US09734485B2

A computer implemented method and apparatus for generating a contextual timeline of an online interaction such as a web conference acquires context, from the perspective of participants in the online interaction, along a timeline. Provided for display to a user is a graphical representation of variations, over at least a portion of the timeline, in participant engagement, attentiveness, attendance and/or some other measure of participant interactivity. Also provided for display to the user are one or more images aligned with one or more corresponding points in time along the timeline. The images provided for display in alignment with the timeline are representative of content presented to the at least one participant at one or more points in time. According to some embodiments, the points in time are user selectable, and the one or more images are provided for display in alignment with the timeline in response to user selections.
US09734482B2

A warehouse data processing system including a handheld terminal and a database server, wherein the handheld terminal is connected with the database server, the handheld terminal is used to scan goods information and/or stock location codes, acquire stock data including the goods information and/or the stock location codes from the database server, and perform warehouse data processing on the stock data according to the scanned goods information and/or stock location codes. The warehouse data processing is achieved in a mobile and portable manner by using the handheld terminal to scan goods information and/or stock location codes and performing warehouse data processing on the stock data according to the scanned goods information and/or stock location codes.
US09734480B2

An approach is provided for providing a secure and energy efficient method of asset tracking using BLE tags. The security module determines identification criteria associated with at least one scanning device. The security module processes and/or facilitates a processing of the identification criteria to cause, at least in part, a transmission of at least one scan response to the at least one scanning device including, at least in part, asset data associated with at least one tag. The security module causes, at least in part, a modification of one or more advertising packets of the at least one tag based, at least in part, on the transmission of the asset data.
US09734479B2

A method for determining an operating set point for a combined cycle power plant, the method includes: simulating the operation of the power plant; correcting the simulation of the operation of the power plant; optimizing the simulation of the operation by simulating the operation at different operating settings and selecting at least one of the operating settings as being optimal, and generating the operating set point based on the optimized simulation of the power plant.
US09734477B2

A wearable device assembly has a housing supporting a controller, display and indicator system thereon. The controller has at least one sensor wherein activity of a user wearing the device is detected. The controller selectively illuminates the indicator system to indicate a level of activity of the user.
US09734461B2

Resource usage calculation for process simulation (such as business process simulation). For each resource used by a simulated process, a usage counter object (or similar data structure) is used. In one embodiment, the usage counter object for each resource includes a list of time slots sorted by start times, and another list of time slots sorted by end times, to keep track of currently-scheduled time slots for this particular resource. In another embodiment, the usage counter object for each resource includes a list of time slots, sorted by start times and having associated end times, to keep track of the currently-scheduled time slots for this particular resource. The usage counter objects also store a count of how many units of this resource are currently in use, and a count of how many users are currently using the resource. These counters are updated using the sorted time slot lists.
US09734458B2

A method, system and product for predicting an outcome of a program based on input. The method comprising: obtaining an input to be used by a program prior to executing the program; predicting by, a machine learning module, a predicted outcome of the program based on the input; wherein the predicted outcome is selected from the group consisting of: a pass outcome and a fail outcome, wherein the pass outcome is the program executing without failing when using the input, and wherein the fail outcome is the program failing when using the input.
US09734453B2

A recommender system (18) is described which is capable of being controlled using training data provided by an external controller (16). The controller (16) is arranged to control the input of training data from client devices (22) to a recommender system (18) to drive the recommender system's performance towards a set level.
US09734444B2

Solid-state barcodes, paints containing the solid-state barcodes, and methods of manufacturing the paint are disclosed. The solid-state barcode may include a core portion and a shell portion substantially surrounding the core portion. One or both of the core portion and the shell portion may include a pattern of two or more regions, the pattern configured to encode information. Such solid-state barcodes can be attached at arbitrary positions on objects by applying the paint containing the barcode onto the objects.
US09734443B2

In this two-dimensional code, data expressed in binary code is divided into cells, and arranged as a two-dimensional matrix-like pattern. The two-dimensional code is characterized by being provided with a basic pattern section, and a peripheral section arranged outside the basic pattern section. The two-dimensional code is further characterized in that the basic pattern section includes: position detection patterns for specifying cell positions; and basic-pattern-section movement information indicating the position of the basic pattern section in the two-dimensional code area.
US09734439B2

Multi-value image data is sampled for each predetermined pixel range to generate tone information of the pixel range. The generated tone information is stored in a storage unit. Attribute information representing the attribute of a pixel is generated from the multi-value image data, and the generated attribute information is stored in the storage unit. Halftone processing is performed on the multi-value image data based on the tone information and attribute information stored in the storage unit.
US09734432B2

Systems, methods, apparatus, and other embodiments associated with reducing imaging acquisition time are described. One example method includes accessing an under-sampled data set and a library of previously acquired data sets. The method includes producing an approximation of the under-sampled data set by transforming data stored in the library. The method includes producing a sparsified data set from the approximation and the under-sampled data set and then reconstructing the sparsified data set into a sparse image using a reconstruction technique configured to reconstruct sparse data. The method includes producing a fully-sampled approximation of the under-sampled data set and producing a final reconstructed image from the sparse image and the fully sampled approximation.
US09734407B2

A system, method, and computer program product for automatically analyzing multimedia data are disclosed. Embodiments receive multimedia data, detect portions having specified features, and output a corresponding subset of the multimedia data. Content features from downloaded or streaming movies or video clips are identified as a human probably would do, but in essentially real time. Embodiments then generate an index or menu based on individual consumer preferences. Consumers can peruse the index, or produce customized trailers, or edit and tag content with metadata as desired. The tool can categorize and cluster content by feature, to assemble a library of scenes or scene clusters according to user-selected criteria.
US09734398B2

A method and apparatus for identifying an object are disclosed. The method includes: performing linear feature detection on an image to be identified by using a linear feature detecting method to obtain detected linear features, wherein the linear feature detection method transforms detection of linear features in an image space to detection of extremal points in another space and assigns larger weights to continuous image points than to discrete image points during the transformation by using a continuous cluster factor; and identifying an object to be identified from the detected linear features by considering characteristics of the object to be identified. The method and apparatus for identifying an object of the invention, when used to detect and identify weak linear objects in high resolution remote sensing images, can effectively suppress the system noise and ambient noise, thereby successfully identifying the interested object and avoiding false alarms. Moreover, short line segments can also be identified.
US09734384B2

The present invention describes a method and the system for matching fingerprint images obtained from different fingerprint image capturing devices and implemented in an electronic device. Specifically, the method has steps of identifying minutiae and then identifying core point of the fingerprint images. Thereafter, a line of symmetry is determined and minutiae are identified by matching ridge count, location angle and orientation angle of a first image of the fingerprint images with a second image of the fingerprint images is identified. Thereafter, prominent minutiae from the candidate minutiae having three adjacent minutiae with same local structure are identified. Out of scope minutiae are eliminated by non-linear registration of fingerprint images based on ridge-count and position angle. Thereafter, matching score is generated based on number of candidate minutiae, prominent minutiae and common overlapped minutiae after non-linear registration of the second fingerprint image in comparison with the first fingerprint image for authentication.
US09734383B2

A fingerprint recognition method and electronic device are provided. The fingerprint recognition method includes the steps of obtaining first input data; generating a first waveform diagram corresponding to a first minutia of the first input data; obtaining second input data; generating a second waveform diagram corresponding to a second minutia of the second input data; and comparing the first waveform diagram with the second waveform diagram.
US09734381B2

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for extracting two-dimensional fingerprints from high resolution three-dimensional surface data obtained from contactless, stand-off sensors. The system may include a three-dimensional sensor that generates three-dimensional surface data of a hand and one or more fingers of a subject and a processor, coupled to the three-dimensional sensor, and a memory associated with the processor, in which the processor executes instructions stored in the memory collect three-dimensional surface data of the subject hand and one or more subject fingers generated by the three-dimensional sensor, estimate a hand pose of the subject based on the collected three-dimensional surface data, unroll one or more two-dimensional fingerprints from the extracted fingerprint information, determine a fingerprint quality score for each of the one or more two-dimensional fingerprints and for each of the one or more two-dimensional fingerprints that have a sufficiently high determined fingerprint quality score, store the two-dimensional fingerprint.
US09734376B2

This invention provides a system and method for decoding symbology that contains a respective data set using multiple image frames of the symbol, wherein at least some of those frames can have differing image parameters (for example orientation, lens zoom, aperture, etc.) so that combining the frames with an illustrative multiple image application allows the most-readable portions of each frame to be stitched together. And unlike prior systems which may select one “best” image, the illustrative system method allows this stitched image to form a complete, readable image of the underlying symbol. In an illustrative embodiment the system and method includes an imaging assembly that acquires multiple image frames of the symbol in which some of those image frames have discrete, differing image parameters from others of the frames. A processor, which is operatively connected to the imaging assembly processes the plurality of acquired image frames of the symbol to decode predetermined code data from at least some of the plurality of image frames, and to combine the predetermined code data from the at least some of the plurality of image frames to define a decodable version of the data set represented by the symbol.
US09734375B2

A method includes the following (1) detecting light returned from a target with an imaging sensor during a first frame exposure time period to capture a first image when a first illumination light is projected towards the target; (2) processing the first image to determine the light intensity of a second illumination light; (3) detecting light returned from the target with the imaging sensor during a second frame exposure time period to capture a second image when the second illumination light is projected towards the target; and (4) decoding a barcode in the second image. The light intensity of the first illumination light changes with time at least during part of the first frame exposure time period.
US09734370B2

The method includes automatically adjusting a first control parameter in a device for capturing a first plurality of images, automatically adjusting a second control parameter in the device for capturing a second plurality of images such that automatic adjustment of the first control parameter is interspersed with, separate from, and obtained generally concurrently with the automatic adjustment of the second control parameter. The adjustment of the first control parameter being determined differently compared to adjustment of the second control parameter. The method may include attempting to decode a decodable indicia utilizing one or more images of the first and second plurality of images.
US09734367B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for verifying that items have been correctly retrieved to fulfill orders or shipments. A plurality of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are energized with an electromagnetic field emitted from an RFID reader, wherein individual ones of the RFID tags include a sensor. Motion data is reported by the RFID tags and detected via the RFID reader. Subsequently, at least one of the plurality of RFID tags is selected from the plurality of RFID tags based at least in part on the motion data.
US09734363B2

A card reader may include a card passage where a card inserted into an insertion port for the card is passed, a shutter member for closing the card passage, a magnetic head disposed on a rear side relative to the shutter member and structured to perform reading of magnetic data recorded in a magnetic stripe of the card and/or recording of magnetic data to the magnetic stripe, and a foreign matter detection mechanism which is structured to detect a foreign matter attached to the card passage. The foreign matter detection mechanism is disposed on a rear side relative to the shutter member and is disposed at a position in the width direction of the card where the magnetic stripe is passed. The foreign matter detection mechanism may be structured of an electrostatic capacitance sensor.
US09734361B2

It is an object to provide an information recording medium with which information symbols can be suitably read. This information recording medium comprises a sheet-form member, a plurality of information symbols that are displayed on the surface of the sheet-form member and each have the same information, and an edge line that is provided at one end and/or the other end of the sheet-form member and allows an information reading device which reads the information symbols to recognize the end of the sheet-form member.
US09734354B2

A system and method helps to control “read” and/or “write” access to electronic paper (e-paper). Informational data may be on a restricted portion of e-paper material that is protected by a security methodology accessible to authorized entities. Some embodiments maintain a record of access activity regarding the restricted portion, and a record of access activity regarding use of an item or product or service related to the e-paper informational data. Some implementations include an authorization listing of a party having a particular access privilege or authorization to make modifications to various restricted portions including an authentication region and a protected region. One possible aspect includes performing a verification analysis of data indicia in a restricted portion of the e-paper media. Additional possible system and process components may determine an authenticity status of the data indicia, and provide an output result.
US09734352B2

A computing device is described herein that automatically enters a data protection mode in response to determining that a certain number of persons are located proximate to the computing device, that an owner or authorized user is not located proximate to the computing device, or that a certain user gesture has or has not been recognized. When the device enters the data protection mode, sensitive data stored on the device is automatically rendered invisible and/or inaccessible to a user thereof. The sensitive data may be rendered invisible and/or inaccessible in a manner that is not likely to be apparent to the user of the computing device.
US09734351B2

A computer system and method is disclosed for paperless Form I-9 processing, and for automating employment eligibility verification. The system and method displays a series of screens with fillable fields configured to receive immigration information. After substantial completion of the fillable fields by a user, the system displays an affirmation screen with affirmation language necessary to meet a statutory requirement for a valid electronic signature and an interface element affirming such language. Only after the interface element has been actuated is a file containing the completed fillable fields marked with an indication that the file has been electronically signed. The employment eligibility verification aspects disclosed utilize a database and server architecture to receive information provided on an electronic I-9 or other electronic employment eligibility form and perform computerized employment eligibility verification queries with the Federal Government. Scanned documents such as paper I-9s may be uploaded, indexed, tracked, and otherwise processed.
US09734349B1

A harmonized governance system for a heterogeneous agile environment affords abstraction and normalization of resources, operations, and roles, and respective attributes and contexts of such resources, operations, and roles, of respective individual agile environments that make up the heterogeneous agile environment. Such abstraction frees administrators from having to understand and be conversant in agile environment-specific syntaxes required for management of the different agile environments, and allows for normalized reporting and auditing across them. Data sources of the harmonized governance system store information mappings that facilitate this abstraction and normalization of the agile environment-specific syntaxes and as new attributes and contexts of resources, operations, and roles of the agile environment-specific syntax are discovered they are mapped to new counterparts in a heterogeneous agile environment syntax.
US09734347B2

A content management system implementing methodologies providing retroactive shared content item links is disclosed. The content management system and methodologies allow a team administrator of a team to configure a team-wide shared link policy that determines whether non-team members can access content items associated with team accounts using shared links generated for the content items by team members. The team shared link policy has two settings. In a first setting, the content management system allows non-team members to use shared links generated by team members to access content items associated with team accounts. In a second setting, the content management system blocks access to the content items by non-team members. Shared links are retroactive in the sense they do not need to be regenerated after the team shared link policy has been changed from the second setting back to the first setting.
US09734345B2

Universal cards are used in place of all the other traditional cards which a person may want to carry. The universal card can include a short range communications transceiver to communicate with a mobile device. The mobile device can include a user interface and an e-wallet application so that the user can interface with the e-wallet application for programming the universal card via the short range communication link. Once programmed, the universal card emulates a function of a traditional card.
US09734329B2

Mitigating return-oriented programming attacks. From program code and associated components needed by the program code for execution, machine language instruction sequences that may be combined and executed as malicious code are selected. A predetermined number of additional copies of each of the selected machine language instruction sequences are made, and the additional copies are marked as non-executable. The machine language instruction sequences and the non-executable copies are distributed in memory. If a process attempts to execute a machine language instruction sequence that has been marked non-executable, the computer may initiate protective action.
US09734321B2

An approach is provided for determining that a user has been authenticated for an access to at least one service using a federated identity (401). The approach also comprises determining federated account information associated with the user based, at least in part, on one or more user accounts associated with the federated identity, the at least one service, the at least one or more other services, or a combination thereof (403). The approach further comprises determining one or more functions of the at least one service, the at least one or more other services, or a combination thereof to make available to the user based, at least in part, on the federated account information (411).
US09734313B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a security mode prompt method and apparatus. The method includes when it is determined that a terminal is currently in a first security mode, acquiring prestored first security information; receiving first verification information entered by a user, and establishing a first correspondence between the first security information and the first verification information; displaying confusion information, the first security information, and the first verification information on a screen for the user to select; receiving a selection result of the user, and determining, according to the first correspondence, whether the selection result of the user meets a preset rule; and when the selection result of the user meets the preset rule, prompting the user that the terminal is in a second security mode. By using the present disclosure, security of a terminal can be improved.
US09734311B1

A computing system firmware is provided that includes functionality for securely authenticating a user of the computing system prior to allowing the user, through an application running on an operating system, to invoke firmware functions and to access and modify firmware variables. The authentication may use the same authentication credentials used to access firmware utilities during the computing system's power-on self-test (POST) phase. Upon receiving requests to access firmware assets, an authentication service determines whether the access has been authenticated for the user. If so, access to the firmware assets is granted. If access has not been authenticated for the user, the authentication service attempts to authenticate the user by verifying the authentication credentials passed along with the request.
US09734310B2

To enhance the convenience of authentication when executing an application, an application server: acquires, from a terminal, context information indicating the status of the terminal; generates, on the basis of the acquired context information, information (an authentication necessity table) pertaining to the necessity for authentication when executing the application; and transmits to the terminal the authentication necessity table and an authentication module described in the table. Then, the terminal, on the basis of the authentication necessity table and an authentication table, determines whether or not authentication is necessary before executing the application, and when it has been determined that authentication is necessary, prior to executing the application, changes the authentication module read destination to the application read destination and executes the authentication module.
US09734304B2

Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for identifying with a single, small, intelligent activity monitor a particular type of activity from among a plurality of different activities. The monitor may include a multi-axis accelerometer and microcontroller configured to combine and process accelerometer data so as to generate features representative of an activity. The features may be processed to identify a particular activity (e.g., running, biking, swimming) from among a plurality of different activities that may include activities not performed by a human subject. An intelligent activity monitor may be configured to operate as a versatile sensor, or to operate in combination with a versatile sensor, to further receive and process physiological data and compute a fitness metric for a subject.
US09734303B2

A vending refrigerator for dispensing pharmaceutical products, such as vials, bottles, syringes, and the like, at a point of distribution, e.g., a doctor's office or pharmacy. The vending refrigerator comprises a first product dispenser for one type of packaging and a second product dispenser for a second type of packaging. The product can be removed from a dispenser drawer but cannot be placed back into the dispenser through the drawer. The product dispensers are filled through openings that are not accessible during normal operations, but that are accessible during refilling procedures. The refrigerator may include a shelf where products that are mistakenly pulled from the product dispenser or that contain multiple doses of their contents can be placed for temporary storage. In some embodiments, the refrigerator comprises a chilled compartment and a freezer compartment.
US09734295B1

The present subject matter relates to methods and systems utilizing wearable sensor technology to determine when a patient's health may be degrading to trigger progressively higher levels of care and involvement, from “free” hands and eyes to skilled clinicians, in order to keep patients in the lowest cost setting of care, the home, for as long as possible.
US09734294B2

A system for managing pharmacy kits comprises a reading station configured to read tag information from a plurality of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags associated with a pharmacy kit, and an information processing system operatively connected to the reading station and configured to receive the tag information from the reading station and determine a status of the pharmacy kit based on the tag information, a plurality of stored templates defining contents to be included in each of a plurality of pharmacy kits, and a plurality of kit records indicating the current contents of a plurality of pharmacy kits.
US09734291B2

CNA-guided care, which can improve clinical outcomes at a specific patient level and decrease total cost of care at the population level, has two faces. The first face, the enabling tool, allows a payer to transmit information identifying a health care service under consideration for a patient with a health condition whose health plan benefits cover the service and other payer-selected variables. In response, the payer receives information sufficient to establish that the medical service is an appropriate delivery or level of service allowing the payer to approve payment to a medical care provider for the service. The second face provides for communications that provide information sufficient for a complete medical evaluation and for assigning a CNA to the patient. The patient then can use the assigned CNA to select an optimal care plan and a medical professional based on patient-set criteria within the CNA.
US09734290B2

An on-demand and real-time evidence based cost modeling and predictive analysis system, and a financial incentives based plan to reduce healthcare costs. An analytics system that includes a data aggregator and regression models generates incremental expenditures among overweight and obese individuals, predictive forecasts of future medical costs, and predictive forecasts of cost reduction based on financial incentives to recipients. The forecasts may include interactions, personalized variables, statistical trends, prevalence of diseases based on body mass index and/or age, and medical evidence associated with specific illnesses. A computer-based program may process and analyze variables in healthcare records. A health insurance provider may provide an annual rebate on paid premiums to recipients based on a qualifying annual BMI as an incentive. The recipients may receive the rebates in a qualified Healthcare Individual Reimbursement Account (HIRA) managed by the recipients towards future healthcare related expenditures.
US09734283B2

CpG densities and sequence motifs that are characteristic of regions of DNA associated with epimutations and control of epimutations are provided. Such regions include, within approximately 400 (or fewer) base pairs, at least one, usually two, and preferably all three of the following features: i) a CpG density of 15% or less; ii) the presence of the sequence motif ATTTGTTTTTTCTTTTnT (SEQ ID NO: 1) where n is A, T, C or G, and statistically relevant variants thereof; and iii) the presence of the sequence motif GGGGGnGGGG (SEQ ID NO: 2), where n is A, T, C or G, and statistically relevant variants thereof.
US09734281B2

The invention discloses a plastic packaging material testing system and method based on internet of things and cloud technology. It includes: cloud computing center, this system module achieves the data communication, data storage and data processing between the customers and testing laboratory. There is public or private cloud for cloud computing center. For the private cloud, data will be stored as a separated group of data in the database server based on the private infrastructure which is provided by the system provider. The system provider provides the most effective control of data, data security and the service quality. For the public cloud, system provider ensures the system running and provides the data service by renting available cloud which is provided by the third party provider.
US09734275B2

An information processing apparatus includes a storage unit and a processor. The storage unit is configured to store therein plural pieces of shape data indicating shapes of a plurality of components. The plural pieces of shape data are associated with a first window for displaying unarranged components. The processor is configured to generate, using the plural pieces of shape data stored in the storage unit, display information for displaying a shape of a substrate on a screen and for displaying the first window including the shapes of the plurality of components on the displayed substrate. The processor is configured to output the display information.
US09734270B2

Embodiments relate to power down processing including control path power adjustment. An aspect includes receiving, by a power down engine, chip layout data corresponding to a chip design. Another aspect includes determining a confluence point of a data path and a control path in the chip layout data. Another aspect includes determining the presence of a positive slack window in the control path of the confluence point. Yet another aspect includes powering up the control path to reduce the positive slack window.
US09734264B2

The claimed subject matter includes techniques for designing three-dimensional (3D) objects for fabrication. An example method includes obtaining a three-dimensional (3D) mesh comprising polygons and obtaining a two-dimensional (2D) image. The method also includes receiving position information describing a location of the 2D image relative to the 3D mesh and modifying the 3D mesh based on the 2D image and the position information to generate an embossed 3D mesh that is embossed with the 2D image.
US09734259B2

Disclosed is a web server that includes a headlines module for automatically generating headlines based on data retrieved from a network (e.g., World Wide Web). The web server also includes an interactive agent for generating responses to inquiries relating to the headlines based on the data.
US09734255B2

A ubiquitous personalized learning evaluation network with 2D barcodes consists of a data server with User Data Management module and 2D Barcodes Management module, mobile communication devices with 2D barcode scanners, user ID recognition module and task reader, and 2D barcodes whose destination URL s are quizzes or games based on the users skill levels. Once the user scanned the 2D barcodes, and finished the task, the results will be uploaded to the data server to re-evaluate the user's skill level and assign the next proper task.
US09734253B2

A method of providing a webpage on a home device web browser based on web browsing information of an external device connected via a network and device for the same are disclosed. The present invention includes displaying the home device web browser including a back button interface configured to guide an access change to a previously accessed URL (uniform resource locator) of a web browser, changing a URL access of the home device web browser in response to a user input to the back button interface, and displaying a webpage based on the changed URL access on the home device web browser, wherein the URL access change is performed based on a web browsing information of at least one external device connected with a home device via network and wherein the web browsing information includes a URL history information on a URL accessed by the web browser.
US09734252B2

A natural language query answering system includes an external data pre-processor configured to i) analyze a first data set, the first data set received via a communication network, to identify data in the first data set that corresponds to entities in a database comprising categorized entities, and ii) generate a second data set corresponding to the first data set and based on the analysis of the first data set, wherein the second data set includes information indicating how data in the second data set is to be interpreted by the natural language query answering system. The natural language query answering system is configured to retrieve data and/or process data from the second data set in response to natural language queries.
US09734241B2

Computerized method for aggregating relevant information from court records and presenting such information in electronic reports including tables and charts. There are five types of reports that focus on cases filed by Litigant, Attorney or Law Firm, Judge, Court, and Nature of Suit. A History option also is provided, in which are grouped all reports previously run by the user in one table. The user inputs a time frame and identifies specific reporting entities. The process accepts these inputs and constructs a list of cases that meet the specified criteria. The information in the list is presented to the user as a multi-part report containing tables and charts of aggregate information of particular interest to the user. Most report sections allow for “drilldowns” that bring additional specific focus to the reports. The reports are also configurable in a variety of ways including selecting graph types and section inclusion/exclusion.
US09734238B2

According to an aspect, a question answering computer system determines a set of search terms for a given question. A plurality of passages that each includes at least one search term in the set of search terms is identified in response to a search of a document for search terms in the set of search terms. A passage from the plurality of passages is selected. A context based score of the selected passage that indicates the likelihood that the selected passage contains an answer to the question is generated based on criteria that specify a relationship among the set of search terms, content of the passage, and content of at least one other passage in the plurality of passages.
US09734228B2

A digital analytics system comprises a data management system including data extraction modules and a data storage system. The data extraction modules extract data from data sources and store the data in storage units. An analytics engine system including analytics engines and interfaces to retrieve data relevant to the analytics engines from the storage units. The analytics engines may perform prescriptive or descriptive analytics on the retrieved data. An applications interface and storage stores applications. The applications may be executed using information generated by the prescriptive or descriptive analytics performed by the analytics engines.
US09734226B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a computer program product for rebalancing partitioned data based, at least in part, on limit key extrapolation in a database and one or more characteristics of the plurality of database partitions. Responsive to a determination that an upper limit key value of the last loaded record is greater than an upper limit key value of an empty partition, the computer redefines the upper limit key value of the empty partition using an extrapolated upper limit key value that is based, at least in part, on a range of limit key values. The computer updates one or more characteristics of the database, wherein the one or more characteristics include one or both of a) an average number of records per partition, and b) an average number of unique limit key values per partition.
US09734215B2

Roughly described, a computer-implemented evolutionary data mining system includes a memory storing a candidate gene database in which each candidate individual has a respective fitness estimate; a gene pool processor which tests individuals from the candidate gene pool on training data and updates the fitness estimate associated with the individuals in dependence upon the tests; and a gene harvesting module providing for deployment selected ones of the individuals from the gene pool, wherein the gene pool processor includes a competition module which selects individuals for discarding from the gene pool in dependence upon both their updated fitness estimate and their testing experience level. Preferably the gene database has an elitist pool containing multiple experience layers, and the competition module causes individuals to compete only with other individuals in their same experience layer.
US09734213B2

A method and system for determining a service description most closely matching a service name provided by a user. It is determined that the service name provided by the user is not an exact match to a service name in a service registry that comprises service names and associated service descriptions. A ranked service name is generated and includes at least one alternative service name and a respective rank of each alternative service name. The respective rank indicates how closely the alternative service name associated with the respective rank resembles the service name provided by the user. It is ascertained that a service description associated with a service name in the service registry that either matches the highest ranked alternative service name in the service name list or matches the next highest ranked alternative service name in the service name list. The ascertained service description is communicated to the user.
US09734211B1

A system receives a search query from a user and performs a search of a corpus of documents, based on the search query, to form a ranked set of search results. The system re-ranks the set of search results based on preferences of the user, or a group of users, and provides the re-ranked search results to the user.
US09734198B2

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for online query processing, in which a SQL or other query server can generate a record of results served to clients. The distribution record of results, referred to as a distribution map, can record the identity of properties of database entries or other content that has been distributed to individual clients. When a client transmits a query whose results include properties that have already been served to that client, the re-transmission of that information can be suppressed leading to improved communications efficiency. A notification function can be provided whereby all users receive updates to the properties or content they have already received, when those data components have been updated in the underlying database. The delivered content can relate to personal contact lists, media play lists, or other information displayed in an application or Web service.
US09734193B2

Systems and processes for identifying relevant domains for user inputs that include one or more ambiguous words are disclosed. The ambiguous words include words that may or may not refer to a named entity, such as a song, movie, book, etc. In one example, a textual representation of user speech can be received and processed to identify a candidate named entity. The possible parts of speech of the candidate named entity can be determined and compared to a predetermined set of parts of speech. In response to determining that the possible parts of speech of the candidate named entity do not include one or more of the predetermined set of parts of speech, a saliency score associated with the candidate named entity can be lowered. A domain for processing the textual representation of user speech can then be identified using the saliency score associated with the candidate named entity.
US09734190B1

A method is provided to verify the computational results of a transaction processing system. A transaction is allowed to modify an application's state only if the validity of the result of the processing of the transaction is verified. Otherwise, the transaction is aborted.
US09734184B1

Method and systems for executing an interactive computer simulation of a simulated vehicle comprising a remote data management system, a central repository, a remote repository and an interactive computer simulation station. The central repository stores a synthetic natural environment database (SNEDB) that comprises data records for a plurality of geographically-located terrain skin representations of a computer generated environment. The remote data management system maintains the remote repository storing a subset of data records from the SNEDB. Each one of the subset of data records has a priority tag. The station sends a data request for geographical locations from the SNEDB and allows users to interact in the simulation for controlling the simulated vehicle. The remote data management system monitors remaining storage capacity of the remote repository and, upon reaching a high-level threshold value, removes the most extraneous data record considering priority tags until reaching a low-level threshold value.
US09734180B1

An object storage system having object metadata query capability. Clients can pose queries to the object system in a high-level, declarative language. A query is evaluated against stored object metadata, and only objects satisfying the query's predicates are returned. The object storage system can evaluate alternative logical and physical query plans using a cost model. Queries can be posed using familiar REST-based APIs. The object storage system includes a distributed key-value store for secondary indexing of object metadata. A user can define secondary indexes considering the most common object access patterns.
US09734176B2

System, method, and computer program product to order query results, by processing a received query at least in part using a composite key index, wherein the composite key index comprises at least two key columns, wherein the at least two key columns comprise at least one pre-ordering column and an ordering column, wherein the query specifies ordering criteria to order a result set based on values of the ordering column, wherein the processing comprises receiving, from the composite key index, an ordering column value for each unique pre-ordering column value in the composite key index, identifying a first ordering column value as being ordered first according to the ordering criteria, and returning the first ordering column value as being responsive to the query.
US09734172B2

Transform governance rules for a data asset to apply to a set of related data assets. Establishing a governance rule over a first data asset based on a second governance rule applied to either an upstream or a downstream data asset.
US09734165B2

The present invention provides a new method and a device for the contactless human identification using biometrics images. The present invention develops a robust feature extraction algorithm to recover three-dimensional (3D) shape information from biometrics images. Further, it provides significantly improved performance than what is possible from the state-of-art methods, adding practicality for real applications on mobile platform, smartphones, and also as add-on system for conventional fingerprint system. The present invention's unique advantages are based on its computational simplicity, efficient matching and requiring least storage. Experiments were conducted to confirm very high accuracy and reliability on a number of biometric modalities including iris, palmprint, and finger knuckle images.
US09734161B2

A geographical information system (GIS) is described that enables querying, analysis and visualization of real-time streaming data pertaining to at least one moving object or entity (e.g., vehicles, people, sensors, weather phenomena, etc.) in conjunction with relatively static multi-temporal geospatial data. An application programming interface is provided to present the GIS functionality for handling dynamically moving objects or entities to clients.
US09734159B2

A method for synchronizing file paths associated with computer files based on file path modifications is provided. The method may include detecting a file path modification to a referenced file path associated with a computer file. The method may also include identifying a type of the file path modification. The method may further include identifying a generated file path based on the type of the file path modification. Additionally, the method may include synchronizing the referenced file path to the generated file path. The method may also include modifying the file path information associated with the computer file. The method may further include generating association information in a file properties window associated with the referenced file path and the at least one generated file path. The method may also include validating and extracting the file path information associated with the computer file for use by at least one application.
US09734158B2

