Document	Document Title
US08672117B2	Continuous motion inline feeder An inline product feeder for a packaging line and related methods are disclosed. In one example, an inline product feeder includes a product input line configured to receive a contiguous supply of products and configured to guide the products in continuous motion along a path of travel. The inline product feeder also includes a packaging line configured to receive separated groups of the products from the product input line. The inline feeder further includes a feeder unit configured to separate groups of products from the contiguous supply of products in the product input line and move the group of products into the packaging line, each of the separated groups of products including a predetermined number of products from the product input line.
US08672116B2	Sprung pin conveyor roller bearing A roller bearing end hub has a housing that internally houses a plane bearing, pin, and spring. The spring is biased against the plane bearing which is rotatably connected with the pin. The housing includes two half-housings which are configured to be mated together. The bearing is formed of a shape similar to the housing interior. The pin is smaller than an attached axle stub and the spring does not directly interact with the pin such that the amount of friction between the pin and bearing is minimized.
US08672114B2	Release bearing assembly A release bearing assembly for an automotive clutch connecting an engine with a transmission is provided. The release bearing assembly can have a front slinger with a main body with a generally radial planar portion that at least partially covers an annular spacing between the bearing inner and outer races of the release bearing assembly. A rear slinger is provided which contacts an outer race of the bearing and forms an annular groove portion adjacent the annular spacing between the inner and outer races.
US08672112B2	Drive system for vehicle A drive system for a vehicle includes an engine, a transmission, a clutch mechanism including first and second clutch portions, the clutch mechanism being switchable between connected and disconnected states, and a clutch operation mechanism switching the clutch mechanism between the connected and disconnected states, the clutch operation mechanism including a clutch drum forming a drum chamber, a piston dividing the drum chamber into a spring chamber and a pressurizing chamber, a control valve, a biasing member arranged in the spring chamber and exerting a biasing force in a direction in which the first and second clutch portions are engaged with each other, and a bore formed in the clutch drum, the bore discharging oil of the spring chamber to an outer side of the spring chamber in a state where a counteracting force against a centrifugal force acting in the pressurizing chamber is generated in the spring chamber.
US08672109B2	Double clutch transmission and double clutch transmission assembly method A narrow double clutch transmission to be mounted in a drive train with a drive unit comprises a clutch part and a transmission part with two sub-transmission units. The clutch part has one input hub connected with the drive unit and two output hubs, which are connected with two input shafts of two sub-transmission unit respectively. The two sub-transmission unit input shafts are arranged coaxially to each other. At the output side the input hub is connected with a damping mechanism, which is connected with two clutches. The two clutches and the damping mechanism are arranged in a clutch chamber filled with oil, which is sealed floatingly to a clutch cover. The output hub connected with the sub-transmission input shaft is axially supported by the sub-transmission unit input shaft.
US08672096B2	Methods and apparatus for lubricating suspension components Methods and apparatus for lubricating suspension seals by pumping fluid to the seals using a compression or rebound action of a suspension component.
US08672095B2	Method and system for lubricating a turbine engine A method and a system for lubricating a turbine engine including at least three separate housings each including at least one roller bearing. The method pressurizes the housings through seals, of which two main housings are pressurized at a pressure higher than that of a remaining secondary housing, lubricates a secondary roller bearing only by injecting an oil mist from at least one of the main housings, the oil mist being supplied by a pressure difference between the main housings and the secondary housing, recovers a remainder of the lubrication oil injected into the main housings to supply the same to an oil tank, and supplies the air/oil mixture from the secondary housing to an oil separator.
US08672090B1	Exhaust component with vibration isolated pipe A vehicle exhaust system includes an exhaust component having an inlet and an outlet. The exhaust component is configured to be fixed to a vehicle body. A pipe extends through the exhaust component from the inlet to the outlet. The pipe is mounted for movement relative to the exhaust component at the inlet and the outlet.
US08672089B2	Baffle arrangement for a genset enclosure A baffle arrangement for a genset enclosure is disclosed. The genset enclosure may include an opening in a side of the enclosure and a plurality of baffles internally supported in the enclosure between the opening and a radiator portion. The baffles may be positioned in a sound path to reflect a sound transmitted along the sound path. A method for reducing sound in a genset enclosure is also disclosed. The method may include arranging a plurality of baffles within the enclosure between an opening and a radiator portion, the baffles being positioned in a sound path to reflect a sound transmitted along the sound path.
US08672086B2	Torque sensor type power steering system with solid steering shaft and vehicle therewith A steering apparatus includes a rotatable steering shaft having an exterior, an input end for connecting a steering member and an output end for connecting to at least one steerable wheel of a vehicle. An electric motor is operatively connected to the steering shaft for rotating the steering shaft. The shaft is magnetized and serves as a torque sensor transducer. At least one magnetic field sensor is adjacent to the exterior of the steering shaft. The steering shaft and the at least one magnetic field sensor form a torque sensor for sensing torque applied to the steering shaft by the manually operable steering member and provide a signal to operate the electric motor to assist steering of the steering shaft by the manually operable steering member.
US08672085B2	Variable ratio transmission mechanism A variable ratio transmission mechanism is used in an automobile. The automobile includes first and second steering shafts extending along a first direction. The variable ratio transmission mechanism includes a securing unit connected to the first steering shaft, a connecting unit connected to the second steering shaft, a motor connected to the securing unit and including a revolving shaft that extends rotatably along a second direction different from the first direction, and a transmitting unit including a worm gear that is provided on the connecting unit and a worm that is provided on the revolving shaft and that engages and is angularly-slidable relative to the worm gear.
US08672082B2	Construction machine A urea water tank (23) is arranged in a cab (10) at which an operator boards, thereby making it possible to arrange urea water under a preferred temperature environment for preventing freeze and crystallization of the urea water. A water supply port (24A) is provided to be opened to a left surface portion (19C) of a cab box (19) constituting the cab (10) for supplying the urea water to the urea water tank (23) from an outside of the cab (10). Therefore, even in a case of resupplying the urea water to the urea water tank (23), an operator can easily resupply the urea water through a water supply hose (24) to the urea water tank (23) from the outside of the cab (10) without entering into the cab (10).
US08672078B2	External airbag module for vehicle and back beam for mounting external airbag module An external airbag module for a vehicle, installed to be located in a space formed between a back beam and a front bumper may include an inflator secured to a front of the back beam and accommodated in the back beam, and an airbag cushion surrounding the inflator and secured to the back beam together with the inflator between the back beam and the front bumper.
US08672077B2	Integrated cast motorcycle chassis and motor housing This invention comprises a frame for an electric motorcycle. Electric motorcycles have vastly different component requirements compared to internal combustion engine motorcycles, and, therefore, require a radical redesign of the frame in order to maximize the efficiency of the system.
US08672076B2	Motorcycle rear-wheels transmission and suspension system A rear-wheels transmission and suspension system, adapted for modifying a two wheeled motorcycle into a motorcycle containing two rear wheels, includes a suspension device, a rear axle and a transmission device. The suspension device includes a supporting frame longitudinally extending along the central axis of a construction frame and pivotally connected with a seat portion of the construction frame of the motorcycle for supporting the rear axle at the rear end the supporting frame while defining a transmission cavity after a rear end of the supporting frame and at a central position behind an output of said engine along the central axis of the construction frame. Therefore the transmission device is able to be supported by the rear axle in the transmission cavity to transmit a rotation output from the engine to drive the rear axle to rotate for driving the rear wheels to rotate.
US08672075B1	Vehicle assembly A vehicle assembly is provided for facilitating transportation in a stable vehicle not requiring government licensing. The assembly includes a frame assembly having a left frame coupled to a right frame. The frame assembly has a center frame coupled to and positioned between the left frame and the right frame. A plurality of wheels is coupled to the frame assembly including a left front wheel and a left back wheel coupled to the left frame and a right front wheel and a right back wheel coupled to the right frame. A seat assembly is positioned between the left frame and the right frame. A steering mechanism is coupled to the frame assembly and mechanically coupled to the left front wheel and the right front wheel. A drive system is operationally coupled to at least one of the plurality of wheels.
US08672070B2	Traction motor and planetary gear assembly A vehicle includes a chassis, a traction member associated with the chassis, and a drive system associated with the chassis and the traction member comprising an electric traction motor, a planetary gear assembly coupled to the electric traction motor, the planetary gear assembly comprising an output member coupled to the traction member, wherein rotation of the output member provides a drive torque for the traction member.
US08672055B2	Automated directional drilling apparatus and methods Methods and systems for drilling to a target location include a control system that receives an input comprising a planned drilling path to a target location and determines a projected location of a bottom hole assembly of a drilling system. The projected location of the bottom hole assembly is compared to the planned drilling path to determine a deviation amount. A modified drilling path is created to the target location as selected based on the amount of deviation from the planned drilling path, and drilling rig control signals that steer the bottom hole assembly of the drilling system to the target location along the modified drilling path are generated.
US08672054B2	Hydraulically actuable hand tool A hand tool that is preferably hydraulically actuable includes a working head and a body unit that remains in place with respect to the head, drive elements for driving the working head being provided in the body unit, for example a hydraulic pump and a hydraulic supply, a switching movement also allowing a powered movement of one or more working parts of the working head to be triggered and the working head being swivelably connected to the body unit in a rotary connection region. In order to configure and develop a hand tool so that safe working is assured by virtue of unambiguous and clear handling, by swivelling of the body unit relative to the working head about an axis of rotation provided in the region of the rotary connection of the working head to the body unit, switching over can be carried out with regard to the powered movement of the working part.
US08672053B2	Tool holder for impacting machine A tool holder for a hand supported impacting machine, which tool holder is suitable for receiving a tool having a shank portion on which is formed a retaining collar. The tool holder includes a tubular main body for receiving the tool and at least one locking element moveably mounted with respect to the main body and having an engaging portion moveable between a radially inner locked position in which the engaging portion is engageable with the retaining collar of the tool and a radially outer unlocked position in which a tool can be inserted into or removed from the tool holder. The tool holder additionally comprises a manually actuable sleeve moveable between a locked position in which the locking elements are held in their locked position and an unlocked position in which the engaging portions of the locking elements are moveable to their unlocked position.
US08672043B2	Enclosed coiled tubing boat and methods An apparatus including a coiled tubing unit coupled to a drilling rig, and an enclosure surrounding the coiled tubing unit. The coiled tubing unit may include a coiled tubing reel and a coiled tubing injector, wherein the injector may move relative to the coiled tubing reel. The coiled tubing unit is configured to move relative to the drilling rig in both longitudinal and lateral directions.
US08672035B2	Downhole tool of high pressure operating cycle capability A pressurization tool comprises a body for connection to a tubular by box, and pin, and providing for flow of fluid by way of a throughbore of varying cross-section to form chambers. A lower chamber accommodates a spring that contacts a shoulder providing a reaction surface for compression of the spring under applied force. The chamber merges into intermediate chamber that accommodates a movable index sleeve that cooperates with an index pin inserted through the wall of the tool body. Associated with the upper part of the index sleeve is a valve seat assembly, positioned to abut the index sleeve and moveable therewith, said valve seat assembly being configured to receive a plug or ball, and in one unpressurised configuration, is located in a wider chamber that permits fluid flow around the assembly.
US08672026B2	Fluid control in reservior fluid sampling tools A pumping system comprising: a probe to suction a fluid from a fluid reservoir; a pump in fluid communication with said probe; a sensor for detecting phase changes in said pumping system, said sensor in fluid communication with said probe or pump, said sensor generating a sensor signal; a fluid exit from said pumping system, said fluid exit being in fluid communication with said pump; and a variable force check valve located between said probe and said fluid exit.
US08672024B2	Subsurface well completion system having a heat exchanger A subsurface well completion system including a subsurface heat exchanger section that includes an outer shell and an inner shell having an upper threaded portion, an open inside diameter, one or more inlet boxes and one or more outlet boxes. An upper annular ring extends between the inner shell and the outer shell and has one or more openings. A lower annular ring extends between the inner shell and the outer shell. The lower annular ring is spaced apart from the upper annular ring and has one or more openings. One or more tubes are sealably connected at a first end and a second end to the one or more openings in the upper annular ring and the one or more openings in the lower annular ring, respectively, and extend between the upper and lower annular rings in an annular space between the inner shell and the outer shell.
US08672023B2	Apparatus and method for completing wells using slurry containing a shape-memory material particles In aspects, the present disclosure provides a method of performing a wellbore operation, which in one embodiment includes supplying a mixture containing a fluid and shape memory particles of a first size into a selected region in the wellbore, retaining the shape memory particles of the first size in the selected region while expelling the fluid from the selected region, and activating the shape memory particles retained in the selected region to cause them to expand to attain a second shape to fill the selected region with shape memory particles having the second shape.
US08672022B2	Method for pre-climatizing a stopped motor vehicle A method and a correspondingly designed motor vehicle are provided for pre-climatizing the motor vehicle when shut-off by way of a heating and/or cooling unit, which draws its energy for heating and/or cooling from an electric storage unit. When the heating and/or cooling unit is activated by a vehicle external operator control element, the heating and/or cooling unit is initially activated in a first output stage. Then, the heating and/or cooling unit is switched from the first output stage to a second output stage as a function of predetermined conditions.
US08672020B2	Method for producing aluminum-zirconium-carbon intermediate alloy The present invention discloses a method for producing an aluminum-zirconium-carbon (Al—Zr—C) intermediate alloy; the Al—Zr—C intermediate alloy has a chemical composition of 0.01% to 10% Zr, 0.01% to 0.3% C, and Al in balance; the producing method comprising the steps of: producing commercially pure aluminum, zirconium metal, and graphite material according to the weight percentages of the aluminum-zirconium-carbon intermediate alloy; the graphite is graphite powder having an average particle size of 0.074 mm to 1 mm; and the graphite powder is subjected to the following treatments: being added to the aqueous solution of KF, NaF, K2ZrF6, K2TiF6 or the combination thereof, soaked for 12 to 72 hours, filtrated or centrifuged, and dried at 80° C. to 200° C. for 12 to 24 hours; melting the commercially pure aluminum and keeping it at 700° C. to 900° C. to provide aluminum liquid, in which the prepared zirconium and the treated graphite powder are added and melted to provide an alloy solution; and keeping the alloys solution at 700° C. to 900° C. under mechanical or electromagnetic agitation and performing casting molding. The present method produces a high-quality Al—Zr—C intermediate alloy in low cost.
US08672015B2	Window privacy and protective covering The present invention relates to a device for security and privacy that is securable to the frame of a window and mountable from the interior of a building. The device comprises a slanted front panel mounted at an angle to allow an open bottom panel and side panels to provide airflow. The panels may be comprised of a mesh screen material to allow airflow when secured in place over an open window, providing airflow and privacy while still providing a level of security for a user. A vertical frame mounts to the rails of a sliding screen along its upper edge, and secures around the bottom of the sliding screen to allow synchronized movement of the two during operation.
US08672011B2	Rubber composition for bead apex and tire having bead apex prepared using same There is provided a rubber composition for a bead apex which can enhance extrusion processability by optimizing a rate of vulcanization during a vulcanization process, and can improve rigidity, steering stability and a low fuel consumption property, a tire having a bead apex prepared by using the rubber composition for a bead apex and being capable of enhancing steering stability and reducing rolling resistance and a tire for a sports utility vehicle (SUV) having further enhanced durability. The rubber composition for a bead apex comprises a diene rubber, a phenol resin and/or a modified phenol resin, sulfur, hexamethylenetetramine, a vulcanization accelerator, and at least one kind of vulcanization acceleration auxiliary selected from the group consisting of a citraconimide compound, a condensate of alkyl phenol and sulfur chloride, an organic thiosulfate compound and a compound represented by the general formula: R1—S—S-A-S—S—R2.
US08672009B2	Pneumatic tire with dual layer sidewall A pneumatic radial ply tire includes a pair of beads, a single carcass ply, a tread, and a pair of sidewalls. The pair of beads each has an associated chaffer. The single carcass ply is folded about each bead so as to define a main body portion and a turnup portion associated with each bead. The tread is disposed radially outward from the single carcass ply. The tread has shoulder portions disposed at axial outer edges of the tread. The pair of sidewalls extends radially outward from each chaffer to a location adjacent each shoulder portion. Each sidewall is disposed axially outward of the single carcass ply. Each sidewall includes a first outer layer extending from the chaffer to the shoulder portion and a second inner layer extending from the chaffer to the shoulder portion. The second inner layer is disposed entirely between the single carcass ply and first outer layer. The second inner layer comprises a foamed structure of a rubber composition having a density ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 g/cm3.
US08672001B2	Tooth assembly and cutting bits for stump grinder A stump grinding wheel tooth assembly having a mounting block positioned around the periphery of the wheel and a cutting bit attached to the mounting block by a pin passing through a hole in the cutting bit and a corresponding hole in the mounting block and capped by a nut. The mounting block may support multiple cutting bits arranged into a predetermined patterns based on the location of the holes, such as pairs of cutting bits or even a quad formation. The cutting bits may be provided in various geometric configurations, such as round, triangular, square, rectangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal or decagonal.
US08672000B2	Package system with automatic shut-off valve for use with dispensing devices A package system for dispensing a flowable material into a conduit of a dispensing apparatus. The package system includes a package and a connector. The package, e.g., a bag-in-box, comprises a hollow bag and a tap fitment for enabling the contents of the bag to flow out when the fitment is open. The connector includes an automatic shut off valve and is arranged to be fixedly secured to the conduit of the dispensing apparatus and releasably secured to the fitment. The valve is arranged to enable the flow of flowable material from the package into the conduit when the fitment is open, while preventing any of that material from flowing out of the conduit when the connector is disconnected from the fitment.
US08671992B2	Multi-cell spoolable composite pipe This disclosure relates to a spoolable pipe or tube that comprises two or more channels or cells, for example, a plurality of channels, for enhanced or improved fluid transport of one, two, or multi-phase fluids, such as found in the transport of oil and/or natural gas. Also provided are methods for making the disclosed tubes, and methods of transporting multi-phase fluids.
US08671989B2	Drive arrangement for valve devices In order to improve a drive arrangement (15) for valve devices (1) comprising a closing member (3), comprising a movable drive element (6) for making an operative connection with the closing member (3), pre-tensioning means for exerting a pre-tensioning force on the drive element (6) in order to hold the closing member (3) in a base position, preferably closed position, against the working forces acting on the closing member (3), and driving means (17, 21) to move the drive element (6) from the base position against the pre-tensioning force in the direction of the working forces, with a view to the disadvantages of the known drive arrangements, in particular in order to reduce the weight, it is proposed that the pre-tensioning means comprises a compressible fluid, preferably compressed air (21), enclosed in a pre-tensioning container (16), with a static pressure for producing the pre-tensioning force.
US08671987B2	Two-stage, slow-start valve apparatus A two-stage, slow-start valve includes a minor valve assembly inside a major valve closure member of a major valve closure assembly so that fluid can flow through the valve at a higher rate by opening the major valve assembly or at a lower rate by opening the minor valve assembly while the major valve closure assembly is closed in order to allow fluid to flow in an alternate flow path through the major valve closure member. The example minor valve closure assembly has a minor valve closure member that is actuated to open by a minor valve piston on which minor valve actuating fluid is applied to the minor piston via a diaphragm seal positioned between the minor piston and the minor valve actuating fluid. Both the major valve closure assembly and the minor valve closure assembly can be pneumatically actuated to open.
US08671971B2	Systems and methods for providing a monitoring and deactivation apparatus for a beverage distribution system An apparatus for indicating a leak in a beverage dispensing system and sealing a leak in a beverage dispensing system includes a deactivating means including a channel, a sealing ball, a sealing element and a reset means. The sealing ball and sealing element are located within the channel. When a leak is present, the sealing ball is moved from its resting position. Once the leak reaches a predetermined level, the sealing ball is pressed against the sealing element by the force of the gas in the chamber. This seals the chamber and prevents further gas flow through the system.
US08671969B2	Soil moisture sensor and controller Moisture sensor devices and methods are disclosed herein. One embodiment includes an integrated moisture sensor and controller to be placed in soil comprising a controller circuit for controlling a switch; a sensor circuit comprising a probe and adapted to provide a soil moisture level; and a memory coupled to the controller circuit. The controller, sensor circuits, and the memory integrated into a single device positioned within the soil; the switch coupled to the controller circuit and to be coupled to a control line of an irrigation controller between the controller and a valve, the control line to carry a power signal from the controller to the valve; the controller circuit is adapted to cause interruption of irrigation based on the moisture level of the soil and a soil moisture threshold; the memory adapted to store data of the soil moisture threshold level and the moisture level of the soil.
US08671968B2	Device for pressure testing of pipes A device is described for combined fluid replacement and pressure testing in pipes with inaccessible end points. The device is characterized in that it is a two-piece circulation valve structure comprising: a first valve unit (4) comprising a seal element (1) which closes and opens depending on the dynamic fluid pressure through the valve, and a second valve unit (6) arranged to permanently close off the fluid flow when the pressure testing terminates. The first valve unit (4) comprises an elastic sealing ring (1) arranged to close against a seat in the valve unit in step with an increase in the fluid flow velocity through the valve, while the second valve unit is a casing (6) which is arranged inside the valve an closes when a pressure differential arises between a chamber (7) and the inside of the valve (4).
US08671967B2	Relief valve A relief valve is provided and may include a housing having a first inlet port and a second inlet port. An initiator may be disposed within the housing and an engagement member may be slideably disposed within the housing and may be moveable between a retracted position and an extended position under force of the initiator. The engagement member may include a first bore aligned with the first inlet port in the extended position and a second bore aligned with the second inlet port in the extended position.
US08671966B2	Needleless access port valves Needleless access port valves are generally discussed herein with particular discussions extended to needleless access port valves having a pliant valve piston and/or plug that exudes silicone oil when stressed or squeezed while providing antimicrobial agents within and on the surface of the piston and/or plug. The pliant valve piston may have an integrally formed plug and one or more ports or a separately formed plug located inside a plastic housing. The plug cooperates with a nozzle on the inlet connector assembly to form a slip port or a Luer inlet, which can open when exerted by force to permit flow or closes when the force is removed.
US08671961B2	Methods and apparatus for cleaning semiconductor wafers An apparatus for cleaning and conditioning the surface of a semiconductor substrate such as wafer includes a rotatable chuck, a chamber, a rotatable tray for collecting cleaning solution with one or more drain outlets, multiple receptors for collecting multiple cleaning solutions, a first motor to drive chuck, and a second motor to drive the tray. The drain outlet in the tray can be positioned directly above its designated receptor located under the drain outlet. The cleaning solution collected by the tray can be guided into designated receptor. One characteristic of the apparatus is having a robust and precisely controlled cleaning solution recycle with minimum cross contamination.
US08671954B2	Hair colouring tool and method of use A hair coloring tool which includes a body which has an opening and interior walls that define an interior cavity for containing a fluid hair colorant. At least one dispensing structure is provided on the body which is in fluid communication with the interior cavity. A plunger is pivotally connected to the body. The plunger is removably positioned in the opening of the interior cavity and is in sealing engagement with the interior walls of the interior cavity such that upon manual depression of the plunger, fluid hair colorant is forced from the interior cavity through the dispensing structure. A variety of configurations of combing tines, brushes, and nozzles are provided to accommodate varying hair types and textures as well as for the chosen width of the application of hair colorant.
US08671945B2	Low-dose transdermal patches with high drug release The present invention relates to the field of pharmaceutical formulation techniques. The invention provides a low dosage pharmaceutical composition for transdermal delivery of hormones, preferably a progestin, such as a Gestodene, and an estrogen, preferably Ethinylestradiol so as to achieve plasma concentration profiles effective in inhibiting ovulation in a woman.
US08671941B2	Respirator A respirator with a breathing gas block (2) and with breathing gas ducts (13, 15, 17) and with a heater has the electric components located outside of the breathing gas-carrying areas. A heated distributor plate is flatly in contact on the underside of the breathing gas block (2) and has heating ribs (21, 22) that are in contact with breathing gas ducts (13, 15) at least in some areas.
US08671937B2	Unit dose capsules and dry powder inhaler Described is a dry powder inhaler comprising an intake section; a mixing section, and a mouthpiece.
US08671936B2	Apparatus for supplying respiratory gas and a method for controlling the apparatus An apparatus for supplying a respiratory gas includes a conveyor device for conveying the respiratory gas, a conduit for feeding the respiratory gas conveyed by the conveyor device to a person, and a humidification device for humidifying the respiratory gas. A sensor device is configured to generate a signal indicative of the respiratory gas humidity and a control device is configured to control the humidification device with regard to the signal which is generated by the sensor device. A method of supplying a respiratory gas to a patient, in which the respiratory gas is introduced by means of a conveyor device into the conduit leading to the patient and is humidified, includes operating the conveyor device so that a respiratory gas pressure which is above ambient pressure is provided in the conduit, and adjusting the humidity on the basis of signals indicative of the relative and/or absolute humidity of the respiratory gas generated by the sensor device.
US08671931B2	Multiplexed torque brake system for a solar concentrator assembly A multiplexed torque brake (MTB) system for preventing the accumulation of torsional forces at a center drive and thereby significantly reducing the design load requirements for trough frames of a corresponding solar concentrator assembly (SCA). In one embodiment, an MTB system for an SCA having a plurality of solar reflector frames spaced along a length of the SCA includes a plurality of brake mechanisms arranged at locations spaced apart from each other along the length of the SCA, each of the brake mechanisms coupled to a corresponding one of a plurality of supporting pylons and configured to constrain the solar reflector frames from rotating when subjected to torsional loads, the brake mechanisms adapted to transfer the torsional loads to the corresponding supporting pylons.
US08671929B2	Archery bow In some embodiments, an archery bow comprises a riser, a first limb and a second limb. A drawstring extends between the first limb and the second limb, for example extending between rotatable members supported by the limbs. A first cable, such as a power cable, also extends between the first limb and the second limb. A cable guard is attached to the riser, which comprises a body portion and a cable engaging portion. The cable guard biases a portion of the first cable in a direction away from the riser.
US08671928B2	Electro-pneumatic projectile launching system A pneumatic assembly for a projectile launching system includes a body defining a continuous bore. A nozzle is positioned within the bore adjacent a forward end and is moveable between a rearward position wherein the nozzle facilitates passage of a projectile through a projectile port and a forward position wherein the nozzle prevents passage of a projectile through the projectile port. The nozzle is biased to the forward position and configured for fluid actuation to the rearward position by activation of a first fluid control valve. A valve seat defines an accumulation chamber rearward of the nozzle. A firing valve member is moveable between a forward position wherein the firing valve member fluidly seals a passage through the valve seat and a rearward position wherein the passage is fluidly opened such that fluid in the accumulation chamber is free to flow through the passage and out of the nozzle.
US08671926B1	Toy launcher apparatus with inner and outer tubes A toy launcher apparatus having inner and outer concentric tubes forming a chamber between the tubes. Within the inner tube in a piston and an attached rod, the piston being movable between front and rear positions by a user of the launcher apparatus. The other end of the rod is attached to a handle and upon being pulled rearward, compressed air causes discharge of a projectile. The inner tube has a closed front end portion and an open rear end portion with vents. An end cap is connected to the tubes to prevent relative movement between the tubes and to provide an air path from a region in the inner tube rearward of the piston, through the vents and into the chamber. A front cap is attached to the outer tube, a projectile restraining seal is mounted to the front cap, and a perforated cup is mounted rearward of the seal. A spring is positioned in the chamber between the inner tube and the perforated cup to bias the cup and a loaded ball toward the seal.
