US09966692B2

A water-resistant electronic component including a body, a protectable part, a sealing sheet, and a cover. The body includes a water-resisting wall of loop shape. The water-resisting wall extends in a first direction. The protectable part includes at least part of a functional part of the water-resistant electronic component and is located within the water-resisting wall of the body. The sealing sheet includes a perimeter portion. The sealing sheet covers the protectable part from one side in the first direction, with the perimeter portion abutting the water-resisting wall from the one side in the first direction. The cover is fixed to the body such as to cover the sealing sheet and the water-resisting wall from the one side in the first direction.
US09966691B2

An electrical connector is provided, which includes: a housing having a port and an opening; an insulating body having a tongue plate formed in the housing; a plurality of conductive terminals provided on the insulating body; and a seal body formed between the tongue plate and the port. The tongue plate protrudes from the port to a region outside of the housing, such that the housing is free from enclosing the tongue plate. A seal body is provided between the tongue plate and the port to seal off the port so as to be waterproofed, without increasing the contour size of the electrical connector.
US09966676B2

A Kelvin connector adapter for use in connecting a Kelvin connection to a storage battery includes a conducting threaded portion adapted to be received in a threaded connector of the storage battery. A side pad contact is adapted to electrically connect to a side pad of the threaded connector. A first Kelvin connection pad is electrically coupled to the threaded portion and a second Kelvin connection pad is electrically coupled to the side pad contact.
US09966675B2

Embodiments disclose a power distributor for a vehicle, comprising a printed circuit board for diagnosis and/or for controlling a power supply of a plurality of electrical loads connected to the power distributor, and a bus bar comprising a plurality of first plug contact parts. According to the present disclosure, the printed circuit board comprises a switch part for collectively controlling the power supply of multiple electrical loads via the bus bar disposed separately from the printed circuit board, wherein the first plug contact part of the bus bar together with a second plug contact part disposed on the printed circuit board form a plug contact pair, and a load connected to the respective second plug contact part can be supplied via each plug contact pair.
US09966672B2

A connecting structure of a crimp terminal and an electric wire includes an electric wire including a conductor, an insulating coating covering the conductor, and a conductor exposed part where the conductor is exposed by removing the coating on an end part of the electric wire; a crimp terminal made of a metal material different from that of the conductor and includes an electric wire connector including a conductor crimping portion that crimps the conductor exposed part of the end part of the electric wire and a coating crimping portion that crimps a part of the coating left in the end part of the electric wire; and an intermediate potential film deposited by spraying a metal having a potential different from that of the metal material of the crimp terminal on an outer periphery of the electric wire connector being crimped to the end part of the electric wire.
US09966671B2

RF circuitry, which includes a first main RF switching circuit and a second main RF switching circuit, is disclosed. The first main RF switching circuit is capable of providing an RF signal path between a first main RF port and a first selected one of a first RF antenna and a second RF antenna. The second main RF switching circuit is capable of providing an RF signal path between a second main RF port and a second selected one of the first RF antenna and the second RF antenna. The first main RF switching circuit includes a first pair of RF switches coupled in series between the first RF antenna and the first main RF port; a second pair of RF switches coupled in series between the second RF antenna and the first main RF port; a first shunt RF switch; and a second shunt RF switch.
US09966658B2

Various embodiments of the present invention include assemblies and methods for utilizing antennas with high gain in small satellites. In one embodiment, a satellite comprising a payload configured for transmitting data is provided. The payload may include various components of the satellite, such as the attitude control system, electrical power system, and/or communication system. The satellite may be configured to communicate with one or more ground stations. The satellite includes a support structure comprising at least one deployable panel, wherein the support structure houses the payload. The satellite also includes at least one antenna coupled to the support structure, wherein the deployable panel is configured to cover the antenna in a non-deployed state and to expose the antenna in a deployed state.
US09966654B2

To provide a filter circuit, a communication circuit including a filter circuit, and a numerical control including a filter circuit, which improve transmission efficiency of partial write performed in a communication circuit made using an all-purpose serial communication protocol. A partial-write enable filter circuit includes: a data input unit that accepts input data; a determination unit that determines whether partial write of input data is valid; an enable information acquisition unit that acquires partial-write enable information; a storage unit that stores partial-write enable information; a computation unit that computes valid data in the input data; and a data output unit that outputs the valid data computed by the computation unit.
US09966650B2

Determining movement for alignment of a satellite antenna using accelerometer data and gyroscope data of the satellite antenna. Described techniques include receiving accelerometer data for a first time period from an accelerometer mounted on the antenna and analyzing the accelerometer data to determine a movement time window for a movement event of the antenna. The techniques may include receiving gyroscope data for the first time period from a gyroscope mounted on the antenna and analyzing the gyroscope data during the movement time window to determine an amount of movement of the antenna due to the movement event.
US09966643B2

An electrochemical battery cell is provided having a housing formed by a can and a cup, with a sealing gasket disposed therebetween. First and second electrodes and electrolyte are disposed within the housing. The first electrode is provided in an electrode assembly that is bonded to the can in an air diffusion region to prevent doming of the electrode assembly.
US09966641B2

A battery pack has a battery pack housing that defines an interior region, and a battery module that is disposed in the interior region. The battery module has a first battery cell, and a first heat exchanger defining a first flow path portion therethrough. The battery pack further includes a first electric fan and a thermally conductive housing that are disposed in the interior region. The thermally conductive housing has a first housing portion, and at least first and second cooling fins defining a second flow path portion therebetween. At least a portion of the second flow path portion is substantially in-line with the first flow path portion. The first electric fan urges air to flow through an inlet aperture, the first flow path portion, the second flow path portion, and through the first electric fan to a first outlet aperture to cool the battery module.
US09966631B1

A solid electrolyte interface is formed on a silicon monoxide electrode in a battery cell. After the solid electrolyte interface is formed on the silicon monoxide electrode, the battery cell is charged for one or more initial cycles while the battery cell is compressed.
US09966623B2

An electrolyte membrane-electrode structure with a resin frame is provided with: an electrolyte membrane-electrode structure that is provided with an anode-side electrode and a cathode-side electrode, with a solid polymer electrolyte membrane being held therebetween; and a resin frame member that is arranged around the outer periphery of the solid polymer electrolyte membrane. An intermediate layer is continuously arranged: between an outer peripheral end portion of the cathode-side electrode and a first inner peripheral end portion of the resin frame member; on an outer peripheral end portion of the solid polymer electrolyte membrane, said outer peripheral end portion being exposed outside the outer peripheral end portion of the cathode-side electrode; and between an outer peripheral end portion of the anode-side electrode and a second inner peripheral end portion of the resin frame member.
US09966618B2

A flow battery includes at least one cell that has a first electrode, a second electrode spaced apart from the first electrode and an electrolyte separator layer that is arranged between the first electrode and the second electrode. A storage portion is fluidly connected with the at least one cell. At least one liquid electrolyte includes an electrochemically active specie and is selectively deliverable to the at least one cell. An electric circuit is coupled with the first electrode and the second electrode. The circuit includes a voltage-limiting device that is configured to limit a voltage potential across the first electrode and the second electrode in response to a transition of the at least one cell from an inactive, shut-down mode with respect to an active, charge/discharge mode.
US09966614B2

A fuel cell includes a membrane electrode assembly; a frame configured to support the membrane electrode assembly from its outer edge; a first separator plate and a second separator plate configured to sandwich the membrane electrode assembly and the frame therebetween; and an elastomer. The first separator plate includes an elastically deformable protruding portion projecting toward an opposite side to the frame. The frame has a recessed cavity portion facing the protruding portion of the first separator plate. The elastomer is placed in at least part of the cavity portion.
US09966598B2

Described here is a method for making an anode of a rechargeable battery, comprising incorporating a composition comprising LixM into the anode, wherein M is a Group 14 element. Also described here is an anode comprising a composition comprising LixM, wherein M is a Group 14 element, and a rechargeable battery comprising the anode.
US09966596B2

This invention relates to a coating formulation, a coating formulation for manufacturing an electrode plate and an undercoating formulation, and their use. These coating formulations are all characterized by containing, in a polar solvent, a hydroxyl-containing resin and an organic acid and/or a derivative thereof. The hydroxyl-containing resin is at least one of (1) a polyvinyl acetal resin, (2) an ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer, (3) a modified and/or unmodified polyvinyl alcohol, and (4) a cyanoethyl-containing polymer. According to the present invention, there is provided a coating formulation capable of forming a coating of excellent adhesion and solvent resistance on a surface of a metal material such as an aluminum material. Also provided are a coating formulation for manufacturing an electrode plate for a battery or a polarizable electrode plate for a capacitor, in which an active material layer has excellent adhesion to a collector made of an aluminum foil, copper foil or the like and is also equipped with excellent electrolyte resistance and improved contact resistance to the collector, an undercoating formulation, the electrode plate and its manufacturing process, the battery, and the capacitor.
US09966590B2

An apparatus and method providing for detecting and responding to high voltage electrolysis within an electric vehicle battery enclosure to limit possible excessive thermal condition of the individual battery cells and modules. A microprocessor-implemented response system for high voltage electrolysis in a battery pack an evaluator to monitor, using the microprocessor, a high voltage electrolysis flag indicative of a possible high voltage electrolysis within an enclosure including a plurality of electrically-coupled battery modules storing energy for the battery pack and a coolant distribution system disposed among and electrically isolated from the plurality of battery modules; and a remediation system, coupled to the enclosure and responsive to the possible high voltage electrolysis when the evaluator detects a likelihood of the possible high voltage electrolysis, to decrease risks associated with the possible high voltage electrolysis when operated.
US09966583B2

Disclosed is a laminated polyolefin microporous membrane having a two-type three-layer structure in which first polyolefin microporous layers are surface layers and a second polyolefin microporous layer is an intermediate layer which is different from the first polyolefin microporous layer, in which at least one of the first polyolefin microporous layers and the second polyolefin microporous layer comprises a polypropylene-based resin in which a mass ratio of polypropylene to propylene copolymer is 0 or more and 2.29 or less, and a melting point of the polypropylene copolymer is 120° C. or higher and 145° C. or lower. Also disclosed is a method of making the same.
US09966570B2

A display device includes a light-emitting element layer that emits light with a luminance controlled for each of a plurality of unit pixels constituting an image, and a sealing layer provided on the light-emitting element layer and including a plurality of layers. The plurality of layers of the sealing layer includes at least an inorganic layer provided on the light-emitting element layer, an organic layer provided on the inorganic layer, and an inorganic layer that is an uppermost layer. A density of the inorganic layer that is the uppermost layer in a thickness direction changes in the thickness direction.
US09966566B2

A display device and a method of manufacturing the display device are disclosed. In one aspect, the display device includes a substrate including a display region and a peripheral region. A first block member is in the peripheral region and surrounding display structures, the first block member having a first height. A second block member is spaced apart from the first block member in a first direction extending from the display region to the peripheral region, the second block member surrounding the first block member, the second block member having a second height that is greater than the first height. A first encapsulation layer is over the display structures, the first block member, and the second block member. A second encapsulation layer is over the first encapsulation layer, the second encapsulation layer overlapping at least a portion of the first block member in the depth dimension of the display device.
US09966565B2

An organic light-emitting display apparatus including a substrate having a display area and a peripheral area outside the display area, a first insulating layer arranged over the substrate throughout the display area and the peripheral area, the first insulating layer including a first opening disposed in the peripheral area, a first electrode arranged over the first insulating layer in the display area, a pixel defining film arranged over the first insulating layer, the pixel defining film including a second opening exposing a portion of the first electrode and a third opening formed at the location of the first opening to form a common opening, an intermediate layer arranged over the first electrode, and a second electrode covering the intermediate layer, the pixel defining film, at least a portion of the third opening, and at least a portion of the first opening.
US09966564B2

A flexible display apparatus includes: a substrate; a gate insulating layer including an inorganic layer disposed on the substrate; a gate line disposed on the gate insulating layer; an inter-insulating layer including an inorganic layer and covering the gate line; and a data line disposed on the inter-insulating layer, where the flexible display apparatus has a first region which is bendable and second regions at opposite sides of the first region, respectively, portions of the gate insulating layer and the inter-insulating layer in the first region are removed, and the gate insulating layer and the inter-insulating layer in the second region have a patterned structure.
US09966563B2

A display device is disclosed. In one aspect, the display device includes a substrate, a barrier layer formed over the substrate, and an emission layer formed over the barrier layer. The display device also includes a stress-absorbing layer contacting one of the substrate, the barrier layer, and the emission layer. The stress-absorbing layer has a structural density configured to partially vary based on an applied voltage.
US09966556B2

The present specification relates to an organic light emitting device.
US09966554B2

An organic light emitting display device is disclosed, which comprises an anode electrode provided in a light emitting area on a substrate having a plurality of pixels, each pixel including a light emitting area and a transmissive area; an organic light emitting layer on the anode electrode; a cathode electrode on the organic light emitting layer; an auxiliary electrode connected with the cathode electrode; and a connection electrode connected with the anode electrode and provided in the transmissive area of the substrate.
US09966552B2

The present application describes an organic light emitting device including a first layer, a second layer, and a third layer between a cathode and a light emitting layer or between light emitting units, in which the first layer includes an n-type organic material or metal oxide, the second layer includes a barrier material, and the third layer includes an n-type dopant.
US09966549B2

Nanostructured carbon electrode usable for electrochemical devices and methods of fabricating the same. The method of fabricating a nanostructured carbon electrode includes providing a carbon material of polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), mixing the carbon material of PAH with a surfactant in a solution to form a suspension thereof; depositing the suspension onto a substrate to form a layered structure; and sintering the layered structure at a temperature for a period of time to form a nanostructured carbon electrode having a film of PAH.
US09966547B2

The invention relates to an organic solar cell having surface heterojunctions active layer and a method for manufacturing the same. The organic solar cell comprises a glass substrate, a first electrode, a first transmission layer, an active layer, a second transmission layer and a second electrode. The first electrode is formed on the glass substrate. The first transmission layer is formed on the first electrode. The active layer is deposited on the first transmission layer. The second transmission layer is formed on the active layer, and the second electrode is formed on the second transmission layer. The active layer comprises a donor layer and a plurality of acceptor particles partially embedded in a surface of the donor layer. By hydrophobic phenomenon occurred among the donor layer and the acceptors, the interface enables to be increased to transfer the electron and hole without obstacles for promoting the efficiency of the organic solar cell.
US09966542B2

There is disclosed a compound which is an N-heterocycle having at least one substituent of Formula 1: wherein: the N-heterocycle is a fused ring N-heterocycle having at least two fused aromatic rings with at least one ring N; Q1, Q2, Q4, and Q5 are the same or different and are selected from the group consisting of N and CR1; Q3 is C—CN; R1is the same or different at each occurrence and is selected from the group consisting of H, D, CN, hydrocarbon aryl, heteroaryl, deuterated hydrocarbon aryl, and deuterated heteroaryl; and * represents a point of attachment to N in the N-heterocycle; with the proviso that at least one of Q1, Q2, Q4, and Q5 is N.
US09966527B2

To provide a PBNZT ferroelectric film capable of preventing sufficiently oxygen ion deficiency. The PBNZT ferroelectric film according to an embodiment of the present invention is a ferroelectric film including a perovskite-structured ferroelectric substance represented by ABO3, wherein the perovskite-structured ferroelectric substance is a PZT-based ferroelectric substance containing Pb2+ as A-site ions and containing Zr4+ and Ti4+ as B-site ions, and the A-site contains Bi3+ as A-site compensation ions and the B-site contains Nb5+ as B-site compensation ions.
US09966526B2

A piezoelectric device is provided that includes a polymer piezoelectric material having at least one film-like layer; a first electric conductor provided on a principal surface of the polymer piezoelectric material; a second electric conductor provided on a surface of the polymer piezoelectric material at an opposite side from the first electric conductor on the principal surface; a first end surface electric conductor provided on one end surface in a width direction of the polymer piezoelectric material and disposed so as to be conductively connected to the first electric conductor and so as not to be in contact with the second electric conductor; and a second end surface electric conductor provided on any other end surface that is not the one end surface of the polymer piezoelectric material and disposed in a defined manner.
US09966525B2

An electroconductive film for an actuator is formed from a gel composition including carbon nanofibers, an ionic liquid, and a polymer. The carbon nanofibers are produced with an aromatic mesophase pitch by melt spinning.
US09966523B2

Disclosed is an acoustic sensor including a semiconductor chip comprising two or more transistors. At least two of the transistors are each connected to a piezoelectric thin film, and the piezoelectric thin film is directly or indirectly disposed over a semiconductor substrate such that a conduction state of each of the at least two transistors varies in response to a pressure of sound waves incident on the piezoelectric thin film, and the two or more transistors are connected to constitute a single amplifier circuit so as to add up and amplify a signal with a strength in response to the conduction state of each of the at least two transistors, and output the amplified signals.
US09966521B2

A light emitting device includes a resin package having a recess defined by a recess bottom surface and a recess lateral surface. The resin package includes a first lead including a first lead lower surface, a first lead upper surface, and an end portion. The light emitting element is mounted on the first lead upper surface opposite to the first lead lower surface. The light reflecting member is disposed on the recess bottom surface between the recess lateral surface and the light emitting element in a lateral direction. The end portion is provided between the first lead lower surface and the light reflecting member in the lateral direction. The end portion has a cross-sectional area viewed in the lateral direction which is smaller than a cross-sectional area of the first lead between the first lead lower surface and the first lead upper surface viewed in the lateral direction.
US09966520B2

A light emitting device includes a support substrate; a conductive wiring located on an upper surface of the support substrate; a light emitting element disposed on an upper surface of the conductive wiring via a bonding member interposed therebetween; and a frame body located on an upper surface of the support substrate. The frame body has a plurality of recessed portions on an inner lateral surface surrounding the light emitting element in a top view of the light emitting device. The conductive wiring includes an underlying portion located directly under the light emitting element, and at least two extended portions extending from the underlying portion to a location inside of at least two respective ones of the recessed portions in a top view of the light emitting device.
US09966516B2

A method for producing a lighting device is provided. According to the method, a plurality of semiconductor emitters arranged alongside one another are embedded in a light-transmissive filling compound apart from a side having their electrical connections, trenches are introduced into the light-transmissive filling compound at the side having the electrical connections between at least two semiconductor emitters, the side of the light-transmissive filling compound having the electrical connections, including the electrical connections, is covered with a dielectric material, electrical lines are led through the dielectric material to the electrical connections, and at least some of the trenches are severed.
US09966515B2

A method of manufacturing a plurality of light emitting devices includes providing a collective substrate including a plurality of packages, each of the packages including: a recess defined by lateral surfaces and a bottom surface, a first electrode and a second electrode that are disposed at the bottom surface of the recess, and a light-reflective first resin member surrounding an element-mounting region of the bottom surface of the recess, the first resin member having an upper surface located at a position higher than the element-mounting region; mounting a light emitting element in the element-mounting region; forming a light-reflective second resin member having a light reflective surface; and singulating the collective substrate to obtain the plurality of light emitting devices.
US09966505B2

The present disclosure provides a light emitting structure including a blue light source, a first fluorescent material layer and a second fluorescent material layer. The blue light source has a light emitting surface. The first fluorescent material layer covers the light emitting surface of the blue light source. The first fluorescent material layer consists of a first fluorescent material. An excitation band of the first fluorescent material is in a blue wave band, and an emission band of the first fluorescent material is in a green wave band. The second fluorescent material layer covers the first fluorescent material layer. The second fluorescent material layer consists of a second fluorescent material. An excitation band of the second fluorescent material is in a green wave band, and an emission band of the second fluorescent material is in a red wave band. A light device and a backlight module are also provided herein.
US09966503B2

An optoelectronic semiconductor component and a method for manufacturing an optoelectronic semiconductor component are disclosed. In an embodiment, the component includes a plurality of active regions configured to generate a primary radiation and a plurality of luminescent material particles configured to convert the primary radiation into a secondary radiation, wherein the active regions are arranged spaced apart from each other, wherein each active region has a main extension direction, wherein each active region has a core region comprising a first semiconductor material, wherein each active region has an active layer covering the core region, wherein each active region has a cover layer comprising a second semiconductor material and covering the active layer, wherein at least some of the luminescent material particles are arranged between the active regions, and wherein a diameter of a majority of the luminescent material particles is smaller than a distance between two adjacent active regions.
US09966492B1

The present application provides a PIN photodiode, an X-ray detecting pixel, an X-ray detecting apparatus and a detecting method thereof. The PIN photodiode may comprise a first doped layer, an intrinsic layer disposed over the first doped layer, and a second doped layer disposed over the intrinsic layer. The photodiode further comprises a third doped layer disposed over the second doped layer.
US09966484B2

A process for preparing a passivated emitter rear contact solar cell, which includes the steps as follows: removing the damaged layer on the surface of the silicon wafer and at the same time polishing both surfaces, texturing, forming PN junction, etching, removing the glass impurity, depositing a passivation film on the back surface, depositing a passivating antireflective layer on the front surface, making local openings on the back surface, screen printing of metal paste on both the front surface and the back surface and sintering, in which the texturing step employs a catalytic metal etching approach, and the textured structure is a nanometer-level textured structure. The present invention has combined removing the damaged layer on the surface of the silicon wafer and polishing both the front and back surfaces into one single step, and thus has simplified the production process and reduced the production cost.
US09966481B2

Solar cell structures and formation methods which utilize the surface texture in conjunction with a passivating dielectric layer to provide a practical and controllable technique of forming an electrical contact between a conducting layer and underlying substrate through the passivating dielectric layer, achieving both good surface passivation and electrical contact with low recombination losses, as required for high efficiency solar cells. The passivating dielectric layer is intentionally modified to allow direct contact, or tunnel barrier contact, with the substrate. Additional P-N junctions, and dopant gradients, are disclosed to further limit losses and increase efficiency.
US09966480B2

An electrode composition, including a conductive powder; a glass frit; and an organic vehicle including an organic binder, a multi-functional (meth)acrylate compound, and a solvent, the multi-functional (meth)acrylate compound having a molecular weight of about 200 to about 500, and being present in an amount of about 0.15 wt % to about 2 wt % based on 100 wt % of the electrode composition.
US09966474B2

Oxide layers which contain at least one metal element that is the same as that contained in an oxide semiconductor layer including a channel are formed in contact with the top surface and the bottom surface of the oxide semiconductor layer, whereby an interface state is not likely to be generated at each of an upper interface and a lower interface of the oxide semiconductor layer. Further, it is preferable that an oxide layer, which is formed using a material and a method similar to those of the oxide layers be formed over the oxide layers Accordingly, the interface state hardly influences the movement of electrons.
US09966473B2

A miniaturized transistor with less variation and highly stable electrical characteristics is provided. Further, high performance and high reliability of a semiconductor device including the transistor are achieved. A semiconductor and a conductor are formed over a substrate, a sacrificial layer is formed over the conductor, and an insulator is formed to cover the sacrificial layer. After that, a top surface of the insulator is removed to expose a top surface of the sacrificial layer. The sacrificial layer and a region of the conductor overlapping with the sacrificial layer are removed, whereby a source region, a drain region, and an opening are formed. Next, a gate insulator and a gate electrode are formed in the opening.
US09966461B2

A power semiconductor device is disclosed. In one example, the device comprises a semiconductor body having a front side, a backside, a first load terminal, and a drift region. A first cell is arranged at the front side. Further, the power semiconductor device comprises: a first backside emitter region included in the semiconductor body, the first backside emitter region being electrically connected with the second load terminal and having dopants of the second conductivity type, wherein the first backside emitter region and the first cell have a first common lateral extension range; and a second backside emitter region included in the semiconductor body, the second backside emitter region being electrically connected with the second load terminal and having dopants of the first conductivity type, wherein the second backside emitter region and the second cell have a second common lateral extension range.
US09966459B2

A symmetrical lateral bipolar junction transistor (SLBJT) is provided. The SLBJT includes a p-type semiconductor substrate, a n-type well, an emitter of a SLBJT situated in the n-type well, a base of the SLBJT situated in the n-type well and spaced from the emitter by a distance on one side of the base, a collector of the SLBJT situated in the n-type well and spaced from the base by the distance on an opposite side of the base, and an electrical connection to the substrate outside the n-type well. The SLBJT is used to characterize a transistor in a circuit by electrically coupling the SLBJT to a gate of the test transistor, applying a voltage to the gate, and characterizing aspect(s) of the test transistor under the applied voltage. The SLBJT protects the gate against damage to the gate dielectric.
US09966453B2

Method including the steps consisting in: forming source and drain semiconductor blocks comprising a first layer based on a first crystalline semiconductor material surmounted by a second layer (16) based on a second crystalline semiconductor material different from the first semiconductor material, making amorphous and selectively doping the second layer (16) by means of one or more implantation(s), carrying out a recrystallisation of the second layer and an activation of dopants by means of at least one thermal annealing.
US09966450B2

A dual-gate TFT (thin film transistor) array substrate and a manufacturing method thereof are provided. A source electrode and a drain electrode are formed on a common electrode layer; and a common electrode of the common electrode layer, the source electrode and the drain electrode can simultaneously be formed by one mask during manufacturing. Therefore, the dual-gate TFT array substrate and the manufacturing method thereof have beneficial effects to reduce the number of masks, shorten the process, and improve the manufacturing efficiency.
US09966448B2

According to an exemplary embodiment, a method of forming a vertical structure is provided. The method includes the following operations: providing a substrate; providing the vertical structure with a source and a channel over the substrate; forming a spacer over the vertical structure; etching a portion of the spacer to expose the source; forming a first metal layer over the vertical structure; and thermal annealing the first metal layer to form a bottom silicide penetrating the source; and substantially removing the spacer.
US09966441B2

A semiconductor device, including a first nitride semiconductor layer, a second nitride semiconductor layer provided on the first nitride semiconductor layer and having a band gap width larger than or equal to a band gap width of the first nitride semiconductor layer, first, second, and third electrodes provided on the second nitride semiconductor layer, an insulation layer provided on the second nitride semiconductor layer and between the first and second electrodes, and a conductor provided within the insulation layer between the second and third electrodes and connecting the second and third electrodes to each other, or the conductor provided within the insulation layer between the first and second electrodes and connecting the first and second electrodes to each other, the conductor including a plurality of conductive regions arranged in a first direction from the first electrode toward the second electrode, the conductive regions being electrically connected to one another.
US09966437B2

Included are the steps of: preparing a silicon carbide substrate having an epitaxial layer formed thereon; forming an upper-layer film on the epitaxial layer; and removing at least a portion of the upper-layer film in an outer peripheral portion of the silicon carbide substrate, and patterning the upper-layer film.
US09966433B2

A method of forming NFET S/D structures with multiple layers, with consecutive epi-SiP layers being doped at increasing dosages of P and the resulting device are provided. Embodiments include forming multiple epi-Si layers in each S/D cavity of a NFET; and performing in-situ doping of P for each epi-Si layer, wherein consecutive epi-Si layers are doped at increasing dosages of P.
US09966427B2

A method for manufacturing a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor with a top electrode that is free of sidewall damage is provided. A bottom electrode layer is formed with a first material. An inter-electrode dielectric layer is formed over the bottom electrode layer. A top electrode layer is formed over the inter-electrode dielectric layer and without the first material. A first etch is performed into the top electrode layer and the inter-electrode dielectric layer to form a top electrode. A second etch into the bottom electrode layer to form a bottom electrode. The present application is also directed towards a MIM capacitor resulting from performing the method.
US09966425B1

A method for fabricating a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor includes the steps of: forming a capacitor bottom metal (CBM) layer on a material layer; forming a silicon layer on the CBM layer; forming a capacitor dielectric layer on the silicon layer; and forming a capacitor top metal (CTM) layer on the capacitor dielectric layer.
US09966422B2

An organic EL display device includes a substrate, a fin structure on the substrate, the fin structure standing upright in a thickness direction of the substrate, a first electrode formed on at least a part of a side surface of the fin structure, an organic film which is laminated so as to cover a surface of the first electrode on the side surface of the fin structure, a second electrode that is transparent and laminated so as to cover a surface of the organic film on the side surface and a top portion of the fin structure, a color filter layer that is formed on a path that light travels after being emitted from the light emitting layer and passing through the second electrode and formed at least above the organic film laminated on the side surface, and a light blocking layer configured to block light formed above the top portion of the fin structure.
US09966421B2

A display device includes a plurality of light-emitting elements aligned on a TFT substrate in a formation of a matrix. The plurality of light-emitting elements each have a flat surface portion and including a light-emitting layer, an anode, and a cathode, an insulating layer formed on the TFT substrate and under the light emitting element, and a tilted metal surface provided on a peripheral area surrounding the flat surface portion of the light-emitting element and having a tilt angle with respect to the flat surface portion of the light-emitting element. The tilted metal surface is provided on a surface of a slope of a bank that is provided on the insulation layer, and a width of a cross-section of the bank becomes smaller as the cross section conies farther away from a surface of the TFT substrate. A counter substrate is placed on the TFT substrate.
US09966406B2

Semiconductor devices may include a semiconductor substrate comprising at least one of transistors and capacitors may be located at an active surface of the semiconductor substrate. An imperforate dielectric material may be located on the active surface, the imperforate dielectric material covering the at least one of transistors and the capacitors. Electrically conductive material in contact openings may be electrically connected to the at least one of transistors and capacitors and extend to a back side surface of the semiconductor substrate. Laterally extending conductive elements may extend over the back side surface of the semiconductor substrate and may be electrically connected to the conductive material in the contact openings. At least one laterally extending conductive element may be electrically connected to a first transistor or capacitor and may extend laterally underneath a second, different transistor or capacitor to which the laterally extending conductive element is not electrically connected.
US09966400B2

A method for forming a photosensitive module is provided. The method includes providing a sensing device. The sensing device includes a substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite thereto. A conducting pad is located on the first surface. A first opening penetrates the substrate and exposes the conducting pad. A redistribution layer is in the first opening to electrically connect to the conducting pad. A cover plate is located on the first surface and covers the conducting pad. The method also includes bonding the sensing device to a circuit board. The cover plate is removed after bonding the sensing device to the circuit board. The method further includes mounting an optical component corresponding to the sensing device on the circuit board. A photosensitive module formed by the method is also provided.
US09966397B2

Provided are a pixel, a pixel array, an image sensor including the pixel array, and a method of driving the pixel array. The pixel includes a photoelectric converter, a capacitor, and a switching element. The capacitor accumulates electric charges converted by the photoelectric converter. The switching element outputs a potential of the capacitor. The switching element includes a transfer switching element transferring the electric charges, converted in the photoelectric converter, to the capacitor. The capacitor serves as a storage through multi-clocking of the transfer switching element.
US09966396B2

An image sensor includes first and second pluralities of photodiodes interspersed among each other in a semiconductor substrate. Incident light is to be directed through a surface of the semiconductor substrate into the first and second pluralities of photodiodes. The first plurality of photodiodes has greater sensitivity to the incident light than the second plurality of photodiodes. A metal film layer is disposed over the surface of the semiconductor substrate over the second plurality of photodiodes and not over the first plurality of photodiodes. A metal grid is disposed over the surface of the semiconductor substrate, and includes a first plurality of openings through which the incident light is directed into the first plurality of photodiodes. The metal grid further includes a second plurality of openings through which the incident light is directed through the metal film layer into the second plurality of photodiodes.
US09966392B2