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to file system placeholders. In aspects, placeholders may be used by a client to represent remote file system objects. The placeholders may include metadata, searchable text, and may also include none, some, or all of the content of the represented remote file system objects. Search data from the placeholders is integrated into a local search database of the client such that the client is able to satisfy queries and identify relevant local and remote file system objects even when the client is offline with respect to remote storage.
US09734153B2

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to one or more configured computing systems identifying companion content and supplemental content for a base content. Companion content may include, for example, video adaptations of the base content. Supplemental content may include content referenced or related in subject matter to the base content. Information regarding companion content may be utilized to enable a user to interchangeably or synchronously present either a base content (e.g., an eBook or audio book) with the companion content (e.g., a movie adaptation). Information regarding supplemental content may be utilized to present the supplemental content during consumption of a base content, or to save supplemental content for later viewing.
US09734148B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for redacting data from a document collection generated for a set of documents that include personal information. The redaction of the data is based in part on a comparison of the document collection to a set of a personal documents of users for which the users have provided explicit approval to use in the processing of the document collection.
US09734143B2

Technology is disclosed that improves language processing engines by using multi-media (image, video, etc.) context data when training and applying language models. Multi-media context data can be obtained from one or more sources such as object/location/person identification in the multi-media, multi-media characteristics, labels or characteristics provided by an author of the multi-media, or information about the author of the multi-media. This context data can be used as additional input for a machine learning process that creates a model used in language processing. The resulting model can be used as part of various language processing engines such as a translation engine, correction engine, tagging engine, etc., by taking multi-media context/labeling for a content item as part of the input for computing results of the model.
US09734137B2

Systems and methods for secure third-party document editing are described. In some embodiments, a method may include tokenizing a file retrieved from a cloud storage provider (CSP); transmitting the tokenized file to a cloud editing provider (CEP); receiving a modified, tokenized file from the CEP; de-tokenizing the modified file; and enabling rendering of the de-tokenized, modified file. In other embodiments, a memory device may have program instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by a processor of an Information Handling System (IHS), cause the IHS to: provide a portal to a user executing a browser on a client device, wherein the portal includes an interface to a CSP and to a cloud editing provider (CDEP); and allow the user to access a document stored in the CSP and to edit the document using the CDEP via the browser.
US09734130B2

Source data statements that had been received for the request are semantically analyzed, which includes matching elements in the received source data statements to respective one or more entries in an ontology associated with a domain that had been selected for the received source data statements. The ontology includes items and relationships that define the selected domain. Each element in the received source data statements is a word or a phrase. The one or more entries are assigned to the matched elements, respectively, to annotate each matched element with a respective annotation consisting of the respective one or more entries. The annotated elements are saved with the respective annotations. The annotations are used to generate a search query for the request.
US09734125B2

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for systems and methods that enforce policies with respect to proxy communications.
US09734124B2

A method for managing a two-way form over a direct link is provided. The method includes establishing a communicative link between two communications clients each separately executing in memory by a processor of a corresponding one of two computers. The method also includes managing a two-way form rendered as individual instances of the two-way form each in a corresponding content browser executing in a corresponding one of the two computers. Finally, the method includes exchanging synchronization information for the two-way form over the communicative link. In one aspect of the embodiment, the method also includes prompting in one of the individual instances of the two-way form for verification of an update to a field providing in another of the individual instances of the two-way form. In another aspect of the embodiment, the method includes recording a verification of the update to the field in an audit trail.
US09734122B2

In accordance with certain exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, exemplary visualization system, method, procedure and computer-accessible medium can be provided, which individually and/or collectively can be called, e.g., ImmunoRuler (IR). Certain exemplary embodiments of the exemplary IR in accordance with the present disclosure can be used for, e.g., comparing two groups of objects with specific and distinguished properties, such as a group of case subjects with a particular disease and a group of control subjects without that particular disease, and/or a group of subjects with a particular disease who are given a treatment and a group of subjects with the same disease but under another treatment or no treatment at all.
US09734118B2

A new serial bus interface module that enables constrained sensor systems to better match flash-based storage devices' (SD card) read and write performance. The serial bus interface module augments existing flash-based storage with non-volatile random-access memory to form a hybrid storage system using the most popularly used master-slave bus architecture. Together with PSC-like features, the serial bus interface module not only enables slave-to-slave transfer (therefore eliminating the double-transaction problem) but also reads caching (one source to multi-sink) and buffering while flushing. These transaction types enable multi-sector write for significantly faster speed and lower energy overhead, while the use of non-volatile memory for metadata caching means low risk of file-system corruption in the event of power failure. The serial bus interface also enables the direct data transfer from sensors to storage or communication modules without requiring the microprocessor's intervention.
US09734116B2

Techniques and mechanisms for configuring an integrated circuit (IC) chip to implement a protocol stack. In an embodiment, a transaction layer of the IC chip is operable to exchange with a link layer of the IC chip transaction layer packets (TLPs) having a format compatible with one defined in a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™ (PCIe™) specification. Configuration circuitry of the IC chip provides for configuration of a first protocol stack including the transaction layer, circuitry of the link layer and a first physical layer of the IC chip. The configuration circuitry further provides for an alternative configuration of a second protocol stack including the transaction layer, circuitry of the link layer and a second physical layer of the IC chip. In another embodiment, the first protocol stack supports single-ended signaling to communicate TLP information, whereas the second protocol stack supports differential signaling to communicate TLP information.
US09734113B2

A PCI-E signal transmission apparatus and an image forming apparatus using the same are provided. The PCI-E signal transmission apparatus includes a controller board, and at least one unit board which is connected to the controller board through a differential signal transmission cable, which uses a PCI-E protocol, to transceive data. Therefore, it is possible to transmit a signal using an inexpensive cable at a high speed.
US09734109B2

A multi-channel, selectable identity tagging (MCSIT) data translator includes a word monitor port and a channel identifier (ID) tagger. The word monitor port is configured to receive a word generated by a specified one of a plurality of controllable components. The word includes no identifying information for the specified controllable component. The word monitor port is also configured to generate a channel ID corresponding to the specified controllable component and a word type corresponding to the word. The channel ID tagger is configured to determine whether to tag the word with the channel ID based on the word type and, based on the determination, to generate a processed word.
US09734103B2

Systems and methods for transforming a Central Processing Unit (CPU) socket into a memory and/or Input/Output (I/O) expander. In an illustrative, non-limiting embodiment, an Information Handling System (IHS) may include a plurality of CPU sockets, each of the CPU sockets having one or more cores, and each of the one or more cores being associated with a respective one or more electronic circuits, the one or more electronic circuits including at least one of: a memory controller or an input/output (I/O) controller; and a Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) circuit coupled to the plurality of CPU sockets, the BIOS circuit having access to program instructions that, upon execution by the BIOS, cause the IHS to: initialize the plurality of CPU sockets; and report an electronic circuit associated to a first core of a first CPU socket as being instead associated with a second core of a second CPU socket.
US09734102B2

A controller coupled to a peripheral identifies an access type used by the controller for data transfer. The controller performs operations including: sending information to a peripheral coupled to a controller, the information indicating an access type for which the controller is configured for data transfer; monitoring a communication link with the peripheral for a signal indicating that the peripheral is ready to perform a data transfer according to the access type; and performing, in response to a receipt of the signal through the communication link, the data transfer using data transfer handshake signals that are adapted according to the access type.
US09734093B2

Systems and methods for managing secured storage devices in an Information Handling System (IHS) are described. In some embodiments, a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) may have program instructions stored thereon that, upon execution, cause the BMC to: identify a triggering event; send an alert to a Chassis Management Controller (CMC); receive, from the CMC, a request for one or more security keys pair usable to authenticate one or more secured Solid State Drives (SSDs) in a new configuration different from a previous configuration; and provide a response to the CMC.
US09734085B2

A method for transmitting data between an information processing device and a storage device, in which the storage device includes a buffer memory and flash chips, includes: receiving a first write request including data to be written and an address used for the flash chip of the storage device; allocating a first memory unit in the information processing device for the first write request; sending a write command including data, the address used for the flash chip of the storage device and address used for the buffer memory, to the storage device, in which the address used for the buffer memory corresponds to the first memory unit; receiving a message indicating the performing of the write command by the storage device has been completed, from the storage device; and releasing the first memory unit.
US09734081B2

A compute server accomplishes physical address to virtual address translation to optimize physical storage capacity via thin provisioning techniques. The thin provisioning techniques can minimize disk seeks during command functions by utilizing a translation table and free list stored to both one or more physical storage devices as well as to a cache. The cached translation table and free list can be updated directly in response to disk write procedures. A read-only copy of the cached translation table and free list can be created and stored to physical storage device for use in building the cached translation table and free list upon a boot of the compute server. The copy may also be used to repair the cached translation table in the event of a power failure or other event affecting the cache.
US09734079B2

Hybrid multi-level memory architecture technologies are described. A System on Chip (SOC) includes multiple functional units and a multi-level memory controller (MLMC) coupled to the functional units. The MLMC is coupled to a hybrid multi-level memory architecture including a first-level dynamic random access memory (DRAM) (near memory) that is located on-package of the SOC and a second-level DRAM (far memory) that is located off-package of the SOC. The MLMC presents the first-level DRAM and the second-level DRAM as a contiguous addressable memory space and provides the first-level DRAM to software as additional memory capacity to a memory capacity of the second-level DRAM. The first-level DRAM does not store a copy of contents of the second-level DRAM.
US09734078B2

A method for resetting of memory locks in a transactional memory system. The method includes a processor setting at least one new memory lock during execution of a transaction that acquires access to a region of memory. The new memory lock indicates that the transaction and its associated thread have exclusive temporary access to the memory region. The method further includes determining if a first in first out (FIFO) memory lock register is full of memory locks and, in response to the FIFO memory lock register being full, a memory lock is removed from a tail position of the FIFO memory lock register. The removed memory lock is reset to return to a transactional memory state and the new memory lock is added to a head position in the FIFO memory lock register.
US09734077B2

Method and apparatus for sending packets using optimized PIO write sequences without sfences. Sequences of Programmed Input/Output (PIO) write instructions to write packet data to a PIO send memory are received at a processor supporting out of order execution. The PIO write instructions are received in an original order and executed out of order, with each PIO write instruction writing a store unit of data to a store buffer or a store block of data to the store buffer. Logic is provided for the store buffer to detect when store blocks are filled, resulting in the data in those store blocks being drained via PCIe posted writes that are written to send blocks in the PIO send memory at addresses defined by the PIO write instructions. Logic is employed for detecting the fill size of packets and when a packet's send blocks have been filled, enabling the packet data to be eligible for egress.
US09734075B2

A cache memory control procedure has: cache area allocating including allocating, in response to an acquisition request, and according to an effective cache usage degree that is based on a memory access frequency and a difference between a cache hit rate in a case where the dedicated cache area is allocated and a cache hit rate in a case where a shared cache area in the cache memory is allocated, the dedicated cache area for a higher effective cache usage degree and the shared cache area for a lower effective cache usage degree; and releasing the dedicated cache area which is allocated, in response to a release request which is issued during execution of a process by the processor and requests the release of the allocated dedicated cache area.
US09734069B2

Systems and methods for multicast tree-based data distribution in a distributed shared cache. An example processing system comprises: a plurality of processing cores, each processing core communicatively coupled to a cache; a tag directory associated with caches of the plurality of processing cores; a shared cache associated with the tag directory; a processing logic configured, responsive to receiving an invalidate request with respect to a certain cache entry, to: allocate, within the shared cache, a shared cache entry corresponding to the certain cache entry; transmit, to at least one of: a tag directory or a processing core that last accessed the certain entry, an update read request with respect to the certain cache entry; and responsive to receiving an update of the certain cache entry, broadcast the update to at least one of: one or more tag directories or one or more processing cores identified by a tag corresponding to the certain cache entry.
US09734062B2

An apparatus comprising a memory and a controller. The memory may be configured to (i) implement a cache and (ii) store meta-data. The cache comprises one or more cache windows. Each of the one or more cache windows comprises a plurality of cache-lines configured to store information. Each of the cache-lines comprises a plurality of sub-cache lines. Each of the plurality of cache-lines and each of the plurality of sub-cache lines is associated with meta-data indicating one or more of a dirty state and an invalid state. The controller is connected to the memory and configured to (i) recognize sub-cache line boundaries and (ii) process the I/O requests in multiples of a size of said sub-cache lines to minimize cache-fills.
US09734061B2

A memory control circuit has a request determination circuitry to determine whether a period without read-out request and write request to an i-th (i being an integer of 1 or more and of n or less, n being an integer of 2 or more) level cache memory among first to n-th level cache memories continues for a first period of time or longer, the i-th level cache memory comprising a first nonvolatile memory, and a power-supply controller to control a power cut-off timing to the i-th level cache memory based on a determination of the request determination circuitry.
US09734058B2

A method and apparatus for optimizing a configuration memory of a reconfigurable processor is provided. The method of optimizing the configuration memory of the reconfigurable processor includes analyzing parallelism of a loop of a program code based on an architecture of the reconfigurable processor and information regarding the configuration memory, scheduling groups of function units (FUs) to be activated in each cycle of the loop based on the analyzed parallelism, generating configuration data of each cycle, and determining a memory mapping to store the generated configuration data in the configuration memory.
US09734055B2

Upon receipt of an instruction to access a logical address of a storage medium, an information processing apparatus controls access to its corresponding physical address of the storage medium. A management unit manages mapping between a continuous series of logical addresses and discrete physical addresses skipping a predetermined number of replacement areas. A controller identifies to which physical address the received logical address is mapped, and controls access to the storage medium using the identified physical address. When a defect occurs in a storage area indicated by a physical address, the information processing apparatus remaps its corresponding logical address to a replacement area adjacent to the defective physical address.
US09734053B2

Garbage collection processing is facilitated. Based on execution of a load instruction and determining that an object pointer to be loaded indicates a location within a selected portion of memory undergoing garbage collection, processing control is obtained by a handler executing within a processor of the computing environment. The handler obtains an address of the object pointer from a pre-defined location, reads the object pointer, and determines whether the object pointer is to be modified. If the object pointer is to be modified, the handler modifies the object pointer. The handler then stores the modified object pointer in a selected location.
US09734043B2

In a method for selecting one or more tests for a compiled software module, a processor detects that one or more changes have been made to source code for a software module. A processor compiles the source code for the software module. A processor accesses a set of tests for the software module. A processor accesses metadata for each test of the set of tests. A processor receives a first set of one or more rules describing logical conditions relative to the metadata for the tests. A processor selects at least one test from the set of tests whose metadata corresponds to the received first set of one or more rules.
US09734038B2

A plurality of processing elements having stream operators and operating on one or more computer processors receive a stream of tuples. A first stream operator adds a first attribute to a tuple received on a first port of the first stream operator. The first attribute indicates the first port and the first stream operator. A second stream operator adds a second attribute to a tuple received on a first port of the second stream operator. The second attribute indicates the first port of the second stream operator and the second stream operator. It is determined whether a debug tuple has been received by a third stream operator. A debug tuple is a tuple that includes the first and second attributes. An operation, such as halting execution or incrementing a count of debug tuples, is performed when it is determined that a debug tuple has been received.
US09734032B1

A programmable IC is disclosed that includes a programmable logic sub-system, a processing sub-system, and a safety sub-system. The programmable logic sub-system is configured to operate a hardware portion of the user design. The processing sub-system configured to execute a software portion of the user design. The safety sub-system is configured to perform a set of operations to detect errors in the programmable IC. The first set of operations writes to at least one of a set of registers using a write macro function. In response to writing to the register with the write macro function, a list of registers stored in the memory is updated to include the register. Registers included in the list of registers are tested to determine whether or not an upset has occurred.
US09734030B2

Aspects include communicating synchronous input/output (I/O) commands between a system and a recipient. The system executes on a processor coupled to a memory so as to issue, to the recipient, a synchronous I/O command with a diagnostic operation code, where the synchronous I/O command causes a gathering of diagnostic information by the recipient. Further, the system receives, from the recipient, status information including a diagnostic information identifier, the status information being in accordance with the diagnostic information.
US09734026B2

A method for sharing memory of a backup server with a primary server for data replication is provided. The method may include maintaining a plurality of identical memory regions between the primary server and the backup server. The method may also include determining at least one remote memory address on the backup server for a backup key-value pair, whereby the determining is based on the maintaining of the plurality of memory regions. The method may further include inserting a plurality of data from the primary server directly in the determined at least one remote memory address on the backup server. The method may additionally include providing a mirroring status of a memory allocator on the primary server to the backup server based on the inserting of the plurality of data from the primary server.
US09734024B2

The method and system of the present invention provides an improved technique for processing email during an unplanned outage. Email messages are redirected from the primary server to a secondary server during an unplanned outage such as, for example, a natural disaster. A notification message is sent to users alerting them that their email messages are available on the secondary server by, for example, Internet access. After the termination of the unplanned outage, email messages received during the unplanned outage are synchronized into the users standard email application.
US09734018B2

According to certain aspects, systems and methods are provided for automating recovery of a networked data storage environment. For instance, a system can generate a data recovery package configured to automatically carry out a process for recovering a data storage environment and/or associated data. The content of the particular workflow depends on the data storage environment, and can be defined by a user.
US09734017B2

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and device that assists with dynamically determining and readjusting failover targets includes identifying an existing failover target from a plurality of failover targets for backing up an updated object. The identified existing failover target is determined for eligibility for backing up the updated object. One or more new failover targets from the plurality of failover targets are dynamically identified based on a plurality of storage parameters when the identified existing failover target is determined not to be eligible for backing up the updated object. The updated object is backed up in one of the dynamically identified one or more new failover targets.
US09734005B2

In a set of problem log entries from a computing system, a subset of the set of problem log entries are identified, which pertain to a failed request. The subset is compared to a reference model which defines log entries per request type under a healthy state of the computing system, to identify a portion of the subset of problem log entries which deviate from corresponding log entries in the reference model. In the portion of the subset, at least one high-value log entry is identified. The at least one high-value log entry is output.
US09734003B2

A remote monitoring support apparatus is connected to a control board; performs communication between a management server computer and the control board that controls operation of an elevator; receives a fault detection instruction that instructs transmission of information related to a state of the elevator and that is transmitted from the management server computer; outputs to the control board, an execution instruction for a fault detection operation according to the received fault detection instruction; obtains at least one among a signal output from the control board to an external destination in response to the output execution instruction for the fault detection operation, and a signal that is for alarm activation and output from the control board to notify the external destination of an abnormality that occurred at the elevator; generates notification information that is based on the obtained signal; and transmits the generated notification information to the management server computer.
US09733999B1

Systems and techniques for dynamic optimization of application workflows are described herein. A shared program object may be generated. The shared program object may have a unique identifier. A communication channel may be established. The communication channel may allow access to the shared program object by a first application program using the unique identifier. A subscription request may be received from the first application. The subscription request may request access to the shared program object. A set of services corresponding to the first application may be determined in response to receiving the subscription request. Communication may be facilitated between a service of the set of services corresponding to the first application and a second application via the shared program object. The second application may be subscribed to the shared program object.
US09733995B2

A method comprising receiving control information at a first processing element from a second processing element, synchronizing objects within a shared global memory space of the first processing element with a shared global memory space of a second processing element in response to receiving the control information and generating a completion event indicating the first processing element has been synchronized with the second processing element.
US09733989B1

A method, system and program product for enabling migration of Virtual Machines with concurrent access to data across two geographically disperse sites to enable load balancing across the two geographically disperse sites, by presenting over a network a read writable logical volume at a first site, presenting over a network a read writable logical volume at a second geographically disparate site; wherein the first volume and the second volume are configured to contain the same information, and enabling read write access to the volume at the first site or the volume at the second site for a first virtual machine while keeping the data consistent between the two sites to enable transparent migration of the virtual machine to load balancing across the two sites according to at least one load balancing metric.
US09733983B2

Described herein are systems and methods for use with a load balancer or traffic director, and administration thereof. In accordance with an embodiment the system comprises a traffic director having one or more traffic director instances, which is configured to receive and communicate requests, from clients, to origin servers having one or more pools of servers. A traffic monitor, at the traffic director, monitors traffic, including the number of connections, between the traffic director instances and one or more of the resource servers within the origin servers. The traffic director can set a traffic rate which controls the traffic, including the number of connections, to provide surge protection, or rate acceleration/deceleration.
US09733982B2

A computer calculates memory access rates for respective tasks on basis of hardware monitor information obtained by monitoring operating states of hardware during execution of an application program. The tasks correspond to respective syntax units specified in the application program. The computer assigns, on basis of the calculated memory access rates, a first task to a socket in a processor in response to an instruction for executing the first task.
US09733976B2

A security system and method efficiently monitors and secures a computer to defend against malicious intrusions, and includes an in-band software monitor disposed within a kernel in communication with an operating system (OS) of the computer. The monitor intercepts system calls made from an MSR (Model Specific Register), to execute monitoring operations, and subsequently returns execution to the OS. An out-of-band hypervisor communicably coupled to the OS, has read shadow means for trapping read requests to the MSR, and write mask means for trapping write requests to the MSR. The hypervisor includes means for responding to the trapped read and write requests so that presence of the monitor is obscured. Sysret monitoring means intercepts calls to a sysret instruction, executes sysret monitoring operations, and subsequently returns execution to an application running on the computer.
US09733974B2

Techniques promote monitoring of hypervisor systems by presenting dynamic representations of hypervisor architectures that include performance indicators. A reviewer can interact with the representation to progressively view select lower-level performance indicators. Higher level performance indicators can be determined based on lower level state assessments. A reviewer can also view historical performance metrics and indicators, which can aid in understanding which configuration changes or system usages may have led to sub-optimal performance.
US09733972B1

A system, method, and computer program product for determining an optimal configuration for a computing system. For example, a method may include accessing functional requirements and resource constraint information. Functional requirements are converted into hardware requirements and functional models are generated, each of which satisfies the hardware requirements. Functional models are converted to functional utilization models, and functional utilization model values are generated for the functional utilization models. The method also may include defining a resource model for each of the functional models and converting the resource models to resource utilization models. A resource utilization model value is generated for each of the resource utilization models. A set of viable models is identified based on the values for the functional utilization models and the resource utilization models, and then a best fit model is identified based on the determined functional model value and the determined resource constraint model value.
US09733971B2

Placement of virtual machines on physical hosts is based on a preferred host list that may be generated from preferred host identifiers to more efficiently utilize system resources and serve the needs of different workloads. A host identifiers mechanism allows a system administrator to select preferred host identifiers for each virtual machine or a group of virtual machines. The host identifiers mechanism in conjunction with an optimizer periodically adjusts the placement of virtual machines according to the preferred host identifiers and consistent with optimization policies. Further, the preferred host identifiers may include a time component so that the preferred host resources can be periodically updated and can dynamically change over time.
US09733969B2

Example embodiments relate to methods, systems, and a computer program product for detecting and responding to the presence of malware persistently executing in a monitored virtual machine of a virtual computing platform. The method includes logging I/O requests at a hypervisor kernel in a kernel log and at a virtual machine (VM) managed by the hypervisor in a VM log. The logged I/O requests then may be compared to detect evidence of malware according to differences between the I/O requests logged in the VM log and the kernel log.
US09733967B2

A system for providing security mechanisms for secure execution of program code is described. The system may be configured to maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances. The system may be further configured to receive a request to execute a program code and allocate computing resources for executing the program code on one of the virtual machine instances. One mechanism involves executing program code according to a user-specified security policy. Another mechanism involves executing program code that may be configured to communicate or interface with an auxiliary service. Another mechanism involves splitting and executing program code in a plurality of portions, where some portions of the program code are executed in association with a first level of trust and some portions of the program code are executed with different levels of trust.
US09733966B1

A system for providing real-time streaming of data in non-POSIX formats to systems in POSIX formats in the general context of system backup and recovery. The system uses an index to manage storage and retrieval of data in non-POSIX formats. While retrieving the backup, the system presents a virtual volume to a hypervisor or other similar device to create a virtual machine that allows the user to make read or write requests with respect to the backup before it is completely restored. The system merges any changes to the virtual volume, due to write requests, with the complete, backed-up volume. In one embodiment, a system backup is stored in object storage and can be recovered in real-time, allowing a user to access and use the system before it has finished recovering.
US09733964B2

The subject matter of this specification can be implemented in, among other things, a method including receiving a request to create a live snapshot of a state of a virtual machine at a reference point-in-time. The virtual machine can have a memory and an original disk file. The method further includes creating, at the reference point-in-time, an overlay disk file to copy data from the original disk file. Data modifications after the reference point-in-time are performed in the original disk file but not in the overlay disk file. The method also includes creating a memory snapshot at the reference point-in-time. The method includes providing the live snapshot corresponding to the reference point-in-time. The live snapshot includes the overlay disk file and the memory snapshot.
US09733963B2

Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for optimizing virtual graphics processing unit utilization. Embodiments include assigning a computing intensity level to each virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines; assigning a priority level to each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines; determining for each server of a plurality of servers whether the server includes a virtual graphics processing unit (VGPU) that is available to perform compute intensive tasks for the plurality of virtual machines; and assigning one or more VGPUs to a virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines in dependence upon the computing intensity level and the priority level of the virtual machine and the number of VGPUs available to perform the compute intensive tasks.
US09733954B2

A dynamic thumbnail corresponding to an application window is displayed that is capable of being modified based on modifications in the application window. The modifications of the dynamic thumbnail may be accomplished in real-time. In some embodiments, a dynamic thumbnail is displayed in response to a user hovering a cursor over a taskbar button for a corresponding application window. In some embodiments, modifications to the dynamic thumbnail are reflected in the corresponding application window.
US09733951B2

A node on a serial bus, preferably a device such as a personal computer (PC), can emulate other devices using virtual device drivers. A PC connected to a 1394 bus exposes its CROM on the bus which presents an image to other nodes on the 1394 bus and describes the functional units supported by the node. The CROM can be changed dynamically by adding unit directories to the CROM detailing peripherals connected to the PC. The PC can then be enumerated as the connected device by other PCs on the bus. The PC can emulate or morph itself into any desired device or even multiple devices at the same time. The invention also allows a PC to create devices that don't yet exist on the bus. The invention allows a user to create virtual device objects with device properties to have just in case a user plugs the particular device in to the PC.
US09733946B2

A method comprises identifying a number of branches (Nb) and a number of iterations (Ni) in a loop in an instruction stream, generating a number of forward branches until the number of forward branches equals Nb, generating a non-branch instruction in between the forward branch instruction, recording in a memory, instruction stream generated and a history of each branch, an associated target address of each branch, and whether the branch is a taken branch or a not taken branch, determining whether a loop iterator number (i) is less than Ni−1, generating a backward branch with a target address which is greater than or equal to the start address and is lesser than the current address responsive to determining that (i) is less than Ni, and recording in the memory, a branch instruction of the generated backward branch and the associated target address of the backward branch.
US09733942B2

A hardware based translation accelerator. The hardware includes a guest fetch logic component for accessing guest instructions; a guest fetch buffer coupled to the guest fetch logic component and a branch prediction component for assembling guest instructions into a guest instruction block; and conversion tables coupled to the guest fetch buffer for translating the guest instruction block into a corresponding native conversion block. The hardware further includes a native cache coupled to the conversion tables for storing the corresponding native conversion block, and a conversion look aside buffer coupled to the native cache for storing a mapping of the guest instruction block to corresponding native conversion block, wherein upon a subsequent request for a guest instruction, the conversion look aside buffer is indexed to determine whether a hit occurred, wherein the mapping indicates the guest instruction has a corresponding converted native instruction in the native cache.
US09733941B2

In response to determining an operation is a dependent operation, a mapper of a processor determines the source registers of the operation from which the dependent operation depends. The mapper translates the dependent operation to a new operation that uses as its source operands at least one of the determined source registers and a source register of the dependent operation. The new operation is independent of other pending operations and therefore can be executed without waiting for execution of other operations, thus reducing execution latency.
US09733939B2

A processor includes a processing unit including a storage module having stored thereon a physical reference list for storing identifications of physical registers that have been referenced by multiple logical registers, and a reclamation module for reclaiming physical registers to a free list based on a count of each of the physical registers on the physical reference list.
US09733934B2

The subject matter of this disclosure can be implemented in, among other things, a method. In these examples, the method includes selecting for analysis by a computing device, an executable application, and identifying a group of application programming interfaces (APIs) utilized by the application when the application is executed. The method may also identifying a group of related applications that are each related to the application based on the group of APIs utilized by the application, wherein each related application of the group of related applications utilizes one or more APIs of the group of APIs utilized by the application.
US09733933B1

Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and computer program products for automatically identifying a comment change deficiency by a code editing component executed by a processor. The automatic identification of the comment changes includes determining whether one or more character changes exist between a first code version and a second code version and determining whether one or more logical changes exist between the first code version and the second code version. Note that the first code comment relates to the character or the logical changes within the first code version. Further, the automatic identification of the comment changes includes identifying the at least one comment related to the character or the logical changes and generating a notification including the at least one comment.
US09733932B2

Dynamic ontological working sets support the automatic identification of a context-specific working set (or a visualization of a tree in a hierarchical data structure) that displays those tree nodes that are most relevant to an identified context. Pre-defined rules are used to determine a level of relevance to be applied when identifying the context-specific working set. Context-specific working sets may be displayed automatically when identified.
US09733929B1

A method for restoring applications may include: 1) identifying an installation file that includes an application; 2) monitoring the installation file to identify a set of application files generated as a result of installing the application from the installation file; 3) assigning, to each application file in the set of application files, an application identifier that associates each application file in the set of application files with the application; 4) backing up the application by copying each application file in the set of application files to a backup storage system; 5) receiving a request to restore each application file in the set of application files; and 6) restoring the application by using the application identifier to locate each application file in the set of application files within the backup storage system. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09733928B2

A computer-implemented method includes receiving a request from a user at a local machine to access a project. One or more programming languages used in the project are identified. Resource availability at the local machine is analyzed. An integrated development environment (IDE) is selected for the project, based at least in part on the one or more programming languages and the resource availability of the local machine. The IDE is provisioned automatically, by a computer processor, for the user in response to the request to access the project.
US09733925B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a system, method, and program product. In an embodiment, a computing device generates a list of predetermined project templates associated with a web page, wherein the web page is new or preexisting. The computing device transmits the generated list of predetermined project templates for display that includes one or more predetermined project templates that include a preset package of web content editing actions that are associated with the web page. The computing device generates a web page action associated with the web page according to a project generated using a predetermined project template included in the transmitted list of predetermined project templates. The computing device transmits the generated web page action for display.
US09733922B2

An on device client that augments operating system functionality may monitor for an event from an operating system running on a processor of a device. Responsive to determining that the event is indicative of an installation of an application on the device, the on device client may generate a table associated with the application. The table comprises locations of file system entities associated with the application. The table is stored in a memory device. Responsive to determining that the event is indicative of a modification to the application installed on the device, the on device client may trigger one or more automatic processor actions to keep the modification consistent across the file system entities of the application.
US09733917B2

A method for predicting whether a party will purchase a product. The method includes accessing data wherein the data is obtained from a plurality of computing environments of a plurality of parties, analyzing the data; and predicting whether one of the plurality of parties will purchase a product based on the analyzed data.
US09733916B2

Embodiments link external widgets to internal data displayed being within a dashboard as part of a story. An interface allows selecting external widget(s) based upon matching with a parameter of internal data being accessed. A user may define in an interactive manner, the behavior of the external widget in terms of characteristics such as data rendering, configurable fields, update behavior, and/or access to external sources (e.g., authentication). In an example, internal geographic dashboard data may serve as a basis for accessing external data such as social media data via a custom widget searching relevant messages combined with keywords (e.g., referring to geography). An external widget may be linked to other (internal/external) widgets through a linking table, such that changed/updated data is propagated for display within the dashboard. External widgets may thus be linked to data currently being viewed in terms of chart selection, data highlighting and data filtering mechanisms.
US09733914B2

