen for correction using the function judged by the judgment section.
US09521375B2

Certain exemplary embodiments relate to entertainment systems that interact with users to provide access to media appropriate to and/or customized for a particular user using the entertainment system, the location at which the entertainment system is being accessed, and/or a predefined event. For example, in certain exemplary embodiments, an entertainment system in a location is configured to provide jukebox-related and entertainment system mediated services that are accessible from within and from the outside of the location, and provide (1) attract or flight media operations, (2) browsing services, and/or (3) search screens appropriate to and/or customized for a particular user using the entertainment system, the location at which the entertainment system is being accessed, and/or a predefined event. Such screens may be provided with a three-dimensional look-and-feel in certain exemplary embodiments.
US09521373B2

Disclosed are various embodiments for capturing underwater video images. In a representative embodiment an underwater video system may include a sled, a camera affixed to the sled, a plurality of anchors, one or more sled tethers, the sled tethers affixed to the anchors and configured to confine the sled to a path between the anchors, a viewing station, the viewing station being configured to receive and capture images from the camera, and a motor, the motor configured to move the sled on the path between the anchors.
US09521358B2

Techniques related to processing a mixed content video stream to generate progressive video for encoding and/or display are discussed. Such techniques may include determining conversion techniques for various portions of the mixed content video stream and converting the portions based on the determined techniques. The conversion of true interlaced video include content adaptive interlace reversal and the conversion of pseudo-interlaced telecine converted video may include adaptive telecine pattern reversal.
US09521355B2

An image processing apparatus includes a storage unit configured to store a plurality of continuous image frames, and a frame generator configured to obtain a predetermined number of image frames from the plurality of continuous image frames stored in the storage unit and synthesize the predetermined number of image frames to sequentially produce video reproduction frames. The frame generator uses same image frames, which are used to produce one video reproduction frame, to produce another video reproduction frame.
US09521349B2

Pixels within an image sensor pixel array are sampled by corresponding conditional read circuitry. A zero pixel value is outputted for each pixel associated with a sample less than a conversion threshold, and a saturated pixel value is outputted for each pixel associated with a sample greater than or equal to a saturation threshold. Samples greater than or equal to the conversion threshold and less than the saturation threshold are converted by an ADC, and a converted pixel value is output for each associated above threshold pixel. The ADC (along with any corresponding amplifiers) are powered on for a variable period depending on the number of pixels needing conversion during the conversion of such samples during a read period, and are powered off for the remainder of the read period.
US09521348B2

Readout circuitry to readout an array of image sensor pixels includes readout units that include a plurality of analog-to-digital converters (“ADCs”), a plurality of blocks of Static Random-Access Memory (“SRAM”), and a plurality of blocks of Dynamic Random-Access Memory (“DRAM”). The plurality ADCs is coupled to readout analog image signals two-dimensional blocks of the array of image sensor pixels. The plurality of blocks of SRAM is coupled to receive digital image signals from the ADCs. The digital image signals are representative of the analog image signal readout from the two-dimensional block of pixels. The plurality of blocks of DRAM is coupled to the blocks of SRAM. Each block of SRAM is coupled to sequentially output the digital image signals to each of the blocks of DRAM. Each of the readout units are coupled to output the digital image signals as a plurality of Input/Output (“IO”) signals.
US09521343B2

A CMOS sensor has unit pixels each structured by a light receiving element and three transistors, to prevent against the phenomenon of saturation shading and the reduction of dynamic range. The transition time (fall time), in switching off the voltage on a drain line shared in all pixels, is given longer than the transition time in turning of any of the reset line and the transfer line. For this reason, the transistor constituting a DRN drive buffer is made proper in its W/L ratio. Meanwhile, a control resistance or current source is inserted on a line to the GND, to make proper the operation current during driving. This reduces saturation shading amount. By making a reset transistor in a depression type, the leak current to a floating diffusion is suppressed to broaden the dynamic range.
US09521341B2

Provided are an image sensor and an image capturing apparatus including the image sensor. The image sensor includes a pixel array including: multiple sensing pixels outputting image signals respectively corresponding to intensities of incident light; and at least one pair of focusing pixels that are adjacent each other, and each outputting a phase difference of the incident light as a focusing signal; wherein each focusing pixel includes: a semiconductor layer including a photodetecting device accumulating electric charges generated according to absorbed light from among the incident light; a wiring layer formed on a first surface of the semiconductor layer and including wirings; a planarization layer having a first surface on a second surface of the semiconductor layer; a shielding layer formed in the planarization layer to block some of the incident light to be incident to the photodetecting device; and a color filter layer and a micro lens layer.
US09521337B1

A self-resetting pixel having a memory element to record occurrence of an asynchronous pixel reset and circuitry to enable the memory element to be digitally sampled and cleared is disclosed, together with embodiments of digital image sensors formed by arrays or other collections of such pixels. By marking occurrence of asynchronous reset events within an in-pixel memory element that may be digitally oversampled during an exposure interval (i.e., repeatedly read-out in the form of, for example, a single-bit), it becomes possible to check for and detect asynchronous pixel reset events frequently and efficiently.
US09521333B2

An imaging apparatus including an imaging unit that obtains a plurality of photographed images of different photographing conditions includes a setting unit that sets photographing conditions of the imaging unit, an instruction unit that instructs photographing by the imaging unit, and a notification unit that notifies photographing conditions set by the setting unit before the instruction unit instructs the photographing, wherein the notification unit notifies, before the instruction unit instructs the photographing, only a photographing condition of a longest exposure time from among a plurality of photographing conditions for obtaining the plurality of photographed images or a sum of exposure times for obtaining the plurality of photographed images.
US09521331B2

A process is disclosed for scanning a graphic medium scan target. An image of the scan target is captured over an exposure duration. An illumination of the scan target is actuated over an illumination duration brief relative to the exposure duration. The illumination of the scan target is deactivated upon an expiration of the illumination duration. The capturing the image step continues over a significant portion of the exposure duration persisting after the expiration of the illumination duration.
US09521329B2

A display device includes an imaging unit configured to capture an image of an object and to generate image data of the object, a display unit configured to display the image corresponding to the image data generated by the imaging unit, and a display controller configured to cause the display unit to display a sample image in which at least a line of sight of the object has been changed when the imaging unit captures the image of the object. An imaging direction of the imaging unit and a display direction of the display unit are matched. The sample image is an object image in which the line of sight has changed from front to a direction other than the front.
US09521321B1

A user activation of an image capture function of a mobile device is received. The image capture function is for a surround image mode. Two or more camera lenses are approximately concurrently activated. A front-side image from a first camera lens and a rear-side image from a second camera lens can be optically captured. A second front-side image from the first camera lens and a second rear-side image from the second camera lens can be optically captured responsive to a manual pan/tilt/zoom operation of the front-side or rear-side lense. Content from the front-side images and content from the rear-side images are recorded in a non-transitory storage medium of the mobile device within a single file for a surround mode image.
US09521308B2

A method for controlling a flash of an electronic device by detecting an illumination intensity and a color temperature of a current environment from a RGB sensor. When the illumination intensity is lower than a first predetermined value, a pre-flash of the flash is turned on. Control a color temperature of the pre-flash to be equal to the color temperature when the color temperature is lower than a second predetermined value. A distance between a target object and the camera is obtained, adjusting the current of the high color temperature LED and the current of the low color temperature LED simultaneously according to the obtained distance after turning on a main-flash of the flash to capture an image of the target object.
US09521305B2

An optical member conveying device (90) of an embodiment of the present invention includes: a small LED illumination device (13) which (i) is included in a lens unit suction head (14) which adheres to a top surface of a lens section (50) and (ii) emits light from above the top surface of the lens section (50) toward an opening hole (3a) from which light enters, the opening hole (3a) being provided on the top surface of the lens section (50); and a control section which controls the lens unit suction head (14) to carry out an alignment of the lens section (50) in accordance with a projection image obtained by projecting, by use of light emitted from the small LED illumination device (13), the opening hole (3a) on a side of a back surface of the lens section (50).
US09521302B2

A camera system including a camera with a front face and a rear face each having a substantially square cross-section. The front face includes a camera lens centered on the front face, and the rear face includes a communicative interface. The camera also includes a top face, a bottom face, a left face, and a right face each having a substantially rectangular cross-section. The top face includes a user interface configured to allow a user of the camera to interact with the camera. The camera system also includes a housing with a housing body having four adjacent walls forming a band. The camera fits flush within an interior of the band when the camera is compressibly secured within the housing.
US09521300B2

A camera includes a housing, a digital video recorder, a camera lens, buttons, at least one port, a battery compartment, a holder for a removable storage device, a microphone connected, and a mounting rail.
US09521290B2

An image processing apparatus includes a difference detector that detects a difference between two images according to a set detection condition, a receiving unit that receives the two images as comparison targets and a target difference image that is desirable in difference detection of the two images, and a setting unit that selects a detection condition from predetermined detection conditions and sets the selected detection condition in the difference detector, the selected detection condition causing a difference image that is acquired by the difference detector from the two images received by the receiving unit to be closer to the target difference image.
US09521285B1

A 3D printer includes a machine body, a printing platform, a scanning and driving module, and a scanning and supporting module. The machine body has a bottom plate. The printing platform and the scanning and driving module are disposed on the bottom plate. The printing platform includes a slide track and a movable printing substrate. The scanning and driving module and the slide track are staggeredly disposed such that the scanning and driving module and the slide track do not interfere with the movement of the printing substrate. The scanning and supporting module is detachably combined with the scanning and driving module and is driven by the scanning and driving module.
US09521279B2

An image reproducing method for a digital processing machine is provided. The image reproducing method includes the following steps: scanning an original to generate image data; analyzing the image data to generate an analysis result; designating M proper user setting items among N user setting items according to the analysis result, wherein N and M are positive integers, and M is less than N; providing only the M proper user setting items on a human-machine interface; and outputting a copy of the original according to a user input received through the human-machine interface. In addition, a digital processing machine providing an intelligent human-machine interface is also provided.
US09521271B2

An electronic apparatus includes a network manager to deactivate a WiFi Direct function of the electronic apparatus when an application to perform a print job is operated and which is connected to an image forming apparatus around the electronic apparatus using a WiFi Direct method, a job generator to generate print data regarding a file based on an input print command to print the file, and a controller to transmit the generated print data to the image forming apparatus that is connected using the WiFi Direct method.
US09521270B1

Capturing an image of an object from a captured perspective and creating a plurality of candidate object areas. Each candidate object area potentially enclosing the object captured in the image. From the plurality of candidate object areas, a candidate object area is selected as enclosing the object. A corrected image of the object is generated based on the selected candidate object area. The corrected image shows the object transformed to a corrected perspective. The corrected image is displayed.
US09521257B2

A contact center dialing a telephone number to a destination party, such as a debtor, may discover that the number is obsolete, e.g., the number has been reassigned to a new subscriber. A purportedly current number may be obtained for the debtor, which may be a wireless number. Until the new number has been confirmed as being associated with the debtor, an agent manually dials that number to minimize liability to the contact center. Once the agent has verbally confirmed the new number is associated with the debtor, a record for this number in a dialing list is updated allowing future dialing attempts to occur automatically, by using a predictive dialer. In one embodiment, a dialing list module processes the dialing list so as to reflect when a number is obsolete and update the corresponding record when the new number is confirmed.
US09521255B1

Embodiments of the invention provide a system for generating an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) database, the system comprising a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory comprising a list of telephone numbers associated with one or more destinations implementing IVR menus, wherein the one or more destinations are grouped based on a plurality of categories of the IVR menus. Further the memory includes instructions executable by said processor for automatically communicating with the one of more destinations, and receiving at least one customization record from said at least one destination to store in the IVR database.
US09521253B2

The present invention provides a system for recording an interaction including, a telephone call between a caller and a digital processing system placed over an interjurisdictional boundary, and may include a telephone call placed to at least one called recipient. For example, a caller may place a telephone call over an interjurisdictional boundary to a remote computer server. The server may use an interactive voice response (IVR) unit to obtain caller identification information, provide recording identification information to the caller, and receive authorization from the caller to record an interaction between the caller and a call recipient. The server can also obtain testamentary intent information. A telephone call may then be placed by the server to the recipient, and a two-party digital voice recording can be made on the remote server of a three-way telephone call, in which the server is one of the parties.
US09521248B2

A mobile phone 10 comprises a display 14, a touch panel 16, etc., and can set a lock state restricting performance of predetermined processing based on a touch operation. If the display 14 is turned ON when the lock state is set, a lock screen comprising a lock object (RO), etc. is displayed. If the lock screen is displayed when there is a new arrival mail, a mail object (Oa) is further displayed in the lock screen. At this time, if the lock object is dragged and dropped onto the mail object, a mail function is performed while the lock state is canceled. At this time, the new arrival mail is displayed on the display 14.
US09521240B1

A wireless emergency system that includes a mobile switching center, a short message service center that receives an emergency text message of a caller from the mobile switching center, and gateway in communication with the short message service center to route the emergency text message to a responsive public safety answering point as a tone message.
US09521234B2

The information processing apparatus performs a voice communication with a counterpart device which comprises a voice communication function through a voice communication unit. The information processing apparatus performs voice recognition processing of first voice and second voice, the first voice is the voice which is transmitted to the counterpart device by a voice communication through the voice communication unit, the second voice is the voice which is input from the counterpart device, and searches one or more applications according to a recognition result of the voice recognition unit. The information processing apparatus displays an object for starting the application searched on a display section. Thereby, the information processing apparatus prevents starting the application which is not intended by the user.
US09521230B2

A system and method for displaying an identifier of a source on a recipient device in communication with the source, the system comprising an association database defining at least one source associated with the recipient device; and a processing manager arranged to process communications from the source to the recipient device and arranged to access the association database to determine if the source is associated with the recipient device and, if so, to display an established identifier of the source, otherwise to determine the privacy settings of the source and display a further identifier on the recipient device in accordance with the determined privacy settings is disclosed.
US09521229B2

A mobile terminal and methods are disclosed. A storage module stores at least first contact information including a first phone number and second contact information including a second phone number. A control module causes the display module to display a first image associated with the first phone number and a second image not associated with the phone number stored in the storage module, makes a call at the first phone number, if a first operation for selecting the first image is accepted, causes the display module to display at least the second contact information, if a second operation for selecting the second image is accepted, and causes the display module to display a third image associated with the second phone number instead of the second image, if a third operation for selecting the second contact information is accepted.
US09521227B2

A cable-arranging assembly coupled to a table such that a mobile device is displayed. A cable extends through a guide housing and a withdrawal unit configured such that the cable is connected to the mobile device. The guide housing and the withdrawal unit are coupled to the upper and lower portions of the table. A guide unit is rotatably disposed within the guide housing. The guide unit rotates along with rotation of the cable in the direction in which the cable rotates, thereby preventing the cable from being twisted or cut.
US09521223B1

A mobile device case and method for use therewith are provided. In one embodiment, a mobile device case is provided with a controller configured to detect that the mobile device case was possibly removed from the mobile device and provide an indicator to a mobile device accordingly. In another embodiment, a mobile device is provided comprising a controller configured to send a request to a mobile device case for a listing of the stored in a memory of the mobile device case, receive the listing of data from the mobile device case, and categorize the data into different categories. Other embodiments are provided.
US09521220B2

A case for use with an electronic device includes a base portion with side portions extending therefrom forming a pocket. The case also includes a first material generally at an exterior of the pocket, forming a majority of an exterior surface of the base portion, and a second material secured to and having a higher coefficient of friction than the first material, generally at an interior of the pocket. The second material protrudes through aperture(s) in the first material at the base portion to protrude from the interior to the exterior of the base portion, and outward from the first material such that the second material contacts a support surface when the base portion is placed thereon. The protruding second material extends away from the aperture(s) on opposing surfaces of the first material at the exterior and interior of the pocket to provide securement between the first and second materials.
US09521214B2

A method of distributing content is disclosed. The method includes receiving by an edge server an indication indicating that a client has sent a request for a file that includes content related to executing an application. The method includes analyzing interaction with the client by the edge server to determine a first portion of the file that is likely to be required by the client for executing the application sooner than a second portion of the file. The method further includes generating by the edge server a modified file that includes the first portion of the file. The method further includes transmitting the modified file to the client.
US09521203B2

Measures for use in processing communication sessions in a telecommunications network are provided. Each communication session has a signaling path spanning a plurality of devices including one or more intermediate network devices and at least two endpoint devices, the signaling path comprising a plurality of signaling segments, each segment being between two devices in the plurality of devices. A first signaling message, comprising a first identifier associated with the communication session, is received via a first signaling segment for a communication session. At least part of the first identifier is transformed using a deterministic encryption algorithm to generate a second identifier. A second signaling message, comprising the second identifier, is transmitted via a second signaling segment for the communication session to associate the second identifier with the communication session.
US09521199B2

A method for transferring data from a data capturing device (DCD) comprises: establishing a first communication link between a first user device and the DCD. The method also includes: the DCD capturing data intended to be communicated to the first user device; and notifying the first user device of an availability of captured data for transfer to the first user device. The method further includes: receiving a response from the first user device; and when the response indicates that the captured data should be sent directly to the first device, forwarding the captured data to the first user device. However, when the response includes remote storage connectivity data, which indicates that the captured data should be sent to the remote storage, the method includes establishing a data communication session with the remote storage using the remote storage connectivity data and transferring the captured data directly to the remote storage.
US09521193B2

Provided are methods and apparatuses for providing contents via a network, in which original data of contents provided via a network can be traced, and contents that are modified according to performance of a contents receiving device is provided. Location information of original contents is added to metadata of contents provided via the network to thereby increase convenience of access to the original contents and modify attributes of contents that are provided, to be suitable for the performance of the contents receiving device.
US09521192B2

Some demonstrative embodiments include apparatuses, systems and/or methods of Peer to Peer communication. For example, a device may include a controller to generate a Peer to Peer discovery frame including at least one Multicast attribute, the Multicast Attribute including an address field and one or more attribute fields, the address field to indicate a plurality of devices; and a radio to transmit the Peer to Peer discovery frame, and to transmit multicast traffic to the plurality of devices according to the one or more attribute fields.
US09521186B2

A method and system for file transfer over a messaging infrastructure are provided. The method includes dividing a file into multiple portions. The method includes generating for a current portion of a file, except for the first portion in a file, a first hash summarizing the state of the file up to, but not including, the current portion and a second hash summarizing the state of the file up to and including the current portion. The method includes sending the first and second hashes with the file portion. The second hash may be used at a target for comparing to a first hash of a subsequent file portion, for example, by recreating the second hash from the current state of the received file on the target.
US09521185B2

A method and system for deploying content to client applications is provided. Inbound messages are accepted from a client application running on a client device via a proxy IP/port. The inbound messages are packaged into an internal message format with an HTTP redirector. The packaged message is forwarded to a back-end server via a message router. A response is received form from a web server. The response is packaged into the internal message format with the back-end server. The response is then forwarded to the HTTP redirector via a message router. The response can then be transferred to the client application running on the client device, via the proxy IP/port.
US09521181B1

An apparatus, method, and computer readable medium is disclosed for receiving in a client node a timing command indicating a time at which to display a presentation portion comprising a first stream content and a second stream content and synchronizing display of the first stream content with the second stream content to the client node using a stream delay parameter, wherein the delay parameter accounts for the propagation time difference between the first stream content and the second stream content, wherein the first stream content and the second stream content are synchronously rendered at the client node at a time derived from the time indicated by the timing command and the stream delay parameter.
US09521176B2

A system, method, and computer program product for publishing transcoded media content in response to publishing service requests from end users. A user request for media content, is processed intelligently, either by directing the processing of the request to one of a set of transcoding servers so as to effectively balance the load among the servers, or by directing the processing of the request to an appropriate alternative means for satisfying the request. Transcoding tasks can be prioritized. Moreover, the current load on any particular transcoding server can be monitored in conjunction with determination of the load to be created by a transcoding task, in order to facilitate server selection. Transcoding can be performed on-demand or in a batch mode. Alternatively, a request can be satisfied by distributing media content that has already been transcoded and is resident in cache memory in anticipation of such requests.
US09521175B2

Tagging techniques use user interface features such as face icons that can be manipulated by a variety of cursors to tag media items including but not limited to photos. Tagged items can be presented automatically in response to establishing network communications between two devices.
US09521173B1

A computer-implemented method for managing calls in a collaboration environment is provided. The method includes receiving, by a processor, a call into a collaboration session of the collaboration environment. The method also includes identifying, by the processor, a user from a plurality of users associated with the collaboration session, based on at least one of contextual information regarding the call and information regarding the plurality of users. The method further includes providing, by the processor, an interface on a device associated with the identified user, wherein the interface enables the identified user to instruct the device to handle the call within the collaboration session.
US09521165B2

A method for detecting potential phishing URLs includes extracting a URL from a document, analyzing the URL context, and comparing the URL to stored trusted URLs and stored known phishing URLs. The URL context includes anchor text and surrounding content associated with the URL. The method further includes generating a phishing alert based on the comparing and the analyzing.
US09521162B1

A method for detecting a malicious network activity. The method includes extracting, based on a pre-determined criterion, a plurality of protection phase feature sequences extracted from a first plurality of network traffic sessions exchanged during a protection phase between a server device and a first plurality of client devices of a network, comparing the plurality of protection phase feature sequences and a plurality of profiling phase feature sequences to generate a comparison result, where the plurality of profiling phase feature sequences were extracted from a second plurality of network traffic sessions exchanged during a profiling phase prior to the protection phase between the server device and a second plurality of client devices of the network, and generating, in response to detecting a statistical measure of the comparison result exceeding a pre-determined threshold, an alert indicating the malicious network activity.
US09521157B1

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for analyzing and indicating network resources as potentially malicious are disclosed. Some aspects of the disclosure provide ways for threat-analyzing individuals and/or organizations to transmit information about potentially malicious resources in a safe manner. Users or computing devices may transmit non-resolvable “de-fanged” resource identifiers, which lessens the likelihood that the receiving computing device will download malicious data or applications from the resource. Some aspects disclosed herein provide ways to correctly and accurately “re-fang” the resource identifier for threat analysis of the resource, for example by selecting one or more re-fangers to apply and applying the re-fangers to the identifier. Data may be retrieved from the resource (for example via a headless or non-interactive browser), and the resource and/or resource identifier may be categorized as malicious. Indications of a resource as malicious may be transmitted to other computing devices to reduce or eliminate malicious activity.
US09521156B2

A method, product and computer program product for effecting an Evolutionary Process on malware, the method including the steps of: (a) receiving a malware specimen; (b) generating variants of the malware specimen; (c) evaluating the variants and awarding each the variant a Fitness Score; (d) selecting the variants having at least a predefined the Fitness Score; and (e) using the selected variants as the malware specimens in step (a) from which to generate a new generation of the variants.
US09521152B1

A computer program product includes program instructions to generate a first virtual keypad for entry of a first portion of a password, wherein the first portion includes a first value and a second value. The program instructions receive the first portion, wherein the first portion includes a first number of keys selected equal to the first value and the second value present in the first number of keys selected. The program instructions generate a second virtual keypad for entry of a second portion, wherein the second portion includes a third and a fourth value. The program instructions receive the second portion, wherein the second portion includes a second number of keys selected equal to the third value and the fourth value present in the second number of keys selected. The program instructions determine to grant a user access to an account associated with the account password.
US09521145B2

A secure communication channel between an access point (AP) device associated with a wireless network and a mobile gateway (GW) device of a packet core network is established. Data is exchanged between the wireless network and the packet core network through the secure channel. A client device (UE) is authenticated through the secure communication channel. Device identity information is received from the AP device. A session request is sent to the packet core network. An IP address for the device is received from the packet core network. The communication between the AP device and the packet core network becomes secure without need to run an IP secure protocol on the UE that saves the battery power on the UE. Establishing the fully secure communication between the UE and the packet core network while saving the UE power provides a significant advantage for the mobile technology world.
US09521136B2

The tool to provide a role-based access tool is configured to receive a single sign-on login from a user; determine an identity of the user based on the single sign-on login; authorize a defined role of the user by: accessing a database comprising a plurality of users and associated roles; and determining the defined role based on the user's identity and the associated roles in the database; present one or more service catalogs to the user based on the defined role of the user; receive a request to complete an action associated with the one or more service catalogs; process the action for execution after receiving the request; and run the action on one or more systems.
US09521134B2

A control apparatus which manages a software defined network including a plurality of switches includes a security management module that authenticates at least one application program, and an application program management module that executes the authenticated application program among the at least one application program in a first process, and executes the application program whose authentication fails in a second process. The application program management module may be executed in the first process, and the first process may be different from the second process.
US09521128B2

Methods, devices, systems, and non-transitory process-readable storage media for a computing device to reversibly obfuscate contents of a digital file includes generating a binary string by applying a shared hash function to a public filename of the digital file. The method may include subdividing the digital file into a first plurality of data segments corresponding to one of a number of bits represented by the generated binary string and a file size of the digital file, shuffling the first plurality of data segments using a shared, looping shuffle algorithm. Each shuffling operation of the shared, looping shuffle algorithm may use a different bit of the generated binary string in a predefined first sequence. The shuffled first plurality of data segments may be combined to obtain a shuffled digital file. A reverse of the method may be performed to obtain the original digital file.
US09521118B2

The invention provides a method and system of receiving communications from a network device in a network to a source of network data and establishing a secure and/or authenticated network connection between the network device and the source that appears to the network device as a direct connection to the source of network data. Broadly conceptualized, the method and system may also include a parsing module that modifies the network data passing back and forth between the network device and the source of network data.
US09521117B2

Various aspects of the disclosure relate to providing a per-application policy-controlled virtual private network (VPN) tunnel. In some embodiments, tickets may be used to provide access to an enterprise resource without separate authentication of the application and, in some instances, can be used in such a manner as to provide a seamless experience to the user when reestablishing a per-application policy controlled VPN tunnel during the lifetime of the ticket. Additional aspects relate to an access gateway providing updated policy information and tickets to a mobile device. Other aspects relate to selectively wiping the tickets from a secure container of the mobile device. Yet further aspects relate to operating applications in multiple modes, such as a managed mode and an unmanaged mode, and providing authentication-related services based on one or more of the above aspects.
US09521110B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided for releasing an internet protocol (IP) address by a packet data network gateway (PGW) in a mobile communication system. The PGW allocates an IP version 4 (IPv4) address and an IP version 6 (IPv6) address to a terminal to establish a packet data network (PDN) connection between the terminal and the PGW. The PGW identifies a PDN type associated with the PDN connection if an event of releasing the IPv4 address has occurred. The PGW transmits, to a serving gateway (SGW), a binding revocation message, including information indicating release of the IPv4 address, with the PDN connection remaining, if the PDN type is IPv4 and IPv6. The PGW receives a binding revocation acknowledge message in response to the binding revocation request message, from the SGW.
US09521103B2

The present invention discloses a method, an apparatus, and a system for notifying and learning address information invalidation. The present invention includes: receiving, by a mobile device, a first notification message that indicates release of a default bearer and is sent by a core network, where the first notification message includes a first default bearer that is allocated to the mobile device and already released by the core network; determining, by the mobile device and according to the first default bearer, address information corresponding to the first default bearer; and sending, by the mobile device and to a terminal device, a second notification message indicating address information invalidation, where the second notification message includes the address information invalidation indication information and the address information corresponding to the first default bearer, so that the terminal device deletes the address information corresponding to the first default bearer.
US09521095B2

It is provided a transport apparatus including: a port information management unit for obtaining port information which includes a type first interfaces, a transport rate of first interfaces, and a physical lane count from the first interfaces into the transport apparatus, and for determining, based on the obtained port information, a virtual lane count into which the physical lanes from the first interfaces are converted; virtual lane creating units for setting as many virtual lanes as the determined virtual lane count; a lane information creating unit for creating, based on the port information, lane information which associates the first interfaces, the physical lane count, and identification information of virtual lanes in association with the physical lanes; and a multiplexing unit for multiplexing data that is transported along the virtual lanes, and for inserting the lane information in an invalid data field which is generated when the data is multiplexed.
US09521091B2

