Document Document Title
US08495760B2 Atomic force microscope manipulation of living cells
Techniques for atomic force microscope manipulation of living cells include functionalizing a nanoscale tip of a microscale cantilever with a first ligand for a first receptor associated with a surface of a first type of cell. The method further comprises, controlling the cantilever to cause the first ligand on the nanoscale tip to contact the first receptor on a surface of a living cell of the first type in a particular temporal pattern to induce a target response by the living cell. Other techniques for controlling an atomic force microscope comprising a nanoscale tip include controlling the cantilever to cause the nanoscale tip to contact a living cardiomyocyte at a predetermined pressure. The cantilever is also controlled to turn off vertical deflection feedback after contacting the cardiomyocyte and collecting deflection data that indicates a time series of nanoscale vertical deflections of the microscale cantilever caused by the living cardiomyocyte.
US08495758B2 Method and apparatus for providing scan chain security
A scan chain security capability is provided herein. The scan chain security capability enables secure control over normal use of a scan chain of a system, e.g., for purposes such as testing prior to deployment or sale of the system, in-field testing after deployment or sale of the system, in-field modification of the system, and the like. The scan chain security capability enables secure control over normal use of a scan chain by enabling control over interruption of a scan chain and re-establishment of an interrupted scan chain. A scan chain security component is configured for removing an open-circuit condition from the scan chain in response to a control signal. The control signal may be generated in response to validation of a security key, in response to successful completion of a challenge-based authentication process, or in response to any other suitable validation or authentication. The scan chain security component also may be configured for creating an open-circuit condition in the scan chain in response to a second control signal. The second control signal may be a scan register value received via the scan chain.
US08495754B2 Dual trust architecture
Mechanisms for executing a software routine in an application executing as a multi-user single address space subsystem in an operating environment having a trusted mode of operation for trusted routines and a reduced-trust mode of operation for untrusted routines. The application includes a control module for execution as a trusted routine and a trusted routine table including identifiers of trusted routines. The control module performs switches between a trusted mode of operation for execution and a reduced trust mode of operation based on various determinations regarding the nature of a calling routine being trusted or untrusted, a call stack, and whether the calling routine is being restored or not from the call stack.
US08495748B2 Mechanism for generating vulnerability reports based on application binary interface/application programming interface usage
A method for generating vulnerability reports based on application binary interface/application programming interface usage may include extracting a binary file and a security report relating to a software program, the security report having a vulnerability list of pending vulnerabilities relating to the software program, and detecting, from the binary file, interface usage details associated with interfaces and shared libraries used by the software program. The interfaces include application binary interfaces (ABIs). The method may further include matching the interface usage details with the pending vulnerability of the vulnerability list, and generating a vulnerability report based on matching.
US08495730B2 Dynamically constructed capability for enforcing object access order
Proposed is a Capability Management System (CMS) in a distributed computing environment that controls access to multiple objects by multiple subjects based upon a specified access order. A capability is dynamically constructed when the capability is needed. After the capability is used to access an object, a new capability is generated. In the alternative, multiple capabilities for enforcing an access order are generated independently of each other. The new capability is then employed by the same or another subject to access the object according to a prescribed access sequence. In this manner, at any particular time there is one capability valid to access the object by the appropriate subject. In addition, the capability includes information for verifying the authenticity of the capability and for specifying an expiration time associated with the capability. The technology may also be enhanced by providing a linkage between capabilities intended for use in a sequence.
US08495720B2 Method and system for providing multifactor authentication
An approach is provided for using multifactor authentication to access multiple services. A determination is made that a user equipment has been authenticated for an access network. An identifier corresponding to the user equipment is received. An alias identifier is generated based on the received user equipment identifier for use in combination with a universal user identifier to authenticate a user corresponding to the user equipment for accessing a plurality of services via the access network.
US08495718B2 Authentication method and apparatus
An identity authentication method is provided. The method comprises obtaining records information of a valid user, where the records information indicates behaviors having been executed by the valid user; mapping, based on an orthogonal behavior model having multiple mutually orthogonal dimensions, records information to the multiple dimensions, wherein behaviors indicated by records information mapped to different dimensions do not overlap therebetween and have no logical cause and effect relationship; sampling records information mapped to different dimensions, respectively, so as to generate an authentication questionnaire including a plurality of authentication questions; computing, responsive to answers of a client to the authentication questionnaire, a total confidence P for the client being a valid user; outputting a positive authentication result, responsive to the total confidence probability P falling into a confidence interval; and outputting a negative authentication result, responsive to the total confidence probability P failing to fall into a confidence interval. The present invention further provides a corresponding identity authentication apparatus.
US08495714B2 Systems and methods for authenticating users accessing unsecured wifi access points
Systems and methods system for a user accessing an unsecure Wifi access point are provided. In an embodiment, the present invention requests that the customer perform authentication of the access point to which he is connected. On initial connection to the access point, the customer provides his username/password and chooses a memorable information element (e.g., image or phrase). A site specific cookie is delivered to the customer device after a successful authentication. On subsequent connections, the site specific cookie is validated and the MAC address of the customer device is used to retrieve the memorable information element. If the customer recognizes his memorable image, he confirms that he is on a bona fide access point. In a further embodiment, if the customer connects at a location and/or time of day which breaks a previously observed pattern, MAC authentication is not accepted and a full authentication (e.g., user/password) is required.
US08495700B2 Mobile data security system and methods
The present invention is directed to security systems and methods for mobile network-based data environments. The present invention provides an integration of security, mobile computing, wireless and IT infrastructure management technology, to create a new level of automation and enforcement to enable the transparent application of mobile security across an enterprise, while embracing end user “transparency” and “ease of use” and empowering IT administration.
US08495696B1 Coaxial communication active tap device and distribution system
An apparatus, system, and method for affordably distributing cable communication signals at greatly reduced power consumption levels with high signal quality with an active tap having gain stage characterized by low power (less than 1 Watt), low noise figure (less than 3 dB), high bandwidth (typically DC-2 GHz), and high gain (at least 15 dBmV).
US08495685B2 Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving multi-stream signals in wireless transmitter/receiver system environment
A method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving wireless multi-band stream signals using optimal resolution in a wireless digital television transmitter/receiver environment. The method includes: receiving, from a first wireless receiver, at least one of first resolution information and first channel information of a first receiver terminal connected to the first wireless receiver; receiving, from a second wireless receiver, at least one of second resolution information and second channel information of a second receiver terminal connected to the second wireless receiver terminal; scaling a video signal according to a resolution level supported by the first receiver terminal based on the first resolution information and the first channel information and scaling the video signal according to a resolution level supported by the second receiver terminal based on the second resolution information and second channel information; and transmitting the scaled video signals to the first and second wireless receivers, respectively.
US08495684B2 Digital television signal, digital television receiver, and method of processing digital television signal
A digital television (DTV) signal for use in a DTV receiver includes an extended text table (ETT) which includes a header and a message body. The header includes a table identification extension field which serves to establish uniqueness of the ETT, and the message includes an extended text message (ETM). If the ETT is an event ETT, the table ID extension field includes an event identification which specifies an identification number of an event associated with the ETT. On the other hand, if the ETT is a channel ETT, the table identification extension field includes a source identification which specifies a programming source of a virtual channel associated with the ETT. A section-filtering unit included in the DTV receiver is able to use table identification extension fields of a plurality of ETTs for section-filtering a pertinent event or channel ETT from the ETTs.
US08495675B1 Method and system for dynamically inserting content into streaming media
The present invention teaches a method and system for dynamically inserting content into a streaming media program. The system and method provide a program manifest to rendering devices requesting a streaming media program and that manifest can include URIs which point to main program content on a content delivery network and includes meta URIs (mURIs) which point to a dynamic content decisioning server. The dynamic content decisioning server receives requests for the content indicated by the mURIs and operates to dynamically select content, from a dynamic content delivery network, to fulfill the requests. The selection can be based upon a variety of criteria, including viewer and/or rendering device demographics, advertiser campaign strategies, etc. Thus two or more rendering devices playing streaming media defined by the same manifest may render different inserted content for their viewers. Similarly, a program rendered from a manifest at one point in time may have different inserted content than the same program rendered by the same rendering device at another time.
US08495673B2 Method and apparatus for providing and using content advisory information on internet contents
Provided are a method and apparatus for providing and using content advisory (CA) information on Internet contents. A method of providing CA information by using a CA information server, includes receiving a request for the CA information on a content, from an Internet Protocol television (IPTV); searching for CA information on the content; and transmitting the found CA information to the IPTV. A method of using CA information when an IPTV reproduces a content not having the CA information, according to the present invention, includes transmitting a request for CA information, to a CA information server; receiving the CA information from the CA information server; analyzing the CA information; and applying the CA information.
US08495670B2 Accounting for viewing and recording of programs
A method/system for accounting for viewing/recording of programs via a client device may include: generating an account associated with a client device, the account including a balance; monitoring viewing/recording of programs via the client device; and deducting from the balance based on the viewing/recording of programs via the client device. A method/system for providing viewing/recording of programs via a client device may include: receiving a request to view/record a program via a client device; evaluating the request in view of an account associated with the client device; and allowing the program to be viewed/recorded via the client device based on the evaluation. A method of generating such an account may include: receiving a user request for an account associated with a client device; and setting an initial balance of the account based on the user request, the initial balance including an amount of viewing/recording of programs via the client device.
US08495665B2 Medium transporting unit and medium processing apparatus
A holding mechanism is operable to hold a top medium from a plurality of plate-shaped media accommodated in a stacker in a stacked manner. A transport arm supports the holding mechanism. When the lift mechanism lifts down the transport arm, one of a first elastic pressing force and a second elastic pressing force greater than the first elastic pressing force is selectively applied from the holding mechanism to an upper surface of the top medium.
US08495664B2 System, method and program product for invoking a remote method
The present invention provides a method, system and program product for invoking a remote method. Specifically, the invention provides an interface method object that may be used to map an application interface method call to a remote method call. The interface method object may be generated by retrieving an interface description for the remote method and using the interface description, including any necessary parameters determined from the interface description, to generate the interface method call. The interface method object may be generated dynamically at system runtime. The interface method object facilitates invocation of a remote method by mapping an interface method call from an application in interface method object format to a remote method call in the format of the remote method. Because the interface method call is in an interface method object format, changes to the underlying remote method do not affect the application's interface method call.
US08495662B2 System and method for improving run-time performance of applications with multithreaded and single threaded routines
A system and method for improving run-time performance of applications with multithreaded and single threaded routines that are linked with libpthreads library is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for running a mixed ST/MT application program linked with libpthreads library including creating an interceptor library containing pthread application programming interface (pthread_API) call interceptors and loading the interceptor library into the mixed ST/MT application program, and running the mixed ST/MT application program by using light weight (LW) and heavy weight (HW) synchronization routines based on determining switchovers between ST and MT program modes, respectively, during run-time using the interceptor library.
US08495660B1 Methods and systems for handling instant messages and notifications based on the state of a computing device
A computer-implemented method for handling instant messages based on state may include identifying an instant message, detecting a first state of a computing device, and handling the instant message based on the first state of the computing device. The method may further include receiving a first instant-message-handling rule, receiving a first definition of the first state, and associating the first instant-message-handling rule with the first state. A computer-implemented method for preventing the output of instantaneous notifications may include identifying an instant notification, detecting a first state of a computing device, and preventing the instantaneous notification from being sent to an output device of the computing device. Corresponding computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08495645B2 Server pool management method
Standby computers are dynamically divided into groups according to the difference between the software thereof and the software required of a business system. When a computer is made available, the standby computers divided into groups by software structure are searched and an appropriate one is extracted to quickly complete the construction of the software environment. An active computer, if to be transferred to standby mode, is associated with the group having the same software structure as the business system with which the active computer has thus far operated. The active/standby states of the computers are monitored, and the standby computers are changed thereby to widen the possible range of application to other business systems, removing copy operation of disk images from the active computer to the standby computers.
US08495644B2 Method for registering and scheduling execution demands
A method for registering and scheduling execution demands comprises steps of: providing an execution demand register having a plurality of execution demand registering flags describing whether an identical number of jobs are registered execution demands or not and priorities thereof; providing a lookup device, and using all possible values of the execution demand registering flags as addresses to respectively store thereinside a job sequence permutation, initial position and registering number corresponding to the job sequence permutation; when a job has to be executed successively, setting the value of the execution demand registering flag corresponding to the job; and in scheduling, using the value of the execution demand registering flag of the updated execution demand register as a lookup address to acquire the initial position and registering number from the lookup device, and finding out the job sequence permutation according to the acquired initial position and registering number to complete scheduling.
US08495640B2 Component-specific disclaimable locks
Systems and methods of protecting a shared resource in a multi-threaded execution environment in which threads are permitted to transfer control between different software components, for any of which a disclaimable lock having a plurality of orderable locks can be identified. Back out activity can be tracked among a plurality of threads with respect to the disclaimable lock and the shared resource, and reclamation activity among the plurality of threads may be ordered with respect to the disclaimable lock and the shared resource.
US08495637B2 Apparatus and method for temporarily freeing up resources in a computer
Apparatus for data processing includes a processor, memory and storage. A plurality of sets of instructions, each corresponding to one of a plurality of programs, is stored in the storage. The processor is configured to load the sets of instructions from the storage into the memory, identify a first program as nonessential, close the first program and remove its corresponding set of instructions from the memory, and reload the set of instructions corresponding to the first program into the memory from the storage.
US08495622B2 Micro installation process for software packaging and distribution
The present invention discloses a software program that includes a first set of one or more compressed files and an executable file. The executable file can include a second set of one or more compressed files. The software program can be a self-executing program stored in a machine readable medium. Executing the software program can result in an automatic extraction of files contained within the first set and the second set of compressed files. In one embodiment, the software program can be an installation program, which includes a configuration file specifying settings to be applied during an installation process. The installation program can be dynamically constructed at a time an installation file is requested. The installation program can be a network lean file containing only those necessary components for a customized installation, which minimizes an amount of time and bandwidth expended when transferring the installation program over a network.
US08495617B2 Interworking system between user terminal and smart card for executing widget, and method thereof
Disclosed are an interworking system between a user terminal and a smart card for executing a widget and a method thereof. The interworking system is configured to enable the user terminal to manage the download setup information for a widget UI (user interface) program installed in the smart card. The user terminal is able to download widget UI data to be updated from a program provision server based on the download setup information even if there is no additional request from the smart card. Therefore, the system is able to prevent periodic communication between the user terminal and the smart card when updating the widget UI program.
US08495615B2 Method, system and computer program for distributing software patches
A software patch management solution (200) is proposed. The devised solution is based on the idea of automating the installation of the patches through a software distribution infrastructure. For this purpose, an automation engine (225) is added to a distribution server (110). The automation engine interfaces with a patch provider (125) acting as a proxy, which stores a local copy of the patches (210) and of a patch catalogue (215) for detecting corresponding vulnerabilities. The automation engine automatically builds a distribution plan for deploying the patches to the relevant endpoints (115), according to a vulnerability catalogue (230) that stores the actual exposures of the endpoints. The distribution plan arranges the required activities in the correct order, so as to minimize the number of rebooting of the endpoints; the distribution plan ends with an activity for scanning the endpoints, so as to update the vulnerability catalogue accordingly.
US08495609B2 Methods, systems, and computer program products for taking a snapshot of installed software on a data processing system as part of a software update process
Software is updated on a data processing system by invoking a software update operation and using a hypervisor layer to take a snapshot of a software image on the data processing system responsive to invoking the software update operation.
US08495608B2 Communicating with an update logic image
Embedded devices typically have an operating system, one or more file-systems, as well as a bootloader and other data components resident in flash memory. During software development and testing, there is frequently a need to selectively update a combination of such images. The described technique organizes the images in the flash memory such that one can speed up the update process by eliminating relocation of existing images. A command-driven update mechanism provides a flexible process—eg, one can upload the images back to a host, one can update the update code itself, etc. A start handshake is used that enables auto-detection of the embedded serial port that is used for the update.
US08495604B2 Dynamically distribute a multi-dimensional work set across a multi-core system
A system provides efficient dispatch/completion of an N Dimensional (ND) Range command in a data processing system (DPS). The system comprises: a compiler generating one or more commands from received program instructions; ND Range work processing (WP) logic determining when a command generated by the compiler will be implemented over an ND configuration of operands, where N is greater than one (1); automatically decomposing the ND configuration of operands into a one (1) dimension (1D) work element comprising P sequentially ordered work items that each represent one of the operands; placing the 1D work element within a command queue of the DPS; enabling sequential dispatching of 1D work items in ordered sequence from to one or more processing units; and generating an ND Range output by mapping the 1D work output result to an ND position corresponding to an original location of the operand represented by the 1D work item.
US08495588B2 Abstraction-guided synthesis
Given a program P, a specification S, and an abstraction function α, verification determines whether P satisfies the specification S under the abstraction α. If not, a trace T that violate the specification is selected, and either the abstraction α is refined or a constraint that avoids the trace T is computed and added to a set of constraints. The set of constraints are used to modify the program P.
US08495565B2 Service providing apparatus, service providing system, service providing method, and storage medium
A service providing apparatus (100) includes a request reception responding unit (101), a component injection unit (102), a configuration information storage unit (104), and a component loader group (150). The component loader group (150) of the service providing apparatus (100) includes a default component loader (110), component loaders (111), (112), . . . , and (11N), a default service class group (120), and customized class groups (121), (122), . . . , and (12N).
US08495558B2 Modifier management within process models
A system for managing values associated with properties of elements within a process model can include a storage element for storing the process model and a processing element. The processing element can be configured to identify within the process model an element, to identify an object containing the element, to assign a value for a property of the element, and to retrieve the value for the property of element. The value for property of the element can be stored in location selected from one among an element modifier applied to the element, an object modifier applied to the object, a default set of values for the object, and a default set of values for the element, where the location for storing the value of the property of the element is selected such that the location has a higher relative priority than a location for storing a previous value for the property of the element.
US08495555B2 Computer aided design system and method
A computer aided design system comprises an interface creating module, a first calculating module, a dividing module and a second calculating module. The interface module creates a parameter setting interface to display the proposed design on the screen of the device formed with nets and cline segments and select at least one net in response to the user's operation. The first calculating module calculates the length of the cline segments of the potential net in order based on the coordinates of the cline segments and generates a dividing signal. The dividing module divides the cline segments into a first team and a second team based on the compared result with a predetermined width according to the dividing signal. The second calculating module adds the calculated cline segments length in the first team and in the second team to obtain a first length and a second length.
US08495548B2 Multi-patterning lithography aware cell placement in integrated circuit design
A method, system, and computer program product for multi-patterning lithography (MPL) aware cell placement in integrated circuit (IC) design are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A global phase of cell movement is performed. A local phase cell movement is performed, wherein the local phase includes moving a color instance of the cell from a plurality of color instances of the cell within a row of cell in the IC design, wherein the global phase and the local phase are each performed before a final placement is produced for the IC design.
US08495546B1 Method for simplifying RTL schematic by grouping nodes into a cloud
The number of nodes in an RTL schematic is reduced in a process of cloud grouping, a process whereby nodes that are not specified to be of interest will be grouped into a cloud to the extent possible. This results in a much simplified schematic as the remaining nodes within the schematic will be those nodes that the users desire to see. Analysis of all nodes including those designated as cut nodes is performed to determine what circuitry can or cannot be simplified. The user will also have the option to revert to the original schematic if viewing more than the cut nodes is desirable.
US08495538B1 Power estimation of a circuit design
Approaches for estimating power consumption of a circuit based on a circuit design. For one or more modules of the design, data are input that indicate measured power consumption and circuit resources used by the one or more modules. For one or more other parts of the design, values of parameters are input that specify an operating speed and a resource count. Process-corner, voltage, and temperature values are input. An estimated level of power consumption is determined as a function of the measured power consumption, the values of the parameters, and the values of the process-corner, voltage, and temperature. Data indicative of the estimated level of power consumption are output.
US08495536B2 Computing validation coverage of integrated circuit model
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method of computing validation coverage of an integrated circuit model, comprising: obtaining a logical structure of a integrated circuit model under validation; searching and recording signal paths in the integrated circuit model under validation based on the logical structure; and computing coverage of validation with respect to the signal paths. According to the technical solution as provided in the embodiments of the present invention, a signal path-based validation coverage may be obtained, thereby providing data regarding validation completeness more accurately.
US08495534B2 Post-placement cell shifting
A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for reworking a plurality of cells initially placed in a circuit design. An expander allocates cells to tiles. The expander determines a high detailed routing cost tile class, wherein the high detailed routing cost tile class is a class of tiles that has high detailed routing costs. The expander selects a cell within a tile of the high detailed routing cost tile class to form a selected cell in a selected tile. The expander applies multiple techniques to reposition these cells at new locations to improve the detailed routability. The expander can place an expanded bounding box around the selected cell, wherein the bounding box extends to at least one tile adjacent the selected tile, and repositions the selected cell within the bounding box to form a modified design to improve the detailed routability. The expander may also inflate and legalize those cells.
US08495529B2 Method, program product and apparatus for model based scattering bar placement for enhanced depth of focus in quarter-wavelength lithography
A method of generating a mask having optical proximity correction features. The method includes the steps of: (a) obtaining a desired target pattern having features to be imaged on a substrate; (b) determining a first focus setting to be utilized when imaging the mask; (c) determining a first interference map based on the target pattern and the first focus setting; (d) determining a first seeding site representing the optimal placement of an assist feature within the mask relative to a feature to be imaged on the basis of the first interference map; (e) selecting a second focus setting which represents a predefined amount of defocus relative to the first focus setting; (f) determining a second interference map based on the target pattern and the second focus setting; (g) determining a second seeding site representing the optimal placement of an assist feature within the mask relative to the feature to be imaged on the basis of the second interference map; and (h) generating an assist feature having a shape which encompasses both the first seeding site and the second seeding site.
US08495528B2 Method for generating a plurality of optimized wavefronts for a multiple exposure lithographic process
A simplified version of a multiexpose mask optimization problem is solved in order to find a compressed space in which to search for the solution to the full problem formulation. The simplification is to reduce the full problem to an unconstrained formulation. The full problem of minimizing dark region intensity while maintaining intensity above threshold at each bright point can be converted to the unconstrained problem of minimizing average dark region intensity per unit of average intensity in the bright regions. The extrema solutions to the simplified problem can be obtained for each source. This set of extrema solutions is then assessed to determine which features are predominantly printed by which source. A minimal set of extrema solutions serves as a space of reduced dimensionality within which to maximize the primary objective under constraints. The space typically has reduced dimensionality through selection of highest quality extrema solutions.
US08495522B2 Navigation in a display
An apparatus including a controller configured to switch a continuous navigation mode to a discontinuous navigation mode in response to a predefined discontinuous navigation input and configured to switch a discontinuous navigation mode to a continuous navigation mode in response to a predefined continuous navigation input.
US08495520B2 Representing a plurality of independent data items
The method represents a plurality of independent data items. The method first assigns a multi-dimensional iconic representation to each data item, then alters at least one dimension of each iconic representation according to a change in a corresponding state of the corresponding data item.
US08495517B2 Multi-context iteractive directory filter
On a device having keys with multiple values, a user may perform either an iterative directory filtering operation or a direct-dial operation, without specifying which of the operations is intended. Hence, a user is allowed to perform any of a number of different operations to specify a number to be dialed or to identify a directory record, without requiring the user to specify a mode. A user's intended operation is determined by analyzing the entered keystrokes, and activates the appropriate feedback and functionality for the determined operation. In one embodiment iterative directory filtering is performed on multiple fields concurrently, including derived fields and combination fields.
US08495512B1 System and method for storing a configuration of virtual servers in a hosting system
Some embodiments provide a method that defines a user interface (UI) that displays several UI elements representing several virtual machines deployed in a particular configuration for a particular user in a hosting and storage system that includes several nodes for hosting user specified virtual machines. The method receives input from the user through the UI to save the particular configuration of virtual machines. For each virtual machine in the particular configuration, the method stores an image of the virtual machine. The method stores data representing the particular configuration of virtual machines. The data includes references to the stored images of the virtual machines and connections between the virtual machines.
US08495510B2 System and method for managing browser extensions
The invention describes a method and system for managing browser extensions. The method includes dynamically creating a user interface for a business object based on metadata, the user interface including a menu. A service from the menu is launched, the service corresponding to the business object. Information is retrieved from the service based on the metadata and displayed; the information related to the business object is updated dynamically for future retrievals.
US08495506B2 Identifying mutual friends in online environments
The invention described herein detects an external user entering into a virtual world that includes a virtual area. In turn, the invention described herein identifies a plurality of joined users that joined each virtual area and computes a joined user weighting for each of the plurality of joined users. The joined user weightings include friend of a friend level weightings and commonality weightings. Next, the invention described herein computes a virtual area friendliness level for each of the virtual areas by aggregating each of the joined user weightings for each of the virtual areas, and provides the virtual area friendliness levels to the external user in order for the external user to select the appropriate virtual area.
US08495495B2 Information processing apparatus, bookmark setting method, and program
There is provided an information processing apparatus including a content display unit for displaying movie content on a display screen, and a bookmark setting unit for setting a bookmark in which a display position where a display subject is displayed on the display screen and a temporal position within the movie content where the display subject is displayed on the display screen are mutually related to each other, to the display subject of the movie content displayed on the display screen by the content display unit.
US08495493B2 Image forming apparatus and enlargement display method of target area thereof
An enlargement display method of a target area of an image forming apparatus which comprises a touch screen includes selecting a target zooming function to zoom at least one menu displayed on the touch screen as a target screen to perform at least one of functions of the image forming apparatus, enlarging and displaying at least one menu corresponding to the target area according to the selection, selecting at least one of navigation buttons to move the target area, and moving and displaying the enlarged target area through the selected navigation button. With this, the image forming apparatus and the enlargement display method enlarge and display the necessary menu as the target area and the target area is moved through the navigation button to thereby improve a user's convenience.
US08495486B2 Look ahead of links/alter links
A computationally-implemented method comprises obtaining at least a portion of data from a data source, determining a content of the data, determining an acceptability of an effect of content of the data at least in part via at least two virtual machine representations of at least a part of a real machine having at least one end-user specified preference, at least one of the at least two virtual machine representations operating at least in part on an individual core of a multi-core system, and displaying at least one data display option based on the determining an acceptability of a content of the data.
US08495485B2 System, method, and apparatus for location identification of content
An implementation is described for identifying a location of content within a document. The implementation includes displaying at least a portion of the document on a display of a computer. The implementation also includes receiving a user selection of the location within the document. The implementation also includes generating a location identifier. The location identifier describes the location within the document in terms of a document structure implemented by the document. The implementation also includes encoding the location identifier into a uniform resource locator (URL). The URL links to the document and identifies the location within the document. The implementation also includes sending the URL from the computer to a second computer. The second computer is configured to decode the URL and interpret the location identifier to display the visual marker at the location within the document.
US08495481B2 Non-volatile memory with extended error correction protection
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods and apparatuses related to NVM devices with extended error correction protection. In some embodiments, a parity cache is used to store parity values of data values stored in a plurality of codewords of an NVM device. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US08495478B2 Frame boundary detection and decoding
Disclosed are a method and apparatus for detecting frame boundary for a data stream received at an Ethernet FEC layer, as well as a decoding method and system for the same. The apparatus for detecting frame boundary may comprise: a buffer for buffering data in a data stream, a length of the data in the buffer being greater than one frame; a syndrome generator for calculating a current syndrome based on a first data item, a second data item, and an intermediate calculation result of a previous syndrome, wherein the first data item is the last bit in a current candidate frame, and the second data item is a bit preceding the current candidate frame; and a comparator for using the current syndrome to check whether the bit preceding the current candidate frame is a frame boundary of an Ethernet FEC layer. The apparatus for detecting frame boundary can improve the speed of frame boundary detection.
US08495471B2 Solid-state storage system with parallel access of multiple flash/PCM devices
Systems and methods are provided that confront the problem of failed storage integrated circuits (ICs) in a solid state drive (SSD) by using a fault-tolerant architecture along with one error correction code (ECC) mechanism for random/burst error corrections and an L-fold interleaving mechanism. The systems and methods described herein keep the SSD operational when one or more integrated circuits fail and allow the recovery of previously stored data from failed integrated circuits and allow random/burst errors to be corrected in other operational integrated circuits. These systems and methods replace the failed integrated circuits with fully functional/operational integrated circuits treated herein as spare integrated circuits. Furthermore, these systems and methods improve I/O performance in terms of maximum achievable read/write data rate.
US08495469B2 Implementing enhanced IO data conversion with protection information model including parity format of data integrity fields
A method and controller for implementing enhanced input/output (IO) data conversion with an enhanced protection information model including an enhanced parity format of the data integrity fields (DIF), and a design structure on which the subject controller circuit resides are provided. The controller implements a protection information model including a unique parity data integrity fields (DIF) format. The unique parity DIF format enables corruption detection for RAID parity blocks. The unique parity DIF format includes a predefined size for a protection information model logical block guard cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field and a logical block Reference Tag (RT) field. A plurality of storage devices in a RAID configuration are coupled to the controller, and configured to store data and RAID parity redundancy data, and wherein a strength of RAID parity redundancy data is not reduced when a loss of a single storage device in the plurality of storage devices occurs.
US08495464B2 Reliability support in memory systems without error correcting code support
Methods and apparatuses for error correction. A N-bit block data to be stored in a memory device is received. The memory device does not perform any error correction code (ECC) algorithm nor provide designated error correction code storage for the N-bit block of data. Data compression is applied to the N-bit data to compress the block of data to generate a M-bit compressed block of data. A K-bit ECC is computed for the M-bit compressed data, wherein M+K is less than or equal to N. The M-bit compressed data and the K-bit ECC are stored together in the memory device.
US08495461B2 Data modulation method, modulator, recording method, and recording apparatus
A data modulation method and a data error correction method are provided. The data modulation method includes generating a channel sequence for an input sequence, determining whether or not the channel sequence violates a Run Length Limit (RLL) constraint, and performing, when the channel sequence violates the RLL constraint, bit flip at a position prior to a position at which the RLL constraint is violated among positions of bits included in the channel sequence. The data error correction method includes detecting an error bit of received data using a parity check matrix, determining whether or not the error bit is an error caused by bit flip, and correcting the error bit when the error bit is an error caused by bit flip for applying an RLL constraint.
US08495457B2 Receiving/transmitting system and data processing method in the receiving/transmitting system
According to one embodiment, a transmitting system includes: a randomizer for randomizing mobile service data; a processor for Serial Concatenated Convolutional Coding (SCCC) outer-encoding the randomized mobile service data; a first formatter for forming a first data group including the SCCC outer-encoded mobile service data; a deinterleaver for deinterleaving data of the first data group to output a second data group comprising data packets including a portion of the deinterleaved data, wherein the data packets are spaced at least one data packet apart; and a trellis encoder for trellis encoding the deinterleaved data.
US08495456B2 Cooperative concatenated coding for wireless systems
Cooperative concatenated coding techniques are provided for wireless communications between at least two users and a base station. A network system employing cooperative concatenated coding includes cooperating user devices each configured to encode and transmit at least a potion of a joint message. The joint message includes at least a potion of a first message from a first cooperating user device and at least a potion of a second message from a second cooperating user device. An embodiment includes encoding a first message from a first cooperating user, receiving a second message from a second cooperating user and decoding the second message. The methodology also includes re-encoding at least a potion of the decoded message with at least a potion of the first message to form a combined message, and then transmitting at least a potion of the combined message.
US08495452B2 Handling corrupted background data in an out of order execution environment
Handling corrupted background data in an out of order processing environment. Modified data is stored on a byte of a word having at least one byte of background data. A byte valid vector and a byte store bit are added to the word. Parity checking is done on the word. If the word does not contain corrupted background date, the word is propagated to the next level of cache. If the word contains corrupted background data, a copy of the word is fetched from a next level of cache that is ECC protected, the byte having the modified data is extracted from the word and swapped for the corresponding byte in the word copy. The word copy is then written into the next level of cache that is ECC protected.
US08495449B2 Selecting layered-decoding schedules for offline testing
A method for selecting a population of schedules of an n-layer decoder for offline schedule testing. The method identifies one or more triads, where a triad is a sequence of three layers where no layer is repeated. The method selects a set of schedules where each of the identified triads is contained in at least one schedule. The method associates each selected schedule with one or more key-layer values, where a key layer is the middle layer of a triad contained within the schedule.
US08495446B2 Method for transmitting and receiving data according to HARQ process and mobile communication terminal thereof
Disclosed herein is transmission/reception of data according to a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process. A method for transmitting data includes, at a transmission side, mapping at least one HARQ process to at least one logical channel, and transmitting a control signal including information associated with the mapping result to a reception side. Accordingly, it is possible to efficiently use a radio resource and reduce unnecessary overhead.
US08495445B2 Radio communication apparatus and method
There is provided with an apparatus including: a receiving section which receives a frame including an error detection code from a network; an error detecting section which performs error detection on the frame received by the receiving section based on the error detection code; a data storage which stores data in a predetermined field of the frame as replacement data in a case where an error is not detected in the frame; a data selecting section which selects the replacement data from the data storage in a case where an error is detected in the frame; and a frame generating section which generates a frame in which data in the predetermined field of the frame is replaced with the replacement data selected by the data selecting section in the case where an error is detected in the frame; wherein the error detecting section performs error detection on the generated frame.
US08495432B2 Blocking write access to memory modules of a solid state drive
Described are embodiments of an invention for blocking write access to memory modules of a solid state drive. The solid state drive includes a controller access module or a memory access module that controls write access to the solid state drive and the memory modules of the solid state drive. Upon determining that a memory module has failed, the failed memory module or the entire solid state memory device is configured to be read only to prevent an errant write of data over critical data. Further, a failed memory module, or solid state device memory having a failed memory module, may be replaced upon failure.
US08495428B2 Quality of service management of end user devices in an end user network
Methods and apparatus for managing quality of service of computing resources are presented. For example, a method implemented on a processor for managing quality of service of computing resources includes identifying, by the processor, one or more devices of a user on a network of the user; obtaining, by the processor, at least one management module for the identified one or more devices; installing the at least one management module in the processor; monitoring, by the processor, the one or more devices of the user for a problem; and determining, by the processor, a domain in which a root cause of the problem resides and, optionally, the root cause of the problem. The management module comprises information pertaining to a corresponding device. Further, the method may detect quality of service (QoS) problems and determine if the problems reside in a user domain or a service provider domain.
US08495417B2 System and method for redundancy-protected aggregates
The present invention provides a system and a method for utilizing a parity protection module to back up data on striped aggregates. Specifically, the system computes parity data for data stored at a particular location of each of a plurality of constituent aggregates, and stores the parity on one of the constituent aggregates that is a parity owner for that particular location of data. In the event one of the constituent aggregates fails, new data may still be accessed by the system (the striped aggregates), both to write new data, and to read data stored on the failed aggregate. In particular, the parity protection module allows clients to read data from a failed aggregate by running a reverse parity computation, which may also be used to restore the data to the failed aggregate.