System and method for automatically parallelizing iterative functionality in a data flow program. A data flow program is stored that includes a first data flow program portion, where the first data flow program portion is iterative. Program code implementing a plurality of second data flow program portions is automatically generated based on the first data flow program portion, where each of the second data flow program portions is configured to execute a respective one or more iterations. The plurality of second data flow program portions are configured to execute at least a portion of iterations concurrently during execution of the data flow program. Execution of the plurality of second data flow program portions is functionally equivalent to sequential execution of the iterations of the first data flow program portion.
US09733903B2

The present disclosure relates to maintaining assertions in source code components of a development project by an integrated development environment (IDE) tool. According to one embodiment, a request is received to build a software application generated from the development project. Based on prior executions of the software application, resource requirements for each of one or more assertions included in the prior executions of the software application are identified. One or more of the assertions based on the identified resource requirements are selectively inserted in the source code components. The source code components of the development project are compiled to build the software application.
US09733896B2

In accordance with control data that controls a virtual object image and has been acquired by another apparatus, a display form of the virtual object image is set. Then, the virtual object image based on data representing the display form is displayed in a captured image to be displayed on a display apparatus.
US09733894B2

A computer implemented method and an apparatus for facilitating voice user interface (VUI) design are provided. The method comprises identifying a plurality of user intentions from user interaction data. The method further comprises associating each user intention with at least one feature from among a plurality of features. One or more features from among the plurality of features are extracted from natural language utterances associated with the user interaction data. Further, the method comprises computing a plurality of distance metrics corresponding to pairs of user intentions from among the plurality of user intentions. A distance metric is computed for each pair of user intentions from among the pairs of user intentions. Furthermore, the method comprises generating a plurality of clusters based on the plurality of distance metrics. Each cluster comprises a set of user intentions. The method further comprises provisioning a VUI design recommendation based on the plurality of clusters.
US09733888B2

A method for rendering data in a network is disclosed. The network comprises at least one rendering device and a mobile device. This method, known as a “follow-me” method, comprises a detection of a rendering device by the mobile device thanks to a capture by the mobile device of at least an image of the rendering device; an identification of the detected rendering device by the mobile device from among the at least one rendering device; and a rendering of data on the identified rendering device. An associated mobile device configured to render data on a display device of a network and network device implementing the rendering method are further disclosed.
US09733884B2

A display apparatus, control method, and system are provided. The display apparatus includes a display; one or more loudspeakers; a signal processor configured to process an image signal so that an image may be displayed on the display and sound may be output from the loudspeaker; a communication interface configured to communicate with one or more external display apparatuses; and a controller configured to transmit sound processed by the signal processor to the one or more loudspeakers in accordance with a preset output designation state, determine a divided and displayed state of an image with respect to the display apparatus and the one or more external display apparatuses, and adjust the output designation state of the sound with respect to the one or more loudspeakers based on the determination.
US09733867B2

A storage administrator may maintain location information in separate layers. A data storage system may identify the location of particular data by identifying the virtual location of data, such as the logical extent to which the data belongs. Object stores may maintain mappings of virtual locations to physical locations, such as mappings of extent identifiers to virtual storage objects and mappings of virtual storage objects to storage unit locations. When particular data is relocated to a new location, a storage administrator may update mappings used to translate virtual locations to physical locations, such as an extent-object mapping or an object-storage unit mapping. References to the virtual locations, such as references to logical extent identifiers, may not be updated in response to the relocation of data.
US09733865B2

A method can include transmitting a first data from a first adapter to a buffer of a channel adapter device driver at a buffer memory transfer rate. The channel adapter device driver also receives a second data at a first port of the first adapter from a host at a first time. The method also includes determining a second time to send a device end status to the host, the device end status closes a channel from the host to the first adapter. The method also includes sending the device end status to the host at the second time through the first port. The method also includes transferring the second data from the first adapter to the buffer of the channel adapter device driver.
US09733856B2

Various embodiments manage deployable computing environments. In one embodiment, a system model of a computing environment that includes a set of computing resources is analyzed. The system model at least describes properties of each of the set of computing nodes and identifies a plurality of configuration operations to be executed by each of the set of computing nodes during deployment. A set of dependency information is generated for each of the set of computing nodes based on analyzing the system model. The set of dependency information identifies at least one dependency between two or more of the plurality of configuration operations. An executable coordination operation is added to each of the plurality of configuration operations. The executable coordination operation automatically coordinates execution of the plurality of configuration operations on the computing node.
US09733850B2

Various embodiments (“systems”) are described for transferring data from a primary storage (e.g., magnetic disk drives, solid state drives, etc.) to an optical cold storage rack. The optical cold storage rack may include many physical optical storage disks, but a much smaller number of burners and readers (e.g., optical disk drives). When data is to be transferred to the optical cold storage rack, the system may generate a plan for performing the transfer. “Migration worker” components may then implement the plan and may be exclusively dedicated to implementing such plans. In various embodiments, the plan may specify how large data file “aggregates” (collections of portions of one or more data files) are to be distributed across optical disks (“disks”) to improve throughput during subsequent reading operations from the optical cold storage rack. The plan may also anticipate the relation between the limited number of burners/readers and the overall optical cold storage rack disk capacity.
US09733849B2

The systems and methods disclosed herein transparently provide an improved scalable cloud-based dynamically adjustable or configurable storage volume. In one aspect, a gateway provides a dynamically or configurably adjustable storage volume, including a local cache. The storage volume may be transparently adjusted for the amount of data that needs to be stored using available local or cloud-based storage. The gateway may use caching techniques and block clustering to provide gains in access latency compared to existing gateway systems, while providing scalable off-premises storage.
US09733845B2

An embedded processing unit (eCPU) processes an input/output (I/O) request from a host using a virtual storage controller. The eCPU associates a virtual network interface with a host. The virtual storage controller uses a first transport protocol. The eCPU receives an I/O request directed at a storage device from the virtual storage controller. The eCPU determines a second transport protocol used by the storage device, and converts the I/O request from a format according to the first transport protocol to a format according to the second transport protocol. The eCPU transmits the I/O request to the storage device using the second transport protocol.
US09733842B2

A detection device includes an interface unit that performs communication with a host device which is a master, and a storage unit that stores information on a data transmission order of its own detection device. Ina case where the host device designates a common address which has a plurality of detection devices as common destinations, and issues a read command, the interface unit transmits the detected data to the host device in the data transmission order.
US09733841B2

A system includes a read/write module and a caching module. The read/write module is configured to access a first portion of a recording surface of a rotating storage device. Data is stored on the first portion of the recording surface of the rotating storage device at a first density. The caching module is configured to cache data on a second portion of the recording surface of the rotating storage device at a second density. The second portion of the recording surface of the rotating storage device is separate from the first portion of the recording surface of the rotating storage device. The second density is less than the first density.
US09733835B2

Embodiments of the application disclose a data storage method and a storage server. The method includes: detecting actual usage of a hard disk corresponding to an initial capacity level in configured hard disk capacity levels; when it is determined, according to the detected actual usage, that the hard disk corresponding to the initial capacity level exceeds a limit, searching for a hard disk corresponding to a second highest capacity level and is higher than the initial capacity level; and when the hard disk corresponding to the second highest capacity level is obtained by searching, determining a migration ratio of a virtual node according to the initial capacity level, the second highest capacity level, and the actual hard disk capacity, and performing virtual node migration between hard disks that are corresponding to the configured hard disk capacity levels. By using the disclosure, hard disk capacity heterogeneousness in massive storage is supported.
US09733833B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for selecting pages implementing leaf nodes and internal nodes of a data set index for reuse in memory. Pages in the memory are allocated to internal nodes and leaf nodes of a tree data structure representing all or a portion of a data set index for the data set. At least at least one duration parameter indicates an amount of time after which an unused page implement one of the internal nodes or leaf nodes is eligible for reuse. Selection is made of at least one selected page allocated to at least one of the leaf nodes and the internal nodes that has not been used for one of the at least one duration parameter for reuse.
US09733826B2

An approach is provided for directing input received at a touch-enabled device to an intended input layer. User inputs are received at a touch-screen of a device. Each user input includes a set of one or more input properties. The touch-screen includes different interaction layers that include a transparent layer and an application layer. The approach analyzes the input properties associated with the received user inputs. Based on the analysis, the approach identifies an intended interaction layer as being either the transparent layer or the application layer. The approach then directs the user inputs to the identified intended interaction layer.
US09733816B2

Disclosed is a method and system for enabling a user, through a user interface, to manage a correspondence that defines how information about a state of a first device at a first location is to be used to control a second device at a second location.
US09733804B2

A hand-held electronic device having a remote control application user interface that functions to displays operational mode information to a user. The graphical user interface may be used, for example, to setup the remote control application to control appliances for one or more users in one or more rooms, to perform activities, and to access favorites. The remote control application is also adapted to be upgradeable. Furthermore, the remote control application provides for the sharing of operational mode information.
US09733801B2

An embodiment provides a product comprising a machine-readable medium and machine-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform a method comprising providing expendable axes of user-selectable element displaying same user-selectable elements in corresponding axial locations along the axes of user-selectable elements to provide axial correspondence of user-selectable elements simultaneously displayed on more than one axis of user-selectable elements. A system and a graphical user interface providing the same are equally provided herein.
US09733785B2

An aspect of the present disclosure facilitates a user of a touch screen to select elements identified in a two dimensional space. In an embodiment, a user first selects an element (first element) of such elements sent for display on a chart having two axis, with each dimension mapped to one of the two axis. The user then swipes in a direction. The direction is mapped to one of the two axis, that is more proximate angularly than the other (to the swipe direction). An element next to the first element, along the dimension corresponding to the mapped axis, is selected as the selected element. The chart is updated to reflect the new selection.
US09733783B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for controlling a user interface based at least in part on particular conditions. In response to an element in a user interface being triggered, a first region is identified based at least in part on the location of an input device pointer and the triggered element. An enlarged region is identified based at least in part on the first region. It is determined whether to modify the user interface based at least in part on whether the pointer is moved within the enlarged region.
US09733782B2

A method of modeling a graphical user interface (GUI) based application as a deterministic finite-state machine may include generating dummy error state and a dummy error output in a finite-state machine. The method may further include modeling a response to an action that is unavailable on a screen of a graphical user interface (GUI) based application as a transition to the dummy error state in the finite-state machine while producing the dummy error output in the finite-state machine.
US09733781B2

A display device is disclosed. The display device includes a touch driving module, configured to cause the display device to perform a touch sensing function, a communication driving module, configured to cause the display device to perform a Near Field Communication (NFC) function, and a coil circuit. The touch driving module is further configured to receive and send a touch signal via the coil circuit, and the communication driving module is further configured to receive and send an NFC signal via the coil circuit.
US09733779B2

Certain example embodiments relate to capacitive touch panels. First and second glass substrates are substantially parallel and spaced apart from one another. At least one multi-layer transparent conductive coating (TCC) is patterned into electrodes and located between the first and second substrates. The TCC(s) include(s) at least one conductive layer including silver, a dielectric layer including zinc oxide under and directly contacting the conductive layer including silver, and a dielectric layer(s) including tin oxide or silicon nitride over the conductive layer including silver. Processing circuitry electrically connects to the electrodes and measures an aspect of the electrodes' capacitance. A laminate material is located between the first and second glass substrates. The TCC(s), when blanket deposited, may have a visible transmission of at least 88%, a sheet resistances of no more than 10 ohms per square, and a haze of no more than 0.5%. Mutual and self-capacitance designs are disclosed.
US09733777B2

A touch sensing device includes: a touch panel on which a plurality of touch sensor electrodes are formed; a touch driver for supplying a touch driving signal to the touch sensor electrodes and receiving a touch detection signal generated by the touch driving signal; a touch controller for storing a history indicating that respective touch sensor electrodes are touched in the memory by using the touch detection signal; and a memory configured to communicate with the touch controller, wherein the touch controller controls the touch driver to read the history from the memory, determines electrodes for which a number of touch events is greater than a threshold number of touch events by using the history, and supply the touch driving signal to the determined electrodes.
US09733776B2

A touch panel includes: a substrate; a plurality of first touch electrodes and a plurality of second touch electrodes disposed on the substrate and formed in a mesh pattern; a plurality of first connection parts connecting adjacent first touch electrodes and formed in the mesh pattern; and a plurality of second connection parts connecting adjacent second touch electrodes. The second connection part may include first and second contact parts overlapping the adjacent second touch electrodes, respectively, and a leg part connecting the first and second contact parts and a width of the leg part may be narrower than that of an opening of the mesh pattern.
US09733770B2

A touch sensing structure and display device including the same are disclosed. In one aspect, the display device includes a display panel including a light-emitting region and a non-light-emitting region and a touch sensor formed over the display panel and including a plurality of sensing patterns. The display device also includes a destructive interference unit formed over the display panel and overlapping the touch sensor. The destructive interference unit includes a plurality of dielectric layers and a plurality of metal layers that are alternately stacked. At least one of the metal layers includes a plurality of metal patterns that are separated from each other.
US09733754B2

A mobile terminal and controlling method thereof are disclosed. The present disclosure includes a touchscreen configured to recognize at least one touch point at a same timing point and a controller, if a touch pattern for releasing a lock is received through the touchscreen, releasing a lock state of the touchscreen and outputting a preset screen. And, the touch pattern includes a preset touch pattern corresponding to the number of the at least one touch point recognized at the same timing point. Accordingly, a lock is released in response to a command for releasing a lock screen of a touchscreen, various informations are outputted, and a function is launched, simultaneously.
US09733749B2

A manufacturing process for forming a touch structure utilizes a first anti-etching optical layer to define the electrodes pattern and utilizes a second anti-etching optical layer to define the traces pattern. The first anti-etching optical layer and the second anti-etching optical layer do not need to be removed. The refractive index of the first anti-etching optical layer and the refractive index of the second anti-etching optical layer can be adjusted to reduce the display difference between the etched region and the non-etched region.
US09733747B2

The present invention is a method for measuring touching position, touching energy and display device thereof. While touching position is measured, at least two sensors are installed in dispersing form under the sensing panel of touch control equipment. The sensing panel is divided into a plurality of grids. The unit energy distribution vector of the touching signal is compared with the unit energy distribution vector of the benchmark signal of each grid, therefore touching position is obtained. While touching energy is measured, at least one sensor is installed under the sensing panel. The sensing panel is divided into a plurality of grids. Touching position would be obtained by the above method for measuring touching position or other methods. The touching energy could be calculated by comparing the detected touching signal energy with energy of benchmark signal at touching position in corresponding grid. The present invention could reduce the cost, complexity and power consumption of touch control equipment dramatically.
US09733745B1

A touch-sense device includes an overlay, such as a rough overlay or a compliant overlay, on a sensing layer. Use of the overlay changes a response of the sensing layer so that a light press is more distinguishable from a strong press by sensing electronics. Distinguishing the light press from the strong press enables the sensing electronics to report additional information in response to a press. In one example, a sensor signal of the sensing layer attains a first magnitude for a light press, and a second magnitude for a strong press, enabling the strong press to be distinguished. In another example, a sensor signal has a second edge in response to a strong press, and detection of the second edge enables the strong press to be distinguished. In various embodiments, a surface of the overlay has protrusions and/or cavities and/or is compressible.
US09733740B2

A electronic device and method are disclosed herein. The electronic device includes a display, a fingerprint recognition sensor configured to recognize a fingerprint received through the display, and a processor. The processor is configured to implement the method, which includes detecting a fingerprint using a fingerprint recognition sensor of the electronic device through a display of the electronic device; and controlling the display to display at least one object based on the fingerprint.
US09733736B2

According to some aspect, an image display apparatus may include a communication section receiving a plurality of remote operation signals corresponding to remote operations of a plurality of input apparatuses, and a combination section combining a first image based on the plurality of individual remote operation signals received by the communication section and a second image supplied from other apparatus into a third image, and outputting the third image.
US09733734B2

A method manipulates a 3D image in three dimensions using two-dimensional gestures on a touchpad. The method moves the 3D image within an x-y plane in the direction of a multiple-finger linear gesture. A number of fingers used for the multiple-finger linear gesture is programmed in an instinct library associated with the touchpad. The method detects a multiple-finger linear gesture on a mutual capacitance touchpad and rotates the 3D image in the direction of the multiple-finger linear gesture about an axis in the x-y plane perpendicular to the multiple-finger linear gesture. The method also rotates the 3D image about the x-y plane in the direction of the multiple-finger linear gesture at a speed proportional to the speed of the multiple-finger linear gesture.
US09733732B2

A processor detects an eraser surface on a touch screen. In addition, the processor generates a virtual eraser area for the touch screen from the eraser surface as the eraser surface shape with the virtual eraser area VA=K/√EA where K is a nonzero constant and EA is an eraser angle between the eraser surface and the touch screen.
US09733731B2

In one embodiment, a stylus includes a controller, a delay line, a coefficient line and a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium. The controller is operable to receive a synchronization signal that is transmitted from a computing device and received by the stylus. The delay line is operable to store a first consecutive edges of the synchronization signal. The coefficient line includes a pre-determined coefficient vector. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodies logic that is configured when executed to: determine a first correlation between the first consecutive edges of the synchronization signal and the pre-determined coefficient vector of the coefficient line; remove oldest signal period of edges of the first consecutive edges from the delay line; store next signal period of new consecutive edges of the synchronization signal to the delay line, the new consecutive edges composing a second consecutive edges of the synchronization signal; determine a second correlation between the second consecutive edges of the synchronization signal and the pre-determined coefficient vector; and synchronize one or more timings for communication between the stylus and the computing device based at least in part on the first and second correlations.
US09733723B2

A remote data capture system includes a host computing device and a client computing device communicatively coupled to the host computing device. A capture device is coupled to the client computing device. The capture device is configured to receive an electrical input signal from a sensor and convert the input signal to corresponding input data having a predetermined electronic data format. The client computing device selectably transmits the input data to the host computing device.
US09733712B2

According to an aspect, a device includes a touch screen display and a controller. The touch screen display displays a screen. The controller controls an orientation of the screen based on a gesture detected through the touch screen display and a state of the device.
US09733709B2

A tactile display device comprises a first electrode, a second electrode, supports between a first and a second electrodes, and an electroactive polymer filled between a supports.
US09733702B2

An inclination of a first unit is detected based on an output from a first acceleration sensor provided in a first unit of a controller, and an inclination of a second unit is detected based on an output from a second acceleration sensor provided in a second unit separate from the first unit. A difference between the inclinations of the first unit and the second unit is detected, and game control is performed using the detected difference. Thus, with a game apparatus using a plurality of acceleration sensors or a plurality of sensors capable of detecting a motion or a posture, a dynamic play is made possible with a high degree of freedom of motion and an intuitive motion input is realized.
US09733695B2

Aspects include a method, system, and computer program product for managing battery life in a portable terminal. Managing battery life in the portable terminal may include enabling a sleep mode in the portable terminal in response to detection of a sleep event, and enabling an operation mode in the portable terminal in response to detection of an operation event. The portable terminal may include a first processor and a second processor. The enabling the sleep mode may include reducing power consumption of the first processor. The enabling the operation mode may include detecting the operation event with the second processor while the portable terminal is in the sleep mode. A rate of battery power consumption during the sleep mode may be lower than a rate of battery power consumption during the operation mode.
US09733691B2

A method includes monitoring power usage for a storage system that includes a set storage units at a first level of storage granularity and a set of storage sub-units at a second level of storage granularity, wherein the second level of storage granularity is finer than the first level of storage granularity. The method further includes assigning a non-uniform power budget to the set of storage units and adjusting a power budget for the storage sub-units according to the non-uniform power budget assigned to the storage units. A corresponding computer program product and computer system are also disclosed herein.
US09733672B2

A rollable display is disclosed. In one aspect, the rollable display includes a flexible display panel, a housing having an internal space defined therein, and a rolling member positioned in the housing and configured to have the flexible display panel rolled therearound. The rollable display also includes a guide member positioned in the housing and having a coil shape. The guide member is configured to separate portions of the flexible display panel from each other.
US09733667B2

An image information memory (132) stores, for each operational object image, a display area, an imaged layer (information indicating which layer the operational object image is disposed in a display hierarchy), and the like in association with one another. When either a first inputter (110A) or a second inputter (110B) detects a contact, a controller (120) specifies the operational object images including the contact position in the display area, and determines, in accordance with which one of the first inputter (110A) and the second inputter (110B) detects the contact, whether to operate the image disposed on an upper imaged layer among the specified operational object images or to operate the image disposed on the lower imaged layer.
US09733665B2

Methods and devices for selectively presenting a user interface for a phone application are provided. More particularly, a change in the display mode of a multiple screen device can be determined. More particularly, a presentation of a user interface for a dialer of a phone application can be retained after receiving a flick in an off-screen gesture area of the device. However, a second, child window is provided in a second screen in response to receiving the flick.
US09733660B2

A control device which performs at least MPPT control of output of a solar cell mounted in a vehicle includes a determination unit that determines whether the vehicle is in a travelling state or a stationary state. Different methods are applied when the vehicle is determined to be in the travelling state and in the stationary state respectively.
US09733658B2

A primary current threshold is fit between an electrical capacity and electrical load for an electrical distribution component. When a first measured current exceeds the primary threshold, a power limit for the battery powering the component is reduced. When a second measured current is less than a secondary current threshold, the power limit is increased. The primary and secondary thresholds may be set for a plurality of time periods.
US09733657B2

Systems and methods are disclosed to control a power system with an energy generator and a hybrid energy storage system. The system includes two or more energy storage system, each with different energy storage capacity and energy discharge capacity. The system includes developing data for one or more control variables refined from expert knowledge, trials and tests; providing the control variables to a fuzzy logic controller with a rule base and membership functions; and controlling the energy generator and the hybrid energy storage system using the fuzzy logic controller.
US09733651B2

A proportional pressure-regulating valve (10) for actuating a first fluid connection (f1) from a working connection (A) to a tank connection (T) and a second fluid connection (f2) from a supply connection (P) to the working connection (A), includes a regulating piston (14) guided movably in a valve housing (12). The regulating piston opens the first fluid connection (f1) and closes the second fluid connection (f2) when in a first position, and closes the first fluid connection (f1) and opens the second fluid connection (f2) when a second position. The regulating piston (14) can be displaced from a first position into a third position when the first fluid connection (f1) is open by the total differential pressure produced when fluid flows through. When the regulating piston (14) is in the third position, the first fluid connection (f1) is opened with an enlarged opening cross section compared to the first position, and the second fluid connection (f2) remains closed.
US09733649B2

To provide a flow control system with build-down system flow monitoring that realizes flow monitoring close to real-time monitoring by combining build-down system flow rate measurement with the upstream side of the flow control system without using a thermal type flow sensor by effectively utilizing high pressure fluctuation resistance characteristics of the flow control system, and can be significantly downsized and reduced in cost.
US09733648B2

An automatic excess water flow saving system reduces the water loss by water outlets in houses and other water consuming installations. The system controls the water flow through an outlet by toggling the water flow rate. An actuator activates a timer which opens and closes a valve intermittently and continuously while a water outlet is open.
US09733642B2

A vehicle control device is capable of switching a driving state of a host vehicle between manual driving and autonomous driving, and determines whether or not another vehicle exists in a driver's blind area set in advance diagonally behind the host vehicle in a case where the driving state of the host vehicle is autonomous driving and when the host vehicle reaches a check timing set in advance. In addition, the vehicle control device executes the control in a case where it is determined that the other vehicle exists in the driver's blind area and when the other vehicle exists, which can be removed from the driver's blind area by the control of at least one of a vehicle speed of the host vehicle and a lateral position of the host vehicle.
US09733640B2

A method embodiment includes providing a reticle design data that specify a plurality of printable features that are formed on the wafer using the reticle and a plurality of nonprintable features that are not formed on the wafer using such reticle, wherein the reticle design data is usable to fabricate the reticle. A reduced design database is generated from the reticle design data and this reduced design database includes a description or map of the nonprintable features of the reticle, a description or map of a plurality of cell-to-cell regions of the reticle, and a grayscale reticle image that is rasterized from the reticle design data. The reduced design database, along with the reticle, is transferred to a fabrication facility so that the reduced design database is usable to periodically inspect the reticle in the fabrication facility.
US09733638B2

An automated storage and retrieval system includes a storage space with storage locations defined therein, an automated transport system connected to the storage space and configured to transport store units for storage in the storage locations and retrieval from the storage locations, and a control system disposed for managing throughput performance of the automated storage and retrieval system, the control system being operably coupled to the automated transport system and having more than one separate and distinct control sections each configured for managing throughput performance with respect to a common group of the storage locations, wherein at least one of the control sections manages aspects of throughput performance of the common group independent of another of the control sections.
US09733631B2

The present application relates to a system and method for controlling a plumbing fixture. The system includes a Bluetooth receiver module configured to receive a wireless signal from mobile equipment, a micro control unit in electrical communication with the Bluetooth receiver module, an asynchronous receiver and transmitter in electrical communication with the micro control unit, and a processor in electrical communication with the micro control unit and the plumbing fixture. The Bluetooth receiver module is configured to receive one or more wireless control speech data packets from mobile equipment, convert the one or more wireless control speech data packets into one or more digital signals, and transmit the one or more digital signals to the micro control unit. The micro control unit is configured to control one or more functions associated with the plumbing fixture in response to the one or more digital signals.
US09733628B2

A system and method for performing management and diagnostic functions in an advanced process control (APC) system. An APC management computer retrieves operating process data from an APC control computer and performs an iterative step test on the APC system. The iterative step test modifies at least one test parameter of the operating process data and identifies changes to a set of remaining parameters of the operating process data resulting from modification of the test parameter. The APC management computer determines at least one process variable from the iterative step test and generates at least one process model based on the process variable. The APC management computer transmits the process model to the APC control computer.
US09733618B2

A single-hand or single-indicator timepiece that can simultaneously identify both the hour and minute portion of a given time is present herein. The timepiece includes an indicator structured to rotate about the face of the timepiece and point to the hour element of the time via a distal end thereof. In addition, the same indicator includes a minute identifying portion disposed along a length thereof that will align with a rotationally disposed minute disc. The minute disc includes indicia representative of the minutes evenly spaced radially about its surface in a clockwise ascending order. As the minute disc rotates counterclockwise and the indicator rotates clockwise, the indicator will simultaneously identify the hour element at its distal end and the minute element via the relative position of the minute identifying portion and the minute disc.
US09733615B2

An image forming apparatus includes a sheet transport path that transports a sheet on which an image has been recorded, the sheet transport path including a first guide surface and a second guide surface opposed to the first guide surface, an image reading unit disposed on the same side as the first guide surface of the sheet transport path to read the image, and a rotary element disposed on the same side as the second guide surface, the rotary element being rotatably disposed with a gap between the rotary element and the first guide surface.
US09733604B2

The image forming apparatus sequentially displays, based on the identification code stored in the storage unit, an image showing an operational procedure necessary to clear the maintenance event and then an image that prompts to close a cover corresponding to the maintenance event, on a display unit. The identification code stored in the storage unit is deleted in a case where the maintenance event is cleared. The image forming apparatus displays an image that prompts to close the cover, without displaying an image showing an operational procedure necessary to clear the maintenance event identified with the identification code, in a case where the identification code is stored in the storage unit at the time of start of the image forming apparatus.
US09733603B2

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus for forming an image in accordance with image information includes: an image forming unit configured to form an image that is uniform in area percentage of each of primary colors and a secondary color on an intermediate transfer belt; a measurer configured to measure amounts corresponding to density distribution of residual toner left on the intermediate transfer belt, on which the image uniform in area percentage of each of the primary colors and the secondary color is formed and from which toner is transferred onto a recording medium, in the main-scanning direction; and a corrector configured to correct a tone value of the image information so as to reduce density nonuniformity of a streak region observed in the density distribution in the main-scanning direction using the amounts measured by the measurer.
US09733602B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device, a trim mark adder, a duplex alignment mark adder and a hardware processor. The image forming device is capable of forming an image on both sides of a sheet based on an image data. The trim mark adder adds trim mark information to the image data so that a trim mark is formed at a trimming position of the sheet. The duplex alignment mark adder adds duplex alignment mark information to the image data so that a duplex alignment mark is formed in a margin area between an edge of the sheet and the trimming position on both sides of the sheet. The hardware processor performs a duplex alignment of the image data based on a result of scanning the duplex alignment mark.
US09733600B2

A fixing device includes a fixing belt looped over a first roller and a second roller and rotatable in a predetermined direction of rotation and a pressure rotator to press against the first roller via the fixing belt to form a fixing nip between the fixing belt and the pressure rotator. A separation aid, disposed downstream from the fixing nip in the direction of rotation of the fixing belt, contacts an inner circumferential surface of the fixing belt to decrease a radius of curvature of the fixing belt. A polishing roller, disposed downstream from the separation aid and upstream from the second roller in the direction of rotation of the fixing belt, contacts an outer circumferential surface of the fixing belt. An opposed roller, disposed opposite the polishing roller via the fixing belt, forms a polishing nip between the polishing roller and the fixing belt.
US09733587B2

A light-emitting apparatus includes: first and second array-shaped light emitters arranged in substantially parallel with each other to have a overlapping portion where a part of an area where the first array-shaped light emitter is capable of forming an image and a part of an area where the second array-shaped light emitter is capable of forming an image are overlapped with each other; a division unit that divides, based on a pixel pattern of bit map data including multiple pixel data, the bit map data into a first partial bit map data and a second partial bit map data; and a controller that allocates the first and second partial bit map data to the first and second array-shaped light emitters, respectively, and controls the first and second array-shaped light emitters based on the first and second partial bit map data.
US09733586B2

A resin composite particle includes a continuous phase formed of a polyester resin, and a dispersed phase formed of a vinyl resin and dispersed in the continuous phase, the volume average particle diameter of the resin composite particles being from 50 nm to 1,000 nm.
US09733569B2

A mask includes a transparent substrate and a light blocking pattern. The light blocking pattern includes a light blocking part and a diffraction pattern. The light blocking part is disposed on the transparent substrate and is configured to block light. The diffraction pattern includes a plurality of protrusion parts and is configured to diffract the light. The plurality of protrusion parts protrudes from a side of the blocking part and is separated from each other.
US09733566B2

Techniques disclosed herein include methods for creating a directed self-assembly tunable neutral layer that works with multiple different block copolymer materials. Techniques herein can include depositing a neutral layer and then post-processing this neutral layer to tune its characteristics so that the neutral layer is compatible with a particular block copolymer scheme or schemes. Post-processing herein of such a neutral layer can modify a ratio of pi and sigma bonds in a given carbon film or other film to approximate a given self-assembly film that will be deposited on this neutral layer. Accordingly, a generic or single material can be used for a neutral layer and modified to match a given block copolymer to be deposited.
US09733563B2

The present invention relates to a photosensitive resin composition and a photosensitive material comprising the same. The photosensitive resin composition according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention may comprise two multi-functional monomers where structures of side chains comprising unsaturated double bonds are different from each other while a composition ratio is changed. Accordingly, in the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, processability is excellent, and it is possible to decrease defects by a rupture when a LCD substrate is sealed and substrate separation defects due to an impact to the LCD products by improving an adhesion property to a lower substrate after a hard baking process.
US09733562B2

An apparatus comprises a low EUV reflectivity (LEUVR) mask. The LEUVR mask includes a low thermal expansion material (LTEM) layer; a reflective multilayer (ML) over the LTEM layer; and a patterned absorption layer over the reflective ML. The reflective ML has less than 2% EUV reflectivity.
US09733559B2

An image projector includes: a light source to emit light; an image forming element irradiated with the light from the light source and to form an image for projection onto a projection surface; a first controller activated when the image projector is in a waiting state; and a second controller that is not activated when the image projector is in the waiting state. In response to detection of an execution request for executing the image projector in the waiting state at the first controller, the first controller sets a power supply circuit with an initial voltage to start supplying power to the light source, and when the light source is lighted at the initial voltage, activates the second controller.
US09733555B2