When a fabric switch detects a fault in its own link, the fabric switch transmits a first fault notification frame containing a fault link identifier representing the detected fault to a plurality of port switches. When the fabric switch receives a second fault notification frame from a plurality of port switches, it floods the second fault notification frame. When a port switch detects a fault in its own link, it transmits a second fault notification frame containing a fault link identifier to the plurality of fabric switches. Also, when the port switch receives the fault notification frame at all of its own links, it sets the LAG based on the fault link identifier.
US09521090B2

Systems and methods for connecting new stations to a secure network. New stations can send connection requests to a headend device. The headend device can retrieve a device access key associated with the new station and can provide a network membership key to the new station based upon authentication of the new station using the device access key.
US09521089B2

A system for multi-layer quality of service (QoS) management in a distributed computing environment includes: a management node hosting a workload scheduler operable to receive a workload and identify a workload QoS class for the workload; and a plurality of distributed compute nodes, the workload scheduler operable to schedule running of the workload on the compute nodes. The workload scheduler is operable to: translate the workload QoS class to a storage level QoS class; communicate the storage level QoS class to a workload execution manager of the compute nodes; and communicate the storage level QoS class to one or more storage managers, the storage managers managing storage resources. The storage managers are operable to extend the storage level QoS class to the storage resources to support the workload QoS class.
US09521085B1

In one aspect, a method includes filtering one or more available ports on a data storage system to determine candidate ports based on at least their hardware redundancy information. The data storage system includes one or more data storage volumes. The method also includes allocating one or more ports to the data storage volume from the candidate ports based on parameters to enable communication from a host, using the one or more allocated ports, to the data storage volume through the one or more storage components. The parameters include at least one of a maximum paths parameter, a paths per initiator parameter and a minimum paths parameter.
US09521083B2

Traffic differentiator systems for network devices and related methods are disclosed that determine difference packets from multiple packet streams. Some embodiments are configured to receive two streams of packets with one stream being a processed version of another stream and then to determine difference packets within a lookup time window that is, for example, associated with a processing time for the second stream to be a processed version of the first stream. Difference packets within a lookup time window can also be determined for packets received within a single combined stream of packets. Difference packets and/or related statistical information is then output for additional processing, as desired. The streams of packets can be associated with ingress and egress packets for a network device, and the difference packets and related statistical information can be used to determine packets that are removed, added, and/or modified by the network device.
US09521081B2

Systems and methods to select peered border elements for a communication session based on Quality-of-Service (QoS) are disclosed. An example method includes selecting a peered border element to handle a communication session based on a list of peered border elements (PBEs) and a composite QoS parameter of the communication session, the list of PBEs being prioritized based on respective statuses of PBEs in the list, the first composite QoS parameter being based on weighted QoS parameters of the communication session including a grade of service (GoS) parameter of the communication session and a preferred mode of communication for a VoIP device of a called party in the communication session, the GoS parameter including an attempted performance range and an expected performance range of the communication session; and controlling a second server to generate a QoS authorization token to reserve network resources associated with the selected PBE.
US09521076B2

Various disclosed embodiments include methods, systems, and computer-readable media for named data network (NDN) inter/intra-domain mobility. A complete de-coupling of identity and addressing space is established. This provides separation of control and forwarding allowing rich policy based routing, using SDN principles, as well as policy based global resolution. In one embodiment, the de-coupling of identity from location is achieved by a changeable forwarding label field in a header that can have nodal/domain/global scope. This disclosure provides content routing/mobility to be handled with a high degree of flexibility. This disclosure also provides mobility as a service for a component of a name space.
US09521074B2

Methods and apparatus for direction routing between nodes of networks are disclosed. An example method includes identifying a destination node of first data received at a first node; calculating a logical distance from the first node to the destination node; and, when the logical distance meets a threshold condition and when a direct route from the first node to the destination node is blocked according to a protocol setting, overriding the protocol setting to enable transmission of the first data from the first node to the destination node via the direct route.
US09521071B2

In a network control system, a method for managing traffic flow in a distributed controller environment includes stamping a packet to be forwarded between data forwarding units with flow control information based on an action set associated with a flow entry pushed by a logical controller. The packet is stamped by one or more of the data forwarding units. The flow control information is used to forward the packet between data forwarding units, thereby defining a datapath packet flow.
US09521068B2

A service instance in a BEB device is allocated B-VLANs. Each of the B-VLANs may be mapped to a different ECT algorithm. For each B-VLAN of the service instance, BEB device calculates a forwarding path between the BEB device and a remote BEB device to obtain different forwarding paths for different B-VLANs of the service instance. The BEB device forwards a data flow in a first forwarding path of the service instance, and switches the data flow from the first forwarding path to a second forwarding path of the service instance if a link failure is detected in the first forwarding path.
US09521059B2

Provided are a delivery device, a communication system, a load balancing method, and a load balancing program that enable processing loads for maintaining connections with terminals to be balanced over time, and enable the real time property of message delivery to be maintained for an event notification service. The delivery device is provided with: a communication unit (11) that transmits, to each terminal connected to the delivery device, a keepalive signal to maintain the connection between the delivery device and each terminal when there is no data to be delivered; and a transmission time determination unit (12) that divides a period in which the communication unit (11) transmits a keepalive signal into a plurality of time slots, calculates the expected number of transmissions of the keepalive signal for each time slot on the basis of keepalive signal interval information, which represents the interval of the keepalive signal for each terminal, and, if the expected number of transmissions exceeds a predefined threshold value, transmits, to the communication unit (11), the keepalive signal for the portion exceeding the threshold value in the time slot prior to the time slot.
US09521058B2

In a multi-wire channel that includes at least three wires, each unique wire pair of the multi-wire channel has approximately the same signal propagation time. In this way, jitter can be mitigated in the multi-wire channel for signaling where, for a given data transfer, a differential signal is transmitting on a particular pair of the wires and every other wire is floating. In some implementations, matching of the signal propagation times involves providing additional delay for at least one of the wires. The additional delay is provided using passive signal delay techniques and/or active signal delay techniques.
US09521043B2

A method for modeling dependencies in a computing system including a plurality of resources, the method includes monitoring data communications made between the resources of the plurality of resources; modeling dependencies, at least among and between the resources, based, at least in part, upon the monitored data communications; and generating a set of topology graph(s), including at least a first topology graph, based upon the modeled dependencies.
US09521040B2

The technology disclosed can query configuration management system data and includes cross table selection criteria and joined data return.
US09521026B1

A Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP) transmitter transmits data modulated by non-overlapping Dynamic Modulation Coding (DMC) to a receiver. In order to enable the receiver to differentiate between the different modulations of the DMC, a novel non-overlapping DMC is used. The constellations of the non-overlapping DMC are selected such that the result of the modulo operation of the THP maintains the signal levels, belonging to the different constellations, separated.
US09520998B2

A system and method for managing the recovery key of a computer system is disclosed. The computer system includes a security layer, and the recovery key is stored locally to a memory location on the computer system, including, as examples, flash memory on the motherboard of the computer system or a USB port on the computer system. In operation, when it becomes necessary for the computer system to authenticate the recovery key, the recovery key may be retrieved from the local memory. The retrieval and storage of the recovery key may be managed by a remote administrator. The recovery key may be stored in a hidden partition in the storage location, and the recovery key may be cryptographically wrapped to add an additional layer of security.
US09520994B2

A system and method can support device management. A trusted application can be deployed in a trusted execution environment on a device, wherein the trusted execution environment includes a trusted operating system (OS) and the trusted application is associated with an identifier. Then, the system can derive one or more secrets bound to said trusted application based on the identifier and a master key maintained by the trusted OS. Additionally, the secret derivation can take into account binary code/data for the trusted application. Thus, the system can prevent another trusted application in the trusted execution environment from retrieving said one or more secrets using the same identifier.
US09520976B2

The embodiments of the present invention provide a mobile communication method, a wireless base station and a mobile station. The mobile communication method according to the embodiment of the present invention is applied to the wireless base station. The method comprises: determining resource group offset information used for a mobile station; offsetting an initial physical channel resource group allocated to the mobile station according to the resource group offset information; determining cyclic shift information of demodulation reference signal used for the mobile station according to unused physical channel resources in the offset physical channel resource group; and transmitting the resource group offset information and the cyclic shift information to the mobile station.
US09520971B2

Provided is a data transmission method and device. The method includes: receiving IQ data from an uplink; according to the mapping of the IQ data in a Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) basic frame, utilizing at least one storage unit to sequence the IQ data; combining a control word with the sequenced IQ data to form CPRI data, and transmitting the CPRI data. The solution utilizes at least one storage unit to sequence the IQ data, and extracts the sequenced data for a CPRI framing operation. This solution is simple in hardware processing and low in realization complexity. The change and upgrade of the transmission bandwidth of multiple modes (single mode or mixed mode) during system upgrade only occur on software layer without affecting the realization of hardware, thus having good flexibility.
US09520969B2

The present invention is a mobile communication system having a mobile station UE, in which CA is performed, configured to transmit an uplink data signal to a radio base station eNB, by using a plurality of “Component Carriers” having different carrier frequencies, and the mobile communication system includes TA timer management units 13 and 23 configured to manage the TA timer corresponding to the plurality of “Component Carriers”; and state management units 14 and 24 configured to manage the state of the plurality of “Component Carriers”, and the state management units 14 and 24 are configured to set the state of a “Component Carrier”, whose TA timer has expired, to an asynchronous state.
US09520968B2

A method for performing seamless transmission control for an electronic device and an associated apparatus are provided, where the method includes the steps of: sending a request frame carrying a fragment identification (ID) to trigger a responder in a wireless network system to initiate retransmission corresponding to the fragment ID, wherein the fragment ID indicates beginning of a remaining portion within a plurality of fragments of data being sent from the responder to the electronic device; and receiving at least one response frame sent from the responder, for utilizing the remaining portion within the plurality of fragments of the data, wherein the remaining portion within the plurality of fragments of the data is obtained from the at least one response frame.
US09520964B2

A method and a device for reporting a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) feedback in a wireless local area network are provided. A responding station receives, from a requesting station, a requesting Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) for requesting a MCS feedback via a plurality of spatial streams. A recommended MCS is estimated under an assumption that the requesting station will transmit at least one first spatial stream among the plurality of spatial streams used for the requesting PPDU, The responding station transmits, to the requesting station, the MCS feedback including a recommended MCS field indicating the recommended MCS and a recommended stream field indicating a number of at least one recommended spatial stream. A number of the at least one first spatial stream used for estimating the recommended MCS is equal to the number of the at least one recommended spatial stream.
US09520961B2

A system implementing an optical steering domain that steers traffic flows through a plurality of processing nodes is described. The system includes a first, second, and third wavelength selective switch (WSS). The first WSS receives the traffic flows, and transmits traffic flows out a plurality of tributary ports toward the processing nodes. The second WSS receives the processed traffic from the processing nodes, and sends it to a third WSS. The third WSS receives the processed traffic from the second WSS, and causes the processed traffic requiring further processing to be transmitted out its third plurality of tributary ports to be looped back toward the plurality of processing nodes, and causes the processed traffic that does not require further processing to be transmitted by a different tributary port of the third WSS that is an exit port leading out of the optical steering domain.
US09520960B2

An optical network packet configured to transmit over an optical communication link from a first optical network having a first control plane to a second optical network having a second control plane is generated. Generating the optical network packet comprises generating the packet configured to be transmitted from the first optical network to the second optical network in the optical domain.
US09520958B2

A transmission angle control device in a wireless communication system based on a TDD scheme includes: an interference signal detection unit that detects a level of interference on a second base station caused by a signal transmitted by a first base station based on a received signal received from the second base station and that outputs the interference level as an interference information signal; and a transmission angle determining unit that adjusts a transmission angle of a signal transmitted by the first base station in a vertical direction according to the interference information signal.
US09520953B2

Method and sensor system for measuring the transmission properties of a first transmission path based on feedback compensation between a first transmitter and a receiver, a compensation signal of a compensation transmitter being received in a superimposed manner in the receiver in addition to the emitted transmission signal of the first transmitter. A supply signal for the first transmitter and a receiver output signal each form a vector in a pre-Hilbert space. A Hilbert projection is performed between the receiver output signal and the supply signal so that a projection image signal is generated. An output signal is formed from the projection image signal. A pre-signal is generated by an inverse transformation of the output signal with the supply signal. A compensation signal for supplying the compensation transmitter is generated from the pre-signal formed in order to achieve feedback control of the receiver output signal.
US09520951B2

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a signal transmission method, transmitter, and signal transmission system. The method includes: obtaining, by a sending end, information about a power fading point of a fiber channel between the sending end and a receiving end; determining, by the sending end and according to the information about the power fading point, a subcarrier that is used to send a service signal to the receiving end on the fiber channel, where a frequency of the determined subcarrier is different from that of the power fading point; and sending, by the sending end, a service signal to the receiving end by using the determined subcarrier. According to the embodiments of the present invention, validity of a signal spectrum is ensured, and therefore it is ensured that transmitted data can be effectively recovered at a receiving end.
US09520947B2

To enable signal position detection, frequency offset compensation, clock offset compensation, and chromatic dispersion amount estimation in a communication system based on coherent detection using an optical signal, even on a signal having a great offset in an arrival time depending on a frequency due to chromatic dispersion. An optical signal transmitting apparatus generates specific frequency band signals having power concentrated on two or more specific frequencies and transmits a signal including the specific frequency band signals. An optical signal receiving apparatus converts a received signal into a digital signal, detects positions of the specific frequency band signals from the converted digital signal, estimates frequency positions of the detected specific frequency band signals, and detects a frequency offset between an optical signal receiving apparatus and an optical signal transmitting apparatus. Moreover, the optical signal receiving apparatus detects a clock offset between the optical signal receiving apparatus and the optical signal transmitting apparatus from an interval between the estimated frequency positions of the specific frequency band signals. Furthermore, the optical signal receiving apparatus estimates temporal positions of the detected specific frequency band signals and detects a chromatic dispersion amount from a difference between the temporal positions of the specific frequency band signals corresponding to different frequencies.
US09520945B2

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a system for modulating a first electrical signal to generate first modulated electromagnetic waves, and transmitting the first modulated electromagnetic waves on a waveguide located in proximity to a transmission medium. In one embodiment, the first electromagnetic waves can induce second electromagnetic waves that propagate on an outer surface of the transmission medium. The second electromagnetic waves can have a first spectral range that is divided into, contains or otherwise includes a first control channel and a first plurality of bands. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09520938B2

An optical transmitting device includes: a light source; an optical modulator configured to modulate light from the light source based on an electric signal corresponding to transmission data, and output an optical signal based on the electric signal; a measuring section configured to measure power of the optical signal in each of measurement bands which are different from with each other and narrower than a frequency band of the modulated optical signal; a determining section configured to determine whether or not the measured power is within a power range in each of the measurement bands; and an output section configured to output fault information indicating a fault in the optical modulator when the measured power is not within the power range.
US09520935B2

A wireless audio receiver system and method is provided that is capable of receiving one or more radio frequency (RF) signals containing audio signals modulated by analog and/or digital modulation schemes, operating in full diversity mode or switched diversity mode, demodulating the RF signals, and outputting analog audio signals and a combined digital audio signal. The system and method switches multiple diversity antennas to route received RF signals to respective RF signal processing paths. Digitized passband modulated signals are demodulated to generate analog audio signals, and a combined digital audio signal with one or multiple channels may also be generated. The system and method are capable of demodulating signals modulated using a wide variety of modulation schemes. Reconfigurable computing components are utilized to demodulate digitized passband modulated signals and generate the analog audio signals and combined digital audio signal.
US09520932B2

A method for transmitting feedback information for collaborative transmission in a cellular radio communication system is provided. The method includes receiving, from the base station, collaborative cell information indicating a plurality of collaborative cells, determining at least two preferred collaborative cells among the plurality of collaborative cells, generating feedback information including cell indicators for discriminating between the at least two preferred collaborative cells and the other cell, precoding matrix indicators for the at least two preferred collaborative cells, and channel quality indicators, and transmitting the feedback information via one of a control channel and a data channel.
US09520928B2

To report feedback information regarding a wireless channel, a mobile station determines whether a predefined condition is satisfied. In response to determining that the predefined condition is satisfied, feedback information regarding an individual one of plural subbands of the wireless channel is included in a first report to be sent to a base station. In response to determining that the predefined condition is not satisfied, aggregate feedback information regarding the plural subbands is included in a second report to be sent to the base station.
US09520922B2

A downlink channel quality information acquisition method includes: a transmission node in a coordinated node set acquires the noise receiving power of a user equipment (UE11) and the interference power on the UE11 of a node in a non-coordinated set; the transmission node in the coordinated node set acquires, via the transmission node in the coordinated node set, an inter-user interference power during the multi-user scheduling and the effective signal receiving power of the UE11; the transmission node in the coordinated node set acquires the interference power on the UE11 of a non-transmission node in the coordinated set; calculating the ratio between the effective signal receiving power and the sum of an interference source power and the noise receiving power of the UE11, and using the ratio as the value of the downlink CQI between the transmission node and the UE11.
US09520915B2

In a radio communication system including multiple mobile terminals and multiple radio base stations, the mobile terminal has a function of interference rejection combining. The radio base stations share downlink channel characteristics for mobile terminals connected to radio base stations. The radio base station gives weights to radio waves transmitted from multiple transmission antennas to perform in-phase addition of an interfering radio wave beam directed to a mobile terminal for which the desired radio base station is another radio base station to an interfering radio wave beam transmitted from yet another radio base station for limiting the number of interfering radio wave beams that arrive at the mobile terminal. The radio base station does not perform in-phase addition when the number of interfering radio wave beams of which interference can be suppressed by the mobile terminal is equal to or greater than the number of radio base stations that send interfering radio wave beams to the mobile terminal.
US09520907B2

A communication unit comprises a radio frequency, RF, transmitter comprising: a power amplifier, PA, module; an envelope tracking system operably coupled to the PA module and arranged to variably control a supply voltage for the PA module; and a load control system operably coupled to an output of the PA module and arranged to control a power amplifier output load.
US09520897B2

An apparatus and method for generating a parity bit sequence to be transmitted or received over a plurality of frames in a communication system are provided. The method includes puncturing a first parity bit sequence by encoding, the first parity bit sequence with a first puncturing pattern; outputting, as a basic parity bit sequence, non-punctured parity bits that are remaining after the puncturing of the first parity bit sequence with the first puncturing pattern; puncturing a second parity bit sequence that is punctured by puncturing of the first parity bit sequence with the first puncturing pattern, the second parity bit sequence with a second puncturing pattern; and outputting, as an additional parity bit sequence, non-punctured parity bits that are remaining after the puncturing of the second parity bit sequence with the second puncturing pattern.
US09520894B1

A signal encoding and compression system with dynamic downsampling may include an encoder module configured to decimate a first digital signal, thereby producing a second digital signal. Each signal may then be DPCM-encoded. Decision logic may then be used to determine which encoded signal to provide as an output, based on a characteristic of the original signal.
US09520888B1

An integrated circuit (IC) device can include at least one phase or delay lock loop (P/DLL) circuit comprising a plurality of circuit sections, at least one of the circuit sections responsive to digital calibration values to alter at least one periodic output signal; a nonvolatile memory (NVM) circuit formed in the same IC package as the at least one P/DLL circuit and configured to store the calibration values; and a processing circuit formed in the same IC package as the at least one P/DLL circuit and the NVM circuit, the processing circuit configured to generate the calibration values in response to target values and output values from the at least one P/DLL circuit, and to store the calibration values in the NVM circuit.
US09520886B2

A method for correcting long-term phase drift of a crystal oscillator in a numerically-controlled oscillator is described. The method includes determining the phase error in an oscillator signal in comparison with an external time base; delta-sigma modulating the phase error to generate a delta-sigma error bitstream; conditionally adding or subtracting an error correction step size from a phase increment value in each clock cycle based on the delta-sigma error bitstream, to create a modulated phase increment value; and adding the modulated phase increment value to a phase accumulator to generate an error-corrected output digital signal. The delta-sigma-based error correction method avoids the use of multipliers. The same delta-sigma error signal can be used in multiple numerically-controlled oscillators configured to different output frequency if driven by the same reference oscillator.
US09520885B1

A phase locked loop (PLL) control system is provided that includes a digital controlled oscillator (DCO). The DCO comprises a delay cell chain comprising a number (B) of delay cells, and a load control cell comprising a number (L) of load cells. A system also includes that module that is configured to dynamically adjust the number (B) of delay cells that are activated and part of the delay cell chain and the number (L) of load cells that are switched on, when the PLL control system is operating in a lock mode, to control an amount of delay in the DCO.
US09520884B2

A phase look loop (PLL) device has a dynamic lock range that is based on a temperature measured during a calibration process. The PLL device includes a calibration circuit configured to receive a temperature reading corresponding to a junction temperature of the PLL device during the calibration process. Based on this temperature reading, the calibration circuit initiates a preset procedure that presets a control voltage of a voltage control oscillator in the PLL device. The preset procedure implements a calibration function defined by a slope with a numerator component and a denominator component. The numerator component corresponds to a range of the control voltage, whereas the denominator component corresponds to a range of ambient temperatures within which the PLL device operates.
US09520869B2

A switching circuit a multiplexer includes an NMOS switch module and a PMOS switch module connected in parallel between an input and an output. A first control module powered from a first power supply voltage operates to reduce leakage currents of the NMOS switching module when in the non-conducting state. A second control module powered from a second power supply voltage operates to reduce leakage currents of the PMOS switching module when in the non-conducting state. A voltage selection circuit is configured to deliver a voltage as the second power supply voltage equal to the greater of the first power supply voltage and the voltages present at the input and at the output.
US09520866B2

A delay adjusting apparatus may include at least one selective delay element electrically coupled to an electrical path between an input terminal and an output terminal of the electrical path, and the at least one selective delay element configured to add a delay factor to the electrical path in response to an enable signal. The delay adjusting apparatus may include at least one fuse circuit configured to control electrical coupling of an e-fuse, in response to a program signal, and program the enable signal.
US09520864B2

Systems and methods for delaying a signal are described herein. In one embodiment, a method for delaying a signal comprises receiving a first signal edge, and, in response to receiving the first signal edge, counting a number of oscillations of an oscillator. The method also comprises outputting a second signal edge if the number of oscillations reaches a predetermined number. The second signal edge represents a delayed version of the first signal edge.
US09520859B2

In an elastic wave device, a first electrode structure and a second electrode structure are provided on a piezoelectric substrate. The first electrode structure and the second electrode structure define first and second elastic wave element portions, respectively. A support frame on the piezoelectric substrate surrounds the first elastic wave element portion and the second elastic wave element portion. The support frame includes a dividing wall portion that divides the first elastic wave element portion and the second elastic wave element portion. A conductive shield electrode is provided in a groove provided in the dividing wall portion.
US09520858B2

A communication device is provided with a band elimination filter that has one end connected to an antenna terminal, and a first multiplexer that is connected to the other end of the band elimination filter. The band elimination filter is configured to eliminate signals of a frequency band that is different from the frequencies of signals transmitted and received in the first multiplexer, and is configured from a filter circuit that includes a bulk wave element.
US09520856B2

An acoustic resonator comprises a first electrode and second electrode comprising a plurality of sides. At least one of the sides of the second electrode comprises a cantilevered portion. A piezoelectric layer is disposed between the first and second electrodes. A bridge disposed adjacent to one of the sides of the second electrode.
US09520851B2

A method and a media processing system (MPS) for automatic gain control are provided. The MPS detects a portion of an input signal corresponding to a measurement window associated with a predetermined time interval and determines a peak value of the input signal during a first predetermined time segment within the measurement window. The MPS determines a number of occurrences of the peak value during a second predetermined time segment within the measurement window and compares the determined number of occurrences of the peak value with a predefined range of occurrences for identifying a speech portion or a non-speech portion of the input signal corresponding to the measurement window. The MPS adjusts a gain corresponding to the first predetermined time segment based on the peak value, upon identifying the speech portion. The MPS iteratively performs the method by shifting the measurement window in steps of the first predetermined time segment.
US09520844B2

An electromagnetic radiation detection circuit includes a photodetector transforming the received electromagnetic radiation into an electric current. A bias circuit is connected to the photodetector. An amplifying circuit has an input terminal coupled to the photodetector. An amplifying transistor has a first low-impedance electrode forming the input terminal of the amplifying circuit and a second low-impedance electrode coupled to an output terminal of the detection circuit. The transistor is configured to conduct the current applied on the first electrode. A high-impedance electric load is connected to the second electrode to deliver a voltage representative of the electric current originating from the photodetector.
US09520829B1

An apparatus and a method are provided. The apparatus includes a first capacitor, including a first end and a second end; a second capacitor, including a first end connected to the second end of the first capacitor, and a second end; a variable capacitor, including a first end connected to the second end of the first capacitor, and a second end; a third capacitor, including a first end connected to the first end of the first capacitor, and a second end connected to the second end of the variable capacitor; and a fourth capacitor, including a first end connected to the second end of the third capacitor, and a second end connected to the second end of the second capacitor.
US09520828B2

An oscillator circuit includes first and second oscillators arranged in a series configuration between a supply voltage node and a reference voltage node. The first and second oscillators are configured to receive a synchronizing signal for controlling synchronization in frequency and phase. An electromagnetic network provided to couple the first and the second oscillators includes a transformer with a primary circuit and a secondary circuit. The primary circuit includes a first portion coupled to the first oscillator and second portion coupled to the second oscillator. The first and second portions are connected by a circuit element for reuse of current between the first and second oscillators. The oscillator circuit is fabricated as an integrated circuit device wherein the electromagnetic network is formed in metallization layers of the device. The secondary circuit generates an output power combining power provided from the first and second portions of the primary circuit.
US09520826B2

A solar cell module efficacy monitoring system includes a reference module which includes a solar power generation module and is to be maintained in a clean condition, an evaluation module which includes a solar power generation module and is to be covered by dust in an environment, maximum power point tracking devices which track powers of the reference module and the evaluation module and maintain power outputs at maximum points by connected to the reference module and the evaluation module, respectively, and, a PV communication recording device which records power generation results of the reference module and the evaluation module by connected to the reference module and the evaluation module, and a calculation display device which calculates power loss due to accumulation of dust on the evaluation module by connected to the PV communication recording device.
US09520816B2

A method and apparatus for controlling a group of electric motors. A controller is configured to identify a group of switching frequencies for a desired signature for the group of electric motors. The controller is further configured to control switching of a current supplied to the group of electric motors with the group of switching frequencies for the desired signature identified.
US09520814B2

A distance between the surface of the base member and the electrostatic chuck having the heater pattern formed on a bottom surface thereof can be uniformized. A bonding method of bonding an electrostatic chuck and a base member to each other includes forming a filling member 30 by covering irregularities of a heater pattern 9a formed on a bottom surface 61 of the electrostatic chuck 9 facing the base member 10; grinding a base member contact surface 62 of the filling member 30 facing the base member 10; and bonding the ground base member contact surface 62 of the filling member 30 to the base member 10 with an adhesive layer 31 provided therebetween.
US09520812B2

An electronic device includes a first base body, a second base body, a third base body held between the first base body and the second base body, a first functional element disposed in a first cavity surrounded by the first base body and the third base body, and a second functional element disposed in a second cavity surrounded by the second base body and the third base body.
US09520810B2

Provided are a three-level power converter and a power unit thereof. The power unit includes a power switch module and a laminated busbar structure. The power switch module includes a first power semiconductor switch module and a clamping diode module, which have a first, second, and third terminal respectively. The laminated busbar structure includes a third, second, and first busbar layer laminated on the power switch module. The third busbar layer includes a first sub-busbar connecting to the first terminal of the first power semiconductor switch module, a second sub-busbar connecting to the third terminal of the first power semiconductor switch module and the first terminal of the clamping diode module, a third sub-busbar connecting to the second terminal of the clamping diode module and the third terminal of the second power semiconductor switch module, and a fourth sub-busbar connecting to the second terminal of the second power semiconductor switch module.
US09520809B2