US08671923B2	Stock and trigger assembly for crossbow A kit for converting a compound bow into an inline crossbow includes a draw-lock bar with a mechanism to attach the bow to one end. Near the other end of the draw-lock bar is a trigger assembly that attaches to one side of the bar and a string latch and release assembly that attaches to an opposite side of the bar. The trigger assembly and the latch/release assembly—can be attached on either side of the bar such that the bow is configured for left or right hand shooting. The trigger assembly is attached to the bar well forward of the latch/release assembly, and an actuator rod that passes inside of the draw-lock bar connects the trigger with the string latch/release. A sliding cover over the string latch prevents the released bow string from stinging the archer's cheek.
US08671914B2	High pressure fuel supply pump In a high pressure fuel supply pump for transmitting rotation of a cam to a reciprocating plunger via a tappet and a retainer, a diametric force acting on the plunger is reduced. The pump includes the retainer disposed on the plunger and a return spring exerting an urging force on the retainer in a direction of the tappet. A clearance between a plunger leading end and a tappet bottom surface opposed thereto is set to be greater than a clearance between a retainer bottom surface and the tappet bottom surface opposed thereto, and a clearance between a retainer inside diameter section and a plunger peripheral surface section opposed thereto is set to be greater than a clearance between a retainer outside diameter section and a tappet inner wall opposed thereto.
US08671913B2	Determining and correcting the phasing of the angular position of a four-stroke internal combustion engine with indirect injection and time-controlled sequential reinjection/sequential injection cutoff A method for determining the phasing of the angular position of a four-stroke internal combustion engine with indirect injection and time-controlled sequential reinjection/sequential injection cutoff, characterized in that it includes, with the engine running, the following steps: observing the curve (3, 4) of engine speed (1) as a function of time (2) during a phase of sequential reinjection and/or sequential injection cutoff, performed in accordance with the expected oscillations of the transmission, discriminating, according to the shape of the curve (3, 4), a substantially linear shape (3) being indicative of correct phasing, whereas a substantially sinusoidal shape (4) is indicative of incorrect phasing.
US08671911B2	Dual fuel engine system and method of operating A dual fuel engine operates on a gaseous fuel and a liquid fuel. The engine comprises a supply of gaseous fuel controlled by a first valve, a supply of compression ignitable liquid fuel controlled by a second valve, a control unit for controlling the supply of gaseous fuel and liquid fuel to each combustion chamber in the engine, and at least one knock sensor arranged to detect knock in each combustion chamber and to transmit an output signal proportional to the detected level of knock to the control unit. If knock is detected, the amount of gaseous fuel injected will be reduced while the amount of liquid fuel will be increased. The engine control system will subsequently adapt to the lower grade fuel and perform a calibration to operate as close as possible to the knock limit for the particular fuel.
US08671898B2	Method and device for operating an internal combustion engine In a method for operating an internal combustion engine having at least one cylinder which includes a first exhaust valve and a second exhaust valve, the internal combustion engine is operated in a scavenging operating mode in that the closing times of the exhaust valves after an ejection stroke of a four-stroke operating cycle are situated after an opening time of an intake valve, and the second exhaust valve is opened with a time delay relative to the first exhaust valve in the scavenging operating mode.
US08671895B2	Variable compression ratio apparatus with reciprocating piston mechanism with extended piston offset A variable compression ratio apparatus with means to vary compression ratio of an internal combustion engine is provided. The variable compression ratio apparatus with reciprocating piston mechanism with extended piston offset of the invention has a rocker arm/lever assembly pivotally mounted on a crankpin of a crankshaft and a fulcrum which moves along only within confines of a pathway/guide. This confined pathway/guide itself can be either pivoted to swing from side to side on a pivot or can move only along a predefined path towards the crankshaft and away in its own defined tracks. A swing or move of the pathway/guide leads to a corresponding change in stroke positions of the piston within the cylinder. Such construction allows a simple and easy way to vary compression ratio of the engine. At the same time all benefits of the reciprocating piston mechanism with extended piston offset are preserved.
US08671890B2	Pipe assembly The invention relates to a pipe assembly (102) for use in a boiler. The pipe assembly (102) comprises a pipe (104) having an outer wall (106) adapted for heat exchange. The pipe (104) having heat sensing means (116) located in a recess section of the outer wall (106) thereof, wherein an internal bore (108) of the pipe (104) has a substantially constant cross section in the region of the heat sensing means (116).
US08671885B2	Vision system for robotic attacher In certain embodiments, a system includes a controller operable to access a first image generated by a first camera. The controller determines a reference point from at least one main feature of a dairy livestock included in the first image. The controller is further operable to access a second image generated by the second camera. The second image includes at least a portion of an udder of the dairy livestock. The controller determines a location of a teat of the dairy livestock based on the second image.
US08671883B2	Milking method and apparatus An animal milking method and apparatus wherein a single milk meter measures the total milk flow from all four quarters of an animals udder, and the data generated by the milk meter is used to detect a departure from a predicted milk flow versus time relationship, indicative of an injured teat or an infected udder quarter, for altering the herdsman to a condition which warrants medical inspection of the animal concerned.
US08671882B2	Plasma processing apparatus A plasma processing apparatus capable of, over a prolonged period of time, controlling a decrease in the value of a DC current flowing within an accommodating compartment. The plasma processing apparatus comprises an accommodating compartment adapted to accommodate a substrate and perform a plasma treatment thereon, a high-frequency power source adapted to supply high-frequency power to the inside of the accommodating compartment; a DC electrode adapted to apply a DC voltage to the inside of the accommodating compartment, a ground electrode provided within the accommodating compartment and used for the applied DC voltage, and an exhaust unit adapted to evacuate the inside of the accommodating compartment.
US08671880B2	Liquid application device and ink jet recording apparatus The present invention provides a liquid application device and an ink jet recording apparatus each capable of reducing deterioration in application quality due to an increase in the number of times of use of a roller, thereby improving durability. The present invention includes an application roller which applies liquid to an application medium, and a liquid retention member which retains the liquid in a liquid retention space formed by making the application roller be in contact with the retention member. With this structure, a pool of the liquid is formed, with rotation of the application roller, in an area upstream of a contact area, in a rotational direction, between the application member and the retention member at a side where a surface of the application member enters the contact area therebetween.
US08671879B2	Systems and methods for plasma processing of microfeature workpieces Systems and methods for plasma processing of microfeature workpieces are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method includes generating a plasma in a chamber while a microfeature workpiece is positioned in the chamber, measuring optical emissions from the plasma, and determining a parameter of the plasma based on the measured optical emissions. The parameter can be an ion density or another parameter of the plasma.
US08671878B2	Profile and CD uniformity control by plasma oxidation treatment An apparatus for forming spacers is provided. A plasma processing chamber is provided, comprising a chamber wall, a substrate support, a pressure regulator, an antenna, a bias electrode, a gas inlet, and a gas outlet. A gas source comprises an oxygen gas source and an anisotropic etch gas source. A controller comprises a processor and computer readable media. The computer readable media comprises computer readable code for placing a substrate of the plurality of substrates in a plasma etch chamber, computer readable code for providing a plasma oxidation treatment to form a silicon oxide coating over the spacer layer, computer readable code for sputtering silicon to form silicon oxide with the oxygen plasma, computer readable code for providing an anisotropic main etch, computer readable code for etching the spacer layer, computer readable code for removing the substrate from the plasma etch chamber after etching the spacer layer.
US08671874B2	Process and apparatus for localized coating of assembled cascade impactor particle collection surfaces Methods are presented for applying a coating material to the particle collecting regions and surfaces of the stages of a cascade impactor after the impactor is assembled for use. The methods comprise generation of a multimodal droplet aerosol of liquid coating material and delivering it into the impactor. The modes of coating droplet aerosol are selected to produce droplets that span the range of cutoff diameters for the stages of the cascade impactor. The coating substance improves the trapping of particles on the stages. The methods limit the total amount of coating material applied and confine it to the regions of particle impact opposite the stage orifices, thereby reducing the possibility of chemical interference when analyzing a test aerosol.
US08671871B2	Temperature-activated time-temperature indicator A temperature-activatable time-temperature indicator that can be used to monitor the historical exposure of a host product to ambient temperatures includes an optically readable, thermally sensitive indicator element. The indicator element can be inactive below a base temperature and is intrinsically thermally responsive at or above an activation temperature which is equal to or greater than the base temperature. The indicator can record cumulative ambient temperature exposure above the activation temperature irreversibly with respect to time. The indicator element can include a synthetic polymeric material, and optionally, a dye. A side-chain crystallizable polymer such as poly(hexadecylmethacrylate), that is solid below the base temperature and is a viscous liquid above the activation temperature can be employed. Intense indicator element colors can be obtained using an appropriate dye or dyes. Various structural configurations of indicator are described and illustrated.
US08671866B2	System for loading/unloading a vehicle into/from a carrier ship, and corresponding carrier ship The disclosure relates to a system for loading/unloading a vehicle into/from a carrier ship through at least one opening provided in the rear of said ship comprising an angled vehicle-receiving ramp combined with a motor-driven means for loading/unloading the vehicle, characterized in that the motor-driven means for loading/unloading the vehicle comprises a crossbeam-shaped means for the ship that extends above the ramp and is combined with a vehicle-hoisting/releasing cable, which is in turn combined with a first drive means for hoisting/releasing the vehicle, and in that the crossbeam-shaped means is longitudinally movable, by means of a second drive means above the ramp, between a rear position for hoisting/releasing the vehicle and a front position for storing the vehicle on the ramp in the ship.
US08671862B2	Device with microbubble-induced superhydrophobic surfaces for drag reduction and biofouling prevention and device for biofouling prevention A device with microbubble-induced superhydrophobic surfaces for drag reduction and biofouling prevention includes an anodic microporous plate, a cathodic microporous plate, and a DC power supply. The anodic microporous plate and the cathodic microporous plate are mounted to a hull surface of a ship. The DC power supply includes a positive pole electrically connected to the anodic microporous plate and a negative pole electrically connected to the cathodic microporous plate. Seawater is electrolyzed to generate hydrogen microbubbles adjacent to a surface of the cathodic microporous plate and to generate oxygen microbubbles adjacent to a surface of the anodic microporous plate, forming superhydrophobic surfaces on the surfaces of the anodic microporous plate and the cathodic microporous plate. Electric current flows through the anodic microporous plate and the cathodic microporous plate to prevent biofouling.
US08671861B2	Placement device for placing decorative elements on a textile or non-textile sheet material A placement device (3) for placing decorative elements (5) on a textile or non-textile sheet material is connected to a sewing machine. The decorative elements (5) are stored in an ordered way in magazines (7) and are fed in a controlled way by the control of the sewing machine to the appropriate set positions on the sheet material (39) and are connected to this material.
US08671854B2	Shaft seal for pyrolytic waste treatment system The inventive subject matter is directed toward a pyrolytic waste treatment system comprising a pyrolysis chamber having a chamber wall with a hole through which a shaft passes. An insulating mechanism is used at the hole to inhibit heat from escaping through the opening in the chamber wall.
US08671853B2	Adjustable desktop platform An adjustable desktop workspace is disclosed having a base having a lower platform, an upper platform, and two pivoting arms mounted between the two. Each pivoting arm has a front and rear bracket. A locking lever on each arm fixedly engages the platform in an upright position at a variety of levels above the lower platform. There are also two stabilizing bars to limit side-to-side relative movement, and a biasing spring between the front and rear brackets to aide moving the upper platform.
US08671848B2	Pallet protector device and method A pallet protector unitarily formed as a molded plastic part reinforces a wooden pallet. Its faceplate is nailed or screwed to the front and optionally the back face and side faces of the pallet. The protector has entry openings for the tines of a forklift and the openings are articulated into hollow collars that extend into the pallets inner regions. These collars provide a structure that accepts the weight and moment between the tines and the pallet and spread it across of the entire front of the pallet. RFID modules can also be included.
US08671847B2	Hunting utility tray and folding arm assembly A hunting tray is presented that is configured to be removably attached to a tree. The hunting tray includes a body portion having a top surface, a bottom surface, and side surfaces, the top surface of the body portion dimensioned and configured to receive at least one item and a folding arm assembly detachably connectable to the body portion, the folding arm assembly configured to include at least one attachment member at a distal end thereof for facilitating removable attachment of the hunting tray to the tree. The at least one attachment member is a tapered screw. The folding arm assembly includes a first arm segment, a second arm segment, and a third arm segment, such that the first and second arm segments are pivotally connected to each other and the second and third arm segments are pivotally connected to each other.
US08671842B2	Gas generator and manufacturing method thereof A gas generator includes an outer wall delimiting a first chamber, a source of gas and a second chamber for diffusing gas outwards between which is found a nozzle. The nozzle includes a first through-hole for letting through gas from the first chamber to the second chamber. The first hole is closed by a cap capable of being opened from the triggering of an electro-pyrotechnic device located towards the first chamber. The second diffusion chamber includes in the wall at least one second through-hole for letting through gas outwards. The outer wall includes at least one overmolded plastic material around a portion of the metal nozzle.
US08671835B2	Disposable cup insert for pad printing and decorating A liquid supply assembly for use with a printing system of a type in which a liquid is deposited from the liquid supply assembly in a receiving region on a plate and any excess of the liquid in the receiving region is scraped from the plate by the liquid supply assembly. To this end, the liquid supply assembly employs a reusable cup, a disposable cup insert and a scraping element. As assembled, the reusable cup includes a reusable liquid reservoir, the disposable cup insert includes a temporary liquid reservoir holding the liquid within the reusable liquid reservoir, and the scraping element includes a conduit facilitating a flow of the liquid held by the temporary liquid reservoir through the conduit to the plate.
US08671829B2	Structure of brewing device A brewing device includes a brewing cylinder and a piston received in and reciprocally movable inside the brewing cylinder. The brewing device is connected to a water supply device that supplies a liquid to the brewing cylinder. The piston includes a piston head that is hollow and includes a bar mounted to an inside wall thereof and a piston rod that forms a pivot hole rotatably jointed to the bar to allow the bar to do movement. The piston rod forms a lid at a location close to the pivot hole that selectively sets the piston in a closed condition, whereby through change of position of the lid by the piston rod, the piston is switchably set in an open configuration and a closed configuration for readily controlling amount of water contained in the brewing cylinder to meet various conditions for different quantities of brewing water.
US08671825B2	Fluid pressure cylinder When a fluid pressure cylinder (1) is in a maximum expansion state, a piston (40) contacts a cylinder head (30). The cylinder head (30) is fixed to a cylinder tube (10) by a plurality of head bolts (12). The cylinder head (30) includes a pipe attachment seat (36), and the head bolts (12) are disposed in a first region (A) that avoids the pipe attachment seat (36). A non-contact portion in which contact is avoided between the piston (40) and the cylinder head (30) is formed in a second region (B) other than the first region (A), and therefore, when the fluid pressure cylinder (1) is in the maximum expansion state, a tensile load acting on the head bolts (12) on either side of the first region (A) can be suppressed to become equal to a tensile load acting on the other head bolts (12).
US08671813B2	Apparatus and methods for cutting electronic displays during resizing Apparatus and methods for resizing electronic displays are provided. The display includes a front plate, a back plate, a perimeter seal spacing the front and back plates apart, image-generating medium contained in an area between the plates, and polarizing layers and/or other films on the outer surfaces of the plates. A target portion of the display is identified, and a saw is passed along a cut line to create a channel that extends through the polarizer to the outer surface of the top plate. A scriber tool is passed along the cut line within the channel to create a scribe line in the outer surface of the top plate. The display is inverted, and the process repeated to cut a channel and scribe the bottom plate. The plates are broken along the scribe line, and a seal is applied along the exposed edge, which may penetrate between the plates.
US08671807B2	Extension tool for operating handwheels An extension tool is provided to improve operation of handwheels, for example by allowing railroad operators to more safely reach the handbrake wheel of a train car. The tool includes a head with an upper tapered jaw designed to fit against the handwheel rim and particularly to fit the junction of the handwheel spoke and the handwheel rim circumference. The jaw may be a tapered circular rotating block. Below the jaw is a lower block designed to press against the outer circumference of the handwheel rim. The tool may also include a recess for operating a quick release lever on a train car.
US08671800B2	Mechanical transmission device between a drive shaft and two driven shafts A transmission device includes a drive shaft and two driven shafts. The drive shaft is connected to a wheel and first engagement rotors are arranged therebeside so that the wheel is located therebetween and can rotate together with them. The first engagement rotors having an axial hole in which a driven shaft is rotatably arranged, the first engagement rotors are coupled or uncoupled with second engagement rotors coaxially arranged therebeside, by extracting or retracting, respectively, at least one mobile tooth rotatable in a seat of the first engagement rotors, each driven shaft being keyed to a second engagement rotor. Driving rotors are arranged around the driven shafts between the wheel and the first engagement rotors and are provided with a brake, so that relative rotation of the driving rotors with respect to the first engagement rotors causes extension or retraction of the mobile tooth according to the relative rotation direction.
US08671793B2	Lubrication of a rotatable shaft A machine has a shaft rotatable in at least one lubricated bearing. A lubricant duct for lubricating the bearing extends along the first shaft. A turbine, having blades engaging radially in the lubricant duct and oriented warped to the axis of the first shaft, is situated in the lubricant duct.
US08671792B1	Multimode actuator for document scanning apparatus A multimode actuator for a document scanning apparatus is used to manipulate a book cradle along two degrees of freedom. The apparatus includes a drive shaft that is moveable along an axis to actuate the drive shaft in a first position and a second position. In the first position, the drive shaft engages with a spacing gear and disengages with a translation gear, wherein a rotation of the drive shaft while in the first position causes spacing between cradle halves to change. In the second position, the drive shaft engages the translation gear and disengages the spacing gear, wherein a rotation of the drive shaft while in the second position causes the lateral position of the document cradle to change while maintaining the spacing between the cradle halves.
US08671791B2	Device for reversing the direction of an automotive wheeled vehicle A direction-reversing device includes at least one input shaft, an output shaft, and direction-reversing element with a clutch sleeve including a moving clutch sleeve, mounted to move axially on one of the shafts carrying it to enable occupying forward and reverse positions. This device also includes a blocking element that is driven in rotation by the input shaft that carries the moving clutch sleeve, whereby this blocking element is mounted to move between the off position, in which the moving clutch sleeve is able to switch from one operating position to the next, and the on position, in which the blocking element forms an obstacle that prevents the switching of the moving clutch sleeve from one position to the next, being able to switch automatically from the off position to the on position when the input shaft is driven at a speed of rotation that exceeds a predetermined threshold value.
US08671790B2	Transmission mechanism housing, notably for transmission between an input driveshaft and an output shaft Transmission mechanism housing (1) of the type including two half-shells (1A, 1B) that can be assembled generally via a parting line, this housing (1) accommodating at least one control member (2) moved angularly with the aid of a lever (3) outside the housing (1), the lever (3) including a sleeve (4) that can be inserted removably into a receiving bearing (5) of the housing (1), the sleeve (4) being capable, in the state in which it is inserted into the receiving bearing (5), of being held in at least one predetermined axial position by locking elements (6A, 6B). The locking elements (6A, 6B) are configured in order to travel from the locked position to the unlocked position, and vice versa, by simple relative rotary movement of the sleeve (4) and of the bearing (5) about the longitudinal axis of the sleeve (4).
US08671787B2	Drive device An output shaft, to which the rotational force of a motor is transmitted, is rotatably supported and housed in a case. One end of the output shaft protrudes from the case, and a pinion gear is provided on this one end. Teeth that mesh with the pinion gear are provided on the outer circumferential surface of cables. A guide member for guiding the cables in such a way that they mesh with the pinion gear is mounted on the case. An urging plate portion that presses against the side of the pinion gear is provided on the guide member. The urging plate portion urges the output shaft in the axial direction and, as a result, rattle of the output shaft is alleviated.
US08671786B2	Engine starter control apparatus A starter control apparatus is provided which is used with a starter equipped with a pinion engageable with a ring gear coupled to an output shaft of an engine and a motor operable to rotate the pinion to crank the engine. The starter control apparatus works to determine whether the engine has been placed to continue to run by itself after cranked by the motor or not. When such a condition is encountered, the starter control apparatus releases the engagement of the pinion with the ring gear while keeping the pinion rotated by the motor, thereby decreasing the torque exerted by the ring gear on the pinion to minimize the wear of the pinion.
US08671781B2	Method for detecting a developing torque for a hybrid drive A method for detecting a developing torque for a hybrid drive, the hybrid drive having a first drive unit, in particular an electric motor, and a second drive unit, in particular an internal combustion engine, the drive units being coupleable with the aid of a separating clutch, wherein the separating clutch is brought into a predefined engaged position, the torque of the first drive unit is changed, and the developing torque is detected at the predefined engaged position as a function of the change in the torque of the first drive unit.
US08671775B2	Flow rate measuring device When a flow rate is equal to or more than a reference flow rate, a reference voltage is changed to a level capable of measuring stably to thereby realize the improvement of measurement accuracy at the time of a large amount of flow rate. A flow rate determination means compares a flow rate calculated by a flow rate calculation means with the reference flow rate. When the calculated flow rate is larger than the reference flow rate, the reference voltage set by a reference voltage setting means is changed, whereby the zero cross point can be detected stably at the portion where the degree of the influence of the change in the amplitude of the received signal is small. Thus, it is possible to provide a flow rate measuring device capable of measuring a flow rate stably with high accuracy even when a fluid flow is disturbed due to a large amount of flow rate.
US08671773B2	Electronic flow meter An electronic flow meter includes a magnetic sensor, phase-A and phase-B drivers, a phase-A comparator, a phase-B comparator, a two-phase encoder, and a rotational speed timer. The two-phase encoder determines a normal/reverse direction where the impeller is rotated based on event signals sampled by the phase-A and the phase-B comparators, respectively, causing a counter to count up or to count down according to the normal/reverse direction as determined, thereby outputting an event count signal. The rotational speed timer calculates a rotational frequency of the impeller from the event count signal outputted by the two-phase encoder and sets frequencies of respective sampling signals of the phase-A and the phase-B comparators at a time when the rotational frequency of the impeller is measured next, and respective drive periods of the phase-A and the phase-B drivers in accordance with the rotational frequency of the impeller as calculated.
US08671769B2	Device for measuring deformation of a structure and a method for measuring deformation of a structure using the same The present invention is directed to a device for measuring a deformation ratio of a structure which includes a photonic crystal layer containing nanoparticles aligned at a certain interval. The device is useful for detecting when various industrial structures are deformed by a working load. The presence of deformation and the deformation ratio in the structures may be simply and easily measured by measuring the change of structural color or magnetic flux in the device. The device may be useful to prevent accidents due to excessive deformation in structures.
US08671765B2	Pressure sensor having a diaphragm A pressure sensor comprising: a sensor chip; a differential pressure diaphragm provided in the center portion of the sensor chip; a differential pressure gauge provided in the differential pressure diaphragm; a static pressure diaphragm provided at the outer peripheral portion of the differential pressure diaphragm; a first static pressure gauge formed at an edge portion of the static pressure diaphragm; and a second static pressure gauge formed at a center portion of the static pressure diaphragm.
US08671762B2	Ultrasonic sensor An ultrasonic sensor is described having a housing which has a circumferential side wall and a base surface. A transducer element for generating ultrasonic vibrations is mounted on the base surface. The side wall includes a lower side wall section, in which the side wall has an essentially rotationally asymmetrical profile in a plane parallel to the base surface, and an upper side wall section in which the side wall changes to an essentially rotationally symmetrical profile toward an upper edge of the side wall. In other respects, the present system provides a parking assistance system for a vehicle, having a control unit and such an ultrasonic sensor, as well as a method for manufacturing an ultrasonic sensor.
US08671760B2	Drivable device for compacting a soil layer structure and method for ascertaining a layer modulus of elasticity of an uppermost layer of this soil layer structure The present invention relates to a drivable device for compacting a soil layer structure, having at least one vibration means or device, such as a vibration roller or a vibration plate, via which load pulses (P), which compact the soil layer structure, can be introduced into at least one load introduction area. At least one first and one second detection means or devices for detecting the modulus of elasticity of the soil layer structure are provided, which are situated spaced apart from one another on the drivable device in such a way that the first detection means or device allows a detection in the load introduction area and at least the second detection means or devices allows a detection outside the load introduction area. The present invention also relates to a method for ascertaining a layer modulus of elasticity.
US08671755B2	Angular velocity detection circuit and angular velocity detection apparatus An angular velocity detection circuit is connected to a resonator for making excited vibration on the basis of a drive signal and detects an angular velocity. The angular velocity detection circuit includes: a self-vibration component extraction unit that receives, from the resonator, a detection signal including an angular velocity component based on a Coriolis force and a self-vibration component based on the excited vibration of the resonator and extracts the self-vibration component from the detection signal; a direct-current conversion unit including an integration unit that integrates an output signal of the self-vibration component extraction unit; and an offset addition unit that adds an offset value to an output signal of the direct-current conversion unit.
US08671748B2	Pressure sensor with internal bellows A pressure sensor includes an outer body defining a sensor cavity and a resonator element located at least partially within the sensor cavity. The pressure sensor also includes a bellows having an outer side and an inner side and that is located at least partially within the outer body. the inner side of the bellows defines an internal volume and is configured to receive a measured fluid into the internal volume. The pressure sensor also includes a measuring fluid filling at least a portion of an area between the outer side and the outer body.
US08671747B1	TPMS monitor mounting bracket A TPMS monitor mounting bracket consisting of a flat square base having a centrally located clearance hole therein. The bracket includes an upward-extending S-shaped angular arm that is integral with the base. The bracket also includes a first flat mounting surface located on the same horizontal plane above the square base, and includes a centered first tapped hole. An upward-extending inverted V-shaped angular arm having a second flat mounting surface integral with and positioned essentially 87-degrees from the square base, and having an centered second tapped hole therein. A hollow screw is disposed within the square base clearance hole for attachment to a tire inflation valve, and a threaded screw engages the S-shaped angular arm tapped hole for attachment of a TPMS monitor into a steel or aluminum wheel.
US08671746B2	Piezoelectric generator A piezoelectric generator includes a piezoelectric element, a spring element, a mass element, and at least one stop. The piezoelectric element, the spring element, and the mass element form a system which can oscillate. The stop limits the oscillation of the system which can oscillate, at least on one side. The stop is formed from a ductile material or has a coating of a ductile material.
US08671740B2	Gas concentration detection sensor The sensor element, which can detect the concentration of a specified gas, is held with a housing with a front end thereof exposed. A protective cover includes an inner cover and an outer cover, and secured to the housing. A ratio φ1/φ2 is set to a range from 0.6 to 0.9, where φ1 represents an outer diameter of a portion where an inner gas aperture is formed in the inner cover, and φ2 represents an inner diameter of a portion where an outer gas aperture is formed in the outer cover.