US08495398B2 Information handling system remote input/output connection system
An information handling system (IHS) remote input/output (I/O) connection system includes an enclosure having a power button, a communication bus connection point, and an audio connection point. A cable dongle extends from the enclosure. The cable dongle has a first end and a second end. The cable dongle also includes a connection from the power button on the enclosure on the first end to a communication connection point plug on the second end, which mates with a connection point plug on a remote I/O device card that enables a parallel (ACPI) S5-capable power button from the IHS to exist on the enclosure. The cable dongle further includes a communication cable coupled to the communication bus connection point on the first end and having a communication connection point plug on the second end. In addition, the cable dongle includes an audio cable coupled to the audio connection point on the first end and having an audio connection point plug on the second end.
US08495391B2 Universal game download system for legacy gaming machines with NVRAM emulation
A universal method and system for downloading game software to ROM based legacy gaming machines, activating selected games and providing new services. The method includes a ROM emulator for replacing the game program image and an NVRAM emulator for swapping the game context and critical meters accordingly. The method includes detection of the state of the current game activity such as to activate a new game only at an authorized time, when no player is playing a game or is carded-in for example. The system includes emulation of the original peripherals fitted to the legacy gaming machine such as to offer extended functionality and services. The universal method and system therefore prolongs the useful life of legacy machines which otherwise would be prematurely retired.
US08495377B2 Enabling secure access to sensor network infrastructure using multiple interfaces and application-based group key selection
A method implemented in a network element for controlling access to a set of resources on a per-application basis, the set of resources including subsets of the resources where each subset is accessible to a set of one or more applications through the use of a separate group key, the method comprising the steps of receiving an authentication request from a node communicatively connected to the network element through a first network interface of the network element, the authentication request including a certificate for the node, validating the certificate for the node, determining that the certificate has been authorized for the set of one or more applications through a query of a certificate database, retrieving each group key that corresponds to the set of one or more applications through a query of a group key database, and returning each group key retrieved from the group key database to the node.
US08495362B2 Signature systems
A signature system includes a public key certificate obtainment device 100, a public key certificate issuance device 200, and a signature device 300. The public key certificate obtainment device 100 inputs item data and an infrastructure public key that includes an item key that is an element corresponding to each item of the item data and outputs both a public key certificate that includes item data and a secret key using the data that have been input and data supplied from the public key certificate issuance device. The public key certificate issuance device 200 inputs an infrastructure public key that includes the item key that is the element corresponding to each item of the item data and outputs a proof used to identify a signer using the data that have been input and the data supplied from the public key certificate obtainment device. The signature device 300 inputs a message, a revelation item set that represents items to be revealed, the secret key and the public key certificate that the public key certificate obtainment device 100 has output and outputs a selectively anonymous signature corresponding to the message and revelation item data that are item data that belong to the revelation item set using the data that have been input.
US08495351B2 Preparing and preserving a system configuration during a hot upgrade
A planned system configuration is stored to a volatile memory coupled to a processor executing a first operating system kernel. The planned system configuration is tagged. A boot of a second operating system kernel is initiated while preserving in the volatile memory contents stored therein, and following the boot of the second operating system kernel, a set of parameters referencing the tagged planned system configuration is retrieved from the volatile memory. The planned system configuration is then used, based on the retrieved set of parameters.
US08495344B2 Simultaneous execution resumption of multiple processor cores after core state information dump to facilitate debugging via multi-core processor simulator using the state information
A multi-core microprocessor includes first and second processing cores and a bus coupling the first and second processing cores. The bus conveys messages between the first and second processing cores. The cores are configured such that: the first core stops executing user instructions and interrupts the second core via the bus, in response to detecting a predetermined event; the second core stops executing user instructions, in response to being interrupted by the first core; each core outputs its state after it stops executing user instructions; and each core waits to begin fetching and executing user instructions until it receives a notification from the other core via the bus that the other core is ready to begin fetching and executing user instructions. In one embodiment, the predetermined event comprises detecting that the first core has retired a predetermined number of instructions. In one embodiment, microcode waits for the notification.
US08495342B2 Configuring plural cores to perform an instruction having a multi-core characteristic
A processor having multiple cores coordinates functions performed on the cores to automatically, dynamically and repeatedly reconfigure the cores for optimal performance based on characteristics of currently executing software. A core running a thread detects a multi-core characteristic of the thread and assigns one or more other cores to the thread to dynamically combine the cores into what functionally amounts to a common core for more efficient execution of the thread.
US08495336B2 Controller, data storage device, and program product
According to one embodiment, a write instructing unit instructs a data access unit to write, in a storage area of a data storage unit indicated by a first physical address, write object data, instructs a management information access unit to update address conversion information, and instructs a first access unit to update the first physical address. A compaction unit extracts a physical address of compaction object data, instructs the data access unit to read the compaction object data stored in a storage area of the data storage unit indicated by the physical address, instructs the data access unit to write the compaction object data in a storage area of the data storage unit indicated by a second physical address, instructs the management information access unit to update the address conversion information, and instructs a second access unit to update the second physical address.
US08495335B2 Data translation system and method
A data translation system and method. This invention provides a reverse approach to implement a M bit input to N bit output cumulative/monotonic transfer function (where M>N) by a (2**N)×M bit memory instead of the conventional (2**M)×N bit memory. The invention offers substantial circuit size savings without compromising on transfer function resolution and is independent of transfer function mapping algorithms. The M bit memory content of the reverse LUT contains input video group information for each output level and the (2**N) addresses of the reverse LUT represent the corresponding transfer function output levels. This data to address representation of the input to output relationship is exactly opposite to the conventional address to data format. Search and compare methods are employed to locate the input video group that the incoming video belongs to and the associated address of the reverse LUT represents the output.
US08495333B1 Method and apparatus for optimizing memory usage in an imaging device
A system including a communication interface, a memory, and a processor. The communication interface is configured to receive data. The memory is divided into a first retention region and a second retention region, wherein the first retention region is configured to store data for a first predetermined period of time, and the second retention region is configured to store data for a second predetermined period of time. The processor is configured to i) initially store, within the first retention region of the memory, the data that is received, and ii) in response to the data that is received having been stored in the first retention region of the memory for a time limit that exceeds the first predetermined period of time, transfer the data that is received from the first retention region of the memory to the second retention region of the memory.
US08495330B2 Method and apparatus for interfacing with heterogeneous dual in-line memory modules
Described herein is a method and apparatus to interface a processor with a heterogeneous dual in-line memory module (DIMM). The method comprises determining an identity of a DIMM having data lanes; mapping the data lanes based on the determining of the identity of the DIMM; training input-output (I/O) transceivers in response to the mapping of the data lanes; and transferring data to and from the DIMM after training the I/O transceivers.
US08495326B2 Execution of a perform frame management function instruction
Optimizations are provided for frame management operations, including a clear operation and/or a set storage key operation, requested by pageable guests. The operations are performed, absent host intervention, on frames not resident in host memory. The operations may be specified in an instruction issued by the pageable guests.
US08495307B2 Target memory hierarchy specification in a multi-core computer processing system
Target memory hierarchy specification in a multi-core computer processing system is provided including a system for implementing prefetch instructions. The system includes a first core processor, a dedicated cache corresponding to the first core processor, and a second core processor. The second core processor includes instructions for executing a prefetch instruction that specifies a memory location and the dedicated local cache corresponding to the first core processor. Executing the prefetch instruction includes retrieving data from the memory location and storing the retrieved data on the dedicated local cache corresponding to the first core processor.
US08495305B2 Method and device for performing caching of dynamically generated objects in a data communication network
A method for maintaining a cache of dynamically generated objects. The method includes storing in the cache dynamically generated objects previously served from an originating server to a client. A communication between the client and server is intercepted by the cache. The cache parses the communication to identify an object determinant and to determine whether the object determinant indicates whether a change has occurred or will occur in an object at the originating server. The cache marks the object stored in the cache as invalid if the object determinant so indicates. If the object has been marked as invalid, the cache retrieves the object from the originating server.
US08495304B1 Multi source wire deduplication
A method, system, and program product for data deduplication in a replication environment, the replication environment having a production site, a splitter, and a replication site, wherein the replication site has a journal, comprising determining a digest for each chunk of data of a set of data chunks, determining for each chunk whether the digest is in an index on the production site, determining for which offsets are to be evicted from the cache on the replication site, replacing the chunks in set of chunks that are in the index with an offset, and transmitting the set of chunks, offsets and an eviction list to the replication site.
US08495303B2 Processor and computer system with buffer memory
A processor and a computing system include a processor core and a buffer memory to read word data from a memory. The read word data includes first byte data read by the processor core from the memory. The buffer memory also stores the read word data, and determines whether second byte data requested by the processor core is stored in the buffer memory.
US08495298B2 Method for processing parallel data storage and authentication and a terminal
The present invention discloses a method for processing parallel data storage and authentication and a terminal. In this case, the method comprises: a data processing thread of a terminal storing data into a corresponding cache area according to a type of the data, wherein the type of the data comprises authentication type and storage type, data of the authentication type is stored in a first cache area, and data of the storage type is stored in a second cache area; a scheduling processing thread of the terminal reading data from the first cache area and the second cache area alternately according to a reading rule associated with the data type, and sending the read data to a smart card of the terminal; and the smart card performing storage or authentication according to the type of the received data. By way of the present invention, the problem that data storage operation is failed when there is data authentication operation is solved, thus achieving the effect of improving terminal performance and user experience satisfaction.
US08495297B2 Removable media storage device for a video recording or reproducing device
The invention refers to a method for indicating the current status of a removable media device provided for being loaded with at least one removable medium, and being connected to a device reading and/or writing AV storage media. The method has the steps of checking the type of user input upon occurrence of user input, keeping the status of the removable media device if the type of user input is not related to the removable media device, else checking whether a characteristic feature of the at least one removable medium has changed, keeping the current status if the characteristic feature of the at least one removable medium has not changed, and else updating the status.
US08495295B2 Mass storage system and method of operating thereof
There are provided a mass storage system and a method of operating thereof. The method comprises: a) dividing the storage space into a first portion configured to be available to a client and a second portion configured to be unavailable to a client, thus giving rise, respectively to an available storage space and a spare storage space; b) distributing the available space and the spare space over the disk drives thus giving rise to available space and spare space allocated to each given disk drive; c) detecting underperformance of at least one disk drive among the plurality of disk drives; d) responsive to detecting underperformance, decreasing respective available space allocated to said at least one underperforming disk drive and respectively increasing spare space allocated to said at least one underperforming disk drive thus giving rise to a re-configured allocation of the available space; and e) transferring the stored data in accordance with said re-configured allocation of the available space.
US08495291B2 Grid storage system and method of operating thereof
A method for a takeover in a case of a failure of a server in a storage system includes: a) configuring each virtual partition (VP) to be controlled by a primary data server and a secondary data server b) configuring each data server to have primary responsibility over all logical block addresses (LBAs) corresponding to at least two virtual partitions and to have secondary responsibility over all LBAs corresponding to at least two other virtual partitions; c) responsive to a failure of a data server, i) re-configuring primary responsibility over each VP previously primary controlled by the failed server such that it becomes primary controlled by a server previously configured as a secondary server with respect to this VP; and ii) re-allocating secondary responsibility over each VP previously secondary controlled by the failed server in a manner that each such VP becomes secondary controlled by a server other than the newly assigned server with primary responsibility.
US08495287B2 Clock-based debugging for embedded dynamic random access memory element in a processor core
A method of debugging an embedded dynamic random access memory (eDRAM) element of a processor core is provided. An aspect includes, based on an error occurring in the eDRAM element, stopping a functional clock, and not stopping a refresh clock. Another aspect includes, based on the functional clock being stopped, creating a fence signal that prevents all commands other than a refresh command, the refresh command being based on the refresh clock, from entering into the eDRAM element. Another aspect includes initializing a line fetch controller of the processor core with at least one of write data and read data. Another aspect includes restarting the functional clock. Another aspect includes performing at least one of write requests and read requests to the eDRAM element based on the at least one of the write data and the read data from the line fetch controller based on the functional clock.
US08495281B2 Intra-block memory wear leveling
A method for intra-block wear leveling within solid-state memory subjected to wear, having a plurality of memory cells includes the step of writing to at least certain ones of the plurality of memory cells, in a non-uniform manner, such as to balance the wear of the at least certain ones of the plurality of memory cells within the solid-state memory, at intra-block level. For example, if a behavior of at least some of the plurality of memory cells is not characterized, then the method may comprise characterizing a behavior of at least some of the plurality of memory cells and writing to at least certain ones of the plurality of memory cells, based on the characterized behavior, and in a non-uniform manner.
US08495280B2 Flash memory system and designing method of flash translation layer thereof
The method of designing a flash translation layer includes receiving a logical address according to an external request and mapping a physical address that corresponds to the logical address. The mapping manages continuous logical addresses and physical addresses corresponding to the logical addresses as one mapping unit.
US08495272B2 Method to save bus switching power and reduce noise in an engineered bus
A computer implemented method, bus switching system, and computer usable program code are provided for saving bus switching power and reducing noise. A request for data is received from a requester by a first cache. A determination is made as to whether the data is stored on the first cache. Responsive to determining that the data is stored on the first cache, a bus in a plurality of buses is identified on which to return the data forming an identified bus. The data is sent to the requester on the identified bus. A logical state is initiated on the remaining plurality of buses stemming from the first cache in order to save bus switching power and reducing noise.
US08495264B1 Alignment circuit for parallel data streams
Parallel data generated by demultiplexing received serial data such as in a Serial RapidIO (SRIO) data stream can become misaligned as a result of, e.g., clock tolerance compensation (CTC) processing at the receiver. In one embodiment of the invention, the misaligned parallel data is properly aligned based on a mapping from each of a finite number of possible previous alignment conditions (e.g., words A-D) to a corresponding finite number of possible subsequent alignment conditions (e.g., words B-G). The change from a previous alignment condition to a different subsequent alignment condition is recognized by determining the location of start-of-packet (SOP) or start-of-control-symbol (SOC) data in the parallel data stream.
US08495259B2 Implementing storage adapter performance optimization with hardware chains to select performance path
A method and controller for implementing storage adapter performance optimization with a predefined chain of hardware operations configured to implement a particular performance path minimizing hardware and firmware interactions, and a design structure on which the subject controller circuit resides are provided. The controller includes a plurality of hardware engines; and a data store configured to store a plurality of control blocks selectively arranged in one of a plurality of predefined chains. Each predefined chain defines a sequence of operations. Each control block is designed to control a hardware operation in one of the plurality of hardware engines. A resource handle structure is configured to select a predefined chain based upon a particular characteristic of the system. Each predefined chain is configured to implement a particular performance path to maximize performance.
US08495257B2 Network direct memory access
In one embodiment, a system comprises at least a first node and a second node coupled to a network. The second node comprises a local memory and a direct memory access (DMA) controller coupled to the local memory. The first node is configured to transmit at least a first packet to the second node to access data in the local memory and at least one other packet that is not coded to access the local memory. The second node is configured to capture the packet from a data link layer of a protocol stack, and wherein the DMA controller is configured to perform one more transfers with the local memory to access the data specified by the first packet responsive to the first packet received from the data link layer. The second node is configured to process the other packet to a top of the protocol stack.
US08495256B2 Hard disk drive availability following transient vibration
A method and computer program product for sending a data request from a host bus adapter logic processor to a hard disk drive, setting a standard time out period for receiving a reply from the hard disk drive, sensing vibration in the hard disk drive, sending a vibration alert signal from the hard disk drive to the host bus adapter logic processor in response to the sensed vibration exceeding a predetermined amount of vibration, and, in response to receiving the vibration alert signal from the hard disk drive, the host bus adapter logic processor establishing an extended time out period for receiving the reply. The rotational vibration sensor used by the hard disk drive for repositioning the read/write head may also be used to sense the vibration and form the basis for the vibration alert signal, such as a vibration error code. By extending the time out period during high vibration events, the hard disk drive can ride out the event without being tagged as having failed. Accordingly, the hard disk drive can then be available for use following the high vibration event.
US08495252B2 Implementing PCI-express memory domains for single root virtualized devices
A method, system and computer program product are provided for implementing PCI-Express memory domains for single root virtualized devices. A PCI host bridge (PHB) includes a memory mapped IO (MMIO) domain descriptor (MDD) and an MMIO Domain Table (MDT) are used to associate MMIO domains with PCI memory VF BAR spaces. One MDD is provided for each unique VF BAR space size per bus segment connecting a single root IO virtualization (SRIOV) device to the PCI host bridge (PHB). The MDT used with the MDD includes having a number of entries limited to a predefined total number of SRIOV VFs to be configured. A VF BAR Stride, which may be further implemented as a VF BAR Stride Capability Structure, is provided to reduce the number of MDDs required to map SRIOV VF BAR spaces. A particular definition of the MDD is provided to reduce the number of MDDs required to at most one per SRIOV bus segment below a PHB.
US08495251B2 Hardware method for detecting timeout conditions in a large number of data connections
Tracking several open data connections is difficult with a large number of connections. Checking for timeouts in software uses valuable processor resources. Employing a co-processor dedicated to checking timeouts uses valuable logic resources and consumes extra space. In one embodiment, a finite state machine implemented in hardware increases the speed connections can be checked for timeouts. The finite state machine stores a last accessed time stamp for each connection in a memory, and loops through the memory to compare each last accessed time stamp with a current time stamp of the system minus a global timeout value. In this manner, the finite state machine can efficiently find and react to timed out connections.
US08495245B2 Connectivity, adjacencies and adaptation functions
Example embodiments are directed to a method of publishing an element template from a first service provider to an administrative owner to determine an optimal end-to-end connectivity path from a source to a destination across at least one resource domain for data transport. The method includes determining, at the first service provider, adjacencies between a first resource domain of the first service provider and a second resource domain of a second service provider. The first service provider publishes to an administrative owner, an element template that identifies connectivity attributes, including adjacencies and adaptation capabilities of the first resource domain. The AO may develop a plurality of possible paths from a source end-point to a destination end-point to transmit data based on the element template from the first service provider and element templates from other service providers. The AO selects an optimal path from the plurality of possible paths.
US08495242B2 Automated media delivery system
An automatic graphics delivery system that operates in parallel with an existing Web site infrastructure is provided. The system streamlines the post-production process by automating the production of media through content generation procedures controlled by proprietary tags placed by an author within URLs embedded within Web documents.
US08495235B2 System and method for music resource connection, selection and rating for providing a radio like user listening experience
A novel and useful system and method of automatic resource connection, selection and rating for providing a radio like listening experience to a user. The mechanism is operative to automatically establish a connection from a mobile communications device having media player capability to a music file collection. Playlists maintained on the device are periodically updated with new playlists downloaded to the device. The device generates playlists so as to eventually cycle though the entire contents of a music file collection. Users are given the ability to rate songs by title, artist, album, etc. These ratings are used to calculate scores for each song which are used to bias a random selection process for determining the next song to play. This provides a user with a radio like listening experience.
US08495223B2 Access control method, access control apparatus, and access control program
An object is to reduce the loads on resources and to flexibly handle increase in access. An access control apparatus 1a includes: session data 21a in which an identifier of a user terminal, session information, and an update time are associated with each other; update means 12 for, upon receipt of an update request, storing updated [0]session information into the session data 21a in association with an update time, and broadcasting, to the other access control apparatuses, an synchronous update request that requests update of the session information of the identifier of the update-target user terminal; and synchronous update means 11 for, upon receipt of the synchronous update request from another access control apparatus, updating the session data 21a on the basis of the synchronous update request in association with the update time.
US08495218B1 Managing system resources
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for managing system resources. In one aspect, a system monitors the number of items, and deallocates system resources for the least-important items when the number of items exceeds a predefined capacity. The importance of each item is determined, for example, based on the item's subscription count such that system resources are utilized for the benefit of the greatest number of users or to improve the quality of service.
US08495212B2 Internet identity graph and social graph management system and method
A server computer provides to a client computer a web page permitting an internet user to enter an internet identity to be secured. The server receives an input indicating that an internet user has entered an identity and requested that the identity be secured on a plurality of web sites. The internet identity is registered on the plurality of web sites and the registration is verified to said internet user.
US08495208B2 Migrating virtual machines among networked servers upon detection of degrading network link operation
Migrating virtual machines among networked servers, the servers coupled for data communications with a data communications network that includes a networking device, where migrating includes: establishing, by a virtual machine management module (‘VMMM’), one or more virtual machines on a particular server; querying, by the VMMM, the networking device for link statistics of a link coupling the network device to the particular server for data communications; determining, by the VMMM in dependence upon the link statistics, whether the link coupling the network device to the particular server is degrading; and if the link coupling the network device to the particular server is degrading, migrating a virtual machine executing on the particular server to a destination server. In some embodiments, migrating occurs is carried out only if non-degrading link is available. If no non-degrading links are available, the network device, rather than the link, may be failing.
US08495207B2 Network system for policing resource intensive behaviors
A system may include a network traffic policing system configured to monitor resource intensive users and applications of a wireless communication network. The network traffic policing system may include a processing device configured to determine policy actions; and a plurality of policy nodes in communication with the processing device and configured to: gather statistics regarding key variables of the wireless communication network, the statistics including at least one non-data usage variable, forward updated information relating to the key variables to the processing device, and enforce at least one policy action determined by the processing device.
US08495190B2 Providing access by a client application program over an internet protocol (IP) network to a server application program instance
A method, apparatus and software is disclosed in which a temporary IP address is assigned to a selected instance of a server application program so as to provide processing continuity for processing with a client application program.
US08495181B2 Systems and methods for application based interception SSI/VPN traffic
A method for intercepting, by an agent of a client, communications from the client to be transmitted via a virtual private network connection includes the step of intercepting communications based on identification of an application from which the communication originates. The agent receives information identifying a first application. The agent determines a network communication transmitted by the client originates from the first application and intercepts that communication. The agent transmits the intercepted communication via the virtual private network connection.
US08495178B1 Dynamic bandwidth discovery and allocation to improve performance for backing up data
A system and method for efficient transfer of backup data over multiple networks. A backup server and a client computer are coupled to one another via a network, such as a local area network (LAN). The backup server is coupled to at least one storage server via another network, such as the Internet. This storage server is coupled to another storage server via at least two networks, such as the Internet and a Fiber Channel connection. The at least two networks are discovered and initialized by the two storage servers. Two or more networks may be bonded together in a single logical communication channel for transferring backup data. In one embodiment, the backup data corresponds to a duplication operation. When two or more network channels are included in the logical communication channel, a load balancing scheme is used to assign backup data traffic to appropriate network channels.
US08495173B2 Mobile radio communication device and method of managing connectivity status for the same
The present invention provides a method of managing connection status for a channel connecting a server device to a mobile radio communication device including a client/server pair, the method including upon receiving an indication that the client/server pair is disconnected, sending from the mobile radio communication device a status signal to the server device indicating that the client has reset connection between the client/server pair, and upon receiving an indication that the client has connected to the server device, sending from the mobile radio communication device a status signal to the server device indicating that the client is connected to the server device.
US08495169B2 Method and system for managing a hierarchical information base with an application layer protocol
Presented is a method and system for using the Simple Network Management Protocol, SNMP, to manage a hierarchical information base comprising a plurality of entries each defining one or more object attributes. The method comprises mapping each of a plurality of objects of an SNMP Management Information Base, MIB, to a unique attribute of the information base.
US08495164B2 Data transfer device and data transfer method
An object of the present invention is to efficiently perform a data transfer by using a plurality of data transfer devices. A storage apparatus 10 includes: a channel control unit 11 having a first DMA 1142, a second DMA 1112, and a memory 113; a processor unit 12; and a drive control unit 13 that communicates with a storage device 17. When the channel control unit 11 transfers to a host computer 3 data stored in a cache memory 14, the first DMA 1142 receives from a processor unit 12 a setting of a first transfer parameter 151 for the first DMA 1142 containing a second transfer parameter 152 for the second DMA 1112, performs a first data transfer from the cache memory 14 to the memory 113 according to the first transfer parameter 151, and sets the second transfer parameter in the second DMA 1112 thereby to cause the second DMA 1112 to perform a data transfer from the memory 113 to the host computer 3.
US08495163B2 Method and apparatus for a publish-subscribe system with templates for role-based view of subscriptions
Methods and apparatus are disclosed for notifying one or more users of information, where the information has a plurality of attributes. A plurality of subscribable objects are provided to one or more of the users, where each of the subscribable objects comprises one or more of the plurality of attributes as required attributes and zero or more of the attributes as optional attributes. Subscription requests are received from one or more of the users based on at least one of the subscribable objects. The plurality of subscribable objects are based, for example, on a set of predefined templates. The predefined templates identify each of the plurality of attributes as a required attribute or an optional attribute. Each of the attributes is presented to a user using a display format selected based on a cardinality of the corresponding attribute. For example, the display format for a given attribute may comprise one or more of a user entry, a scrollable list and a check box.
US08495162B2 Communication system, communication apparatus and communication method of communication system
A communication system in which a plurality of communication apparatuses and a communication control apparatus are daisy chained. The communication control apparatus transmits control data to the plurality of communication apparatuses, and receives data transmitted by the plurality of communication apparatuses. Each communication apparatus receives data from another communication apparatus on a different side from a communication control apparatus side, in synchronous with receipt of the control data, and transmits data to one of the communication control apparatus and another communication apparatus on the communication control apparatus side, and following the transmission, to transmit data received to the one of the communication control apparatus and the other communication apparatus on the communication control apparatus side, in synchronous with receipt of the control data.
US08495159B2 Caching email unique identifiers
Accessing, via an end user device, email messages of an external mail source. A direct access proxy is operative to reconcile the email contents of external email sources with the email contents of user devices through the use of lists of unique email identifiers (UIDs). A Partition Database returns UID lists reflective of the UIDs of email messages previously received from the external email source and forwarded to a network server of the system (forwarded UID lists). A memory cache external to the direct access proxy and its corresponding Partition Database returns forwarded UID lists. The direct access proxy determines the data reliability of the Partition Database and memory cache, and obtains forwarded UID lists from the memory cache when it determines that the memory cache is at least as reliable as the Partition Database.
US08495154B2 Content usage tracking in superdistribution
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for tracking the usage of digital content is provided. The method includes tracking the usage of at least one digital content by having a provider computer system prepare the content in an encoded format and allowing the provider computer system to distribute the content to a user computer system. The user computer system is made to generate at least one usage tracking message in response to the usage of the content by the user computer system in a uniform, fine-grained and format independent way. The user computer system is enabled to report the usage tracking message to the provider computer system. The provider computer system verifies the usage tracking message.
US08495152B2 Device with multiple cue modules
A device includes a primary cue module, a secondary cue module, a processing module, and a wireless transceiver. The primary cue module obtains primary data regarding an object of interest and the secondary cue module obtains secondary data regarding the object of interest. The processing module is operably coupled to: convert the primary data and the secondary data into an outbound message; convert the outbound message into an outbound symbol stream; and convert an inbound symbol stream into an inbound message, wherein the inbound message includes information regarding the object of interest. The wireless transceiver is operably coupled to: convert the outbound symbol stream into an outbound wireless signal; and convert an inbound wireless signal into the inbound symbol stream.
US08495151B2 Methods and systems for determining email addresses
Disclosed herein is a method and system for a user to find an email address using the Internet. The user inputs the information that he wants to be verified or completed. A seeking unit determines the missing fields in the input information. The seeking unit may determine the missing information in the email address from various sources on the Internet, using a set of rules. The rules may be specified by the user or present in the database. The obtained search results are ranked by a ranking unit, based on the relevance of the scores. The seeking unit may also display the found email information along with the ranks to the user. The user has the option to sort the email information. The user may then select the most accurate email information, according to him, which is then used to populate the field in the information.
US08495147B1 Threading of mixed media
The present invention provides methods and systems for automatically threading multiple media into a single document. More specifically, a single conversation may be distributed among a number of different contacts and replies to those contacts. The distributed contacts and the corresponding replies may be chronologically ordered and analyzed. Then the repetitive portions of the documents and replies are removed. After repetitive portions of the conversation have been removed, the multiple documents are threaded together as a single representation of the conversation.
US08495145B2 Controlling receipt of undesired electronic mail
Spam and other unwanted electronic-mail may be controlled by a system in which a given external message transfer agent using a given Internet protocol address and a given domain name is limited in the number of connections that it may make and the number of messages it may deliver over a given time period. Based on the performance of that external message transfer agent, the passage of time and the number of connections, its assigned connection limit may be increased so that progressively trust is increased and more message connections and a higher number of messages delivered may be permitted.
US08495138B2 Processing responses to a web page
Web server methodology processes responses to a web page, wherein the web page is at least partially generated from one or more widgets and each widget denotes how an element of the web page is to be displayed at a client. The web server receives a response to the web page from the client. From the received response, the server identifies a widget that was used by the server to generate an element of the web page that was provided to the client. In response to this identification, the server then executes action processing logic associated with the particular widget that was used by the server to generate an element of the web page. The action processing logic for the widget uses data received in the response and performs an action with respect to that data.
US08495133B2 Interactive information system, interactive information method, and computer readable medium thereof
An interactive information system, an interactive information method, and a computer readable medium thereof are provided. The interactive information system comprises a reading apparatus, a first transmission interface, a processing unit, a second transmission interface, and an output apparatus. The interactive information system is adapted to use with a plurality of information gadgets. When an information gadget enters the reading range of the reading apparatus, the reading apparatus reads the information gadget, generates a signal related to the information gadget, and transmits the signal to the processing unit. Then, the processing unit identifies the information gadget indicated by the signal, retrieves a file according to the information gadget, and transmits the file to the output apparatus. Finally, the output apparatus then outputs the file received from the processing unit.
US08495129B2 Energy-aware code offload for mobile devices
A method described herein includes an act of, at a mobile computing device, receiving an indication that a portion of code of a program executing on the mobile computing device is to be offloaded to a second computing device for execution on the second computing device, wherein the indication is based at least in part upon an estimated energy savings of the mobile computing device by offloading the portion of the code for execution on the second computing device. The method also includes an act of transmitting data to the second computing device that causes the second computing device to execute the portion of the code.
US08495128B2 Radio communication system, radio equipment, and server
A plurality of servers each transmit data of an initial screen to be displayed on a display screen of radio equipment at a predetermined time interval. The radio equipment is in a reception waiting mode until it is connected to any one of the servers, and is performing channel scanning. Once the data of the initial screen transmitted from any one of the servers is received by the radio equipment, the radio equipment displays the initial screen on the display screen based on the received data. When an operation of a connection instruction is performed on the initial screen, the radio equipment is connected to the server corresponding to the initial screen.
US08495126B2 System and method for managing the deployment of an information handling system
A system and method for automated deployment of an information handling system are disclosed. A method for managing the deployment of an information handling system may include executing a deployment application on an information handling system, the deployment application including one or more tasks associated with the deployment of the information handling system. The method may further include automatically determining for a particular task whether an execution time for the particular task is within a predetermined range of execution times. The method may further include automatically performing an error-handling task in response to determining that the execution time for the particular task is not within the predetermined range of execution times.
US08495124B2 Decimal floating point mechanism and process of multiplication without resultant leading zero detection
A decimal multiplication mechanism for fixed and floating point computation in a computer having a coefficient mechanism without resulting leading zero detection (LZD) and process which assumes that the final product will be M+N digits in length and performs all calculations based on this assumption. Least significant digits that would be truncated are no longer stored, but retained as sticky information which is used to finalize the result product. Once the computation of the product is complete, a final check based on the examination of key bits observed during partial product accumulation is used to determine if the final product is truly M+N digits in length, or M+N−1 digits. If the latter is true, then corrective final product shifting is employed to obtain the proper result. This eliminates the need for dedicated leading zero detection hardware used to determine the number of significant digits in the final product. The corrective final product shifting also incorporates adjustments to the coefficient of the product when the product's exponent is at its extremes and the final product must be brought to be within the precision and range of a given format.
US08495118B2 Tunable random bit generator with magnetic tunnel junction
A random number generator device that utilizes a magnetic tunnel junction. An AC current source is in electrical connection to the magnetic tunnel junction to provide an AC current having an amplitude and a frequency through the free layer of the magnetic tunnel junction, the AC current configured to switch the magnetization orientation of the free layer via thermal magnetization. A read circuit is used to determine the relative orientation of the free layer magnetization in relation to the reference layer magnetization orientation.
US08495117B2 System and method for the parallelization of saturated accumulation operations
A system and method for parallelization of saturated accumulation is provided. In the method, an input sequence is divided into a plurality of subsequences. For each subsequence, three parallel saturating additions are performed. The local saturation minimum is the saturating addition of the global saturation minimum and the values of the subsequence. The local midpoint is the saturating addition of the values of the subsequence and the local saturation maximum is the saturating addition of the global saturation maximum and the values of the subsequence. In embodiments, the accumulation total for a subsequence is calculated as the saturating addition of the accumulation total for prior subsequences and the local midpoint of the current subsequence, wherein the accumulation total of the last subsequence is the result of the saturated accumulation for the sequence. In another embodiment, the saturated addition of subsequence results are further parallelized before the final result is reached.
US08495115B2 Apparatus and method for low complexity combinatorial coding of signals
The invention utilizes low complexity estimates of complex functions to perform combinatorial coding of signal vectors. The invention disregards the accuracy of such functions as long as certain sufficient properties are maintained. The invention in turn may reduce computational complexity of certain coding and decoding operations by two orders of magnitude or more for a given signal vector input.
US08495111B1 System and method of hierarchical space management for storage systems
A system and method for storing data. In one embodiment, a storage system includes a resource manager and a hierarchical entry tree describing storage entities of the storage system. At each given level of the tree higher than the bottom level, metadata entries summarize storage availability at a level below the given level. The resource manager receives a request to store data of a target size at a target location corresponding to a first portion of the entry tree and scans the entry tree to determine if contiguous, free storage entities of the target size are available at the target location. In response to determining that contiguous, free storage entities of the target size are not available at the target location, the resource manager scans portions of the entry tree outside the first portion to identify contiguous, free storage entities of the target size, where it stores the data.
US08495099B2 Method of manipulating information objects and of accessing such objects in a computer environment
A method is described which is used in a computer environment in order to produce a current view from at least one source information object that can vary. The method is characterized in that it includes the following steps: a reference of the view in relation to the source information object is established and stored; a user implements at least one information object modification tool in order to produce a transformed information object from the source information object; a difference information set that is representative of the modification actions performed by the user with the tool(s) is recorded in a memory element; and a current view is produced from the current version of each source information object and said difference information set.
US08495087B2 Aggregate contribution of iceberg queries
One or more embodiments determine a distance between at least two vectors of n coordinates. A set of heavy coordinates is identified from a set of n coordinates associated with at least two vectors. A set of light coordinates is identified from the set of n coordinates associated with the at least two vectors. A first estimation of a contribution is determined from the set of heavy coordinates to a rectilinear distance between the at least two vectors. A second estimation of a contribution is determined from the set of light coordinates to the rectilinear distance norm. The first estimation is combined with the second estimation.
