US09844170B2

When a mounting head is moved upward of a rear side conveyor across and over a front side conveyor after a component suction operation, it is determined whether or not there is a possibility that a component sucked by a suction nozzle may interfere with a component mounted on a circuit board on the front side conveyor. When so determined, a head lifting mechanism is caused to lift up the mounting head to a position where the component sucked by the suction nozzle does not interfere with the mounted component. Thereafter, the mounting head is moved upward of the rear side conveyor, and the head lifting mechanism is caused to lower down the mounting head to an initial height position. Thereafter, the component is mounted on a circuit board on the rear side conveyor.
US09844148B2

Provided are interconnect circuits for interconnecting arrays of devices and methods of forming these interconnect circuits as well as connecting these circuits to the devices. An interconnect circuit may include a conductive layer and one or more insulating layers. The conductive layer may be patterned with openings defining contact pads, such that each pad is used for connecting to a different electrical terminal of the interconnected devices. In some embodiments, each contact pad is attached to the rest of the conductive layer by a fusible link formed from the same conductive layer as the contact pad. The fusible link controls the current flow to and from this contact pad. The insulating layer is laminated to the conductive layer and provides support to the contacts pads. The insulating layer may also be patterned with openings, which allow forming electrical connections between the contact pads and cell terminals through the insulating layer.
US09844137B2

A printed circuit assembly (PCA) that provides for a method of rebuilding an electrically operated automatic transmission solenoid module. The PCA allows for a repairable yet rugged interconnection of several solenoids that reside within the span of the module assembly.
US09844125B2

Provided is an extreme ultra-violet (EUV) beam generation apparatus using multi-gas cell modules in which a gas is prevented from directly flowing into a vacuum chamber by adding an auxiliary gas cell serving as a buffer chamber to a main gas cell, a diffusion rate of the gas is decreased, a high vacuum state is maintained, and a higher power EUV beam is continuously generated.
US09844124B2

At least one method, apparatus and system for providing capturing synchrotron radiation for a metrology tool, are disclosed. A beam using a first light emitting device is provided. The first light emitting device comprises a first electron path bend. A first synchrotron radiation is provided from the first electron path bend to a first metrology tool configured to perform a metrology inspection using the first synchrotron radiation.
US09844117B2

A light emitting diode (LED) running light comprises a current sink and a plurality of series coupled LED block cells; each of the plurality of LED block cells comprising a LED and a bypass circuit to the current sink, wherein each series coupled LED sequentially turns on (lights) when a voltage source increases by additive voltage increments of at least the turn-on voltage of each LED in the series coupled string until all LEDs are on (lit). The current sink maintains a desired current value through the LEDs and may also be used to provide waveforms for diagnostic and timing purposes.
US09844116B2

Systems and methods for improving color accuracy and uniformity in LED illumination systems are disclosed including light engines, switching circuits and methods of adding phosphors or lumiphoric materials for controlling the addition or subtraction of light from one or more color light sources of the light engines to produce light of a uniform and consistent color. Systems and methods of providing LED light engines and associated illumination spectrums that are both visually appealing, rich in melanopic flux and that reduce blue light hazard exposure are also disclosed.
US09844115B2

Embodiments of the present invention are related to a lighting system comprising a control unit that manages a lighting device with an LED board within an optical chamber. The LED board includes a first string of LEDs and a second string of LEDs. The control unit and the LED board are configured to electrically couple to first and second wires. The first string of LEDs and the second string of LEDs are configured to emit light having different spectral power distributions within the visible spectrum. The first string of LEDs is oriented in an electrically opposite direction than the second string of LEDs. The control unit comprises a switch configured to direct current between the first wire and second wire. The wire to which current is directed is designated active. The designated active wire activates one of the first string of LEDs and second string of LEDs.
US09844111B1

A method of controlling a dimmable light emitting diode (LED) system includes defining two or more dimming regions having respective dimming levels applied to one or more strings of LEDs, continuously supplying a current to the one or more strings of LEDs in a first dimming region, and maintaining an average peak value of the current substantially the same and adjusting a duty cycle of a pulse width modulation (PWM) control signal in a second dimming region to supply the current according to the PWM control signal.
US09844109B2

An infrared circuit for a single battery and a remote controller using the same are provided. The single battery outputs a battery voltage. The infrared circuit comprises an IR LED circuit, an inductor and a microcontroller. The IR LED circuit is coupled between the battery voltage and a common voltage. The inductor is coupled between the battery voltage and the common voltage. The microcontroller has an I/O port coupled to the inductor and the IR LED circuit. When infrared rays are emitted, the microcontroller controls the battery voltage to charge the inductor through the I/O port, and a continuous current of the inductor forces the IR LED circuit to turn on.
US09844106B2

A LED linear constant power driver circuit comprises an AC power supply, a rectifier bridge, a LED light string, a master chip, a voltage adjustment resistance, a regulated capacitor, a compensation capacitor and a current adjustment resistance; an input end of the rectifier bridge is connected with the AC power supply, an output end of the rectifier bridge is connected with the LED light string and the master chip, the peripheral circuit of the master chip includes the voltage adjustment resistance, the regulated capacitor, the compensation capacitor and the current adjustment resistance that regulates the output average current of the system.
US09844103B2

Provided is a cooking assistance device for providing information that assists cooking using a cooking appliance based on a measurement result of power consumption of the cooking appliance. The cooking assistance device includes a storage unit that stores information that relates to power consumption in cooking, an acquisition unit that acquires a measurement value that relates to power consumption of the cooking appliance, and an output unit that outputs the measurement value and the information that relates to power consumption in cooking.
US09844102B2

An outer portion of one or more layers of microwave interactive material, which is for becoming hot when exposed to microwave energy, is arranged in a manner that seeks to advantageously control heating, so that the outer portion of the microwave interactive material can safely be adjacent the periphery of a turntable tray. The turntable tray can be heated by the microwave interactive material so that a peak thermally induced stress occurs in the turntable tray at a position proximate the periphery of the tray. The layer(s) of microwave interactive material are configured in a manner so that the peak thermally induced stress is less than a predetermined amount.
US09844099B2

An induction heating apparatus in accordance with the present disclosure includes a coil; an inverter unit configured to have a switching device turned on and off to supply power to the coil; a first controller configured to generate a first threshold current based on information about a coil current flowing in the coil and an input voltage applied to the coil, and generate a clock signal by comparing the coil current with the first threshold current; and a switch driver configured to generate a switch driving signal to turn on or off the switching device of the inverter unit by dividing a frequency of the clock signal.
US09844096B2

A mobile terminal and controlling method thereof are disclosed. The present invention includes a touchscreen; a memory configured to store access point (AP) information; a 1st wireless communication unit configured to perform a communication with an AP (access point); and a controller configured to control a user interface for remotely controlling an external device to be displayed on the touchscreen or to be in a displayable state when the AP connected to the 1st wireless communication unit matches the stored AP information.
US09844095B2

A user terminal according to one aspect executes a first and second DRX operations. The first DRX operation is an operation of discontinuously monitoring first control information, which is transmitted from the base station via PDCCH, using a C-RNTI that uniquely identifies the user terminal in a cell of the base station. The second DRX operation is an operation of discontinuously monitoring second control information, which is transmitted from the base station via the PDCCH, using a group RNTI assigned to a terminal group including the user terminal. The user terminal monitors the first control information in a first ON duration for the first DRX operation, and monitors the second control information in a second ON duration for the second DRX operation, the second ON duration being independent of the first ON duration.
US09844094B2

A method for configuring a DRX (Discontinuous Reception) operation in a wireless communication system, and a wireless device therefore are discussed. The method includes, for example, receiving a first configuration for the DRX; starting a first onDuration timer according to the first configuration; receiving a second configuration for the DRX while the first onDuration timer is running; and stopping the first onDuration timer when the second configuration is received from the transmitter. At least one physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is not monitored when the first onDuration timer is stopped. The first OnDuration timer is stopped without receiving a DRX Command medium access control (MAC) control element (CE). The method further includes starting a second onDuration timer according to the second configuration; and monitoring at least one PDCCH during an operation time of the second onDuration timer after the second onDuration timer starts according to the second configuration.
US09844083B2

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for controlling state transition of a user equipment UE in proximity wireless communication. A method can comprise: learning about an associated agent's context of a connected UE and said UE's capability; deciding to put the connected UE into virtual associated state; sending to said UE a message with indication of putting said UE into said virtual associated state as well as the UE's context; and maintaining said associated agent's context of the UE.
US09844079B1

A signal analyzer comprises: a first tuner configured to tune to a first frequency band and to output first tuner data; a memory device configured to store the first tuner data; a spectrum calculator configured to calculate a series of spectra for the first tuner data; a processor configured to determine a presence of a transmission of interest within the first tuner data based on the series of spectra; a second tuner configured to receive the first tuner data stored in the memory device and to tune to a second frequency band including the transmission of interest. The second tuner outputs second tuner data in response to the stored first tuner data. The signal analyzer also comprises a transmission start time detector configured to receive the second tuner data and to determine a start time for the transmission of interest from the second tuner data.
US09844071B2

A method in a user equipment for requesting that a base station schedule the user equipment for an uplink data transmission to the base station is provided. The user equipment comprises a buffer. Directly or indirectly responsive to receiving data into the buffer to be transmitted to the base station, the user equipment generates a scheduling request trigger. The scheduling request trigger is configured to trigger the sending of a scheduling request to the base station if the trigger is pending at the next scheduling request opportunity, and to remain pending until it is cancelled. The user equipment cancels the pending scheduling request trigger when the data is accounted for in a buffer status report, which reports the size of the buffer to the base station, or when the data is included directly in a scheduled uplink data transmission whichever occurs first.
US09844067B2

Disclosed is a method in which a base station (BS) transmits information to a plurality of terminals in a wireless communication system. Specifically, the method comprises the steps of: dividing the plurality of terminals into two or more groups according to a channel state of each of the BS and the plurality of terminals and a channel state between the plurality of terminals; and broadcasting the information to a first group among the two or more groups, wherein the first group transmits the information to another group among the two or more groups through D2D communication.
US09844061B2

In a wireless communication system, a secure communication link is provided by selecting a decoy data signal for transmission, generating a precoding matrix from a message to be sent; and multiplying the decoy data signal by the precoding matrix to produce a precoded signal. A clean version of the decoy data may be transmitted to an intended receiver. The receiver can distinguish between the information-bearing precoding and the natural random channel distortions of the transmission medium to decrypt the information, while an eavesdropper would find it difficult to distinguish between the natural channel distortions and information-bearing precoding in the signals it receives.
US09844049B2

Apparatus, computer readable medium, and methods for initiating uplink multi-user medium access in high-efficiency wireless local-area networks (WLANs) are disclosed. A station is disclosed comprising circuitry configured to generate a trigger frame comprising one or more resource allocations. Each of the resource allocations may include an indication of whether the resource allocation is an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) resource allocation or a multiple-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) resource allocation. An identity either of an OFDMA group or an MU-MIMO group may be included. Each resource allocation may include an indication of a bandwidth for the OFDMA resource allocation or a bandwidth for the MU-MIMO resource allocation. Each OFDMA resource allocation may include one or more indications of an address of one or more HE stations and one or more indications of an OFDMA sub-channel resource allocation for the corresponding HE station.
US09844035B2

A communication method, a base station, user equipment, and a system are provided. The method includes: receiving uplink data that is sent by the user equipment in a specified multiple-access manner on a time-frequency resource corresponding to the specified multiple-access manner; and sending downlink data to the user equipment in a corresponding multiple-access manner on a time-frequency resource corresponding to the corresponding multiple-access manner, where the corresponding multiple-access manner is a multiple-access manner that is obtained by searching a at least two multiple-access manners according to a prestored correspondence and that is associated with the specified multiple-access manner. In this way, a problem that because one multiple-access manner is used in a same communications system, requirements of different user equipments cannot be met at the same time is resolved.
US09844022B2

Upon detecting at a two-way communication device that a communication link has been terminated, the two-way communication device can provide a unique corresponding signal (such as a unique audible signal) to indicate such termination. Pursuant to one approach, a plurality of such unique signals are available and a specific one of the available signals is selected for use in a given circumstance using a selection criteria of choice.
US09844006B2

A wireless device receives a control message configuring cell groups comprising a first cell group and a second cell group. The wireless device receives a control command causing the wireless device to transmit a random access preamble on a secondary cell in the secondary cell group. Transmission timing of the random access preamble is determined, at least in part, employing uplink subframe transmission timing of the primary cell or a stored timing advance value.
US09843996B2

A method and a wireless device for managing selection of a Wireless Local Area Network “WLAN” are disclosed. The wireless device obtains a first sub-set of WLAN identifiers, which first sub-set relates to user preference for selection of WLAN, and/or a second sub-set of WLANs, which second sub-set relates to WLAN Selection Policy. The wireless device receives, from the radio network node, a third sub-set of WLAN identifiers, which third sub-set relates to a list of WLANs, wherein each of the first and/or second sub-sets and the third sub-set is associated with a respective priority level for indicating which WLAN to prioritize over the other WLANs. The wireless device selects a WLAN from among the first, second and third sub-sets of WLAN identifiers based on the respective priority levels. The wireless device evaluates RAN rules in view of the selected WLAN, and connects to the selected WLAN when the RAN rules are fulfilled.
US09843983B1

A communication system dynamically controls a User Equipment (UE) handover for multiple repeaters linked in series that include a source repeater and target repeater. The communication system determines individual UE loading for each of the multiple repeaters. The communication system modifies a handover threshold between the source repeater and the target repeater based on the UE loading for each of the multiple repeaters in the series. The communication system serves the UE over the source repeater and applies the modified handover threshold to a signal strength difference between the source repeater and the target repeater. The communication system inhibits the UE handover from the source repeater to the target repeater if the signal strength difference for the UE falls below the modified handover threshold and initiates the UE handover from the source repeater to the target repeater if the signal strength difference for the UE reaches the modified handover threshold.
US09843982B2

A first base station transmits to a second base station a first message. The first message comprises at least one parameter indicating the wireless device supports configuration of a plurality of cell groups. The first base station receives from the second base station a second message comprising first configuration parameters of a plurality of cells grouped into a first plurality of cell groups comprising a first cell group and a second cell group. The first base station transmits, to the wireless device, a third message comprising the first configuration parameters.
US09843979B2

The present invention relates to a method for cell selection in a wireless communication system. The method for cell selection by a terminal according to one embodiment of the present invention may comprise the following steps: measuring the channel quality of a first cell; measuring the channel quality of a second cell; determining whether the value obtained by applying an offset to the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the second cell is better than the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the first cell; if the value obtained by applying an offset to the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the second cell is better than the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the first cell, determining whether the value obtained by applying no offset to the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the second cell is better than a preset reference value; and, if the value obtained by applying no offset to the result of the measurement of the channel quality of the second cell is better than the preset reference value, selecting the second cell. According to one embodiment of the present invention, an operable cell can be selected to prevent malfunctions, and interference from a CSG cell may be reduced.
US09843976B2

A method performed by a base station includes generating a request for resource status information, sending the generated request to a neighboring base station, receiving one or more resource status update messages from the neighboring base station in response to the requested resource status information, and performing load balancing operations in dependence upon the received one or more resource status update messages.
US09843973B2

In embodiments of the present disclosure improved capabilities are described for providing efficient delivery of real-time services to mobile transceiver devices over a cellular network utilizing a publish-subscribe broker network, and where an active-standby redundancy configuration is employed to ensure continuity of the real-time services.
US09843969B2

A node device of a cellular communication network comprises physical layer circuitry and processing circuitry. The physical layer circuitry is operable to receive signal power information from a user equipment device (UE). The processing circuitry is operable to determine a speed of travel classification for the UE using the signal power information, and configure one or more operating parameters of the cellular communication network using the determined speed of travel classification for the UE.
US09843943B1

Described herein are systems and methods for testing the application quality of service in addition to the network quality of service to electronic devices, for example where the electronic devices are located within a massive user presence environment. The systems and methods further comprise improving the quality of service to the electronic devices by making changes to the telecommunication network on a predictive basis based upon future events that result in a massive user presence. The techniques described herein improve the functioning of the network and improve the functioning of applications running on electronic devices.
US09843942B2

Various devices and methods are provided that use enhanced downlink demodulation reference signals (DMRS) to facilitate inter-cell interference cancellation and suppression. Coordinated configuration of DMRS port assignments for transmission from cells in a group of neighboring cells is provided. Each cell's physical cell identification (PCID) is mapped with its corresponding assigned antenna port(s).
US09843935B2

In order to solve problems arising when a communication system such as a wireless LAN is constructed as a decentralized distributed type network without a relationship of control station and controlled stations such as a master station and slave stations, in a wireless communication system composed of a plurality of communication stations without a relationship of control station and controlled stations, respective communication stations transmit beacons with information concerning a network written thereon with each other to construct the network, and it becomes possible to make sophisticated judgment such as communication states of other communication stations by those beacons.
US09843931B2

An electronic device includes a display module, an NFC (Near-field Communication) module, a verification module and a control module. The display module is disposed on a first surface of the electronic device. The NFC module includes an antenna unit. The antenna unit is configured to transmit and receive a wireless signal from an outward direction of the first surface. The verification module is disposed on a second surface of the electronic device. The verification module is configured to generate an identification input data according to an operation of a user. The control module is configured to drive the verification module to generate the identification input data when the NFC module receives an identification requirement data, and configured to determine whether the identification input data is valid.
US09843926B2

A system for preventing an attack on a networked vehicle via a wireless communication device including a wireless data traffic network, a security status determination unit for controlling access to the wireless network depending on a security status based on evaluation of a configuration and/or on log data of the vehicle and/or on time that has passed since a software update, and a communication device and an access control device. A method for preventing an attack on a networked vehicle via a wireless communication device, where a security status is determined based on an evaluation of a current configuration of the vehicle and/or on log data of the vehicle and/or on time that has passed since an update of relevant software a network access rule set is determined and actuated for the access to the data traffic network based on the determined security status.
US09843923B2

When traffic arrives from the network for an idle mobile device, the network executes device activation procedures to awaken the device, which can result in a significant amount of signaling to complete. Adaptive device activation mechanisms are provided that adapt to network conditions and potentially to machine-to-machine device application requests to realize scalable device activation without increasing the resources used for this purpose and without negatively impacting existing human-to-human or human-to-machine traffic.
US09843913B2

A system and method for transferring e911 calls between a 3GPP network and a non-3GPP network. The method includes connecting an emergency communication between a mobile device and an emergency service, receiving, from the mobile device, an indication to handoff the communication from a first network to a second network; and transferring the communication from the first network to the second network while maintaining continuity of the communication.
US09843898B1

A computer-implemented method includes: monitoring, by a computing device, respective locations of a plurality of user devices; determining, by the computing device, that a particular group of user devices of the plurality of user devices are located within a threshold distance of each other based on monitoring the respective locations of the plurality of user devices; and storing or outputting, by the computing device, grouping information indicating that the particular group of user devices are associated with a single user based on the determining that the particular group of user devices are located within a threshold distance of each other.
US09843893B2

An approach is provided for determining new point(s)-of-interest based, at least in part, on mobile device positioning, three dimensional location data, or a combination thereof. The approach involves processing and/or facilitating a processing of location information associated with a plurality of devices to determine one or more location points at which there are one or more concentrations of the plurality of devices. The approach also involves causing, at least in part, an accessing of three-dimensional data representing the one or more location points. The approach further involves processing and/or facilitating a processing of the three-dimensional data to determine one or more features that are indicative of a presence of one or more points of interest. The approach also involves determining one or more candidate points of interest based, at least in part, on the one or more features.
US09843874B2

An equalized hearing aid system includes a microphone, a first equalizer, a first mixer, and a first speaker coupled in series forming a first signal path with a second mixer coupled to the first equalizer within the first signal path. The microphone, a second equalizer, a third mixer, and a second speaker are coupled in series forming a second signal path with a fourth mixer coupled to the second equalizer within the second signal path. A control interface may be coupled to at least one of the first equalizer and the second equalizer. A Bluetooth module may be coupled to at least one of the first equalizer and the second equalizer. A third equalizer may be coupled to input signal into the first signal path and a fourth equalizer may be coupled to input signal into the second signal path.
US09843873B2

A hearing device comprising a first and a second input sound transducers, a processing unit, and an output sound transducer. The first transducer is configured to be arranged in an ear canal or in the ear of the user, to receive acoustical sound signals from the environment and to generate first electrical acoustic signals from the received acoustical sound signals. The second transducer is configured to be arranged behind a pinna or on, behind or at the ear of the user, to receive acoustical sound signals from the environment and to generate second electrical acoustic signals from the received acoustical sound signals. The processing unit is configured to process the first and second electrical acoustic signals and apply a direction dependent gain. The output sound transducer is configured generate acoustical output sound signals in accordance with the applied direction dependent gain.
US09843865B2

A sound generator includes a housing (20), a stand (90) supporting the housing (20), a piezoelectric vibrator (60) including a piezoelectric element (61), and an anchor applying a load to the piezoelectric vibrator (60). While the load from the anchor is being applied to the piezoelectric vibrator (60), the piezoelectric vibrator (60) deforms in response to a sound signal, and deformation of the piezoelectric vibrator (60) vibrates a mounting surface (150) on which the sound generator is mounted, causing sound to be emitted from the mounting surface (150).
US09843863B2

An electronic device and a method of controlling the electronic device are provided. The electronic device includes a main body configured to provide an accommodation space, a speaker module configured to output sound, and an accessory device configured to be accommodated in the accommodation space. In a state where the accessory device is accommodated in the accommodation space, the accessory device is configured to provide a passage that transmits the sound output from the speaker module, and in a state where the accessory device is separated from the accommodation space, the accommodation space provides the passage that transmits the sound output from the speaker module.
US09843862B2

According to an embodiment, a method of operating a speaker with an acoustic pump includes generating a carrier signal having a first frequency by exciting the acoustic pump at the first frequency and generating an acoustic signal having a second frequency by adjusting the carrier signal. In such embodiments, the first frequency is outside an audible frequency range and the second frequency is inside the audible frequency range. Adjusting the carrier signal includes performing adjustments to the carrier signal at the second frequency. Other embodiments include corresponding systems and apparatus, each configured to perform corresponding embodiment methods.
US09843859B2

Preprocessing speech signals from an indirect conduction microphone. One exemplary method preprocesses the speech signal in two stages. In stage one, an external speech sample is characterized using an auto regression model, and coefficients from the model are convolved with the internal speech signal from the indirect conduction microphone to produce a pre-conditioned internal speech signal. In stage two, a training sound is received by the indirect conduction microphone and filtered through a low-pass filter. The result is then modeled using auto regression, and inverted to produce an inverted filter model. The pre-conditioned internal speech signal is convolved with the inverted filter model to remove negative or undesirable acoustic characteristics and loss from the speech signal from the indirect conduction microphone.
US09843855B2

A method and system for sizing an earpiece include situating a calibration device proximate a user's ear. The user holds an image capture device so as to aim the image capture device at the user's ear. The user then touches and holds a random area of the touch screen display and releases the touch screen display to activate the image capture device and capture an image of the user's ear and the calibration device. The captured image is then analyzed and an earpiece size is determined based on the analysis of the image.
US09843854B2

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to an earpiece having a balloon and a stent where the balloon is mounted on the stent and the stent incorporates two or more channels including at least an inflation channel and an acoustic channel. In some embodiments the stent is configured to pass audio signals through the acoustic channel where the acoustic channel is independent of the inflation channel of the balloon. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09843848B2

Disclosed is a speaker unit which includes a provisionally fastening mechanism provided on a side surface of a cabinet section for provisionally fastening the speaker unit to a mounting part with at least a portion of the cabinet section inserted in an opening section of the mounting part from a face side of the mounting part. The provisionally fastening mechanism includes an engagement section for provisionally fastening the speaker unit to the mounting part, and a retention section for retaining the engagement section. The engagement section is movable between an engagement position in which the engagement section engages with the mounting part and a cancellation position in which the engagement section cancels the engagement with the mounting part by being moved away from the mounting part, and the retention section retains the engagement section in the cancellation position.
US09843846B2

A number of novel watermarking applications, and improvements to watermarking methods, are disclosed. Included are techniques for selectively incorporating promotional messages into rendered video content, monitoring whether promotional messages are rendered or skipped, permitting payment for content upon rendering rather than receipt, controlling rendering of video to include or omit adult-themed sections, confirming a person's age by reference to a watermarked identification document, and watermarking digital cinema projections.
US09843841B2

A high density interactive media guide interface (100) provides for the selection of a source from a dense array of available sources (105, 110) by displaying an array of available sources (105, 110) in a dense format that illustrates the availability of a high number of sources and expanding the display of selected sources (120, 130) to provide additional information regarding that source. “Clickless selection” is provided by either positioning the cursor over the desired selection or positioning the desired selection under a pre-designated position.
US09843812B2

A video transmission system and the method of operation thereof includes: a video transmission unit for receiving a first video frame from an input device, the first video frame having base frame parameters; dividing a color gamut into uniform regions for collecting color data from pixels of the base frame parameters; collecting pixel statistics from each of the uniform regions from the base frame parameters; determining chroma partition coordinates from the pixel statistics; deriving a search pattern of search points based on the chroma partition coordinates; and selecting the search point from the search pattern for color mapping of the first video frame.
US09843803B2

The present invention relates to video encoding/decoding methods and device, wherein the video encoding method according to the invention comprises the following steps: acquiring information of peripheral blocks; setting the information about a current block based on the information of the peripheral blocks; and encoding the current block based on the set information, wherein the current block and the peripheral blocks may be a CU (coding unit).
US09843783B2

An imaging apparatus includes an autofocus function, and performs focus adjustment by displacing a focus lens to an in-focus opposition. A focal correction calculation unit calculates a focal correction amount using at least one type of information selected from the diaphragm information used for exposure adjustment, positional information for the zoom lens, and positional information for the focus lens. The focal correction amount is further revised, and processing is executed to suppress coloring on the subject image resulting from chromatic aberration. The correction amount after revision is sent to a focal adjustment unit and the focal lens is driven and controlled by the lens control unit.
US09843781B1

A projector includes a projection lens, a distance information acquiring section that acquires distance information relating to the distance from the projector to a projection surface, a first imaging section that captures an image of the projection surface, a second imaging section that has an angle of view wider than the angle of view of the first imaging section and captures an image of the projection surface, and a control unit. The the second imaging section is disposed in a position closer to the optical axis of the projection lens than the first imaging section. The control section causes the first imaging section to capture an image in a case where the distance from the projector to the projection surface is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold and the second imaging section to capture an image in a case where the distance is smaller than the threshold.
US09843777B2

A cabin monitoring system for a vehicle includes a video display screen disposed in a cabin of the vehicle so as to be viewable by a driver of the vehicle. A camera assembly is disposed at a ceiling of the cabin of the vehicle and includes a camera having an imager and a lens, with the camera having a field of view that encompasses a rear seat area of the vehicle. An illumination device is operable to illuminate the rear seat area encompassed by the field of view of the camera. The illumination device, when operated, illuminates the rear seat area and the camera captures image data representative of the illuminated rear seat area. The image data captured by the camera is provided to the video display screen for displaying video images for viewing by the driver of the vehicle.
US09843768B1

Embodiments of a system and method for indicating audience engagement are generally described herein. A method may include sending speech from a speaker to be played for a plurality of members of an audience, receiving audience reaction information, for the plurality of members of the audience, from a plurality of sensors, the audience reaction information captured by the plurality of sensors while the speech is playing for the plurality of members of the audience, processing the audience reaction information to aggregate the audience reaction information, determining, using the processed information, an engagement factor, and sending an aggregated engagement level indicator to a speaker device, the aggregated engagement level indicator based on the engagement factor and indicating overall engagement of the audience to the speech.
US09843755B2

An apparatus is described that includes an image sensor having timing and control circuitry and threshold circuitry. The timing and control circuitry is to generate signals to cause multiple transfers of charge from a photo-diode to a storage capacitor within a pixel cell during an image capture sequence. The threshold circuitry is to track the storage capacitor's voltage over the course of the multiple transfers and recognize when the storage capacitor's voltage reaches a threshold.
US09843752B2

A solid-state image sensor, comprising a plurality of circuit groups each of which can assume an operating state and a non-operating state, a storage unit configured to store an order of switching the plurality of circuit groups from the non-operating state to the operating state, and a control unit configured to receive, from outside the sensor, a control signal, common to the plurality of circuit groups, for switching the plurality of circuit groups from the non-operating state to the operating state, wherein after receiving the control signal, the control unit sequentially switches, according to the order stored in the storage unit, the plurality of circuit groups from the non-operating state to the operating state at an interval of a period corresponding to an integer multiple of a cycle of a clock signal.
US09843751B2

A solid-state image sensor including a pixel array portion formed from a two-dimensional array of ordinary imaging pixels each having a photoelectric conversion unit and configured to output an electric signal obtained through photoelectric conversion as a pixel signal, and focus detection pixels for detecting focus. The focus detection pixels include at least a first focus detection pixel and a second focus detection pixel each having a photoelectric conversion unit and configured to transfer and output an electric signal obtained through photoelectric conversion to an output node. The first focus detection pixel and the second focus detection pixel share the output node. The first focus detection pixel includes a first photoelectric conversion unit, and a first transfer gate for reading out an electron generated through photoelectric conversion in the first photoelectric conversion unit to the shared output node.
US09843750B2

Methods of calibrating a linear-logarithmic image sensor pixel include performing a reset of the pixel in advance of establishing a leakage current between a photodiode and a floating diffusion region of the pixel. A first voltage of the floating diffusion region is then read through a source follower and selection transistor, after the leakage is terminated. A step is then performed to transfer charge between the photodiode and the floating diffusion region of the pixel so that a voltage of a cathode of the photodiode is increased. Thereafter, a second voltage of the floating diffusion region is read. The first and second read voltages are then used to perform a calibration operation. These steps may be repeated to establish another leakage current of different duration/magnitude and yield third and fourth read voltages, which support further calibration.
US09843748B2