US08671739B2	Indicator material and indicator device comprising said indicator material The present invention provides an indicator material suitable for detecting relative humidity exceeding a specific limit value and/or liquid water comprising (a) a first fibrous sheet containing an indicator composition which comprises a water-soluble dye and, optionally, a deliquescent salt, in finely divided form, and (b) a second fibrous sheet laminated to one surface of said first fibrous sheet by means of a hot-melt adhesive that does not cover the entire surfaces laminated to each other such that permeation of an aqueous solution from said first fibrous sheet to said second fibrous sheet is allowed. The invention also provides an indicator device comprising said indicator material on a carrier and a process for the manufacture of said indicator material and said indicator device.
US08671736B2	Agglomeration and charge loss sensor for measuring particulate matter A sensor includes a housing, a central sensor electrode assembly, an insulating member, and a trace. The central sensor electrode assembly is coupled to a supply side of a voltage source. The insulating member is coupled between the housing and the central sensor electrode assembly. The insulating member circumscribes a section of the central sensor electrode assembly. The trace is coupled to the insulating member and circumscribes the section of the central sensor electrode assembly. The trace directs at least a portion of leakage current away from a voltage ground offset on an opposite side of the central sensor electrode assembly.
US08671718B2	Drum-type washing machine A drum-type washing machine is disclosed, in which bearings are received in the bearing housing assembly. The bearing housing assembly may include a support portion coupled to a motor, and a coupling portion connected to a damper bracket.
US08671717B2	Photovoltaic device having low iron high transmission glass with lithium oxide for reducing seed free time and corresponding method A high transmission and low iron glass is provided for use in a photovoltaic device such as a solar cell. The glass substrate may be patterned on at least one surface thereof. In certain example embodiments, a combination of lithium oxide, antimony oxide, and salt cake is used in the glass to improve the refining conditions by lowering the melting temperature of the batch, thereby resulting in a quicker seed free time in the manufacturing process.
US08671711B2	Refrigerator and icemaker assembly with provisions for guiding cool air flow to an ice tray An icemaker assembly and a refrigerator having the icemaker assembly are provided. The icemaker assembly includes a cover directing cool air toward an ice tray and a bracket for enhancing flow of the cool air directed toward the ice cover.
US08671710B2	Ventilation device and the refrigerator having the same A ventilation device of a refrigerator is configured to prevent freezing of condensed water. The condensed water does not accumulate at the corresponding portion, and hence formation of ice is prevented. The generation of noise and the change of the efficiency of the ventilation fan do not occur, and the risk of ice contacting the shroud of the ventilation fan is reduced and reliability may be improved.
US08671709B2	Method and apparatus for producing frozen products The invention provides a method and an apparatus for producing frozen products using a liquid cooling freezing method, enabling the number of times for replenishing a freezing solvent to be reduced and completely preventing alcoholic odor from occurring. The apparatus 1 for producing frozen products according to the invention includes, in a freezing chamber 2, a freezing tank 3 having a freezing solvent 30 stored therein for immersing therein products and freezing them, gas jetting units 4 for jetting a gas having a temperature of 0° C. or below against the products frozen in the freezing tank 3 to remove the freezing solvent adhering to the products, and a transferring device 5 for transferring the products to be frozen in the freezing chamber 2 in a manner that the products to be frozen are immersed in the freezing solvent 30 in the freezing tank 3 and then lifted from the freezing tank 3 and further the freezing solvent adhering to the products is removed by the gas jetting units 4.
US08671706B2	Heat pump A heat pump according to the present invention comprises a plurality of the compression chambers, and compresses refrigerant with multistage, and injects vapor refrigerant into the space between the plurality of the compression chambers by using the first refrigerant injection flow path and the second refrigerant injection flow path. Performance and efficiency of the heat pump can be improved compared with non-injection, as flow rate of the refrigerant circulating the indoor heat exchanger is increased. Thus heating performance can be improved also in the extremely cold environmental condition such as the cold area by increasing the injection flow rate. Also, because the heat pump according to the present invention comprises the first refrigerant injection flow path and the second refrigerant injection flow path, refrigerant is injected twice. Thus, as the injection flow rate of the refrigerant is increased, heating capacity can be improved. Also, the difference between the suction pressure and the discharge pressure of the rotary compressor may be decreased, and thus the reliability and the performance of the rotary compressor can be improved.
US08671705B2	Showcase A showcase having a fin-and-tube type cooler includes planar fins and a refrigerant pipe penetrating through the planar fins. The planar fins include long fins arranged in parallel to an air flow direction through the cooler, and short fins shorter in length than the long fins and arranged between adjacent long fins at a downstream side of the cooler. The refrigerant pipe includes first U-shaped hair pins having two straight pipe portions, and second U-shaped hair pins having two straight pipe portions. The pitch between the two straight pipe portions of each second U-shaped hair pin is set to double the pitch between the two straight pipe portions of each first U-shaped hair pin. The first and second U-shaped hair pins penetrate through the hole portions formed in the plural planar fins so as to be arranged in a predetermined style.
US08671701B2	Methods to store human breast milk Methods for storing human breast milk, preserving its natural flavor and nutritional content. Through the use of an apparatus such as a breast pump, breast milk is expressed from a lactating woman. The milk is transferred through a fill line into a storage container. After the container is substantially filled with breast milk, the fill line is decoupled from the breast pump output, and a vacuum is applied to the line. After the remaining air is evacuated from the container, an isolation valve in the fill line is closed, sealing the container in an evacuated condition. The fill line is removed from the valve, and the container is placed into a freezer or refrigerator for storage. When ready for use, the container is removed from the freezer or refrigerator, the milk is thawed, and the vacuum is broken, allowing removal of the milk for transfer to a bottle.
US08671693B2	Thermally conductive structure A multi-layered honeycomb structure adapted to reduce and/or eliminate thermal deformation is disclosed herein. In some embodiments, walls of the honeycomb structure comprise a first layer, optionally, a second layer, and a core layer adjacent to the first layer or between the first and second layers. The first and second layers may be compositions of Inconel or other high strength materials. The core layer may be copper or another thermally conductive material. The core layer is adapted to transmit heat between a first region of a structure and a second region. In this manner, heat can be transferred from the heated region to an unheated region, thereby reducing the temperature difference between the regions and thus the amount of thermal deformation.
US08671692B2	Annular gas turbine combustor including converging and diverging segments A combustor assembly includes a convergent segment followed by a divergent segment to advantageously improve combustion. The combustor assembly includes a first segment beginning at a forward end that transitions to a second segment past a transition segment in a direction along a combustor axis toward an aft end. The reduction in cross-sectional area within the first segment provides desirable fuel and air mixing properties. The convergent first segment in combination with the divergent second segment decreases residence time of fuel-air mixture within the combustor chamber that decreases production of undesirable emissions from the combustor assembly.
US08671687B2	Hydrogen based combined steam cycle apparatus A hydrogen based combined steam cycle apparatus having an irreversible isobaric Rankine steam cycle portion, an irreversible isobaric Carnot steam cycle portion and a reversible isobaric Rankine steam cycle portion, all three portions of which operate simultaneously. The apparatus includes a source of liquid oxygen, a source of liquid hydrogen, a combustion chamber, a first pump, a second pump, a pressure vessel, a steam turbine, a superheater, and a condenser.A plurality of valves and a computer are used to control the flow of working fluid in the hydrogen based combined steam cycle apparatus.
US08671684B2	Partially self-refueling zero emissions system A method and device to optimize the cumulative beneficial effect of harvesting all available forms of lost energy, including energy that is lost while a vehicle is in motion (e.g., kinetic, inertia, friction, thermodynamic, and aerodynamic losses). The cumulative energy that is recovered is converted to electrical energy which powers the on-board electrolyzer to produce more hydrogen and oxygen while the system is in operation and stationary. Stationary, passive means of energy, solar, wind, hydro, etc. will also be available to power the electrolyzer. The system also contemplates utilizing passive means of energy to power a non-mobile system which incorporates an internal or external combustion engine in place of a fuel cell.
US08671683B2	Butterfly valve for turbocharger systems A butterfly valve for a turbocharger system in which the leak path through the valve is controlled by keeping the clearance between either a shaft of the valve and two bushings small or the clearance between the bushings and the counter bores in the valve element small, and making the other clearance larger.
US08671677B2	Gamma type free-piston stirling machine configuration An improved free piston Stirling machine having a gamma configuration. The displacer and each piston is reciprocatable within a cylinder having an unobstructed opening at its inner end into a common volume of the workspace. The common volume is defined by the intersection of inward projections of the displacer cylinder and the piston cylinders. The displacer and the pistons each have a range of reciprocation that extends into the common volume. A displacer drive rod is reciprocatable in a drive rod cylinder and both are positioned outside the common volume and on the opposite side of the common volume from the displacer. The displacer is connected to the displacer drive rod by a displacer connecting rod. Importantly, the displacer and pistons have complementary interfacing surface contours formed on their inner ends which substantially reduces the dead volume of this gamma configured machine.
US08671673B2	Travel control apparatus for working vehicle There are provided: a first circuit for traveling HC1, formed through a closed circuit connection of a variable displacement hydraulic pump 2 and a variable displacement hydraulic motor 3, that includes a motor control unit 10, 11 that controls a displacement of the hydraulic motor 3; a second circuit for working HC2 that drives a work hydraulic actuator 114, 115 by pressure oil from a work hydraulic pump 4; and a maximum value control unit that controls a maximum displacement of the hydraulic motor 3 in accordance with load pressure Pf in the second circuit HC2. The maximum value control unit decreases the maximum displacement to a minimum limit q1 corresponding to a maximum load pressure Pr in the second circuit when load pressure Pf in the second circuit exceeds a predetermined value Ps.
US08671664B2	System for purging a device A system for purging a device for injecting fuel into an exhaust system of an engine comprising a device having an input and an output coupled to an exhaust system, at least one air valve and at least one fuel valve. The air valve has an input an input coupled to an air supply and an output coupled to the device through a check valve. The fuel valve has an input coupled to a fuel supply and an output coupled to the device through a check valve. When the air valve is open and the fuel valve is closed, air flows from the air supply to the device and is injected into the exhaust system of the engine. When the air valve is closed and the fuel valve is open, fuel flows from the fuel supply to the device and is injected into the exhaust system of the engine.
US08671658B2	Oxidizing fuel A mixture of air and fuel is received into a reaction chamber of a gas turbine system. The fuel is oxidized in the reaction chamber, and a maximum temperature of the mixture in the reaction chamber is controlled to be substantially at or below an inlet temperature of a turbine of the gas turbine system. The oxidation of the fuel is initiated by raising the temperature of the mixture to or above an auto-ignition temperature of the fuel. In some cases, the reaction chamber may be provided without a fuel oxidation catalyst material.
US08671655B2	Apparatus for pressurizing containers Devices and a method for releasing gas in a container after closing and sealing to pressurize and/or prevent or counteract buckling thereof, and or provide structural rigidity and strength thereto and or release components. The method introduces a reactive agent into the container after filling and before sealing. The reactive agent is controlled to react to provide a gas and optionally components, which a) provides a positive pressure to prevent or counteract buckling and provide structural rigidity to the container, and b) and or changes the state or characteristics of the headspace and or contents of the closed container. The devices include a closure, a cap and a container. The reactive agent is brought to chemical reaction by moistening, heating, catalyst and the like. The closure includes the reactive agent and is disposed in the container. The external trigger is a device that emits energy that provides heat to the reactive agent to stimulate the chemical reaction.
US08671648B2	Hinged-lid package, and packing method and machine for producing a hinged-lid package A packing method and machine for producing a package, the method including the steps of feeding the content of the package into a first pocket of a first packing conveyor; transferring the content of the package from the first pocket of the first packing conveyor to a second pocket of a second packing conveyor at a first transfer station; feeding a first blank to the second pocket by means of a first feed device; and folding the first blank, in the second pocket, about the content of the package to form a container with a lid.
US08671642B2	Tapered truss A tapered truss is provided. In one embodiment, the truss has a pair of base members configured to be attached to a top surface of a vertical support member. The truss may further have an upper pair of truss members and a lower pair of truss members. Each upper truss member each forms an acute angle with a respective base member and each lower truss member forms an obtuse angle from the respective base member such that the lower truss member is not parallel to the upper truss member. The truss may additionally include a ceiling joist member connected to each of the lower truss members. In one embodiment, the ceiling joist member is substantially parallel to the pair of base members.
US08671635B2	Perimeter pedestals Pedestal assemblies configured to support first and second pavers positioned adjacently against an elevated periphery and methods of making the same are provided herein. Preferred assemblies include a cap, base, and at least two towers configured to be sandwiched between the cap and base. Kits can be sold with just cap and base alone. Preferred caps and bases can be formed in the same shape or substantially so, and are racetrack-shaped. Preferred towers include polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cylindrical tubing. The cap can advantageously include an upwardly-projecting fin used to align and separate two pavers positioned alongside an elevated periphery. A pedestal support system can include both periphery pedestals in addition to conventional pedestals positioned away from the elevated periphery.
US08671630B2	Photovoltaic roof covering In certain aspects, the present invention relates to a photovoltaic roof covering in the form of overlapping elements (i.e., tiles, shingles or panels), electrically connected to one another. Each of the elements includes a backing material and a photovoltaic layer arranged at least over that portion of the exterior face of the backing material that is exposed to the outside. Electrical conductors are positioned on each side of said photovoltaic layer and are configured to collect the electrical current generated by said layer when it is exposed to light. Notably, at least one of the connectors includes or is incorporated into a foldable moving tongue or strip and in that said tongue or said strip is kept in electrical contact with a connector of an underlying element and in a position that is folded over between the element and the underlying element.
US08671626B1	Apparatus and method for a drilling rig assembly A drilling rig assembly having a longitudinal axis and comprising a drilling rig skid and a derrick assembly having a derrick assembly pivot axis and being adapted to move relative to the drilling rig skid. The derrick assembly comprises a pair of derrick masts disposed on opposite sides of the longitudinal axis and comprising a rack, and a carriage assembly being substantially disposed between the pair of derrick masts, being adapted to move along the pair of derrick masts and comprising a pinion. The drilling rig assembly also comprises a means for moving the derrick assembly relative to the drilling rig skid, a pipe loader assembly having a pipe loader assembly pivot axis, and a means for moving the pipe loader assembly relative to the drilling rig skid. The derrick assembly pivot axis and the pipe loader assembly pivot axis are co-axial.
US08671619B2	Drive apparatus for a swing-out element of a motor vehicle In a drive apparatus for a swiveling swing-out element of a motor vehicle, in particular for a swing-out window, which is adjustable between an open position and a closed position, an adjusting lever that is flexurally elastic in the x direction in relation to the motor vehicle coordinate system is provided for compensating the swivel movement of the swing-out element.
US08671616B2	Biopolymer-based growth media, and methods of making and using same Compositions and methods that relate to a biopolymer medium for growing plants. In certain embodiments, the biopolymer growth medium comprises or consists essentially of polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) or a mixture of them. Another aspect of the invention relates to a method of producing a biopolymer growth medium.
US08671610B2	Horizontal throw lever The invention is a throw lever assembly used to affix an accessory to a firearm. The throw lever assembly utilizes a base unit having a cam bed in which rests the cam. An anchor clamp secured to one end of an engagement rod with the other end affixed to the cam. The cam has an arm extending from it which is used connected to a handle portion. The handle portion is selectively locked/unlocked to the cam via an upper surface the arm. When locked to the arm, the handle portion is able to move the cam causing the assembly to be either locked or unlocked from the firearm.
US08671608B2	Stock assembly with recoil suppression A stock assembly for attachment to a firearm assembly is described. The stock assembly includes a buttstock having a longitudinal conduit and a locking member; a connector tube with front and back ends slidable within the buttstock conduit between a fully inserted position and a fully extended position, the tube having a longitudinal conduit; an attachment member slidable within the tube conduit between a forward position and a rearward position, the attachment member having a front end attachable to the firearm assembly and a rear end; a spring within the connector tube engaging the rear end of the attachment member, the spring urging the attachment member toward its forward position; and locking means preventing rotation of the attachment member relative to the connector tube, while allowing the attachment member to move within the tube between its forward and rearward positions.
US08671607B2	Breech plug A breech plug for a muzzle loading firearm is attachable to a barrel having a muzzle end and a breech end. A breech element having a breech face is connected to the breech end of the barrel. The breech element moves between an open position in which the breech face is away from the breech end of the barrel, and a closed position in which the breech face abuts the breech end of the barrel. A breech plug body is removably attachable to the breech end of the barrel. The breech plug body has a rear face that abuts the breech face when the breech element is closed, so that a primer contained in a primer pocket in the rear face of the breech plug body is fully supported on all sides.
US08671602B2	Identification label for a cylindrical vessel, and cylindrical vessel An identification label for a cylindrical vessel has a first label portion with an underside coated with adhesive, an opaque second label portion with a non-adhesive underside and a transparent third label portion with an underside coated with adhesive. The transition from a first outside edge of the first label portion and a second outside edge of the third label portion has a rounded line profile.
US08671601B2	System and method for mounting a badge on a vehicle A system and method for mounting a badge to a component of a vehicle is provided. The system comprises a mounting base including first and second fastening apertures defined therein, and a trim ring coupled with the mounting base having an opening defined therein. The badge is adapted to be securely mounted between the trim ring and the mounting base so that the badge is positioned within the opening in the trim ring. The system further includes a flexible fastening member that is configured to be positioned within the first and second fastening apertures, positioned around at least a portion of the component of the vehicle, and between the mounting base and the badge to fasten the badge to the vehicle.
US08671591B2	Massaging footwear A footwear article that has an insert pad filled with loose particulate material which is configured within the pad to provide the feeling of walking on a sandy beach and with the same massage affect to the foot as walking on a sandy beach. The pad is particularly configured to prevent the loose particulate material inside of it from flowing to the sides of the pad and destroying the massaging affect.
US08671587B2	Method for implementing a drying program section in washing equipment with a condensation drying device A method for carrying out a drying step in a dishwasher that includes a housing, a washing tub, a door with a hinged lower region operable to close the washing tub, an opening device for automatically opening the door to an ajar position and a condensation drying system including a cooling-air flow generator. The method includes guiding a portion of a cooling-air flow along a portion of an underside of a countertop covering a top of the dishwasher housing both before and after the door is opened to an ajar position.
US08671572B2	Method for the production of a dental implant The invention discloses a novel implant provided with a macroporous surface on the top surface, and a method for the production of such a metallic and/or ceramic implant having a textured, particularly porous, surface for the at least partial insertion in hard tissue, such as in a bone, and/or into soft tissue. The implant is produced as a green compact, at least in sections, using a cold isostatic pressing, casting, and/or injecting (CIM, MIM) with subsequent sintering to obtain an implant, and is particularly characterized in that the surface is modified and/or prepared before sintering such that a macroporous surface is present after sintering without requiring any finishing.
US08671571B2	Method and apparatus for making stationary parabolic solar collector This invention is about a method and apparatus for fabricating large scale stationery parabolic solar collector. The method involves use of a robot like apparatus for determining locations and height of support piles to be staked to the ground such that the tips of the piles define contour and shape of a parabolic collector. The reflective panels installed on the support piles form a parabolic shaped mirror which reflects the sun's rays to a well defined focal point. The method of construction is scalable and can be used for fabricating small size parabolic collectors as well as large scale ones. The construction apparatus and method of operation are also used for periodic cleaning of solar collector in a practical and fast manner.
US08671560B2	In system reflow of low temperature eutectic bond balls Low temperature bond balls connect two structures having disparate coefficients of linear thermal expansion. An integrated circuit is made to heat the device such that the low temperature bond balls melt. After melting, the bond balls solidify, and the device is operated with the bond balls solidified. In one example, one of the two structures is a semiconductor substrate, and the other structure is a printed circuit board. The integrated circuit is a die mounted to the semiconductor substrate. The bond balls include at least five percent indium, and the integrated circuit is an FPGA loaded with a bit stream. The bit stream configures the FPGA such that the FPGA has increased power dissipation, which melts the balls. After the melting, a second bit stream is loaded into the FPGA and the FPGA is operated in a normal user-mode using the second bit stream.
US08671557B2	Tray in combination with electronic component attaching tool attached to the tray A tray is provided in combination with an electronic component attaching tool attached to the tray and includes an attachment depression part that includes an inner wall and to which an electronic component is attached, wherein forming of the inner wall of the attachment depression part does not substantially depend on an external shape of the electronic component, and a standard part formed in the inner wall of the attachment depression part and engaging with a first structure part of the electronic component attaching tool to align a position of the electronic component attaching tool to the standard part when a position of the electronic component is aligned to a first position of the tray using the electronic component attaching tool, the standard part having a shape which does not substantially depend on the external shape of the electronic component.
US08671554B2	Method of manufacturing a magneto-resistance effect element An example method for manufacturing a magneto-resistance effect element having a magnetic layer, a free magnetization layer, and a spacer layer includes forming a first metallic layer and forming, on the first metallic layer, a second metallic layer. A first conversion treatment is performed to convert the second metallic layer into a first insulating layer and to form a first metallic portion penetrating through the first insulating layer. A third metallic layer is formed on the first insulating layer and the first metallic portion. A second conversion treatment is performed to convert the third metallic layer into a second insulating layer and to form a second metallic portion penetrating through the second insulating layer.
US08671548B2	Method for providing a convertible card row Providing a greeting card display fixture having multiple rows, one or more of which are convertible rows to allow for adjustment of the number of rows in a display. When desired, the convertible row may be used to display another row of greeting cards, increasing the density of the overall display. When not desired, the convertible row may be pushed flush against the back of the display fixture, while still attached, allowing the full depth of the row of the display fixture to be used. A divider or support clip is used to support the convertible row when in use and to hold it in a storage position when not used. The divider clip also separates greeting cards within a row. The divider clip includes a clipping mechanism to attach the divider clip to the display fixture and an adjustable portion to support an adjacent convertible row.
US08671541B2	Method for producing a shutter and method for producing a set of two serrated belts The present invention concerns a method for producing a shutter (2) designed to be rolled up and unrolled, characterized in that on each face, opposite one another, is provided a serrated belt (3,4) comprising a succession of teeth, and in that, in order to make it possible for both belts (3,4) to mesh, the position of the teeth of at least one of the belts (3,4) is adjusted by deforming said belt (3,4) in such a way that both belts (3,4) can mesh, and that this mutual position of the belts (3,4) can subsequently be stabilized.
US08671536B2	Apparatus for installing a turbine case An apparatus for installing a turbine casing including a first drive subassembly and a member coupled to the first drive subassembly configured for engaging a first segment of the turbine casing. The apparatus may also include a second member coupled to the second drive subassembly configured for engaging the first segment of the turbine casing. The apparatus may be provided with a first retainer connected to the first member and configured for engaging a second segment of the turbine casing, and a second retainer connected to the second member and configured for engaging the second segment of the turbine casing.
US08671526B2	String covering apparatus Drawstrings or cords of clothing or non-clothing items such as carrying apparatuses are prevented from receding and being lost in the item by providing a flexible string covering apparatus through which strings or cords are passed. A central body region of a string covering apparatus is adorned with a team logo, company emblem, or the like, and aperture regions are arranged on opposite ends of the central body region in which to thread the string or cord. The thermoplastic composition material and the shape of apertures within the aperture regions prevent the string covering apparatus from sliding, allowing the user or maker of the string covering apparatus to display a desired image unobstructed by the string or cord.
US08671520B2	Slide assist device A slide assist device includes a draw-in unit including a case attached to one of a main body or a mobile body, a slider slidably placed on the case, a latch pivotally supported in the slider and switchable between a standby position locking in a corresponding portion of the case and a draw-in position releasing the locking; and an urging device; and an actuating member attached to the other of the main body or the mobile body, switching the latch from the standby position to the draw-in position, or from the draw-in position to the standby position. The latch includes an axis portion having a flat surface and rotatably fits in an axis hole of the slider and forming a positional control surface corresponding to the flat surface. When the latch is switched to the standby position, the flat surface and the positional control surface face each other.
US08671516B1	Gas-powered dual-hosed blower The gas-powered dual-hosed blower features two discharge tubes that are each outfitted with a valve that provides for independent adjustment of air speed therefrom. The two discharge tubes have full flexibility, which is associated with backpack blowers so that an end user may direct the air flow in a multitude of directions while simultaneously enabling the end user to adjust the air speed of each discharge tube independently. The valves for each discharge tube are positioned adjacent the blower, and are manipulated by a control stick located on the respective discharge tube. One of the control sticks includes a throttle, which enables adjustment of the engine speed therefrom.
US08671508B2	Dust collector In a dust collector, a main body includes a motor and a rotary fan. The rotary fan is to be driven by the motor to suck air from outside through an intake port provided at the main body. A receptacle unit configured to allow a battery pack to be attached thereto and an exhaust port configured to allow a dust bag to be detachably attached thereto are provided at the main body. A handle capable of being grasped and a belt fastening part configured to allow a belt to be fastened thereto are also provided at the main body. At an underside of the main body, a supporting surface is provided which is configured to allow the dust collector with the dust bag and the battery pack attached to the exhaust port and to the receptacle unit respectively to be placed thereon.
US08671506B2	Washing device A washing device has a washing cloth for removing contaminants, ink, etc. from a surface and an ultrasound device for assisting a cleaning operation. The washing device includes one or more ultrasound generators and one or more resonators each in the form of an oscillating flat metal body, from which sound energy is output onto a substantially linear region on the surface to be cleaned.
US08671504B2	Cover of vehicle optical sensor and vehicle optical sensor device A vehicle optical sensor device has a snow/ice removal orifice for jetting the cleansing fluid toward an upper space of a lens and an optical sensor cleansing orifice for jetting the cleaning fluid toward a lens surface of the lens of a camera. The jetted fluid from the snow/ice removal orifice and the optical sensor cleansing orifice removes snow/ice protruding from a sensor top cover of a case into a front upper space of the lens in an eaves shape and foreign matter on the lens surface of the lens of the camera.
US08671496B2	Insert for a microbial scrubbing device The microbial scrub brush in one embodiment employs an insert that is impregnated with an anti-bacterial disinfectant and that is housed within a housing of alcohol-compatible material and sealed over by a removable lid. The insert is maintained in sterile condition until ready for use. After removal of the lid, the insert is moved over the end of a female luer or other portion of a medical device and rotated in order to clean the exterior surface as well as the interior luminal surface of the device. In one embodiment, the insert includes a base from which extends an outer wall that defines a chamber. A plurality of complaint fingers extend from the base into the chamber. A plurality of wipers extend radially inward from the outer wall into the chamber to enable the cleansing of both the exterior surface and an interior surface of the medical device.
US08671494B2	Low friction rotational or translational interface for a mechanical system The mechanical system includes an interface for moving parts, with the mechanical system including a driving assembly and a driven assembly, wherein the driving assembly mates with the driven assembly at a mechanical joint (41). The driving assembly includes a rotating disc (16) and a drive arm (18) rotatably connected thereto. The driven assembly includes a pivot arm (40) which is driven by the drive arm and also a grounded member (44) fixed to the handle about which the pivot arm moves. A preload assembly, which includes a spring or springs (54, 56) is connected to the drive arm and the pivot arm so as to place a preload at the axis of rotation of the mechanical joint between the drive arm and the pivot arm.
US08671493B2	Dental cleaning device An electric toothbrush with a removable brush section having a transponder communicating with a handle portion of the toothbrush via a non-contacting inductive coupling.