A laser annealing apparatus includes: a substrate supporting unit which supports a substrate; a laser beam irradiating unit which irradiates a line laser beam extending in a first direction to an amorphous silicon layer provided on the substrate on the substrate supporting unit; a substrate moving unit which moves the substrate supporting unit in a second direction crossing the first direction; and a first beam cutter and a second beam cutter, which are disposed between the substrate supporting unit and the laser beam irradiating unit, where the first and second beam cutters move to increase or decrease a shielded area of the substrate, which is an area of the substrate overlapping the first or second beam cutter and the line laser beam, to shield from at least a portion of the line laser beam irradiated to a portion of the substrate at an outer portion of the amorphous silicon layer.
US09966380B1

A split-gate flash memory cell (cell) that can be formed by a method including self-aligned patterning for the select gates includes a semiconductor surface. A first control gate (CG) on a first floating gate (FG) and a second CG on a second FG are on the semiconductor surface. A common source/drain is between the first and second FG. A first select gate and a second select gate are on a select gate dielectric layer that is between a first BL source/drain in the semiconductor surface and the first FG and between a second BL source/drain and the second FG, respectively. The first select gate and the second select gate are spacer-shaped.
US09966377B2

A semiconductor device includes a substrate with an NMOSFET region and a PMOSFET region, a first active pattern on the NMOSFET region, a second active pattern on the PMOSFET region, a dummy pattern between the NMOSFET and PMOSFET regions, and device isolation patterns on the substrate that fill trenches between the first active pattern, the second active pattern, and the dummy pattern. Upper portions of the first and second active patterns have a fin-shaped structure protruding between the device isolation patterns. The upper portions of the first and second active patterns contain semiconductor materials, respectively, that are different from each other, and an upper portion of the dummy pattern contains an insulating material.
US09966372B2

A semiconductor device includes: a plurality of trenches provided in an upper surface of a semiconductor substrate; trench electrodes each provided in a corresponding one of the trenches; a first semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type provided in a first range interposed between adjacent ones of the trenches; a second semiconductor layer of a second conductivity type; a third semiconductor layer of the first conductivity type; an interlayer insulation film provided on the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate and including a plurality of contact holes; a first conductor layer provided in each of the contact holes; and a surface electrode provided on the interlayer insulation film and connected to each of the first conductor layers.
US09966371B1

An electronics package includes an insulating substrate, a first electrical component coupled to a first surface of the insulating substrate, and a first conductor layer formed on the first surface of the insulating substrate. A second conductor layer is formed on a second surface of the insulating substrate, opposite the first surface, the second conductor layer extending through vias in the insulating substrate to contact at least one contact pad of the first electrical component and couple with the first conductor layer. The electronics package also includes a second electrical component having at least one contact pad coupled to the first conductor layer. The first conductor layer has a thickness greater than a thickness of the second conductor layer.
US09966367B2

A light emitting device includes: a ceramic substrate; a plurality of LED chips; a printed resistor(s) connected in parallel with the plurality of LED chips; a dam resin made of a resin having a low optical transmittance; a fluorescent-material-containing resin layer; and an anode-side electrode and a cathode-side electrode, (a) which are provided on a primary surface of the ceramic substrate so as to face each other along a first direction on the primary surface and (b) which are disposed below at least one of the dam resin and the fluorescent-material-containing resin layer. With the configuration in which a plurality of LEDs, which are connected in a series-parallel connection, are provided on a substrate, it is possible to provide a light emitting device which can achieve restraining of luminance unevenness and an improvement in luminous efficiency.
US09966362B1

Integrated circuit (IC) packages with an inter-die thermal spreader are disclosed. A disclosed IC package includes a plurality of stacked dies disposed on a package substrate. A heat spreader is disposed on a top die of the plurality of stacked dies. The IC package further includes a thermal spreader layer disposed adjacent to at least one die of the plurality of stacked dies. The thermal spreader layer may extend out of a periphery of the plurality of stacked dies and may be attached to the heat spreader through a support member.
US09966360B2

A semiconductor package and a manufacturing method for the semiconductor package are provided. The semiconductor package has a first redistribution layer, a first die over the first redistribution layer, a molding compound encapsulating at least one second die and at least one third die disposed on the first redistribution layer, and at least one fourth die and conductive elements connected to the first redistribution layer. Through vias of the first die are electrically connected to through interlayer vias penetrating through the molding compound and are electrically connected to the first redistribution layer. The semiconductor package may further include a second redistribution layer disposed on the molding compound and between the first die, the second die and the third die.
US09966359B2

A semiconductor package may be provided. The semiconductor package may include a substrate. The semiconductor package may include a first semiconductor chip flip-chip bonded to a first surface of the substrate. The semiconductor package may include second semiconductor chips respectively flip-chip bonded to portions of the first surface of the substrate adjacent to both ends of the first semiconductor chip. The semiconductor package may include a third semiconductor chip solder-jointed to the first surface of the substrate covering the first semiconductor chip and portions of the second semiconductor chips.
US09966357B2

A method includes moving a first bond head along a first guide apparatus for a first loop. The first guide apparatus is configured in a ring shape. The method also includes picking up a first die using the first bond head during the first loop, and aligning the first die with a first package substrate. The aligning the first die with the first package substrate includes moving the first package substrate in a first direction and a second direction. The first direction and the second direction are contained in a first plane parallel to the first loop. The method further includes placing the first die over the first package substrate during the first loop.
US09966347B2

The present technology is directed to manufacturing semiconductor dies with under-bump metal (UBM) structures for die-to-die and/or package-to-package interconnects or other types of interconnects. In one embodiment, a method for forming under-bump metal (UBM) structures on a semiconductor die comprises constructing a UBM pillar by plating a first material onto first areas of a seed structure and depositing a second material over the first material. The first material has first electrical potential and the second material has a second electrical potential greater than the first electrical potential. The method further comprises reducing the difference in the electrical potential between the first material and the second material, and then removing second areas of the seed structure between the UBM pillars thereby forming UBM structures on the semiconductor die.
US09966346B2

An embodiment bump on trace (BOT) structure includes a contact element supported by an integrated circuit, an under bump metallurgy (UBM) feature electrically coupled to the contact element, a metal bump on the under bump metallurgy feature, and a substrate trace on a substrate, the substrate trace coupled to the metal bump through a solder joint and intermetallic compounds, a ratio of a first cross sectional area of the intermetallic compounds to a second cross sectional area of the solder joint greater than forty percent.
US09966344B2

A semiconductor device includes a plurality of main terminals extending from one end of a base plate toward the other end thereof, a group of semiconductor chips on a side of higher electric potential disposed on one side of the main terminal and mounted on the base plate, and a group of semiconductor chips on a side of lower electric potential disposed on the other side of the main terminal and mounted on the base plate. The one main terminal has an extending portion extending, in a direction perpendicular to the extending direction of the main terminal, toward one of both sides of the main terminal, and two adjacent semiconductor chips in one of the group of semiconductor chips on the side of higher electric potential and the group of semiconductor chips on the side of lower electric potential are axisymmetrically disposed with respect to the extending portion.
US09966338B1

Methods of forming self-aligned cuts and structures formed with self-aligned cuts. A dielectric layer is formed on a metal hardmask layer, and a mandrel is formed on the dielectric layer. A cut is formed that extends through the dielectric layer to the metal hardmask layer. A section of a metal layer is formed on an area of the metal hardmask layer exposed by the cut in the dielectric layer. After the metal layer is formed, a spacer is formed on a vertical sidewall of the mandrel.
US09966337B1

A wafer is provided. The wafer includes a dielectric layer, first and second metallization layer interconnects arrayed across the dielectric layer with the second metallization layer interconnects adjacent one another and surrounded by the first metallization layer interconnects and a cap. The first and second metallization layer interconnects have respective upper surfaces defining a first plane and a second plane recessed from the first plane, respectively. The cap is disposed on exposed surfaces of the second metallization layer interconnects and portions of the dielectric layer adjacent to the second metallization layer interconnects.
US09966323B2

A semiconductor device includes an electronic component connected to a component pad of a wiring substrate, a connection member connected to a connection pad of the wiring substrate, and an encapsulation resin that encapsulates the electronic component and connection member. A wiring unit includes a first pad, embedded in the encapsulation resin, and a second pad, formed integrally with the first pad from the same metal. The second pad includes an external device connection surface located at a higher position than an upper surface of the encapsulation resin. A reinforcement plate includes a base, embedded in the encapsulation resin, and a heat dissipation portion, formed integrally with the base from the same metal. The first pad and the base each include a curved side surface that widens outwardly toward the upper surface of the encapsulation resin.
US09966317B2

A semiconductor device may include a first terminal electrically connected to a first semiconductor chip, a second terminal electrically connected to a second semiconductor chip, which is different from the first semiconductor chip, a first signal line electrically connecting the first terminal and the second terminal and including a first node, a third terminal connected to a tester monitoring a signal transmitted between the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip, a fourth terminal applied a reference voltage, a second signal line electrically connecting the third terminal and the fourth terminal and including a second node, a first resistor connected between the first node and the second node and a second resistor directly connected to the second node different from the first resistor.
US09966315B2

Disclosed are methods of advanced process control (APC) for particular processes. A particular process (e.g., a photolithography or etch process) is performed on a wafer to create a pattern of features. A parameter is measured on a target feature and the value of the parameter is used for APC. However, instead of performing APC based directly on the actual parameter value, APC is performed based on an adjusted parameter value. Specifically, an offset amount (which is previously determined based on an average of a distribution of parameter values across all of the features) is applied to the actual parameter value to acquire an adjusted parameter value, which better represents the majority of features in the pattern. Performing this APC method minimizes dimension variations from pattern to pattern each time the same pattern is generated on another region of the same wafer or on a different wafer using the particular process.
US09966298B2

A multiple stage processing device having a plurality of radial stages, each individual radial stage is positioned between adjacent dividing walls and indexable though a plurality of processing stations. A plurality of fixture mount assemblies are positioned on an actuation surface of the rotatable indexing assembly, each individual fixture mount assembly is associated with and mechanically coupled to an individual radial stage. One or more slotted drive hubs communicatively coupled to independently operable drive motors are positioned adjacent to the actuation surface of the rotatable indexing assembly and are engageable with the plurality of fixture mount assemblies. When an individual fixture mount assembly is engaged with an individual slotted drive hub, an individual independently operable drive motor can independently control the individual fixture mount assembly such that the individual radial stage mechanically coupled to the individual fixture mount assembly is moveably coupled to the independently operable drive motor.
US09966294B2

A mobile electrostatic carrier (MESC) provides a structural platform to temporarily bond a semiconductive wafer and can be used to transport the semiconductive wafer or be used to perform manufacturing processes on the semiconductive wafer. The MESC uses a plurality of electrostatic field generating (EFG) circuits to generate electrostatic fields across the MESC that allow the MESC to bond to compositional impurities within the semiconductive process. The MESC is particularly useful during singulation for a wafer fabrication process. The MESC holds the semiconductive wafer in a constant position as the semiconductive wafer is cut into a plurality of dies. Once the MESC is discharges its EFG circuits and consequently dissipates its bonding electrostatic fields, the plurality of dies can be easily and readily removed from the MESC.
US09966293B2

A wafer arrangement in accordance with various embodiments may include: a wafer; and a wafer support ring, wherein the wafer and the wafer support ring are configured to be releasably attachable to one another.
US09966282B2

According to one embodiment, a substrate processing apparatus includes a first liquid supplier, a second liquid supplier, and a controller. The first liquid supplier supplies a substrate with a sulfuric acid solution having a first temperature equal to or higher than the boiling point of hydrogen peroxide water. The second liquid supplier supplies a surface to be treated of the substrate with a mixture of sulfuric acid solution and hydrogen peroxide water having a second temperature lower than the first temperature. The controller controls the first liquid supplier to supply the sulfuric acid solution so as to heat the substrate to the boiling point of hydrogen peroxide water or higher. When the temperature of the substrate becomes equal to or higher than the second temperature, the controller controls the first liquid supplier to stop supplying the sulfuric acid solution and controls the second liquid supplier to supply the mixture.
US09966281B2

The present disclosure provides a cleaning unit for a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process. The cleaning unit comprises a cleaning solution; a brush configured to scrub a wafer during the CMP process; and a spray nozzle configured to apply the cleaning solution to the wafer when the brush scrubs the wafer during the CMP process. In some embodiments, the spray nozzle includes an inlet where the cleaning solution enters the spray nozzle and an outlet where the cleaning solution exits the spray nozzle. In some embodiments, an inlet area (A0) is different from an outlet area (A1).
US09966264B2

A substrate for semiconductor device includes a substrate, a reaction layer provided on a back surface of the substrate, a transmission preventing metal having a transmittance with respect to red light or infrared light lower than that of the substrate and a material of the substrate being mixed in the reaction layer, and a metal thin film layer formed on a back surface of the reaction layer and formed of the same material as the transmission preventing metal.
US09966243B2

Plasma-assisted reaction chemical ionization (PARCI) provides highly sensitive elemental analysis by producing positively and negatively charged ions. The PARCI apparatuses, kits, and methods described in this application relate to systems that comprise a chemical reaction interface (CRI) containing reactant gas plasma and an ionization chamber that is downstream from the CRI. The ionization chamber facilitates formation of ions from element-specific products of the CRI by an electron source or an ionization gas. In particular, PARCI provides a method for conducting highly sensitive mass spectrometric elemental analysis of analyte compounds with high ionization potential elements; for example, fluorine, chlorine, and bromine.
US09966240B2

In an embodiment, a plasma source includes a first electrode, configured for transfer of one or more plasma source gases through first perforations therein; an insulator, disposed in contact with the first electrode about a periphery of the first electrode; and a second electrode, disposed with a periphery of the second electrode against the insulator such that the first and second electrodes and the insulator define a plasma generation cavity. The second electrode is configured for movement of plasma products from the plasma generation cavity therethrough toward a process chamber. A power supply provides electrical power across the first and second electrodes to ignite a plasma with the one or more plasma source gases in the plasma generation cavity to produce the plasma products. One of the first electrode, the second electrode and the insulator includes a port that provides an optical signal from the plasma.
US09966238B2

Provided is a technique capable of suppressing a product substrate from being contaminated with a contaminant generated in a process chamber. The method includes (a) processing a substrate supported by a first substrate support by generating plasma in a first plasma generating region in a process chamber; and (b) removing a metal substance in the process chamber by generating plasma in the first plasma generating region and a second plasma generating region disposed between the first substrate support and a back surface of a substrate supported by a second substrate support.
US09966228B2

A multi charged particle beam apparatus includes a forming aperture array substrate, where there are formed a plurality of first openings and a plurality of second openings on the periphery of the whole plurality of first openings, each being larger than each of the plurality of first openings, to form multi-beams by the plurality of first openings, and to be able to form a plurality of calibration beams by the plurality of second openings, a shutter to select, one by one, one of the plurality of calibration beams formed by passing through the plurality of second openings, in accordance with a slide position, and a detector to detect a secondary electron including a reflected electron generated by scanning a mark by deflecting the selected calibration beam, in the state of all the multi-beams controlled to be OFF.
US09966219B2

An electron energy loss spectrometer for electron microscopy is disclosed having an electrically isolated drift tube extending through the bending magnet and through subsequent optics that focus and magnify the spectrum. An electrostatic or magnetic lens is located either before or after or both before and after the drift tube and the lens or lenses are adjusted as a function of the bending magnet drift tube voltage to maintain a constant net focal length and to avoid defocusing. An energy selecting slit is included in certain embodiments to cleanly cut off electrons dispersed outside the energy range incident on the detector, thereby eliminating artifacts caused by unwanted electrons scattering back into the spectrum.
US09966218B2

The present invention provides an electron beam device that achieves high spatial resolution and high luminance, while remaining insusceptible to the effects of external disturbance. The present invention relates to an electron beam device, wherein, between, e.g., an electron source for generating an electron beam and an objective lens for focusing the electron beam onto a sample, a high voltage beam tube is disposed close to the electron source and a low voltage beam tube is disposed close to the objective lens. This makes it possible to achieve high luminance while maintaining spatial resolution, even with an SEM that is provided with a type of objective lens that actively leaks a magnetic field onto a sample.
US09966212B2

The blinking device includes multiple power terminals, multiple load terminals, multiple contact switches, a control circuit, and multiple mounting substrates, and a case in a box shape for accommodating these therein. The multiple contact switches are individually associated with multiple power supply paths individually connected to multiple pairs each defined as a pair of one power terminal of the multiple power terminals and one load terminal of the multiple load terminals. At least one power supply path of the multiple power supply paths is formed on at least one of a front face, where at least one contact switch is mounted, and a rear face, where no contact switch is mounted, of each of the multiple mounting substrates. The case is configured to accommodate the multiple mounting substrates so that the multiple mounting substrates are stacked in a thickness direction.
US09966211B1

A pressure switch including: a spring blade; a ram pin having an angled bottom surface and laterally restrained in movement, where upward movement of the ram pin engages the spring blade such that the spring blade snap deflects to an engaged position, and where downward movement of the ram pin engages the spring blade such that the spring blade snap deflects to an unengaged position; a ball bearing in contact with the angled bottom surface of the ram pin; and an adjustment screw laterally restraining the ball bearing in movement, where a lateral inward movement of the adjustment screw relative to an outside surface of the pressure switch causes an upward movement of the ram pin, and where a lateral outward movement of the adjustment screw relative to the outside surface of the pressure switch causes a downward movement of the ram pin.
US09966193B2

An electric circuit device connecting first and second external elements, the electric circuit device including: a first electronic component; a first bus bar electrically connected to the first electronic component; a second bus bar electrically connected to the electronic component and overlapped with the first bus bar in a direction perpendicular to main surfaces of the first and second bus bars; a first external terminal electrically connecting the first bus bar to the first external element; a second external terminal electrically connecting the second bus bar to the second external element; a first region in the first external terminal electrically coupled to the first external element; and a second region in the second external terminal electrically coupled to the second external element, and at least partially overlapped with the first region in the direction.
US09966192B2

A plurality of parallel capacitors is constructed using an elongate common capacitor electrode with individual capacitors formed from individual capacitor electrodes spaced along and separated from the common electrode by a layer of dielectric material. The layer of dielectric material can be a dielectric film material or a ceramic material. The layer of dielectric material can be tapered along the common electrode, and/or additional dielectric material can be positioned between edges of adjacent individual electrodes. An individual electrode at one end of the common electrode can be made wider to increase its capacitance.
US09966169B1

An integrated downhole electrical feedthrough package may include a metal shell having a metal web conduit disposed within the metal shell. A sealing channel may extend through the metal web conduit. One or more conducting pins may be disposed in the sealing channels. A dielectric seal may also be disposed in the metal web conduit, and the dielectric seal may electrically isolate the one or more conducting pins from the metal web conduit and metal shell. One or more isolators may also be disposed within the metal conduit and each isolator may surround a portion of each conducting pin disposed in the metal conduit. Each isolator may have a high coefficient of thermal expansion material, and a nonpolar surface which may be positioned proximate to a dielectric seal.
US09966168B1

A method of fabricating a conductive thin film includes the following steps: forming a polymer fiber made of a polymer and a metal precursor distributed in a surface layer near the surface of the polymer fiber; and applying a plasma treatment on the polymer fiber to concurrently etch the polymer and reduce the metal precursor in the surface layer of the polymer fiber. When the plasma treatment is completed, a metal membrane is formed on the surface of the polymer fiber.
US09966163B2

An electric contact material for a connector includes a base material made of a metal material; an alloy layer that is formed on the base material and made of an alloy containing at least three elements including Sn and Cu as well as at least one metal selected from Zn, Co, Ni, and Pd; and a conductive coating layer formed on the surface of the alloy layer. The alloy layer contains an intermetallic compound obtained by replacing some of the Cu atoms in Cu6Sn5 with at least one metal selected from Zn, Co, Ni, and Pd. It is preferable that the content of at least one metal selected from Zn, Co, Ni, and Pd in the alloy layer is in a range of 1 to 50 atom % when the total content of the metal and Cu is regarded as 100 atom %.
US09966161B2

A method and mechanical design for a thin-film diamond crystal mounting apparatus for coherence preservation x-ray optics with optimized thermal contact and minimized crystal strain are provided. The novel thin-film diamond crystal mounting apparatus mounts a thin-film diamond crystal supported by a thick chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond film spacer with a thickness slightly thicker than the thin-film diamond crystal, and two groups of thin film thermal conductors, such as thin CVD diamond film thermal conductor groups separated by the thick CVD diamond spacer. The two groups of thin CVD film thermal conductors provide thermal conducting interface media with the thin-film diamond crystal. A piezoelectric actuator is integrated into a flexural clamping mechanism generating clamping force from zero to an optimal level.
US09966152B2

A deduplication memory module, which is configured to internally perform memory deduplication, includes a hash table memory for storing multiple blocks of data in a hash table array including hash tables, each of the hash tables including physical buckets and a plurality of virtual buckets each including some of the physical buckets, each of the physical buckets including ways, an address lookup table memory (ALUTM) including a plurality of pointers indicating a location of each of the stored blocks of data in a corresponding one of the physical buckets, and a buffer memory for storing unique blocks of data not stored in the hash table memory when the hash table array is full, a processor, and memory, wherein the memory has stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the memory module to exchange data with an external system.
US09966148B1

A data storage device includes a nonvolatile memory device including word lines each including one or more pages; and a controller suitable for, in the case where recovery is made to a normal state from a power-off state, searching a word line including an erased page among the word lines, and selecting, when all pages of the word line including the erased page are erased pages, the corresponding word line as a reliability verification word line.
US09966140B2

Technologies are generally described herein for a non-volatile static random access memory device with multiple storage states. In some examples, the multi-storage state non-volatile random access memory device has two or more memory cells. Each memory cell may include a pair of programmable resistive devices that may be dynamically programmed to configure the memory cell in a particular logic state.
US09966139B2

A memory architecture includes: a first memory macro comprising a first plurality of memory cells that each comprises a first variable resistance dielectric layer with a first geometry parameter; and a second memory macro comprising a second plurality of memory cells that each comprises a second variable resistance dielectric layer with a second geometry parameter, wherein the first geometry parameter is different from the second geometry parameter thereby causing the first and second memory macros to have first and second endurances. The first and second variable resistance dielectric layers are formed using a single process recipe. The first endurance comprises a maximum number of cycles for which the first plurality of memory cells can transition between first and second logical states, and the second endurance comprises a maximum number of cycles for which the second plurality of memory cells can transition between the first and second logical states.
US09966137B2

A neuron circuit for use in a neural network is disclosed. The neural network includes a plurality of field effect transistors having confined channels. The sources and drains of the field effect transistors are connected in series. A plurality of input terminals for receiving a plurality of input voltages may be connected to a drain terminal of a corresponding field effect transistor. The threshold voltages of the field effect transistors can be programmed by increasing or decreasing a number of excess minority carriers in the confined channels, thereby programming the resistance presented by the field effect transistor.
US09966136B2

According to one embodiment, a variable resistance memory includes first to third insulating layers, first and second variable resistance layers, first and second semiconductor layers, and first and second electric conductors. The first insulating layer extends in a first direction. The first and second electric conductors are in contact with the second and third insulating layers respectively. The first to third insulating layers, the first and second variable resistance layers and the first and second semiconductor layers are disposed between the first and second electric conductors in a second direction different from the first direction.
US09966131B2

A memory includes a memory cell that operates in response to an array supply voltage, and a corresponding pair of bit lines that are pre-charged to a periphery supply voltage prior to each access of the memory cell. A sense amplifier coupled to the bit lines operates in response to the periphery supply voltage. The periphery supply voltage is less than the array supply voltage to enable power savings within the memory. A first pair of transistors is configured to couple the sense amplifier to the bit lines during write accesses to the memory cell, thereby boosting the write voltages applied to the bit lines during a write operation. That is, the first pair of transistors is configured such that the sense amplifier pulls one of the bit lines toward the periphery supply voltage (and the other one of the bit lines toward the ground supply voltage) during write accesses.
US09966129B1

A schedule for refreshing a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Access commands for a DRAM are queued in a command queue. First-rank bank-refresh time points and second-rank bank-refresh time points are alternately provided within a refresh inspection interval for the microcontroller to alternately refresh a first rank and a second rank of the DRAM bank-by-bank based on the content contained in the command queue.
US09966125B2

A memory device includes: a memory cell array including memory cells; a correction circuit which encodes write data and generates an error correction signal, in a first period; a write circuit which writes the write data to a memory cell in a second period following the first period; a first circuit which receives a first signal generated based on a write command, generates a first clock signal having a first cycle from the first signal, and sets the first period with the first clock signal; and a second circuit which receives the first clock signal, generates a second clock signal having a second cycle from the first clock signal, and sets the second period with the second clock signal.
US09966120B2

A data sensing circuit may include a pair of first signal lines, and a pair of second signal lines precharged with a first power supply voltage. The data sensing circuit may also include a line level control block configured for applying a second power supply voltage to any one signal line of the pair of second signal lines in response to a read command.
US09966112B1

In order to organize and reference multimedia content that is presented on a television or other media devices, a tagging system and method are utilized. An approach is described to tag multimedia content at specific times, record text, audio and/or video, and comment at specific times in the multimedia content. For tagging, commenting, and sharing particular moments of multimedia content, automatic content recognition (ACR) is used. ACR supports tagging and recording of snippets of the multimedia content at specific times. Snippets are displayed by using a thumbnail of pictures or small multimedia clips. The snippets can be commented on and shared with selected users or groups of users. An automatic highlight playlist of a multimedia content can be generated, and various filtering operations of the tags, comments and snippets can also be performed.
US09966109B2

One variation of a method for serving interactive content to a user includes, at a visual element inserted into a document accessed by a computing device: loading a first frame from a digital video; in response to a scroll-down event that moves the visual element upward from a bottom of a window rendered on the computing device toward a top of the window, seeking from the first frame through a subset of frames in the digital video in a first direction at a rate corresponding to a scroll rate of the scroll-down event, the subset of frames spanning a duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-down event; and, in response to termination of the scroll-down event with the visual element remaining in view within the window, playing the digital video forward from a last frame in the subset of frames in the digital video.
US09966107B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for transmitting a plurality of files of a plurality of file systems associated with a corresponding plurality of users to each one of the users. In one embodiment, a jukebox service identifies files from file systems associated with each user requesting to consume the transmitted content. In one embodiment, the jukebox service identifies the files based in part on a plurality of disc jockey preferences provided by a disc jockey. The jukebox service then generates a jukebox playlist of the identified files having an order that is generated based at least in part on a playback profile associated with each one of the files. For instance, the playback profile may describe a playback frequency of the respective file. The jukebox service may then transmit the files over a network to clients of requesting users according to the order established by the jukebox playlist.
US09966105B2

A playback device is provided that includes a readout unit that reads out data recorded in a recording medium and a playback unit. Data including a digital stream file obtained by encoding video information is recorded in the recording medium. A recording region of the recording medium has a first recording region where reading is performed at a first read rate, and a second recording region where reading is performed at a second read rate that is faster than the first read rate. In a file system, the data is classified into the digital stream file having real-time attributes and a data file having non-real-time attributes, wherein the data file read in during playback of the digital stream file is recorded in the same recording region where the digital stream file being played is recorded. The readout unit reads out the data without changing the first or second read rate.
US09966094B1

Systems and techniques relate to current slew control circuits. According to an aspect, a system implementing the quadratic slew control aspects comprises a disk; a read/write head; and a slew control circuit coupled to the read/write head, the slew control circuit configured to:receive an input current signal, apply a slew current to the input current signal in response to a change in a power setting for the read/write head, and provide an output current signal that is adjusted to a quadratic current slew based on the applied slew current, the output current signal generating an output voltage characterized by a linear slew and controlling a movement of the read/write head over the disk.
US09966088B2

Online source separation may include receiving a sound mixture that includes first audio data from a first source and second audio data from a second source. Online source separation may further include receiving pre-computed reference data corresponding to the first source. Online source separation may also include performing online separation of the second audio data from the first audio data based on the pre-computed reference data.
US09966083B2

An autocorrelation calculating part calculates autocorrelation Ro(i) from an input signal. A predictive coefficient calculating part performs linear predictive analysis using modified autocorrelation R′o(i) obtained by multiplying the autocorrelation Ro(i) by a coefficient wo(i). Here, a case is comprised where, for at least part of each order i, the coefficient wo(i) corresponding to each order i monotonically decreases as a value having positive correlation with a pitch gain in an input signal of a current frame or a past frame increases.
US09966082B2

A spectrum filler for filling non-coded residual sub-vectors of a transform coded audio signal includes a sub-vector compressor configured to compress actually coded residual sub-vectors. A sub-vector rejecter is configured to reject compressed residual sub-vectors that do not fulfill a predetermined sparseness criterion. A sub-vector collector is configured to concatenate the remaining compressed residual sub-vectors to form a first virtual codebook. A coefficient combiner is configured to combine pairs of coefficients of the first virtual codebook to form a second virtual codebook. A sub-vector filler is configured to fill non-coded residual sub-vectors below a predetermined frequency with coefficients from the first virtual codebook, and to fill non-coded residual sub-vectors above the predetermined frequency with coefficients from the second virtual codebook.
US09966076B2

A voice controlling method including determining a generating location of the voice signal when the voice signal is detected by one of a plurality of voice collecting devices. First voice collecting devices are determined from the plurality of voice collecting devices according to the generating location of the voice signal. Each of the first voice collecting devices is controlled to collect voice signals to obtain a plurality of collected voice signals. Once one or more preset voice commands are obtained by identifying the plurality of collected voice signals, a plurality of target devices are controlled to perform corresponding operations according to the one or more preset voice commands.
US09966073B2

A voice to text model used by a voice-enabled electronic device is dynamically and in a context-sensitive manner updated to facilitate recognition of entities that potentially may be spoken by a user in a voice input directed to the voice-enabled electronic device. The dynamic update to the voice to text model may be performed, for example, based upon processing of a first portion of a voice input, e.g., based upon detection of a particular type of voice action, and may be targeted to facilitate the recognition of entities that may occur in a later portion of the same voice input, e.g., entities that are particularly relevant to one or more parameters associated with a detected type of voice action.
US09966066B1

A speech recognition engine is provided. The speech recognition engine combines multiple, different statistical language models to allow a single instance of a speech recognition engine to recognize words applicable to a first group of users and a second group of users where the second group of users is a subset of the first group of users. At least one of the multiple, different statistical language models comprises words specific to the second group of users.
US09966063B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage devices are for identifying a user profile for speech recognition. The user profile is selected from one of several user profiles which are all associated with a speaker, and can be selected based on the identity of the speaker, the location of the speaker, the device the speaker is using, or other relevant parameters. Such parameters can be hierarchical, having multiple layers, and can also be dependent or independent from one another. Using the parameters identified, the user profile is selected and used to recognize speech.
US09966058B2

An area-sound reproduction system is provided that includes a speaker array having a plurality of speakers arranged side by side, a sound collector configured to collect an environment sound in an environment where the area-sound reproduction system is installed, a processor, and a memory having a computer program stored thereon. The computer program causes the processor to execute operations, including adjusting signals that the plurality of speakers are caused to output as reproduced sounds according to a reproduction condition on a control line, and causing the plurality of speakers to output the reproduced sounds.
US09966054B1

A pickup for a stringed musical instrument, including at least one magnet and at least one pressure sensitive element arranged in contact with the at least one magnet.
US09966053B2

A musical instrument connection and extension system that easily and quickly connects musical amplification, effects pedals, rack mounted effects systems and components, wireless connectivity and power distribution for use with musical instruments. Audio stage equipment multiplexing/demultiplexing system comprising: Front station (30), multi wire cable (101), back station (20). The invention concerns several options for the mechanical arrangements of plugs, connectors, aggregated cables, DC power, both in the front stage station and in the back station. On stage effect pedals, switches or foot-pedals are thus provided with DC power from the back stage station and can be connected more efficiently, reducing the number of external power supplies and cords.
US09966049B2