A solid-state image pickup device includes a first optical signal accumulation unit configured to accumulate a first optical signal obtained by performing an optoelectronic conversion in a first period by an optoelectronic conversion unit, a first reference potential accumulation unit configured to accumulate a first reference potential corresponding to the first optical signal, a second optical signal accumulation unit configured to accumulate a second optical signal obtained by performing an optoelectronic conversion in a second period by the optoelectronic conversion unit, the second period being shorter than the first period, and a combining unit configured to perform a CDS process by using at least the first reference potential accumulated in the first reference potential accumulation unit and combine the first optical signal accumulated in the first optical signal accumulation unit and the second optical signal accumulated in the second optical signal accumulation unit.
US09843747B2

There is provided a solid-state image sensor including a pixel array unit in which pixels are arrayed, the pixel including a photodiode converting an optical signal into an electrical signal, and a readout unit which reads out an analog image signal from the pixel to a signal line and processes the read out analog pixel signal in a unit of column. The readout unit includes a ΔΣ modulator which has a function to convert the analog pixel signal in to a digital signal, and an amplifier which is arranged on an input side of the ΔΣ modulator and amplifies the analog pixel signal read out to the signal line using a set gain to input the signal to the ΔΣ modulator.
US09843739B2

A method for correcting flickers in a single-shot multiple-exposure image and associated apparatus is provided. The single-shot multi-exposure image includes first image data and second image data. The method includes the steps of: computing a first vertical profile for the first image data and a second vertical profile for the second image data; computing a flicker modulation function according to the first vertical profile and the second vertical profile; and multiplying each pixel in the second image data by the flicker modulation function to correct flickers.
US09843737B2

The imaging device comprises: an imaging unit, a shooting processor, an exposure information setter, and an image processor. The imaging unit stores electric charges in response to an incident light for each frame, thereby outputting an image signal. The shooting processor controls storage times, during which the imaging unit stores the electric charges. The exposure information setter sets first exposure control information that controls brightness of a first image signal generated based on a first storage time and second exposure control information that controls brightness of a second image signal generated based on a second storage time. The image processor combines the first and the second image signal. In the case where the first exposure control information satisfies a given condition, the exposure information setter sets the first and the second exposure control information such that storage times corresponding to frames adjacent to each other become equal to each other.
US09843730B2

Techniques to capture and fuse short- and long-exposure images of a scene from a stabilized image capture device are disclosed. More particularly, the disclosed techniques use not only individual pixel differences between co-captured short- and long-exposure images, but also the spatial structure of occluded regions in the long-exposure images (e.g., areas of the long-exposure image(s) exhibiting blur due to scene object motion). A novel device used to represent this feature of the long-exposure image is a “spatial difference map.” Spatial difference maps may be used to identify pixels in the short- and long-exposure images for fusion and, in one embodiment, may be used to identify pixels from the short-exposure image(s) to filter post-fusion so as to reduce visual discontinuities in the output image.
US09843728B2

A focus control apparatus having a first mode in which a position of a focus lens is automatically changed, and a second mode in which the position of the focus lens is manually changed, the focus control apparatus comprises: a setting unit configured to set a first area in the first mode and a second area in the second mode; a focus detection unit configured to detect a focus state based on signals output from areas of an image capturing unit; and a focus control unit configured to control the position of the focus lens in the first mode, wherein upon switching from the second mode to the first mode again, the setting unit sets the first area based on a second area that has been determined to be in an in-focus state.
US09843725B2

An apparatus comprising a plurality of image modules and a plurality of processors. The image modules may each comprise (i) a sensor configured to generate images and (ii) a lens mounted to the sensor. The processors may each be configured to (A) receive the images from a subset of the plurality of image modules and (B) generate a plurality of video streams. Each one of the video streams may be generated by one of the processors in response to the images received from one of the image modules. The subset of the plurality of image modules may comprise at least two distinct image modules of the plurality of image modules. The lenses may be arranged to allow the images to provide coverage for a spherical field of view of a scene surrounding the apparatus.
US09843722B2

The image generating device includes: a first camera configured to photograph a depth image of a subject using a first light; a second camera configured to photograph a color image of the subject by converting a second light into an image signal; a view angle extender configured to change a view angle, wherein the view angle is an angle at which the first camera and the second camera are operable to photograph the subject; and a controller configured to control the view angle extender to change the view angle of the first camera and the second camera and to form a single depth image and a single color image by respectively synthesizing a plurality of depth images and a plurality of color images, photographed by the first camera and the second camera.
US09843720B1

A system and method for accessing a media item on a mobile device are described. The mobile device includes a media placement application and a media display application. The media placement application receives a selection of a media item generated by the mobile device. The media placement application generates access conditions for the media item based on geolocation and position information of the mobile device associated with the selected media item. The media display application monitors the geolocation and position of the mobile device and determines whether the geolocation and position of the mobile device meet the access conditions of the selected media item. The media display application generates a notification that the selected media item is available to view in a display of the mobile device in response to determining that the geolocation and position of the mobile device meet the access conditions of the selected media item.
US09843716B2

A method and an apparatus for adjusting photography parameters are provided. The method includes: determining a pupil size of a person; and adjusting one or more photography parameters according to the pupil size. The pupil size of the person is determined, and then one or more photography parameters such as the aperture size may be adjusted automatically according to the pupil size of the person. Since a current pupil size is subject to a light intensity in current surroundings, the photography parameters of a photographic device may be adjusted automatically and efficiently based on the pupil size.
US09843713B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide systems and methods for controlling a camera based on movement of a user detected by another camera. A system may include a first camera capturing images of a user, a display located in the vicinity of the first camera, the display displaying, in real time, video received from a second camera disparately located from the first camera. The system may include one or more processors coupled to the first camera, the second camera and the display, the processor(s) analyzing the images captured by the first camera to determine head and eye movement of the user, determining camera settings for the second camera based on the determined head and/or eye movement of the user, and transmitting the determined camera settings to the second camera.
US09843708B2

This patent application relates to a digital camera field, in particular, to a kind of pull-rod type digital camera. The pull-rod type digital camera includes a shooting assembly and a control assembly. The shooting assembly includes a camera, and the digital camera further includes a telescopic rod. One end of the telescopic rod is arranged movably inside the control assembly, and the other end is rotationally connected with the shooting assembly, through which the shooting assembly can be separated from the control assembly to a certain distance when stretching the telescopic rod, and it is convenient to take a selfie and carry out other operations by rotating the shooting assembly to a proper position.
US09843707B2

A small light-emitting device is provided. A light-emitting device which is less likely to produce a shadow is provided. A structure including a switching circuit for supplying a pulsed constant current and a light-emitting panel supplied with the pulsed constant current has been conceived.
US09843704B2

An arrow includes an arrowhead, a shaft, a nock, and an internal cavity. The internal cavity includes a camera.
US09843702B1

A computer-implemented method for compressing a data set, the method comprising receiving a first data block of the data set, selecting automatically by a compression management module a compression module from a plurality of compression modules to apply to the first data block based on projected compression efficacy or resource utilization, and compressing the first data block with the selected compression module to generate a first compressed data block.
US09843693B2

An image reading apparatus includes a scanner structured to reads an image formed on a medium which is conveyed; a calibration member located opposite to the scanner and structured to reflect irradiation light to be radiated to the medium when reading an image; a first roller arranged in a fixed position and structured to guide a conveying direction of the medium passing between the scanner and the calibration member; and a second roller arranged in a variable position in accordance with the stiffness of the medium and structured to guide the conveying direction of the medium passing between the scanner and the calibration member.
US09843692B2

An image reading apparatus includes a scanner unit including a first image reading portion configured to read an image of a first surface of a document through a first flow-reading glass, an ADF including a second image reading portion disposed on an opposite side of the first image reading portion across a sheet conveyance path and reading an image of a second surface of the document through a second flow-reading glass. The image reading apparatus further includes a gap forming member disposed on either one of the second flow-reading glass and a moving guide unit and abutting with another one of them. The moving guide unit is provided in the scanner unit and is urged by springs to be movable toward the second flow-reading glass.
US09843691B2

An image display device reproducing an image displayed according to operations performed consecutively is provided. The device includes an extraction portion extracting, from the operations, a plurality of times of first operations to scroll through the image, and a position at which an operation is made in a display surface of an object selected from the image through second operation performed after the plurality of times of first operations; and a reproduction portion that reproduces the image in accordance with the operations in such a manner that scrolling through the image is omitted or shortened in accordance with a target operation which is any one of a specific operation and a subsequent first operation among the plurality of times of first operations. The specific operation is to scroll through the image in a manner to move the object from one side to the other side when viewed from the position.
US09843687B2

An example method is provided in one example embodiment and may include receiving a request from a user equipment (UE) to access a wireless access network, wherein the UE is currently accessing one or more other wireless networks; determining by a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) whether a subscriber associated with the UE is authorized to access the wireless access network based, at least in part, on a profile for the subscriber; and communicating one of a wireless access rejection and a wireless access acceptance to the UE based on the determination. In some instances, the determining can include recovering the profile for the subscriber associated with the UE from a Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) using an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) for the subscriber.
US09843665B2

Desktop as an immersive application techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an immersive environment module is configured to provide an immersive shell through which a user may interact with applications of a computing device. The immersive environment module is further configured to provide a desktop shell within the immersive shell to support additional techniques for interaction with the application of the computing device. The desktop shell, for instance, may be configured for accessibility similar to that provided to applications in the immersive shell.
US09843662B2

An electronic device comprising: a memory; a communication unit for exchanging communications with a wearable device and an external device; and at least one processor that is operatively coupled to the memory, configured to: detect an event that is associated with a connection with the external device; identify a function that is associated with the external device in response to the event; and transmit to the wearable device an instruction for executing the function, wherein the instruction is transmitted via the communications unit.
US09843661B2

A mobile electronic device includes a first input unit configured to receive input of information for cancelling a security lock state in which security lock is effective, a second input unit configured to receive input of biological information for cancelling the security lock state, and a controller configured to set a sleeping-time operation control mode corresponding to a sleeping time of a user according to an operation of the user.
US09843660B2

A device has a communication link, a headset, and an electronics module. The headset is connected to the communication link and has a speaker, and a microphone. The electronics module is connected to the communication link and has a housing with an information conveying tag positioned on a surface, a processor communicatively coupled to the headset through the communication link, a battery, and a wireless transceiver communicatively coupled with a remote terminal.
US09843654B2

Systems and methods for communicating packets having a plurality of formats are described herein. In some aspects, a signal (SIG) field in the preamble of a packet may indicate whether an extension field, such as an extension SIG field or SIG-B field, is included in the packet. In another aspect, one or more detectors may be used to auto-detect packets formatted as one of at least two different formats based on a short training field (STF) of a received packet. In some aspects, along training field (LTF) in the preamble of a packet may indicate whether the payload is repetition coded.
US09843642B2

Geo origination data is generated for a geo-tagged media device of a user from measurements performed by sensors. The geo origination data is sent to a server system. At the server system, geo-tagged media content elements are selected based on the geo origination data. Further, based on the selected geo-tagged media content elements and the geo origination data, geo-referenced rendering data to be used for rendering media content from the selected geo-tagged media content elements perceivable to the user of the geo-tagged media device is generated. The geo-referenced rendering data can be streamed to the geo-tagged media device along with media content derived from the geo-tagged media content elements for rendering at the geo-tagged media device.
US09843637B2

A method for controlling the transmission and reception of data among a plurality of devices in a communication system comprises the steps of: enabling a master device as one of the plurality of devices to determine a channel to be assigned to each slave device connected in series thereto; and transferring channel information of each determined slave device to the slave devices.
US09843630B2

Embodiments may include a load balancer configured to, for a given packet received from a remote client, select a host computer of a plurality of host computers according to a load balancing protocol, the selection based on load information updates received from the plurality of host computers. Each load information update may indicate a measure of the respective host computer's capacity to service additional connections with remote clients. The load balancer may provide the given packet to the selected host computer for processing by an application component on the selected host computer, and subsequent to determining that a specific application component on one of the plurality of host computers does not have capacity for additional connections based on the load information updates, continue to send packets for existing connections serviced by the specific application component to the respective host computer without sending packets for new connections to that host computer.
US09843628B2

Autonomous computational processes (“agents”) representing application-specific data items (e.g., representations of real-world entities or events, any-media documents, models, etc.) are provided with application-independent methods and data structures to arrange themselves (according to application specific relationship measures) relative to other such agents even when the agents' ability to sense or communicate with other agents is limited relative to the extent of the overall collection. A continuously executing arrangement decision process executed by each agent modifies the agent's position in the chosen topology (e.g., metric space, graph structure) such that the chosen distance measure between agent positions approximates the relationship structure among the currently available data-items. A separate information exchange process executed by the agents ensures that knowledge about the position and data-item of other agents is made available to the arrangement decision process without requiring high-volume communication.
US09843627B2

An information processing method to be executed by a processor included in an information processing device, the information processing method includes receiving a plurality of requests for constituent elements including a hardware and a software from a plurality of terminal devices; determining, among the plurality of requests, a pair of requests which is different from each other, a similarity of the pair of requests being a level more than a predetermined threshold; selecting terminal devices corresponding the pair of requests; setting a common request including a common element requested by at least two of the selected terminal devices, the common request being different from each of the pair of requests, the common request being different from each of the pair of requests; transmitting the common request and cost information to the selected terminal devices, the cost information being cheaper than each of the pair of requests.
US09843622B2

Disclosed are systems, apparatuses, computer readable media, and methods of using an adaptive (i.e., learning) client-server system to enhance the efficiency of sample submissions, e.g., the submission of samples of malware programs to a server dictionary. The server in such a system may accumulate a dictionary of known programs and/or portions of programs that have been submitted by many different client devices over time, representing all the various programs that they have encountered. If a portion of a particular file submission is already “available” to the server (i.e., it is a portion that the server has already analyzed and stored), it will be excluded from all future sample transmissions. The server will gradually accumulate a rich dictionary of common program portions, thus requesting transmission only of previously unseen portions. Such systems, apparatuses, computer readable media, and methods may therefore be used to reduce transmission times needed for future sample submissions.
US09843620B2

An electronic device configured for electronic communications utilizing virtual dispersive networking includes: a network interface for communicating over a network; an application loaded onto the electronic device programmed to communicate over a network; and virtual dispersive networking software configured to create, for such application, a virtual machine comprising a virtual interface for the network interface of the electronic device; select a network protocol out of a plurality of available network protocols based on current communication requirements of the application; and cause network communications of the application to occur via the virtual network interface of the electronic device using the determined network protocol.
US09843615B2

A client device comprising a transmitter configured to transmit a client identifier and a media presentation description (MPD) request to a content server, and a processor operably coupled to a memory and the transmitter, wherein the memory comprises computer executable instructions stored in a non-transitory computer readable medium such that when executed by the processor causes the processor to receive an MPD file following transmission of the client identifier and the MPD request, wherein the MPD file assigns a base segment to at least two variant segments, transmit a segment request to the content server following receipt of the MPD file, and receive the base segment and one of the at least two variant segments from the content server following transmission of the segment request, wherein the one of the at least two variant segments corresponds to the client identifier.
US09843612B2

A system and method for supporting a multi-participant voice conference call using PSTN and Internet networks is described. The method for supporting a multi-participant voice conference call includes receiving voice from a PSTN client. The method also includes receiving voice data from a moderator and from at least one remote client connected to the Internet. The method then proceeds to mix the voice data from the PSTN client with the voice data from the moderator into a first mixed voice data that is transmitted to the remote client that is connected to the Internet. The method also mixes the voice data from the moderator with the voice data from the remote client connected to the Internet into a second mixed voice data that is transmitted to the PSTN client.
US09843611B2

An approach is provided in which a public protection system sends a data collection request to user devices located within a geographical proximity of an incident in progress that instructs the user devices to capture real-time data corresponding to the incident in progress. The public protection system receives the real-time data from the user devices and determines that a set of the real-time data includes evidence data corresponding to the incident in progress.
US09843610B2

Techniques described herein may be used to provide wearable devices (e.g., a watch, a clip on device, etc.) for children with virtual friend and social networking services. A virtual friend may include an animal, a cartoon character, or another personality with which the child may interact by talking, asking questions, receiving status updates, etc. Social networking services may be provided so that the child may interact with other children in a social networking environment. The virtual friend and social networking services may be controlled and managed by a parent's smart phone or other handheld device. A parent may place limits on when the virtual friend is available and/or when the child may access the social network. The parent may also have other controls, such as who the child can connect with and contact in the social networking environment.
US09843602B2

A login page of an online service is received in a user computer. False credentials, such as a false user identifier (ID) and a false password, are entered into the login page to login to the online service. The login page is classified as phishing when the online service does not serve a legitimate login-fail page in response to the entry of the false credentials in the login page.
US09843601B2

A computer-implemented method for detecting anomalies in DNS requests comprises receiving a plurality of DNS requests generated within a predetermined period. The predetermined period includes a plurality of DNS data fragments. The method further includes receiving a first DNS request and selecting a plurality of second DNS requests from the plurality of DNS requests such that each of the second DNS requests is a subset of the first DNS request. The method also includes calculating a count value for each of the DNS data fragments, where each of the count values represents a number of instances the second DNS requests appear within one of the DNS data fragments. In some embodiments, the count values for each of the DNS data fragments can be normalized. The method further includes determining an anomaly trend, for example, based on determining that at least one of the count values exceeds a predetermined threshold value.
US09843596B1

Detection of abnormalities in multi-dimensional data is performed by processing the multi-dimensional data to obtain a reduced dimension embedding matrix, using the reduced dimension embedding matrix to form a lower dimension (of at least 2D) embedded space, applying an out-of-sample extension procedure in the embedded space to compute coordinates of a newly arrived data point and using the computed coordinates of the newly arrived data point and Euclidean distances to determine whether the newly arrived data point is normal or abnormal.
US09843584B2

Systems, methods, and computer program products to perform an operation comprising receiving digital content associated with an account identifier, parsing the digital content and extracting a set of attributes from the digital content, receiving via a network connection, from each of a plurality of online identity services, a set of identities matching at least one attribute of the set of attributes, intersecting the sets of identities to create a set of candidate identities, computing a score for each identity in the set of candidate identities, wherein each score reflects a likelihood that the respective candidate identity is associated with the account identifier; and returning a ranked list of the scored candidate identities and an indication of at least one item of evidence linking the respective candidate identity to the account identifier.
US09843580B2

A method for mutual authentication in an RFID system comprising an RFID reader and an RFID tag, the method comprising requesting an identification from the tag, receiving the identification, using the received identification to select a password associated with the identification, generating a password key based on the selected password, encrypting the selected password using the password key, and transmitting the encrypted password to the tag.
US09843579B2

A plurality of beacons that do not include any service set identifiers may be broadcast from an access point. A request concerning association with the access point may be sent wirelessly from a user device and received at the access point. A unique service set identifier (SSID) for the requesting user device may be generated, and information regarding the unique SSID may be transmitted to the requesting user device. A subsequent association request from the requesting user device may include the unique SSID.
US09843575B2

Embodiments of the present application provide a wireless network authentication method and wireless network authentication apparatuses, and relate to the field of network security technologies. The method comprises: generating a to-be-verified address according to history access information related to a target access point (AP), wherein the to-be-verified address is used to identify an identity of a client device; and sending an authentication request comprising the to-be-verified address to the target AP. By using the method and the apparatuses in the embodiments of the present application, a client device generates a to-be-verified address by using history access information, and an AP identifies and verifies a real identity of a corresponding client device according to the history access information, so as to provide a network service for a history access device, such that a history access client device can also obtain fast network access in the case of not knowing an access password.
US09843569B2

A method and apparatus are provided for access credential provisioning. A method may include receiving, at a first mobile apparatus, information about a second mobile apparatus. The first mobile apparatus may be provisioned with network access credential information to be transferred from the first mobile apparatus to the second mobile apparatus. The method may further include causing the information about the second mobile apparatus to be provided to a provisioning apparatus for the network. The method may additionally include receiving authorization form the provisioning apparatus to transfer the network access credential information from the first mobile apparatus to the second mobile apparatus. The method may also include, in response to receipt of the authorization, causing the network access credential information to be provided to the second mobile apparatus. A corresponding apparatus is also provided.
US09843566B2

A method of securing communications between a security device and a security server include receiving, at the security server, a registration request from the security device, the registration request being encrypted using an initial registration key. A device identifier and rotation key unique to the security device are transmitted to the security device. A first session key request is received at the security server from the security device, the request being encrypted using the rotation key. A first session key is transmitted to the security device in response. One or more communications, encrypted using the first session key, is received at the security server from the security device. A second session key request is received at the security server from the security device after the first session key has expired, the request encrypted using the rotation key. A second session key is transmitted to the security device in response.
US09843546B2

Some users (also called sharers) desire to share content with recipients (also called recipients) over a virtual community or other computerized means. Some of the content to be shared (first-order content) may include links, hyperlinks, or other references (links) to additional content (each individually a second-order content). These content layers may continue indefinitely and the content layers may contain links both within and without the domain or virtual community of the first-order content. A sharer may be unaware of whether various recipients have access to any of the various layers of content (first-order or otherwise). Embodiments of the present invention transmit the likelihood for individual recipients to access various layers of content to the sharer.
US09843544B2

A user is writing an email or other message. The message is inspected for a predetermined word and for at least one of: a predetermined phrase or a template match. A score is generated if the predetermined phrase or the template match is detected. A suggestion is provided to a user that the message may need an attachment if the predetermined word is detected or if the score is greater than a predetermined score. The inspection may begin when the user begins creating the message, indicates that the message should be sent, or at some point in between. The user may provide feedback that the suggestion is accepted or that the suggestion is rejected.
US09843543B2

This disclosure relates generally to apparatuses, methods, and computer readable media for composing communications for computing devices across multiple formats and multiple protocols. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, this disclosure relates to apparatuses, methods, and computer readable media to permit computing devices, e.g., smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the like, to send encrypted or unencrypted group communications in a number of pre-determined and/or ‘determined-on-the-fly’ communications formats and/or protocols. Correlation of messages comprising secure group communications across multi-format multi-protocol may be determined by tracking message groups and mapping aliases across protocols. The techniques disclosed herein allow communications systems to become ‘message-centric’ or ‘people-centric’ as opposed to ‘protocol-centric,’ eventually allowing consideration of message protocol and security mechanisms to fall away entirely for the sender of the communication.
US09843540B2

Some embodiments provide a queue management system that efficiently and dynamically manages multiple queues that process traffic to and from multiple virtual machines (VMs) executing on a host. This system manages the queues by (1) breaking up the queues into different priority pools with the higher priority pools reserved for particular types of traffic or VM (e.g., traffic for VMs that need low latency), (2) dynamically adjusting the number of queues in each pool (i.e., dynamically adjusting the size of the pools), (3) dynamically reassigning a VM to a new queue based on one or more optimization criteria (e.g., criteria relating to the underutilization or overutilization of the queue).
US09843536B2

Various embodiments are directed to techniques for dynamically adjusting a maximum rate of throughput for accessing data stored within a volume of storage space of a storage cluster system based on the amount of that data that is stored within that volume. An apparatus includes an access component to monitor an amount of client device data stored within a volume defined within a storage device coupled to a first node, and to perform a data access command received from a client device via a network to alter the client device data stored within the volume; and a policy component to limit a rate of throughput at which at least the client device data within the volume is exchanged as part of performance of the data access command to a maximum rate of throughput, and to calculate the maximum rate of throughput based on the stored amount.
US09843533B2

Described are computer-based methods and apparatuses, including computer program products, for leveraging available compute resources from a plurality of computing devices using containers. Each computing device from the plurality of computing devices executes a container that virtualizes a portion of an operating system executing on the computing device such that the container can execute one or more secondary applications in isolation from any incumbent applications being executed by the operating system on the computing device that have priority over the one or more secondary applications.
US09843527B2

An apparatus and a method are provided for transmitting data in an electronic device. A method for processing data in an electronic device includes in network connection, determining whether to send a packet of a first Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) value that is preset, a destination node, responsive to the packet of the first preset MTU value not being transmitted to the destination node, measuring an optimal MTU value in an Internet Protocol (IP) layer or an application layer, and changing the first preset MTU to the measured optimal MTU value.
US09843520B1

In a network with at least a first device already configured to provide a network service to a network application, scaling service capacity includes: configuring one or more second devices to provide the network service to the network application. In embodiments where an upstream network device supports Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing, the upstream network device is configured, including storing a plurality of paths to reach an address associated with a network application, wherein the plurality of paths are equal in cost. In embodiments where the upstream network device does not support ECMP routing, the second device is configured not to respond to an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the network application, and the first device is instructed to perform load balancing on network traffic destined for the network application among the first device and the one or more second devices.
US09843512B2

A system and method can provide a data service in a network environment. A subnet administrator can receive a path record resolution request from a source node, wherein the source node uses the path record resolution request to obtain an address of a destination node. Furthermore, the subnet administrator can provide an address of an intermediate node to the source node, wherein the intermediate node provides the data service. Then, the source node can send one or more data packets in a data flow to the intermediate node based on the address of the intermediate node.
US09843510B2

The present invention relates to a method for selecting a label switched path LSP, which is applied in an MPLS network and includes: determining an energy engineering parameter of a network element itself in the network, where the network element is a network element on any candidate LSP between a source network element and a destination network element; receiving, by the network element, Interior Gateway Protocol IGP messages sent by other network elements in the network, and obtaining an energy engineering parameter of each of the other network elements; and selecting, according to the energy engineering parameter of the network element itself and the energy engineering parameter of each of the other network elements, a transmission path for the source network element and the destination network element.
US09843508B2

Techniques are described for reusing downstream-assigned labels when establishing a new instance of a label switched path (LSP) prior to tearing down an existing instance of the LSP using make-before-break (MBB) procedures for RSVP. The techniques enable a routing engine of any non-ingress router along a path of the new LSP instance to reuse a previously allocated label for the existing LSP instance as the downstream assigned label for the new LSP instance when the paths of the existing LSP instance and the new LSP instance overlap. In this way, the non-ingress router does not need to update a label route in its forwarding plane for the reused label. When the new LSP instance completely overlaps the existing LSP instance, an ingress router of the LSP may avoid updating an ingress route in its forwarding plane for applications that use the LSP.
US09843504B2

A method for controlling a data flow in a domain of an OpenFlow protocol controlled software-defined network (SDN) comprising receiving a request from a network element for instructions to route the data flow through the OpenFlow SDN, determining a route for the data flow through the OpenFlow SDN, transmitting a unified header to the network element in the OpenFlow SDN, wherein the unified header facilitates transmission of data flows through the OpenFlow SDN that are encoded according to a plurality of network abstraction types, and transmitting instructions for forwarding the data flow along the route through the OpenFlow SDN, wherein the instructions for forwarding the data flow along the route through the OpenFlow SDN comprise one or more match fields, one or more mask values corresponding to the match fields, and one or more actions for the network element in the OpenFlow SDN to perform on the data flow.
US09843500B2

A system (and method) includes at least one traffic server to receive traffic information reports transmitted from vehicles located on a traffic network serviced by the at least one traffic server. The traffic network is segmented into a plurality of predefined links, each predefined link associated with a priority level, a reporting latency, and an identification code. An onboard unit in a vehicle transmits traffic information reports to the at least one traffic server. The onboard unit is configured: to determine a current location of the vehicle; based on the current location, to determine on which of a link of the predefined links in the traffic network the vehicle is currently located; to determine a link identification code that corresponds to the link on which the vehicle is currently located; and to generate a traffic data packet to be potentially transmitted by the onboard unit to the at least one traffic server. The determined link identification code serves as indicia of location in the traffic data packet.
US09843499B2

A scalable distributed server system and method to maintain the system, wherein the system comprises a top virtual layer that includes a fixed or variable number of virtual buckets, wherein a virtual bucket maps an input to a routing bucket in one or more middle routing layers; and a bottom server layer that includes a variable number of servers that each include a database that stores data and an application that recalls data from and stores data into the database, wherein the one or more middle routing layers comprise a variable number of routing buckets that route input received from a virtual bucket in the top virtual layer to a server contained within the bottom server layer.
US09843496B2

A communication system includes: a control apparatus configured to set control information, which causes each control target switch to distinguish a link layer discovery protocol packet of a first network from a link layer discovery protocol packet of a second network different from the first network and to perform corresponding predetermined processing, in each control target switch; a group of switches each of which is configured to transmit a link layer discovery protocol packet of the first network to a predetermined topology management apparatus in accordance with control information set by the control apparatus; and a topology management apparatus configured to manage a network topology configured by the group of switches on the basis of information included in a link layer discovery protocol packet of the first network received from each of the switches.
US09843492B2

Methods and systems are disclosed which can perform cable characterization at link-up and during in-service monitoring to provide the best data throughput. In some embodiments a plurality of frequency tones may be sent across a cable to a remote system. A plurality of return loss values associated with sending the plurality of frequency tones may then be measured and stored. Next, a crosstalk value across the cable may be computed. A quality value for the cable may then be determined based on at least the plurality of return loss values and the crosstalk value.
US09843489B2

A system for synchronous media rendering over wireless networks with wireless performance monitoring, comprising a media source device and a plurality of destination devices, a quality analysis module operating on at least one of the devices to monitor the media being streamed and direct the operation of a synchronization module, and a synchronization module operating on at least one of the devices to direct the rendering of media data based on received event data and to transmit event data to at least a portion of the destination devices, and a method for common event-based multidevice media synchronization and quality analysis.
US09843485B2

Monitoring a network is provided. A set of predicted network topology snapshot graphs of nodes in the network are generated based on a set of network topology prediction models for the network. A subset of the nodes is selected as monitors in the set of predicted network topology snapshot graphs of the network so that each link in a set of selected network links is identifiable using end-to-end measurements between the monitors. Network states of interest are determined in the set of selected network links within a selected time window based on the end-to-end measurements between the monitors.
US09843481B2

Systems and methods for configuring network devices are provided. According to some aspects, a computing device may receive status information regarding network usage by a network device. The computing device may receive an identifier of the network device. A determination may be made to alter a first communication ability of the network device based on the status information. For example, a communication protocol or communication port may have one or more aspects altered. In response, the computing device may select an updated communication parameter based on the status information and/or the identifier of the network device. The updated communication parameter may be selected based on compatibility with the network device. The updated communication parameter may be transmitted to the network device. The updated communication parameter may cause alteration of the first communication ability while leaving unchanged a second communication ability.
US09843473B2

Described herein are systems and methods for determining IP backhaul issues in a femtocell network. A fault analysis tool retrieves log files from various components within the femtocell network and, using programmed logic, parses the log files and determines whether it is likely that an issue exists with the IP backhaul that prevents the femtocell network from communicating with the network of a wireless carrier. Additional automated tools are able to identify issues within the femtocell network and send instructions to one or more components in the femtocell network to correct the issues.
US09843472B1