An illumination device includes: a first light source device and a second light source device that emit light in directions opposite to each other in a first direction; a reflective portion that is disposed between the first light source device and the second light source device, and reflects the light emitted from the first light source device and the second light source device in a second direction crossing the first direction; and a cooling device that is disposed on one side of the reflective portion in a direction crossing the first direction and the second direction, and blows cooling air to the first light source device and the second light source device.
US09733554B2

A projector includes an illumination unit having an optical system including a light source apparatus, an image formation unit having an optical system including liquid crystal panels, a projection unit having an optical system including a projection lens, and a base frame on which the illumination unit and the projection unit to which the image formation unit is coupled are disposed, and a gap is provided between the illumination unit and the projection unit.
US09733549B2

An imaging system comprising a parabolic reflector having a base and defining a first axis, a light source disposed proximate the base essentially along the first axis, an imaging device comprising a zooming lens having a second axis, the imaging device being disposed in front of the light source along the first axis such that the second axis and the first axis are essentially coincident.
US09733548B2

The focal-plane shutter includes a blade drive member, an acceleration member providing a driving force to the drive member, and a lock member reducing bounce of the drive member after blade movement completion and being movable between a first position where a stopper portion thereof enters a movable area of a contact portion of the drive member and a second position where the stopper portion is located outside the movable area. During the blade movement, the contact portion pushes the lock member to move it from the first to second position. Before the blade movement completion, the contact portion is away from the lock member and thereby the lock member is moved from the second to first position by a biasing force. After the completion, the acceleration member pushes the lock member to move it from the first to second position.
US09733546B2

An optical component includes an optical device comprising a bonding face and an optically polished end face, and a metal film formed on the bonding face of the optical device and for bonding the optical device onto a substrate. The metal film includes a main covering portion covering a region except an end part of the bonding face on the side of the end face and an end part-covering portion covering the bonding face in the end part. A non-covered part, which is not covered by the metal film, is provided between the main covering portion and end part-covering portion.
US09733541B2

An electrophoresis device including: in an insulating liquid, migrating particles in a charged state; and a porous layer including a fibrous structure and non-migrating particles, the fibrous structure having a potential opposite to that of the migrating particles, and the non-migrating particles held by the fibrous structure.
US09733528B2

According to one embodiment, a display device includes a first substrate with a first alignment film, a second substrate with a second alignment film, and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The first substrate has first and second electrodes. An initial alignment direction of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is parallel to a first direction or a direction orthogonal to the first direction. The second electrode includes comblike electrodes extending parallel to the first direction and a connecting portion which connects the comblike electrodes. The connecting portion includes a projection which projects in a second direction more than an outermost comblike electrode.
US09733521B2

To provide a technique that prevents electrode disconnection in a liquid crystal display apparatus comprising a plurality of openings in an electrode. The apparatus comprises a first substrate, a second substrate, a first electrode, a second electrode, and a liquid crystal layer. The first electrode comprises first openings and the second electrode comprises second openings. Each first opening is disposed forming columns so that the respective longitudinal directions align with a first direction, and comprises two short-side edges that obliquely cross the first direction at an angle other than orthogonal. Each opening is disposed forming columns so that the respective longitudinal directions align with the first direction, and comprises two short-side edges that obliquely cross the first direction at an angle other than orthogonal. The first openings and second openings are alternately disposed column by column along a second direction that crosses the first direction.
US09733501B2

An array substrate of a liquid crystal display is provided, and includes a glass substrate; and a driving circuit for generating a data signal and a scanning signal, and driving components in a display area. The driving circuit is disposed on the periphery of the glass substrate. The driving circuit includes a flexible circuit board and a driver chip disposed on the flexible circuit board. The driver chip and the flexible circuit board are integrally combined. In the array substrate, it is not necessary to dispose the driver chip on the glass substrate, so as to not only ensure that the display area is a full circle, but to also reduce the width of the periphery of the liquid crystal display, and therefore actually achieving the display effect with a narrow border.
US09733499B1

This slow light waveguide includes an initial region which extends, along an optical axis, from a start starting from which the width of a central waveguide begins to continuously decrease up to an end beyond which the width of the central waveguide no longer decreases up to the end of a slowing section, this initial region overlapping a broadening region where the length of lateral teeth continuously increases, a final region which extends, along the optical axis, from a start starting from which the width of the central waveguide begins to continuously increase up to an end beyond which the width of the central waveguide no longer increases, this final region overlapping a narrowing region where the length of the lateral teeth continuously decreases.
US09733497B2

Provided is a technique for enabling an α parameter to be approximated to zero. A multiple quantum well structure includes a layer structure including a first barrier layer, an intermediate layer, a well layer, and a second barrier layer. The conduction band energies of the first and second barrier layers, the intermediate layer, and the well layer are larger in this order, and the valence band energies of the intermediate layer, the well layer, and the first and second barrier layers are larger in this order.
US09733491B2

Method for calculating or optimizing a spectacle lens, including specifying at least one surface for the spectacle lens to be calculated or optimized; determining the course of a main ray through at least one visual point of the at least one surface; determining a first primary set and a second primary set of coefficients of the local aberration of a local wavefront; specifying at least one function which assigns a second secondary set of coefficients to a second primary set of coefficients, said second secondary set of coefficients defining the higher-order aberration of a propagated wavefront; determining a higher-order aberration of a local wavefront propagated starting from the at least one visual point along the main ray depending on at least the second primary set of coefficients on the basis of the specified function; and calculating or optimizing the at least one surface of the spectacle lens based on the determined higher-order aberration of the propagated local wavefront.
US09733488B2

The present invention describes composite constructed ophthalmic lenses comprising at least two layers of optical materials that provide a composite structure over a practical vision zone of the lens product, are identifiably disparate from each other, and are integrally bonded to each other such that the adhesion of the first layer to the second layer exceeds a ranking of at least 3 when tested according to specified tests. In a preferred embodiment, one layer comprises thermoplastic polycarbonate and the second layer comprises polyurea-urethane material and one or more additives. The first layer may comprise a polarizer. The composite lens may also comprise coatings or other components.
US09733481B2

An immersive headset device is provided that includes a display portion and a body portion. The display portion may include microdisplays having a compact size. The microdisplays may be movable (e.g., rotational) relative to the body portion and can be moved (e.g., rotated) between a flipped-up position and a flipped-down position. In some instances, when the microdisplays are flipped up, the headset provides an augmented reality (AR) mode to a user, and when the microdisplays are flipped down, the headset provide a virtual reality (VR) mode to the user. In certain implementations, the headset includes an electronics source module to provide power and/or signal to the microdisplays. The electronics source module can be attached to a rear of the body portion in order to provide advantageous weight distribution about the head of the user.
US09733475B1

A head mounted or helmet mounted display (HMD), head up display (HUD, or collimated virtual window can be used in various applications including but not limited to avionic applications. The HMD, HUD, or collimated virtual window can include a cylindrical, elliptical, or curved substrate waveguide combiner. The cylindrical or curved substrate waveguide combiner can be used with a projector which provides pre-aberrated light. The cylindrical substrate waveguide combiner provides collimated light to a user with reduced wavefront errors.
US09733463B2

A surgery system comprises a camera obtaining camera images, an OCT system, a data memory storing geometry data of a surgical tool 133 and a controller configured to identify a first portion of the tool in the camera images by object recognition using the geometry data; to determine, in the field of view, first locations where the tool is located and second locations aside of the tool; to trigger the OCT system to perform depth scans at the first and second locations; to identify a second portion 153 of the tool in the depth scans by object recognition using the geometry data; and to generate a first image 154 representing a third portion 157 of the tool based on the geometry data and the depth scans.
US09733459B2

A front projection display device is provided including an image-generating source configured to generate an image, a wide angle lens system adapted to receive the image, and a screen. The wide angle lens system may be configured to increase distortion of the image in a first stage and decrease distortion of the image in a second stage. The screen may be configured to receive the image from the wide angle lens system on a first side and reflect the image back to a viewer on the first side. In another embodiment, a screen is provided for a front projection system, the screen may be configured to receive light from a steep angle and may include any number of surface topographies configured to reflect light back to the viewer along a desired viewing plane.
US09733455B1

An optical image lens assembly includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a first lens element, a second lens element, a third lens element, a fourth lens element, a fifth lens element and a sixth lens element. The first lens element with negative refractive power has an image-side surface being concave. The second lens element has an object-side surface being convex. The third lens element has positive refractive power. The fourth lens element with negative refractive power has an image-side surface being concave. The fifth lens element with positive refractive power has an image-side surface being convex. The sixth lens element with negative refractive power has an object-side surface being concave and an image-side surface being concave and the image-side surface of the sixth lens element includes at least one convex shape in an off-axial region thereof.
US09733453B2

An imaging optical system includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a first lens element, a second lens element, a third lens element, a fourth lens element, a fifth lens element and a sixth lens element. The first lens element has positive refractive power in a paraxial region thereof. The second lens element has negative refractive power in a paraxial region thereof. Both of the third and fourth lens elements have refractive power. The fifth lens element with refractive power has an object-side surface being concave in a paraxial region thereof and an image-side surface being convex in a paraxial region thereof. The sixth lens element with positive refractive power has an object-side surface being convex in a paraxial region thereof and an image-side surface being concave in a paraxial region thereof. The imaging optical system has a total of six lens elements with refractive power.
US09733452B2

An optical lens system with a wide field of view includes, in order from the object side to the image side: a stop, a first lens element with a positive refractive power, a second lens element with a negative refractive power, and a third lens element with a positive refractive power. A focal length of the first lens element and the second lens element combined is f12, a focal length of the third lens element is f3, and they satisfy the relation: 0.3
US09733442B2

Optical communication apparatus includes a printed circuit board (PCB), a photoelectric unit electrically connected to the PCB, a supporting member positioned on the PCB, a coupler supported on the supporting member, and an optical fiber unit. The coupler optically couples the photoelectric unit to the optical fiber unit. The supporting member defines a through stepped hole having a larger first hole and a smaller second hole. The supporting member includes a step portion between the first hole and the second hole. The second hole is closer to the PCB than the first hole. The supporting member defines a number of positioning holes, and the coupler comprises a number of positioning poles corresponding to the positioning holes. The coupler is connected to the supporting member by inserting the positioning poles into the corresponding positioning holes.
US09733441B2

A heat dissipation system for an optical communications module is provided that includes a heat dissipation clamp having a plurality of force-application devices for applying respective, precisely-controlled forces to respective optical communications modules of an array to maintain electrical interconnectivity between the modules of the array and respective electrical sockets. The force-application devices are independent of one another such that the respective electrical interconnectivity forces applied to the respective modules are independent of one another. This independence ensures that the proper amount of electrical interconnectivity force is applied to each module of the array, which ensures that the planarity of the system PCB is maintained without the need for a backing, or bolstering, plate. Inner walls of the heat dissipation clamp are in contact with the modules so that heat generated by the modules is transferred into the heat dissipation clamp where some or all of the heat is dissipated.
US09733435B2

A method of securing an optical fiber to a ferrule includes: heating an adhesive composition that is disposed within the ferrule to melt the adhesive composition; inserting the optical fiber into a fiber-receiving passage defining an inner surface of the ferrule and into contact with the melted adhesive composition; and cooling the melted adhesive composition. The adhesive composition is a solid material disposed within the fiber-receiving passage of the ferrule and in contact with the inner surface of the ferrule prior to the heating step. Additionally, the adhesive composition comprises a partially cross-linked resin and a coupling agent that covalently bonds the partially cross-linked resin to respective inorganic surfaces of the optical fiber and the ferrule following the cooling step.
US09733424B2

A multicore fiber according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of cores and a cladding that encloses the plurality of the cores. The external form of the cladding in a cross section is formed of an arc portion that is formed in an arc shape relative to the center axis of the cladding and a non-arc portion that is pinched between two ends of the arc portion and not formed in an arc shape relative to the center axis of the cladding. The non-arc portion is formed with a pair of projections projecting from two ends of the arc portion on the opposite side of the center axis relative to a straight line connecting the both ends of the arc portion and one or more of recesses pinched between the pair of the projections.
US09733419B2

An electronic display device is provided. The electronic display device includes an electronic display panel and a rear chassis assembly. The rear chassis assembly includes a bottom wall, a first and a second side wall, and a first and a second sheet. The first and the second side walls are respectively disposed at two opposite edges of the bottom wall. The electronic display panel is positioned in an accommodation space defined by the first side wall, the second side wall, and the bottom wall. The first and second sheets are respectively fixed on the first and second side walls. The curvature of the first sheet corresponds to the curvature of the first side wall, and the curvature of the second sheet corresponds to the curvature of the second side wall.
US09733407B2

A light emitting arrangement comprising two light emitting elements (32, 32a) arranged along a longitudinal direction of the light emitting arrangement, and at least one light guide (34) each partly covering the light emitting surface of a first of the light emitting elements and having an entrance surface (35) arranged to receive incident light from the first light emitting element (32) and an exit surface (36) arranged to emit at least a portion of the incident light received by the entrance surface. The light guide is arranged such that the exit surface (36) is located between the first light emitting element (32) and a second light emitting element (32a) and is oriented to emit light in the general lighting direction. The light guide will distribute light emitted by the first light emitting element to more than one location, as if it was emitted of several weaker light emitting elements.
US09733405B2

Provided are a polarizing plate including a polarizer having a thickness less than or equal to 10 μm and having a ratio A700/A450 of absorbance A700 at a wavelength of 700 nm to absorbance A450 at a wavelength of 450 nm greater than or equal to 0.85; a polarizer having a thickness less than or equal to 10 μm and having an absolute value of a difference between absorbance A700 at a wavelength of 700 nm and absorbance A450 at a wavelength of 450 nm less than or equal to 0.11 after heat-treated at 100° C. for 30 minutes; and a polarizing plate including such a polarizer.
US09733401B2

An LED display device includes an LED display panel (1); and an encasing, arranged on one side of the LED display panel (1). The encasing includes a plurality of diffuser units (10); each diffuser unit (10) is adhered to the LED display panel (1); and, a locating structure is arranged between the diffuser unit (10) and the LED display panel (1) so as to limit an adhesion position of the diffuser unit (10) on the LED display panel (1). The LED display device has a small splicing gap and a better display effect.
US09733398B2

The present invention relates to a polarizing plate including a polarizer; and a protective layer formed on at least one surface of the polarizer, in which the protective layer is a cured product of a radical curable composition having a hydroxy value of 500 mg·KOH/g or more, and an image display device including the same.
US09733386B2

A scintillator can include an elpasolite scintillator compound. The scintillator can be doped with a Group 2 element, and may also include an activator. The scintillator has an improved core valence luminescence at room temperature as compared to a corresponding elpasolite scintillator compound without the Group 2 dopant. The elpasolite scintillator compound can have significant core valance luminescence at a temperature higher than 125° C. In a particular embodiment, the elpasolite scintillator compound can include Cl and may or may not also include another halide, such as Br or I. The scintillator can be part of an apparatus that detects gamma radiation and neutrons and may allow a relatively simpler pulse discrimination technique to be used to a higher temperature, such as 125° C. to 150° C. before a relatively more complex pulse discrimination technique would be used.
US09733381B2

In some embodiments, an apparatus and a system, as well as a method and an article, may operate to acquire a monitoring output from a first distributed feedback (DFB) fiber laser sensor at least partially bonded to a piezoelectric portion of a downhole device, to demodulate the monitoring output to determine a frequency shift in a lasing frequency of the DFB fiber laser sensor, and to correlate the frequency shift to a measure of magnetic field strength to determine a strength of a downhole magnetic field. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US09733376B2

There is a method for acquiring seismic data over a survey area. The method includes deploying streamer and source vessels to acquire seismic data along a survey line; performing one pass with the streamer and source vessels along the survey line for collecting wide azimuth (WAZ) data; and performing another pass with the streamer and source vessels along the survey line for collecting narrow azimuth (NAZ) data.
US09733366B2

An apparatus for characterizing a focused charged beam is provided. The apparatus includes a plurality of parallel conducting channels and at least one current sensing unit configured to measure current across each of the plurality of parallel conducting channels.
US09733365B2

In various embodiments, a gamma ray detector is provided. The gamma ray detector may include a converter element, configured to release an electron when a gamma ray moves at least partially through the converter element. The gamma ray detector may further include a semiconductor detector, arranged to receive the electron and configured to produce a signal when the electron moves at least partially through the semiconductor detector; and an amplifier circuit, coupled to the semiconductor detector and configured to amplify the signal produced by the semiconductor detector. In the gamma ray detector, the converter element may be arranged to at least partially shield the amplifier circuit from electromagnetic radiation.
US09733361B2

Techniques for managing power consumption of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver of a mobile device are provided. These techniques include a method that includes deriving a GNSS search window for the GNSS receiver based on a position uncertainty (PUNC) and a time uncertainty (TUNC), selecting a GNSS search mode based on the GNSS search window and resources available for searching for signals from GNSS satellite vehicles (SVs), wherein an estimated power consumption associated with execution of a GNSS search associated with the GNSS search mode does not exceed a power consumption limit specified for the GNSS receiver conducting the GNSS search using the GNSS search mode, and estimating a position of the mobile device.
US09733359B2

Methods and apparatus for processing of GNSS data derived from multi-frequency code and carrier observations are presented which make available correction data for use by a rover located within the region, the correction data comprising: the ionospheric delay over the region, the tropospheric delay over the region, the phase-leveled geometric correction per satellite, and the at least one code bias per satellite. In some embodiments the correction data includes an ionospheric phase bias per satellite. Methods and apparatus for determining a precise position of a rover located within a region are presented in which a GNSS receiver is operated to obtain multi-frequency code and carrier observations and correction data, to create rover corrections from the correction data, and to determine a precise rover position using the rover observations and the rover corrections. The correction data comprises at least one code bias per satellite, a fixed-nature MW bias per satellite and/or values from which a fixed-nature MW bias per satellite is derivable, and an ionospheric delay per satellite for each of multiple regional network stations and/or non-ionospheric corrections. Methods and apparatus for encoding and decoding the correction messages containing correction data are also presented, in which network messages include network elements related to substantially all stations of the network and cluster messages include cluster elements related to subsets of the network.
US09733355B2

A soil detection and planting apparatus. The apparatus includes a vehicle and a controller coupled to the vehicle. The apparatus further includes a planting device coupled to the vehicle, the planting device configured to plant seeds or plants into a soil material. The apparatus includes a ground penetrating radar sensor coupled to the vehicle. The ground penetrating radar soil sensor is configured to scan the soil material up to a designated depth beneath a surface of the soil material, wherein the ground penetrating radar soil sensor is further configured to provide a sensor feedback signal to the controller with respect to an intrinsic characteristic of the soil material. The controller is configured to instruct placement of a seed or a plant into the soil material based on the feedback signal.
US09733353B1

An apparatus for detecting objects includes a transceiver configured to generate a radar signal, a radar having a transmit antenna configured to transmit the radar signal, and a receive antenna configured to sense a return signal in response to a transmission of the radar signal. The apparatus also includes a processor configured to detect an object based on the return signal. One or more of the transmit antenna or the receive antenna include offset spiral feed antennas.
US09733352B2

According to an embodiment, positioning system includes transmitter apparatus transmits radio wave and receiver apparatus receives target echo. Transmitter apparatus comprises first receiver and transmitter. First receiver receives GPS signal and outputs reference signal. Transmitter transmits radio wave at time interval based on reference signal. The receiver apparatus includes second receiver, detector and first and second calculators. Second receiver receives GPS signal and outputs time information. Detector receives target echo and outputs reception signal added received time information. First calculator calculates Doppler frequency based on reception frequency and transmission frequency. Second calculator calculates time difference of echo based on Doppler frequency. Detector sets time filter to receive next pulse based on time difference and time information of reception signal.
US09733349B1

An apparatus is for use with an aircraft radar system having a radar antenna. The apparatus comprises processing electronics are configured to receive radar data associated with the radar antenna of the system. The processing electronics are also configured to detect periodic data associated with runway lights in the radar data.
US09733345B2

A system, device and method that enables units to communicate with each other and point to each other's location without requiring line-of-sight to satellites or any other infrastructure. Further, the system, device and method are able to operate outdoors as well as indoors and overcome multipath interference in a deterministic algorithm, while providing bearings at three dimensions, not only location but actual direction.
US09733341B1

A system for testing the covariance fidelity of an optimal reduced state estimator comprises data storage devices for storing testing data, computer processors in communication with the data storage devices, and a memory storing program instructions for execution by the computer processors. Execution of the program instructions may cause the computer processors to provide an optimal reduced state estimator having state variables and unknown, multidimensional, arbitrarily time-varying parameters, subject to known bounded values. A random component and a bias component of the optimal reduced state estimator may be identified, and then separate evaluations of the components may be performed to determine a fidelity of the optimal reduced state estimator. The random component may be evaluated at a selected epoch and a Mahalanobis Distance Value determined for the random component. The bias component may be evaluated at the selected epoch and a probability of containment determined at a selected MDV.
US09733340B2

A device includes a circuit board having thereon, a controlling component, a first radar chip and a second radar chip. The first radar chip includes a first radar transmission antenna, a second radar transmission antenna and a first radar receiver antenna array. The second radar chip includes a second radar receiver antenna array. The controlling component can control the first radar chip and the second radar chip. The first radar transmission antenna can transmit a first radar transmission signal. The second radar transmission antenna can transmit a second radar transmission signal. The second radar chip is spaced from the first radar chip so as to create a virtual receiver antenna array between the first radar receiver antenna array and the second radar receiver antenna array.
US09733339B2

A position and orientation measuring apparatus calculates a difference between an image feature of a two-dimensional image of an object and a projected image of a three-dimensional model in a stored position and orientation of the object projected on the two-dimensional image. The position and orientation measuring apparatus further calculates a difference between three-dimensional coordinate information and a three-dimensional model in the stored position and orientation of the object. The position and orientation measuring apparatus then converts a dimension of the first difference and/or the second difference to cause the first difference and the second difference to have an equivalent dimension and corrects the stored position and orientation.
US09733337B2

Techniques are discussed for conveying frequency error characteristics for a plurality of cell transceivers from a server to a mobile device to enable the mobile device to determine an optimum or near optimum period of coherent integration of a downlink signal from one or more of the plurality of cell transceivers based on the frequency error characteristics. The coherent integration of the downlink signal may be to support a downlink terrestrial positioning method such as the Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA) method for Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the downlink signal may be a Positioning Reference Signal (PRS). A mobile device may perform downlink signal integration for longer periods than the optimum period for coherent integration by combining coherent integration results using non-coherent integration. The optimum period may achieve maximum or near maximum signal to noise ratio.
US09733334B2

A system and method for locating objects using radio frequency identifiers is provided. Each object to be located by the user has an object unit attached thereto with a RFID transponder. The user carries a proximity unit with a RFID transponder and warning devices. The method comprises: -a controller receives the instruction to locate a specific object; the controller obtains RFID readings, from the main intermediate units associated with location areas, with information about the object units detected; -determining the location area of the object to be located; -sending information to the user about the location area; -detecting the presence of the proximity unit carried by the user when it is within the location area; -repeatedly obtaining, using readings of the RFID signal strength, information about the distance between the proximity unit and the object unit, reporting it to the user using warning devices.
US09733333B2

Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable medium are described for monitoring participant attentiveness within events and for group assortments. In some embodiments, communications received from an online participant of an event may be monitored. Based on the monitored communications, a steady state level may be determined. Changes within the monitored communications from the steady state level may be detected and then stored within an event participation log.
US09733329B2

A system and method for determining a magnetic field map when using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to acquire images from a region of interest (ROI) of a subject. The method includes selecting a pulse sequence to elicit a plurality of echoes from the subject as medical imaging data from the subject. The method also includes optimizing an echo time for a dynamic range of interest during the pulse sequence (SBmax), a minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR0) in the medical imaging data, and minimum T2* value in the ROI. The method further includes generating a magnetic field map estimation using the optimized echo times.
US09733324B2

The Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system includes a radio-frequency transmitter with multiple transmit channels. The MRI system includes an impedance matching network (320, 1402, 1502, 1602) for matching the radio-frequency transmitter to a remotely adjustable radio-frequency antenna (310, 1504, 1602) with multiple antenna elements (312, 314, 316, 318, 1404). The MRI system includes a processor (336) for controlling the MRI system. The execution of the instructions by the processor causes it to: measure (100, 200) a set of radio-frequency properties (352) of the radio-frequency antenna, calculate (102, 202) a matching network command (354) using the set of radio-frequency properties and a radio frequency model (366), and adjust (104, 204) the impedance matching network by sending the matching network command to the impedance matching network, thereby enabling automatic remote impedance matching.
US09733317B2

A magnetism detecting element detects a leakage magnetism from a scale, on which a magnetic signal with a constant period is recorded, and a relative position between the scale and the magnetism detecting element is detected. The magnetism detecting elements are arranged, along a detection direction of the magnetic signal relative to the scale, in a pattern with a pitch of 1/2n (n is a prime number of 3 or more) of a wavelength λ′ of a signal output by the element. Furthermore, as the pattern for cancelling m odd-order harmonics, the m-th power of 2 magnetism detecting elements are arranged within a range in which a pitch distance L of the magnetism detecting element farthest in the detection direction is expressed by L=(λ′/2)×(1/3+1/5+1/7+ . . . 1/(2m+1)).
US09733314B2

This specification relates to a method and a system for detecting light emitting diode (LED) short circuit in a plurality of LED strings or detecting matching among the plurality of LED strings, wherein one end of each of the plurality of LED strings is connected to a same output end of a power supply, and the other end is respectively connected to a corresponding switch. According to the present invention, first current of each of LED strings is obtained when the output end of the power supply outputs a first voltage; differences between the minimum of the first currents of LED strings and other first currents are calculated; the differences are compared with a comparing threshold; it is determined that the LED strings corresponding to the other currents for which differences are larger than the comparing threshold include short circuit or mismatch with the LED string corresponding to the minimum current. Accordingly, it is possible to reduce the number of pins and area of a control chip.
US09733309B2

A built-in self-test (BIST) circuit is disclosed which integrates the functions of pins for test input data TDI, test output data TDO and an analog input signal VPP into a single digital/analog input/output module, and internally produces a test trigger signal STROBE and a digital-analog conversion signal ANA. In addition, when there is a need to power the test chip with a voltage or current, a data generation circuit of the BIST circuit can generate a digital-analog conversion signal to change an operating mode of the digital/analog input/output module and hence enable the transmission of analog data. According to the present invention, the testing can be performed with only two pins, which leads to an improvement in test efficiency and a reduction in test cost.
US09733306B2

Remote evaluation, e.g., web-based evaluation, lowers the evaluation barrier by allowing an engineer to gain experience with an integrated circuit (IC) using a client (e.g. a web browser) on a remote computer (e.g., a machine remote from the IC being evaluated but local to the engineer) to activate a test set-up that is maintained at a location that is far away from the engineer.
US09733303B2

The interlock detector includes a first input, wherein a first output signal from an interlock generator is applied to the first input. The interlock detector further includes a second output which is configured to provide a microprocessor with a second output signal. The interlock detector further includes a differential amplifier that includes a second input, a third input, and a third output, wherein the second input and the third input are connected to the first input. The interlock detector further includes a comparator circuit that includes a fourth input and a fourth output, wherein the fourth input is connected to the third output, the fourth output is connected to the second output, and the fourth input is positioned between the comparator circuit and the differential amplifier.
US09733297B2

An observation apparatus includes a laser light source, a scanning optical system irradiating a semiconductor device with laser light output from the laser light source, a bias power supply applying a reverse bias voltage of a predetermined voltage between electrodes of the semiconductor device, a sensor detecting an electrical property occurring in the semiconductor device in response to the laser light, and a control system generating an electrical property image of the semiconductor device based on a detection signal from the sensor. The bias power supply gradually increases a magnitude of the predetermined voltage until the predetermined voltage reaches a voltage at which avalanche amplification occurs in the semiconductor device. When the predetermined voltage is increased, the scanning optical system irradiates with the laser light, the sensor detects the electrical property, and the control system generates the electrical property image.
US09733294B2

When a poor meter to socket connection occurs, there is the potential for arcing to develop which can result in a hot socket and a fire. Disclosed herein are methods for a meter to detect the occurrence of an arc condition in the socket by analyzing the RF noise on the channels of the communication spectrum used by the meter to communicate within its metering system. For example, by keeping a record of the normal background noise and looking for a broadband increase in the noise on all channels, arc detection can be achieved. Meter quantities such as temperature, current, voltage, and harmonic content may also be used in a standalone manner or in combination with broadband RF noise to detect an arc condition. A disconnect switch within the meter can be opened to remove the arc fault.
US09733292B2

A method for diagnosing an operating state, i.e., wear, of a contactor which includes a processing unit directing voltage control means; an, actuating coil; means for measuring an electric characteristic of the actuating coil; and a diode in parallel with the coil and the measuring means; the method including creating, for a specific contactor design, a plurality of variation curves of an electric characteristic of the coils of such contactors, over a drop-out period, by testing said contactors by sending a drop-out order fixing a drop-out voltage across the coil; after the drop-out order, repeatedly measuring the electric characteristic of the coil during a drop-out period; later sending a diagnostic drop-out order fixing the same drop-out voltage across the terminals of an actuating coil of a subject contactor being diagnosed; then measuring the same electric characteristic of the subject coil during a drop-out period; identifying a measured value of that characteristic of the subject coil, then comparing that measured value with the variation curves of the plurality of contactors of the same design, thereby diagnosing a state of wear of the subject contactor.
US09733291B2

The invention relates to a device for detecting a leakage current, comprising means (124) for measuring a current from an electrical circuit of a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle, said detection device being configured to be placed on board said vehicle and being such that the measuring means (124) comprise: a magnetic core (128) configured to be passed through by one or a plurality of conductive elements (127) traversed by the current from the electrical circuit, said conductive element(s) (127) forming a primary winding; a secondary winding (130), wound around the core (128), to generate a magnetic flux from a reference current; and an oscillator (132) for generating the reference current though the secondary winding (130), the reference current being configured to saturate said core (128). According to the invention, the value of the current of the primary winding (127) is obtained from the average value of the current at the secondary winding (130) over a period of oscillation covering a complete core (128) magnetization and demagnetization cycle. The invention also relates to various on-board systems using said device.
US09733289B1

A reflectometer for use in measuring scattering (S-)parameters for a device under test (DUT) includes a test port, a radio frequency (RF) output signal source, and a local oscillator (LO) signal. The LO signal is used to downconvert the RF output signal to an incident IF signal. The reflectometer is useable as a first reflectometer with a second reflectometer such that the first and second reflectometers are phase synchronized by a synchronization signal. Phase and magnitude of transmission S-parameters of the DUT are measurable when the first reflectometer is used with the second reflectometer. The roles of the first and second reflectometers are reversible to allow for measurement of forward and reverse parameters. Further, the synchronization signal can be provided by one reflectometer to the other (or both can receive a separately generated synchronization signal) via a wire or fiber optic cable, for example, or via a wireless connection.
US09733288B2

The resonant frequency of a reactive circuit is determined in situ by determining phase angle differences between an A.C. driving voltage applied to a transformer primary winding and an induced alternating current in the transformer secondary winding. The phase angle is determined indirectly by detecting when the driving voltage applied to the primary changes its polarity and when an induced current in the secondary changes its polarity. The time difference between those polarity changes indicates whether the voltage leads or lags the current or is in phase. A driving voltage frequency is adjusted in real time until the phase angle differences disappear. A duty cycle of the driving signal applied to the primary is also adjusted to change the voltage induced in the secondary winding. The duty cycle is adjusted by changing either a phase of primary driving voltages or the duty cycle of primary driving voltages.
US09733285B2