A musical instrument, particularly a stringed instrument, has a structure that decouples the body of the player from all parts of the instrument which are indirectly responsible for the sound production for preventing the body of the player from damping the vibrations of the instrument. Instead of a top cover being the main source of indirect sound production, the musical instrument now has an annular plate which is positioned between covers. Any damping effect on the resonance of the annular plate is minimized by positioning a bridge on the annular plate to avoid any contact between the bridge and the top cover, and applying an acoustically decoupling layer between the covers and the annular plate. The covers provide protection against any damping effect of the player's body on the annular plate. This structure also minimizes the tendency of an acoustic feedback loop,2 which may occur in the case of an electrically amplified stringed instrument.
US09966048B2

A memory is provided, which comprises an electrically erasable and programmable read only memory (EEPROM) configured to store an operation system and to be rewritable in response to a write operation signal, an address comparator configured to be connected to Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) lines and output the write operation signal to the EEPROM in response to an external signal, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) unit configured to determine whether to connect a DAC resistor and the I2C lines in response to the external signal and a pull-up resistor unit configured to be connected to the I2C lines.
US09966046B2

An image processing apparatus capable of mutually communicating with an external apparatus via a network includes a first generation unit, a second generation unit, a determination unit, a setting unit, a first control unit, and a transmission unit. The first generation unit generates a first image in a predetermined image size. The second generation unit generates a second image to be superimposed on the first image. The determination unit determines a protocol type of a control command for controlling the first generation unit and the second generation unit, wherein the control command is received via the network. The setting unit sets an image size of the first image. The first control unit changes a settable range of the image size set by the setting unit according to a determination result of the determination unit. The transmission unit transmits the first image via the network.
US09966039B2

The present disclosure provides a method and a device for modulating image display quality of a display device. The method includes: debugging a display device to a modulation state, so that a common voltage of the display device corresponding to a predetermined gray level is a standard voltage; and modulating a common voltage of the display device corresponding to other controllable gray level into a preset value, wherein there is a first preset relationship between the preset value and the standard voltage.
US09966038B2

A later generation display device may be connected to the video output port of an older electronic device which utilized an earlier generation display such as a dot matrix display. The early generation display is replaced with the later generation display. The display device includes software which receives graphic data through the video output port and identifies which frame is currently being streamed. The display device matches the frame being streamed to a stored graphic frame having a higher resolution and/or color. The matched frame is delivered to the later generation device so that the user can experience a higher quality visual effect by retrofitting the older electronic device with the later generation display.
US09966036B2

A plurality of data signals to be supplied to a first pixel and a second pixel formed by a first sub-pixel, two second sub-pixels, and two third sub-pixels on the display panel are rendered. Input data corresponding to a first sampling window with respect to the second sub-pixel of the first pixel among the input data applied to the stripe pattern is used to render a second data signal supplied to the second sub-pixel through filtering sampled input data for a color of the second sub-pixel. The first data signal to be supplied to the first sub-pixel is rendered through filtering of the input data of a second window unit for a color of the first sub-pixel with respect to the first sub-pixel of the first pixel among the sampled input data.
US09966035B2

Discussed is an organic light emitting display device and a driving method thereof, which reduce a size of corrected image data by using a color compression scheme to decrease a capacity of a memory, and reduce a size of an integrated circuit (IC) to increase a manufacturing yield. The method can include loading a compensation coefficient stored in a memory, correcting image data by applying the compensation coefficient to a data voltage supplied to a pixel, compressing, in different compression schemes, corrected image data of a color having high visual perceivability and corrected image data of a color having low visual perceivability, and synthesizing corrected image data of red, green, and blue pixels, which are compressed by the different compression schemes, to store the synthesized image data in a memory.
US09966034B2

A display apparatus is provided. The display apparatus includes: a display panel unit which comprises a first panel region corresponding to an opaque display region, and a second panel region corresponding to a transparent display region, a panel driving unit which drives the first panel region and the second panel region independently, and a controller which controls to display a main image on the opaque display region and display an additional image on the transparent display region.
US09966031B2

A display device having a driver that drives load lines in an electro-optical panel through capacitor charge redistribution is provided with a first driving capacitance circuit that drives the load lines, and a second driving capacitance circuit that drives output of a D/A conversion circuit for outputting a voltage corresponding to a driving voltage. Settling time of the output of the D/A conversion circuit is shortened by controlling the second driving capacitance circuit to set the output of the D/A conversion circuit to a desired output voltage.
US09966028B2

A LCD and the gate driving circuit thereof are disclosed. The gate driving circuit includes a shift register circuit and a shift register circuit and a level transition circuit connected with the shift register circuit. The level transition circuit generates clock signals, selection signals, and negative voltage reference signals for the shift register circuit. The clock signals, the selection signals, and the negative voltage reference signals are configured for driving the shift register circuit. A negative voltage value of the negative voltage reference signals (VSS) is larger than the negative voltage value of one of the clock signals or the selection signals. In this way, the TFTs of the shift register circuit own better turn-off capability so as to avoid malfunction.
US09966021B2

A display apparatus includes a display panel, a timing controller and a data driver. The display panel includes a data line and first and second pixels connected to the data line. The timing controller generates a data signal and a data kickback control signal in response to input image data. The data driver generates first and second data voltages in response to the data signal, generates a data kickback signal in response to the data kickback control signal, processes the data voltages and the data kickback signal, and outputs the first data voltage to the data line during a first duration, the second data voltage to the data line during a second duration, and a first kickback data voltage to the data line during a first data kickback duration. The first data kickback duration is between the first and second durations.
US09966020B2

The present invention discloses a gamma reference voltage ripple filter circuit and a liquid crystal display, including: a filter module to receive the gamma reference voltage from the gamma reference voltage circuit, filter the gamma reference voltage, and output the filtered gamma reference voltage to a thin film transistor liquid crystal display; a detection module to detect the filtered gamma reference voltage and obtain a detection voltage; a comparison module to compare the detection voltage and obtain a comparison result; and a regulator module to regulate the filter module according to the comparison result, and make the ripple of the filtered gamma reference voltage in a in a default range. The disclosure can stable the voltage difference in the two terminals of the liquid crystal, avoiding the instability of the reversing angle of the liquid crystal to produce flicker phenomenon, affecting the display quality.
US09965998B2

A method for forming an electronic label including using laser imaging to form a pattern of conductive lines on a conductive film, thereby forming a patterned conductive layer. A phosphorescent layer and a dielectric layer are added over the patterned conductive layer. A conductive trace layer is printed over the dielectric layer using a conductive ink including a pattern of conductive traces that overlap with the conductive lines of the patterned conductive layer to form an electric grid in a display area. One or more electronic components and a power source are added that are adapted to supply power and control signals to the electric grid.
US09965992B2

A display device is disclosed. In one aspect, the display device includes a display panel and a scan driver configured to provide a plurality of scan signals to the display panel via a plurality of scan-lines. The scan signals include upper, lower, left and right scan signals. The scan-lines include first and second vertical scan-lines, and first and second horizontal scan-lines respectively arranged in upper and lower regions of the display panel. The display device also includes a data driver configured to provide a plurality of data signals to the display panel, and a timing controller configured to control the scan driver and data driver.
US09965991B2

The present invention provides a drive method and a drive device of a liquid crystal display, and the drive method comprises: receiving an image to display; implementing block detection to the image pixels of the image to display to determine dimensions of color blocks where the image pixels are; respectively setting block weights for the respective image pixels according to the dimensions of the color blocks; implementing the color washout compensation to the image to display according to the block weight; driving the liquid crystal panel to show the image to display after the color washout compensation. With the aforesaid arrangement, the present invention can reduce the color washout under large view angle to promote the display effect of the large view angle.
US09965990B2

A display apparatus includes a display panel including a first pixel configured to include first and second sub-pixels and a second pixel configured to include third and fourth sub-pixels. A timing controller generates pixel data including first and second pixel data respectively corresponding to the first and second pixels and representable in a second matrix space, from pixel signals including first and second pixel signals representable in a first matrix space to respectively correspond to the first and second pixels. The timing controller generates the second pixel data on the basis of the first pixel signal adjacent to the second pixel signal which correspond to each second pixel data in the column direction in the first matrix space.
US09965978B1

An Air Conditioner Educational Demonstration System is composed of eighteen main components and removable interlocking tubing lines along designated component points. A teacher can disconnect various components and demonstrate characteristics there. The main components are: 1) condenser; 2) gauge port #1; 3) high pressure service valve; 4) gauge port #2; 5) open/close valve #1; 6) gauge port #3; 7) metering device and evaporator; 8) nitrogen pressure port; 9) gauge port #4; 10) open/close valve #2; 11) gauge port #5; 12) low pressure service valve; 13) gauge port #6; 14) compressor; 15) separation valve; 16) low pressure line; 17) high pressure line; 18) nitrogen tank. The system having: a condenser; a compressor; and an evaporator; such that the condenser is removably connected to the evaporator and removably connected to the compressor; and wherein a nitrogen tank is removably connected to the evaporator through a port on the evaporator.
US09965977B2

An adjustable lumbar spine assembly for a crash test dummy includes an upper member adapted to be connected to an upper thoracic portion of a spine of the crash test dummy, a lower member adapted to be connected to a lower thoracic portion of the spine of the crash test dummy, an upper abdomen interface connected to the lower member and adapted to be connected to an upper abdomen portion of the crash test dummy, and an adjustment mechanism cooperating with the upper member and the lower member to allow adjustment of varying fixed joint angles between the upper member and the lower member.
US09965974B2

A single-unit portable Braille device is provided that can include a housing and a touch-sensitive surface provided on the housing and configured to implement a virtual Braille keyboard including a plurality of virtual keys each associated with a key location on the touch-sensitive surface. The virtual Braille keyboard is configured for entry of input Braille data from a user contacting the touch-sensitive surface at one or more of the key locations. The portable Braille device also includes a refreshable Braille display provided on the housing and configured for outputting output Braille data for tactile reading by the user, and a processing unit in the housing and configured to receive the input Braille data from the touch-sensitive surface and to transmit the output Braille data to the refreshable Braille display. In some implementations, the portable Braille device includes a visual display located under the touch-sensitive surface.
US09965969B2

A computing device may include a display, a memory to store electronic textbook data comprising at least one configurable problem to be solved using a given solution technique from among a plurality of different solution techniques, a user input device, and a processor coupled to the display, the memory, and the user input device. The processor may be configured to display the electronic textbook data with the at least one configurable problem on the display, selectively change the given solution technique for the at least one configurable problem based upon the user input device, and display a solution for the at least one configurable problem on the display responsive to the change in the given solution technique.
US09965959B2

A lane departure warning apparatus that issues a warning for a lane departure of a vehicle monitors a change amount of a location of the vehicle relative to a division line that defines a travelling lane, in a case where the lane departure warning apparatus has detected the lane departure of the vehicle from the travelling lane. The lane departure warning apparatus is issues the warning to an output device in at least one of cases in which (i) the change amount monitoring part determines that the change amount of the location of the vehicle is equal to or greater than a first threshold value and (ii) the change amount monitoring part determines that the change amount per a unit of time is equal to or greater than a second threshold value.
US09965958B2

A real-time surveillance system for aiding vehicle drivers and portable first unit for use therein is provided. The unit includes an image sensor that generates a sequence of images from received light. The system further includes a support to detachably support the unit on the vehicle so that the sensor is capable of receiving light from obstacles, hazards or individuals located in a blind spot region of the vehicle. A display is supported on the vehicle so that the images are viewable by a driver of the vehicle in real time. The system further includes a mechanism to authenticate a person desirous of using the system or removing the unit from the vehicle as an authorized person based, at least in part, on an authenticator. The authenticator includes at least one of a password, a passphrase, a personal identification number, a security token, a security card, and a biometric identifier.
US09965956B2

A collision risk calculation device includes: a movement information obtaining unit that obtains a speed and a movement direction of an obstacle; and a risk map generator that generates a risk map indicating a range within which the obstacle can exist after one unit of time and degree of risk of collision of an own vehicle with the obstacle within the range, on a basis of the speed and the movement direction of the obstacle obtained by the movement information obtaining unit, wherein the risk map generator changes the range in left and right directions with respect to a traveling direction of the obstacle, on a basis of the speed of the obstacle in the traveling direction.
US09965952B2

Road condition management is provided. A first road problem at a first location is identified, based, at least in part, on a current traffic pattern and current environmental conditions at the first location. An optimized plan for road repairs is generated. The optimized plan identifies one or more road problems. The plan is optimized based on a severity index of each of the one or more road problems and an availability of at least one resource. An alert is issued to at least one interface device, wherein the alert describes the first road problem.
US09965942B2

A tracking system can provide intervention notifications to a user to notify the user that a tracking device is potentially lost or is in a predicted state. The tracking system may notify the user that a tracking device is potentially lost or in a predicted state based on a number of factors, including: a proximity of a tracking device to other tracking devices or a user's mobile device, a movement of a tracking device to more than a threshold distance away from a mobile device or other tracking devices, a location of a tracking device relative to a geographic location or to geographic boundaries, a usage or movement behavior of the tracking device, a usage or movement behavior of a user or owner of a tracking device, information received from an external source, or information received from sensors within the tracking device or a user's mobile.
US09965940B1

A vehicle includes a body controller having a plurality of sensors that detect a state of a driver door and a rear passenger door and detect an ignition state of the vehicle. The vehicle includes a processor that activates an alert flag in response to receiving a first signal from the body controller indicating an ignition of the vehicle has been started and receiving a second signal from the body controller indicating the rear passenger door of the vehicle has been closed within an activation threshold time. The processor determines that the vehicle has made a temporary stop and maintains the activated alert flag upon detecting that the vehicle has been started in response to determining that the vehicle has made the temporary stop. The processor generates a notification in response to detecting that the vehicle has been parked a second time. The notification may include a camera feed.
US09965935B2

Disclosed is an alarm device system with simultaneous AC/DC power. The system includes of one or more alert devices wired into a dedicated circuit with a single location housing a DC power backup source, such as a rechargeable DC battery. The DC power backup source may be replaceable or rechargeable with DC current from an AC-DC transformer-rectifier, a photovoltaic cell, or other means. A dedicated circuit is energized with a composite current to provide continuous, uninterrupted DC backup power, upon which line AC is superimposed. AC and continuous DC backup are simultaneously provided to a system of detection and alert devices, such as smoke alarms, electrically coupled to the dedicated circuit.
US09965928B2

An indication system is provided and includes evaluation, messaging, and display modules and a display. The evaluation module generates a message based on a parameter of a compressor or a drive. The messaging module: generates a message based on the parameter; generates a string of glyphs based on the message; selects a predetermined number of glyphs in the string of glyphs; generates column data for the selected glyphs; and generates packets including the column data. The display module generates output signals based on the packets. The display includes an array of LEDs, does not include a transistor, and illuminates the LEDs based on the output signals. The display module is configured to generate the output signals to illuminate one or more of the LEDS in a column-by-column format, such that power is only provided to one column of the array of LEDs at any moment in time.
US09965922B2

Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for executing a computer game. One method includes an operation for setting an initial value to the jackpot of a first player. The jackpot of the first player is increased based on each bet by the first player in the computer game. Additionally, the jackpot of the first player is increased based on each bet made by friends of the first player in the computer game. The friends of the first player have a social connection with the first player, and the jackpot of the first player is independent from bets in the computer game of players that are not friends of the first player. The method further includes an operation for resetting the jackpot of the first player to the initial value when the first player or when any friend of the first player wins the jackpot.
US09965921B2

Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for providing play areas to communities of players in an online game. One method includes an operation for identifying attributes of players in the online game. A characteristic that is common to a subset of players is determined in the online game, where the characteristic is based on the attributes of players in the online game. The method further includes an operation for creating a playing area in the online game, such that the subset of players are allowed to play in the playing area, but other players in the online game, that are outside the subset of players, are disallowed from playing in the playing area. The subset of players is then enabled to play in the playing area with other players from the subset of players.
US09965920B2

An apparatus, including a processor, specially programmed to detect a posting of information regarding a sporting event for which a bet can be placed, which detects the posting regarding the sporting event and generates a notification message containing information regarding the sporting event. The apparatus initiates a communication link with a first user communication device and transmits the notification message to the first user communication device via the communication link; a receiver which receives a bet message, containing information regarding a bet on or regarding the sporting event, transmitted from the first user communication device or a second user communication device; and a transmitter. The apparatus or processor processes information for placing the bet and the transmitter transmits video information or audio information regarding, and obtained at, the sporting event to the first user communication device, the second user communication device, or a third user communication device.
US09965919B2

A casino device includes a drop box, a bill processor used by an employee to check cash of a customer when the customer purchases chips in cash, a reader configured to read a barcode or magnetic stripe or IC chip of a card, a ticket, or a form of the customer, a ticket printer configured to print the ticket on which a exchange is displayed when the customer requests the exchange for the chips, a display configured to provide money amount information to the customer when the employee processes business using the bill processor, the reader, or the ticket printer and provide the money amount information to a closed circuit television camera and recording device, and a monitor configured to provide the employee with the money amount information provided to the display and transaction information between employees or between the employee and the customer.
US09965916B2

A reject storage box is provided with a sufficiently thick cover body above a second storage space that stores banknote bundles W that a user has forgotten to take, and a guide space is provided penetrating the cover body in an oblique direction. In the reject storage box, when a banknote bundle falls into an intake hole from above, a lower face of the banknote bundle immediately contacts a position toward the top of a main guide face, and the banknote bundle W travels downward through the guide space with the lower face of the banknote bundle W sliding against the main guide face. The reject storage box thereby enables the banknote bundle dropping downward through the guide space to be maintained in a substantially uniform orientation, and ultimately enables the banknote bundle to be stacked neatly inside the second storage space.
US09965910B2

A lockout-tagout system for use with at least one securing item may include at least one lock for locking the securing item in place. The lockout-tagout system may further include at least one lockout tag on or near the securing item or lock. The lockout tag may have a wireless identification device. The lockout-tagout system may further include a reader configured to read the wireless identification device.
US09965906B2

A system and method for providing content from a source to a vehicle is disclosed. The content is restricted by associating the content with at least one requirement for vehicle information from a vehicle to which the content is provided. When restricted content is requested, a vehicle system obtains vehicle related information from the vehicle. The vehicle information is transferred to the vehicle system from the source, and the restricted content is transferred from the source to the vehicle system. The vehicle system, the source, or both determine whether the vehicle information meets the at least one requirement restricting the content. As long as the requirement for vehicle information is met, processing of the restricted content is allowed.
US09965904B2

The invention relates to a time-measuring system for measuring the running time of a runner (2) comprising, for sensing the presence of the runner on a presence line (3, 4.3) crossing the running track, a signaling device (5), which has a light-beam source (6) and a light-beam receiver (7), ahead of the running track (4) and, in the light beam oriented parallel to the running track, a reflector (10). The reflector comprises a deflecting mirror (10.1) and an end mirror (10.2). Both are positioned on the presence line (3) on different sides of the running track (4) in the horizontal plane of the light beam of the light-beam source (6) (light-beam plane) and are oriented in the manner of a prism in two vertical planes in such a way that the light beam crosses the running track (3) between the two mirrors at a substantially right angle and is reflected to the light-beam receiver (7).
US09965902B2

As part of the process for controlling entry and exit in parking garages and parking facilities, the entrance or exit, in front of which a vehicle stands, is determined on the basis of a location determination of the vehicle, where the location information shall be transmitted by means of the mobile device via a wireless or mobile phone standard to a server, which is capable of controlling the parking barriers of entrances and exits after locating the vehicle, where in the case that the owner of the mobile device is already registered on the server, the user ID is also sent to the server and in the case that the owner of the mobile device is not registered on the server, the registration is done by means of the mobile device via the connection to the server and a user ID is assigned after registration, where the entrance or exit, in front of which the vehicle stands, is determined on basis of the data of location determination in the server, where a ticket in electronic form linked with the user ID is sent to the mobile device of the user in the case of an entrance or stored in the server and the parking barrier or access control device assigned to the determined entrance is actuated in order to allow the entrance, where it is determined for the case of an exit, whether the parking fee has been paid and in case of paid parking fee the parking barrier or access control device assigned to the determined exit is actuated in order to allow the exit.
US09965901B2

Methods and systems for generating simulated images from design information are provided. One system includes one or more computer subsystems and one or more components executed by the computer subsystem(s), which include a generative model. The generative model includes two or more encoder layers configured for determining features of design information for a specimen. The generative model also includes two or more decoder layers configured for generating one or more simulated images from the determined features. The simulated image(s) illustrate how the design information formed on the specimen appears in one or more actual images of the specimen generated by an imaging system.
US09965896B2

A display method includes: detecting a specific object from an input image captured by a camera; generating display data for rendering a plan view, a first display component, and a second display component based on a positional relationship between the camera and the specific object, the plan view corresponding to a first plane which is different from a second plane projected on the input image, the first display component being displayed at a camera position on the first plane, and the second display component being displayed at a reference object position on the first plane; receiving a designation of a point on the plane view; converting a designated position on the first plane into another position on depth direction to the second plane; generating positional information indicating three dimensional position of an augmented reality content based on the another position.
US09965884B2

Methods and devices for determining scoring models of a three-dimensional animation scene frame are provided. A method can include obtaining a dataset of three-dimensional animation scene frames; obtaining a predetermined stereoscopic effect standard score and a predetermined visual comfort standard score corresponding to each three-dimensional animation scene frame; obtaining the disparity map of each three-dimensional animation scene frame, extracting disparity statistic features of each three-dimensional animation scene frame based on its disparity map, and combining the disparity statistic features into one feature vector; and, determining the stereoscopic effect scoring model and the visual comfort scoring model for a three-dimensional animation scene frame respectively based on the feature vector of each three-dimensional animation scene frame in conjunction with the corresponding stereoscopic effect standard score and visual comfort standard score, in order to reduce the influence of subjective factors from the producers on the scoring.
US09965882B2

Implementations generally relate to generating image compositions. In some implementations, a method includes receiving a plurality of photos from a user and determining one or more composition types from the photos. The method further includes generating one or more compositions from the received photos based on the one or more determined composition types, where each composition is based on modified foregrounds of the photos. The method further includes providing the one or more generated compositions to the user.
US09965875B2

A method of generating a synthesized digital projection image, executed at least in part by a computer, acquires x-ray projection images at corresponding acquisition angles, and reconstructs a first volume image. Forward projection generates a preceding forward projection image at a first acquisition angle; a following forward projection image at an adjacent second acquisition angle; and an intermediate forward projection image for an intermediate angle. A synthesized projection image is formed by identifying a candidate patch of pixels from the intermediate forward projection image, matching a first patch of pixels from the preceding forward projection image and identifying a corresponding first acquired patch of pixels from the first acquired x-ray projection image, matching a second patch of pixels from the following forward projection image and matching a second acquired patch of pixels from the forward projection image. The first and second acquired patches are combined.
US09965868B2

An automatic guiding system for analyzing ground texture in or on an autonomous mobile device comprises an image acquisition module, a ground texture analysis module, a posture sensing module, and a ground texture database. The image acquisition module collects ground images as the autonomous mobile device moves. The ground texture analysis module processes the ground images, and extracts texture information of the ground images. The posture sensing module continuously senses the posture of the autonomous mobile device. The ground texture database is configured to stores the texture information and the posture.
US09965867B2

A micro object control apparatus for controlling motion of a micro object within a medium includes a light source, an optical vortex generation unit, an objective lens, an imaging unit, an analysis unit, and a movement unit. The analysis unit acquires first motion information of the micro object based on the image data in which the micro object optically trapped with the optical vortex is imaged by setting the focal position of the optical vortex to a first position, acquires second motion information of the micro object based on the image data in which the micro object optically trapped with the optical vortex is imaged by setting the focal position of the optical vortex to a second position, and evaluates a state of an optical trap of the micro object with the optical vortex by comparing the first motion information and the second motion information.
US09965859B2

Disclosed is a method for determining a region of interest (ROI) from an image. The method includes obtaining a wearing portion of a first electronic device, obtaining a first image related to a user wearing the first electronic device, and determining the ROI from the first image based on the obtained wearing portion.
US09965857B2

Certain embodiments provide a computer system for determining a registration mapping between a novel medical image and a reference medical image, the computer system comprising: a storage system adapted to store data representing the novel medical image and the reference medical image and variance data for a plurality of different locations in the reference medical image representing a statistical variation for corresponding locations identified in a plurality of training medical images; and a processor unit operable to execute machine readable instructions to determine a registration mapping between the novel medical image and the reference medical image in a manner that takes account of the variance data for the plurality of different locations in the reference medical image.
US09965853B2

An image processing apparatus for obtaining a shape of a region of a processing target included in an image, includes: an attribute obtaining unit configured to obtain a intensity distribution attribute of the region of the processing target; and a shape obtaining unit configured to obtain the shape of the region by a calculation method selected in accordance with the intensity distribution attribute.
US09965850B2

A device for detecting and marking differences between two substrates, such as images or written text. The device has an image capturing device that is in communication with image recognition software. Images of a secondary images are analyzed and compared to a primary image to detect differences between the two. Once a difference is detected, the device automatically disperses a marking material in the proximity of the detected difference.
US09965848B2

Shape primitives are used for inspection of a semiconductor wafer or other workpiece. The shape primitives can define local topological and geometric properties of a design. One or more rules are applied to the shape primitives. The rules can indicate presence of a defect or the likelihood of a defect being present. A rule execution engine can search for an occurrence of the shape primitives covered by the at least one rule.
US09965844B1

An inspection method includes the following steps: identifying a plurality of patterns within an image; and comparing the plurality of patterns with each other for measurement values thereof. The above-mentioned inspection method uses the pattern within the image as a basis for comparison; therefore, measurement values of the plurality of pixels constructing the pattern can be processed with statistical methods and then compared, and the false rate caused by variation of a few pixels is decreased significantly. An inspection system implementing the above-mentioned method is also disclosed.
US09965834B2

Provided is an image processing apparatus including a transformation unit that is configured to deform images so that corresponding points in a plurality of images obtained from several viewpoints with respect to the same subject are matched; a separating unit that is configured to separate specular-reflection components from the plurality of images transformed by the transformation unit and create an image from which the specular-reflection component is removed; and an image reconstructing unit that is configured to combine at least one of the specular-reflection components of the plurality of images, separated by the separating unit, and the image from which the specular-reflection component is removed.
US09965830B2

Provided is an image processing apparatus, for displaying image data in accordance with a line-of-sight direction of a viewer, that includes: storage means for storing a plurality of environment maps having different resolutions; obtaining means for obtaining as motion information of the viewer; retaining means for retaining a current area that is being displayed; target area determination means for determining a target area on the basis of the current area and the motion information; path area determination means for determining as a path area an area that includes a path, from the current area to the target area, along which the line-of-sight direction changes; setting means for setting resolutions that respectively correspond to the path area and the target area; and generation means for reading pieces of image data that respectively correspond to the path area and the target area from environment maps having the resolutions set by the setting means, and for generating image data for display in the path area and image data for display in the target area.
US09965824B2

An apparatus is described. The apparatus includes an image processing unit. The image processing unit includes a network. The image processing unit includes a plurality of stencil processor circuits each comprising an array of execution unit lanes coupled to a two-dimensional shift register array structure to simultaneously process multiple overlapping stencils through execution of program code. The image processing unit includes a plurality of sheet generators respectively coupled between the plurality of stencil processors and the network. The sheet generators are to parse input line groups of image data into input sheets of image data for processing by the stencil processors, and, to form output line groups of image data from output sheets of image data received from the stencil processors. The image processing unit includes a plurality of line buffer units coupled to the network to pass line groups in a direction from producing stencil processors to consuming stencil processors to implement an overall program flow.
US09965820B2

A system is disclosed that features a transport vehicle that carries responsive objects in which the objects are equipped to provide state information about their states when queried. The transport vehicle is outfitted with a proxy that represents the responsive objects. The proxy is configured such that it is better able than the responsive objects to receive state query signals from a querying device. The vehicle is also outfitted with I) sensors that detect the responsive objects and ii) sensors that detect state information of the vehicle, in which both sets of sensors provide information to the proxy. The object sensors are able to detect the state of each responsive object or query the object about its state in the same way as the querying device would query those objects in the prior art. The proxy then responds to the query on behalf of the responsive objects.
US09965816B2

The product unit disclosed herein has identification data that are stored internally in memory. This stored identification data can be viewed as the product unit's “digital nameplate,” in that the data can represent the product unit's identifier, brand, and so on. Each data set is digitally signed while on the production line by using an encryption technique. The digitally signed data set is then written into the product unit's memory where it can be used for verification. A first digitally-signed data set can be used to control the use of one or more software modules that are provided by a software owner. The data that are undergoing signature contain at least one globally-unique identifier, which can be used to identify cloning attempts. Additionally, more than one digital signature can be used, in order to protect and control the use of features other than the software, such as the product brand.
US09965815B1

A method and system for advertising a property comprises a hollow elongated post, at least one rechargeable battery, at least one solar panel, a double-sided monitor, and a real estate server in communication with the double-sided monitor via a network. The real estate server resides on a central computer having a processor installed with a real estate management application and coupled with a memory unit integrated with a central database. The double-sided monitor is configured to receive a plurality of input parameters about a property and to display the details of at least one property selected by a user. The double-sided monitor includes a plurality of sensors embedded inside the monitor, a hard-wire jack, a magnetic alarm, and a webcam. The double-sided monitor provides an interactive screen and allows the user to know about the property by displaying rotating images and videos.
US09965814B2

The disclosure relates to a computer-based system for managing just-in-time preparation and delivery of food products. In the system, customers can build, place, and pay for their order. Once the order is placed, the system will track the users location, only starting to prepare their food when the customer is within a specific proximity to the retail location. The proximity will be dynamic and expand and contract with the customer's movements. Finally, the system will coordinate the preparation, assembly and packaging of the order to provide just-in-time delivery of the customer's order, thereby reducing food waste and enhancing the freshness and taste of the product delivered to improve the customer experience.
US09965813B2

In one example, a computing device is configured to calculate fees and revenues related to a lighting infrastructure application framework. An example computing device comprises a memory and a processor coupled to the memory configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising receiving, data that includes at least one of sensor data and controller information related to at least one of a sensor and a controller, wherein the sensor and the controller are within a local area network coupled to a computing device having the processor and are associated with at least one lighting node platform device; calculating information describing the fees and the revenues associated with the received data, wherein the revenues are for a lighting infrastructure owner associated with the computing device; and transmitting the calculated information to another device associated with the lighting infrastructure application framework.
US09965810B1

Automatically mapping and importing accounting application data into to a tax preparation application. Account data including an account name is received from an accounting application. A tax category corresponding to the account name is determined automatically, and a tax line assignment or line of a form of the tax preparation application is automatically assigned to the account name such that the corresponding account data can be mapped to and imported into the appropriate section of a tax return. For this purpose, a table or spreadsheet of search terms may be used to correlate an account name selected by a user to a tax category, which is used to determine the appropriate tax line assignment or line of a tax form for that particular account.
US09965807B1

Methods are disclosed for providing leads for insurance market participants. A method may include a broker providing for consideration, their clients' insurance risk to be considered by multiple insurance capital providers. The broker can be provided with potential carrier matches based on analysis of broker and carrier insurance preferences, and previous transactions. Similarly, methods may include carriers disclosing their risk appetites, in the form of insurance products and services for consideration. The carrier may also be provided with potential broker and/or client matches based on analysis of the broker and carrier insurance preferences and previous transactions. Systems and apparatuses are also disclosed to implement the disclosed methods.
US09965802B2