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for identification of common root causes with sequential patterns. In use, a plurality of customer event sequences are identified. Additionally, the plurality of customer event sequences are grouped into a hierarchical framework of patterns. Further, a root-cause analysis (RCA) is performed for the customer event sequences utilizing the hierarchical framework of patterns.
US09843457B2

In at least one embodiment, a radio access network (RAN) device maintains a proxy mapping table (PMT) of any mobile radios that are currently registered with the RAN via a mobile subscriber unit (MSU). The PMT indicates, for each mobile radio listed in the PMT, the particular MSU via which that particular mobile radio is registered with the RAN. The RAN device receives a first service request for a first mobile radio that is listed in the PMT as being registered with the RAN via a first MSU and, in response to receiving the first service request, makes a determination that an air-interface link is available for communication between the RAN and the first MSU. In response to making the determination, the RAN device communicates the first service request via the available air-interface link to the first MSU for delivery to the first mobile radio.
US09843455B2

This disclosure describes a conferencing system with spatial rendering of audio data. The conferencing system includes a local conferencing device that includes a plurality of microphones, an audio encoder, and a spatial encoder that are associated with a local endpoint. The conferencing system further includes a remote conferencing device that includes a plurality of speakers, an audio decoder, and a spatial renderer that are associated with the remote endpoint. The spatial renderer is configured to superimpose a coordinate system for the plurality of speakers and a coordinate system for the plurality of microphones during spatial rendering of the audio data.
US09843446B2

Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for rotating security keys for an online synchronized content management system client. A client having a first security key as an active security key may send a request to a server for a new security key as a replacement for the first security key. The server may receive the request and generate a candidate security key. The server can issue the candidate security key to the client device. After receiving the candidate security key, the client may send a key receipt confirmation message to the server. In response to the confirmation message, the server may mark the candidate key as the new security key for the client and discard the client's old security key. The server may send an acknowledgment message to the client device. In response, the client may also mark the candidate key as its new active key.
US09843441B2

Embodiments of an invention for a compact, low power Advanced Encryption Standard circuit are disclosed. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes an encryption unit having a substitution box and an accumulator. The substitution box is to perform a substitution operation on one byte per clock cycle. The accumulator is to accumulate four bytes and perform a mix-column operation in four clock cycles. The encryption unit is implemented using optimum Galois Field polynomial arithmetic for minimum area.
US09843427B2

A base station that communicates with a plurality of user terminals in a mobile communication system in which a radio signal including a reference signal for estimating a channel characteristic is transmitted and received, comprises: a control unit that changes a reference signal density that is a density of the reference signal applied to communication with the plurality of user terminals. The control unit calculates a statistics amount of communication quality information acquired for all the plurality of user terminals, and changes the reference signal density on the basis of the statistics amount.
US09843424B2

Aspects of mitigating throughput degradation during wireless communication include determining that a first transmission signal fails decoding at a network entity due to transmit (TX) blanking when a user equipment (UE) supports dual subscriber identity module dual active (DSDA) and is operating in hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy; determining whether a first retransmission signal for the first transmission signal fails decoding at the network entity; and retransmitting the first transmission signal as a new transmission signal when a determination is made that the first retransmission signal for the first transmission signal fails decoding at the network entity.
US09843415B2

Provided is a terminal apparatus including an estimation unit that estimates a channel to a base station by using a reference signal transmitted from the base station, a selection unit that selects a transmission weight desirable for down-link transmission on the channel from a plurality of transmission weight candidates in accordance with an estimation result by the estimation unit, and a feedback controller that controls feedback of the transmission weight selected by the selection unit to the base station. When the selection unit selects two transmission weights or more, the feedback controller feeds back the selected two transmission weights or more to the base station.
US09843411B2

Wireless node selects modulation coding schemes (MCS) and number of spatial streams for transmitting data to devices via a MU-MIMO transmission based on the total number of spatial streams. In one implementation, a wireless node selects first MCS, first number of spatial stream(s) for a first device, and total number of spatial streams to be used in the MU-MIMO transmission so as to maximize the data rate to the first device, then selects a second MCS and a second number of spatial stream(s) for a second device based on the selected total number of spatial streams. In another implementation, the wireless node toggles the first selection of the MCS and spatial stream(s) between the first and second devices for fairness purposes. In another implementation, a wireless selects the MCS and the spatial streams for the receiving nodes so as to maximize the aggregate data rate for the MU-MIMO transmission.
US09843389B2

There is provided an optical medium reproduction device that optically reproduces an optical medium in which a plurality of tracks are provided, the optical medium reproduction device including: a detection unit configured to divide a cross-section of a beam returning from the optical medium into at least one channel corresponding to an outer region in a radial direction, at least one channel corresponding to a region that is different in position in a tangential direction, and a channel corresponding to the other region, and form detection signals of the channels; a multi-input equalizer unit including a plurality of equalizer units to which the detection signals of the plurality of channels are supplied, respectively, the multi-input equalizer unit being configured to calculate outputs of the plurality of equalizer units and output the outputs as an equalized signal in a manner that a phase difference between two of the regions is set to be a predetermined phase difference; and a binarization unit configured to perform a binarization process on the equalized signal to obtain binary data.
US09843384B2

A processor receives data associated with a device. On the basis of the data associated with the device, the processor modulates a light from the artificial light source at a rate imperceptible to a human eye while detectable by a light sensor device. The modulated light is representative of the data associated with the device. The modulated light is detected, demodulated, and decoded by the light sensor device to retrieve the data associated with the device. Further, the data associated with the device is presented by the light sensor device to a user. In addition, the light sensor device is configured to receive input data from the user and communicate the input data to the processor via a wireless link. The processor is configured to receive the input data from the light sensor device and effect a change in a characteristic of the device based on the received input data.
US09843382B2

Systems, methods, and devices for high-efficiency wireless frequency division multiplexing are provided. A method includes exchanging, at an access point, at least one frame reserving a wireless medium with at least one of a first and second wireless device. The method further includes receiving a first communication on a first set of wireless frequencies from the first wireless device. The method further includes receiving a second communication, at least partially concurrent with the first communication, on a second set of wireless frequencies from the second wireless device. The method further includes transmitting at least one acknowledgment of the first and second communication. The first set and the second set are mutually exclusive subsets of a set of wireless frequencies available for use by both the first and second wireless device.
US09843373B2

A method and apparatus for measuring and reporting a rank and/or a precoding matrix for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication are disclosed. A metric indicating a channel condition is measured and a rank is selected based on the metric. The metric may be a signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR), throughput, a block error rate (BLER), system capacity, a sum rate, or the like. An SINR for each radio block group (RBG) for each rank is calculated. A data rate is calculated for each RBG based on the SINR for each rank. An overall rate for all RBGs is calculated for each rank. At least one rank is selected based on the overall rate. At least one precoding matrix may be selected jointly with or separately from the at least one rank.
US09843370B2

The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for determining a precoding matrix indicator, user equipment, and a base station. The method includes: determining a precoding matrix indicator PMI, where the PMI corresponds to a precoding matrix W, and the precoding matrix W satisfies a first condition, a second condition, or a third condition; and sending the PMI to a base station. Embodiments of the present invention further provide a corresponding apparatus, and the corresponding user equipment and base station. Technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present invention can effectively control a beam, especially a beam shape and a beam orientation, in a horizontal direction and a perpendicular direction.
US09843366B1

Embodiments disclose a method for transmitting a 4-antenna precoding matrix, a user equipment, and a base station. The method includes determining a rank used for indicating the number of transmission layers, determining a first precoding matrix in a codebook set corresponding to the rank, determining a first PMI and a second PMI used for indicating the first precoding matrix, and sending the first PMI and the second PMI used for indicating the first precoding matrix to a base station.
US09843359B2

A portable electronic device (110) with a NFC (near field communication) unit (114) is switchable between an active mode and a passive mode. A motion sensor unit (112) records a motion of the portable electronic device (110), and outputs a motion signal descriptive for the recorded motion. A processing unit (111) analysis the motion signal to detect a first predefined motion pattern including an acceleration and a deceleration phase. The NFC unit (114) is switched into the active mode upon detection of a first predefined motion pattern descriptive for an NFC touch gesture.
US09843334B2

A phase locked loop frequency synthesizer is arranged to provide a target frequency output signal for a radio transmitter or receiver. The synthesizer comprises: a voltage controlled oscillator (2) operating at a first frequency; a first, fixed frequency divider to provide a second frequency, a pre-scaler to provide a variable frequency division of said second frequency to produce a third frequency, said pre-scaler comprising: a second frequency divider (14) connected to said first output (12) and providing a second output at a second frequency; and a phase detector (4) controlling said voltage controlled oscillator (2) on the basis of a comparison between a reference signal and a signal dependent on said third frequency; wherein the synthesizer is configured so that said first output (10, 12) provides said target frequency output signal.
US09843332B1

Systems and methods are provided for distributing clocks or other signals on an integrated circuit. In some aspects, one or more distributed deskewing objects are provisioned for reducing or eliminating skew while linking multiple clock distribution segments into one clock tree of an arbitrary shape and size.
US09843324B1

A voltage-mode transmitter includes a calibration circuit having a replica circuit. By adjusting a feedback voltage driving a gate of a replica transistor in the replica circuit so that an impedance of the replica circuit matches an impedance of a variable resistor, the calibration circuit calibrates an output impedance of a single slice driver.
US09843321B2

A drive circuit includes an input, a driver, a first buffer, a second buffer, a first capacitance element, and a second capacitance element. The driver includes a first PMOS transistor and a first NMOS transistor coupled in series between a supply terminal and a reference terminal. The first buffer is coupled between the input and a control terminal of the first PMOS transistor. The second buffer is coupled between the input and a control terminal of the first NMOS transistor. The first capacitance element is coupled to the control terminal of the first PMOS transistor through a first semiconductor switch. The second capacitance element is coupled to the control terminal of the first NMOS transistor through a second semiconductor switch.
US09843316B2

An integrated circuit may be provided. The integrated circuit may include a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter outputs first transmission data to a first channel and outputs second transmission data to a second channel. The phase of the first transmission data transmitted through the first channel is different from a phase of the second transmission data transmitted through the second channel.
US09843315B2

An integrated circuit includes a delay circuit and first and second interface circuits. The delay circuit delays a first timing signal by an internal delay to generate an internal timing signal. The first interface circuit communicates data to an external device in response to the internal timing signal. The second interface circuit transmits an external timing signal for capturing the data in the external device. An external delay is added to the external timing signal in the external device to generate a delayed external timing signal. The delay circuit sets the internal delay based on a comparison between the delayed external timing signal and a calibration signal transmitted by the first interface circuit.
US09843312B2

A technique relates to operating a multimode Josephson parametric converter as a multimode quantum limited amplifier. The multimode Josephson parametric converter receives multiple quantum signals in parallel at different resonance frequencies. The multimode Josephson parametric converter amplifies simultaneously the multiple quantum signals, according to pump signals applied to the multimode Josephson parametric converter. The multiple quantum signals having been amplified at the different resonance frequencies are reflected, according to the pump signals.
US09843300B2

An impedance matching circuit is disclosed. The impedance matching circuit adapted to an antenna includes a signal feed-in line, a phase delay line and a synthesized transmission line. The signal feed-in line receives an input signal from a wireless transceiver circuit. The phase delay line is electrically coupled between the antenna and the signal feed-in line, and delivers the input signal from the wireless transceiver circuit to the antenna. A first terminal of the synthesized transmission is electrically coupled to the signal feed-in line and the phase delay line. A second terminal of the synthesized transmission is configured to be opened. Based on the antenna operates in a first transmission medium or a second transmission medium, the input signal is transmitted to the antenna through different patterns selectively.
US09843294B2

Envelope tracking power converter circuitry is configured to receive a supply voltage, an envelope control signal, and an average power tracking control signal and simultaneously provide an envelope tracking power supply signal for amplifying a first radio frequency (RF) input signal based on the envelope control signal and an average power tracking power supply signal for amplifying a second RF input signal based on the average power tracking control signal.
US09843292B2

A direct current (DC) bias maintenance circuit operably couples to the input of a primary amplifier. The DC bias maintenance circuit employs feedback to maintain the desired DC bias but lacks any coupling to the output of the primary amplifier. By one approach the DC bias maintenance circuit includes a secondary amplifier that replicates at least some near real-time performance characteristics of the primary amplifier. For example, the secondary amplifier can replicate at least certain DC properties of the primary amplifier such that DC-based changes appearing at the output of the primary amplifier are mirrored at an output of the secondary amplifier notwithstanding a lack of any coupling between the output of the primary amplifier and the DC bias maintenance circuit.
US09843291B2

An apparatus includes a first plurality of low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and a cascaded switch configured to route outputs of the first plurality of LNAs to a second plurality of LNAs.
US09843286B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for a dynamic solar tile network. In one aspect, a method includes designating a first solar tile in a set of solar tiles as a control tile. Selecting a subset of solar tiles in the set of solar tiles as controlled tiles that are each controlled by the control tile to form a solar tile network that includes the control tile and the controlled tiles. Receiving, at the control tile, status information from each of the controlled tiles. Determining, by the control tile, an operational state for each of the controlled tiles based on the status information. Transmitting, by the control tile, operation instructions to the controlled tiles that cause each controlled tile to switch to the operational state determined by the control tile.
US09843282B2

Provided is a motor control apparatus for vehicles. The motor control apparatus may generate a current reference value based on a level of a field current (or a field current value) flowing in a field coil and may control a vehicle motor by using the current reference value, thereby improving torque response characteristic and maximum efficiency.
US09843275B2

A generator includes a first member, a second member and a sliding mechanism. The first member includes a first electrode and a first dielectric layer affixed to the first electrode. The first dielectric layer includes a first material that has a first rating on a triboelectric series. The second member includes a second material that has a second rating on the triboelectric series that is different from the first rating. The second member includes a second electrode. The second member is disposed adjacent to the first dielectric layer so that the first dielectric layer is disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode. The sliding mechanism is configured to cause relative movement between the first member and the second member, thereby generating an electric potential imbalance between the first electrode and the second electrode.
US09843271B1

The present invention relates to methods and corresponding apparatus for regulated and efficient DC-to-AC conversion with high power quality, and to methods and corresponding apparatus for regulation and control of said DC-to-AC conversion. The invention further relates to methods and corresponding apparatus for regulation and control of AC-to-DC and/or DC-to-DC conversion.
US09843267B2

In a converter unit system, converter units are connected in parallel. The converter unit includes a converter circuit connected to an AC power supply and a DC bus, a first inrush-current suppression resistor connected to the DC bus, a first contactor connected in parallel to the first inrush-current suppression resistor, a smoothing capacitor provided after the first inrush-current suppression resistor and the first contactor, a second contactor externally outputting ON/OFF signal, a voltage detection unit measuring a DC voltage value across the smoothing capacitor, and a control unit controlling the first contactor and the second contactor. The converter unit system includes a third contactor connected to the converter units, and a second inrush-current suppression resistor connected in parallel to the third contactor. When contacts of the second contactors are all closed, a contact of the third contactor is closed.
US09843265B2

A zero voltage switching method for a flyback converter featuring a transformer with first and second primary windings and corresponding turns ratios, N1 and N2, includes rectifying and filtering an AC signal to produce a primary DC voltage. A voltage level signal indicating whether the primary DC voltage falls within a particular voltage range is generated. The voltage level signal is used to select a particular primary winding from either the first primary winding or the second primary winding. A PWM controller corresponding to the particular primary winding is activated and an output of the particular PWM controller performs zero voltage switching of a gate terminal of the applicable main switching transistor. A duty cycle of the main switching transistor is maintained within a range of approximately 50% to approximately 60% in accordance with the turns ratio and the primary DC voltage to achieve a desired output voltage.
US09843264B2

A controller of a power converter includes a sample-and-hold unit and an adjustment unit, wherein the power converter is applied to a Universal Serial Bus power delivery adapter system. The sample-and-hold unit is used for sampling a voltage to generate a sampling voltage during each period of a gate control signal, wherein the sampling voltage corresponds to an output voltage of the power converter. The adjustment unit is coupled to the sample-and-hold unit for adjusting at least one of a frequency of the gate control signal, a current flowing through a primary side of the power converter, and a resistance of a compensation resistor of the controller according to the sampling voltage.
US09843263B2

System and method for driving a bipolar junction transistor for a power converter. The system includes a current generator configured to output a drive current signal to a bipolar junction transistor to adjust a primary current flowing through a primary winding of a power converter. The current generator is further configured to output the drive current signal to turn on the bipolar junction transistor during a first time period, a second time period, and a third time period, the second time period separating the first time period from the third time period, drive the bipolar junction transistor to operate in a hard-saturation region during the first time period and the second time period, and drive the bipolar junction transistor to operate in a quasi-saturation region during the third time period.
US09843261B2

At least one monitor circuit monitors a temperature of at least one monitored element of switching elements of a power conversion circuit. At least one arrival determination circuit determines that a temperature of at least one non-monitored element of the switching elements has increased and reached a passing temperature. Based on the temperature of the monitored element and arrival determination signals, a temperature estimating unit obtains a temperature difference by subtracting a current temperature of the monitored and non-monitored element at the arrival determination time from an output limitation temperature set for each of the monitored and non-monitored element, and estimates a limitation subject temperature of the monitored or non-monitored element having a smallest temperature difference among the temperature differences. An output limiting unit starts output limitation of the power conversion circuit when the limitation subject temperature reaches the output limitation temperature of the monitored element or the non-monitored element.
US09843258B2

A buck voltage converter is disclosed. The buck voltage generator includes a controller configured to generate one or more pulse width modulation (PWM) signals, and a plurality of serially connected switches configured to receive the PWM signals and to generate an output voltage signal at an output terminal based on the received PWM signals. The output voltage signal has an average voltage corresponding with a duty cycle of the PWM signals, a first switch of the plurality of serially connected switches has a first breakdown voltage and a second switch of the plurality of serially connected switches has a second breakdown voltage, and the first breakdown voltage is less than the second breakdown voltage.
US09843256B2

An internal voltage generation circuit includes a comparison block suitable for generating a comparison signal by comparing an internal voltage with a reference voltage; and an internal voltage generation circuit suitable for controlling an amount of an internal current in response to a bias voltage corresponding to an operation current of the comparison block, and generating the internal voltage corresponding to the internal current in response to the comparison signal.
US09843252B1

A multi-phase power controller is adapted for operating N power channels and is coupled to M drivers and an external system. The M drivers respectively have an enabling pin, and the multi-phase power controller includes a power state pin and M control pins. The power state pin is coupled to the enabling pin of each of the M drivers and the external system. The M control pins are coupled to the M drivers. In a power start period of the multi-phase power controller, the number of the power channels operated by the multi-phase power controller is less than N. After the power start period, the multi-phase power controller enables the M drivers through the power state pin and notifies the external system that a power start procedure has been completed through the power state pin.
US09843247B2

This rotating electric machine has a rotor, stator core, field windings for multiple poles, and armature windings for the multiple poles. The rotor is rotatably supported about a shaft. Convex-shaped multiple salient pole sections are formed on the outer circumference of the rotor while arranged in the circumferential direction. The stator core is provided along the outer circumference of the rotor with an air gap from the rotor. Convex-shaped multiple teeth are formed on the inner circumference of the stator core while arranged in the circumferential direction. The field windings for the multiple poles are wound around each of the multiple teeth while insulated from the field windings.
US09843241B2

A motor according to an embodiment includes a motor body, a rotating body, and a magnetic field sensor. The motor body rotates a shaft about the axis line thereof. The rotating body includes a permanent magnet and rotates along with the rotation of the shaft. The magnetic field sensor includes a magnet body having a large Barkhausen effect with the long direction thereof serving as the easy magnetization direction and is positioned to face the permanent magnet when the rotational position of the rotating body is at a given rotational position. The easy magnetization direction of the magnetic body is in a direction along a plane orthogonal to the rotation center line of the rotating body.
US09843239B2

The present invention provides a farm animal-operated conveyor and generator apparatus and a method for powering thereof, wherein the apparatus comprises a generator, a generator drive belt, a drive roller, a conveyor belt, a drive drum, a central bearing post, a drive gear, electromagnetic yokes, an intermediate gear, a pinion gear, a beveled gear, conveyor chassis, and a secondary intermediate gear. The electromagnetic yoke automatically collars a farm animal, which in turn rotates the drive gear and drives the conveyer belt and the generator. The movement of the farm animal powers the conveyer belt for transporting farm products, and drives the generator to generate electricity.
US09843238B2

An adapter is used to couple a prime mover body to a housing of a generator. The adapter has openings that allow an armature of the generator to be attached to the flywheel of the prime mover. The adapter provides a torque coupling between the prime mover and the generator so that the attachments of the prime mover and generator to the skid, as well as the skid itself, can be reduced in size and weight because they no longer need to oppose the prime mover-generator torque load. A thickness of the adapter and a pattern of the openings in the body of the adapter are selected to move any natural resonance frequencies of the adapter outside an operating frequency of the prime mover.
US09843237B2

An electromechanical flywheel machine includes a flywheel mass enclosed in an evacuable housing.
US09843228B2

A wireless power system for powering a television includes a source resonator, configured to generate an oscillating magnetic field, and at least one television component attached to at least one device resonator, wherein the at least one device resonator is configured to wirelessly receive power from the source resonator via the oscillating magnetic field when the distance between the source resonator and the at least one device resonator is more than 5 cm, and wherein at least one television component draws at least 10 Watts of power.
US09843227B2

A power supply device according to an embodiment comprises a plurality of power sources 10 each including an antenna and an AC/DC conversion unit, a plurality of consolidating units 13_1 to 13_i, and a power supply unit 15. The consolidating units 13_1 to 13_i respectively include consolidating circuits 14_1 to 14_i that selectively consolidate a plurality of DC signals 21_1 to 21_n supplied by the plurality of power sources 10. The power supply unit 15 includes a consolidating circuit 16 that selectively consolidates the DC signals 21_1 to 21_i output from the plurality of consolidating units 13_1 to 13_i, and a voltage conversion circuit 17 that converts a DC signal 23 resulting from consolidation in the consolidating circuit 16, to a predetermined voltage.
US09843223B1

A system for controlling the area circuits that stem from a circuit breaker box in a building. A switch activation unit is provided and is wired to the outgoing wires of a circuit breaker box. The switch activation unit contains a switch for each of the area circuits to be controlled. The switches are wired in series between the circuit breakers in the circuit breaker box and the area circuits. A control unit communicates with the switch activation unit and selectively controls the on/off state of its switches. The control unit is programmable and can activate and deactivate different area circuits at different preprogrammed times. The control unit can also be operated remotely using a link to a smart device.
US09843222B2

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system for preventing charging of batteries is provided. The system includes a UPS configured to supply power from a grid to a load, a battery unit configured to be charged with the power supplied from the UPS, and a controller configured to selectively supply the power from the grid to the UPS and selectively connect or disconnect a charging path between the UPS and the battery unit.
US09843220B2

An internal charging system controls charging of a battery used to power an electronic device when an external power source is connected to the device. The internal charging system can charge a battery that has a higher operating voltage than the voltage provided by the external power source. While charging the battery from the external power source, an internal charge controller can operate and inhibit functions of the device to indicate to user that a charging operation is commencing, and to prevent operation of the device when the battery voltage is too low to support such operation.
US09843212B2

A power regulation control circuit is implemented as part of a power converter. The power regulation control circuit is implemented during two modes, a sleep mode and a wake-up mode. During the sleep mode, the power regulation control circuit detects a no-load presence and artificially increases the output voltage Vout to its maximum allowable value. This can be accomplished by pulling up an output of an error amplifier that feeds a PWM module. During the wake-up mode while the power converter wakes up from the sleep mode under maximum load, the output voltage Vout sinks from the artificially higher voltage, but still stays above a minimum operational voltage level. A slew rate compensation can be implemented to control a rate at which the output voltage drops when a load is applied. The artificially high output voltage during no-load condition and the slew rate compensation provide open loop voltage adjustment.
US09843209B2

According to one embodiment, a storage system includes storage devices configured to execute communication by using an identifier, a converter configured to convert the identifier of the storage devices, a controller configured to execute communication with the storage devices via the converter by using the identifier converted by the converter, convert a DC power output from the storage devices into a DC power of a predetermined magnitude and output the DC power, and charge the storage devices with the DC power of the predetermined magnitude, an AC/DC converter configured to convert the DC power output from the controller into an AC power, convert an AC power supplied from a distribution system into a DC power and supply the DC power to the controller, and a controller configured to control the controller and the AC/DC converter.
US09843208B2

A high power rechargeable flashlight with two-way universal serial bus (USB) capable of recharging electronic devices as well as recharging itself. A bidirectional universal serial bus (USB) adaptor port that can be integrated into a high power rechargeable battery operated flashlight or other rechargeable battery operated device. The invention can utilize a micro-controller to convert a single USB adaptor port into either an input device or an output device. A high power rechargeable flashlight with bidirectional USB adaptor port is capable of recharging external electronic devices, as well as recharging itself through the same port.
US09843194B2

Systems and methods that can be retrofitted into an existing wired electrical system replacing existing switches whether as a standalone single switch or part of a multi-way switch configuration that can be controlled locally nominally by touch, controlled remotely by a remote, or controlled remotely by a computer. The systems and method provide that the switches establish a local network allowing for retrofit or construction of a structure or facility with electrical system automation without the need for additional wiring.
US09843193B2

A photovoltaic power generator with safety shutdown system includes a plurality of solar panel strings, a combiner, and a plurality of solar safety switches electrically disposed between a plurality of DC outputs of the plurality of solar panels strings and a plurality of DC inputs of the combiner. Each solar safety switch is associated with one of the solar panel strings and includes a solid-state device and a close actuator. The solid-state device of each solar safety switch is connected between the positive and negative terminals of the DC output of its associated solar panel string. The close actuator in each solar safety switch controls whether its associated solid-state device is turned on or is turned off. During normal operating conditions, the close actuators prevent their respective solid-state devices from turning on. However, in the event of a fire, the close actuators cause their associated solid-state devices to turn on, thereby effectively short-circuiting the DC outputs of their associated solar panel strings and preventing the solar panel strings from producing high voltages.
US09843185B2

A method of optimizing one or more starting parameters of a solar power generator system and a solar power generator system, wherein the solar power generator system includes a solar panel array and a converter for converting power obtained from the panel array. The method can include measuring an output voltage of the panel array, comparing the output voltage with a starting voltage (Vdc), starting the solar power generator system when the output voltage of the panel array exceeds the starting voltage (Vdc), measuring the obtained power from the solar panel array after a morning start, comparing the obtained power with a known limit value, and changing the one or more starting parameters on the basis of the comparison of power.
US09843181B2

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor portion with a main FET and a control circuit. The main FET includes a gate electrode to control a current flow through a body zone between a source zone and a drift zone. The control circuit receives a local drift zone potential of the main FET cell and outputs an output signal indicating when the local drift zone potential exceeds a preset threshold. The control circuit may turn down or switch off the main FET and/or may output an overcurrent indication signal when the local drift zone potential exceeds the preset threshold.
US09843171B2

A troubleshooting compartment for a motor control center unit, provides electrical access to test control points inside the motor control center unit, without exposing the operator to electrical hazards from the main line-voltage components inside the motor control center unit. The troubleshooting compartment comprises an accessible compartment contained within a motor control center unit, which is separate from a main line-voltage compartment of the motor control center unit, the accessible compartment having an access side to enable operator access to the accessible compartment without need to open the main line-voltage compartment; an accessible compartment door covering the access side of the accessible compartment from a front side of the motor control center unit; and feed-through terminals mounted within the accessible compartment, for test points and pilot devices operating at low, control voltages.
US09843170B2

A front-accessible bus-connection mounting frame assembly in a draw out switchgear cabinet is fastened to the back wall of the breaker cabinet. The frame assembly provides for insertion and bayonet mounting of a primary bus connector's cylindrical conductor onto the mounting frame. The primary bus connector is bayonet mounted on the internal ribs of a central cylinder of the mounting frame assembly. The primary bus connector is then fixed in position by bolts front mounted down the central cylinder and out through a bus riser fitted at the back of the mounting frame assembly to establish electrical continuity. The central cylinder further provides a current transformer bushing tube around the primary bus connector and necessary flanges to mount the mounting frame assembly to the back wall and secure the current transformers around the bushing.
US09843169B2

Bipolar ionizer circuit includes a high voltage AC voltage generator having a high potential output and a low potential output, the high potential output being capacitively coupled to respective high potential inputs of a pair of mutually opposite polarity voltage multipliers and the low potential output being capacitively coupled via an auxiliary capacitor to respective low potential inputs of the voltage multipliers. Outputs of the voltage multipliers are connected to respective ionizing electrodes, and an external ion imbalance indicator is connected in parallel to the auxiliary capacitor, which is thereby able to provide automatic balance of the ion current.
US09843159B2

A tunable source includes a short-cavity laser optimized for performance and reliability in SSOCT imaging systems, spectroscopic detection systems, and other types of detection and sensing systems. The short cavity laser has a large free spectral range cavity, fast tuning response and single transverse, longitudinal and polarization mode operation, and includes embodiments for fast and wide tuning, and optimized spectral shaping. Disclosed are both electrical and optical pumping in a MEMS-VCSEL geometry with mirror and gain regions optimized for wide tuning, high output power, and a variety of preferred wavelength ranges; and a semiconductor optical amplifier, combined with the short-cavity laser to produce high-power, spectrally shaped operation. Several preferred imaging and detection systems make use of this tunable source for optimized operation are also disclosed.
US09843142B2

Connector receptacles that have good signal integrity, are reduced in size, are reliable and durable, and are easy to assemble. One example may provide a connector receptacle having several ground connections to improve signal integrity and quality.
US09843133B2

Connector inserts having latches, bayonets, or similar structures as retention features. The connector inserts may include these bayonets on one or more sides or other portions of the connector insert. The bayonets may be located inside of a connector insert while the connector insert is being inserted into a receptacle, thereby reducing wear and marring of the receptacle. The bayonets may extend out of a connector insert when the connector insert is inserted into the connector receptacle and may engage corresponding retention features in the connector receptacle, thereby reducing the chances of an inadvertent disconnection. When the bayonets are located inside the connector insert, the connector insert may be in a first state, while when the bayonets are extended, the connector insert may be in a second state. The connector insert may retain state in either the first or second state in the absence of a user applied force.
US09843132B2