A load calculation device for determining the maximum electrical load that can be applied to an electrical circuit includes determines the temperature differential (ΔT) between a section of the electrical circuit and the ambient air temperature in which the section of the electrical circuit resides. The actual electrical load applied to the electrical circuit is also determined as is the design load of the electrical circuit. The maximum electrical load that can be applied to the electrical circuit is then determined based on the temperature differential and the electrical load applied to the electrical circuit and the circuit designed load. The load calculation device may be applied to an electrical joint and may be used to calculate the maximum temperature differential allowed for a given current to be applied at the electrical joint. This is particularly beneficial in connection with detecting and preventing electrical joint failure.
US09733283B2

A method for estimating load current in a DC-DC converter, in some embodiments, comprises: identifying a converter capacitor in parallel with a converter load in a DC-DC converter; providing an estimation capacitor based on a capacitance of the converter capacitor; providing said estimation capacitor with an estimation capacitor current based on an inductor current flowing through an inductor in the DC-DC converter; driving an estimation voltage across the estimation capacitor toward a voltage present across the converter capacitor; and using the estimation voltage to generate an estimation current that estimates a load current passing through said converter load.
US09733282B2

Apparatuses and methods of current balancing, current sensing and phase balancing, offset cancellation, digital to analog current converter with monotonic output using binary coded input (without binary to thermometer decoder), compensator for a voltage regulator (VR), etc. are provided here. An apparatus is provided which comprises: a plurality of inductors coupled to a capacitor and a load; a plurality of bridges, each of which is coupled to a corresponding inductor from the plurality of inductors; and a plurality of current sensors, each of which is coupled to a bridge to sense current through a transistor of the bridge.
US09733281B2

A voltage sensor system for sensing voltage in a conductor, the voltage sensor system including a first plate, a first electrode disposed a first distance away from the first plate, a second plate, a second electrode disposed a second distance away from the second plate, a control unit structured to control one of the first plate and the second plate to be grounded and the other of the first plate and the second plate to be electrically floating, and a differential amplifier electrically connected to the first electrode and the second electrode and being structured to output an output voltage that is proportional to a difference in voltage between the first electrode and the second electrode.
US09733274B2

An adapter, and a method of using the adapter, for an electric meter, which includes a set of connections for interfacing to a panel box, a set of connectors for interfacing to the electric meter; and circuitry for intercepting FAN or HAN traffic, injecting FAN or HAN traffic and communicating intercepted traffic and local information from the electric meter and sensors over a network to a management entity that collects and process the data. Data from environmental, electric quality, and usage sensors are supplied to the network. External commands, originating in a management entity or with a customer are provided from the network. A computer readable non-transitory storage medium stores instructions of a computer program, which when executed by a computer system results in performance of steps of a method for intercepting FAN or HAN traffic, injecting FAN or HAN traffic, transmitting intercepted FAN or HAN traffic or utility usage data to a network, by using a utility usage sensor to acquire data representing utility usage; and using electrical circuitry in the adapter for communicating information from the sensor over a network to a management entity that collects and process the data.
US09733266B2

A gas turbine engine has a fan, a turbine section having a first turbine including a first turbine rotor, a compressor rotor, and a gear reduction configured to effect a reduction in a speed of the fan relative to an input speed from the first turbine rotor. Each of the compressor rotor and the first turbine rotor includes a number of blades in each of a plurality of blade rows, the number of blades configured to operate at least some of the time at a rotational speed, and the number of blades and the rotational speed being such that the following formula holds true for at least a majority of the blade rows of the first turbine rotor, but does not hold true for any of the blade rows of the compressor rotor: (number of blades×rotational speed)/60≧5500, and the rotational speed being an approach speed in revolutions per minute.
US09733263B2

The present disclosure features a method of detecting and/or quantifying collagen VII or a fragment thereof in a sample, the method including contacting the sample with collagen IV or a fragment thereof which binds to collagen VII; and contacting the sample with an anti-collagen VII antibody, wherein the anti-collagen VII antibody binds to the NC2 domain of collagen VII; detecting binding of the anti-collagen VII antibody to thereby detect and/or quantify an amount of collagen VII or the fragment thereof in the sample. A method of evaluating or processing a collagen VII preparation is also provided.
US09733259B2

Biomarkers for abnormal kidney function, including the biomarkers in Tables 1 and 2 such as peroxiredoxin-2, complement C1q subcomponent subunit B, sulfhydryl oxidase 1 and apolipoprotein A-IV, and methods for their use in assessing abnormal kidney function are disclosed herein.
US09733253B2

The current disclosure provides for specific peptides from the Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine (SPARC) protein and the derived ionization characteristics of those peptides that are advantageous for quantifying the SPARC directly in formalin fixed biological samples by the method of Selected Reaction Monitoring (SRM) mass spectrometry. Such fixed biological samples include: formalin-fixed tissue/cells, formalin-fixed/paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue/cells, FFPE tissue blocks and cells from those blocks, and formalin fixed and paraffin embedded tissue culture cells. SPARC protein is quantitated in biological samples by the method of SRM/MRM mass spectrometry by quantitating one or more of the peptides described herein. The peptides can be quantitated if they reside in a modified or an unmodified form. Examples of potentially modified forms of an SPARC peptides include those bearing phosphorylation of a tyrosine, threonine, serine, and/or other amino acid residues within the peptide sequence.
US09733251B2

The present invention provides agents with tumor-inhibiting activity, and which are selective for cells expressing or abnormally expressing a tumor-associated antigen. Said tumor-associated antigen has a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: (a) a nucleotide sequence selected from the specific sequences set forth herein, or a 6-50 contiguous nucleotide residue portion thereof; (b) a nucleotide sequence of a nucleic acid which hybridizes with a nucleic acid having the nucleotide sequence of (a) under stringent conditions; (c) a nucleotide sequence which is degenerate with respect to the nucleotide sequence of (a) or (b); and (d) a nucleotide sequence which is complementary to the nucleotide sequence of (a), (b) or (c). Pharmaceutical compositions and kits comprising the agents are also provided, as well as methods treating, diagnosing or monitoring a disease characterized by expression or abnormal expression of the tumor-associated antigen.
US09733248B2

This document provides methods and materials related to treating renal cell carcinoma. For example, methods and materials for assessing a cancer patient (e.g., a renal cell carcinoma patient) for tumor or peritumoral tissue containing CD14+ cells and proceeding with a cancer treatment option (e.g., a renal cell carcinoma treatment option) based on the presence, absence, or level of CD14+ cells present within the tumor or peritumoral tissue are provided.
US09733246B2

The present invention relates to a method for detection, differentiation and quantification of T cell populations, comprising the following steps a) contacting a first aliquot of a body fluid of an individual with at least one antigen, wherein the body fluid contains antigen presenting cells (APC) and T cells, b) incubating the first aliquot with at least one antigen for a certain period of time, c) detection and differentiation of the T cell population by detecting in the first aliquot and in a second aliquot of the body fluid of the individual, which has not been incubated with the at least one antigen, at least a first marker of the APC induced by T cells in a specific T cell population using reverse transcription quantitative real time-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and d) detection and quantification of the T cell population by determining the ratio of the detected marker of the APC of the first aliquot to the second aliquot as well as a kit for performing the method.
US09733243B2

Provided are: a novel test method for rheumatoid arthritis; and a kit for rheumatoid arthritis test, which is used in the novel test method for rheumatoid arthritis. A test method for rheumatoid arthritis according to the present invention is characterized by comprising a step for measuring the amount of talin in the plasma or serum of an animal subject. This measurement is carried out, for example, by an immunological method using an antibody which binds to talin. A kit for rheumatoid arthritis test according to the present invention is used for such a test method and contains, for example, a solid-phase carrier to which an antibody that binds to talin is affixed.
US09733240B2

A generally applicable method for the selective covalent attachment of a reporter molecule to a replicating entity that allows one to obtain specific binders from a single round of library screening is disclosed. For example, selective biotinylation of phage particles and yeast cells displaying a binder to any given target can be achieved via application of a coupled enzyme reaction that includes a peroxidase, an oxidase and a catalase.
US09733230B2

This invention encompasses embodiments for multi-modal integrated simultaneous measurement of various aspects of fluids contained in circulating systems such as automotive reciprocating engines and vehicle transmissions. These circulating systems perform constant internal lubrication, and heat and contaminant removal to protect the internal moving parts from the inherent friction and damage in normal operation. Most commonly this is achieved with fluids based on hydrocarbon and/or related synthetics, which, over time, can lose their protective properties, and vary in their performance or breakdown/decay due to internal and external events. Several components within the lubricant fluid can be measured and can provide insight into the efficacy of the system to perform its designed mission. Described herein is a real-time, simultaneous, integrated, multi-modal sensor system for early warning notification that can be further enhanced using specifically designed nanoparticles that can be introduced into the system, engineered to specifically bind with the contaminants and/or undergo an irreversible state change upon certain experienced conditions to both increase the detectability as well as provide for a framework to improve filter performance.
US09733213B2

The invention provides methods for quantifying biomolecules, such as polypeptides in mass spectrometric analysis. The methods include use of a biomolecule standard having at least one atomic isotope different than that of the naturally occurring isotopes in the biomolecule of interest. Methods of the present invention also include methods for quantifying biomolecules where the copy biomolecule standard is made by expressing the biomolecule using a recombinant cell. Further included are the biomolecule standards themselves, method for making such standards, kits, systems, reagents, and engineered cells relating to the use of biomolecule standards in mass spectrometric analysis.
US09733212B2

Pre-labeled protein standards useful in electrophoresis that have sharp, consistent separation characteristics that are substantially the same as those of their unlabeled counterparts are provided. The invention provides pre-labeled protein standard sets that include a plurality of labeled proteins that are labeled on a first amino acid, in which side reactions of the label with amino acids not targeted for labeling are reduced.
US09733205B2

This sensor has a diverter, such as a convex portion (608) and a concave portion (508), on the side wall (408) of a cavity (308). A biological sample deposited in a suction opening (52) is drawn into the cavity (308) by capillary action, but if the amount of biological sample is too small, either the biological sample is prevented from moving forward by the convex portion (608) and the concave portion (508), or the time it takes to reach a detecting electrode (33) is increased, which provides the user enough time to supply additional biological sample before a false detection occurs.
US09733200B2

With an image processing device, a presence/absence of a product defect is judged based on detected-image data obtained by a radiographic device that detects radiation that has passed through a product, which is an inspection subject. With the image processing device, a position of a product feature in the detected-image data is identified based on a shape of the product feature indicated by feature data stored in a storage portion in advance, defect candidates are extracted with reference to the identified product feature in the detected-image data, and the presence/absence of a product defect is judged based on characteristic quantities of product defects indicated by a defect characteristic stored in the storage portion in advance and characteristic quantities of the defect candidates.
US09733197B2

A process for detecting oil or lubricant contamination in a manufactured product, the process comprising adding a fluorescent taggant to oils or lubricants contained in processing machinery for said product, conveying said product past an infrared detection apparatus, irradiating said product with infrared radiation from said detection apparatus as it passes the detection apparatus, and detecting infrared radiation emitted from said irradiated product.
US09733193B2

The invention relates to apparatus for monitoring an extruded product moving in an inline extrusion process so as to effect quality control of the process by continuously measuring dimensional parameters and determining the existence of contaminants in the extrusion. The apparatus makes use of Terahertz radiation which is adapted to provide a curtain of parallel rays of the radiation which is scanned across the product as the product passes therethrough in a linear manner. The composition of the emitted radiation received after the scanning process is subject to an imaging analysis to determine the dimensional parameters of the moving products. The imaging analysis involves applying correction values to the measured transit times of the rays crossing the products which depends on its position within the curtain of rays thereby to remove inaccuracies in the final measurement results.
US09733184B2

Composite materials comprising a mesoflower structure, methods of preparing the composite material, and methods of detecting heavy metal ion using the composite material are described herein. In some embodiments, a silica-coated gold mesoflower with a layer of silver quantum clusters may be capable of detecting Hg2+ ions in a sample at zeptomolar concentrations.
US09733183B2

Disclosed are improved integrated computational elements for use in optical computing devices. One integrated computational element includes an optical substrate, first and second pluralities of optical thin film layers alternatingly deposited on the optical substrate to form a thin film stack, wherein each optical thin film layer of the first plurality exhibits a first refractive index and each optical thin film layer of the second plurality exhibits a second refractive index different than the first refractive index, and at least one additional optical thin film layer arranged in or on the thin film stack and in optical communication with at least one of the optical thin film layers of the first and second pluralities, the at least one additional optical thin film layer exhibiting a third refractive index that is different than the first and second refractive indices.
US09733179B1

A method, system, and apparatus for determining chlorophyll content of a plant sample. The method includes emitting light at a first wavelength and a second wavelength into a plant sample with a chlorophyll meter; detecting the light after passing through the plant sample; generating an optical value responsive to a ratio of the percentage of transmitted light through the plant sample for the first wavelength and the second wavelength; and determining chlorophyll content based on the optical value compared with an optical/absolute chlorophyll relationship that was determined by a matched combination of extraction method, extraction solvent, spectrophotometric equation, and spectrophotometer resolution, wherein the optical/absolute relationship is one of a plurality of different optical/absolute relationships that a user may select from for different species. These relationships may link in situ optical measurements with in vitro chlorophyll concentration for display on a chlorophyll meter in units of mass or moles of chlorophyll per unit area or mass of tissue.
US09733177B2

An optical detector comprises a plurality of pixels, each pixel comprising a photodiode operable to detect light incident on that pixel and to generate a signal indicative of an intensity of that light. The plurality of pixels comprises a plurality of pixel pairs, and for each pixel pair, in a configuration mode, the detector is arranged to compare the signal generated by a first pixel of the pair with the signal generated by a second pixel of the pair. A method of optical detection is also described, as is a system incorporating the described optical detector.
US09733176B2

Aspects of the present disclosure include an optical detector scatter cap assembly. Optical detector scatter cap assemblies according to certain embodiments include a housing having a proximal end and a distal end, an orifice at the distal end of the housing, a scatter bar affixed to the housing and extending across the orifice and a cover bar that reversibly mates with the scatter bar. Also provided are systems that include the optical detector scatter cap assemblies, methods of using the systems, e.g., in sample processing, and kits that include component(s) of the optical detector scatter cap assemblies.
US09733174B2

Low-cost and easily-operated microviscometer suitable for medical diagnosis clinical studies and other fluid tests. The equipment consists of a microchannel (2) formed by concatenated microchannels made by micro-manufacturing techniques, and a fluid column position detector inside the microchannel. The microchannels are open at one end and closed at the other end and are made of a single biocompatible material. When a liquid drop is put into the inlet of the microchannel (2), the fluid enters by capillary until the compressed air pressure equals the capillary pressure plus atmospheric pressure. The fluid transient movement from entering the channel until stopping at its balance position is analyzed thus obtaining as a result the viscosity and the capillary pressure of the liquid tested.
US09733173B2

The invention relates to a method for selecting a viscoelastic plastic interlayer including two outer layers and a central layer that can be incorporated between two glass sheets of a glazing unit, the method includes providing first and second components that constitute respectively the central layer and the outer layers, measuring the shear modulus G′ of the first and second components, selecting the material of the second component only if G′≧3×107 Pa at 20° C. and between 100 Hz and 240 Hz, and setting the thickness h of the first component so that h is between 0.31 mm and 1.20 mm and so that g=G′/h is between 5.58×108 Pa/m and 2.37×109 Pa/m at 20° C. and between 100 Hz and 240 Hz.
US09733166B2

A tissue embedder comprising a transport mechanism for an input member, the input member adapted to hold a plurality of tissue supports, with each tissue support associated with a mould, a wax bath and a cooling station wherein the transport mechanism moves the input member from a wax bath to a cooling station.
US09733155B2

In an apparatus and system for monitoring and communicating emissions data for a diesel engine, an exhaust gas analyzer uses laser light passed through a diffuser to measure the quantity of trace gases and particulates in an exhaust gas outlet from a diesel engine. The analysis chamber possesses superhydrophobic, superhydrophilic, and/or superoleophobic properties to reduce VOC-occlusion of the transparent chamber walls. A radio transmitter, cellular data transmitter, or Smartphone transmits measurement data. In a diagnostic and monitoring system for a diesel engine, the exhaust gas analyzer is in contact with the exhaust gases from the diesel engine, preferably in the tailpipe. A data receiver receives the transmitted measurement data.
US09733154B2

A sensor unit for a bearing including at least one inner ring and at least one outer ring, wherein the sensor unit is configured to detect at least one state variable of the bearing. The sensor unit is embedded in a recess of one of the inner ring or the outer ring.
US09733150B2

An inspection method for inspecting the water resistance of an electronic device is provided, including providing a vacuum generator, using the vacuum generator to pump air out of the electronic device, stopping the pumping of air out of the electronic device when the air pressure in the electronic device is less than a predetermined pressure value, measuring the air pressure in the electronic device as a first pressure value after the pumping of air out of the electronic device has been stopped for a predetermined time, calculating the pressure difference D by subtracting a second pressure value from the predetermined pressure value, calculating the pressure difference d by subtracting the second pressure value from the first pressure value, and determining whether the electronic device is waterproof or not according to the pressure differences D and d.
US09733148B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide moisture measuring systems and methods. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a sealable compartment is used in which a specimen containing liquid can be inserted, such that all of the specimen is contained within the compartment. The relative humidity in the compartment is measured over a duration of time, which can be used to calculate the amount of liquid leaked by the specimen. Embodiments of the present invention can be utilized, for example, to calculate the leakage rate of water-carrying hardware of a cooling system, without having to create a membrane or other isolated sample of materials.
US09733144B2

In one implementation, an electronic device includes: a display; a sensor configured to measure information to be used for determining whether the electronic device is underwater; and at least one processor configured to determine, based on results of the measurement by the sensor, whether the electronic device has fallen into the water. Upon determining that the electronic device has fallen into the water, the at least one processor displays maintenance operation information for guiding a user to maintenance operations for the electronic device on the display. The electronic device is capable of, when the electronic device has fallen into the water, guiding a user so as to prompt the user to perform self-maintenance on the electronic device so that a breakdown or the like of the electronic device due to moisture left in the electronic device can be prevented.
US09733138B2

Various packaging designs for placement of a magnetic torque sensor at the output shaft of a front wheel drive transmission are provided. One design provides for mounting a sensor on a chain drive sprocket or integrating a sensor into a modified sprocket bearing mount. Another design provides for mounting a sensor at the grounded ring gear of a final planetary drive. Another design provides for mounting a sensor at the differential housing. Another design provides for mounting a sensor at the output planetary carrier hub/park gear. Another design provides for mounting a sensor at a multi-piece transfer gear face.
US09733134B2

A method includes providing a printed circuit board (“PCB”) supporting a solderable component, and supporting a first fuse on the PCB, where the first fuse includes a first temperature-sensitive element that measurably changes in response to exposure to ambient thermal conditions exceeding a first threshold temperature. The PCB, the solderable component, and the first fuse define an apparatus. The method includes performing a PCB assembly manufacturing process, and then testing the first fuse to determine whether, during the PCB assembly manufacturing process, the first fuse was exposed to ambient thermal conditions exceeding a first threshold temperature. The first threshold temperature is a minimum temperature where the PCB assembly manufacturing process is to be carried out, a maximum temperature at which the PCB assembly manufacturing process is to occur, or a first intermediate temperature between the minimum and maximum temperatures.
US09733123B2

A connector assembly is provided for coupling optical fibers to a spectrometer. The connector assembly includes a plate having a slit defined therein and a ferrule that secures end portions of the optical fibers therein. The ferrule includes a forward end having an aperture that receives the optical fibers. The connector assembly further includes a connector housing having an alignment mechanism with a plate recess dimensioned to receive the plate therein and a ferrule recess dimensioned to receive the forward end of the ferrule therein. The plate recess orients the plate and the ferrule recess orients the ferrule within the connector assembly that includes a spring for imparting a force urging the forward end of the ferrule into contact with the plate to minimize an air gap between the plate and the ferrule. The spring and the alignment mechanism maintain the ferrule in an x-y-z, rotation, and/or an angular orientation.
US09733110B2

A housing equipped with a viewing window. The housing includes: a housing segment which adjoins a radially inwardly extending shoulder, which terminally externally surrounds a housing opening conically tapering from the housing interior toward the housing exterior. Flushly mounted in the opening, a disk shaped viewing window pane, which has bordering on its outwardly facing surface an external lateral surface conically tapering form the housing interior toward the housing exterior. A one-piece, shaped seal, which has a first portion, which externally completely surrounds the viewing window pane, and which has a second portion, which lies against an outer edge of a surface of the viewing window pane facing inwards into the housing. A support ring secured in the housing segment clamps the viewing window pane in the housing segment.
US09733109B2

A position-measuring device includes: a first subassembly having a measuring standard on which at least one coded track is provided, and a scanning unit, which is able to generate position signals that may be used to generate an absolute digital position value by scanning the at least one coded track in a measuring direction; a second subassembly having at least one peripheral unit adapted to execute a supplementary or an auxiliary functionality of the position-measuring device; and a plurality of electrical lines, which connect the first subassembly and the second subassembly to each other for the transmission of electrical signals. The position-measuring device is able to be operated in an initialization mode and in a standard operating mode. All components of the first subassembly required for the operation in the standard operating mode are components that are suitable for use in a radiation region of a machine. Furthermore, an initialization memory is provided in the first subassembly, which includes the data required for the operation in the standard operating mode and which is not suitable for use in a radiation region of a machine. In the initialization mode, the content of the initialization memory is transmittable to a memory unit situated outside the radiation region. Only the content of the memory unit is used for the operation in the standard operating mode.
US09733108B2

A method and system for remote sensing using optical orbital angular momentum (OAM)-based spectroscopy for lateral motion detection. The method includes applying an OAM mode on a light beam to generate an OAM light beam, the OAM light beam having an optical OAM spectrum, applying an OAM optical beam tilt on the OAM light beam to generate a tilted OAM light beam, transmitting the tilted OAM light beam on a remote object, such that the remote object interacts with the tilted OAM light beam, receiving a reflected OAM spectrum associated with the remote object, the reflected OAM spectrum having power values of OAM modes on opposite sides of an OAM launch mode, and displaying lateral motion of the remote object based on the reflected OAM spectrum by comparing the power values.
US09733101B2

A method for vehicle convergence analysis based on a plurality of sparse location data is provided. The method may include obtaining a plurality of vehicle location data. The method may also include receiving a plurality of input data. The method may further include calculating, for each vehicle a probabilistic street network route based on each sequential piece of timed data and each piece of location data included in the obtained plurality of vehicle data and the received plurality of input data. The method may include identifying a plurality of overlapping routes between two vehicles based on the calculated probabilistic street network route. The method may include displaying the identified plurality of overlapping routes between the two vehicles as a meeting area.
US09733095B2

A method of operation of a navigation system includes: receiving a navigation request for reaching a destination; generating a navigation information based on the navigation request; generating an information segment from the navigation information; and generating a transmission sequence for prioritizing an information type of the information segment for displaying the information segment on a device.
US09733092B2

To acquire a direction error of a vehicle so that a more appropriate result is acquired in subsequent processing, a vehicle position detection device includes: a start/end point calculation part for acquiring a turning start point on a pre-turning link, and acquiring a turning end point on a post-turning link; a virtual link generation part for acquiring a virtual link connecting between the turning start point and the turning end point; a link direction calculation part for calculating a virtual link direction that is a direction at a predetermined position on the virtual link; and an error calculation part for using the virtual link direction to calculate a direction error of a vehicle direction.
US09733088B2

According to an example, a signal space based navigation apparatus may receive traces of wireless signal observations and corresponding pedestrian deadreckoning (PDR) traces between different ones of the wireless signal observations from a plurality of user devices. A plurality of wireless clusters may be generated based on the traces of wireless signal observations. A PDR displacement vector may be generated between two or more of the wireless clusters based on the two or more of the wireless clusters and a subset of the PDR traces corresponding to the two or more of the wireless clusters. A sensing map may be generated based on the plurality of wireless clusters and a plurality of PDR displacement vectors including the PDR displacement vector.
US09733085B2

A system and method for updating a digital map for a driver assistance system in a vehicle. The digital map contains map data having coordinates and attributes for characterizing subregions of an overall region of the digital map. The system includes a base station and a plurality of vehicles, each equipped with a driver assistance system. The base station has at least one transmission unit for sending updated map data having updated attributes to the driver assistance systems. The driver assistance system has a memory unit for storing map data from at least a portion of the digital map, a receiver unit for receiving the updated map data sent by the base station and a control unit for updating the stored map data using the received updated map data.
US09733078B2

The present disclosure discloses a levelness detecting device and method, and a levelness adjusting device and method. The levelness detecting device comprises a light emitter, a semi-reflecting, semi-transmitting mirror, and a plurality of reflecting mirrors comprising a first reflecting mirror, a second reflecting mirror and a third reflecting mirror. The semi-reflecting, semi-transmitting mirror and the plurality of reflecting mirrors are arranged on a to-be-detected plane and are each provided with a scale indicative of a height.
US09733071B2

In the field of methods of three-dimensional measurement of an object by stereo-correlation, methods require at least two cameras connected to image processing means. These methods include at least a first step of calibration of the two image planes and a second step of spatial matching between these two image planes. These two steps can be followed by a third step of temporal matching. The method provided requires objects, the surface of which has a parametric representation, i.e. a mathematical representation of the object surface having the form of a decomposition over a scalar function basis. The parametric representation is implemented during the first calibration step and/or during the second and third steps of spatial or temporal matching.
US09733069B2

An optical position-measuring device for detecting the position of two objects movable relative to each other includes a measuring standard that is joined to one of the two objects and has a measuring graduation having a periodic arrangement of graduation regions along at least a first graduation direction. The position-measuring device also includes a scanning unit having a plurality of optical elements, which is disposed in a manner allowing movement relative to the measuring standard. Via the arrangement and formation of the optical elements of the scanning unit, a scanning beam path results in which partial beams of rays reaching interference propagate in mirror symmetry in relation to a plane of symmetry and either fall in V-shaped fashion on the measuring standard and/or are reflected back in a V-shape by the measuring standard. The plane of symmetry is tilted by a defined tilt angle about an axis of rotation that is oriented parallel to the surface of the measuring standard and extends in a direction perpendicular to the first graduation direction.
US09733055B2

A multi-mode fuse system for use in a warhead for combating a target. At least one target sensor is electrically connected to a signal processing block and an I/O-block. The I/O-block is configured to be set by the operator of the warhead. The target sensor is adapted to generate an electrical output in response to the rate of deceleration of the warhead. The fuse system is adapted to discriminate the hardness of the target based upon the electrical output of the target sensor and to select the mode of operation depending upon the target discrimination. The fuse system is adapted to discriminate at least one type of target depending upon the electrical output of the target sensors. The fuse system selects one of at least three modes of operation of the warhead. Also a method for classifying the target hardness and selection of the operational mode of a warhead.
US09733052B2

The present invention in some aspects is directed to small arms ammunition and programmed upset characteristics thereof imparted to them using high energy beams. More particularly, the invention relates to ammunition and methods of making ammunition having predetermined patterns of engraving and/or cutting or hardening and/or annealing imparted in the ammunition's forward portion using a programming laser or electron beam system adapted for treating projectiles to effect predetermined and consistent upset configurations.
US09733043B1

The invention discloses devices and methods for providing a better grip on a slide associated with a semiautomatic firearm. In some embodiments, a metal frame is covered with a polymer-mineral mixture that includes steps on both a left side and a right side of a slide so as to provide maximal friction between fingers and the slide. The instant invention may aid those with wet or sweaty hands or those form whom racking a pistol is difficult by providing improved gripping features based on shape, materials, and texture of the grip enhancement elements herein described.
US09733038B2

A firearm cleaning device is disclosed herein. The device may include a housing comprising a grip portion, a motor housing portion opposite the grip portion, a neck portion disposed between the grip portion and the motor housing portion, and a slot disposed adjacent to the neck portion between the grip portion and the motor housing portion. The device also may include a motor disposed within the motor housing portion and a battery disposed within the grip portion. The battery may be electrically coupled to the motor. In addition, the device may include a shaft coupled to the motor and extending out of the motor housing portion, a detachable brush attachable to the shaft, and a motor switch disposed about the housing opposite the slot for activating the motor.
US09733026B2

A heat exchanger includes a heat exchanger core, a fluid path through the heat exchanger core, and a fluid guiding member. The fluid path has an inlet and an outlet. The fluid guiding member is adjacent to the inlet and/or outlet of the fluid path. The fluid guiding member is operable to change the direction of fluid flow.
US09733022B2

A cooling module including a first heat exchanger cooling a first heat exchange medium, a second heat exchanger cooling a second heat exchange medium, a third heat exchanger cooling a third heat exchange medium, and a fan and shroud assembly arranged in parallel in an air flow direction, wherein a flow of the first heat exchange medium inside first tubes forming the first heat exchanger is perpendicular to a flow of the second heat exchange medium inside second tubes forming the second heat exchanger and parallel with a flow of the third heat exchange medium inside third tubes forming the third heat exchanger. The cooling module capable of sufficiently securing the first heat exchange medium condensing performance, the third heat exchange medium cooling performance, and the second heat exchange medium cooling performance and being miniaturized.
US09733021B2

A pulling roll for glass manufacture made from a millboard material fired to minimize or eliminate weight loss during operation. Methods for preparing and using such a pulling roll are also disclosed.
US09733014B2

The invention relates to a method and device for obtaining compressed oxygen and compressed nitrogen by the low-temperature separation of air in a distillation column system for nitrogen-oxygen separation, said distillation column system having at least one high-pressure column (8) and one low-pressure column (460), wherein the low-pressure column (460) is in a heat-exchanging connection with the high-pressure column (8) by means of a main condenser (461) designed as a condenser-evaporator. Feed air is compressed in an air compressor (2). The compressed feed air (6, 734, 802, 840) is cooled down in a main heat exchanger (20) and at least partially introduced into the high-pressure column (8). An oxygen-enriched liquid (462, 465) is removed from the high-pressure column (8) and fed to the low-pressure column (460) at a first intermediate position (464, 467, 906). A nitrogen-enriched liquid (468, 470) is removed from the high-pressure column (8) and/or the main condenser (461) and fed to the head of the low-pressure column (460). A liquid oxygen flow (11, 12) is removed from the distillation column system for nitrogen-oxygen separation, brought to an elevated pressure in the liquid state (13), introduced into the main heat exchanger (20) at said elevated pressure, evaporated or pseudo-evaporated and heated to approximately ambient temperature in the main heat exchanger (20), and finally obtained as a gaseous compressed oxygen product (14). A high-pressure process flow (34, 734) is brought into indirect heat exchange with the oxygen flow in the main heat exchanger (20) and then depressurized (36, 38; 736, 738), wherein the depressurized high-pressure flow (37, 737) is introduced at least partially in the liquid state into the distillation column system for nitrogen-oxygen separation. A gaseous circuit nitrogen flow (18, 19) is drawn from the high-pressure column and at least partially (21) compressed in a circuit compressor (22). A first sub-flow (45, 46; 244, 242, 230; 845, 846) of the circuit nitrogen flow is removed from the circuit compressor (22, 322), cooled down in the main heat exchanger (20), at least partially condensed in the bottom evaporator (9, 209) of the high-pressure column (8) in indirect heat exchange with the bottom liquid of the high-pressure column (8), and conducted back into the distillation column system for nitrogen-oxygen separation. A second sub-flow of the circuit nitrogen flow is branched off upstream and/or downstream of the circuit compressor and/or from an intermediate stage of the circuit compressor at a product pressure (P, P1, P2, P3, P4) and obtained as a compressed nitrogen product (27, 29, 53, 564, 565). The circuit compressor (22, 322) is designed as a hot compressor and is driven by means of external energy.
US09733001B2