A method for generating bids for a look-ahead, e.g. hour-ahead, energy market is disclosed. The method includes providing a processor configured to generate a lookup table approximating a value function having four dimensions including: state of the storage system, price of electricity, prior low bid and prior high bid. The processor is configured to observe an initial numeric value for a first set of dimensions and exploiting monotonicity to update a first region of the lookup table. The processor is configured to iteratively observe subsequent numeric values for a next set of dimensions and update subsequent regions of the lookup table while exploiting monotonicity to generate the lookup table. The value function is configured with numeric values for all possible sets of dimensions, the numeric values being usable to compute optimal bids.
US09965800B1

The technology may provide display of an electronic representation of physical art in a virtual environment so that a customer may visualize how the physical art would appear in a physical environment. Based on a characteristic of the physical art, a virtual environment in which to display an electronic representation of the physical art may be selected. The electronic representation of the physical art may then be included in the virtual environment for display to a customer. The customer may then electronically purchase the physical art via the virtual environment.
US09965792B2

A system and method are disclosed automating the provision of social media product recommendations in an electronic commerce environment. A search engine submits a request for product-related content, such as a product page, to a merchant web server. In turn, the merchant web server submits a server-side request to a search engine optimization (SEO) application programming interface (API) for processing. In response, the SEO API returns Picks markup content that is associated with the requested product-related content. The merchant web server then combines the requested product-related content with the returned Picks markup content to generate a product page. The product page, which includes the dynamically injected Picks markup content, is then returned to the search engine where it is indexed.
US09965791B1

Disclosed are systems, methods, and devices for managing a personal user inventory. In one embodiment, the method comprises retrieving a message associated with a user identifier, the message including a body content portion; identifying a parser associated with the message; parsing the body content portion using the parser to identify an item of merchandise present within the body content portion, wherein the item of merchandise is associated with an item identifier and a set of item details; associating the item of merchandise with the user identifier; and generating a display listing merchandise associated with the user identifier, wherein the listing of merchandise includes the item of merchandise.
US09965786B2

A system and method for ordering a print product using a mobile computing device is provided. The system includes a photofinisher configured for receiving a print order from the mobile computing device and producing the print product based upon the print order. Further, a print product ordering module is configured for allowing the print order to be completed using the mobile computing device, wherein the print order includes the digital image and the print product selected using the mobile computing device. A wireless local area network is configured for placing the mobile computing device in communication with the photofinisher when the mobile computing device is located within a range of the wireless local area network. The print order completed using the mobile computing device is communicated to the photofinisher when the mobile computing device is located within the range of the wireless local area network.
US09965783B2

A method for providing media for use with on-demand transport services is provided. A transport service is arranged for a user. The user is determined to have requested control over media to be outputted on an output device of the driver. A token of the user is identified and transmitted to the driver's computing device. In response to detecting that an event has occurred for enabling the user to control the media, the driver's computing device is enabled to output the media that is controlled by the user operating the user's computing device.
US09965778B2

Computerized method and system for creating a personalized advertisement, and for recommending a product being advertised. An uploaded facial photograph is received, the facial photograph including a plurality of facial features. At least one facial feature of the plurality of facial features is detected. Personal information may be extracted by analyzing the at least one detected facial feature. A product being advertised may be recommended, wherein the recommended product applies to a treatment related to the extracted personal information. A tutorial may indicate on the photograph the facial region to be modified by application of the product, such as to achieve a specific look.
US09965777B2

An advertisement distribution management apparatus according to an embodiment includes a detection unit, a storage unit, and an acceptance unit. The detection unit detects information on a wireless terminal which exists in a communication area of a wireless LAN access point and which satisfies a predetermined condition. The storage unit stores information on the wireless terminal detected by the detection unit and attribute information set to the wireless LAN access point in association with each other. The acceptance unit accepts an order request of an advertisement distribution that specifies the attribute information on the basis of the information on the wireless terminal stored in the storage unit in association with the specified attribute information.
US09965768B1

An advertisement service enables advertisers to bid on or select a particular geographic region for public display of an advertisement by a mobile ad platform when the mobile ad platform enters the particular geographic region. For instance, the mobile ad platform provides location information to the advertisement service. Based on the location, the advertisement service provides ad information to the mobile ad platform for display of an advertisement corresponding to the advertiser that has purchased rights to display advertisements on the mobile ad platform in the current geographic region. The publicly displayed advertisement content may change dynamically as the location of the mobile ad platform changes. In some implementations, the advertisement may offer an incentive, such as a coupon, to consumers that see the advertisement. The incentive may be redeemable at the advertiser's business such as by using a mobile device to capture, obtain or redeem the incentive.
US09965766B2

The collection of social data from social networking services for market research purposes is improved by automating the formulation of a final query rule sets by analyzing relevant keywords captured using a seed query rule set based on a user input. Relevant keywords from social mentions based on a seed query rule set for a brand name and/or product can be extracted to form at least parts of a final query rule set. The relevant keywords can then be disambiguated by using a searchable reference to resolve ambiguities. Any generalities in the relevant keywords can also be resolved by analyzing the co-occurrence of the relevant keywords with relevant keywords from another brand and/or product. The relevant keywords having been disambiguated and having generalities resolved therein, may be used to automatically generate a final query rule set for providing relevant search results based on the user input.
US09965761B2

Described are apparatus and methods for providing secure identification, payment processing and/or signing using a gesture-based input device without biometrics.
US09965760B2

Systems and methods for facilitating electronic transactions utilizing data capturing devices are provided herein. Methods may include generating a transaction event which comprises transaction details and receiving a transaction acceptance from a first client device. The transaction acceptance may include a capture of at least a portion of the transaction details and a unique merchant identifier by a first data capturing device of the first client device and a confirmation. The method further includes providing indication of a payment authorization to the merchant.
US09965759B2

A network interface receives transaction information. A processor determines private information and public information from the received transaction information. The network interface communicates the private information to an obfuscation engine, and receives obfuscated private information. The processor then merges the obfuscated private information with the public information to create a temporary identifier, and then converts the temporary identifier into a transaction identifier. A printer then prints a portion of the public information and the transaction identifier on a transaction receipt.
US09965754B2

Identifying the geolocation of POS terminals using non-payment events to predict when the geolocation of a computing device at a time when the device detects events corresponds to the geolocation of the terminal. The device monitors for pre-selected events and transmit data to the account system. The account system determines a frequency of the events and it reaches a pre-defined threshold, the account system identifies the location of the terminal by identifying the common geolocation of the events. The identified geolocation is saved so that when a user then enters the location and transmits event data to the account system, the system can compare the geolocation of the event data to the saved geolocation to determine whether the computing device is located at the terminal. If the computing device is located at the terminal, the account system transmits offers or other content for display and use at the identified terminal.
US09965744B1

An online marketplace of digital goods is provided. A digital good proposed to be listed in the marketplace is received, where the source code for the received digital good includes scripting language code. The source code of the received digital good is rewritten to include tracking code to track behavior of the received digital good during execution of the re-written digital good, and the rewritten digital good is executed in a browser run by one or more processors of a computer system. One or more processors of the computer system automatically determine, based on evaluation of results of executing the re-written digital good, whether the digital good violates one or more predetermined conditions. Based on the determination of whether the digital good violates one or more of the predetermined conditions, an automatic determination is made whether to list the received digital good in the marketplace.
US09965743B2

A method and system for establishing an electronic communication channel between at least one agent of a first entity and a second entity is provided. The method includes linking the second entity to the at least one agent of the first entity when a trigger is sent by the second entity. Providing one or more software programs over the electronic communication channel to the second entity; initiating an exchange by the at least one agent of the first entity to the second entity. And sending one or more messages over the communication channel between the at least one agent from the first entity and the second entity. The system includes a database containing a link between the agent of the first entity and the second entity. The system also includes a server configured to establish an electronic communication channel between the agent of the first entity and the second entity when a trigger is sent by the second entity. The server is further configured to provide at least one software program for sharing between the agent of the first entity and the second entity over the electronic communication channel.
US09965742B1

Systems, methods, apparatuses and computer-readable media for analyzing vehicle claim information from a vehicle that is deemed a total loss to determine one or more parts that may be removed from the total loss vehicle for reuse is presented. In some arrangements, the parts identified for reuse may be identified prior to removal from the total loss vehicle and may be identified as available inventory and may include a future availability date. One or more repair shops may then request the parts available for reuse and the part may be reserved for that shop until it becomes available.
US09965737B2

A new or alternative computer-enabled multichannel distribution management tool, system and method that facilitate multi-channel distribution management of product to the market. The tool, method and system allow manufacturers management of transactions across all distribution channels and throughout the distribution chain, including to the “tail end” of the distribution chain after sale to an end consumer, where manufacturer liability remains (e.g. for returns or warranty repairs or servicing). This facilitates the calculation of “true” profits for manufacturers, based on pre- and post-sales data (e.g. costs associated with the sale of each widget through any given distribution channel). The multichannel distribution management tool also provides distributors and retailers a centralized tool to manage transactions downstream from their relative positions in the distribution chain.
US09965728B2

System and method for single-action time and attendance record generation and processing via computing devices. The record is generated via a computing device (“Client System”) and received by a server system or other computing device (“Server System”). The user utilizes the Client System to execute a simultaneous or near-simultaneous process of authenticating his or her identity, recording time data and location data, and then sending this data to the server system.
US09965723B2

The embodiment of this disclosure may include a rule engine that adds a plurality of objects into a working memory, and processes the plurality of objects through a plurality of rules stored in a rule repository. Then, the rule engine may create a rule network comprising a root node and a child node based on the plurality of rules, and associate the root node with a predetermined list of object references. The rule engine may build a multi-object sub-token based on the plurality of objects that satisfy the predetermined list of object references. Then, the rule engine may pass the multi-object sub-token from the root node to the child node.
US09965721B2

Disclosed is a computer-implemented method of generating a plurality of selectable design experiments in a design of experiments (DOE) process for analyzing at least one data set from a process to determine a relationship of a plurality of process factors of interest to a process output of interest. The method entails receiving as user input into a computing apparatus, a base number of trials and a number of center point trials. From the computing apparatus, a graphical user interface is generated on a display connected with the computing apparatus. This includes presenting a display containing a plurality of experiment each defined, at least partially, by a combination of number of replicates (replicates count) and effect size. The display further includes a predicted power value for each combination of replicates count and effect size.
US09965715B2

A dynamic transaction card that is manufactured using conductive plastic jumpers that will dissolve when in contact with a solvent used to tamper with the dynamic transaction card. Internal components of a dynamic transaction card may be manufactured using a synthetic or semi-synthetic organic material, such as, for example, plastics. These materials may be conductive to provide functionality to a dynamic transaction card, such as a connection between an integrated circuit and other card components such that when the materials dissolve, the connections are broken and the dynamic transaction card may be inactive due to the loss of various connections.
US09965713B2

A semiconductor device that is resistant to bending stress and has a structure in which an antenna circuit, an electric double layer capacitor for storing electricity, and the like are formed over a signal processing circuit that is provided over a substrate and has a charging circuit. The signal processing circuit having the charging circuit is provided over a substrate, and the antenna circuit and the electric double layer capacitor are provided over the signal processing circuit. The antenna circuit is electrically connected to the signal processing circuit, and the electric double layer capacitor is electrically connected to the charging circuit. With such a structure, a wiring for connecting the charging circuit and the electric double layer capacitor can be made short. Accordingly, a semiconductor device that is resistant to bending stress can be provided.
US09965705B2

Described herein are systems and methods for generating and using attention-based deep learning architectures for visual question answering task (VQA) to automatically generate answers for image-related (still or video images) questions. To generate the correct answers, it is important for a model's attention to focus on the relevant regions of an image according to the question because different questions may ask about the attributes of different image regions. In embodiments, such question-guided attention is learned with a configurable convolutional neural network (ABC-CNN). Embodiments of the ABC-CNN models determine the attention maps by convolving image feature map with the configurable convolutional kernels determined by the questions semantics. In embodiments, the question-guided attention maps focus on the question-related regions and filters out noise in the unrelated regions.
US09965702B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for interpretation of flow cytometry data. Flow cytometry data sets are combined to form a multidimensional image cube. The machine learning functions and genetic algorithm interpret the multidimensional image cube to produce a confidence value that is assigned to a function for the targeted condition. The confidence value determines the relative degree to which a targeted condition is present or absent in a flow cytometry data set. Such confidence value can be used to diagnose and interpret results from flow cytometry data.
US09965692B2

The invention relates to a vehicle detection method which includes: photographing a front-view of a vehicle; detecting an edge from an image photographed by a camera and generating a horizontal binary image and a vertical binary image; detecting a bottom surface candidate group relating to a preceding vehicle from the horizontal binary image and detecting a side surface candidate group relating to the preceding vehicle from the vertical binary image; when one of a pair of side surface candidate groups and bottom surface candidate groups of the pair of side surface candidate groups is not detected, estimating the side surface candidate group and bottom surface candidate group and generating a vehicle candidate group; and filtering the vehicle candidate group and detecting the preceding vehicle. Therefore, even when all of vehicles are not perfectly photographed, a preceding vehicle can be more precisely detected.
US09965691B2

In an apparatus for recognizing a lane partition line, a pre-branch section setting unit sets a pre-branch section of a road on which an own vehicle is traveling. The pre-branch section extends a section length from a start line that is positioned closer to the own vehicle than a branch location by an offset distance in a traveling direction of the own vehicle. A determination unit determines whether or not a geographical location of the own vehicle is within the pre-branch section. If it is determined that the geographical location of the own vehicle is within the pre-branch section, a recognition unit suppresses recognition of the lane partition line on an diverging road side of the road on which the own vehicle is traveling. The diverging road is another road branching off from the road on which the vehicle is traveling at the branch location.
US09965686B2

A location obtaining unit obtains information on a location of the image capture apparatus during image; a direction obtaining unit obtains direction of an object in an image captured; a device information obtaining unit obtains information on a location of a wireless device that is included by an object during image capture; a distance obtaining unit obtains a distance of the object in the image captured from the image capture apparatus; an object location calculating unit calculates a location of the object based on the information on the location of the image capture apparatus, a direction of the object in the image, and the distance of the object from the image capture apparatus; and an object identifying unit identifies that the object is the object including the wireless device if the location of the object and the location of the wireless device are within a predetermined range.
US09965684B2

A system and method for analyzing queues in frames of video enables operators to preferably draw three regions of interest overlaid upon the video as short, medium, and long queue regions that form a notional queue area within the video. The regions are drawn with knowledge of, or in anticipation of, foreground objects such as individuals and vehicles waiting for service in a queue. Examples include retail point of sale locations or for automated teller machine (ATM) transactions. In conjunction with a video analytics system that analyzes the movement of the foreground objects relative to the queue regions, the system determines the number of objects occupying each queue region, length of the queue, and other queue-related statistics. The system can then create reports and send messages that include the queue analysis results for directing operators to change their staffing resources as part of a real-time queue servicing and optimization response.
US09965677B2

Methods and systems for localizing numbers and characters in captured images. A side image of a vehicle captured by one or more cameras can be preprocessed to determine a region of interest. A confidence value of series of windows within regions of interest of different sizes and aspect ratios containing a structure of interest can be calculated. Highest confidence candidate regions can then be identified with respect to the regions of interest and at least one region adjacent to the highest confidence candidate regions. An OCR operation can then be performed in the adjacent region. An identifier can then be returned from the adjacent region in order to localize numbers and characters in the side image of the vehicle.
US09965667B2

Disclosed is a fingerprint identification sensor, which comprises: a sensor unit, comprising a capacitor array formed by a plurality of capacitor induction units and having an output, a power supply and a sensor ground output; a conversion circuit, connected to the device ground of the terminal device, and the output and the sensor ground of the sensor unit, and configured to, upon modulating the driving signal to the modulated signal, output the modulated signal to the sensor ground; an energy storage capacitor, connected between the power supply and the sensor ground, and configured to stabilize an operating voltage of the sensor unit; a high-speed transistor switch, connected to the power supply, and configured to perform synchronous switch-on and switch-off according to status of the conversion circuit power supply; and a power supply, connected to the conversion circuit and the power supply of the sensor unit via the high-speed transistor switch.
US09965665B2

A fingerprint identification optical imaging package structure is applied in the field of the fingerprint identification optical system. An isolating base is arranged under a light source device and a height of the isolating base is higher than a height of a sensing base to achieve the effects of light shielding and preventing from being influenced by the heat of the light source. And then, the sensitivity and precision of fingerprint reading and identifying may be increased and improved. At the same time, the volume may be reduced to make the applicability of the structure much broader.
US09965659B2

This disclosure relates generally to the field of wireless communication technology and more particularly to a system and a method of notifying an owner of a blocking vehicle. In one embodiment, a Block Notification System for notifying an owner of a blocking vehicle is disclosed. The Block Notification System comprises a processor and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor. The memory stores processor instructions, which, on execution, causes the processor to detect a RFID card of a user, wherein the RFID card of the user comprises vehicle information associated with a vehicle owned by the user. The processor further validates whether the RFID card of the user is associated with a blocked vehicle, wherein the blocked vehicle is a vehicle being blocked by the blocking vehicle. The processor further notifies an owner of the blocking vehicle based on validating the RFID card of the user.
US09965656B2

One aspect of the invention provides a method for multi-nozzle biopolymer deposition of heterogeneous materials to create or modify a composite biopolymer multi-part three-dimensional assembly having at least one biomimetic and at least one non-biomimetic feature. The method includes: (a) utilizing a CAD environment to design and/or modify a composite multi-part assembly, thereby producing a CAD design; (b) converting the CAD design into a three-dimensional heterogeneous material and multi-part assembly model in a format suitable for three-dimensional, multi-nozzle printing, wherein the design comprises at least one biomimetic feature and at least one non-biomimetic feature; and (c) printing the composite assembly by simultaneously depositing the heterogeneous materials using multiple, different, specialized nozzles, wherein the simultaneous depositing includes direct deposition of cells.
US09965641B2

A method, apparatus and computer program product for policy-based access control in association with a sorted, distributed key-value data store in which keys comprise n-tuple structure that includes a cell-level access control. In this approach, an information security policy is used to create a set of pluggable policies. A pluggable policy may be used during data ingest time, when data is being ingested into the data store, and a pluggable policy may be used during query time, when a query to the data store is received for processing against data stored therein. Generally, a pluggable policy associates one or more user-centric attributes (or some function thereof), to a particular data-centric label. By using pluggable policies, preferably at both ingest time and query time, the data store is enhanced to provide a seamless and secure policy-based access control mechanism in association with the cell-level access control enabled by the data store.
US09965639B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for authenticating the source code of a software end product. The method includes generating a compound key, which is composed of a set of unique keys generated from a source file. A set of files are separately build based on a received source code, and a key generated and embedded into the files at the time of the build. A validation tool is used to compare the values of the generated compound key to the values of the embedded key to determine if the values match.
US09965638B2

Although current conferencing applications provide many abilities, some of these abilities are limited. Various embodiments described herein provide one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures that allow a document, or other file type, to be used to connect to a network-based conference, such as over the Internet, where a view of a local copy of the document is synchronized between participants. Participation abilities of certain network-based conference participants may be limited in such embodiments. Such limits may be enforced locally for each participant, on a server by preventing data representative of certain actions from being broadcast to other participants, or in other ways as described and would be readily apparent herein.
US09965636B2

Security system for protecting a vehicle electronic system by selectively intervening in the communications path in order to prevent the arrival of malicious messages at ECUs, in particular at the safety critical ECUs. The security system includes a filter which prevents illegal messages sent by any system or device communicating over a vehicle communications bus from reaching their destination. The filter may, at its discretion according to preconfigured rules, send messages as is, block messages, change the content of the messages, request authentication or limit the rate such messages can be delivered, by buffering the messages and sending them only in preconfigured intervals.
US09965633B2

Implementations of the present disclosure include methods, systems, and computer-readable storage mediums for receiving results from security testing of source code, each result indicating a potential security vulnerability of the source code, displaying graphical representations of the results to a user, and, by a fix recommendation generator: receiving user input indicating a result of the results, receiving a set of code clones, each code clone being provided based on at least a snippet of the source code underlying the result, receiving a set of repairs, each repair being associated with a code clone, and mitigating a previously determined security vulnerability, and providing a set of fix recommendations based on the set of code clones, the set of repairs, and similarity metrics, each similarity metric indicating a similarity between the at least a snippet of the source code and a respective code clone.
US09965619B2

Embodiments of an invention for a return address overflow buffer are disclosed. In one embodiment, a processor includes a stack pointer to store a reference to a first return address stored on a stack, an obscured address stack pointer to store a reference to an encrypted second return address stored in a memory, hardware to decrypt the encrypted second return address to generate a decrypted second return address, and a return address verification logic, responsive to receiving a return instruction, to compare the first return address to the decrypted second return address.
US09965617B2

A display apparatus which determines a screen to be displayed when a power-on command is input, and method thereof, is provided. The display apparatus includes a display configured to display a content; an input unit configured to receive a command; and a controller configured to: in response to a power-off command being input while a content is displayed, determine whether or not the displayed content is appropriate to be subsequently displayed when a power-on command is input; in response to determining that the displayed content is not appropriate to be subsequently displayed when the power-on command is input, store a predetermined initial screen; in response to determining that the displayed content is appropriate to be subsequently displayed when a power-on command is input, store the displayed content; and in response to a power-on command being input, control the display to display the predetermined initial screen or the displayed content.
US09965613B2

Systems and methods are described to validate user connections to one or more application servers within a multi-tenant application system. A domain-level cookie at the client identifies any active connections for that client. As the client requests a connection to a particular application, the cookie is provided to a validation server that determines if any previously-established sessions with the multi-tenant system exist, and/or if such sessions remain active. If an active session already exists, then the client can be redirected to a particular server to continue the previously-established session. If no valid prior sessions are available, then the client can be validated and a new connection to an appropriate server can be established, as appropriate.
US09965611B2

Examples of comparing real-time movements to a pattern profile are disclosed. In one example implementation according to aspects of the present disclosure, a method may include receiving, by a computing system, a data stream indicative of real-time movements of a mobile device. The method may further include comparing, by the computing system, the data stream indicative of real-time movements of the mobile device to a pattern profile for the mobile device to determine whether an abnormality occurs in the movement of the mobile device based on a pattern profile, wherein the pattern profile is indicative of historical usage patterns of the movements of the mobile device. The method may also include triggering, by the computing system, an authentication event when an abnormality is determined to occur.
US09965608B2

Provided are a method and an electronic device for performing an authentication on the basis of biometrics. The electronic device may acquire sensing data by sensing a target to be authenticated. The electronic device may calculate feature information from the sensing data. The electronic device may determine whether the calculated feature information and stored registered information match each other by using a dynamic matching scheme in which matching between the feature information and the registered information is variably performed according to a state of the electronic device. When the feature information and the registered information match each other on the basis of a result of the determination, the electronic device may generate an event for authentication success.
US09965606B2

Embodiments are directed to systems, methods and computer program products for providing user authentication based on historical user patterns. Embodiments of the present invention may be configured to communicate code executable by a computing device that causes the computing device to monitor user patterns of a user based on the user interacting with the computing device; receive baseline user patterns to identify the user; identify, from the baseline user patterns, one or more routine actions performed by the user operating the computing device; receive a request to perform a transaction, wherein the transaction is associated with a level of security that must be authenticated; receive identification user patterns of the user based on the user interacting with the computing device; determine a threshold score based on comparing the identification user patterns with the baseline user patterns; and alter the level of security.
US09965577B2

The modeling of a DSA step within a virtual fabrication process sequence for a semiconductor device structure is discussed. A 3D model is created by the virtual fabrication that represents and depicts the possible variation that can result from applying the DSA step as part of the larger fabrication sequence for the semiconductor device structure of interest. Embodiments capture the relevant behavior caused by polymer segregation into separate domains thereby allowing the modeling of the DSA step to take place with a speed appropriate for a virtual fabrication flow.
US09965573B2

A method for the creation of subsurface water management systems that place subsurface drainage lines at a consistent grade and within defined elevation bounds throughout a field with topographical undulation and inconsistent slopes, incorporate control weirs for dividing the subsurface into elevation and acreage zones, place and size surface to subsurface, size and determine inside surface of drainage mains and laterals according to the desired coefficient of the subsurface system, and determine the amount of water required at irrigation inlets in order to deliver a determined amount of water into the subsurface system for purposes of irrigation.
US09965567B2

A content management system generates views of digital content for presentation on a user client. The content management system includes different publication templates having different layouts for presenting content on different types of viewing devices. The publication template is based on a layout, which specifies a spatial arrangement of sections. The publication template associates publication elements such as a leading article with sections of a layout. A view matches components such as an article with sections of a publication template based on a mapping between the components and publication elements associated with the sections. The content management system generates different views for different types of viewing devices. The content management system also analyzes interactions between user clients, components, and views, and the content management system includes an analytics interface to present data about these interactions.
US09965562B2

A cloud-based industrial application provisioning system is provided. The industrial application provisioning system can reside on a cloud platform and be made available to developers and end users with access privileges to the cloud platform. Application developers can publish industrial applications to an application library on the cloud platform, where the application is cataloged within an industry-specific search hierarchy. A search engine allows a user to access the cloud platform and search for a desired industrial application. The library's hierarchical catalog allows the user to search for applications according to industry type, equipment in use, automation system type, or other suitable criteria.
US09965561B2

A tracking system passively tracks and records searches conducted by actual search engine users. The recorded data for each search event preferably includes the search query submitted, the search engine used, the search result item (e.g., web page) selected, the position (e.g., page number) of this item, and the user's IP address. The collected data is aggregated and analyzed to generate data regarding the search queries used to locate and access particular destinations (e.g., web pages and sites). This data may be used for various purposes, such as (1) to generate reports showing, e.g., how users reach a particular destination from different search engines and geographic locations, (2) to select content to display on a destination page, such that the content is relevant to search queries commonly used to locate that page, and (3) to update the database of one search engine to reflect searches conducted on other search engines.
US09965551B2

Embodiments of the present invention is a technique of searching for relevant nodes. This technique may include: in response to selection of a first node, displaying, as first relevant nodes, nodes having a first relevance of at least a predetermined value among nodes connected from the first node by two hops; and, in response to selection of at least one of the first relevant nodes, displaying the selected first relevant node as a second node involving the first node. This technique may further include displaying, as second relevant nodes, nodes having a second relevance of at least a predetermined value among nodes connected from the second node by two hops.
US09965548B2

A mechanism is provided in a data processing system comprising a processor and a memory configured to implement a question and answer system (QA), for improving answers to an input question. An input question is received and parsed for a known set of critical information required to answer the input question. Responsive to one or more pieces of critical information failing to be identifiable in the input question, a user who submitted the input question is prompted for the one or more pieces of critical information via a graphical user interface (GUI).
US09965543B1

A system and method for clustering client records together is disclosed. The system may include statistical models based on characteristics of a record cluster stored in a database. The statistical models may be compared against characteristics of records in a data source in order to cluster the records into different categories. The cluster of records by category may then be output to a computer system in order to send electronic messages.
US09965515B2

A method, software and device for managing a cache service layer of an online solution is described. The online solution includes a database, at least one client, a cache service layer having a plurality of nodes which are interconnected to each other and provide processing and caching power for the cache service layer, and the cache manager. The method comprises reading in a business object from the database; assigning, using a cache manager, the business object to a business object group on a first node of the cache service layer; determining, by the cache manager, the effective probability of cache expiration of the business object group; and setting an expiration time for the business object group based on the determination of the effective probability of cache expiration of the business object group.
US09965513B2

Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for determining row visibility states. An embodiment operates by initializing a result bitmap for rows based on visible row state values of row state bitmaps corresponding to the rows, wherein values of the result bitmap indicate whether the row are visible or not visible; determining one or more rows whose corresponding visible row state values indicate that the one or more rows are not visible; and determining whether to update the result bitmap to indicate that the one or more rows are visible based on one or more versioned row state values, wherein the one or more versioned row state values indicate whether the corresponding rows are not visible or possibly visible.
US09965512B2

In one embodiment, a method receives a query for analyzing data in a database. The method then determines a constant in the query and determines an operator applied to the constant in the query. The operator explicitly controls a behavior of the constant. The constant is represented as a scalar representation in the query instead of as a vectorial representation where the constant would have been used as the vectorial representation without the use of the operator due to a rule governing use of constants. Then, the method performs a calculation for the query to determine a query result using the constant as the scalar representation.
US09965511B2

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for query optimization in a database system. These mechanisms and methods for query optimization in a database system can enable embodiments to optimize OR expression filters referencing different logical tables. The ability of embodiments to optimize OR expression filters referencing different logical tables can enable optimization that is dynamic and specific to the particular tenant for whom the query is run and improve the performance and efficiency of the database system in response to query requests.
US09965510B2

In an approach to determining an access method for a partition in a partition table, a computer receives a query and determines if there is a partition table utilized by the query. When there is a partition table utilized by the query, then the computer determines that a partition in the partition table meets the plurality of conditions of the query. The computer collects a plurality of partition level statistics for the partition that meets the plurality of conditions of the query. Additionally, the computer determines, based, at least in part, on the plurality of partition level statistics, a cost for one or more access methods for the partition that meets the plurality of conditions of the query. Furthermore, the computer determines, based, at least in part, on the cost for each access method, an access method for the partition that meets the plurality of conditions of the query.
US09965501B2

Techniques are provided for more efficiently using the bandwidth of the I/O path between a CPU and volatile memory during the performance of database operation. Relational data from a relational table is stored in volatile memory as column vectors, where each column vector contains values for a particular column of the table. A binary-comparable format may be used to represent each value within a column vector, regardless of the data type associated with the column. The column vectors may be compressed and/or encoded while in volatile memory, and decompressed/decoded on-the-fly within the CPU. Alternatively, the CPU may be designed to perform operations directly on the compressed and/or encoded column vector data. In addition, techniques are described that enable the CPU to perform vector processing operations on the column vector values.
US09965499B2

A recipe management system executes a recipe on a piece of equipment in a process plant using one or more capabilities of the piece of equipment. A configuration system creates models of the capabilities, piece of equipment, and recipe and associates the capability models with the equipment model and recipe model. The recipe model can be used to execute the recipe on any piece of equipment with the capabilities with which it is associated. The equipment model can be used to execute any recipe that uses no capabilities other than those with which it is associated.
US09965483B2

A digitally signed file system in which data, metadata and files are objects, each object having a globally unique and content-derived fingerprint and wherein object references are mapped by the fingerprints; the file system has a root object comprising a mapping of ail object fingerprints in the file system, such that a change to the file system results in a change in the root object, and tracking changes in the root object provides a history of file system activity.
US09965475B2

An end user application running on a local client computer is configured to store a collection of comment data for the electronic document. The comment data includes data representing a plurality of comment threads. Displays of comment data also include hints providing information about the content and context of previous and next comments outside of the currently viewed context of the document. When hints are used in combination with filtering of the comment data, a user can more quickly review comments based on a variety of filtering criteria. A comment map also can be provided as a spatial representation of the distribution of comments within a document. Such a comment map can be provided as a navigational aid for viewing the electronic document and reviewing comments. The comment map provides an additional way for a reviewer to quickly identify areas of a document which may require more review.
US09965472B2

A question/answer creation system is described. The system includes a memory device and a processor connected to the memory device. The processor is configured to import a document having a set of questions based on content in the document, automatically create a candidate question from the content in the document, automatically generate answers for the set of questions and the candidate question using the content in the document, present the set of questions, the candidate question, and the answers to a content creator for user verification of accuracy, and store a verified set of questions in the document. The verified set of questions includes at least one verified question from the set of questions and the candidate question.
US09965469B2