The present invention relates to an electrical connector system comprising a contact terminal, a connector housing defining an aperture that receives the contact terminal therein, and a cable strain relief member separate from the connector housing. The cable strain relief member comprises a fastening feature for fastening the strain relief member to a cable for strain relief, and an integrated locking feature for locking the strain relief member to a corresponding counter connector.
US09843118B1

The lever member includes a rotation fulcrum point portion which is attached to a rotation shaft of a terminal storage body to be rotatable, a lever operation portion which is a force point portion during a lever operation, a fitting operation point portion which performs a fitting operation while sliding a counterpart target guide portion to apply a force between the target guide portion and the fitting operation point portion along with a rotation operation about the rotation fulcrum point portion as a rotation center in response to the rotation operation of the lever operation portion, and a target fixation portion which is fastened to a target fixation portion of a terminal storage body and a counterpart fixation portion after the fitting is completed.
US09843114B2

An adapter bracket, which screws onto an existing neutral bar in a load center, having legs inserted through the holes in the neutral bar or screwed into the top of the neutral bar. The adapter bracket is configured to accept downward-facing or sideways-facing plug-on neutral mounting clips of a plug-on neutral circuit breaker. The bracket has a support portion extending along a Z-axis perpendicular to a rear wall of the load center. The downward-facing clips can be plugged onto the support portion. Sideways-facing clips are received onto tabs that are bent away from the support portion of the bracket and feature chamfered ends and a relatively small aspect ratio relative to the length of the mounting clip. The other holes in the existing neutral bar remain unobstructed so that a conventional neutral conductor can be inserted through the free holes while the adapter bracket accommodates plug-on neutral mounting clips.
US09843113B1

Various crimpless electrical connector assemblies are disclosed. The crimpless connector can include a crimpless contact configured to join two electrical conductors. A portion of the crimpless contact can be received in an outer housing that comprises a tapered lumen. The crimpless contact can be coupled to an activation unit, such as with a threaded connection. Rotation of the activation unit can cause the crimpless contact to translate within the outer housing and the tines to be compressed against the first conductor, thereby physically securing the first conductor in the crimpless connector.
US09843109B2

An antenna device includes a plurality of antenna elements respectively configured to receive incident waves coming from an object, a modulating unit respectively configured to modulates a first received signal of the incident waves output from the antenna elements into a second received signal, the second received signals having a plurality of different frequencies and phases corresponding to polarization directions of the received incident waves, a synthesizing unit configured to synthesize the plurality of second received signals and generates a synthetic signal, a signal processing unit, configured to perform predetermined signal processing on the synthetic signal, and an extracting unit configured to extract third received signals for each frequency and each phase from the synthetic signal on which has been performed the predetermined signal processing.
US09843104B2

Disclosed is a shaped horn in conjunction with a dielectric tube for enhanced aperture directivity that can achieve a near optimum efficiency. The shaped horn provides additional mode control to provide an improved off-axis cross-polarization response. The horn shape can be individually optimized for isolated horns or for horns in a feed array. The feed array environment can produce results that lead to a different optimized shape than the isolated horn. Lower off axis cross-polarization can result in improved efficiency and susceptibility to interference.
US09843102B2

Described herein are shorted bowtie patch antennas. The shorted bowtie patch antenna includes parasitic shorted patches. Signals are received by the shorted bowtie patch antenna. The received signals are propagated to a receiver. Signals sent from a transmitter are transmitted by the shorted bowtie patch antenna. Current is induced in the parasitic shorted patches during receiving and transmitting of signals.
US09843101B2

Antenna system for a georadar, comprising two plate like antenna devices, where said two antenna devices comprise at least one sender antenna (1) and at least one receiver antenna (2), respectively, as the antennas (1,2) in each antenna device comprise monopoles formed by applying to metal surfaces an electrically insulating plate base (3) located on the underside of a layer of radar absorbing material (4), where the top side of the material layer is covered by a metallic ground plane (5). The antenna device is also arranged to lay against the ground (10). A layer of radar absorbent material (4) is arranged on the top side of the ground planes (5), and the ground planes (5) are not connected electrically to each other.
US09843098B2

An array antenna including two interleaved array antennas, capable of being operated independently at a first frequency, or together, at a second frequency. Each of the two array antennas is composed of alternating elements of an antenna array, and the two arrays are interleaved. Each of the interleaved arrays may be operated independently, e.g., in the X band, or the arrays may be driven together, as a single array with more densely spaced elements, e.g., in the Ku band.
US09843092B2

A mobile device includes a metal cavity, a dielectric substrate, and a feeding element. A slot is formed on a side wall of the metal cavity. The dielectric substrate is disposed in the metal cavity. The feeding element is disposed on the dielectric substrate, and is electrically connected to a signal source. A slot antenna structure is formed by the metal cavity, the dielectric substrate, and the feeding element.
US09843091B2

An electronic device may have wireless circuitry with antennas. An antenna resonating element arm for an antenna may be formed from peripheral conductive structures running along the edges of a device housing that are separated from a round by an elongated opening. The electronic device may have a central longitudinal axis that divides the antenna resonating element arm and other antenna structures into symmetrical halves that exhibit mirror symmetry with respect to the central longitudinal axis. The antenna structures may include symmetrical slot antenna resonating elements on opposing sides of the central longitudinal axis. Electrical components such as switches and antenna tuning inductors may be coupled to the antenna structures in a configuration that is symmetrical with respect to the central longitudinal axis. The electrical components may be used to place the antenna structures in an unflipped configuration or in a symmetrical flipped configuration.
US09843089B2

A portable antenna for wireless communication, the portable antenna comprising: an electromagnetically reflective material; a first mechanical structure supporting preferred shape of the electromagnetically reflective material when in deployed position; a second mechanical structure attached to at least one point on the preferred shape and adjustable to hold a mobile wireless communication device at a preferred position relative to the preferred shape, is claimed. Additionally disclosed is a system comprising the portable antenna wherein the second mechanical structure is adapted to hold a feed instead of a mobile device and a cover for a mobile wireless communication device, comprising a signal coupling mechanism, and a signal routing means, and wherein the a signal routing means is coupled to the feed.
US09843081B2

A lithium air battery includes: a lithium negative electrode; a positive electrode; and an ion conductive oxygen-blocking film which is disposed on the lithium negative electrode, wherein the ion conductive oxygen-blocking film includes a first polymer including a polyvinyl alcohol or a polyvinyl alcohol blend, and a lithium salt, and wherein the ion conductive oxygen-blocking film has an oxygen transmission rate of about 10 milliliters per square meter per day to about 10,000 milliliters per square meter per day. Also a method of manufacturing a lithium air battery is disclosed.
US09843078B2

A thermally managed electrical energy storage device enclosure includes a monocoque body formed from a plastic material using a single batch process and at least one void defined by a circumferential inner wall of the monocoque body. The void is adapted to receive at least one electrical energy storage device with a compression interference fit between an entire outer circumferential surface of the electrical energy storage device and the circumferential inner wall. The circumferential inner wall exerts a uniform radial force on the electrical energy storage device received therein.
US09843077B2

A method for processing a fluorine-containing electrolyte solution including a gasification step of gasifying a volatile component of an electrolyte solution including a fluorine compound by heating the electrolyte solution under reduced pressure, a fluorine immobilization step of immobilizing the fluorine component included in the gasified gas as calcium fluoride by allowing the fluorine component to react with calcium, and an organic solvent component collection step of collecting an organic solvent component included in the gasification gas, in which, preferably, after a small amount of water, aqueous mineral acid solution, or the like is added to the electrolyte solution, the volatile component of the electrolyte solution is gasified by heating the electrolyte solution under reduced pressure.
US09843073B2

A gel electrolyte and a separator are provided between the positive electrode current collector and the negative electrode current collector. The plurality of positive electrode current collectors and the plurality of negative electrode current collectors are stacked such that surfaces of negative electrodes with which active material layers are not coated or surfaces of positive electrodes with which active material layers are not coated are in contact with each other.
US09843072B2

A main object of the present invention is to provide a secondary battery whose performance can be improved. The secondary battery includes a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte layer arranged between the cathode and the anode, wherein the electrolyte layer includes a cathode side electrolyte layer arranged on a cathode side and an anode side electrolyte layer arranged between the cathode side electrolyte layer and the anode, the cathode side electrolyte layer includes an electrolyte and a binder including a fluorine-based copolymer including tetrafluoroethylene, and the anode side electrolyte layer includes a butadiene-rubber-based binder and an electrolyte.
US09843068B2

A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a positive electrode having a positive electrode active material layer provided on a positive electrode collector, a negative electrode having a negative electrode active material layer provided on a negative electrode collector, and a nonaqueous electrolyte. The nonaqueous electrolyte contains at least one member selected from the group consisting of sulfone compounds represented by the following formulae (1) and (2); and an inorganic phosphorus compound represented by the following formula (3) exists on the surface of a positive electrode active material: R1 represents CmH2m-n1Xn2; X represents a halogen; m represents an integer of from 2 to 7; each of n1 and n2 independently represents an integer of from 0 to 2m; R2 represents CjH2j-k1Zk2; Z represents a halogen; j represents an integer of from 2 to 7; each of k1 and k2 independently represents an integer of from 0 to 2j; each of R3, R4 and R5 independently represents H or OH; and a is 0 or 1.
US09843062B2

A reformer assembly includes a vortex tube receiving heated fuel mixed with steam. A catalyst coats the inner wall of the main tube of the vortex tube and a hydrogen-permeable tube is positioned in the middle of the main tube coaxially with the main tube. With this structure the vortex tube outputs primarily Hydrogen from one end and Carbon-based constituents from the other end. In some embodiments a second vortex tube receives the Carbon output of the first vortex tube to establish a water gas shift reactor, producing Hydrogen from the Carbon output of the first vortex tube.
US09843053B2

An example fuel cell stack component includes a metallic layer applied to the component and an oxide layer applied to the metallic layer. The oxide layer includes a chemical component that is not in the metallic layer.
US09843047B1

The present invention provides a battery electrode comprising an active battery material enclosed in the pores of a conductive nanoporous scaffold. The pores in the scaffold constrain the dimensions for the active battery material and inhibit sintering, which results in better cycling stability, longer battery lifetime, and greater power through less agglomeration. Additionally, the scaffold forms electrically conducting pathways to the active battery nanoparticles that are dispersed. In some variations, a battery electrode of the invention includes an electrically conductive scaffold material with pores having at least one length dimension selected from about 0.5 nm to about 100 nm, and an oxide material contained within the pores, wherein the oxide material is electrochemically active.
US09843032B2

Provided is a battery module in which at least one battery cell including an electrode tab including an anode tab and a cathode tab is stacked, including: a sensing assembly installed in a space between the anode tab and the cathode tab at a side of the battery module at which the electrode tab is positioned; and a terminal installed at the side of the battery module at which the electrode tab is positioned and connected to each of the electrode tabs of the battery cells positioned at the outermost portions, wherein the terminal is bonded and connected to a surface positioned at an inner side of the battery module in both sides of the anode tab and the cathode tab.
US09843026B2

An external defibrillator comprising: a unit for providing electrical stimulation of a patient; a battery module that includes: a battery housing; a plurality of battery banks within the housing, each of the battery banks being electrically isolated from each of the other battery banks within the housing and having a total lithium content of less than an amount requiring special handling procedures during transportation and storage; and a plurality of pairs of electrical contacts external to the housing, each of the pairs of electrical contacts being configured to provide an electrical connection to an associated battery bank; and a connector unit external to the battery housing that includes: a plurality of pairs of electrical contacts configured to mate with the plurality of pairs of electrical contacts of the battery module; and circuitry electrically connecting the plurality of pairs of electrical contacts of the connector unit to provide a single voltage output to the unit for providing electrical stimulation.
US09843025B2

A secondary battery having no beading portion includes an electrode assembly having a cathode plate and an anode plate arranged with a separator being interposed therebetween, a battery case having an upper can configured to accommodate the electrode assembly and an electrolytic solution in an inner space thereof and have an open top and an open bottom, the top of the upper can being bent inwards, and a lower sealing member coupled to the bottom of the upper can to seal the bottom of the upper can, and a cap assembly having a top cap protruding on an uppermost portion thereof to form a cathode terminal, a safety vent located below the top cap and configured to change a shape when an inner pressure of the battery case increases, and a gasket surrounding rims of the top cap and the safety vent.
US09843023B2

A display device including a substrate, a display unit on the substrate and including a display element for displaying an image, at least one organic encapsulation film formed on the display unit, and at least one refractive-index control encapsulation film adjacent to the at least one organic encapsulation film. A refractive index of a region of the at least one refractive-index control encapsulation film closer to the at least one organic encapsulation film is closer to a refractive index of the at least one organic encapsulation film than is a refractive index of a region of the at least one refractive-index control encapsulation film further from the at least one organic encapsulation film.
US09843022B2

An organic light emitting device has a substrate, an organic light emitting element disposed on the substrate, and a sealing layer sealing the organic light emitting element by covering the organic light emitting element. The sealing layer is a multilayer body in which a first sealing layer mainly containing an inorganic material, a buffer layer mainly containing a resin material, and a second sealing layer mainly containing silicon oxynitride are successively stacked from a side of the organic light emitting element. The first sealing layer has a heavy hydrogen diffusion coefficient of 1.0×10−21 m2/sec or more at 85° C. in a heavy hydrogen atmosphere.
US09843015B2

A light-emitting device having the quality of an image high in homogeneity is provided. A printed wiring board (second substrate) (107) is provided facing a substrate (first substrate) (101) that has a luminous element (102) formed thereon. A PWB side wiring (second group of wirings) (110) on the printed wiring board (107) is electrically connected to element side wirings (first group of wirings) (103, 104) by anisotropic conductive films (105a, 105b). At this point, because a low resistant copper foil is used to form the PWB side wiring (110), a voltage drop of the element side wirings (103, 104) and a delay of a signal can be reduced. Accordingly, the homogeneity of the quality of an image is improved, and the operating speed of a driver circuit portion is enhanced.
US09843010B2

Organic EL elements are configured so that at least a hole injection layer and a light-emitting layer are laminated between a first electrode and a second electrode, and a bank defines an area in which the light-emitting layer is to be formed. An inner portion of the hole injection layer is depressed to define a recess. An upper peripheral edge of the recess is covered with a part of the bank.
US09843008B2

There is constituted an organic electroluminescent element, including: an anode; a cathode; and a light-emitting layer sandwiched between the anode and the cathode, wherein at least two kinds or more of light-emitting dopants each of which exhibits an emission spectrum having a peak in a region of a wavelength of 580 nm or more are contained in the light-emitting layer.
US09843001B2

There is provided a compound having Formula II In Formula II: R1 and R3 are the same of different and can be alkyl, branched alkyl, cyclic alkyl, silyl, aryl, deuterated alkyl, deuterated branched alkyl, deuterated cyclic alkyl, deuterated silyl, and deuterated aryl; R2 is the same or different at each occurrence and can be D, alkyl, branched alkyl, cyclic alkyl, silyl, aryl, deuterated alkyl, deuterated branched alkyl, deuterated cyclic alkyl, deuterated silyl, and deuterated aryl; R4 can be H or D; and a is an integer from 0-5.
US09842991B2

A configuration for a carbon nanotube (CNT) based memory device can include multiple CNT elements in order to increase memory cell yield by reducing the times when a memory cell gets stuck at a high state or a low state.
US09842972B2

A radiation-emitting semiconductor component includes a semiconductor body having an active layer which emits electromagnetic radiation of a first wavelength λ1 in a main radiation direction, and having a luminescence conversion layer, which converts at least part of the emitted radiation into radiation of a second wavelength λ2, which is greater than the first wavelength λ1.
US09842970B2

A light emitting device has; a light emitting element, a light reflecting member that is disposed so as to cover the lateral surfaces of the light emitting element and expose a top surface of the light emitting element, a frame that is disposed on the light reflecting member so as to surround an outer periphery of the top surface of the light emitting element, a light transmissive member that is disposed inside the frame, and a sealing member that covers the light reflecting member, the frame and the light transmissive member, and that has a flange covering part of the frame.
US09842967B2

Provided is a nitride semiconductor light emitting element in which deep-level light emission is suppressed, monochromaticity is improved, and light is emitted in a high-efficiency manner. A nitride semiconductor light emitting element having a light-emitting layer between an n-type nitride semiconductor layer and a p-type nitride semiconductor layer, wherein the n-type nitride semiconductor layer contains AlnGa1-nN (0
US09842965B2

Epitaxial growth methods and devices are described that include a textured surface on a substrate in a liquid crystal device. Geometry of the textured surface provides a organization of a liquid crystal media.
US09842963B2

A GaN-based LED epitaxial structure comprises a non-doped GaN buffer layer, an undoped GaN layer, an N-type GaN layer, an InGaN/GaN superlattice quantum well structure, a multiple quantum well luminous layer structure, an AlGaN layer, a low-temperature P-type layer, a P-type electron blocking layer and a P-type GaN layer which are sequentially stacked, wherein the non-doped GaN buffer layer comprises a sandwich structure consisting of a GaN layer, an AlGaN layer and a GaN layer which are sequentially stacked. For the GaN-based LED epitaxial structure and the preparation method thereof, the non-doped GaN buffer layer with the sandwich structure consisting of the GaN layer, the AlGaN layer and the GaN layer is used as a buffer layer, the buffer layer changes light scattering directions by using materials with different refractive indexes and thus the luminous efficiency can be improved.
US09842950B2

Disclosed are a solar cell module apparatus and a method of fabricating the same. The solar cell module apparatus includes a light absorbing layer, and a reflector provided on a light incident surface of the light absorbing layer to reflect a light, which has been reflected from the light absorbing layer, toward the light absorbing layer.
US09842941B2

A transistor having high field-effect mobility is provided. A transistor having stable electrical characteristics is provided. A transistor having low off-state current (current in an off state) is provided. Alternatively, a semiconductor device including the transistor is provided. The semiconductor device includes a first insulating film, an oxide semiconductor film over the first insulating film, a second insulating film over the oxide semiconductor film, and a conductive film overlapping with the oxide semiconductor film with the first insulating film or the second insulating film provided between the oxide semiconductor film and the conductive film. The composition of the oxide semiconductor film changes continuously between the first insulating film and the second insulating film.
US09842922B2

A transistor includes a III-N layer structure comprising a III-N channel layer between a III-N barrier layer and a p-type III-N layer. The transistor further includes a source, a drain, and a gate between the source and the drain, the gate being over the III-N layer structure. The p-type III-N layer includes a first portion that is at least partially in a device access region between the gate and the drain, and the first portion of the p-type III-N layer is electrically connected to the source and electrically isolated from the drain. When the transistor is biased in the off state, the p-type layer can cause channel charge in the device access region to deplete as the drain voltage increases, thereby leading to higher breakdown voltages.
US09842915B2

An array substrate for a liquid crystal display device includes a substrate; a semiconductor layer on the substrate; a gate electrode on the semiconductor layer; source and drain electrodes that are on and contact the semiconductor layer; and an oxide layer that corresponds to the semiconductor layer and is on the gate electrode.
US09842913B1

Aspects of the present disclosure include fabricating integrated circuit (IC) structures using a boron etch-stop layer, and IC structures with a boron-rich region therein. Methods of forming an IC structure according to the present disclosure can include: growing a conductive epitaxial layer on an upper surface of a semiconductor element; forming a boron etch-stop layer directly on an upper surface of the conductive epitaxial layer; forming an insulator on the boron etch-stop layer; forming an opening within the insulator to expose an upper surface of the boron etch-stop layer; annealing the boron etch-stop layer to drive boron into the conductive epitaxial layer, such that the boron etch-stop layer becomes a boron-rich region; and forming a contact to the boron-rich region within the opening, such that the contact is electrically connected to the semiconductor element through at least the conductive epitaxial layer.
US09842910B2

In a method, a gate structure is formed over a substrate, and source/drain (S/D) features are formed in the substrate and interposed by the gate structure. At least one of the S/D features is formed by forming a first semiconductor material including physically discontinuous portions, forming a second semiconductor material over the first semiconductor material, and forming a third semiconductor material over the second semiconductor material. The second semiconductor material has a composition different from a composition of the first semiconductor material. The third semiconductor material has a composition different from the composition of the second semiconductor material.
US09842907B2

An alternating stack of insulating layers and sacrificial material layers can be formed over a substrate. Memory stack structures and a backside trench are formed through the alternating stack. Backside recesses are formed by removing the sacrificial material layers from the backside trench selective to the insulating layers. A cobalt-semiconductor alloy portion is formed in each backside recess by reacting cobalt and a semiconductor material. Conductive material in the backside trench can be removed by an etch to electrically isolate cobalt-containing alloy portions located in different backside recesses. Electrically conductive layers including a respective cobalt-semiconductor alloy portion can be employed as word lines of a three-dimensional memory device.
US09842904B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes forming a first trench in a semiconductor substrate from a first side, forming a semiconductor layer adjoining the semiconductor substrate at the first side, the semiconductor layer capping the first trench at the first side, and forming a contact at a second side of the semiconductor substrate opposite to the first side.
US09842898B2

A method of growing an epitaxial layer on a substrate is generally provided. According to the method, the substrate is heated in a chemical vapor deposition chamber to a growth temperature in the presence of a carbon source gas, then the epitaxial layer is grown on the substrate at the growth temperature, and finally the substrate is cooled in a chemical vapor deposition chamber to at least about 80% of the growth temperature in the presence of a carbon source gas. Substrates formed from this method can have a carrier lifetime between about 0.25 μs and about 9.9 μs.
US09842895B2

An integrated circuit contains a thin film resistor in which a body of the thin film resistor is disposed over a lower dielectric layer in a system of interconnects in the integrated circuit. Heads of the thin film resistor are disposed over electrodes which are interconnect elements in the lower dielectric layer, which provide electrical connections to a bottom surface of the thin film resistor. Top surfaces of the electrodes are substantially coplanar with a top surface of the lower dielectric layer. A top surface of the thin film resistor is free of electrical connections. An upper dielectric layer is disposed over the thin film resistor.
US09842883B2

A flexible array substrate structure and manufacturing method thereof are disclosed, in which the patterning process of an organic semi-conductive layer is achieved by using the inside wall of the opening of a color film layer as a bank, so that one mask can be saved. Also, a process for manufacturing a device can be simplified by an improved device structure, so that the flexible array substrate structure of the invention can be obtained by only using four masks.
US09842882B1

A semiconductor memory includes first to third lines, the second line crossing the first and third lines between the first line and the third line, a first memory element overlapping an intersection region of the first and second lines between the first line and the second line, the first memory element including a first memory layer, a first electrode under the first memory layer, and a second electrode over the first memory layer, and a second memory element overlapping an intersection region of the second and third lines between the second line and the third line, the second memory element including a second memory layer, a third electrode under the second memory layer, and a fourth electrode over the second memory layer. An electrical resistance relation of the third and fourth electrodes is controlled according to an electrical resistance relation of electrical resistances of the first and second electrodes.
US09842873B2

A variable optical filter is disclosed including a bandpass filter and a blocking filter. The bandpass filter includes a stack of alternating first and second layers, and the blocking filter includes a stack of alternating third and fourth layers. The first, second and fourth materials each comprise different materials, so that a refractive index of the first material is smaller than a refractive index of the second material, which is smaller than a refractive index of the fourth material; while an absorption coefficient of the second material is smaller than an absorption coefficient of the fourth material. The materials can be selected to ensure high index contrast in the blocking filter and low optical losses in the bandpass filter. The first to fourth layers can be deposited directly on a photodetector array.
US09842857B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor structure includes forming a stack of alternating layers comprising insulating layers and spacer material layers over a semiconductor substrate, forming a memory opening through the stack, forming an aluminum oxide layer having a horizontal portion at a bottom of the memory opening and a vertical portion at least over a sidewall of the memory opening, where the horizontal portion differs from the vertical portion by at least one of structure or composition, and selectively etching the horizontal portion selective to the vertical portion.
US09842846B2

In a semiconductor substrate, a memory cell region in which a flash memory cell is formed is defined by an element isolation region. A floating gate electrode of the flash memory cell includes a protruding portion protruding toward an erase gate electrode so as to flare from a portion located immediately below a control gate electrode. Protruding portion includes an end face of a height corresponding to a thickness, and an inclined surface continuous with end face. Protruding portion faces erase gate electrode with a tunnel oxide film interposed therebetween.
US09842836B2

A diode according to the present invention includes a semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type having an impurity concentration of 1×1016 cm−3 to 2.4×1017 cm−3, a Zener diode region of a second conductivity type formed selectively in the semiconductor layer and forming a pn junction with the semiconductor layer, a Schottky metal disposed on the semiconductor layer, forming a Schottky junction with the semiconductor layer, and having a work function of 3 eV to 6 eV, and a JBS (junction barrier Schottky) structure including a plurality of second conductivity type regions formed selectively in the Schottky junction region of the semiconductor layer.
US09842834B2

A horizontal current bipolar transistor comprises a substrate of first conductivity type, defining a wafer plane parallel to said substrate; a collector drift region above said substrate, having a second, opposite conductivity type, forming a first metallurgical pn-junction with said substrate; a collector contact region having second conductivity type above said substrate and adjacent to said collector drift region; a base region comprising a sidewall at an acute angle to said wafer plane, having first conductivity type, and forming a second metallurgical pn-junction with said collector drift region; and a buried region having first conductivity type between said substrate and said collector drift region forming a third metallurgical pn-junction with the collector drift region. An intercept between an isometric projection of said base region on said wafer plane and an isometric projection of said buried region on said wafer plane is smaller than said isometric projection of said base region.
US09842824B2

A component mounting apparatus crimps a component to a transparent substrate. The component is mounted on the transparent substrate through a photo-modifiable resin portion. The component mounting apparatus includes a receiving portion that receives a surface of the substrate by an upper surface of a transparent member, a pressing portion that presses the component against the substrate, an emission portion that emits light to the photo-modifiable resin portion through the transparent member, and a control portion that controls a timing when the pressing portion starts pressing of the component and a timing when the emission portion starts emission of the light so that the emission of the light is started a predetermined differential time earlier or later than the start of the pressing of the component.
US09842822B2

A semiconductor package may include a first substrate and a second substrate. Socket bumps may be disposed on the first substrate to provide insertion grooves within the socket bumps. Plug bumps may be disposed on the second substrate. The plug bumps may be configured for insertion into the insertion grooves of the socket bumps and may electrically connect to the socket bumps. Related memory cards and electronic systems may also be provided.
US09842812B2

Embodiments herein provide for a self-destructing chip including at least a first die and a second die. The first die includes an electronic circuit, and the second die is composed of one or more polymers that disintegrates at a first temperature. The second die defines a plurality of chambers, wherein a first subset of the chambers contain a material that reacts with oxygen in an exothermic manner. A second subset of the chambers contain an etchant to etch materials of the first die. In response to a trigger event, the electronic circuit is configured to expose the material in the first subset of chambers to oxygen in order to heat the second die to at least the first temperature, and is configured to release the etchant from the second subset of the chambers to etch the first die.
US09842810B1

Structure and method for reducing thermal-mechanical stresses generated for a semiconductor device are provided, which includes a tiled-stress-alleviating pad structure.
US09842805B2

Techniques for forming Cu interconnects in a dielectric are provided. In one aspect, a method of forming a Cu interconnect structure includes: forming at least one trench in a dielectric; depositing a metal liner into the trench; depositing a Mn-containing seed layer on the metal liner within the trench; annealing the Mn-containing seed layer under conditions sufficient to diffuse Mn from the Mn-containing seed layer to an interface between the dielectric and the metal liner forming a barrier layer between the dielectric and the metal liner; and depositing Cu into the trench to form the Cu interconnect, wherein the Cu is deposited into the trench after the annealing is performed. The metal liner may optionally be reflowed such that it is thicker at a bottom of the trench than along sidewalls of the trench. A Cu interconnect structure is also provided.
US09842803B2

Semiconductor devices are provided. A semiconductor device includes gaps between conductive patterns. Moreover, the semiconductor device includes a permeable layer on the conductive patterns. Methods of fabricating semiconductor devices are also provided.
US09842802B2

One feature pertains to an integrated circuit that includes an antifuse having a conductor-insulator-conductor structure. The antifuse includes a first conductor plate, a dielectric layer, and a second conductor plate, where the dielectric layer is interposed between the first and second conductor plates. The antifuse transitions from an open circuit state to a closed circuit state if a programming voltage Vpp greater than or equal to a dielectric breakdown voltage VBD of the antifuse is applied to the first conductor plate and the second conductor plate. The first conductor plate has a total edge length that is greater than two times the sum of its maximum width and maximum length dimensions. The first conductor plate's top surface area may also be less than the product of its maximum length and maximum width.
US09842800B2

Methods of forming conductive interconnect structures are described. Those methods/structures may include providing a package substrate comprising a substrate core, and forming at least one conductive interconnect structure disposed on the substrate core. The conductive interconnect structure may comprise a first side that is directly disposed on a surface of the substrate core, and a second side opposite the first side, wherein the second side comprises a greater length than a length of the first side.
US09842796B2

An electronic module including a semiconductor unit situated in a plastic housing, an electrically conductive plate system, via which the semiconductor unit may be supplied with electrical power, the electrically conductive plate system being connected in a planar fashion to a heat-generating integrated circuit of the semiconductor unit via a heat coupler; and the electrically conductive plate system being designed in such a way that it dissipates the heat generated by the heat-generating integrated circuit of the semiconductor unit to the plastic housing. A method for manufacturing a corresponding electronic module is also described.
US09842794B2

One or more embodiments are directed to semiconductor packages having an integrated heatsink and methods of forming same. In one embodiment, a package includes a plurality of leads that support and enclose periphery portions of the semiconductor die. The leads have first and second, opposing surfaces that form outer surfaces of the package. The first surface of the leads may form a heatsink and the second surface of the leads form lands of the package for coupling to another device, substrate, or board. The package includes encapsulation material that surrounds the semiconductor die and located between upper portions of the leads. The package further includes a back filling material (or insulating material) that is below the semiconductor die and between lower portions of the leads.
US09842789B2