A rotary electric machine driving device including: an inverter that is electrically interposed between a direct-current power supply and the rotary electric machine, and converts electric power between a direct current and an alternating current; a smoothing capacitor that is electrically interposed between the direct-current power supply and the inverter, and is connected between a positive pole and a negative pole on a direct-current side of the inverter; an inverter control unit that controls switching of a switching element of the inverter according to a predetermined switching frequency; and an inductance control unit that switches a direct-current side inductance between a positive pole of the direct-current power supply and a positive pole of the smoothing capacitor, according to the switching frequency, between a predefined standard inductance and a high inductance that is higher than the standard inductance.
US09520806B2

A power supply device for supplying power to a load by combining a secondary battery and a capacitor connected in parallel to the secondary battery includes an insulation type DC-DC converter with a primary coil connected in parallel to the secondary battery and configured to accumulate energy by a current supplied from the secondary battery and a secondary coil connected in series to the capacitor and configured such that an induction current flows therein by the accumulated energy from the primary coil.
US09520805B2

A three-phase inverter includes three-level inverters connected in parallel to one another, each being capable of outputting a DC high voltage, DC middle voltage, and DC low voltage. A method for controlling the three-phase inverter produces on-time ratios in one switching period of switching elements in the three-level inverters, so as to make the three-phase inverter for one phase alternately output the DC high voltage and the DC middle voltage, to make the three-phase inverter for another phase output the DC middle voltage, and to make the three-phase inverter for the remaining phase alternately output the DC middle voltage and the DC low voltage.
US09520795B2

In one embodiment, a power supply controller may be configured to form a status signal that is representative of a secondary current by substantially removing a primary magnetization component from a primary current signal and to use the status signal to form a first signal that is representative of a delivered output power, and configured to adjust an on-time of one of a first or second switch responsively to the delivered output power.
US09520793B2

A stacked magnetic power converter assembly includes a plurality of converter modules disposed in a stacked arrangement with respect to one another to define a thickness of stacked magnetic power converter assembly. Each converter module includes a primary switching unit, a secondary switching unit, and a converter unit. The converter unit includes a primary terminal in signal communication with the primary switching unit and a secondary terminal in signal communication with the secondary switching unit. Each primary switching unit, each secondary switching unit, and each converter unit is shared among the plurality of converter modules.
US09520781B2

A DC-DC converter for delivering electrical power to a load includes an output filter having an inductor and an output capacitor, a first switch, and a second switch. The first switch is configured to alternately couple and decouple the inductor to and from a DC input voltage as power is being delivered to the load. The second switch is configured to electrically disconnect the output capacitor when the load is removed or deactivated. Disconnecting the output capacitor allows the DC-DC converter to rapidly transition from an operating state to a disabled state, obviating any need to discharge the output capacitor in order to fully disable the DC-DC converter. Residual energy stored in the electric field of the output capacitor and/or the magnetic field of the inductor at the time the load is next reactivated is available to hasten transition back to the operating state.
US09520780B2

Apparatus for use in a system, including a microcontroller for controlling the system, where the microcontroller includes at least one internal module capable of generating a periodic pulse signal. The microcontroller is programmed and operated so that the internal module generates a periodic pulse signal that is a pseudo-random spread spectrum oscillator signal. A switching mode power supply is responsive to the pseudo-random spread spectrum oscillator signal. The switching mode power supply comprises a solid state switch and a modulator for driving the solid state switch with a drive signal related to the periodic pulse signal generated by the internal module of the microcontroller.
US09520777B2

A time signal generator and a time generating method used in a power converter are provided. The time generating method includes following steps. An error delay signal is generated according to an error signal, wherein the error signal is related to an output voltage of the power converter. A time signal is generated according to the error signal and the error delay signal. The time signal may serve to improve a response speed of the power converter.
US09520765B2

Provided is a DC/DC converter for a multi-phase switching power supply device which include a plurality of DC/DC converters including a master DC/DC converter and a plurality of slave DC/DC converters that are connected in parallel to each other and operate in different phases. The DC/DC converter includes: first and second terminals to cascade the plurality of DC/DC converters in a line; a phase detector that detects the number of operating converters in the switching power supply device and the phases of the plurality of DC/DC converters, on the basis of a current input to the first terminal and a current output from the second terminal; a phase holder that holds the detected phases and outputs a phase holding signal; and a clock generator that selects a clock corresponding to the phase of a host converter from multi-phase clocks, on the basis of the phase holding signal, and outputs the selected clock. The DC/DC converter performs a switching operation on the basis of the selected clock.
US09520760B2

A rotor includes a stacked core having a plurality of slots formed on an inner side thereof, a plurality of rotor bars inserted in the plurality of slots, a pair of end rings assembled and fastened to opposite ends of the rotor bars, a pair of retainers fastened to opposite outer end surfaces of the rotor bars in an assembled and fastened manner, and a shaft inserted into the pair of end rings.
US09520749B2

A wireless power transmission method and system for prevention frequency interference is provided to prevent frequency interference and collision between a wireless power transmitter and other devices which use a frequency adjacent to frequency band of the power signal transmitting from the wireless power transmitter. The wireless power transmission method includes outputting a using signal upon use of a wireless device and operating the wireless power transmitter based on whether the using signal is transmitted.
US09520745B2

A low standby consumption power supply system having multi-channels for power supply is used to power first and second circuit blocks. The main supply module provides power to the first circuit-block, while the second supply module provides power to the second circuit-block. The enabling line is used to transmit an enabling signal to the main supply module to switch the main supply module from a power-off status to a power-on status. The enabling line operates under enabling mode and power-off mode. Under enabling mode, the enabling line transmit the enabling signal to the main supply module, such that the main supply module and the low-current supply module respectively provide power to the first circuit-block and the second circuit-block simultaneously. Under the power-off mode, the enabling signal is cut off and the main supply module stop providing power, so as to cut off standby current of the main supply module.
US09520742B2

System and method for monitoring electrical devices such as luminaires, including ballast and/or battery powered lighting components, for variety of fault conditions from central location utilize monitoring unit that interfaces with host lighting fixture or luminaire to allow status of host to be remotely monitored. Monitoring unit can interface with host in fully galvanically isolated manner using current transformers allowing host lighting fixture to be monitored in the least intrusive manner. Monitoring unit can be seamlessly fitted to new luminaires or existing luminaires. Current transformer interface has minimal effect on host ballast functionality and operation. Monitoring system may include a plurality of monitoring units multi-dropped on a single field bus network or in a power line communication. Power for monitoring unit can be derived from field bus network or power line. Operating parameters and addressing information of monitoring unit may be configured via interface using laptop or PC.
US09520741B2

A system for charging an electrical storage device includes a motor drive, a DC link electrically coupled to the motor drive, and a first leg coupled to the DC link that includes a first power switch coupled in series with a second power switch via a first node. A first inductor is coupled to the first node, and a first energy storage device (ESD) is electrically coupled to the first inductor. A second leg is coupled to the DC link that includes a third power switch coupled in series with a fourth power switch via a second node. A charging circuit includes a transformer coupled to the first and second nodes. A second ESD is coupled to receive charging energy from the transformer, and a controller is configured to cause a first voltage mismatch between the first and second nodes to generate the charging energy.
US09520727B2

Provided is a gripper assembly for battery charging/discharging, which is electrically connected to a battery electrode to apply current during battery charging/discharging operation, the gripper assembly including a first electrode lead gripper including a first electrode gripper body disposed to correspond to a first electrode lead of the battery, and a first contact member coupled to one side of the first electrode gripper body and pressed to contact a surface of the first electrode lead and a second electrode lead gripper including a second electrode gripper body disposed to correspond to a second electrode lead of the battery, and a second contact member coupled to a side of the second electrode gripper body and attached to contact a surface of the second electrode lead.
US09520726B2

An auxiliary device including an energy harvester and an electronic device including the auxiliary device are provided. The auxiliary device includes: a housing; a storage module which is moveable within the housing; and at least one piezoelectric transducer which disposed in the housing, such that a motion of the storage module causes a deformation of the piezoelectric transducer, thus generating electric energy. An end of the piezoelectric transducer may be fixedly connected to the storage module.
US09520725B2

A wireless power transfer system includes a power receiving device that receives transmission by wireless power transfer, a transmission device that has a transmission element that transmits transmission power to the power receiving device, the transmission device having a control mechanism that controls an oriented direction of the transmission element, and a positioning device that is connected communicably with the transmission device, the positioning device receiving with a plurality of antennas arranged adjacent to each other a positioning signal that is a wireless signal transmitted from the power receiving device, the positioning device having a positioning function that calculates a direction α in which the power receiving device exists when seen from the positioning device itself and a position of the power receiving device, based on a phase difference between the received positioning signals.
US09520713B2

A fault current limiter circuit including a fast switch fault current limiter (FSFCL) and a voltage control reactor (VCR) operative to conduct load current during a steady state operation and limit load current when the load current exceeds fault current limits. The FSFCL may include a breaker having electrical contacts, a coil electrically coupled to the electrical breaker contacts, a plunger mechanically coupled to the electrical breaker contacts, a parallel voltage control (VCR), a transient overvoltage control circuit (TOCC), wherein when current greater than a threshold level flows through the coil, a magnetic field having strength to move the plunger is generated, the movement of the plunger operates to open the contacts in the breaker and transfer fault current to VCR and TOCC and limit the overall system fault current.
US09520711B1

A driver circuit provides power from a power source to a load. The driver circuit includes a surge protector, an input stage (e.g., full wave rectifier), a controller and an output stage (e.g., a half bridge inverter). The input stage receives power from the power source and provides a direct current (DC) power rail. The controller operates the output stage to provide power from the DC power rail to the load. The controller includes an overvoltage sensing module that shuts down the output stage when the DC power rail exceeds a predetermined voltage. Ceasing operation of the output stage protects the output stage from damage while the DC power rail is above the predetermined voltage.
US09520706B2

Downhole cable termination apparatus for terminating a cable that is to extend into a downhole environment from a tubing hanger to electrical equipment, the apparatus including: an electrical contact for electrical engagement with a conductor of the cable to form a termination, which, in use, is to be electrically insulated by an insulating portion; and a housing defining a chamber for receiving the insulating portion and in which the internal pressure is isolated from pressure in the downhole environment.
US09520702B2

An object of the present invention is to provide a clamp-integrated wiring harness protector for assembling, in which a man-hour for assembling the protector is unnecessary, and workability upon assembling with a wiring harness is satisfactory, and the wiring harness is protected after assembling, and the protector can be produced at low cost. The clamp-integrated wiring harness protector for assembling including: a sheet-shaped portion; and a clamp portion integrally formed with the sheet-shaped portion.
US09520688B2

A busduct joint assembly comprising a stack of electrically insulating separator plates, a respective busbar receiving gap between defined between each pair of separator plates for receiving respective busbar ends of adjacent busduct sections therein to be in electrical contact with at least one connector plate located therein, upper and lower cover plates being located on either side of the stack of separator plates, a fastener extending between the cover plates and through mutually aligned apertures formed therein in order to clamp the separator plates and connector plates between the cover plates, a side cover being provided on at least one side of the separator plates and having at least one heat exchange rib extending into the stack of separator plates, wherein the at least one heat exchange rib extends between adjacent pairs of separator plates, on an opposite side of the separator plates from the associated busbar receiving gap.
US09520679B2

A rigid electrical panel has both a flexible printed circuit and an electrically conductive grounding layer embedded therein. The electrically conductive grounding layer is electrically connected to a grounding insert which is also embedded in the rigid material. The grounding insert has a base portion and an exposed portion. The electrically conductive grounding layer is connected to the base portion, and the exposed portion allows the grounding insert, and thus the electrically conductive grounding layer, to be electrically connected to a grounding point, for example on a gas turbine engine.
US09520674B2

The present invention relates to a connector assembly for airbag restraint systems. The connector assembly comprises a connector housing and secondary locking means assigned to the connector housing. The secondary locking means is arranged movable relative to the connector housing and can be moved from an open position to a locked position. Further the secondary locking means comprises two separate locking members wherein each of the two separate locking members is configured to be independently movable.
US09520672B2

Disclosed is a closing cap for media-tight sealing of a plug face of a plug-and-socket connector, in particular a round plug-and-socket connector, wherein the closing cap can be detachably fixed to a plug-and-socket connector housing, wherein the closing cap is configured, such that a further closing cap of identical construction can be detachably fixed to the closing cap. The closing caps can be stored, for example stacked one on top of the other, on a plug-and-socket connector housing in a switchgear cabinet. This simplifies storage in that when a closing cap is removed from one connector it may be stored on a closing cap of an adjacent connector.
US09520671B2

An electrical receptacle provide outlets and a cavity for receiving an insert. The insert connects to the electrical main through the receptacle and can provide additional functionality through the insert including emergency lighting, night lighting, gas detectors and charging connections.
US09520666B2

The disclosure relates to a contact carrier including an electrical contact and a contact arm which is connected to the electrical contact in an electrically conducting manner. The contact arm includes a tolerance-compensating portion and a contact base formed on the tolerance-compensating portion for electrically contacting the electrical contact with a contact surface.
US09520663B1

A connector for fixing and electrically connecting a flat cable includes a base body and a first inspection window. The base body includes a bottom part and a top part which are opposite to each other. The bottom part and the top part together form a flat-cable slot and an inserting opening. The flat-cable slot and the inserting opening are communicated with each other. The first inspection window extends through two surfaces of the top part which are opposite to each other. The first inspection window communicated with the flat-cable slot. A portion of the flat-cable slot away from the inserting opening is exposed in the first inspection window, and a position of the flat cable in the flat-cable slot is inspectable through the first inspection window.
US09520661B1

An electrical connector assembly includes a housing extending between a mating end and a mounting end. The housing defines plural contact cavities extending through the housing. Signal contacts are disposed in corresponding contact cavities of the housing. The signal contacts are arranged in rows along row axes extending in a longitudinal direction and in columns along column axes extending in a lateral direction. The signal contacts are arranged in pairs. A first set of pairs of signal contacts defining column pairs being arranged in-column along the corresponding column axis and a second set of pairs of signal contacts define cross pairs being arranged across the corresponding column axis. Adjacent pairs of signal contacts along the column axes alternate between column pairs and cross pairs. Adjacent pairs of signal contacts along row axes alternate between column pairs and cross pairs.
US09520658B1

A fastener assembly includes a second part for fastening to the first part. The first and second parts have openings for aligning with each other. The second part has a plurality of slots spaced apart from its opening. A nut holder is mounted to the second part. The holder has a base and a plurality of flexible legs projecting from the base. Each leg is adapted to be inserted through a corresponding one of the slots and to hold the holder to the second part. The base has a hexagonal shaped opening. The assembly also includes a hexagonal nut and a bolt. The nut is non-rotatably received by the hexagonal opening. The threaded shaft of the bolt extends through the first and second openings, and is threadably received by the nut so that the first part is held between the bolt head and the second part.
US09520656B2

A round terminal fixation structure is a structure for fixing a round terminal connected to an end of an electric wire to a bus bar in an overlapping manner with a bolt. The round terminal includes: a bolt insertion portion with a first through-hole into which the bolt is inserted; a core wire crimp portion for crimping a core wire of the electric wire; and an insulating cover crimp portion. The bus bar includes: a flat plate portion with a second through-hole; a pair of standing pieces vertically extended from the flat plate portion for positioning the core wire crimp portion in between the pair of standing pieces while the first and second through-holes are overlapped with each other; and connection portions electrically connected to the relay or the fuse. A gap between the pair of standing pieces is formed smaller than a width of the bolt insertion portion.
US09520648B2

A polygon Near Field Communication (NFC) antenna comprises: a first radiation part, a second radiation part, a third radiation part, and at least an antenna feed point. The first radiation part is arranged to have a single turn trace with single layer or multi-layer, a single turn wire routing with single layer or multi-layer, a multi-turns trace with single layer or multi-layer, or a multi-turns wire routing with single layer or multi-layer, and formed to have a first pattern. The second radiation part is arranged to have a single turn trace with single layer or multi-layer, a single turn wire routing with single layer or multi-layer, a multi-turns trace with single layer or multi-layer, or a multi-turns wire routing with single layer or multi-layer, and formed to have a second pattern. The third radiation part is coupled between the first radiation part and the second radiation part.
US09520636B2

A linear resonator of a high-frequency antenna suitable for emitting a radiofrequency energisation signal and for receiving a radiofrequency relaxation signal, the linear resonator includes a radiating element to emit af radiofrequency energisation signal and receive a radiofrequency relaxation signal. The resonator also includes: a balun circuit including a power-supply line and two coupling lines; a substrate made of a dielectric material, supporting the radiating element which contains the balun circuit; two contact points connecting the balun circuit to the radiating element, the contact points being formed by one of the ends of the coupling lines extending out of the substrate, the distance separating the two contact points being selected so as to ensure the impedance matching of the resonator; and a chip floorplan separating the coupling lines from the radiating element.
US09520634B2

A resonance device is disclosed. The resonance device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes: a case including a first ground surface and a second ground surface which face each other; a stacked part formed inside the case by stacking a first conductive layer and a second conductive layer, wherein the first conductive layer is grounded to the first ground surface and the second conductive layer is separated from the first conductive layer without being grounded to the first ground surface; and a transmission layer connecting the second conductive layer to the second ground surface.
US09520630B2

Various embodiments are directed to isolation devices, systems, methods and various means, for isolating ignition causing signals and/or explosions from hazardous or explosive environments.
US09520627B2

A device includes a membrane that is: (i) impermeable to oxygen, and (ii) insoluble in at least one polar solvent; and ion conducting particles in the membrane. At least some of the particles extend from a first side of the membrane to an opposed second side of the membrane. The thickness of the membrane is 15 μm to 100 μm.
US09520626B2

A heat exchanger for cooling battery cell containers in a battery unit is disclosed. The heat exchanger includes individual heat exchanger modules that are fluidly interconnected and spaced apart from each other so as to accommodate individual battery cell containers arranged between adjacent heat exchanger modules to form a battery unit. Each heat exchanger module is formed by a pair generally planar first and second heat exchanger plates having a main section and flexible inlet and outlet panels extending therefrom. The heat exchanger is formed by a stack of alternating first and second plates that are brazed together to form heat exchanger modules, the heat exchanger modules formed in the stack being interconnected by their inlet and outlet panels and expanded post-brazing by bending/flexing the inlet and outlet panels to provide adequate spacing or gaps between the modules to accommodate battery cell containers.
US09520619B2

The present disclosure is related to articles (e.g., containers, battery packs, etc.) including a lithium material (e.g., one or more lithium-containing batteries) housed therein. The articles include sulfur hexafluoride located within an interior compartment of the article to provide an inert atmosphere within the interior compartment. The present disclosure is also related to methods of inerting such articles (e.g., containers, battery packs, etc.) with sulfur hexafluoride. Additionally, the present disclosure is related to conveyed (e.g., pumped, blown, etc.) looped cooling apparatuses and systems.
US09520618B2

Pressure relief mechanisms can provide an outlet for cathode pressure buildup during battery operation. Mechanical cathode modifications can control cathode interfaces during battery operation. Pressure relief mechanisms and mechanical modifications can be utilized to improve performance, longevity and/or to prevent failure of batteries, such as during cycling of liquid metal batteries.
US09520615B2

Disclosed are a thin film battery in which a negative electrode active material and a substrate side react with each other to prevent battery performance from deteriorating, and to a method for manufacturing same. The thin film battery according to the present invention has a structure in which a negative electrode active material contacts a substrate. Here, a first surface treatment layer containing the negative electrode active material and a non-reactive material are disposed on at least the portion where the negative electrode active material contacts the surface of the substrate.
US09520613B2

A battery block is equipped with a plurality of battery blocks. Each of the battery blocks includes at least one battery cell to provide a block voltage of the battery block. A first number of the battery blocks is selected, and the first number of the battery blocks is coupled to voltage terminals of the battery to set a battery voltage which corresponds to the sum of the block voltages of the first number of battery blocks. Further, a second number of the battery blocks is selected, and the second number of battery blocks is coupled to the voltage terminals of the battery to set a battery voltage which corresponds to the sum of the block voltages of the second number of battery blocks.
US09520611B2

A redox flow battery including a cathode cell having a cathode and a catholyte solution; an anode cell having an anode and an anolyte solution; and an ion exchange membrane disposed between the cathode cell and the anode cell, wherein the catholyte solution and the anolyte solution each include an electrolyte, wherein the electrolyte includes a plurality of metal-ligand coordination compounds, wherein at least one of the metal-ligand coordination compounds includes two or more different ligands, and wherein a dipole moment of the metal-ligand coordination compound is greater than 0.
US09520607B2

In various aspects, systems and methods are provided for operating a molten carbonate fuel cell assembly at increased power density. This can be accomplished in part by performing an effective amount of an endothermic reaction within the fuel cell stack in an integrated manner. This can allow for increased power density while still maintaining a desired temperature differential within the fuel cell assembly.
US09520596B2

A resin for a negative electrode of a lithium ion battery including a core section and a cladding layer covering the surface of the core section are provided. The cladding layer is obtained by reacting a first monomer mixture. The first monomer mixture includes an ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid ester monomer, a first aromatic vinyl monomer, and an ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid monomer. Based on 100 wt % of the first monomer mixture, a content of the ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid ester monomer is from 45 to 80 wt %, a content of the first aromatic vinyl monomer is from 5 to 25 wt %, and a content of the ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid monomer is from 10 to 43 wt %.
US09520592B2

A lithium secondary battery exhibiting low temperature output characteristics is provided. The lithium secondary battery of the present invention includes a current collector 12, and an active material layer 14 which is supported on the current collector 12 and contains active material particles 30 and electrically conductive material 16. The active material particles 30 each have a shell composed of a lithium transition metal oxide, a hollow part formed in the shell, and a through hole penetrating the shell. The electrically conductive material 16 contained in the active material layer 14 are arranged both in the hollow part of the active material particles and between the active material particles 30.
US09520591B2

Methods are disclosed in which an electrically conductive substrate is immersed into an electrodepositable composition, the substrate serving as an electrode in an electrical circuit comprising the electrode and a counter-electrode immersed in the composition, a coating being applied onto or over at least a portion of the substrate as electric current is passed between the electrodes. The electrodepositable composition comprises: (a) an aqueous medium; (b) an ionic resin; and (c) solid particles.
US09520586B2

A battery module includes a battery module housing, a plurality of battery cells accommodated in the battery module housing and electrically interconnected, a first connecting piece forming a first voltage polarity that is conductively connected to one of the battery cells, and a second connecting piece forming a second voltage polarity that is conductively connected to another one of the battery cells. The battery module housing includes a passage at each of at least three occupiable spots. The first connecting piece is arranged in one of the passages. The second connecting piece is arranged in another one of the passages.
US09520585B2

An assembled battery comprises: multiple cells 30 each having external terminals including a negative electrode terminal 50 and a positive electrode terminal; a bus bar 40 which connects the external terminal of one of two adjacent cells 30 and that of the other thereof; an electrically-conductive connecting member 70 which connects the external terminal and the bus bar 40 by welding to the external terminal and the bus bar 40; a welding portion 80 welded to the bus bar 40 and the connecting member 70; and a welding portion 82 welded to the external terminal and the connecting member 70. The connecting member 70 comprises an intervening portion 70b connected to the welding portion 80, and a main body portion 70a extending from the intervening portion 70b to the welding portion 82. The intervening portion 70b has a thickness that is smaller than that of the main body portion 70a.
US09520583B2

A galvanic element includes at least one lithium-intercalating and at least one lithium-deintercalating electrode. A positive electrode and a negative electrode are separated by a polyimide-based separator that has a labyrinth porosity. The polyimide-based separator is configured at least on one side with a porous, ceramically-based coating that comprises a binder and ceramic particles.
US09520582B2

A compartment accommodates a button cell. The compartment includes an opening side through which the button cell is loaded or ejected from a side surface of the buttons cell. The compartment includes an upper side, a lower side, and lateral sides for holding flat surfaces and the side surface of the button cell. The compartment includes elastic pieces for biasing at least one of the flat surfaces or the side surface of the button cell. A slit is disposed on at least one of the upper side, the lower side, or the lateral sides. The slit extends from a side opposite to the opening side toward the opening side. The slit extends to a part of the button cell.
US09520580B2

An electrochemical device comprises one or more anode, cathode, and separator. In some embodiments, the separator is also an electrolyte. In addition it has two or more current collectors. The anode and cathode are between the two current collectors and each is adhered to an adjacent current collector. The separator is between the anode and cathode and adhered to the anode and cathode. The current collectors are a barrier, and are bonded together to create a sealed container for the anode, cathode, and separator. The electrochemical device may be integrated into a composite panel suitable for uses such as structural load bearing panels or sheets for aircraft wings or fuselage, composite armor, torpedo, missile body, consumer electronics, etc. The electrochemical device may include, but is not limited to, energy storage (batteries, supercapacitors), and energy generation (fuel cells).
US09520572B2

There is provided an electronic device including at least a first electrode, a second electrode disposed to be spaced apart from the first electrode, and an active layer disposed over the second electrode from above the first electrode and formed of an organic semiconductor material. A charge injection layer is formed between the first electrode and the active layer and between the second electrode and the active layer, and the charge injection layer is formed of an organic material having an increased electric conductivity when the charge injection layer is oxidized.
US09520570B2

An organic electronic device comprising: a substrate; (1), a first electrode; (2), a second electrode (4); and an electron-conducting region (3A, 3B) which is arranged between the first and; second electrodes and comprises an organic matrix material (3B) and a salt (3A) which comprises a metal cation and an at least trivalent anion.
US09520562B2

The disclosed technology generally relates to semiconductor devices, and relates more particularly to resistive random access memory devices and methods of making the same. In one aspect, a method of forming a resistive random access memory cell of a random access memory device includes forming a first electrode and forming a resistive switching material comprising an oxide of a pnictogen element by atomic layer deposition. The method additionally includes forming a metallic layer comprising the pnictogen element by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The resistive switching material is interposed between the first electrode and the metallic layer.
US09520561B1

Provision of fabrication, construction, and/or assembly of a memory device including a two-terminal memory portion is described herein. The two-terminal memory device fabrication can provide enhanced capabilities in connection with precisely tuning on-state current over a greater possible range.
US09520555B2

Embodiments disclosed herein may include depositing a storage component material over and/or in a trench in a dielectric material, including depositing the storage component material on approximately vertical walls of the trench and a bottom of the trench. Embodiments may also include etching the storage component material so that at least a portion of the storage component material remains on the approximately vertical walls and the bottom of the trench, wherein the trench is contacting an electrode and a selector such that storage component material on the bottom of the trench contacts the electrode.
US09520551B2

A hall effect device includes an active Hall region in a semiconductor substrate, and at least four terminal structures, each terminal structure including a switchable supply contact element and a sense contact element, wherein each supply contact element includes a transistor element with a first transistor terminal, a second transistor terminal, and a control terminal, wherein the second transistor terminal contacts the active Hall region or extends in the active Hall region; and wherein the sense contact elements are arranged in the active Hall region and neighboring to the switchable supply contact elements.
US09520548B2

A piezoelectric actuator with integrated features to provide linear displacement of a threaded rod is presented. One mechanism provides mechanically amplified piezo motion for high speed/short travel position scanning whereas the other provides a low speed/long travel piezo motorized position adjustment. Mechanical amplifier incorporates one or more piezo stacks in longitudinal axis with preload to translate an amplified motion in the order of a few times in the transverse axis, perpendicular to the piezo stack motion. The piezo amplified output travel is transmitted to the internally threaded features of the other mechanism where a screw with a ball at the end to push a desired surface for high speed scanning mode translation. The internally threaded feature of the other mechanism is also operated by a secondary piezo stack which produces slip-stick motion steps to rotate the screw in one direction or the other to produce a slow speed/long travel mode.
US09520538B2