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a system dynamically produces a document with transformed terms associated with a geographic location, and comprises a computer system including at least one processor. The system analyzes a retrieved document to identify one or more terms with equivalent expressions in the same natural language. Each of the identified terms is transformed into an equivalent expression based on at least a geographic location associated with a user. The system produces a transformed document by replacing the identified one or more terms in the retrieved document with the equivalent expressions associated with the geographic location. Embodiments of the present invention further include a method and computer program product for dynamically producing a document with transformed terms for a geographic location in substantially the same manner described above.
US09965463B2

An information processing apparatus includes: an intention understanding unit configured to understand intention of a question inputted from a user; and an information extracting unit configured to extract response basic information which is a response to the question understood by the intention understanding unit and response addition information having relationship with the response basic information from a plurality of pieces of knowledge information including knowledge information relating to the user. Each piece of knowledge information includes a plurality of information elements and relationship information indicating relationship among the plurality of information elements. The information extracting unit extracts the response addition information from a group of information elements having relationship with an information element extracted as the response basic information and an information element included in the knowledge information relating to the user, directly or via one or more information elements.
US09965461B2

A natural language understanding system may be given the capability to construct a semantically detailed parse tree for each acceptable interpretation of an input natural language expression (or fewer such parse trees than interpretations) by independently solving sub-trees corresponding to various series of post nominal modifiers and associating those partial solutions with corresponding nodes in the overall parse tree. The argument order in predicate calculus atomic formulas may be standardized in a manner that supports the use of a chart parser applied to a head-driven phase structure grammar and that permits a simplified more tractable grammar that in turn can be used as a domain general semantic grammar.
US09965453B2

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to transforming documents. In aspects, a transformer obtains a source document and a transformation document. The transformation document indicates changes to make to the source document to transform the source document. The transformation document also includes location information that indicates where the changes are to be made. The transforms indicated by the transformation document may be extensible. Using the source document and the transformation document, the transformer transforms the source document into a target document. The transformer may be part of a development environment used to develop applications.
US09965442B2

A system for a system and method for provisioning of modular compute resources within a system design are provided.
US09965441B2

An example method for adaptively coalescing remote direct memory access (RDMA) acknowledgements is provided. The method includes determining one or more input/output (I/O) characteristics of RDMA packets of a plurality of queue pairs (QPs) on a per-QP basis, each QP identifying a respective RDMA connection between a respective first compute node and a respective second compute node. The method further includes determining an acknowledgement frequency for providing acknowledgements of the RDMA packets on a per-QP basis (i.e., a respective acknowledgement frequency is set for each QP) based on the determined one or more I/O characteristics for each QP.
US09965438B2

A lane within a processor bus that communicatively connects a transmitter and a receiver is dynamically assigned as a clock lane. The clock lane subsequently transmits a reference clock signal to coordinate data communications from the transmitter to the receiver. The clock lane may be assigned by determining signal margins of various lanes of the processor bus. The signal margins are determined by the transmitter sending a test pattern upon the various lanes and analyzing the received test pattern at the receiver. A dynamically assigned clock lane results increased overall signal integrity of communications between the transmitter and receiver. Further, a dynamically assigned clock lane may result in different lanes being assigned as the clock lane at distinct boot up instances, adding to the complexity of the unauthorized user determining the operational logic of the transmitter.
US09965429B2

The present invention provides a method for managing the wiring and growth of a direct interconnect network implemented on a torus or higher radix interconnect structure based on an architecture that replaces the Network Interface Card (NIC) with PCIe switching cards housed in the server. Also provided is a passive patch panel for use in the implementation of the interconnect, comprising: a passive backplane that houses node to node connectivity for the interconnect; and at least one connector board plugged into the passive backplane comprising multiple connectors. The multiple connectors are capable of receiving an interconnecting plug to maintain the continuity of the torus or higher radix topology when not fully enabled. The PCIe card for use in the implementation of the interconnect comprises: at least 4 electrical or optical ports for the interconnect; a local switch; a processor with RAM and ROM memory; and a PCI interface.
US09965424B2

A Universal Serial Bus (USB) adapter includes a USB hub and a USB switch. The USB hub includes a plurality of downstream ports and one upstream port. The USB switch includes a plurality of connections that comprise a first connection configured to be coupled to a first USB apparatus, a second connection configured to be coupled to a second USB apparatus, a third connection coupled to the USB hub's upstream port, and a fourth connection coupled to one of the USB hub's downstream ports. The USB switch is configured to establish a first communication path between the first and second connections that bypasses the USB hub based on a determination that the first USB apparatus is to operate as a USB host, and to establish a second communication path through the USB hub based on a determination that the first USB apparatus is to operate as a client device.
US09965423B2

When initializing a card-shaped device inserted in a card interface, operation mode acquiring means incorporated in an electronic device acquires operation mode information, stored in a register file incorporated in the card-shaped device, by a predetermined procedure using a predetermined pin. Operation mode setting means incorporated in the electronic device executes signal assignment on a plurality of data pins peculiar to an operation mode indicated by the acquired operation mode information, thereby switching a data transfer width, and allowing the card-shaped device to operate in the operation mode.
US09965420B2

A system having master and slave devices and communicating over an I2C bus has SDA and a SCL lines that are normally high unless a device pulls the voltage of the line Low. Normal data signals on the SDA line are set during the low phase of the clock signals on the SCL line and transferred to a receiver during the high phase of the clock signals. A slave device provides an alert signal on the SDA line during the low phase of the clock signals to send an alert signal to the master device. The alert signal may be a pulse signaling the slave device wakeup or a pulse pattern identifying the alerting slave device.
US09965416B2

A digital signal processor (DSP) includes a CPU, and a DMA controller. The DMA controller transfers data from a source to a destination as a function of an initialization command from the CPU. The DMA controller has a logic unit that performs filter operations and other arithmetic operations on-the-fly on a data stream transferred therethrough. The filter operations include multiplication by filter coefficients and addition, without processing by the CPU. The DMA controller may have subsets of hardware configurations that can perform different operations that are selectable as a function of the initialization command.
US09965414B2

Methods for managing inter-CPU interrupts between sending and receiving CPUs are disclosed. As a part of a method, a target CPU identifier and an interrupt number is written in an interrupt send register of an interrupt sending CPU, the interrupt number is written into one of a plurality of locations of an interrupt receive register corresponding to the target CPU, an identifier of the location of the highest priority interrupt of a plurality of interrupts received by the interrupt receive register is written in an interrupt pick register, the interrupt pick register is read to determine the highest priority interrupt and a matrix associated with the target CPU is read to determine the sender of the highest priority interrupt. The highest priority interrupt is processed.
US09965413B1

A method includes for each processed interrupt: identifying an interrupt associated with a first interrupt number; determining that the interrupt is designated as a special interrupt, the special interrupt being an interrupt to be translated to a different interrupt number only if the hardware processor is in user mode; determining a current execution mode for the hardware processor; for each interrupt in operating system mode, delivering the interrupt as the first interrupt number; and for each interrupt in user mode: translating the first interrupt number to a second interrupt number; and delivering the interrupt as the second interrupt number, wherein the current execution mode is determined to be an operating system mode for at least one of the interrupts, and the current execution mode is determined to be a user mode for at least an additional one of the interrupts.
US09965406B2

Delay in establishing communication is suppressed in a network system including a master device and a slave device. Provided is a setting method for performing communication setting for at least one of a master device and a slave device serving as a target device, the method including a storage step of storing a value of a communication parameter in a state in which the target device has established communication, and a setting step of, in communication setting in a preparatory stage for the target device to start communication, setting the value of the communication parameter that was stored in the storage step.
US09965404B2

The invention relates to a full-control remote controller based on waveform downloading and address selecting and an implementing method thereof. The controller according to the invention comprises a single-chip system and a rechargeable battery with a USB port, wherein the single-chip system is provided with a remote control operation interface, an upper computer interface, a FLASH memory, a CPU and an infrared transmitting and receiving circuit. The controller has the functions of learning, downloading and remote control, comprises a communication module, a key processing module and an infrared data receiving and transmitting module, and can be integrated for remotely controlling various appliances. The controller solves the battery problem of the conventional remote controllers, and thus provides great convenience in use. As the remote control data files are shared by modern network technologies, in particular by the Internet technologies, the remote controller can be personally customized.
US09965403B2

Embodiments of techniques and systems for increasing efficiencies in computing systems using virtual memory are described. In embodiments, instructions which are located in two memory pages in a virtual memory system, such that one of the pages does not permit execution of the instructions located therein, are identified and then executed under temporary permissions that permit execution of the identified instructions. In various embodiments, the temporary permissions may come from modified virtual memory page tables, temporary virtual memory page tables which allow for execution, and/or emulators which have root access. In embodiments, per-core virtual memory page tables may be provided to allow two cores of a computer processor to operate in accordance with different memory access permissions. In embodiments, a physical page permission table may be utilized to provide for maintenance and tracking of per-physical-page memory access permissions. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US09965401B2

A method of obfuscating a code is provided, wherein the method comprises performing a first level obfuscating technique on a code to generate a first obfuscated code, and performing a second level obfuscating technique on the first obfuscated code. In particular, the code may be a software code or a software module. Furthermore, the first level obfuscating technique and the second obfuscating may be different. In particular, the second level obfuscating technique may perform a deobfuscation.
US09965393B2

A multi-core processor providing heterogeneous processor cores and a shared cache is presented.
US09965385B2

Technologies are generally described for methods and systems effective to implement a memory allocation accelerator. A processor may generate a request for allocation of a requested chunk of memory. The request may be received by a memory allocation accelerator configured to be in communication with the processor. The memory allocation accelerator may process the request to identify an address for a particular chunk of memory corresponding to the request and may return the address to the processor.
US09965383B2

A technique uses file system indirection to manage solid state devices (SSDs). Based on relocation of data on the SSDs from a first SSD storage block to a second SSD storage block, a flash translation layer (FTL) driver may update a per-volume indirection file to reference the second SSD storage block and no longer reference the first SSD storage block. Based on a mismatch between the per-volume indirection file and a buffer tree, the buffer tree is updated to reference the second SSD storage block. Alternatively, the FTL driver may create and insert an entry into a mapping table, wherein the entry may reference the first SSD storage block and also reference the second SSD storage block. The buffer tree may then be updated to reference the second SSD storage block based on the new entry, and the new entry may then be deleted after the buffer tree is updated.
US09965380B2

A method, computer program product, and computer system for editing code, by a computing device, via an integrated development environment. The code is determined to be syntactically valid. While editing the code, a subset of automated tests associated with the code is executed in response to determining that the code is syntactically valid. It is determined whether at least one automated test error is detected. The at least one automated test error is reported.
US09965368B2

Methods and systems are provided for an improved cluster-based network architecture. According to one embodiment, an active connection is established between a first interface of a network device and an enabled interface of a first cluster unit of a high availability (HA) cluster. The HA cluster is configured to provide connectivity between network devices of an internal and external network. A backup connection is established between a second interface of the network device and a disabled interface of a second cluster unit. While the first cluster unit is operational and has connectivity, it receives and processes all traffic originated by the network device that is destined for the external network. Upon determining the first cluster unit has failed or has lost connectivity, then all subsequent traffic originated by the network device that is destined for the external network is directed to the second cluster unit.
US09965362B2

Systems and methods for performing data recovery are disclosed. A controller of a memory system may detect an error at a first page of memory and identify a data keep cache associated with the first page, the data keep cache associated with a primary XOR sum. The controller may further sense data stored at a second page and move the data to a first latch of the memory; sense data stored at a third page such that the data is present in a second latch of the memory; and calculate a restoration XOR sum based on the data of the second page and the data of the third page. The controller may further calculate the data of the first page based on the primary XOR sum and the restoration XOR sum, and restore the data of the first page.
US09965354B2

A method includes converting, by a first computing device of a DSN, a user virtual memory address of a data object identified in a data access request into a DSN virtual memory address. The method further includes processing, by at least one of the first computing device and a second computing device of the DSN, the DSN virtual address to determine that a first storage units of the storage units stores first encoded data slices of each set of at least some of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices; and a second storage units of the storage units stores second encoded data slices of each set of the at least some of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices. The method further includes converting, by the first storage unit, DSN virtual addresses of the first encoded data slices into physical addresses within the first storage unit.
US09965351B2

Methods and apparatus associated with data cold storage are described. Example apparatus include an array of data storage devices arranged in rows and columns. Columns of the array are orthogonal to rows. A row has an associated row-centric power supply, and a column has an associated column-centric local electronics module (LEM) that controls a data storage device in the column independently of other data storage devices in the array. Example apparatus include logics that control a power mode of a data storage device independently of other data storage devices in the array, that control a power mode of an LEM, that adaptively regulate the level of data stored in a buffer, and that determine whether a data object will be stored in the buffer or stored on a data storage device in the array, based on the probability the data object will be accessed within a threshold period of time.
US09965348B2

A computer optimizes the prospective generation of data used for analysis of a software problem. The computer generates data in accordance with data generation parameters and a software problem is analyzed with reference to the data so generated. The problem analysis produces a report that details specifics of the software problem, the data that was available for analysis, a flag to indicate success or failure of the analysis to identify a root cause, and information about whether the data supplied was insufficient, sufficient, or superfluous with respect to identifying a root cause of the software problem. The method then uses the analysis report to modify the data generation parameters, thereby iteratively optimizing the data that are generated for analysis of subsequent software problems.
US09965336B2

A method begins by a computing device of a dispersed storage network (DSN) determining whether a DSN access request involves an iterative storage unit access process. When the DSN access request involves the iterative storage unit access process, the method continues with the computing device determining, based on configuration of a plurality of storage units storing data objects associated with the DSN access request, that a storage unit of the plurality of storage units is capable of executing at least a portion of the iterative storage unit access process better than the computing device, sending the DSN access request and a control command to the storage unit, where the control command instructs the storage unit to perform at least a portion of the iterative storage unit access process, and receiving, from the storage unit, at least a partial response to the DSN access request.
US09965333B2

A job submission method that presents a set of algorithms that provide automated workload selection to a batch processing system that has the ability to receive and run jobs on various computing resources simultaneously is provided. If all machines in the batch system are running jobs, a queue containing the extra jobs for execution results. For compute intensive workloads, such as chip design, an automated workload selection system software layer submits jobs to the batch processing system. This keeps the batch processing system continually full of useful work The job submission system provides for organizing workloads, assigning relative ratios between workloads, associating arbitrary workload validation algorithms with a workload or parent workload, associating arbitrary selection algorithms with a workload or workload group, defining high priority workloads that preserve fairness and balancing the workload selection based on current status of the batch system, validation status, and the workload ratios.
US09965329B2

The methods and apparatus can assign processing core workloads to processing cores from a heterogeneous instruction set architectures (ISA) pool of available processing cores based on processing core metric results. For example, the method and apparatus can obtain processing core metric results for one or more processing cores, such as processing cores within general purpose processors, from a heterogeneous ISA pool of available processing cores. The method and apparatus can also obtain one or more processing core workloads, such as software applications or software processes, from a pool of available processing core workloads to be assigned. The method and apparatus can then assign one or more processing core workloads that have higher priority than others from the pool of available processing core workloads to a processing core from the heterogeneous ISA pool of available processing cores based on its processing core metric result.
US09965327B2

A telemetry module integrated with an application may include a data collection and analysis engine configured to perform data collection and analysis for reporting to a service associated with the application. The telemetry module may include additional components configured to dynamically scale the data collection and analysis performed by the data collection and analysis engine for a target device such that parameters of the data collection and analysis correspond to resources and capabilities of the target device. For example, a scaling profile manager may receive a profile for a device on which the application is being executed from the service, where the profile defines criteria for the scaling of the data collection and analysis. The scaling profile manager may then determine one or more resources and capabilities of the device, compare the determined resources and capabilities to the criteria, and scale the data collection and analysis based on the comparison.
US09965326B1

Systems and methods for predicting and managing computation derations that may occur in multi-core processors are disclosed. The method may include: determining effects of multi-core contentions on a particular core of a multi-core processor; determining effects of single-core contentions on a particular hosted function hosted on the multi-core processor; determining an adjustment time to a baseline activation time for the particular hosted function, wherein the adjustment time plus the baseline activation time overcome the effects of multi-core contentions and single-core contentions at a predetermined probability goal; and adjusting a computation time requirement of the particular hosted function to include the adjustment time and the baseline activation time.
US09965316B2

The data storage system according to certain aspects can manage the archiving of virtual machines to (and restoring of virtual machines from) secondary storage. The system can determine whether to archive virtual machines based on usage data or information. The usage information may include storage usage, CPU usage, memory usage, network usage, events defined by a virtual machine software or application, etc. The system may archive virtual machines that are determined to have a low level of utilization. For example, a virtual machine can be archived when its usage level falls below a threshold level. The system may create a virtual machine placeholder for an archived virtual machine, which may be a “light” or minimal version of the virtual machine that acts as if it is the actual virtual machine. By using a virtual machine placeholder, a virtual machine may appear to be active and selectable by the user.
US09965310B2

Technologies are generally described for systems, devices and methods effective to implement a virtual machine exit analyzer. A virtual machine handler may receive a request that includes an instruction. The instruction may include a port and a data block identifier. The virtual machine handler may generate a modified request. The modified request may include the port, a block portion identifier and an identification of a comparator. The virtual machine handler may send values identified by the block portion identifier to the comparator. The virtual machine handler may receive an exit indicator from the comparator that indicates whether the virtual machine should exit the core.
US09965306B1

A computer implemented method, system, and program product for replicating writeable snapshots in a continuous replication environment, the method comprising intercepting a command to create a snapshot of a virtual volume, putting a snapshot create message in a journal at a replication site; and allowing the creation of the snapshot.
US09965305B2

The invention provides a stateless virtual machine in a cloud computing environment as well as an application thereof, and pertains to the technical field of cloud computing. The stateless virtual machine is mapped into a storage device of a computer in the form of file and specifically comprises: an application data image file for storing an application; an operating system (OS) image file for storing an operating system; and an application middleware corresponding to the application; wherein a middleware core of the application middleware is placed in the OS image file, a middleware configuration of the application middleware is placed in the application data image file, and the middleware core and the middleware configuration are associated so as to realize that the middleware core specifies a corresponding middleware configuration. The virtual machine can realize a stateless condition even for an application in an application middleware environment, the flexibility is good, and the configuration manageability is strong.
US09965301B2

A method and system for managing an emulation of a computer product. The method and system involve receiving emulation parameters associated with the emulation of the computer product, the emulation parameters defining one or more resources required to provide the emulation; identifying one or more capable emulator servers from a plurality of emulator servers based at least on the one or more resources; retrieving emulator server data for each capable emulator server; determining one or more criteria usable for selecting an emulator server from the one or more capable emulator servers to provide the emulation; and selecting the emulator server from the one or more capable emulator servers to provide the emulation, the emulator server being a capable emulator server from the one or more capable emulators associated with emulator server data satisfying at least some of the one or more criteria.
US09965298B2

(EN) The invention relates to a portable electronic device (SC, TK) comprising electric input means (VCC, GND, ANT) for receiving electric power from an external power supply. The portable electronic device (SC, TK) comprises an application, the application being set to be triggered when power is supplied to said electric input means (VCC, GND, ANT), and to not communicate with entities external to the portable electronic device (SC, TK), or to only notify such entities of an event. The application is further set to configure the portable electronic device (SC, TK), and to be successfully executable at most once. The invention also relate to a manufacturing equipment (M) for configuring a portable electronic device (SC, TK) and to a method for configuring a portable electronic device (SC, TK).
US09965289B2

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a method may include, during boot of an information handling system, determining a first amount of energy required by the information handling system to flush a cache integral to the information handling system to memory integral to the information handling system in response to a power loss of one or more power supplies for supplying electrical energy to the information handling system, determining whether a second amount of energy available for hold-up of one or more power supplies in response to the power loss exceeds the first amount of energy, and responsive to determining whether the second amount of energy exceeds the first amount of energy, configuring the cache.
US09965287B1

A system on a chip may include a plurality of data plane processor cores sharing a common instruction set architecture. At least one of the data plane processor cores is specialized to perform a particular function via extensions to the otherwise common instruction set architecture. Such systems on a chip may have reduced physical complexity, cost, and time-to-market, and may provide improvements in core utilization and reductions in system power consumption.
US09965283B2

A first entry, when outputting an instruction stored in the first entry to a first arithmetic unit and when an execution cycle number of the instruction stored in the first entry is equal to or more than a threshold value, outputs a use inability signal of the first arithmetic unit to a second entry, a reservation station includes a controller configured to, when the use inability signal of the first arithmetic unit is output and then a use inability discontinuation condition is satisfied, perform control to discontinue execution of the first arithmetic unit, store a state of the first arithmetic unit in a storage element, and discontinue output of the use inability signal of the first arithmetic unit, and the second entry, when output of the use inability signal of the first arithmetic unit is discontinued, outputs an instruction stored in the second entry to the first arithmetic unit.
US09965277B2

An out of order processor. The processor includes a virtual load store queue for allocating a plurality of loads and a plurality of stores, wherein more loads and more stores can be accommodated beyond an actual physical size of the load store queue of the processor; wherein the processor allocates other instructions besides loads and stores beyond the actual physical size limitation of the load/store queue; and wherein the other instructions can be dispatched and executed even though intervening loads or stores do not have spaces in the load store queue.
US09965274B2

A computer processor is provided with a plurality of functional units that performs operations specified by the at least one instruction over the multiple machine cycles, wherein the operations produce result operands. The processor also includes circuitry that generates result tags dynamically according to the number of operations that produce result operands in a given machine cycle. A bypass network is configured to provide data paths for transfer of operand data between the plurality of functional units according to the result tags.
US09965270B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for updating a computer firmware. The system generates a user firmware volume within a computer firmware volume containing computer firmware used by the system during a boot process. In some cases, the user firmware volume can be a file system. The system also obtains a firmware file for updating the computer firmware used by the system during the boot process. Next, the system compares the firmware file with a content of the computer firmware volume to yield a comparison and, based on the comparison, stores the firmware file on the user firmware volume within the computer firmware volume without flashing an entire portion of the computer firmware used by the system during the boot process.
US09965267B2

An electronic warfare (EW) devices and a method of providing jamming techniques are generally described. Firmware is updated by eliminating an existing jamming technique, adding a new technique and/or changing parameters of one of the techniques in the firmware. Changing the technique parameters includes adding a new parameter, deleting an existing parameter, changing the range of values for an existing parameter and changing the order of the parameters to be transmitted by an Operational Flight Program (OFP) to the firmware to generate the technique. The OFP reads a published a register mapping specifying parameters to use in generating the jamming techniques in the EW firmware, a range of the parameters and an order of the parameters. The jamming techniques are generated using parameters transmitted by the OFP to the firmware. The same OFP is used to trigger generation of jamming techniques prior to and after the updating of the firmware.
US09965264B2

Disclosed aspects include receiving a stream of tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements operating on a set of compute nodes. A determination is made to retrieve an application bundle from a second compute node. The determination is made by a first compute node based on a set of application bundle data. The application bundle is installed on the first compute node by the first compute node. Using the application bundle on the first compute node, the stream of tuples is processed. In embodiments, the application bundle is retrieved by the first compute node in response to determining to retrieve the application bundle from the second compute node.
US09965262B2

Disclosed aspects include receiving a stream of tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements operating on a set of compute nodes. A determination is made to retrieve an application bundle from a second compute node. The determination is made by a first compute node based on a set of application bundle data. The application bundle is installed on the first compute node by the first compute node. Using the application bundle on the first compute node, the stream of tuples is processed. In embodiments, the application bundle is retrieved by the first compute node in response to determining to retrieve the application bundle from the second compute node.
US09965260B2

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with a software product release automation framework are described. In one embodiment, a system includes a repository configured to store activity instances and process instances. Each activity instance includes parameters and a plurality of blocks of executable code for performing the activity. Each block of executable code is associated with a target platform. Each process instance includes activity instances and a sequence in which the activity instances are to be performed. The system includes interpreter logic configured to retrieve a requested process instance and read the process instance to identify activity instances and parameter values for the parameters in the activity instances. The interpreter logic reads the activity instances to identify the block of code for the platform and combines the parameter values and the block of code to create a target definition for an execution application on the target's platform.
US09965253B2

A first application is executed on a cloud computing system for a first period of time. User input signals associated with execution of the first application during the first period of time are recorded. A second application is generated to correspond to a portion of the first application as executed during a second period of time within the first period of time. The second application is defined by program instructions of the first application executed during the second period of time. A miniapp is generated to include the second application and the user input signals recorded during execution of the first application during the second period of time.
US09965241B2

By integrating multiple electronic devices, it is possible to increase the functionality of the devices individually. For example it is possible to improve media playback functionality, create media playlists “on-the-go” and to use a first device power supply to charge the power supply of the second device. By integrating the devices, it is possible to address some of the shortcomings of devices that are decreasing in size with increasing power requirements, while still maintaining the advantages that these devices offer.
US09965240B2

The present invention provides a storage method of OLED display panel compensation data. First, the OLED display panel is divided into a plurality of display zones, and then the compensation table and the link table are established. The compensation table records compensation information of the pixels which need to be compensated and zone row addresses and zone column addresses of the pixels. The link table records the zone codes of respective display zones and start digit addresses in the compensation table corresponded with the respective display zones. With the cooperation of the compensation table and the link table to store the OLED display panel compensation data, the storage space occupied by the OLED display panel compensation data can be decreased to lower the production cost of the OLED display panel and to raise the production efficiency of the OLED display panel.
US09965239B2

Provided is a linked display system capable of improving availability of information having different scales and amounts of information, a linked display method, and a program. A mobile terminal 100 includes a display unit 101 that displays operation display information I1, a range setting unit 105 that sets a predetermined range A containing a specified position in accordance with an operation to specify any position P over operation display information and a communication unit 109 that transmits the predetermined range to a TV set 200. The TV set includes a communication unit 209 that receives the predetermined range from the mobile terminal, a display information selection unit 205 that selects reference display information I2 capable of displaying information corresponding to the predetermined range from at least one piece of the reference display information corresponding to the operation display information in accordance with display capacity of a local apparatus and having a different scale and amount of information from those of the operation display information, and a display unit 201 that displays information corresponding to the predetermined range of the selected reference display information.
US09965224B2

A computer-implemented method for enabling replication targets to reclaim unused storage space on thin-provisioned storage systems may include: 1) replicating data from a replication source to a replication target, 2) identifying unused storage space within the replicated data, 3) generating a reclamation request for reclaiming the unused storage space from a thin-provisioned storage system that provides thin-provisioned storage for the replication target, and then 4) issuing the reclamation request to the thin-provisioned storage system in order to reclaim the unused storage space from the thin-provisioned storage system. Various other related systems, methods, and configured computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09965217B2

According to an aspect of the presently disclosed subject matter, there is provided a system for managing data in a storage system, the system including a storage layer which provides storage resource, and a snapshot layer that includes: a volume-version data structure, a chunk-version data structure and a IO handler.
US09965214B2

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.
US09965207B2

A method and associated systems for efficient management of cloned data. One or more processors create a “child” clone of a “parent” software image. The child and parent contain identical information organized into identical sets of file blocks. To conserve storage, each child block initially points to a physical storage location already in use by a corresponding parent block, rather than requiring additional storage of its own. The first time a child block is updated, however, it will require additional physical storage. At the time of the child's creation, the processors reserve a number of physical blocks sufficient to store the contents of all child file blocks likely to be updated. A child file block is identified as likely to be updated by analyzing past volatility of a corresponding file block of the parent or of corresponding file blocks of other children of the same parent.
US09965200B1

In large complex multi-path storage environments, knowing there is a problem is extremely valuable. Example embodiments of the present invention include a management framework that provides an easy to use and read graphical perspective that allows analysis of faults in a multi-path storage environment. The architecture is not only responsive, scalable, and robust, but also provides “middleware” services to a broad spectrum of enterprise management applications whose domains may extend beyond storage path management. The management framework includes a consolidator that, along with an agent on the hosts, supports an administrator in: collecting storage path information from hosts; summarizing, aggregating, filtering, and reformatting storage path information to serve enterprise management needs and policies; forwarding an alert regarding storage path information to interested managers; routing storage path management commands from managers to hosts; and reporting command completion status from the host back to the requesting manager.
US09965199B2

A memory system or flash card may include a dynamic system-level process for the management of blocks in the different memory pools. There may be spare blocks available to the pools that are over provisioned to the pool which increases the efficiency of data compaction and helps reduce the average hot count for that pool and compensate for the grown defects. The block wear and grown defects in each memory pool may be tracked so that remaining spare blocks can be re-allocated.
US09965195B2

Methods and systems for a networked system are provided. One method includes receiving a request by a processor to transfer a data block stored at a first storage tier to the second storage tier; using an object staging data structure to determine that an object is available for transferring the data block from the first storage tier to the second storage tier. The object staging data structure an indicator providing a status for the object and an object length and an offset value of a transfer log indicating where information regarding the data block is stored. The method further includes updating an address of the storage tier where the information regarding data block is stored at the transfer log; increasing the object length and the offset value at the object staging data structure; and creating the object at the second tier.
US09965182B2

Various embodiments for optimizing deduplication in a computing storage environment by a processor. Links between data regions are intelligently formed, based on up-to-date popularity statistics, including a number of times a particular one of the data regions was a target for a potential link with another one of the data regions.
US09965178B2

A method in an electronic device comprising: displaying a screen on a touchscreen; identifying at least one coordinate of a gesture performed on the touchscreen; identifying a tilt change value of the electronic device; and controlling the screen based on the coordinate and the tilt change value of the electronic device and displaying the controlled screen.
US09965173B2

An apparatus and method for precise multi-touch input are provided. The method includes detecting a first touch input at a first location on a touchscreen; while the first touch input is maintained, detecting a second touch input at a second location on the touchscreen; detecting removal of the first touch input at the first location while the second touch input is maintained; and adjusting the first location according to movement of the second touch input, such that movement of the adjusted location is less than the movement of the second touch input.
US09965170B2

An embodiment provides a method, including: accepting, at a touch input component, touch input; rendering, on a display device, the touch input; determining, using a processor, multi-touch controlling input for controlling the touch input; mapping, using the processor, the multi-touch controlling input to a predetermined control action; and applying the control action to the touch input. Other aspects are described and claimed.
US09965169B2

Certain embodiments of the invention may include systems, methods, and apparatus for controlling gesture initiation and termination of a user and controlling devices based on a user's gestures. According to one embodiment, a vehicle can include at least one actuator; at least one gesture detection device; and one or more processors. The one or more processors receive an initiation indication from the at least one actuator; receive gesture information from the at least one gesture detection device; receive a termination indication from the at least one actuator; determine, from the received gesture information, a gesture from at least one occupant of the vehicle, wherein the gesture is determined based at least in part on the initiation indication; select a command from a plurality of commands, based at least in part on the determined gesture; and output a control signal or a command control signal associated with the command.
US09965168B2

A portable device and a method for providing a User Interface (UI) mode are provided. The portable device includes a display unit, a sensor unit for sensing a user's motion, and a control unit for controlling, if the user's motion is sensed by the sensor unit, the display unit to release a standby mode of the portable device and to output a UI mode screen corresponding to a type of the motion.
US09965167B2

A display apparatus includes: a display device; a touch panel for sensing movement of an input object; a storage storing data representating images; and a controller. Images are displayed on the display device so as to be arranged in an arrangement order. The controller calculates a moving amount for moving the images, in response to movement of the input object. When the images are movable by the calculated moving amount in a moving direction commanded, the controller moves the images displayed on the display device, by the calculated moving amount in the moving direction. When the images are not movable in the moving direction by the calculated moving amount, the controller changes a display manner of the images and display the images in the changed display manner.
US09965160B2