An electronic component package includes a frame having a cavity, an electronic component disposed in the cavity of the frame, a first metal layer disposed on an inner wall of the cavity of the frame, an encapsulant encapsulating the electronic component, and a redistribution layer disposed below the frame and the electronic component.
US09842781B2

An electrostatic chuck system includes an electrostatic chuck with a plurality of unit chucks supporting a display substrate, an optical photomask on the display substrate, the optical photomask having a material to be transferred onto the display substrate, a light source on the optical photomask, a gap measuring meter for measuring a gap between the display substrate and the optical photomask, a power source unit for applying power to each of the plurality of unit chucks through variable resistance units respectively connected to the plurality of unit chucks, and a control unit electrically connected to the gap measuring meter, the variable resistance units, and the power source unit, and transmits a signal for adjusting the gap.
US09842766B2

A semiconductor device according to an embodiment, includes a plurality of wires, a first dielectric film, and a second dielectric film. The plurality of wires are arranged above a semiconductor substrate so as to extend in a first direction and aligned via a first cavity. The first dielectric film has a plurality of portions arranged above the plurality of wires so as to extend in a second direction substantially perpendicular to the plurality of wires and aligned along the first direction via a second cavity leading to the first cavity. The second dielectric film is formed above the first dielectric film so as to cover the second cavity.
US09842759B2

A support ring for semiconductor processing is provided. The support ring includes a ring shaped body defined by an inner edge and an outer edge. The inner edge and outer edge are concentric about a central axis. The ring shaped body further includes a first side, a second side, and a raised annular shoulder extending from the first side of the ring shaped body at the inner edge. The support ring also includes a coating on the first side. The coating has an inner region of reduced thickness region abutting the raised annular shoulder.
US09842755B2

A system and method for treating a substrate in a reaction chamber. A transfer chamber is arranged between a first lock and a second lock, wherein the second lock is provided between the transfer chamber and the reaction chamber. A substrate is transferred into the transfer chamber through the first lock, and the first lock is closed. In a next step, the transfer chamber is flooded with the same gas as in the reaction chamber and the pressure and temperature of the gaseous atmosphere in the transfer chamber is controlled to be the same as in the reaction chamber. Then, the second lock is opened and the substrate is transferred from the transfer chamber into the reaction chamber to treat the substrate. A computer program product for carrying out the above method.
US09842745B2

Heat spreading substrate with embedded interconnects. In an embodiment in accordance with the present invention, an apparatus includes a metal parallelepiped comprising a plurality of wires inside the metal parallelepiped. The plurality of wires have a different grain structure than the metal parallelepiped. The plurality of wires are electrically isolated from the metal parallelepiped. The plurality of wires may be electrically isolated from one another.
US09842739B2

Sacrificial gate structures having an aspect ratio of greater than 5:1 are formed on a substrate. In some embodiments, each sacrificial gate structure straddles a portion of a semiconductor fin that is present on the substrate. An anchoring element is formed orthogonal to each sacrificial gate structure rendering the sacrificial gate structures mechanically stable. After formation of a planarization dielectric layer, each anchoring element can be removed and thereafter each sacrificial gate structure can be replaced with a functional gate structure.
US09842737B2

Methods for modifying a spacer and/or spaces between spacers to enable a fin cut mask to be dropped between the spacers are provided. A first set of second mandrel structures having a first width is formed on facing sidewall surfaces of a neighboring pair of first mandrel structures and a second set of second mandrel structures having a second width less than the first width are formed on non-facing sidewall surfaces of the neighboring pair of first mandrel structures. Each first mandrel structure is removed and a spacer is formed on a sidewall surface of the first and second sets of second mandrel structures. In the region between the neighboring pair of first mandrel structure, a merged spacer is formed. The first and second sets of second mandrel structures are removed. A portion of an underlying substrate can be patterned utilizing each spacer and the merged spacer as etch masks.
US09842734B2

A method is provided for forming a feature of a target material on a substrate. The method including: forming a feature of a sacrificial material on the substrate; and forming the feature of the target material by a deposition process during which the feature of the sacrificial material is removed from the substrate by forming a volatile reaction product with a precursor of the deposition process, wherein the sacrificial material is replaced by the target material and the target material is selectively deposited on surface portions of the substrate, which portions were covered by the feature of the sacrificial material, to form the feature of the target material.
US09842731B2

Systems and methods are used to analyze a sample using variable mass selection window widths. A tandem mass spectrometer is instructed to perform at least two fragmentation scans of a sample with different mass selection window widths using a processor. The tandem mass spectrometer includes a mass analyzer that allows variable mass selection window widths. The selection of the different mass selection window widths can be based on one or more properties of sample compounds. The properties may include a sample compound molecular weight distribution that is calculated from a molecular weight distribution of expected compounds or is determined from a list of molecular weights for one or more known compounds. The tandem mass spectrometer can also be instructed to perform an analysis of the sample before instructing the tandem mass spectrometer to perform the at least two fragmentation scans of the sample.
US09842729B2

Systems and methods are provided for analyzing a sample using overlapping measured mass selection window widths. A mass range of a sample is divided into two or more target mass selection window widths using a processor. The two or more target widths can have the same width or variable widths. A tandem mass spectrometer is instructed to perform two or more fragmentation scans across the mass range using the processor. Each fragmentation scan of the two or more fragmentation scans includes a measured mass selection window width. The two or more measured widths of the two or more fragmentation scans can have the same width or variable widths. At least two of the two or more measured mass selection window widths overlap. The overlap in measured mass selection window widths corresponds to at least one target mass selection window width.
US09842727B2

A method of automatically performing a routine to check the operational state of a mass spectrometer is disclosed wherein the method is performed automatically as a start-up routine upon switching ON the mass spectrometer. The method comprises automatically generating a vacuum within one or more vacuum chambers of a mass spectrometer and automatically generating first ions using an internal ion source, wherein the internal ion source is located within a vacuum chamber of the mass spectrometer or is located within a chamber downstream from an atmospheric pressure interface, and detecting at least some of the first ions or second ions derived from the first ions. The method further comprises automatically determining whether or not the mass spectrometer is in a correct operational state.
US09842715B2

Electrical switching apparatus and strain relief assemblies therefor are described herein. In one exemplary, non-limiting embodiment, a strain relief assembly includes a cover and a base, each of which include a number of grooves structured to receive a number of wires. Each groove has a first side and a second side, where the second side is located opposite the first side. Furthermore, located on the first side and/or the second side are a number of protrusions. The grooves and the protrusions serve to secure the number of wires within the strain relief assembly such that, if a force is applied to an end of the wire, the protrusions work to retain the wires with the assembly.
US09842709B2

A circuit breaker includes a set of separable contacts moveable between a closed position and an open position, an operating mechanism configured to open the set of contacts, a conductor coupled to the set of contacts, a current transformer coupled to the conductor, and a trip circuit coupled to the operating mechanism and to the current transformer and configured to cause the operating mechanism to open the set of contacts when a current through the conductor exceeds a current threshold that is greater than a saturation threshold of the current transformer. The trip circuit is further configured to vary the current threshold during an interval following a closure of the set of the contacts and to provide a fixed current threshold thereafter.
US09842697B2

A capacitor housing case with output terminal withdrawn forward comprises: a rear plate for forming the placement space which is divided by division portion being projected longitudinally; a top plate which is vertically formed forward from a top of the rear plate; a bottom plate which is formed parallel to the top plate forward from a bottom of the rear plate; a side plate for forming the placement space having a front opening by coupling to both sides of the rear plate, a top plate and a bottom plate; and at least two fixed mount, which is exposed outside parallel to the rear plate, for having a fixation groove penetrating up and down; wherein a capacitor output terminal is extended through the front opening, and epoxy is inserted through the front opening, and the capacitor elements and the first, the second busbar-formed portion are epoxy molded.
US09842696B2

There are provided a composite perovskite powder, a preparation method thereof, and a paste composition for an internal electrode having the same, the composite perovskite powder capable of preventing ions from being eluted from an aqueous system at the time of synthesis while being ultra-atomized, such that when the composite perovskite powder is used as an inhibitor powder for an internal electrode, sintering properties of the internal electrode may be deteriorated, and sintering properties of a dielectric material may be increased; accordingly, connectivity of the internal electrode may be improved, and permittivity and reliability of a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) may be increased.
US09842694B2

A multilayer ceramic electronic component in which an interface of an edge region of an external electrode that extends around to a side surface of a ceramic body and the ceramic of the surface of the ceramic body in contact therewith, there exists glass (a) containing BaO serving as a first alkaline earth oxide and at least one of CaO and SrO serving as a second alkaline earth oxide, (b) having a total content ratio of the first alkaline earth oxide and the second alkaline earth oxide in a range of 30 to 70 mol %, and (c) having an SiO2 content ratio in a range of 15 to 60 mol %. The molar ratio of the first alkaline earth oxide to the second alkaline earth oxide is in a range of 0.1 to 0.5.
US09842687B2

In a first aspect, the disclosure features apparatuses for wireless power transfer, the apparatuses including a coil formed of a conductive material. The coil includes a plurality of loops, where the plurality of loops defines an internal region of the coil that extends along a coil axis. The apparatuses include a magnetic component, where the magnetic component is disposed in the internal region and extends in a first direction parallel to the coil axis and in a second direction perpendicular to the coil axis. A maximum dimension of the magnetic component measured in the second direction varies along the first direction.
US09842686B2

A circuit for transferring wireless electrical energy through a lossy material is described. The circuit comprises a first inductive winding portion connected electrically in series to a second inductive winding portion and at least one capacitor. Interaction of the first or second inductive winding portions with an electromagnetic field emanating from an electrical power source causes electrical energy to be induced within the circuit. The first inductive winding portion is preferably positionable adjacent a first sidewall of a lossy material and the second inductive winding portion is preferably positionable adjacent the second and opposite sidewall of the lossy material. At least one intermediate substrate composed of a ferrite material is preferably positioned between the first and second inductive winding portions as a shield that minimizes electromagnetic field interference.
US09842681B2

Disclosed is a litz wire coil that is configured by spirally winding a litz wire on one plane by a predetermined number of turns. The litz wire is configured by twisting together a plurality of enameled wires formed by baking an insulating film on a conducting body. Pressure shaping is performed such that the litz wire has a substantially rectangular shape in cross section, and the flatness ratio of the litz wire in cross section (long side/short side) is controlled at 1.10 to 1.60, preferably 1.20 to 1.40, more preferably 1.25 to 1.35.
US09842674B2

Designs and methodologies related to attenuators having a thin-film resistor assembly are disclosed. In some embodiments, the thin-film assembly can include a first and second thin-film resistor, each having a main portion with an input end and an output end. The input end of the first thin-film resistor is interconnected to the input end of the second thin-film resistors, and the output end of the first thin-film resistor is interconnected to the output end of the second thin-film resistor. The first and second thin-film resistors are disposed relative to one another so as to define a separation. The separation region reduces the likelihood of hot spot regions forming at or near the center of the thin-film structure and improves power handling capability for a given resistor width. Also disclosed are examples of how the foregoing features can be implemented in different products and methods of fabrication.
US09842673B2

In one embodiment, a cable includes a conductive core and a dielectric material surrounding the conductive core along a length of the cable. The cable also includes a first shielding comprising braided tinned copper and a second shielding comprising aramid fibers having nickel physical vapor deposited thereon. The aramid fibers are braided about the first shielding to surround a majority of the first shielding along the length of the cable.
US09842669B2

A stretchable wire including a stretchable solid-phase conductive structure; a stretchable insulation layer which surrounds the solid-phase conductive structure; and a liquid-phase conductive material layer disposed between the solid-phase conductive structure and the stretchable insulation layer, and in contact with the solid-phase conductive structure, and a method of fabricating the same.
US09842663B2

A core monitoring system including: a TIP measuring a neutron amount in a nuclear reactor; a TIP drive device; a TIP panel; a neutron monitoring panel; and a process computer. The TIP panel includes: a TIP level processor and a TIP position processor that process a TIP level signal and a TIP position signal input from the TIP drive device, respectively; a time setting section synchronizing the TIP level signal and the TIP position signal; and a TIP level data storage section storing synchronized TIP level data. The neutron monitoring panel includes a time setting section setting collecting time of a LPRM level signal and an APRM level signal. The process computer compares the time and stores the TIP level data from the TIP panel and the LPRM and APRM level signals from the neutron monitoring panel corresponding in time, and calculates core performance based on the TIP level data.
US09842659B2

Provided are a non-volatile memory device, a memory system, and a method of operating the non-volatile memory device. The method includes: performing a user operation according to at least one mode selected from among a writing mode, a reading mode, and an erasing mode with respect to a memory cell array; setting up voltages of a plurality of word lines; floating at least one word line from among the plurality of word lines, the voltages of which are set up, according to the at least one selected mode; and detecting whether the at least one word line has a progressive defect, according to a result of detecting a voltage level of the at least one floated word line.
US09842658B2

Methods of operating a nonvolatile memory device include performing erase loops on a memory block using a first voltage, performing program loops on memory cells of the memory block using a second voltage, and increasing the first and second voltages based on program/erase cycle information for the memory cells. The first voltage may include an erase verification voltage and the second voltage may include a program voltage.
US09842655B2

Technology for an apparatus is described. The apparatus can include a memory controller with circuitry configured to initiate a program verify sequence to verify data written to a non-volatile memory (NVM). The program verify sequence can have one or more program verify levels that each correspond to memory cells in the NVM for which written data is being verified. The memory controller can detect an approximate percentage of memory cells for each program verify level in which data is successfully written. The memory controller can determine to skip subsequent program pulse verification checks in one or more program verify levels when the approximate percentage of memory cells in which data is successfully written is less than a defined threshold.
US09842654B2

A nonvolatile memory includes a memory cell array, a row decoder circuit, and a page buffer circuit. The row decoder circuit applies a turn-on voltage to string selection lines, which are connected to string selection transistors of a selected memory block, at a first precharge operation in response to a write command received from an external device. The page buffer circuit applies, in response to the write command, a first voltage to bit lines, which are connected to the string selection transistors, through a first precharge circuit at the first precharge operation regardless of loaded data and applies the first voltage and a second voltage to the bit lines through a second precharge circuit at a second precharge operation based on the loaded data. During the first precharge operation, write data is loaded onto the page buffer circuit.
US09842650B2

A first switch transistor and a second switch transistor are turned on concurrently. Thereby a first ReRAM is electrically connected to a first storage node, and a second ReRAM is electrically connected to a second storage node. Complementary SRAM data stored in an SRAM is programmed into a non-volatile memory section of a first memory cell and a second memory cell. One of the first switch transistor and the second switch transistor is turned on to electrically connect only the first ReRAM to the first storage node or to electrically connect only the second ReRAM to the second storage node. Hence, the first memory cell or the second memory cell functions as an independent-type cell in accordance with usage. Data is programmed separately into the first memory cell M1a or the second memory cell M1b. Thus memory capacity is increased.
US09842643B2

Embodiments include apparatuses, methods, and systems for a circuit to shift a voltage level. The circuit may include a first inverter that includes a first transistor coupled to pass a low voltage signal and a second inverter coupled to receive the low voltage signal. The circuit may further include a second transistor coupled to receive the low voltage signal from the second inverter to serve as a feedback device and produce a high voltage signal. In embodiments, the first transistor conducts asymmetrically to prevent crossover of the high voltage signal into the low voltage domain. A low voltage memory array is also described. In embodiments, the circuit to shift a voltage level may assist communication between a logic component including the low voltage memory array of a low voltage domain and a logic component of a high voltage domain. Additional embodiments may also be described.
US09842642B2

An integrated circuit for storing data comprises a memory cell array comprising a plurality of bit cells (BC1, . . . , BCn) comprising a first and a second one of the bit cells (BC1, BC2) having a static random access memory architecture. The first and the second bit cells (BC1, BC2) are coupled to a common wordline (WL_TOP) and are arranged in different columns (C1, C2) of the memory cell array (100). During a write access to the first bit cell (BC1), the first bit cell (BC1) undergoes a write operation, whereas the second bit cell (BC2) is a half-selected bit cell which undergoes a pseudo read operation. The integrated circuit uses a two-phase write scheme to improve the write-ability in low operating voltage environment.
US09842641B2

A semiconductor memory device includes a plurality of memory cell blocks each including a plurality of word lines and suitable for being selectively activated based on an active command and a row address, wherein word lines are selected from the respective activated memory cell blocks based on the active command and the row address, and a column decoding block sequentially accessing the activated memory cell blocks to input/output data thereof by decoding a column address based on the row address.
US09842622B1

Systems and methods for improving read failure tolerance during read-modify-write operations of data storage systems accommodating a host that uses a logical sector of a size smaller than the physical sector size of the data storage system. In one embodiment, the data storage system can perform sector indirection in response to a read error during a read-modify-write command.
US09842617B1

An apparatus includes: a media; a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) head over the media; and control circuitry, coupled to the HAMR head, the control circuitry being configured to: receive a write command to write the media; apply a dynamic flying height (DFH) control before asserting a write gate of the HAMR head; assert the write gate to the HAMR head; and enable a flying height compensation mechanism to maintain a constant value of a flying height of the HAMR head over the media during a next assertion of the write gate.
US09842616B1

Provided herein is an apparatus including a head over-coat and a depleted region in the head over-coat. A media over-coat is deposited in the depleted region. A near field transducer is adjacent to the head over-coat, wherein the near field transducer combusts the deposited media over-coat.
US09842610B2

A method is provided for training a Deep Neural Network (DNN) for acoustic modeling in speech recognition. The method includes reading central frames and side frames as input frames from a memory. The side frames are preceding side frames preceding the central frames and/or succeeding side frames succeeding the central frames. The method further includes executing pre-training for only the central frames or both the central frames and the side frames and fine-tuning for the central frames and the side frames so as to emphasize connections between acoustic features in the central frames and units of the bottom layer in hidden layer of the DNN.
US09842609B2

Methods and systems for audio source separation in real-time are described. In an embodiment, the present disclosure describes reading and decoding an audio source into PCM samples, fragmenting Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) samples into fragments, transforming fragments into spectrograms, performing audio source separation using a training database that includes a training dictionary and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) to generate a set of component signals, and streaming the component signals to a playback engine. In an embodiment, a semantic equalizer graphical user allows for fading of individual component signals.
US09842606B2

An electronic device, a method of cancelling an echo signal thereof, and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium are provided. The electronic device includes a speaker configured to output a sound corresponding to a first audio signal, a microphone configured to acquire a surrounding sound of the electronic device to generate a second audio signal; a double-talk detector (DTD) configured to determine whether a double-talk state, in which an echo signal and a noise signal of the first audio signal are included in the second audio signal, occurs; and an acoustic echo canceller (AEC) configured to generate an estimated echo signal corresponding to the echo signal of the first audio signal based on an adaptive filter (AF) in response to the DTD determining that the double-talk state does not occur and cancel the generated estimated echo signal from the second audio signal to detect an error signal.
US09842604B2

An apparatus includes a user input unit, a display unit, a control unit, and a buffer unit. The display unit includes a speed setting menu. The control unit selects a mode from the speed setting menu in response to the selection signal of the user, and controls a compression ratio of a voice codec and a transfer rate of a modem corresponding to a transmission-side radio, and a reception rate of a modem and a restoration rate of a voice codec corresponding to a reception-side radio, based on the selected mode. The buffer unit performs a storage function if there is a difference between the compression ratio of the voice codec and the transfer rate of the modem or if there is a difference between the reception rate of the modem and the restoration rate of the voice codec.
US09842600B2

The present invention proposes a new method for improving the performance of a real-valued filterbank based spectral envelope adjuster. By adaptively locking the gain values for adjacent channels dependent on the sign of the channels, as defined in the application, reduced aliasing is achieved. Furthermore, the grouping of the channels during gain-calculation, gives an improved energy estimate of the real valued subband signals in the filterbank.
US09842595B2

Disclosed are a frame error concealment method and apparatus and an audio decoding method and apparatus. The frame error concealment (FEC) method includes: selecting an FEC mode based on at least one of a state of at least one frame and a phase matching flag, with regard to a time domain signal generated after time-frequency inverse transform processing; and performing corresponding time domain error concealment processing on the current frame based on the selected FEC mode, wherein the current frame is an error frame or the current frame is a normal frame when the previous frame is an error frame.
US09842594B2

The present document relates to audio encoding and decoding. In particular, the present document relates to audio coding schemes which make use of high frequency reconstruction (HFR) methods. A system configured to determine a master scale factor band table of a highband signal (105) of an audio signal is described. The highband signal (105) is to be generated from a lowband signal (101) of the audio signal using a high frequency reconstruction (HFR) scheme. The master scale factor band table is indicative of a frequency resolution of a spectral envelope of the highband signal (105).
US09842587B2

A system and method is provided for combining active and unsupervised learning for automatic speech recognition. This process enables a reduction in the amount of human supervision required for training acoustic and language models and an increase in the performance given the transcribed and un-transcribed data.
US09842586B2

A method for detecting and categorizing topics in a plurality of interactions includes: extracting, by a processor, a plurality of fragments from the plurality of interactions; filtering, by the processor, the plurality of fragments to generate a filtered plurality of fragments; clustering, by the processor, the filtered fragments into a plurality of base clusters; and clustering, by the processor, the plurality of base clusters into a plurality of hyper clusters.
US09842577B2

The present disclosure is directed at methods, apparatus and systems for implementing an improvised guitar playing feature on a rhythm-action game. The improvised guitar playing feature allows players to manipulate a guitar controller to produce a pleasing, musical-sounding improvised play even if the players have little experience or skill at improvising music. This feature uses quantized 8th and 16th note musical phrases, or “licks”, strung together to form authentic, melodic, and rhythmically musical and impressive guitar lines, regardless of the player's ability. The improvised guitar playing feature can also display cues directing the player to improvise in a certain manner, while still providing players a degree of musical freedom in selecting how to play. In some embodiments, the present disclosure is also directed at scoring mechanisms for evaluating improvised guitar play.
US09842574B2

Cymbal mounting apparatuses, systems and methods are provided. In one embodiment, a cymbal mounting apparatus for mounting a cymbal to a mounting post of a cymbal stand is provided. The apparatus comprises a cymbal mount that comprises an elongated flexible sleeve portion defining an inner cavity with a second diameter that is less than a first diameter of the mounting post such that the sleeve portion applies a compressive force thereto when installed thereon. The cymbal mount further comprises a cymbal support rim portion extend outwardly from the sleeve portion. The sleeve portion and the rim portion may be integral. The mounting post may define a first length extending between a shoulder portion and a free end thereof, and the sleeve portion may define a second length that is at least one half the first length such that the sleeve portions extends past the free end when installed thereon.
US09842566B2

Discussed is a shift register capable of reducing a circuit area through simplification of a logic circuit configuration. The shift register according to an embodiment includes stages each selectively executing a forward scan and a backward scan. Each stage includes a pull-up transistor for generating a first clock under control of a control node, as an output thereof, a pull-down transistor for generating a gate-off voltage under control of a third clock, as an output thereof, a first transistor for setting and resetting the control node during the forward scan while resetting the control node during the backward scan, under control of a fourth clock, using output signals from a previous stage, and a second transistor for setting and resetting the control node during the backward scan while resetting the control node during the forward scan, under control of a second clock, using output signals from a next stage.
US09842561B2

A display device includes a voltage generating unit configured to convert an input voltage into an analog driving voltage, a controller configured to receive input image data and an image control signal and generate custom image data and a data control signal, a source driving unit configured to receive the analog driving voltage and convert the custom image data into data voltages in response to the data control signal, a sensing unit configured to sense a load current, wherein the sensing unit is connected to one point on a path through which the input voltage is converted into the analog driving voltage to be provided to the source driving unit, and a display panel configured to receive the data voltages to display an image. The controller receives the sensed load current and generates a selection signal according to a first intensity of the load current.
US09842559B2

A demultiplexer circuit (12) of a display device according to one aspect of the present invention includes signal input lines (Vn), control lines (BSW, GSW, and RSW), and sampling transistors (13R2, 13G2, and 13B1). Sampling transistors connected to one signal input line includes first and second sampling transistors. A first sampling transistor (13B1) includes a control electrode (17) which branches to a first branch part (17a) and a second branch part (17b), either one of an input electrode (15) and an output electrode (18) that are disposed between a first branch part (17a) and a second branch part (17b), and other one of an input electrode (15) and an output electrode (18) that are disposed outside of a first branch part (17a) and a second branch part (17b).
US09842557B2

A gate driving circuit provides a plurality of gate lines of a display panel with gate signals, the gate driving circuit including: a plurality of driving stages which correspond to the plurality of gate lines, respectively, and each of which outputs a carry signal and a gate signal for driving a corresponding gate line in response to a clock signal, an input signal, and a carry signal of a next stage; and a dummy driving stage which outputs a dummy carry signal in response to the clock signal, a carry signal of the last stage of the plurality of driving stages, and a carry signal output from any one of the plurality of driving stages.
US09842556B2

According to one embodiment, a display device includes a display unit and a driver unit. The driver unit includes a display drive unit, a power supply unit and a control unit. The control unit instructs a display period in which the image is displayed in the display unit and a non-display period in which the image is not displayed to the display drive unit, and instructs mitigation driving which mitigates a difference in an electrical load of the display drive unit between the display period and the non-display period to the power supply unit in the non-display period.
US09842554B2

The present disclosure provides driving circuit used to a liquid crystal display, which includes a boost module, a power management module, a power detection module and a micro controller unit, the power management module is connected to the boost module and the micro controller unit, the boost module, the power detection module and the micro controller unit are connected in sequence, the power detection module detects an output power of the boost module, and the micro controller unit switches a working mode of the boost module according to the output power. The driving circuit of the present disclosure may select different working modes according to a magnitude of the output power, so as to distribute the power and increase the efficiency, thus it may effectively solve the problem of lower efficiency and higher temperature of the component under the high power condition.
US09842547B2

A display apparatus includes a liquid crystal panel, and a plurality of light sources irradiating the liquid crystal panel with light. The display apparatus inserts black signals during a predetermined period within respective frame periods in a plurality of image frames. The display apparatus respectively displays signals corresponding to the respective regions in each image frame into which the black signals are inserted, in respective regions of the liquid crystal panel irradiated with light by each of the light sources, in an order along an arrangement direction of the respective regions. The display apparatus respectively irradiates the respective regions with light by the light sources corresponding thereto, in a latter period within a period in which the corresponding signals are respectively displayed in the respective regions of the liquid crystal panel. In this case, the display apparatus reduces luminance of light from the light sources corresponding to the respective regions, in an order of respectively displaying the signals in the respective regions of the liquid crystal panel, corresponding thereto.
US09842545B2

A display device that can compensate for degradation of circuit elements while suppressing an increase in circuit size is implemented.A data signal line (S(j)) is not only used as a signal line that transfers a signal for allowing an organic EL element (OLED) in each pixel circuit (11) to emit light at a desired luminance, but also used as a signal line for characteristic detection. In addition, a switch (334) is provided between the data signal line (S(j)) and an internal data line (Sin(j)). In such a configuration, during an AD conversion period during which analog data obtained for characteristic detection is converted into digital data, the switch (334) is brought into an off state and a potential of the data signal line (S(j)) obtained immediately before the AD conversion period is supplied from through a predetermined control line (CL) to the data signal line (S(j)).
US09842544B2

A method and system for operating a pixel array having at least one pixel circuit is provided. The method includes repeating an operation cycle defining a frame period for a pixel circuit, including at each frame period, programming the pixel circuit, driving the pixel circuit, and relaxing a stress effect on the pixel circuit, prior to a next frame period. The system includes a pixel array including a plurality of pixel circuits and a plurality of lines for operation of the plurality of pixel circuits. Each of the pixel circuits includes a light emitting device, a storage capacitor, and a drive circuit connected to the light emitting device and the storage capacitor. The system includes a drive for operating the plurality of lines to repeat an operation cycle having a frame period so that each of the operation cycle comprises a programming cycle, a driving cycle and a relaxing cycle for relaxing a stress on a pixel circuit, prior to a next frame period.
US09842538B2

An organic light emitting display device includes a display panel including data lines, scan lines, initialization lines, and a plurality of pixels, wherein a pixel of the pixels includes: a driving transistor including a gate electrode coupled to a first node, a first electrode coupled to a second node, and a second electrode coupled to a third node, the driving transistor configured to control an amount of a drain-to-source current of the driving transistor according to a voltage applied to the first node; an organic light emitting diode configured to emit light depending on the drain-to-source current of the driving transistor; a first transistor coupled between the second node and a data line of the data lines, the first transistor configured to be turned on by a scan signal applied to a scan line of the scan lines; a second transistor configured to initialize the first node by being turned on; and a first capacitor coupled between the first electrode and the second electrode of the second transistor.
US09842527B2

In a display device having a driver that drives load lines in an electro-optical panel through capacitor charge redistribution, a data voltage is determined by a capacitance ratio during capacitive driving. However, a panel-side capacitance is a capacitance external to a driver IC, and thus it is difficult to set the capacitance ratio exactly. Accordingly, voltage driving, which outputs a data voltage corresponding to tone data to a data voltage output terminal using a voltage driving circuit, is carried out after capacitive driving that drives the electro-optical panel has been started.
US09842522B2

A display includes a stretchable display panel, an optical unit that transmits an image displayed on the display panel for image formation, a mechanical unit that changes a physical shape of the display panel in order to compensate a distortion aberration due to the optical unit, and a control unit that drives the display panel in response to an image source signal.
US09842519B2

A fastener assembly includes a molded plastic fastener shaped to define a filament, a paddle at one end of the filament, and a cross-bar at the other end of the filament. The fastener assembly additionally includes a printed label embedded in the paddle, the printed label including an electrically chargeable, stiffness enhancing laminate that is applied to a print receptive polymer substrate. An in-line system for manufacturing a continuously connected supply of the fastener assemblies includes a rotatable mold wheel, a feed mechanism for advancing a continuous, ionized, printed polymer web in a near tangential relationship relative to the mold wheel periphery, a cutting mechanism for transversely cutting through the web to form a plurality of rectangular printed labels that are magnetically drawn into corresponding cavities in the mold wheel, an extruder for applying molten plastic into the cavities and a knife for skiving excess hardened plastic from the mold wheel periphery.
US09842518B2

The present invention relates to a breathable heat transfer label for breathable performance ware. The heat transfer label allows moisture and sweat to pass through and remove moisture from the skin surface to provide comfort to the wearer.
US09842509B2