US08671489B2	Device for bridging an expansion joint The invention relates to a device (1) for bridging an expansion joint (2) in the region of a carriageway, comprising a superstructure (5) and a substructure (6), and the superstructure (5) comprises at least one elastic element (15) and the substructure (6) forms a support for the superstructure (5). At least one holding element (19, 20) is disposed in the superstructure (5), which is at least partially embedded in the elastic element (15).
US08671488B2	Steam control device and method of drum washing machine A steam control device and method of a washing machine are disclosed. The steam control method includes determining whether an instruction of course washing with steam is input; opening a water supply valve to supply water into a steam generator if the instruction of course washing is input; detecting a temperature of water supplied to the steam generator using a temperature sensor; and checking a water supply time corresponding to the detected water supply temperature and supplying water to the steam generator for the water supply time.
US08671487B2	Air mattress having only two inflate/deflate ports for inflating four or six separate bladders The invention relates generally to a multi-bladder air mattress where only two inflation-deflation port members are required to inflate an air mattress having either four or six separate air bladders.
US08671482B2	Method and apparatus for dynamically correcting posture An orthopedic device for improving posture while sitting, having a foundation member including a front portion for upper legs and a bowl portion for lower pelvic area. The bowl portion has a central portion and an upwardly inclined lateral portion. The lateral portion and the front portion collectively surround the central portion. The central portion has regions of varying flexibility and the lateral portion has regions of varying flexibility. The bowl portion applies an upwardly and inwardly compressive force when the lower pelvic area is disposed in the bowl portion, and rotates on a supporting surface between a first position when the lower pelvic area is not disposed in the bowl portion, and a second position, rotationally forward of the first position, when the lower pelvic area is disposed in the bowl portion, to thereby cause a forward rotational tilting of the lower pelvic area into a forward lordotic position after the lower pelvic area is placed in the bowl portion.
US08671479B2	Vacuum patient positioning cushion with integrated rigid or semi-rigid positioning element A vacuum patient positioning cushion includes an integrated rigid or semi-rigid positioning element located within a gas-impermeable outer cover, making it possible to easily and correctly position a patient for a radiation therapy or other procedure without the need or use of external positioning devices. The gas-impermeable outer covering defines an airtight enclosure having a valve stem and closeable vacuum control valve in selective fluid communication with the enclosure. The enclosure houses a filler material and a rigid or semi-rigid positioning element. A method of positioning a patient using the vacuum patient positioning cushion is also provided.
US08677504B2	Method and apparatus for encrypting/decrypting multimedia content to allow random access A method is disclosed for encrypting a multimedia file including parsing the multimedia file to identify a media data portion; encrypting the media data portion; and, combining the encrypted media data portion with a non-encrypted non-media data portion. A method is also disclosed for playing a multimedia file including parsing the multimedia file to identify an unencrypted metadata portion; using the unencrypted metadata portion to locate a position of interest in the media file, the position of interest having an associated encrypted media data portion; and, decrypting the associated encrypted media data portion. An apparatus for performing the methods is also disclosed herein.
US08677499B2	Enforcing access control policies on servers in an information management system A method and apparatus for controlling document access and application usage using centrally managed rules. The rules are stored and manipulated in a central rule database via a rule server. Policy enforcers are installed on client systems and/or on servers and perform document access and application usage control for both direct user document accesses and application usage, and application program document accesses by evaluating the rules sent to the policy enforcer. The rule server decides which rules are required by each policy enforcer. A policy enforcer can also perform obligation and remediation operations as a part of rule evaluation. Policy enforcers on client systems and servers can operate autonomously, evaluating policies that have been received, when communications have been discontinued with the rule server.
US08677494B2	Malicious mobile code runtime monitoring system and methods Protection systems and methods provide for protecting one or more personal computers (“PCs”) and/or other intermittently or persistently network accessible devices or processes from undesirable or otherwise malicious operations of Java TN applets, ActiveX™ controls, JavaScript™ scripts, Visual Basic scripts, add-ins, downloaded/uploaded programs or other “Downloadables” or “mobile code” in whole or part. A protection engine embodiment provides for monitoring information received, determining whether received information does or is likely to include executable code, and if so, causes mobile protection code (MPC) to be transferred to and rendered operable within a destination device of the received information. An MPC embodiment further provides, within a Downloadable-destination, for initiating the Downloadable, enabling malicious Downloadable operation attempts to be received by the MPC, and causing (predetermined) corresponding operations to be executed in response to the attempts.
US08677490B2	Method for inferring maliciousness of email and detecting a virus pattern Provided is a method of distinguishing an abnormal e-mail and determining whether an e-mail is affected with a virus. The method includes the steps of: decoding a received e-mail packet in a readable format and then analyzing and classifying a header of the packet according to header information; determining whether each classified piece of header information is normal or abnormal, and giving a specific value to the corresponding header information according to the determination result; distinguishing an abnormal e-mail using the specific values given to the respective pieces of header information according to a logical inference rule; and when there is an executable attachment file among the header information of the e-mail distinguished as abnormal, determining whether the abnormal e-mail is infected with a virus using distribution of similarity among data. The method effectively distinguishes an abnormal e-mail and determines whether an e-mail is infected with a virus without a database for spam filtering or a database of virus information, and thus is capable of stopping the propagation of new viruses. Therefore, an e-mail server can have a security technique and handle abnormal e-mail in a step before operation of a spam filter server or an antivirus server. Consequently, it is possible to manage a mail server more securely.
US08677489B2	Methods and apparatus for managing network traffic Methods, apparatus, and computer readable storage media reduce or eliminate network traffic meeting criteria. In some aspects, network traffic transmitted by one or more source nodes to one or more destination nodes may comprise a denial of service attack against the destination node(s). At least a portion of the denial of service attack traffic may be reduced or eliminated with the disclosed methods and apparatus. In one aspect, a method of managing undesirable network traffic transmitted from a source node to a destination node over a communications network includes receiving a notification of a routing rule change, authenticating the notification, determining a network routing rule based on the notification, applying the network routing rule, determining a network path toward the source node, determining an entity based on the network path, and transmitting a notification of the routing rule change to the entity.
US08677486B2	System and method for near-real time network attack detection, and system and method for unified detection via detection routing A system includes a processor. The processor is configured to receive network traffic that includes a data block. The processor will generate a unique identifier (UID) for the file that includes a hash value corresponding to the file. The processor will determine whether the file is indicated as good or bad with the previously-stored UID. The processor will call a file-type specific detection nugget corresponding to the file's file-type to perform a full file inspection to detect whether the file is good or bad and store a result of the inspection together with the UID of the file, when the file is determined to be not listed in the previously-stored UIDs. The processor will not call the file-type specific detection nugget when the file's indicator is “good” or “bad” in the previously-stored UIDs. The processor will issue an alert about the bad file when the file's indicator is “bad”.
US08677485B2	Detecting network anomaly A method for detecting an anomaly in a network can include combining a number of data-created sketch-sets and requesting a finer sketch-set for an identified sketch-set among the combined number of sketch-sets using an aggregator, and creating the finer sketch-set for the identified sketch-set to detect the anomaly in the network using a monitor.
US08677479B2	Detection of adversaries through collection and correlation of assessments An automated arrangement for detecting adversaries is provided in which assessments of detected adversaries are reported to a reputation service from security devices, such as unified threat management systems in deployed customer networks. By using actual deployed networks, the number of available sensors can be very large to increase the scope of the adversary detection, while still observing real attacks and threats including those that are targeted to small sets of customers. The reputation service performs a number of correlations and validations on the received assessments to then return a reputation back to the security device in the enterprise network that can be used for blocking adversaries, but only when multiple, distinct sources report the same adversary in their assessments to thus ensure that the reputation is accurate and reliable.
US08677471B2	Port allocation in a firewall cluster A firewall cluster having three or more firewall processing nodes sharing the same shared IP address. Port numbers are assigned to the firewall processing nodes within the cluster and are used to distinguish between traffic sent to the cluster. Each network connection is assigned a destination port number. Each node receives the network connection and its assigned port number and determines if the assigned destination port number matches one of its assigned port numbers. If so, the node processes the network connection. If the assigned destination port number does not match one of its assigned port numbers, the network connection is discarded.
US08677468B2	Service activation in a passive optical network (PON) An Optical Line Terminal (2) connected to a Passive Optical Network provides a service to a Client device (1, 8) by receiving its hardware identity, as well as SIM-authentication information, from the Client device, and forwarding to the Authentication Server (3). After authentication of an end-user, a relationship is created between the Client device and the end-user. The OLT activates a service, based on service subscriptions associated with the end-user and on hardware-dependent service definitions associated with the Client device.
US08677465B2	Preventing inadvertent lock-out during password entry dialog One embodiment provides a computer-implemented method for providing controlled access to electronic content. A password is associated with electronic content, such as by password-protecting an electronic file that contains the electronic content. At least one password attempt is received in an effort to access the electronic content. Each password attempt is compared to the password at a selected subset of “trap” character positions. Up to a threshold number of password entries is allowed that have incorrect characters at any of the trap character positions. A greater number or even an unlimited number of incorrect password entries are allowed having incorrect characters at non-trap character positions. Access to the electronic content is allowed only if one of the password entries exactly matches the password.
US08677461B2	Method to provide chip based security for I/O packets in an array using dynamic topology An apparatus comprising a controller circuit and an array. The controller circuit may be configured to read/write data in response to one or more input/output requests. The array may be configured to present/receive data to/from the controller circuit in response to the input/output requests. The data may be only transmitted to/from the array after a successful authentication between (i) a first code embedded within each of the input/output requests and (ii) a second code stored on a non-volatile memory within the controller circuit.
US08677458B2	Hierarchical structure of a notification system including rights based on roles A method for determining access privileges for transmitting mass notifications, is disclosed. The method includes storing information regarding user-level access privileges of a group to transmit a notification. The user group includes a user that inherits the user-level access privileges of the user group. The method also includes storing information regarding administrator-level access privileges of an administrator group, and permitting access to transmit the notification by the user based on the user's access privileges, the at least one notification, and the at least one recipient. The administrator group includes an administrator that inherits the administrator-level access privileges. The administration module is configurable by the administrator based on the administrator's access privileges. A system for determining access privileges for transmitting mass notifications is also provided.
US08677451B1	Enabling seamless access to a domain of an enterprise A user is allowed to access any of a number of domains associated with an enterprise using a credential for any one of the domains. An exemplary method includes steps of receiving, from a user and at a first domain of the enterprise, a user identification and a password; determining, at the first domain, whether the user identification is associated with the first domain; and upon determination that the user identification is not associated with the first domain, determining, at the first domain, whether the user identification is associated with a second domain of the enterprise. The user identification and the password are authenticated at the first domain, upon determination that the user identification is associated with the second domain. Upon successful authentication, the user is enabled to access the second domain of the enterprise. The user identification does not need to include a character directly reflecting a domain name.
US08677450B2	Systems and methods of controlling network access A new approach to network security includes manipulating an access point such that an initial communication from an external device is passed to a restricted subset of a computing network including a gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is configured to enforce a security policy against the external device before granting access to a less-restricted subset of the computing network. If requirements of the security policy are satisfied, then the gatekeeper reconfigures the access point such that further communication from the external device may be received by elements of the less-restricted subset. Enforcement of the security policy optionally includes performing a security audit of the external device.
US08677435B2	Upstream power control for multiple transmit channels A novel apparatus for and method of upstream power control for multiple transmit channels. The invention is particularly useful in environments that include two level amplification, wherein the first level corresponds to each channel separately and the second level corresponds to the joint sum of all the channels. When working with two-level amplification, changing the joint sum amplification is permitted during specific time periods known as “CMTS re-configuration time” in the DOCSIS specification. The mechanism functions to maintain an optimal transmit power operating point of the PGA using self-configuration without any need to receive permission from an exterior control entity such as the cable head-end thus bypassing the prior art requirement of waiting for a global reconfiguration time from the CMTS (i.e. when the specification assures that there is sufficient time to change the PGA gain). This can be achieved with high confidence if there is sufficient quiet time (which is calculated) to perform the self-configuration of the PGA within a specific period of time.
US08677430B2	Content rental system A content rental system includes one data store for storing rental content. The content rental system also includes a content server for transferring content to one viewing device based upon a received request. The content server is further configured to authorize the transfer of the content from the viewing device to another viewing device.
US08677424B2	Remote control unit for intelligent digital audiovisual reproduction systems The invention relates to a remote control unit for intelligent digital audiovisual reproduction systems, comprising storage means, payment means, a sound control circuit, display means and a metal chassis wherein said remote control unit comprises a distant radio frequency transmitter that is associated with a radio frequency receiver connected to the sound control circuit of the audiovisual reproduction system.
US08677418B2	Method and system for electronic communication to television A system and method of displaying messages at a television is described. The method of displaying messages at a television includes: establishing communication over the Internet between a television and a server. A user-generated communication is received at the television from the server. A notification is displayed on the television that the user-generated communication has been received. The user-generated communication is displayed on the television.
US08677417B2	Method and apparatus for acquiring media services available from content aggregators A method for generating a unified list of media services available from a plurality of content aggregators having different data formats. A first list of media services from a first content aggregator is transmitted to a playback device. A second list of media services from a second content aggregator is also transmitted to the playback device, which combines both lists into a unified list of media services. The method optionally details the playback of a media service from said plurality of content aggregators via a selection made on the unified list to a playback device.
US08677412B2	Information descriptor and extended information descriptor data structures for digital television signals A digital television (DTV) data stream includes an event information table (EIT), the EIT including: a descriptor including: a descriptor tag identifying the descriptor as a genre descriptor, a descriptor length field, and at least one category code for an associated event in a DTV data stream.
US08677407B2	Image display apparatus and method for controlling the same There is provided an image display apparatus that receives a broadcast program and displays video images relating to the broadcast program. The image display apparatus comprises, among other things, a communication interface for communicating with a rendering apparatus that is externally connected; an input unit that receives image data for displaying graphic images from the rendering apparatus, the graphic images being different from the video images relating to the broadcast program; and a control unit that gives an instruction to the rendering apparatus, via the communication interface, to generate the image data, and obtains, via the input unit, image data generated by the rendering apparatus according to the instruction.
US08677406B2	Time-shift recording buffer as home network objects In a first embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided comprising: creating a temporary home network electronic program guide object for a television program currently stored in a time-shift buffer of a home network-enabled device; and storing an identifier for the temporary home network electronic program guide object in an object for a channel.
US08677396B2	Reception apparatus, reception method, transmission apparatus, transmission method, program, and broadcast system To realize a service of data content that can interlock with AV content of programs without providing a band for broadcasting data content in a broadcast band for digital television broadcast, provided is a reception apparatus that receives an audio and/or video (AV) content, the apparatus including: an extraction section to extract trigger information from the AV content, the trigger information being related to an application program that is executed interlocking with a progress of the AV content, the trigger information including a trigger type; and a control section to control one of an activation of the application program, a dispatch of an event of the application program being executed, and an end of the application program being executed in accordance with the trigger type included in the extracted trigger information.
US08677387B2	Adjusting a content rendering system based on user occupancy User occupancy is monitored within a space in which a video display of a content rendering system is viewable. The user occupancy can be monitored based on physical user attributes. At least one of audio rendering and video rendering by the content rendering system is adjusted based on the monitored user occupancy.
US08677386B2	Automatic rating system using background audio cues Methods and systems for capturing, transmitting and processing data for generating ratings relating to multimedia programming based on passively obtained user cues are disclosed herein.
US08677383B2	Radio frequency transponder for use with a medium A radio frequency transponder for use with a disc, such as a CD or DVD has an antenna formed by depositing a conductive solution on a surface of disc outside at adjacent to its outer periphery outside of the disc storage area to yield at least one conductive region. A transponder circuit is coupled to the antenna for supplying an RF signal to the antenna in response to a signal received from the antenna.
US08677382B2	Disc clamping mechanism by which a disc is held and rotated A cylindrical member is fixed to an upper portion of a rotary shaft and a clamper presses an optical disc in contact with the top of a turntable. The structure is such that a first bottom face of the cylindrical member that faces a clamping magnet in the axial direction is positioned below an opposite face of the clamper that faces the clamping magnet in the axial direction.
US08677379B2	System and method for consolidating middleware functionality A server manages middleware communication between the server and a plurality of client terminals through a communication network. The server includes a network interface device that communicates with the plurality of client terminals, storage that stores middleware management operational programs and data, and a processor that executes the middle management operational programs. The server implements a multi-layered marshaling process, which marshals middleware communications between the server and the plurality of terminals, and a consolidated middleware management process, which manages execution of middleware, the multi-layered marshaling process. The consolidated middleware management process is accessible to the plurality of client terminals communicating with the server via a plurality of different types of middleware.
US08677376B2	Expressing equivalency relationships with identity graphs across multiple environments to create change list to be traversed to conform the environments A synchronization system is described herein that synchronizes two environments by correctly matching identity objects in a source environment with related objects in a target environment. In addition to matching identities based on primitive attributes, the system matches identities across multiple heterogeneous environments based on their relative positions in an identity graph. The system builds the identity graph by first matching some identity objects based on primitive attribute value comparisons. The system fills in the remainder of the identity graph by comparing references to/from the matched identity objects. The combination of attribute value comparisons and comparing references enables identity-aware applications to complete a single identity graph, determine the equivalency of identities in this graph, and apply policy based on this new relationship.
US08677368B2	Broadcast receiving terminal and program execution method Under a resource manager, unexpected blocking is prevented without calling a handler for resolving a resource contention, by assigning a priority level depending on the program that has requested for a reservation of a resource as well as by assigning a special priority level which permits a reservation of a resource without any conditions in the case of a program which is urgently needed such as an EAS module.
US08677362B2	Apparatus for reconfiguring, mapping method and scheduling method in reconfigurable multi-processor system Provided are an apparatus for reconfiguring a mapping method and a scheduling method in a reconfigurable multi-processor system. A single function is mapped to a reconfigurable processor. When a task is created in the reconfigurable multi-processor system, a function of the task is dynamically mapped to a host processor or a reconfigurable processor, thereby removing temporal sharing between functions on the reconfigurable processor and thus reducing the number of times reconfiguration is performed. The overhead of the reconfigurable processor is minimized and the reconfigurable processor is optimized for a dynamic multi-application environment.
US08677359B1	Compute-centric object stores and methods of use Systems and methods for providing a compute-centric object store. An exemplary method may include receiving a request to perform a compute operation on at least a portion of an object store from a first user, the request identifying parameters of the compute operation, assigning virtual operating system containers to the objects of the object store from a pool of virtual operating system containers. The virtual operating system containers may perform the compute operation on the objects according to the identified parameters of the request. The method may also include clearing the virtual operating system containers and returning the virtual operating system containers to the pool.
US08677350B2	System and method for managing an application or software component for use in a device to be controlled in a home network The present invention relates to a system and method for managing an application wherein a function of a controlled device can be dynamically extended by continually updating the application for use in the controlled device. According to the present invention, a framework capable of providing integrated support to a variety of home network middleware is loaded on an application server corresponding to a control device, and Internet access services and middleware services for accessing various kinds of devices are bundled into the framework. Thus, application installation and management can be performed within a home network environment regardless of the hardware, network protocol and operating system used.
US08677343B2	Centrally coordinated firmware upgrade model across network for minimizing uptime loss and firmware compatibility Techniques are presented for managing firmware updates for a plurality of devices within a wireless network. Embodiments monitor network usage of the plurality of devices to collect historical usage data. An optimal window of time for updating the firmware of the plurality of devices is then determined, based on the collected historical device usage data. Embodiments flag at least one of the plurality of devices for a firmware update, based on a current firmware version of the device and a corresponding available firmware version for the device. In one embodiment, dependencies for each of the plurality of devices are considered in flagging the devices for the firmware update. The firmware of the flagged devices is updated during the determined optimal window of time.
US08677342B1	System, method and apparatus for replacing wireless devices in a system Systems, methods and apparatuses for replacing communication devices in a system. Configuration data of a replacement device (which may include a sub-part of the device) that is requesting inclusion in the system is received by a receiving device, which determines whether the received configuration data matches existing configuration data stored for an existing device currently included in the system. Upon identifying a match of the relevant configuration data, the device data associated with the existing device is identified, and replaced with device data of the replacement device, thereby effecting a one-step replacement of the existing device by providing the configuration data of the replacement device.
US08677333B2	Virtual machine and programming language for event processing A virtual machine supports execution of compiler-generated code and provides an execution environment for code that may correspond to any of several different event-driven or message-driven programming models (such as state machines, rules for complex event processing and event correlation, monitoring contexts, processes, and mediations). The programming models may be used in business monitoring and/or business integration environments. A programming language is defined for execution using the virtual machine, which contains a relatively small number of instructions and which is preferably generated by a compiler from a higher-level, event-driven or message-driven model.
US08677327B2	Service testing method and service testing system The present invention provides a service testing method and system using a surrogate. The service testing method comprises steps of: generating, according to service description of a service to be simulated, a service-specific surrogate for said service to be simulated; deploying the generated service-specific surrogate onto a runtime system; specifying a test case by referring to the generated service-specific surrogate, wherein said test case comprises test configuration; and setting, according to the test configuration, a configuration option of the deployed surrogate on the runtime system. In the service testing method and system according to the present invention, parameters of the surrogate are dynamically configured without necessity of rewriting and deployment, thereby reducing the burden of designing and generating Mock objects.
US08677321B2	User-space probe based debugging Methods and systems for user-space probe debugging are described. In one embodiment, a computing system receives a request from a user interface to debug a target application. In response to the request, the computing system runs the target application in a debug mode with an attached debugger. The debugger and the target application appear as a single application in a user-space of the computing system. The debugger has access to application memory of the target application. The computing system receives a command to perform a debug operation on the target application, such as setting a breakpoint, reading the application memory, or the like. The debugger performs the debug operation on the target application without communicating with a kernel of the computing system, and outputs debug information after performing the debug operation.
US08677306B1	Microcontroller controlled or direct mode controlled network-fabric on a structured ASIC A network-fabric used for testing with an external or internal tester is shown for a Structured ASIC. In one embodiment, the Structured ASIC uses a microprocessor, network-aware IO routing fabric comprising network agents in a scalable novel configuration, with the network-aware IO having a plurality of blocks connected in series in a plurality of paths in the fabric leading to and from the microprocessor and memory and/or logic, the blocks acting as intelligent network agents under processor control to determine what state they can assume, whether to pass a data signal or not along these paths, comprising open loops and closed loops running to and from the microprocessor and memory and/or logic, primarily for testing and determining the state of the memory and logic. In another embodiment a JTAG controller may receive JTAG test commands from an external testing apparatus and set up to communicate along the fabric.
US08677304B2	Task-based multi-process design synthesis A task-based multi-process design synthesis methodology relies on a plurality of child processes to assist a parent process in performing optimizations on an integrated circuit design. Objects from an integrated circuit design are grouped into subsets and assigned to child processes, with each child process performing a transform on each of the objects in the subset assigned to that child process and determining which of the objects in the subset are candidate objects for which performance of the transform has been successful. The child processes then notify the parent process of those objects that qualify as candidate objects, so that the parent process only has to perform the transform on the candidate objects, thereby relieving the parent process from the overhead associated with performing the transform on non-candidate objects for which the transform has been determined by the child processes as not being successful.
US08677294B2	Semiconductor device, adjustment method thereof and data processing system A system includes a first device, a second device, and a bus interconnecting the first and second devices to each other, wherein the first device includes a first semiconductor chip that includes a first memory cell array including a plurality of first memory cells, a first control logic circuit accessing the first memory cell array and producing a first data signal in response to data stored in a selected one of the first memory cells, the first control logic circuit being configured to store first timing adjustment information and to produce a first output timing signal that is adjustable in timing of change from an inactive level to an active level by the first timing adjustment information, a first data electrode, and a first data control circuit coupled to the first control logic circuit and the first data electrode.
US08677291B1	Double patterning compatible colorless M1 route A method for enabling functionality in circuit designs utilizing colorless DPT M1 route placement that maintains high routing efficiency and guarantees M1 decomposability of a target pattern and the resulting circuit are disclosed. Embodiments include: determining a boundary abutting first and second cells in an IC; determining a side of a first edge pin in the first cell facing a side of a second edge pin in the second cell; determining a first vertical segment of at least a portion of the side of the first edge pin and a second vertical segment of at least a portion of the side of the second edge pin; designating an area between the first vertical segment and the boundary as a first portion of a routing zone; and designating an area between the second vertical segment and the boundary as a second portion of the routing zone.
US08677286B2	Dynamic sizing user interface method and system for data display Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and devices for displaying information in a handheld device, comprising displaying information in a dynamically sizable cell in the display of the handheld device, wherein the cell comprises a portion of the display and the size of the cell is adjusted in response to the amount of information it contains. Embodiments of the present invention are enabled to display the information in plurality of dynamically sizable cells which display different categories of information. Embodiments are also enabled to adjust cell size in response to the size of other cells in the display.
US08677277B2	Interface cube for mobile device A computing device presents, on a screen, a three-dimensional rendering of an interface cube that includes a representation of a user's contacts displayed on at least one surface of the interface cube. The computing device receives a communication item from a peripheral application, where the communication item is associated with a particular contact of the user's contacts. The computing device creates a graphic based on the communication item and displays the graphic at a location on the representation of the user's contacts that corresponds to the location of the particular contact within a sequence of the user's contacts.
US08677276B1	System and method of contextual pre-tuning A method implemented on a multi-tuner receiver system comprises successively displaying a set of visual cards where each visual card of the set of visual cards comprises a graphical representation. A visual card of the set of visual cards is selected, the visual card being associated with a first television program. Based on a characteristic of the selected visual card, a second television program is identified. The second television program is then tuned.
US08677274B2	Highlighting items for search results The present invention provides a search capability to allow a user to easily locate a preference control, file, folder, control, or other system resource or data item associated with a search result. In one embodiment, a user enters a search term (or a portion thereof) in a search field associated with one or more resource types that may be searched. The user may be presented with a pop-up menu containing a list of likely matches. The user selects the desired preference control from the pop-up menu, and the corresponding preference pane, or other container, containing the selected data item, control, or other resource is displayed. In one aspect, as the user enters the search term (or portion thereof), certain icons are highlighted. Specifically, those icons that represent containers containing matching data items (such as preference panes having controls that match the search term) are highlighted. Different types of highlighting can be used depending on the degree of certainty as to which container is likely to contain the correct match.
US08677273B2	System and method for displaying media items A method including presenting one or more tabs on a display of a device corresponding to media content screens, presenting one or more media content items in a media content screen upon selection of a corresponding one of the one or more tabs, the one or more media content items being presented in at least one of scrollable rows and columns, including minimized content information with some of the media content items and including intermediate content information with other media content items and changing at least the intermediate content information to detailed content information corresponding to a selected one of the content items.
US08677260B1	Abstraction-aware distributed window configurations in complex graphical user interfaces A user interface to an application processing complex data of multiple data view abstractions allows selection, placement, size and other configurable characteristics of interface components to be controlled by a user and then associated with the data abstraction and processing task. Multiple configurations may be created to simplify the interface to include only necessary controls given an abstraction level of the data view and the task on that data. The configurations may be stored using symbolic references and subsequently loaded on demand into the interface. Mechanisms may be applied to ensure that similarly referenced configurations in storage are resolved and only the desired configuration is applied.