US08495075B2 Fuzzy string matching of media meta-data
A method accomplishes matching a particular media metadata record to one of a plurality of records of a first media metadata database. For the particular media metadata record, for each of at least some of the tokens of the particular media metadata record, a table is processed that correlates that token to records of the first media metadata database. Based on the processing, it is determined in which of the plurality of records (match candidate records) of the first media metadata database that token of the particular record appears. For each of at least some of the match candidate records of the first media metadata database, a value is determined that indicates a degree of match between that match candidate record and the particular media metadata record. The determined values are processed to determine one of the match candidate records is a nominal match to the particular media metadata record.
US08495074B2 Effects application based on object clustering
A system in accordance with the present invention may include one or more processors, memory that receives instructions from the one or more processors according to a clock operating at a frequency, one or more programs stored in the memory, with instructions to: access media content; analyze the media content according to meta data, media characteristics, or other media-related data; and, create a media content object cluster according to the meta data, the media characteristics, or the other media-related data.
US08495070B2 Logic operation system
A storage unit stores at least one attribute each assigned an attribute identifier uniquely identifying the attribute. Each attribute identifier is associated with at least one piece of equivalent reference data each representing the attribute. Each attribute identifier is not a word representing the attribute, and is made of a symbol having no meaning per se. A weight of association between an attribute identifier and each of at least one piece of equivalent reference data represents a degree of relatedness between the attribute and the piece of equivalent reference data. An operation unit determines whether or not given data is the same as a piece of equivalent reference data, obtains a weight of association between the piece of equivalent reference data determined to be the same and an attribute identifier, and selects the attribute when a sum of at least one weight obtained for the attribute satisfies a predetermined condition.
US08495067B2 Partitioning management of system resources across multiple users
A resource group attribute is assigned to a storage resource object representing at least one of the plurality of storage resources in a system configuration of the computing storage environment. The resource group attribute includes a selectable value indicating a resource group object to which the storage resource object is associated. A resource group label is provided in the resource group object and is a string having no wildcards. A user resource scope is assigned to a user ID and a value of the user resource scope provides a mechanism to match to the resource group label. The user ID is authorized to perform one of creating, deleting, modifying, controlling, and managing storage resources with an association to a resource group.
US08495061B1 Automatic metadata identification
A system determines whether text of a document includes a document identifier and uses the document identifier to locate metadata in a database when the text of the document includes the document identifier. The system compares the metadata to the text of the document and associates the metadata with the text of the document when at least some of the metadata matches the text of the document.
US08495056B2 System and method for caching database reports
A method of report caching includes recording a user ID, a timestamp including at least a connection date and at least one SQL query associated with a report requested by a user from the database system for each connection of the user to the database system over a predetermined period. A plurality of intervals is defined in the predetermined period. Retrieved are instances of the user ID associated with connections of the user to the database system during at least a threshold number of the intervals based on a position that a current date associated with a current connection of the user to the database system occupies in a current interval. The at least one SQL query is executed to generate the report from the database system on the current date before request for the report from the user. The report is stored in a cache for user's retrieval.
US08495052B2 Data processing apparatus, data processing method, and computer-readable storage medium storing a program
A table is provided including a document name and content that is included the document data thereof and for which the number of times that duplication is permitted is restricted, in association with each other. The table is referenced, and a determination is made as to whether document data targeted for duplication processing includes content for which duplication processing is restricted. If a determination is made that such content is included, deletion-completed document data in which the content has been deleted from the document data is generated (S309), and the document name, the deletion-completed document data, and information regarding the content are stored in association with each other (S313).
US08495051B2 Search engine inference based virtual assistance
Techniques described herein generally relate to real time inference based systems. Example embodiments may set forth devices, methods, and computer programs related to search engine inference based virtual assistance. One example method may include a computing device adapted to receive text as input and a computer processor arranged to determine at least one inference regarding subject matter of the text based on one or more web searches of one or more terms within the text. The inference(s) may then be automatically displayed upon the inference(s) being determined. The text may be automatically received as input from a voice-to-text converter as voice-to-text conversion producing the text is occurring.
US08495046B1 Encoding locations and using distances for resources
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for processing locations and distances related to resources referenced in search results. Location data for an entity are processed to determine physical locations of an entity. The physical locations are used to generate a coverage area data, and the location data and coverage area data are associated with Internet resources of the entity. The coverage area data and location data are used to filter search results and adjust the rank of individual search results that are responsive to a query associated with a query location.
US08495037B1 Efficient isolation of backup versions of data objects affected by malicious software
A system for efficient isolation of backup versions of data objects affected by malicious software includes one or more processors and a memory coupled to the processors. The memory comprises program instructions executable by the processors to implement a backup manager configured to receive an indication that a data object is infected by malicious software. In response to the indication, the backup manager is configured to identify a particular backup version of the data object to be excluded from a data set to be used for a restore operation.
US08495035B2 Systems and methods for providing data integrity protection in a storage medium
A method for data integrity protection includes arranging data in a plurality of data blocks. A respective block signature is computed over each of the data blocks, thereby generating multiple block signatures. The data blocks and the block signatures in an integrity hierarchy are stored in a storage medium, the hierarchy comprising multiple levels of signature blocks containing signatures computed over lower levels in the hierarchy, culminating in a top-level block containing a top-level signature computed over all of the hierarchy. A modification is made in the data stored in a given data block within the hierarchy. The respective block signature of the given data block is recomputed in response to the modification, and the recomputed block signature is stored in the top-level block for use in verifying a subsequent requests to read data from the given data block.
US08495031B2 Records declaration filesystem monitoring
Techniques for managing records on a filesystem to enforce a record disposition protocol. Embodiments identify records on the filesystem using one or more record definitions. Each record definition may contain a conditional statement which, if satisfied by a particular file on the filesystem, indicates the particular file as a record. Embodiments may then monitor file activity for each of the identified records and upon detecting the file activity, may enforce the record disposition protocol for the record. Such enforcement may include preventing the file activity, and may further include logging information related to the file activity.
US08495022B1 Systems and methods for synthetic backups
A computer-implemented method for synthetic backups may include identifying a full backup of a volume of files. The computer-implemented method may also include identifying a set of incremental backups that were performed subsequently to the full backup. The computer-implemented method may further include identifying a set of storage devices that store the full backup and the set of incremental backups. The computer-implemented method may additionally include identifying a request to create a synthetic backup incorporating the full backup and the set of incremental backups. The computer-implemented method may moreover include generating a sorted catalog for the synthetic backup by indexing files for the synthetic backup in an order based on at least one characteristic of the files. The computer-implemented method may also include creating the synthetic backup of the indexed files in the sorted catalog by reading the indexed files in an order based on locations of the indexed files on the set of storage devices. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08495018B2 Transitioning application replication configurations in a networked computing environment
Embodiments of the present invention provide an approach for providing non-disruptive transitioning of application replication configurations and proactive analysis of possible error scenarios. Specifically, under embodiments of the present invention, a common integration model (CIM)-compatible representation of a system replication plan is provided in a computer data structure. Based on the representation, a hierarchical tree data structure having a set of nodes is created. A set of system configuration updates pertaining to the set of nodes are then classified (e.g., based upon the type of configuration update). Once the set of nodes has been classified, the set of nodes may then be analyzed to determine if any nodes of the set are isomorphic. If so, the plan can be modified accordingly. In any event, the replication plan (or modified replication plan) may then be implemented.
US08495014B2 Asynchronous remote copy system and storage control method
Before starting asynchronous remote copy in the multihop method (asynchronous remote copy from the first to the second storage apparatus, and from the second to the third storage apparatus), the first initial copy which is the copy for making the contents of the first data volume in the first storage apparatus and the contents of the second data volume in the second storage apparatus consistent and the second initial copy which is the copy for making the contents of the second data volume and the contents of the third data volume in the third storage apparatus consistent are performed. In the second initial copy, the second storage apparatus creates a journal including the update number and the data in the second data volume, and the journal is transferred from the second storage apparatus to the third storage apparatus. The created update number is acquired from the first storage apparatus.
US08495010B2 Method and system for adaptive metadata replication
A method for writing a data block to a storage pool. The method including receiving a write operation for a block, determining whether the block comprises metadata, and if the block comprises metadata: determining a first replication type for the block, and writing the block to the storage pool in accordance with the first replication type. If the block does not comprise metadata: determining a second replication type for the block and writing the block to the storage pool in accordance with the second replication type.
US08495003B2 System and method for scoring stream data
A feed combine is provided which receives a feed including content from at least one data source. One of a plurality of scoring methods is selected for scoring the content in the feed based on a velocity of the feed. A determination is made as to which content in the feed is appropriate for display by producing a score using the selected scoring method. The scoring method uses a plurality of weighted scoring factors which alter the score based on whether the content includes objectionable material determined in accordance with user-defined criteria. A determination is made as to whether content is to be rendered on at least one rendering device based on a score assigned to the content.
US08495001B2 Systems and methods for semantic concept definition and semantic concept relationship synthesis utilizing existing domain definitions
Computer-implemented systems and methods for synthesis of concept definitions and concept relationships from a domain of data, utilizing different semantic processing protocols such as formal concept analysis and faceted classification synthesis from existing domain concepts that have a confidence gradient built into them. A cognitive or an input agent provides an input of an active concept which is matched against existing domain concepts. The resultant pool of relevant domain concepts is then used to derive virtual concept definitions using a semantic processing protocol. The derivation is then overlaid with a concept of relative proximity of an attribute from another within an attribute set. An additional layer of coherence is given by the relative proximity measure. The end result is a pool of related virtual concept definitions in a tree structure.
US08494997B2 System and method for validation of transaction data
A system and a method for validation of transaction data are disclosed. A rules engine in the system and the method is used to quickly and accurately deduce whether or not a transaction is a candidate for flagging with additional identification data, and a loyalty engine is used to quickly and accurately track and manage an entity relating to a transaction. In the system and the method, through compression and optimization, separate logical rules originally built are combined into an aggregate of compressed rules shared across a plurality of validations, such that the aggregate of compressed rules in the rules engine and the loyalty engine operates in memories of computing machines hosting servers. The system creates modularity and nimbleness with an internal instancing system and a dynamic routing node to multiple active instances. The multiple active instances of the rules engine and the loyalty engine support real-time updates and thus facilitate higher uptime capacities.
US08494992B1 Ranking and vote scheduling using statistical confidence intervals
Method, computer-readable media, and systems for ranking content submissions and scheduling content submissions for additional voting in a distributed online community are disclosed. A statistical confidence interval is calculated for the approval ratio of each content submission based on one or more scaling formulae. A popularity ranking of the content submissions is generated based on the lower bounds of the confidence intervals calculated for the content submissions. Top-ranked content submissions in the popularity ranking are presented to users as the most popular content submissions. A voting priority ranking of the content submissions is generated based on the upper bounds of the confidence intervals calculated for the content submissions. Top-ranked content submissions in the voting priority ranking are selected as featured content submissions for additional voting. The selection of the top-ranked content submissions for additional voting is randomized based on a selected probability distribution.
US08494988B2 Systems and methods for generating feasible solutions from two parents for an evolutionary process
Systems and methods may include receiving a pair of parent chromosome data structures, where each parent chromosome data structure provides a plurality of genes representative of variables that are permitted to evolve; combining genes of the two parent chromosome data structures to generate at least one first child chromosome data structure; evaluating the at least one first child chromosome data structures according to a plurality of constraint functions to generate a respective plurality of constraint function values for each of the at least one first child chromosome data structure, where the constraint functions define constraints on a feasible solution set; determining whether any of the at least one first child chromosome data structure is within the feasible solution set.
US08494982B2 Emotion model, apparatus, and method for adaptively modifying personality features of emotion model
Disclosed are an emotion model, and an apparatus and method for adaptively learning personality of the emotion model. The emotion model, which maintains personality information, creates emotion information according to the personality information and takes a predetermined behavior according to the emotion information. The personality information may change adaptively in correspondence to a user's response to the behavior performed by the emotion model. Accordingly, the emotion model may react adaptively to the user through interactions with the user.
US08494976B2 System for optimizing transportation scheduling and inventory management of bulk product from supply locations to demand locations
An optimization system for transportation scheduling and inventory management of a bulk product from supply locations to demand locations is provided. The system has a mathematical model containing mathematical programming equations. In one embodiment, the objective function of the mathematical model is to minimize a cost basis of the product transported. The system also has a database system for data input that interfaces with the mathematical model. The last component of the system is a mathematical optimization solver that solves the equations provided by the mathematical model after the mathematical model receives data from the database system. As a result, the optimization system provides optimized or simulated results for the input data.
US08494975B2 Method and tool for estimating a ship date profile for a business
A method and tool for estimating a ship date profile for a business (e.g., a business that is not in operation), includes simulating a plurality of dynamic events to estimate the ship date profile for the business. The plurality of dynamic events may include, for example, at least one of stochastic customer shopping traffic, an uncertainty of order size, a customer preference of a product feature and demand forecast, an inventory policy, a sourcing policy and a supply planning policy, and a manufacturing lead time.
US08494971B2 System, method, and program for editing production schedule
A system, method, and computer program for editing a production schedule. The system includes: a storage unit storing master data; a receiving unit receiving the master data; a duplicating unit generating editing data; an editing operation unit generating preliminarily-edited data based on an editing command; an identification unit identifying an item edited in the preliminarily-edited data with respect to the master data; a determination unit determining whether the inputted editing command is valid or invalid, wherein tag information is appended to an item being the same as the edited item; and an updating unit generating the preliminarily-edited data in which the editing command determined to be valid is reflected and to which the tag information is appended and updating the master data by using the generated preliminarily-edited data. A method and computer program are also provided.
US08494967B2 Method and system for distributing electronic tickets with visual display
This invention discloses a novel system and method for distributing electronic ticketing such that the ticket is verified at the entrance to venues by means of an animation or other human perceptible verifying visual object that is selected by the venue for the specific event. This removes the need to use a bar-code scanner on an LCD display of a cell phone or other device and speeds up the rate at which human ticket takers can verify ticket holders. The system providing the service also can maintain a persistent communication channel with the user device in order to control the ticket verification process.
US08494964B1 Software as a service via virtualization
A system, method, and computer program product for managing limited-use software on a host computer having an operating system is disclosed. A software application can be installed in the operating system as a virtualized application using light weight virtualization technology. Rights usage information for the software application is received, the rights usage information comprising a rule describing permitted use of the software application on the host computer. A determination is made whether to enable the virtualized application based at least in part on the rights usage information. Responsive to the determination, the virtualized application is enabled to be executed on the host computer.
US08494935B2 System and method for payment reconciliation against expressive contracts
In a computer-implemented method of conducting expressive payment reconciliation, a purchase transaction is stored in a computer storage accessible to a processor. The processor identifies a contract against which the purchase transaction is made and a first payment amount for the purchase transaction. Contract data is stored in the computer storage and the processor determines a second payment amount for the purchase transaction based on at least one good or service associated with the purchase transaction and the data about the contract. In response to a difference in the first and second payments, the processor either stores computer storage a modified invoice with a modified payment amount, stores in the computer storage a reconciliation payment equal to the payment difference; outputs over a computer network an explanation of the modified payment; or outputs over a computer network a dispute notification.
US08494934B2 Electronic system for provision of banking services
An electronic system providing banking services, comprises a server having a first interface for communication with user mobile telephony devices over a mobile telephone network; and a second interface for communication with an intermediary acting as a gateway to banking records of multiple banking organizations. The first interface is adapted to allow at least balance enquiry requests to be submitted to one of the multiple banking organizations by means of the intermediary and to provide at least balance enquiry replies for display on the user mobile telephony device. The invention provides the functions of the high street ATM using the mobile phone environment.
US08494906B2 System for providing for a revenue generator to bid individually on mobile search traffic originating from each mobile carrier in a plurality of mobile carriers
A system is described for providing for a revenue generator to bid individually on mobile search traffic originating from each mobile carrier in a plurality of mobile carriers. The system may include a processor, a memory and an interface. The memory may store a plurality of bids, a keyword, a plurality of mobile advertisements and a mobile search request. The interface may communicate with a user and a revenue generator. The processor may receive, via the interface, the plurality of bids and the plurality of mobile advertisements from the revenue generator. Each bid and each mobile advertisement may be associated with at least one mobile carrier. The processor may receive from the user, via the interface, a mobile search request. The processor may determine which mobile carrier the mobile search request originated from and the processor may serve the mobile advertisement associated with the determined mobile carrier to the user.
US08494891B2 Meeting scheduling system with options for resolving scheduling conflicts
Methods and systems are provided for sending out meeting notices that specify logistics for both a primary meeting and an alternate meeting. The invitees are to respond, indicating their availability for attending the primary and alternate meetings. Based on the invitee responses, the system sets up the meeting for either the primary time/place for the meeting or the alternate time/place for the meeting. The final meeting notices are sent out to the invitees informing them of the meeting logistics.
US08494882B1 Modeling recommended insurance coverage
A method for analyzing insurance coverage disparities includes providing a processor, providing a memory including data related to a plurality of claims, and generating a claim scenario, using the processor and the data related to the plurality of claims. The claim scenario includes monetary amounts for damage to property and injury to a person. The method also includes computing, a coverage disparity between at least one of a coverage limit of a policy associated with damage to property and the monetary amount for damage to the property or a coverage limit of the policy associated with injury to the person and the monetary amount for the injury to the person. The method further includes transmitting information for display, within a user interface, the coverage disparity and transmitting information for display, within the user interface, a coverage disparity for a peer group associated with the policy.
US08494880B2 Interactive patient medication list
Systems, methods and devices for managing patient medication data which include, in one implementation, displaying in a user-interface movable medication containers for medications in a list of medications for a patient, each medication container having a corresponding medication category; displaying a receptacle for organizing the medications, the receptacle having multiple layers having corresponding medication categories in a first dimension, each layer configured to receive one or more medication containers; and receiving a first medication container from the movable medication containers that is dragged into a layer in the first dimension having a corresponding medication category that matches the medication category of the first medication container.
US08494867B2 Method and apparatus for matching buyers and sellers in an anonymous online marketplace
In one embodiment, the present invention is a method and apparatus for matching buyers and sellers in an anonymous online marketplace. One embodiment of a method for defining a community of network users includes collecting data relating to the network users, where the data is of at least one of the following types: demographic information relating to the network users, Internet Protocol address information relating to the network users, and Internet Protocol traffic information relating to the network users. The collected data is then anonymized, where the anonymizing is performed individually for each type of data. The anonymized data is aggregated to generate an activity-to-demographic mapping representative of network activity associated with particular demographics of the community of network users.
US08494862B2 Method for triggering at least one first and second background application via a universal language dialog system
At least one transaction and at least one transaction parameter that is allocated thereto are determined based on at least one user statement in order to trigger at least one first and second background application via a universal language dialogue system, first transactions and first transaction parameters being assigned to the first background application and second transactions and second transaction parameters being associated with the second background application. The first and second transactions as well as the first and second transaction parameters are linked together via a universal dialogue specification which is evaluated to determine the at least one transaction and at least on associated transaction parameter in order to trigger at least one of the background application via the universal language dialogue system.
US08494855B1 Method, system, and computer readable medium for comparing phonetic similarity of return words to resolve ambiguities during voice recognition
In one embodiment, the invention provides a method for a speech recognition system to select a return value corresponding to a spoken input. The method comprises generating a dictionary comprising return values associated with data provisioned in the speech recognition system; generating a grammar for each return value in the dictionary; analyzing the grammar to determine a subset of return values from the dictionary that are likely alternatives for each return value in the dictionary, based on the grammar; selecting a return value corresponding to the spoken input based on the grammar; and if the selected return value is not confirmed by a user, then presenting the likely alternative for the selected return value to the user.
US08494851B2 System and method for contextual social network communications during phone conversation
An embodiment of the invention includes methods and systems for contextual social network communications during a phone conversation. A telephone conversation between a first user and at least one second user is monitored. More specifically, a monitor identifies terms spoken by the first user and the second user during the telephone conversation. The terms spoken are translated into textual keywords by a translating module. One or more of the second user's web applications are searched by a processor for portion(s) of the second user's web applications that include at least one of the keywords. The processor also searches one or more of the first user's web applications for portion(s) of the first user's web applications that include at least one of the keywords. The portion(s) of the second user's web applications and the portion(s) of the first user's web applications are displayed to the first user during the telephone conversation.
US08494847B2 Weighting factor learning system and audio recognition system
A weighting factor learning system includes an audio recognition section that recognizes learning audio data and outputting the recognition result; a weighting factor updating section that updates a weighting factor applied to a score obtained from an acoustic model and a language model so that the difference between a correct-answer score calculated with the use of a correct-answer text of the learning audio data and a score of the recognition result becomes large; a convergence determination section that determines, with the use of the score after updating, whether to return to the weighting factor updating section to update the weighting factor again; and a weighting factor convergence determination section that determines, with the use of the score after updating, whether to return to the audio recognition section to perform the process again and update the weighting factor using the weighting factor updating section.
US08494846B2 Method for generating background noise and noise processing apparatus
A method for generating background noise and a noise processing apparatus are provided in order to improve user experience. The method includes: if an obtained signal frame is a noise frame, a high band noise encoding parameter is obtained from the noise frame; weighting and/or smoothing is performed on the high band noise encoding parameter to obtain a second high band noise encoding parameter; and a high band background noise signal is generated according to the second high band noise encoding parameter. A noise processing apparatus is also provided.
US08494845B2 Signal distortion elimination apparatus, method, program, and recording medium having the program recorded thereon
Provided is a signal distortion elimination apparatus comprising: an inverse filter application means that outputs the signal obtained by applying an inverse filter to an observed signal as a restored signal when a predetermined iteration termination condition is met and outputs the signal obtained by applying the inverse filter to the observed signal as an ad-hoc signal when the predetermined iteration termination condition is not met; a prediction error filter calculation means that segments the ad-hoc signal into frames and outputs a prediction error filter of each frame obtained by performing linear prediction analysis of the ad-hoc signal of each frame; an inverse filter calculation means that calculates an inverse filter such that a concatenation of innovation estimates of the respective frames becomes mutually independent among their samples, where the innovation estimate of a single frame (an innovation estimate) is the signal obtained by applying the prediction error filter of the corresponding frame to the ad-hoc signal of the corresponding frame, and outputs the inverse filter; and a control means that iteratively executes the inverse filter application means, the prediction error filter calculation means and the inverse filter calculation means until the iteration termination condition is met.
US08494831B2 Method to simulate a digital system
A simulator is partitioned into a functional component and a behavior prediction component and the components are executed in parallel. The execution path of the functional component is used to drive the behavior prediction component and the behavior prediction component changes the execution path of the functional component.
US08494829B2 Sensor fusion and probabilistic parameter estimation method and apparatus
A probabilistic digital signal processor using data from multiple instruments is described. Initial probability distribution functions are input to a dynamic state-space model, which operates on state and/or model probability distribution functions to generate a prior probability distribution function, which is input to a probabilistic updater. The probabilistic updater integrates sensor data from multiple instruments with the prior to generate a posterior probability distribution function passed (1) to a probabilistic sampler, which estimates one or more parameters using the posterior, which is output or re-sampled in an iterative algorithm or (2) iteratively to the dynamic state-space model. For example, the probabilistic processor operates on fused data using a physical model, where the data originates from a mechanical system or a medical meter or instrument, such as an electrocardiogram or pulse oximeter to generate new parameter information and/or enhanced parameter information.
US08494819B2 Efficient data management for shell finite elements representing layered composite materials
Methods and systems for obtaining numerically simulated structural behaviors of layered composite materials within a structure in a time-marching simulation using finite element analysis (FEA) are disclosed. A single identifier is used for designating all shell finite elements representing parts or components made of layered composite materials in a FEA model of a structure by user. Layered composite materials may have arbitrary number of layers. Each layer may have different material orientation/angle or fiber direction, thickness, and structural material behaviors. Each shell element representing composite material includes a set of through-thickness integration points with each corresponding to one layer of the layered composite materials. The shell elements are sorted by types into a number of internal groups to facilitate vectorization and/or more optimal domain decomposition in massive parallel processing. The internal groups are configured to be hidden from the user and stored in contiguous memory locations when conducting a FEA.
US08494818B2 Analyzing spectral data for the selection of a calibration model
The invention relates to a method of analyzing spectral data for the selection of a calibration model, relating spectra of a substance to a physical or chemical parameter of the substance, over a predetermined range of the physical or chemical parameter, comprising the steps: a) capturing spectral data of the substance with respective values of the physical or chemical parameter over the predetermined range, b) creating a plurality of calibration models using the captured spectral data in dependence upon the values of the physical or chemical parameter based on the calibration data using statistical resampling methods, c) calculating tolerance intervals of the results at each reference level for each calibration model, and d) displaying the tolerance intervals at each reference level over the predetermined range for each calibration model. In this way, a possibility for analyzing spectra data is provided which is useful in spectroscopic applications for automated calibration model selection and makes analytical interpretation and evaluation easier and more accurate.
US08494813B2 Method of designing a composite panel
A method of designing a composite panel, the panel comprising a plurality of zones, each zone comprising a plurality of plies of composite material, each ply in each zone having a respective orientation angle, and some of the plies running continuously between adjacent zones. A design is provided comprising a set of design variables including a thickness for each of the zones, and a ply percentage for each orientation angle for each of the zones, each ply percentage identifying a percentage of plies within a zone having a particular orientation angle.The design is modified in a series of iterations, each iteration including: analyzing the current design by calculating an objective function, a set of ply evolution constraint functions each indicating a degree of ply continuity between a respective pair of adjacent zones, and one or more structural constraint functions; performing a sensitivity analysis by calculating partial derivatives of the objective function for the current design with respect to a selected set of the design variables, and calculating partial derivatives of the constraint functions for the current design with respect to a selected set of the design variables; and generating a new design by determining an optimum update of the design variables in accordance with the analysis and the sensitivity analysis.
US08494810B2 Component adaptive life management
A framework for adaptively managing the life of components. A sensor provides non-destructive test data obtained from inspecting a component. The inspection data may be filtered using reference signatures and by subtracting a baseline. The filtered inspection data and other inspection data for the component is analyzed to locate flaws and estimate the current condition of the component. The current condition may then be used to predict the component's condition at a future time or to predict a future time at which the component's condition will have deteriorated to a certain level. A current condition may be input to a precomputed database to look up the future condition or time. The future condition or time is described by a probability distribution which may be used to assess the risk of component failure. The assessed risk may be used to determine whether the part should continue in service, be replaced or repaired. A hyperlattice database is used with a rapid searching method to estimate at least one material condition and one usage parameter, such as stress level for the component. The hyperlattice is also used to rapidly predict future condition, associated uncertainty and risk of failure.
US08494808B2 Method for optimizing parameters for detection systems
A method for generating scatter-plots similar to classic ROC curves to gain an understanding of the tradeoffs between probability of detection and probability of false alarm for detections systems. The method uses a stochastic optimization and an objective function to maximize probabilities of detection for probabilities of false alarm that are arbitrarily close to some target probability of false alarm.
US08494805B2 Method and system for assessing orthopedic alignment using tracking sensors
A method for determining orthopedic alignment is provided. The method includes monitoring a first and second sequence of signals transmitted from the first device to a second device, estimating a location of the first device from sensory measurements of the signals at respective sensors on the second device, calculating a set of phase differences, weighting a difference of an expected location and estimated location of the first device with the set of phase differences to produce a relative displacement, and reporting a position of an orthopedic instrument coupled to the first device based on the relative displacement.
US08494797B2 Energy detection method and an energy detection circuit using the same
An energy detection method is provided. The method obtains an initial time point of an input signal with reference to a digital signal corresponding to the input signal. An ith sample value is obtained by sampling the digital signal. The (i−M−N+1)th to the (i−N)th sample values and the (i−N+1)th to the ith sample value are buffered. The weighting coefficient is set to with initial value. A first parameter is obtained according to the weighting coefficient and the (i−M−N+1)th to the (i−N)th sample values, and a second parameter is obtained according to the (i−N+1)th to the ith sample values. A comparison between the first parameter and the second parameter is made, and the sampling time point of the (i−N+1)th sample value is determined as the signal initial time point when the second parameter is greater than the first parameter.
US08494796B2 Counting device, physical quantity sensor, counting method and physical quantity measuring method
The counting device includes: a signal counter that counts the number of half cycles of input signals during given counting periods; a signal half cycle measurement unit that measures the half cycles; a frequency distribution generator that generates a frequency distribution of the half cycles; a representative value calculator configured to calculate a representative value of a distribution of the half cycles; a correction value calculator configured to calculate a total number Ns and a total number Nwn so as to correct the number of the half cycles, wherein Ns represents the total of the number of the half cycles that are less than 0.5 times the represent value, and Nwn represents the total of the number of the half cycles that are equal to or greater than 2n and less than (2n+2) times the representative value.
US08494792B2 Distributing metering responses for load balancing an AMR network
Disclosed are methodology and corresponding apparatus subject matters for providing improved efficiency in the collection of data from a large number of metrology devices associated with an Automated Meter reading (AMR) network. AMR network operation produces randomly spaced transmissions from individual nodes in the network. When an AMR system wishes to retrieve data from a large number of points over an AMR network, a broadcast or multicast request is transmitted to appropriate nodes. A time window is defined either in such request or in the devices themselves such that start and end offsets from the time of the request are received by the node. The start offset provides a quiet period to insure request delivery to all the appropriate nodes. The end offset provides a time by which the requested data must be returned. Responses are sent randomly within the window established by the start and stop offset times.
US08494790B2 System and method for detecting structural damage
A system and method for detecting structural damage is provided that utilizes a general order perturbation methodology involving multiple perturbation parameters. The perturbation methodology is used iteratively in conjunction with an optimization method to identify the stiffness parameters of structures using natural frequencies and/or mode shape information. The stiffness parameters are then used to determine the location and extent of damage in a structure. A novel stochastic model is developed to model the random impact series produced manually or to generate a random impact series in a random impact device. The random impact series method or the random impact device can be used to excite a structure and generate vibration information used to obtain the stiffness parameters of the structure. The method or the device can also just be used for modal testing purposes. The random impact device is a high energy, random, and high signal-to-noise ratio system.
US08494785B1 Molecular standards for microbial pathogens
A method for constructing a consensus sequence from a sequence alignment. The consensus sequence may be used to generate molecular standards that may substitute for genomic DNA in various assays. Since a molecular standard cannot have unresolved bases, the method removes less informative sequences to resolve all positions in the alignment. Also includes several sequences from pathogenic waterborne species that were constructed according to the method.
US08494783B2 Method and apparatus for storing and processing molecular information
The molecular information providing system of the invention has the terminal units to including molecular structure input/output means, and a molecular information providing apparatus connected via a network to the terminal units and including a database storing a molecular structure, an intermediate representation generated from the molecular structure, and a characteristic decided depending on the molecular structure. The molecular information providing apparatus comprises a coordinate system transforming part for calculating the principal axes of inertia from an atomic arrangement notation specifying the molecular structure, and registering in the database an intermediate representation that is a coordinate transformation of the atomic coordinates into a coordinate system in the directions of the principal axes of inertia, and a retrieval executing part for retrieving the molecular structure stored in the database, employing the intermediate representation.
US08494776B2 Method and system for passive electroseismic surveying
A method of passive surveying comprises generating one or more detected signals by passively detecting a signal generated within a subsurface earth formation due to a seismoelectric response or an electroseismic response in at least one porous subsurface earth formation containing at least one fluid, and processing the one or more detected signals to determine at least one property of the subsurface earth formation.
US08494767B2 Method and apparatus for automatically determining practicality of a trip
Provided is a method and an apparatus for automatically determining practicality of a trip. A mobile device obtains at least one point of interest among a starting location and a finishing location for a trip. In accordance with an embodiment of the disclosure, for each point of interest, the mobile device automatically determines an indication of practicality for making the point of interest an intermediate location to be visited during the trip based on both the starting location and the finishing location for the trip. By considering both the starting location and the finishing location, the points of interest can be presented to the user in a manner that reflects how practical it is to visit the points of interest given that the user is to end up at the finishing location.
US08494763B1 Center pivot irrigation system position sensing system
A method for determining a position of a rotatable arm of a center pivot irrigation system may comprise providing a pivot arm position sensing system including a tower unit positionable at the rotatable arm and a GPS receiver at the tower unit, and receiving, from a user over a communication network, a schedule for operating the irrigation system as the rotatable arm rotates. The schedule may include at least two instructions for taking an action by the irrigation system with each instruction including an action and a corresponding location for the action. The method may further include downloading the schedule over a communication network to storage on the position sensing system, determining a location of the tower unit as the tower unit moves about the center of rotation using the GPS receiver, and initiating an action when the location corresponds to the location in one of the instructions.
US08494761B2 Method and device for aiding the evaluation of a flight trajectory intended to be followed by an aircraft in a constrained environment
A device and method aids the evaluation of a flight trajectory that is intended to be followed by an aircraft within a constrained environment. The method includes receiving information from a processing unit regarding stationary and moving obstacles, implementing a collision trial based on this information, and displaying any collision risks to the pilot on a display device in the cockpit. Consequently, a pilot can know within the constrained environment whether a flight trajectory needs to be modified to avoid potential collisions.
US08494756B2 Control system and method based on estimated engine speed
A control system includes a speed determination module and a profile estimation module. The speed determination module determines previous engine speeds based on a predetermined profile of a crankshaft position sensor and previous pulse times corresponding to teeth on the crankshaft position sensor. The profile estimation module performs data fitting to determine an estimated profile of the crankshaft position sensor based on the previous pulse times and the previous engine speeds. The speed determination module determines present engine speeds based on the estimated profile and present pulse times corresponding to the teeth on the crankshaft position sensor.
US08494755B2 Apparatus and method for controlling the speed of an internal combustion engine
The apparatus according to the invention comprises a controller for forming a speed signal arranged to receive speed measurement data of the internal combustion engine as well as speed reference data. The apparatus additionally comprises a module for forming the internal speed reference value instead of the speed reference value set to be used when forming the control signal.
US08494754B2 Condition evaluation system for engine-driven traveling vehicle
A fuel consumption amount evaluation system is disclosed. The system includes a rotational speed detecting section (5b) for detecting an engine rotational speed of the engine-driven traveling vehicle as a measured rotational speed, an accelerator opening degree detecting section (5a) for detecting an accelerator opening degree, a fuel injection amount calculating means (50) for calculating a fuel injection amount per predetermined unit from the accelerator opening degree and the measured rotational speed, and a mileage evaluating section (54) for effecting a mileage evaluation based on the fuel injection amount calculated by the fuel injection amount calculating means (50).
US08494753B2 Method and device for operating an internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine can be operated by a fuel mixture consisting of a base fuel and an alternative fuel. Concentration values (ETH_PERC) of the alternative fuel are determined in at least two different ways for operating the internal combustion engine. A reliable concentration value of the alternative fuel is determined depending on the various determined concentration values (ETH_PERC).