An LED epitaxial structure includes a substrate; a GaN nucleating layer; a superlattice buffer layer comprising a plurality pairs of alternately stacked AlGaN/n-GaN structures; an n-GaN layer; a MQW light-emitting layer, a p-GaN layer and a p-type contact layer. Al(n) represents Al composition value of the nth AlGaN/n-GaN superlattice buffer layer pair; N(n) represents n-type impurity concentration value of the nth AlGaN/n-GaN superlattice buffer layer pair; variation trend of Al(n) is from gradual increase to gradual decrease, and for N(n) is from gradual increase to gradual decrease. The structure can effectively and sufficiently release the lattice stress due to lattice mismatch between the sapphire substrate and GaN at the bottom layer growth section, thereby greatly reducing wrapping of the epitaxial wafer throughout high-temperature growth process, improving wavelength concentration and yield of the epitaxial wafer, improving GaN lattice quality, reducing lattice dislocation density and improving stability of photoelectric characteristics.
US09520537B2

The disclosed technology provides micro-assembled micro-LED displays and lighting elements using arrays of micro-LEDs that are too small (e.g., micro-LEDs with a width or diameter of 10 μm to 50 μm), numerous, or fragile to assemble by conventional means. The disclosed technology provides for micro-LED displays and lighting elements assembled using micro-transfer printing technology. The micro-LEDs can be prepared on a native substrate and printed to a display substrate (e.g., plastic, metal, glass, or other materials), thereby obviating the manufacture of the micro-LEDs on the display substrate. In certain embodiments, the display substrate is transparent and/or flexible.
US09520534B2

Disclosed are a light emitting diode (LED), an LED module including the same, and a method of fabricating the same. The light emitting diode includes a first conductive-type semiconductor layer; a second conductive-type semiconductor layer; an active layer interposed between the first conductive-type semiconductor layer and the second conductive-type semiconductor layer; a first electrode pad region electrically connected to the first conductive-type semiconductor layer; a second electrode pad region electrically connected to the second conductive-type semiconductor layer; and a spark gap formed between a first leading end electrically connected to the first electrode pad region and a second leading end electrically connected to the second electrode pad region. The spark gap can achieve electrostatic discharge protection of the light emitting diode.
US09520529B2

The composition for forming a composition for forming a p-type diffusion layer, the composition containing a glass powder and a dispersion medium, in which the glass powder includes an acceptor element and a total amount of a life time killer element in the glass powder is 1000 ppm or less. A p-type diffusion layer and a photovoltaic cell having a p-type diffusion layer are prepared by applying the composition for forming a p-type diffusion layer, followed by a thermal diffusion treatment.
US09520527B1

A nitride semiconductor template includes a Ga2O3 substrate, a buffer layer that includes as a main component AlN and is formed on the Ga2O3 substrate, a first nitride semiconductor layer that includes as a main component AlxGa1-xN (0.2
US09520524B2

A method for producing a solar cell, in particular a silicon thin-film solar cell, wherein a TCO layer (3) is deposited on a glass substrate (1) and at least a silicon layer (4, 5) is deposited on the TCO layer (3), wherein the glass substrate (1) is exposed to electron radiation prior to the application of the TCO layer (3), thereby producing a light-scattering layer (2) of the glass substrate (1), onto which the TCO layer (3) is deposited. Alternatively or additionally, a first silicon layer (4) may be deposited on the TCO layer (3), wherein the first silicon layer (4) is exposed to laser radiation or electron radiation, and wherein a second silicon layer (5) is deposited on the irradiated first silicon layer (4).
US09520519B2

Element, panel and direct solar radiation collecting and concentrating system by means of panels with collecting and concentrating elements which are allowed freedom of movement during diurnal and seasonal sun tracking. The elements in question incorporate a primary lens concentrating direct radiation. The element includes hollow compartments which contain a given fluid at a given pressure. The lower section includes a secondary lens and/or internally reflexive conical element allowing the introduction of radiation, in parallel, into tubes or optical fiber, or irradiation onto radiation converting systems. The movement of the device is produced by fluid heating and pressure in the side compartments. This pressure is communicated to the axes via pistons which cause the device to rotate in search of the optimal position with a view to optimizing its focus on the secondary lens.
US09520515B2

This invention aims to reduce and preferably to cancel the carrier collection limit effect in order to considerably increase the conversion efficiency. This improvement is achieved by a suitable modification of the amorphized layer thickness or even by discontinuities separating amorphizing beams or amorphized nanopellets.
US09520513B2

A photovoltaic cell including a first semiconductor layer that includes a III-V compound semiconductor, the first semiconductor layer positioned over a transparent conductive layer, and a second semiconductor layer that includes a II-VI compound semiconductor, the second semiconductor layer positioned between the first semiconductor layer and a back metal contact. The photovoltaic cell further includes an interfacial layer between the first and second semiconductor layers that enhances a rectifying junction formed between the III-V and II-VI compound semiconductor materials.
US09520510B2

A detector to detect light of a wavelength range and an incidence angle range, the detector including a substrate, a plurality of dielectric structures on the substrate, each one of the plurality of dielectric structures being to receive light through a side of the dielectric structure opposite the substrate, and a plurality of conductive structures on the substrate, consecutive conductive structures of the plurality of conductive structures having a corresponding dielectric structure of the plurality of dielectric structures therebetween, wherein the consecutive conductive structures and the corresponding dielectric structure form a cavity to induce an absorption resonance in response to receiving the light of the wavelength range.
US09520508B2

An electronics module docking system includes docking member removably coupled to a photovoltaic module. The docking system includes a first connector port electrically coupled to one or more photovoltaic cells of the photovoltaic module. The photovoltaic module is selectively coupleable to the docking member. The docking system includes a housing to enclose an electronics module. The housing may include second connector port that is selectively engageable to the power electronics module. The power electronics module and the photovoltaic cells are electrically coupled to one another upon selective engagement of the connector ports. The inverter housing is receivable by and removably coupleable to the docking member allowing the inverter housing to be removably coupleable to the photovoltaic module.
US09520500B1

A method of forming a semiconductor device includes forming a plurality of semiconductor fins from an upper semiconductor layer located on a first region of a bulk semiconductor substrate of a structure and then forming at least one gate structure straddling a portion of semiconductor fins. A portion of the lower semiconductor layer from beneath the upper semiconductor layer is then removed to form a vertical semiconductor portion which contacts the bulk semiconductor substrate and at least one of the semiconductor fins. A dielectric layer (e.g., a spacer layer) is then deposited over the structure and laterally surrounds the vertical semiconductor portion such that semiconductor fins and the at least one gate structure are partially isolated from the first region of the bulk semiconductor substrate by the dielectric layer.
US09520493B1

A high voltage integrated device includes a semiconductor layer having a first conductivity, a source region having a second conductivity and a drift region having the second conductivity which are disposed in the semiconductor layer and spaced apart from each other by a channel region, a drain region having the second conductivity and disposed in the drift region, a gate insulation layer disposed over the channel region, a first field insulation layer and a second field insulation layer which are disposed over the drift region and between the channel region and the drain region, wherein the first field insulation layer and the second field insulation layer are spaced apart from each other, an insulation layer disposed over the drift region and located between the first and second field insulation layers, and a gate electrode disposed over the gate insulation layer, the first field insulation layer, the insulation layer, and the second field insulation layer, wherein the first field insulation layer is adjacent to the channel region and the second field insulation layer is adjacent to the drain region.
US09520492B2

A semiconductor device includes a substrate having a first conductivity type, a high-voltage well having a second conductivity type and formed in the substrate, a drift region formed in the high-voltage well, and a buried layer having the first conductivity type formed below the high-voltage well and vertically aligned with the drift region.
US09520482B1

A method for fabricating a semiconductor device includes forming a first fin and a second fin on a substrate. The first fin has a first gate region and the second fin has a second gate region. The method also includes forming a metal-gate line over the first and second gate regions. The metal-gate line extends from the first fin to the second fin. The method also includes applying a line-cut to separate the metal-gate line into a first sub-metal gate line and a second sub-metal gate line and forming an isolation region within the line cut.
US09520471B1

A semiconductor device includes a substrate having a first conductivity type, a high-voltage well having a second conductivity type and disposed in the substrate, a source well having the first conductivity type disposed in the high-voltage well, a drift region disposed in the high-voltage well and spaced apart from the source well, and a gradient implant region having the second conductivity type and disposed in the high-voltage well between the source well and the drift region.
US09520470B1

A lateral double diffused metal oxide semiconductor device, includes: a P-type substrate, an epitaxial layer, a P-type high voltage well, a P-type body region, an N-type well, an isolation oxide region, a drift oxide region, a gate, an N-type contact region, a P-type contact region, a top source, a bottom source, and an N-type drain. The P-type body region is between and connects the P-type high voltage well and the surface of the epitaxial layer. The P-type body region includes a peak concentration region, which is beneath and indirect contact the surface of the epitaxial layer, wherein the peak concentration region has a highest P-type impurity concentration in the P-type body region. The P-type impurity concentration of the P-type body region is higher than a predetermined threshold to suppress a parasitic bipolar transistor such that it does not turn ON.
US09520464B2

This invention discloses a semiconductor power device disposed in a semiconductor substrate and having an active cell area and an edge termination area the edge termination area wherein the edge termination area comprises a superjunction structure having doped semiconductor columns of alternating conductivity types with a charge imbalance between the doped semiconductor columns to generate a saddle junction electric field in the edge termination.
US09520463B2

A super junction semiconductor device includes a super junction structure and a channel stopper structure. The super junction structure includes first and second areas alternately arranged along a first lateral direction and extending in parallel along a second lateral direction. Each one of the first areas includes a first semiconductor region of a first conductivity type. Each one of the second areas includes, along the first lateral direction, an inner area between opposite second semiconductor regions of a second conductivity type opposite to the first conductivity type. The channel stopper structure includes a doped semiconductor region electrically coupled to a field plate. The second semiconductor regions extend along the second lateral direction from the transistor cell area through the edge termination area overlap with the field plate.
US09520462B1

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.
US09520458B2

Embodiments of the inventive concepts provide a resistor and a semiconductor device including the same. The resistor includes a substrate, a device isolation layer in the substrate which defines active regions arranged in a first direction a resistance layer including resistance patterns that vertically protrude from the active regions and are connected to each other in the first direction, and contact electrodes on the resistance layer.
US09520456B2

An organic EL display device includes: a lower electrode; an upper electrode; a first organic layer which is disposed between the lower electrode and the upper electrode and is formed of a plurality of layers including a light emitting layer formed of an organic material that emits light; a metal wire that extends between the pixels within the display region; and a second organic layer which is formed of a plurality of layers the same as that of the first organic layer and which comes into contact with a part of the metal wire and does not come into contact with the first organic layer. The upper electrode comes into contact with the metal wire in the periphery of the second organic layer. Accordingly, it is possible to uniformise the potential of the upper electrode without reducing the light emission area.
US09520455B2

A subpixel structure for a display device and a method of fabricating the display device are discussed. The subpixel structure can include a light emitting diode, a first switching transistor having a first gate electrode and a first active layer, a driving transistor having a second gate electrode and a second active layer, a second switching transistor including a third gate electrode and a third active layer, and at least one of the first, second and third gate electrodes is disposed between the corresponding first, second and third active layers and a substrate.
US09520448B1

A push-pull resistive random access memory cell circuit includes an output node, a word line, a first bit line, and a second bit line. A first resistive random access memory device is connected between the first bit line and the output node and a second resistive random access memory device is connected between the output node and the second bit line. A first programming transistor has a gate connected to the word line, a drain connected to the output node, and a source. A second programming transistor has a gate connected to the word line, a drain connected to the source of the first programming transistor, and a source. The first and second programming transistors have the same pitch, the same channel length, and the same gate dielectric thickness, the gate dielectric thickness chosen to withstand programming and erase potentials encountered during operation of the push-pull ReRAM cell circuit.
US09520440B2

In an imaging device having a waveguide, a surface of an insulating film covering a seal ring is prevented from getting rough. A pixel region, a peripheral circuit region, and a seal region are defined over a semiconductor substrate. After formation of a pad electrode in the peripheral circuit region and a seal ring in the seal ring region, a TEOS film is so formed as to cover the pad electrode and the seal ring. A pattern of a photoresist for exposing a portion of the TEOS film covering the pad electrode and the seal ring, respectively, is formed and etching treatment is subjected to the exposed TEOS film. Then, after the pattern of the photoresist has been formed, a second waveguide holding hole is formed in the pixel region by performing etching treatment.
US09520439B2

An image sensor for capturing X-ray image data and optical image data includes an X-ray absorption layer and a plurality of photodiodes disposed in a semiconductor layer. The X-ray absorption layer is configured to emit photons in response to receiving X-ray radiation. The plurality of photodiodes disposed in the semiconductor layer is optically coupled to receive image light to generate the optical image data, and is optically coupled to receive photons from the X-ray absorption layer to generate X-ray image data.
US09520437B2

A method of fabricating an X-ray imager including the steps of forming an etch stop layer on a glass substrate and depositing a stack of semiconductor layers on the etch stop layer to form a sensor plane. Separating the stack into an array of PIN photodiodes. Depositing a layer of insulating material on the array to form a planarized surface and forming vias through the insulating layer into communication with an upper surface of each photodiode and forming metal contacts on the planarized surface through the vias in contact with each photodiode. Fabricating an array of MOTFTs in an active pixel sensor configuration backplane on the planarized surface and in electrical communication with the contacts, to provide a sensor plane/MOTFT backplane interconnected combination. Attaching a flexible support carrier to the MOTFT backplane and removing the glass substrate. A scintillator is then laminated on the array of photodiodes.
US09520434B2

An image pickup module includes: an image pickup chip including a main surface on which a light-receiving portion of an image pickup device and a plurality of electrodes connected to the light-receiving portion are formed; and a wiring board including flying leads bonded to the respective plurality of electrodes.
US09520428B2

An image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup device chip having a first primary surface on which an image pickup section, a circuit section and a guard ring are formed, the circuit section having a plurality of layers including an insulating layer that is made of a low dielectric constant material having a relative dielectric constant lower than silicon oxide, the guard ring being made of one or more materials selected from materials superior to the low dielectric constant material in humidity resistance; and a cover glass adhered to the first primary surface of the image pickup device chip.
US09520425B2

An image sensor having small pixels with high charge storage capacity, low dark current, no image lag, and good blooming control may be provided. The high charge storage capacity is achieved by placing a p+ type doped layer under the pixel charge storage region with an opening in it for allowing photo-generated charge carriers to flow from the silicon hulk to the charge storage well located near the surface of the photodiode. A compensating n-type doped implant may be formed in the opening. Image lag is prevented by placing a p− type doped region under the p+ type doped photodiode pinning layer and aligned with the opening. Blooming control is achieved by adjusting the length of the transfer gate in the pixel and thereby adjusting the punch-through potential under the gate.
US09520419B2

A method of manufacturing a thin film transistor (TFT) array substrate includes forming a gate line and a gate electrode on a substrate, forming a gate-insulating layer and an oxide semiconductor layer on the gate line and the gate electrode, forming etch stop patterns at a thin-film transistor area and an area where the gate line and the data line overlap each other, forming a data conductor on the oxide semiconductor layer and the etch stop patterns, the data conductor comprising a source electrode and a drain electrode that constitute a TFT together with the gate electrode, and forming a data line extending in a direction intersecting the gate line.
US09520414B2

The present invention proposes a TFT array substrate includes: a substrate; scan lines on the substrate; data lines intercrossing with the scan lines; a first insulating layer between the scan lines and the data lines; a second insulating layer on the first insulating layer and covering the data lines; a common electrode layer on the second insulating layer, comprising first holes located above the data lines. The first holes uncover the second insulating layer. The present invention decreases parasitic capacitance between the common electrode layer and data lines and between the common electrode layer and scan lines by decreasing overlaping sections between a common electrode layer and the data lines and between the common electrode layer and the scan lines. Therefore load of the data lines and the scan lines decreases, charge efficiency of the pixels increases, and display effect of an LCD panel is therefore improved.
US09520406B2

A method of making a vertical NAND device includes forming a lower portion of a memory stack over a substrate, forming a lower portion of memory openings in the lower portion of the memory stack, and at least partially filling the lower portion of the memory openings with a sacrificial material. The method also includes forming an upper portion of the memory stack over the lower portion of the memory stack and over the sacrificial material, forming an upper portion of the memory openings in the upper portion of the memory stack to expose the sacrificial material in the lower portion of the memory openings, removing the sacrificial material to connect the lower portion of the memory openings with a respective upper portion of the memory openings to form continuous memory openings, and forming a semiconductor channel in each continuous memory opening.
US09520404B2

A nonvolatile memory (“NVM”) bitcell includes a capacitor, an asymmetrically doped transistor, and a tunneling device. The capacitor, transistor, and tunneling device are each electrically coupled to different active regions and metal contacts. The three devices are coupled by a floating gate that traverses the three active regions. The tunneling device is formed in a native region to allow for greater dynamic range in the voltage used to induce tunneling. The FN tunneling device is used to erase the device, allowing for faster page erasure, and thus allows for rapid testing and verification of functionality. The asymmetric transistor, in conjunction with the capacitor, is used to both program and read the logical state of the floating gate. The capacitor and floating gate are capacitively coupled together, removing the need for a separate selection device to perform read and write operations.
US09520397B2

A method of forming a field effect transistor (FET) device includes forming a diffusion facilitation layer on top of a semiconductor substrate; forming a doped, raised source/drain (RSD) layer on the diffusion facilitation layer; removing a portion of the diffusion facilitation layer, corresponding to a region directly above a channel region of the FET device; and performing an anneal so as to define abrupt source and drain junctions in the semiconductor substrate, wherein dopant atoms from the doped RSD layer diffuse within the diffusion facilitation layer at a faster rate than with respect to the semiconductor substrate.
US09520396B2

Methods for making high voltage IC devices utilizing a fin-type process and resulting devices are disclosed. Embodiments include forming two pluralities of silicon fins on a substrate layer, separated by a space, wherein adjacent silicon fins are separated by a trench; forming an oxide layer on the substrate layer and filling a portion of each trench; forming two deep isolation trenches into the oxide layer and the substrate layer adjacent to the two pluralities of silicon fins; forming a graded voltage junction by implanting a dopant into the substrate layer below the two pluralities of silicon fins; forming a gate structure on the oxide layer and between the two pluralities of silicon fins; implanting a dopant into and under the two pluralities of silicon fins, forming source and drain regions; and forming an epitaxial layer onto the two pluralities of silicon fins to form merged source and drain fins.
US09520392B1

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate having a fin-type field effect transistor (finFET) on a first region and a fin varactor on a second region. The finFET includes a first semiconductor fin that extends from an upper finFET surface thereof to the upper surface of the first region to define a first total fin height. The fin varactor includes a second semiconductor fin that extends from an upper varactor surface thereof to the upper surface of the second region to define a second total fin height that is different from the first total fin height of the finFET.
US09520385B1

A device comprises a bottom package comprising an interconnect structure, a molding compound layer over the interconnect structure, a semiconductor die in the molding compound layer and a solder layer embedded in the molding compound layer, wherein a top surface of the solder layer is lower than a top surface of the molding compound layer and a top package bonded on the bottom package through a joint structure formed by the solder layer and a bump of the top package.
US09520377B2

Semiconductor device packages and methods of manufacturing the semiconductor device packages are provided. A semiconductor device package may include a bonding layer between a substrate and a semiconductor chip, and the bonding layer may include an intermetallic compound. The intermetallic compound may be a compound of metal and solder material. The intermetallic compound may include Ag3Sn. A method of manufacturing the semiconductor device package may include forming a bonding layer, which bonds a semiconductor chip to a substrate, by using a mixed paste including metal particles and a solder material. The bonding layer may be formed by forming an intermetallic compound, which is formed by heating the mixed paste to react the metal particles with the solder material.
US09520369B2

Provided are a power module having an integrated power semiconductor and a method of packaging the same. The power module according to an aspect of the present invention includes a power semiconductor chip based on silicon and insulating substrates respectively disposed at both surfaces of the power semiconductor chip and including a metal pattern electrically and directly connected to the power semiconductor chip.
US09520368B1

An integrated circuit system having: (A) a semiconductor chip with a signal strip conductor disposed on an upper surface of the chip; an active semiconductor device disposed of the upper surface of the chip electrically connected to the signal strip conductor; and a first ground plane conductor disposed on a bottom surface of the chip disposed under the signal strip conductor; and (B) a support structure having: a second ground plane disposed over, and separated from, the signal strip conductor by a dielectric region between the second ground plane and the signal strip conductor on the chip; a signal contact disposed on the bottom surface of the support structure displaced, electrically insulated, from the second ground plane conductor, and electrically connected to a portion of the signal strip conductor. The signal strip conductor, the first ground plane conductor, and the second ground plane conductor provide a stripline microwave transmission line.
US09520367B2

A device includes a semiconductor substrate having a surface with a trench, first and second conduction terminals supported by the semiconductor substrate, a control electrode supported by the semiconductor substrate between the first and second conduction terminals and configured to control flow of charge carriers during operation between the first and second conduction terminals, and a Faraday shield supported by the semiconductor substrate and disposed between the control electrode and the second conduction terminal. At least a portion of the Faraday shield is disposed in the trench.
US09520363B1

A method of making a semiconductor device includes forming a first trench contact over a first source/drain region of a first transistor; forming a second trench contact over a second source/drain region of a second transistor; depositing a first liner material within the first trench contact; and depositing a second liner material within the second trench contact; wherein the first liner material and the second liner material include different materials.
US09520359B2

A semiconductor device, which may be included in a display driver integrated circuit (IC) and a display device, includes a first interconnection and a second interconnection extending on a substrate and separate from each other, a third interconnection extending at a first level that is higher than a level at which the first interconnection and the second interconnection are disposed, and a fourth interconnection extending at a second level that is higher than the first level. A first contact plug is configured to connect the first interconnection and the third interconnection to each other. A stacked contact plug includes a second contact plug and a third contact plug, wherein the second contact plug is connected to the second interconnection, and the third contact plug is connected to the second contact plug and the fourth interconnection.
US09520355B2

MIM capacitors that are temperature and/or voltage independent, and a methodology for formulating the MIM capacitors for use in semiconductor integrated circuits, is provided. Vertical MIM capacitive structures include at least two vertically separated electrodes and a capacitor dielectric that includes portions of different dielectric materials provided in a desired area ratio. The disclosure provided for selecting dielectrics and dielectric thicknesses, determining an area ratio that produces temperature and/or voltage independent MIM capacitors, and forming capacitive devices with the desired area ratio. In one embodiment, the capacitor dielectric includes at least one SiO dielectric portion and at least one SiN dielectric portion and a total capacitive area includes the SiN and SiO dielectric portions arranged such that the ratio of the area of the SiO portions to the area of the SiN portions is about 1.15:1.
US09520347B2

An electronics packaging arrangement, a lead frame construct for use in an electronics packaging arrangement, and a method for manufacturing an electronics packaging arrangement. A lead frame made of copper, for example, includes a metallic barrier layer of nickel, for example, to prevent oxidation of the metal of the lead frame. A relatively thin wetting promoting layer of copper, for example, is provided on the metallic barrier layer to promote uniform wetting of a solder, such as a lead-free, zinc-based solder, onto the lead frame during a die connect process by which a chip is connected to the lead frame. A copper/zinc intermetallic layer is formed during the flow and solidification of the solder. Substantially all of the copper in the copper layer is consumed during formation of the copper/zinc intermetallic layer, and the intermetallic layer is sufficiently thin to resist internal cracking failure during manufacture and subsequent use of the electronics packaging arrangement.
US09520336B1

A method of improving the thermal performance of a hybrid assembly which comprises a first die, a second die, and indium bonds which bond and electrically interconnect the first die to the second die. A heat sink plate on which the hybrid assembly is to be mounted is provided. A plurality of indium bumps are deposited on the plate where the assembly is to be mounted. The bottom side of the hybrid assembly is then pressed onto the indium bumps to affix the assembly to the plate. The heat sink plate constrains the lateral coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the second die such that the CTEs of the first and second dies match more closely than they would if the hybrid assembly was not mounted directly to a heat sink plate using indium bumps. The heat sink plate preferably comprises copper tungsten (CuW) or a diamond-metal composite.
US09520335B2

An object is to provide a method for manufacturing a wavelength selective heat radiation material in which a surface roughness of an upper portion of a cavity wall defining each microcavity is suppressed or in which microcavities each having an aspect ratio larger than 3.0 are formed. For the wavelength selective heat radiation material, a base material having a mask having predetermined openings tightly adhered to a surface thereof, or a base material in which depressions are previously formed on one surface thereof by pressing a die having projections arrayed so as to correspond to positions of microcavities thereagainst, is subjected to anisotropic etching, thereby providing a wavelength selective heat radiation material in which the surface roughness of the upper portion of the cavity wall defining each of the microcavities is suppressed or a wavelength selective heat radiation material having microcavities whose each aspect ratio is larger than 3.0.
US09520331B2

An adaptive patterning method and system for fabricating panel based package structures is described. Misalignment for individual device units in a panel or reticulated wafer may be adjusted for by measuring the position of each individual device unit and forming a unit-specific pattern over each of the respective device units.
US09520327B2

Methods for forming electrical contacts are provided. First and second FETs are formed over a semiconductor substrate. Openings are etched in a dielectric layer formed over the substrate, where the openings extend to source and drain regions of the FETs. A hard mask is formed over the source and drain regions of FETs. A first portion of the hard mask is removed, where the first portion is formed over the source and drain regions of the first FET. First silicide layers are formed over the source and drain regions of the first FET. A second portion of the hard mask is removed, where the second portion is formed over the source and drain regions of the second FET. Second silicide layers are formed over the source and drain regions of the second FET. A metal layer is deposited within the openings to fill the openings.
US09520317B2

A chip supplying apparatus supplies a chip to a mounting machine which mounts the chip on a substrate is disclosed. The chip supplying apparatus includes wafer table which holds a wafer sheet at a position where an operation head of the mounting machine can receive the chip. In the chip supplying apparatus, the wafer table is provided with a frame, a stopper which is fixed to the center of a front portion of the frame and abuts against a front end of the wafer sheet, and a pair of clamp mechanisms which is supported by the frame and which clamps both side ends of the wafer sheet. In the chip supplying apparatus, a position of the pair of clamp mechanisms in a right-and-left direction with respect to the frame can be changed in multiple steps.
US09520306B2

A process for fabricating an integrated circuit package includes selectively etching a leadframe strip to define a die attach pad and a plurality of contact pads. At least one side of the die attach pad has a plurality of spaced apart pad portions. A semiconductor die is mounted to the die attach pad and wires are bonded from the semiconductor die to respective ones of the contact pads. A first surface of the leadframe strip, including the semiconductor die and wire bonds, is encapsulated in a molding material such that at least one surface of the leadframe strip is exposed. The integrated circuit package is singulated from a remainder of the leadframe strip.
US09520299B2

A semiconductor device and method for forming a semiconductor device are presented. The method includes providing a patterned reticle having a pattern perimeter defined by active and dummy patterns. The dummy patterns include dummy structures modified according to a density equation. The patterned reticle is used to pattern a resist layer on a substrate with a device layer. An etch is performed to pattern the device layer using the patterned resist layer. Additional processing is performed to complete formation of the device.
US09520294B2

Atomic layer etching using alternating passivation and etching processes is performed with an electron beam plasma source, in which the ion energy is set to a low level below the etch threshold of the material to be etched during passivation and to a higher level above the etch threshold during etching but below the etch threshold of the unpassivated material.
US09520292B2

A technique of reducing leakage energy associated with a post-silicon target circuit is generally described herein. One example method includes purposefully aging a plurality of gates in the target circuit based on a targeted metric including a timing constraint associated with the target circuit.
US09520289B2