US08677255B1	Expanded container view for graphical editing environment A Web development environment includes a design view mode that provides an expanded view of container constructs within Web page being edited. When operating in a design view of the development environment, the user is provided an option to view all container constructs in an expanded view. The expanded view will temporarily increase the visual attributes of the container constructs allowing the user to more easily access the editing regions within the cells or content locations of the container. Increasing the visual attributes also allows the developer to see the structure of the edited Web page more clearly. When the developer is finished working with the container, he or she may then return to a standard or other view offered by the graphical development environment. The resulting containers will be re-rendered according to the originally-coded size, without the additional space added for viewing in the expanded mode.
US08677254B2	Discerning and displaying relationships between avatars The invention relates generally to virtual universe environments and, more particularly, to discerning and displaying information regarding relationships between two or more avatars in a virtual universe environment. In one embodiment, the invention includes determining whether a first avatar and a second avatar have at least one relationship with one or more common avatars in response to the first avatar initiating an interaction with the second avatar, and in the case that the first and second avatars have at least one relationship with at least one common avatar, displaying information regarding the relationship with the common avatar to at least one of the first and second avatar.
US08677251B2	Creation and suggestion of contact distribution lists Techniques described herein allow for suggesting creation of distribution lists and suggesting use of distribution lists once they have been created. For instance, these techniques may track a frequency with which contacts (e.g., email addresses, phone numbers, screen names, etc.) are used with one another. The techniques may then suggest that a user create a distribution list that includes those contacts. Furthermore, once a contact has been associated with a particular distribution list, these techniques may suggest that a user send a message to this distribution list in response to the user selecting the contact (rather than the list) as a destination of the message.
US08677245B2	Apparatus and method of grouping and displaying messages Provided are an apparatus and method of grouping and displaying messages. The apparatus verifies a grouping condition corresponding to messages, generates group message boxes obtained by grouping the messages based on the grouping condition, and displays the group message boxes. The group message boxes are connected with a reference axis, and the reference axis is used to arrange the group message boxes according to the grouping condition.
US08677240B2	Video processing system providing association between displayed video and media content and related methods A video processing system may include a display and a video processor coupled to the display. The video processor may be configured to ingest a time-referenced video and media content, correlate the media content to corresponding points in time in the time-referenced video, and generate on the display a video window for playing the time-referenced video and a media window for displaying the media content. The video processor may also be configured to bi-directionally associate the video window and the media window so that playing of the video changes the media window based upon reaching corresponding points in time in the time-referenced video, and so that selection of media content in the media window changes the video play to reflect corresponding points in time in the time-referenced video.
US08677238B2	Navigation of electronic device menu without requiring visual contact Methods, systems, and computer programs for controlling a device without requiring visual contact are presented. One method includes an operation for identifying available options for a user according to a state of a program executing on a device, where the available options correspond to possible menu items. Further, the method provides an audible output of the available options and the detection of a touch-based input, where the input is received at the device without providing an identifiable visual cue to the user. Further yet, the method includes operations for determining the selected option from the available options based on the timing of the input relative to the audible output, and for performing the selected option by the computer program. In another method, the options are presented to the user via different vibration patterns or via vibrations of a second device connected to the device.
US08677237B2	Integrated pinyin and stroke input Integrated pinyin and stroke input may be provided. First, a first input may be received. Next, in response to the first input, an input mode may be determined. The input mode may comprise a pinyin input mode, a stroke order input mode, or a stroke number input mode. Once the input mode is determined, data may be received based on the determined input mode. Then the received data may be converted based upon the determined input mode.
US08677234B2	Method and apparatus for generating a web site using a multi-dimensional description of the website A technique for generating a web site in accordance with received data entry by: determining at least one characteristic of at least one web site dimension of the web site based on the data entry; generating a multi-dimensional description of the web site based on the determined characteristics; retrieving web site data according to the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site; and generating the web site based upon the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site and the retrieved web site data.
US08677230B2	Network-based data consolidation, calculation and reporting engine Methods and computerized apparatus for shared business modeling involving multiple spreadsheet-based business models in a network of computers, report generation involving consolidation from at least two different spreadsheet-based business models as well as report generation involving multiple different spreadsheet-based business models are described.
US08677229B2	Presentation of files packaged within a page description language document Various embodiments herein provide one or more systems, methods, software, and data structures for presentation of files packaged within a page description language document, such as a Portable Document Format (“PDF”) document. Some embodiments include a packaged file presentation shell that may be instantiated within a user interface of a page description language reader application to provide a view of files packaged within a page description language file. Some such views may be interactive or adaptive within the user interface.
US08677227B2	Method and system for decoding Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes offer error correction at rates approaching the link channel capacity and reliable and efficient information transfer over bandwidth or return-channel constrained links with data-corrupting noise present. They also offer performance approaching channel capacity exponentially fast in terms of the code length, linear processing complexity, and parallelism that scales with code length. They also offer challenges relating to decoding complexity and error floors limiting achievable bit-error rates. Accordingly encoders with reduced complexity, reduced power consumption and improved performance are disclosed with various improvements including simplifying communications linking multiple processing nodes by passing messages where pulse widths are modulated with the corresponding message magnitude, delaying a check operation in dependence upon variable node states, running the decoder multiple times with different random number generator seeds for a constant channel value set, and employing a second decoder with a randomizing component when the attempt with the first decoder fails.
US08677224B2	Convolutional code for use in a communication system In a communication system, a transmitter receives an input bit, and in response thereto, generates at least an n-bit codeword, each bit of which is generated by a respective one of n generators of which m are exactly the same, m being greater than n/2. A receiver comprises: m detectors, each adapted to receive the bit generated by a respective one of the m generators, and provide a respective one of m partial detection signals if a strength of the received bit exceeds a predetermined minimum threshold; and a majority logic element adapted to receive each of the m partial detection signals, and provide an output bit indicative of the input bit only if more than m/2 of the received m partial detection signals exceeds the minimum threshold.
US08677221B2	Partial voltage read of memory A partial voltage level read is made on memory cells of a solid state memory device during a voltage settling time after the memory cells are charged (e.g., by a pulse from a charge pump). Digital values representing partial voltage levels are checked for errors (e.g., by an error correction code (ECC) engine). If the values can be corrected, then the values are released for host access. If the values cannot be corrected, then a full voltage read is performed on the memory cells after the voltage levels have substantially settled. Digital values corresponding to the full voltage reads can be released for host access. The use of partial voltage reads results in faster read of solid state memory devices.
US08677215B2	Method and system for error correction in flash memory A controller is described for a multi-level, solid state, non-volatile memory array having memory cells. The memory cells are configured to store data using a first number of digital levels. The controller is configured to encode multiple data bits to generate multiple encoded data bits, convert the multiple encoded data bits into multiple data symbols, and send the multiple data symbols for storage in a memory cell of the multi-level, solid state, non-volatile memory array. The controller is further configured to generate an output signal, using a second number of digital levels, based on data associated with the multiple data symbols stored in the memory cell. The second number of digital levels is greater than the first number of digital levels used to store the multiple data symbols in the memory cell. The controller is further configured to output multiple output data symbols based on the output signal.
US08677211B2	Data bus inversion using spare error correction bits In a memory system, a spare error correction bit is produced by processing data to be stored in sufficiently large chunks that the number of error correction bits required to protect each chunk are fewer than the available error correction signal lines on a memory bus and storage device. The spare bit is then used for an inversion bit in a parallel data bus inversion scheme, wherein data is selectively inverted to minimize bus switching. The transmission of data and error correction bits are spread over multiple phases, wherein parallel data bus inversion is applied to each phase. Alternatively, the transmission of data and error correction bits may be transmitted and stored in a single transaction. In either case, the spare bit is transmitted on a conventional memory bus and stored in a conventional memory module along with data and error correction bits.
US08677210B2	Method for encoding data with double-interlaced parity symbols, for a radio infrastructure, and associated codec A method is dedicated to encoding data that must be transmitted by means of a wave-based transmission infrastructure, and comprises i) a step consisting of creating in parallel M first matrices having T rows and C columns with subsets of data from B successive received bursts, the subsets of data from each burst being distributed within at least two successive first matrices, ii) a step consisting of creating in parallel M second matrices each having T rows and N columns with parity symbols resulting from encoding the data that is respectively contained in the rows of each of the M first matrices, iii) a step consisting of creating in parallel M first matrices having K rows and C columns with parity symbols resulting from encoding the data that is respectively contained in the columns of each of the M first matrices, and iv) a step consisting of distributing by interlacing, firstly, J subsets of parity symbols from each second matrix into J successive sets, and secondly P subsets of parity symbols from each third matrix into P of these successive sets, and of placing into each of the successive sets the respective data from the successive received bursts.
US08677207B2	Method for transmitting and receiving signalling information A method for protecting signalling information in a frame to be transmitted to a receiver in a communication system, comprising: encoding frame signalling information of the frame to protect the frame signalling information; and encoding Forward Error Correction FEC block signalling information of FEC blocks in the frame by using Reed-Muller codes to protect the FEC block signaling information.
US08677204B2	Methods and apparatus for transmitting/receiving data in a communication system A method of error control, including forming a plurality of first data symbols from a plurality of data bits, transmitting a first signal including the plurality of first data symbols, receiving a request for retransmission, forming a plurality of second data symbols from the plurality of data bits, and transmitting a second signal including the plurality of second data symbols. At least one of the first data symbols is formed from several of the plurality of data bits such that none of the second data symbols is formed from the several of the plurality of data bits.
US08677203B1	Redundant data storage schemes for multi-die memory systems A method for data storage includes storing data in a memory that includes one or more memory units, each memory unit including memory blocks. The stored data is compacted by copying at least a portion of the data from a first memory block to a second memory block, and subsequently erasing the first memory block. Upon detecting a failure in the second memory block after copying the portion of the data and before erasure of the first memory block, the portion of the data is recovered by reading the portion from the first memory block.
US08677197B2	Test apparatus A test apparatus including a first buffer section and a second buffer section that each buffers fail data and address data; an address fail memory section that writes the fail data buffered in the first buffer section to an address of an internal memory indicated by the address data corresponding to the fail data, using an RMW process; and a control section that, in a state in which the fail data and address data output from the testing section are supplied to the first buffer section, when unused capacity of the first buffer section becomes less than or equal to a predetermined first threshold value, supplies the fail data and address data output from the testing section to the second buffer section instead of to the first buffer section.
US08677191B2	Early detection of failing computers A computer management system may track services on multiple computers executing the same workload. Various performance counters may be retrieved from the computers and analyzed to identify those with low deviations and low mean deviations. Statistical tests may then be used to compare the values of a particular computer to the deviation of the group of computers to identify outliers, which may indicate degraded performance and imminent failure of the computer. The management system may analyze any collectable performance related parameter to identify outlying systems.
US08677180B2	Switch failover control in a multiprocessor computer system A system and a method for failover control comprising: maintaining a primary device table entry (DTE) in a first table activated for a first adapter in communication with a first processor node having a first root complex via a first switch assembly and maintaining a secondary DTE in standby for a second adapter in communication with a second processor node having a second root complex via a second switch assembly; maintaining a primary DTE in a second table activated for the second adapter and maintaining a secondary DTE in standby for the first adapter; and upon a failover, updating the secondary DTE in the first table as an active entry for the second adapter and forming a path to enable traffic to route from the second adapter through the second switch assembly over to the first switch assembly and up to the first root complex of the first processor node.
US08677176B2	Cable redundancy and failover for multi-lane PCI express IO interconnections Method and apparatus for providing failover operation for a connection between a first PCIE bridge and a first input/output (IO) device are provided. A first set of bussed bits is exchanged between the first PCIE bridge and the first IO device over a first link using a first set of lanes of the first PCIE bridge. In response to detecting a failure in the first link, at a PCIE bridge end, the first set of lanes is swapped with a second set of lanes of the first PCIE bridge for exchanging a second set of bussed bits between the first PCIE bridge and the first IO device over a second link using the second set of lanes, the second link connecting a second PCIE bridge with a second IO device. In response to detecting the failure in the first link, at an IO device end, the first set of lanes is switched with the second set of lanes for exchanging the second set of bussed bits between the first PCIE bridge and the first IO device over the second link using the second set of lanes.
US08677175B2	Reducing impact of repair actions following a switch failure in a switch fabric Techniques are disclosed for reducing impact of a switch failure and/or a repair action in a switch fabric. In one embodiment, a server system is provided that includes a first interposer card that operatively connects one or more server cards to a midplane. The first interposer card may include a switch module that switches network traffic for the one or more server cards. The first interposer card may be hot-swappable from the midplane, and the one or more server cards may be hot-swappable from the first interposer card. The server system may further include an interconnect between the first interposer card and a second interposer card.
US08677174B2	Management of runtime events in a computer environment using a containment region The scope and impact of an event, such as a failure, are identified. A Containment Region is used to identify the resources affected by the event. It is also used to aggregate resource state for those resources. This information is then used to manage one or more aspects of a customer's environment. This management may include recovery from a failure.
US08677172B2	Method and system for correcting error in a PLL generated clock signal using a system clock of lower frequency and/or accuracy The present invention provides a system for detecting timing characteristics of internal signals in a communications device, the system comprising: a system clock running at a known frequency; a test counter having a test input at which an internal signal to be tested is received; a gating counter having an input arranged to receive the system clock signal; and a system controller for controlling the counters; wherein the system controller controls the gating counter to count a predetermined number of system clock cycles to define a test period, and during the test period the test counter counts the cycles of the internal signal under test, whereby timing characteristics of the internal signal may be found with reference to a time base defined by the system clock. An associated method of operation is also described.
US08677170B2	Method for generating a clock signal An apparatus for generating a delayed clock signal. The apparatus is a computer system with a processor to which a memory device is coupled. The memory device has a delay clock generator that has a synchronizing circuit for generating an output clock signal from an input clock signal and further includes a delay circuit having an input coupled to the output of the synchronizing circuit. The delay circuit provides an output clock signal having a delay with respect to the clock signal from the synchronizing circuit according to one of a plurality of programmable time delays selected in accordance with a selection signal. The method of generating a clock signal includes synchronizing an internal clock signal to an external clock signal, and delaying the internal clock signal different amounts based on a selection value indicative of external clock frequency to provide the clock signal.
US08677156B2	Image forming apparatus An image forming apparatus includes an image controller that performs processing of input image information, an engine controller into which a first processing part and a second processing part are combined, and a power supply that supplies power to the engine controller. A mode of the image forming apparatus is switchable from a first mode that is a state of image formation or a stand-by state, to a second mode whose power consumption is smaller than a power consumption of the first mode. In addition, a switch unit switches between the first mode in which power is supplied to the second processing part from the power supply. The image controller and the first processing part communicate with each other through the second processing part in the first mode, or the image controller and the first processing part communicate with each other through a communication line but not through the second processing part in the second mode. In the second mode the first processing part controls the switch unit to start supplying power to the second processing part when the image controller orders transition from the second mode to the first mode through the communication line.
US08677152B2	Method and apparatus for encrypting media programs for later purchase and viewing A system and method for storing and retrieving program material for subsequent replay is disclosed. The method includes accepting a receiver ID associated with a receiver key stored in a memory of the receiver, determining a pairing key for encrypting communications between the conditional access module and the receiver, encrypting the pairing key with the receiver key, and transmitting a message comprising the encrypted pairing key to the receiver. The apparatus comprises a receiver for receiving a data stream transmitting a media program encrypted according to a media encryption key and an encrypted media encryption key and a conditional access module, communicatively coupleable with the receiver.
US08677147B2	Method for accessing services by a user unit The invention concerns a method for providing a plurality of receivers with conditional access to broadcast services using a simplified means for managing the control messages required by such conditional access schemes. The method involves providing all information which will allow a registered receiver having the necessary decryption key to access the services without having any prior rights loaded locally. A management center keeps a register of all subscribed receivers, including a list of services to which the receiver is subscribed, and encrypts the services using control words encrypted by the necessary keys. Control messages comprising the control words for decryption are provided within a special channel to which the receiver has permanent access, the special channel being a different one from channels used for broadcasting audio/video services.
US08677138B2	System and method of secure authentication information distribution A system and method of distributing authentication information for remotely accessing a computer resource. A request for authentication information, including identity information, is received from a user of a remote device. When the user is authenticated based on the identity information, requested authentication information is retrieved and returned to the remote device. The authentication information, or information generated from the authentication information, is then used for remotely accessing the computer resource.
US08677132B1	Document security A method for managing a secured document. The method includes storing and retrieving the secured document based on hybrid fragmentation and replication scheme to provide user viewing of the secured document by (a) generating an image representing human discernible content of the secured document, (b) modifying the image to generate a modified image that is embedded with a digital watermark, where the digital water mark is human indiscernible and represents a security policy extracted from the secured document, and (c) sending, to a secured device for displaying to the requesting user, the modified image embedded with the digital watermark.
US08677124B2	Method and device for securing data transfers The method of securing data transfer comprises: a step of attempting to transmit a document from a document sender to at least one document recipient, by implementing at least one transmission attribute and for at least one step of attempted transmission, a step of evaluating the value of at least one transmission attribute and a step of making the evaluation of the value of the transmission attribute available to the sender. Preferably, in the course of the evaluating step, the evaluation is dependent on the anomalies of correspondence that are observed for each attempted transmission. Preferably, in the course of the evaluating step, the evaluation is, moreover, dependent on the elements provided by the recipient in the course of a step of registering with an electronic document transmission service.
US08677123B1	Method for accelerating security and management operations on data segments A method for improving the performance of data storage and transmission systems involves applying a transformation to one or a plurality of aligned data segment(s) prior to or subsequent to the execution of data management operations. The transformation effectively reduces the number of bits in the data segment that must be employed by the data management operation processing. Data management operations performed on a data segment may include but are not limited to cryptographic security operations and data comparison operations. Since the computation requirements of data management operations can decrease as the bit lengths of input data decrease, the transformation can reduce the latencies of data management operations in hardware or software. Furthermore, performing the transformation on a data segment does not reduce the number of bits needed to encode the data segment, thus maintaining the alignment of a plurality of data segments.
US08677121B2	Monitoring encrypted session properties Methods and systems for monitoring encrypted session properties include receiving a number of encrypted session properties at a real user monitor (RUM) on a real user monitoring (RUM) system, decrypting the number of encrypted session properties using an identity and access management (IAM) agent on the RUM system, and sending the number of decrypted session properties from a RUM mirror application to the RUM.
US08677117B2	Remote management of boot application Systems and arrangements for remotely selecting a bootable image via a WOL packet for a wake-on-LAN (WOL) capable computer are contemplated. Server-side embodiments include hardware and/or software for determining a client to be managed, determining whether the client is active on the network, and transmitting a WOL packet having a vector, or operating system partition identification (OSPID), to describe a bootable image accessible by the WOL capable computer. Some embodiments may include an OSPID that points to a secure bootable image such as a bootable image on a hard drive, a compact disk (CD) connected to the computer, or other local resource. Client-side embodiments may receive the WOL packet at, for instance, a network interface card (NIC), recognize that the WOL packet includes an OSPID that describes the bootable image to boot, and implement an alternative boot sequence to boot from that bootable image.
US08677112B2	Automatic notification based on generic storage framework According to one general aspect, a method may include associating a configuration value with at least one machine executable activity. The method may also include detecting that the configuration value has changed. In various embodiments, the method may include automatically determining which, if any, machine executable activities are directly dependent upon the changed configuration value. The method may further include automatically executing, by a processor, at least a portion of the machine executable activities that are directly dependent upon the changed configuration value.
US08677109B2	Non-volatile memory device adapted to identify itself as a boot memory Non-volatile memory devices and methods of their operation are provided. One such non-volatile memory device has an interface and a control circuit. The non-volatile memory device is adapted to identify itself as a boot memory in response to receiving an interrogation request on the interface.
US08677108B2	Method for finding next component to be booted based on booting status of current component to continue booting process by using a component look-up table A method to allow a device to boot in a secure fashion, even though some of the components within the secure device's firmware may not be present, not correctly authorized, or not correctly operating.
US08677105B2	Parallel processing of a sequential program using hardware generated threads and their instruction groups executing on plural execution units and accessing register file segments using dependency inheritance vectors across multiple engines A unified architecture for dynamic generation, execution, synchronization and parallelization of complex instructions formats includes a virtual register file, register cache and register file hierarchy. A self-generating and synchronizing dynamic and static threading architecture provides efficient context switching.
US08677090B2	First storage apparatus and first storage apparatus control method The object is to achieve a disaster recovery configuration in a short period of time. In a first storage apparatus 1P, a child-generation volume 3PB is created using a snapshot from a parent volume 3PA, and a grandchild-generation volume 3PC is created using a snapshot from the child-generation volume 3PB. Similarly, in a second storage apparatus 1S as well, a child-generation volume 3SB is created using a snapshot from a parent volume 3SA, and a grandchild-generation volume 3SC is created using a snapshot from the child-generation volume 3SB. The parent volumes form a normal remote copy pair. The child-generation volumes and the grandchild-generation volumes form virtual remote copy pairs without implementing an initial copy.
US08677089B2	Storage apparatus and storage system A storage apparatus includes: an associating unit that associates a first memory area in which data to be copied are stored and a second memory area of a destination storage apparatus to which the data are copied; a detecting unit that detects a start or an end of copying the data from the first memory area to the second memory area associated by the associating unit; and an access control unit that controls access to the first memory area and the second memory area based on a result of detection performed by the detecting unit.
US08677072B2	System and method for reduced latency caching A reduced latency memory system that prevents memory bank conflicts. The reduced latency memory system receives a read request and write request. The read request is then handled by simultaneously fetching data from a main memory and a cache memory. The address of the read request is compared with a cache tag value and if the cache tag value matches the address of the read request, the data from the cache memory is served. The write request is stored and handled in a subsequent memory cycle.
US08677071B2	Control of processor cache memory occupancy Techniques are described for controlling processor cache memory within a processor system. Cache occupancy values for each of a plurality of entities executing the processor system can be calculated. A cache replacement algorithm uses the cache occupancy values when making subsequent cache line replacement decisions. In some variations, entities can have occupancy profiles specifying a maximum cache quota and/or a minimum cache quota which can be adjusted to achieve desired performance criteria. Related methods, systems, and articles are also described.
US08677069B2	Semiconductor storage device Provided is a semiconductor storage device having a first interface section meeting a USB standard for connection to host equipment, a NAND memory section that is a first semiconductor memory section, a second interface section to which small memory cards can be connected, each small memory card having a second semiconductor memory section, and a controller capable of controlling the NAND memory section and the second semiconductor memory sections by one linear address.
US08677067B2	Storage system and method for controlling storage system In a storage system in which storage apparatuses communicatively coupled to a host computer are communicatively coupled to SVPs of the storage apparatuses through a management network, virtual SVPs are configured based on resources of the SVPs, and a maintenance environment for constituent elements of the storage apparatuses is provided through the virtual SVP to a maintenance apparatus accessing through the management network. The virtual SVPs share the information held by the SVPs. The virtual SVP performs maintenance and management of the storage apparatuses through a virtual storage apparatus configured based on the resources of at least two of the storage apparatuses. The virtual SVP acquires a data transmission amount for each communication protocol of a network port from a channel control unit, and sets a bandwidth for each communication protocol of the network port based on the acquired data transmission amount.
US08677060B2	Isolation switching for backup of registered memory Certain embodiments described herein include a memory system having a register coupled to a host system and operable to receive address and control signals from the host system, a volatile memory subsystem, a non-volatile memory subsystem, a controller coupled to the non-volatile memory subsystem, and a circuit coupled to the register, the volatile memory subsystem, and the controller. In a first mode of operation, the circuit is operable to selectively isolate the controller from the volatile memory subsystem, and to selectively couple the volatile memory subsystem to the register to allow data to be communicated between the volatile memory subsystem and the host system. In a second mode of operation, the circuit is operable to selectively couple the controller to the volatile memory subsystem to allow data to be communicated between the volatile memory subsystem and the non-volatile memory subsystem using the controller, and is operable to selectively isolate the volatile memory subsystem from the register.
US08677059B2	Memory system According to one embodiment, a memory system includes a nonvolatile semiconductor memory include a first area, and a second area smaller than the first area; and a controller configured to control data stored in the nonvolatile semiconductor memory, wherein the nonvolatile semiconductor memory is configured to store a first data accessible by a host command and to a second data inaccessible by the host command, and when receiving the host command, the controller writes the second data of the first area within the second area and initializes a first address information related the first data.
US08677057B1	Initiating memory wear leveling Systems and processes may use a host and an external host. The host may be a portable device that includes a memory, a memory controller, and a communication interface for communication with the external host. The portable device may receive a command signal from the external host and initiate a predetermined amount of wear leveling in response to the command signal.
US08677056B2	Methods and apparatus for interfacing between a flash memory controller and a flash memory array Methods and apparatus are provided for interfacing between a flash memory controller and a flash memory array. The interface comprises a communication channel between the flash memory controller and the flash memory array, wherein the communication channel carries data for a target cell in the flash memory array on a first edge of a clock signal and wherein the communication channel carries additional information for the target cell on a second edge of the clock signal. For an exemplary write access, the additional information comprises, for example, information about one or more aggressor cells associated with the target cell. For an exemplary read access, the additional information comprises, for example, soft information for the data for the target cell transmitted on the first edge.
US08677050B2	System, method and computer program product for extending a cache using processor registers According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a method and technique for using processor registers for extending a cache structure is disclosed. The method includes identifying a register of a processor, identifying a cache to extend, allocating the register as an extension of the cache, and setting an address of the register as corresponding to an address space in the cache.
US08677046B2	Deadlock resolution in end-to-end credit protocol A method for deadlock resolution in end-to-end credit protocol includes receiving a data frame and determining a number of credits required to transmit the data frame. The method also includes requesting and receiving credits from an end controller and responsively incrementing a credit counter. The method further includes determining if a value of the credit counter is greater than the number of credits required to transmit the data frame. Based on determining that the value of the credit counter is at least the number of credits required, the method includes transmitting the data frame to the end controller and decreasing the value of the credit counter by the number of credits required to transmit the data frame. Based on determining that the value of the credit counter is less than the number of credits required, the method includes transmitting a credit shortage notification to the end controller.
US08677042B2	Interrupt moderation A technique for interrupt moderation allows coalescing interrupts from a device into groups to be processed as a batch by a host processor. Receive and send completions may be processed differently. When the host is interrupted for receive completions, it may check for send completions, reducing the need for interrupts related to send completions. Timers and a counter allow coalescing interrupts into a single interrupt that can be used to signal the host to process multiple completions. The technique is suitable for both dedicated interrupt line and message-signaled interrupts.
US08677020B2	Device, system and method of wireless delivery of targeted advertisements Devices, systems and methods of wireless delivery of targeted advertisements. A system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention includes a modifier to receive a message transmitted by a first wireless communication device and intended for reception by a second wireless communication device, and to selectively add an advertisement to the message prior to its presentation on the second wireless communication device. The message is a Short Message Service (SMS) message, a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message, an Instant Messaging (IM) message, and an Electronic Mail (Email) message.