Embodiments described herein pertain to a standardized set of tools for representing and exploring the components and characteristics of complex systems. In one embodiment, the tools are deployed in a computer network environment so as to engage a social network such that its members utilize the tools to collaboratively construct and maintain a dynamically evolving learning environment in which complexity is represented and explored.
US09965152B2

Disclosed as a mobile terminal and controlling method thereof, by which a capture image used to play a role in delivering information only is utilized as a medium for activating a target application program. The present invention disclose a mobile terminal comprising a memory configured to save data, a display unit configured to display an active screen of an application program, and a controller configured to, if a capture command is inputted, extract an activation information related to the active screen which is set as a capture target, and control a capture image having the extracted activation information saved as metadata to be created.
US09965138B2

A method of activating an update of a home screen of a mobile communications device is provided. The home screen is displayed on a display panel of the mobile communications device. The home screen includes a plurality of tiles displaying a plurality of feeds from one or more feed sources. The method includes performing one of updating the home screen or activating and displaying a menu bar on the display panel based on a distance of a downward scrolling on a top page of a home screen. A non-transitory computer-readable medium and a mobile communications device for activating an update of a home screen of a mobile communications device are also provided.
US09965136B1

A method for displaying content in a computing device including a display, the method including: displaying content in a viewable area of the display; detecting, by the display, an input associated with the content; and shifting, in response to the input, at least a portion of the content of the viewable area to display a non-modal view, where the non-modal view and the shifted content are concurrently available for user interaction after shifting the portion of the content.
US09965109B2

A touch screen driver includes a touch screen comprising Tx channels, Rx channels crossing the Tx channels, and sensor nodes formed at the crossings of the Tx channels and the Rx channels; a Tx driving circuit for supplying a Tx driving pulse to the Tx channels; an Rx driving circuit comprising an offset charge compensation circuit that equally compensates for the amount of offset charge included in the voltages of the sensor nodes supplied through the Rx channels and a sampling circuit that samples the offset-compensated voltages of the sensor nodes in response to an Rx sampling clock and converts the sampled voltages into digital data; and a touch controller that analyzes the digital data input from the Rx driving circuit by a preset touch recognition algorithm and outputs touch data including coordinate information of a touch position.
US09965108B2

A touch controller. The touch controller can include first sense circuitry configured to be coupled to a first electrode on a touch sensor panel, the first sense circuitry configured to sense a first self-capacitance associated with the first electrode, and a first mutual capacitance associated with the first electrode. In some examples, the first sense circuitry can be configured to sense the first self-capacitance and the first mutual capacitance simultaneously. In some examples, the touch controller can further include a first mixer and a second mixer coupled to the first sense circuitry, the first mixer configured to demodulate a first output from the first sense circuitry to extract information about the first self-capacitance from the first output, the second mixer configured to demodulate the first output from the first sense circuitry to extract information about the first mutual capacitance from the first output.
US09965107B2

In one embodiment, a stylus includes electrodes operable to transmit signals wirelessly to a device through a touch sensor of the device. The stylus also includes one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media within the stylus and embodying logic that is operable when executed to access first data representing a gesture made with the stylus by a user, such as a sequence of manipulations of the stylus. The logic is further operable to access second data representing a pre-defined authentication sequence and compare the first data with the second data. This comparison may authenticate the user to the stylus or the device, authenticate the stylus to the device or the user, or authenticate the device to the stylus or the user.
US09965106B2

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a two-dimensional array of pixels configured to produce an image. The apparatus also includes a touch sensor comprising a plurality of electrodes aligned with one or more gaps between one more pixels of the two-dimensional array of pixels. The plurality of electrodes are aligned such that the plurality of electrodes do not cross over at least one pixel of the two-dimensional array of pixels.
US09965105B2

A processing system for an input device includes a sensor module and a determination module. The sensor module includes sensor circuitry and is configured to acquire a first plurality of measurements of change in capacitive coupling between each sensor electrode of a first set of sensor electrodes and a second set of sensor electrodes. The sensor module is further configured to acquire a second plurality of measurements of change in capacitive coupling between each sensor electrode of the second set of sensor electrodes and an input object. The determination module is configured to determine a first combined measurement based on the first plurality of measurements, determine a second combined measurement based on the second plurality of measurements, and determine positional information for the input object based on a low ground mass parameter. The low ground mass parameter is based on the first combined measurement and the second combined measurement.
US09965100B2

A sensor panel device that can generate and use a stimulus signal having multiple different waveforms for detecting events on or near the sensor panel is disclosed. Among other things, such a stimulus signal can be used to reject environmental noise present in the device. In some embodiments, the stimulus signal has multiple waveforms having different frequencies. Logic circuitry can generate representative values from output of the different waveforms applied to one or more sensing nodes in the sensor panel device. From the representative values, a final value can be generated that represents whether an event occurred at or near the one or more sensing nodes.
US09965094B2

Touchscreen testing techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a piece of conductor (e.g., metal) is positioned as proximal to a touchscreen device and the touchscreen device is tested by simulating a touch of a user. This technique may be utilized to perform a variety of different testing of a touchscreen device, such as to test latency and probabilistic latency. Additional techniques are also described including contact geometry testing techniques.
US09965093B2

The present application provides a touch sensitive system attaching to a transparent material. The touch sensitive system includes an electronic device and a shielding conductive material. The electronic device further includes a touch sensitive screen module having no cover glass and placed behind the transparent material; and a touch sensitive control module coupled to the touch sensitive screen module, having palm rejection function. The shielding conductive material attaches to the transparent material and shields at least part of the touch sensitive screen module. In case an external conductive object approximating or touching the shielding conductive material, the touch sensitive control module determines that the at least part of the touch sensitive screen module is touched by a palm.
US09965085B2

The present disclosure provides a display substrate, a driving method thereof and a display device. The display substrate includes a touch region. Multiple touch electrodes are arranged in columns at the touch region, and the touch electrodes in each column are connected together. At a touch detection stage, the 5 touch electrodes in each column at the touch region are disconnected from the touch electrodes in the other columns, and at a display stage, the touch electrodes in the columns at the touch region are connected together and serve as common electrodes.
US09965069B2

Provided is an organic electroluminescent device (OLED) having a display area and a non-display area outside the display area that may include an OLED panel including a plurality of organic light-emitting diodes in a cell end line of the display area on an array substrate; and a touch panel on the OLED panel, the touch panel including a plurality of touch contact holes in the non-display area, wherein at least two of the plurality of touch contact holes that are immediately adjacent to the cell end line have substantially the same distance from the cell end line, and method for fabricating the same.
US09965063B2

A touch screen display may have a color filter layer and a thin-film transistor layer. A layer of liquid crystal material may be located between the color filter layer and the thin-film transistor (TFT) layer. The TFT layer may include thin-film transistors formed on top of a glass substrate. Each display pixel in the TFT layer may include first and second TFTs coupled in series between a data line and a storage capacitor. The first TFT may have a gate that is coupled to a gate line. The second TFT may have a gate that is coupled to a control line that is different than the gate line. A global enable signal may be provided on the control line, where the enable signal is asserted during display intervals and is deasserted during touch intervals. The second TFT may be formed using a top-gate TFT or a bottom-gate TFT arrangement.
US09965060B1

This instant disclosure is related to a capacitive stylus and a tilt angle detecting method thereof. The capacitive stylus is acting on a touch pad. The capacitive stylus includes a sensing electrode unit and a driving electrode unit, or the capacitive stylus is provided with a first sensing electrode unit and a second sensing electrode unit. The capacitive stylus further includes a tilt angle corresponding table and a direction corresponding table to determine the tilt angle and tilt direction of the capacitive stylus on the touch pad.
US09965057B2

A method includes generating a first signal type and a second signal type in a handheld device and transmitting both the first signal type and the second signal type in a transmission cycle of the handheld device. The first signal type and the second signal type are different in at least one of frequency or modulation and are defined to include a same information related to the handheld device.
US09965053B2

The disclosure relates to the technical field of capacitive touch panels and discloses a touchpen which may be used in mobile phones, computers and other devices with touch panels for writing characters, letters and other symbols. In particular it relates to a capacitive touchpen 10 for inputting information into an electronic device 1 through touching of a capacitive touch panel 30, the capacitive pen comprising an elongated body member 11 comprising a conductive part 13 and a tip 12 disposed at one end of the body member 11 having a contact surface 14 for contacting the capacitive touch panel 30. The conductive part 13 is configured such that the distortion of the touch panel's electrostatic field caused by the conductive part 13 when changing the position of the touchpen 10 in relation to the capacitive touch panel 30, when the contact surface is kept in contact with the touch panel 30, is sufficient to register a change in capacitance by the capacitive touch panel 30. The disclosure further relates to methods for detecting the position of a touch pen as well as to an electronic device and a computer program.
US09965049B2

A display apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes: a user interface configured to adjust a friction force between the user interface and a pen; and a controller configured to, in response to a pen being touched and moved on the user interface, control the user interface to adjust the friction force based on an input mode of the pen.
US09965046B2

A keyboard and a notebook computer with the keyboard are provided. The keyboard is installed on the notebook computer. The keyboard includes a membrane circuit board, a key frame, a key, a linking rod and a fixing plate. The linking rod is connected with the key frame. The fixing plate is disposed under the key frame. While the linking rod is rotated relative to the key frame to push the key frame, a position-limiting structure of the key frame is moved along a guiding structure of the fixing plate. Consequently, the key frame is limited to be moved in a first axial direction. Moreover, when the key frame is moved to a locked position at the same level with a keycap of the key, the keycap cannot be pressed down.
US09965038B2

Projected input and output devices adapt to a desktop environment by sensing objects at the desktop environment and altering projected light in response to the sensed objects. For instance, projection of input and output devices is altered to limit illumination against and end user's hands or other objects disposed at a projection surface. End user hand positions and motions are detected to provide gesture support for adapting a projection work space, and configurations of projected devices are stored so that an end user can rapidly recreate a projected desktop. A projector scan adjusts to limit traces across inactive portions of the display surface and to increase traces at predetermined areas, such as video windows.
US09965029B2

There is provided an image processing apparatus including a setting unit configured to set a display mode corresponding to a posture of a user on the basis of posture information indicating the posture of the head of the user.
US09965028B2

Provided is a method for proximity sensing in an interactive display and a method of processing a proximity sensing image. The method for proximity-sensing may include suspending, in a three-dimensional (3D) space, at least one hand of a user to manipulate at least one of a viewpoint of the user and a position of a virtual object displayed on a screen, and changing the virtual object by manipulating at least one of the position of the virtual object and the viewpoint of the user based on the suspending.
US09965026B2

A method, a device, and a system for interactive video display, relate to the field of multimedia technologies, and can resolve a problem in the prior art that browsing experience of a user is not real because a visible region is simply changed only according to a panning change of a location of the user. A specific solution is acquiring posture information of a user, where the posture information includes viewing angle information of the user and location information of the user, and adjusting, according to the posture information, an unadjusted visible region, in a video, for being displayed on a client in order to obtain an adjusted visible region currently for being displayed on the client. The embodiments of the present invention are used for performing interactive video display.
US09965025B2

A power supply control apparatus includes a control circuit configured to obtain a value of power consumed by a specified device to which plural power supply devices supply power and further configured to determine based on the obtained power value and a predetermined value obtained from power conversion efficiency of each power supply device among the plural power supply devices, a scheme of supplying power to the specified device to be any one among a first scheme in which the plural power supply devices supply power and a second scheme in which among a first power supply device and a second power supply device included in the plural power supply devices, voltage of power supplied by the first power supply device is made lower than that of power supplied by the second power supply device, whereby the second power supply device supplies power.
US09965020B2

An information handling system may include at least one information handling resource, a power supply unit for supplying electrical energy to at least one information handling resource, and a controller. The power supply unit may include an ambient temperature sensor for sensing an ambient temperature ambient to the power supply unit and a component temperature sensor for sensing a component temperature of a component integral to the power supply unit. The controller may be communicatively coupled to the power supply unit and configured to receive signals from the power supply unit indicative of the ambient and component temperatures, determine an ambient sensor-based power rating for the power supply based on the ambient temperature, determine a component sensor-based power rating for the power supply based on the component temperature, and select a maximum of the ambient sensor-based power rating and the component sensor-based power rating as a selected power rating.
US09965015B2

A digital device and a method of processing screensaver application in the digital device are disclosed. The digital device includes a manager to manage a display window of the digital device and to generate and to transmit a plurality of status data of the digital device to a controller, and the controller to receive a first signal from a first application requesting registration as an application voter, to transmit a second signal requesting a confirmation related to execute a second application to the first application when first status data is received from a service interface, to receive a response to the second signal from the first application, and to execute the second application to enter a screensaver mode based on the received response.
US09965013B1

A power distribution system that distributes power to electrical loads includes a switchgear apparatus that selectively routes power from one of two or more feeds to downstream portions of the system based upon commands received from a separate external switchgear controller device that receives data from various portions of the power distribution system. The switchgear controller device can operate in one or more separate operating modes, where commands to the switchgear apparatus are generated based upon user inputs or determinations made by an internal switchgear control module based at least in part upon the selected operating mode of the switchgear controller device. The operating mode can be set based upon user interaction with an operating mode interface. The switchgear control module may generate switchgear operation commands based at least in part upon data received from the switchgear apparatus and various portions of the power distribution system.
US09965006B2

An electronic device includes a main body, a first back cover and a second back cover. The main body includes a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. A display is mounted onto the first surface. The first back cover is disposed on the second surface and rotatable about a first axis. The first back cover can be lifted along a first direction by rotating about the first axis. The second back cover is disposed on the second surface and rotatable about a second axis. The second back cover can be lifted along a second direction by rotating about the second axis.
US09965004B2

A heat dissipating system comprises a heat dissipating device including a carrying structure, a driving structure, and at least one swing structure. The carrying structure has a base seat and at least one buffering pad disposed on the base seat. The driving structure is configured to be driven by a periodic power for generating a magnetic field, which has cyclical changes. The swing structure includes a non-metal sheet having an elongated shape and a magnetic actuation disposed on the sheet. The sheet has a fixing end and an opposite free end. The fixing end is fixed on the base seat, the base seat and the fixing end clips the buffering pad. When the magnetic actuation is driven by the magnetic field to repeatedly move forward and backward with respect to the driving structure, the sheet repeatedly swings by the movement of the magnetic actuation.
US09964987B2

A current mirror circuit includes a first current mirror leg and a second current mirror leg. The first current mirror leg is configured with N stages of first transistors coupled in series and with their respective gates tied together. The second current mirror leg is configured with N stages of second transistors coupled in series and with their respective gates tied together. The first transistors and the second transistors are implemented within a transistor array, the first transistors and the second transistors are coupled between a first reference terminal and a second reference terminal, the first transistors and the second transistors at 1st to Kth stages adjacent to the first reference terminal are implemented at corner regions of the transistor array, N and K are positive integers and K
US09964985B1

An apparatus having a first coupling network configured to receive an input voltage and output a first gate voltage and a second gate voltage at a first gate node and a second gate node, respectively; a stacked complementary common-source amplifier pair including a first common-source amplifier and a second common-source amplifier configured to receive the first gate voltage and the second gate voltage and output a first drain voltage and a second drain voltage at a first drain node and a second drain node, respectively; a second coupling network configured to provide a coupling between the first drain node and the second drain node to equalize the first drain voltage and the second drain voltage. A first inductor and second inductor couple the first and second drain nodes to a first and second DC node, respectively. Third and fourth inductors are coupled to the first and second inductor.
US09964972B2

A mixed mode compensation circuit for a power converter generate a digital signal according to a reference signal and a feedback signal which is related to the output voltage of the power converter, convert the digital signal into a first analog signal, offset the first analog signal with a variable offset value to generate a second analog signal, and filter out high-frequency components of the second analog signal to generate a third analog signal for stable output voltage of the power converter. The mixed mode compensation does not require large capacitors, and thus the circuit can be integrated into an integrated circuit.
US09964967B2

A method for monitoring a control of a parameter of one or more devices or systems in an oil or gas production site includes receiving process data, the process data being a result of the control of the parameter of the one or more devices or systems in the production site; smoothing the process data using a polynomial filter while preserving features of the process data to obtain smoothed data; and applying a pattern recognition algorithm to the smoothed data to determine whether there is a malfunction condition in the one or more devices or systems.
US09964946B2

A quality assurance system, including a plurality of quality assurance stations, each for examining at least one physical product, and for producing from each physical product examination, a result thereof expressed by at least one plain text in a computer, being local to the quality assurance station thereof, an application installed in each of the local computers, for converting the plain texts to plain texts having a unified format, and an analyzing computer, for receiving the converted plain texts from the local computers, thereby the unified format accompanies the analyzing computer in analyzing the converted plain texts from distributed assurance stations.
US09964940B2

A numerical controller performs cross-rail axis control that distributes moving amount to a first and second axes based on a command to a virtual axis. If a block of a program that is read out contains a fast feed command to the virtual axis for moving a tool to a cutting feed start point, the numerical controller distributes a moving amount commanded by the fast feed command to the first axis and the second axis. Further, the moving amount commanded by the fast feed command is distributed to the first axis and the second axis so that movement of the virtual axis commanded by a cutting feed command that follows the fast feed command in the program can be achieved by movement of only the first axis.
US09964938B2

A system includes, but not limited to, at least one processor, a retriever configured to retrieve a first field device parameter belonging to burst mode settings from at least one field device connected to a field network, and a transmitter. The transmitter is configured to transmit a second field device parameter belonging to burst mode settings to the at least one field device, based on at least a configuration file. The second field device parameter being associated with the first field device parameter. The first field device parameter includes, not limited to, a first determiner that determines whether to enable or disable a first automated transmission of a first process related variable of the field device, the first process related variable is one of a process variable and a diagnostic result in a burst mode. The retriever, the comparator and the transmitter are implemented by the at least one processor.
US09964937B2

This disclosure provides an automation controller method, system and apparatus including a redundant watchdog utilizing a safety partner controller. According to an exemplary controller, the controller includes a first processing unit, a second processing unit, and an integrated circuit configured to receive as inputs fault indicator signals from the first and second processing units, and the integrated circuit configured to disable I/O communications for a fault condition detected by the first or second processing units.
US09964933B2

The system comprises a controller comprising software components for determining the difference between the amount of energy determined by the smart grid agent to be delivered to and from the cluster over a predetermined period of time and the amount of energy measured by the meter actually delivered to the cluster over the predetermined period of time, the controller comprising software components for simulating a virtual smart grid participating device based on the determined difference and for providing the smart grid agent with information based on the determined difference such that the smart grid agent is configured to determine the amount of electrical energy in function of time to be delivered to and from the electrical grid for both the smart grid participating and non-participating devices of the cluster based on information of both the devices of the cluster and the smart grid and such that the difference is reduced.
US09964925B2

A holographic display (“display”) for a head-mounted display (“HMD”). The display includes a source configured to emit at least partially coherent light and a beam conditioner that conditions the light from the source into one or more beams of light. The display also includes one or more spatial light modulators configured to encode the one or more beams of light using a hologram of a virtual reality image. The display further includes an objective lens and a conversion lens. The objective lens is positioned to create an intermediate image at a Fourier plane, and the intermediate image is a Fourier transform of the hologram. The conversion lens performs a Fourier transform of the intermediate image to generate an output hologram. The conversion lens also magnifies a portion of the output hologram and directs the magnified portion of the output hologram to an exit pupil of the HMD.
US09964920B2

A process cartridge, including a process cartridge housing, a photosensitive drum driving component, a driving force receiver, a flange component and a control mechanism. Opening parts are arranged on the driving force receiver and a retaining component is arranged on the process cartridge. When the control mechanism controls the driving force receiver to retract, the retaining component keeps the driving force receiver at a position non-interferential with a driving head of an image forming device. The driving force receiver and the flange component of the process cartridge are disengaged in a retracting state. In this state, the driving force receiving protrusion do not interfere with the front end column body of a machine driving head, and the process cartridge can be mounted and dismounted more smoothly.
US09964909B2

The present invention is to provide a sheet conveying device capable of reducing noise. The sheet conveying device includes an endless belt that gives a conveying force to a sheet and a rotating member engaged with an outer peripheral portion of the endless belt. The endless belt has, on its outer peripheral portion, a plurality of convex portions arranged in a peripheral direction thereof, the convex portions each extending in a width direction thereof. The rotating member has a contact portion that contacts the outer peripheral portion of the endless belt and deforms a plurality of points of each of the convex portions in the width direction.
US09964903B1

A fixing device includes a magnetic flux generation unit, an auxiliary heating body formed of material that generates heat from the magnetic flux generated by the magnetic flux generation unit, a rotatable fixing belt having opposing first and second ends in a direction of its rotational axis and a material that generates heat from the magnetic flux, a magnetic flux shield in contact with the auxiliary heating body and having first and second openings that expose the auxiliary body, the first and second openings being symmetrical with respect to a center point along the rotational axis between the first and second ends, a temperature sensor in contact with the auxiliary heating body through one of the first and second openings of the magnetic flux shield shielding member, and a driver that controls power supplied to the magnetic flux generation unit in accordance with signals from the temperature sensor.
US09964895B2

A toner container includes a container main body, a first conveyance member rotatably provided in the container main body, a first bearing hole rotatably supports a rotation shaft of the first conveyance member in a state where the rotation shaft of the first conveyance member passes through the first bearing hole and extends outside, and a first input joint provided on an end portion of a rotation shaft of the first conveyance member in an attachment portion side, and coupled with a first drive coupling portion of the attachment portion. The first drive coupling portion includes a plurality of engaging pieces. The first input joint includes a plurality of projection pieces configured to be respectively coupled with the plurality of engaging pieces. Among the plurality of projection pieces, at least one first piece is longer than the other second piece(s) in a projection direction of the projection shaft.
US09964887B2

A light scanning apparatus, including: a light source; a light intensity detecting portion configured to detect a light intensity of the light beam emitted from the light source; and a light intensity controller configured to control the light intensity based on a detection result of the light intensity detecting portion, wherein the light intensity controller is configured to supply, in advance, to the light source, a bias current smaller than a threshold current at which the light source starts emitting the light beam, and is configured to control a supply of a drive current to the light source, the drive current being generated by superimposing, on the bias current, a switching current for controlling the light source in accordance with an image signal, and the light intensity controller includes a current stopping unit configured to stop a supply of the bias current and the drive current to the light source.
US09964876B2

A toner includes toner particles which contain a binder resin, a colorant, a wax, and a resin A having an organic polysiloxane structure; the amount of Si atoms of the toner particles is 4.5 to 10.0; in an analysis of a cross-section of each toner particle, in a surface layer region R from the periphery of the cross-section of the toner particle to the inside at a distance of 10.0% of the particle diameter in the cross-section of the toner particle, the content of Si atoms derived from the organic polysiloxane structure is 90.0% or more with respect to the total amount of Si atoms contained in the toner particle; and in a line analysis along a straight line between the periphery of the surface layer region R and a gravity center of the cross-section, an intensity count of Si atoms in the toner particle satisfies formula Si0>Si1>Si2>Si3≥0.
US09964870B2

An electrophotographic photoreceptor includes at least a photosensitive layer and a protective layer sequentially layered on a conductive support, wherein the protective layer contains a cured product of a curable composition containing p-type semiconductor fine particles, an n-type organic semiconductor, and a polymerizable compound.
US09964868B2

The invention relates to a multilayer type electrophotographic photoreceptor comprising: a conductive support; and, on the conductive support, a charge generation layer containing a hydroxygallium phthalocyanine pigment and a charge transport layer,wherein the content of α-chloronaphthalene in hydroxygallium phthalocyanine pigment in the charge generation layer is in a range of 0 ng/cm2 to 0.1 ng/cm2, the charge transport layer contains a non-halogen organic solvent having a boiling point of 140° C. or more, and the content of the non-halogen organic solvent having a boiling point of 140° C. or more is in a range of 0.1 μg/cm2 to 5 μg/cm2.
US09964865B2

A method of adjusting speed and/or routing of a part of a movement plan of a table under an immersion fluid supply system of a lithographic apparatus. The method includes splitting the movement plan of the table into a plurality of discrete movements; determining a risk of a bubble of a size greater than a certain size being present in immersion fluid through which a patterned beam of the lithographic apparatus will pass during a certain discrete movement by determining whether the immersion fluid supply system passes over a position at which immersion fluid leaked from the immersion fluid supply system is present; and adjusting the speed and/or routing of a part of the movement plan corresponding to (i) a discrete movement earlier than a discrete movement for which the risk of a bubble is determined, and/or (ii) a discrete movement for which the risk of a bubble is determined.
US09964863B1

Implementations described herein relate to apparatus for post exposure processing. More specifically, implementations described herein relate to field-guided post exposure process chambers and cool down/development chambers used on process platforms. In one implementation, a plurality of post exposure process chamber and cool/down development chamber pairs are positioned on a process platform in a stacked arrangement and utilize a shared plumbing module. In another implementation, a plurality of post exposure process chamber and cool down/development chambers are positioned on a process platform in a linear arrangement and each of the chambers utilize an individually dedicated plumbing module.
US09964859B2

A lithography projection objective for imaging a pattern in an object plane onto a substrate in an image plane. The projection objective comprises a multiplicity of optical elements along an optical axis. The optical elements comprise a first group of optical elements following the object plane, and a last optical element, following the first group and next to the image plane. The projection objective is tunable or tuned with respect to aberrations for the case that the volume between the last optical element and the image plane is filled by an immersion medium with a refractive index substantially greater than 1. The position of the last optical element is adjustable in the direction of the optical axis. A positioning device is provided that positions at least the last optical element during immersion operation such that aberrations induced by disturbance are at least partially compensated.
US09964857B2

A beam exposure device includes a light-emitting unit for emitting light beams from a plurality of light-emitting positions, a scan unit, an optical condensing system for condensing a spot of the light beams onto a surface to be exposed, and a micro-deflection unit for micro-deflecting the plurality of light beams to expose the space between the beams in the plurality of light beams. The optical condensing system includes a first microlens array arranged between the light-emitting unit and the micro-deflection unit and provided with a plurality of microlenses corresponding to the light-emitting positions; and a second microlens array arranged between the micro-deflection unit and the surface to be exposed and provided with a plurality of microlenses each microlens corresponding to the light-emitting unit.
US09964853B2

A method of determining exposure dose of a lithographic apparatus used in a lithographic process on a substrate. Using the lithographic process to produce a first structure on the substrate, the first structure having a dose-sensitive feature which has a form that depends on exposure dose of the lithographic apparatus on the substrate. Using the lithographic process to produce a second structure on the substrate, the second structure having a dose-sensitive feature which has a form that depends on the exposure dose of the lithographic apparatus but which has a different sensitivity to the exposure dose than the first structure. Detecting scattered radiation while illuminating the first and second structures with radiation to obtain first and second scatterometer signals. Using the first and second scatterometer signals to determine an exposure dose value used to produce at least one of the first and second structures.
US09964848B2

There are provided a positive photosensitive resin composition excellent in the sensitivity, film residual ratio and storage stability, comprising a resin containing a specific acrylic acid-based constituent unit capable of dissociating an acid-dissociable group to produce a carboxyl group, the resin being alkali-insoluble or sparingly alkali-soluble and becoming alkali-soluble when the acid-dissociable group dissociates, a resin containing a constituent unit having a functional group capable of reacting with the carboxyl group to form a covalent bond, and a compound capable of generating an acid upon irradiation with an actinic ray or radiation; a cured film forming method using the positive photosensitive resin composition; and a cured film excellent in the heat resistance, adhesion, transmittance and the like.
US09964847B2

The present disclosure relates to lithographic masks and, more particularly, to a lithographic mask substrate structure and methods of manufacture. The mask includes a sub-resolution assist feature (SRAF) formed on a quartz substrate and composed of a patterned transition film and absorber layer.
US09964843B2

A light-providing device is provided, including a light guiding member, an LED (light-emitting diode), and a light distribution adjusting member, wherein the LED is disposed on the light guiding member. The light guiding member has an opening. The light distribution adjusting member has an inlet and an outlet. The inlet is connected to the opening. The shape or dimensions of the inlet is different from that of the outlet. A plurality of lights generated by the LED enter the light distribution adjusting member through the opening and the inlet, and leave the light distribution adjusting member through the outlet. The lights include a first light angular distribution at the inlet, and include a second light angular distribution at the outlet, wherein the second light angular distribution/the first light angular distribution is proportional to the inlet/the outlet.
US09964842B2

A light source apparatus includes a light source that outputs excitation light, and a rotating light emitting device in which a wavelength conversion element that emits light when irradiated with the excitation light is provided on a rotating disk. A spot of the excitation light on the wavelength conversion element has a shape that is long in a radial direction of the rotating disk and short in a circumferential direction of the rotating disk. Alternatively, an orthogonally projected length of the spot in the radial direction is greater than an orthogonally projected length of the spot in the circumferential direction.
US09964836B2

An aerial camera system including a plurality of main reels, a camera interface/safety reel and a stabilized camera head. The camera head is supported from main cables from the main reels with a safety reel cable providing power, data and video communication between the camera head and a main computer system. Each of the main reels, the camera interface/safety reel and the camera head are in communication with the main computer system, which controls the feeding and reeling in of the main cables. Further, the computer system controls the feeding and reeling in of the safety reel cable, which typically only follows the camera head as it moves in three-dimensional space, but may in emergency mode support the weight of the camera head and be used to slowly pull the camera head up and out of the way so that it does not interfere with any activity below the flight area.
US09964832B2

An electronic driver circuit for use with a modulator such as a segmented Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) is provided. The electronic driver circuit includes a first delay buffer implemented as a first complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) inverter and a second delay buffer implemented as a second CMOS inverter. The second CMOS inverter follows the first CMOS inverter and has a second gate width smaller than a first gate width of the first CMOS inverter. The first CMOS inverter is configured to produce a first delayed electrical signal from a received electrical signal and the second CMOS inverter is configured to produce a second delayed electrical signal from the first delayed electrical signal produced by the first CMOS inverter.
US09964831B2

An electro-optic assembly comprises an adhesive layer and a layer of electro-optic material. The adhesive layer comprises a polymeric adhesive material and an ionic material having either its cation or its anion fixed to the polymeric adhesive material. The ionic material reduces the volume resistivity of the polymeric adhesive material and is not removed upon heating to 50° C. In a similar electro-optic assembly comprising an adhesive layer and a layer of electro-optic material, the adhesive layer comprises a polymeric adhesive material which has been subjected to dialysis or diafiltration to remove organic species having a molecular weight less than about 3,500, so that the adhesive material has a content of N-methylpyrrolidone not exceeding 500 ppm based upon the total weight of the adhesive layer and layer of electro-optic material.
US09964820B2

A display may have a thin-film transistor layer and a color filter layer. The display may include light blocking structures formed on a transparent substrate. In one arrangement, a clear planarization layer may be formed over the light blocking structures. The thin-film transistor layer may be formed over the planarization layer. The color filter layer may be integrated with the thin-film transistor layer. At least light blocking structures and the planarization layer should be formed from high temperature resistance material. In another arrangement, the color filter layer may be formed on the light blocking structures. A clear planarization layer may then be formed over the color filter layer. The thin-film transistor layer may be formed on the planarization layer. In this arrangement, the color filter layer also needs to be formed from thermal resistance material.
US09964809B2

The present invention provides a high transmittance VA type liquid crystal display panel and a manufacture method thereof. The lower substrate (1) of the high transmittance VA type liquid crystal display panel comprises a first bump layer (12), and the upper substrate (2) comprises a second bump layer (22); the first bump layer (12) comprises a first convex part (121) and a first concave part (122) which are mutually spaced; the pixel electrode (13) continuously covers the first convex part (121) and first concave part (122) with a uniform thickness; the second bump layer (22) and the first bump layer (12) complement in structure, and the second bump layer (22) comprises a second convex part (221) and a second concave part (222) which are mutually spaced, and the common electrode (23) continuously covers the second convex part (221) and the second concave part (222) with a uniform thickness; the second convex part (221) is in accordance with the first concave part (122), and the second concave part (222) is in accordance with the first convex part (121).
US09964805B2