US08494751B2 Motor control apparatus for internal combustion system, and motor control apparatus
A control signal output unit (62) outputs a rotational direction signal indicating a rotational direction of a motor (53) and a pulse width modulation control signal. A motor-driving unit (63) drives the motor (53) based on the pulse width modulation control signal and rotational direction signal inputted therein. A connection unit (64) electrically connects the control signal output unit (62) and the motor-driving unit (63) to transmit the pulse width modulation control signal and rotational direction signal outputted from the control signal output unit (62) to the motor-driving unit (63). The motor-driving unit (63) comprises a trouble-detecting unit (631). The trouble-detecting unit (631) successfully detects an occurrence of a trouble in the connection unit (64) by comparing the duty ratio in the inputted pulse width modulation control signal with the rotational direction in the inputted rotational direction signal.
US08494746B2 Inverted pendulum type vehicle
A desired travelling velocity of a representative point of a vehicle 1 is set under such a condition that it does not exceed a velocity permissible range which is defined to have anisotropy according to a posture of an occupant seated on a seat 3. An operation of a travelling motion unit 5 is controlled by controlling an operation of an actuator 7 on the basis of the desired travelling velocity.
US08494742B2 Engine torque estimation systems and methods
An engine control system for a vehicle includes a coefficients determination module and a braking torque estimation module. The coefficients determination module determines first and second torque estimation coefficients that are set based on a braking torque versus air per cylinder (APC) line. The coefficients determination module determines third, fourth, and fifth torque estimation coefficients that are set based on a maximum braking torque (MBT) spark timing versus APC line. The braking torque estimation module estimates a braking torque of an engine based on APC, spark timing, and the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth torque estimation coefficients.
US08494737B2 Method for controlling the driving mode of a motor vehicle
A method of controlling the driving mode of a motor vehicle, having a largely automated drive-train including a drive motor, a transmission and a separator clutch arranged between the motor and transmission, such that while driving, if certain operating conditions exist and a speed profile calculated with reference to topographical data and vehicle parameters for a road section lying ahead is suitable, the drive-train is disengaged and driving continues in a coasting mode until the occurrence of a termination signal. To enable coasting operation, the calculated speed profile for the case of immediate opening of the drive-train is determined continually at equidistant successive travel points along the driving stretch and is, in each case, evaluated in relation to lower and upper speed limits. Coasting is only enabled if, for a specified minimum number of successive travel points, the evaluation result is in each case positive.
US08494729B2 Method to determine torque
A powertrain includes a transmission coupled to a driveline. A method for monitoring torque in the powertrain includes monitoring signal outputs from a first rotational sensor and a second rotational sensor configured to monitor respective rotational positions of first and second locations of a driveline, determining a positional relationship between the first and second locations using positional identifiers of the first and second rotational sensors, deriving a twist angle from the positional relationship between the first and second rotational sensors, calculating a magnitude of driveline torque corresponding to the twist angle, and controlling the vehicular powertrain according to the calculated magnitude of driveline torque.
US08494725B2 Stabilization of a mast for vehicles and ships
A system and a method are disclosed for stabilization of a mast (3) on a moving carrier, for example a vehicle. An actuator device (6′) is connected to the mast and allows the mast (3) to pivot with its longitudinal direction relative to the carrier (2), about at least one pivoting axis. A mast sensor device determines the position of the mast (3) relative to a predetermined absolute spatial direction, and supplies this to an electronic control device, which compares the position of the mast with a predetermined set value and derives a manipulated variable for the actuator device from this, in order to stabilize the longitudinal direction of the mast. A securing device (7) blocks the mast if a predetermined acceleration value is exceeded.
US08494723B2 Method for operating a vehicle display and a vehicle display system
A method for operating a vehicle display includes receiving from a user interface a request to modify a display screen of the vehicle display. In response to the received request to modify, the method can further include displaying a query on the display screen prompting an operator to choose a portion of the display screen that is to be modified. The method can further include receiving an input selection corresponding to a chosen portion of the display screen to be modified. The input selection can be received from the user interface into a control unit in communication with the vehicle display, which is in communication with the control unit. In response to the received input selection, the method can further include displaying an image on the chosen portion of the display screen in accordance with the received request to modify the display screen. A vehicle display system is also provided.
US08494716B1 Lane keeping system using rear camera
Method for controlling a vehicle to maintain a desired position on a roadway includes monitoring roadway information behind the vehicle using a rearward detection device and monitoring vehicle sensor information. Frontward positional information is projected based on rearward positional information obtained from the monitored roadway information behind the vehicle. Forward roadway curvature is estimated based on the vehicle sensor information. Roadway information ahead of the vehicle is modeled based on the projected frontward positional information and the estimated forward roadway curvature to determine desired vehicle positional information. Future vehicle positional information is predicted with respect to the modeled roadway information based on the monitored vehicle sensor information and the estimated forward roadway curvature. The desired vehicle position information is compared to the predicted future vehicle positional information and a steering command is generated based on a deviation in the predicted future position information from the desired vehicle positional information.
US08494714B2 Stability display apparatus
Disclosed herein are stability display apparatus and methods. One apparatus comprises a driving state detection unit configured to detect a driving state of a vehicle in operation; a controller comprising an instability estimation unit configured to estimate an instability index indicating driving instability of the vehicle based on the driving state of the vehicle detected by the driving state detection unit and configured to determine changes in the instability index; and a display unit configured to display the instability index estimated by the instability estimation unit in a display region within a range less than or equal to an upper limit that is a limit of display and configured to display in the display region a representation of the changes of the instability index when the instability index is beyond the upper limit.
US08494710B2 System and method for identifying a spatial relationship for use in calibrating accelerometer data
Methods and systems for identifying a spatial relationship between a frame of reference associated with an accelerometer mounted in a vehicle and a frame of reference associated with the vehicle Accelerometer data is received from an accelerometer and vehicle data is received from a vehicle network of the vehicle, a long term average of the accelerometer data is used to determine the direction of gravity in the frame of reference of the vehicle. In addition the vehicle date is used to determine changes in speed of the vehicle, and thus to determine the direction of the longitudinal axis of the vehicle in the frame of reference of the vehicle. From these determined directions, the spatial relationship between the frames of reference may be determined.
US08494709B2 On-vehicle communication device
An on-vehicle communication device capable of suppressing a delay in providing information, avoiding congestion, and sufficiently securing transmission power, includes a communication controller to controls a transmission cycle and transmission power when data is transmitted from a transmitting/receiving device. The communication controller uses its own vehicle information and surrounding vehicle information to estimate a degree of risk and a safe distance of its own vehicle. The communication controller controls the transmission cycle of its own vehicle based on a communication channel utilization rate of its own vehicle, a communication channel utilization rate of a surrounding vehicle and the degree of risk of its own vehicle, and controls the transmission power of its own vehicle based on the communication channel utilization rate of its own vehicle, the communication channel utilization rate of the surrounding vehicle and the safe distance.
US08494707B1 Maintaining a dynamic service registry for a self-diagnosing device
Maintaining a dynamic service registry for a self-diagnosing device, including: detecting, by the self-diagnosing device, a fault condition, wherein the fault condition indicates that the self-diagnosing device needs to be serviced; detecting, by the self-diagnosing device, that the fault condition has been resolved; determining, by the self-diagnosing device, the geographic location of the self-diagnosing device upon detecting that the fault condition was resolved; and entering, by the self-diagnosing device, the fault condition and the geographic location of the self-diagnosing device when the fault condition was resolved into the dynamic service registry.
US08494700B2 Derivative-based hybrid drive motor control for driveline oscillation smoothing
A method minimizes driveline disturbances in a vehicle having a motor generator unit (MGU) and a controller, which may be a motor control processor or a hybrid control processor. The method includes determining a set of motor values of the MGU, including a change in motor speed, a derivative of the change in motor speed, and a motor jerk value; calculating a corrective final torque value for the MGU as a function of the set of motor values; and commanding the corrective final torque value from the MGU during a predetermined event, e.g., engine restart. Calculations and commanding the corrective final torque value are conducted by the controller within a calibrated minimum processing loop time. A vehicle includes first and second MGUs, and a controller electrically connected to the second MGU. The controller has the algorithm for minimizing driveline disturbances as noted above.
US08494690B2 Flight controller management system with a backdrive monitor
A method and apparatus for a monitoring module. The monitoring module is configured to identify a difference between measured position information for a controller and expected position information for the controller. The monitoring module is configured to compare the difference with thresholds for managing an autopilot in a control system of a vehicle to form a comparison. The monitoring module is configured to manage an operation of the autopilot based on the comparison such that the autopilot remains operating when a backdrive system is inoperative and an intentional override of the autopilot is absent.
US08494678B2 Method for machining a contour on at least one workpiece by means of a robot
A process for working a contour on at least one workpiece using a robot includes positioning the workpiece relative to the robot; acquiring an actual position of the workpiece; acquiring a real course of the contour on the workpiece at predefined points using at least one sensor; and actuating the robot according to individual vectors so as to correct a robot motion during the working of the contour.
US08494677B2 Motion path search device and method of searching for motion path
A motion path search device includes a motion space identification unit which identifies, as first spaces, three-dimensional spaces passed through by a movable part in direct teaching operations performed by an operator, and a spatial difference calculation unit that calculates a first differential space that is a part of one of the first spaces identified as a result of one of the direct teaching operations and that has no overlap with another of the first spaces identified as a result of another of the direct teaching operations that precedes the one of the direct teaching operations. A feedback unit provides the operator with information regarding the first differential space, and a path search unit searches for a motion path of the movable part within a first accessible space resulting from combining the first spaces after the direct teaching operations.
US08494675B2 Autonomous mobile robot device and an avoidance method for that autonomous mobile robot device
An autonomous mobile robot device, comprises an obstacle detecting unit, which is configured to detect an obstacle, a path producing unit, which is configured to produce a path for reaching to a goal while avoiding the obstacle, which is detected by the obstacle detecting unit, upon basis of a predetermined avoidance method, and a moving unit, which is configured to move while mounting the obstacle detecting unit and the path producing unit thereon, and further comprises an avoidance method noticing unit, which is configured to notice information relating to an avoidance method of the autonomous mobile robot device itself to the obstacle, which is detected by the obstacle detecting unit, an other's avoidance method obtaining unit, which is configured to obtain information relating to the avoidance method of the obstacle from the obstacle, which is detected by the obstacle detecting unit, an avoidance method memorizing unit, which is configured to memorize one or more of the avoidance method(s) determined, to which the path producing unit should follow, and an avoidance method selecting unit, which is configured to selected the avoidance method(s) determined from the avoidance method memorizing unit, wherein the avoidance method selecting unit uses the information relating to the avoidance method of the obstacle, which is obtained by the other's avoidance method obtaining unit, as a reference, when selecting the avoidance method.
US08494674B2 Fast-access self-repairing tape library using mobile robots
In some embodiments, a system includes a plurality of tape reels positioned on a lower surface, a tape drive for reading data from a tape on one of the plurality of tape reels, and at least one mobile robot configured for selectively retrieving at least one of the plurality of tape reels and transporting the at least one retrieved tape reel to the tape drive.
US08494672B2 Automated store for selling articles
An automated (2) store for storing and then distributing articles. The store includes a housing (4) for receiving closed shipping containers for storage, and for distributing articles to an output (20) of the housing, which articles were retrieved from inside the shipping containers. The store further includes a sensing means (10) for determining the position of at least a portion of an outside surface of each one of the plurality of closed shipping containers that have entered into the housing, an automated forming means (12) for using the determined position specific to each of the closed shipping containers to form an opening in each of the plurality of the shipping containers, a storing means (14) for storing the plurality of opened shipping containers inside a storage area of the housing, a computer controlled retrieving means (16) for retrieving an article from inside one of the stored opened shipping containers and further including moving means (18) for moving the retrieved articles to an output of the housing.
US08494664B2 Integrated drive management and configuration using instantiated objects
A programming tool provides an interface between an industrial controller and a motor drive that allows the logic development tool used to program the industrial controller to be used to configure the motor drive and its supported components directly. This allows a programmer to configure the topology for the motor drive and provide configuration data that can be verified directly from within the controller programming software rather than requiring separate programming and diagnostic tools.
US08494661B2 Power distribution, management, and monitoring systems and methods
Managing electrical power usage in a power distribution system. Power usage data indicative of electrical current flow through electrical outlets in the system are collected and displayed for a user. The user may select an outlet and issue a command to control current flow through that outlet. Environmental data may also be collected and displayed. Outlets in different Cabinet Power Distribution Units (CDUs) in different locations may be clustered for reporting and control. A database structure provides a “system” table for data descriptive of the system, a “tower” table for data descriptive of outlets and other elements in the system, an “infeed” table for data descriptive of input electrical power, and an “outlet” table for data descriptive of electrical power flowing through the outlets.
US08494653B2 Paddle lead configurations for electrical stimulation systems and methods of making and using
A paddle lead includes a paddle body with a plurality of electrodes disposed on the paddle body. The plurality of electrodes includes a first electrode and a second electrode. The first electrode and the second electrode are disposed laterally around the circumference of the paddle body. At least one connecting wire is disposed on, or within, the paddle body to electrically couple the first electrode and the second electrode.
US08494639B2 Systems and methods for implantable leadless brain stimulation
Systems and methods are disclosed to stimulate brain tissue to treat medical conditions such as movement disorders, pain and epilepsy. The disclosed invention uses electrical stimulation of the brain tissue, where vibrational energy from a source is received by an implanted device and converted to electrical energy and the converted electrical energy is used by implanted electrodes to stimulate the pre-determined brain site. The vibrational energy is generated by a controller-transmitter, which could be either implanted or located externally. The vibrational energy is received by a receiver-stimulator, which could be located under the skull, within the brain, on the dura, or in the cranial space close to the brain. As a therapeutic treatment, the implantable receiver-stimulator stimulates the brain sites that are effective in altering brain activity.
US08494638B2 Cervical spinal cord stimulation for the treatment and prevention of cerebral vasospasm
The present invention relates to a method of prevention and treatment of narrowing of cerebral blood vessels after subarachnoid hemorrhage, and in particular, to a method of applying electrical energy through electrical stimulation electrodes particularly positioned in the cervical region of a patient to affect the sympathetic tone of the blood vessels supplying the brain.
US08494636B2 Feed-through connector assembly for implantable pulse generator and method of use
A connector assembly for a medical device for connecting the medical device to a relatively large plurality of electrodes that can support, in some cases, 24 or more stimulation channels for stimulating one or more stimulation regions of a patient. Also the medical device and the stimulation system and the stimulation therapy utilizing the connector assembly.
US08494632B2 Self-calibrating rate-adaptive pacemaker
A system and method for automatically adjusting the operating parameters of a rate-adaptive cardiac pacemaker. In accordance with the method, maximum exertion levels attained by the patient are measured at periodic intervals and stored. The stored maximum exertion levels may then be used to update a long-term maximal exertion level, and the slope of the rate-response curve is adjusted to map the updated long-term maximal exertion level to a maximum allowable pacing rate. The stored maximum exertion levels may also be used to update a sensor target rate which is used to adjust the slope of the rate response curve.
US08494625B2 Methods and apparatus for electrical stimulation of tissues using signals that minimize the effects of tissue impedance
A tissue stimulation system that generates an electrical tissue stimulation signal configured to reduce tissue impedance and increase depth of signal penetration. The use of leads is dynamically controlled and altered between conducting biopotential voltages, conducting electrical tissue stimulation signals, and grounding, in response to a computational analysis of biopotential data acquired from a region of tissue to be stimulated.
US08494623B2 Method and apparatus for in-vivo physiological monitoring
A method is provided that includes providing a monitoring apparatus including one or more modules within a target cavity or lumen of a body. The one or more modules are provided within the target cavity or lumen in a first state in which the monitoring apparatus is configured to remain within the target cavity or lumen. The method further includes monitoring physiological conditions of the body using one or more sensors within the one or more modules, and providing the one or more modules in a second state in which the monitoring apparatus is configured to exit the target cavity or lumen.
US08494618B2 Intracardiac impedance and its applications
A system to measure intracardiac impedance includes implantable electrodes and a medical device. The electrodes sense electrical signals of a heart of a subject. The medical device includes a cardiac signal sensing circuit coupled to the implantable electrodes, an impedance measurement circuit coupled to the same or different implantable electrodes, and a controller circuit coupled to the cardiac signal sensing circuit and the impedance measurement circuit. The cardiac signal sensing circuit provides a sensed cardiac signal. The impedance measurement circuit senses intracardiac impedance between the electrodes to obtain an intracardiac impedance signal. The controller circuit determines cardiac cycles of the subject using the sensed cardiac signal, and detects tachyarrhythmia using cardiac-cycle to cardiac-cycle changes in a plurality of intracardiac impedance parameters obtained from the intracardiac impedance signal.
US08494617B2 System for detection of skin wounds and compartment syndromes
A system configured to provide feedback regarding fluid parameters in the skin and/or compartments of an individual to facilitate early diagnosis of skin wounds and compartment syndromes.
US08494607B2 Handheld diabetes management device having a database management system
A handheld diabetes management device having a database management system is disclosed. The device comprises a plurality of input modules, including a blood glucose reader, a user interface, a communications interface, and a continuous blood glucose input module. The input modules output data used to generate data records of different record types. The device further comprises N databases, each database having a different frequency range associated thereto, wherein the new record is stored in a particular database of the N databases based on the frequency range of the particular database and the frequency of the particular record type, and N is an integer greater than 1. The device further includes a database operation module that performs database operations on the N databases. The database management system provides increased reliability in the keeping of records on which medically important decisions are made.
US08494593B2 Method and system for wireless coverage redundancy
Devices and methods are provided for providing wireless coverage redundancy in case, for example, the backhaul of an access point (AP) base station is not available. In one embodiment, the method involves monitoring the backhaul, and in response to the backhaul being available, facilitating communication between an access terminal (AT) and the macro network via the backhaul. In addition, or in the alternative (e.g., when the backhaul is not available), a communication signal between the AT and a macro base station (or another AP base station) may be boosted.
US08494592B2 Enhanced call reception and privacy
An audio interface adapted to reduce a subscriber voice may receive a subscriber voice and a background noise. The subscriber voice may then be compared to the to the background noise. If the received subscriber voice is louder than the received background noise, the audio interface may output a message to the cellular telephone subscriber indicating the subscriber may reduce his speaking volume. Additionally, an audio interface may process a voice waveform that corresponds to the subscriber voice and a background waveform that corresponds to the background noise to generate a substantially opposite voice waveform and a substantially opposite background waveform respectively. The substantially opposite voice waveform and background waveform may be substantially out of phase from the voice waveform and background waveform respectively and output via one or more output ports of the audio interface.
US08494590B2 Integrated media user interface
An integrated media user interface is described. In an implementation, a user interface is output that includes a plurality of representations of media, each of the media rendered by the mobile device through execution of a respective one of a plurality of applications. Responsive to selection of at least one of the representations, a corresponding application is located to render the media represented by the at least one said representation. The media represented by the selected representation is rendered through execution of the located application.
US08494589B2 Service discovery via mobile imaging systems and methods
A method of receiving content associated with media includes using a mobile device to acquire an image from media. The image has corresponding content. The method also includes using the mobile device to process the image to thereby produce the content and displaying at least a portion of the content on a display of the mobile device.
US08494583B2 Electronic apparatus, screen information output method and computer-readable storage medium
An electronic apparatus has a storage part to store a plurality of screen information, including incoming call screen information, a display part to display the screen information, and an output control part to output to an outside of the electronic apparatus arbitrary screen information that is to be output to the outside, of the screen information stored in the storage part, and to display the arbitrary screen information on the display part, when an external output function is set to an ON state. The output control part continues outputting the arbitrary screen information to the outside and displays on the display part the incoming screen information stored in the storage part, when an incoming call is received in a state where the external output function is set to the ON state.
US08494580B1 Method of coordinating the operation of adjacent wireless transceivers on a single device
A method is provided of coordinating adjacent first and second wireless networks, comprising: receiving a signal at a controller on a wireless device, the received signal indicating an intended transmission state of the first network during a future time slot, the intended transmission state indicating whether or not the first network intends to transmit first data during the future time slot; transmitting second data in the second network to a remote device if the intended transmission state indicates that the first network does not intend to transmit first data during the future time slot; and controlling transmission of the second data in the second network such that the transmission ends during the future time slot in which the first network does not intend to transmit first data, with sufficient time remaining to allow the second network to receive a reply transmission from the remote device.
US08494577B2 Electronic device
An electronic device 100 includes a signal converter 110 and a housing 120. The signal converter has a diaphragm 111 and, when one of an acoustic signal and an electric signal is inputted, converts the inputted signal into the other signal by the vibrations of the diaphragm. The housing is provided with an internal space SPD. The housing holds the signal converter in the internal space. The housing is provided with an opening 121. The housing has a bulkhead 122 dividing the internal space into plural division spaces including a first division space SPD1 and a second division space SPD2. The diaphragm configures at least part of a bulkhead forming the first division space. The housing is provided with a first communicating path that makes the first division space communicate with the opening, and a second communicating path that makes the second division space communicate with the opening.
US08494573B2 Radio communication system for providing both voice and data communication services over radio communication channels and a method for use in a radio communication system
A radio communication system including a system computer connected to a radio communication device including a radio communication antenna and an audio management system via a data bus. The audio management system is connected to a user communication device. The system computer is arranged to switch between a data communication service and a voice communication service upon receiving a signal from the radio communication device indicating that a carrier on a predetermined fixed frequency has been detected or has ceased to be detected by the radio communication device, or from the audio management system indicating that a request for a predetermined fixed frequency voice communication service has been detected or has ceased to be detected by the audio management system.
US08494566B2 Hybrid mobile phone geopositioning
A hybrid positioning system for continuously and accurately determining a location of a mobile device is provided. Samples of GPS locations from a pool of mobile devices and accompanying cell tower data, WLAN data, or other comparable network signals are used to construct a dynamic map of particular regions. The dynamic map(s) may be sent to and stored on individual mobile devices such that the mobile device can compare its less accurate, but more readily available, data like cell tower signals to recorded ones and estimate its position more accurately and continuously. The position data may be sent to a server for user in location based services.
US08494565B2 Method of providing location-based service in a communication system
A location-based service method may include providing a data related to an indicator; configuring the indicator to point out the data is related to a location of a provider of the data if the data is related to the location of a provider of the data; and transmitting the data and the indicator to a server through a first communication equipment to store the data in the server for a user to transmit, through the first communication equipment or a second communication equipment located closely to the first communication equipment, a query to search the data related to the location of the provider of the data by searching the data stored in the server and find data related to the location of the provider of the data. The data is searched based on the indicator related to each of the plurality of data.
US08494564B2 GPS driven architecture for delivery of location based multimedia and method of use
An architecture, system and method of use sends location based multimedia to participants of a geo-tour or other application using geo-boundaries and/or other location information. The method includes detecting when a user has crossed within a geo-boundary. The method further includes determining a content type to be sent to a mobile device based on preferences provided by the user. Additionally, the method includes sending user location specific content of the determined content type to the mobile device when the user has crossed within the geo-boundary.
US08494563B2 Dead spot prediction method for wireless vehicular applications
A wireless communication method includes providing a plurality of vehicles, and sensing a plurality of dead spot regions encountered by the vehicles while traveling. The sensing is performed within the vehicles. Locations of the sensed dead spot regions are recorded within the vehicles. The dead spot region locations sensed by the vehicles are transmitted from the vehicles to a central controller. The dead spot region locations transmitted by the vehicles are sent back to the vehicles such that each vehicle has access to ones of the dead spot region locations sensed by other ones of the vehicles. The dead spot regions are mitigated, within the vehicles, by use of the sent dead spot region locations.
US08494560B2 System, method and program product for location based services, asset management and tracking
A system for location based services utilizing a mobile device includes a software module configured to operate in a background mode on the mobile device. The software module is further configured to determine a geographical location of the mobile device and transmit the geographical location at predetermined intervals. A services platform is in communication with the mobile device for receiving the geographical location. The services platform includes at least one location based service module for facilitating at least one location based service on the mobile device. A plurality of back end databases is in communication with the services platform where the services platform integrates data from the back end databases with data from a location database. A secure website is included where an owner of the mobile device can view the geographical location of the mobile device and geographical locations of other mobile devices and have the ability to view friends/family/business associates on their mobile device.
US08494555B2 Mobile communication circuit reporting location information and methods thereof
Mobile communication circuit reporting location information and methods thereof are provided. The circuit comprises a receiver, a transmitter, and a control circuit. The receiver receives first and second location information requests comprising respective first and second timing periods at first and second reference times respectively. The transmitter transmits first location information at a first reporting time having a first timing lapse from the first reference time in response to the first location information request and the second location information at a second reporting time in response to the second location information request. The control circuit, coupled to the receiver and the transmitter, calculates a timing difference between the first reporting time and the second reporting time, and determines second location information according to the first location information when the timing difference is less than or equal to a predetermined timing difference threshold.
US08494554B2 Mobile device location estimation
Methods, program products, and systems of location estimation using multiple wireless access gateways are disclosed. In general, in one aspect, a mobile device can scan and detect multiple wireless access gateways. The mobile device can determine an initial estimate of distance between the mobile device and each wireless access gateway. The mobile device can receive, from a server, location data of the detected wireless access gateways. The location data can include an estimated location of each wireless access gateway, an uncertainty of the estimated location, and a reach of each wireless access gateway. The mobile device can assign a weight to each estimated location using the uncertainty, the reach, and the initial estimate. The mobile device can estimate the location of the mobile device using the weighted locations.
US08494553B2 Position determination using horizontal angles
An access terminal of a wireless communication system includes a transceiver configured to receive wirelessly multiple reference keypoints and a geographical location of each respective reference keypoint, each geographical location being a location near an estimated position of the access terminal; at least one camera communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to capture an image; and a processor communicatively coupled to the at least one camera and configured to calculate a refined position of the access terminal, that is more accurate than the estimated position, using first and second horizontal angles between the geographical locations of respective first and second pairs of reference keypoints determined as each corresponding to a respective image keypoint identified within the image captured by the at least one camera.
US08494547B2 Self-learning transceiver
The invention pertains to a transceiver (10) used in a determined geographical zone (100), comprising a learning module (123) for adapting its operating characteristics, bound by the regulations and/or by the specifications of the said geographical zone A, by other regulations and/or specifications of other geographical zones B, characterized in that it comprises means of identification (125) of the geographical zone B, and means (122) of checking the said characteristics as a function of the said zone.The user can thus check that he is using a permitted frequency band and adapt his transceiver to suit if necessary.
US08494540B2 Methods and apparatus for channel selection in a peer to peer network
Various embodiments relate to using available spectrum for peer to peer communications and for selecting which of several possibly available channels should be used. Various methods and apparatus are well suited to peer to peer networks in which channel usage decisions are made in a decentralized manner. A wireless terminal generates a list of potential available channels to be used for peer to peer communications, e.g., based on FCC information and/or local sensing. Channels are filled in accordance with a predetermined channel ordering. A wireless terminal migrates between the channels in accordance with changes in the number of peer devices using a channel. The network, in a distributed manner, changes the number of channels in use at a location in response to changes in numbers of active peer devices at a location.
US08494539B1 Congestion management in radio access networks
A method for congestion management in a radio access network is provided. The radio network controller maintains available bandwidth information for each of the downstream links towards the base stations. The radio network controller also measures incoming traffic for each such link and for various traffic classes and uses the traffic measurements and available bandwidth to predict congestion conditions. Upon detecting a congestion condition, congestion avoidance mechanisms such as controlled discard and back-pressure are activated.
US08494531B2 System and method for creating a wireless picocell
A system and method are provided for creating a picocell service alternate to a wireless network service. The method comprises: detecting a multiple access (MA) wireless communications network, such as a terrestrial or satellite network; and, generating a first picocell in a response to detecting the MA wireless network. Typically, the method comprises receiving requests for picocell service from mobile stations, in response to generating the first picocell. In one aspect, the service requests made by the mobile stations are denied. In another aspect, the method further comprises: establishing a first picocell MSC; and, providing network services to mobile stations via the first picocell, in response to the requests for picocell service. For example, the first picocell MSC may provide the same network services that are provided by a conventional terrestrial network, for example. Alternately, the method establishes an alternative wireless network (a second picocell) to provide services.
US08494523B2 Mobile communications system and mobile radio terminal
Mobile station notifies base station of identification information of base stations searched by searching as a search list, and the base station notifies the mobile station of base stations which are not regarded as prestored neighbor base stations and base stations which are in an unusable base station list, of the base stations in the notified search list, as an NG list. If necessity of handover is increased, the mobile station receiving the notification executes handover to base stations (for example, base station) in the search list other than the base stations included in the NG list.
US08494516B2 Delivery of subscription services to roaming users through head end equipment
A subscriber or other user is provided with access to a subscription service of a signal distribution system at a location remote from a home location of the user. The subscription service comprises a plurality of selectable channels available to the user at the home location. The user is assigned one of a plurality of program streams utilizable for delivery of content from the head end equipment servicing the remote location to an interface device at the remote location. By way of example, the program streams may be part of existing unicast infrastructure in the head end equipment. The head end equipment obtains content for a first channel of the subscription service available to the user at the home location, and inserts the content for the first channel into the assigned program stream to thereby make that content accessible to the user at the remote location via the interface device. User selection via the remote location interface device of a different channel of the subscription service available to the user at the home location causes the content for the different channel to be obtained by the head end equipment and inserted into the assigned program stream in place of the content for the first channel.
US08494508B2 Mobile phone having a non-telephone function and timing reset unit
A mobile phone having a non-telephone function (e.g. a radio function) that is different from a telephone function, and including: a timer operable to count time; a camera unit operable to execute the camera function; a camera function stop unit operable, during execution of the camera function to automatically stop the execution of the camera function when the timer indicates an elapse of a predetermined time period; a telephone unit operable to execute the telephone function; and a reset unit operable, if the timer is being operated in response to the execution of the camera function, to reset the timer to an initial state when a predetermined operation relating to the telephone function is executed, wherein when the timer is reset to the initial state, the timer starts to measure the predetermined time period, and the camera function stop unit stops the execution of the camera function at the elapse of the predetermined time period from the execution of the predetermined operation relating to the telephone function.
US08494507B1 Adaptive, portable, multi-sensory aid for the disabled
A mobile terminal is used to assist individuals with disabilities. The mobile terminal (e.g., a “smartphone” or other commercially available wireless handheld device) may be loaded with software. The software may be configured to: (i) receive information about a sensory deficit associated with a user, (ii) receive information about a sensory proficiency associated with the user, (iii) determine whether an event associated with a sensory deficit satisfies a criterion, and if so (iv) provide an assistive output based on a sensory proficiency and the event.
US08494495B2 Mobile information terminal
A mobile information terminal with improved operability, having a display part and a control part. The display part has a first display region and a second display region. In the first display region, information for specifying a function is displayed. In the second display region, information on conditions of a function executed by a function execution section is displayed. The control part displays the function specifying information in a standby state where the display of the execution information in the second display region of the display part is suppressed and also displays standby information, different from the execution information, in the second display region. In the standby state, when function specifying information is selected in response to the operation detected by an operation detection part, the control part displays execution information of the function specified by the function specifying information selected while the display of the function specifying information on the first display region is maintained.
US08494487B2 Method and apparatus for authenticating mobile terminal on handover
A method and apparatus for authenticating a mobile terminal are provided. A list of potential Network Access Servers (NASs) corresponding to a NAS are maintained in a backend authentication server, authorization information corresponding to each of the potential NASs is transmitted, from the backend authentication server to each of the potential NASs, when the mobile terminal is authenticated via the NAS. The mobile terminal detects whether a new NAS is pre-authenticated, when the mobile terminal moves to a domain of the new NAS, the new NAS detects whether the mobile terminal is pre-authenticated, and the new NAS authenticates the mobile terminal via a Pre-Shared Key (PSK) method, when the mobile terminal and the new NAS are pre-authenticated.
US08494481B1 Mobile alarm device
A method of responding to alarm includes receiving an alarm message from an alarm system at a site. The alarm message may indicate that an alarm has been triggered at the site. In response to receiving the alarm message, a responder may be identified to respond to the alarm. A call message may be automatically sent over a network to a mobile alarm device in the possession of the responder. A message may be received back from the mobile alarm device accepting the call message for the alarm. In some embodiments, the responder's response to the alarm (for example, time to arrive at the alarm, time to clear the alarm) is automatically timed and monitored based on messages received from the responder over the mobile alarm device.
US08494480B2 Triggering mechanism for avalanche rescue devices
A release mechanism is provided for devices for rescuing persons from avalanches or indicating the position of persons within avalanches, and for reducing the extent to which persons swept away by avalanches are buried, the release mechanism being able to be triggered by an intrinsic manual actuation. The release mechanism includes a radio unit equipped with a power supply, a transmitter, a receiver, an antenna, and data processing means, and can receive a radio signal for actuating the intrinsic release mechanism from the radio unit of at least one further release mechanism. The radio unit is either an integral component of the release mechanism or an additional, separate element which is however operatively connected or can be detachably connected thereto. The release mechanism is provided with an actuation means which is able to induce an extrinsic actuation of the intrinsic release mechanism upon receiving a radio signal.
US08494478B1 Mobile phone as computer backup including power management
A data backup system is provided. The system comprises a first device configured to identify a data to transmit and to transmit the data at a selected time, wherein the data is stored on the first device. The system also comprises a mobile phone in communication with the first device, wherein the mobile phone is configured to receive the data from the first device, to store the data in a memory of the mobile phone, and to transmit the data. The system further comprises a backup server in communication with the mobile phone configured to receive the data from the mobile phone, wherein the memory of the mobile phone is freed after transmitting the data to the backup server.
US08494466B2 Selecting receiver chains of a mobile unit for receiving wireless signals
A method and apparatus of selecting which of a plurality of receiver chains of a mobile unit to receive wireless signals, is disclosed. One method includes measuring a first receive signal quality while all of the plurality of receiver chains are receiving wireless signals, and measuring a second receive signal quality while a subset of the plurality of receiver chains are receiving wireless signals. The subset of the plurality of receiver chains are selected to receive wireless signal unless the first receive signal quality is a threshold better than the second receive signal quality. If the first receive signal quality is a threshold better than the second receive signal quality then all the plurality of receiver chains are selected to receive wireless signals.
US08494464B1 Cognitive networked electronic warfare
An apparatus for sensing and classifying radio communications is provided. The apparatus includes one or more sensor units configured to detect radio frequency signals, a signal classifier configured to classify the detected radio frequency signals into a classification, the classification including at least one known signal type and an unknown signal type, a clustering learning algorithm capable of finding clusters of common signals among the previously seen unknown signals. The system is then further configured to use these clusters to retrain the signal classifier to recognize these signals as a new signal type.