In a method of forming a pattern of a semiconductor device, a hard mask layer is formed on a substrate. A photoresist film is coated on the hard mask layer. The photoresist film is exposed and developed to form a first photoresist pattern. A smoothing process is performed on the first photoresist pattern to form a second photoresist pattern having a roughness property lower from that of the first photoresist pattern. In the smoothing process, a surface of the first photoresist pattern is treated with an organic solvent. An ALD layer is formed on a surface of the second photoresist pattern. The ALD layer is anisotropically etched to form an ALD layer pattern on a sidewall of the second photoresist pattern. The hard mask layer is etched using the second photoresist pattern and the ALD layer pattern as an etching mask to form a hard mask pattern.
US09520286B2

A semiconductor substrate having a silicon-based substrate, a buffer layer provided on the silicon-based substrate and made of a nitride semiconductor containing boron, and an operation layer formed on the buffer layer, wherein a concentration of boron in the buffer layer gradually decreasing toward a side of the operation layer from a side of the silicon-based substrate. Thereby, the semiconductor substrate in which the buffer layer contains boron sufficient to obtain a dislocation suppression effect and boron is not diffused to the operation layer is provided.
US09520285B2

A method comprises providing a monocrystalline silicon wafer (11) having a principal surface (17) which supports a masking layer (24), for example silicon dioxide or polycrystalline silicon, having windows (25) to expose corresponding regions of the silicon wafer, forming silicon carbide seed regions (30) on the exposed regions of the wafer, for example by forming carbon and converting the carbon into silicon carbide, and growing monocrystalline silicon carbide (31) on the silicon carbide seed regions. Thus, monocrystalline silicon carbide can be formed selectively on the silicon wafer which can help to avoid wafer bow.
US09520275B2

A chemical processing system and a method of using the chemical processing system to treat a substrate with a mono-energetic space-charge neutralized neutral beam-activated chemical process is described. The chemical processing system comprises a first plasma chamber for forming a first plasma at a first plasma potential, and a second plasma chamber for forming a second plasma at a second plasma potential greater than the first plasma potential, wherein the second plasma is formed using electron flux from the first plasma. Further, the chemical processing system comprises a substrate holder configured to position a substrate in the second plasma chamber.
US09520264B2

A system and method are disclosed for holding and cooling substrates during processing. A substrate clamp has an engagement portion for engaging a substrate about the inside diameter as well as a portion of the substrate surface immediately adjacent to the inside diameter. The clamp has a retracted position which enables the engagement portion to fit through the substrate ID, and an expanded position which enables the engagement portion to engage the substrate ID and the substrate surface immediately adjacent to the inside diameter. The clamp can include a conformal coating to enhance engagement between the substrate and the engagement portion. The clamp can also include an energy absorbing coating on one or more surfaces to maximize the absorption of radiative energy emitted from the substrate. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09520261B2

A bearing unit for rotary anodes of x-ray tubes includes a shaft and a flange element to which a rotary anode can be attached, wherein: the bearing unit can be inserted into a cutout within the x-ray tube and locked in place; the shaft is mounted via a first bearing element and a further bearing element; the first bearing element and the further bearing element each consists of an angular ball bearing mounted on the shaft and having an inner ring and an outer ring; and at least one spacer element is mounted between the inner rings and/or the outer rings of the first and the second bearing element.
US09520259B2

A plasma chamber having improved controllability of the ion density of the extracted ribbon ion beam is disclosed. A plurality of pairs of RF biased electrodes is disposed on opposite sides of the extraction aperture in a plasma chamber. In some embodiments, one of each pair of RF biased electrodes is biased at the extraction voltage, while the other of each pair is coupled to a RF bias power supply, which provides a RF voltage having a DC component and an AC component. In another embodiment, both of the electrodes in each pair are coupled to a RF biased power supply. A blocker may be disposed in the plasma chamber near the extraction aperture. In some embodiments, RF biased electrodes are disposed on the blocker.
US09520252B2

According to one embodiment, a mounting plate for coupling a hazard detector with a wall or ceiling of a structure is provided. The mounting plate includes a plate that is positionable against the wall or ceiling to removably couple the hazard detector to the wall or ceiling. The mounting plate also includes a centrally located opening, a first set of apertures arranged around the centrally located opening, and a second set of apertures arranged around the centrally located opening. The first set of apertures are dimensioned and arranged according to a first attachment standard that defines a first distance range relative to an axis of the centrally located aperture and the second set of apertures are dimensioned and arranged according to a second attachment standard that defines a second distance range relative to the axis of the centrally located aperture.
US09520250B2

A central controller for device automation can control output devices (e.g. automated lights and speakers) based on calculating the indoor location of a person. In familiar surroundings (e.g. homes), people may leave their favorite wireless devices unattended (e.g. smartphones and tablet PCs) and in general people exhibit varying proximity to their mobile wireless devices. Hence, indoor locations calculated for mobile wireless devices are of variable importance when calculating indoor occupant locations. (e.g. exhibiting highly-correlated locations when handheld). In one embodiment, the central controller aggregates wireless signals from mobile wireless devices. The central controller calculates one or more mobile device location estimates and person-to-device proximities from the wireless signals. The central controller uses each person-to-device proximity to weight the corresponding mobile device location in a calculation to estimate the occupancy of the region of the building and controls an output device based on the occupancy estimate.
US09520249B2

A switch includes a spring. The switch further includes a collapsing element. The spring has a first spring state in which it is being held in tension by a restraining element and a second spring state in which it is not being held in tension because the restraining element has failed. The collapsing element is situated such that when sufficient power is applied to the collapsing element heat from the collapsing element will cause the restraining element to fail. The switch further includes a first contact coupled to the spring. The switch further includes a second contact coupled to the spring. The first contact and the second contact have a first 1-2 electrical connection state when the spring is in the first spring state. The first contact and the second contact have a second 1-2 electrical connection state different from the first 1-2 electrical connection state when the spring is in the second spring state.
US09520245B2

The present invention provides a means in which contact between contacts in a “double-break (or double-make) contact structure” occurs in two places in the same state as much as possible. A contact structure includes two fixed members (110,112) each of which has a fixed contact (116,118) and a movable member (102) containing a movable contact (106) which contacts or separates from the fixed contact of each of the fixed members. The movable member is in the form of a strip as a whole, its one end is supported so as to allow the above mentioned contact and separation of the movable member, and the other end of the movable member has the movable contact, and the movable member has a narrowed section between its two ends.
US09520239B2

There is provided a chip electronic component may include: a ceramic body; external electrodes formed on both side portions of the ceramic body; and an interposer supporting the ceramic body and electrically connected to the external electrodes, wherein the interposer includes first and second terminal electrodes formed on both side portions thereof and recesses formed inwardly in the first and second terminal electrodes.
US09520230B2

A rare earth magnet, which is represented by a neodymium magnet (Nd2Fe14B) and neodymium magnet films with applications in micro-systems. A method for producing a rare earth magnet, comprising: (a) quenching a molten metal having a rare earth magnet composition to form quenched flakes of nanocrystalline structure; sintering the quenched flakes; subjecting the sintered body obtained to an orientation treatment; and applying a heat treatment with pressurization at a temperature sufficiently high to enable diffusion or fluidization of a grain boundary phase and at the same time, low enough to prevent coarsening of the crystal grains, (b) thick films deposited on a substrate, applying an annealing to crystallize with pressurization at a temperature sufficiently high to enable diffusion or fluidization of a grain boundary phase and, at the same time, low enough to prevent coarsening of the crystal grains.
US09520227B2

An apparatus for a contactless transmission of electrical energy between a wall and a door leaf/window sash fastened to the wall in an articulated fashion via hinges about a hinge axis includes a primary coil configured to be fastened to the wall, a secondary coil fastened to the door leaf/window sash, and a hinge bolt as a magnetic flux conduction body between the primary coil and the secondary coil. The hinge bolt comprises at least one flux element provided as a prefabricated structural component and at least one bearing piece comprising a mating frontal side. The at least one flux element comprises at least one frontal side. The at least one frontal side of the at least one flux element braces against the mating frontal side of the at least one bearing piece.
US09520207B2

Both single phase lead-free cubic pyrochlore bismuth zinc niobate (BZN)-based dielectric materials with a chemical composition of Bi1.5Zn(0.5+y)Nb(1.5−x)Ta(x)O(6.5+y), with 0≦x<0.23 and 0≦y<0.9 and films with these average compositions with Bi2O3 particles in an amorphous matrix and a process of manufacture thereof. The crystalline BZNT-based dielectric material has a relative permittivity of at least 120, a maximum applied electric field of at least 4.0 MV/cm at 10 kHz, a maximum energy storage at 25° C. and 10 kHz of at least 50 J/cm3 and a maximum energy storage at 200° C. and 10 kHz of at least 22 J/cm3. The process is a wet chemical process that produces thin films of Bi1.5Zn(0.5+y)Nb(1.5−x)Ta(x)O(6.5+y) without the use of 2-methoxyethanol and pyridine.
US09520201B2

A nonvolatile memory device is provided which includes a page buffer unit. The page buffer unit includes a first page buffer including a first A latch configured to store first upper bit data and a first B latch configured to store first lower bit data, and a second page buffer including a second A latch configured to store second upper bit data and a second B latch configured to store second lower bit data. A set pulse may be applied to both the first A latch and the second B latch, or to both the second A latch and the first B latch. The non-volatile memory device may provide high write performance and may respond within a time out period of a handheld terminal.
US09520198B2

An operating method includes biasing channel regions of unselected cell strings among the cell strings to an initial voltage while applying a first pass voltage to the plurality of word lines; floating the channel regions of the unselected cell strings; increasing the first pass voltage to a second pass voltage during the floating of the channel regions; and reading data from selected memory cells of selected cell strings among the cell strings.
US09520197B2

The various implementations described herein include systems, methods and/or devices used to enable adaptive erasure in a storage device. The method includes performing a plurality of memory operations including read operations and respective erase operations on portions of one or more non-volatile memory devices specified by the read operations and respective erase operations, where the respective erase operations are performed using a first set of erase parameters that has been established as a current set of erase parameters prior to performing the respective erase operations. The method includes, in accordance with each erase operation of at least a subset of the respective erase operations, updating one or more erase statistics that correspond to performance of multiple erase operations. The method includes, in accordance with a comparison of the erase statistics with an erasure performance threshold, establishing a second set of erase parameters as the current set of erase parameters.
US09520183B2

Threshold voltages in a charge storage memory are controlled by threshold voltage placement, such as to provide more reliable operation and to reduce the influence of factors such as neighboring charge storage elements and parasitic coupling. Pre-compensation or post-compensation of threshold voltage for neighboring programmed “aggressor” memory cells reduces the threshold voltage uncertainty in a flash memory system. Using a buffer having a data structure such as a lookup table provides for programmable threshold voltage distributions that enables the distribution of data states in a multi-level cell flash memory to be tailored, such as to provide more reliable operation.
US09520179B1

A read count circuit and a write count circuit, each for providing a count of data read from or written to, respectively, an asynchronous FIFO memory device. These circuits use read/write clock and read/write enable inputs, the selection of which depend on whether a read or write count is being provided. Essentially, the circuit comprises a shift register having a number of cascaded flip-flops, where the number of flip-flops is based on a ratio of one clock frequency to the other. An AND element at the output of each flip-flop AND's the output of the associated flip-flop with a read/write enable signal. A pulse generator at the output of each AND element synchronizes the outputs of the AND elements with the read/write clock. An adder then sums the outputs of the pulse generators. A counter increments with the adder output and decrements with a read/write enable signal, upon each read/write clock signal, thereby providing a read/write count output.
US09520178B2

Static random access memory (SRAM) circuits are used in most digital integrated circuits to store representations of data bits. To handle multiple concurrent memory requests, an efficient dual-port six transistor (6T) SRAM bit cell is proposed. The dual-port 6T SRAM cell uses independent word lines and bit lines such that the true/data side and the false/data-complement side of the SRAM bit cell may be accessed independently. Single-ended reads allow the two independent word lines and bit lines to handle two independent read operations in a single cycle using spatial domain multiplexing. Single-ended writes are enabled by adjusting the VDD power voltage supplied to a memory cell when writes are performed such that a single word line and bit line pair can be used write either a logical “0” or logical “1” into either side of the SRAM bit cell.
US09520177B2

A semiconductor device is equipped with memory cells which are provided at the intersections of word lines and local bit lines, hierarchical switches which are respectively connected between the local bit lines and a global bit line, and a hierarchical sense amplifier which amplifies a potential difference generated between signal nodes, with the signal nodes being respectively connected to the local bit lines. According to the present invention, because the hierarchical sense amplifier is a differential type circuit, a stable sensing operation can be performed. In addition, because one hierarchical sense amplifier can be assigned to multiple local bit lines, the number of hierarchical sense amplifiers can be reduced.
US09520171B2

A resistive change memory according to an embodiment includes: a memory cell including a resistive change element comprising a first and second terminals, and a semiconductor element, the semiconductor element including a first semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type, a second semiconductor layer of the first conductivity type, and a third semiconductor layer of a second conductivity type that is different from the first conductivity type, the third semiconductor layer being disposed between the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer, the first semiconductor layer being connected to the second terminal of the resistive change element; and a read unit configured to perform a read operation by applying a first read voltage between the first terminal and the second semiconductor layer, and then applying a second read voltage that is lower than the first read voltage between the first terminal and the second semiconductor layer.
US09520169B2

One semiconductor device includes a clock signal buffer circuit which, in response to activation of a chip selection signal (CS_n), starts generation of an internal clock signal PCLKAR, and internal circuits which operate in synchronization with the internal clock signal PCLKAR. The clock signal buffer circuit suspends generation of the internal clock signal PCLKAR at a second timing if command signals (CA0 to CA9) indicate read commands, and suspends generation of the internal clock signal PCLKAR at a first timing which is earlier than the second timing if the command signals (CA0 to CA9) indicate active commands. According to one embodiment, an internal clock signal is generated only for periods necessary in accordance with external command signals.
US09520166B2

A semiconductor memory device according to an embodiment includes a control circuit configured to apply a first voltage to a selected first line, apply a second voltage to a selected second line, and apply a third voltage and a fourth voltage to a non-selected first line and a non-selected second line in a setting operation, respectively. The control circuit includes a detection circuit configured to detect a transition of a resistance state of a selected memory cell using a reference voltage. The control circuit is configured to execute a read operation in which the control circuit applies the third voltage to the selected first line and the non-selected first line, applies the second voltage to the selected second line, and applies the fourth voltage to the non-selected second line, and set the reference voltage based on a voltage value of the selected second line.
US09520165B1

A pseudo-dual-port (PDP) memory such as a PDP SRAM is provided that independently controls the bit line precharging and the sense amplifier precharging to increase memory operating speed while eliminating or reducing the discharge of crowbar current.
US09520152B2

A hologram apparatus and hologram optical system includes: a light source which emits a light beam; a splitter which splits the light beam emitted from the light source into a first light beam and a second light beam; a first lens for exposing an optical information recording medium to convergent light of the first light beam; an optical path angle varying device which causes the second light beam to become incident at substantially the same position as the first light beam in the optical information recording medium and changes an angle of incidence of the second light beam incident on the optical information recording medium; and an optical path shifting element which shifts a position of a light beam incident on the optical information recording medium, according to an angle to the optical information recording medium of the light beam incident on the optical information recording medium.
US09520151B2

A method involves depositing a seed layer comprising at least A1 phase FePt. A main layer of A1 phase FePt is deposited over the seed layer. The main layer includes FePt of a different stoichiometry than the seed layer. The seed and main layers are annealed to convert the A1 phase FePt to L10 phase FePt. The annealing involves heating the substrate prior to depositing at least part of the A1 phase FePt of the main or seed layers.
US09520150B2

A flexible package being capable and being adapted for accommodating a multiplicity of absorbent articles. The package has a substantially parallelepiped-shape and further comprises a frame. The frame is completely surrounding the top gusset extending upwardly and substantially orthogonally from the top gusset. The flexible package also comprises a handle extending over the top gusset. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method of manufacturing a flexible package.
US09520144B2

A method, an apparatus, and a computer-readable medium configured with instructions that when executed carry out the method for determining a measure of harmonicity. In one embodiment the method includes selecting candidate fundamental frequencies within a range, and for candidate determining a mask or retrieving a pre-calculated mask that has positive value for each frequency that contributed to harmonicity, and negative value for each frequency that contributes to inharmonicity. A candidate harmonicity measure is calculated for each candidate fundamental by summing the product of the mask and the magnitude measure spectrum. The harmonicity measure is selected as the maximum of the candidate harmonicity measures.
US09520142B2

Audio information is monitored by a user device by generating audio signatures of ambient audio content captured by the user device, receiving conditions of the user device that were present when the ambient audio content for each audio signature was captured, performing audio content recognition on the audio signatures by comparing in a query engine the generated audio signatures to audio signatures previously stored in a database associated with the query engine, identifying generated audio signatures that match audio signatures stored in the database within a threshold confidence level, thereby establishing successful audio content recognition, identifying the conditions of the user device that were present for successful audio content recognition, generating scheduling rules regarding the conditions present during successful audio content recognition and controlling when the user device captures audio content and/or generates audio signatures based on the scheduling rules.
US09520136B2

Disclosed are a frame error concealment method and apparatus and an audio decoding method and apparatus. The frame error concealment (FEC) method includes: selecting an FEC mode based on at least one of a state of at least one frame and a phase matching flag, with regard to a time domain signal generated after time-frequency inverse transform processing; and performing corresponding time domain error concealment processing on the current frame based on the selected FEC mode, wherein the current frame is an error frame or the current frame is a normal frame when the previous frame is an error frame.
US09520125B2

There are provided a speech synthesis device, a speech synthesis method and a speech synthesis program which can represent a phoneme as a duration shorter than a duration upon modeling according to a statistical method. A speech synthesis device 80 according to the present invention includes a phoneme boundary updating means 81 which, by using a voiced utterance likelihood index which is an index indicating a degree of voiced utterance likelihood of each state which represents a phoneme modeled by a statistical method, updates a phoneme boundary position which is a boundary with other phonemes neighboring to the phoneme.
US09520122B2

An audio apparatus and method are provided. The method includes receiving, by a controller, first audio data and second audio data and processing the first audio data and the second audio data to generate first audio signals and second audio signals. Further, reverse phase signals of the first audio signals are generated by the controller. A first group of the plurality of audio outputting units output the first audio signals and a second group of the plurality of audio outputting units output the second audio signals and the reverse phase signals of the first audio signals.
US09520121B2

A substantially acoustically transparent planar, rigid frame divided into a plurality of individual, substantially two-dimensional cells is used to construct a sound absorption panel. A sheet of a flexible material is fixed to the rigid frame, and a plurality of platelets fixed to the sheet of flexible material such that each cell is provided with a respective platelet, thereby establishing a resonant frequency, establishing an increase in an absorption coefficient of the panel. The flexible material has a wrinkle or corrugation to permit distortion with reduced material elasticity. The wrinkle or corrugation permits the flexible material to distort beyond that afforded by a planar material of the same type, while retaining mechanical strength in supporting the plurality of platelets.
US09520118B2

The support comprises a board provided with multiple grooves on the upper face thereof, along which attachment brackets can be fitted for the movable control devices, pedals and similar devices on the board, allowing the different control devices to be attached by previously fixing the brackets on the grooves of the board at the required places and the subsequent fixed positioning of the control devices and pedals on the brackets, by means of attachment elements thereof. The grooves of the board have flanges along the upper edges thereof for holding the attachment elements of the brackets.
US09520115B2

An interchangeable drum slip that may be quickly installed to change the appearance of a drum and to provide protection to the drum shell. The drum slip is a rectangular piece of material that is pre-cut to precisely fit specific models of drums. Openings are cut into the material that correspond with hardware that is attached to the drum shell. A user installs the drum slip by placing the drum slip around the drum shell and securing the ends of the drum slip together. The openings in the drum slip fit over and around any hardware that is attached to the drum shell and any apertures formed in the drum shell. The ends of the drum slip are pulled together and secured with an adhesive. For some drums, the drum slip may be installed without disassembling any parts of the drum. For other drums, one or more drum heads and retaining hoops must be removed to install the drum slip. The drum slip may be transparent, and the drum slip may be made in any color and messages, designs, or information may be printed on or molded into the drum slip. Anyone can quickly and easily change drum slips to change the appearance of a drum.
US09520092B2

A liquid crystal display includes a pixel circuit having a first hold unit, a second hold unit, a transfer control unit and a pixel unit. The first hold unit selectively holds a higher or lower driving voltage which is arbitrarily set between a ground potential and a power-supply voltage, according to a row selection signal from a vertical scanning unit and a logical value of data from a horizontal scanning unit. The second hold unit selectively holds the higher or lower driving voltage held in the first hold unit. The transfer control unit transfers to the second hold unit, the higher or lower driving voltage held in the first hold unit according to a trigger pulse. The pixel unit drives a liquid crystal according to a potential difference between the higher or lower driving voltage held in the second hold unit and a voltage supplied to a common electrode thereof.
US09520091B2

A liquid crystal (LC) cell and the liquid crystal display with the same are disclosed. The LC cell includes a first LC cell and a second LC cell arranged opposite to the first LC cell, wherein the first LC cell is a normally white cell, and the second LC cell is a normally black cell. A display brightness of the second LC cell is white when the display brightness of the first LC cell transforms from white to black. The display brightness of the first LC cell is white when the display brightness of the second LC cell transforms from black to white. By mixing the normally white cell and the normally black cell, the response time is enhanced. In addition, the tracking or blurring effects occurring for the moving objects are efficiently eliminated.
US09520082B2

An organic light emitting display device includes: pixels at crossing regions of data lines and scan lines, each of the pixels including an organic light emitting diode (OLED); a scan driver configured to drive the scan lines; a data driver configured to drive the data lines; a control line driving unit configured to drive control lines; and a compensation unit configured to extract at least one of deterioration information of the OLED or threshold voltage information of a driving transistor from at least one of the pixels during a sensing period. The data driver is further configured to supply a same first data signal to each of the pixels other than the at least one of the pixels in the sensing period.
US09520081B2

A device is provided that includes a subtraction portion that outputs a difference value between a target totalizing value, obtained by accumulating a luminance value of a target pixel up to a current frame, and a reference totalizing value corresponding to a luminance value of a reference pixel, adjacent the target pixel, accumulated up to the current frame; a quantization portion that quantizes the difference value and outputs a quantization value; and a quantization error correction portion that corrects the quantization value at a correction frame selected based on a quantization step of the quantization value and a quantization error of the quantization value.
US09520073B2

A novel system and apparatus for testing surgical fastening devices in an ex-vivo body wall wound closure simulation device is disclosed. The system is particularly useful with simulating abdominal wall wound closure. The system has a body wall curvature approximator device, a tissue fixation system, and a tissue support and tensioner device. The system provides for anatomically correct presentation and tensioning on body wall tissue specimens for ex-vivo wound closure simulation. The system may also be used for other anatomic tissue specimens in addition to body walls.
US09520071B1

A display system employs an active image-generating screen (102) that presents a video image. The screen contains a plurality of block facets (112), each containing a plurality of light-emissive modules (114) preferably implemented with LEDs. Each light-emissive module is configured so that the maximum intensity of that module's light emission occurs along a direction (138) materially non-perpendicular to the back surface (136) of the module's supporting body (130). The modules are arranged so that their maximum light-intensity directions are largely the same. The block facets are configured to approximate a convex curved surface. The maximum light-intensity directions (158) of the block facets are thereby materially slanted relative to one another. Arranging the display system in this manner enables the light-processing efficiency to be very high. A motion simulator, such as a flight simulator, is formed by combining the screen with a reflective collimator (104).
US09520066B2

A routing tool is disclosed. The routing tool is configured to determine a landing site for an aircraft by receiving flight data. The routing tool identifies at least one landing site proximate to a flight path and generates a spanning tree between the landing site and the flight path. According to some embodiments, the landing sites are determined in real-time during flight. Additionally, the landing sites may be determined at the aircraft or at a remote system or device in communication with the aircraft. In some embodiments, the routing tool generates one or more spanning trees before flight. The spanning trees may be based upon a flight plan, and may be stored in a data storage device. Methods and computer readable media are also disclosed.
US09520056B2

A hand-held device has a housing having a top surface and a bottom surface opposite the top surface, at least one transmitter, a first user interface associated with the top surface of the housing having first user interface input elements which, when active, are actuatable to cause the at least one transmitter to transmit communications to an external device, and a second user interface associated with the bottom surface of the housing having second user interface input elements which, when active, are actuatable to cause the at least one transmitter to transmit communications to an external device. The hand-held device is programmed to selectively make one of the first user interface input elements of the first user interface and the second user interface input elements of the second user interface active while making the other of the first user interface input elements of the first user interface and the second user interface input elements of the second user interface inactive.
US09520048B2

A system to provide an always-on always-available security system for a platform is described. The system comprises a multi-mode system having a plurality of modes, available whenever the platform has a source of power, the modes comprising an unarmed mode, in which the security system is not protecting the platform, an armed mode, in which the platform is protected, the armed mode reached from the unarmed mode, after an arming command, and a suspecting mode, in which the platform is suspecting theft, the suspecting mode reached from the armed mode, when a risk behavior is detected. The system further enabling the unarmed mode to be reached from the armed mode when a user disarms the platform, and the unarmed mode reached from the armed mode through the suspecting mode when an override command is received.
US09520045B2

Companion and accessory devices can be wirelessly leashed together in a manner that enables the devices to estimate their proximities to each other. One device can periodically attempt to detect a signal from the other device. For each attempt, the attempting device can store an indication of whether the signal was detected. If a number of times that the signal was undetected exceeds a threshold, then the attempting device can perform specified operations, such as alerting a user that the wireless leash was broken. As another example, one device can detect that a strength of a signal from the other device exceeds a threshold. In response, the detecting device can measure signal strengths more frequently. If the measuring device then detects that the signal strength exceeds another threshold, then the measuring device can cause specified operations to be performed, such as data synchronization between the devices or unlocking a device.
US09520038B2

A copper theft alarm system is disclosed. The alarm system can be deployed on existing grain bins or other electrically powered equipment, allowing persons to receive an automated phone call, text message notification, or other desired notification when the system has sensed that a copper cable is being pulled out of a conduit. The notification can aid in potentially disrupting a thief's activity.
US09520033B2

Aspects of the present disclosure are directed towards a transaction machine. The transaction machine may include a first transaction access point configured to provide a first set of transaction options and a second transaction access point configured to provide a second set of transaction options. An item cartridge may be shared between the first transaction access point and the second transaction access point. During a transaction, a routing mechanism may route an item from the item cartridge to an item dispenser of the first transaction access point or to an item dispenser of the second transaction access point.
US09520030B2

A gaming system for conducting a multi-player wagering game includes a multi-touch table surface that is touched by a handheld electronic wager input device (EWID) carried by a player for placing wagers on a wagering game displayed on the multi-touch table surface. Each EWID carried by a player has an associated unique identification code, which is linked to the respective player's account. Players indicate an amount to be wagered by touching the EWID to designated wager amount areas, then place the wager by touching the EWID to a designated wagering area. Because each EWID is uniquely associable with distinct player accounts, the gaming system can support any number of players placing wagers. The funds remain safe in the player account and no funds are stored on the EWID. Only the identification code is detected, which is compared with the associated player account before allowing that player to place wagers.
US09520027B2

In a gaming machine, a display displays a jackpot challenge for providing a progressive payout. A controller executes each round of a game, determines an event to be performed in each round, determines whether a determined event belongs to predetermined events capable of providing any one icon of a plurality of icons, performs the determined event and determine a result of a performed event, obtains an icon of the performed event when the performed event belongs to the predetermined events and the result of the performed event is to award the icon of the performed event to a player, triggers the jackpot challenge when the plurality of icons are obtained, and executes the jackpot challenge to determine whether to award the progressive payout to the player.
US09520021B2

To conduct a contest, game parameters are downloaded from a server to a device in response to a player app being launched on the device. The player device displays available games that can be played by a player, the games including target game locations from which the games can be played. A player is allowed to select a game to play only when the player is within a predetermined distance of a target game location and when check-ins are still available for the game. A jackpot prize is awarded to the player if the player is a winner of a game selected by the player. The player is entered in a raffle if the player is not the winner of the game selected by the player.
US09520020B2