The invention is directed to a 6 degree-of-freedom motion hexapod simulator assembly comprising of a fixed base, a displaceable simulator platform comprising of a load bearing structure, and 6 linear actuators having upper ends thereof interconnected with the load bearing structure by three pairs of two-degree of freedom joints and lower ends thereof interconnected with the fixed base by means of three pairs of two-degree of freedom joints. The two degree of freedom joint comprises of two rotatable pivot means which are oriented 90° with respect to each other. One pivot means runs through the other pivot means. At the connection with the load bearing structure the center of one joint of a pair of joints is separated by part of the load bearing structure from the center of the other joint of the pair of joints.
US09842507B1

A system and method for filming and discovering videos for users may include receiving an instructional video of an event from a content provider. The instructional video includes portions of a first video stream with images at an eye level of an instructor and portions of a second video stream with close-up shots related to a concept being taught during the event. It is determined whether the instructional video includes a title sequence, an introduction, a lesson, a recap, and a conclusion. If the instructional video fails to contain the title sequence, the introduction, the lesson, the recap, and the conclusion, a rejection of the instructional video is provided that includes an explanation. If the instructional video contains the title sequence, the introduction, the lesson, the recap, and the conclusion, the instructional video is stored in a video database.
US09842493B2

A control apparatus and method and an electronic device. Wherein, the apparatus includes: a communicating unit configured to establish communication connection with a controlled object; an image acquiring unit configured to obtain a preview image containing the controlled object; and a controlling unit configured to receive a control instruction inputted according to the preview image, and control the controlled object according to the control instruction. Controlling the controlled object according to the preview image containing the controlled object may realize control of the controlled object in a simple and convenient manner, thereby improving user experiences.
US09842490B2

A method of controlling an external apparatus connected with a device includes: providing user input information used to determine a user's intention; identifying an external apparatus controllable by a device; providing apparatus information of the identified external apparatus; receiving control information about the external apparatus, which is generated based on the based on the user's intention and the apparatus information; and transmitting a control command to the external apparatus which is generated based on the received control information.
US09842484B2

A waste cart includes a base housing; a center upright having a proximal end and a distal end, wherein the proximal end is secured to the base housing; a top housing secured to the distal end of the center upright, wherein the top housing has two or more disposal openings for two or more separate disposal portions including, a first waste portion which has a first metal detector and an indicator for providing a notification when a metal item passes through the opening; and a second waste portion which includes a second metal detector and an indicator for providing a notification when a metal item passes through the opening; an electronics module which operates each metal detector independently; and an alarm indicator operationally associated with the electronics module which is activated when the electronics module detects the passage of a metal item through an opening into a waste portion.
US09842482B2

A signal detecting device includes a visualization device including a plural connectors to which a communication cable is connected, a plural detecting circuits that are provided for each of the connectors to be detected, branch and extract a part of a signal transmitted through the communication cable connected to the connectors, and indicate an existence of an data communication based on the extracted signal, and a detecting card that is insertable into and detachable from a card connector arranged in the visualization device and mounts at least a part of the detecting circuit.
US09842480B2

An alarm processing circuit includes a plurality of abnormality detection circuits for detecting different abnormalities and outputting alarm signals respectively; a signal conversion circuit for converting the alarm signals outputted from the plurality of abnormality detection circuits into time signals with time widths corresponding to types of the abnormalities respectively; and a determination circuit for determining the types of the abnormalities respectively based on the time widths of the time signals outputted from the signal conversion circuit.
US09842474B2

Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for adjusting bonus winning odds while playing an online slots game. One method includes an operation for receiving user input during a session of an online slots game, where the user input is defined to spin wheels of the online slots game. In addition, the method includes an operation for defining an initial tier and one or more additional tiers for play of the online slots game during the session, each tier being assigned an odds value that changes with each assigned tier, and each tier being defined to have a set of spins. Further, the method includes operations for assigning tiers with changed odds when an option to play a bonus game is not presented during the predefined set of spins for each tier, and for assigning the initial tier upon determining that the bonus game was played during the session.
US09842471B2

Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for selecting game servers and assigning seats to players in poker tables. One method includes an operation for receiving table parameters from a user in a poker game. The table parameters identify the characteristics of a desired table for playing poker by the user. A distance from the desired table to the available poker tables is calculated, where the distance based on the similarity between the desired table and each of the available poker tables. Each of the available poker tables is served by one of a plurality of servers. Additionally, the method includes operations for selecting candidate tables from the available poker tables based on the calculated distances, and for selecting a playing table from the candidate tables at random. The user is then connected to a server that serves the selected playing table.
US09842470B2

A method of gaming in a gaming system comprising; generating a game outcome by spinning a plurality of reels to respective stop positions at which a plurality of symbols of each reel are displayed at respective ones of a plurality of symbol display positions; controlling spinning of the reels prior to the reels reaching their respective stop positions to include a first mode in which all of the reels spin independently of each other, and a second mode in which at least two adjacent reels are synchronized to spin together; evaluating the game outcome to determine whether to make an award in respect of the game outcome; and making any determined award.
US09842467B2

In various embodiments, players around the casino may predict cards to be dealt in a game of blackjack.
US09842466B2

Gaming systems, gaming devices and methods that provide games that control volatility. In one embodiment, the gaming system disclosed herein enables a player to select values, or cells associated with values, that are displayed in a particular arrangement. The player selected values are distributed to other values or cells according to one or more predefined rules. In one embodiment, one or more of the player selectable values are progressive award values. At some point during the game, the gaming system randomly picks one of the remaining values that have not been selected and provides an award to the player based at least in part on the selected value.
US09842463B2

A disadvantage of existing betting operations is the implementation of fixed odds and pari-mutuel betting on specific and dedicated systems. This results in higher acquisition and maintenance costs as compared with a single system. According to the present invention, a single system allows both fixed odds and pari-mutuel betting to be offered on a single system wherein the system effects a computer-implemented method of wagering, including: receiving, via a communications network, a wager from a customer in respect of a wagered event and a wagered product; storing the wager, in an electronic data store, and associating the wager with the wagered event, the wagered product and a customer account, wherein the computer system manages the electronic data store, having stored therein, a plurality of events, a plurality of products and a plurality of customers, all of which are independently defined.
US09842443B1

In general, aspects of this disclosure are directed towards techniques for using a computing device to perform the functionality of a vehicle key, so that the computing device may be used to automatically unlock the doors of a vehicle and/or to activate a previously-deactivated keyless ignition system. The computing device may be associated with a vehicle, including sending an identifier associated with the computing device to the vehicle via short-range communication. The computing device may also send to the vehicle, via short-range communication, at least one unlock door signal including an access code verifiable by the vehicle, and wherein receipt of the at least one unlock door signal by the vehicle enables the vehicle to unlock one or more of its doors without further user intervention.
US09842437B2

One or more devices in a data analysis computing system may be configured to receive and analyze movement data and driving data, and determine driving trips and associated drivers based on the received data. Movement data may be collected by one or more mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and on-board vehicle systems. Drivers associated with driving trips may be identified based on the movement data collected by the mobile devices, such as speed data, acceleration data, or distance data.
US09842435B2

An information processing system that acquires image data captured by an image capturing device; identifies a density of distribution of a plurality of feature points in the acquired image data; and controls a display to display guidance information based on the density of the distribution of the plurality of feature points.
US09842431B2

Embodiments of the disclosure include methods, machines, and non-transitory computer-readable medium having one or more computer programs stored therein to enhance core analysis planning for a plurality of core samples of subsurface material. Embodiments can include positioning electronic depictions of structure of encased core samples of subsurface material on a display and determining portions of each of the images as different planned sample types thereby to virtually mark each of the images. Planned sample types can include, for example, full diameter samples, special core analysis samples, conventional core analysis samples, and mechanical property samples. Embodiments further can include transforming physical properties of encased core samples of subsurface material into images responsive to one or more penetrative scans by use of one or more computerized tomography (CT) scanners.
US09842430B2

A method and device for automatically identifying a point of interest (e.g., the deepest or highest point) on a viewed object using a video inspection device. The method involves placing a first cursor on an image of the object to establish a first slice plane and first surface contour line, as well as placing another cursor, offset from the first cursor, used to establish an offset (second) slice plane and an offset (second) surface contour line. Profile slice planes and profile surface contour lines are then determined between corresponding points on the first surface contour line and the offset (second) surface contour line to automatically identify the point of interest.
US09842426B2

Exemplary methods and systems visualize or contour a power distribution system state by displaying to an operator output data values interpolated at output data locations from input data including distributed input data sensor locations in three dimensions and corresponding dynamically updated input data values. The method includes defining triangles in the volume, and determining, for each triangle, closest input data locations according to a closeness criteria. The method also includes projecting each triangle onto a visualization plane, and determining, for an output data location on the visualization plane at least one triangle, the projection of which includes the output data location. The method interpolates, for the output data location, the input data values of the closest input data locations of each of the at least one determined triangle to generate an output data value corresponding to the output data location.
US09842425B2

A method is provided for rendering a three dimensional scene upon an electronic processor based system such as a computer, cellular phone, games console or other device. The method involves rendering a three dimensional scene by activating pixels of an electronic display device using a perspective projection for some portions of the scene and an orthogonal projection for others. A far less computationally expensive orthogonal projection is used for rendering other portions of the scene which meet a predetermined condition. The method results in a rendered scene displayed by pixels of the display device that appears overall to have been realistically rendered using a perspective transformation. However, since portions of the rendered scene have been rendered using an orthogonal projection, the method is computationally less expensive than rendering using only perspective projection.
US09842422B1

Methods, systems, and media for presenting interstitial animations are provided. In some embodiments, the method comprises: receiving metadata associated with a video; receiving a request to present the video; causing the video to begin buffering; generating, using a hardware processor, an animation based on the metadata; causing the animation to be presented until a predetermined amount of the video has been buffered; and causing the video to be presented upon buffering the predetermined amount of the video.
US09842421B2

The disclosure provides an approach for animating gases. A dynamic model is employed that accounts for stretching of gas vorticles in a stable manner, handles isolated particles and buoyancy, permits deformable boundaries of objects the gas flows past, and accounts for vortex shedding. The model models stretching of vorticity by applying a vector at the center of a stretched vorticle. High frequency eddies resulting from stretching may be filtered by unstretching the vorticle while preserving mean energy and enstrophy. To model boundary pressure, a boundary may be imposed by embedding into the gas the surface boundary and setting boundary conditions based on velocity of the boundary and the Green's function of the Laplacian. For computational efficiency, a vorticle cutoff proportional to a vorticle's size may be imposed. Vorticles determined to be similar based on a predefined criteria and distance threshold may be fused.
US09842418B1

Implementations generally relate to generating multiple user media compositions (e.g., photo compositions) in connection with a social network system. In one implementation, a method includes detecting a plurality of devices based on one or more location criteria. The method also includes synchronizing an actuation of the plurality of devices. The method also includes receiving photos from the plurality of devices. The method also includes generating one or more compositions from the photos.
US09842413B2

In a method and apparatus for providing a visualization image and a reference image for a patient, with only one reconstruction being implemented, raw scan data from the patient are reconstructed into a visualization image, and the reference image is generated, without another reconstruction, by applying a filter to the visualization image to obtain a simulated reference image, using a value of a filter parameter that is specific for the patient. The patient-specific filter parameter is determined by comparing image-derived properties of an accessed, previously-reconstructed reference image and the reference image, and the filter parameter is adapted to reduce differences in the image-derived properties of the respective images.
US09842410B2

Image processing may include separating a noise component from an original image resulting in a de-noised image and determining a noise parameterization for the noise component. The de-noised image and the noise parameterization may be compressed.
US09842407B2

A method and system for generating light pattern using reflective polygons are provided herein. The method may include: rotating at least one polygon having a plurality of reflective facets along a rotation axis parallel to the facets; transmitting a light beam on the facets of the polygon; tilting the light beam relative to the polygon in parallel to the rotation axis so that the light beam hits each of the facets at a different tilt angle, thereby producing a light pattern comprising a plurality of lines; and controlling at least one of: the light intensity, the rotating, and the tilting, so as to produce an adjustable light pattern transmitted at a scene.
US09842404B2

An imaging method and corresponding apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention enables measurement and visualization of fluid flow. An embodiment method includes obtaining video captured by a video camera with an imaging plane. Representations of motions in the video are correlated. A textured background of the scene can be modeled as stationary, with a refractive field translating between background and video camera. This approach offers multiple advantages over conventional fluid flow visualization, including an ability to use ordinary video equipment outside a laboratory without particle injection. Even natural backgrounds can be used, and fluid motion can be distinguished from refraction changes. Depth and three-dimensional information can be recovered using stereo video, and uncertainty methods can enhance measurement robustness where backgrounds are less textured. Example applications can include avionics and hydrocarbon leak detection.
US09842402B1

Various examples are directed to systems and methods for detecting regions in video frames. For example, a computing device may receive a video comprising a plurality of frames and a video frame sequence of the plurality of frames. The computing device may select a plurality of scene point location from a first frame. The computing device may determine a plurality of columns in the first frame and fit a first sinusoidal function to a distribution of average column Y-axis displacements for the plurality of columns by column position. The computing device may determine a first difference based at least in part on the first scene point Y-axis displacement and an output of the first sinusoidal function at the X-axis position of the first scene point and determine that the first difference is greater than a threshold distance.
US09842396B2

There is provided a system for calibrating a camera including: a memory storing centering calibration data reflecting a deviation of an optical axis of a lens; and an image signal processor determining an image recognition region of an image sensor based on the centering calibration data to process an image signal input from the image sensor.
US09842386B2

Image processing methods and systems apply filtering operations to images, wherein the filtering operations use filter costs which are based on image gradients in the images. In this way, image data is filtered for image regions in dependence upon the image gradients for the image regions. This may be useful for different scenarios such as when combining images to form a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image. The filtering operations may be used as part of a connectivity unit which determines connected image regions, and/or the filtering operations may be used as part of a blending unit which blends two or more images together to form a blended image.
US09842384B2

A method for imaging a flowing media within static regions includes obtaining a plurality of signals using the speckle properties of the flowing media. The plurality of signals are compared to one another such as by subtraction. The static regions are removed from the plurality of signals by the comparison. The remaining signals are combined (such as by summing) to produce an image of the flowing media.
US09842379B2

A method for registering medical images includes calculating, when a probe is disposed on a reference point of a target, a transformation relation for registering a first medical image and a second medical image having a different modality from the first medical image by using the reference point, wherein the first medical image is obtained by using the probe; and obtaining a sectional image of the second medical image corresponding to a sectional image of the first medical image from the second medical image by using the transformation relation.
US09842367B2

Systems and methods for migration of financial account settings are disclosed. One system includes a migration server. The migration server includes a database for tracking account settings migration including one or more switch tracking numbers associated with account migrations. The migration server further includes a web interface configured to receive from a user a switch tracking number, identification and login information associated with one or more existing financial accounts, and login information associated with a target financial account. The migration server also includes a transaction analysis module configured to parse transaction histories associated with each of the existing financial accounts to determine one or more likely automated funds transfers associated with each of the one or more existing financial accounts. The migration server further includes a migration module configured to initiate a migration of one or more likely automated funds transfers associated with each of the existing financial accounts.
US09842363B2

Method, computer program product, and system to provide an extended vision within an environment having a plurality of items, where the extended vision is based on a field of view of a person determined using a first visual sensor, and is further based on at least a second visual sensor disposed within the environment. Image information from the first and second visual sensors is associated to produce combined image information. Selected portions of the combined image information are displayed based on input provided through a user interface.
US09842358B1

The present invention enables personalized recommendations for a user. In a preferred embodiment, a user submits an image of her face along with personal information. The image is analyzed to produce measurements of the user's facial characteristics. A user profile containing the image measurements and personal information is compared to two or more categories of reference data. For each category, one or more recommendations are produced according to the results of the comparison. The top recommendations are chosen according to a prioritization hierarchy and provided to the user.
US09842355B2

This disclosure describes systems, methods, and computer-readable media related to biller-initiated electronic billing activation. A biller system associated with a biller may receive entity information associated with an entity requesting to establish a biller account with the biller. The biller system may generate the biller account. The biller system may generate an electronic billing activation request. The biller system may transmit to a service provider system associated with an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service provider, the electronic billing activation request and receive a confirmation of processing of the electronic billing activation request.
US09842347B2

A system and method that enables a business owner to receive leads such as phone calls or emails to their business at a prescribed cost-per-lead and a volume determined by the budget the owner is willing to allocate to the purchase. The method manages an internet based advertisement campaign, which includes performing the step of creating an internet based advertisement campaign that includes a budget parameter, a campaign duration parameter, advertisement content with a lead reference, and an ad listing with a URL that links to said advertisement content. Another embodiment of the method can include managing the bidding process for a multi-item keyword auction.
US09842346B2

Apparatus and methods related providing city services, such as parking, are described. Methods and apparatus for providing parking rewards programs are described. The methods and apparatus can include maintaining accounts for participants in the rewards program, tracking purchases of parking and other participant activities and determining parking awards based upon the activities. The parking rewards programs can be used to incentivize behaviors that balance the use of the parking space commodity according to the needs of different stakeholders, such as the city, residents, merchants and visitors. For example, parking awards and the criteria used for earning awards can be used to encourage particular behaviors while a parking space is being utilized, such as shopping, the use of public transportation or efficient trip planning.
US09842344B2

A shareholder investment system and method is provided. At least certain embodiments relate to processing of loyalty rewards such as rewards generated via the use of credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, etc. A payment processing system for financial transactions is enhanced to support reward transactions. The reward communications can be processed over the payment processing system together with payment transactions. Consumer's can accumulate monetary value associated with the rewards in a rewards account. The rewards are based on awards provided by conducting transactions using a rewards account associated with a shareholder rewards program or by conducting transactions with particular merchants participating in the rewards program. The accumulated monetary value can then be used for purchase of shares of stock of participating merchants.
US09842339B2

Metrics for online ads are captured by parsing web pages to identify ad beacons containing information identifying whether the online ads are for a particular client. These metrics are used to determine key performance indicators for auditing and competitor analysis for an online ad campaign.
US09842330B1

In some examples, an account is provisioned onto an electronic device. In some examples, the device receives a value to fund the account provisioned on the electronic device. In some examples, the electronic device transacts with a contactless transaction terminal using the provisioned account and displays an indication of the transaction. In some examples, the electronic device transmits information corresponding to the provisioned account without checking for authentication. In some examples, the device receives user input initiating a process for moving the account from a first device to a second device. In some examples, the device receives account payment credentials from a second device when a set of payment criteria are met.
US09842328B2

A system includes a transaction-processing kiosk located in a predefined retail space. The kiosk is configured to enable a first human user to execute a current purchase transaction involving at least one of a set of retail items selected from the predefined retail space. The current purchase transaction is executed without participation by a second human, such as a cashier. The system further includes at least one display device having a screen and in signal communication with the kiosk. The at least one display device is configured such that the screen simultaneously displays a predetermined number of descriptions of retail items the subject of purchase transactions with the kiosk that were executed prior to execution of the current purchase transaction by a plurality of different human users. The at least one display device is positioned such that the screen is viewable by all parties present in the retail space.
US09842324B2

A banknote processing device includes a first pay-out port and a second pay-out port in which banknotes for pay-out are stacked, a conveyance section that conveys banknotes to the first pay-out port or to the second pay-out port, a first opening-closing member capable of opening and closing the first pay-out port by moving, a second opening-closing member capable of opening and closing the second pay-out port by moving, and a controller that controls conveyance of the banknotes by the conveyance section, and that controls opening and closing operations of the first and second opening-closing members. When the number of banknotes stacked in the first pay-out port has reached a maximum stacking number in pay-out processing, the controller performs a switching operation to switch a conveyance destination of the banknotes from the first pay-out port to the second pay-out port, and performs an opening operation to open the first opening-closing member.
US09842323B2

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to systems and methods for communicating transaction-related data to a recipient device. In at least one embodiment, a computer-implemented method can be provided. The method can include directing storage of transaction-related information comprising payment data and value added services data. The method can further include communicating the transaction-related information to a recipient device during a card emulation communication initiated by the recipient device, wherein the recipient device utilizes the transaction-related information to complete a payment transaction and provide one or more value added services associated with the payment transaction.
US09842322B2

Systems and methods for migration of financial account settings are disclosed. One system includes a migration server. The migration server includes a third-party interface directory, including notification data associated with notifying one or more third parties of an account migration. The migration server further includes a transaction analysis module configured to parse transaction histories associated with an existing financial account to identify a third party that has initiated at least one transaction with the existing financial account. The migration server also includes a notification module configured to generate a notification for the identified third party based on notification data associated with the identified third party stored in the third-party interface directory and information associated with a target financial account.
US09842321B2

Systems and methods for migration of financial account settings are disclosed. One system includes a migration server. The migration server includes a third-party interface directory, including notification data associated with notifying one or more third parties of an account migration. The migration server further includes a transaction analysis module configured to parse transaction histories associated with an existing financial account to identify a third party that has initiated at least one transaction with the existing financial account. The migration server also includes a notification module configured to generate a notification for the identified third party based on notification data associated with the identified third party stored in the third-party interface directory and information associated with a target financial account.
US09842319B2

A method, system, and data structure for creating electronic calendar entries are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a computer data structure that includes an email message with an embedded link. The embedded link contains event information corresponding to multiple parameters for an event described in the email message. The embedded link is configured, upon activation, to initiate generation of an electronic calendar entry form with multiple fields. A plurality of the multiple fields contain event information from the embedded link.
US09842301B2

This disclosure relates to systems and methods for improved knowledge mining. In one embodiment, a method is disclosed, which comprises filtering aggregated data encoded according to multiple data formats, using a combination of sliding-window and boundary-based filtration techniques. Machine learning and natural language processing are applied to the filtered data to generate a business ontology. Also, using a prediction analysis, one or more recommended classification techniques are automatically identified. The filtered data is clustered into an automatically determined number of categories based on the automatically recommended one or more classification techniques. The one or more classification techniques may utilize iterative feedback between a supervised learning technique and an unsupervised learning technique. Furthermore, the method includes generating automatically correlations between the business ontology and the automatically determined number of categories, and generating a knowledge base using the correlations between the business ontology and the automatically determined number of categories.
US09842290B2

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for a system for collecting aviation flight cycle data comprising a radio frequency (RF) tag configured to read sensor information from a sensor, the RF tag comprising (i) an RF and analog block for receiving and transmitting an RF signal, (ii) a data processing and controller block for digital information processing, and (iii) a memory store, wherein the RF tag is at least in part powered by an external RF signal received by the RF and analog block; and a sensor for generating sensor information indicative of an airborne flight cycle parameter, wherein the RF tag periodically collects the sensor information generated by the sensor and stores the sensor information in the memory store.
US09842282B2

An approach is provided for classifying objects that are present at a geo-location and providing an uncluttered presentation of images of some of the objects in an application such as a map application. The approach includes determining one or more regions of interest associated with at least one geo-location, wherein the one or more regions of interest are at least one textured three-dimensional representation of one or more objects that may be present at the at least one geo-location. The approach also includes processing and/or facilitating a processing of the at least one textured three-dimensional representation to determine at least one two-dimensional footprint and three-dimensional geometry information for the one or more objects. The approach further includes causing, at least in part, a generation of at least one two-dimensional image representation of the one or more regions of interest by causing, at least in part, a projection of three-dimensional texture information of the at least one textured three-dimensional representation onto the at least one two-dimensional footprint. The approach also includes causing, at least in part, a classification of the one or more objects based, at least in part, on the at least one two-dimensional image representation and the three-dimensional geometry information.
US09842272B2

A system and computer implemented method for detecting the location of a mobile device using semantic indicators is provided. The method includes receiving, using one or more processors, a plurality of images captured by a mobile device at an area. The area is associated with a set of candidate locations. Using the one or more processors, one or more feature indicators associated with the plurality of images are detected. These feature indicators include semantic features related to the area. The semantic features are compared with a plurality of stored location features for the set of candidate locations. In accordance with the comparison, a location from the set of candidate locations is selected to identify an estimated position of the mobile device.
US09842265B2

A marking line detection system includes an imaging device, a marking line candidate detection unit, a marking line correction unit, a center line determination unit and a validity determination unit. The marking line candidate detection unit detects first and second vehicle's marking line candidates. The marking line correction unit corrects a position of the second vehicle's marking line candidate based on a position of the first vehicle's marking line candidate. When the first vehicle's marking line candidate is the valid center line, the marking line correction unit performs a correction of the position of the second vehicle's marking line candidate based on the position of the first vehicle's marking line candidate. When the first vehicle's marking line candidate is not the valid center line, the marking line correction unit does not perform the correction based on the position of the first vehicle's marking line candidate.
US09842263B2

Authentication of vehicles in preparation for V2V communication includes vehicle A taking a picture of vehicle B (VA) and vehicle B taking a picture of vehicle A (VB). These pictures are then shared. Vehicle A determines the relative location of vehicle B indicated in VA and VB. If they agree, then vehicle A and B authenticate one another, such as using Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Identifying vehicle A and vehicle B in the pictures may include identifying the license plates of vehicle A and vehicle B in the pictures. Vehicles A and B may exchange license plate numbers prior to taking of the pictures. Image spoofing may be prevented by taking both forward and rearward facing pictures by both vehicles. Objects in pictures facing the same direction may be identified to verify that the pictures were taken nearly simultaneously.
US09842258B2

A method for presenting a preview of a video includes receiving a first version of the video. The first version of the video has a first resolution. The method also includes analyzing the first version of the video and identifying a first preview frame from the first version of the video based on the analysis of the first version of the video. The method further includes obtaining information relating to the identified first preview frame and receiving a second version of the video. The second version of the video has a second resolution, which is greater than the first resolution. The method also includes extracting, from the second version of the video, a second preview frame according to the information relating to the first preview frame.
US09842257B2

A pill identification system identifies a pill type for a pharmaceutical composition from images of the pharmaceutical composition. The system extracts features from images taken of the pill. The features extracted from the pill image include color, size, shape, and surface features of the pill. In particular, the features include rotation-independent surface features of the pill that enable the pill to be identified from a variety of orientations when the images are taken. The feature vectors are applied to a classifier that determines a pill identification for each image. The pill identification for each image is scored to determine identification for the pharmaceutical composition.
US09842249B2

A gesture recognition method with improved background suppression includes the following steps. First, a plurality of images are sequentially captured. Next, a position of at least one object in each of the images is calculated to respectively obtain a moving vector of the object at different times. Then, an average brightness of the object in each of the images is calculated. Finally, magnitudes of the moving vectors of the object at different times are respectively adjusted according to the average brightness of the object in each of the images. There is further provided a gesture recognition apparatus using the method mentioned above.
US09842235B2

A problem is to provide a portable terminal, an information display system, an information display method, and a multi-tag in which two sheets of two-dimensional bar code for download and for individual information data reading need not be installed and hence an installation space can be reduced and a user need not select which bar code is to be read. A processing section (11) of a portable terminal (1) sets a transfer destination for a message of a read-out multi-tag to be a different destination depending on whether a tag reading application (113) has been installed in the own terminal (1).
US09842231B2

An anti-counterfeiting serialization method. The method can include receiving an input serial number, locating a seed character at a predetermined position in the input serial number, determining, based on the seed character, a first output position for an incrementing character of the input serial number, determining, based on the incrementing character, at least one second output position for at least one remaining character of the input serial number, and generating an output serial number having the incrementing character in the first output position and at least one remaining character in the at least one second output position.
US09842225B2

A method and apparatus for controlling a browser are provided. The method includes: acquiring a characteristic identifier of a user; comparing the characteristic identifier of the user with a pre-stored benchmark characteristic identifier to determine whether the characteristic identifier is identical to the benchmark characteristic identifier; if the characteristic identifier is identical to the benchmark characteristic identifier, entering a pre-set private browsing mode wherein a browser plug-in saves the browsing history data of the user; and when the user completes the browsing, receiving an instruction from the user to close the plug-in and exit the private browsing mode. The method and apparatus for controlling a browser save the browsing data of a user in private browsing mode and prevent other users from accessing such data without the correct characteristic identifier.
US09842219B1

The disclosed computer-implemented method for curating file clusters for security analyzes may include (1) identifying a suspicious file that exists on at least one computing system within a computing community, (2) clustering a set of files that includes the suspicious file into a file cluster based at least in part on at least one characteristic shared by the set of files, (3) prioritizing at least one file included in the file cluster based at least in part on a contextual value of the file relative to the file cluster, (4) providing, for presentation to a security analyst, a graphical representation of the file cluster that highlights the prioritized file relative to the file cluster, and then (5) performing at least one security action on the suspicious file based at least in part on feedback received from the security analyst. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09842215B2

A computer-implemented system and method for anonymizing encrypted data is provided. At least one attribute is identified within a dataset for anonymization and is associated with a plurality of data values. Each data value is encrypted for each identified attribute while maintaining an order of the encrypted data values. The encrypted values are ordered and the ordered encrypted data values are segmented into two or more classes based on the ordering of the encrypted data values. A range of the encrypted data values within each of the segmented classes is identified and the range of one of the classes is assigned to each encrypted data value within that class as anonymized data.
US09842209B2

A collection of techniques allow for the detection of covert malware that attempts to hide its existence on a system by leveraging both trusted hardware event counters and the particular memory addresses (as well as the sequences of such addresses) of the instructions that are generating the suspected malicious activity. By monitoring the address distribution's specific patterns over time, one can build a behavioral model (i.e., “fingerprint”) of a particular process—and later attempt to match suspected malicious processes to the stored behavioral models. Whenever the actual measured behavior of a suspected malicious process fails to match said stored behavioral models, the system or system administrator may attempt to perform rehabilitative actions on the computer system to locate and remove the malware hiding on the system.
US09842203B2

Systems and methods for selective authorization of code modules are provided. According to one embodiment, a kernel mode driver monitors events occurring within a file system or an operating system. Responsive to observation of a trigger event performed by or initiated by an active process, in which the active process corresponds to a first code module within the file system and the event relates to a second code module within the file system, performing or bypassing a real-time authentication process on the second code module with reference to a multi-level whitelist database architecture. The active process is allowed to load the second code module into memory when the real-time authentication process is bypassed or when it is performed and results in an affirmative determination.
US09842192B2