US08494461B2 Radio frequency transmitter for a wireless local area network device
An RF transmitter for a Wireless LAN device for enhancing an output linearity of the Wireless LAN device includes an RF processing unit for generating an RF signal, a voltage generator for generating a control voltage, a power amplifier coupled to the RF processing unit and driven by a bias, for amplifying power of the RF signal, and a low-pass filter coupled between the voltage generator and the power amplifier, for low-pass-filtering the control voltage to form the bias.
US08494459B2 Wideband codebook construction and applications
A precoding scheme in which the downlink channel is estimated and an optimal precoding matrix to be used by the multi antenna transmitter is determined accordingly. The optimal precoding matrix is selected from a codebook of matrices that includes matrices having a structure matched to that of the eigenvectors of the spatial covariance matrix, wherein the spatial covariance matrix is modeled as a Hermitian and Toeplitz matrix parameterized by a single complex-valued scalar.
US08494457B2 Systems, methods and transceivers for wireless communications over discontiguous spectrum segments
Methods of transmitting a plurality of communications signals over a plurality of discontiguous bandwidth segments in a frequency band include defining a plurality (NFFT) of orthogonal subcarriers across the frequency band, defining a plurality (N) of available physical subcarriers from among the orthogonal subcarriers. The available physical subcarriers are distributed among the plurality of discontiguous bandwidth segments. The methods further include multiplexing the plurality of communications signals onto the plurality of available physical subcarriers. Multiplexing the plurality of communications signals onto the plurality of available physical subcarriers may include assigning the communications signals to respective ones of a plurality (N) of logical subcarriers, and mapping the plurality of logical subcarriers to corresponding ones of the plurality of available physical subcarriers. Related transmitters, receivers and communications systems are also disclosed.
US08494451B2 Method, apparatus and computer program product for providing ciphering problem recovery for unacknowledged mode radio bearer
An apparatus for providing ciphering problem detection may include a processor. The processor may be configured to receive an unacknowledged mode message, initiate operation of a timer based on receipt of the unacknowledged mode message, re-initiate timer operation in response to each subsequent unacknowledged mode message received prior to expiration of the timer, record a timer expiry event in response to the timer expiring prior to receipt of a subsequent unacknowledged mode message, and indicate a data reception error in response to receipt of the subsequent unacknowledged mode message after recordation of the timer expiry event.
US08494448B2 Mobile communications device access from personal computer
A method is described for providing files to a mobile communications device from an associated personal computer over one of a plurality of potential communication paths between the mobile communications device and the computer. The method includes receiving at the computer a user request that a selected file stored on the computer be provided to the mobile communications device; selecting a communications path from among the plurality of potential communication paths; and causing a copy of the selected file to be provided to the mobile communications device over the selected communication path.
US08494442B2 Communication apparatus, relay apparatus, wireless communication system, control method of communication apparatus, control method of relay apparatus, and storage medium
A communication apparatus, which is connected to a relay apparatus, and transmits data to a server apparatus connected via the relay apparatus, includes a determination unit which determines whether the communication apparatus or the relay apparatus holds an access function required to execute access processing to the server apparatus, a decision unit which decides, according to the determination result, a transmission method required to transmit the data by controlling an access processing unit of the apparatus that holds the access function to execute the access processing, and a transmission unit which transmits the data by the decided transmission method.
US08494415B2 Light emitting element array, light emitting device, and image forming apparatus
A light emitting element array that can perform a time-division driving operation with a small number of driving ICs is provided. A light emitting element array chip (1) includes n switch thyristors (S) (wherein n is an integer equal to or greater than 2), n signal transmission lines (GH) connected to N-gate electrodes (d) of the switch thyristors (S) individually, a plurality of light emitting thyristors (T) having N-gate electrodes (b) connected to one of the n signal transmission lines (GH). Anodes (e) of selection thyristors (U) are connected to the N-gate electrodes (d) of the n switch thyristors (S), and N-gate electrodes (f) of the selection thyristors (U) are connected to a common selection signal transmission line (CSL).
US08494408B2 Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a chassis, a cover, photosensitive members, an intermediate transfer belt, primary-transfer members, a secondary-transfer roller, a first feed roller, a cleaner device, a waste toner container, which is movable along the predetermined direction to be removably installed in the chassis through a first opening and stores residual toner, a connector, a first feeding path, a second feeding path being a path for a recording sheet inserted through a sheet inlet and includes a sheet guide to guide the recording sheet, and a second feed roller. The second feed roller is movable along with at least a part of the sheet guide. The waste toner container is movable through space, which is occupied by the second feed roller in an upper position, and the first opening when the second feed roller is in a lower position.
US08494400B2 Developing device with moveable flexible sheet for preventing toner deposition on developing device casing and image forming apparatus including the same
A developing device includes: a developer carrying member for supplying a developer to an image bearing member at an opposing region opposing to the image bearing member, the developer carrying member being arranged so as to be opposed to the image bearing member on which an electrostatic latent image is to be formed; a blade for regulating an amount of the developer carried on the developer carrying member; a casing for housing the developer carrying member and the blade, the casing including a wall portion opposed to the developer carrying member between the blade and the opposing region; a sheet member that is flexible, provided on the wall portion, has a free end, forms a part of an inner wall surface of the wall portion, and is movable in a direction perpendicular to the inner wall surface; and a moving portion provided on the wall portion, for moving the sheet member.
US08494385B2 Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus including a color toner image forming unit that forms a color toner image on a recording medium; a first colorless transparent toner image forming unit that forms a first colorless transparent toner image on the color toner image; a first fixing unit that fixes the image on the recording medium; a gloss level increasing device that increases a gloss level of the entire image on the recording medium that has been fixed; a second colorless transparent toner image forming unit that forms a second colorless transparent toner image on the image whose gloss level has been increased; and a second fixing unit that fixes the second colorless transparent toner image on the recording medium.
US08494375B2 High speed communication
The disclosure has application for use in establishing a communication link between a first location and a second location, the first location having an electrical driver circuit that receives input data to be communicated, and the second location having an electrical receiver circuit for producing output data representative of the input data. The method includes the following steps: providing a tilted charge light emitting device at the first location and coupled with the driver circuit such that the light produced by the tilted charge light-emitting device is a function of the input data; providing an optical fiber between the first and second locations; coupling light from the tilted charge light emitting device into the optical fiber; and providing, at the second location, a photodetector coupled with the optical fiber and with the receiver circuit; whereby electrical signals representative of the input data are output from the receiver circuit.
US08494369B2 Planar lightwave circuit
Consistent with the present disclosure optical interleaver and deinterleaver circuits are integrated onto a substrate. The inputs to the interleaver and the outputs of the deinterleaver are each coupled to a corresponding variable optical attenuator (VOA) and optical tap, which are also provided on the substrate. The optical taps supply a portion of the output of each VOA to a corresponding photodetector. A control circuit, which is coupled to the photodetector, in turn, supplies a control signal to each VOA based on the output of the photodetector. Accordingly, optical multiplexing and demultiplexing components, as well as monitoring and power regulating components are provided on the same chip. Such a chip may be compact, relatively inexpensive, and has reduced power consumption compared to optical multiplexer and demultiplexer equipment including discrete components.
US08494353B2 Image stabilizer
An image stabilizer that compensates for external vibrations by moving an imaging unit. The image stabilizer includes a first frame on which an imaging unit is installed, a second frame that is connected to the first frame using three points and guides movement of the first frame in a first direction and second direction, and a third frame that is connected to the second frame using three points and guides the first frame and the second frame to move in a third direction and fourth direction, which are perpendicular to the first and second directions.
US08494345B2 Video reproducing device and video reproducing method
A television personal computer 40, when saving video data 43 by recording a video content, extracts a section including a predetermined type of scene from within the video content, then specifies, when accepting a skip instruction from an operator during reproduction of the video content, a resuming point based on a relationship between the section extracted from the video content and the reproducing point, and resumes the reproduction of the video content from the resuming point.
US08494342B2 Recording apparatus, reproducing apparatus, recording/reproducing apparatus, recording program and storage medium thereof, and reproduction program and storage medium thereof
A control information decoding section (102) decodes sets of control information contained in a stream. Further, a random access information analyzing section (101) carries out analysis of locations of random access points of media items contained in the stream, on the basis of the sets of control information. Still further, a management information generating section (103) generates management information for managing a plurality of random access points contained in the stream, on the basis of decoded versions of the sets of control information, which has been obtained by the control information decoding section (102), and the locations of the random access points obtained by the analysis performed by the random access information analyzing section (101). Then, the management information thus generated and the stream are recorded onto a storage medium (104). This makes it possible to quickly start playback in performing random-access playback of a stream into which control signals are inserted at regular intervals.
US08494337B2 Light guide
A light guide is provided. The light guide has an uneven light input face and even side faces, which are arranged directly downstream of the light input face. Furthermore, an optoelectronic component with such a light guide is provided.
US08494336B2 Variable optical attenuator comprising hollow core waveguide
A variable optical attenuator device is described that comprises a first optical input, a first optical output, a first optical path between the first optical input and the first optical output, and means for moving a shutter across said first optical path. A hollow core waveguide is provided to substantially guide light along the first optical path of the device. The device may also be used to provide an analogue beam splitting or switch function in telecommunication systems and the like.
US08494335B2 Cable restraint
Techniques are disclosed that restrain cables in order to relieve excessive tensile force and to prevent breakage at a point of termination. In one example, a system includes a clip and a receiver configured to receive the clip. The clip includes a first member and a second member pivotally connected to each other by a hinge, the hinge located intermediate opposed ends of the first member and the second member, the hinge defining a groove for receiving a first portion of the cable.
US08494333B2 Dispensing cable from an internal cable spool of a fiber optic enclosure
A fiber optic enclosure assembly includes a housing having an interior region and a bearing mount disposed in the interior region of the housing. A cable spool is connectedly engaged with the bearing mount such that the cable spool selectively rotates within the housing. A termination module disposed on the cable spool so that the termination module rotates in unison with the cable spool. A method of paying out a fiber optic cable from a fiber optic enclosure includes rotating a cable spool, which has a subscriber cable coiled around a spooling portion of the cable spool, about an axis of a housing of the fiber optic enclosure until a desired length of subscriber cable is paid out. A termination module is disposed on the cable spool.
US08494326B2 Telecommunication cable equipped with tight-buffered optical fibers
A telecommunication cable is equipped with at least one optical fiber coated by a tight buffer layer made from a polymeric material having an ultimate elongation equal to or lower than 100% and an ultimate tensile strength equal to or lower than 10 MPa. The above combination of features of the polymeric material forming the buffer layer provides an optical fiber which is effectively protected during installation operations and during use, and at the same time can be easily stripped by an installer without using any stripping tools, simply by applying a small pressure with his fingertips and a moderate tearing force along the fiber axis.
US08494317B2 Method and device for hitless tunable optical filtering
The method for filtering an optical signal comprising a plurality of channels lying on a grid of optical frequencies equally spaced by a frequency spacing and occupying an optical bandwidth, comprises: a) operating an optical filter comprising a plurality of resonators, wherein a first resonator of the plurality is optically coupled to the optical signal and the remaining resonators are optically coupled in series to the first resonator, so that a respective resonance of each one of the plurality of resonators falls within a first frequency band having bandwidth less than or equal to 15 GHz; b) operating the optical filter so as to obtain a separation between said respective resonance of at least one resonator with respect to said respective resonance of at least another different resonator, the separation being greater than or equal to 25 GHz; c) operating the optical filter so that said respective resonance of each one of the plurality of resonators falls within a second frequency band, different from the first frequency band, having bandwidth less than or equal to 15 GHz, wherein during the procedure from step a) to step c), at least one among said respective resonance of the at least one resonator and said respective resonance of the at least another different resonator is moved also outside a frequency region spanning between, and including, the first and the second frequency band. A corresponding device for filtering an optical signal is disclosed.
US08494315B2 Photonic integrated circuit having a waveguide-grating coupler
A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) having a waveguide-grating coupler with two evanescently coupled waveguides. The first waveguide is fabricated using materials suitable for manufacturing active optical elements in the PIC. The second waveguide is fabricated using materials capable of providing a relatively high index-of-refraction contrast for the constituent waveguide grating. The waveguide-grating coupler is compatible with the III-V semiconductor technology while being relatively easy to fabricate on an industrial scale.
US08494312B2 Magnetically actuated photonic crystal sensor
A magnetically actuated photonic crystal sensor is disclosed. An optical fiber comprises at least one photonic crystal means coupled to a first end thereof, and a magnetic material coupled to the at least one photonic crystal means.
US08494308B2 Image upscaling based upon directional interpolation
A method for interpolation includes receiving an input image having a plurality of pixels and estimating an edge direction proximate a first pixel of the input image using a first technique from a plurality of discrete potential directions. Interpolating pixels using a substantially arbitrary scaling factor proximate the first pixel based upon the estimated edge direction and interpolating pixels using substantially arbitrary scaling factor proximate the first pixel based upon another technique not based upon the estimated edge direction. The interpolated pixels are determined for an output image having more pixels than the input image based upon the interpolated pixels of step (c) and step (d).
US08494296B2 Method and apparatus for encoding and decoding image by using rotational transform
Disclosed are a method and apparatus for encoding and decoding an image. The image encoding method includes: generating a first frequency coefficient matrix by performing spatial transform (e.g. discrete cosine transform (DCT) on a current block; determining an angle parameter based on whether the current block is intra or inter predicted; generating a second frequency coefficient matrix by performing a partial switch between at least one of rows and columns of the first frequency coefficient matrix based on the determined angle parameter; and encoding the second frequency coefficient matrix and information about the angle parameter.
US08494293B2 Image processor
The image processor 1 includes a frequency transform unit 12, an encoding unit 15, and a memory 4. The encoding unit 15 includes a DC processing unit 31 that generates a direct-current stream, an LP processing unit 32 that generates a low-frequency stream, an HP processing unit 33 that generates an upper high-frequency stream and a lower high-frequency stream, and an output unit 34 having output ports 41 to 44 to output the direct-current stream, the low-frequency stream, the upper high-frequency stream, and the lower high-frequency stream to the memory 4.
US08494289B2 Information processing apparatus, image compression method, and storage medium
If reusable data is included in a record of VDP data, a compression level used in compressing page data including the reusable data is associated with the reusable data and stored together with the reusable data. If, after that, a record of VDP data including reusable data similar to the stored reusable data is generated, the page data is compressed according to the record based on the compression ratio associated with the stored reusable data.
US08494287B2 Character identification through glyph data matching
Approaches for enabling a computerized entity to recognize characters in an electronic document. In a persistent data store, character identification data is stored. Character identification data is data that, for one or more characters of one or more fonts, associates (a) glyph data for a character with (b) code point data for the character, where the glyph data describes how to render the character on or to an output device, and the code point data identifies, to the computerized entity, the identity of the character. Upon determining that an embedded font document, such as a PDF document, does not include a set of code point data for a particular character, the character identification data is consulted to determine the identity of the particular character. In this way, a machine can recognize characters in the embedded font document and perform functions such as indexing or searching on the embedded font document.
US08494276B2 Tactile input recognition using best fit match
An embodiment of the invention provides a method including receiving input from a user, which includes a handwritten symbol. The input is compared to prototype symbols to determine whether the input includes a threshold degree of similarity with a prototype symbol. If the input does not include a threshold degree of similarity with a prototype symbol, the input is stored as a prototype symbol. If the input includes a threshold degree of similarity with a prototype symbol, it is determined whether the input represents a text character. If the input represents a text character, the text character is identified and a prototype text character is identified. The input is mapped to the identified text character and the identified prototype text character. If the input does not represent a text character, the input is mapped to a prototype shape, and the input is mapped to the prototype shape.
US08494268B2 Method and arrangement for retrieving information comprised in a barcode
A method of retrieving information comprised in a barcode is disclosed. The method comprises detecting that the barcode is present in a first image having a first image quality and capturing a first region, acquiring, when it is detected that the barcode is present, a second image having a second image quality and capturing a second region, wherein the second image quality is higher than the first image quality, and wherein the second region at least partly overlaps the first region, and decoding the barcode based on the second image to retrieve the information. A corresponding program product and a corresponding arrangement are also disclosed along with a communication device comprising the arrangement.
US08494267B2 Image processing device, image processing method, and program for normalizing a histogram
An image processing device includes an obtaining unit obtaining image data of images; a dividing unit dividing the obtained image into N blocks; a designation unit sequentially designating the M blocks among the N blocks as the blocks to be updated; a histogram generation unit generating histograms of the obtained image data; a histogram storage unit sequentially updating and storing the generated histogram; a change determination unit determining a change in the obtained image, on the basis of the degree of similarity between the histogram of the generated M blocks and the histogram of the M blocks in the past corresponding to the generated M blocks which are stored; a normalization determination unit determining whether or not to perform normalization of the histogram; and a normalization unit normalizing any one of the histogram of the generated M blocks and the histogram of the corresponding M blocks in the past.
US08494254B2 Methods and apparatus for image rectification for stereo display
A set of features in a pair of images is associated to selected cells within a set of cells using a base mesh. Each image of the pair of images is divided using the base mesh to generate the set of cells. The set of features is defined in terms of the selected cells. A stereo image pair is generated by transforming the set of cells with a mesh-based transformation function. A transformation of the set of cells is computed by applying an energy minimization function to the set of cells. A selected transformed mesh and another transformed mesh are generated by applying the transformation of the set of cells to the base mesh. The mesh-based transformation function preserves selected properties of the set of features in the pair of images.
US08494238B2 Redundant spatial ensemble for computer-aided detection and image understanding
Described herein is a technology for facilitating computer-aided detection and image understanding. In one implementation, an input set of training images of a target structure, such as an anatomical structure, is received. The input set of training images is spatially realigned to different landmarks to generate multiple bags of training images. At least one of the multiple bags comprises substantially all the training images in the input set, but realigned to a landmark. The multiple bags of training images may be used to train a spatial ensemble of detectors, which can be employed to generate an output result by automatically detecting a target structure in an input image.
US08494236B2 System and method for cardiac segmentation in MR-cine data using inverse consistent non-rigid registration
A method for cardiac segmentation in magnetic resonance (MR) cine data, includes providing a time series of 3D cardiac MR images acquired at a plurality of phases over at least one cardiac cycle, in which each 3D image includes a plurality of 2D slices, and a heart and blood pool has been detected in each image. Gray scales of each image are analyzed to compute histograms of the blood pool and myocardium. Non-rigid registration deformation fields are calculated to register a selected image slice with corresponding slices in each phase. Endocardium and epicardium gradients are calculated for one phase of the selected image slice. Contours for the endocardium and epicardium are computed from the gradients in the one phase, and the endocardium and epicardium contours are recovered in all phases of the selected image slice. The recovered endocardium and epicardium contours segment the heart in the selected image slice.
US08494225B2 Navigation method and aparatus
An automated guidance system for a moving frame. The automated guidance system has an imaging system disposed on the frame; a motion sensing system coupled to the frame and configured for sensing movement of the frame; and a processor communicably connected to the vision system for receiving image data from the vision system and generating optical flow from image data of frame surrounding. The processor is communicably connected to the motion sensing system for receiving motion data of the frame from the motion sensing system. The processor is configured for determining, from kinematically aided dense optical flow correction to frame kinematic errors, due to errors in motion data from the motion sensing system.
US08494224B2 Perspective improvement for image and video applications
A system and method for reducing distance-based distortion in a camera image of an object, where the distanced-based distortion is due to differences in distance from the camera to different parts of the object. In one approach, the distortion is reduced by estimating distances to different parts of the object and then generating a reprojected image of the object dependent upon the estimated distances and upon a virtual viewpoint that is more distant than the camera from the object. In a further approach, the image is warped such that points in the image match corresponding points in one or more stored templates. In a still further approach, if excessive distortion is present in the image, the camera zoom is increased and a magnified image is displayed, prompting a person to move farther from the camera thereby reducing the distortion.
US08494219B2 Image extraction device and image extraction method
An image extraction device for extracting an image showing a document from an image of the document shot by an imaging device includes a document table on which a document is placed, a side detection unit, an opposing side estimator, and an image extraction unit. The side detection unit detects a side of the document on the document table based on the shot image of the document. The opposing side estimator estimates a position of a side opposite the side detected by the side detection unit. The image extraction unit segments the image of the document from the shot image of the document based on the side detected by the side detection unit and the opposite side estimated by the opposing side estimator.
US08494218B2 Light information receiving method, unit and method for recognition of light-emitting objects
A light information receiving method, a method and a unit for the recognition of light-emitting objects are provided. The light information receiving method includes the following steps. A light-emitting object array is captured to obtain a plurality of images, wherein the light-emitting object array includes at least one light-emitting object. A temporal filtering process is performed to the images to recognize a light-emitting object. A light-emitting status of the light-emitting object array is recognized according to the light-emitting object location. A decoding process is performed according to the light-emitting status to output an item of information.
US08494217B2 Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and program
There is provided an image processing apparatus including a dynamic body detecting unit for detecting a dynamic body contained in a moving image, a dynamic body region setting unit for, during a predetermined time from a time point the dynamic body is detected by the dynamic body detecting unit, setting a region containing the dynamic body at the detection time point as a dynamic body region, and a fluctuation removable processing unit for performing a fluctuation removal process on a region other than the dynamic body region set by the dynamic body region setting unit.
US08494203B2 Speaker and speaker enclosure
Systems, methods, and devices for providing high quality speaker performance in a small-scale design are disclosed. In accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, a small-scale speaker assembly is provided which is capable of delivering high-fidelity wideband audio. The speaker assembly includes a speaker driver and a number of electronic components within an enclosure. In some embodiments at least one microphone is included in the assembly. In some embodiments the speaker assembly is well suited for audio conferencing. In some embodiments low-frequency performance is improved in a small-scale design.
US08494202B2 Replaceable hearing protection membrane for hearing devices
A device as hearing aid to be worn in the ear or in or at the auditory canal comprises at least a sound or acoustic exit opening with a protection element (10) to prevent the contamination of the device. The protection element (10) comprises a thin, at least almost flexible or elastic membrane (15) made out of a thermoplastic polymer.
US08494200B2 Hearing aid microphone protective barrier
Embodiments of the invention provide microphone assemblies for hearing aids which are resistant to moisture and debris. An embodiment provides a microphone assembly for a CIC hearing aid comprising a microphone housing including a housing surface having a microphone port, a fluidic barrier structure coupled to the housing surface, a protective mesh coupled to the barrier structure and a microphone disposed within the housing. The microphone housing can be sized to be positioned in close proximity to another component surface such as a hearing battery assembly surface. At least a portion of the housing surface and/or the barrier structure are hydrophobic. The barrier structure surrounds the microphone port and is configured to channel liquid and debris away from entry into the microphone port including matter constrained between the housing surface and another surface.
US08494197B2 Antennas for custom fit hearing assistance devices
An embodiment of a hearing assistance device comprises an enclosure that includes a faceplate and a shell attached to the faceplate, a power source, a flex antenna, a transmission line connected to the flex antenna, and radio circuit connected to the transmission line and electrically connected to the power source. The flex antenna has a shape of at least a substantially complete loop around the power source, and maintains separation from the power source.
US08494195B2 Electrical contacts using conductive silicone in hearing assistance devices
A hearing assistance device, comprising a microphone to receive sound, signal processing electronics electrically connected to the microphone, a receiver electrically connected to the signal processing electronics and a switch electrically connected to the signal processing electronics, wherein the switch includes conductive silicone adapted to change the switch from a first state to a second state when activated.
US08494190B2 Audio signal processing apparatus and audio signal processing method
An audio signal processing apparatus includes: a test signal supply unit to supply a test signal to each speaker of a multi-channel speaker including a center speaker and others; a speaker angle calculation unit to calculate an installation angle of each speaker with an orientation of a microphone as a reference, based on test audio output from each speaker and collected by the microphone; a speaker angle determination unit to determine an installation angle of each speaker with a direction of the center speaker from the microphone as a reference, based on the installation angle of the center speaker and the installation angles of the other speakers with the orientation of the microphone as a reference; and a signal processing unit to perform correction processing on an audio signal based on the installation angles of the speakers with the direction of the center speaker from the microphone as a reference.
US08494185B2 Electro-acoustic transducer tuning and data storage
A device into which an electro-acoustic transducer is incorporated has at least two audio signal conductors through which the device may be coupled to another device to convey analog audio signals representing sounds at a time when the other device places a relatively low DC bias voltage across the at least two audio signal conductors, and to be operated as either a digital serial bus to exchange pieces of digitally-encoded data concerning the electro-acoustic transducer or as a trigger to cause the electro-acoustic transducer to be bypassed to enable another electro-acoustic transducer to be tested at a time when the other device places a relatively high DC bias voltage across the at least two audio signal conductors.
US08494171B2 Energy saving PWM sound device
An energy saving PWM sound device forms a frequency-dependent impedance device implemented on the PWM output of the voice-ICs in series to lower the power consumption and to enhance sound quality of the voice-IC products. The device includes a hollow core body and an elongated conductive element. The core body has a top rim, a bottom rim, and two side rims to define a through channel therewithin. The conductive element winds around the top rim of the core body, wherein two ends of the conductive element are adapted for connecting with the PWM output, such that when the conductive element is electrically conducted, the core body acts as an inductor at lower frequency and a frequency-dependent resistor in series with the inductor at higher frequency for blocking most of PWM carrier frequency so as to reduce the power consumption of the voice-ICs product.
US08494170B2 Redundant key server encryption environment
Provided are a computer program product, system and method for a redundant key server encryption environment. A key server receives from at least one remote key server public keys associated with the at least one remote key server. The key server receives a request for an encryption key from a requesting device and generates the encryption key for use by the requesting device to unlock a storage. The key server generates a first wrapped encryption key by encrypting the encryption key with a requesting device public key, a second wrapped encryption key by encrypting the encryption key with a public key associated with the key server, and at least one additional wrapped encryption key by encrypting the encryption key with the at least one public key provided by the at least one remote key server. The key server transmits the generated keys to the requesting device.
US08494156B2 System, architecture and method for secure encryption and decryption
There is disclosed a system, architecture and method for encryption and decryption of a record. In an embodiment, a method comprises identifying a target record to be encrypted; analyzing one or more clear text linguistic attributes of the target record; generating a linguistic encryption key based on the analysis of one or more clear text linguistic attributes; and encrypting the target record with the linguistic encryption key, the linguistic encryption key operable to decrypt the encrypted target record in a reverse operation.
US08494151B2 System and method for balancing call session assignments on an agent console
A system and method for balancing call session assignments on an agent console is provided. Incoming call sessions and one or more agent consoles, each managed by an agent, are monitored. An absolute upper limit on a number of the call sessions allowed at each agent console at any given time is assigned. A load of call session assignments is balanced on each agent console. Objective conditions regarding call sessions already assigned to each agent are collected. Subjective conditions regarding the agent's opinion of a current call session are also collected. The objective and subjective conditions are evaluated against the absolute upper limit to determine a load factor. Each incoming call session is assigned to one such agent console based on the load factor.
US08494148B2 Dynamic IVR dialog based on analytics data
A method comprising receiving, at a call-processing switch, a call from a calling entity in which the calling entity is a natural person and a telecommunications terminal, and, wherein the call received at the call-processing switch comprises (i) the identity of the caller telecommunications terminal, (ii) the identity of the caller, and (iii) the geo-location of the calling entity. Upon receiving the call, the call-processing switch identifies (i) global contextual information, (ii) contextual information at the calling entity, and (iii) contextual information at the call-processing switch, wherein the temporal order and the hierarchical order of menu items in a menu are reconfigured for presentation to the calling entity based on (i) the identity of the caller telecommunications terminal, (ii) the identity of the caller, (iii) the geo-location of the calling entity, (iv) global contextual information, (v) contextual information at the calling entity, and (vi) contextual information at the call-processing switch.
US08494145B2 Method and system for managing a call request in a network
A method and system for managing a call request in a network (100) is disclosed. The network (100) includes a plurality of call servers. The method includes a call request being received (304) by a central server (120) from a call server of the plurality of call servers (114 and 116) corresponding to a request from a source terminal. The central server (120) manages the call request received from the call server. Further, the method includes determining (306) the status of the called party. Moreover, the method includes processing (308) the call request, based on the status determined for the called party.
US08494138B2 Profile management system including user interface for accessing and maintaining profile data of user subscribed telephony services
Subscriber profile data is managed. The subscriber profile data is associated with a communications service subscribed to by a subscriber. A request to retrieve the subscriber profile data is received based upon a client sending a request for the subscriber profile data. The client hosts a user interface configured to allow the subscriber to obtain and update the subscriber profile data. The subscriber profile data is retrieved from the communications network in response to the request to retrieve the subscriber profile data. A request to update the subscriber profile data is received based upon the client sending a request to update the subscriber profile data. An update for the subscriber profile data is forwarded to the communications network based upon receiving the request to update the subscriber profile data.
US08494135B2 Methods and systems for contact management
Systems and methods are provided for performing contact management services. Systems and methods may maintain one or more address books. Contacts may be added to the address book from one or more sources. Systems and method may receive a command to add a party to the address book. Contact-related information associated with the party may obtained and added to the address book. A user may be notified of an incoming call placed by a calling party and destined to a communication device associated with the user. Systems and methods may receive a command, responsive to the notification, to add the calling party to an address book associated with the user. An address book may be updated to reflect changes in the contact-related information.
US08494133B2 Enterprise speech intelligence analysis
A method includes accepting, via an input interface, a caller identifier parameter and a target value of at least one call series parameter; identifying, using a data processor, a plurality of calls each associated with the caller identifier parameter from amongst a set of calls stored in a call center database; analyzing, using the data processor, the identified plurality of calls to determine a value of the at least one call series parameter for the identified plurality of calls; comparing, using the data processor, the determined value of the at least one call series parameter with the target value of the at least one call series parameter; and defining, using the data processor, the identified plurality of calls as a call series based at least in part on results of the comparing.
US08494111B2 System and method for image reconstruction for helical cone beam computed tomography with factorized redundancy weighting
A method and system for computed tomography were weighted data is used to reconstruct an image. The apparatus includes an x-ray source producing a cone-beam of x-rays, an x-ray detector disposed to receive x-rays from the x-ray source, a data collection unit, and a processing unit for processing the data using a weighting function using contributions from fan-beam and cone-beam weighting functions. The apparatus can produce images with reduced artifacts.
US08494103B2 Reception circuit
A reception circuit includes: a sampling circuit to sample an input data signal based on a clock signal and output a sampled signal; a data interpolation circuit to interpolate the sampled signal based on phase information corresponding to the sampled signal and output an interpolated data signal; an interpolation error decision circuit to output an interpolation error based on the sampled signal and the phase information; a decision/equalization circuit to equalize the interpolated data signal using an equalization coefficient set based on the interpolation error, to check an equalized interpolated data signal and to output a checked signal; and a phase detection circuit to generate the phase information based on at least one of the checked signal and the equalized interpolated data signal and output the phase information to the data interpolation circuit and the interpolation error decision circuit.
US08494100B2 Device and method for blocking-signal reduction
A processing device (60) for a radio-receiver circuit (20) is disclosed. The radio-receiver circuit comprises an input terminal (22) for receiving an analog input signal, circuitry (50) for generating a compensated analog input signal by subtracting an analog compensation signal from the analog input signal, an analog-to-digital converter (30) arranged to receive the compensated analog input signal on an input terminal of the analog-to-digital converter (30), and circuitry (40, 110) for to generating the analog compensation signal based on a digital compensation signal. The processing device (60) comprises: an input terminal (62) for receiving an output signal of the analog-to-digital converter (30); and an output terminal (64) for supplying the digital compensation signal. The processing device (60) is adapted to: generate an estimate of a blocking signal component in the analog input signal of the radio receiver circuit (20) based on the output signal of the analog-to-digital converter (30); and generate the digital compensation signal based on said estimate such that said blocking signal component is at least partially cancelled in the compensated analog input signal. Embodiments of radio receiver circuit, integrated circuit, electronic apparatus, method, computer program, computer readable medium and hardware-description entity are also disclosed.
US08494099B2 Signal processing using modified blockwise analytic matrix inversion
In one embodiment, a method for signal processing is provided that uses an improved inversion to mitigate the imprecision introduced by fast approximate methods for division. An input signal is received and processed to generate a matrix M. The matrix M is inverted to generate an inverted matrix M−1. Matrix M is inverted by (i) decomposing the matrix M into a plurality of first sub-matrices, (ii) generating, based on the first sub-matrices and without any division operations, numerators for a plurality of second sub-matrices of the inverted matrix M−1, (iii) generating, based on the first sub-matrices and without any division operations, denominators for the second sub-matrices, and (iv) generating the second sub-matrices based on the numerators and denominators. The inverted matrix M−1 is processed to generate an output signal. Accordingly, a reduction in noise level from inaccuracy in division is achieved, and computational complexity is reduced.
US08494088B2 Transmitting/receiving apparatus and method thereof in codebook based multiple antenna system
A transmission/reception apparatus and a method thereof in a codebook-based multiple antenna system is provided. In a transmission method in a codebook-based Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system, feedback information is received from a receiver. A downlink Open-Loop Single User MIMO (OL SU-MIMO) codebook subset is determined within a base cookbook based on the feedback information. At least one data stream is transmitted via at least one antenna using the determined downlink OL SU-MIMO codebook subset.
US08494079B2 Method for efficiently performing multi-BS MIMO operation in a broadband wireless access system
A method for determining temporary Base Station (BS) Identifiers (IDs) to efficiently set a multi-BS Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) transmission mode and an apparatus for implementing the same in a broadband wireless access system are disclosed. To perform a multi-BS MIMO operation, a Mobile Station (MS) receives a first broadcast message including system information about a plurality of neighbor BSs from a serving BS, receives a second broadcast message including BS set information from the serving BS, the BS set information specifying indexes of one or more neighbor BSs which can be involved in the multi-BS MIMO operation among the plurality of neighbor BSs, and determines a temporary BS ID of each BS included in the BS set information using the specified indexes.
US08494077B2 Method and communication system for transmitting data in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system
Method for transmitting data in a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system and communication system for transmitting data in a MIMO system. A method for transmitting data in a communication system is provided. The method includes the steps of selecting a first channel (C1) and a second channel (C2), of receiving by the second receiver (Rx2) of first data and frequency resource information, of performing a non-linear pre-coding for second data (D2) of the second channel (x2) and of sending the precoded second data (D2) from the second transmitter (Tx2) to the second receiver (Rx2) and sending the first non-pre-coded data (D1) of the first channel (C1) from a first transmitter (Tx1) to a first receiver (Rx1) at the same timeframe.