A method in a gaming system is described herein. The gaming system includes at least one server having a memory, a network interface, and a processor. The method includes generating a plurality of games. The method further includes determining whether a game is available for play at a first gaming device, including: (a) selecting a first game from the plurality of games, (b) selecting a second gaming device currently granted access to the first game, (c) determining first location information associated with the first gaming device and second location information associated with the second gaming device, (d) determining whether the first game is available for play at the first gaming device, and (e) repeating b), c) and d), for a first group of gaming devices. The method includes sending a message to the first gaming device including information regarding the games available for play at the first gaming device.
US09520019B2

When a trigger condition is established in a normal game, the following processes are executed: a process of shifting to a bonus game in which a re-trigger condition which is less stringent than the trigger condition may be established; and when the re-trigger condition is established in the bonus game, a process of adding another bonus game having a smaller benefit than the bonus game and executing the another bonus game.
US09520013B2

A product dispensing device includes: product accommodating passages; a dispensing mechanism which regulates a product from moving toward the downstream side in a standby state, and dispenses a product positioned at the most downstream side; a disc-shaped member which rotates in one or another direction; link members each of which has a standby attitude in a normal state to cause the dispensing mechanism to be in the standby state, and causes the dispensing mechanism to be driven when swinging from the standby attitude to have a dispensing attitude; and a hook member which causes the link member to swing to have the dispensing attitude when the disc-shaped member rotates in the one direction so that the distal end abuts against the link member, and retreats from the radially outer region when the disc-shaped member rotates in the other direction so that the distal end abuts against the link member.
US09520010B1

The decorative glass panel for garage door is a sectional garage door with a fingerprint scanner. The sectional garage door is formed from a plurality of door panels. Each of the plurality of door panels have been formed with decorative designs intended to make each panel visually appealing. Associated with the decorative glass panel for garage door is an entry scanner that is allows for access into the garage without the use of a remote control. The decorative design of the scanner housing is coordinated with the design of each of the plurality of door panels which enhances the overall decorative appeal of the decorative glass panel for garage door. The decorative glass panel for garage door comprises a plurality of door panels and an entry scanner.
US09520008B2

Disclosed is a system for a facility supporting an access controller, at least one ingress card reader and an auto-enrollment type controller including a front panel having a single button, a controller board, a terminal block for connecting at least the one ingress card reader to the auto-enrollment type controller board and to connect the auto-enrollment type controller to door locks, and a mounting plate, with the auto-enrollment type controller being configured by a user according to operational requirements of the facility by the user asserting the button for a defined period of time.
US09519997B1

Optimally-sized bounding boxes for scene data including procedurally generated geometry are determined by first determining whether an estimated bounding box including the procedural geometry is potentially visible in an image to be rendered. If so, the procedural geometry is generated and an optimal bounding box closely bounding the procedural geometry is determined. The generated procedural geometry may then be discarded or stored for later use. Rendering determines if the optimal bounding box is potentially visible. If so, then the associated procedural geometry is regenerated and rendered. Alternatively, after the estimated bounding box is potentially visible, the generated procedural geometry may be partitioned into subsets using a spatial partitioning scheme. A separate optimal bounding box is determined for each of the subsets. During rendering, if any of the optimal bounding boxes are potentially visible, the associated procedural geometry is regenerated and rendered.
US09519989B2

Using facial recognition and gesture/body posture recognition techniques, a system can naturally convey the emotions and attitudes of a user via the user's visual representation. Techniques may comprise customizing a visual representation of a user based on detectable characteristics, deducting a user's temperament from the detectable characteristics, and applying attributes indicative of the temperament to the visual representation in real time. Techniques may also comprise processing changes to the user's characteristics in the physical space and updating the visual representation in real time. For example, the system may track a user's facial expressions and body movements to identify a temperament and then apply attributes indicative of that temperament to the visual representation. Thus, a visual representation of a user, which may be, for example, an avatar or fanciful character, can reflect the user's expressions and moods in real time.
US09519984B2

In a combined image obtained by superposing a character image on an image such that a second text rendered in the character image overlaps a first text rendered in the image, an image processing device according to the present invention determines a part of a character portion constituting a pre-translation character string, not covered by non-transparent pixels constituting a post-translation character string as a deficient pixel D, and corrects color attribute of the deficient pixel D in the combined image by utilizing color attribute of a part of the combined image or of the image.
US09519983B2

According to an illustrative embodiment, an image processing device is provided. The image processing device includes a foreground selection processing circuit to select at least one foreground image that has been separated from a source image; a background selection circuit to select at least two display background images from at least one background image that has been separated from the source image; and a combination circuit to combine the at least one selected foreground image with the at least two display background images to generate a plurality of combined images, wherein at least one of the plurality of combined images does not appear in the source image.
US09519976B1

A stereoscopic camera calibration target includes: first illumination points on a first surface; second illumination points on a second surface, the first and second surfaces being planar, parallel to each other, and spaced from each other; and circuitry that sets a strobe frequency of the first and second illumination points. A method includes: moving a calibration target in front of a stereoscopic camera, the calibration target comprising first points on a first surface and second points on a second surface, the first and second surfaces being planar, parallel to each other, and spaced from each other; capturing, using the stereoscopic camera, an image sequence of the calibration target, the image sequence comprising pairs of left and right images of at least some of the first and second points; determining a calibration value for the stereoscopic camera using the image sequence; and processing the image sequence using the calibration value.
US09519972B2

Systems and methods are described for generating restricted depth of field depth maps. In one embodiment, an image processing pipeline application configures a processor to: determine a desired focal plane distance and a range of distances corresponding to a restricted depth of field for an image rendered from a reference viewpoint; generate a restricted depth of field depth map from the reference viewpoint using the set of images captured from different viewpoints, where depth estimation precision is higher for pixels with depth estimates within the range of distances corresponding to the restricted depth of field and lower for pixels with depth estimates outside of the range of distances corresponding to the restricted depth of field; and render a restricted depth of field image from the reference viewpoint using the set of images captured from different viewpoints and the restricted depth of field depth map.
US09519970B2

A depth image of a scene may be received, observed, or captured by a device. A human target in the depth image may then be scanned for one or more body parts such as shoulders, hips, knees, or the like. A tilt angle may then be calculated based on the body parts. For example, a first portion of pixels associated with an upper body part such as the shoulders and a second portion of pixels associated with a lower body part such as a midpoint between the hips and knees may be selected. The tilt angle may then be calculated using the first and second portions of pixels.
US09519965B2

A disclosed method includes: performing a processing for adjusting positions of voxel data for an object and data of a geometric model for the object; calculating, for each voxel included in a range defined by a cross section among plural voxels that are included in the voxel data, a voxel value of the voxel from physical values in elements of the geometric model, which are included in a predetermined range of the voxel, based on a relation between the cross section and vectors; and rendering an image by using the voxel value calculated for each voxel. A vector of the vectors is set for one element of plural elements included in the geometric model, the vectors represent a direction of an inner structure of the object, and the cross section is set for the voxel data and the geometric model data.
US09519960B2

A method for estimating a number of objects is to be implemented by a processing module, and is utilized to estimate a number of a plurality of objects having elongated shapes based on an image of the objects that contains substantially-circular end faces of the objects. The method includes steps of generating a characteristic image based on the image of the objects, the characteristic image containing a plurality of characteristic patterns which are associated with the end faces of the objects, calculating a number of the characteristic patterns based on the characteristic image, and obtaining an estimated number of the objects based on at least the number of the characteristic patterns thus calculated.
US09519957B1

Aspects of the subject technology relate to automatically and selectively applying a fill light filter to an image. A process includes determining an edge-preserved, smoothed version of the image, and determining a grayscale version of the image. The process also includes comparing each pixel of the edge-preserved, smoothed version of the image to each corresponding pixel of the grayscale version of the image. The process also includes applying the fill light filter to the image based on the comparison. The fill light filter is automatically adjusted based on identifying regions in the image. Selectively applying the fill light filter can reduce artifacts and noise from forming or being amplified as a result of the fill light filter.
US09519942B2

The present disclosure is generally directed to a method and computing device for determining whether a mark is genuine. According to various embodiments, a computing device (or logic circuitry thereof) uses unintentionally-produced artifacts within a genuine mark to define an identifiable electronic signature, and extracts certain location identifiers corresponding to certain measured features of the signature in order to enhance the ease and speed with which numerous genuine signatures can be searched and compared with signatures of candidate marks.
US09519941B1

A system and method for exchanging transportation data via wearable devices such as, for example, wearable computerized glasses, a wearable computerized wrist device, or a wearable computerized earpiece.
US09519940B1

A method and system for booking a travel ticket for a traveler. The method includes recording a traveler's travel preferences in online repository for personal information in an account established for the traveler. The stored information is then sent to a second computer along with authorization information to enable booking a ticket for the traveler.
US09519936B2

Embodiments of the invention provide techniques that quantize community interactions with social media to understand and influence consumer experiences.
US09519931B2

Systems and methods of personalized actionable notifications are disclosed. In some example embodiments, event information indicating an event for an item is received, a determination is made to provide a notification of the event to the user based on the event information and user activity information for the user, the notification is generated based on the determination, and the generated notification is caused to be displayed on a screen of the computing device via an application on a computing device of the user without causing the computing device to leave a context of content being displayed on the computing device prior to the notification being displayed on the computing device, the application being independent of the context, the notification overlaying the content, and the notification further comprising at least one user interface element configured to enable the user to request an action to be performed for the item.
US09519929B2

A method and apparatus is disclosed that provides an Internet wish list for deferred purchasing. A user clicks on an add to wish list button located on locations, such as, a product page, a banner ad, or search results to add an item to the wish list. A reminder system is used to remind a user to purchase an item at a future time. The shopping list service may be integrated at a high level of integration and a low level of integration. On a low level of integration a proxy platform is used to add functionality to a website.
US09519928B2

Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods and computer program products for providing product evaluation. An exemplary apparatus is configured to identify purchase transaction data associated with identified electronic communications between a merchant and a customer, the purchase transaction data includes product level data from a transaction, receive the identified purchase transaction data, the purchase transaction data is received in an unstructured format, convert the purchase transaction data from the unstructured format to a structured format, associate the structured purchase transaction data with the customer's online banking application, aggregate purchase transaction data related to one or more products purchased by the customer, determine one or more products are purchased on a recurring basis, and provide the customer with one or more options based at least partially on determining the one or more products are purchased on a recurring basis.
US09519908B2

Methods and systems for issuing targeted coupons with a network-based system is disclosed. For example, a system can include a targeting module, a coupon rules engine, a coupon generation engine, a coupon widget, and a checkout module. The targeting module can create a model for controlling coupon generation. The coupon rules engine can determine whether a user accessing the network-based system qualifies to receive a coupon based at least in part on application of the model created by the targeting module. The coupon generation engine can generate a coupon based on the coupon rules engine determining that the user qualifies to receive a coupon. The coupon widget can present the coupon to the user while the user is accessing the network-based system. Finally, the checkout module can apply the coupon to a purchase by the user.
US09519907B2

A method includes generating a delta price and generating a final price using the delta price. A process and system provide an ability to determine a product's final price with a selected set of features in which multiple configurations are to be generated. The ability to determine such final prices can be based on the ability to determine the change in price between one configuration of a product and that of another product configuration (e.g. the product configured with the desired feature(s)). A customer is able to select one or more features, and so view the effect on the product's final price, as well as compare the prices (and incremental price differences) between various configurations of a given product. This increases the likelihood of the purchase being made, because it provides the potential purchaser with the final price earlier in the sales cycle.
US09519897B2

In accordance with one embodiment, a reading apparatus which reads information from a RFID tag attached to a commodity comprises a housing which includes an opening serving as an entrance/exit of the commodity and space for housing the commodity inside; an antenna arranged in the space; an opening and closing lid for opening and closing the opening; a reading module which reads information relating to the commodity from the RFID tag attached to each commodity housed in the housing through the antenna; and an output module which outputs the information read by the reading module.
US09519895B2

Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods and computer program products for associating gift cards with accounts. An exemplary apparatus is configured to: receive information associated with a gift card; associate the gift card with the account; receive information associated with a transaction; determine the transaction qualifies for the gift card; and apply funds associated with the gift card to the transaction.
US09519888B2

Email server side or client side components either remove email attachments from the relevant email, or identify the attachment while the email is being composed and makes the attachment available from a secure website or file hosting site. The recipient then receives instructions in the email and links to access the attachments rather than the attachments themselves. Email attachment size limitations are overcome for sender/recipient mail systems. Also, file type limitations related to email attachments are overcome, provides improved attachment security, and reduces email bandwidth costs.
US09519887B2

Aspects of the disclosure relate to methods, systems, and apparatuses for self-service data importing. In some aspects, a user may interact with a data importing server to import data into a database and/or manipulate existing data and/or data associations in the database. The data importing server may contain files or scripts of different specifications or processes to perform for a plurality of predefined jobs. The user may interact with the data importing server via a user interface. The user interface may outline each step in the process and enable steps only after the user has completed a previous, prerequisite step. The user interface may provide user selectable buttons to input user commands, and the user selectable buttons may initially be disabled and become enabled after the user or the system performs the corresponding prerequisite step.
US09519879B1

Techniques to provide and deploy a business process are disclosed. A business process source filed stored in a memory is received. The business process source file, as stored in memory, is provided as an input to an in-memory compiler. A business process class file stored in the memory is received as output from the in-memory compiler. The business process class file, as stored in memory, is provided to a business process engine class loader.
US09519873B2

A satellite support and administration system includes a web based portal to allow widespread user access to advanced satellite technology at extremely low costs. The system supports the sequential launch of increasingly sophisticated satellites having limited life spans. Each satellite is equipped with a powerful array of sensors for space based measurement of scientifically and commercially important phenomena. A ground based platform supports and encourages the development of software and custom applications to operate experiments utilizing the processors and sensor array on the satellite.
US09519872B2

A system is provided that implements a more systematic process for obtaining business knowledge that is more efficient and timely. The process automatically reads business documents and produces a business ontology. In one implementation, the process dissects documents into sentences or collection of words that most resembles a sentence. Natural language processing algorithms may be used to identify the role of term within a sentence. Terms and associations resulting from the document analysis are used to specify a business ontology which can be then used to provide input to a software design process, among other business uses.
US09519854B2

An RFID tag is attached to a metal member including a slit, the RFID tag including conductive members attached to a surface of the metal member at corresponding sides of the slit in a width direction of the slit through an isolator; and an IC chip that receives power through the conductive members. When a frequency of radio waves is f, the power induced between the sides the slit is Wa, voltage induced between the sides of the slit is V, an area of each of the conductive members is S, thickness of the isolator is d, a dielectric constant of the isolator is ∈r, a dielectric constant of vacuum is ∈0, and a minimum value of the power required for the IC chip to operate is Wmin, an inequality Wmin≦Wa−4πf·S·∈0·∈r·V2/d is satisfied.
US09519851B2

The present invention relates to a process for producing an opaque, transparent or translucent transaction card having multiple features, such as a holographic foil, integrated circuit chip, silver magnetic stripe with text on the magnetic stripe, opacity gradient, an invisible optically recognizable compound, a translucent signature field such that the signature on back of the card is visible from the front of the card and an active thru date on the front of the card. The invisible optically recognizable compound is preferably an infrared ink comprising an infrared phthalocyanine dye, an infrared phosphor, and a quantum dot energy transfer compound. The infrared ink can be detected by a sensor found in an ATM or card assembly line.
US09519847B2

An apparatus for identifying a patient and marking containers of biological products or test tubes (13) associated with said patient before collecting said biological products to be analyzed is described, comprising a high security portable hardware device (1) for processing and storing the patient's data capable of associating the patient's personal data and biometric data, a reading and patient biometric recognition device (2) of said portable hardware device, a personal computer (4) interacting with an operator and connected to a local communications network (50) for exchanging information with remote data storage means (3), one or more computerized labeling machines (5) of test tubes (13), each comprising a printer (11) of barcodes onto labels (10) adapted to receive printing commands after comparing expected and detected specimens (13) accommodated in a positioning and recognition device (12) supported by said labeling machine (5) and applying said labels (10) to said test tubes (13). Each of said labeling machines (5) comprises a processing and control board (6) provided with a univocal address within said local communications network (50), which can be recalled by said operator by typing into a browser of said personal computer (4), said processing and control board (6) being capable of exchanging information with said remote data storage means (3) and with said personal computer (4), and on the basis of said information, as well as that received after said comparison operated by said positioning and recognition device (12), of sending said print commands to said printer (11) included in said labeling machine.
US09519843B2

A learning unit generates a function table indicating the relationship between the class number and position information of an object and the probability of appearance of the object for each small area image pattern of a code book, calculates a sharing matrix indicating the commonality of a feature amount between the classes, makes a tree diagram in which the classes with a similar feature amount are clustered, and calculates the weight of each node in the tree diagram for each small area image pattern. The recognition processing unit compares image data captured by a camera with the code book, selects the closest small area image pattern, extracts the class related to the node with the smallest weight among the nodes with a weight equal to or greater than a threshold value, and votes the position information of the small area image pattern for the class, thereby recognizing the object.
US09519837B2

A method of tracking a target object in frames of video data includes receiving a first tracking position associated with the target object in a first frame of a video sequence; identifying, for a second frame of the video sequence, a plurality of representation levels and at least one node for each representation level; determining, by a processor, a second tracking position in the second frame by estimating motion of the target object in the second frame between the first frame and the second frame; determining, at each representation level by the processor, a value for each node based on a conditional property of the node in the second frame; and adjusting, by the processor, the second tracking position based on the values determined for each of the nodes and interactions between at least some of the nodes at different representation levels.
US09519832B2

A parking camera system and a method of driving the same includes a plurality of cameras equipped with a vehicle, an image synthesizer for synthesizing images photographed by the plurality of cameras, and an estimated travel trajectory generating and overlaying processor for generating an estimated travel trajectory of the vehicle by receiving steering angle information of the vehicle, and synthesizing the estimated travel trajectory of the vehicle with the images synthesized by the image synthesizer.
US09519831B2

A method for detecting a generalized passerby includes: acquiring an input image; determining whether a preset common feature of a wheel exists in the input image; selecting an image window at left side or right side or upper side of a center of a region where the preset common feature of the wheel is located in a case that the preset common feature of the wheel exists in the input image; inputting the selected image window into a preset upper-body classifier; detecting whether an upper body of a passerby exists in the selected image window and outputting a first detection result.
US09519829B2

An image processing system comprises a generating unit that reads documents and generates a read image including document images; an extracting unit that extracts each of the document images; a character recognizing unit that performs character recognition processing on each the document images; a determining unit that determines whether first information and second information have a pair relationship, the first information being any one of recognition results obtained on one side of the document images, and the second information being any one of recognition results obtained on the other side of the document images; and a registering unit that registers pieces of information for the recognition results corresponding to the one side and to the other side respectively including the first information and the second information which are determined that both pieces of information have the pair relationship, as information for a piece of the documents, in a storage unit.
US09519822B2

A determination method for determining reliability of a selective binding amount of a substance to be examined obtained as detection intensity of a label when a labeled substance to be examined binds to a selective binding substance fixed as a spot on a carrier includes: determining a position of the spot in image data obtained by imaging the detection intensity in the carrier and extracting a pixel group corresponding to the spot; calculating a ratio or a difference between a median value of the detection intensity of the pixel group extracted at the determining and a median value of the detection intensity of the pixel group excluding a certain top proportion of and/or a certain bottom proportion of pixels; and determining quality of the reliability based on the ratio or the difference calculated at the calculating and a certain reference value.
US09519812B2

A method for managing a sphere of wireless tags, the method comprises programming, by a wireless reader, a group of wireless tags to belong to the sphere of wireless tags; sending by the wireless reader sphere beacons aimed to the wireless tags of the sphere; detecting a loss of a wireless tag of the sphere if the wireless tag did not respond to a predetermined number of sphere beacons; and responding to the detecting of the loss of the wireless tag.
US09519808B2

Data in a portable electronic device is protected by using external and internal status detection means to determine if the device is misplaced, lost, or stolen. The device then takes, singly or in combination, one of several actions to protect the data on the device, including declaring its location to an owner or service provider, locking the device or specific functions of the device to disable all data retrieval functionality, erasing or overwriting all the stored data in the device or, where the data has been stored in the device in an encrypted format, destroying an internally-stored encryption key, thereby preventing unauthorized access to the encrypted data in the device.
US09519801B2

In accordance with disclosed embodiments, there are provided methods, systems, and apparatuses for implementing data masking via compression dictionaries including, for example, means for receiving customer data at the host organization; compressing the customer data using dictionary based compression and a compression dictionary; storing the compressed customer data in a database of the host organization; retrieving the compressed customer data from the database of the host organization; and de-compressing the compressed customer data via a masked compression dictionary, in which the masked compression dictionary de-compresses the customer data into masked customer data. Other related embodiments are disclosed.
US09519783B2

Methods and systems for evaluating customer security preferences are presented. In some embodiments, a computer system may receive, from a customer portal computing platform, a request for a security dashboard user interface for a customer. In response to receiving the request for the security dashboard user interface, the computer system may request, from a security score computing platform, a security score for the customer. Subsequently, the computer system may receive, from the security score computing platform, the security score for the customer. The computer system then may generate, based on the security score for the customer, the security dashboard user interface for the customer. Thereafter, the computer system may provide, to the customer portal computing platform, the generated security dashboard user interface for the customer.
US09519779B2

A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to cause a processor to perform a process includes code to cause the processor to receive a set of indications of allowed behavior associated with an application. The processor is also caused to initiate an instance of the application within a sandbox environment. The processor is further caused to receive, from a monitor module associated with the sandbox environment, a set of indications of actual behavior of the instance of the application in response to initiating the instance of the application within the sandbox environment. The processor is also caused to send an indication associated with an anomalous behavior if at least one indication from the set of indications of actual behavior does not correspond to an indication from the set of indications of allowed behavior.
US09519778B2

Systems, methods, and media for outputting a dataset based upon anomaly detection are provided. In some embodiments, methods for outputting a dataset based upon anomaly detection: receive a training dataset having a plurality of n-grams, which plurality includes a first plurality of distinct training n-grams each being a first size; compute a first plurality of appearance frequencies, each for a corresponding one of the first plurality of distinct training n-grams; receive an input dataset including first input n-grams each being the first size; define a first window in the input dataset; identify as being first matching n-grams the first input n-grams in the first window that correspond to the first plurality of distinct training n-grams; compute a first anomaly detection score for the input dataset using the first matching n-grams and the first plurality of appearance frequencies; and output the input dataset based on the first anomaly detection score.
US09519775B2

The various aspects include systems and methods for enabling mobile computing devices to recognize when they are at risk of experiencing malicious behavior in the near future given a current configuration. Thus, the various aspects enable mobile computing devices to anticipate malicious behaviors before a malicious behavior begins rather than after the malicious behavior has begun. In the various aspects, a network server may receive behavior vector information from multiple mobile computing devices and apply pattern recognition techniques to the received behavior vector information to identify malicious configurations and pathway configurations that may lead to identified malicious configurations. The network server may inform mobile computing devices of identified malicious configurations and the corresponding pathway configurations, thereby enabling mobile computing devices to anticipate and prevent malicious behavior from beginning by recognizing when they have entered a pathway configuration leading to malicious behavior.
US09519765B2

A method for differentiated access control on a computing device, and the computing device, the method including starting a timer on the computing device; resetting the timer if activity occurs on the computing device prior to the expiration of the timer; and preventing a subset of applications from being launched or enabled on expiry of the timer.
US09519754B2

Methods, apparatus, and software packages for data processing are disclosed. In some embodiments, the method may include receiving a dataset. In some embodiments, the method may include determining a control number of a processing system. In some embodiments, the control number may include a number of evaluation units within the processing system. The method may include processing the dataset using a plurality of evaluation units. In some embodiments, processing the dataset may include allocating a free evaluation unit to form a busy evaluation unit. Processing the dataset may also include creating a data subdivision for the busy evaluation unit, the data subdivision including a part of the dataset. Processing the dataset may also include evaluating the data subdivision. Processing the dataset may also include releasing the busy evaluation unit. The allocating, creating, evaluating, and releasing may performed concurrently by the plurality of evaluation units.
US09519753B1

Systems and methods for coordinating a medical imaging workflow with the use of preparation and coordination actions, and similar pre-processing protocols are disclosed herein. Imaging procedure data from a medical imaging study, such as image data and order data produced from imaging procedures (e.g., radiological imaging procedures) at medical facilities is processed and presented for review to a preparing user. The preparing user is offered the ability to change the display characteristics of image presentation, supplement erroneous or incomplete data and information of the study, open a support request for the study, or associate prior or comparison images with the study. The changes provided by the preparing user within these or other portions of a preparation protocol may be used to affect a subsequent display of the medical imaging study, and in some examples, to affect the assignment of the study in the workflow to particular imaging users.
US09519751B2

A method for determining the presence of a biological entity. The method may include entering into a digital computer, at least a plurality of first input values associated with a first genetic element, a plurality of second input values associated with a second genetic element, and a plurality of third input values associated with a third genetic element associated with a plurality of samples. The method also includes determining a threshold value associated with the third genetic element, separating the samples using the threshold value into a first set of samples and a second set of samples, clustering the first set of samples in a feature space defined by the first genetic element and the second genetic element, defining a first boundary space using the first set of samples, and defining a second boundary space using the second set of samples.
US09519744B1

A method, system, and computer program product to merge storage elements on multi-cycle signal distribution trees into multi-bit cells of an integrated circuit include determining initial placement regions and initial placement locations for a plurality of storage elements arranged in two or more levels on the one or more trees, determining potential merge storage elements among the plurality of storage elements, and merging one or more pairs of the potential merge storage elements across the one or more trees into the multi-bit cells based on satisfying an additional condition. The two or more levels of each of the one or more trees includes a root level closest to a tree source of the respective one or more trees and a leaf level closest to a tree sink of the respective one or more trees.
US09519737B2

A method for designing the spatial partition of a filter module used in an aperture-multiplexed imaging system. The filter module is spatially partitioned into filter cells, and the spatial partition is designed by considering data captured at the sensor in light of an application-specific performance metric.
US09519736B2

A data generation device and a detection simulation system, capable of executing offline simulation using a vision sensor, without calibration for associating the vision sensor with the robot. The device has: a placing part which places three-dimensional models of a robot, a vision sensor and an object in a virtual space; a robot placement position designating part and a vision sensor placement position designating part which designate placement positions of the robot and the vision sensor in the virtual space, respectively, based on a reference coordinate system defined in the virtual space; a placement position storing part which stores the placement positions; a positional relationship calculating part which calculates a positional relationship between a robot coordinate system and a sensor coordinate system; and a positional relationship storing part which stores the positional relationship as data used in a detection process of the vision sensor.
US09519728B2

Methods and apparatus for delivering content to a user so as to optimize and enhance the “experience” of the content. In one embodiment, an optimization and monitoring entity (OME) is used which determines, evaluates, and provides notification and/or recommendation of alternative content delivery platforms which are available to a user. The OME receives requests for content forwarded from a content server containing information identifying requesting devices and/or subscriber accounts. The OME examines the capabilities of the registered devices, and identifies/recommends alternative devices based on e.g., video/audio quality, picture size, bandwidth availability, and/or any other additional capabilities of the client devices. A notification is then sent to the client devices indicating which of the user's devices may receive the content alternatively, or in addition to, the requesting device. The notifications may be interactive, allowing the user to select one or more of the devices for delivery.
US09519723B2

Systems and methods are provided for aggregating relevant electronic content items that are relevant to one another. In one embodiment, a content management application determines that a first electronic content item and a second electronic content item are relevant to one another. The first electronic content item is provided by a first client account and the second electronic content item is provided by a second client account. The content management application also aggregates the first and second electronic content items to form at least part of a collection of electronic content. The first and second electronic content items are aggregated based on determining that the first and second electronic content items are relevant to one another. The content management application also provides access to the collection of electronic content.
US09519722B1