A graphical user interface for a remote controlled robot system that includes a robot view field that displays information provided by a robot and an observer view field that display observer information about one or more observers that can receive the robot information. The interface has various features that allow a master user to control the observation and participation of the observers.
US09842189B2

A system and method for monitoring the inventory of a medical storage container that has a required inventory of medical articles. An enclosure is used to isolate, scan, and take an inventory of a tray or other container of medical articles each of which has an RFID tag. The enclosure having a size smaller than the size needed for a resonant frequency at the RFID frequency of operation of the tags. An injection device is used to create a robust electromagnetic field standing wave of constructive interference in the enclosure and a program compares the scanned present inventory of the tray to the required inventory database and indicates any differences. Expired and recalled articles are identified.
US09842188B2

A method and system for automated medical records processing with cloud computing The method and system includes plural electronic medical templates specifically designed such that they reduce the complexity and risk associated with collecting patient encounter information, creating a medical diagnosis and help generate the appropriate number and type medical codes for a specific type of medical practice when processed. The medical codes and other types of processed patient encounter information are displayed in real-time on electronic medical records and invoices immediately after a patient encounter via a cloud computing network.
US09842186B2

Disclosed herein is a computer-implemented method for determining an overlapping process window (OPW) of an area of interest on a portion of a design layout for a device manufacturing process for imaging the portion onto a substrate, the method comprising: obtaining a plurality of features in the area of interest; obtaining a plurality of values of one or more processing parameters of the device manufacturing process; determining existence of defects, probability of the existence of defects, or both in imaging the plurality of features by the device manufacturing process under each of the plurality of values; and determining the OPW of the area of interest from the existence of defects, the probability of the existence of defects, or both.
US09842176B2

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with designing computing systems are described. In one embodiment, a method includes generating a design that defines a computing system with at least a set of servers and connections between the set of servers to indicate an arrangement of the set of servers within the computing system. The method includes validating the design by determining whether the connections defined between the set of servers violate one or more of a set of design constraints. Validating the design includes using attributes of the set of servers to analyze the connections defined between the set of servers.
US09842174B2

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, to assemble a collection of documents according to a document list. The document list represents documents to be included in the collection, and includes multiple entries that identify document templates. Each document template includes instructions that a web server can execute to generate a web document based on one or more parameters. A web document corresponding to each of the multiple entries is requested; the requested web documents are received and stored in the collection of documents. Links in the received web documents can be identified and updated. The collection of documents can be accessed as part of a web site.
US09842173B2

A tool (systems, apparatus, methodology, application, user interface, etc.) for accessing content, such as webpages hosted over a network such as the internet, and more particularly, a tool for accessing the content of a webpage and further displaying a grid view superimposed over the content of the webpage.
US09842166B1

In one example embodiment, a computer system includes at least one processor and a memory storing a data graph and instructions. The instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to generate a template sentence based on a fact including a first node, a second node and a string, wherein the first node and the second node exist in the data graph and the string represents a fact that is absent from the data graph, search the internet for a document including the template sentence, and upon determining the internet includes the document with the template sentence, infer the fact by generating a series of connections between nodes and edges of the data graph that together with the first node and the second node are configured to represent the fact, the series of connections defining a path, in the data graph, from the first node to the second node.
US09842161B2

Curation of a corpus of a cognitive computing system is performed interactively by reporting on user interface device to a user a parse tree illustration of discrepancies and corresponding assigned confidence factors detected between at least a portion of a first document and a second or more documents in the corpus. Responsive to a user selection of an illustrated discrepancy in the parse tree, a drill-down dialog is prepared and displayed which shows at least a text string for the portion of the first document and at least one conflicting text string from the second or more documents, and which provides at least one user-selectable administrative action option for handling the detected discrepancy. Responsive to receipt of user selection of an administrative action option, the computing system performs the action to handle the detected discrepancy.
US09842159B2

The present invention relates to a heterogeneous data cluster generation apparatus and method and a data clustering method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a data clustering method and apparatus which cluster data measured by different sensors into a number of groups. Aspects of the present invention provide an apparatus and method for generating clusters by putting together heterogeneous data which are values measured by different types of sensors. Aspects of the present invention also provide an apparatus and method for generating clusters by setting indices in order to effectively cluster multi-dimensional data, massive data, or scattered data.
US09842158B2

Methods, systems, and media are provided for delivering clustered search results for recent and non-recent events by maintaining the identification (ID) numbers of the respective clustered documents beyond the “fresh” life span of the clustered documents. When clusters are formed according to similar content, an ID number and associated attributes are assigned to each of the clusters. This provides a mechanism to track and retrieve the respective clusters for subsequent delivery of search results. The respective ID numbers of the clusters are maintained, even after the documents are no longer considered “fresh.” These similar-content clusters are further subdivided according to publication date. This provides individual subdivided clusters for similar content events that occurred at different time spans, which are delivered along with individual non-clustered search results in a SERP.
US09842147B2

Implementations and techniques for determining a relative importance among ordered lists are generally discussed.
US09842144B2

A computer implemented method includes: receiving an incomplete input from a user; presenting a plurality of suggestions to the user for completion of the input, wherein the suggestions are presented in a ranked order based on a characteristic associated with the user terminal; receiving a selection by the user of a suggestion from the suggestions; and completing the input with the suggestion.
US09842143B2

Information delivery systems and methods are disclosed. In a system according to the invention, there is a database system, a user appliance, a first communication channel and a second communication channel. The database system may have records that are alterable by a service provider. The user appliance may have an input device with polysemous keys. Further, the user appliance may also have a monitor, which is able to provide the user with information corresponding to records of the database system.
US09842138B2

Methods and apparatus to search datasets are disclosed. An example disclosed apparatus includes a grouper to reference statistics associated with a database to identify which criterion of a group of logically related criteria of a search request satisfies fewer ones of records in the database, an identifier to select the identified criterion of the group of logically related criteria as a driving criterion for the group of logically related criteria, a reduced set generator to form a subset of the records of the database based on the driving criterion, and an analyzer to reduce a search time associated with the search request by searching the subset of the records for a non-driving criterion of the group of logically related criteria.
US09842136B2

A database management system (DBMS) generates a query execution plan including information indicating one or more database (DB) operations necessary to execute the query. The DBMS dynamically generates a task for executing the DB operation in execution of the query. The DBMS performs a determination processing of simultaneous-task-generation number when newly creating a task. The determination processing of simultaneous-task-generation number is to calculate the number of simultaneous task generation, which is the number of tasks that can be generated simultaneously, based on the number of tasks which can be newly generated, a first memory resource amount which is the amount of memory resources necessary to be allocated per task newly generated, and a second memory resource amount which is the number of memory resources that can be newly allocated. The number of tasks generated dynamically and simultaneously is equal to or smaller than the calculated number of simultaneously generatable tasks.
US09842133B2

A method for auditing a web-based video can comprise receiving validation information associated with one or more video files that are accessible on a webpage. The validation information can comprise one or more time intervals associated with at least one video file. Additionally, the validation information can comprise tag data relating a tag that are associated with the at least one video files. The method can also request through a network connection the at least one video files. The method can then execute the at least one video files. Executing the at least one video file can cause a tag to fire. Additionally, the method can validate the tag by determining whether the tag conforms to the received tag data.
US09842125B2

A method for the organizing, managing, mapping, distributing, transportation and displaying of multi-layered content and/or data in a tactile volumetric (three-dimensional), flat (two-dimensional) and/or multi-dimensional container and/or panel which functions as a macro controller through tactile, sensatory, audible and/or other forms of user control. This includes the means to manipulate content and/or data through a visual and/or multi-sensatory interface that stores content and media in a nested and sub-nested hierarchical container and sub-container array which can give real-time feedback to any involved party. These containers and/or panels provide a means to permanently move and validate content between servers, devices and/or users, while giving a real-time visual and/or multi-sensatory response and representation to that user. This system also provides a means to ingest and convert legacy media formats.
US09842122B2

Disclosed are methods and apparatuses for searching images. An image is received and a first search path is defined for the image. The first search path may be a straight line, horizontal, and/or near the bottom of the image, and/or may begin at one edge and move toward the other. A transition is defined for the image, distinguishing a feature to be found. The image is searched for the transition along the first search path. When the transition is detected, the image is searched along a second search path that follows the transition. The apparatus includes an image sensor and a processor. The sensor is adapted to obtain images. The processor is adapted to define a first search path and a transition for the image, to search for the transition along the first search path, and to search along a second search path upon detecting the transition, following the transition.
US09842121B2

A medical information processing apparatus includes an exam reservation information receiver and an image processor. The exam reservation information receiver receives exam reservation information for multiple image generating apparatuses, from an exam reservation apparatus. The image processor determines a type of image processing based on the received exam reservation information, and applies the determined type of image processing to original images as medical images generated by the multiple image generating apparatuses to generate a processing result image as the medical image.
US09842113B1

A context related to user experience with a computing device is acquired. When a user performs a file selection activity on the computing device, the computing device consults the stored context and displays a list of file names based on the context at the time of access. The context can include file name, file creator, last access date and information regarding the file's contents. Using context to display file names can provide enhanced user experience by displaying file names for files most likely to be opened by a user while omitting file names for files not likely to be opened. In the event that no file names belonging to files desired by a user are among the file names displayed, the system can revert to a default file open dialog.
US09842107B2

Methods, systems, and computer program products provide personalized feedback in a cloud-based environment. A client device routes image data to a server for analysis. The server analyzes the image data to recognize people of interest. Because the server performs image recognition, the client device is relieved of these intensive operations.
US09842103B1

A system and method for determining whether a textual work submitted for publishing is machine generated or non-machine generated by identifying and quantifying various aspects of the textual work and comparing those aspects to known works. For example, the system and method may identify aspects of a textual work, including, a relationship between the sentences within the textual work, a writing style of the author of the textual work, a grammatical structure of the sentences within the textual work, a quality of the textual work, and other aspects of the textual work. Upon determining that the textual work is machine generated the textual work may be rejected for publishing.
US09842101B2

Systems and processes for predictive conversion of language input are provided. In one example process, text composed by a user can be obtained. Input comprising a sequence of symbols of a first symbolic system can be received from the user. Candidate word strings corresponding to the sequence of symbols can be determined. Each candidate word string can comprise two or more words of a second symbolic system. The candidate word strings can be ranked based on a probability of occurrence of each candidate word string in the obtained text. Based on the ranking, a portion of the candidate word strings can be displayed for selection by the user.
US09842100B2

A system and method for analyzing narrative data based on a functional ontology using semiotic square functions to produce analyzed data outputs. A computer implemented method accesses narrative data and reads a semiotic square function data table for each verb in the sequence of words, each semiotic square function data table classifies at least one verb in each sentence pattern as a functional type and includes one or more words in a semiotic square relationship to the verb classified, the functional type applying at least one symmetrical relationship between a first actor and a second actor in the narrative data. The method parses each sentence which includes a verb matching a functional type to match sentence subjects and objects to an event template and outputs an analysis of the narrative data relative to a common story theme based on a sequence of event records.
US09842093B2

A monitoring system intelligently captures Document Object Model (DOM) events. The DOM events may provide state information that may not usually be captured during a web session. To reduce processing bandwidth, content identifiers may be used to represent some DOM events. Checkpoints may be identified during the web session and a current state of the webpage may be captured to provide replay synchronization. Different data may be captured based on a sequence and timing of the DOM events during the original web session. Data exchanged with third party websites also may be selectively captured to provide a more through simulation of the original web session.
US09842090B2

A database system may utilize XML schema information to increase the efficiency of an XPath streaming evaluation. The database system may access XML schema or translation information during the evaluation of an element, attribute, or value in an XML data source. Based on the XML schema or translation information, the database system may determine matches to an XPath expression without decoding any binary-encoded data in the XML data source. Also, based on the XML schema information, the database may selectively skip or evaluate portions of the XML data source depending on whether those portions are defined in the XML schema so as to possibly contain a match to one or more unmatched steps in the XPath expression. XML schema information may be compiled into a compiled representation of the XPath expression for additional efficiencies.
US09842089B2

A method for managing display of electronic documents is described. A user interface is generated for a visual style set of visual styles that affect display of electronic document content. A visual style of the visual style set comprises a style element set of style elements. A lock status for a style element of the style element set is received via the user interface. The lock status indicates whether the style element is editable or non-editable by a user of an electronic document associated with the visual style set. The visual style set is stored with the lock status for the style element.
US09842084B2

A method for data storage includes, in a system that includes multiple servers, multiple multi-queue storage devices and at least one storage controller that communicate over a network, storing data by the servers in a storage process that (i) caches the data in a cache memory that is accessible to the servers and to the storage devices and (ii) de-stages the cached data from the cache memory to the storage devices. A progress of the storage process is continually journaled, by the servers, in a plurality of server-specific journals residing in the cache memory. In response to a failure occurring during the storage process, the data is recovered by the storage controller based on the server-specific journals.
US09842081B2

A method and apparatus are provided for implementing modal selection of a bimodal coherent accelerator in a computer system. Implementing modal selection of a bimodal coherent accelerator using a PCI-Express standard Vendor Specific Extended Capability (VSEC) structure or CAPI VSEC data in the configuration space of a CAPI-capable PCIE adapter and procedures defined in the Coherent Accelerator Interface Architecture (CAIA) to enable and control a coherent coprocessor adapter over PCIE. A CAPI-capable PCIE adapter is enabled to be bimodal and operate in conventional PCI-Express (PCIE) transaction modes or CAPI modes that utilize CAIA coherence and programming interface capabilities.
US09842071B2

A serial peripheral interface is configurable to operate in a I2S transmission mode. The interface has a transmission unit connected with external pins for data, bit clock, and left/right clock signal, a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer with a plurality of memory lines, and a control unit operable to read data portions from two memory lines, to assemble them into a transmission word, and to forward the assembled transmission word to the transmission unit, wherein the transmission unit is configured to serially transmit the assembled transmission word through the external data pin.
US09842065B2

A data processing system (DPS) uses platform protection technology (PPT) to protect some or all of the code and data belonging to certain software modules. The PPT may include a virtual machine monitor (VMM) to enable an untrusted application and a trusted application to run on top of a single operating system (OS), while preventing the untrusted application from accessing memory used by the trusted application. The VMM may use a first extended page table (EPT) to translate a guest physical address (GPA) into a first host physical address (HPA) for the untrusted application. The VMM may use a second EPT to translate the GPA into a second HPA for the trusted application. The first and second EPTs may map the same GPA to different HPAs. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09842056B2

Systems and methods for non-blocking implementation of cache flush instructions are disclosed. As a part of a method, data is accessed that is received in a write-back data holding buffer from a cache flushing operation, the data is flagged with a processor identifier and a serialization flag, and responsive to the flagging, the cache is notified that the cache flush is completed. Subsequent to the notifying, access is provided to data then present in the write-back data holding buffer to determine if data then present in the write-back data holding buffer is flagged.
US09842051B1

A circuit includes a Virtually Indexed Physically Tagged (VIPT) cache and a cache coherency circuit. The VIPT cache includes a plurality of sets and performs a memory operation by selecting, using a Virtual Set Address (VSA), a first tag of a first set. The cache coherency circuit is to detect cache aliasing during memory operations of the VIPT cache when a second tag maps a physical address to a second set of the VIPT cache, the second set being different than the first set. A method of managing a VIPT cache includes performing, by the VIPT cache, a memory operation and determining, using a cache coherency protocol, that cache aliasing has occurred during the memory operation.
US09842044B2

A method, system and computer program product for commit sensitive testing is provided. The method includes applying a full set of different tests to an application and monitoring the application of the full set of different tests to determine files of the application affected by the full set of the different tests. The method also includes generating a mapping of each of the files and corresponding ones of the full set of the different tests affecting each of the files. Finally, the method includes responding to a change in one of the files by identifying in the mapping only a subset of the full set of the different tests affecting the changed one of the files and applying only the subset of the full set of the different tests to the changed one of the files.
US09842042B2

A system may include an active first point of deployment (POD) configured to provide a specified business functionality and may include a first server and a first instance of a platform to provide the specified business function. A dark second POD may be configured to include a second server and a second instance of the platform template, where the first platform template instance comprises a different version than the second platform template instance. A POD management computing device may test an operation of the second POD in parallel with the operation of the first POD. The POD management computing device may upgrade the business functionality by deactivating the first POD and activating the second POD to provide the specified business function using the second instance of the platform template.
US09842041B1

The technology can compute an approximation of a datastore storing a multiplicity of indexed data. An example method can a template including programming logic that, when executed, calculates output(s) based on input(s) and undetermined parameter(s). The undetermined parameter(s) are input into a machine learning framework. Data entries reflecting one or more inputs are retrieved from a datastore and input into the machine learning framework, which determines value(s) for the undetermined parameter(s), respectively (making them determined parameters). The example method generates an approximation of the datastore using the determined parameter(s) and the input(s).
US09842040B2

Techniques described herein generally relate to a task management system for a chip multiprocessor having multiple processor cores. The task management system tracks the changing instruction set capabilities of each processor core and selects processor cores for use based on the tracked capabilities. In this way, a processor core with one or more failed processing elements can still be used effectively, since the processor core may be selected to process instruction sets that do not use the failed processing elements.
US09842038B2

Embodiments of the present invention utilize a dual buffer size threshold system for raising interrupts that allows DUT testing systems to perform real-time buffer memory allocation procedures in an on demand basis. Using dual interrupt threshold systems in the manner described by embodiments of the present invention, DUT testing systems can reduce the need to decide on a single buffer size threshold when testing a set of DUTs that separately provide different amounts of fail data relative to each other. As such, embodiments of the present invention can minimize the overhead processing spent on interrupt handling while also reducing the amount wait time needed for the data processing module to process fail data for each DUT. Thus, embodiments of the present invention can increase the use of tester resources more efficiently while decrease the amount of time a tester system spends collecting and/or analyzing fail data for a set of DUTs during a testing session.
US09842031B1

A distributed database system may implement incremental updates to user transaction state at read-only nodes of the distributed database. A read-write node of the distributed database may determine a change to transaction state for a user transaction initiated at the read-write node. The read-write node may send a notification of the change to the transaction state for the user transaction to a read-only node in order to incrementally update the transaction state for the user transaction at the read-only node. The read-only node may receive the notification of the change to the transaction state and update in-memory system metadata to apply the change to the transaction state for the user transaction. A view of the distributed database may be made available at the read-only node for read requests according to the updated transaction state for the user transaction.
US09842030B2

The data storage device included a flash memory, divided into a plurality of blocks with each block comprising a plurality of physical pages, and a control unit, coupling the flash memory to a host and comprising a microcontroller and a random access memory. The microcontroller maintains a plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables and a link table on the flash memory to record mapping information between the host and the flash memory and records a link table indicator on the flash memory to indicate a position of the link table. The link table indicates positions of the plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables, and each entry in the link table corresponds to one logical-to-physical address mapping table. Further, the microcontroller erases user of logical addresses corresponding to N logical-to-physical address mapping tables.
US09842023B2

A starting read threshold is received. A first offset and a second offset is determined. A first read is performed at the starting read threshold offset by the first offset to obtain a first hard read value and a second read is performed at the starting read threshold offset by the second offset to obtain a second hard read value. A soft read value is generated based at least in part on the first hard read value and the second hard read value.
US09842020B2

Apparatus, systems and methods for error detection in transmissions on a multi-wire interface are disclosed. A method for correcting transmission errors in multi-wire transition-encoded interface may include determining whether a symbol error is present in the sequence of symbols based on a value of an error detection code (EDC) in the received plurality of bits, generating one or more permutations of the sequence of symbols, where each permutation includes one symbol that is different from corresponding symbols in the sequence of symbols and different from corresponding symbols in other permutations. A permutation in the one or more permutations may be identified as including a corrected sequence of symbols when it produces a decoded EDC value that matches an expected EDC value. The expected EDC value may correspond to a predefined value for EDCs transmitted over the multi-wire interface to enable detection of up to two symbol errors at the receiver.
US09842018B2

In a method for verifying the integrity of first to Nth binaries (N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2), the method may comprise: loading the first to Nth binaries into a main memory in order to execute the binaries; verifying a self hash to verify, by the Kth binary (K=1, . . . , N−1) which has been loaded into the main memory, the integrity thereof by using a hash; and verifying a link hash by setting any one of the first to Kth binaries as a verification binary and setting a (K+1)th binary to be loaded into the main memory as a binary to be verified so that the verification binary verifies the integrity of the binary to be verified by using a hash.
US09842016B2

In one aspect, multiple data path error collection is provided in a storage management system. In one embodiment, an error condition in a main data path between the storage controller and at least one of a host and a storage unit is detected, and in response, a sequence of error data collection operations to collect error data through a main path is initiated. In response to a failure to collect error data at a level of the sequential error data collection operations, error data is collected through an alternate data path as a function of the error data collection level at which the failure occurred. Other aspects are described.
US09842011B2

A target application loads target application's user interface (UI) after an initial preoperational task is completed. A task for visualizing a progress status for the target application is delegated to a source application that is used for launching the target application in a new window. The source application creates a shared object and assigns a unique identifier (ID) to the shared object. The unique ID of the shared object is passed to the target application, when the target application is launched from the source application. The shared object is accessed by the target application during the performance of the initial preoperational task. The target application stores progress status of the initial preoperational task in the shared object. The source application monitors the progress status stored in the shared object and presents it continuously on source application's user interface.
US09842010B1

A computational device maintains a spinlock for exclusive access of a resource by a process of a plurality of processes. In response to determining by the process that a turn for securing the spinlock has not arrived for the process, a sleep duration is determined for the process, prior to making a next attempt to secure the spinlock.
US09842003B2

An information handling system and method of a master baseboard management controller election and replacement sub-system (MBMCERS) enables decentralized resource management control via the elected master baseboard management controller (BMC). The information handling system includes a plurality of server nodes, each having a BMC capable of controlling a plurality of shared common resources among the plurality of server nodes. Each BMC has a unique BMC identification. A master register stores BMC identification that has been elected as the master BMC to control the shared common resources. The master BMC relinquishes control of the shared common resources when the master register is placed in the reset state. When the master register is in the reset state, any one of the BMCs can elect to become a replacement master BMC.
US09842000B2

The technology disclosed relates to managing processing of long tail task sequences in a stream processing framework. In particular, it relates to operating a computing grid that includes a plurality of physical threads which processes data from one or more near real-time (NRT) data streams for multiple task sequences, and queuing data from the NRT data streams as batches in multiple pipelines using a grid-coordinator that controls dispatch of the batches to the physical threads. The method also includes assigning a priority-level to each of the pipelines using a grid-scheduler, wherein the grid-scheduler initiates execution of a first number of batches from a first pipeline before execution of a second number of batches from a second pipeline, responsive to respective priority levels of the first and second pipelines.
US09841997B2

An apparatus and method for performing high performance instruction emulation. One embodiment of the invention includes a processor to process an instruction set including high-power and standard instructions comprising: an analysis module to determine whether a number of high-power instructions within a specified window are above or below a specified threshold; an execution mode selection module to select a native execution of the high-power instructions if the number of high-power instructions are above the specified threshold or to select an emulated execution of the high-power instructions if the number of high-power instructions are below the specified threshold.
US09841996B2

The scheduler performs thread scheduling of repeating processings of specifying each hardware thread included in a first group among the multiple hardware threads for the number of times set up in advance for the hardware thread, and of specifying any one of the hardware threads in a second group for the number of times set up in advance for the second group that includes other hardware threads. A thread waste counter is provided for each hardware thread in the first group and counts up each time a nondispatchable state occurs when the hardware thread is specified by the thread scheduling. When the hardware thread in the first group specified by the thread scheduling is nondispatchable, the scheduler performs rescheduling of respecifying the hardware thread in the second group instead of the hardware thread in the first group.
US09841992B2

Information processing device includes: a first storage unit for storing processing information indicative of predetermined processing and for sequentially outputting the stored processing information; a second storage unit for storing the processing information; a request management unit operative to receive and to store the received processing information in the first storage unit when available, and to store the received processing information in the second storage unit when the first storage unit is unavailable; a request acquisition unit operative to sequentially acquire the processing information output by the first storage unit when the processing information is present in the first storage unit, and search the second storage unit so as to detect and acquire the processing information when the processing information is absent in the first storage unit; and a processing execution unit to perform the predetermined processing according to the acquired processing information.
US09841988B1

A processing device of a system may determine that a new service virtual machine (VM) image is available, the new service VM image comprising an update for a current service VM image. The system may identify a first instance of a first service VM that is presently running, wherein the first instance of the first service VM was created from the current service VM image and has a floating internet protocol (IP) address. The system may further create a second instance of the first service VM using the new service VM image, transfer active sessions of the first instance of the first service VM to the second instance of the first service VM, and reassign the floating IP address from the first instance of the first service VM to the second instance of the first service VM.
US09841983B2

Techniques to facilitate virtual machine (VM) host maintenance are disclosed. A host requiring maintenance is converted to a VM running on another host which satisfies certain requirements, such as having sufficient resources and the same network connectivity as the host requiring maintenance. As part of this physical-to-virtual conversion, or after said conversion, the VM may be synchronized to the host requiring maintenance, such that the CPU state and memory contents of the VM and host are identical. Active control may then be passed to the VM, and the host powered down for the maintenance. After maintenance is completed and the host powered back on, virtual-to-physical conversion may be applied to convert the VM back to the host. The host may then be synchronized to the VM, and active control passed back to the host.
US09841978B2

A processor includes: an instruction fetch portion configured to fetch simultaneously a plurality of fixed-length instructions in accordance with a program counter; an instruction predecoder configured to predecode specific fields in a part of the plurality of fixed-length instructions; and a program counter management portion configured to control an increment of the program counter in accordance with a result of the predecoding.
US09841977B2

The invention relates to a method of designing a processor core arrangement which comprises a first processor core for operation at a first operation frequency and having an associated first leakage and a second processor core for operation at a second operation frequency lower than the first operation frequency and having an associated second leakage lower than the associated first leakage. The processor core arrangement is capable of switching from the first processor core to the second processor core and vice versa.
US09841976B2

A disassembler receives instructions and disassembles them into a plurality of separate opcodes. The disassembler creates a table identifying boundaries between each opcode. Each opcode is written to memory in an opcode-by-opcode manner by atomically writing standard blocks of memory. Debug break point opcodes are appended to opcode to create a full block of memory when needed. The block of memory may be thirty-two or sixty-four bits long, for example. Long opcodes may overlap two or more memory blocks. Debug break point opcodes may be appended to a second portion of the long opcode to create a full block of memory. A stream fault interceptor identifies when a requested data page is not available and retrieving the data page.
US09841966B2

User configurations of an installed application are migrated by isolating them from a base application state of the installed application to generate a virtual application package. At runtime, a base virtual application package and a user configurations virtual application package are provisioned from a central repository and executed by the user. The resulting virtualized execution environment merges the application resources contained in the packages such that the user configurations override the base application to make available all of the user configurations. This technique may be used to preserve user configurations during migration of applications, or to maintain user-specific configurations for a particular application across different sessions of a user's virtualized desktop.
US09841965B2

A centralized system for real-time monitoring widely distributed software updates of vehicle components, comprises: an arbitration server; a distributed network comprising a plurality of communication servers; a plurality of vehicles, each vehicle of said plurality of vehicles comprising a telematics control unit (TCU) operable to communicate with one communication server of said plurality of communication servers, each TCU is adapted to receive and deploy software updates to electronic control units (ECUs) within its corresponding vehicle, and said TCU is operable to generate status updates for software updates and communicate the status updates to the corresponding communication server; and each communication server is operable to simultaneously receive data messages comprising status updates from the plurality of vehicles and to generate a data stream comprising the data messages, the data stream being sent to a log file.
US09841962B2

Methods and apparatus for implementing hybrid-cloud computing networks are disclosed. An example computer-implemented method includes receiving, at a computing device, a request to provision a user application. The method further includes identifying an application blueprint corresponding with the request and identifying at least one computing resource corresponding with the request. The method still further includes identifying a network blueprint that includes the at least one computing resource, provisioning a computing network in accordance with the identified network blueprint and provisioning the at least one computing resource in the provisioned computing network. The method also includes, installing the user application in the provisioned at least one computing resource in accordance with the application blueprint.
US09841961B1

A system and method manages communications between applications and multiple user computing systems, according to one embodiment. The method and system includes establishing one or more virtual assets in an asset computing environment and installing an application onto the one or more virtual assets in the asset computing environment, according to one embodiment. The system and method receives a first request from a first user computing system and a second request from a second user computing system and delivers the first request and the second request to the application, according to one embodiment. The system and method receives a first result from the application for the first request and a second result from the application for the second request and distributes the first result to the first user computing system and the second result to the second computing system, according to one embodiment.
US09841956B2

This disclosure provides various embodiments for generating reports relating to UI models' compliance with a set of UI style guide rules. A digital UI model is parsed to determine whether a user interface, in a plurality of user interfaces within a software environment, satisfies at least one UI style guide rule in a plurality of UI style guide rules associated with the software environment. The digital UI model defines a plurality of attributes of the user interface. At least one statistical measure is calculated relating to compliance with UI style guide rules. The calculation of the statistical measure is based at least in part on the determination of whether the user interface satisfies the at least one UI style guide rule. A report is then generated identifying the at least one statistical measure, the report configured for presentation on a user interface of a computing device.
US09841946B1

In some applications, such as randomization and cryptography, remainder computation for a number is required. The remainder computation is also used in modulo arithmetic. The remainder computation can be simplified when the divisor belongs to a certain class of numbers. A method and apparatus are disclosed that enable low complexity implementation of remainder computation of any number when the divisor belongs to a type of numbers that can be represented as 2k+1.
US09841938B2

A monitor display system includes a computing device that is coupled to a collection of dissimilar monitors and a display manager that is coupled to the computing device. The display manager has an image generator that generates an image for the collection of dissimilar monitors and also has a pixel density normalizer that is coupled to the image generator and provides an alignment of the image across the collection of dissimilar monitors. A method of managing a display image is also included.
US09841934B2

An information processing apparatus includes a detector configured to detect whether a first printer serving as a connection destination of an installed first driver has been changed to a second printer; an information acquirer configured to, when the first printer has been changed, acquire from the first driver first information and acquire from the second printer second information; an inquirer configured to request information on a driver for the second printer together with the first and second information to a server, and receive a response including the information on the driver for the second printer; a decider configured to determine a second driver to be installed from drivers indicated by the response; a driver acquirer configured to acquire the second driver from the server; and an installer configured to carry over print settings of the first driver to install the second driver.
US09841922B2