US08494073B2 Beamforming weight estimation using wideband multipath direction of arrival analysis
Techniques are provided for computing downlink beamforming weights based on the received data at a base station from a mobile station in a MIMO communication system. An uplink transmission is received at a plurality of antennas at a first communication device from a second communication device, where the uplink transmission comprises a plurality of uplink subbands. The uplink spatial signature is estimated for each of the plurality of uplink subbands. The uplink spatial signature is decomposed into a plurality of direction of arrival (DOA) components for each uplink subband using a transform. Data representing multiple propagation paths between the first communication device and the second communication device is computed for each DOA component. A plurality of direction of departure (DOD) components for each of a plurality of downlink subbands is computed based on the data representing the multiple propagation paths. A downlink spatial signature for each downlink subband from the plurality of DOD components is computed using an inverse of the transform. Downlink beamforming weights are computed for each of the plurality of downlink subbands based on the downlink spatial signature, where the downlink beamforming weights are for use by the first communication device when beamforming a downlink transmission via the plurality of antennas of the first communication device to the second communication device.
US08494071B2 Device and method for correcting a data error in communication path
There are provided a transmission and reception device having a function for correcting a data error in a communication path. In the transmission device, a redundant bit addition unit adds a redundant bit to each data bit which has been divided by one bit by a division unit; and an interleaver performs interleave. The transmission device transmits a signal which has been subjected to FM modulation by an FM modulation unit. In the reception device, a symbol decision unit performs a symbol decision at a Nyquist point for a signal which has been FM-demodulated by an FM demodulation unit; a bit conversion unit performs bit conversion according to the result of symbol decision; and a frame recovery unit deletes the redundant bit added by the redundant bit addition unit of the transmission device, from the bit string de-interleaved by a de-interleaver. Thus, it is possible to surely perform an error correction with a simple configuration even when the communication state is not in a preferable environment.
US08494062B2 Deblocking filtering apparatus and method for video compression using a double filter with application to macroblock adaptive frame field coding
A deblocking filtering apparatus for video compression performs edge-filtering of the boundaries of macroblocks for a series of images. The apparatus buffers the partial data required by a first and a second filters by using a first and a second swap buffers, and implements the buffering function with register groups to increase the flexibility of data exchange. The first and the second filters perform vertical and horizontal deblocking filtering for the macroblocks of the series of images, respectively. An adaptive queue is used to receive the portion of output data from the first filter, temporarily store the data in internal buffers, and output data to be as the portion of input data of the second filter.
US08494060B2 Inter-layer prediction method for video signal
The present invention relates to a method for conducting interlayer texture prediction in encoding or decoding of video signal. The present method constructs a pair of frame macro blocks from vertically-adjacent two field macro blocks of a base layer, selectively applies a de-blocking filter to the constructed pair of frame macro blocks, and uses texture information of the pair of frame macro blocks in interlayer texture prediction of a pair of frame macro blocks of a current layer.
US08494053B2 Method and apparatus of temporal filtering for side information interpolation and extrapolation in Wyner-Ziv video compression systems
A method (and system) for video coding includes receiving a first reference frame having a first pixel value at a first pixel position, a second reference frame having a second pixel value at a second pixel position, and a third reference frame having a third pixel value at a third pixel position, determining a first motion vector between the first pixel position and the second pixel position, determining a second motion vector between the second pixel position and the third pixel position, and determining a fourth pixel value for a fourth frame based upon a linear or nonlinear combination of the first pixel value, the second pixel value, and the third pixel value.
US08494051B2 Method and system for estimating global motion in video sequences
Global motion between frames of a motion-compensated inter-frame encoded video sequence is estimated directly from the motion vectors encoded within the frames. For any particular frame, the motion vectors are first decoded, and a finite number of sets of vectors are selected. An affine or other geometrical transform is then used to generate a motion estimation for each set, and then the least median squared error present in each motion estimation is calculated for each estimation. The motion estimation with the smallest least median squared error is then selected as being representative of the global motion in the image of the frame. A panoramic image generating method and system makes uses of the global motion estimations thus obtained.
US08494049B2 Long term reference frame management with error video feedback for compressed video communication
An apparatus, software encoded in tangible media, and a method at an encoder. The method includes sending compressed video data including a reference frame message to create a long term reference frame to a plurality of decoders at one or more destination points, receiving feedback from the decoders indicative of whether or not the decoders successfully received the reference frame message, and in the case that the received feedback is such that at least one of the decoders did not successfully receive the reference frame message or does not have the indicated recent frame, repeating sending a reference frame message to create the long term reference frame. Using the method can replaces I-frame error recovery with long term reference frames, even in the case where the reference frame management messages are lost to at least one decoder.
US08494047B2 Encoding device, method for adjusting target amount of code and record medium
An encoding device includes an encoding unit that encodes image data, a computing unit that calculates a target amount of picture code for each picture when the image data is encoded, a selection unit that selects an adjustment coefficient corresponding to the position of a picture within a unit of image processing from adjustment coefficients that have an alternating sequence of maximum values and minimal values, and an adjusting unit that adjusts the target amount of picture code by multiplying the target amount of picture code calculated by the computing unit by the adjustment coefficient selected by the selection unit.
US08494043B2 Video-information encoding method and video-information decoding method
A video-information encoding apparatus and decoding apparatus with a guarantee of a fixed processing time. By limiting the amount of data to be input into/output from a CABAC encoding unit and decoding unit on a unit-of-encoding basis, such as one picture, slice, macroblock or block, and by encoding uncompressed video data, it is possible to provide a video-information encoding apparatus and decoding apparatus with a guarantee of a fixed processing time. Thereby, an apparatus with a guarantee of the processing time can be mounted.
US08494042B2 Inter-layer prediction method for video signal
The present invention relates to a method for conducting interlayer motion prediction in encoding or decoding of video signal. The present method checks whether at least one of vertically-adjacent two macro blocks on a base layer is intra mode, and if only one of the two macro blocks is identified to intra mode, motion information of an inter-mode macro block of the two macro blocks is copied to the other intra-mode macro block in order to set the intra-mode macro block to a macro block having motion information.
US08494032B2 Network communications device capable of promoting connection quality and method thereof
A network communications device is capable of promoting connection quality, and includes: a plurality of transmitting units for outputting a plurality of analog transmit-signals to another network communications device based on a plurality of digital transmit-signals; a plurality of receiving units for outputting a plurality of digital receive-signals based on a plurality of analog receive-signals sent from the another network communications device; an echo canceller for providing a signal for canceling an echo in one of the digital receive-signals; a near end crosstalk canceller for providing a signal for canceling near end crosstalk in one of the digital receive-signals; a decoding circuit for generating a decoded signal based on one of the digital receive-signals subsequent to cancellation of the echo and the near end crosstalk therein; and a power-increasing control circuit for increasing operating power so as to promote connection quality.
US08494031B2 Protocol operation and message design for SDMA data transmission to a plurality of stations
An apparatus including a processing system configured to construct a coding matrix from channel state information and encode a plurality of spatial streams with the coding matrix for transmission to one or more nodes. A method for performing the process is also disclosed herein.
US08494030B2 Method and system for 60 GHz wireless clock distribution
Aspects of a method and system for 60 GHz wireless clock distribution may include configuring a microwave communication link established between a first chip and a second chip via a wireline communication bus. The configuration may comprise adjusting beamforming parameters of a first antenna array communicatively coupled to the first chip, and of a second antenna array communicatively coupled to the second chip. The first chip and the second chip may communicate a clock signal via the microwave communication link. The microwave communication link may be routed via one or more relay chips, when the first chip and the second chip cannot directly communicate. Control data may be transferred between the first chip, the second chip, and/or the one or more relay chips, which may comprise one or more antennas. The relay chips may be dedicated relay ICs or multi-purpose transmitter/receivers.
US08494027B2 Wireless communications device and method
A wireless device is described that comprises a spread spectrum radio-frequency (RF) communications portion, such as a Bluetooth module, and an ancillary RF receiver portion. The spread spectrum RF communications portion is activated on receipt of a characteristic RF signal by the ancillary RF receiver portion. The ancillary RF receiver portion may consume substantially less power than the spread spectrum RF communications portion thereby allowing a low power standby mode to be implemented. The wireless device may be a measurement probe, such as a temperature probe, for use with machine tools and the like. An interface for transmitting the characteristic RF signal is also described.
US08494026B2 Fastening means for terminals for electrical resistance elements
A suspension arrangement for terminals for electrical resistive elements, which terminals pass vertically through a body and are attached relative to the upper surface of the body, which terminals pass over into the hot zone of the resistive element in the form of a shank element, which extends downwards from the terminals, where one or several of the shanks of the hot zone is or are supported by hooks attached to the lower surface of the body. The suspension arrangement for each one of the terminals includes a first attachment attached relative to the upper surface of the body and a second attachment attached relative to the terminal. A spring arrangement passes between the first and the second attachment, which spring arrangement is arranged such that the second attachment is mobile in the vertical direction relative to the first attachment.
US08494021B2 Organic laser device
To provide a small and lightweight organic laser device which can be manufactured in a reproductive manner and from which laser light with a desired wavelength can be obtained. A first substrate provided with a light-emitting element having a light-emitting layer between a pair of electrodes and a second substrate provided with a laser medium including a laser dye face each other and one of the pair of electrodes, which is placed between the light-emitting layer and the laser medium, has a light transmitting property. With such a structure, a laser device with which a laser medium and a light source are integrated can be provided.
US08494018B2 Direct modulated modified vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers and method
A laser system having separately electrically operable cavities for emitting modulated narrow linewidth light with first, second and third mirror structures separated by a first active region between the first and the second and by a second active region between the second and the third. The second mirror structure has twenty of more periods of mirror pairs.
US08494008B2 Multiplexing circuit and designing method therefor
The present invention includes two or more bandpass filters, for passing signals of mutually different frequency bands therethrough, including one or more stages of units having coupling devices and resonance circuits coupled, in a tap type, to the coupling device, one end of each bandpass filter is directly connected to a common port, the coupling device and the resonance circuit of the first stage nearest to the port of each bandpass filter has a function of impedance matching means for each bandpass filter, in addition to a function of resonance means, respectively.
US08494005B2 Technique for adjusting a phase relationship among modulation symbols
A technique for adjusting a phase relationship among modulation symbols is disclosed. A method embodiment of this technique comprises the steps of applying to a sequence of modulation symbols a phase ramp that continuously increases over the duration of the symbol sequence, and applying a compensation phase to each modulation symbol to introduce a phase offset between two subsequent modulation symbols. The joint application of the phase ramp and the compensation phase can be used to establish a saw tooth-like phase characteristic over the sequence of modulation symbols. In one embodiment, the phase ramp is applied in the context of impressing a frequency shift on the modulation symbols.
US08493990B2 Cyclical time-based communication system, user in such a system and transmission method
A cyclical time-based communication system, for the transmission of data (DATA) between users, comprising a databus and users connected thereto. The data transmission occurs within cyclical repeating timeframes, each with at least two timeslots. Each timeslot is provided for the transmission of a message (Ni). A message (Ni) comprises at least part of the data (DATA) and each message (Ni) is provided with a code (ID). The bandwidth available for data transmission may be better utilized, if the code (ID) is placed within the message (Ni), each message (Ni) is additionally provided with time information concerning the timeslot which may be extracted from the code, and at least one of the timeslots may be used for transmission of various messages in various cycles. In a preferred embodiment the information relating to the current cycle comprises an ordinal number. In the simplest case the number has two values 0 and 1.
US08493989B2 Network device and data control program
A network device is connected to another network device over a network and performs multicast transmission and reception over the network. The network device stores in a storage unit in a corresponding manner a drop address that uniquely identifies data to be dropped from the network and control data that indicates whether dropped data is to be forwarded or deleted. The network device drops the data based on the drop address, and then either forwards or deletes the dropped data based on the control data.
US08493979B2 Single instruction processing of network packets
Executing a single instruction/multiple data (SIMD) instruction of a program to process a vector of data wherein each element of the packet vector corresponds to a different received packet.
US08493978B2 Distributed master election
A transmitting node in a telecommunications network, wherein data are distributed into one or more data storage groups (DSG), and wherein data related to a DSG is replicated into a plurality of data storage elements (DS) distributed along one or more nodes of the network. The transmitting node includes a network interface through which a bi-directional connection is established with a plurality of other nodes in a transport layer of the network, and from which messages are sent to the plurality of other nodes comprising an operational state matrix (OSM), which includes information held by the transmitting node about the operational state of the replicas of the DSs of each DSG. The transmitting node includes a memory for storing data. The transmitting node includes a processing unit which forms a list of the plurality of other nodes as having an answer pending of the node in the memory. The network interface receives an OSM from at least some of other nodes which are interpreted by the processing unit as answer messages from the list of the plurality of other nodes to the messages sent by the network interface, and which indicates that an OSM information exchange with the plurality of the other nodes is complete. The processing unit decides a node hosting the master DS replica of each DSG based on the OSM information exchange. The processing unit detects changes in a view of the world (VOW) which includes an accumulated set of OSMs with respect to each DSG hosted by the transmitting node. The network interface sends messages comprising changes in the VOW to the other nodes.
US08493960B2 Server and system for mapping a temporary IP address of a mobile device to a subscriber identity number
In one embodiment, there is disclosed a system and method for providing access to an IP number or a subscriber identity number associated with a mobile device in a network, the method comprising associating a mobile device with a subscriber identity number; generating a temporary IP number for the mobile device; linking the subscriber identity number with the temporary IP number; storing the subscriber identity number and the temporary IP number in a database; and providing a pull application program interface to extract from the database either the subscriber identity number or the IP address for mobile device when requested by an application program.
US08493959B2 Multiple media access control (MAC) addresses
A method for providing multiple media access control (MAC) addresses in a device of a master/slave system may include providing a first MAC address in a MAC address storage of the device. The method may also include providing a second MAC address in a multicast table entry of a multicast hash filter of the device.
US08493950B1 Ethernet backhaul for wireless base stations
Wireless networks comprise base stations that each have communication ports. The wireless networks exchange media with user devices through the communication ports. The wireless networks are identified by Ethernet OUIs, and the base stations and ports are identified by unique codes. An Ethernet backhaul network exchanges the media in Ethernet frames between the communication ports. The Ethernet backhaul network routes the Ethernet frames based on MAC addresses that indicate a destination OUI, a destination base station code, a destination port code, a source OUI, a source base station code, and a source port code.
US08493949B2 Method of exchanging message and devices in wireless network
A method of exchanging messages at a device in a wireless network comprises transmitting a change request message for requesting a change of a beacon position among configuration parameters of the wireless network to a coordinator; and receiving a response message in response to the request message from the coordinator.
US08493930B2 Communication system, base station and mobile station used in the communication system, and base station switching method
There are provided an OFDMA communication system capable of reducing a time necessary for a handover without releasing a wireless communication with a base station as a handover source to search base stations, a base station and a mobile station used in the communication system, and a base station switching method.In an OFDMA communication system in which data communication is performed between a plurality of base stations 10 and a plurality of mobile stations, each base station 10 includes subchannel assignment setting unit 15-1 which sets assignment of subchannels including a first subchannel and a second subchannel for each of the mobile stations, the first subchannel including information indicating usable or unusable subchannels of the respective mobile stations and being assigned to the respective mobile stations, the second subchannel including actually-used data. When a request for switching the first subchannel is received from one of the mobile stations 20, the second subchannel is collected and assigned to a same slot as the first subchannel assigned to the one of the mobile stations 20.
US08493922B2 Method and apparatus for supporting frequency division multiplexing or time division multiplexing in wireless peer-to-peer networks
A method of operating a wireless device includes determining a preferred subset of bands of a set of bands for communicating with a first node, communicating a scheduling request with the first node, and determining whether to schedule a data transmission on each band of the set of bands based on the preferred subset of bands and the scheduling request.
US08493917B2 Methods and apparatuses for performing preamble assignment for random access in a telecommunications system
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses (radio base station (120, 600) and UE (110, 700) for enabling a UE to perform a random access. According to embodiments of the present invention, an identification number of a dedicated random access preamble is, in a message, transmitted together with information indicating in which channel or channels the preamble is valid for the UE. The UE (110, 700) can then use the received information and based on that information perform a random access.
US08493913B2 Providing session-based service orchestration to event-based networks
A method for communication includes, during a call conducted among two or more subscribers in a circuit-switched network, which operates in accordance with a first communication protocol that manages calls among the subscribers by exchanging discrete events among elements of the circuit-switched network, receiving from the circuit-switched network a sequence of the events related to the call. Based on the sequence of the events, at least one emulated communication session is generated in a packet-switched network that operates in accordance with a second communication protocol. Multiple call services are provided to the call conducted in the circuit-switched network from the packet-switched network by cascading multiple service sessions, each providing a respective one of the call services, in the packet-switched network responsively to the emulated communication session.
US08493908B2 Method of allocating uplink transmission channels in a communication system
A method of allocating channels in a user equipment is disclosed. In particular, a method of allocating a plurality of Dedicated Physical Channels (DPCHs) and Enhanced Dedicated Channels (E-DCHs) in a user equipment of a multicode transmission system. The method includes determining whether a High Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH) is configured for the user equipment (UE) and determining a number of codes used by the DPCH and the E-DCH. The method further includes allocating the DPCH and the E-DCH channels to an I branch or a Q branch based on the number of codes used by the DPCH and the E-DCH and the HS-DSCH configuration.
US08493905B2 Wireless clone mode display
Wireless sinks, such as displays, may receive wirelessly transmitted audio/video information in clone mode. In one embodiment, the same audio/video stream may be provided to a plurality of sinks daisy chained from a wireless receiver.
US08493895B2 Method for transmitting sub-frame designation information to a downlink in a radio communication system
A method of transmitting subframe designating information in downlink in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The present invention includes generating the subframe designating information for designating a subframe of a specific type in a radio frame and transmitting the generated subframe designating information to a user equipment, wherein the subframe designating information includes initial location information indicating an initial location of the subframe of the specific type on the radio frame and period information indicating a period for the subframe of the specific type to be repeated.
US08493888B2 Connectivity architecture for service discovery
A system including a billboard that may comprise a common memory space allocated amongst at least two devices. Service nodes created on the billboard may represent services offered by the at least two devices. Service nodes may interact with each other on the billboard in order to perform inquiries for required services. For example, an application residing in the at least two devices may access the billboard in order to locate service nodes pertaining to a desired service. Information available from service nodes may include service property and usable transport information. A direction connection may then be made between the application and the service after a service node is selected.
US08493887B2 Centralized control of peer discovery pilot transmission
Techniques for centralized control of peer discovery pilot transmission are described. In an aspect, a designated network entity (e.g., a base station or a network controller) may control transmission of peer discovery pilots by stations located within its coverage area. In one design, the network entity may receive signaling triggering peer discovery pilot transmission. The network entity may direct each of at least one station to transmit a peer discovery pilot to allow one or more stations to detect the at least one station. The peer discovery pilot may include at least one synchronization signal or at least one reference signal. The network entity may receive pilot measurements from the one or more stations for peer discovery pilots from peer stations and/or reference signals from base stations. The network entity may determine whether or not to select peer-to-peer communication for two stations based on the pilot measurements.
US08493883B2 Identifying and analyzing network configuration differences
A contextual and semantic analysis of network entities facilitates a mapping and comparison of the entities between network models. The system includes a plurality of refine handler and match handler pairs that use rules that are specific to the type of network entities being analyzed. The refine handler analyzes the network model to identify the entities for which its rules apply, and the match handler processes these identified entities to establish a pairing between corresponding entities in each model. A sequence of refine-match processes are applied to the network models, typically in accordance with a hierarchy of rules until each entity is identified as a matched, added, or removed entity. A difference handler processes the identified pairings to provide a difference analysis that facilitates a meaningful interpretation of the configuration changes, and a user interface provides an interactive environment to view the differences from different perspectives.
US08493882B2 Optimization evaluation system, optimization evaluation device, optimization evaluation method, and optimization evaluation program
Provided is an optimization evaluation system, wherein the effect of the optimization of traffic characteristic in a communication network is quantitatively evaluated. An optimization evaluation system which evaluates effects of optimization done by an optimization function in a communication network that has the optimization function for optimizing a communication traffic characteristic, including: a communication traffic analyzing module which acquires a communication traffic variation distribution based on measured communication traffic data; and a communication traffic evaluation module which executes processing for quantitatively evaluating the effects of the optimization of the communication traffic characteristic executed by the optimization function based on a fact whether or not the variation distribution calculated by the communication traffic analyzing module is a power function.
US08493869B2 Distributed constraints-based inter-domain network traffic management
A distributed inter-domain constraints-based routing technique is provided herein. A problem solving request is sent to nodes in a plurality of network domains that have a potential path between a source node and the destination node. The problem solving request includes one or more constraints associated with a routing function for traffic between the source node and destination node. Local path solutions are generated at nodes in domains that receive the problem solving request, where the local path solutions representing possible paths from a previous neighbor network domain to a next neighbor network domain that satisfy the one or more constraints. Based on the local path solutions, a determination is made as to whether there is at least one path from the source node to the destination node that satisfies the one or more constraints.
US08493867B1 Retransmission and flow control in a logical network tunnel
A system includes a network tunnel, an ingress network device coupled to send packets via the network tunnel, and an egress network device coupled to receive packets sent via the network tunnel. The egress network device is configured to provide information to the ingress network device. The information indicates whether a packet transmitted from the ingress network device to the egress network device was dropped in the network tunnel. The ingress network device can retransmit the packet to the egress network device if the packet is dropped in the network tunnel.
US08493851B2 Method and system for offloading tunnel packet processing in cloud computing
A network device may provide Layer-2 (L2) based tunneling to offload at least a portion of tunneling performed by tunneling gateways. The L2 based tunneling provided by the network device may comprise determining one or more other network devices that may receive traffic packets which may be handled by the tunneling gateways; and communicating at least a portion of the traffic packets to the one or more other network devices directly from the network device, using L2 tunnels established via the network device such that communication of the at least a portion of the one or more traffic packets offloads tunneling by bypassing the one or more tunneling gateways. At least a portion of the L2 based tunnel offloading by the network device may be handled via a network controller. Providing the offloaded tunneling in the network device may be based on determined of traffic type of the traffic packets.
US08493845B1 Apparatus for accelerating failover of VPN traffic in an MPLS provider network
Failover of VPN traffic between MPLS tunnels may be accelerated by determining a main and a standby MPLS tunnel for each VPN and passing both the main and standby MPLS tunnel information to the forwarding plane of a network element configured to implement the VPN. In the event of failover of a main MPLS tunnel interface, the forwarding plane may be instructed to use the standby MPLS tunnel instead of the main MPLS tunnel. Since the standby MPLS tunnel has already been determined, and information associated with the standby MPLS tunnel has already been provided to the forwarding plane, it is not necessary to recompute a new MPLS tunnel or reprogram the forwarding plane using the new MPLS tunnel information. By removing control plane operations and control plane-forwarding plane interaction from the handling of failovers, the failover recovery time may be accelerated to under 50 ms, to thereby enable VPN connections to handle time sensitive traffic.
US08493840B2 Fault-tolerant ethernet network
Fault-tolerant Ethernet is provided through the use of special interfaces providing duplicate ports that may be alternatively enabled with the same network address. A switching between the ports, corrects for single faults in a two-way redundant system without time-consuming reconfiguration of other end devices or the need for complex middleware in the end devices.
US08493835B2 Method and apparatus for mapping virtual resources to physical resources in a wireless communication system
Techniques for mapping virtual resources to physical resources in a wireless communication system are described. In an aspect, a virtual resource (e.g., a virtual resource block) may be mapped to a physical resource in a selected subset of physical resources based on a first mapping function, which may map contiguous virtual resources to non-contiguous physical resources in the selected subset. The physical resource in the selected subset may then be mapped to an allocated physical resource (e.g., a physical resource block) among a plurality of available physical resources based on a second mapping function. In one design, the first mapping function may include (i) a re-mapping function that maps an index of the virtual resource to a temporary index and (ii) a permutation function (e.g., a bit-reversed row-column interleaver) that maps the temporary index to an index of the physical resource in the selected subset.
US08493831B2 Compatible optical pickup and optical recording and/or reproducing apparatus employing the same
A compatible optical pickup including an optical unit and a focusing unit. The optical unit emits a short wavelength light for high-density recording media and a long wavelength light for low-density recording media, directs the short and long wavelength light to a recording medium, receives lights reflected by the recording medium, and detects an information reproduction signal and/or an error signal from the received lights. The focusing unit focuses light received from the optical unit to form a light spot on a recording surface of the recording medium, diffracts the short wavelength light into a zero order light and the long wavelength light into a second order light to be used as effective light for recording and/or reproduction. Thus, a high-density recording medium and a low-density recording medium having different thicknesses can be compatibly used.
US08493828B2 Media recording/reading device and media recording/reading method
Disclosed are media recording/reproducing method and device in which recording stop due to over retrials during replacement process and wasteful conversion processing in the recording/reproducing device are suppressed when a method of managing the spare area of a write-once medium by the use of an NAP is employed to manage the spare area of a rewritable medium. During format or replacement process of the medium, the NAP is so updated that defective blocks registered as unusable clusters or as usable cluster type 2 within DFL entries in the spare area are not shown.
US08493824B2 Optical head and optical disc device
A tilt can be detected highly accurately by minimizing the tilt detection error. An optical head includes: an objective lens for converging a light beam from a light source onto an optical disc; a photodetector section receiving the beam, reflected from the disc, at divided areas on its photodetection plane and outputting light detection signals from those areas; and a tilt detecting section for detecting a relative tilt between the lens and disc based on the detection signals. The tilt detecting section generates a first push-pull signal PP1 based on the detection signals supplied from a first group of areas, which are arranged symmetrically to a virtual reference line drawn parallel to a disc radial direction and crossing an optical axis, also generates a second push-pull signal PP2 based on the detection signals supplied from a second group of areas, different from the first group and also arranged symmetrically to the reference line, changes coefficients k according to the location of the lens in a disc radial direction, and generates a tilt detection signal TLT by TLT=PP1−k×PP2.
US08493813B2 Row decoder circuit
A row decoder circuit includes a decoding unit and first and second wordline driving units. The decoding unit generates a first driving signal and a second driving signal based on a selection signal and wordline voltages. A voltage level of the first driving signal and a voltage level of the second driving signal depend on an operation mode. The first wordline driving unit is connected to a first wordline and outputs one of the first driving signal and the second driving signal as a first wordline driving signal based on first driving control signals. The second wordline driving unit is connected to a second wordline and outputs one of the first driving signal and the second driving signal as a second wordline driving signal based on second driving control signals.
US08493810B2 Memory circuitry with write boost and write assist
Memory circuitry 2 includes a memory cell 12 coupled to a plurality of bit line pairs 18, 24 providing multiple access ports. Write boost circuitry 36 serves to increase a write voltage applied to write a data value into the memory cell during at least a boost period of a write access. Collision detection circuitry 10 detects when the write access at least partially overlaps in time with a read access. If a collision is detected, then write assist circuitry serves to drive the bit line pair of the detected read access with a write assist voltage difference having the same polarity as the write voltage and a magnitude less than the write voltage with the boost voltage applied. The write assist circuitry drives the bit line pair of the colliding read independently of the write boost circuitry applying the boost voltage such that the boost voltage is undiminished by the action of the write assist circuitry.
US08493804B2 Memory cell array latchup prevention
An embodiment includes configuring a current-limiting device to place along a power-supply bus to limit current through a first complimentary-metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuit coupled to the power-supply bus so that current does not exceed a trigger current level of a pnpn diode in a second CMOS circuit coupled to the power bus.
US08493792B2 Programming method of non-volatile memory device
A programming method includes setting the voltages of bit lines, performing a program operation, performing a program verify operation by supplying a program verify voltage and determining whether all of the memory cells of the selected page have been programmed with a target threshold voltage or higher, counting the number of passed memory cells corresponding to a number of pass bits, if, a result of the program verify operation, the program operation failed to program all of the memory cells of the selected page to the target threshold voltage or higher, and making a determination that determines whether the number of pass bits is greater than the first number of pass permission bits, and raising a voltage of a bit line coupled to a failed memory cell, if, as a result of the determination, the number of pass bits is greater than the first number of pass permission bits.
US08493783B2 Memory device readout using multiple sense times
A method for data storage includes storing data in a group of analog memory cells by writing respective storage values into the memory cells in the group. One or more of the memory cells in the group are read using a first readout operation that senses the memory cells with a first sense time. At least one of the memory cells in the group is read using a second readout operation that senses the memory cells with a second sense time, longer than the first sense time. The data stored in the group of memory cells is reconstructed based on readout results of the first and second readout operations.
US08493781B1 Interference mitigation using individual word line erasure operations
A method for data storage includes accepting data for storage in a memory that includes multiple analog memory cells. The data is stored in a first group of the memory cells by programming a second group of the memory cells so as to cause the second group to generate interference in the first group, and individually erasing the first group while verifying that analog levels of the memory cells in the first group subject to the interference are within a predefined bound following erasure. After erasing the first group, the first group of the memory cells is programmed with the data.
US08493776B1 MRAM with current-based self-referenced read operations
A magnetoresistive memory stores logic values in high and low resistance states of magnetic tunnel junction elements. Instead of comparing the resistance of elements to a fixed threshold to discern a logic state, the resistances of elements are self-compared before and after imposing a low resistance state. A measure of the resistance of an element in its unknown resistance state is stored, for example by charging a capacitor to a voltage produced when read current bias is applied. Then the element is written into its low resistance state and read current bias is applied again to develop another voltage, representing the low resistance state. A comparison circuit using current summing and an offset providing a minimum difference tolerance determines whether the resistance of the element was changed or remained the same. This determines the logic state of the element.
US08493774B2 Performing logic functions on more than one memory cell within an array of memory cells
A circuit structure is provided for performing a logic function within a memory. A plurality of read word line transistors are provided that receive a read word line signal and, upon receiving the read word line signal, the plurality of read word line transistors provide a path from a plurality of bit-line transistors associated with a plurality of physically adjacent memory cells to a read bit-line. In response to an associated memory cell within the memory storing a first value, each of the plurality of read bit-line transistors turns on and provides a path to ground thereby causing a first output value to be output on the read bit-line. In response to all of the plurality of memory cells storing a second value, the plurality of read bit-line transistors turn off thereby preventing a path to ground and a second output value is output on the read bit-line.
US08493773B2 Memory based illumination device
The invention contained herein provides electrical circuits and driving methods to operate a memory cell comprising a capacitance coupled to a breakover conduction switch such as a thyristor, DIAC or one or more complementary transistor pairs. The memory cell comprises a cell capacitance for storing a memory state and for capacitively coupling an applied voltage to the switch. During operation, pulses are applied to write, read or maintain the cell's memory state. An illumination cell comprises an LED, OLED or electroluminescent material in series with each memory cell. Breakover conduction charge passes through the switch and the emissive element to charge the cell capacitance. A memory array of breakover conduction memory cells may be organized into rows and columns for reading and writing an addressable array memory cells. An organic light emitting display memory array may be fabricated using organic light emitting devices and/or materials.
US08493758B2 Method and apparatus for generating current command value for tracking maximum power point in solar energy generating system
There are provided a method and an apparatus for generating a current command value for tracking the maximum power point of a solar energy generating system. The apparatus includes: a voltage detector detecting a voltage input into the flyback power converter; a first calculator calculating an output power from the detected input voltage; a second calculator calculating a power variation based on the calculated output power and a voltage variation of the input voltage; and a current command value generator generating a current command value for tracking the maximum power point of the solar cell module from the calculated voltage variation and the calculated power variation. Accordingly, a current command value after calculating an output power may be generated with only a voltage detector, without a current detector, thereby reducing the costs of a solar energy generating system by decreasing the costs for a high-priced current detector, and simplifying circuit.
US08493755B2 Power supply with zero power consumption capability
Power supply devices are provided that can include power regulating circuitry for regulating (e.g., transforming or converting) electric power to be passed to an electronic device. A power supply device can also include control circuitry coupled with the regulating circuitry. The control circuitry can determine when the power supply device is coupled with an electronic device. The control circuitry can control the operation of the regulating circuitry based on whether or not the power supply device is coupled with the electronic device.
US08493748B2 Packaging system with hollow package and method for the same
A packaging system comprising: forming terminal leads; configuring a cavity by partially encapsulating the terminal leads with a compound; attaching an integrated circuit device, a micro-electromechanical system, a micro-mechanical system, or a combination thereof in the cavity; and bonding a cover to the terminal leads for enclosing the cavity.
US08493745B2 Low-profile motherboard with side-mounted memory modules using a dual-opening edge connector
A low-profile personal computer (PC) motherboard has memory modules mounted to an edge of the motherboard rather than mounted perpendicular using standard memory module sockets. The PC motherboard has a lower profile since memory module sockets are removed from the top surface of the PC motherboard. Expansion card sockets are also removed by integrating expansion functions into chips on the PC motherboard, or using an edge-mounted connector to the expansion card or to an external peripheral. Motherboard metal contacts are formed on an extended plug region near the edge of the PC motherboard. A first opening or slot of an edge connector fits over the motherboard metal contacts, while a second opening or slot of the edge connector fits over metal contacts on a standard memory module. The memory module and the PC motherboard each have printed-circuit boards (PCBs) that are in the same plane, thus reducing the overall height.
US08493740B2 Component retention mechanism
A component retention mechanism facilitates improved installation, retention and removal of hardware components (e.g., PCI cards) on a personal computer. The retention mechanism includes a locking component, support member, and release mechanism coupled to each other. The locking component can be a steel bar or other stiff item positioned proximate to multiple socket connectors on a circuit board. The locking component moves between unlocked and locked positions that mechanically and simultaneously unlock or lock in place multiple add-in cards inserted into the socket connectors. The support member moves and thereby facilitates movement of the locking component between locked and unlocked positions. The release mechanism facilitates movement of the support member and is actuated when a force is exerted by a user thereto. An associated slider housing coupled to the release mechanism and support member includes a fan, support shelves and a door that provides additional support to oversized PCI cards.
US08493735B2 Liquid cooling arrangement for electronic apparatus
An electronic apparatus includes, an apparatus casing detachably connected to another electronic apparatus, a heat receiver having a flow passage of a cooling medium and assembled in the apparatus casing, and an cooling-medium input and output unit connecting the flow passage of the heat receiver to a circulatory pathway of the cooling medium, the circulatory pathway including a heat exchange taking heat from the cooling medium outside the apparatus casing.
US08493734B2 Multi-case rack for industrial computer
A multi-case rack for an industrial computer includes a rack body and a plurality of removable cases. The removable case can be installed with either its axial end positioned ahead, thus compatible to both a front circuit board and a rear circuit board. The removable case has an anti-shock HD mount capable of holding either two 2.5″ hard drives or one 3.5″ hard drive. The removable case allows heat-dissipating fans to be installed and positioned in a screw-free, hot-swap manner. The removable cases can be readily installed into or from a rack body.
US08493724B2 Electronic device having hinge mechanism
A hinge mechanism for securing to the body of an electronic device. The hinge mechanism includes a fixing plate. A holding member and two latching members project from the base of the electronic device. An end of the holding member opposite to the base bends toward the at least one latching member to form a latching portion. Each latching member includes a connecting portion projecting from the base, a supporting portion bending from an end of the connecting portion opposite to the base, and a hook arranged at a side of the supporting portion opposite to the connecting portion. The holding member cooperates with the supporting portion to define a clearance for holding the fixing plate, the hooks cooperate with the holding member to secure the fixing plate to the body.