US08677011B2	Load distribution system, load distribution method, apparatuses constituting load distribution system, and program A load distribution system that can further reduce load on a single apparatus and a network and that can distribute load for each process. The load distribution system of the present invention comprises: at least one packet forwarding apparatus comprising a packet forwarding unit that forwards a packet by using a forwarding rule sent from a flow control apparatus and a flow end check unit that detects a flow end; a load distribution apparatus that determines a load distribution destination from among a plurality of service provider servers by referring to a flow end notification sent from the flow control apparatus; and a flow control apparatus comprising a flow route setting unit that determines a forwarding route for a flow using a service provider server determined by the load distribution apparatus and notifies a packet forwarding apparatus on the forwarding route of a forwarding rule realizing the forwarding route and a flow end determination unit that notifies the load distribution apparatus of a flow end, based on flow end information detected by the packet forwarding apparatus.
US08677009B2	Massive structured data transfer optimizations for high-latency, low-reliability networks Optimizations for data transmission may be provided. A portion of a data block may be read into a batch by a read thread on a first server. The batch may be passed to a transmission thread. The transmission thread may then transmit the first batch to a second server while the read thread asynchronously reads a second portion of the data block into another batch.
US08677008B2	Distributed storage system with high bandwidth utilization A distributed storage system comprising a plurality of storage-and-computing elements, each storing a plurality of small content fragments associated with a plurality of contents, wherein a content retrieval load is shared between the storage-and-computing elements such that approximately the total uplink bandwidth of the distributed storage system can be utilized, on a continuous basis, by virtually any combination of multiple storage-and-computing elements simultaneously retrieving many contents or retrieving the same content with different time shifts.
US08677006B2	Processing media streams Method and communication system for processing media streams. A plurality of synchronized media streams are provided to a respective plurality of communication clients at a respective plurality of end points of a communication system. The communication clients output the media streams at the end points, wherein the amount of time required for said providing and outputting of the media streams is different for the plurality of end points. At least one of said providing and said outputting of at least one of the media streams is controlled so that the outputting of the plurality of media streams is synchronized at the plurality of end points.
US08677003B1	Distributed processing of streaming data on an event protocol An exemplary method for distributed processing of streaming data on an event protocol comprises receiving a plurality of related events from the streaming data at a node, amending a state of the related events, determining an error margin based on the amended state, and updating a current data transformation based on the amended state and error margin, thereby enabling real time analysis of streaming data.
US08676997B2	System and method for unitized maneuvers for multi-player games There is provided a system and method for facilitating unitized maneuvers for a shared environment to mitigate the effects of network latency. There is provided a method for use by a processor of a server for facilitating unitized maneuvers for a shared environment, the method comprising receiving a first message generated by a first client of a plurality of clients in response to the first client initiating a first unitized maneuver on a first object for rendering the shared environment and sending a second message to a second client of the plurality of clients in response to receiving the first message to communicate the first unitized maneuver so as to cause the second client to render the first object executing the first unitized maneuver in the shared environment approximately synchronously with the first client until a first end time determinable using parameters of the first unitized maneuver.
US08676995B1	System and method for enabling pairing of a companion device with a mate device for performing a companion service A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes establishing a connection between a first client and a messaging fabric of a conductor element associated with a video system; receiving a request to perform a companion service with a second client; authenticating the first client via a client directory based on an identifier associated with the first client; receiving a pair message from the first client for the second client; and verifying whether the two clients can be paired in order to perform the companion service. Companion service commands can be authorized/policy checked and resulting commands on the second client may appear as-if they had been triggered locally.
US08676989B2	Robust domain name resolution A recursive DNS nameserver system and related domain name resolution techniques are disclosed. The DNS nameservers utilize a local cache having previously retrieved domain name resolution to avoid recursive resolution processes and the attendant DNS requests. If a matching record is found with a valid (not expired) TTL field, the nameserver returns the cached domain name information to the client. If the TTL for the record in the cache has expired and the nameserver is unable to resolve the domain name information using DNS requests to authoritative servers, the recursive DNS nameserver returns to the cache and accesses the resource record having an expired TTL. The nameserver generates a DNS response to the client device that includes the domain name information from the cached resource record. In various embodiments, subscriber information is utilized to resolve the requested domain name information in accordance with user-defined preferences.
US08676984B2	Live directory of cloud tenants to enable inter-tenant interaction via cloud A system for enabling communication between multiple cloud-based services operating on a common cloud infrastructure includes a cloud infrastructure providing cloud-based services. The cloud-based services include a first service of a first tenant and a second service of a second tenant. A live directory is located within the cloud infrastructure and aggregates and distributing sharing and availability information pertaining to one or more of the cloud-based services. A back-end network is within the cloud infrastructure and enables communication between the cloud-based services and the live directory. A wide area network enables communication between the cloud-based services and one or more remote clients. The sharing and availability information pertaining to one or more of the cloud-based services aggregated and distributed by the live directory is used to establish a back-end connection between the first service of the first tenant and the second service of a second tenant.
US08676976B2	Microprocessor with software control over allocation of shared resources among multiple virtual servers A system and computer program product for controlling the allocation of shared resources. The system includes a next request priority module connected to a shared resource and to a plurality of requesters identified by requester identifiers. The next request priority module includes a pending request mechanism that prioritizes pending requests for the shared resource, a logging mechanism logging requester identifiers associated with previous grants to the shared resource, and next request priority logic. The next request priority logic accesses the next pending request to determine if it should be granted priority to the shared resource. The determining is responsive to logged requester identifiers and to the next requester identifier. Priority is granted to the shared resource to the next pending request in response to determining that the next pending request should be granted priority to the shared resource. The next requester identifier is logged in response to the granting.
US08676975B2	Virtual universe desktop exploration for resource acquisition The present invention is directed to a system, method and program product that allows a user to acquire resources from a local computer during a session with a virtual universe. Disclosed is a system that allows a user to: invocate a local operating system session that displays an operating system interface onto a client computer during a virtual universe session; navigate the operating system interface using an avatar; and acquire resources from the client computer via the operating system interface using the avatar.
US08676971B2	Method, system and computer program product for providing ethernet VLAN capacity requirement estimation A method, system, and computer program product for providing VLAN capacity requirement estimation is provided. The method includes receiving at a computing system a VLAN configuration file that specifies VLAN access ports, VLAN switches and VLAN trunks in a VLAN. A target access port identifier is received at the computing system from a requestor. A target trunk and target switch corresponding to the target access port are determined at the computing system. A bandwidth contribution of the target access port to the VLAN is calculated at the computing system. The calculating is based on a least contribution algorithm that reflects an impact of provisioning the target access port with respect to trunk capacity, and is responsive to the target bandwidth requirement, the target class of service and placement of the target port in the VLAN. The bandwidth contribution is then transmitted to the requestor.
US08676964B2	Detecting outliers in network traffic time series According to an aspect of the invention, a system and method is configured to detect time series outliers in network traffic.
US08676958B1	System and method for monitoring the status of multiple servers on a network A system and method for monitoring a plurality of servers by a monitoring server in a computer network. A list of servers and a plurality of services to monitor in the computer network is generated at the monitoring server. A status query is transmitted sequentially by the monitoring server to each of the plurality of servers, the status query including the plurality of services to monitor at each server. A status message report is received from each of the plurality of servers in response to each status query. An event is reported in an event log for each server that has an abnormal service status. The transmission of the status query to each server is performed by the monitoring server at a specified service time interval.
US08676945B2	Method and system for processing fault alarms and maintenance events in a managed network services system An approach for supporting automated fault isolation and recovery is provided. A workflow event corresponding to an alarm indicative of a fault within a customer network is generated. Recovery from the fault is automated according to the workflow event. Alarm information is transmitted to a maintenance management system, wherein the alarm information specifies information about the alarm. A maintenance event information from the maintenance management system is received in response to the transmitted alarm information. Additionally, it is determined whether the alarm is correlated to a maintenance event based on the maintenance event information. Automated handling of the alarm is differentiated based on the correlation.
US08676941B2	Using wireless technology to direct complex wiring configurations A network comprises at least one network device and a plurality of unconnected network ports, the apparatus comprising: a send component for sending an identification message to each network device; a receive component, responsive to the send component sending the identification message, for receiving at least one identification response from the network; an analyze component, responsive to the receive component receiving an identification response, for determining the plurality of unconnected network ports comprising a first network port; an identify component, responsive to the analyze component determining the plurality of unconnected network ports, for determining the first network port; and a send component, responsive to the identify component determining the first network port, operable for sending a first location message to the first network port.
US08676938B2	Local streaming proxy server A local application streaming proxy can create a virtual image of storage media, which allows cloud operators to rapidly deliver applications, or deliver any operating system remotely, while providing better security, network utilization, low power requirements, and consistent performance for streamed applications and operating systems. A station using its WiFi/LAN provides QoS guarantees (or priority) for application streaming network communications to create a consistent user experience regardless of other application bandwidth utilization. “HTTP demand paging” is also possible.
US08676924B2	Server and simultaneous access control method thereof A server and a simultaneous access control method, the server including: a connector to receive data from and transmit data to a plurality of clients; and a connection manager to extract a simultaneously accessible client from among the plurality of clients, and to permit access to the extracted client, if the plurality of clients request access to the server. Therefore, effective network traffic can be provided.
US08676923B2	Use of discovery scanning and method of IP only communication to identify owners and administrators of network attached devices Method, system, and product for remotely communicating with and identifying owners of objects on an IP network by providing a database identifying owners of objects on an IP network, discovery scanning the IP network for logical objects, sending a message to an unlisted logical object requesting a registration action of the recipient, receiving the registration action indicating an owner of the logical object, and updating the database with the received indication of the owner of the object. The method, system, or product may be embodied in a software application (such as an operating system element), a dedicated processor, or a dedicated processor with dedicated code.
US08676916B2	Method and apparatus for connection to virtual private networks for secure transactions A system and method are provided for use in establishing secure end-to-end communication links over a VPN gateway via a network interface unit. Illustrative embodiments include establishing and providing secure communication relationships between users (customers) and companies for e-commerce and other business purposes. Each company's data and linkage to users remaining private and secure from the other participating companies as well as from the general public over the Internet. Login by user with network interface units, addressing, authentication, and other configuration operations achieved using a web page-based GUI are applied in establishing tunnels from LAN clients to desired VPN destinations. Required authentication exchanges and required encryption key exchanges facilitate the secure communications. Financial arrangements regarding the provisioning and use of network interface units are also disclosed.
US08676908B2	Method and system for seamless interaction and content sharing across multiple networks A system and method for communication between a plurality of users in a communication network are disclosed. Each of the plurality of users is associated with at least one communication device. The method includes receiving a message from a sender intended for at least one recipient in the communication network wherein the sender has initiated sending of the message using the associated communication device. The message may be selected from a group comprising text, audio, video and multimedia. The method further includes customizing the message for at least one communication device associated with the at least one recipient based on a set of rules. Additionally, the method includes delivering the customized message to the at least one communication device associated with the at least one recipient based on the availability of the at least one recipient on the at least one communication device.
US08676907B2	Relay apparatus, relay method and recording medium Disclosed is a technique which prevents description offensive to public order and morals, included in an electronic mail, from meeting the eyes of a receiver. If an electronic mail message is included in a payload part of a data packet delivered from a communication interface 11-2, a control section 13 of a relay apparatus 10-m determines whether a character string offensive to public order and morals is included in a body text part thereof. If the character string offensive to public order and morals is included therein, the control section 13 generates hiding data by encoding the body text part in a mail body of the original electronic mail message. The control section 13 overwrites a hiding notification character string in the body text part in the original electronic mail message, generates a body text-hidden electronic mail message which describes the hiding data in a content body of a part different from the body text part, and transmits it to a terminal 20-i.
US08676902B2	System and method for service oriented email client application A system to facilitate a service oriented email client application. The system includes a service registry, a service address book coupled to an email client, and an email composer coupled to the service address book. The service registry includes service information. The service information describes how to invoke a web service. The service address book includes a web service entry linked to the service information for the web service in the service registry. The email composer generates a user input form with a custom input field corresponding to the service information for the web service.
US08676874B2	Data structure for tiling and packetizing a sparse matrix A computer system retrieves a slice of sparse matrix data, which includes multiple rows that each includes multiple elements. The computer system identifies one or more non-zero values stored in one or more of the rows. Each identified non-zero value corresponds to a different row, and also corresponds to an element location within the corresponding row. In turn, the computer system stores each of the identified non-zero values and corresponding element locations within a packet at predefined fields corresponding to the different rows.
US08676868B2	Macro programming for resources A system and a method are disclosed for generating, storing, retrieving, and utilizing a search macro or shortcut link to a resource, such as a web site that provides access to an information database. The system may load a page into an application from the resource. The resource may have a Uniform Resource Identifier, and the page may have a search field that causes the application to generate a message when activated. The system may read the Uniform Resource Identifier insert a placeholder into the search field, and activate the search field, which causes the application to generate a message. The system may read the message and parse the message to isolate a search string containing the placeholder. The system may store the search string in a data structure, and may also store the Uniform Resource Identifier and associate it with the search string in the data structure. The system may further retrieve the search string, replace the placeholder with a search term, and generate a message as a function of the search string and the search term.
US08676863B1	Maintaining a relational database and its schema in response to a stream of XML messages based on one or more arbitrary and evolving XML schemas A facility for representing in a relational database informational content of the series of tag-language messages is described. The facility reads an arbitrary number of the tags contained by the series of messages. For each read tag, the facility determines a path for the tag, the name of a relational table assigned to the path, values specified for the tag and/or attributes of the tag, in the name of columns of relational tables assigned to the tag and/or tag attribute values. After doing this processing, the facility updates the relational database so that and it includes all of the assigned relational tables and a relational table columns, and populates the value specified for the tags and/or attributes of tags to the relational database.
US08676849B2	Storing lossless transforms of data Techniques and environments that increase the convenience, efficiency and variety of cloud services are offered to clients. User data having an original representational format is losslessly transformed to form one or more alternate renditions having various representational formats based on the lossless transforms. The renditions, which may be pre-generated, can be stored on a network server instead of the identical user data to thereby reduce redundant computation and storage costs. In some cases both the renditions and the original use data may be stored. The original user data may be reconstructed, recreated, or restored using the alternate renditions.
US08676833B2	Method and system for requesting social services from group of users A system for transmission, reception and accumulation of the knowledge packets to plurality of channel nodes in the network operating distributedly in a peer to peer environment via installable one or more role active Human Operating System (HOS) applications in a digital devise of each of channel node, a network controller registering and providing desired HOS applications and multiple developers developing advance communication and knowledge management applications and each of subscribers exploiting the said network resources by leveraging and augmenting taxonomically and ontologically classified knowledge classes expressed via plurality search macros and UKID structures facilitating said expert human agents for knowledge invocation and support services and service providers providing information services in the preidentified taxonomical classes, wherein each of channel nodes communicating with the unknown via domain specific supernodes each facilitating social networking and relationships development leading to human grid which is searchable via Universal Desktop Search by black box search module.
US08676825B2	Systems and methods for extracting business process metrics from a UML model The invention relates to a system and method for extracting business process metrics from a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model. This invention involves the use of Object Constraint Language (OCL) and custom stereotypes to extract the design metrics from a UML model. The business process parameters to be measured are defined and custom stereotypes for each design element present in the business process parameters are also defined. A UML diagram is generated to represent the steps required to complete the business process. The UML diagrams are based on UML 2.0 or its higher version. The queries are written in OCL and run on the activity or sequence diagram to extract the desired metrics.
US08676821B2	Summary filter transformation A mechanism for summary filter transformation is provided. The mechanism comprises a summary filter analysis module for analyzing a multidimensional query that is not supported by a target database system, and a summary filter transformation module for transforming the multidimensional query into a semantically equivalent query that is supported by the target database system.
US08676819B2	Event searching Events can be searched by identifying a query that includes a time interval and a search component, determining a time increment associated with the time interval, and partitioning the time interval into partitions based on the time increment. For each partition, a relevance of each event in a collection of events that occur at a time in the partition is determined based on the query. A pre-determined number of the relevant events are displayed.
US08676813B2	Method and system for selecting a subset of information to communicate to others from a set of information A method for selecting a subset of information to communicate to others from a set of information comprising a plurality of content items. In accordance with the method, the set of information is stored in a user retrievable format, a relative priority is assigned to each of the plurality of content items, and the subset of information is automatically generated by selecting a predetermined number of the plurality of content items from the set of information based on the relative priorities of each of the plurality of content items. The predetermined number is less than the number of said plurality of content items and the subset of information is a prioritized subset of the set of information. A system, and a computer readable medium carrying computer readable instructions for carrying out the method are also disclosed.
US08676811B2	Method and apparatus of generating update parameters and displaying correlated keywords Provided is a method of generating updating parameters. The method obtains search keywords used by users within a predetermined time period; counts the search keywords to obtain primary keywords, related keywords, co-search frequencies of each primary keyword and the respective related keywords being searched together, and search frequencies of the primary keywords being searched alone; computes first feature values based on the search frequencies of the primary keywords being searched alone; and then computes second feature values based on the first feature values and the co-search frequencies of the primary keywords and the respective related keywords. The second feature values serve as updating parameters for determining displaying modes of the related keywords. An apparatus of generating updating parameters, and a method and an apparatus of displaying related keywords according to the updating parameters are also provided. The solution keeps abreast with the user trends to allow a better user experience and improve computing performance and efficiency. For a service provider, no special secret algorithm is needed, and the operation is easy with a low development cost.
US08676807B2	Identifying location names within document text Concepts and technologies are described herein for identifying location names within document text. Through an implementation of the concepts and technologies presented herein, functionality can be provided for identifying location names within articles, websites, travelogues, or other such documents. For instance, documents containing the names of cities, regions, countries, landmarks, or other locations may be associated with those locations. The location names may be unambiguously identified even when the location names may also have common word meanings that are not location associated or when the location name may be associated with more than one location.
US08676806B2	Intelligent and paperless office The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates collecting and organizing electronic documents. An interface component can receive a document. A manager component can automatically file the document into a category based at least in part upon a portion of static metadata associated with the document and a portion of metadata dynamically generated from an inference related to the portion of static metadata associated with the document.
US08676805B1	System and method for probabilistic relational clustering Relational clustering has attracted more and more attention due to its phenomenal impact in various important applications which involve multi-type interrelated data objects, such as Web mining, search marketing, bioinformatics, citation analysis, and epidemiology. A probabilistic model is presented for relational clustering, which also provides a principal framework to unify various important clustering tasks including traditional attributes-based clustering, semi-supervised clustering, co-clustering and graph clustering. The model seeks to identify cluster structures for each type of data objects and interaction patterns between different types of objects. Under this model, parametric hard and soft relational clustering algorithms are provided under a large number of exponential family distributions. The algorithms are applicable to relational data of various structures and at the same time unify a number of state-of-the-art clustering algorithms: co-clustering algorithms, the k-partite graph clustering, and semi-supervised clustering based on hidden Markov random fields.
US08676802B2	Method and system for information retrieval with clustering Methods and systems that enable searching with clustering in information access systems are described. The methods of clustering operate on a collection of materials wherein each item in the collection may be associated with one or more properties. An original subset of materials is selected from the collection and relevant properties associated with the subset of materials are clustered into property clusters. Each property cluster generally contains properties that are more similar to each other than to properties in a different property cluster. The property clusters can be used to respond to the query. A mapping function can be used to identify a set of materials that correspond to each property cluster based on the associations between individual items and properties. The property clusters can also be used for iterative query refinement.
US08676800B2	Method and system for generating text The present invention generally relates to a method and system for generating text, and particularly but not exclusively to a method and system for generating syntactically correct text for a report. The ability of an expert system to interpret data is limited by the same factor that limits a human expert—data complexity. Therefore, traditional expert systems suffer limitations in interpreting ever increasing volumes of complex data and in converting such data to knowledge. The present invention provides a means for interpreting complex data and in converting such data to knowledge expressed in a textual report.
US08676793B2	Systems and methods of building and using custom word lists Standard word lists that are often used for such operations as predictive text, spell checking, and word completion are based on general linguistic data that might not accurately reflect actual text usage patterns of particular users. Systems and methods of building and using a custom word list for use in text operations on an electronic device are provided. A collection of text items associated with a user of the electronic device is scanned to identify words in the text items. A weighting is then assigned to each identified word, and the words and corresponding weightings are stored.
US08676775B2	Support 3-screen user experience in the context of a services marketplace The present invention is directed to sharing access to end user information in a multi-screen environment for the purpose of enhancing application functionality and end user experience including advertising functionality and experience. The invention includes storing end user information obtained from a first screen environment in an end user context database (ECD), and accessing the end user information in the ECD for use in a second screen environment. The multi-screen environments include a television, a network access device, such as a personal computer configured to provide access to the Internet, a telephone and other mobile and home devices such as PDAs. The first screen environment is different from the second screen environment. Use of an application associated with any of the first and second screen environments by an end user generates an event with end user information, and includes publishing the event to the ECD and forwarding or making the event information usable by, or accessible to, other applications serving the end user, including advertising applications. The invention further controls access to the ECD by other applications serving the end user, including advertising applications. The end user information includes information about the end user's context, desires or preferences.
US08676768B1	Collaborative modeling environment A system may receive a model, extract information from the model, form a group of tags using the extracted information, and associate the group of tags with the model. The system may further receive a search query including one or more sequences of characters and determine whether to provide the model in a list of models created for the search query, based on the one or more sequences of characters and the group of tags.
US08676756B2	Replicating time-series data values for retrieved supervisory control and manufacturing parameter values in a multi-tiered historian server environment A multi-tiered replicated process database and corresponding method are disclosed for supporting replication between tiers. The multi-tiered replicated process database comprises a tier one (T1) database server computer including a process history database and a replication service. The replication service includes a set of accumulators. Each accumulator is adapted to render a summary T2 database tag data structure from a set of data values retrieved from the process history database for a specified T1 database tag. The replicated database system also includes a tier two (T2) database server computer comprising a consolidated database that includes process data replicated from a set of T1 database servers. At least a portion of the process data replicated from the set of T1 database servers is summary T2 database tag data rendered by the set of accumulators.
US08676754B2	Method and apparatus for data disaster tolerance preprocessing, and service control point The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for data disaster tolerance preprocessing and a Service Control Point (SCP), the method and the apparatus are used in each SCP of a plurality of SCPs with databases, the method comprises: setting a first database in a first SCP, wherein the first database is used to perform disaster tolerance backup for a second database in a second SCP. Through the present invention, the cost of the construction of the system is reduced, and the stability and feasibility of a disaster tolerance system are enhanced.
US08676750B2	Efficient data synchronization in a distributed data recovery system A method for synchronizing data stored on primary and secondary storage volumes in a distributed data recovery system is provided. The method comprises associating N data recovery relationships between a primary volume and N secondary volumes by way of implementing N data structures respectively. Each data structure comprises a first indicator that indicates whether data stored on a first track of the primary volume has been updated, due to a first operation performed by a host application. One or more of the N data structures are stored in at least a first data storage medium with high speed data access rates.
US08676745B2	Integrated number management module and service order system A number inventory system is disclosed. The number inventory system manages the relationships between SIM cards, IMSI numbers, and MSISDN for a mobile telecommunications service provider. The number inventory system provides the software and hardware for receiving SIM card inventory data, including associated IMSI numbers, and efficiently stores the SIM card inventory data in a database. The number inventory system further provides for the opening of a range of available MSISDN. SIM cards, IMSI and MSISDN may be assigned to customer orders, and the number inventory system manages the associations between IMSI numbers and MSISDN and monitors the status of SIM cards, IMSI numbers and MSISDN. The number inventory system may also manage an MSISDN classification system for identifying MSISDN numbers having various desirable sequence characteristics.
US08676744B2	Physics-based, Bayesian sequential detection method and system for radioactive contraband A distributed sequential method and system for detecting and identifying radioactive contraband from highly uncertain (noisy) low-count, radionuclide measurements, i.e. an event mode sequence (EMS), using a statistical approach based on Bayesian inference and physics-model-based signal processing based on the representation of a radionuclide as a monoenergetic decomposition of monoenergetic sources. For a given photon event of the EMS, the appropriate monoenergy processing channel is determined using a confidence interval condition-based discriminator for the energy amplitude and interarrival time and parameter estimates are used to update a measured probability density function estimate for a target radionuclide. A sequential likelihood ratio test is then used to determine one of two threshold conditions signifying that the EMS is either identified as the target radionuclide or not, and if not, then repeating the process for the next sequential photon event of the EMS until one of the two threshold conditions is satisfied.
US08676742B2	Contextual scope-based discovery systems A computer-implemented discovery system applies a contextual neighborhood scope with respect to a fuzzy network-based structure, and generates recommendations in accordance with the resulting contextual neighborhood and inferences from behavioral information. The contextual neighborhood scope may be established by a user, and the basis for the contextual neighborhood may be in accordance with an object that is accessed by a user. The inferences may be embodied in affinity vectors, and may include inferences of user preferences and levels of expertise.
US08676739B2	Determining a preferred node in a classification and regression tree for use in a predictive analysis Techniques are described for determining what node of a classification and regression tree (CART) should be used by a predictive analysis application. A first approach is to use a standard deviation of the data at a given the level of the CART to determine whether data in the next, lower node is more consistent than the data in the current node. A second approach is to measure a correlation between data points in a given node and the time at which each point was sampled (or other correlation metric) to identify a preferred node.
US08676735B1	System and method to facilitate and document user thinking about an arbitrary problem with collaboration system Embodiments of the present invention comprise systems and methods for facilitating of formal and informal collaborative or cooperative groups, teams or multiple individuals according to exemplary or preferred approaches for problem solving and conducting inquiry based projects. Preferred embodiments use exemplary archetype processes or archetype structures for problem solving or thinking about a problem or inquiry based project.
US08676732B2	Methods and apparatus for providing information of interest to one or more users Methods and system of searching for content in a target set of content based on a reference set of content, a reference semantic network representing knowledge associated with the reference set of content, and a target semantic network representing knowledge associated with the target set of content. Techniques include receiving a user-specified search query, obtaining at least one concept semantically relevant to the user-specified search query by using the target semantic network and the reference semantic network, constructing a second query by augmenting the first search query with one or more terms associated with the at least one obtained concept; providing, to the at least one user, content associated with search results obtained based on searching the target set of content by using the second query, wherein any concept in the semantic network is represented by a data structure storing data associated with a node in the semantic network.
US08676729B1	Network traffic classification using subspace clustering techniques Embodiments of the invention provide a method, system, and computer readable medium for classifying network traffic based on application signatures generated during a training phase using a modified subspace clustering scheme based on feature vectors extracted from network flows in a training set generated by a particular application and applying the signatures to a new feature vector extracted in real-time from current network data. The newly extracted feature vector is projected into the subspaces and compared with the signatures.
US08676725B1	Method and system for entropy-based semantic hashing Methods, systems and articles of manufacture for identifying semantic nearest neighbors in a feature space are described herein. A method embodiment includes generating an affinity matrix for objects in a given feature space, wherein the affinity matrix identifies the semantic similarity between each pair of objects in the feature space, training a multi-bit hash function using a greedy algorithm that increases the Hamming distance between dissimilar objects in the feature space while minimizing the Hamming distance between similar objects, and identifying semantic nearest neighbors for an object in a second feature space using the multi-bit hash function. A system embodiment includes a hash generator configured to generate the affinity matrix and train the multi-bit hash function, and a similarity determiner configured to identify semantic nearest neighbors for an object in a second feature space using the multi-bit hash function.