A cooling and heating control method of a multi type air conditioner in which a target pressure of a compressor is adjusted based on conditions of respective indoor units so as to reduce power consumption is provided. The cooling control method includes determining the indoor unit desired to execute power saving control, judging whether or not a difference between a temperature of a space in which the indoor unit desired to execute power saving control is located and a set temperature of the indoor unit is less than a reference value, raising a target evaporation temperature of the indoor unit upon judging that the difference is less than the reference value, comparing an evaporation temperature of the indoor unit with the raised target evaporation temperature, and raising an evaporation pressure of a compressor, when the evaporation temperature of the indoor unit is lower than the raised target evaporation temperature.
US09732999B2

A refrigerant recovery system includes a first oil separator including a chamber configured to receive refrigerant from an air conditioning system, a heat exchanger disposed within the first oil separator, and a compressor fluidly connected to the chamber and the heat exchanger. A first valve is disposed in a first flow line that is fluidly connected between an inlet of the first oil separator and a source of refrigerant and a second valve is disposed in a second flow line that fluidly connects the compressor and the heat exchanger. A controller is configured to open the first valve to enable refrigerant to pass into the chamber of the first oil separator, open the second valve so that a flow loop for refrigerant is formed between the heat exchanger and the compressor, activate the compressor to heat the refrigerant flowing through the flow loop, and subsequently commence a refrigerant recovery operation.
US09732989B2

A heat receiver tube having first, second, and further partial heat receiver tube surfaces for absorbing and transferring solar energy to heat transfer fluid is presented. The first and further partial heat receiver tube surfaces are formed by solar absorptive coatings deposited on partial surfaces of core tube. The second partial heat receiver tube surface is formed by emission radiation inhibiting coating deposited on second core tube surface for inhibiting emissivity for infrared radiation. The further partial heat receiver tube surface is arranged in radiation window of second partial heat receiver tube surface such that direct sunlight impinges further partial heat receiver tube surface. The heat receiver tube is arranged in focal line of parabolic mirror of parabolic trough collector. The first partial heat receiver tube surface and sunlight reflecting surface is arranged face to face, second and further partial heat receiver tube surfaces are averted to reflecting surface.
US09732983B2

A system includes a cold water supply, a water heater, a mixing valve, and one or more water use fixtures. The water heater includes a tank, a first temperature sensor configured to output a first temperature signal indicative of a water temperature of water in the tank, a heating device, and a water heater controller configured to control the water heater based on the first temperature signal and an operating temperature setting. The mixing valve outputs a mixed water flow, which is a combination of a hot water flow and a cold water flow, to the water use fixtures. A second temperature sensor outputs a second temperature signal indicative of a water flow temperature of the mixed water flow or the hot water flow, and a system controller selectively deactivates the water heater based on the second temperature signal.
US09732977B2

An actuator in a HVAC system includes a mechanical transducer, an input data connection, a feedback data connection, and a processing circuit. The processing circuit is configured to use a master-slave detection signal communicated via the feedback data connection to select an operating mode for the actuator from a set of multiple potential operating modes including a master operating mode and a slave operating mode. The processing circuit is configured to operate the mechanical transducer in response to a control signal received via the input data connection according to the selected operating mode.
US09732958B2

A burner system and a retrofit flame control system for an existing burner system are disclosed. The burner system may include burner components, electrodynamic components, and a data interface. The data interface may receive a command for controlling the burner components and prepare a command for controlling the electrodynamic components at least partially based on the command for controlling the burner components.
US09732955B2

Disclosed herein is a pool light assembly including cooling for the illuminating structure. The assembly includes a water inlet housing having a portion on the dry side and a portion immersed in the pool water. An assembly having sealing structure creates a leak proof connection with the pool wall. The submerged portion of the assembly includes a base. The base has an exterior exposed to the pool water and an enclosed interior including the illuminating structure. A notch is provided in the exterior of the base and extends into the interior for allowing pool water in the proximity of the illuminating structure. The assembly includes sealing structure for preventing water from entering electrically active elements, while allowing pool water to act as a cooling element. A retaining member locks and encourages waterproof sealing of the electrically active elements. Each of the elements is provided with structure as necessary to facilitate the free flow of water through the housing.
US09732953B2

Some features of the invention include a LED luminaire, including a chassis having a chassis body, the chassis body having an inner perimeter and an outer perimeter. At least one LED lighting module is mounted on the chassis body. A LED power supply assembly includes at least one LED power supply unit for the at least one LED lighting module. The LED luminaire further includes at least one inner perimeter vent interposed between the chassis body and the LED power supply assembly to thermally separate the chassis body from the LED power supply assembly. Outer perimeter vents may be located along the outer perimeter. The inner and outer perimeter vents promote the natural flow of air around and through the LED luminaire to remove heat generated by the at least one LED lighting module and/or LED power supply assembly. In certain features, the LED power supply assembly includes top and bottom vent covers, and the at least one LED power supply unit is located between the top and bottom vent covers. The top and bottom vent covers are vented to promote the natural flow of air through the LED power supply assembly, further removing heat generated by the at least LED one power supply unit. Yet other features include a shaped optic covering the at least one LED lighting module and that further promotes the natural flow of air around and through the LED luminaire.
US09732934B2

A new and useful illumination device, e.g. for a lithographic optical imaging system, is provided, and comprises a mirror array located between a radiation source and an illumination pupil. Each mirror element of the mirror array is individually steerable (controllable), and the polarization state of light from each mirror element of the mirror array can be selectively controlled, so that the illumination pupil can be filled with a distribution of light that is selectively controlled.
US09732933B2

An illumination device includes: a light source unit; and an optical member having a plate-like shape and disposed in front of the light source unit, wherein the optical member includes a first refractive prism having a function of refracting light, and a reflective prism disposed on an outer side of the first refractive prism and having a function of reflecting light, wherein an optical axis of the light source unit is configured to pass through a region in which the first refractive prism is disposed, wherein the first refractive prism is configured to cause an incident light to travel to a side opposite to the optical axis, and wherein the reflective prism is configured to cause an incident light to travel to the optical axis side.
US09732926B2

An illumination system includes: a light irradiation unit that projects light toward a predetermined illumination area; an image acquisition unit that acquires an image of the illumination area; an object detecting unit that detects a shading object based on image information of the illumination area, acquired by the image acquisition unit; an information generating unit that generates the control information for setting each of the plurality of reflecting mirrors to an on state or an off state such that a plurality of irradiation patterns are alternately irradiated, each of the plurality of irradiation patterns having different arrangement of the dark pixels and the light pixels from each other; and an irradiation control unit that controls the light irradiation unit based on the generated control information.
US09732923B2

The invention describes an integral lighting assembly (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E) comprising an optical arrangement (2, 3); a first light source (S1) for generating a first beam (L1) of light; a first collimator (C1) for directing the first beam (L1) at the optical arrangement (2, 3); a second light source (S2) for generating a second beam (L2) of light; and a second collimator (C2) for directing the second beam (L2) at the optical arrangement (2, 3), wherein the optical arrangement (2, 3) is realized to manipulate the first and second light beams (L1, L2) to give a first exit beam (BLO) and a second exit beam (BRI) such that the first exit beam (BLO) and the second exit beam (BRI) are partially combined in an overlap region (44) on a projection plane (4) located at a predefined distance from the integral lighting assembly (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E). The invention further describes an automotive headlamp arrangement (12) comprising such an integral lighting assembly (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E).
US09732922B2

A lighting device includes a housing including a hole; a light source body including a light emitting module with a terminal; and electrical connection means including a portion projecting through the hole and having a connector electrically connected to the terminal and physically connecting the housing with the light source body.
US09732916B2

A lighting device includes a substrate and a planar light source portion including a plurality of LED chips arrayed on the substrate. The planar light source portion faces an illumination space (space to be illuminated) by a predetermined opening area. The plurality of LED chips are arrayed on the substrate such that the mounting density with respect to the opening area is not less than 3/cm2, and accordingly, a planar light source is formed.
US09732915B2

A light-emitting diode (LED) lamp which can replace a typical fluorescent lamp is provided. The LED lamp comprises external connection pins connected to terminals of an electronic or magnetic fluorescent lamp ballast, capacitor pairs connected to each of the external connection pins, diodes connected to each of the capacitor pairs and a LED array connected between the diodes, wherein an first external connection pin, a first capacitor pair, a first diode, an LED array, a second diode, a second capacitor pair and a second external connection pin are connected in series. Here, the first and second capacitor pairs include capacitors connected back to back. The LED lamp also further comprises a diode connected in anti-parallel with a series circuit of the second diode and the LED array, and another diode connected in anti-parallel with a series circuit of the first diode and the LED array.
US09732910B2

A processing-liquid supply apparatus includes a source, a discharge device, a supply channel connecting the source and discharge device, a filter device positioned in the channel to form first side having the source and second side having the discharge device, a pump device positioned in the channel, and a control device which controls suction and discharge by the pump device. The control device controls the pump device such that the liquid is discharged from the discharge device, that remaining of the liquid on the second side is suctioned to be returned to the first side and that the remaining of the liquid returned to the first side flows from the first toward second side together with refill of the liquid from the source, and the control device is set such that return amount of the liquid to the filter device is equal to or greater than amount of the discharge.
US09732907B2

A thermal interface between a removable cryogenic refrigerator (4) and an article (10) to be cooled by the cryogenic refrigerator. The thermal interface consists of a recondensing chamber filled with a gas (12), the recondensing chamber being in thermal contact with a cooling surface (9) of the refrigerator and the article (10) to be cooled.
US09732897B2

A sealing device is provided suitable for making at least partially fluid-tight a connection between a first pipe and a smaller second pipe, a part of the second pipe being able to be engaged in the first pipe while leaving an inter-pipes space between the two pipes in the radial direction. The sealing device is mounted on a supporting pipe and is adapted to spread out in the inter-pipes space from a guard position to a sealing position. It comprises at least one sealing set including substantially rigid movable sealing members which extend each along a predetermined angular sector in a circumferential direction and are individually guided in displacement between the guard position and the sealing position.
US09732883B2

A method and apparatus are disclosed for preventing excavation damage to buried infrastructure. A plurality of excavation-sensing modules is buried near the buried infrastructure. The modules protect buried infrastructure by emitting dense clouds of highly visible gas when the modules are activated by impact with excavation equipment. In most cases the visible gas will be brightly colored and it may also have a strong odor and may produce a loud sound when the module is activated. The dense clouds of highly visible gas, the optional odor and loud sound alert construction crews or other workers that their excavation is nearing a protected underground structure. Once installed, no maintenance or active monitoring is required. In a preferred embodiment of the excavation-sensing module, the dense cloud of highly visible gas is produced by ignition of a smoke grenade within the module. In the preferred embodiment, the smoke grenade is ignited by the interaction of the excavator striking and breaking the buried module. Also in the preferred embodiment, the excavator will normally pull the ignited smoke grenade out of the buried module and to the surface increasing the visibility of the gas. Also in the preferred embodiment, a more reliable design for ignition of the smoke grenade is disclosed.
US09732881B2

Disclosed is a gate valve that opens/closes a plurality of vertically arranged openings by a plurality of valve bodies when conveying a plurality of vertically arranged substrates to an inside of a vacuum container. The gate valve includes: a housing including the plurality of openings formed therein; a supporting member configured to support the plurality of valve bodies; a driving mechanism configured to move the plurality of valve bodies via the supporting member such that the plurality of openings is opened/closed; and a plurality of guide mechanisms arranged to correspond to the plurality of valve bodies, respectively. Each of the plurality of guide mechanisms includes: a vertically stretchable bellows fixed to the housing; and a guide member contained in the bellows and configured to guide the supporting member inside the bellows.
US09732880B2

Fluid flow control devices comprise a body including a central aperture extending along a longitudinal axis therethrough and a plurality of channels extending from an outer sidewall of the body to an inner sidewall of the body. At least one first channel may intersect at least one other channel. Fluid flow control systems, methods of forming fluid flow control devices, and methods of flowing a fluid through a fluid flow control device are also disclosed.
US09732867B2

A relief valve having a crenelated exhaust ring surrounding the poppet. The crenelated exhaust ring comprises a series of alternating crenels and merlons which together define an increasing cross-sectional exhaust area circumferentially about the poppet during cracking (i.e., once the pressure in the inflatable device exceeds the cracking pressure) as the poppet rises in the relief valve in response to increased pressures and, conversely, a decreasing cross-sectional exhaust area about the poppet during closing as the poppet lowers to its re-seated, sealed position. The design of the crenels in the form of a larger upper cross-sectional area to a smaller lower cross-sectional opening, advantageously achieves a reseating pressure that is substantially equal to or slightly less than the cracking pressure while minimizing possible oscillations during re-seating of the poppet. The crenelated exhaust ring surrounding the poppet advantageously results in a relief valve having a higher flow rate at a given back pressure than would be achieved without the crenelated exhaust ring surrounding the poppet.
US09732866B2

A faucet includes a mixing chamber, a bypass chamber, a hot water actuator, a cold water actuator, and a valve assembly. The mixing chamber is in fluid communication with a spout. The bypass chamber is operably coupled to a source of cold water. The cold water actuator is operably coupled to provide, upon actuation, cold water to the mixing chamber. The hot water actuator is operably coupled to provide, upon actuation, hot water to the mixing chamber. The valve assembly has a seal configured to move in a direction away from the spout responsive to a temperature of water in the mixing chamber exceeding a threshold, such that fluid connection is provided between the bypass chamber and the mixing chamber.
US09732863B2

An end of a first land has a step difference recessing inward of a radial direction of the first land from the edge portion. The step difference has an end point opposite to the edge portion. A throttle portion protrudes from the start point in an axial direction, and includes an outer-peripheral corner (protrusion round portion) having a curved surface protruding in the axial direction and in the radial direction. When an inlet opening starts to be slightly opened, since a hydraulic fluid is throttled when flowing through a second gate opened between a corner of a sleeve and the protrusion round portion, a rapid increasing of a flow quantity of the hydraulic fluid and an instability of a control of the hydraulic fluid can be suppressed.
US09732859B2

A fluid valve includes a valve body having a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet connected by a fluid passageway. A valve seat is disposed within the fluid passageway. A fluid control member is movably disposed within the fluid passageway, the fluid control member cooperating with a trim assembly to control fluid flow through the fluid passageway. The trim assembly includes a cage having a plurality of openings that characterize fluid flowing through the cage and a plurality of vents that suppress noise generated by the plurality of openings.
US09732851B2

The invention relates to a medical drug delivery apparatus which comprises a cartridge (1) being closed at one end by a membrane (12) and at the opposite end by a movable piston (15). A piston rod foot (1) is provided for transferring the pressure from the piston rod (20) of the drug delivery apparatus and onto the piston (15). The piston rod foot (1) comprises a center part (2) abutting the piston rod (20) and an outer part (3) which center part (2) and outer part (3) are coupled together such that the two (2, 3) can be moved relative to one another, yet remain coupled to each other, when a force above a certain threshold limit is applied to the outer part (3).
US09732848B2

A variable speed transmission having a plurality of tilting balls and opposing input and output discs is illustrated and described that provides an infinite number of speed combinations over its transmission ratio range. The use of a planetary gear set allows minimum speeds to be in reverse and the unique geometry of the transmission allows all of the power paths to be coaxial, thereby reducing overall size and complexity of the transmission in comparison to transmissions achieving similar transmission ratio ranges.
US09732844B2

Disclosed is a transmission apparatus comprising: a sun gear connected to the input terminal; a plurality of first planetary gears engaging with an outer surface of the sun gear; a second planetary gear which forms a concentric circle with each first planetary gear, and which is integrally formed with the first planetary gears; a first ring gear engaging with outer surfaces of the first planetary gears and connected to the output terminal; a second ring gear engaging with an outer surface of the second planetary gear; a cage for supporting rotary shafts of the first and second planetary gears such that the first and second planetary gears can revolve about the sun gear; and a brake member.
US09732838B2

A monitoring system for a gearbox having at least one rotational component having a design lifetime and at least one design parameter is disclosed. The monitoring system may include a first sensor configured to generate a first signal indicative of a speed associated with the at least one rotational component, a second sensor configured to generate a second signal indicative of a torque associated with the rotational component, and a controller electronically connected to the first and second sensors. The controller may be configured to determine a remaining lifetime of the at least one rotational component based on the design lifetime, the at least one design parameter, and the first and second signals over a period of operating time, and generate a maintenance signal based on the remaining lifetime.
US09732836B2

A harmonic drive featuring helix-facilitated lubrication includes a circular spline, a flexspline, a wave generator, and an agitating member. The flexspline meshes with the circular spline. The wave generator has a bearing installed within the flexspline, an elliptic wheel positioned in the bearing, and a shaft coupling connecting the elliptic wheel. The agitating member is located in a lubricant-holding space between the wave generator and the flexspline, and has a rotatory part and blade parts formed about a rotatory part. The rotatory part of the agitating member is connected to the shaft coupling of the wave generator, so that when the agitating member is driven by the shaft coupling, the helical blade parts agitate lubricant to perform convection, thereby better lubricating the bearing of the wave generator.
US09732830B1

A planetary gear train of an automatic transmission for a vehicle may include an input shaft for receiving an engine torque, an output shaft for outputting a shifted torque, a first planetary gear set, a second planetary gear set, a third planetary gear set, a fourth planetary gear set, a first shaft, a second shaft directly connected with the input shaft, a third shaft, a fourth shaft, a fifth shaft selectively connectable with the first shaft, a sixth shaft selectively connectable with the fourth shaft, a seventh shaft selectively connectable with the fourth shaft, and an eighth shaft selectively connectable with the fifth shaft and directly connected with the output shaft.
US09732829B1

A variable gear system for various embodiments of continuously variable transmissions comprises a gear including a radius, an axis, and spherical teeth spaced from each other by a constant pitch. The spherical teeth of the gear engage a splined shaft comprising a radius that varies nonlinearly along a length of the splined shaft, an axis running the length of the splined shaft, and splines along the length of the splined shaft. Further, a portion of the length of the shaft across a seam of the splined shaft includes a non-constant pitch between the splines.
US09732828B2

A power transmission apparatus includes a drive gear disposed on a shaft of a motor; a plurality of driven gears disposed to be engaged with the drive gear; and a plurality of driven members configured to receive power from each of the plurality of driven gears, wherein the plurality of driven gears is arranged so that, when the plurality of driven gears are engaged with the drive gear, a gear engagement phase of each of the plurality of driven gears is different.
US09732827B2

A machine for balancing vehicle wheels includes: a base frame; a balancing shaft on which a vehicle wheel to be balanced can be fixed; a rotoidal resting unit, fitted on the base frame and supporting the balancing shaft in a revolving way around its own axis; and motor elements for placing in rotation the balancing shaft around its own axis; wherein the balancing shaft includes at least a measuring section which is magnetized and subject to a stress condition due to the unbalance of the wheel revolving on the balancing shaft, in proximity of the measuring section being arranged magnetic field sensor elements which are suitable for detecting by magnetostrictive effect the stress condition of the measuring section and are operatively associated with at least one processing and control unit suitable for determining the unbalance of the wheel starting from the stress condition of the measuring section.
US09732824B2

A damper device 10 includes a dynamic damper 30 that has third springs SP3 coupled to an intermediate member 12 and that also has, as a mass body coupled to the third springs SP3, a turbine runner 5, a coupling member 31, etc. The third springs SP3 of the dynamic damper 30 are disposed so as to overlap both in the axial and radial directions of the damper device 10 second springs SP2 that are disposed inward of the first springs SP1 to transfer torque between a drive member 11 and a driven member 15. A plane PL including the axes of the third springs SP3 and perpendicular to the axis of the damper device 10 is included in the range of the thickness of spring contact portions 31c of the coupling member 31 in the axial direction of the damper device 10.
US09732821B2

A system for mitigating vibration of a mass may include an elastic membrane enclosing at least one interior space and having an outer surface, where at least a bottom portion of the outer surface is coupled to a transportable supportive surface, and at least a top portion of the outer surface supports a load. The system may further include at least one port coupling the outer surface to the at least one interior space, where the port provides a source of fluid ingress into the interior space and fluid egress out of the interior space. The system may additionally include granular material distributed within the at least one interior space, where a packing density of the granular material is adjustable between a first jammed state having a first packing density of granular materials and a second jammed state having a second packing density of granular materials to accommodate different loads.
US09732813B2

An electrically actuated brake assembly includes a brake disc, a brake pad, and an electric motor having a rotatable output shaft. A service brake transmission in operative rotational communication with the output shaft causes service braking of the vehicle in response to rotation of the output shaft, and an adjuster mechanism is operable to adjust a distance between the brake pad and the brake disc. An adjuster transmission operatively connected between the output shaft and the adjuster mechanism causes operative rotational communication between the output shaft and the adjuster mechanism when the adjuster transmission is engaged so as to transmit rotational movement of the output shaft to the adjuster mechanism, and causes there to be no operative rotational communication between the output shaft and the adjuster mechanism when the adjuster transmission is disengaged so as to not transmit rotational movement of the output shaft to the adjuster mechanism.
US09732812B2

A hydraulic vehicle brake has a piston which acts upon a friction element and is displaceable by a rotationally drivable spindle/nut arrangement into an actuating position. A spindle of the spindle/nut arrangement is secured against rotation and movable by the spindle nut either into abutment against the piston or away from the piston. The spindle nut comprises a first part, which at least close to one end thereof is configured for screw-type engagement with the spindle, and a second part, configured for rotationally driving the first part and connected to the first part by a rotationally fixed connection. The first part at an other end thereof is provided with a support surface for the rotatable, axial mounting of the spindle/nut arrangement and the second part at the other end extends into the first part.
US09732811B2

A carbon ceramic brake disc according to the present invention includes: a support body having cooling channels at the center portion; and friction layers directly attached to the top and the bottom of the support body without a bonding layer and having components different from the components of the support body, in which the support body is composed of a plurality of layers having components similar to the friction layers, gradually toward the friction layers from the cooling channels as the center.Accordingly, the support body can perform thermomechanical shock absorbing that is an original function and the friction layers and the support body can be prevented from separating while the carbon ceramic brake disc is manufactured.
US09732799B2

An axial bearing arrangement formed substantially of two rotating carrier components (1, 2) with circular ring-shaped end faces (3, 4) and an axial anti-friction bearing (5) arranged between the carrier components (1, 2). This axial anti-friction bearing (5) has a first ring-shaped angle disk (6), which rests on the end face (3) of the first carrier component (1) and which is made from a thin steel sheet, and a second ring shaped angle disk (7), which rests on the end face (4) of the second carrier component (2) and a needle cage (10), which rolls between the axial inner sides (8, 9) of the angle disks (6, 7) and which is formed from a plurality of bearing needles (12) arranged adjacent to one another and held at equal distances to one another by a bearing cage (11), and is lubricated and cooled by a lubricant flow (13) emitted by a shaft which passes centrally through the axial anti-friction bearing (5). According to the invention, a circular ring-shaped ramp disk (14), which is designed as a spring, is arranged between the first carrier component (1) and the first angle disk (6), by which ramp disk a radial annual gap (15) between the first carrier component (1) and the first angle disk (6), which results from the axial clearance of the axial anti-friction bearing (5) in the no-load state, can be sealed to prevent a wrong direction of the lubricant flow (13) and the lubricant flow (13) at the same time, can be systematically routed into the inside of the bearing (16) between the angle disks (6, 7).
US09732789B2

A journal air bearing is provided. The bearing includes a top foil configured to receive the shaft, an intermediate foil disposed radially outboard the top foil, and a journal sleeve disposed radially outboard the intermediate foil. The intermediate foil defines a plurality of holes configured to act as a vent to communicate fluid to an increased supply area to an air film.
US09732785B2

Provided is a suction cup device with which the work of attaching the suction cup to the attachment surface, and the work of releasing the attachment can be performed quickly, and with which a fixture member comprised by a fixture that is equipped with a suction cup device can be arranged on the top face of the suction cup device. The suction cup device comprises an operation member capable of reciprocating movement in a direction that intersects with a suction cup support shaft, and a means for applying pulling force to the suction cup support shaft as a result of the movement of the operation member in a predetermined direction. Preferably, the suction cup device comprises an operation member capable of reciprocating sliding movement in a direction that intersects with a suction cup support shaft, and a means for applying pulling force to the suction cup support shaft as a result of the sliding movement of the operation member in a predetermined direction.
US09732778B2

A panel insert comprising an external body having an open end, said body having a central bore, a magnet received in said bore and having a smooth surface facing said open end of the body, said magnet being affixed to said body.
US09732777B2

A traction sheave clamping device for detachably fixing ropes to the traction sheave of a Koepe hoist, having at least one clamp crossbeam, at least two anchoring elements for engaging in wedge-shaped or hook-shaped grooves in the face sides of the traction sheave/cable chuck rim sheets, and stud bolts for connecting the anchoring elements to the clamp crossbeam, wherein the anchoring elements and the traction sheaves have corresponding torque support surfaces extending substantially in the pull direction of the stud bolts, wherein the extension of the torque support surfaces in the pull direction of the stud bolts is a multiple of the distance between the stud bolt center axis and the anchoring point.
US09732768B2

An intermittent fluid pump is disclosed wherein a gas is introduced into a fluid storage housing containing liquid. The gas is released intermittently from a fluid transfer housing via a fluid transfer passage into a vertically oriented fluid conveyance conduit thereby creating a density differential along with an ascending lift that sucks liquid into a liquid suction conduit wherein the liquid discharges into the fluid conveyance conduit. The ascending gas and liquid are discharged from the fluid conveyance conduit, allowing liquid to be introduced into both the storage and transfer housings thereby temporarily interrupting any further transfer of gas into the fluid conveyance conduit such that an intermittent cycling of fluid is established.
US09732756B2

A centrifugal compressor includes a compressor housing, an impeller wheel which compresses intake gas from an intake-air inlet, a plurality of guide vanes disposed circumferentially along an inner circumferential wall of the intake-air channel between the intake-air inlet and the impeller wheel to swirl the intake gas around the rotational axis, a central intake-air flow path formed at an inner side of the guide vanes to allow the intake gas to flow to the impeller wheel without passing through the guide vanes, and a guide-vane moving mechanism which simultaneously changes the inclination angle of the guide vanes. Guide vanes generate swirl flow at an inner circumferential housing portion of an impeller wheel to improve a surge margin and to restrict decrease in a choke flow rate.
US09732754B2

A shunt pulsation trap for a positive-displacement gas-transfer machine having a gas transfer chamber with an intake port and a discharge port and having at least one positive-displacement drive device (such as two cooperating rotors) defining a compression region of the transfer chamber. The trap includes a pulsation-trap chamber arranged for parallel fluid flow with the machine transfer chamber. The trap has a first (e.g., inlet) port in communication with the compression region of the transfer chamber (e.g., at least one lobe span away or totally isolated from the transfer-chamber intake port), a second (e.g., discharge) port in communication with the discharge port of the transfer chamber, and at least one pulsation dampener in the pulsation-trap chamber. In this way, the shunt pulsation trap traps and attenuates gas pulsations before discharge from the machinery transfer chamber, thereby reducing induced NVH and improving machinery efficiency.
US09732753B2

In a stepped scroll compressor, inclined surfaces (28, 29) of which heights are gradually reduced toward stepped portions are formed in a range W of at least 2ρ to 3ρ (here, ρ denotes a turning radius of a turning scroll) at (1) any one or both of inner peripheral end portions of high top lands (14H, 15H) of both scrolls and inner peripheral end portions of low bottom lands (14J, 15J) of the opposite scrolls corresponding to the inner peripheral end portions and (2) any one or both of outer peripheral end portions of high bottom lands (14K, 15K) of both the scrolls and outer peripheral end portions of low top lands (14I, 15I) of the opposite scrolls corresponding to the outer peripheral end portions, on the stepped portions (14F, 15F and 14G, 15G) of the top and bottom lands.
US09732752B2

A scroll compressor is provided that may include a casing including a rotational shaft, a discharge cover fixed inside of the casing to partition the inside of the casing into a suction space and a discharge space, a first scroll that is revolved by rotation of the rotational shaft, a second scroll that defines a plurality of compression chambers together with the first scroll, the second scroll having an intermediate pressure discharge hole that communicates with a compression chamber having an intermediate pressure of the plurality of compression chambers, a back pressure plate that defines a back pressure chamber that accommodates a refrigerant discharged from the intermediate pressure discharge hole, a floating plate movably disposed on or at a side of the back pressure plate to define the back pressure chamber together with the back pressure plate, and an elastic member disposed between the floating plate and the discharge cover to provide an elastic force to the floating plate.
US09732740B2

A cylinder includes a curved cylinder body, a first support member, and a piston assembly. The curved cylinder body defines a gas chamber passing through opposite ends. The first support member includes a support housing slidably mounted on the outer circumferential surface of the cylinder body and a first permanent magnet securely mounted in the support housing. The piston assembly received in the gas chamber includes a first piston member and a second piston member rotatably coupled to the first piston member. The first and second piston members respectively have a second permanent magnet which is arranged to be attracted to the first permanent magnet. When the piston assembly moves along the curved cylinder body from the first end to the second end in the gas chamber, the first support member moves with the piston assembly on the outer circumferential surface of the curved cylinder body.
US09732739B2

Mixed concrete is pumped under pressure along a primary flow path to a typically lengthy supply line. In the event a clog, blockage or other supply line concern is detected, a branch conduit in communication with the primary flow path permits a portion or all of the pressurized flow to pass through a diverter valve and a recirculation conduit back into an open-to-atmosphere reservoir or hopper from which the concrete originally was pumped. The recirculation system of this invention permits supply line pressure to be safely regulated, diminished, relieved and jogged, all without there being any need to discharge or waste valuable mixed concrete, and without having to dangerously open one or more connections of a pressurized supply line.
US09732723B2

An electricity generating device comprising a housing; a first lobed rotor and a second lobed rotor rotatably arranged in a fluid passage enclosed by the housing such that the lobes of the first and the second lobed rotor intermesh to create a barrier between a high-pressure and a low-pressure side of the housing during operation of the device; a first electricity generator to which the first lobed rotor is coupled, the first electricity generator being capable of varying the load of the first lobed rotor; and a second electricity generator to which the second lobed rotor is coupled, the second electricity generator being capable of varying the load of the second lobed rotor. There is also provided a method of synchronizing rotational positions of a first lobed rotor coupled to a first electricity generator and a second lobed rotor connected to a second electricity generator in a turbine.
US09732719B2

A method of starting a vehicle may include, in response to an expected driver entry, stroking a clutch configured to couple an engine to an electric machine for a predetermined time period. The method may further include, in response to an engine start request received during the predetermined time period, providing power to the electric machine to spin the electric machine at a speed at least equal to a target engine cranking speed.
US09732711B2

A filter device is provided with a filter housing and a housing cover closing off the filter housing. A filter element is disposed in the filter housing. The filter element has a clamping element that is resting with a clamping force on a first housing part that is provided on the filter housing or on the housing cover. The filter element further has a lever element that, in the mounted state of the filter element in the filter housing, is resting on a second housing part that is provided on the filter housing or on the housing cover and force-loads the clamping element against the first housing part. The clamping element and the lever element form a single part and are preferably provided on an end disk of the filter element.
US09732710B2

A hydrocarbon (HC) trap positioned in an intake conduit of an engine is provided. The HC trap includes a stack of consecutively layered polymeric sheets with at least a portion of the sheets impregnated with a HC vapor adsorption/desorption material, the stack of sheets extending from a first exterior surface to a second exterior surface.
US09732709B2

Starting an internal combustion engine may be difficult as a consequence of the operating conditions of the engine. Even after the engine has started, it may take a long period of time for the engine to reach operating temperatures. In the present disclosure, starting difficulty is expected for an engine with an exhaust gas recirculation system, before starting the engine an exhaust gas aftertreatment device is heated to warm residual air within the exhaust gas system.
US09732704B2