US08493722B2 Vibratile display device
A vibratile display device includes a back plate, a panel assembly and at least one flexible pin. The back plate has a plurality of first fixing holes. The panel assembly is fixed to the back plate and includes a base and a display panel. The base has a carrier portion and a plurality of lugs extending outward from the carrier portion. Each lug has at least one second fixing hole corresponding to the first fixing holes. The display panel is disposed on the carrier portion of the base. An insert portion of the flexible pin is inserted into the first fixing hole of the back plate, and a neck portion of the flexible pin is inserted into the corresponding second fixing hole. A lean portion of the flexible pin is located between the base and the back plate. A top portion of the flexible pin protrudes a surface of the lugs.
US08493700B2 ESD protection for high-voltage-tolerance open-drain output pad
A high-voltage NMOS transistor for ESD protection is coupled between a high-voltage I/O pad and a low-voltage terminal, and has a parasitic component between its source and drain. A trigger has an input coupled to the high-voltage I/O pad and an output coupled to the parasitic component. When the voltage on the high-voltage I/O pad raises above a threshold value, the trigger applies a voltage to trigger the parasitic component, so as to release an ESD current from the high-voltage I/O pad to the low-voltage terminal through the high-voltage NMOS transistor.
US08493692B2 Position determining system with arm center line crossing expanding/contracting direction of hinged actuator unit
A magnetic head-positioning system to accurately test a magnetic disk and a magnetic head, comprises a plurality of hinges attached on an end portion of a linear driving element and disposed on both sides of a center line of the linear driving element, which is in parallel with an extension-shrinkage direction of the linear driving element, and an arm having a length longer than a distance between a plurality of hinge joint portions, the plurality of the hinge joint portions each of which join the hinge with a root portion of the arm and which are disposed on both sides of a center line of the arm which is in parallel with a longitudinal direction of the arm. The arm has an extremity portion on which a head gimbal assembly is detachably attached and this head gimbal assembly is positioned.
US08493684B1 Calibrating voice coil motors
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, are described for calibrating voice coil motors. In one aspect, a method is provided that includes seeking toward an outer diameter of a machine readable medium from a target servo track to a blank portion of the machine readable medium. A radial velocity of an actuator is determined after accelerating the actuator to a target radial velocity. The radial velocity is compared to the target radial velocity, and a current, that is used to controllably modify the radial velocity of the actuator if the radial velocity is different from the target radial velocity, is calibrated.
US08493682B2 Head wrap procedure
According to one embodiment, a method includes tracking a magnetic tape moving in a first direction using at least one reader of an inner module of a head having at least the inner module and first and second outer modules positioned on opposite sides of the inner module and aligned with the inner module in a tape travel direction, detecting a signal using at least one reader of the first outer module as the tape passes thereacross, moving a guide positioned in front of the first outer module in a direction towards the tape until the signal detected by the first outer module decreases by a predetermined amount, and moving the guide directionally away from the tape to a position to set about a predetermined wrap angle of the tape relative to the first outer module after the signal detected by the first outer module decreases by the predetermined amount.
US08493680B2 IC protection circuit, method for protecting IC, and apparatuses having the IC protection circuit
An electronic device includes a power supply line connected between a DC power supply and an integrated circuit, and a first electronic element and a second electronic element serially connected between the power supply line and ground. The second electronic element is open when the first electronic element is short-circuited due to an overvoltage induced in the power supply line. When the overvoltage exceeds a breakdown voltage of the first electronic element, the first electronic element supplies an overcurrent induced in the power supply line to the second electronic element.
US08493675B2 Oscillator holding mechanism, oscillation motor, and lens driving device
An oscillator holding mechanism capable of generating a stable vibration in an oscillator and an oscillation motor having the oscillator holding mechanism are disclosed. The oscillator holding mechanism present within an oscillation motor includes an oscillator that has a protruding output section on one end that generates a predetermined movement in the output section by vibration, a holding member that holds and accommodates the oscillator, and a buffer member that is made of an elastic material and is provided between the oscillator and the holding member. The buffer member has a first surface in contact with the holding member having a larger area than a second surface in contact with the oscillator and a cross sectional shape including a center axis that connects a center point of the first surface and a center point of the second surface that is axisymmetric with respect to the center axis.
US08493672B2 Imaging lens, image pickup device and portable terminal
An imaging lens (LN) of an imaging device (ID) is composed of an aperture stop (ST) and a lens unit (LU) having positive power. Even when the object side surface of the lens unit (LU) has a shape convexed to the side of the object, and a lens whose image side surface is concaved to the image side is used, excellent aberration performance with a short optical total length, a small sensor incidence angle and a small distortion are achieved at low cost.
US08493669B2 Focusing and sensing apparatus, methods, and systems
Apparatus, methods, and systems provide focusing, focus-adjusting, and sensing. In some approaches the focus-adjusting includes providing an extended depth of focus greater than a nominal depth of focus. In some approaches the focus-adjusting includes focus-adjusting with a transformation medium, where the transformation medium may include an artificially-structured material such as a metamaterial.
US08493668B2 Micro-projection lens
The present invention provides a micro-projection lens including first lens group, a second lens group, and a third lens group arranged in sequence along an optical axis from a screen side to a light modulator side. The first lens group has positive refractive power and includes at least an aspheric lens. The second lens group has negative refractive power and includes at least a glass tablet. The third lens group has positive refractive power and includes at least an aspheric lens. Therefore, the micro-projection lens of the present invention has a small size and high optical performance.
US08493660B2 Optical layered body comprising a light-transmitting substrate and antiglare layer, polarizer and image display device
An optical layered body including a light-transmitting substrate and an antiglare layer provided on the light-transmitting substrate. The antiglare layer has a surface roughness on the outermost surface. In the optical layered body, a mean spacing of tops of local peak of profile S is 0.045 mm or more and 0.10 mm or less determined by the procedure disclosed in the specification. The optical layered body can attain properties such as an antiglare property, scintillation prevention and black color reproducibility such as gloss blackness simultaneously.
US08493652B2 Method for controlling an erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and amplifier arrangement
The invention refers to a method for operating an amplifier with a first amplifier stage (A1) and a second amplifier stage (A2), pumped by a single pump light source (11) generating a primary pump signal (SPUMP), which is split into first pump signal (S1) and a second pump signal (S2) according to a variable splitting factor (α) for pumping the first amplifier stage (A1) and the second amplifier stage (A2) respectively. The splitting factor (α) is varied to achieve an optimized noise figure.
US08493649B2 Method of producing nonlinear optical crystal CdSiP2
CdSiP2 crystals with sizes and optical quality suitable for use as nonlinear optical devices are disclosed, as well as NLO devices based thereupon. A method of growing the crystals by directional solidification from a stoichiometric melt is also disclosed. The disclosed NLO crystals have a higher nonlinear coefficient than prior art crystals that can be pumped by solid state lasers, and are particularly useful for frequency shifting 1.06 μm, 1.55 μm, and 2 μm lasers to wavelengths between 2 μm and 10 μm. Due to the high thermal conductivity and low losses of the claimed CdSiP2 crystals, average output power can exceed 10 W without severe thermal lensing. A 6.45 μm laser source for use as a medical laser scalpel is also disclosed, in which a CdSiP2 crystal is configured for non-critical phase matching, pumped by a 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser, and temperature-tuned to produce output at 6.45 μm.
US08493643B2 Multi-beam light scanning apparatus and image forming apparatus using the same
A multi-beam light scanning apparatus includes incident optical systems each of which allows a light beam to enter a deflection surface of a rotational polygon mirror in a sub scanning section from above and below directions obliquely with respect to a surface perpendicular to a rotation axis of the rotational polygon mirror at a finite angle, and a light source unit which is disposed for each of the incident optical systems and has light emitting portions. A light emitting portion corresponding to printing of a head line in the sub scanning direction among the light emitting portions of the light source unit that are disposed obliquely in the upward direction, and a light emitting portion corresponding to the printing of the head line in the sub scanning direction, that are disposed obliquely in the downward direction are different from each other in the sub scanning direction.
US08493632B2 Image reading apparatus
An image reading apparatus includes a gain setting section that sets a gain of a signal from image sensor, a reference data reading section that reads white and black reference data, an image reading section, a correction data generation section that generates correction data by synthesizing a substring extracted from white reference data with a substring extracted from black reference data, and a correction section that performs shading correction of image data using the correction data, wherein in a case where the black reference data is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value, the gain setting section performs resetting to lower the set gain, the reference data reading section rereads the black reference data by the reset gain, and the correction data generation section generates correction data by synthesizing the substring of the white reference data with the substring of the black reference data that has been reread.
US08493631B2 Image forming apparatus with pivoting operation panel control method therefor, and operation apparatus of equipment
An image forming apparatus having improved installability and operability. The image forming apparatus has an operation unit thereof disposed on an arm extending from the apparatus and pivotable around a support member in substantially the horizontal direction, and has sensors for detecting the pivot position of the operation unit. An initial-screen setting screen determined based on the pivot position of the operation unit detected by the sensors is displayed on the operation unit.
US08493623B2 Adaptive exposure printing and printing system
One or more printers or printing systems are connected to a scanning device. Each printer includes one or more color modules that are used during a printing operation. A printer prints a target for each color module or color channel. The printed targets are then scanned by the scanning device. The printed targets may be rotated to any angle and then scanned by the scanning device. The scanned raster data is processed by a controller to detect non-uniformities in at least one density image and to generate one or more correction profiles for the printer. When an image is to be printed, one or more controllers receive the image data and use the one or more correction profiles to correct or compensate for the non-uniformities during the exposure process.
US08493618B2 Color processing apparatus and method that calculate and combine color data of diffuse reflection in a line-of-sight direction and color data of specular reflection in a line-of-sight direction, and that convert the combined color data to color data in a color space of a monitor
A color processing apparatus configured to simulate a print product output by a printer on a monitor. The apparatus includes a first conversion unit configured to convert color data representing an image of the simulation object into color data in a printer color space, a first calculation unit configured to calculate color data of diffuse reflection in a line-of-sight direction from color data in the printer color space, a second calculation unit configured to calculate color data in the printer color space and specular reflection color data, a third calculation unit configured to calculate color data of specular reflection in a line-of-sight direction from color data of specular reflection calculated using a parameter representing an exitance of the glossiness and colorless light-source color data, a combination unit configured to combine the color data of diffuse reflection and color data of specular reflection, and a second conversion unit configured to convert the combined color data to color data in the monitor color space.
US08493613B2 Apparatus and method controlling zooming process at laser device for high-speed high-resolution double-sided printing without wide-ranged image degradation or banding
An image forming apparatus includes a positioning unit that acquires a misalignment amount of a pixel in a main-scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction, the pixel as a reference pixel for zooming image data, and decides a position of a pixel as a correction target, based on the misalignment amount; a correcting unit that corrects the pixel; a zooming unit that controls the positioning unit and the correcting unit so as to repeatedly perform the positioning process and the correction process on a pixel line; a pattern recognition unit that performs pattern matching on a predetermined pattern and a predetermined pixel line; and a pixel position changing unit that shifts the decided pixel position in the sub-scanning direction, wherein the zooming unit performs the zooming process on the pixel line of the sub-scanning direction including the pixel that is located at shifted pixel position.
US08493611B2 Print job control apparatus, print job control method, and computer-readable storage medium storing a program thereof
There is provided a print job control apparatus including an acquiring unit configured to acquire post-processing function information of a digital printing apparatus, a determination unit configured to reference the post-processing function information and the print job, and determine to use either a post-processing function of the digital printing apparatus or a post-processing apparatus for post-processing, a first generating unit configured to generate a print job to be executed using the post-processing function of the digital printing apparatus, a second generating unit configured to generate a print job to be executed using a post-processing apparatus, and a sending unit configured to send the print jobs generated by the first or second generating units to the digital printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus.
US08493606B2 Integrated document delivery method and apparatus
A document delivery network server having a set of integrated functions including sending, receiving, routing and filing of FAXes and e-mails to other users which achieves numerous advantages over the prior art. The document delivery system is based on a client/server model having both analog and digital Fax line capabilities. The server side provides very highly integrated systems functionality based on industry standard, commercially available hardware and a mix of industry standard and proprietary software components including integrated FAX/modem modules, an embedded OS, embedded plug-and-play driver sets, embedded e-mail gateways, an embedded FAX archive, embedded back-up/restore, proprietary high efficiency line utilization and highly efficient load balancing.
US08493605B2 Print control apparatus that acquires user position information of a portable terminal
A print control apparatus in which a plurality of print apparatuses having a hold print function are caused to hold print data, and the print data of other print apparatuses other than a print apparatus print-instructed by a user is deleted, is provided. A print server is connected to the plurality of printers having a hold print function through a network. The print server includes a print data transmission portion that transmits print data received from a PC to printers to cause the printers to hold the print data, and a print data deletion instruction portion that, when a print notification of the print data is received from any one of the plurality of the printers, instructs other printers other than the printer to delete the print data.
US08493588B2 Method of identifying user of scanning apparatus
A method of operating a scanning apparatus including a transparent platen, a memory, a lid to cover the transparent platen, and a door in the lid, the method includes exposing a portion of the transparent platen through the door in the lid; placing a user identifier into the door in the lid; providing a user identification initiation signal; emitting light from a light source to illuminate the exposed portion of the transparent platen; moving a photosensor array to scan the user identifier through the exposed portion of the transparent platen; providing a digitized image of the user identifier from the scan by the photosensor array; comparing the digitized image to a stored pattern; and authorizing a function of the scanning apparatus if it is determined that the digitized image of the user identifier adequately matches the stored pattern.
US08493579B2 Wireless printing from a device outside the network
A method for printing an electronic document (ED) using a multifunction printer (MFP), including: obtaining, by the MFP, an image by scanning a screen of a mobile device displaying a graphical code having a unique identifier (UID) of a print job associated with the ED; extracting, by the MFP, the UID of the print job from the image; sending, by the MFP, the UID of the print job to a print server over a first network operatively connecting the MFP and the print server; receiving, by the MFP and in response to sending the UID, the print job associated with the ED over the first network; and printing, by the MFP, a hardcopy of the ED after receiving the print job.
US08493574B2 Imaging shape changes in ear canals
The attenuation and other optical properties of a medium are exploited to measure a thickness of the medium between a sensor and a target surface. Disclosed herein are various mediums, arrangements of hardware, and processing techniques that can be used to capture these thickness measurements and obtain dynamic three-dimensional images of the target surface in a variety of imaging contexts. This includes general techniques for imaging interior/concave surfaces as well as exterior/convex surfaces, as well as specific adaptations of these techniques to imaging ear canals, human dentition, and so forth.
US08493573B2 High-resolution optical position sensing with sparse, low-resolution detectors
High-resolution optical position sensing is disclosed using sparse, low-resolution detectors. Precise location of two-dimensional position or angular orientation of an optical beam at the focal plane of a sensor system is made possible using sparse low-resolution detectors. The beam may be emitted directly from a source, or scattered from a remote target. The high precision in determining the beam or focal spot location is the result of a novel data processing and analysis method for the signals from the low-resolution detectors.
US08493567B2 Optical tomographic image acquisition apparatus and method of acquiring optical tomographic image which adjusts reference position that acquires optical tomographic image based on sheath interference signal
An optical tomographic image acquisition apparatus comprises a light source unit emitting light; a light dividing device dividing the light from the unit into measurement light and reference light; a projecting device arranged inside a tubular sheath to project the measurement light onto an object; a combining device combining reflected light reflected from the object or the sheath and the reference light; an interference light detecting device detecting interference light between the reflected light and the reference light; an interference signal acquiring device acquiring an interference signal; a tomographic image acquiring device acquiring an optical tomographic image; and a reference position adjustment section detecting a sheath interference signal that is an interference signal of the reflected light reflected from the sheath from the interference signals and adjusts an optical tomographic image reference position as a reference to acquire the optical tomographic image based on the detected sheath interference signal.
US08493556B2 Distributed brillouin sensing systems and methods using few-mode sensing optical fiber
Some embodiments of a distributed Brillouin optical fiber sensing system employs a sensing optical fiber that supports two or more (i.e., few) guided modes. Pump light supported by one of the guided modes is used to form a dynamic Brillouin grating (DBG). Probe light supported by at least one of the other guided modes interacts with the DBG to form reflected probe light that is received and analyzed to determine a Brillouin frequency shift, a phase matching wavelength between probe and pump light, a reflection location, which in turn allows for making a measurement of at least one condition along the sensing optical fiber. Supporting the pump and probe light in different guided modes results in the optical fiber sensing system being able to simultaneously measure temperature and strain and having a higher spatial resolution than sensing systems where the pump light and probe light share a common guided mode.
US08493554B2 Structural element for a fuselage cell structure of an aircraft, comprising at least one positioning aid
A structural element for a fuselage cell structure of an aircraft, in particular a stringer profile or an annular former segment, the structural element being made from a composite material, in particular from a carbon-fiber-reinforced epoxy resin. The structural element comprises at least one positioning aid for facilitating position determination by means of a measuring system. A laser measuring system and/or a tactile measuring system may be used as a measuring system. As a result of the reflector which can be attached to the positioning aid without clearance as a target for the laser measuring system, which is preferably a laser tracker, a spatial position of the structural element in relation to a further component can be determined very precisely and without contact. Following position determination and orientation of the structural element, the reflector can be removed from the positioning aid.
US08493540B2 Display panel and method of manufacturing the same
A display panel comprises a first substrate, a second substrate including a display area and a peripheral area surrounding the display area, a transistor layer including, formed in the display area of the substrate, at least one transistor connected to a gate line and a data line, at least one color filter formed in a plurality of pixel regions on the transistor layer, a light blocking member disposed between the color filters, at least one pixel electrode formed on the color filter, an opaque spacing part formed on the color filter corresponding to the transistor so as to maintain a cell gap between the first and second substrates. The light blocking member in some embodiments of the invention is not formed on the first and second transistors to allow for inspection of a channel in the transistor.
US08493529B2 Liquid crystal display device
In one embodiment, a liquid crystal display device includes first and second substrates, an active area to display an image, a seal material surrounding the active area, and an intermediate area between the active area and the seal area. In the intermediate area, first and second color filters are formed on the second substrate. An overcoat layer is laminated on the first and second color filters. First and second pillar-shaped spacers are provided between the overcoat layer and the first substrate corresponding to the first and second color filters to form a first and second cell gaps between the first and second substrates, respectively. The first cell gap adjacent to the active area between the first and second substrates is smaller than the second cell gap adjacent to the seal area in the intermediate area.
US08493523B2 Liquid crystal display with two sub-pixel regions and a storage capacitor
In a high-resolution liquid crystal display with improved side visibility having a color filter on array, a unit pixel includes first and second sub-pixels in which liquid crystals are continuously aligned and electrically isolated. A first pixel electrode for implementing the first sub-pixel is formed on a color filter layer and a second protective layer, and a second pixel electrode for implementing the second sub-pixel is formed between the color filter layer and the second protective layer. The second protective layer the second protective layer formed on the second pixel electrode lowers the electric field of the second sub-pixel, so that a liquid crystal application voltage applied to the second sub-pixel is lower than the voltage applied to the first sub-pixel. Accordingly, the transmittances of the first and second sub-pixels in the unit pixel are different from each other, to improve side visibility.
US08493520B2 Optical system and display that converts a flat image to a non-flat image
An optical system is provided for use with a display device to convert a flat image from the display device to a non-flat image. The optical system comprises first and second spaced-apart partial reflectors, at least one of which is non-flat. The reflectors, together with polarization optics, provide a light path such that light from the display is at least partially transmitted by the first reflector, partially reflected by the second reflector, partially reflected by the first reflector and partially transmitted by the second reflector so that a viewer perceives a non-flat, for example curved, image. Light which does not follow the light path is prevented from leaving the optical system.
US08493519B2 Charge recovery scheme
Shuttering eyewear (or shutter glasses) may be used to enable stereoscopic 3D and to provide different images to two viewers using a single display, known as Dual View. The shuttering eyewear may utilize charge recovery circuits. The charge recovery circuits may achieve high charge recovery efficiencies on the order of 80 to 90 percent resulting in a dramatic reduction in power supply battery operating current and a resulting increase in operating time. The charge recovery circuits may utilize switch mode boost conversion to recover most of the charge from a shutter that is being closed to one that is to be opened. Further, a charge recovery method for utilizing energy stored on a capacitive storage device may include closing a first active shutter, moving charge to a converter in buck mode to a capacitor, and pulling charge from the capacitor to open a second shutter.
US08493517B2 Optical component adjustment mechanism, liquid crystal display and projection display
This optical component adjustment mechanism includes support frame 21 for supporting optical compensator 11, optical compensator support 20 having first and second rotary salients 22, 23 projecting outside from support frame 21 in a predetermined axis, holder support frame 31 for rotatably supporting first and second rotary salients 22, 23, setscrew 37 for fixing rotation of optical compensator support 20, and bracket 40.
US08493509B2 Digital video formatting scheme for analog format video signals using adaptive filtering
A digital video formatting system operates to format an analog format video signal to within a desired amplitude range using an adaptive filtering scheme which implements flat gain scaling, frequency-dependent gain scaling and adaptive offset correction. The adaptive filtering scheme selects a frequency-independent flat gain scaling mode or a frequency-dependent gain scaling mode based on the characteristics of the active video signal. The filtered video signal is fed back to an adaptive weight computation block to update the offset correction value, the filter coefficients and the mode selection signal.
US08493508B2 Image processor and image processing method
According to one embodiment, an image processor includes a generator, a high-resolution image generator, a separator, a texture generator, and a combiner. The generator compresses an input image to generate a low-resolution image. The high-resolution image generator generates, from the input image, a high-resolution image that is higher in resolution than the input image. The separator separates the low-resolution image generated by the generator into a texture component image and a frame component image. The texture generator generates texture component from the texture component image and the frame component image separated by the separator. The combiner combines the texture component generated by the texture generator with the high-resolution image generated by the high-resolution image generator to generate an output image.
US08493507B2 Glare blocking camcorder/camera stabilizing eye level viewfinder device and method
A glare blocking viewfinder device includes a shadow box with a lens at a first end and an attachment mechanism at a second end adapted to detachably mount the device on a monitor screen of a camera. This enables a user to observe an image-bearing surface of the screen by looking at the image-bearing surface through the lens. The lens has a predetermined focal length and the depth dimension of the shadow box is substantially equal to this focal length. The attachment mechanism upon mounting the device to the monitor screen provides a substantially rigid structure. The user presses his or her eye against the lens to view the monitor screen through the lens and shadow box and points the camera at a subject, keeping the camera on the subject by using the device as a viewfinder. The user holds the camera with one hand and the attached device with the other hand. The device is collapsible and conveniently fits into a pocket of the user when not being used.
US08493498B2 Image apparatus system, camera body and interchangeable lens
An imaging apparatus system includes an interchangeable lens 100 and a camera body 200. The interchangeable lens 100 includes an optical system configured to generate an optical image of a subject, a first communication unit 106, and a lens controller 105 configured to control driving of the optical system in synchronization with a reference signal received through the first communication unit. The camera body 200 includes a second communication unit 201 that can communicate with the first communication unit 106, and a body controller 203 configured to send the reference signal to the lens controller 105 through the second communication unit 201. The body controller 203 sends announcement information preliminarily announcing switching of the cycle of the reference signal, to the lens controller 105. The lens controller 105, when receiving the announcement information from the camera body, performs a preparation operation for switching the cycle of the reference signal.
US08493496B2 Depth mapping using projected patterns
Apparatus for mapping an object includes an illumination assembly (30, 50), which includes a single transparency (36) containing a fixed pattern (60, 70, 80) of spots. A light source (34, 52) transilluminates the single transparency with optical radiation so as to project the pattern onto the object (28). An image capture assembly (32) captures an image of the pattern that is projected onto the object using the single transparency. A processor (24) processes the image captured by the image capture assembly so as to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) map of the object.
US08493493B2 Imaging apparatus, imaging apparatus control method, and computer program
An imaging apparatus includes: a control unit configured to move a focusing lens, and detect a focus position; wherein the control unit executes auto-focus (AF) scan processing in which only a part of a range of movement of the focusing lens is set as a scan range, as first scan processing, and executes auto-focus (AF) scan processing in which a region including a region differing from the scan region of the first scan processing is set as a scan range, as second scan processing, in the event that a focus point is not detected in the first scan processing.
US08493485B2 Image pickup device, image pickup apparatus, control method, and program
An image pickup device which makes it possible to expand the dynamic range of photometry. The image pickup device comprises a pixel array, a pixel reader, a row selector, a column selector, a gain circuit, a gain selector. The pixel array comprises a plurality of pixels including photoelectric conversion elements and arranged in the horizontal direction and in the vertical direction. The pixel reader reads out selected pixel signals from the pixel array. The gain circuit is capable of having at least two gains set therein, and amplifies and outputs the pixel signals read out from the pixel array by the pixel reader. The gain selector sets different gains in the gain circuit such that pixel signals amplified by the different gains can be obtained for one-time read-out from the pixel array by the pixel reader.
US08493484B2 Image capturing apparatus and image capturing system
The present invention provides an image capturing apparatus, which comprises a plurality of photoelectric converter-containing pixels that are positioned horizontally and vertically and a gain circuit, has a gain controller that can control the gain of the gain circuit in N stages (where N is an integer equal to or greater than 2). The gain circuit outputs each of a plurality of signals given by the product of the output signal from one of the plurality of pixels and the gain in each stage of the N stages.
US08493472B2 Image sensing apparatus for generating image data and authentication data of the image data
An image sensing apparatus generates image data corresponding to a sensed image, and generates key data which is used to generate authentication data. The authentication data is used to authenticate whether or not the image data is altered. The image sensing apparatus erases the generated key data from the image sensing apparatus if at least two image data generated by the image sensing apparatus are stored in a memory.
US08493471B2 Imaging apparatus, recording apparatus, file management apparatus and display apparatus
An imaging apparatus includes an image generation unit operable to generate image signal of a subject, a recording unit operable to record a first type of image file or a second type of image file to a recording medium based on the image signal generated by the image generation unit, and a controller operable to control the recording unit. The controller controls the recording unit to record the first type of image file at a lower level of a first directory in the recording medium and record the second type of image file at a lower level of a second directory in the recording medium, and record in the recording medium information used to analyze a recording order of the first type of image file and the second type of image file in the recording medium, while relating the information to the second type of image file.
US08493468B2 Imaging device and imaging method
An imaging apparatus includes an image pickup element to acquire a short-exposure-image data and a long-exposure-image data; a white balance evaluation value acquiring device to acquire white balance evaluation value for each of short-exposure-image data and long-exposure-image data; a white extraction range setting device to set a white extraction range for each of short-exposure-image data and long-exposure-image data; a white extraction device to extract white extraction result on the basis of the white balance evaluation value and the white extraction range for each of short-exposure-image data and long-exposure-image data; a correction factor calculating device to calculate corrected white extraction results from the white extraction result on the basis of the white extraction range and calculate correction factor for each of short-exposure-image data and long-exposure-image data; a white balance correcting device to correct the short-exposure-image data and the long-exposure-image data to form white balance corrected short-exposure-image data and white balance corrected long-exposure-image data by using the correction factors; and a synthesizing device configured to synthesize the white balance corrected short-exposure-image data and the white balance corrected long-exposure-image data.
US08493458B2 Image capture apparatus and image capturing method
An image capture apparatus including: an image capturing unit; a light emitting unit; a first image capture controller configured to control the image capturing unit to capture a plurality of images at a first timing; a second image capture controller configured to control the image capturing unit to capture an image under a capturing condition illuminated by the light emitting unit at a second timing that is either directly before or directly after the first timing; an addition combination section configured to positionally align the images captured under control by the first image capture controller and to perform an addition combination on the aligned images to generate a combined image; and a combination section configured to combine the combined image generated by the addition combination section with the image captured under control by the second image capture controller.
US08493456B2 Video still camera
A digital still camera has a cylindrical image pick up portion with a lens, a strobe unit, and a display. The image pick up unit is cylindrical and is rotatably held at each end, so that the lens and strobe unit move in concert. The image pick up unit can be rotated to face the rear of the camera, where the display is located, so that the user can do self-images.
US08493448B2 Method and system to convert 2D video into 3D video
2D/3D video conversion using a method for providing an estimation of visual depth for a video sequence, the method comprises an audio scene classification (34) in which a visual depth categorization index of visual depth (37) of a scene is made on basis of an analysis of audio information (32) for the scene, wherein the visual depth categorization index (37) is used in a 5 following visual depth estimation (38) based on video information (33) for the same scene, thereby reducing the calculation load and speeding up the processing.
US08493440B2 Autostereoscopic display device
A switchable autostereoscopic display device comprises a display panel having an array of display pixels for producing a display, the display pixels being arranged in rows and columns; and an imaging arrangement for directing the output from different pixels to different spatial positions to enable a stereoscopic image to be viewed. The imaging arrangement is electrically switchable between at least three modes comprising a 2D mode and two 3D modes. The imaging arrangement comprises an electrically configurable graded index lens array. The display can be switched between a number of modes to enable the display to be adapted or to adapt itself to the image content to be displayed and/or the display device orientation.
US08493438B2 Methods and systems for presenting three-dimensional video content
An exemplary method includes receiving, by a three-dimensional (“3D”) adapter subsystem separate from and communicatively coupled to a display device, a 3D video content stream comprising data representative of 3D video content, directing, by the 3D adapter subsystem, the display device to generate and display the 3D video content in accordance with the 3D video content stream, and calibrating, by the 3D adapter subsystem, the display of the 3D video content in accordance with one or more attributes of the display device. Corresponding methods and systems are also described.
US08493436B2 Panoramic camera with multiple image sensors using timed shutters
The present invention relates to the field of panoramic still and motion photography. In a first embodiment, a camera apparatus for panoramic photography includes a first image sensor positioned to capture a first image. The first image sensor has a rolling-shutter readout arranged in portrait orientation. The camera apparatus also includes second image sensor positioned to capture a second image. The second image sensor has a rolling-shutter readout arranged in portrait orientation. Finally, the camera apparatus includes a controller configured to signal the second image sensor to start capturing the second image before the first image sensor finishes capturing the first image. At least a portion of the first image is in front of the second image relative to a forward direction of the camera apparatus.
US08493433B2 Shuttering eyewear for use with stereoscopic liquid crystal display
An active eyewear method and system for viewing stereoscopic images is provided. The eyewear comprises polarization altering elements, such as twisted nematics or super twisted nematics, configured to receive light energy and rotate the polarization of light energy passing therethrough, and linear polarizers having polarization axes oriented in substantially identical orientations orthogonal to the first axis of polarization. The linear polarizers receive light energy from the polarization altering elements. The method comprises transmitting light energy through a sheet polarizer having an first axis of polarization, receiving the light energy with two polarization altering elements, each polarization altering operating out of phase with the other and in synchrony with a video field rate associated with the transmitting, and passing the light energy through two linear polarizers having substantially identical axes of polarization orthogonal to the first axis of polarization.
US08493428B2 Apparatus and method for providing video telephony service in mobile communication terminal
An apparatus and a method for providing a video telephony service in a mobile communication terminal are provided. The apparatus for providing the video telephony service in the mobile communication terminal includes a controlling unit for receiving preferred video format information from a peer mobile communication terminal during a signaling procedure with the peer mobile communication terminal for the video telephony service and for determining a video format to use in the video telephony service using the received preferred video format, and a video codec for encoding and decoding video data that is transmitted to and received from the peer mobile communication terminal, using the determined video format.
US08493427B2 Optical scanning apparatus and image forming apparatus provided with the same
The present invention is an optical scanning apparatus that is positioned and fixed to a metal frame of an image forming apparatus, in which a rotating polygon mirror being a deflection means and a drive motor rotationally driving the rotating polygon mirror are accommodated inside a housing made of resin. In the present invention, a bearing of the drive motor and a positioning member provided upright to the metal frame are inserted into and fitted with each other from opposite directions in a positioning boss formed in the housing, and the bearing is in contact with the positioning member.
US08493426B2 Light source device and manufacturing method thereof
A light source device and an exposure device are disclosed. A light source device includes: a semiconductor laser; a coupling lens; a holder; a sheet-metal member and a photopolymerizable resin. The coupling lens converts laser light from the semiconductor laser to a light flux. The coupling lens has an optical axis. The sheet-metal member holds the semiconductor laser and the coupling lens. The photopolymerizable rein is cured to fix the coupling lens on the sheet-metal member.An exposure device for forming an electrostatic latent image by scanning light on a photosensitive body includes: a light source device having a semiconductor laser; a coupling lens, a sheet-metal member and a photopolymerizable resin, a deflector and a scanning lens.
US08493420B2 Driving method of a liquid crystal sub-pixel
A driving method for determining target transmittance of a liquid crystal sub-pixel is provided. The liquid crystal sub-pixel has display regions, the liquid crystal sub-pixel displays the target transmittance when liquid crystal voltage applied to each display region is equal to one other and transmittance variation of liquid crystal layer in the liquid crystal sub-pixel is S0 when variation of LC voltage ΔVLC occurs. The driving method includes selecting LC voltages in accordance with the target transmittance and area ratio of each display region; and applying each LC voltage to one of the display regions correspondingly, wherein transmittance of each display region is different from the target transmittance, the target transmittance is equal to sum of product of area ratio and transmittance of each display region, and transmittance variation of the liquid crystal layer in the liquid crystal sub-pixel is lower than S0 when variation of LC voltage ΔVLC occurs.
US08493409B2 Visualizing and updating sequences and segments in a video surveillance system
Techniques are disclosed for visually conveying a sequence storing an ordered string of symbols generated from kinematic data derived from analyzing an input stream of video frames depicting one or more foreground objects. The sequence may represent information learned by a video surveillance system. A request may be received to view the sequence or a segment partitioned form the sequence. A visual representation of the segment may be generated and superimposed over a background image associated with the scene. A user interface may be configured to display the visual representation of the sequence or segment and to allow a user to view and/or modify properties associated with the sequence or segment.
US08493407B2 Method and apparatus for customizing map presentations based on user interests
An approach is provided for customizing map presentations. A map customizing platform determines a degree of interest of a site represented on an image of a map by tracking at least one of a frequency of visit to the site and a time period of visit at the site. The map customizing platform then changes an image size of the site relative to the image of the map based on the degree of interest.
US08493401B2 Image processing apparatus, image displaying apparatus, and image processing method
An image processing apparatus for correcting image signals corresponding to a plurality of color images constituting an image, includes: a correction table storage unit storing one or more correction tables; and an image signal correcting unit independently correcting the image signals of the color images on the basis of one or more correction tables stored in the correction table storage unit, wherein the image signal correcting unit makes a geometric correction of a display image corresponding to the image such that display color images each corresponding to the color images superpose each other, independently among the color image.