A backlight system for a display device which comprises a light emitting diode comprising an encapsulating lens and an aspheric lens interposed between the light emitting diode and the display device. The backlight system provides a luminance of substantially 100K nits at a cone angle of substantially 12° and is of particular utility in conjunction with laser-based range and speed measurement instruments.
US09964800B2

A novel display device that is highly convenient or reliable. The display device includes a first display element, a second display element, a color film, and a reflective electrode. The first display element includes a first pixel electrode and a liquid crystal layer. The second display element includes a second pixel electrode and a light-emitting layer. The first pixel electrode is electrically connected to the reflective electrode. The reflective electrode includes an opening through which light emitted from the light-emitting layer passes. The color film faces the reflective electrode with the liquid crystal layer placed therebetween.
US09964798B2

A polarizer includes a first laminated structure having a first layer with a first refractive index and a second layer with a second refractive index, wherein the first and second refractive indices are different from each other. A buffer layer is disposed on the first laminated structure. A second laminated structure in the polarizer has a third layer with a third refractive index and a fourth layer with a fourth refractive index, wherein the third and fourth refractive indices are different from each other.
US09964795B2

A curved display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate facing the first substrate, a liquid crystal layer disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate, and a first color pixel area, a second color pixel area, a third color pixel area, and a fourth color pixel area disposed on the first substrate or the second substrate, in which the first substrate and the second substrate each includes a center portion and an edge portion surrounding the center portion, the first, second, and third color pixel areas include a red filter, a green filter, and a blue filter, respectively, the fourth color pixel area include a white filter, and the fourth color pixel area is disposed at the edge portion of the first or second substrate, and is smaller than each of the first, second, and third color pixel areas.
US09964789B2

A liquid crystal display device thermally insulated from light source heat, includes a display panel, a backlight module positioned on the display panel, a bezel positioned around the backlight module, and a thermal insulating element mounted on the bezel. The backlight module includes a light guiding plate and at least one light source located at a side of the light guiding plate. The thermal insulating element is positioned between the at least one light source and the bezel. A sealed space is formed between the thermal insulating element and the bezel. The thermal insulating element and the sealed vacuum space are configured to thermally insulate heat generated by the at least one light source and prevent heat from transferring to the bezel and display panel.
US09964779B2

An interchangeable glasses system. The interchangeable glasses system includes a frame and one or more lenses attached to the frame. The interchangeable glasses system also includes a temple configured to hold the frame in place relative the user's ears. The interchangeable glasses system further includes an attachment configured to releasably secure the temple relative to the frame.
US09964777B2

Various embodiments provide an optical image stabilization circuit including a drive circuit having a power waveform generator and a power waveform conversion circuit. The power waveform generator generates a power waveform. The power waveform conversion circuit converts the power waveform to a power drive signal. An actuator is then driven by the power drive signal to move a lens accordingly and compensate for any movements and vibrations of a housing of the lens.
US09964770B2

The present application relates to a head mounted display device which includes a display device defining a first connection opening; two earphone bodies each defining a second connection opening; and a connection frame comprising two connection arms connecting the two earphone bodies to the display device, each connection arm comprising a first connection end connected to the first connection opening and a second connection end connected to a corresponding second connection opening, and defining an inner chamber extending through the first connection end and the second connection end. Each earphone body is electrically connected to the display device via a flexible printed circuit housed in the inner chamber, and a first end of the flexible printed circuit is connected to the display device via the first connection opening and a second end of the flexible printed circuit is connected to a corresponding earphone body via a corresponding second connection opening.
US09964765B2

Systems and methods for virtually displaying a robotic device to a human operator. An exemplary system includes an augmented reality headset for use by the human operator. The system includes a first imaging device having a field of view of a first side of an object, and tracks coordinate data for a first marker on the robotic device positioned on the first side. The system includes a second imaging device having a field of view of a second side of the object, and tracks coordinate data for a second marker on the augmented reality headset positioned on the second side. The system includes a controller that generates a virtual image of the robotic device in a coordinate system based on the coordinate data for the first and second markers, and provides the virtual image of the robotic device to the augmented reality headset for display to the human operator.
US09964755B2

A method and apparatus for correcting error modes of a deformable mirror, including selecting or targeting one or more target error modes of a deformable mirror; and designing a pattern and/or shape of one or more electrodes, wherein the pattern and/or shape of the electrodes are designed to optimally correct the target error modes when the electrodes are disposed on the deformable mirror via an active material. Also disclosed is a deformable structure, including a composite shell including a plurality of plies each including carbon fibers embedded in a resin; a nanolaminate comprising individual nanolayers attached to a first side of the composite shell; an actuation structure attached to a second side of the composite shell; and a flexible electrode routing layer attached to the actuation structure.
US09964754B2

Presented is a method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium for selectively switching optical paths. The apparatus includes a directing mirror for redirecting light from an incoming path to one of a plurality of input paths and redirecting the light from one of a plurality of output paths to an outgoing path, and a plurality of input mirrors, each one of the plurality of input mirrors operable for redirecting the light from one of the plurality of input paths to one of a plurality of transition paths. The apparatus includes a plurality of light modifying elements, each one of the light modifying elements in a corresponding transition path and a plurality of output mirrors, each one of the plurality of output mirrors operable for redirecting the light from one of the plurality of transition paths to one of a plurality of output paths.
US09964753B2

A mirror drive device in which the speed of forward and backward movement of a mirror is increased while reducing a power amount required therefor without affecting a finder image and a focus distance of an image viewed through a finder. A mirror-down cam is cam-engaged with a drive shaft provided in a mirror holder, and causes the mirror holder to enter a finder observation position of a photographing optical path. A mirror-up cam is cam-engaged with the drive shaft, and causes the mirror holder to retract from the photographing optical path. A down spring urges the mirror holder toward the finder observation position with low necessary and sufficient pressure. A motor transmits rotation to the mirror-down cam and the mirror-up cam via a shift gear train. The rotation axes of the mirror-down cam and the mirror-up cam are arranged in positions different from each other.
US09964750B2

The invention relates to an optical microscope system (10) for the simultaneous measurement of at least two spatially distinct regions of interest, characterized by comprising at least two distinct optical measuring heads (12a, 12b, 12c) that can be simultaneously focused on spatially distinct arbitrary regions of interest, each optical measuring head is optically connectable with at least one scan head (14), the optical microscope system further comprising a control system (32) connected to the at least one scan head and the optical measuring head, the control system being configured to provide for synchronized control of the operation of the at least one scan head and the at least two optical measuring head.
US09964740B1

The present disclosure relates to the field of optical lens, and discloses an optical camera lens, which includes: an aperture, a first lens having positive refraction power, a second lens having negative refraction power, a third lens having positive refraction power, a fourth lens having negative refraction power and a fifth lens having negative refraction power; the optical camera lens satisfies following relational expressions: 0.45
US09964727B2

A cable distribution assembly includes: a housing having a first side and a second side, wherein a plurality of bores extend through the housing from the first side to the second side; a plurality of furcation tubes inserted into the bores at the second side of the housing; a trunk cable comprising a jacket and a plurality of optical fibers, wherein one or more of the optical fibers are threaded through the bores and into the furcation tubes; a spacer adjacent the first side of the housing and the cable jacket, the spacer creating space in which the optical fibers are routed from the trunk cable to the bores at the first side of the housing; and a cover that covers the spacer and at least partially covers the trunk cable and the first side of the housing.
US09964724B2

A fiber optic ribbon cable includes a jacket of the cable, the jacket having a cavity defined therein, an optical element including an optical fiber and extending within the cavity of the jacket, and a dry water-blocking element extending along the optical element within the cavity. The dry water-blocking element is wrapped around the optical element with at least a portion of the dry water-blocking element disposed between another portion of the dry water-blocking element and the optical element, thereby defining an overlapping portion of the dry water-blocking element. The optical element interfaces with the overlapping portion to provide direct or indirect coupling between the optical element and the jacket.
US09964722B2

Tower systems suitable for use at cellular base stations include a tower, an antenna mounted on the tower, a remote radio head mounted on the tower and a power supply. A power cable having a power supply conductor and a return conductor is connected between the power supply and the remote radio head. A shunt capacitance unit that is separate from the remote radio head that is electrically coupled between the power supply conductor and the return conductor of the power cable.
US09964718B2

An optical module includes optical transmission member, optical element, substrate, electrode pad between the optical element and external circuit, and optical block including optical transmission member mounting portion. The optical transmission member mounting portion is formed on the optical block in optical axis direction such that optical transmission efficiency is the maximum. A manufacturing method of the optical module includes mounting and electrically connecting the optical element on one face of the substrate, calculating a position on a 2-dimensional plane of optical input/output point of the optical element, forming base material of the optical block to impregnate the optical element onto the substrate, forming the optical transmission member mounting portion at the position on the 3-dimensional plane of the optical input/output point calculated in the former step on the base material, and mounting the optical transmission member on the optical transmission member mounting portion.
US09964717B2

Device and method are provided to align and bond a lens array to a PD array with high precision, which can implement aligning and bonding of the lens array automatically. A telescopic rod of the stepping actuator is adjusted until photosensitive areas of the PD array form a clear image on the image acquisition CCD through the lens array, an adjusted distance h1 of the telescopic rod is recorded, and a position coordinate (xn, yn) of center of each circular photosensitive area in the image may be obtained, and a slope k1 of a line connecting the centers of the photosensitive areas is calculated. The telescopic rod is adjusted again, and a slope k2 of a line connecting the centers of the apertures of the lens array is calculated. Based on calculated values Δxn, Δyn, arctan(k1)−arctan(k2), the high-resolution adjustment stage is adjusted to adjust position of the lens array.
US09964716B1

Compact ASIC, chip-on-board, flip-chip, interposer, and related packaging techniques are incorporated to minimize the footprint of optoelectronic interconnect devices, including the Optical Data Pipe. In addition, ruggedized packaging techniques are incorporated to increase the durability and application space for optoelectronic interconnect devices, including an Optical Data Pipe.
US09964694B2

A plurality of LEDs emit light to a right end surface of a light guide plate. The light guide plate emits the light from a front surface, the light being made incident on the right end surface. The heat dissipater dissipates heat generated by the plurality of LEDs. A backlight chassis supports the light guide plate. The backlight chassis includes: a cover plate for covering a rear surface of the light guide plate; and an upper wall connected to the cover plate, for covering an upper end surface of the light guide plate adjacent to the right end surface. The heat dissipater includes a right side wall for covering the right end surface of the light guide plate. The right end of the upper wall of the backlight chassis and the upper end of the right side wall of the heat dissipater are connected by a non-transparent connecting part.
US09964687B2

A luminaire is provided. A main surface of a light-guiding panel included in the luminaire includes a reflecting area having a plurality of approximately conical recesses. An angle θ formed by a lateral surface of each of the recesses and the main surface of the light-guiding panel satisfies a condition defined by a distance D from a center position of a light source to a center position of the reflecting area, a distance H from an illumination target surface to the center position of the light source, an angle γ which the light-guiding panel forms with a horizontal plane, a refractive index n of the light-guiding panel, and a surface roughness Ra of the lateral surface of each of the recesses.
US09964677B2

A reflective film includes a first optical stack that provides a first reflective characteristic and a second optical stack that provides a second reflective characteristic. The optical stacks also have first and second absorptive characteristics that are suitable to absorptively heat the respective stacks upon exposure to light including a write wavelength while maintaining the structural integrity of the stacks. The absorptive heating can change the first and second reflective characteristics to third and fourth reflective characteristics, respectively. A blocking layer that at least partially blocks light of the write wavelength may also be provided between the optical stacks to permit absorptive heating of any selected one of the optical stacks. The reflective characteristics of the optical stacks can thus be independently modified in any desired patterns by appropriate delivery of light beams that include the write wavelength.
US09964676B2

An optical element is provided with an optical layer in which a concavo-convex surface is formed on the surface thereof, and a wavelength-selective reflection layer formed on the concavo-convex surface. The wavelength-selective reflection layer directionally reflects light having a specific wavelength band selectively, while transmitting light having wavelength bands other than the specific wavelength band. The concavo-convex surface is provided with a plurality of first structural elements that are extended in a first direction within the surface of the optical layer and a plurality of second structural elements that are extended in a second direction within the surface of the optical layer, and placed to be spaced apart from each other, with the first direction and the second direction intersecting with each other.
US09964674B2

The present disclosure relates to prismatic retroreflective articles that includes a security mark and to methods of making such articles.
US09964673B2

An optical system has an aperture device having a multiplicity of aperture elements for the delimitation of the cross section of a ray bundle running through the optical system. The aperture device has a first aperture element, which is pivotable about a first rotation axis between an engagement position in the beam path of the optical system and a neutral position outside the beam path of the optical system and has a first aperture opening delimited by a first aperture edge. The aperture device also has at least one second aperture element, which is pivotable about a second rotation axis between an engagement position in the beam path of the optical system and a neutral position outside the beam path of the optical system and has a second aperture opening delimited by a second aperture edge. The second aperture opening is smaller than the first aperture opening. The aperture elements pivoted into the engagement position form an effective aperture opening. The aperture edges of aperture elements pivoted into the engagement position do not lie in a common plane.
US09964671B2

The present invention provides a display substrate including a plurality of pixel units. Wherein, the plurality of pixel units include a plurality of oblique pixel units, and length directions of the plurality of oblique pixel units are oblique relative to a horizontal direction. The present invention further provides a display panel and a stereoscopic display device. When stereoscopic display is performed using the display panel according to the present invention, the resolutions of each parallax image in both a length direction and a width direction of the display panel decrease, i.e., the problem that the resolution of a single-eye image decreasing only in one direction when stereoscopic display is performed is avoided, thereby improving the display effect.
US09964670B2

An inorganic optical element, including: a birefringent film 12 having a columnar structure; and a protective film 13 formed on the birefringent film 12, wherein a component of the protective film 13 enters a gap of the birefringent film 12.
US09964666B2

The present invention relates to a process comprising the steps of reacting a reactive mixture comprising at least one silicone-containing component, at least one hydrophilic component, and at least one diluent to form an ophthalmic device having an advancing contact angle of less than about 80°; and contacting the ophthalmic device with an aqueous extraction solution at an elevated extraction temperature, wherein said at least one diluent has a boiling point at least about 10° higher than said extraction temperature.
US09964659B2

Metamaterials are used in well logging measurement tools to provide high directionality galvanic and induction tools having metamaterial focusing. Using metamaterial lenses, currents injected by galvanic tools can be focused in both axial and azimuthal directions. In addition, the focus plane can be shifted away from the tool body into a borehole formation, making measurements more sensitive to zones of interest and less sensitive to boreholes and invaded zones. Another metamaterial lens can bend injected currents toward the head of the tool, adding a look-ahead functionality.
US09964656B2

Methods and systems that remove particle-sensor noise from measured vertical-velocity wavefield are presented. A approximate vertical-velocity data is computed from pressure data and vertical-velocity data at receiver coordinates of a seismic data acquisition system. The pressure data is composed of a pressure signal component and pressure-sensor noise and the vertical-velocity data is composed of a vertical-velocity signal component and particle-motion-sensor noise. A filter that gives a minimum difference between the vertical-velocity data and the approximate vertical-velocity data at each receiver coordinate is computed. Vertical-velocity data composed of the vertical-velocity signal component and approximate particle-motion-sensor noise based on the pressure-sensor noise is convolved with the filter at each receiver coordinate.
US09964636B1

A method of using a directional sensor for the purposes of detecting the presence of a vehicle or an object within a zone of interest on a roadway or in a parking space. The method comprises the following steps: transmitting a microwave transmit pulse of less than 5 feet; radiating the transmitted pulse by a directional antenna system; receiving received pulses by an adjustable receive window; integrating or combining signals from multiple received pulses; amplifying and filtering the integrated receive signal; digitizing the combined signal; comparing the digitized signal to at least one preset or dynamically computed threshold values to determine the presence or absence of an object in the field of view of the sensor; and providing at least one pulse generator with rise and fall times of less than 3 ns each and capable of generating pulses less than 10 ns in duration.
US09964634B2

A motion processor (118) includes a motion estimator (306) that iteratively estimates a motion between a pair of consecutive frames of pre-processed echoes, wherein the motion estimator (306) generates the estimated motion based on at least on one iteration. A method includes iteratively estimating tissue motion between a pair of consecutive frames of pre-processed echoes over at least one iteration.
US09964632B1

A light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system can emit light toward an environment and detect responsively reflected light to determine a distance to one or more points in the environment. The reflected light can be detected by a plurality of plurality of photodiodes that are reverse-biased using a high voltage. Signals from the plurality of reverse-biased photodiodes can be amplified by respective transistors and applied to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The signal from a particular photodiode can be applied to the ADC by biasing a respective transistor corresponding to the particular photodiode while not biasing transistors corresponding to other photodiodes. The gain of each photodiode/transistor pair can be controlled by adjusting the bias voltage applied to each photodiode using a digital-to-analog converter. The gain of each photodiode/transistor pair can be controlled based on the detected temperature of each photodiode.
US09964623B1

A tracking device broadcasts beacon signals that are separated in time by broadcast intervals. The tracking device determines the broadcast intervals based on a behavior model. The behavior model specifies one or more conditions, such as times of day within a 24-hour day, and associates a usage probability with each condition. A higher usage probability causes the tracking device to broadcast beacon signals at shorter broadcast intervals. A mobile device in communication with the tracking device can reconfigure the behavior model, either by modifying portions of the behavior model or by replacing the behavior model with a different behavior model. This allows the behavior model to adapt to different circumstances, such as different usage patterns during weekdays, weekends, and vacations.
US09964622B2

In the field of deviometers used for detecting and locating laser spots, and more precisely to a laser spot detector with matrix deviometer, a device comprises a readout circuit exhibiting a matrix of pixels, a matrix of photodiodes produced on a single substrate, said photodiodes each comprising an individual electrode, and a laser pulse detection device. The particular feature of the device resides in the fact that said matrix of photodiodes is hybridized on said readout circuit by way of balls made of flexible and conducting material, such as indium, placed in contact with the pixels of the readout circuit, so that said single substrate constitutes an electrode common to the set of photodiodes and that said individual electrodes are linked to said pixels by said balls.
US09964621B2

A method and apparatus for reducing scan time, eddy currents and image factors in dynamic magnetic resonance (MR) imaging associated with at least a portion a k-space. The method includes scanning at least a portion of the k-space with an Echo-Planar Imaging (EPI) pulse sequence technique, acquiring a randomly under-sampled k-space; and reconstructing the under-sampled k-space utilizing a constrained reconstruction technique. A dynamic image is constructed of the at least a portion of the k-space based on EPI and the randomly undersampled k-space techniques to each segment of the EPI pulse sequence technique.
US09964618B2

A method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) includes applying radio frequency (RF) pulses including a plurality of frequency components and a selection gradient to a target to simultaneously excite a plurality of sub-volumes included in each of a plurality of groups, wherein neighboring sub-volumes of all sub-volumes constituting a volume of the target belong to different groups; acquiring magnetic resonance signals from the plurality of sub-volumes by performing 3D encoding on each of the excited sub-volumes; and reconstructing the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the plurality of sub-volumes.
US09964603B2

A tool for the primary shaping of a housing for a sensor which is designed to capture, via a sensing element, a physical area that is dependent on a variable to be measured, and to emit an electrical output signal on the basis of the captured physical area, including: —a mold cavity for receiving a material that molds the housing, and the sensing element, and —a box having a wall that bounds the mold cavity, wherein at least a part of the wall that bounds the mold cavity is mounted in a displaceable manner.
US09964598B2

The present invention relates to an electronic load module and to a method and a system therefor. The method comprises receiving control data (301) from a connectable power controller via a data bus connector (202), and controlling (302) an active load (203) based on the received control data to sink a defined current from a connectable device under test via a first input (204). The method further comprises controlling (303) the activate load (203) based on the received control data by means of a digital control circuit (201) and the connectable power controller to generate and maintain an ambient temperature of the device under test.
US09964597B2

Methods and apparatus for self test of safety logic in safety critical devices is provided in which the safety logic includes comparator logic coupled to a circuit under test (CUT) in a safety critical device and the self test logic is configured to test the comparator logic. The self test logic may be implemented as a single cycle parallel bit inversion approach, a multi-cycle serial bit inversion approach, or a single cycle test pattern injection approach.
US09964596B2

An integrated circuit operable in a scan mode includes a scan chain formed by cascaded flip-flop cells. Each flip-flop cell includes a master latch that receives a first data signal and generates a first latch signal, a slave latch that receives the first latch signal and generates a second latch signal, and a multiplexer having first and second inputs respectively connected to the master and slave latches for receiving a first input signal and the second latch signal, and generating a scan data output signal depending on a trig signal. The first input signal is one of the first data signal and the first latch signal. The clock signal provided to the slave latch is gated by the trig signal.
US09964590B2

Configurable probe blocks for system monitoring are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to monitor a system include configuring a probe block based on a first value of a control word specifying that a first probe input from a set of available probe inputs associated with the probe block is to be enabled and that a first trigger condition from a set of available trigger conditions associated with the probe block is to be assigned to the first probe input. Some such disclosed example methods also include processing, in accordance with the configuring of the probe block based on the first value of the control word, monitored data accessible via the probe block to determine probe data to output from the probe block.
US09964586B2

In a testing circuit performing a testing operation to detect an RF circuit characteristic, a first filter unit is provided, having a first external terminal electrically coupled to a testing signal and a second external terminal electrically coupled to an RF circuit of the RF device. The first filter unit is configured to allow the testing signal to enter the RF circuit while blocking an RF signal transmitted in the RF circuit from entering the testing circuit. In addition, a testing-result informing unit is provided, having an external input electrically coupled to the first external terminal, and generating an informing signal, which indicates a condition of the RF circuit according to an electric level at the external input.
US09964581B2

A resonant test system can be configured to adjust an inductance to set the inductance of the resonant test system to a test inductance value and to adjust an output frequency of the resonant test system to set the output frequency to a test output frequency. The inductance of the resonant test system can be adjusted by controlling a reactor of the resonant test system and the output frequency of the resonant test system can be controlled by an inverter of the resonant test system. The test inductance value and the test output frequency the test inductance value and the test output frequency can be automatically and dynamically set by a controller of the resonant test system to achieve resonance in series with an electrical power cable under test. One or more diagnostic tests can be performed on the electrical power cable.
US09964572B2

A method and system are provided. The method includes collecting, from a plurality of phasor measurement units, a plurality of synchronized phasor measurements from different portions of a power system. The method further includes estimating, by a controller, oscillation modes of the plurality of synchronized phasor measurements. Each estimated oscillation mode specifies, for each of the plurality of synchronized phasor measurements, two or more of an amplitude, a phase, a frequency, and damping coefficients. The method also includes performing, by the controller, a modal analysis of the oscillation modes of the plurality of synchronized phasor measurements to identify critical modes based on critical mode identifying criteria. The method additionally includes constructing, by the controller based on the critical modes, a power system oscillation dampening control signal for controlling a grid-scale storage portion of the power system to dampen one or more oscillations of the power system at any given time.
US09964560B2

To provide a high-reliable transfer mold type sensor device in which a combined sensor including a plurality of sensors having a function of detecting physical amounts, a substrate processing a signal from the combined sensor and controlling a signal input/output with an external device, a chip pad mounted with the combined sensor and the substrate, and a lead frame are sealed with a mold resin and a package is formed, the combined sensor is configured to be thicker than the substrate and the chip pad, a principal surface side of the combined sensor is covered with the mold resin and a back surface side thereof contacts the substrate by a joint material, and the combined sensor is arranged on a package neutral surface in a cross-section of a thickness direction of the package including the combined sensor, the substrate, and the chip pad.
US09964555B2

A field device for determining or monitoring a physical or chemical process variable in automation technology, comprising at least one transmitting/receiving element, wherein an FPGA component is provided, the transmitting/receiving element is configured in the form of a spiral from existing internal connecting lines of the FPGA component, and the spiral of the transmitting/receiving element transmits data inductively to a second transmitting/receiving element in the form of a spiral.
US09964552B2

A method is described for mass spectrometric analysis, detection and quantification of catecholamines. The methods can comprise reacting the catecholamines with a 4-aminoantipyrine reagent and detecting and/or quantifying the adduct produced by the reaction. The methods can also allow for multiplexing. Compounds formed by the reactions are also provided.
US09964542B2

Compositions, kits, and methods for the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of bladder cancer in a subject are provided by detecting in a urine sample a combination of biomarkers. In one embodiment of the invention, biomarker panels consisting of individual targets listed in Tables 4 through 10 may be detected. In another embodiment of the invention, multiplex biomarker panels of various composition, but including those biomarkers listed above may be detected.
US09964540B2

Provided herein are methods of detecting and/or monitoring the presence or severity of an immune disorder in a subject, including detecting a frequency of a Th2a subset of CD4+ T cells in a biological sample of the subject. In some embodiments, the detecting includes: (a) detecting a frequency of CD4+ T cells in a biological sample of said subject; (b) detecting a frequency of a Th2a subset of the CD4+ T cells in the biological sample; and (c) comparing the frequency of the Th2a subset with the frequency of the CD4+ T cells.
US09964532B2

A biodegradable soil sensor, a biodegradable soil sensing system and method for obtaining soil information is provided. The biodegradable sensor may include one or more electrically conductive bioinert traces and a biodegradable substrate having a printed circuit of the one or more electrically conductive bioinert traces. A biodegradable antenna may be formed by at least one of the one or more electrically conductive bioinert traces. A sensor may be connected to the one or more electrically conductive bioinert traces. The sensor may also include a biodegradable encapsulation layer housing the biodegradable substrate and the electrically conductive bioinert traces.
US09964526B2

The phased-array probe to be received on a probe receiving area of a wedge generally has a probe housing, a plurality of acoustic transducer elements disposed in the probe housing and distributed along a length of a working surface of the probe housing, and a matching layer covering the plurality of acoustic transducer elements and extending to cover an extended region of the working surface of the probe housing such that the matching layer forms a closed contact with an upper end of an acoustic damping junction of the wedge when the working surface of the probe housing of the phased-array probe is received on the probe receiving area of the wedge, wherein the closed contact prevents acoustic energy from being reflected from the extended region of the working surface of the probe housing.
US09964520B2

To provide a surface property inspection device and method capable of inspecting the surface treatment state of treated material subjected to surface treatments. A surface property inspection device 1 includes an AC power supply 10, an AC bridge circuit 20, and an evaluation apparatus 30, and the AC bridge circuit 20 is formed by a variable resistor 21 with a distribution ratio of γ, a reference detector 22, and an inspection detector 23. The inspection detector 23 includes a coil 23b wound so as to oppose the surface property inspection area of the test object M; an eddy current is excited in the test object M by supplying AC power to the coil 23b. A reference test object S with the same structure as the test object M is placed in the reference detector 22 to cancel inspection environment effects.
US09964516B2

An ISFET includes a control gate coupled to a floating gate in a CMOS device. The control gate, for example, a poly-to-well capacitor, is configured to receive a bias voltage and effect movement of a trapped charge between the control gate and the floating gate. The threshold voltage of the ISFET can therefore by trimmed to a predetermined value, thereby storing the trim information (the amount of trapped charge in the floating gate) within the ISFET itself.
US09964514B2

A method for producing a gas sensor device for detecting a gaseous analyte includes providing a sensor body comprising a semiconductor substrate, in which a cavity section is shaped, and a solid electrolyte layer arranged at a surface of the substrate. The electrolyte layer is not covered by the substrate in the cavity section. The method includes producing a signal conductor layer deposited dry-chemically at a substrate side of the sensor body, such that, in the region of the electrolyte layer not covered by the substrate in the cavity section, a cutout section is shaped in the signal conductor layer, in which the signal conductor layer is removed or not deposited. The method includes applying measuring electrodes to the electrolyte layer by a wet-chemical process. One measuring electrode is arranged in the cutout section and one measuring electrode is arranged on an electrolyte layer side of the sensor body.
US09964509B2

An ion sensor for sensing an ion concentration in a bulk solution comprises a reference electrode embedded in an reference electrolyte solution, and a first ion-selective electrode. The ion sensor moreover comprises a second electrode sensitive to the reference ions or to an ion different from the ion to be measured, whereby the second electrode is in direct contact with the bulk solution when the ion sensor is immersed therein. The potential difference between the first electrode and the reference electrode is a measure for the ion concentration in the bulk solution and is corrected with the potential difference between the second electrode and the reference electrode to compensate for the drift of the reference electrode.
US09964503B2

The present application is directed towards systems and methods for evaluating the integrity of objects through non-destructive means. The objects are evaluated for flaws and defects through the use of applied acoustic energy. The applied acoustic energy creates a dynamic response of the object being evaluated to determine the location of any flaws or defects in the object. During excitation, the flaws and defects in a sample object generate heat at the damaged or defective regions through frictional interactions of the discontinuities. A flaw detection system includes, a plurality of acoustic energy sources to excite an object, a camera to record metrics of the response of the object and a processor configured to receive and analyze the response of the object.
US09964493B2

A method of using a paint sensor to observe stress distributions of a stressed substrate includes the steps of applying a composition including a paintable medium and a mechanoluminescence material to a substrate, allowing the composition to form a solid film on the substrate, allowing the substrate to be stressed following the formation of the solid film, and measuring the stress the substrate has undergone by determining the mechanoluminescence of the solid film. A composition for visualizing stress or crack distributions includes a paintable medium and a mechanoluminescence material dispersed therein.
US09964475B2

A device and method of using infrared radiation to observe coal rock fracture development processes, for use in experiments to monitor coal rock fracture development using infrared radiation comprises three telescopic box bodies sleeved together. An infrared thermal imager connected to a computer is arranged at the front end of the telescopic box bodies, and a light-blocking plate is installed on a rear end. The distance between a coal rock test block and a lens of the infrared thermal imager can be freely adjusted via the three telescopic box bodies. The telescopic box bodies are installed on a rock press, and a loading test is performed on the coal rock test block.
US09964464B2

An optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) system with an integrated high speed optical modulator is capable of operating at a speed similar to the OTDR pulse width to improve the measurement resolution and reduce the time required to acquire a high dynamic range OTDR measurement over existing approaches. ASICs can be used to control the modulator and generation of pulses. The high-speed optical modulator enables high resolution single-photon OTDR measurement by blocking out all return light except from the region of fiber under examination.
US09964463B2

An article under test, such as a wing or other aerodynamic component of an aircraft, is load tested by applying a desired load at a desired angle. When a change in attitude of the article under test is determined, a position of a load mechanism that provides the load to the article under test is changed in real time to maintain the desired angle. The load may also be dynamically adjusted according to the position of the article under test.
US09964461B2

A sealing device is provided for use with a fitting. The fitting has circular port and a flow path with a longitudinal axis. A circular port encircles a portion of the flow path opposite the port with the sealing device inserted into the port. The sealing device has a circular top with two opposing surfaces depending therefrom but inclined so the surfaces are closer at the top. A continuous sidewall joins the periphery of the two surfaces. The opposing surfaces are inclined and spaced apart further at the top than at an end opposite the top. A cylindrical hole through the opposing surfaces encircles the flow path during use.
US09964450B2