US08676723B2	Automated test system based on three-dimensional application software framework and a method thereof A three-dimensional application program framework structure; a method for implementing an application program based on the same; and an automatic testing system based on a three-dimensional application software framework and a method therefor. The three-dimensional application program framework structure provides a framework comprising functions and management of the environment of the system and events to be implemented by the user (developer), and the developer can easily expand the graphic user interface (GUI) and an actual modeling function as required, and user model. In addition, by using an automatic test system based on the framework, it is possible to record the function-execution history of the user and to automatically generate a test case, and to thereby test the functioning of the application software through the use of the test case regardless of changes in the source code and the GUI.
US08676716B2	System and method for managing information flow between members of an online social network An online social network is provided in which members of the online social network control who may view their personal information and who may communicate with them. The members control who may view their personal information by setting a visibility preference. A member may not view another member's full personal profile if the measure of relatedness between the two is greater than the visibility preference of the other member. The members also control who may communicate with them by setting a contactability preference. A member may not communicate with another member if the measure of relatedness between the two is greater than the contactability preference of the other member.
US08676714B2	Hardware specific product license validation Server-side validation of hardware specific software product licenses is described herein.
US08676712B2	Computer architecture for managing courseware in a shared use operating environment Methods, devices, and systems are provided in a multi-level computer architecture which provides improved capabilities for managing courseware and other content in a shared use operating environment such as a computer network. In particular, the invention provides a commercial networked instruction content delivery method and system which does not exclude synchronous sharing but is focused on asynchronous sharing. Security means in the architecture provide content property holders with the ability to know how many minutes of use an individual made of licensed material and with increased certainty that their material cannot be used, copied, or sold in usable form unless and until a user site is connected or reconnected to a minute-by-minute counter which is located off the premises of the user. This security link helps protect software and other works which are being sold or licensed to an individual, organization, or entity, and creates income opportunities for owners of such content.
US08676710B2	Providing security in a cloud storage environment A method of providing security as a service in a cloud storage environment includes storing, through a cloud manager of the cloud storage environment, a security level of access of a storage controller associated with a customer of the security as a service, and receiving a request from the customer to access security information of the storage controller associated therewith. The method also includes providing, through the cloud manager, security information of the storage controller associated with the customer in accordance with the request and the stored security level of access of the storage controller associated with the customer.
US08676701B2	Credit card usage management system, credit card usage management method, program, and information storage medium Provided is a credit card usage management system, which allows a credit card to be used to an extent that surpasses a credit limit defined within a fixed period without increasing the credit limit. A credit card usage management device 10 stores a statement data history including a used amount and a date of use of a credit card, identification information on a deposits-and-savings account, and an available credit for the credit card in association with identification information on the credit card, identifies pieces of statement data selected by a user from among, of stored pieces of statement data, pieces of statement data whose date of use falls within a given period based on data received from a user terminal, transmits a settlement request to settle a selected statement total amount, which is obtained by summing up the used amounts respectively included in the identified pieces of statement data, from the stored deposits-and-savings account, to a settlement processing server for managing the deposits-and-savings account, and adds the selected statement total amount to the stored available credit when a completion notification of a settlement based on the settlement request is received from the settlement processing server, to thereby update the selected statement total amount.
US08676694B2	Secure and efficient payment processing system A method of processing commercial transactions carried out over the Internet (50) between account holders (30) and participating merchants (20) includes receiving a purchase request (352) of a buyer from a participating merchant (20) indicating that the buyer desires to carry out a transaction with the merchant (20). The transaction includes the buyer purchasing one or more selected items (340) from the merchant (20). The buyer is authenticated (310) as an account holder (30) and transaction fulfillment data (362) is established. The transaction fulfillment data (362) indicates a delivery destination for the selected items. In turn, the transaction fulfillment data (362) is communicated to the participating merchant (20), and transaction details (384) from the participating merchant (20) are received. The transaction details (384) include a cost for the selected items. Thereafter, completion of the transaction is authorized (390) and an authorization code (392) established therefor is communicated to the participating merchant (20).
US08676692B2	System and method for air travel commoditization System and methods are provided for the definition and commoditization of a four-dimensional trajectory of airspace, i.e., a bundle of spatially-contiguous, three-dimensional volumetric units of airspace at distinct, finite, and contiguous periods of time. The three primary determinants of air transportation throughput, i.e., seat and freight capacity, runway environment capacity, and safe-separation airspace capacity, are individually defined and commoditized. In an illustrative implementation, parties may compete to offer units of safe-separation airspace capacity, which may be bundled together to form a four-dimensional trajectory, and/or runway environment capacity, which may collectively comprise a particular flight bundle. This flight bundle may then be sold on a commodities market to the highest-bidding seat and freight capacity provider. In a further illustrative implementation, a seat and freight capacity provider may purchase a flight bundle comprising a primary four-dimensional trajectory and one or more contingent four-dimensional trajectories or portions thereof.
US08676680B2	Automatically determining a current value for a home A facility for valuing a distinguished home located in a distinguished geographic area is described. The facility receives home attributes for the distinguished home. The facility obtains valuation for the distinguished home by applying to the received home attributes evaluation model for homes in the distinguished geographic area that has been trained using selling price and home attribute data from homes recently sold in the distinguished geographic area. The facility reports the obtained valuation for the distinguished home.
US08676678B2	Long-term property acquisition and payment method Methods for the long-term leasing by a company of a plurality of properties, two or more of which are separately owned by identifying each property to be leased; and tendering to each property owner an offer to lease each property for a term of years with a lump sum payment as consideration.
US08676675B2	Tax transaction system A tax transaction system, and combined sale and tax transaction systems, are disclosed for use in electronic commerce for the deduction of a tax, which may be a sales tax, value-added tax, or any tax on income related to a transaction or taxing event. A trusted third party server system (300, 1060) may be provided which handles the calculation and/or deduction of a tax, e.g. related to a transaction of the sale of a good or service from a seller (200) to a buyer (100), on behalf of the seller, and which further provides for the remission of the tax to a tax collection agency (500, 1090), and which may perform the entire sale and tax transaction by proxy on behalf of the seller. Software modules (1070) including objects which embody instruction code and data structures to enable integral tax calculation and collection solutions, including multi jurisdictional tax calculation, remission and reporting, and even real time tax collection at point of sale, are provided. Such modules may form part of a data processing system hosted by a third party to a taxing event transaction, or be distributed in a pervasive manner, such as via the Internet in multiple server locations, as a downloadable client module, embodied in multiple hardware devices such as smartcards, electronic tags, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
US08676668B2	Method for the determination of a time, location, and quantity of goods to be made available based on mapped population activity A population activity mapping method may include detecting a plurality of wireless mobile devices within a geographic region. Individual wireless mobile devices may include a processor, a user interface, a transmitter and a receiver. The detecting operation may be performed by use of a wireless access point, a GPS satellite, and/or a base station, and may be performed at at least two different points in time. Input data may be provided based upon the detecting operation. A distance and speed at which the mobile devices travel within the geographic region may be discerned dependent upon the input data. The discerning operation is performed by at least one processor of a computer network. A time and/or location at which salable output is to be made available and/or an amount of salable output to be made available may be determined dependent upon the discerning operation.
US08676649B2	Systems and methods to merchandise a product based on a compatibility Methods and systems to merchandise a product based on compatibility are disclosed. The system receives a request over a network from a user. Next, the system associates the request with a user profile that is associated with the user, retrieves an application listing from the user profile that describes a first item and associates the first item with a plurality of candidate items based on item cluster information that is generated based on content data information that is received from a content data provider. Next, the system selects a second item from the plurality of candidate items, the second item being a component of the first item. Finally, the system communicates the merchandising information over a network, to merchandize the second item.
US08676648B2	Online map advertising Systems and methods for selecting advertisements for presentation in a map space are disclosed. Map requests are received, map spaces identified, advertisement bids are received for advertisement space within the map spaces, and advertisements are selected for presentation in the map space based on the advertisement bids. The advertisement bids can be selected through an auction.
US08676646B2	Response attribution valuation A computer-implemented method is described for determining a response attribution value that represents a credit assignment to a communication, for an associated response received from a recipient during a marketing campaign.
US08676644B2	Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks Methods and apparatuses for targeting the delivery of advertisements over a network such as the Internet are disclosed. Statistics are compiled on individual users and networks and the use of the advertisements is tracked to permit targeting of the advertisements of individual users. In response to requests from affiliated sites, an advertising server transmits to people accessing the page of a site an appropriate one of the advertisement based upon profiling of users and networks.
US08676643B2	System and method for inverted promotions A method of extending promotional discounts and special prices on items for sale to identified consumers. After the identification of a consumer by a unique identifier; a selected item is promoted with a discount or special price to the identified consumer. The discount or special price is granted upon a purchase of the item by the identified consumer prior to the withdrawal or termination of the promotion to the identified consumer. The withdrawal or termination of the promotion is held in abeyance upon an acknowledgment of the promotion by the identified consumer. In other words, the identified consumer must take specific action to prevent a promotional discount from being withdrawn. This inverted promotion provides for greater incentives for the consumer to provide information about his or her purchasing habits.
US08676631B2	Automated item pricing Techniques for automated pricing of an item are provided. The techniques include obtaining historical data of one or more previous purchases for the item, performing a regression on the historical data, and using the regression to obtain a buying price and a selling price for the item.
US08676629B2	System and methods for retail forecasting utilizing forecast model accuracy criteria, holdout samples and marketing mix data Computer-implemented systems and methods are provided to perform accuracy analysis with respect to forecasting models, wherein the forecasting models provide predictions based upon a pool of production data. As an example, a forecast accuracy monitoring system is provided to monitor the accuracy of the forecasting models over time based upon the pool of production data. A forecast model construction system builds and rebuilds the forecasting models based upon the pool of production data.
US08676626B1	Event notification and organization utilizing a communication network A user of a telecommunications or other computing device may notify his or her contacts of an event of interest, which event may be modified by the user's contacts without requiring the permission of the originating user to do so. In this regard, an event organizing service receives an event notification request from a user of a telecommunications device (e.g., a mobile telephone), automatically identifies the user's contacts to whom the event notification is to be published, and publishes the event notification to the automatically identified contacts. A contact who receives the event notification may update the event, e.g., by modifying data describing the event, without the permission of the originating user. Accordingly, a contact who has received the event notification may modify the event (e.g., change the date/time, change the location, etc.) and the event organizing service may publish a notification for the updated event to the originating user and his or her contacts informing them of the modification. It will be appreciated that as updates to the event are made by the user's contacts (and in some cases the user herself), the event is ultimately organized by the user's social network or community without requiring the user to organize the details of or manage the event herself.
US08676623B2	Building directory aided navigation A navigation system utilizes building directories to aid navigation. A mobile device, such as a mobile phone, captures an image of a building directory. The building directory includes information regarding the names and/or locations of tenants. An image recognition algorithm is performed on the captured image to extract information from the building directory. The extracted information is used to access a map database. The mobile device may display directions or a map to guide the user to a selected destination. In addition, the captured image may be used to build the map database or update the map database. Finally, the captured image may be matched with stored images of the building directory to determine the current location of the mobile device.
US08676607B2	Obtaining patient survey results Systems and techniques are disclosed for determining a health risk assessment score for a patient who did not complete a health risk assessment. In some implementations, the health risk assessment score can be determined for the patient who did not respond based on a behavior prediction score obtained for the patient who did not respond, behavior prediction scores for patients who did respond to the health risk assessment, and health risk assessment scores for the patients who did respond.
US08676605B2	Delphi method for medical coding Systems and methods provide confirmation of accuracy of determining medical codes for medical records. The technology may include processor control instructions or steps for establishing a collection of medical documents as a test sample and for determining a convergence of assigned medical codes for the sample that have been assigned by a plurality of coders to establish a standard of one or more accepted medical codes for the sample. The technology may include instructions for applying the sample to a coding system to obtain a determined medical code for the sample; and for comparing the determined code to the accepted medical codes to rate the coding system's accuracy. In some embodiments, the determining a convergence of determined medical codes may be obtained by a software coding algorithm that automatically assigns medical codes to medical records. Moreover, the comparing step may be performed by an algorithm that automatically calculates a rate of the coding system.
US08676601B2	Device and method for automatic data acquisition and/or detection Methods and devices for providing diabetes management including automatic time acquisition protocol is provided.
US08676595B2	Manifest delivery system and method There is provided a method and system of determining efficient routing of a mail piece in a delivery system for delivering mail pieces. The system determines whether or not the mail piece requires urgent delivery. The system determines a weight of the mail piece. Also, the system determines, based on the urgency determination and the weight determination, a most cost-effective place in which to introduce the mail piece into the delivery system.
US08676579B2	Dual microphone voice authentication for mobile device A method of authenticating a user of a mobile device having a first microphone and a second microphone, the method comprising receiving voice input from the user at the first and second microphones, determining a position of the user relative to the mobile device based on the voice input received by the first and second microphones, and authenticating the user based on the position of the user.
US08676563B2	Providing human-generated and machine-generated trusted translations Customers having a translation project to select a translation method from a variety of options, ranging from a completely human translation to a completely automated translation. For human translations, translation job information may be communicated through one or more network service modules which execute within a network service application, such as a web-based networking application. A network service module may register a user having an account with the network service application as a translator and communicate translation jobs to the user. One or more users who express interest in performing the translation are selected to perform a translation job, each job comprising at least a portion of the translation project. After a user provides a translation for the translation job, the translation is analyzed to generate a trust level prediction for the translation. A user translation profile may be updated after each translation to reflect the user's performance.
US08676557B2	Method of developing a petroleum reservoir from optimized history matching A method of developing a petroleum reservoir from a reservoir model and optimized history matching is disclosed having application for petroleum reservoir characterization. A global objective function measuring the differences between the measured historical data and the simulated historical data is defined according to M parameters. The global objective function is then decomposed into a sum of k local objective functions. Each local objective function measures the differences on a geographic region from mk parameters, selected from among the M parameters, and having a significant impact on the historical data of the region. The region is determined by minimizing this number mk of parameters. The model is then modified by minimizing the global objective function by a gradient method wherein the derivatives of the local objective functions are estimated by means of a parameter perturbation technique. For each local objective function, the perturbation matrix has a rank equal to the number of parameters mk of the local objective function. Finally, the calibrated model is used to develop the reservoir.
US08676554B2	Simulation apparatus for motor-driven compressor system and the simulation method thereof With a simulation apparatus for a system including a motor-driven compressor, a compressor that does not suffer from a driving torque shortage and surging, but can operate at low costs, can be provided.A simulation apparatus for a motor-driven compressor system includes a simulation section in which a driving motor, a compressor driven by the driving motor, a suction throttle valve controlling the inlet flow rate of the compressor, and an anti-surge valve interposed between pipes for returning a part of gas discharged from the compressor to the inlet side of the compressor are translated into unit models and stored. The simulation apparatus further includes an input section through which designed specification data of the compressor is input, a data setting section storing the designed specification data, and a display section displaying unsteady-state Q-H characteristics and required driving torque obtained through simulation by the simulation section.
US08676532B2	Fall detection device, magnetic disk drive, and portable electronic apparatus A fall detection device that is allowed to reduce the processing load put when making a determination using software, to reliably determine the start of a fall, and to make a fall prediction as necessary, and a magnetic disk drive and a portable electronic apparatus that each include the fall detection device are configured. Accelerations are obtained in three orthogonal axis directions (ax, ay, az), and an evaluation value is obtained with respect to each of the accelerations (ax, ay, az) on the basis of an evaluation function, by which an evaluation value is increased as the difference increases between accelerations (ax0, ay0, az0) at a steady time and accelerations (ax, ay, az) at a fall determination time, and whether a fall has started is determined on the basis of whether this evaluation value exceeds a predetermined value.
US08676526B2	High speed frequency and phase estimation for flow meters Meter electronics (20) for processing sensor signals in a flow meter and for computing mass flow rate, density or volume flow rate includes an interface (201) for receiving a first sensor signal and a second sensor signal and a processing system (203) in communication with the interface (201) and configured to generate a ninety degree phase shift from the first sensor signal with a Hilbert transform and compute a phase difference from the ninety degree phase shift, the first sensor signal and the second sensor signal. A frequency is computed from the first sensor signal and the ninety degree phase shift. A second ninety degree phase shift can be generated from the second sensor signal.
US08676524B2	System for computing machine parameters of an induction machine A system for computing machine parameters of an induction machine includes a relation providing module and a circuit parameter computing module. The relation providing module is operable to provide a relationship between slip rates and primary side resistances of the induction machine and a relationship between the slip rates and primary side reactances of the induction machine. The circuit parameter computing module is operable to perform a parameter computing process according to the relationships obtained from the relation providing module. The parameter computing process includes the steps of: a) generating a set of initial values of equivalent circuit parameters of the induction machine; b) updating the initial values; c) calculating a cumulative resistance error and a cumulative reactance error; and d) repeating steps b) and c) until the cumulative resistance error and the cumulative reactance error are smaller than first and second error thresholds, respectively.
US08676516B2	Test circuit for bias temperature instability recovery measurements A method and test circuit provide measurements to accurately characterize threshold voltage changes due to negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) and positive bias temperature instability (PBTI). Both the bias temperature instability recovery profile and/or the bias temperature shifts due to rapid repetitions of stress application can be studied. In order to provide accurate measurements when stresses are applied at intervals on the order of tens of nanoseconds while avoiding unwanted recovery, and/or to achieve recovery profile sampling resolutions in the nanosecond range, multiple delay or ring oscillator frequency measurements are made using a delay line that is formed from delay elements that have delay variation substantially caused only by NBTI or PBTI effects. Devices in the delay elements are stressed, and then the delay line/ring oscillator is operated to measure a threshold voltage change for one or more measurement periods on the order of nanoseconds.
US08676505B2	Positioning system, communication device, positioning method There is provided a positioning system including a communication device which includes a connector configured to engage with a connector provided to a vehicle, a vehicle communication section configured to receive vehicle speed information or travelling distance information of the vehicle from the vehicle via the connector, and an information processing device-communication section configured to transmit, to an information processing device, transmission information based on the vehicle speed information or the travelling distance information acquired by the vehicle communication section, and the information processing device which includes a communication section configured to receive the transmission information from the communication device, and a position calculation section configured to calculate a current position based on the vehicle speed information or the travelling distance information.
US08676504B2	Methods and apparatus for collecting and using information regarding location object-based actions An embodiment of a communication system includes a client device adapted to receive a location object that includes tracer information, and to perform one or more location object-based actions using the location object. The client device stores the tracer information and location object usage information, which describes the one or more location object-based actions that have been performed using the location object. The client device also sends the stored information to a server. The system also includes the server, which is adapted to receive the location object usage information and the tracer information reported by the client device. In an embodiment, the system also includes a service provider adapted to initiate a billing event, which may include generation and transmission of a bill to a sponsor entity based on an evaluation of the location object usage information and the tracer information reported by the client device.
US08676498B2	Camera and inertial measurement unit integration with navigation data feedback for feature tracking A navigation device is provided herein comprising an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a camera, and a processor. The IMU provides an inertial measurement to the processor and the camera provides at least one image frame to the processor. The processor is configured to determine navigation data based on the inertial measurement and the at least one image frame, wherein at least one feature is extracted from the at least one image frame based on the navigation data.
US08676492B2	Map-aided vision-based lane sensing A method for map-aided vision-based lane sensing. The method includes receiving map information corresponding to a current geographic position of a vehicle on a roadway. The map information includes the number of lanes on the roadway. Information about the number of lanes crossed by the vehicle on the roadway is received. It is determined which of the lanes on the roadway is currently occupied by the vehicle based on the map information and the number of lanes crossed by the vehicle on the roadway.
US08676491B2	Driver assist system for vehicle A driver assist system for a vehicle includes a camera and a video display screen viewable by a driver of the vehicle. The video display screen is operable to display images derived, at least in part, from image data captured by the camera. A visual cue is displayed by the video display screen in conjunction with display of the captured image data. During a reversing maneuver of the vehicle, image data captured by the camera is displayed by the video display screen as video images so as to assist the driver in reversing the vehicle. When a reversing maneuver of the vehicle is not being executed, the display screen may be operable to display information associated with at least one of (i) a navigational system, (ii) a telematics system and (iii) a vehicle information system.
US08676490B1	Geoposition determination from star and satellite observations A method for geoposition determination from a platform involves using star observations to determine the orientation of the platform relative to an Earth-Centered Earth-Fixed (ECEF) frame. Observations are also made from the platform of azimuth, elevation, and possibly range of an orbiting Earth satellite. Platform orientation in an inertial frame fixed in time (IFFIT) is determined, and the satellite azimuth and elevation are transformed to the IFFIT. The satellite orbital ellipse is determined. Vectors extending from the platform frame to the foci of the ellipse are defined and converted into ECEF. The vector extending to the gravitational center of the Earth is identified and defines the location of the platform.
US08676484B2	Charge point reachability determination system A charge point reachability determination system includes a center device and an in-vehicle device disposed in an electric vehicle. The center device includes road map information that has node information regarding a node. The node information includes a required energy of the electric vehicle for reaching a nearby charge point from the node when the node has at least one nearby charge point. The in-vehicle device generates vehicle information regarding the electric vehicle. When the electric vehicle is positioned close to the node that has the nearby charge point, the system determines, based on the node and vehicle information, the required energy for reaching the node. The system further determines whether the nearby charge point is reachable by the electric vehicle based on a comparison of the required energy determined and a remaining energy of the electric vehicle.
US08676483B2	Guidance control device, guidance control method, and guidance control program Guidance control device, methods and programs control an in-vehicle apparatus of a vehicle. The devices, methods, and programs access vehicle state information that specifies a state of the vehicle and determine whether a vehicle state condition is established based on the accessed vehicle state information. The devices, methods, and programs access driving environment information that specifies a driving environment of the vehicle and determine whether a driving environment condition is established based on the accessed driving environment information. The devices, methods, and programs generate guidance based on whether the vehicle state condition is established and whether the driving environment condition is established and cause the generated guidance to be output on a display.
US08676478B2	Engine stop control device Target rotation speed at a reference point set at TDC slightly preceding a target stop position of engine rotation is set. A target trajectory of an engine rotation behavior extending since an engine rotation stop behavior starts until the target rotation speed at the reference point is reached is calculated based on the target rotation speed at the reference point and an engine friction. Torque of an alternator is controlled to conform the engine rotation behavior to the target trajectory during the engine rotation stop behavior. Generation of the torque of the alternator stops at a position preceding the reference point by a predetermined crank angle. Therefore, the torque of the alternator is controlled such that an energy deviation between the target trajectory and the engine rotation behavior becomes zero at the position preceding the reference point by the predetermined crank angle.
US08676470B2	Multicylinder engine and method for controlling the same In some cylinder deactivation modes (e.g. virtual V-four operation mode in which two cylinders of a V-six engine are deactivated), ignition/combustion may take place in operating cylinders at uneven intervals. In this case, the output torque varies between the immediately subsequent operating cylinders after the deactivated cylinders in the firing order and the other operating cylinders. A multicylinder engine includes an ignition timing adjustment unit. When the ignition takes place in the operating cylinders at uneven intervals during cylinder deactivation, the ignition timing adjustment unit adjusts ignition timing in each of the operating cylinders to smooth the output torque of the operating cylinders.
US08676456B2	Controlling tip-in bump performance in a transmission A method of managing tip-in bump in an automatic transmission includes detecting a set of conditions indicative of an impending throttle tip-in event, including calculating a speed difference between engine speed and turbine speed, and reducing a pressure command to a designated clutch of the transmission to a threshold level. The method also include setting an upper limit on engine torque, flaring the turbine speed during the tip-in event, and using proportional-integral-derivative control logic of a controller to reduce flare to about zero in a calibrated duration, thereby allowing the clutch to dissipate engine inertia and minimize the severity of the tip-in bump. A transmission in a vehicle is operatively connected to an engine and has a torque converter with a turbine. The transmission includes a clutch and a controller configured to manage tip-in bump performance in the transmission via the above method.
US08676455B2	Methods and systems for selecting or maintaining an efficient gear or gear ratio A method in a system having a transmission and a drive system component is disclosed. The transmission includes two or more gears defining one or more gear ratios and a gear-selection controller having shifting schedules and the drive system component includes a drive system component controller. The method comprises dynamically generating adjustment information having information selected from the group consisting of (i) a desired gear selection; (ii) a desired drive system component speed operating point (iii) engine fuel economy improvement information related to a selection of a desired gear of the two or more gears; (iv) a drive system component energy efficiency map, and (v) a combination thereof, and wherein the generated information relates to one or more given drive system component power levels and adjusting the shifting schedules using the adjustment information.
US08676452B2	Hybrid type working machine A hybrid-type working machine 1 includes an engine 11; a supercharger 42; an electric generator 12 that performs electricity generation by the driving force of the engine 11 and assists the driving force of the engine 11 through its own driving force; an inverter circuit 18A that is connected to an electric terminal of the electric generator 12; and a controller 30 which includes a nonvolatile memory 31 that stores first information indicating a correlation between the revolutions of the engine 11, the boost pressure of the supercharger 42 and an output upper limit value of the engine 11, and drives the inverter circuit 18A. The controller 30 controls the inverter circuit 18A so that the electric generator 12 assists the driving force when the required output exceeds the output upper limit value, based on a correlation stored in the nonvolatile memory 31.
US08676425B2	Methods and systems for maintenance and other processing of container-grown plants using autonomous mobile robots A system is provided for processing container-grown plants positioned in a given area. The system includes a processing station positioned in the area for processing the container-grown plants. It also includes one or more autonomous mobile container handling robots configured to: (i) travel to a source location in the area and pick up a container-grown plant, (ii) transport the container-grown plant to the processing station where a process is performed on the container-grown plant, (iii) transport the container-grown plant from the processing station to a destination location in the area, (iv) deposit the container-grown plant at the destination location, and (v) repeat (i) through (iv) for a set of container-grown plants in the source location.
US08676408B2	Unmanned aircraft and aerial surveillance system for unmanned aircraft An unmanned aircraft includes a camera, a laser ranging system and a driving unit. The laser ranging system measures a distance to an object in the field of view of the camera. The driving unit rotates the field of view. Thus, it is possible to acquire relative position data of the object around the unmanned aircraft with a small and light-weight unit.
US08676407B1	Energy-angular momentum diagnostic method for launch vehicle performance Novel diagnostic methods for performance of a launch vehicle are disclosed. A method may include computing energy for a pre-flight trajectory of a vehicle using angular momentum of the vehicle, and comparing a difference in energy between the energy for the pre-flight trajectory of the vehicle and energy for a flight trajectory of the vehicle.
US08676399B2	System and method for generating and displaying an electric taxi index A taxi method for an aircraft having a primary thrust engine taxi system and an electric taxi system is provided. The method involves obtaining aircraft and airport status data and generating therefrom taxi drive information indicative of the relative cost of taxiing the aircraft along a predetermined route using the electric taxi system versus the aircraft engine taxi system. The taxi drive index information is presented to a user.
US08676396B2	Mesh delivery system A mesh delivery system for controlling electricity supplied to one or more electrical devices from a power source are disclosed. Signals relating to characteristics of the electrical devices are uniformly or non-uniformly sampled at discrete intervals are provided along with associated sampling time indications via the mesh network to a destination controller.