US08493394B2 Method and apparatus for enhancing the graphics capability of a mobile computing device
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method, which includes the steps of detecting the presence of an external graphics subsystem after the external graphics subsystem is attached to the mobile computing device, transmitting a power enable signal to the external graphics subsystem, and activating PCIe signaling channels after having received a ready signal from the external graphics subsystem to enable data communications between the mobile computing device and the external graphics subsystem.
US08493392B2 Image display device
An image display device is constructed by a display memory, a sprite attribute table, a sprite rendering processor and an animation execution engine. The display memory stores image data to be displayed on a display. The sprite attribute table stores attribute data representing a display attribute of a sprite which is a component of the image data. The sprite rendering processor executes a drawing process for reflecting image data of the sprite to the image data stored in the display memory according to the attribute data stored in the sprite attribute table. The animation execution engine reads an animation execution program including both attribute data to be transferred and a table write command of the attribute data from an external memory, and executes the animation execution program to transfer the attribute data to the sprite attribute table according to the table write command.
US08493385B2 3D image display device
A 3D image display device mainly includes a multi-view image, a view memory, a memory image configuration, combination, and conversion procedure, a display memory, a conversion display controller, a display screen having sub-pixels in Delta configuration, and a view separation device. The memory image configuration, combination, and conversion procedure mainly performs processes of sub-pixel image configuration sequence conversion and multi-view image combination on the multi-view image, and outputs a recovered multi-view combined image. The conversion display controller mainly performs sub-pixel image data configuration sequence conversion on image data on even-numbered or odd-numbered horizontal scan lines of the recovered multi-view combined image, and then outputs the horizontal scan image data. The display screen having sub-pixels in Delta configuration receives the horizontal scan image data and displays the recovered multi-view combined image. The view separation device performs view separation on the recovered multi-view combined image to provide a 3D image.
US08493371B2 Dynamic brightness range for portable computer displays based on ambient conditions
A portable computer system that comprises dynamically adjustable brightness range settings and brightness control for providing improved user readability and prolonged component lifetime of the display screen. The main processor can change the range settings based on ambient light conditions or the user can perform the changes. The brightness level of the display changes according to a user selected setting within the range selected. The time required to implement the brightness change can be set to a value which can be configured by the user.
US08493357B2 Mechanical means for providing haptic feedback in connection with capacitive sensing mechanisms
Method and apparatus for providing haptic feedback in connection with a capacitive sensing mechanism are described. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises a convex, non-metallic structure arranged so as to maintain physical separation between an activator and the capacitive sensing mechanism until sufficient force is applied by the activator. The structure does not form a part of an electrical circuit comprising the capacitive sensing mechanism.
US08493353B2 Methods and systems for generating and joining shared experience
A method for implementing shared experiences using mobile computing devices comprises capturing an image of a trigger along with background information associated with the trigger in a video frame using a video camera built into a first mobile computing device equipped with a display screen and a wireless communication module; identifying characteristics information of the trigger and the associated background information; transmitting the characteristics information of the trigger and the associated background information to a server computing device connected to a network using wireless communication; receiving an augmented reality corresponding to the characteristics information of the trigger and the associated background information from the server computing device; and presenting the augmented reality on the display screen of the first mobile computing device, wherein the augmented reality associated with the first mobile computing device is shared and time synchronized with an augmented reality previously transmitted by the server computing device to a second mobile computing device.
US08493352B2 Portable transmitter with push switch and touch sensor
A portable transmitter is provided which transmits an operating instruction in the form of a radio wave to a controlled device which continues to operate while receiving the operating instruction. The portable transmitter includes a push switch and a touch sensor. The portable transmitter works to supply the electric power to the touch sensor for a given period of time in response to depression of the push switch. When the touch sensor senses a user's touch thereon, and the push switch is depressed, the portable transmitter transmits the operating instruction to the controlled device and continues such transmission as long as the touch sensor senses the touch thereon regardless of the depression of the push switch. In other words, once the operating instruction has been outputted to the controlled device, the user is required only to touch the touch sensor in order to make the controlled device continue the operation.
US08493351B2 Apparatus and method for reducing average scan rate to detect a conductive object on a sensing device
A switch circuit and method is described. In one embodiment, the switch circuit is configured to couple each of a plurality of plurality of capacitive sense elements and a plurality of capacitance sensors in different modes. In a first mode, the switch circuit is configured to couple each of the plurality of capacitance sensors to a group of two or more of the plurality of capacitive sense elements. In a second mode, the switch circuit is configured to couple the plurality of capacitance sensors to individual ones of the two or more of the plurality of capacitive sense elements in one of the groups.
US08493348B2 Capacitive sensing apparatus
A capacitive sensor apparatus comprises a first sensing element and a second sensing element. The first sensing element has a length oriented along a first axis of a contactable capacitive sensing reference surface; has a substantially constant width along its length; and is configured to have varying capacitive coupling, along the first axis, to an object proximate to the contactable capacitive sensing reference surface. The second sensing element has a length oriented along the first axis; has substantially constant width along its length; and is configured to have varying capacitive coupling, along the first axis, to the object proximate to the contactable capacitive sensing reference surface. The first sensing and second sensing elements are conductive and are configured to provide information corresponding to a spatial location of the object relative to the first axis.
US08493344B2 Devices, methods, and graphical user interfaces for accessibility using a touch-sensitive surface
An accessibility method is performed by an electronic device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface. The method includes: displaying a plurality of user interface elements on the display; in response to detecting a first user interface navigation gesture by a finger on the touch-sensitive surface, navigating in the plurality of user interface elements in accordance with a current navigable unit type; in response to detecting a first user interface navigation setting gesture on the touch-sensitive surface: changing the current navigable unit type from the first navigable unit type to a second navigable unit type; and outputting accessibility information about the second navigable unit type; after changing the current navigable unit type, in response to detecting a second user interface navigation gesture by the finger on the touch-sensitive surface, navigating in the plurality of user interface elements in accordance with the current navigable unit type.
US08493337B2 Light transmission touch panel
A light transmission touch panel comprises a transparent substrate, a transparent conductive layer, an insulating layer, a plurality of first metal lines, and a plurality of second metal lines. The transparent conductive layer is overlaid on a surface of the transparent substrate and comprises a plurality of first cells, a plurality of second cells and a plurality of connecting lines, wherein the plurality of first cells and the plurality of second cells are arranged in a staggered manner and the plurality of connecting lines respectively connect the adjacent second cells. The insulating layer further comprises a plurality of insulating areas, each of which is overlaid on one of the first cells. The plurality of second metal lines are respectively disposed on the connecting lines. The plurality of first metal lines are respectively disposed on the plurality of insulating areas, and respectively connect the adjacent first cells.
US08493335B2 Reproduction apparatus, reproduction method and program
Disclosed herein is a reproduction apparatus which includes a touch panel and vibrates the touch panel, including: a reproduction circuit configured to reproduce data in a unit of a frame in response to an operation of the touch panel by a user; and a driving circuit configured to vibrate the touch panel every time the data of each frame are reproduced.
US08493334B2 Input device, storage medium, information input method, and electronic apparatus
An optical input device has a display screen, a portion of the display screen being shielded from light by an operating member to implement input processing based on a plurality of input modes. The input device includes an input detection unit including a display unit that displays predetermined input information, and a control unit. The input detection unit detects an area and/or brightness of a light-shielded portion formed on the display screen by the operating member by approaching the display unit. The control unit provides display control of the display unit and input control on the basis of the detected area and/or brightness. The control unit compares the detected area and/or brightness with a predetermined threshold value to select a desired input mode from among the plurality of input modes.
US08493327B2 Handheld electronic device with text disambiguation and selective disabling of frequency learning
A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with disambiguation software. The device provides output in the form of a default output and a number of variants. The output is based largely upon the frequency, i.e., the likelihood that a user is likely to have intended a particular output, but various features of the device provide additional variants that are not based solely on frequency and rather are provided by various logic structures resident on the device. The device provides a learning function that allows the disambiguation function to adapt to provide a customized experience for the user. The learning function is disabled, however, when the relevant words are found to be in a special category for which frequency learning, i.e., frequency revision, is not employed.
US08493326B2 Controller with removably attachable text input device
A small-sized text input device is attachable to and removable from a game controller. The text input device can be sized and configured to fit between grip portions of the game controller, and can be attachable to the game controller with a separate attachment bracket. Different brackets can be used to attach the text input device to different types of game controllers. A game player holding the game controller can access the text keys of the text input device with his or her thumbs, and by making only minor (or no) adjustment to the position of his or her hands on the grip portions.
US08493317B2 Reflection type display apparatus and driving method thereof
A reflection type display apparatus includes a light modulating layer having a first electrode having a light transmitting property on which an electroplating can be deposited, a second electrode disposed, in opposition to the first electrode, on a reflecting plate for reflecting light of a certain wavelength band, and an electrolytic solution containing a metal ion arranged in contact with the first and second electrodes. According to a density of current at an interface between the first electrode and the electrolytic solution, the light modulating layer controls a light transmitting ratio and a reflection ratio of the electroplating. In addition, a control unit sets a direction and the density of the current for depositing the electroplating of several colors.
US08493299B2 Image data processing device, liquid crystal display apparatus including same, display apparatus driving device, display apparatus driving method, program therefor, and storage medium
In cases where the amount of gradation transition is greater than a threshold value, a modulation processing section corrects image data D of a current frame by making an interpolation calculation with reference to a look-up table, and output the image data D thus corrected. In cases where the amount of gradation transition is not more than the threshold value, the modulation processing section directly outputs the image data D of the current frame. Furthermore, in one embodiment of the present invention, the look-up table contains, as output image data D2 corresponding to a case where the image data D of the current frame is identical to image data D0 of a previous frame, a value which is neither of the image data D of the current frame and the image data D0 of the previous frame and by which output image data D2 corresponding to the inputted image data D and D0 of the previous and current frames is calculated according to the interpolation calculation in cases where the amount of gradation transition is greater than the threshold value. With this, an image display apparatus is realized which can be balanced between a reduction in circuit size and an improvement in display quality at a higher level.
US08493295B2 Light-emitting device
There is provided an EL light-emitting device with less uneven brightness. When a drain current of a plurality of current controlling TFTs is Id, a mobility is μ, a gate capacitance per unit area is Co, a maximum gate voltage is Vgs(max), a channel width is W a channel length is L, an average value of a threshold voltage is Vth, a deviation from the average value of the threshold voltage is ΔVth, and a difference in emission brightness of a plurality of EL elements is within a range of ±n %, a semiconductor display device is characterized in that A = 2 ⁢ Id μ * C 0 A ( Vgs ( max ) - Vth ) 2 ≦ W L ≦ ( 1 + n 100 - 1 ) 2 * A Δ ⁢ ⁢ Vth 2  Δ ⁢ ⁢ Vth  ≦ ( 1 + n 100 - 1 ) * A * L / W .
US08493292B2 Organic light emitting diode display and manufacturing method thereof
An organic light emitting diode (“OLED”) display includes a substrate; a gate line formed on the substrate; a secondary gate line substantially parallel to the gate line; a plurality of control electrodes each connected to one of the gate line and the secondary gate line; a data line intersecting the gate line and the secondary gate line; a switching thin film transistor (“TFT”) connected to the gate line and the data line; a driving TFT connected to the switching TFT; a first electrode connected to the driving TFT; a second electrode facing the first electrode; and a light emitting member formed between the first electrode and the second electrode.
US08493286B1 Facial movement measurement and stimulation apparatus and method
An illustrative embodiment of a facial movement measurement and stimulation apparatus includes at least one facial movement sensor adapted to sense facial movement in a subject and a device interfacing with the facial movement sensor or sensors and adapted to receive at least one signal from the facial movement sensor or sensors and indicate facial movement of the subject. A facial movement measurement and stimulation method is also disclosed.
US08493277B2 Leaky cavity resonator for waveguide band-pass filter applications
A leaky cavity resonator that includes a waveguide, the waveguide being filled with a dielectric material, and at least two complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs), the CSRRs residing inside the waveguide parallel to each other placed symmetrically both radially and in height, a leaky resonant cavity being formed between the at least two CSRRs and a wall of the waveguide. A frequency band of the leaky cavity resonator is adjustable by varying a distance w between at least one outside perimeter of at least one CSRR and an interior wall of the waveguide. A frequency band of the leaky cavity resonator is also adjustable by varying a size of the leaky resonant cavity. The at least two CSRRs each have at least one stub connecting to a wall of the waveguide. A frequency band of the leaky cavity resonator is also adjustable by varying a size of the stubs.
US08493268B2 Method and system for integrated glonass and GPS processing
An integrated global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver may be operable to decompose GNSS IF signals associated with GPS satellites and/or GLONASS satellites into a constituent narrowband GPS data stream and/or a plurality of constituent narrowband GLONASS data streams utilizing, for example, a GPS IF tuner and/or one or more GLONASS IF tuners. The narrowband GLONASS data streams and/or the narrowband GPS data stream may be processed at reduced sampling rates utilizing a shared sample memory in the integrated GNSS receiver. The narrowband GLONASS data streams and/or the narrowband GPS data stream may be stored in allocated sections of the shared sample memory. The stored narrowband GLONASS data streams and/or the stored narrowband GPS data stream may be processed using a correlation such as a fast Fourier transform (FFT) correlation.
US08493265B2 Radar detection method, notably for airborne radars implementing an obstacle detection and avoidance function
A method includes: generating a frequency-modulated continuous signal, an emission sequence being formed of successive ramps centered on a carrier frequency; fixing a modulation band ΔF and the duration Tr of a recurrence in such a way that at the range limit, a reception ramp appears shifted by at least one given frequency with respect to the corresponding emission ramp, on account of the propagation delay for the outward-return journey to a target kTr+θ, k being an integer and θ a duration less than Tr; demodulating the signal received by the signal emitted, the resulting signal including a first sinusoid at the frequency δFdim=(1−(θ/Tr)·ΔF and a second sinusoid at the frequency δFd=(θ/Tr)·ΔF; sampling the resulting signal and performing a first fast Fourier transformation on this resulting signal over the duration of each emission ramp; detecting in the resulting spectrum the spectral lines appearing at the frequencies δFd and δFdim, and performing the vector sum of these two spectral lines after resetting them into phase with respect to one another; and performing a detection by comparing the modulus of the vector sum with a predetermined threshold.
US08493255B2 High speed, high voltage multiplexer
A method for digitizing at least a portion of a selected analog input signal of a plurality of analog input signals by using a multiplexer having a plurality of channels is provided. Each channel for the multiplexer is associated with at least one of the analog input signals and is associated with a pair of select signals, and wherein each channel includes a cell having an input terminal, an output terminal, and a boosted NMOS switch. According to the method, a first select signal from each pair of select signals is asserted to decouple the input and output terminals for each cell. A boost capacitor is also charged during the non-sampling or conversion phase while the first select signal from each pair of select signals is asserted. A second select signal that is associated with the selected analog input signal is then asserted so as to couple together the input and output terminals for the cell associated with the selected analog input signal and to provide a voltage stored on the boost capacitor to the associated boosted NMOS switch. The portion of the selected analog input signal is then digitized.
US08493253B2 N-bit digital-to-analog converting device
An N-bit digital-to-analog converting device includes: a decoder for converting an N-bit binary digital signal into a multi-bit thermometer code during each cycle of a clock signal alternating between first and second states, N being an integer not less than two; a random number generator for generating a reset signal having at least one high logic level bit and at least one low logic level bit that are equal in number and that have a random, time-varying arrangement; and a converting module coupled electrically to the decoder and the random number generator, and configured to convert the thermometer code into an analog voltage corresponding to the digital signal when the clock signal is in the first state, and to reset the analog voltage to a reset value according to the reset signal when the clock signal is in the second state.
US08493248B2 Transforming circuit and system between parallel data and serial data
A transforming circuit between parallel data and serial data includes a current source, a clock input sub-circuit, and a parallel data input sub-circuit. The clock input sub-circuit includes a first clock signal terminal and a second clock signal terminal. The transforming circuit between parallel data and serial data also includes a clock control sub-circuit and a serial data output control sub-circuit. The clock control sub-circuit includes four switching elements. A first and a third switching elements are controlled by the second clock signal terminal, and a second and a fourth switching elements are controlled by the first clock signal terminal. The serial data output control sub-circuit includes a fifth switching element and a sixth switching element to speed up the falling edge of the output signal flip, a seventh switching element and an eighth switching element to limit the output signal amplitude. A transforming system thereof is also provided.
US08493242B2 Key assembly
A key assembly comprising: a key housing; at least one key, wherein each one of the at least one key is coupled to the key housing for sliding movement relative to the key housing and is positionable relative to the key housing in a respective first key position and its disposition in the respective first key position effects a transmission of a signal associated with the respective first key position; wherein each one of the at least one key is moveable by an operative movement relative to the key housing between the respective first key position and at least another key position and the operative movement includes a sliding movement.
US08493241B2 Systems, methods and computer readable media for displaying multiple overlaid images to a pilot of an aircraft during flight
Embodiments for displaying first and second images to a pilot of an aircraft are presented. The embodiments include, but are not limited to, obtaining a first image signal and a second image signal, commanding a display unit to display a first image on a display screen corresponding to the first signal, and computing an image moving velocity of the first image. The method further comprises estimating an image flow velocity for the second image based on the second image signal and comparing the image moving velocity of the first image to the image flow velocity of the second image. After the comparison, the display unit is commanded to display the second image overlaid on the first image, and commanding the display unit to establish an intensity of the second image within a predefined range based upon the comparison.
US08493239B2 Method and a device for detecting lack of reaction from the crew of an aircraft to an alarm related to a path
A method and a device are provided for detecting lack of reaction of the crew of an aircraft to an alarm related to a path. The method includes monitoring the emitting condition of a plurality of alarms related to dangers in the path of the aircraft and monitoring a reaction of a crew during first and second time intervals determined based on how long the crew should take to response to the initial alarm in the first time interval and an auxiliary alarm in the second time interval. The method also includes implementing automatic avoidance operation for coping with the danger if the crew has not reacted to the alarms by the end of the second time interval.
US08493234B2 Devices, systems and methods for detecting a traffic infraction
Devices, systems, and methods are disclosed for identifying a driver within a vehicle using short range wireless communication in order to ticket or alert the driver in response to a traffic infraction by the driver. In exemplary embodiments, a short range wireless communication device registers drivers of vehicles at a certain location. The registration captures a unique identifier for each driver at the location from the driver's wireless communication device. When a vehicle commits a traffic infraction, the unique identifier is used to reference a database to determine the identity and address of the driver. The driver may then be sent a notification of the infraction as well as payment options. This notification may be sent directly to the wireless communication device of the driver. In embodiments of the present invention, a smart vehicle acts as a proxy to capture the unique identifier from the driver's wireless communication device and communicates with the short range wireless communication device.
US08493233B2 Information display system for vehicle
The present invention provides an information display system for a vehicle displaying a vehicle image overlapped with a panorama view image, and the information display system provides information around the vehicle, condition of the vehicle or information for a dangerous place to the driver with easy understand.
US08493219B2 Systems and methods for adaptive monitoring and tracking of a target having a learning period
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and method for adaptive monitoring of physical movement. As one example, a method for adaptive initialization of a monitoring system is discussed. The method includes associating a monitor device with a monitor target; receiving information indicating movement of the monitor target from the monitor device; plotting or defining one or more paths corresponding to the movement of the monitor target during a learning period; and based at least in part on the one or more paths, identifying one or more exclusion zones where movement of the monitor target is restricted.
US08493213B2 System and methods for locating mobile devices using location and presence information
A location based service and method configured to provide recovery assistance for a misplaced or stolen mobile device. The location based system and method is configured to locate (recover) high value mobile devices using location, presence and other IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) based telecommunications network assets. The method includes leveraging location dips performed for other services to drive a recovery process for a mobile device to thereby reduce resource overhead on a location platform; locating the mobile device using the location dips performed for other services; and sending a notification to a subscriber of the location of the mobile device for recovery of the mobile device.
US08493197B2 Load sensing device
A load sensing device, which includes a load detecting device adapted to a seat and outputting a load signal in response to a strain generated at the load detecting device and which detects a load applied to the seat on the basis of the load signal, includes a determining device determining whether the seat is in an occupied state or in a vacant state based on a magnitude relationship between the load and a threshold value, a collision detecting device detecting a shock generated when a vehicle collides, an alarming device alarming that the shock is detected, and a memorizing device storing a diagnosis information indicating whether or not a zero-point adjustment of the load detecting device needs to be executed in response to a determination result of a state of the seat in the case where the shock is detected by the load detecting member.
US08493196B2 ACB following distance alert and warning adjustment as a function of forward vehicle size and host vehicle mass
When employing an adaptive cruise-with-braking (ACB) system to control host vehicle following distance, a forward vehicle is detected using one or both of a radar sensor (14) and a camera sensor (82). The radar sensor classifies the forward vehicle as a motorcycle, passenger car, or heavy vehicle by comparing a detected radar signature to reference radar signatures for different vehicles. The camera sensor classifies the forward vehicle as a motorcycle, passenger car, or heavy vehicle by comparing a captured vehicle image to reference pixel and contrast profiles (PCPs) for different vehicles. An adaptive cruise control (ACC) module (12) selects and implements a following distance alert (FDA) protocol for the classified vehicle, where the FDA protocol prescribes following distance limits that inversely proportional to the size of the forward vehicle. Following distance limits can be further adjusted as a function of host vehicle mass.
US08493191B2 Vehicle security notification device and related methods
A vehicle security device to be installed in a vehicle of a type including a vehicle audio entertainment system being configurable via a vehicle data communications bus extending throughout the vehicle may include an audio entertainment system content interface. The audio interface may be selectively operable to communicate audio content relating to a vehicle security breach condition to the vehicle audio entertainment system. The device may also include a controller coupled to the audio entertainment system content interface for detecting a vehicle security breach condition. The controller may also be for configuring the vehicle audio entertainment system, via the vehicle data communications bus, so that the audio content related to the vehicle security breach condition plays through the vehicle audio entertainment system based upon detecting the vehicle security breach condition.
US08493190B2 Haptic interface with increased braking force
A haptic interface including an element that interacts with a user; a rotation shaft with a longitudinal axis to which the user interaction element is fixed in rotation; a fluid interaction element, the fluid interaction element being fixed in rotation to the shaft, the fluid being of magneto-rheological type, a system generating magnetic field in the fluid; and a control unit capable of generating orders to magnetic field generation system so as to modify the magnetic field. The interaction element includes a cylindrical wall of revolution with a longitudinal axis, including through openings and/or patterns in relief.
US08493179B2 Communication apparatus
A communication apparatus for performing a communication with other communication apparatus by using identification information, includes a housing, a plurality of grounding terminals which are respectively connected to one ends of internal grounding lines provided within the housing for connecting to an external grounding line outside the housing, a grounding line connection detection section which detects a grounding terminal connected to the external grounding line among the plurality of grounding terminals, and an identification information setting section which sets the identification information based on a detection result of the grounding line connection detection section.
US08493178B2 Forged face detecting method and apparatus thereof
A forged face detecting method includes: acquiring a photorealistic image and an infrared image of a subject on which line beams are projected; extracting face features from the infrared image based on characteristics of a pattern of the line beams projected on the acquired infrared image; and detecting whether or not the infrared image is a forged face based on the extracted face features. Said detecting whether or not the infrared image is a forged face includes: checking whether the extracted face features falls within a preset permission range of face features; determining the infrared image to have the forged face if the extracted face features fall out of the range to acquire an infrared image of the subject again; and determining the infrared image to have a non-forged face if the extracted face features falls within the range to perform face recognition for the photorealistic image.
US08493174B2 Apparatus for instantaneous translation of sign language
An apparatus for instantaneously translating sign language in to voice and video is introduced. The present invention uses accelerometer sensors to compute the position and movement of each finger, thereby instantaneously determining the posture of the hand. The location of fingers with respect to body is accurately determined by placing RFID tags at different parts of the body while a single RFID reader is placed on the index finger. Data from accelerometer sensors and RFID reader are multiplexed and sent wirelessly via a controller to a laptop processor where ultimate conversion of sign language to text/voice is achieved. Further, various characteristics of sign language comprising hand position, hand posture, hand orientation and hand movement are detected based on the accelerometer data and RFID data.
US08493173B2 Method of cavity forming on a buried resistor layer using a fusion bonding process
A method of forming a buried resistor within a cavity for use in electronic packages using two glass impregnated dielectric layers, one with a clearance hole, the second with a resistor core, the clearance hole being placed over the resistor core and the assembly fusion bonded. The space remaining around the resistor core is filled with a soldermask material and the assembly is coated with metal. Thru-holes are drilled, cleaned, and plated and then the metal coating is etched and partially removed. The soldermask is then removed and a layer of gold plating is applied to the exposed metal surfaces. The use of glass impregnated dielectric layers and fusion bonding eliminates the fluorinated ethylene propylene resin (FEP) bleed problem associated with previous buried resistor cavity assemblies.
US08493169B2 Transformer and method of manufacturing the same
Disclosed herein are a transformer and a method of manufacturing the same. The transformer includes: a primary side winding having a loop shape; a secondary side winding formed on the same plane as that of the primary side winding in a remaining section except for at least a section at which it intersects with the primary side winding and having the same loop shape as that of the primary side winding so as to be electromagnetically coupled to the primary side winding; and an intersecting section formed so that the primary side and secondary side windings having the sum of the turn numbers of 3 or more intersect with each other in a two-layer structure, wherein the intersecting section includes at least one point of intermediate node having one side connected in a first layer and the other side connected in a second layer.
US08493165B2 Electric junction box and current detection device
An electric junction box includes a current detection device. The current detection device has a magneto-electric conversion element and a magnetic core having a disposing space in which this magneto-electric conversion element is disposed, to detect magnetic flux occurring on the magnetic core as a current. The magnetic core has a bus bar insertion space through which a bus bar from which the current is to be detected is inserted, which bus bar has an insertion portion which is formed not to be larger than a width size of the disposing space in the magnetic core and to be inserted into the disposing space.
US08493163B2 Bandpass filter, wireless communication module and wireless communication device
A bandpass filter for a wide frequency band such as UWB is disclosed. The bandpass filter can receive a pair of signals, namely a balanced signal, and output a pair of signals. The bandpass filter comprises a plurality of ½ wavelength resonance electrodes, a plurality of ¼ wavelength resonance electrodes and a plurality of coupling electrodes. A transmission characteristic of the bandpass filter having flat and low loss over the entire region of the broad pass band can be achieved.
US08493162B1 Combiner/divider with coupled transmission line
A combiner/divider circuit may include a plurality of transmission lines forming a junction, a sum port, a first component port, a second component port, and a difference port. A transmission line may be associated with the difference port and may be formed by inductively coupling a portion of each of two other transmission lines. The difference port may be terminated by a terminating impedance element at a location spaced apart from the junction, with the inductively coupled portions being between the junction and the terminating impedance element.
US08493156B2 High amplitude voltage-controlled oscillator with dynamic bias circuit
According to an exemplary embodiment, a high amplitude oscillation generator includes an LC tank circuit, a gain stage, a dynamic bias circuit, a bias current source, and a dynamic bias circuit receiving a current source feedback voltage and outputting a gain stage bias voltage. The dynamic bias circuit adjusts the gain stage bias voltage in response to a change in the current source feedback voltage after a start up of the LC tank circuit. The dynamic bias circuit thereby increases an amplitude of oscillations produced by the oscillation generator. The dynamic bias circuit can include an error amplifier, the error amplifier generating the gain stage bias voltage responsive to the current source feedback voltage. The current source feedback voltage can change with a voltage drop across the bias current source. The current source feedback voltage can also be received from an output of the oscillation generator.
US08493155B2 Multiband voltage controlled oscillator without switched capacitor
A controlled oscillator includes, connected in parallel, a capacitor configured to be tuneable based upon a first signal, an inductor, and an active impedance. The active impedance is formed by a pair of cross-coupled transistors connected so as to produce a negative resistive component at the terminals of the active impedance. Circuitry produces a degeneracy tuneable by a second signal in the cross-coupled pair, such that the cross-coupled pair produces a capacitive component tuneable based upon the second signal at the terminals of the active impedance.
US08493148B2 Gain enhancement for cascode structure
Aspects of the present invention provide apparatuses and methods to provide significant gain enhancement for a cascode structure for a differential amplifier. The cascode structure of the differential amplifier can include first and second pairs of output transistors. The second pair of output transistors can be configured to approximately cancel modulation effects of the first pair of output transistors induced by changes in a differential output of differential amplifier, thereby resulting in conditions for providing enhanced gain.
US08493145B2 Switching power amplifier for quantized signals
An apparatus and method for communications are disclosed. The apparatus may include an a quantizer having three levels, and a switching power amplifier configured to drive a load having first and second terminals, wherein the switching power amplifier is further configured to switch the first and second terminals between first and second power rails only if the output from the quantizer is at one of the three levels.
US08493143B2 Predistorition linearizer with bridge topology having an equalizer stage for each bridge arm
Disclosed is a predistortion linearizer for power amplifiers using a bridge topology, which has the advantages that an equalizer stage is disposed in each of the linear and nonlinear branches. This equalizer stage is used to adjust the frequency response of the complex expansion of the bridge. The equalizers introduce variable transmission functions in the linear and nonlinear bridge branches, so that the linearizer compensates for the individual nonlinear frequency response of a power amplifier, which varies within a manufacturing lot.
US08493141B2 Pseudo-envelope following power management system
Embodiments disclosed in the detailed description relate to a pseudo-envelope follower power management system used to manage the power delivered to a linear RF power amplifier.
US08493134B2 Method and apparatus to provide a clock signal to a charge pump
A method and apparatus for providing a clock signal to a charge pump is disclosed. In a particular embodiment, the method includes providing a first clock signal to a first charge pump unit of a charge pump. The method further includes providing a second clock signal to a second charge pump unit of the charge pump. A low-to-high transition of the first clock signal occurs substantially concurrently with a high-to-low transition of the second clock signal. Only one clock signal may be at a logic high voltage level at any given time.
US08493129B2 Inductive load power switching circuits
Power switching circuits including an inductive load and a switching device are described. The switches devices can be either low-side or high-side switches. Some of the switches are transistors that are able to block voltages or prevent substantial current from flowing through the transistor when voltage is applied across the transistor.
US08493128B2 RF switching system, module, and methods with improved high frequency performance
Embodiments of radio frequency switching systems, modules, and methods with improved high frequency performance are described generally herein where the switching module may include a first switch module coupled in series to a second switch module, and a third switch module coupled between the first and the second module and ground. A controllable element of the second module may have a lower off capacitance than a controllable element of the first module. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US08493120B2 Storage circuitry and method with increased resilience to single event upsets
Storage circuitry is provided with increased resilience to single event upsets, along with a method of operation of such circuitry. The storage circuitry has a first storage block configured in at least one mode of operation to perform a first storage function, and a second storage block configured in at least one mode of operation to perform a second storage function distinct from said first storage function. Configuration circuitry is responsive to a predetermined mode of operation where the second storage function is unused, to configure the second storage block to operate in parallel with the first storage block. By arranging the two storage blocks in parallel when one of the storage blocks is otherwise performing no useful function, this in effect increases the size of the storage block that is still performing the useful storage function, and as a result increases its resilience to single event upsets. Such an approach has minimal area and power consumption overhead, and provides a small storage circuit that can be readily used in a wide variety of sequential cell designs.
US08493112B2 Signal processing apparatus
A signal processing apparatus of the present invention includes an input unit configured to receive a reference signal supplied from an external device, a phase detection unit configured to detect a phase difference between the reference signal received from the input unit and a clock signal, a generation unit configured to generate the clock signal with a frequency corresponding to an output of the phase detection unit, and a control unit configured to detect an error between a frequency of the reference signal received from the input unit and the frequency of the clock signal based on an output of the phase detection unit and to output information, which indicates the status of a frequency change in the reference signal, to a display device based on the detected error.
US08493108B2 Synchronizer with high reliability
A system and method for synchronizing asynchronous input signals with reliability. Each of a first and a second storage element in a synchronizer receives a first clock signal in a first clock domain. The second storage element may also receive a first reset signal generated by a second clock signal in the first clock domain different from the first clock signal. The first storage element receives a combination of an asynchronous data input signal and the first reset signal. The data input signal may be generated from circuitry utilizing a second clock domain different from the first clock domain. The second storage element additionally receives an output of a second combination of a stored output value of the first storage element and a second reset signal generated from the first clock signal. The second storage element stores a stable output value based at least on the asynchronous data input signal.
US08493107B2 Clock generator for generating output clock having non-harmonic relationship with input clock and related clock generating method thereof
One clock generator includes an oscillator block, a delay circuit, and an output block. The oscillator block provides a first clock of multiple phases. The delay circuit delays at least one of said multiple phases of said first clock to generate a second clock of multiple phases. The output block generates a third clock by selecting signals from said multiple phases of said second clock, wherein said third clock has non-harmonic relationship with said first clock. Another exemplary clock generator includes an oscillator block and an output block. The oscillator block includes an oscillator arranged to provide a first clock, and a delay locked loop arranged to generate a second clock according to said first clock. The output block generates a third clock by selecting signals from said multiple phases, wherein said third clock has non-harmonic relationship with said first clock.
US08493106B2 Semiconductor device and method for controlling flip-flop
A semiconductor device according to one aspect of the present invention includes: a flip-flop; a clock control circuit that controls a clock signal supplied to the flip-flop; and a controller that supplies a data retention signal to the flip-flop and controls the clock control circuit. When the flip-flop is driven by a negative edge of the clock signal and retains data when the clock signal is at a high level, the controller controls the clock control circuit so as to supply a high-level clock signal to the flip-flop after the input clock signal is fixed and before the flip-flop retains data. This prevents the occurrence of unintended latching of data when the flip-flop having a retention function retains data.
US08493099B2 Sample and hold circuit and method for controlling same
A sample and hold circuit that is provided with an input stage amplifier circuit for amplifying an input signal and a hold circuit for holding an output signal of the input stage amplifier circuit, with a sampling clock signal as a trigger, is further provided with a hold circuit bias current switching circuit for switching a bias current of the hold circuit to a first separate circuit that is functionally independent of the sample and hold circuit, in a case where the hold circuit is in a hold period, to supply the bias current to the circuit.
US08493096B1 Method for performing a tri-state comparison of two input signals in a window comparator circuit, and window comparator circuit for implementing the method
A method performs a comparison of input signals in a window comparator circuit. In a first phase, input, ground and offset voltages are stored on capacitors. A comparison is performed between a first adapted input voltage and a second adapted input voltage added to an adapted offset voltage, to provide a first output signal. In a second phase, the voltages are stored on the capacitors in a different manner. A comparison is performed between the first adapted input voltage added to the adapted offset voltage and the second adapted input voltage, to provide a second output signal. Finally, a control of the state of the output signals is performed to determine if the comparison is in a low or high state if the output signals have a same low or high output level, or in an intermediate state if the output signals have a different output level.