A magnetizable chemical composition including at least one polar solvent (4) selected from the group comprising an alcohol with a number of carbon atoms from C8 to C14, polytetrahydrofuran, or a mixture thereof; a ferromagnetic component, including a plurality of magnetizable particles (1) of Stable Single Domain (SSD) type selected from the group comprising magnetite, substituted magnetite and/or ferrite in an amount from 5 to 15% by volume of solvent and having a diameter from about 20 nm to 50 nm; and a polymer component (2) including polyvinyl butyral (PVB) or polyvinyl butyral-vinyl alcohol-vinyl acetate copolymer in a percentage from 3 to 15% by volume of solvent, the polymeric component being shaped as a net or mesh and delimiting a plurality of housing cells or zones (3), in each of which one of said particles (1) is housed immersed in the polar solvent (4). A method of obtaining such a composition, a microcapsule comprising the composition, an ink comprising the microcapsules and a method of testing a product marked with such ink.
US09964446B2

A bolometer is described. A bolometer includes a superconductor-insulator-semiconductor-superconductor structure or a superconductor-insulator-semiconductor-insulator-superconductor structure. The semiconductor comprises an electron gas in a layer of silicon, germanium or silicon-germanium alloy in which valley degeneracy is at least partially lifted. The insulator or a one or both of the insulators may comprise a layer of dielectric material. The insulator or a one or both of the insulators may comprise a layer of non-degenerately doped semiconductor.
US09964445B1

Provided are a color-matching apparatus and a color-matching method for a repair paint capable of sufficiently supporting a color-matching operation that has been conventionally performed by experience and intuition, mainly at an automobile repair shop. The color-matching apparatus and the color-matching method for a repair paint calculates, for each coordinate axis, an error between colorimetric data of a painting object portion and colorimetric data of a painting plate (S3), retrieves, for each coordinate axis, a mixed paint having characteristic information acting in a direction of reducing the error as a color-matching candidate (S5), calculate a basic amount of the color-matching candidate corresponding to an amount of the repair paint used for painting the painting object portion (S7), calculate, for each coordinate axis, an error rate by dividing the error by a reference value corresponding to the colorimetric data (S8), and calculate a color-matching amount for each color-matching candidate by multiplying the basic amount of the color-matching candidate by the error rate (S10).
US09964443B1

A spectrometer having substantially increased spectral and spatial fields.
US09964439B2

In some embodiments, an apparatus includes a housing and an image sensor that is coupled to the housing and has a field of view. The apparatus also includes a non-imaging optical system coupled to the housing and disposed outside of the field of view of the image sensor. The non-imaging optical system can output diffuse light in a set of directions to a surface to produce scattered light. The image sensor and the non-imaging optical system are collectively configured such that during operation, the image sensor receives at least a portion of the scattered light.
US09964437B2

A laser scanner which includes a light source which emits a light beam and a scanning mirror rotatable about an axis which reflects the light beam through a tilted protective window toward a scanning area and which directs return light from objects toward receiving optics. The laser scanner may include a collecting mirror which receives the return light, and an interference filter disposed between the collecting mirror and the scanning mirror. The window may include an anti-reflective coating which reduces reflection of internally scattered light. The tilted window may direct the reflective component of internally scattered light into a zone where an energy light absorber is present. A bulkhead system which may include a separation baffle may be provided to prevent light incident on the interference filter at an angle which is below an acceptance angle of the interference filter.
US09964428B2

Hydraulic valve circuitry adapted for automatic weight-responsive control of load-clamping members of a load-lifting system having a free lift mast. The load-lifting system generally includes one or more fluid power actuator for applying a gripping force to a load, at least one elongate, longitudinally-extensible fluid power lifting device having a free lift range of motion and at least one main lift range of motion, and manually operated load-clamping and load-lifting selector valves. The hydraulic valve circuitry provides, independently, weight-responsive control of the load-clamping members when lifting a load, full-time automatic weight-responsive force control of the load-clamping members without concurrent manual actuation of load-clamping or load-lifting selector valves, and equalization of sensed load weight so that the sensed load weight is substantially independent of the longitudinally-extensible position of the lifting device.
US09964427B2

A liquid level sensor system is disclosed for remotely monitoring the liquid level in a tank. The system comprises a first fixed portion with a first liquid level response unit, and a second fixed portion with a second liquid level response unit. A guide tube is inserted into the tank and attached to the bottom of the first fixed portion. The guide tube is provided with a multitude of ports, such that the liquid level in the guide tube is flush with the liquid level in the tank. The first liquid level response unit comprises a float floating up and down with the variation of the liquid level in the guide tube, a rotating shaft rotating around a relatively fixed axis of rotation in the up and down floating process of the float, and a permanent magnet. The second fixed portion is attached to the top of the first fixed portion. The second liquid level response unit comprises a PCB, a magnetoresistive angle sensor chip, and a control circuit electrically connected to the magnetoresistive angle sensor chip. The magnetoresistive angle sensor chip outputs an analog voltage signal to the control circuit according to the rotation angle of the permanent magnet, and the control circuit calculates the height of the liquid level according to the analog voltage signal.
US09964423B2

A device for determining the mass flow of a fluid includes a line for conducting the fluid in a flow direction to a contact with a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger has a surface temperature which is constant in the flow direction. The device also includes a first temperature measuring position upstream from the exchanger for determining a first fluid temperature, a second temperature measuring position downstream from the heat exchanger for determining a second fluid temperature, and a third temperature measuring position for detecting the surface temperature of the heat exchanger.
US09964418B2

By configuring independently controlled clock signals to a plurality of sensors, preferably an angle sensor and a turn sensor, in communication with one another, a wider variety of sensors and sensor combinations can be used while still being able to synchronize output data of the sensors. Independently controlling clock signals of the sensors to selectively control the timing and portion(s) of data being communicated between the sensors enables data of the sensors to be merged, fused or otherwise combined using different types of sensors whose outputted data ordinarily cannot easily be combined.
US09964415B2

Methods, devices, and systems are provided that track details of power transfers made between power sources and electric vehicles. The power tracking system monitors the source of charges received, how much charge was provided, rates billed for the charging service and other information related to a charging transaction. The tracked power consumption may be used by the power tracking system server to anticipate future charging times, preferences, or locations, and even determine driving habits, and demand for charging in a region or area.
US09964413B2

A navigation device for a movable object includes a data provider and a processor that provides a three-dimensional navigation map having towering map objects. Based on an ascertained position of a movable object, the processor receives a three-dimensional navigation map having towering map objects of an area surrounding the movable object and provides navigation map to a display device so that the navigation map is reproducible by the display device in a manner viewed from a view position which is located above the navigation map and is a function of the ascertained position of the movable object. The processor dynamically alters a height of a towering map object in the navigation map as a function of a distance of the towering map object to the view position.
US09964405B2

The invention relates to a method, for determining a distance between an object with respect to an imaging system, improving the reconstruction of images of objects imaged by an imaging system and improving the resolution of the images obtained.
US09964399B2

A component, such as a cyclonic steam separator baseplate of a steam generator, includes a surface subject to degradation during operation of the system in which the component is disposed. A profile is acquired of the surface of the component using an optical surface profilometry system concurrent with an image of the surface. A condition, such as degradation of the component is classified based on the acquired profile and image of the surface of the component. Component conditions may be monitored over time, trended, and classified as requiring maintenance, repair, or replacement.
US09964394B2

An alignment apparatus (the tool) of the present invention includes a pair of bracket devices for rigidly holding shafts. As the shafts are secured to the bracket devices with chains, sensors of one of the bracket devices are exposed to an extension beam of the other bracket device thereby defining gaps or distances between the extension beam and the sensors. If offset is determined between the distances because one shaft is misaligned relative the other shaft, the sensors send signal to a mobile device, thereby informing a user about misalignment between the shafts.
US09964392B2

During a retraction where a stylus tip separates from a work piece from a state where the stylus tip and the work piece are in contact, whether there is contact between the stylus tip and the work piece is monitored. When the contact between the stylus tip and the work piece is detected during the retraction, a probe is displaced to a position where the stylus tip does not come in contact with the work piece and a recovery process is executed. When a distance between a point on a surface of the work piece at a retraction start point and a contact point between the stylus tip and the work piece is Lm, and a value defined by (Lm−d) multiplied by a coefficient k (0
US09964382B2

A target acquisition device and a system thereof called ArmConnect™ are disclosed. The target acquisition device of the present invention comprises an optical module, an image sensor, a compass, an acceleration sensor, an accessory connector, a display and a sight control circuit. The target acquisition system of the present invention comprises a target acquisition device, a range finder and a mobile device, wherein the target acquisition device further comprises a wireless transmission module for connecting to the mobile device. The range finder is connected to the target acquisition device by the accessory connector. Some assistant devices, such as a remote control, a weather station, a night vision, a recorder, a camera and etc., can also be connected to the target acquisition device for providing supports to make the ammunition hit the target.
US09964371B1

A charging handle having a charging handle body including a base portion; a handle element slidably and at least partially rotatable relative to said base portion; and a latch element slidable and at least partially rotatable relative to said handle element, and wherein at least a portion of said latch element is formed so as to interact with at least a portion of said handle recess such that rotational or longitudinal movement of said handle element relative to a longitudinal axis of said charging handle produces lateral, translational movement of said latch element relative to said charging handle body.
US09964369B2

An auto-loading firearm has a frame defining a bolt passage, a bolt operable to reciprocate between a battery position and a retracted position, a barrel defining a gas aperture, an energy transmission facility having a first end communicating with the gas aperture and an opposed second end, the bolt having a bolt body and a bolt key movable with respect to the bolt body between a forward position and a rearward position, the bolt key operably engaging the second end of the energy transmission facility when the bolt is in the battery position, the bolt including a latch element operably engaged to the bolt key having a locked position to prevent reciprocation of the bolt, and an unlocked position in which reciprocation of the bolt is enabled, and the latch element being responsive to rearward motion of the bolt key to move from the locked position to the unlocked position.
US09964364B2

An aluminum sheet product comprises: a core layer comprising one of a 3xxx, 5xxx and 6xxx aluminum alloy; and a liner layer comprising one of a 3xxx aluminum alloy having an additive of 0.5-5% Zn, and a 7xxx aluminum alloy. In some embodiments, the aluminum sheet product r has an O temper pre-braze tensile strength of at least 20 Ksi. In some embodiments the corrosion potential difference between the liner and core is at least 30 millivolts. In some embodiments, the aluminum sheet product further comprises an inner layer comprising one of a 3xxx and a 4xxx aluminum alloy.
US09964361B2

A brazed plate heat exchanger with at least one stack of heat exchanger plates and at least one functional component connected by piping physically and in terms of flow to the stack, for example, a collecting tank, in which case the stack executes a settling movement during brazing. Production is achieved in that the plate heat exchanger with the functional component is produced in a vacuum brazing furnace in a single brazing process, in which at least one structure is contained in the piping that compensates for the settling movement of the plate stack. A corresponding production method is also proposed.
US09964358B2

The substrate processing unit 1 comprises the rotating table 31 configured to hold substrate W, the processing chamber 37 which accommodates the rotating table 31, a lamp 61 is provided above the processing chamber 37 and configured to heat the surface of substrate W, the lamp chamber 60 which accommodates that lamp 61, a transmission window 62 disposed below the lamp chamber 60, and a plurality of nozzle 64 which supply cooling fluid G to the transmission window 62. Then the substrate processing unit 1 can suppress generating of a water mark or pattern collapse, and can perform good substrate processing.
US09964354B2

A method is provided for production of gaseous oxygen at high pressures by splitting a main air feed into at least three separate streams, with the first stream being fed to a heat exchanger and then a column system for rectification; the second stream being further compressed in a warm booster, partially cooled in the heat exchanger, expanded in a turbine coupled to the warm booster and then fed to the column system; the third stream being expanded in a warm expander before being introduced to the heat exchanger and introduced to the column system. In certain embodiments, substantially all of the main air feed is eventually introduced to the column system for rectification, resulting in reduced sizing of a main air compressor and improved product recoveries.
US09964353B2

A system and method serve generate oxygen by low-temperature air separation in a distillation column system having a high-pressure column and a low-pressure column, a main condenser which is constructed as a condenser-evaporator, and an auxiliary column. A gaseous oxygen-containing fraction is introduced into the auxiliary column. A nitrogen-containing liquid stream from the high-pressure column, the main condenser or the low-pressure column is applied as reflux to the top of the auxiliary column. An argon-rich stream from an intermediate site of the low-pressure column is introduced into an argon removal column that has an argon removal column top condenser. The low-pressure column is arranged beside the high-pressure column, the main condenser is arranged over the high-pressure column, the auxiliary column is arranged over the main condenser, the argon removal column is arranged over the auxiliary column and the argon removal column top condenser is arranged over the argon removal column.
US09964336B2

Methods of operating solar tracking apparatuses are described. For example, a method includes determining a minimum amount of energy required to move the solar tracking apparatus from a first position to a second position. An available radiance is estimated for a solar resource coupled to the solar tracking apparatus. The solar tracking apparatus is moved from the first position to the second position prior to a point in time when the energy derivable from the available radiance is less than the minimum amount of energy required to move the solar tracking apparatus from the first position to the second position.
US09964327B2

An air-conditioning remote controller allowing a user to intuitively grasp a setting status of an air-conditioner and to use the controller commonly between a plurality of models of the main body of the air-conditioners, the air-conditioning remote controller including an input unit to input setting values for setting items relating to air-conditioning control, and a display unit having a predetermined area to display a plurality of icons thereon and displaying setting values and icons depending on the number of taps, wherein the display unit changes the number of displayable icons depending on the number of taps for the main body of the air-conditioner controlled using the setting values, and also displays the icons with the larger size per tap as the number of the icons in the air-conditioner is getting smaller.
US09964317B2

A portable DC air-conditioner has a cooler circulation system inside a housing, including a DC compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve and an evaporator. The evaporator is disposed inside an air duct which has an end thereof connected to a fan and another end thereof forming a discharging exit. The condenser is arranged below the evaporator and the air duct has a guiding tube at the bottom thereof so that the water drops made by the evaporator would be guided to flow into the condenser. A distributing portion is disposed on the housing, including a base connected to the discharging exit and at least one hollow frame having a circular slit on the inner edge for cooled air to be discharged. The evaporator in the air duct would produce cooled air and transport the cooled air to the discharging exit to flow out from the circular slit, forming a cooler circulation system with small volume and great efficiency.
US09964316B2

A weather forecast-based fluid heating control system having at least one hot fluid delivery point, the control system including a controller adapted to control a fluid supply to a setpoint temperature, a means for obtaining the forecasted air temperature at a future time of the location of the control system and a means for obtaining the current air temperature at a current time of the location of the control system. The setpoint temperature of the fluid supply is adjusted by an adjustment amount if the difference between the forecasted air temperature of the location of the control system and the current temperature at the current time of the location of the control system exceeds a pre-determined threshold.
US09964315B1

Disclosed is a two-way check/bypass valve assembly connected between the hot and cold-water standpipes under the sink that allows convective circulation of hot water from an existing water heater, through the existing hot water distribution pipes, through the valve assembly to the cold water standpipe, through the existing cold water standpipe and distribution pipes, and back into the water heater. The convective water flow is induced by the temperature difference between the hot water in the pipe rising above the water heater, and the slightly cooled, and denser, water flowing back down into the water heater. The valve will allow this low circulation water flow so long as both hot and cold faucets at the outlet are closed, and will prevent any cross flow between the hot and cold pipes under the sink when either the hot or cold faucet is opened.
US09964306B2

The invention relates to a glow plug comprising a housing, a ceramic pencil-type glow element which projects from the housing with a first end and is arranged inside the housing with a second end, a feed line which is arranged in the housing and leads to the pencil-type glow element, and a sleeve-type element which surrounds a section of the pencil-type glow element projecting from the housing. The invention is characterized in that the pencil-type glow element has a section surrounded by the housing which section tapers towards the second end, the pencil-type glow element is encircled by a contact element in the housing, which contact element has a section that narrows towards the second end of the pencil-type glow element, said narrowing section encircling at least a subsection of the tapered section of the pencil-type glow element. The invention further relates to a method for producing said glow plug.
US09964302B2

The present invention relates to a system for utilizing liquid fuels, such as diesel and gasoline, in a catalytic reactor for producing clean heat from the fuel. In particular it relates to a fuel injection system for a catalytic burner (310, 313). It includes preheating elements (308′, 309, 315; FT) for preheating the catalytic burner (310, 313) and primary fuel supply elements (307) for supplying fuel to the catalytic burner (310, 313). The preheating elements (308′, 309, 315; FT) and the primary fuel supply elements (307) are provided in separate compartments (310, 312), the compartments being connected with each other via a channel (CH).
US09964300B2

An atomizer, electronic cigarette and method for assembling the atomizer, wherein the atomizer is configured to be connected to a battery sleeve to form an electronic cigarette, comprising an oil storage cavity, a holding cavity, a heating assembly received in the holding cavity, and an electrode assembly configured to be electrically connected to the battery rod; the heating assembly including a heating wire electrically connected to the electrode assembly and an oil guide rope for transferring tobacco tar to the heating wire; one side of the oil storage cavity defines an oil outlet, a clamp seat configured to clamp the oil guide rope is received in the holding cavity and is located between the heating wire and the oil outlet, and the oil guide rope extends to one side of the clamp seat away from the heating wire.
US09964299B2

A steam generator includes an inlet configured to receive a liquid (such as water); a heating element for converting the liquid into a vapor (such as steam), the vapor bearing particles such as mineral deposits formed by the converting of the liquid; an outlet in fluid communication with the inlet, the outlet configured to discharge filtered vapor and having a size on the order of larger ones of the particles; and a filter structure adjacent to the outlet to filter the larger particles out of the vapor to produce the filtered vapor for discharge from the outlet. By action of the filter structure, larger particles are prevented from reaching the outlet, reducing clogging and extending the usable lifetime of a small appliance containing the steam generator. The filter structure may include spaced-apart members such as posts or pillars extending perpendicularly in a planar fluid flow passage.
US09964298B2

In an example a lamp shield comprises: a front face; a skirt extending from the front face, wherein the skirt comprises a heat spreader; and an extended arm connected to the front face or the skirt. A headlamp assembly can comprise: a reflector and the lamp shield.
US09964290B2

A portable light may comprise: a light housing extending from a light head and defining an envelope line extending along a side thereof, the light housing having a recess in the side thereof inward of the envelope line; a light source supported by the light head and energizable to produce light; a switch for selectively energizing the light source; and a clip disposed in the recess of the light housing and configured so that the clip is substantially in the recess and substantially within the envelope line of the light housing.
US09964289B2

An LED light fixture having adjacent interconnected light fixture modules, each comprising a power system extrusion, an LED light module body attachable to the power system extrusion, female and male end caps at opposite ends of each extrusion and respectively including a female electrical connector and a male electrical connector, a male electrical connector being configured to plug into the female electrical connector of an adjacent extrusion, and a power box component having a female electrical connector configured to plug into a male electrical connector of a male end cap.
US09964287B2

The invention discloses a LED support comprising an opaque housing. A mounting face for placing at least one LED chip is provided inside the housing. At least two light-exiting windows are provided on the housing so as to allow light emitted from the LED chip to emit outwards from the housing therethrough. The LED support enables a LED assembled with the LED support to emit light from at least two sides, thus light-emitting angle of LED is enlarged, and thereby application range of LED is widened. Meanwhile, with such LED support, the number of the light-exiting windows of the LED comprising the LED support is increased, thus the times by which light from the LED chip mounted on the LED support is reflected inside the LED support is decreased, and thereby light emission efficiency is improved significantly.
US09964285B2

The objective of the present invention is to provide a display device with excellent display quality, which has a light emitting pattern that is reduced in light blurring. A display device according to the present invention is sequentially provided at least with a transparent substrate, a first layer containing a light scattering body, a second layer that contains a light scattering body at a content ratio lower than that of the first layer, a light blocking layer having an opening pattern, and a light source that emits light in an area equal to or larger than the area of the opening pattern, in this order. This display device is characterized in that the content ratio of the light scattering body in the first layer is within the range of 30-90% by volume, and the thickness of the first layer is within the range of 3-15 μm.
US09964284B2

A lock assembly for securing a container having an interior region is provided. In one illustrative embodiment, the lock assembly includes a keypad having a plurality of buttons on a first surface of the keypad, a light-emitting diode, and a bezel surrounding at least a portion of the keypad. The bezel includes a reflective surface positioned to reflect a light from the light-emitting diode, the reflected light illuminating the plurality of buttons.
US09964281B2

Disclosed are flashlights that optimize the light output and beam focus of both a flood beam and a spot beam. The disclosed flashlights include a housing member and a lens including a first focusing element adapted to shape a light beam into a spot beam and a second focusing element adapted to shape a light beam into a flood beam. A first LED is positioned to direct light through the first focusing element, and a second LED positioned to direct light through the second focusing element. The first LED has a smaller die than the second LED, and the distance between the first LED and the first focusing element is greater than the distance between the second LED and the second focusing element.
US09964278B2

A reflecting surface of a reflector has a structure where a plurality of reflecting elements are arranged in rows in an up-and-down direction, and the reflecting elements are arranged as a plurality of sets in a left-and-right direction. The surface of each reflecting element is composed of a curved surface having a horizontal section curvature larger than a vertical section curvature. Thus, a horizontally long light distribution pattern may be easily formed by light reflecting from each reflecting element. Each reflecting element is connected to each of four reflecting elements which are adjacent thereto in the left-and-right direction and are shifted therefrom in the up-and-down direction, through a boundary line extending from a vertical plane in an inclined direction in the left-and-right direction. Thus, the horizontally long light distribution pattern formed by the light reflecting from each reflecting element becomes a bright light distribution pattern having four chipped corners.
US09964275B2

A head lamp includes a plate-shaped base supported in a housing. A first light source is disposed on an upper surface of the base. A second light source is disposed on a lower surface of the base. An upper reflector extends from the upper surface of the base and is configured to reflect incident light emitted from the first light source in a forward direction. A lower reflector extends from the lower surface of the base and is configured to reflect light emitted from the second light source in the forward direction. A shield main body extends from an end of the base and is configured to: block a portion of light reflected from the upper reflector and the lower reflector, and form a beam pattern. A shield protrusion protrudes from the shield main body and is configured to block another portion of the light reflected by the lower reflector.
US09964274B2

An LED vehicle headlight includes a lens, a reflector, a first light source, and a second light source. The lens has a focal plane. The reflector is located at a side of the lens, and the reflector is equipped with a first focal point and a second focal point, wherein the second focal point is located on the focal plane. The first light source has a first light-emitting surface confronting the lens. The second light source has a second light-emitting surface confronting the reflector. The first focal point is located on the second light-emitting surface, and the reflector is configured to reflect and focus light beams emitted from the second light-emitting surface onto the second focal point.
US09964269B2

Apparatuses, systems, and methods in which reflective slats are configured to redirect light received from various sun positions are provided. The slats or mirrored array could be coupled to a base of the redirector, such that an adjustment of an angle of the base relative to the horizontal adjusts an angle of each slat relative to the horizontal. In some aspects, an algorithm can be used to determine the angle of tilt that maximizes the transmission efficiency for the mirror array.
US09964268B2

An LED exterior and street lamp (luminaire) is provided with an LED operating chamber and a functional chamber each hermetically sealed and interconnected to each other in a thermally-isolated manner at their narrow end faces, the chambers being surrounded by a cooling surface which can be replaced externally on the housing of the chambers and can be adapted in terms of surface area.
US09964258B2

Various embodiments provide a light emitting diode (LED) module, an LED lighting device comprising an LED module, and methods for manufacturing an LED module and/or an LED lighting device. In one embodiment, the LED lighting device comprises a housing comprising a metal shell and defining a central opening; and an LED module having one or more LEDs mounted about a periphery of a first surface of the LED module. The LED module is oriented and retained within the central opening of the housing such that the first surface faces out of the central opening. Furthermore, the LED module is secured to the housing via the metal shell.
US09964248B2

A fluid transmission fitting (100) is described comprising a flat-faced female coupler (47) with a frontal annular seal (400) to protect from the introduction of impurities, when uncoupled, during the step of coupling-uncoupling and when coupled to a flat-faced male coupler (48).
US09964246B2

A tubular hose stem with a flange, a first left hand threaded section on the outer surface of the stem generally adjacent the flange, a first JIC/swivel nut over the flange having an inner diameter smaller than the outer diameter of the flange, a second lock nut threadably engaged to the hose stem on a second left threaded section adjacent the JIC nut, a conical washer fixedly secured around the hose stem between the first and second threaded sections, an O-ring positioned adjacent the washer opposite the left side of the washer; and a ferrule having a first end fixedly threaded to the hose stem and having a second end larger in diameter than the stem. The lock nut may have knurled surfaces and the inner diameter of the ferrule and outer diameter of the stem may have circumferential raised ribs to engage hosing.
US09964238B2

An extensible-retractable helically reinforced hose is formed by helically wrapping a freshly extruded bead of thermoplastic material about a rotating mandrel to form a helical array of spaced reinforcing coils, and by helically wrapping a freshly extruded thin yet wide web of thermoplastic material so edge regions of the wide web are placed onto and bond continuously with the peripheries of each adjacent pair of the reinforcing coils, with a leading edge region of each new wrap of the web overlying and bonding to a trailing edge region of a prior web wrap. Central portions of each web wrap extend radially inwardly and are sandwiched between adjacent reinforcing coils when the hose is retracted to a minimal axial length.
US09964235B2

The present invention is related to curved structural support elements installed within a tunnel to provide support to pipelines and the like. They comprise elongated and short curved structural support elements directly fastened to the generally concave inner walls of the tunnel wherein the back surface of said curved structural support elements contacts and substantially follows the geometrical contour of the generally concave inner walls. The elongated and short structural support elements are provided with means to firmly receive and connect to at least one pipeline support element thereto thereby providing support for a pipeline or the like. By using both the elongated and the short curved structural support elements to provide support for pipelines and the like no traction stresses are transferred to the walls of the tunnel.
US09964231B2

Some embodiments provide irrigation valve control apparatuses comprising: a solenoid configured to cooperate with a plunger; an input stimulus source coupled with the solenoid and configured to apply an input stimulus while a plunger drive signal is not being applied and that is sufficiently small to not cause the plunger to move; sampling circuitry configured to measure one or more voltage measurements corresponding to one or more voltages across the solenoid, wherein the one or more voltage measurements are dependent upon the current position of the plunger relative to the solenoid; and control circuitry cooperated with the sampling circuitry to receive the one or more voltage measurements from the sampling circuitry, wherein the control circuitry is configured to determine whether the plunger is in one of the open and closed positions based on the one or more voltage measurements.
US09964226B2

An actuator mounting kit and method for mounting an automatic valve actuator to a manually operated valve. The mounting kit includes a mounting bracket and a stem driver. The mounting bracket is connectable to the valve and has a bottom portion with a stem aperture through which a valve stem is extendable and a tongue matingly engageable with a slot of the valve body. The mounting bracket has an upper portion with a driver aperture aligned with the stem aperture. The stem driver has a first end matingly engageable with the valve stem and a second end extendable through the driver aperture in a way that the actuator is matingly engageable with the second end of the stem driver when the actuator is connected to the upper portion of the mounting bracket.
US09964223B2

A bleed valve for a gas turbine engine compressor has a valve body and a flapper. The valve body defines a flow path and includes a flapper seat. The flow path extends through the valve body. The flapper is pivotally connected to the valve body and is movable between a closed position and an open position. In the closed position the flapper seats against the flapper seat and blocks the flow path. In the open position the flapper is angled towards the valve body inlet such that fluid moving through the valve body exerts force on the flapper, urging the flapper towards the closed position.
US09964215B2

A sliding component is characterized in that the sealing face of one of a pair of sliding parts that slide relative to each other is provided with a first pumping groove that is open to the high-pressure fluid side but isolated from the low-pressure fluid side by a seal area and also angled to discharge the fluid toward the high-pressure fluid side by sliding relative to the mating sealing face, as well as a second pumping groove that is open to the low-pressure fluid side but isolated from the high-pressure fluid side by a seal area and also angled to discharge the fluid toward the high-pressure fluid side by sliding relative to the mating sealing face, wherein the low-pressure fluid-side end of the first pumping groove is arranged adjacent to the high-pressure fluid-side end of the second pumping groove.
US09964212B2

A piston assembly includes a piston cross-member having a first end disposed opposite a second end. The piston assembly also includes a first cap disposed on the first end of the piston cross-member, and a second cap disposed on the second end of the piston cross-member. A slot is formed in the piston cross-member transverse to a length of the piston cross-member. An insert is disposed in the slot, wherein the insert is a wear article configured to contact a crank.
US09964207B2

A transmission controller increases hydraulic pressure supplied to a secondary pulley and decreases hydraulic pressure supplied to a primary pulley to shift a variator to a mechanical Low speed ratio during the hydraulic pressure supplied to the primary pulley and the secondary pulley vibrates. The mechanical Low speed ratio is a speed ratio where a groove width of the primary pulley has a maximum value possible to be employed in structure of the primary pulley.
US09964206B2

A hydraulic control device for an automatic transmission, wherein when the first switching valve is switched to the first state while the second switching valve is in the third state, the reverse range pressure applied from the reverse range pressure input port of the second switching valve can be supplied from the first output port to the hydraulic servo for the first friction engagement element via the fourth output port of the second switching valve and the first input port of the first switching valve, and when a shift range is shifted from a neutral range to a reverse range, the second switching valve is in the fourth state, and the first switching valve is switched from the first state to the second state, so that the reverse range pressure applied to the reverse range pressure input port is cut off by the second switching valve.
US09964203B2

Provided herein is a carrier assembly for a continuously variable transmission having a plurality of balls, each ball having a ball axle, the ball axle defining a tiltable axis of rotation, a first traction ring assembly in contact with each ball, a second traction ring assembly in contact with each ball, the carrier assembly having a first carrier member substantially non-rotatable, a second carrier member configured to rotate relative to the first carrier member, and an axle capture member fixedly coupled to the first carrier member. The axle capture member is configured to selectively couple to one end of each ball axle.
US09964199B2

A transmission storage oil level control system includes a first fluid reservoir and a second fluid reservoir separated from the first fluid reservoir by a barrier. A valve positioned in the barrier is controlled to open and close a fluid communication path between the second fluid reservoir and the first fluid reservoir. The valve is normally closed when a temperature of the hydraulic fluid is above a predetermined value. A sensor is positioned in at least one of the first reservoir and the second reservoir. The sensor identifies a condition of a hydraulic fluid. A control device communicates with the valve to apply a signal received from the sensor to selectively open and close the valve when the temperature of the hydraulic fluid is above the predetermined value.
US09964198B2

The present invention relates to a linear electro-mechanical actuator for transferring a rotational motion to a linear motion. The actuator provides a piston having an outer load-carrying surface and being at least partly arranged inside a housing. The actuator further provides a transmission module adapted to transfer a rotational motion generated by a motor to a linear motion of the piston. The actuator includes a separating member and a lubricating member having a porous polymeric matrix and a lubricating material, the separating member and the load-carrying member being arranged adjacent to each other. Thereby, the actuator allows for lubrication of at least a portion of the outer load-carrying surface of the piston by the lubricating material upon movement of the piston. For instance, the linear electro-mechanical actuator may not require, or may at least minimize, the need of relubrication.
US09964192B2

A thrust washer for a torque converter is provided. The thrust washer includes an inner circumferential surface, an outer circumferential surface and a first axial surface extending from the inner circumferential surface to the outer circumferential surface. The axial surface includes a plurality of arcuate sections and a plurality of grooves circumferentially between the arcuate sections. Each of the arcuate sections includes an arcuate axial surface including a first section, a second section and a third section. The first and third sections extend circumferentially away from the second section in opposite directions and extend axially inward from the second section. A torque converter and a method for forming at least one torque converter are also provided.
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