Gas engine arrangement having a gas engine, a gas rail, via which a first gas in the form of fuel gas can be supplied to at least one gas metering device of the gas engine, and a gas control section, which is designed to supply fuel gas to the gas rail via a supply path on the outflow side. A purge line is passed into the gas rail. The gas engine arrangement is designed to selectively supply fuel gas or a second gas to the purge line, and the gas engine arrangement is designed to displace gas from the gas rail and to discharge it via the supply path when the fuel gas or second gas is supplied to the purge line.
US09732696B2

In a control device for an internal combustion engine, when a fuel-supply cutoff process ends and fuel injection restarts, an increase ratio based on which a base injection amount is increased is set such that the increase ratio when a duration of the fuel-supply cutoff process is long is higher than the increase ratio when a duration of the fuel-supply cutoff process is short. In addition, the increase ratio is decreased with a lapse of time after fuel injection restarts. Further, a decrease rate that is an amount by which the increase ratio is decreased within a prescribed period of time is set such that the decrease rate in the case where the duration of the fuel-supply cutoff process is long is higher than the decrease rate in the case where the duration of the fuel-supply cutoff process is short.
US09732694B2

A fuel supply device (1) has a valve (13) in a fuel passage between a fuel pump (3) and an engine (5). In a storage portion of an ECU (18-21) is stored a relationship between a fuel pressure and a flow rate, which are required by the engine, and voltage which is supplied to a motor (7). The ECU senses voltages V26, V27, V28 supplied to the motor from a controller (22) when the valve is opened from change points C1′, C2′, C3′ at which a characteristic between the voltage and the current which are supplied to the motor (7) is changed. Then, the ECU corrects the voltage stored in the storage portion on the basis of differences between voltages V1, V2, V5 stored in the storage portion at the change points C1, C2, C3 and the voltages V26, V27, V28 when the valve is opened. In this way, the fuel supply device can correctly control the motor in correspondence to the fuel pressure and the flow rate which are required by the engine.
US09732689B2

Methods and systems are provided for operating a fuel system configured to deliver a gaseous fuel to an engine. While the engine is shutdown, diagnostic routines may be performed to identify fuel system leaks or breaches. When the engine is subsequently restarted, fuel rail pre-priming is adjusted based on the presence of fuel system leaks.
US09732685B2

Methods and systems are provided for conducting a refueling operation. In one example, during the refueling event, fuel vapors may be routed from a fuel tank to a first fuel vapor canister, and upon indication that the first fuel vapor canister is saturated with hydrocarbons, fuel vapors may be routed from the fuel tank to a second fuel vapor canister thus bypassing the first fuel vapor canister, without input from a powertrain control module. In this way, during refueling, saturated fuel vapor canisters are bypassed such that resistance to fuel vapor flow may be decreased, thus reducing the likelihood of premature shutoffs of a refueling dispenser.
US09732683B2

A motor response control method in a variable charge motion system in which a VCM motor is differentially controlled by a PWM duty regardless of back pressure of intake air in an intake manifold when a current engine rotation speed in revolutions per minute is less than a specific engine rotation speed in revolutions per minute in a VCM position learning state by a controller whereas the VCM motor is differentially controlled by the PWM duty based on the back pressure of intake air in the intake manifold when the current engine rotation speed in revolutions per minute is greater than the specific engine rotation speed in revolutions per minute.
US09732680B2

A control device for a vehicle including an engine, the engine including an electric VVT mechanism, the electric VVT mechanism that changes a valve timing of at least either one of an intake valve and an exhaust valve, the control device includes an ECU. The ECU is configured to: perform a crankshaft stop position control to control a rotation stop position of a crankshaft during a stop process of stopping the engine, such that a valve opening degree in which at least either one of a first gap between the intake valve and the corresponding valve seat and a second gap between the exhaust valve and the corresponding valve seat is fully closed or becomes a predetermined gap or more is set as a target valve opening degree; and operate the electric VVT mechanism until the valve opening degree reaches the target valve opening degree, when the engine stops.
US09732675B2

Methods and systems for CO2 separation for low emission power generation in combined-cycle power plants are provided. One system includes a gas turbine system that stoichiometrically combusts a fuel and an oxidant in the presence of a compressed recycle stream to provide mechanical power and a gaseous exhaust. The compressed recycle stream acts as a diluent to moderate the temperature of the combustion process. A boost compressor can boost the pressure of the gaseous exhaust before being compressed into the compressed recycle stream. A purge stream is tapped off from the compressed recycle stream and directed to a CO2 separator configured to absorb CO2 from the purge stream using a potassium carbonate solvent.
US09732666B2

An intake control valve includes a valve body being made of resin, the valve body configured to be pivotally mounted to a surge tank of an internal combustion engine, the valve body pivoting between an open position and a closed position to for opening and closing a fluid passage formed at a division wall, the division wall dividing inside of the surge tank into two portions; and a bearing being made of metal, the bearing being integrally provided with a first end portion of the valve body by insert molding when resin molding the resin-made valve body.
US09732662B2

A coolant control system of a vehicle includes a pump control module and a coolant valve control module. The pump control module selectively activates a coolant pump. The coolant pump pumps coolant into coolant channels formed in an integrated exhaust manifold (IEM) of an engine. The coolant valve control module selectively actuates a coolant valve that controls coolant flow from the coolant channels formed in the IEM to a transmission heat exchanger based on a first temperature of a transmission and a second temperature of coolant within the integrated exhaust manifold of the engine.
US09732659B2

The object of the invention is to detect a concentration of a SOx included in an exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine easily and accurately by a limiting current type sensor. The invention relates to a SOx concentration detection device of the engine having a limiting current type sensor. The device of the invention comprises a detecting part for detecting the concentration of the SOx included in the exhaust gas by using an output current of the sensor while lowering a voltage applied to the sensor from a predetermined voltage.
US09732653B2

A reducing agent tank is provided which can improve a heat transfer efficiency to a reducing agent and transfer heat to the reducing agent in a height direction of the reducing agent tank without unevenness. The reducing agent tank includes a container main body which has an upper face and a bottom face and constitutes a space for storing the reducing agent between the upper face and the bottom face, and a heat exchanger which performs heat exchange with the reducing agent. The heat exchanger has penetrating portions and inclined portions. The penetrating portions penetrate to the upper face of the container main body and extend into the space. The inclined portions are inclined relative to the penetrating portions at a position different from each other in an extending direction of the penetrating portions and extend toward a side of the bottom face.
US09732652B2

An exhaust-gas purification device includes an injection nozzle provided inside an exhaust pipe and a catalyst reactor provided on a downstream side of the injection nozzle, and is configured to inject urea water from the urea water injection nozzle into exhaust gas and to reduce nitrogen oxide in the exhaust gas by a NOx catalyst contained in the catalyst reactor, where the injection nozzle is disposed to inject the urea water toward the downstream side of the flow direction of the exhaust gas, and a mixer is connected to an upstream end of the catalyst reactor, the mixer having a plurality of plate members radially disposed around the axial center of the exhaust pipe, the plate members each being formed in such a way that angles of plate surfaces of the plate member to the flow direction are different values on the upstream side and the downstream side.
US09732641B2

The present invention provides a variable valve mechanism of an internal combustion engine, which includes a rocker arm that includes a roller arm including a roller that rotatably abuts against a cam and a side arm provided at a side of the roller arm and that drives a valve, and a switching device that includes a switching pin and a hydraulic chamber provided inside the rocker arm and that switches a drive state of the valve by displacing the switching pin between a coupling position at which the switching pin extends between the roller arm and the side arm and a non-coupling position at which the switching pin does not extend between the roller arm and the side arm based on variations in hydraulic pressure in the hydraulic chamber. The switching pin is provided on an axis of the roller, and the hydraulic chamber is provided inside the roller arm.
US09732638B2

A valve lash adjuster for vehicles may include a piston having a body and an opening/closing unit. The body has an open surface in a bottom and an oil passage extending from a rocker arm shaft to the open surface, such that oil flows through the oil passage. The opening/closing unit is disposed on the oil passage to selectively open the oil passage depending on a pressure of the oil. A cylinder accommodates the piston. The cylinder slides downward to form an oil chamber between an inner side surface thereof and the piston. The oil chamber contains the oil therein.
US09732634B2

To improve the reliability of the Rankine cycle device using a sealed-type expansion machine, the Rankine cycle device 100 according to the present disclosure comprises a pump 1, a heater 2, an expansion machine 3, a radiator 5, and a cooling path 8. The expansion machine 3 comprises an expansion mechanism 11 for extracting a power from the working fluid, an electric power generator 12, a sealed container 10 containing the expansion mechanism 11 and the electric power generator 12, a first inlet 34a, a first outlet 35a, a second inlet 30a, and a second outlet 31a. The radiator 5 is connected to the pump 1 with a flow path to cool the working fluid drained from the second outlet 31a. The cooling path 8 which connects the first outlet 35a to the second outlet 30a has a cooler 4 to cool the working fluid drained from the first outlet 35a.
US09732633B2

A turbocharger including a turbine housing including a gas inlet passage and a turbine wheel arranged in the turbine housing. A bearing housing is connected to the turbine housing. A nozzle ring is disposed around the turbine wheel and a shroud is arranged in surrounding relation to at least a portion of the turbine wheel. The shroud is connected to the nozzle ring and the nozzle ring and shroud are connected to a heat shield. The heat shield is secured to the bearing housing by a plurality of cross key pins, each cross key pin being inserted in a radially extending first passage in the heat shield and a complementary radially extending second passage in the bearing housing. The first passages and second passages are symmetrically arranged in a circular pattern about a rotational axis of the turbine.
US09732620B2

A turbine assembly includes a first turbine blade circumferentially adjacent to a second turbine blade. The first turbine blade includes a first platform with a first underplatform surface. The second turbine blade includes a second platform with a second underplatform surface. The first underplatform surface and the second underplatform surface at least partially defines a cavity. A damper with a platform rub surface is included adjacent the first underplatform surface and the second underplatform surface. A seal is included with a forward portion, an aft portion, and a damper interface portion therebetween. The damper interface portion extends along a damper underside and the forward portion and the aft portion adjacent the first underplatform surface and the second underplatform surface.
US09732618B2

A turbine wheel in a turbine engine is provided. The wheel includes a disk having a plurality of blades with roots that are axially engaged and radially retained in longitudinal slots in the outer periphery of the disk, the blades having platforms that extend circumferentially end to end and that are radially facing longitudinal teeth of the disk that define the slots. Protection members for protecting the flanks of the slots and made out of sheet metal are mounted on the teeth of the disk and held thereon by co-operating shapes, the protection members bear radially against the platforms of the blades in order to oppose circumferential tilting of the blades, and at least partially close the radial gaps between the teeth and the platforms of the blades.
US09732616B2

The present invention provides a method for lubricating an expansion machine, which method comprises: supplying of an operating medium which contains a lubricant by a vaporizer; separating of at least part of the lubricant from the operating medium which contains a lubricant and is supplied by the vaporizer; and supplying of the operating medium, which is depleted by the separation of the at least one part of the lubricant from the lubricant, to the expansion machine. Furthermore, a device is provided having a vaporizer which is configured for vaporizing an operating medium which contains a lubricant and for supplying it to an expansion machine, and having a lubricant separating device which is configured for separating at least one part of the lubricant from the operating medium which contains the lubricant and is supplied by the vaporizer to the expansion machine.
US09732613B2

A roller cutter arrangement for a cutting wheel of a tunnel boring machine, including an interchangeable cup, a bearing block which is supported in the interchangeable cup in such a way that it is displaceable along a displacement axis, and a cutting roller unit having at least one cutting roller, which is rotatably supported in the bearing block and which acts along a working axis. The working axis is angled with respect to the displacement axis, so that cutting rollers of the cutting roller units may be situated in close proximity to one another, in particular in the central area of the cutting wheel.
US09732591B2

In one embodiment, a tubular lifting system for lifting a wellbore tubular includes an outer tubular; an inner tubular disposed in the outer tubular; an annular chamber defined between the inner tubular and the outer tubular; and a tubular piston selectively movable in the annular chamber, wherein the wellbore tubular is connected to the tubular piston and movable thereby.
US09732590B2

This invention relates in general to the detection and containment of leaking gas and fluids from around wellheads of a well site. The system comprising: at least one perforated or slotted pipe adapted to be placed adjacent a wellhead and having holes sized to allow the transmission of liquid and gas into the pipe, wherein the liquid or gas are leaking from and around the wellhead conductive pipe and the wellhead; a flexible cover, covering at least the adjacent areas around the wellhead and the at least one perforated or slotted pipe; and a fluid detector in fluid communication with the at least one perforated or slotted pipe.
US09732589B1

Disclosed is a system and method for integrating power distribution for subsea boosting and direct electrical heating (DEH) of at least one subsea flowline. A subsea power cable located in a subsea environment is electrically connected to at least one power generator at a topsides location and delivers power to a subsea switchgear module which connects to subsea adjustable speed drives (ASD). At least one pump motor is electrically connected to at least one of the ASD, and at least one capacitor bank is electrically connected to at least one of the subsea ASD. A subsea pressure boosting pump is driven by the pump motor. At least one capacitor bank is electrically connected to at least one of the subsea ASD. At least one DEH is electrically connected to at least one of the subsea ASD in series with the at least one capacitor bank and in contact with the at least one subsea flowline. Power is distributed to the boosting and DEH equipment more efficiently and cost effectively.
US09732587B2

A flow control device for use with a subterranean well, can include inner and outer flow trim sleeves. A radial spacing between the inner and outer flow trim sleeves increases in a direction of flow through the radial spacing. A method of regulating flow between an interior and an exterior of a tubular string in a well can include displacing at least one of inner and outer flow trim sleeves in a direction, a radial spacing between the inner and outer trim sleeves increasing in the direction. Another flow control device can include inner and outer flow trim sleeves, and a flow area through the radial spacing increases in a direction of flow through the radial spacing.
US09732583B2

A method of completing a wellbore is disclosed that in one non-limiting embodiment includes: placing a lower completion assembly that includes a flow device to provide fluid communication between the lower completion assembly and a production zone associated with the lower completion assembly; placing an isolation assembly with a packer above the lower completion assembly for isolating an annulus between the lower completion assembly and the wellbore; placing a flow restriction device above the packer; setting the flow restriction device in the annulus to restrict flow of fluid through the annulus; and setting the packer after setting the flow restriction device.
US09732580B2

A downhole seal assembly includes a body extending from an uphole end to a downhole end. The body includes a first sealing surface and an opposing, second sealing surface that is angled relative to the first sealing surface. A first void is formed in the second sealing surface adjacent the uphole end, and a seal is arranged in the first void. A second void is formed in the second sealing surface adjacent the downhole end. One or more passages is formed in the downhole end and fluidically coupled to the second void. The one or more passages is configured and disposed to guide downhole fluids into the second void forcing the first sealing surface against a wellbore.
US09732578B2

A downhole sealing assembly comprises a sleeve adapted to be mounted on a tubular body disposable within a bore, the sleeve (12) including a swellable material and defining a sealing arrangement comprising inner and outer seals. Swelling of the material radially extends the inner seal into contact with the tubular body and extends the outer seal into contact with the bore.
US09732576B2

As compared to a BOP, a compact lightweight cutting system may have two gates with cutters moveable in opposite directions to cut drill pipe. The system utilizes a relatively short stroke and relatively less hydraulic oil for subsea operation. An opening through the gates surrounds the wellbore in the open position. The cutting elements are mounted within the openings. The piston rods and pistons are vertically offset with respect to each other. The compact cutting system with a gate valve can be used to substitute for a BOP to significantly reduce the size and weight required in an intervention system.
US09732572B2

The laterally rotating height of a fill up and circulating tool that is mounted on one of the bails supporting an elevator is made shorter with integration of design components. A power cylinder features a hollow piston which integrates the mud line connected to the fill up tool. The hollow piston forms an integral part of the mud line. The mud line has an exterior slot with a longitudinal and a spiral component into which a pin extends that is supported by the cylinder. As the mud line descends the fill up tool moves initially axially followed by rotational movement to align with a sting for connection thereto. Raising the mud line reverses the movement pattern. The fill up tool is cantilevered from the mud line for its sole support. Height savings allows tool use with bails of varying lengths without interference.
US09732569B2

A lifting arm arrangement includes a gripper head arm, a lifting arm, and a lifting cylinder. A gripper head is fastened to a first gripper head arm end. A first lifting arm end is pivotally connected to the gripper head arm. A second lifting arm end is pivotally connected to a stationary lifting cylinder part. A second gripper head arm end is pivotally connected to a movable lifting cylinder part. The stationary lifting cylinder part comprises a cylinder with a cylinder cavity having first and second cylinder openings. A piston rod with a piston is arranged in the cylinder cavity. A first piston rod portion projects from a first piston end of the piston. A second piston rod portion projects from an opposite second piston end of the piston. Working areas of the first and second piston ends are substantially equal to each other.
US09732567B2

An interchangeable elevator bail link system and method for changing elevator bail length and load carrying configurations during rig operations, wherein an upper bail section is provided comprising a connection for a link tilt system of a top drive or traveling block, and further comprising a connector for connecting to a corresponding connector located on one or more lower bail sections of differing tonnage capacities and lengths, wherein the upper bail section connector and lower bail section connector comprise male and female profiles of corresponding size, shape and location, so that when the connector of the lower bail section is aligned in nonparallel relation to the connector of the upper bail section, which is attached to a link tilt system, movement of the top drive or traveling block in an upwards direction will cause the lower bail section to rotate to a position parallel with the upper bail section.
US09732565B2

A method for riser string handling on an offshore drilling vessel, the offshore drilling vessel including a multiple firing line hoist system, a riser tensioner system arranged in the second firing line, and a suspended riser transfer device. The method including the steps of lowering a riser string in the first firing line, and simultaneously assembling and preparing a riser tensioner system in the second firing line, wherein the riser hang-off assembly displaces the riser string, leaving the top end of the riser string exposed, from the first firing line to the second firing line to be connected to the riser tensioner system.
US09732563B1

Embodiments relate to a polycrystalline diamond compact (“PDC”) including a polycrystalline diamond (“PCD”) table bonded to a cemented carbide substrate including tungsten carbide grains having a fine average grain size to provide one or more of enhanced wear resistance, corrosion resistance, or erosion resistance, and a PDC with enhanced impact resistance. In an embodiment, a PDC includes a cemented carbide substrate having a cobalt-containing cementing constituent cementing tungsten carbide grains together exhibiting an average grain size of about 1.5 μm or less. The substrate includes an interfacial surface and a depletion zone depleted of the cementing constituent that extends inwardly from the interfacial surface to a depth of, for example, about 30 μm to about 60 μm. The PDC includes a PCD table bonded to the interfacial surface of the substrate. The PCD table includes diamond grains bonded together exhibiting an average grain size of about 40 μm or less.
US09732558B2

A ladder tool is disclosed and is useful for supporting tools safely, including tools with hoses or cords attached to them. Disclosed embodiments include a support for inserting into a hollow ladder rung, and a tool holder attached to the support structure. The tool holder has an incomplete polygonal shape and provides an opening for the hose or cord to enter and exit the tool holder, so that the operation of passing the hose or cord through the opening can be performed with one hand. The disclosure also includes a support extension that passes clear through the hollow rung of a ladder has a safety tab that rotates down by gravity to prevent the ladder tool from accidently being pulled out or displaced from the ladder rung.
US09732556B2

A climbing stick connector system includes first and second climbing sticks releasably secured to one another with first and second posts extending parallel to one another. In one implementation, the first climbing stick has a stopper having a shelf and a projection received within an aperture in one of the posts, wherein a step is pivotally secured to the post above the shelf by a fastener extending through the stopper. The first climbing stick has a V-shaped claw having spaced ears receiving the post therebetween, and the step has opposite upwardly facing concave edges.
US09732542B2

A retractor assembly for a cylindrical lockset comprises inner and outer retractors. Each of the retractors has a cam engaging surface to convert rotary motion from the inside door handle into linear latch-retracting motion. Inner and outer spindles having retractor activation cams are configured to bear upon cam surfaces of the inner and outer retractors to retract the latch. When the inner door handle is operated, the inner retractor acts directly upon the tailpiece of the latch bolt assembly to retract the latch. When the outer door handle is operated, the outer retractor presses on the inner retractor, causing it to retract the latch. If there is an attack, a blocker assembly engages with members formed in the outer retractor to render the outer retractor inoperative to move into a latch-retracting position without interfering with operation of the inner retractor to move into a latch-retracting position.
US09732538B2

A laminated sliding member 1 includes a base body 4 having one flat surface 3 which is circular in a plan view and a solid lubricant layer 5 adhered to the flat surface 3 of the base body 4 and having a sliding surface 2 which is circular in a plan view.
US09732535B2

Various embodiments of load carrying systems comprise a load supporting frame comprising three or more connection points and an associated set of lifts configured which define six separate triangles defining separate planes configured to brace against surge, sway and yaw with respect to a support frame, such as unintended or unwanted surge, sway and yaw, while allowing intended and/or desired surge, sway and yaw.
US09732527B2

A ski device for use in combination with a snow removal device (such as a roof rake). The ski device includes ski portions that may be used to protect a surface (such as a roof surface) from damage by preventing a head of the snow removal device from directly contacting and scraping along the surface from which snow, ice, and/or debris is to be removed. The ski device also allows the amount of clearance between the head of the snow removal device and the surface to be adjusted. This allows a user to position the ski device to provide for a desired amount of clearance, which allows for adjustment of the amount of snow, ice, and/or debris that is to be removed, as well to allow for clearance of other structures (such as rain deflectors, etc.) on the surface.
US09732526B2

A system of components, which, when assembled, form a rainwater separator for a downpipe is disclosed. The system includes, among other things, a screen for fine filtering of the rainwater. In a first assembly arrangement, the parts are assembled to form a rainwater separator with the screen so that the filtered water can be used as non-potable water for the household. In a second assembly arrangement, the screen is omitted, so that the water obtained from the rainwater separator may be utilized for watering the garden, for example.
US09732520B2

A connection between a wall stud, channel-shaped bridging member and connector that resists torsional forces, the connector being suited to interlock with the interior of the bridging member channel and to be fastened to the bridging member outside the channel, depending on the orientation of the bridging member.
US09732518B2

An isolator system for preventing the conduction of thermal energy between the metal components of a wall assembly comprising isolator plates adapted to be placed between the metal components of a wall assembly and made of an insulating material. The isolator plates include at least one opening for receiving a fastener, said opening has an annular shoulder adapted to extend into an opening for receiving said fastener in a metal component of a wall assembly. Also disclosed herein is a thermal isolation washer and a girt for use with polymer panel construction.
US09732517B1

An earthquake resistant and reinforcing device for buildings and bridges is provided. In this device, two support mandrels are disposed on two ends of a main tube, and one ends of the two support mandrels are inserted in to the main tube. Baffle plates are disposed near the ends of the two support mandrels in the main tube, and sheath covers are disposed at the ends of the two support mandrels outside the main tube. A first elastic part is disposed in the main tube and between the baffle plates of the two support mandrels. A second and a third elastic parts are respectively disposed between the baffle plates of the support mandrels and the sheath covers. This device can be installed between beams and columns of buildings and bridges for effectively absorbing the energy waves acting thereon and thus increase the safety of the buildings and bridges.
US09732515B2

An insulation system that includes opposing panels with a partial dead air space in equilibrium with outside air. In one embodiment, two panels are supported parallel to one another separated by a distance. Each of the panels has a plurality of openings. The openings on facing panels are offset from one another so that openings on the two sides are not aligned. The openings are small enough so that a small amount of diffusion can occur allowing the panel to breathe. The panels can be used in attics, over windows or part of a building. In an alternate embodiment, they can be made from flexible sheets and be used to prevent fire hydrants or other objects from freezing. When used in attics, the panels will support weight allowing them to be walked on or used to store objects.
US09732504B2

Various systems and methods of controlling the flow of water from a fill valve in a toilet tank to a toilet bowl of a toilet using a bowl fill valve are provided. An inlet of the bowl fill valve is coupled to a bowl fill outlet of the fill valve and the outlet of the bowl fill valve is channeled to the toilet bowl. In illustrative embodiment, a method is provided comprising the steps of determining when the toilet tank has been substantially drained of water during a flush cycle, and opening the bowl fill valve for a predefined period of time after the toilet tank has been substantially drained of water to fill the toilet bowl of the toilet with water. The predefined period of time is less than a total time of the flush cycle.
US09732503B1

A clean water conservation tank for a toilet providing a secondary clean water source to a toilet holding tank from a secondary holding tank mounted to a surface above and in fluid communication therewith. The secondary holding tank includes an outer container having an actuation body therein, a drain, a hollow puncture body attachable to the drain, and a portable internal container, or a substitute container such as a milk jug, removably disposed therein. The internal container has a one-way spring valve controlling the water level therein. Upon the engagement of the actuation body with the spring valve, the spring valve provides selective fluid communication between the internal container and the toilet holding tank. The puncture body, removably disposed within a cap inside the internal container, is used to puncture the substitute container for water flow through the drain and into the toilet holding tank.
US09732499B2

The power-transmission device has an input shaft, an output shaft, a gear mechanism, and a motor. The gear mechanism includes a plurality of planetary gear mechanisms and a mode-switching mechanism, and transmits the rotations of the input shaft to the output shaft. The mode-switching mechanism selectively switches the drive-power transmission path of the power-transmission device between a plurality of modes. The motor is connected to the rotating elements of the planetary gear mechanisms. A target-input-torque determination unit determines the target input torque, which is a target value for the torque to be inputted to the power-transmission device. The target-output-torque determination unit determines the target output torque, which is a target value for the torque to be outputted from the power-transmission device. The command-torque determination unit uses the torque balance information to determine torque commands to the motor from the target input torque and the target output torque.
US09732492B2

A system and method for in situ dewatering and stabilizing waste material deposits previously created from sluicing into a waste impoundment. The method includes access for installation of wells and grading for surface drainage and storm water control. If free water is present, primary dewatering siphons or decants the free water in the pond. The system includes vertical dewatering well installation that requires drilling, well completion materials for filtering leachate, and well pump installation for removing leachate from the well. Collection piping collects leachate from the wells and transfers the leachate to a discharge solution. The dewatering operation collects and removes leachate from the pond ash deposit and impoundment, reuses or treats the leachate at a discharge solution, remediates contaminants and/or hydraulic head in the impoundment, and consolidates and stabilizes the dewatered solids. Impoundment closure includes horizontal drains, final grading, final cover or overfill landfill development, and post closure.
US09732491B2

A transportable wave suppressor and sediment collection system for suppressing wave action along the shore of a body of water, which includes a plurality of interconnected sections, each section including a base, a forward wall, and a rear wall, and having a plurality of flow pipes extending from the forward wall to the rear wall, and further including a plurality of shelves on the forward wall for dispersing wave energy, while redirecting and using the wave energy to allow water and sediment to flow into the flow pipes and for collecting sediment that is not carried into the flow pipes and settles on the shelves for being contacted by a following wave to carry the sediment into the flow pipes. In some deeper water embodiments, the sections may include a base portion, a top portion and one or more spacer portions to enable raising or changing the height of the system.
US09732459B2

A gasket usable with a washing machine capable of reinforcing the strength thereof while improving the vibration reducing performance of the gasket, a gasket connecting a tub to the front surface frame, wherein the gasket includes a body having a hollowness part configured to accommodate a portion of the door and a periphery part configured to surround the hollowness part, and a reinforcing rib formed by protruding at least one portion of the periphery part so as to reinforce a strength of the gasket, and wherein the reinforcing rib has a rear surface further concaved than an inner surface of the periphery part that is adjacent to the rear surface. The gasket further comprise a connection lip that contacts the closed door, such that the connection lip has a connection rib having a greater thickness in the lower portion of the lip than the upper portion of the lip.
US09732456B2

Washing machine for the washing of laundry such as clothes and textiles, which washing machine has a main part that comprises: an inlet, for supplying washing water, an outlet, for disposal of washing water, a pump, in order to pump the washing water, a connection unit for fluid tight connection of a washing bag to the main part. The washing bag has fluid tight walls and is removably connectable to the connection unit of the main part, wherein the pump is arranged to pump water and air from the washing bag in order to create a certain negative pressure inside it with respect to the surrounding atmospheric pressure and by that emptying it of washing water.
US09732455B2

A method for producing environmentally friendly fabric and textile products without use of chemicals comprises a finishing process including the steps of: singeing, enzyme desizing; water washing, peaching, stentering, and sanforizing. The steps of the finishing process are purely physical and preferably uses only water, water vapor (steam), and enzymes, and not chemicals including chemical agents. As such, the finishing process is believed to be environmentally friendly.
US09732449B2

A polyamide woven fabric and has a light feeling and a chambray tone hue, as well as heat retaining properties due to sunlight absorption, and wind breaking properties. The polyamide woven fabric is a woven fabric including 20% or more by mass of a polyamide carbon black pigmented yarn that includes carbon black in a proportion of 1 to 5% by mass. The woven fabric has a total fineness of 5 to 55 dtex and a monofilament fineness of 0.5 to 2.2 dtex; and has a cover factor of 1000 to 2500. A down product incorporating the polyamide woven fabric is a product finished by stuffing downs into shell fabrics of this woven fabric in an amount of 100 to 500 grams per square meter of the shell fabrics, and then sewing together the shell fabrics.
US09732447B2

Disclosed is a high strength polyester fiber for a seat belt, and in particular, a polyester fiber for a seat belt, which has intrinsic viscosity of 0.8 to 1.5 dl/g, tensile strength of 8.8 g/d or more, and total fineness of 400 to 1800 denier. A method of preparing the fiber is disclosed. The polyester fiber includes filaments having high strength, low modulus, and high elongation to significantly lower shrinkage, while securing excellent mechanical properties, it is possible to manufacture a seat belt having excellent impact absorption and significantly improved abrasion resistance and heat resistant strength retention, even with a woven density of 260 yarns/inch or less.
US09732445B2

A method for producing a carbon fiber, the method comprising: (i) subjecting a continuous carbon fiber precursor having a polymeric matrix in which strength-enhancing particles are incorporated to a stabilization process during which the carbon fiber precursor is heated to within a temperature range ranging from the glass transition temperature to no less than 20° C. below the glass transition temperature of the polymeric matrix, wherein the maximum temperature employed in the stabilization process is below 400° C., for a processing time within said temperature range of at least 1 hour in the presence of oxygen and in the presence of a magnetic field of at least 1 Tesla, while said carbon fiber precursor is held under an applied axial tension; and (ii) subjecting the stabilized carbon fiber precursor, following step (i), to a carbonization process. The stabilized carbon fiber precursor, resulting carbon fiber, and articles made thereof are also described.
US09732442B2

The present invention concerns methods for producing a yarn comprising the steps of: (a) producing a plurality of dope filaments by spinning a polymer solution in sulfuric acid through a multi-hole spinneret, the polymer comprising imidazole groups; (b) coagulating the plurality of dope filaments into an as-spun yarn; (c) contacting the yarn with an aqueous base having a pKa less than or equal to 11; and (d) rinsing the yarn.
US09732440B2

The present invention relates to a microwave plasma deposition process and apparatus for producing diamond, preferably as single crystal diamond (SCD). The process and apparatus enables the production of multiple layers of the diamond by the use of an extending device to increase the length and the volume of a recess in a holder containing a SCD substrate as layers of diamond are deposited. The diamond is used for abrasives, cutting tools, gems, electronic substrates, heat sinks, electrochemical electrodes, windows for high power radiation and electron beams, and detectors.
US09732438B2

A silicon-carbide volume monocrystal is produced with a specific electrical resistance of at least 105 Ωcm. An SiC growth gas phase is generated in a crystal growing area of a crucible. The SiC volume monocrystal grows by deposition from the SiC growth gas phase. The growth material is transported from a supply area inside the growth crucible to a growth boundary surface of the growing monocrystal. Vanadium is added to the crystal growing area as a doping agent. A temperature at the growth boundary surface is set to at least 2250° C. and the SiC volume monocrystal grows doped with a vanadium doping agent concentration of more than 5·1017 cm−3. The transport of material from the SiC supply area to the growth boundary surface is additionally influenced. The growing temperature at the growth boundary surface and the material transport to the growth boundary surface are influenced largely independently of one another.
US09732430B2