Methods and systems for providing a user with content relevant to a location of interest to the user, when the user is determined to be at or near the location, are presented. The user's interest in the location may be determined based on queries about the location received from the user prior to the user arriving at the location. The queries received from the user about the location are used to build a location recommendation model, which generates personalized content relevant to the location and to one or more interest verticals identified for the user. The location recommendation model is built using a location recommendation engine that collects data about the user, the queried location, one or more associations between the user, the queried location, and/or one or more other users, as well as various other information related to the user's interests and the queried location.
US09519716B2

The present invention provides a method and system for conducting a profile based search. The method and system includes receiving a search request including one or more search terms from a user, parsing the search request into categorical verticals, determining search refinement data relative to the categorical verticals, the search refinement data including at least one of: profile information, environmental data relative to the search request and historical behavior data relating to the search request or the user and accessing a database of aggregated search data based on the search refinement data. The method and system includes using the aggregated search data, determining a most relevant search query and a most relevant user profile, refining the search request based on the most relevant search query and most relevant user profile and generating an output display of a search result set based on the refined search request.
US09519715B2

Systems and methods have been developed for performing an advanced or detailed search based on information previously collected about a searcher's interests. In response to a search request, the searcher's interests are retrieved and inspected. In an embodiment, the interests may be obtained from multiple systems including those not associated with the search system. Based on the searcher's interests, the search request may be limited or otherwise modified from the actual request received. The results of the limited search may then presented to the searcher as the results of the requested search.
US09519712B2

Systems and methods are provided to evaluate a search engine using search results retrieved from a plurality of different search engines. For example, a controller can randomly distribute a set of pre-formulated queries to a plurality of computers to query the search engines at random times to obtain search results and combine the search results to evaluate the completeness of a query result provided by a particular search engine. The controller may simulate the random queries from users using a set of computers and may reduce the burden on the search engines by spreading out the query activities over a period of time, such as a month.
US09519708B2

Embodiments described herein include devices and processes for concurrently processing different audio streams with different hardware-based audio processing modes. A computing device for such embodiments may have multiple hardware audio signal processing modes capable of parallel execution. An operating system or audio stack thereof may manage audio paths or streams for audio sources producing respective types of audio signals. Which of the audio paths or streams will be connected with which of the hardware audio signal processing modes may be determined according to the types of the audio signals. A first hardware audio signal processing mode may be processing a first type of audio signal of a first audio path or stream while concurrently a second hardware audio signal processing mode processes a second type of audio signal of a second audio path or stream.
US09519706B2

Methods, computer program products and systems are provided for applying text analytics rules to a corpus of documents. The embodiments facilitate selection of a document from the corpus within a graphical user interface (GUI), where the GUI opens the selected document to display text of the selected document and also a token parse tree that lists tokens associated with text components of the document, facilitate construction of a text analytics rule, via the GUI, by user selection of one or more tokens from the token parse tree, and, in response to a user selecting one or more tokens from the token parse tree, provide a list of hits via the GUI, the hits including a listing of text components from documents of the corpus that are associated with tokens that comply with the constructed text analytics rule.
US09519705B2

In a computer assisted clustering method, a clustering space is generated from fixed basis partitions that embed the entire space of all possible clusterings. A lower dimensional clustering space is fu-reated from the space of all possible clusterings by isometrically embedding the space of all possible clusterings in a lower dimensional Euclidean space. This lower dimensional space is then sampled based on the number of documents in the corpus. Partitions are then developed based on the samples that tessellate the space. Finally, using clusterings representative of these tessellations, a two-dimensional representation for users to explore is created.
US09519696B1

Data transformation policies specify conditions based at least in part on request features. When a request is received, features of the received request are used to determine any data transformation policies applicable to the request. When a data transformation policy applies to the request, a corresponding data transformation is applied to data responsive to the request. A response to the request comprising transformed data is provided.
US09519690B1

A system and method is disclosed for aggregating networked content, and allowing user to obtain an unlimited number of engagements relating to networked content. The system may publish a ranking of users based on the number of engagements obtained by the users. Such ranking may facilitate highlighting or otherwise setting apart those users who have obtained more engagements relating to content, thereby allowing a user or user's content to be noticed by others, even among a vast number of networked content that is available.
US09519688B2

An approach is provided for utilizing unstructured corpora in a Question and Answer (QA) system. A question is received at the QA system. A private corpora is generated with the private corpora being associated with the user. The private corpora is generated from private data stores associated with the user as well as private data stores associated with other users. Access to the other user's private data sources is provided to the user by the other users. The system retrieves data responsive to the question from the private corpora. The responsive data is ranked based on its relevance to the question. Likely answers are identified based on the ranked responsive data and the likely answers are provided back to the user.
US09519683B1

Techniques for inferring social affinity may include the following operations: obtaining information derived from online activity of a first party, where the online activity includes searches initiated by the first party, and where the information specifies interaction of the first party with content accessed through the online activity; determining, based on the information, that an amount of the interaction of the first party with the content exceeds a threshold; following the determining, identifying a second party who provided the content; adjusting, in a social graph for the first party, an affinity of the second party to the first party based on the amount of the interaction with the content; and using the affinity to promote search results output to the first party that contain content that is provided by the second party.
US09519682B1

Embodiments are directed towards generating a unified user account trustworthiness system through user account trustworthiness scores. A trusted group of user accounts may be identified for a given action by grouping a plurality of user accounts into tiers based on a trustworthiness score of each user account for the given action. The tiers and/or trustworthiness scores may be employed to classify an item, such as a message as spam or non-spam, based on input from the user accounts. The trustworthiness scores may also be employed to determine if a user account is a robot account or a human account. The trusted group for a given action may dynamically evolve over time by regrouping the user accounts based on modified trustworthiness scores. A trustworthiness score of an individual user account may be modified based on input received from the individual user account and input from other user accounts.
US09519657B2

A computer system with read/write access to storage devices creates a snapshot of a data volume at a point in time while continuing to accept access requests to the mirrored data volume by copying before making changes to the base data volume. Multiple snapshots may be made of the same data volume at different points in time. Only data that is not stored in a previous snapshot volume or in the base data volume are stored in the most recent snapshot volume.
US09519634B2

Systems and methods are provided for identifying one or more target words of a corpus that have a lexical relationship to a plurality of provided cue words. The cue words and statistical lexical information derived from a corpus of documents are analyzed to determine candidate words that have a lexical association with the cue words. The statistical information includes numerical values indicative of probabilities of word pairs appearing together as adjacent words in a well-formed text or appearing together within a paragraph of a well-formed text. For each candidate word, a statistical association score between the candidate word and each of the cue words is determined. An aggregate score for each of the candidate words is determined based on the statistical association scores. One or more of the candidate words are selected to be the one or more target words based on the aggregate scores.
US09519625B2

Systems and methods are presented that process documents, identify fonts being used to reproduce the documents, and identify conflicts based on the identified fonts. The systems and methods may identify a font associated with a document, identify a conflict between the font and another font, determine a substitute font for the document, and then modify information of the substitute font and the document based on the conflict to prevent the identified conflict from causing the document to be incorrectly processed. The systems and methods may then allow the document to be further processed based on the modified information.
US09519623B2

An improved mechanism is provided for presenting and navigating bookmarks in a set of electronic reading material (ERM). In one implementation, when a portion of an ERM is displayed, a graphical element, which represents the contents of the ERM, is also displayed. A current location indicator and one or more bookmark indicators are further displayed on or within proximity of the graphical element to show where, within the ERM, the currently displayed portion is located and where bookmarks are located. This provides a useful graphical overview to a user. In addition, the mechanism may facilitate navigation to a bookmark by enabling a user to select one of the bookmark indicators to navigate directly to that bookmark. The mechanism may also enable a user to navigate sequentially from bookmark to bookmark using a previous bookmark control and/or a next bookmark control. With these capabilities, bookmark presentation and navigation are improved.
US09519622B2

The invention relates to electronic document processing. Embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and apparatus for copying a text format pattern. In one embodiment of the present invention there is a method for copying a text format pattern, including: receiving a selection of a sample object from a user, the sample object including multiple sample paragraphs of which at least two sample paragraphs have different format patterns; receiving a format copying instruction of from the user, the format copying instruction indicating reformatting a target object with the format pattern of the sample object, where the target object contains multiple target paragraphs; determining a corresponding relationship of the format pattern of the sample paragraphs with the target paragraphs; and applying the format pattern of the sample paragraphs to the target paragraphs in accordance with the corresponding relationship.
US09519621B2

Active content is deterministically rendered in a stable format that is independent of any particular targeted environment, which the active content may subsequently be rendered to. Environmental and dynamic dependencies are removed from a specification associated with the active content for purposes of producing a stable and consistent specification for the active content. The stable and static specification is used to subsequently render the active content into the stable format for any targeted or desired environment.
US09519618B2

A pairwise distance computation transforms first and second signals using an absolute distance preserving mapping, such that a k-norm distance between the first mapped signal and the second mapped signal represents an absolute distance between the first signal and the second signal. The absolute distance preserving mapping maps an element of a first or a second signal to a vector having a size equal to a cardinality of the finite alphabet of the signals. The absolute distance preserving mapping determines a position N of the element in an ordered sequence of symbols of the finite alphabet and determines values for each of N elements of the vector as a fractional power 1/k of positive increments in the finite alphabet. The values for subsequent elements of the vector are determined as zero.
US09519617B2

A vector processor includes a plurality of execution units arranged in parallel, a register file, and a plurality of load units. The register file includes a plurality of registers coupled to the execution units. Each of the load units is configured to load, in a single transaction, a plurality of the registers with data retrieved from memory. The loaded registers corresponding to different execution units. Each of the load units is configured to distribute the data to the registers in accordance with an instruction selectable distribution. The instruction selectable distribution specifies one of plurality of distributions. Each of the distributions specifies a data sequence that differs from the sequence in which the data is stored in memory.
US09519598B1

A system includes a hard disk controller and a read/write channel. The hard disk controller is configured to transmit a first gate signal, a write clock signal, mode selection data, and first data to be stored on a storage medium, and receive a read clock signal and second data stored on the storage medium. The read/write channel is configured to receive the first gate signal, the write clock signal, the mode selection data, and the first data, transmit the read clock signal, transfer the second data from the storage medium to the hard disk controller based on the mode selection data and the read clock signal, and transfer the first data from the hard disk controller to the storage medium based on the mode selection data and the write clock signal.
US09519589B2

Techniques are provided for managing caches in a system with multiple caches that may contain different copies of the same data item. Specifically, techniques are provided for coordinating the write-to-disk operations performed on such data items to ensure that older versions of the data item are not written over newer versions, and to reduce the amount of processing required to recover after a failure. Various approaches are provided in which a master is used to coordinate with the multiple caches to cause a data item to be written to persistent storage. Techniques are also provided for transferring data items and locks associated with the data items from one node to another.
US09519585B2

A method of implementing a shared cache between a plurality of virtual machines may include maintaining the plurality of virtual machines on one or more physical machines. Each of the plurality of virtual machines may include a private cache. The method may also include determining portions of the private caches that are idle and maintaining a shared cache that comprises the portions of the private caches that are idle. The method may additionally include storing data associated with the plurality of virtual machines in the shared cache and load balancing use of the shared cache between the plurality of virtual machines.
US09519584B2

In one embodiment, a computing system includes a cache having one or more memories and a cache manager. The cache manager is able to receive a request to write data to a first portion of the cache, write the data to the first portion of the cache, update a first map corresponding to the first portion of the cache, receive a request to read data from the first portion of the cache, read from a storage communicatively linked to the computing system data according to the first map, and update a second map corresponding to the first portion of the cache. The cache manager may also be able to write data to the storage according to the first map.
US09519578B1

This disclosure provides for improvements in managing multi-drive, multi-die or multi-plane NAND flash memory. In one embodiment, the host directly assigns physical addresses and performs logical-to-physical address translation in a manner that reduces or eliminates the need for a memory controller to handle these functions, and initiates functions such as wear leveling in a manner that avoids competition with host data accesses. A memory controller optionally educates the host on array composition, capabilities and addressing restrictions. Host software can therefore interleave write and read requests across dies in a manner unencumbered by memory controller address translation. For multi-plane designs, the host writes related data in a manner consistent with multi-plane device addressing limitations. The host is therefore able to “plan ahead” in a manner supporting host issuance of true multi-plane read commands.
US09519577B2

The embodiments described herein include systems, methods and/or devices that may enhance the endurance of a storage system including a storage medium. The method includes: dividing a plurality of flash memory devices into logical chunks each logical chunk including one or more flash memory blocks; and detecting a trigger condition with respect to a respective flash memory device of the plurality of flash memory devices. In response to detecting the trigger condition, the method includes: selecting one of the logical chunks of the respective flash memory device for migration in accordance with predefined selection criteria; and storing a replicated logical chunk, comprising a copy of the selected logical chunk, at a second flash memory device. The method includes: remapping an address of the selected logical chunk to a physical location of the replicated logical chunk; and decreasing a number of logical chunks associated with the respective flash memory device.
US09519571B2

Techniques are provided for analyzing testing coverage of one or more software modules to provide process coverage statistics. The techniques include obtaining one or more coverage measures from a test specification document, performing a trace on each of the one or more coverage measures during a test, analyzing each trace to generate a run-time service choreography model for a process, wherein the model includes each of one or more service choreography patterns occurring in the process, and using the model to provide statistical data on test coverage according to a process definition.
US09519570B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, computer program product, and system for recording and displaying graphical user interface snapshots during automated testing. A computer captures a first snapshot of a complete graphical user interface, wherein the graphical user interface has at least one graphical user interface control. The computer determines a location of the at least one graphical user interface control. The computer determines that a first test step has altered the at least one graphical user interface control. The computer captures a second snapshot of the altered graphical user interface control. The computer stores the second snapshot and the location of the graphical user interface control in association with the test step.
US09519569B2

A method for constructing data structures and a method for describing running states of a computer and state transitions thereof are provided. The method for constructing the data structure, which describes the execution processes of computer codes, includes: when the computer is running, constructs the data structure using the code segment wherein lies a calling instruction as a node and using the calling relationship between the code segment initiating the calling instruction and the called code segment, which are both constructed by the calling instruction, as a calling path. The data structure includes every node and the calling path between every calling and called nodes. When a certain calling instruction is executed, it is possible to describe the running state of the computer when the calling instruction is executed with the data structure consisting of all nodes and calling paths before the calling instruction by constructing the above data structure.
US09519559B2

A demand management monitoring system including a remote measurement device including a microprocessor for calculating RMS voltage data from digital samples and a wireless communications device, and a server system including a database configured to store the RMS voltage data from the remote measurement device.
US09519557B2

A compliance user or auditor is enabled to inject failures into a sandbox environment, which may be similar to a production service. The sandbox environment may be monitored by the same automation that watches compliance controls in the production service. As the user injects compliance failures into the sandbox, they may detect the appropriate alerts fire in the monitoring system, thereby gaining trust that the monitoring works as it should. A rich report resulting from the test activities may allow the user or auditor to see how a failure of a compliance control leads to the expected monitoring alert.
US09519552B2

An image forming apparatus comprises a first and a second HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), a RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) controller to execute rebuilding processes in which data stored in the first HDD is copied to the second HDD restored, and a CPU (Central Processing Unit). When there arises the necessity for accessing from the CPU to at least of the first and the second HDDs, and the priority of data which is the object for access by the CPU is higher than the priority of data which is being processed under the rebuilding processes, the image forming apparatus stops the rebuilding processes. The image forming apparatus restarts the rebuilding processes, when the access from the CPU is finished.
US09519544B2

A memory module includes an emergency power supply block, a volatile memory, a nonvolatile memory, and a control block configured to control data of the volatile memory to be backed up in the nonvolatile memory, by using a power supplied from the emergency power supply block, upon a power failure, and control the data of the volatile memory to be recovered, by using data backed up in the nonvolatile memory, upon a power recovery, wherein the control block controls the data of the volatile memory not to be backed up while controlling the data of the volatile memory to be recovered, even upon the power failure.
US09519538B2

An instruction processing pipeline having error detection and error recovery circuitry associated with one or more of the pipeline stages. If an error is detected within a signal value within that pipeline stage, then it can be repaired. Part of the error recovery may be to flush upstream program instructions from the instruction pipeline. When multi-threading, only those instructions from a thread including an instruction which has been lost as a consequence of the error recovery need be flushed from the instruction pipeline. The instruction pipeline may additionally/alternatively be provided with more than one main storage element associated with each signal value with these main storage elements used in an alternating fashion such that if a signal value has been erroneously captured and needs to be repaired, there is still available a main storage element to properly capture the signal value corresponding to the following program instruction.
US09519534B2

An information processing apparatus includes a processor, a first memory, and a second memory, wherein the second memory includes a first data storage region having a first data capacity and a second data storage region having a second data capacity smaller than the first data capacity, and the processor is configured to, in a case of executing first processing, select the first data storage region as a storage region for data to be written into the second memory by the first processing, and select the second data storage region as a storage region for data to be written into the second memory by second processing, and in a case of not executing the first processing, select the first data storage region as a storage region for data to be written from the first memory to the second memory by the second processing.
US09519531B2

In one example embodiment, a memory device includes a cell array configured to receive data at an associated address in response to a write command. The memory device further includes a storage unit configured to receive the associated address and the data in response to the write command and output the data to the associated address of the cell array in response to a rewrite command. The memory device further includes a violation determining unit configured to determine violation data, count a number of the violation data and determine data written to the storage unit as the violation data if a storage duration of the written data is less than a write recovery time (tWR).
US09519528B2

The present invention generally relates to an application program interface (API)-controlled computing system (100). A computer-implemented method is proposed for determining undoability of an action to be conducted in the API-controlled computing system (100) represented by a formal domain model. A set of pre-states of the API-controlled computing system (100) for the action are obtained. A set of post-states of the API-controlled computing system (100) corresponding to each pre-state in the set of pre-states for the action are obtained. The method automatically determines if each post-state in each set of post-states of the API-controlled computing system can be undone to its pre-state in the set of pre-states by using a reachability task for the post-state and its pre-state. The action to be conducted in the API-controlled computing system (100) is undoable if each post-state in each set of post-states of the API-controlled computing system (100) can be undone to its pre-state in the set of pre-states.
US09519526B2

A system and method for providing a file management service for collaboration is disclosed. The method for providing a file management service for collaboration, which may be implemented on a system, includes, for example, providing a client through which a user accesses a file through the file management service, further providing, by the file management service via the client, the user with collaboration capability of the file with other users, and/or controlling editing of the file by other users based on whether it is specified as being shared by the user. In one embodiment, the file management service further enables integration of a third-party service with the file management service and the third-party service is accessible for use with the file via the file management service.
US09519516B2

The present invention addresses the problem of providing a migration system and a migration method by which a completion timing of a live migration of virtual machines can be adjusted. The migration system (1) comprises: a transfer means (61A) for transmitting memory data of the virtual machines from a transfer source physical host (31) to a transfer destination physical host (32) to synchronize data of the virtual machines on the physical host (31) and the virtual machines on the physical host (32); a determination means (51A) for determining, for each of the virtual machines, whether the data of the virtual machine (81A) on the transfer source physical host (31) is synchronized with the data of the virtual machine (81B); and a control means (10) for issuing an instruction of switching from the virtual machines on the physical host (31) to the virtual machines on the physical host (32), if the data of all the virtual machines is synchronized based on the determination result. The transfer means (61A) continues transmitting the memory data until the instruction of switching is issued.
US09519505B1

Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods and computer program products for creating and managing a virtual operating environment on a physical machine connected to a distributed network, the virtual operating environment is virtualized by the physical machine. The invention may categorize the virtual operating environment using a tiered data structure, where each tier of the tiered data structure defines an attribute for categorizing the virtual operating environment. The invention generates a graphical representation of the tiered data structure for display via a user computing device that enables a user to communicate requests for causing the virtual operating environment to perform a function and communicates commands to the physical machine based on receiving such requests. The invention may additionally update the graphical representation after the virtual operating environment has executed the function.
US09519504B2

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium may comprise instructions for managing a server template stored thereon. When executed by at least one processor, the instructions may be configured to cause at least one computing system to at least convert the server template to a corresponding virtual machine, manage the corresponding virtual machine, and convert the corresponding virtual machine back into a template format.
US09519503B2

Systems and methods for Virtual Machine (VM) attribution with hardware information. In an illustrative, non-limiting embodiment, an Information Handling System (IHS) may include a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a memory coupled to the CPU, the memory having program instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by the CPU, cause the IHS to: provide a management console configured to manage a plurality of hypervisors, each hypervisor configured to be executed in a different one of a plurality of physical servers distinct from the IHS, each hypervisor further configured to create and run at least one Virtual Machine (VM); identify, via the management console, a hardware capability of a given one of the plurality of physical servers; and assign the VM, by the management console, to the given physical server in response to the identification of the hardware capability.
US09519501B1

A method performed by a hypervisor in a virtual network traffic management cluster, the method comprising: assigning a set of continuous available source media access control (SMAC) addresses to one or more virtual network traffic management devices in a network traffic management cluster, the one or more virtual network traffic management devices configured to handle connections for virtual guest instances; assigning a region of predetermined size in a SMAC-index mapping table to a corresponding virtual network traffic management device; wherein the assigned SMAC addresses and assigned region in the SMAC-index mapping table are accessible by the virtual guest instances; and maintaining SMAC-index pool allocation to virtual guest instances handled by corresponding virtual network traffic management devices.
US09519497B1

A system is configured to: conduct asynchronous updates, of a display, based on a fixed rate when operating in an asynchronous state; determine whether to switch to a synchronous state from the asynchronous state based on the asynchronous updates; conduct synchronous updates, of the display, after switching to the synchronous state; receive a lock request, and conduct updating of the display based on the lock request. The synchronous updates may be performed independent of the fixed rate.
US09519496B2

In an exemplary embodiment, a virtual disk file can be assigned an identifier and a virtual disk files that is dependent on the virtual disk file can include a copy of the identifier. In the instance that the virtual disk file is opened and data is modified that causes the contents of a virtual disk extent to change the identifier can be changed. If the virtual disk file and the dependent virtual disk file are used to instantiate a virtual disk the difference between identifiers can be detected, which is indicative of the fact that the virtual disk may be corrupted. Other techniques are described in the detailed description, claims, and figures that form a part of this document.
US09519490B2

In one embodiment, an application module 114 may adjust a synchronization scheme 306 based on the operational state of a computing device 110. An operating system 112 may determine an operational state for a computing device 110. The operating system 112 may assign a synchronization allotment 304 to the application module 114 based on the operational state. A synchronization engine 116 of the application module 114 may implement a synchronization scheme 306 based on the synchronization allotment 304.
US09519486B1

A method of processing data in an integrated circuit is described. The method comprises establishing a pipeline of processing blocks, wherein each processing block has a different function; coupling a data packet having data and meta-data to an input of the pipeline of processing blocks; and processing the data of the data packet using predetermined processing blocks based upon the meta-data. A device for processing data in an integrated circuit is also described.
US09519485B2

Embodiments relate to confidence threshold-based opposing path execution for branch prediction. An aspect includes determining a branch prediction for a first branch instruction that is encountered during execution of a first thread, wherein the branch prediction indicates a primary path and an opposing path for the first branch instruction. Another aspect includes executing the primary path by the first thread. Another aspect includes determining a confidence of the branch prediction and comparing the confidence of the branch prediction to a confidence threshold. Yet another aspect includes, based on the confidence of the branch prediction being less than the confidence threshold, starting a second thread that executes the opposing path of the first branch instruction, wherein the second thread is executed in parallel with the first thread.
US09519474B2

A technology/operating system-agnostic and protocol-agnostic modular-based service delivery system that includes a management of enterprise-wide deployment of services and updates to services delivered by the modules of the system. Management includes determination and automatic implementation of an optimal schedule for service deployment, service version updates and service version roll-backs based on (i) predetermined lifecycle levels assigned to networked devices in the enterprise executing the service delivery application, and/or (ii) segments within the enterprise.
US09519470B2

An image forming apparatus stores a saving instruction for a script and data containing its identification information in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) storage, in the case where the image forming apparatus detects that the script and the data required for software installation corresponding to itself does not exist in the USB storage when the USB storage is connected. A computer acquires a script and data corresponding to identification information of an image forming apparatus contained in a saving instruction, and saves them to the USB storage, in the case where the computer detects that the saving instruction exists in the USB storage when the USB storage is connected. The image forming apparatus then executes software installation using the script and the data contained in the USB storage, when this USB storage containing the saved script and data corresponding to the image forming apparatus is connected.
US09519468B2

Modular co-versioning may involve the creation of multi-version libraries that may include multiple versions of a class. A multi-version library may include a base version and one or more other versions each of which may correspond to a particular, respective version of a software development kit, runtime environment or software platform, according to various embodiments. At runtime, a multi-version library may be searched in order to load a version of a class that corresponds to the version of the currently executing runtime environment. If the multi-version library does not include a version of the class corresponding to the currently executing version of the environment/platform, a version of the class corresponding to a previous version of the environment may be loaded if found in the multi-version library. Alternatively, if no other version of the class is found, a base version of the class may be loaded from the multi-version library.
US09519456B2

A data processing apparatus and method are provided for performing a shift function on a binary number. The apparatus comprises count determination circuitry for determining a number of contiguous bit positions in the binary number that have a predetermined bit value, the count determination circuitry outputting a count value indicative of the number of contiguous bit positions determined. In parallel with the operation of the count determination circuitry, coarse shifting circuitry is used to determine, for at least one predetermined number of contiguous bit positions, whether that predetermined number of contiguous bit positions within the binary number has said predetermined bit value. An initial shift operation is then performed on the binary number based on that determination in order to produce an intermediate binary number. Once the count value is available from the count determination circuitry, fine shifting circuitry then performs a further shift operation on the intermediate binary number, based on the count value output by the count determination circuitry, in order to produce the result binary number. This provides an efficient mechanism for performing a shift function on a binary number, while still capturing the count value from the count determination circuitry.
US09519451B2

An information processing device includes a display control unit configured to display data in an area formed in a display unit connected to the information processing device, a display data acquiring unit configured to acquire the display data displayed in an operation reception area or an entire area, which is a target of receiving an operation by a user, an area forming unit configured to form a render reception area so as to be superposed on the operation reception area, a render receiving unit configured to receive rendering with respect to the render reception area, a render data acquiring unit configured to acquire render data rendered in the render reception area, a render data combining unit configured to combine the display data with the render data, and a data sending unit configured to send, to a terminal, the display data with which the render data has been combined.
US09519450B1

A method, system and program product for printer driver management in an enterprise network. Each requested printer driver is tested in a controlled environment to determine if the driver is compatible with at least one other driver in a set of drivers. The tested printer driver is conditioned for inclusion in a central repository that stores a plurality of sets of versioned drivers, if the printer driver is determined to be compatible. The tested driver and at least one associated file are packaged and stored in the central repository. The tested driver and associated file are deployed to at least one server hosting a distributed file share. The tested driver and associated file are downloaded to at least one print server. Driver files are touched with a date and time stamp so that workstations will automatically download updated printer drivers from the print server.
US09519447B2

The present invention provides a method of optimizing the operating conditions for printing sheets, comprising the following steps: introducing a sheet into the printing system; treating the sheet by exposing the sheet to a physical operating condition of the printing system at a predetermined level; sensing a surface geometry of the exposed sheet to generate data representing a height map of the surface of the at least one exposed sheet for that predetermined level of that operating condition; and comparing the data to one another and/or a reference value to determine the suitable level of the least one physical operating condition. The invention further provides an apparatus optimizing the operating conditions for printing sheets.
US09519443B2