A memory system includes a memory controller, a first memory module including first and second groups of first memory chips, a second memory module including first and second groups of second memory chips, and a channel including a first group of signal lines suitable for coupling the memory controller with the first memory module, and a second group of signal lines suitable for coupling the memory controller with the second memory module.
US09841914B2

Implementations of the present disclosure include methods, systems, and computer-readable storage mediums for receiving source code of an application, providing intermediate code based on the source code, the intermediate code including at least one instruction for profiling at least one object of the application, providing a statistics file by processing the intermediate code based on a memory profiling library, processing the statistics file based on a plurality of models to provide a list of objects, the list of objects identifying types of memory respective objects should be stored to in a hybrid main memory system, and storing modified source code that is provided based on the source code and the list of objects.
US09841905B2

The present invention relates to a computer implemented method and database management system for storing data on a storage device. A plurality of empty files at the storage device is pre-allocated in a processor of the database management system. Each of the empty files has a pre-determined file size. The empty files are overwritten sequentially with a plurality of data blocks. Each of the data blocks having a pre-determined size. The present invention relates to a database management system (DBMS) that coordinates both the physical and the logical components of data management.
US09841898B2

Transmitting or storing subsegments is disclosed. A data stream or a data block is received and broken into a plurality of segments. For at least one segment, the segment is broken into a plurality of subsegments. A previously stored or transmitted segment similar to the at least one segment is identified. A fingerprint is computed for at least one subsegment. And, using the fingerprint for the at least one subsegment, determining whether the at least one subsegment is identical to a subsegment of the previously stored or transmitted segment without directly comparing the content of the at least one subsegment with the content of the subsegment of the previously stored or transmitted segment.
US09841890B2

A plurality of GUIs are displayed on the screen of a display. A hit determination area of each GUI is defined within a graphic of the GUI. When a user touches a point of contact, four virtual points of contact are generated in the shape of a ‘V’ within the screen. A GUI desired to be selected by the user is identified according to a predetermined rule by referring to whether points of contact are located within each hit determination area, the number of points of contact, the priority level defined for each GUI, etc.
US09841883B2

The described technology is directed towards user interface technology that guides users in making content (e.g., video selection) and also navigating within selected content. A selection menu view uses style changes to indicate focus changes, e.g., including animating opacity values to indicate a focused item view versus those items not in focus. In another view, a subset of filmstrip views are displayed, each representing a chapter location in a video, along with a flipbook view that represents a selected scene within a selected chapter. Interaction with the filmstrip views changes the visible subset. Interaction with the flipbook view changes the selected scene; a play command plays the video based upon the selected scene.
US09841882B2

Methods and systems for providing virtual workspaces are provided. Specifically, Application Workspace System “AWS” enables users to access remote server-based applications (e.g., thin client applications, terminal server applications, applications on hosted operating systems, etc.) using the same interface that they use to access local applications, without needing to know where the application is being accessed. The AWS automatically determines which applications the user is entitled to use, and then figures out, based upon a variety of parameters, which applications are to be made available to the user (resolved to version, particular package etc.), and whether they are to be installed locally, or accessed remotely.
US09841879B1

A computing device can include a recognition mode interface utilizing graphical elements, such as virtual fireflies, to indicate recognized or identified objects. The fireflies can be animated to move across a display, and the fireflies can create bounding boxes around visual representations of objects as the objects are recognized. In some cases, the object might be of a type that has specific meaning or information to be conveyed to a user. In such cases, the fireflies might be displayed with a particular size, shape, or color to convey that information. The fireflies also can be configured to form shapes or patterns in order to convey other types of information to a user, such as where audio is being recognized, light is sufficient for image capture, and the like. Other types of information can be conveyed as well via altering characteristics of the fireflies.
US09841876B2

The invention is directed to an electronic device. The electronic device generates for presentation on a display a user interface including a plurality of content items, a first heading, and a second heading. While the user interface is presented on the display, the electronic device receives input scrolling the plurality of content items. In response to the input, the electronic device scrolls the plurality of content items including: scrolling the first heading with a first content item of the plurality of content items that is currently playing; and scrolling the second heading with a second content item of the plurality of content items that is next in a queue of content items.
US09841873B1

The present invention provides a process for inputting character strings which reduces the number of physical actions required by the user. In this process, the user is provided a rule or rules about which characters in a target character string are to be selected and corresponding mechanism or mechanisms are applied while searching a reference set of possible character strings to identify and present a subset of likely candidates. One illustrative rule is that the user is to select only the consonants in the target character string. One illustrative embodiment of the invention reduces the number of physical actions required by a user entering text into a device when using any of a plurality of input alternatives. A second illustrative embodiment of the invention reduces the number of physical actions required by a physically-disabled user entering text into a device using a virtual keyboard, scanning keyboard, or other assistive method for the purpose of standard text entry or communicative text or speech output.
US09841858B2

A touch window includes a substrate comprising a first area and a second area, a wire electrode on the second area, an intermediate layer provided on the substrate to cover an end of the wire electrode, a sensing electrode on the intermediate layer, and a connection electrode to connect the sensing electrode with the wire electrode. The connection electrode is provided on the intermediate layer to connect the sensing electrode with the wire electrode.
US09841857B2

The present application provides a conductive pattern laminate including: a substrate having concave portions or protrusion portions on an upper surface thereof; and a conductive film provided on an upper surface of concave portions or protrusion portions of the substrate and on a portion in which no concave portions or protrusion portions are present on the upper surface of the substrate, in which the conductive film provided on the upper surface of concave portions or protrusion portions of the substrate and the conductive film provided on the portion in which no concave portions or protrusion portions are present on the upper surface of the substrate are electrically disconnected from each other, a method for manufacturing the same, and an electronic apparatus including the laminate.
US09841850B2

Methods, systems and devices are described for operating an electronic system which includes a pliable component having an input surface, a first array of sensor electrodes, a second array of sensor electrodes, and a third array of sensor electrodes. The input device also includes a conductive substrate spaced apart from the pliable component and a compliant component disposed between the pliable component and the conductive substrate. In response to pressure applied by an input object to the input surface, the pliable component and the first, second, and third arrays of sensor electrodes locally deform and the compliant component locally compresses such that a spacing between the conductive substrate and at least one electrode from each of the first, second, and third arrays decreases.
US09841839B2

A system and method are disclosed for measuring latency in a device which includes a user interface that receives user input and provides output in response. In an embodiment, a body separate from the device under test is provided. A first sensor operatively attached to the body detects a touch event input to the device at a first time and a second sensor detects a response output from the device at a second time. A computational engine computes a time differential between the first time and the second time and an output outputs an indication of a measurement of latency in the device, the measurement being reflective of the time differential between the first time and the second time.
US09841832B2

A self-capacitive touch panel structure includes a touch detection chip and multiple self-capacitance electrodes arranged as a matrix and isolated with each other. Each self-capacitance electrode connected with the touch detection chip through a connection line. Each self-capacitance electrode electrically connected with a corresponding connection line through at least one via hole. Wherein, a group of connection lines connected with a same column of the multiple self-capacitance electrodes are divided into an odd number group and an even number group, the connection lines in the odd number group are sequentially connected with corresponding self-capacitance electrodes from an terminal of the same column of the self-capacitance electrodes, and the connection lines in the even number group are sequentially connected with corresponding self-capacitance electrodes from another terminal of the same column of the self-capacitance electrodes. An in-cell touch panel and a liquid crystal display including above structure are also disclosed.
US09841825B2

Personal computer (PC) and online gaming are gaining popularity around the world. Typically players use human interface devices (HIDs) such as keyboards and mice for playing PC games. Many of the modern PC games use a control scheme commonly known as the “WASD/Mouse” which is a combination of the “WASD” keyboard keys and the mouse as means for interacting with the PC games. Additionally, for expansion on existing game control functions, modifier keys are used in conjunction with other keyboard keys to serve as shortcut keys for activating such game control functions. However, due to close positioning of the “WINDOWS” key with the modifier keys on the keyboards, the “WINDOWS” menu might be activated accidentally during normal PC game play especially when players frequently access the shortcut keys. An embodiment of the invention describes a system and method for deactivating keys selectable on human interface devices.
US09841818B2

A haptic peripheral includes a housing with a frame having a plurality of circumferentially-spaced apart windows, a plurality of deformable membranes positioned within the plurality of circumferentially-spaced apart windows, and a haptic output device disposed within the housing and coupled to the plurality of deformable membranes. The haptic output device includes a motor, a converter, and a plurality of radially-extending pins. Each radially-extending pin has a first end attached to the converter and a second opposing end attached to a deformable membrane. The motor is configured to receive a control signal from a processor and is configured to rotate relative to the housing in response to the control signal. The converter converts rotary motion of the motor to linear motion to move the plurality of radially-extending pins to thereby radially extend the deformable membranes relative to the housing and provide a haptic effect to a user of the haptic peripheral.
US09841816B2

A method and apparatus for generating mood-based haptic feedback are disclosed. A haptic system includes a sensing device, a digital processing unit, and a haptic generator. The sensing device, in one embodiment, is configured to detect user's modalities in accordance with mood information collected by one or more sensors and capable of issuing a sensing signal in response to the user's modalities. The digital processing unit is capable of identifying a user's condition in accordance with the sensing signal and providing a haptic signal in response to the user's condition. The user's condition, in one aspect, indicates user's mood and/or user's psychological conditions. The haptic generator generates haptic feedback in accordance with the haptic signal.
US09841807B2

Embodiments of the invention relate to a method and apparatus for a zero voltage processor sleep state. A processor may include a dedicated cache memory. A voltage regulator may be coupled to the processor to provide an operating voltage to the processor. During a transition to a zero voltage power management state for the processor, the operational voltage applied to the processor by the voltage regulator may be reduced to approximately zero and the state variables associated with the processor may be saved to the dedicated cache memory.
US09841802B2

Methods, systems, and devices are described for managing wake locks in a wireless communication device. The described methods, systems and devices may enable a wireless communication device to monitor activity of an application for which a wake lock is held. The described approach may manage the wake lock based at least in part on the activity or inactivity of the application. For example, when the application is inactive or has activity below a particular threshold for a certain amount of time, the described approach may determine to release the wake lock.
US09841800B2

Methods, apparatuses, and products for budgeting for power consumption in a chassis environment that includes a plurality of integrated technology elements (‘ITEs’), each ITE having power utilization information indicating an average power consumption of the ITE, including: determining, by a chassis management module, a total power requirement value based on a sum of the average power consumption for each ITE; increasing, by the chassis management module, the total power requirement value in dependence upon a predetermined power utilization delta; identifying, by the chassis management module, one or more power supplies to provide power to the ITEs in the chassis environment in dependence upon power delivery capabilities of the one or more power supplies and the total power requirement value; and powering on the identified one or more power supplies by the chassis management module.
US09841795B2

A reset state control circuit adapted to reset independent device domains of an electronic device, said reset state control circuit comprising a capturing unit adapted to capture reset events; and a reset shaping logic adapted to change dynamically a reset control flow to reset device domains of said electronic device depending on a sequence of the reset events captured by said capturing unit.
US09841769B2

Embodiments of a fluid flow regulating device and methods of using the same are described. Certain embodiments manages fluid flow between one or more input ports and output ports at least partly in response to fluid pressure changes and/or by a mechanism driven by fluid flow, optionally without using electrical power.
US09841758B2

A self-propelled device determines an orientation for its movement based on a pre-determined reference frame. A controller device is operable by a user to control the self-propelled device. The controller device includes a user interface for controlling at least a direction of movement of the self-propelled device. The self-propelled device is configured to signal the controller device information that indicates the orientation of the self-propelled device. The controller device is configured to orient the user interface, based on the information signaled from the self-propelled device, to reflect the orientation of the self-propelled device.
US09841740B2

According to at least one embodiment, a computer-implemented method to implement at least one automation rule is described. The at least one automation rule may be generated, wherein the at least one automation rule may control at least one aspect of an automation system. The execution origination point may be selected for the at least one automation rule based at least in part on the one or more implementation parameters. The one or more implementation parameters may comprise at least one of the speed of the automation rule execution, the scalability of the automation rule, the flexibility of the automation rule conditions, or the ease of automation rule modification.
US09841738B2

A method for operating an automation machine having a field bus device and an energy consumer connected to the field bus device, includes storing energy data relating to the energy consumer in the field bus device before operation of the automation machine, the energy data identifying an energy mode being stored, reading the energy data from the field bus device by a first control device connected to the field bus device via a field bus, and using the energy data for energy-saving operation of the automation machine during operation of the automation machine.
US09841737B2

An automatic test system and method are provided. The automatic test system includes at least one formation apparatus and a test fixture. The formation apparatus receives a first control command from a network and executes a test procedure according to the first control command. The test procedure includes a charging mode and a discharging mode. The test fixture is selectively coupled to the formation apparatus. During the test procedure, when the test fixture is coupled to the formation apparatus, the test fixture generates a first measurement result. The test fixture transmits the first measurement result to the formation apparatus via a wireless communication interface of the test fixture.
US09841734B2

A display mechanism including a mechanism for fast correction of a position of a display wheel set, an intermediate wheel set ensuring synchronization with an automatic drive mechanism, and, inserted between the intermediate wheel set and the display wheel set, a safety lever driven by the display wheel set during periodic driving thereof, in a trajectory that interferes with a spatial volume of the intermediate wheel set, such that, when the intermediate wheel set is correctly synchronized, the trajectory of the lever does not interfere with the intermediate wheel set, and, when the intermediate wheel set is not correctly synchronized, the trajectory of the safety lever interferes with the intermediate wheel set, which the safety lever then drives in an opposite direction to a single direction of normal operation, to resynchronize the intermediate wheel set.
US09841733B2

An electronic timepiece has an outside perimeter part disposed around a dial, hands, and a control unit. Further, 40 to 60 time zone indicators including time difference information representing the time difference between Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and the standard time used in each time zone are on the outside perimeter part. The control unit indicates a specific time zone indicator with a hand.
US09841727B2

A process cartridge comprises a guide member positioned at a side of the process cartridge, a photosensitive drum having an axis L1, and a coupling member having an axis L2, with the coupling member including at least one projection. A relative positioning of the coupling member and the guide member is changeable between (i) a first relative position in which a tip of the at least one projection is a first distance away from an end of the guide member as measured in the direction of the axis L1 and (ii) a second relative position in which the tip of the at least one projection is a second distance away from the end of the guide member as measured in the direction of the axis L1, with the first distance being greater than the second distance.
US09841710B1

A transport device includes: a first rotational member; a second rotational member that forms a nip with the first rotational member; a guide member that guides the medium in a predetermined direction; a changing part that supports the second rotational member so as to be rotatable and that moves the second rotational member to change a nip state between the second rotational member and the first rotational member; and an interposed member supported by the changing part and nipped between the first rotational member and the guide member, the interposed member including, in an intersecting direction intersecting a direction in which the interposed member is nipped, multiple portions having different thicknesses, the interposed member being nipped at any one of the multiple portions, while being moved in the intersecting direction in accordance with the movement of the second rotational member.
US09841708B2

An image forming apparatus has an image carrier carrying a toner image; a transfer member made with an ion conductive material and forming a transfer nip by being pressed by the image carrier; and a power supply continuously applying a transfer bias voltage to the transfer member as a plurality of print media pass through the transfer nip. The transfer bias voltage has a predetermined polarity. A control section determines whether the resistance of a nip-margin area has exceeded a predetermined resistance threshold, the nip-margin area being a marginal portion of the transfer nip through which no print medium passes. When the determination of the control section is affirmative, the power supply applies a reverse-bias voltage to the transfer member, the reverse-bias voltage having an opposite polarity to the transfer bias voltage.
US09841707B2

An image forming apparatus includes: an image carrier configured to carry a toner image; a transfer member configured to transfer the toner image onto a transfer target member by applying a transfer voltage of the opposite polarity of the polarity of the toner image to the transfer target member, the transfer member being in contact with the image carrier; an accepting unit configured to accept a setting for changing a preset current range to a new current range, the preset current range being defined by one of a lower limit of a current flowing in the transfer target member and an upper limit of the current; a sensing unit configured to sense a magnitude of the current flowing in the transfer target member; and a control device configured to control the transfer voltage so that the magnitude of the sensed current falls within the new current range.
US09841705B2

A packaging unit includes an image forming apparatus and a packaging member. A cartridge is detachably mounted in the image forming apparatus. The cartridge accommodates developer therein. The image forming apparatus is configured to form an image using the developer. The cartridge is formed with a first opening for allowing the developer to discharge outside from the cartridge when the cartridge is in a first posture. The cartridge is in the first posture when the image is formed. The packaging member packages the image forming apparatus therein in such a posture that the cartridge is in a second posture where leakage of the developer from the first opening is unlikely to occur as compared with a posture of the image forming apparatus in which the cartridge is in the first posture.
US09841704B2

A developing device includes a developer carrying member for carrying a developer; a circulation path along which the developer is circulated; a carrier supplying portion; a discharge opening, provided in the circulation path, through which a portion of the developer is to be overflowed and discharged; and a feeding member comprising a rotation shaft and a blade portion including a helical portion. An outer diameter of the blade portion formed in a first region including at least a portion opposing the discharge opening is smaller than that in a second region adjacent to the first region with respect to a rotation shaft direction. A smaller average angle formed between the rotation shaft and a developer feeding surface of the blade portion in the first region is smaller than that in the second region.
US09841689B1

A method is provided that comprises printing FEM wafers having different predefined focus offsets and multiple corresponding sites, measuring signals from the sites, and quantifying a focus inaccuracy by comparing the measured signals from the corresponding sites across the wafers.
US09841684B2

A light source apparatus according to an embodiment may be used for an exposure apparatus which exposes a plurality of wafers by repeating a wafer exposure for exposing a total exposure area of each wafer. The wafer exposure may include a sequential execution of scanning exposures in which each divided area defined by dividing the total exposure area of each wafer is scanned by pulsed light. The apparatus may comprise: a light source controller configured to execute a control for outputting the pulsed light based on a luminescence trigger signal received from the exposure apparatus; a detector configured to detect a characteristic of the pulsed light; and a data collection processor configured to collect at least a piece of data in data included in a pulse light data group related to the pulsed light detected by the detector and a control data group related to the control, and execute a mapping process of mapping the collected data by at least one of scanning exposure basis and wafer exposure basis.
US09841679B2

An actinic ray-sensitive or radiation-sensitive resin composition contains a resin (P) having a partial structure represented by General Formula (X), and a compound capable of generating an acid upon irradiation with actinic ray or radiation.
US09841673B2

An imprint apparatus molds and cures an imprint material on a substrate using a mold to thereby form a pattern on the substrate. The apparatus includes a first drive mechanism configured to apply a force in a planar direction of the mold and change the planar shape of the pattern portion formed in the mold, and a second drive mechanism configured to deform the mold about an axis (for example, the Y axis) that is orthogonal to the pressing direction of the mold and the uncured resin (for example, the Z axis) and a direction of the force applied by the first drive mechanism (for example, the X axis).
US09841671B2

A storage container in which a uniform flow velocity of the purge gas can be achieved is provided with a plurality of stages of storage units each having an accommodating region to accommodate an article. A supply portion supplies a purge gas; a duct portion communicates with other duct portions of other storage units and serves as a flow path for the purge gas supplied from the supply portion; and an introducing portion communicably connects the duct portion with the accommodating region and introduces the purge gas to the accommodating region. In the flow path for the purge gas in the duct portion, a diffusion member is arranged.
US09841670B2

Provided is a support frame for pellicles which includes an aluminum alloy-made frame body with a pellicle film bonded to a front surface of the frame body, and with a glass substrate bonded to a back surface of the frame body. A front-side recessed groove extending in a circumferential direction of the frame body is formed on the front surface of the frame body, and a front-side suction hole extending from an outer peripheral surface of the frame body to an inner surface of the front-side recessed groove is formed on the frame body.
US09841667B2

A reflective photomask includes a substrate and a reflective layer on the substrate. The reflective layer has a top surface opposite to the substrate and a reflectivity distribution on the top surface. The reflective layer includes mask patterns, the mask patterns having sizes depending on the reflectivity distribution. The mask patterns include a first pattern and a second pattern, the first pattern having a first space size smaller than a second space size of the second pattern. The first pattern is provided in a first region of the top surface, and the second pattern is provided in a second region of the top surface, wherein a reflectivity in the first region is lower than a reflectivity in the second region.
US09841664B2

A cooling device that can maintain or improve a cooling ability without being affected by fluctuation in an ambient temperature. Gas is supplied to a cooling target to cool the cooling target. A cooling device includes a cooling gas including gas having thermal conductivity higher than the thermal conductivity of the air, a partition wall that closes and stores the cooling target and the cooling gas and is capable of circulating the cooling gas, a cooling section that cools and circulates the cooling gas, a pressure determining section that determines the pressure of the cooling gas, and a cooling control section that controls the cooling section. The cooling control section causes the cooling section to change the pressure of the cooling gas and/or change the circulation speed of the cooling gas on the basis of a result of the determination of the pressure determining section.
US09841663B2

A light source apparatus includes a light source, a light source enclosure that accommodates the light source and has a plurality of openings formed therein in a circumferential direction around an optical axis of the light source, a channel having an introduction port through which air is introduced from outside of the light source enclosure, the channel allowed to communicate with the plurality of openings, and an opening/closing mechanism that rotates around the optical axis to selectively open and close the plurality of openings, and the opening/closing mechanism has an opening/closing section that opens and closes the plurality of openings in a first posture in which the optical axis extends along a horizontal plane in such a way that upper openings located on a vertically upper side are open and at least part of lower openings located on a vertically lower side is closed.
US09841660B1

An object guide having a variable motion path includes a connecting seat, a first motion unit, a second motion unit, an adjustment unit and a drive unit. The adjustment unit is disposed on the connecting seat, and the second connecting portion of the first connecting arm and the fourth connecting portion of the second connecting arm are disposed at the same position, the first adjustment portion of the first adjustment arm and the second adjustment portion of the second adjustment arm are also located at the same position and simultaneously moved by the adjustment unit. Therefore, simply adjusting the adjustment unit can simultaneously adjust the first adjustment portion and the second adjustment portion to the straight line position, the outward curvature position, or the inward curvature position, which make the adjustment convenient, and the displacement curvatures for moving the object are asymmetrical.
US09841658B1

A controllable opto-electronic time stretcher comprising a first wave guide and a second waveguide coupled to the first waveguide along a coupling portion; wherein at least one of the first and second waveguides in the coupling portion has a controllable refractive index.
US09841656B2

A frequency converter system includes a source that emits a beam having a wide spectral band; and a frequency conversion cell including 1) a birefringent nonlinear crystal having a first phase-matching wavelength, with an input face that receives the beam, an output face that emits at least one frequency-converted beam, and at least two parallel faces different from the input and output faces; 2) means for applying an external mechanical force to at least one of said two parallel faces, resulting in a variation in the birefringence of the nonlinear crystal, the value of the applied external mechanical force being determined so as to obtain phase matching at a second phase-matching wavelength different from the first phase-matching wavelength; and 3) means for adjusting the external mechanical force for wavelength tunability in the frequency conversion cell.
US09841653B2

An electrophoretic medium comprises an electrophoretic layer, a layer of lamination adhesive and a polymeric layer disposed between the electrophoretic layer and the lamination adhesive layer, the polymeric layer being impermeable to the fluid. A second form of electrophoretic medium has a layer of a complex of an alkali metal and a polymer in contact with the electrophoretic layer. A third form of electrophoretic medium comprises a plurality of discrete droplets of internal phase in a binder, and further comprises a salt.
US09841638B2

A liquid crystal display device having 2-pixel multi-domain type pixels, in which columnar spacers are disposed in optimal positions. Each of plural video lines has a first portion in which an acute-angled crossing angle of two crossing angles crossing each of scanning lines becomes a positive angle in a clockwise direction from each of the scanning lines, and a second portion in which an acute-angled crossing angle of the two crossing angles crossing each of scanning lines becomes a negative angle in the clockwise direction from each of the scanning lines. The first and second portions are alternately disposed so as to hold the scanning line between them.
US09841627B2

A backlight module includes a substrate having an opening on top, a first reflective plate disposed on a bottom surface of the substrate, light guide plates disposed on the first reflective plate with intervals in between, backlight source components, and a plurality of optical films disposed on the opening of the substrate. The backlight source components comprise heat sink shelves, and point light sources that are fixed on the heat sink shelves and inserted in the interval between two neighboring light guide plates. The present invention effectively reduces the width and thickness of the backlight module, and is instrumental for a narrow-frame and ultra-thin design, effectively reduce production cost. Meanwhile, the arrangement ensures good backlight uniformity, and is instrumental in reducing the distance needed for light mixing. Additionally, the defect of dark band appearing around the backlight module of traditional backlight modules can be effectively eliminated.
US09841625B2

A color conversion panel according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an insulation substrate, a plurality of color conversion media layers on the insulation substrate and configured to emit different lights, and a light blocking member between adjacent ones of the color conversion media layers, wherein a cross-section of one of the color conversion media layers is inversely tapered when compared to a cross section of another one of the color conversion media layers.
US09841617B2

An optical device includes an active layer that includes at least two outer barriers and at least one coupled quantum well that is inserted between the at least two outer barriers. Each coupled quantum well includes at least three quantum well layers and at least two coupling barriers that are respectively provided between the at least three quantum well layers. Thicknesses of two quantum well layers disposed at opposite end portions of the at least three quantum well layers are less than a thickness of the other quantum well layer disposed between the two quantum well layers disposed at the opposite end portions. A bandgap of the two quantum well layers disposed at the opposite end portions may be higher than a bandgap of the other quantum well layer disposed between the two quantum well layers.
US09841616B1

A mobile system includes a self-supporting platform, a tunable anti-reflective (AR) skin or film disposed on and secured to the mobile platform, one or more actuators and a controller. The tunable AR skin or film includes one or more layers that are at least partially transmitting to optical energy at one or more optical wavelengths. The skin or film is substantially flexible and/or stretchable and has an optical AR to incident electromagnetic radiation of a given wavelength which is selectively variable when flexed and/or stretched. The actuators are able to flex and/or stretch the skin or film in response to receipt of a control signal. The controller generates the control signal based on a measured value of the electromagnetic radiation transmitted through the tunable AR skin or film.
US09841601B2

Configurations are disclosed for presenting virtual reality and augmented reality experiences to users. The system may comprise an image-generating source to provide one or more frames of image data in a time-sequential manner, a light modulator configured to transmit light associated with the one or more frames of image data, a substrate to direct image information to a user's eye, wherein the substrate houses a plurality of reflectors, a first reflector of the plurality of reflectors to reflect transmitted light associated with a first frame of image data at a first angle to the user's eye, and a second reflector to reflect transmitted light associated with a second frame of the image data at a second angle to the user's eye.
US09841598B2

A lens is formed from at least two sections or bodies that are shaped to mate with each other, and a multilayer optical film is sandwiched between these two sections. Smooth surfaces of each section combine to provide a first optical surface of the lens, e.g., a concave, convex, or flat optical surface. The multilayer optical film includes a stack of polymer layers configured to selectively reflect light by constructive or destructive interference, at least some of the polymer layers being birefringent. The multilayer optical film may thus be or comprise e.g. a reflective polarizer and/or a narrow band or otherwise notched reflector. The multilayer optical film has an extended terminus that separates the smooth surfaces of the two sections. Any edge defects such as cracks or delaminations that may exist along the extended terminus are characterized by an average defect distance of no more than 100 or 50 microns.
US09841593B2

An apparatus for obtaining a plurality of images of a sample includes a sample device suitable for holding a liquid sample; a first optical detection assembly including a first image acquisition device, the first optical detection assembly having an optical axis and an object plane, the object plane including an image acquisition area from which electromagnetic waves can be detected as an image by the first image acquisition device; one translation unit arranged to move the sample device and the first optical detection assembly relative to each other; and an image illumination device, wherein the apparatus is arranged to move the sample device and the first optical detection assembly relative to each other along a scanning path, which defines an angle theta relative to the optical axis, wherein theta is in the range of about 0.3 to about 89.7 degrees.
US09841575B2

An optical port including: a base capable of being attached substantially parallel to a planar surface; a spool arranged so as to rotate about a shaft, which is substantially perpendicular to the base; an optical cable rolled up into the spool; and a connector. An inner side of the connector is connected inside the port to a first end, referred to as the “inner end”, of the cable. An outer side of the connector is intended to be connected to an outer optical connection plug. The cable is intended to be unreeled out from the port by pulling one second end, referred to as the “outer end”, of the cable. The pulling rotates the spool on the shaft. The connector is secured to the spool and arranged so as to take at least one position outside the radial configuration of the spool.
US09841573B1

A cable comprising a central member with a coating that is soft, and which deforms under compression. Ribbon stacks are then placed atop the soft material so that the bottoms of the ribbon stacks are in direct contact with the soft material, thereby causing the soft material to conform to the shape of the bottoms of the ribbon stacks.
US09841570B2

An optical-fiber assembly, optical coupling device and optical-fiber coupling device provided with optical-fiber assembly. In the optical-fiber assembly, damaging a fixing material is prevented by preventing clad mode light from being incident on the fixing material and direct incidence, on the fixing material; of laser light emitted from a light-emitting element or an optical-fiber is prevented to generate resistance to the emitted light. The optical-fiber assembly constitutes by at least an optical-fiber and capillary. The optical-fiber is inserted into the capillary and one optical-fiber end is protruded outside the capillary. The optical-fiber outer periphery and capillary are fixed using fixing material and ceramic material disposed to be in contact with the entire optical-fiber outer circumference and have predetermined contact length in the optical-fiber axial direction. The position at which the ceramic material is set in front of the position of the fixing material as viewed from one optical-fiber end.
US09841557B2

The invention relates to a microstructured optical fiber for generating incoherent supercontinuum light upon feeding of pump light. The microstructured optical fiber has a first section and a second section. A cross-section through the second section perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of the fiber has a second relative size of microstructure elements and preferably a second pitch that is smaller than a blue edge pitch for the second relative size of microstructure elements. The invention also relates to an incoherent supercontinuum source comprising a microstructured optical fiber according to the invention.