Pitting corrosion of stainless steel occurs in solutions of organic acid, such as tartaric acid, in an electrolyte solution with methanol. However, methanolic solutions containing at least one organic halide and at least one organic hydroxyacid and some water provide reduced pitting corrosion of stainless steel. The organic hydroxyacid may be a hydroxy acid containing 2 to 10 carbon atoms with at least one hydroxyl group and at least one carboxylic acid group, in a non-limiting example, glycolic acid. The pH of the methanolic solution may range from about 3.5 to about 8.
US09732428B2

The invention relates to compositions and methods that are useful in etching a metal surface. In particular, the invention relates to novel acid compositions and methods of using such compositions in etching a metal surface, preferably an aluminum surface prior to anodizing to dissolve impurities, imperfections, scale, and oxide. The compositions are effective in maintaining their etching capacity and in removing smut produced by the etching of a surface as well as in general cleaning.
US09732416B1

A rotatable wafer chuck includes chuck arms and wafer holders that are aerodynamically shaped to reduce turbulence during rotation. A wafer holder may include a friction support and an independently rotatable vertical alignment member and clamping member that is shaped to reduce drag. The shape reduces turbulence during edge bevel etching to improve the uniformity of the edge exclusion and during high-speed rotation to improve particle performance.
US09732405B2

A hot rolled steel sheet includes, as a chemical composition, at least one selected from Ti, REM, and Ca, and includes, as a metallographic structure, a ferrite as a primary phase, at least one of a martensite and a residual austenite as a secondary phase, and plural inclusions, wherein a total length in the rolling direction of both inclusion-cluster whose length in the rolling direction is 30 μm or more and independent-inclusion whose length in the rolling direction is 30 μm or more is 0 mm to 0.25 mm per 1 mm2.
US09732394B2

A method of treating bearing rolling elements or bearing rings after a hardening and temper heat treatment is disclosed. The method may include treating the bearing rolling elements in a tumbling treatment and then in a duplex hardening treatment. The method may include treating the bearing rings in a peening treatment and then in a duplex hardening treatment. The duplex hardening treatment may also include at least one sequential process segment consisting of subjecting the bearing rolling element & rings to a nitriding process to increase the surface hardness and compressive residual stress. The combined two-step process produces a deep surface/sub-surface residual stress greater than the depth of the maximum operating von-Mises shear stress along with an ultra-hard surface with high magnitude of compressive residual stress. In so doing, the bearing ring and rolling elements will have significantly enhanced rolling contact fatigue resistance and resistance to surface imperfections and debris.
US09732390B2

Systems, methods, and apparatuses can determine and use methylation profiles of various tissues and samples. Examples are provided. A methylation profile can be deduced for fetal/tumor tissue based on a comparison of plasma methylation (or other sample with cell-free DNA) to a methylation profile of the mother/patient. A methylation profile can be determined for fetal/tumor tissue using tissue-specific alleles to identify DNA from the fetus/tumor when the sample has a mixture of DNA. A methylation profile can be used to determine copy number variations in genome of a fetus/tumor. Methylation markers for a fetus have been identified via various techniques. The methylation profile can be determined by determining a size parameter of a size distribution of DNA fragments, where reference values for the size parameter can be used to determine methylation levels. Additionally, a methylation level can be used to determine a level of cancer.
US09732373B2

Provided herein are isolated polynucleotide encoding modified click beetle luciferase polypeptides that have enhanced luminescence and longer wavelength near-infrared signals. The disclosure also relates to near-infrared bioluminescence systems that include said modified click beetle luciferase polypeptides and novel luciferin derivatives, as well as methods of using said modified click beetle luciferase polypeptides and bioluminescence systems.
US09732369B2

Provided is a multi-phase process for conditionally treating MIC by evaluating whether MIC-correlating conditions exist, the degree of MIC, if present, and then applying a concomitant MIC-mitigating treatment which is adjusted in its degree of aggressiveness in proportion to MIC severity. The disclosed methodology allows, in part, for the continuous or periodic monitoring and assessment of MIC risk in petroleum-based equipment (e.g., pipeline) and the administering of a treatment that corresponds to the level of severity of the MIC resulting in a more fine-tuned, localized, and cost-effective treatment.
US09732361B2

The invention provides non-naturally occurring microbial organisms having a butadiene pathway. The invention additionally provides methods of using such organisms to produce butadiene.
US09732358B2

The present invention includes the Paramyxovirus Parainfluenza Virus 5 (PIV5) as an oncolytic agent for treating various cancers, including, but not limited to breast cancer, lung cancer and melanoma. PIV5 oncolytic agents include both wild type PIV5 and various recombinant PIV5 constructs. Recombinant PIV5 constructs may include PIV5 lacking the conserved C-terminus of the V protein (PIV5VAC), PIV5 with mutations in the N-terminus of the V/P protein (PIV5CPI−), and PIV5 expressing MDA-7/IL-24 (rPIV5-MDA7), rPIV5-V/P-CPI−, rPIV5-CPI+, rPIV-Rev, rPIV5-RL, rPIV5-P-S157A, rPIV5-P-S308A, rPIV5-L-A1981D, rPIV5-F-S443P, rPIV5-MDA7, rPIV5ASH-CPI−, or rPIV5ASH-Rev. Also included are methods of making and using such oncolytic agents and compositions including such oncolytic agents.
US09732355B2

The present invention discloses a genus of insect inhibitory proteins that exhibit properties directed to controlling Lepidopteran and/or Hemipteran crop pests, methods of using such proteins, nucleotide sequences encoding such proteins, methods of detecting and isolating such proteins, and their use in agricultural systems.
US09732350B2

Plant metabolism and alkaloid levels can be regulated by transcription factors that regulate the nicotinic alkaloid biosynthetic pathway. In one embodiment, the disclosure provides a transcription factor that negatively regulates alkaloid biosynthesis, such as nicotine biosynthesis.
US09732349B2

The invention provides orthogonal translation systems for the production of polypeptides comprising unnatural amino acids in methylotrophic yeast such as Pichia pastoris. Methods for producing polypeptides comprising unnatural amino acids in methylotrophic yeast such as Pichia pastoris are also provided.
US09732348B2

The invention relates to a DNA aptamer that can inhibit the enzymatic activity of tyrosinase for the conversion of tyrosine into L-DOPA and dopaquinone, and to the dermatological and cosmetic uses thereof.
US09732344B2

The present invention concerns methods and reagents useful in modulating gene expression in a variety of applications, including use in therapeutic, diagnostic, target validation, and genomic discovery applications. Specifically, the invention relates to synthetic chemically modified small nucleic acid molecules, such as short interfering nucleic acid (siNA), short interfering RNA (siRNA), double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), micro-RNA (miRNA), and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) molecules capable of mediating RNA interference (RNAi) against target nucleic acid sequences. The small nucleic acid molecules are useful in the treatment of any disease or condition that responds to modulation of gene expression or activity in a cell, tissue, or organism.
US09732340B2

The disclosure provides multimeric oligonucleotide compounds, comprising two or more target-specific oligonucleotides (e.g., antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs)), each being resistant to cleavage, and linked together by a cleavable linker. In particular, two or more linked target-specific oligonucleotides, each to a different target, allows concomitant inhibition of multiple genes' expression levels, while exhibiting favorable pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. Methods of making and uses of the described compounds are also provided.
US09732336B2

The disclosure relates to methods for the screening, identification, and/or application of one or more microorganisms of use in imparting one or more beneficial properties to one or more plants.
US09732319B2

The invention provides cell culture conditions for culturing stem cells, including feeder-free conditions for generating and culturing human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). More particularly, the invention provides a culture platform that allows long-term culture of pluripotent cells in a feeder-free environment; reprogramming of cells in a feeder-free environment; single-cell dissociation of pluripotent cells; cell sorting of pluripotent cells; maintenance of an undifferentiated status; improved efficiency of reprogramming; and generation of a naïve pluripotent cell.
US09732315B2

A triiodide resin (TR) tube of the present invention has a cylindrical shape. A resin exhaust preventing part is provided at a lower portion of the TR tube, and a triiodide resin is received inside the TR tube. A contaminated culture passes through the TR tube to allow an axenic culture to flow out. When a microalgae culture contaminated with bacteria passes through the TR tube filled with the triiodide resin, a pure culture of microalgae can be prepared by using the sterilizing rate of bacteria populations, which is relatively higher than that of microalgae, due to characteristics of iodine exhibiting negative polarity. An axenic inoculation system for microalgae using the TR tube of the present invention comprises the steps of: sterilizing a photobioreactor (PBR) with peracetic acid, washing the PBR with purified water, and filling the PBR with a sterilized culture; allowing a microalgae culture contaminated with bacteria to pass through a TR tube attached on an upper portion of the PBR, thereby obtaining an axenic culture; and inoculating the axenic culture into a culture liquid inside the PBR to culture microalgae. According to the present invention, the microalgae contaminated with bacteria are sterilized together with bacteria in external air flowing in the TR tube while passing through the TR tube, thereby causing no secondary contamination at the time of inoculation or culture.
US09732309B2

Formulations comprising (A) at least one aminocarboxylate selected from methylglycine diacetate (MGDA), iminodisuccinic acid (IDA) and glutamic acid diacetate (GLDA), and salts and derivatives thereof, and (B) at least one alkoxylated alkyleneimine polymer with an average molecular weight Mw in the range from 800 to 25 000 g/mol which has a positive charge density of at least 5 meq/g and which has in the range from 2 to at most 80% by weight alkylene oxide side chains, based on total alkoxylated alkyleneimine polymer.
US09732301B2

A power transmitting fluid comprises a major amount of a lubricating oil and a minor amount of an additive composition. The additive composition comprises: (a) a friction modifier of the formula: (b) an oil-soluble phosphorus compound; and, (c) an ashless dispersant; wherein R1 and R2 may be the same or different and represent linear or branched, saturated or unsaturated hydrocarbyl groups having from 8 to 20 carbon atoms. Z represents a polyoxyalkylene segment or a polyalkoxylated alkyl amine segment. The friction modifiers provide the fluid with improved fluoroelastomer seal compatibility and enhanced copper corrosion compatibility.
US09732295B1

A renewable biofuel based on a highly efficient batch catalysis methodology for conversion of 1-butene to a new class of potential jet fuel blends. By tuning the catalyst and then using the dimer produced, the carbon use is about 95% or greater. This latter point will be particularly important in the future, where the source of raw materials (i.e., biomass/biofeedstock) is limited.
US09732294B2

A method for synthesizing cyclic hydrocarbons with linear hydrocarbon side chains from a renewable source, or biomass by naturally occurring or bioengineered fungal strains, or hydrodistillation of plants.
US09732292B2

Technologies are presented for reducing corrosion M supercritical water gasification through seeded sacrificial metal particles. The metal panicles may be seeded into one or more material input streams through high pressure injection. Once distributed in the SCWG reactor, the metal particles may corrode preferentially to the metal SCWG reactor walls and convert into metal oxides that precipitate out above the supercritical point of water. The precipitated metal oxides may then be collected downstream of the SCWG reactor to be reprocessed back into seed metal at a smelter. The seeded metal particles may complete a process material cycle with limited net additional waste.
US09732286B2

Process for hydrogenation of aromatic compounds in a feedstock comprising hydrocarbons having at least five carbon atoms, comprising: a) contacting feedstock, a hydrogen gas, and a nickel or platinum hydrogenation catalyst at 100 to 400° C., 0.5 to 8 MPa, and a feedstock flow rate 0.5 to 5 h−1, as to produce a partially-hydrogenated hydrocarbon feedstock and gas; and b) contacting the partially-hydrogenated feedstock, and a nickel or platinum hydrogenation catalyst at 100 and 400° C., a pressure of between 0.5 and 8 MPa, with a flow rate of the partially-hydrogenated feedstock between 0.3 and 8 h−1, a ratio between the volume of hydrogen and the volume of the partially-hydrogenated feedstock between 0.3 and 3 Nm3/m3, and a ratio between the superficial mass flow rate of the partially-hydrogenated feedstock and the superficial mass flow rate of gas (Ul/Ug) at the inlet of the reactor between 50 and 500.
US09732284B2

A process and apparatus is disclosed for converting heavy hydrocarbon feed into lighter hydrocarbon products. The heavy hydrocarbon feed is slurried with a catalyst comprising iron oxide and alumina to form a heavy hydrocarbon slurry and hydrocracked to produce lighter hydrocarbons. The slurry hydrocracking reaction can be controlled by measuring the production of mesophase using X-ray diffraction. Upon a mesophase yield fraction reaching a predetermined level, reaction conditions should be moderated to avoid excessive coke production.
US09732281B2

The present invention is directed to modifications of bitumen and heavy oil upgrading and refining processes to synthesize synthetic crude oil and other valuable synthesized hydrocarbon products in an efficient manner along with the production of commercially valuable co-products from by-products formed by the upgrading process.
US09732275B2

To provide a liquid crystal composition satisfying at least one of characteristics such as high maximum temperature, low minimum temperature, small viscosity, suitable optical anisotropy, large negative dielectric anisotropy, large specific resistance, high stability to ultraviolet light and heat, or having a suitable balance regarding at least two of the characteristics; and an AM device having characteristics such as short response time, a large voltage holding ratio, low threshold voltage, a large contrast ratio and long service life. The composition has negative dielectric anisotropy and contains a specific compound having large negative dielectric anisotropy as a first component, a specific compound having small viscosity as a second component, and may contain a specific compound having high maximum temperature or small viscosity as a third component, a specific compound having negative dielectric anisotropy as a fourth component, or a specific compound having a polymerizable group as an additive component.
US09732269B2

In one aspect, the invention relates to a method for “tagging” proppants so that they can be tracked and monitored in a downhole environment, based on the use of composite proppant compositions containing dispersed fillers whose electromagnetic properties change at a detectable level under a mechanical stress such as the closure stress of a fracture. In another aspect, the invention relates to composite proppant compositions containing dispersed fillers whose electromagnetic properties change under a mechanical stress such as the closure stress of a fracture. The currently preferred embodiments use substantially spherical thermoset nanocomposite particles where the matrix comprises a terpolymer of styrene, ethylvinylbenzene and divinylbenzene, a PZT alloy manifesting a strong piezoelectric effect or Terfenol-D manifesting giant magnetostrictive behavior is incorporated to provide the ability to track in a downhole environment, and carbon black particles possessing a length that is less than 0.5 microns in at least one principal axis direction may optionally be incorporated as a nanofiller.
US09732265B2

Various embodiments disclosed relate to a composition including a crosslinkable ampholyte polymer or a crosslinked product of the same, methods of making and using the composition, and systems including the composition. In various embodiments, the present invention provides a method of treating a subterranean formation. The method can include obtaining or providing a composition including a crosslinkable ampholyte polymer. The crosslinkable ampholyte polymer can include an ethylene repeating unit including a —C(O)NH2 group, an ethylene repeating unit including a —S(O)2OR1 group, and an ethylene repeating unit comprising an —N+R23X− group. At each occurrence, R1 can be independently selected from the group consisting of —H and a counterion. At each occurrence, R2 can be independently substituted or unsubstituted (C1-C20)hydrocarbyl. At each occurrence, X− can be independently a counterion. The composition can also include at least one crosslinker. The method can include placing the composition in a subterranean formation.
US09732249B2

A novel material is provided herein which is suitable for use in a precursor of a polymer coating material that coats a polymer on a surface of a base material to provide the base material with surface modification and/or functionality assignment. A composite material characterized in that a compound having a polymerization initiation site containing a halogen group is incorporated in a crosslinked structure comprising a catechol derivative or a phenol derivative represented by the following formula (I). In the formula (I), R may be interrupted by an oxygen molecule and represents a hydrocarbon group with 2 to 20 carbons that has at least one double bond site, and A represents a hydrogen atom, a hydroxyl group, or an alkoxy group with 1 to 20 carbons.
US09732247B2

A water-based ink for ink-jet recording includes: a self-dispersible pigment having an anionic group; water; a water-soluble resin; and an anionic surfactant, wherein the water-soluble resin is an ABA-type triblock copolymer which has a polymer block A composed only of methyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid and a polymer block B composed only of benzyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid; which has a weight average molecular weight of 3,000 to 30,000; which has an acid value of 90 mgKOH/g to 200 mgKOH/g; and which is partially or completely neutralized.
US09732244B2

The present disclosure provides ink-jet inks and associated methods. In one example, an ink jet ink can comprise an ink vehicle, a wax emulsion, and a latex particulate. The latex particulate can comprise multiple intermingled discrete polymer strands, including: a low Tg polymer strand having a Tg below 50° C. and a high Tg polymer strand having a Tg at 50° C. or above. Additionally, the Tg of the high Tg polymer strand can be at least 50° C. greater than the Tg of the low Tg polymer strand.
US09732240B2

Provided is an inkjet pigment ink which contains a pigment that is selected from the group consisting of C.L. Pigment Yellow 74 having a transmittance of 70% or more, C.I. Pigment Red 269 having a transmittance of 70% or more, C.I. Pigment Red 122 having a transmittance of less than 70% and C.I. Pigment Yellow 150; a water-soluble solvent that is selected from the group consisting of glycol ethers and diols; water; and a pigment dispersing resin that is a copolymer which contains a monomer A, a monomer B and a monomer C as unit components. The monomer A is an alkyl (meth)acrylate ester; the monomer B is styrene, α-methyl styrene or benzyl (meth)acrylate; and the monomer C is (meth)acrylic acid.
US09732237B2

The present invention provides a coating composition capable of forming a coating film that is applicable to a variety of industrial products, particularly automobile exterior panels, while exhibiting a high lightness and a low ultraviolet transmittance at a wavelength of 420 to 480 nm. The present invention relates to a coating composition comprising a chloride process titanium oxide pigment, a yellow iron oxide pigment, a carbon black pigment having a primary average particle size of 15 to 80 nm, and a resin composition, which is a vehicle-forming component.
US09732233B2

The present invention provides a composite optical reflective film for a backlight source system and a preparation method therefor. The composite optical reflective film comprises a transparent diaphragm and a reflective diaphragm, wherein the reflective diaphragm is spliced to the transparent diaphragm through an adhesive, and the other face of the reflective diaphragm is coated with a reflective coating. The composite optical reflective film has good dimension stability, is not easy to warp and deform, has a higher reflectivity, has a simple preparation process and is easy to operate.
US09732228B2

Microstructured pigments include a dielectric core having a diffraction grating. The microstructured dielectric core is encapsulated with one or more encapsulation layers which are deposited using chemical vapor deposition in a fluidized bed. The fluidizing conditions allow for providing uniform and highly-conforming encapsulation layers.
US09732227B2

The present invention relates to a modified colorant comprising a colorant having attached at least one organic group. Various embodiments of the organic group are disclosed. For each of these embodiments, preferably the organic group has a defined calcium index value. Also disclosed are various uses for these modified colorants, including inkjet ink compositions.
US09732224B2

The polymer mixture comprises polybenzimidazole (PBI)/polyvinylbutyral (PVB). The weight ratio (PVB:PBI) of this mixture may range from 0.25-50:50-99.75 or 15-85:15-85. The coating is based upon the polymer mixture.
US09732212B2

A composition comprising a mixture of fluoropolyether acids or salts having a number average value of about 800 to about 2500 g/mol. The amount of fluoropolyether acids or salt in the mixture having a molecular weight of not more than 500 g/mol is not more than 50 ppm by weight of the total amount of fluoropolyether acids or salts in the mixture. The amount of fluoropolyether acids or salts in the mixture having a molecular weight of 2500 g/mol or greater is not more than 40% by weight of the total amount of fluoropolyether acids or salts in the mixture. Preferably the fluoropolyether acids or salts comprise an anionic group selected from the group consisting of carboxylate, sulfonate, sulfonamide anion and phosphonate. Also disclosed is an aqueous dispersion polymerization process for fluoropolymer manufacture employing polymerization agent comprising the specified mixture of fluoropolyether acids or salts.
US09732184B2

PLA polymers that can be expanded into microporous articles having a node and fibril microstructure are provided. The fibrils contain PLA polymer chains oriented with the fibril axis. Additionally, the PLA polymers have an inherent viscosity greater than about 3.8 dL/g and a calculated molecular weight greater than about 150,000 g/mol. The PLA polymer article may be formed by bulk polymerization where the PLA bulk polymer is made into a preform that is subsequently expanded at temperatures above the glass transition temperature and below the melting point of the PLA polymer. In an alternate embodiment, a PLA polymer powder is lubricated, the lubricated polymer is subjected to pressure and compression to form a preform, and the preform is expanded to form a microporous article. Both the preform and the microporous article are formed at temperatures above the glass transition temperature and below the melting point of the PLA polymer.
US09732180B2

The invention relates to metal complex compounds of the formula Mk(L)x(Y)kz-nx, where the ligand L has the formula (I), and to metal complex compounds which include the reaction product of at least one salt or a complex of a transition metal or a main group metal element of the groups 13 to 15 and at least one 1,3-ketoamide. Such complex compounds are suitable in particular as catalysts for polyurethane compositions. The invention also relates to two-component polyurethane compositions including at least one polyisocyanate as the first component, at least one polyol as the second component, and at least one such metal complex compound as the catalyst. The invention additionally relates to different uses of the two-component polyurethane compositions.
US09732177B2

An amphiphilic polymeric material which has a straight or branched chain polymer backbone and a multiplicity of side chains attached to the backbone, wherein the backbone is a copolymer of at least one ethylenically-unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbon monomer and maleic anhydride, or is a terpolymer of maleic anhydride, ethylene, and a further ethylenically unsaturated monomer. A method of synthesizing said polymeric material is also provided, together with chewing gum bases, compositions and emulsions comprising amphiphilic polymeric materials.
US09732175B2

Method for preparing a ceramic-polymer nanocomposite is provided. The method includes providing a polymer comprising radicals on a surface thereof; contacting the polymer with a functionalizing agent to form a functionalized polymer; and either (i) grafting a cross-linking agent onto the functionalized polymer to form a graft copolymer, and attaching ceramic nanostructures to the graft copolymer to form a ceramic-polymer nanocomposite, or (ii) grafting a cross-linking agent onto ceramic nanostructures to form modified ceramic nanostructures, and attaching the modified ceramic nanostructures to the functionalized polymer to form a ceramic-polymer nanocomposite. A ceramic-polymer nanocomposite and use of the ceramic-polymer nanocomposite are also provided.
US09732173B2

A composition is described comprising a polymer. The polymer comprises polymerized units derived from a cleavable crosslinking monomer. The cleavable crosslinking monomer comprises at least two free-radically polymerizable groups and at least one group having the formula —O—C(R2)(R3)—O—, wherein R2 and R3 are independently hydrogen, alkyl, or aryl. The composition has a Tg no greater than 50° C. In some embodiments, the composition has a storage modulus greater than 3×105 Pa at 25° C. and 1 Hz and may be characterized as a non-tacky polymer. In other embodiments, the composition is a pressure sensitive adhesive. Upon cleavage of at least a portion of the polymerized monomeric units derived from the cleavable crosslinking monomer, the composition exhibits a change in at least one physical property. In another embodiment, the composition comprises a polymer and fragments. The fragments comprise the reaction product of a free-radically polymerizable group bonded to a polymer chain and a pendent hydroxyl group. The composition has a Tg no greater than 50° C. Also described are articles, comprising the composition described herein (i.e. before and/or after cleavage); as well as methods of making the composition and methods of making articles.
US09732172B2

The present invention relates to an ethylene/1-hexene or ethylene/1-butene copolymer having excellent processibility. The ethylene/1-hexene or ethylene/1-butene copolymer according to the present invention has high molecular weight and wide molecular weight distribution, and thus excellent processibility, and has excellent environmental stress crack resistance, and thus, may be applied for a high inner pressure heating pipe, a mining pipe, or a large-diameter pipe, and the like.
US09732161B2

Provided herein are modified Fc proteins comprising non-natural amino acid residues at site-specific positions, conjugates of the modified Fc proteins for therapy or diagnosis, compositions comprising the modified Fc proteins and conjugates thereof, methods of their production and methods of their use. The modified Fc proteins and conjugates are useful for methods of treatment and prevention, methods of detection and methods of diagnosis.
US09732156B2

The present disclosure provides compositions and methods of use involving binding proteins, e.g., antibodies and antigen-binding fragments thereof, that bind to the matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP9) protein (MMP9 is also known as gelatinase-B), such as where the binding proteins comprise an immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain (or functional fragment thereof) and an Ig light chain (or functional fragment thereof).
US09732155B2

Disclosed are the atomic coordinates of compositions comprising Fc heterodimer proteins in crystalline form derived from high resolution x-ray diffraction. Further disclosed are systems and methods for using all or a portion of these atomic coordinates to identify and design improved Fc heterodimer proteins. Further disclosed are compositions comprising a mixture of (i) a solubilized Fc heterodimer protein and (ii) a mother liquor solution. The mother liquor solution comprises between 2% and 10% (v/v) ethylene glycol, between 10% and 25% (w/v) polyethylene glycol having an average molecular weight of between 2000 Daltons and 10000 Daltons, and between 0.05 M and 0.40 M ammonium iodide. Further disclosed are systems and methods of identifying a mutation which promotes heterodimeric Fc chain pair formation in which structure based modeling is performed to identify a candidate mutation to an Fc chain using all or a portion of the disclosed three-dimensional atomic coordinates.
US09732148B2

The present invention relates to anti-alpha-synuclein (anti-α-synuclein) antibodies and methods of using the same.
US09732141B2

A T cell receptor molecule (TCR) containing an alpha chain portion and a beta chain portion wherein the alpha chain portion contains three complementarity determining regions (CDRs): CDR1α: SSYSPS CDR2α: YTSAATL CDR3α: VVSPFSGGGADGLT or comprising or consisting of SPPSGGGADGLT and the beta chain portion contains three complementarity determining regions (CDRs): CDR1β: DFQATT CDR2β: SNEGSKA CDR3β: comprising SARDGGEG or comprising or consisting of RDGGEGSETQY, or wherein up to three amino acid residues in one or more CDRs are replaced by another amino acid residue. The invention also includes polynucleotides encoding the TCR molecules, and host cells containing the said polynucleotides. Patient derived T cells may have the polynucleotides encoding the TCR molecules introduced therein, and the engineered T cells may be introduced into the patient in order to combat a WT1-expressing malignancy.
US09732128B2

The vast differentiation potential of human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, including their potential to cascade through all of the somatic cell lineages and to display the complete transcriptional regulatory network of human biology, has generated interest in deriving scalable, purified, and identified cell types and methods of discovering the precise structure of the human regulatory network. However, the innate capacity of pluripotent cells to display all these lineages is not necessarily reflected during their culture in vitro. The clonal isolation and propagation of progenitors greatly facilitates the generation of highly purified and identified formulations for research and therapeutic purposes. Nevertheless, other cell types have yet to be isolated and propagated from normal cells and methods of isolating said novel cell types as well as methods for introducing perturbations into the transcriptional regulatory network in order to construct a computer model of the entire human transcriptional regulatory network would greatly benefit basic research as well as manufacturing technology for cell-based therapies.
US09732125B2

Polypeptide particles of the present invention are particles of a polypeptide derived from spider silk proteins, and have an average particle size of 1000 nm or less. A method for producing polypeptide particles of the present invention includes: a solution production step in which the polypeptide is dissolved in at least one solvent selected from the group consisting of DMSO, DMF, and these with an inorganic salt, so as to obtain a solution of the polypeptide; a step in which the solution produced in the solution production step is substituted with a water-soluble solvent so as to obtain an aqueous solution of the polypeptide; and a step in which the aqueous solution of the polypeptide is dried. Thereby, the present invention provides polypeptide particles suitable for application to a living body and capable of being applied to cosmetics, etc., while identifying the properties of the polypeptide particles, and a method for producing the same.
US09732121B2

Compositions and methods are provided relating to HCV E2 protein and modifications thereto which enhance the immunogenicity of the protein for vaccine development with respect to the generation of a neutralizing immune response.
US09732118B2

The invention describes a method and compounds for the prevention of immune responses towards allofactors, towards viral vectors used for gene therapy and gene vaccination, towards proteins to which subjects are naturally exposed, towards genetically-modified organisms and towards undesirable effects related to vaccine administration for allergic or infectious diseases.
US09732117B2

The invention relates to compounds of formula (I): wherein R is ethyl, propyl or allyl, and pharmaceutically acceptable salts, solvates or amino acid conjugates thereof. The compounds of formula (I) are useful as FXR agonists.
US09732114B2

Compounds of the form O-(x-L)n, where O is an oligonucleoside having at least a plurality of N3′→P5′ thiophosphoramidate (NPS) internucleoside linkages, a conjugated lipid moiety L, and at least one G-rich sequence motif as described, are effective to morphologically alter and reduce adhesion of cancer cells.
US09732096B2

The present invention provides a buprenorphine dimer compound, wherein the two buprenorphine portions are linked via an ethylene spacer, wherein the spacer is bonded to the two opioid molecules via an ether bond. Pharmaceutical compositions comprising such a buprenorphine dimer drug are also disclosed, and the use of such compounds in the treatment of gastrointestinal hyperalgesia generally and in particular diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome.
US09732084B2

Pyrrolobenzodiazepine dimers having a C2-C3 double bond and an aryl group at the C2 position on one monomer unit, and a C2-C3 double bond and either a conjugated double or triple bond at the C2 position or an alkyl group at the C2 position on the other monomer unit, and conjugates of these compounds.
US09732082B2

Compounds represented by general formula (I) (all of the symbols in the formula conform to the definitions in the Description) are compounds that, in addition to having a Btk-selective inhibitory activity, exhibit an excellent metabolic stability and can avoid hepatotoxicity or the like, and as a consequence can provide safe therapeutic agents for diseases in which B cells or mast cells participate.
US09732079B2

A yellow reduced pyrroloquinoline quinone crystal having a solubility in water of 0.040 to 0.20 (mg/mL).
US09732068B1

A system including a fluid receiver defined by a crystallization chamber, three or more fluid input conduits, wherein each fluid input conduit is configured to direct a fluid into the crystallization chamber such that the fluids from the fluid input conduits converge on a single spatial coordinate (X—Y—Z) within the crystallization chamber, and a fluid outlet body portion. A process for crystallization of the chemical compound is also disclosed. Polymorphs of paracetamol, carbamazapine, ketoprofen, atorvastatin, and itraconazole also are disclosed.
US09732051B2

The present invention relates to isothiazoline compounds of formula I wherein the variables are as defined in the claims or the description, which are useful for combating or controlling invertebrate pests, in particular arthropod pests and nematodes, and to a method for producing them. The invention also relates to a method for controlling invertebrate pests by using these compounds and to plant propagation material and to an agricultural and a veterinary composition comprising said compounds.
US09732049B2

The present invention relates to a process for the synthesis of 2,4-diamino-3(S)-hydroxycarboxylic acid derivatives from 5-hydroxyectoine.
US09732035B2

Presently provided are indoximod prodrug and salt compounds and pharmaceutical compositions comprising salts and prodrugs of indoximod, that produce enhanced plasma concentration and exposure to indoximod compared to direct administration of indoximod, in patients in need of treatment of immunosuppression mediated by the indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase pathway, such as patients with cancer or chronic infectious diseases.
US09732033B2

Disclosed is a plant for the production of urea. The plant comprises conventional sections for synthesis and recovery, for evaporation and condensation, for urea finishing, and for dust scrubbing. According to the invention, an additional evaporation and condensation loop is introduced from and to the dust scrubbing section. This loop results in a more favorable energy consumption of the plant.
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