A print data processing apparatus includes the following elements. A spot color memory stores a spot color element. A flattening section performs, when a new image element is input in accordance with a rendering order, flattening processing for separating the new image element into a basic color element having only a basic color component and a spot color element having only a spot color component, for updating a configuration of each spot color element stored in the spot color memory to a configuration from which a portion hidden by a configuration of a newly separated spot color element is removed, and for storing the new spot color element in the spot color memory. An output section outputs, when spot color elements obtained by separating all image elements included in each unit of output are stored in the spot color memory, the spot color elements stored in the spot color memory.
US09519441B1

An information processing system comprises a centralized database and at least one processing device implementing a selection algorithm for automated provisioning and management of a plurality of storage arrays based on information collected from the storage arrays and stored in the centralized database. The information stored in the centralized database may comprise at least one of storage utilization, performance, network bandwidth and end of service for each of the storage arrays. The selection algorithm is configured to determine optimal placement of data across the storage arrays based on the information stored in the centralized database. For example, the selection algorithm may be configured to determine one or more locations within the plurality of storage arrays to allocate as new storage responsive to a provisioning request.
US09519440B2

Providing command queuing in embedded memories is provided. In particular, aspects disclosed herein relate to a process through which a status of the queue is communicated to a host from a device. Aspects of the present disclosure use the command structure of the embedded Multi-Media Card (eMMC) standard, such that the host may determine a state of the queue in the device proximate a known end of an in-progress data transfer. In this manner, the host can select a task to commence after completion of a current data transfer while the current data transfer is still ongoing.
US09519438B1

Technologies are described for implementing a migration mechanism in a storage system containing multiple tiers of storage with each tier having different cost and performance parameters. Access statistics can be collected for each territory, or storage entity, within the storage system. Data that is accessed more frequently can be migrated toward higher performance storage tiers while data that is accessed less frequently can be migrated towards lower performance storage tiers. The placement of data may be governed first by the promotion of territories with higher access frequency to higher tiers. Secondly, data migration may be governed by demoting territories to lower tiers to create room for the promotion of more eligible territories from the next lower tier. In instances where space is not available on the next lower tier, further demotion may take place to an even lower tier in order to make space for the first demotion.
US09519422B2

A graphical user interface is provided for navigating and/or manipulating content simply via touch of a touch-sensitive surface. The content may include discrete content items (e.g., songs, video clips, documents, web pages) and/or actions (e.g., place a call, read a message, play a game), and may or may not be hierarchical in nature. The interface may be presented on a touch-screen display, such that a user may navigate to a content item or action via a single touch on the display (e.g., with a finger or other tool), followed by gliding through any number of levels or clusters of nodes (representing content items, content compilations/categories and/or actions). The desired content item or action may be initiated automatically (e.g., opened, performed) simply by touching it, by lifting the gliding finger or by performing some other input (e.g., tapping a node, speaking a command, touching with a second finger).
US09519420B2

An apparatus and method for editing synchronous media files are provided. The method includes receiving a plurality of synchronous media files, displaying a plurality of synchronous media streams corresponding to the synchronous media files on a screen, detecting a touch input for selecting a portion of one of the plurality of synchronous streams, and adding the selected portion of the one of the plurality of synchronous media streams to an edited media stream.
US09519409B2

The present invention relates to the field of computers. Disclosed are an application program interface display method, device, terminal and readable storage medium. The method comprising: displaying a first window on the full screen and displaying a first application program interface in the first window; displaying a second window above the first window, and displaying a second application program interface in the second window; and always maintaining the first window in a focused state during switching between the first window and the second window. The above technical solution ensures that the application program interface displayed in the first window remains functional without losing the focused state, and the application program interface displayed in the second window remains to be displayed above the first window even in a non-focused state, thus facilitating operation. Additionally, the application program interface display manner has no limitations being intercepted, thus improving universality and reliability.
US09519408B2

Systems and methods for guided user actions are described, including detecting a first action performed by a user; gathering information associated with the first action; retrieving a predictive model based on the information; determining an applicability level of the predictive model to the first action, the predictive model suggests a second action; providing the second action in a user interface when the applicability level meets a threshold level; and receiving input from the user selecting the second action or a third action.
US09519407B2

A software application can capture product parameters and attributes in order to allow a non-expert user to create an accurate and complete furniture system layout in a design space. To enable accurate layouts, the software application can automatically apply all applicable components, connectors, rules, attributes, codes, and behaviors to each component/design element in the design space. The intelligent, object-oriented software can automatically recognize required changes effected by a user-driven change, and automatically resolve the layout design by constraining vertical placement of components or automatically generating interconnections between components.
US09519405B2

A facility for coordinating an online discussion is described. The facility receives an indication that a user has captured a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier that identifies a particular online discussion. In response, the facility incorporates into an online forum that hosts this online discussion an indication that this user captured a symbol encoding an identifier that identifies this online discussion.
US09519404B2

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to image segmentation for data verification. A method of the disclosure comprises: receiving, using a processing device, an image of at least a part of a document; identifying a first image region in the image that corresponds to data to be verified by a user; extracting data from the image of at least the part of the document partitioning the image into a plurality of image segments based on positioning information related to the first image region, wherein the plurality of image segments comprises a first image segment and a second image segment, and wherein the second image segment comprises the first image region; and presenting data extracted from the first image region in association with the first image segment and the second image segment.
US09519403B2

A method and an apparatus for performing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) linkage function using a keypad that changes a screen to a mapped URL when a predetermined key is selected are provided. The method includes displaying the keypad that executes the URL linkage function, sensing a predetermined type of touch generated on a predetermined key existing in the keypad, displaying, in a pop-up menu, a URL item registered in advance on the key, in response to the predetermined type of touch, and changing a screen to a selected URL when a predetermined URL is selected in the pop-up menu.
US09519402B2

A screen display method by which to configure a screen in which media objects are moved according to navigational inputs in order to easily browse for a desired media object from among a plurality of media objects. The screen display method in a mobile terminal includes displaying media objects to be piled up at first and second positions and media objects to be arranged along a course that connects the first and second positions; and displaying the piled-up media objects at one of the first and second positions to be sequentially moved along the course toward the other of the first and second positions when an input event occurs.
US09519398B2

Techniques are described for interacting with a nature inspired virtual environment to present information to the user. The information can be presented to the user by using a collection of icons in the virtual environment. The virtual environment and the collection of icons can resemble a scene from nature. As a result, the additional information is presented to the user without disrupting the visual appearance of the nature inspired virtual environment.
US09519395B1

Systems and methods for presenting windows or tabs are provided. In some aspects, a request is received, via a user input device, to view a set of windows or tabs that are open at a computing device and associated with a first application. A representation of a first set of windows or tabs is presented via a display device, the first set of windows or tabs including windows or tabs opened with the first application. A representation of a second set of windows or tabs is presented, via the display device, in conjunction with the first set of windows or tabs, the second set of windows or tabs including windows or tabs having address information associated with the first application and being opened with a second application different from the first application.
US09519390B2

The present invention provides a single electrode layer of a touch panel, which comprises a plurality of electrodes. The electrodes comprise a plurality of holes arranged in a plurality of rows in a first direction and adjacent to one another. The holes are also arranged in a plurality of columns in a second direction and adjacent to one another. The columns of the holes are arranged in a zigzag pattern along the first direction. The rows of the holes are arranged in a zigzag pattern along the second direction. The electrodes are arranged in a zigzag pattern along the first direction corresponding to the holes and forming a first side and a second side opposing to the first side, which are zigzag shape. The first and second sides form a plurality of convex parts and a plurality of concave parts. The geometric shapes of the convex parts and the concave parts extend the zigzag shapes of the holes along the second direction.
US09519384B2

A control system for a capacitive touch screen is provided. The control system comprises a touch detecting circuit, touch hard instruction, a storage module and a controller. The touch detecting circuit detects a capacitance variance to generate touch data. The touch hard instruction executes a touch computing function on the touch data. The storage module is connected to the touch detecting circuit and the at least one touch hard instruction, and records the touch data generated by the touch detecting circuit and the touch data computed by the touch hard instruction. The controller is connected to the touch detecting circuit, the at least one touch hard instruction, and the storage module, and assigns at least one touch task of a touch algorithm to the at least one touch hard instruction, so as to execute a corresponding touch computing function of the touch algorithm.
US09519380B2

A handwriting system includes a light source module, an image sensing apparatus and a processing circuit. The light source module is configured to provide a light source to illuminate an object on a plane. The image sensing apparatus is disposed on the plane and configured to capture an image of the object reflecting light emitted by the light source. The processing circuit is electrically connected to the image sensing apparatus and configured to receive the image captured by the image sensing apparatus, analyze the shape of each of light spot(s) in the captured image and screen out the light spot(s) not conforming to the shape of the object. Another handwriting system and two handwriting system operation methods are also provided.
US09519369B2

Example embodiments disclosed herein relate to touch screen selection. A device displays a plurality of touch elements on a touch-enabled display. The device receives a touch input via the touch-enabled display. Further, the device determines an ambiguity based on the touch selection input. The device magnifies an area associated with the touch selection input based on the ambiguity determination. Moreover, the area includes a set of the touch elements associated with the ambiguity termination. The device receives another touch input at the area via the touch-enabled display. Then, the device determines one of the touch elements based on the other touch input.
US09519368B2

Provided are a touch screen panel and a method of manufacturing the same. The touch screen panel comprises: a substrate; a first reflection-preventing film formed on the substrate; a first gate wiring formed on the first reflection-preventing film; and a sensing wiring formed above the first gate wiring to be insulated from the first gate wiring and to cross the first gate wiring.
US09519363B2

A stylus for a capacitive touch screen includes an inverting charge integrator circuit is connected to a conductive tip for providing an output signal proportional to a charge induced at the conductive tip. An inverting amplifier generates an amplified signal proportional to the signal output from the inverting charge integrator. A conductive contact provides electrical or capacitive coupling between the amplified signal and an exterior of the stylus which may provide electrical or capacitive coupling with a person holding the stylus. In other embodiments, the order of the inverting charge integrator and the inverting amplifier may be reversed. A power supply circuit powers the inverting charge integrator and the inverting amplifier. Shielding may be implemented to isolate the stylus circuitry and prevent oscillation. The provided circuitry may enable a ball point or other fine point stylus tip configurations.
US09519359B2

The present invention provides an input apparatus which can include a conductivity tip, a coil electrically connected to the tip, and a ground plate electrically connected to the coil and forming an open loop in a circumference direction of the coil.
US09519354B2

An input assisting device 50 for a touch panel includes a body portion 51 to be attached to a predetermined portion of a finger, a linear portion 52 that has a width of 5 mm or less and is attached to the body portion 51 so that the linear portion 52 is projected 10 mm or more from the fingertip when the body portion 51 is attached to the predetermined portion, and a contact portion 54 that is provided on a tip portion of the linear portion 52 so that the contact portion 54 is directed from a nail to the inner surface of the finger when the body portion 51 is attached to the predetermined portion. The contact portion 54 is electrically connected with the finger when the body portion 51 is attached to the predetermined portion.
US09519348B2

Methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, provide two degrees of freedom active force feedback for touchscreens or any other general surface. The system includes a rubber ball attached to a pen-like structure with two motors that are capable of rotating freely when external force is applied. The system has also a mechanical structural arrangement including gears and cables to transfer motor power to engage the rubber ball. The system further includes a digital compass to measure the device tilt, along with a processing unit to control the system and a wireless communication module and a power module.
US09519347B2

The tactile sensation providing device includes a touch sensor, tactile sensation providing unit that vibrates the touch face of the touch sensor, display unit, and control unit that controls the display unit to display an image and sets a tactile sensation provided by the tactile sensation providing unit for a pixel in the image, so that upon the touch sensor detecting contact at a position corresponding to the pixel, the control unit executes a predetermined process allocated to the pixel and controls the tactile sensation providing unit to provide the tactile sensation set for the pixel to a contacting object in contact with the touch face.
US09519339B2

An imaging display apparatus, includes: display means for image display; first image signal generation means for generating a display image signal based on a captured image signal captured by an imaging section with a field of view direction of a user being a direction of an object; second image signal generation means for generating a display image signal of an image different from an image of the display image signal generated by the first image signal generation means; and control means for allowing, simultaneously on the display means, display of the image of the display image signal generated by the first image signal generation means and display of the image of the display image signal generated by the second image signal generation means.
US09519330B2

A multicore computer architecture provides for clock dividers on each core, the clock dividers capable of providing rapid changes in the clock frequency of the core. The clock dividers are used to reduce the clock frequency of individual cores spinning while waiting for a synchronization instruction resolution such as a lock variable. Core power demands may be decreased before and after change in dock speed to reduce power bus disruption.
US09519313B2

A rollable display is disclosed. In one aspect, the display includes a flexible display panel having first and second opposing ends and a jig connected to the first end of the flexible display panel. The flexible display panel is configured to be rolled around the jig. The display also includes a handle connected to the second end of the flexible display panel, a housing configured to accommodate the flexible display panel when rolled around the jig and a support unit connecting the handle to the housing. The support unit includes a frame guide having a track groove defined in a surface of the frame guide and a support frame. The support frame has a first end rotatably connected to one of the handle or the housing and a second end slidably connected to the track groove of the frame guide.
US09519300B2

Exemplary embodiment of a device is disclosed comprising a processor to provide instructions, a first voltage regulator in communication with the processor to receive provided instructions received from the processor and to dynamically modulate an output voltage based on the received instructions, and a plurality of second voltage regulators to receive the output voltage from the first regulator; the output voltage to reduce a cross-regulation interference between the second regulators due to a change in a load of at least one of the second voltage regulators.
US09519295B2

Systems and methods of controlling a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system are provided that operate according to signals returned from return air temperature sensors as well as the supply air temperature sensors. Using predetermined temperature setpoints, return temperature information, and supply temperature information, the HVAC system is configured to maintain the temperature of a room first, by the use of its cooling valve, and second and only when the capacity of the cooling valve has peaked, by use of the fan. The presently disclosed improved HVAC system operates more efficiently by avoiding unit loading hopping and minimizing power consumption.
US09519294B2

Embodiments of the invention provide a relief valve body arranged for connecting to a pressure vessel. The relief valve body includes an inlet configured to connect to a pressure vessel and an integrated nozzle downstream from the inlet and extending along an axis. The integrated nozzle includes a nozzle exterior surface, a nozzle bulb, and a valve seat and defines a nozzle expansion region. The relief valve body further includes a redirecting pallet, a valve interior surface having at least one ramped portion downstream from the integrated nozzle and redirecting pallet, and an outlet downstream from the at least one ramped portion.
US09519293B2

Pressure regulating valve for controlling the pressure at which a pressurized propellant gas is injected into a container containing a liquid for driving said liquid out of the container, said valve comprising: A first and a second polymeric shells, the first shell comprising a gas inlet and outlet openings, and the second shell containing means for resiliency biasing. A polymeric membrane, clamped between the first and second shells, thus defining a first and a second chambers sealingly separated by the membrane. A joint between the first and second polymeric shells, strong enough to withstand the pressures reigning in either chamber and ensuring fluid tightness between the two chambers; wherein, all polymeric components of said pressure regulating valve are made of the same polymer class.
US09519288B2

A system having a controller is provided. The controller receives a signal indicative of an actual position and an actual orientation of a machine on a worksite, from a position detection module. The controller determines a first view of the machine on the worksite. The first view shows the actual position of the machine and a target position of the machine. The target position is located on a bucket circle. The controller determines a second view of the machine on the worksite. The second view has a first and a second indicator. The first indicator is indicative of the actual position and the actual orientation of the machine. The second indicator is indicative of the target position and a target orientation of the machine and includes a target circle. The controller displays any one of the first view and the second view based, at least in part, on the actual position of the machine relative to the target position on a display unit.
US09519286B2

The proposed system, Delayed Telop Aid (DTA), improves the teleoperator's ability to control the vehicle in a three step process. First, DTA predicts robot motion given the operators commands. Second, DTA creates synthetic images to produce a video feed that looks as if the robot communication link had no delay and no reduced bandwidth. Finally, DTA performs closed loop control on the robot platform to ensure that the robot follows the operator's commands. A closed loop control of the platform makes sure that the predicted pose after the delay (and therefore the image presented to the operator) is achieved by the platform. This abstracts away the latency-sensitive parts of the robot control, making the robot's behavior stable in the presence of poorly characterized latency between the operator and the vehicle.
US09519284B2

A method for transporting inventory items includes moving a mobile drive unit to a first point within a workspace. The first point is a location of an inventory holder. The method further includes docking the mobile drive unit with the inventory holder and moving the mobile drive unit and the inventory holder to a second point within the workspace. The second point is associated with conveyance equipment. The method further includes moving the inventory holder to a third point within the workspace using the conveyance equipment.
US09519280B2

A numerical control device for a machine tool includes: a timing calculation unit configured to calculate a start timing of a post-reverse movement command by which a position, where the sum of velocities generated in response to a pre-reverse movement command and the post-reverse movement command becomes zero, is equal to a position distanced by an in-position width from the end point of the pre-reverse movement command; and a movement command start unit configured to start the post-reverse movement command in accordance with the start timing calculated by the timing calculation unit.
US09519277B2

An actuator control apparatus includes an analog-digital conversion circuit, a servo circuit, a sampling circuit, and a driving circuit. The analog-digital conversion circuit is configured to sample a position detection signal with a first sampling period, convert the sampled signal into a digital signal, and output the digital signal, the position detection signal outputted from a position sensor corresponding to a position of a control target. The servo circuit is configured to calculate a displacement amount, by which the control target is to be displaced by an actuator, and output first servo control data corresponding to the calculated displacement amount, based on the position detection signal converted into the digital signal. The sampling circuit is configured to linearly interpolate the first servo control data, and output second servo control data sampled with a second sampling period shorter than the first sampling period.
US09519272B2

A wristwatch including a case including a band attachment section having an attachment hole, a band including a coupling hole in one end portion located coaxially with the attachment hole of the band attachment section, a coupling member inserted into the coupling hole of the band and the attachment hole of the band attachment section and coupling the band with the band attachment section, and a fixing member fixing the coupling member to the attachment hole of the band attachment section or the coupling hole of the band.
US09519268B2

A card 1 includes: a card substrate 10; a transparent hologram layer 20 on a part of the substrate 10; and a surface layer 30 comprising a print layer 40 on the substrate 10 and the layer 20, is formed by a transparent material, and is printed with a color similar to the upper surface of the substrate 10. When a card surface 1a is viewed from the normal line, the layer 40 has the same color shading compared to the upper surface of the substrate 10, at the edge portion 22 of the layer 20. The layer 40 includes a gradation portion 43 wherein the color is gradually lighter from an outer edge portion 43a at the inner side of the edge portion 22 of the layer 20 toward the inner portion, a window portion 44 is formed at an image 21 portion of the layer 20.
US09519262B1

A photoconductor unit for an electrophotographic image forming device according to one example embodiment includes a housing having a first end wall positioned at a first end of the housing. A photoconductive drum is mounted on the housing and has a rotational axis that runs from the first end to a second end of the housing. An electrically conductive first biasing member extends axially inward with respect to the photoconductive drum from an inner axial side of the first end wall. The first biasing member is exposed on the inner axial side of the first end wall to contact and force a developer unit toward the second end of the housing when the developer unit is operably mated with the photoconductor unit and to contact and form an electrical path with a corresponding electrical contact on the developer unit when the developer unit is operably mated with the photoconductor unit.
US09519254B2

A system for customizing settings of an electronic device includes a replaceable component having an optical member for receiving optical energy. The optical member has an optical characteristic for modifying an amount of the optical energy that leaves the optical member relative to an amount of the optical energy received by the optical member. A support is located on an outer casing of the electronic device and the replaceable component is mountable on the support. The system further includes an optical sensor including a detector positioned to receive the amount of the optical energy leaving the optical member when the replaceable component is mounted on the support. A controller determines one or more predetermined settings to be applied to the electronic device based at least upon the amount of the optical energy received by the detector.
US09519246B2

An image forming apparatus includes a developer image carrier, first and second image forming units and first and second transfer parts that are arranged sandwiching the developer image carrier with the first and second image forming units. One of the first image forming unit and the first transfer part moves away from the develop image carrier so that the one of the first image forming unit and the first transfer part has two different positions (an image forming position and a non-image forming position). The image forming apparatus further comprises a pressing force variable mechanism that increases the second pressing force between the second image forming unit and the second transfer part when the one of the first image forming unit and the first transfer part moves from the image forming position to the non-image forming position.
US09519245B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer, a nip forming device, a contact-and-separation device, a thickness information retrieving device, and a controller. The contact-and-separation device moves the image bearer and the nip forming device to contact and separate from each other. The controller controls the contact-and-separation device based on information on a thickness of a recording medium obtained by the thickness information retrieving device such that in a case in which a thickness of a preceding recording medium and a thickness of a successive recording medium are different in continuous printing in which a plurality of recording media is printed out continuously, the contact-and-separation device adjusts a space between the image bearer and the nip forming device when the preceding recording medium exits the transfer nip to a preset size corresponding to the thickness of the successive recording medium that enters the transfer nip.
US09519242B2

A developing apparatus includes a developer bearing member, a first conveying member disposed in a supplying chamber, a second conveying member disposed in a collecting chamber, and a third conveying member disposed in the collecting chamber to convey the developer in a conveying direction opposite to the conveying direction of the second conveying member. The third conveying member has a conveying performance which is lower than that of the second conveying member, and has a first screw portion including a spiral blade portion and a second screw portion including a spiral blade portion at a downstream side in the conveying direction The spiral blade portion of the first screw portion and the spiral blade portion of the second screw portion are formed to have a same spiral direction, and a conveying performance of the second screw portion is lower than a conveying performance of the first screw portion.
US09519238B2

An image forming apparatus that adjusts the electric current supplied from a second transfer member to suppress acceleration of abrasion of a photoconductor drum while maintaining the second transfer efficiency at a desired level.
US09519236B2

A reversibly allochroic toner contains a binder resin and a colorant. The colorant reversibly switches between first and second color states in response to temperature changes. The colorant exhibits a hysteresis in a temperature-color state curve thereof in which the following relationships are satisfied. Tr
US09519235B2

A toner including at least a crystalline resin as a binder resin, wherein a tetrahydrofuran soluble content of the toner includes 5.0% or more as a peak area of a component having a molecular weight of 100,000 or greater in a molecular weight distribution measured by gel permeation chromatography, and the tetrahydrofuran soluble content of the toner has a weight-average molecular weight of 20,000 to 60,000.
US09519232B2

An electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a support and a photosensitive layer on the support, and the photosensitive layer contains a hydroxygallium phthalocyanine crystal having peaks at Bragg angles 2θ±0.2° of 6.9°, 7.7°, 16.4°, 24.4°, and 26.5° in CuKα X-ray diffraction.
US09519228B2

Provided are a substrate holding apparatus and a method of using the substrate holding apparatus. According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substrate holding apparatus comprising a stage on which a substrate is placed, and at least one lift bar which separates the substrate from the stage by raising the substrate or placing the substrate on the stage by lowering the substrate. The lift bar comprises a body and a head. The head is connected to an end of the body, contacts the substrate, and is formed of a porous material.
US09519222B2

The present invention relates to a dynamic optical head layer in an optical lithography system forming patterns on a substrate, the dynamic optical head layer being detachably mounted on the substrate, and the dynamic optical head layer includes a first dielectric layer formed on a top portion thereof, a second dielectric layer formed on a bottom portion thereof, and an dynamic nano aperture layer formed between the first dielectric layer and the second dielectric layer, wherein the dynamic nano aperture layer is made of a material having optical anisotropy, and the first dielectric layer and the second dielectric layer are made of oxide-based materials, nitride-based materials, and carbide-based materials.
US09519219B2

Silver-containing compositions contain a water-soluble complex of a reactive polymer with either reducible silver ions or silver nanoparticles, the reactive polymer comprising: (a) greater than 1 mol % of recurring units comprising sulfonic acid or sulfonate groups, (b) at least 5 mol % of recurring units comprising a pendant group capable of crosslinking via [2+2] photocycloaddition, and optionally (c) at least 1 mol % of recurring units comprising a pendant amide, hydroxyl, lactam, phosphonic acid, or carboxylic acid group, all amounts based on the total recurring units in the reactive polymer. Other silver-containing compositions contain a water-insoluble complex of a reacted polymer with either reducible silver ions or silver nanoparticles. The reacted polymers are derived from the reactive polymers.
US09519210B2

A method for designing, a structure, method of inspecting and a computer system for designing voltage contrast integrated circuit characterization. The design method includes selecting a design level of a mask design shapes file; selecting a region of the design level having an open region having no design shapes and an adjacent circuit region having circuit design shapes; selecting a sub-region of the circuit region adjacent to the open region; copying design shapes of the sub-region to generate a characterization cell identical to the sub-region; modifying the characterization cell to generate a passive voltage contrast characterization cell; and placing the passive voltage contrast characterization cell into the open region adjacent to the sub-region to generate a modified design level.
US09519199B2

A reflective structure with transparent and semi-transparent transmission regions and includes a first transparent layer with a textured area, a reflective layer disposed below the first transparent layer and having a portion that is substantially conformal with at least a first portion of the textured area, and a second transparent layer disposed below the reflective layer and having a portion with a refractive index that is substantially equal to a refractive index of the first transparent layer. The transparent transmission region is configured to transmit a portion of light without substantial deviation, and the semi-transparent transmission region is configured to transmit another portion of the light from the first transparent layer with substantial deviation.
US09519196B2

To prevent a phenomenon that an alignment film material is difficult to flow into the through-hole where a diameter of a through-hole for connecting between a pixel electrode and a source electrode is reduced.A liquid crystal display device comprising a TFT substrate having pixels each including a common electrode formed on an organic passivation film, an interlayer insulating film formed so as to cover the common electrode, a pixel electrode having a slit and formed on the interlayer insulating film, a through-hole formed in the organic passivation film and the interlayer insulating film, and a source electrode electrically conducted to the pixel electrode via the through-hole. A taper angle at a depth of D/2 of the through-hole is equal to or more than 50 degrees. The pixel electrode covers part of a side wall of the through-hole but does not cover the remaining part of the side wall of the through-hole. This configuration facilitates the alignment film material to flow into the through-hole, thereby solving a thickness unevenness of the alignment film in vicinity of the through-hole.
US09519192B2

The present invention provides an array substrate, a flat display panel and a manufacturing for the same. The array substrate includes a substrate, a common electrode disposed on the substrate, an insulation layer disposed on the common electrode, wherein, the insulation layer includes multiple first regions and multiple second regions, and the first regions and the second regions are disposed alternately, and multiple pixel electrodes respectively disposed on the first regions of the insulation layer. Wherein, a thickness of the first regions and a thickness of the second regions are different. Through above way, the electric field strength between pixel electrodes and the electric field strength above the pixel electrodes can be adjusted in order to increase the display quality of the flat display panel.
US09519179B2

The present invention discloses a color filter substrate and a liquid crystal panel. The color filter substrate includes a substrate a transparent conductive film, a black array, and an auxiliary conductive layer. Wherein the black array is arranged on the substrate and the transparent conductive film is disposed on the black array. Wherein the auxiliary conductive layer is disposed over a surface of the substrate facing the black array, and has at least portions arranged between the substrate and the black array. By these arrangements, the present invention can effectively reduce the brightness interference of the liquid crystal panel, while increasing the adhesion of the auxiliary conductive layer in addition, this arrangement can effectively avoid the damage to the transparent conductive film by the auxiliary conductive layer.
US09519170B2

A narrow bezel structure of a liquid crystal display is disclosed. The bezel structure includes a middle frame having a side wall and a horizontal wall connecting to the side wall. The side wall includes a front sidewall and a rear sidewall defines by the horizontal wall. A liquid crystal module of the LCD is fixed on the horizontal wall. The edge of the liquid crystal module corresponds to an internal side of the front sidewall. The rear sidewall is assembled with a back frame of the LCD, and a backlight module of the LCD is fixed on the back frame. In addition, the LCD incorporates the above narrow bezel structure is also disclosed. With the simple bezel structure, not only the front frame of the middle frame is prevented from bending outward, but also a plurality of industrial designs can be achieved.
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