US08676392B2	Wind-power generation system and operation control method therefor An object is to improve the accuracy of power factor adjustment. Power-factor command values corresponding to individual wind turbines are determined by correcting a predetermined power-factor command value for an interconnection node using power factor correction levels set for the individual wind turbines.
US08676388B2	Intelligent core engine A central management authority for a system, such as a power utility system, is disclosed. The central management authority communicates with a plurality of meter data management systems and with a plurality of headend systems, the meter data management systems generating commands and the headend systems communicating with one or more meters (such as one or more smart meters). The central management authority includes a gateway layer and a core layer. The gateway layer includes a plurality of input connector routines to communicate with each of the plurality of source systems and a plurality of output connector routines to communicate with each of the plurality of target systems. The core layer includes a plurality of core adapters, with the core adapters performing a one-to-one translation of communications from the plurality of meter data management systems generating commands to the plurality of the head end systems.
US08676386B2	Fault detection system for a generator A fault detection system is provided, and includes a generator, a power converter, a breaker, a current monitoring device, and a control module. The power converter is selectively connected to the generator and is selectively activated to produce a test voltage. The breaker is located between the generator and the power converter for selectively connecting the generator to the power converter. The breaker includes an open position and a closed position. The current monitoring device is located between the generator and the power converter. The current monitoring device measures a line current between the generator and the power converter. The control module is in communication with the current monitoring device and the power converter. The control module has a memory with a threshold current value.
US08676384B2	Building management system with active building skin, an environmental resource collector for use in such a system and a method of managing resources used in a building A building management system (100) comprises a measurement system for measuring a demand for resources inside the building and a collecting system for harvesting natural resources available outside the building. The building management system is further provided with a storage system for storing surplus resources and a sensor system (112,114,116,118,120) for measuring resource availability outside the building and/or resources stored in the storage system. Further, a controller (102) arranged to receive data from the measurement system, the sensor system and the storage system is provided. The controller controls the collecting system based on said data to tune the collection of resources by the collection system to a present and/or an expected demand for resources.
US08676381B2	Humanoid robot and walking control method thereof A humanoid robot that achieves stable walking based on servo control of a joint torque and a walking control method thereof. The humanoid robot calculates a joint position trajectory compensation value and a joint torque compensation value using a measurement value of a sensor, compensates for a joint position trajectory and a joint torque using the calculated compensation value, and drives a motor mounted to each joint according to the compensated joint torque.
US08676371B2	Rolling of a strip in a rolling train using the last stand of the rolling train as a tension reducer A rolling train for rolling a strip has a number of rolling stands and a coiler. The rolling stands have work and backing rolls. Data of the strip are fed to a control device of the rolling train which determines individual pass reductions for the rolling stands based on the data. It controls the main rolling stands and the coiler such that the strip is rolled in the main rolling stands according to the individual pass reductions and then coiled up. It determines the individual pass reductions such that they are zero and controls the rolling stand arranged directly upstream of the coiler such that—with respect to this main rolling stand—the tension in the strip on the outlet side is less than on the inlet side, but the strip runs through this rolling stand without undergoing any forming, at least on one side.
US08676366B2	System and a method of fabricating protective masks for vehicles The invention provides a method of controlling a machine for cutting out masks for protecting vehicle portions, which comprises the following operations: displaying on a display unit, the marques, models, and versions of vehicles for each of which the outlines of masks for protecting a plurality of bodywork parts are stored in a database; detecting a vehicle selection and displaying on the display unit a plurality of distinct representations of the vehicle corresponding to the vehicle, each representation including regions corresponding to protective masks stored in the database; detecting a mask selection and modifying the appearance of at least one region of the displayed representations as a function of said mask selection; detecting mask selection validation and storing the most recently selected mask in a list of masks for cutting out, and for each mask in the list of masks for cutting out, sending data for controlling the cutting out of the masks in question to a mask-cutter machine.
US08676364B2	Apparatus and method for synchronizing multichannel extension data with an audio signal and for processing the audio signal For synchronizing multichannel extension data with an audio signal, wherein the audio signal includes block division information and the multichannel extension data include reference audio signal fingerprint information, the block division information in the audio signal is detected by means of a block detector. Thereupon, block division of the audio signal is performed by a fingerprint calculator according to the block division information in order to obtain a sequence of test audio signal fingerprints. In addition to that, a sequence of reference audio signal fingerprints is extracted from the reference audio signal fingerprint information of the multichannel extension data. Both sequences of fingerprints are correlated in order to obtain a correlation result, by which a compensator is controlled in order to reduce or eliminate a time offset between the multichannel extension data and the audio signal.
US08676361B2	Acoustical virtual reality engine and advanced techniques for enhancing delivered sound Techniques and systems for enhancing delivered audio signals are disclosed which may be employed in a delivery system at a server side, a client side, or both. The techniques include forming a processed audio signal by processing audio signals through multiple pathways which operate on different frequency bands using dynamic processing and other elements, and thereafter providing recording or listening environment enhancements and other sound enhancements to the processed audio signal. Also disclosed are techniques and systems for implementing the multi-pathway processing and environmental and sound enhancements.
US08676355B2	Position control apparatus including iterative learning circuit, exposure apparatus, method for manufacturing device, and iterative learning method for use in position control apparatus having iterative learning circuit including learning filter A position control apparatus includes a detecting unit configured to detect a position of a control target, a subtracting unit configured to subtract an output of the detecting unit from a target value, an iterative learning control circuit including a filter into which a deviation between the output of the detecting unit and the target value is input, where the iterative learning control circuit feeds forward a control input to the control target, and a parameter computing unit configured to compute a variation in a parameter of the control target. A characteristic of the filter is changed in accordance with the variation in the parameter of the control target.
US08676354B2	Automation system having framework based controller The invention relates to an automation system having a number of objects to to be controlled, wherein the automation system comprises a framework based controller (21) for controlling basic functions (23) of at least one object of the number of objects by means of object-specific functional units (25), wherein the controller (21) is configured independently of the object, and comprises standardized interfaces (26) for the communicative incorporation of the object-specific functional units (25) by means of preconfigured functional requests, wherein each functional unit (25) is associated with at least one of the objects and configured for actuating the respective basic function (23) of the respectively associated object by means of object-specific control functions, wherein each object of the number of objects may be virtualized in the controller (21) by means of the associated object-specific functional units (25), and the objects of the number of objects respond and can be controlled by means of the object-specific functional units (25) during at least one operating state of the automation system exclusively by the framework based controller (21), and each of the functional units (25) comprises one simulation module having at least one simulation function integrated in the respective functional unit (25), and may optionally be configured for carrying out the object-specific control function or for carrying out the at least one simulation function. The invention further provides a method for testing an automation system having a framework based controller, and a method for the framework based controlling of a respective automation system.
US08676341B2	Multi durometer reinforced suture sleeve Suture anchors for securing therapy delivery elements, such as stimulation leads or catheters, within a living body. The suture anchor includes an inner sleeve constructed with an inner layer of a softer, more pliable material that easily conforms to the therapy delivery element to reduce slippage and an outer layer constructed from a harder, stiffer durometer material that protects the therapy delivery elements from damage due to over-tightening the tie down sutures. A suture material located in the suture groove is tensioned to apply a radial compressive force. The reinforcing structure spreads the radial compressive force along a greater surface area of the therapy delivery element.
US08676340B2	MRI-safe implantable lead A stimulation lead is configured to be implanted into a patient's body and includes at least one distal stimulation electrode and at least one conductive filer electrically coupled to the distal stimulation electrode. A jacket is provided for housing the conductive filer and providing a path distributed along at least a portion of the length of the lead for conducting induced RF energy from the filer to the patient's body.
US08676335B2	On-demand retransmission of data with an implantable medical device An apparatus comprises a transceiver configured to communicate wirelessly with an IMD and a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver. The processor is configured to detect an error in a data unit received from the IMD, transmit a series of synchronization signals during an uninterrupted communication sequence, and receive, for each synchronization signal, a new data unit and the number of requested duplicate data units from the IMD. Each synchronization signal includes an echo code, wherein the echo code corresponds to a request for a number of duplicate data units to be sent in response to detecting the error in the data unit received during said uninterrupted communication sequence. The number of duplicate data units corresponds to a value of the echo code, and a duplicate data unit corresponds to a data unit previously transmitted by the IMD during said uninterrupted communication sequence.
US08676332B2	Systems and methods of powered muscle stimulation using an energy guidance field NMES systems and methods for stimulating muscle tissue, and in some embodiments deep muscle tissue. The impedance near the surface of the skin is controllably increased to increase the percentage of energy delivered to a subject that stimulates muscle tissue.
US08676331B2	Devices for controlling spinal cord modulation for inhibiting pain, and associated systems and methods, including controllers for automated parameter selection Devices for controlling spinal cord modulation for inhibiting pain, and associated systems and methods, including controllers for automated parameter selection are disclosed. A particular embodiment includes receiving a first input corresponding to a location of a signal delivery device implanted in a patient, establishing a positional relationship between the signal delivery device and an anatomical feature of the patient, receiving a second input corresponding to a medical indication of the patient, and, based at least in part on the positional relationship and the indication, automatically identifying a signal delivery parameter in accordance with which a pulsed electrical signal is delivered to the patient via the signal delivery device.
US08676324B2	Electrical and magnetic stimulators used to treat migraine/sinus headache, rhinitis, sinusitis, rhinosinusitis, and comorbid disorders Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation devices and magnetic stimulation devices are disclosed, along with methods of treating medical disorders using energy that is delivered noninvasively by such devices. The disorders comprise migraine and other primary headaches such as cluster headaches, including nasal or paranasal sinus symptoms that resemble an immune-mediated response (“sinus” headaches). The devices and methods may also be used to treat rhinitis, sinusitis, or rhinosinusitis, irrespective of whether those disorders are co-morbid with a headache. They may also be used to treat other disorders that may be co-morbid with migraine or cluster headaches, such as anxiety disorders. In preferred embodiments of the disclosed methods, one or both of the patient's vagus nerves are stimulated non-invasively. In other embodiments, parts of the sympathetic nervous system and/or the adrenal glands are stimulated.
US08676322B2	Methods and systems of treating pancreatitis pain Methods and systems of treating a patient with pancreatitis pain include providing a stimulator, configuring one or more stimulation parameters to treat pancreatitis pain, programming the stimulator with the one or more stimulation parameters, generating a stimulus configured to treat pancreatitis pain with the stimulator in accordance with the one or more stimulation parameters, and applying the stimulus with the stimulator to one or more stimulation sites in accordance with the one or more stimulation parameters.
US08676307B2	Electrical energy delivery tissue site validation Electrical energy delivery tissue site validation systems and methods can determine an indication of a tissue type at a tissue site. This information can be used to enable or inhibit electrical energy delivery to the tissue site. The tissue type at the tissue site can be determined such as by delivering a test electrical energy and sensing a responsive electrical energy. An electrical connectivity to the tissue site can also be determined, such as by using a sensed intrinsic electrical signal at the tissue site. Tissue type information may be communicated externally, such as to allow user confirmation or override of the determined indication of tissue type at the tissue site, such as by a physician, user, or other operator.
US08676296B2	Echo-specific K-space reordering approach to compatible dual-echo arteriovenography A dual-echo sequence technique provided herein empowers simultaneous acquisition of both TOF MRA and BOLD MRV in a single MR acquisition. By this approach, an echo-specific K-space ordering scheme permits the adjustment of the scan parameters that are compatible for each of the MRA and MRV. The image quality in the MRA and MRV acquired by this compatible dual-echo arteriovenography (CODEA) technique is comparable to that for conventional, single-echo MRA and MRV. When the technique is integrated with MOTSA, seamless vascular connectivity is achieved in both MRA and MRV over a large area of brain anatomy. The technique will facilitate routine clinical acquisition and application of dual-echo MRA and MRV, as both MRA and MRV can be acquired with minimal impact on the image quality and without adversely affecting the scan throughput.
US08676295B2	Interventional instrument tracking device imageable with magnetic resonance imaging and method for use thereof A tracking device configured to be coupled to an interventional instrument and tracked by a magnetic resonance imaging system is provided. The tracking device includes, for example, paramagnetic and diamagnetic components that form first and second tracking members. When the tracking device is adjusted into a first arrangement, the tracking device will produce a local magnetic field in the presence of the magnetic field of an MRI system that is measurable by the MRI system. However, when the tracking device is adjusted into a second arrangement, the local magnetic field produced by the tracking device is reduced relative to the first arrangement, wherein the reduced local magnetic field produces substantially no magnetic field disturbances detectable by the MRI system. Images may be acquired of a patient in which the tracking device has been introduced and, using a numerical fitting method, an accurate location of the tracking device can be determined.
US08676283B2	Method and apparatus to compensate for melanin and hemoglobin variation in determination of a measure of a glycation end-product or disease state using tissue fluorescence A method of determining a measure of a tissue state (e.g., glycation end-product or disease state) in an individual is disclosed. A portion of the skin of the individual is illuminated with excitation light, then light emitted by the tissue due to fluorescence of a chemical with the tissue responsive to the excitation light is detected. The detected light can be combined with a model relating fluorescence with a measure of tissue state to determine a tissue state. The invention can illuminate the skin and detect responsive light over a time that spans a plurality of cardiac cycles of the individual, which can, as an example, help mitigate the effects of time-varying signals such as those due to hemoglobin. The invention can also determine the amount of light to be directed to the skin, for example by controlling the time that a light source is energized. The amount of illumination light can be determined from a skin reflectance characteristic such as pigmentation or melanin in the skin. Controlling the amount of light directed to the tissue can reduce the dynamic range required of a corresponding optical system, for example by allowing a single system to accurately measure individuals with very light skin and individuals with very dark skin.
US08676270B2	Display apparatus, mobile communication terminal and display system A display apparatus capable of executing content of a mobile communication terminal in cooperation with the mobile communication terminal when the display apparatus is communicably connected to the mobile communication terminal is disclosed. The display apparatus comprises: an operation input device for inputting an operation on the content in the display apparatus; an acquisition device for acquiring input information, which indicates that the operation on the content has been inputted in the mobile communication terminal, from the mobile communication terminal; and a display device for showing that the operation on the content has been inputted in the mobile communication terminal when the acquisition device acquires the input information from the mobile communication terminal.
US08676269B2	Mobile terminal having wide display unit A mobile terminal having a wide display unit is provided. The mobile terminal includes a main body having a first display unit therein. The mobile terminal includes a folder unit having a second display unit at an inner surface opposite to the first display unit. The terminal also includes a sliding unit connected to one end of the folder unit to guide the folder unit capable of performing a slide movement. The terminal includes a hinge coupler to connect the sliding unit and the main body such that the sliding unit rotates based on the main body. The folder unit positions the second display unit to be adjacent to the first display unit by performing a slide movement toward the main body when the folder unit is opened as the sliding unit rotates based on the hinge coupler, and a wide display unit is formed when a surface of the first display unit and a surface of the second display unit become in a single plane. Thereby, mobility of a mobile terminal while providing a wide display unit can be provided.
US08676263B2	Wireless base station, wireless apparatus, wireless controlling apparatus, and communication method A wireless base station includes: a wireless apparatus; and a wireless controlling apparatus, the wireless controlling apparatus including: an embedding processor for embedding a control signal, which is to control a wireless device connected to the wireless apparatus, in a control and management information area in a specific frame, the specific frame being regularly assigned to each frame group including a predetermined number of frames of a plurality of frames included in a transmission frame transmitted via the transmission link; and a first transmitter for transmitting the transmission frame to the wireless apparatus via the transmission link, the wireless apparatus including: an extractor for extracting the control signal from the specific frame in the transmitted transmission frame; and a second transmitter for transmitting the extracted control signal to the wireless device.
US08676262B2	Self-configuring cellular basestation A basestation for a cellular wireless communications network is able to configure itself for operation in the network, by selecting appropriate operating frequencies (in the case of GSM network) or scrambling codes (in the case of a UMTS network), and appropriate transmit powers. This makes it practical for a large number of such basestations to be deployed in a network, within customers' premises, without requiring network intervention in each case.
US08676251B2	Dual modem device A dual modem device is disclosed. The present invention includes a first processor configured to communicate with a first communication network, a second processor configured to communicate with a second communication network, and a subscriber identity module configured to store a user equipment identifier corresponding to the first communication network, at least one authentication parameter corresponding to the first communication network and an authentication algorithm corresponding to the first communication network, the subscriber identity module performing the authentication algorithm corresponding to the first communication network, wherein the subscriber identity module is connected to the second processor. The first communication network is an LTE (long term evolution) communication network. And, the second communication network is an eHRPD (enhanced high-rate packet data) communication network.
US08676243B2	Method and apparatus for dual/multi-watch for group PTT services A communication system (100) provides dual-watch and multi-watch capability for group PTT services. Incoming PTT calls are prioritized and played out in accordance with prioritized devices (130). A user of multiple communication devices can hear received audio traffic being played out in accordance with the priority assigned to the group call and the priority assigned to the communication device. Numerous calls can be simultaneously received and managed.
US08676230B2	Bio signal based mobile device applications Techniques for providing bio signal based mobile device applications are disclosed. In some embodiments, a system for bio signal based mobile device applications includes a bio signal sensor (e.g., biosensor) or multiple biosensors (e.g., multiple biosensors for EEG detection, or multiple biosensors that can each detect different types of bio signals), a bio signal processing unit, the mobile device, and a software application(s) that utilize the bio signal information for various applications (e.g., practical applications, entertainment applications, social networking applications, and/or other applications).
US08676229B2	Apparatus and method for controlling whether to provide location information in broadband wireless access system A method and an apparatus for an operation of a Mobile Station (MS) in a wireless access system are provided. The method includes receiving a request to report measurement data required for location determination, determining whether it is in a state in which providing of location information is rejected, and if it is determined that it is in the state in which providing of location information is rejected, transmitting a message for reporting that providing of the location information is rejected.
US08676226B2	Method of handling location service and related communication device A method of handling location service for a mobile device compatible with a plurality of radio access technologies (RATs) in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method comprises utilizing a first RAT of the plurality of RATs to communicate with a network of the wireless communication system, receiving a first message including positioning support information of the network from the network, and determining whether to initiate a location service in the first RAT or in a second RAT of the plurality of RATs according to the positioning support information.
US08676218B2	Coverage hole compensation in a cellular wireless network A method for use in providing coverage for at least part of a coverage hole in a first cell or cell sector in a cellular wireless network, in which method a second cell or cell sector is selected, from a group of cells or cell sectors in the cellular wireless network which neighbor the first cell or cell sector, to adapt its coverage so as to cover at least part of the coverage hole in the first cell or cell sector, the method including carrying out an identification process using data relating to a cell or cell sector in the group to identify a cell or cell sector suitable for selection as the second cell or cell sector, the identification process being carried out on one or more cells or cell sectors in the group in turn.
US08676217B2	Methods and systems for cell re-planning to obscure network topologies Methods and systems for obscuring network topologies are described. Cell re-planning techniques can be used to modify cell identities to obscure a relationship between nodes in a communication system and their geographical location. One or more algorithms can be used to operate on, e.g., cell plan lists, cell neighbor lists and/or cell identities.
US08676215B2	Method and apparatus for interference suppression in heterogenous networks A method is provided a wireless system for providing an interference suppression zone in a portion of the macro cell coverage area bordering the small-cell coverage area for a small cell, but outside that small-cell coverage area. The transmission power of a UE located within the interference suppression zone is minimized to minimize the inter-cell interference to the small cells. The invention methodology further operates to enhance the redirection/redistribution methods of the art for UEs located in the interference suppression zone, further reducing macro to small cell interference. In further embodiments of the invention, methods are provided for determining the scope of an interference suppression zone and for determining proximity of an UE to the interference suppression zone.
US08676201B2	E-UTRAN and handover The present invention relates to a method, a base station and an interface for handover in a wireless communication network. Handover is initiated when the signal quality falls below a predetermined value. Random access serves as an uplink procedure to enable the UE to make handover from a first base station (eNodeB) to a suitable second base station (eNodeB). In the present invention, random access parameters are exchanged between second and first base station before said first base station signals said random access parameters to said user equipment.
US08676199B2	Tertiary connection strategy for vehicle originated cellular communication to a call center A system and method for making vehicle originated calls to a telematics service provider or other call center. The method includes identifying a call type associated with a desired wireless communication of speech or data to the call center, and then carrying out one of a number of different call connection processes depending on the call type. For voice channel cellular connections, an in-band modem cellular connection is preferably established in most instances using a connection retry strategy that includes primary, secondary, and possibly tertiary connection attempts. The system and method can be carried out in connection with various cellular system technologies, but is especially suited for use with GSM systems.
US08676196B2	Apparatus and method for competitor network monitoring A method and an apparatus for competitor network monitoring, which enables mobile operators to learn about other networks' RF performance, including signal strength, interference, etc. This method changes the normal mobile phone behaviors to utilize its spectrum scan capability to scan competitor networks' RF situation at the mobile phones' idle time slots, i.e. those time slots it does not need to listen to its own network. Associated these collected competitor networks' RF performance data with the location where these data are collected by the means the implementers preferred and gathered the associated competitor network data and correspondent location information at the server, mobile operators can utilize these gathered competitor networks data and compare with their own network to learn about where they have better or worse performance as indication for their own network improvement tasks.
US08676187B2	Dynamic binding of service on bearer Methods that facilitate automatic selection of service bearers in a mobile based on user-initiated policies and service-provider-initiated policies set forth in a policy document are described herein. The mobile device initially receives a policy document from either the mobile device manufacturer or the service provider before the mobile device is provisioned on a communications network. The mobile device user and the service provider may make subsequent changes to the policy document. When a user-initiated policy change conflicts with a service-provider-initiated policy, the user-initiated policy change is disregarded in favor of the service-provider-initiated policy. The mobile device automatically selects an appropriate bearer based at least on the availability of service bearers in the current environment and the policies set forth in the policy document.
US08676186B2	Cell load balancing method, cell load measuring method, and devices thereof A cell load balancing method, a cell load measuring method, and devices thereof are provided. The cell load balancing method includes: acquiring information of the load of a current cell and information of the load an adjacent cell; determining a target cell in which a mobility parameter needs to be modified thereof according to the information of the load of the current cell and the information of the load of the adjacent cell; sending a parameter modification request to the determined target cell; and performing a corresponding operation according to information indicating whether the parameter is successfully modified and fed back from the adjacent cell. With the above solution, a load balancing solution can be better implemented in a network, thereby improving a capacity of the network, improving a success rate of user access, and reducing access delay.
US08676184B2	Method for remotely controlling a device by means of a fixed transceiver station, device, use of a fixed transceiver station and program A method for remotely controlling a device by a fixed transceiver station in a radio cell of a cellular mobile telecommunications network, the cellular mobile telecommunications network being at least one of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network or a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), includes: transmitting to the device on a control channel, by the fixed transceiver station, control information specific to the radio cell; wherein the control channel is a channel or a portion of a channel used to broadcast location information; wherein the control information comprises an identification part for specifying the device; and wherein the device is not required to have a registration with the network.
US08676182B2	Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device Apparatus and methods for changing one or more functional or operational aspects of a wireless device, such as upon the occurrence of a certain event. In one embodiment, the event comprises detecting that the wireless device is within range of one or more other devices. In another variant, the event comprises the wireless device associating with a certain access point. In this manner, various aspects of device functionality may be enabled or restricted (device “policies”). This policy enforcement capability is useful for a variety of reasons, including for example to disable noise and/or light emanating from wireless devices (such as at a movie theater), for preventing wireless devices from communicating with other wireless devices (such as in academic settings), and for forcing certain electronic devices to enter “sleep mode” when entering a sensitive area.
US08676180B2	Virtual SIM monitoring mode for mobile handsets A system and methods that inform users of calls placed to a mobile device via a currently disabled VSIM subscription include identifying the VSIM subscription that is currently enabled on the mobile device and sending an alert to the mobile device via the currently enabled VSIM subscription informing the user of the received call attempt. In an embodiment, the user may switch the enabled VSIM subscription in order to receive the incoming call. If the user switches enabled VSIM subscriptions to the subscription corresponding to the dialed number, the caller's service provider network may be informed so that a communication can then be established between the caller and the mobile device.
US08676177B2	Method and system for providing notification message in a mobile broadcast system A method for providing a notification message in a transmitter of a mobile broadcast system supporting an interaction channel is disclosed. Upon an occurrence of a notification event, a first means generates a notification message, and generates at least one delivery request message including a target address based on subscription information of the corresponding terminal, using the generated notification message. A second means determines a channel over which it will deliver a notification message to the corresponding terminal based on the target address, and delivers the notification message over the determined channel.
US08676171B2	Short URL metadata merge application This invention provides a method of merging metadata generated during an SMS interaction on a mobile device, with metadata gleaned from the User Agent and the resulting Internet Multimedia Content Session (internet/web, video, audio, image, email, etc.).
US08676156B1	Method and system for managing calls A method to manage a call in a communication system and an access node of the communication system are disclosed. The method includes receiving, by the communication system, a call request for a voice call from a first device to communicate with a second device, wherein the second device is a subscriber of the communication system, and transmitting, by the communication system to the first device, a first message comprising an indication that the second device is operating in a text message-only mode, when the second device is roaming and a roaming usage of the second device meets a roaming criteria. The access node may be configured to transmit to the first device the first message, when the first device requests to establish a call with the second device through the access node, the second device is roaming, and a roaming usage of the second device meets the roaming criteria.
US08676154B2	Methods, systems, and computer program products for controlling data transmission based on power consumption Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for controlling data transmission based on power cost. A power cost per unit data associated with successfully sending data from a wireless mobile device to a remote endpoint in a communications network is determined. The determined power cost per unit data is compared to a first threshold. Transmission of data from the wireless mobile device to the remote endpoint is delayed based on a determination that the power cost per unit data exceeds the first threshold.
US08676153B2	Method for geo-targeting wireless emergency alerts Geo-targeting may be used in combination with wireless alert capabilities to provide alerts to a more granulated geographical area. Disclosed herein is a system and method for performing geo-targeting for various alert areas such that emergency messages may be delivered to mobile and static devices of different types in a localized area. In an example embodiment, geo-targeting supports the delivery area for wireless emergency alerts by identifying the cell sites that are in a specified geographic area that have technology capable of delivering wireless emergency alerts. The components of the telecommunications system that support a wireless emergency alert system may be identified and mapped to any geographical area. The method and system of geo-target mapping may provide an efficient and more robust way of determining the telecommunication components to be employed for broadcasting emergency alerts.
US08676150B2	Wake-up method for a multi-channel receiver and multi-channel wake-up receiver A wake-up method for a multi-channel receiver comprises the following steps: checking for activity on every available channel by switching from one channel to the next thereby activating and subsequently deactivating one channel after the other; when activity is detected at least on one of the available channels, switching on all channels, measuring a respective received signal strength in every channel and performing a comparison of received signal strengths between all channels; and selecting the channel with the highest received signal strength. Further a multi-channel wake-up receiver is presented.
US08676147B1	Detection system, controller, and method of detecting a signal of interest A detection system includes a receiver configured to generate a receiver signal representative of detected electromagnetic energy, and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to generate a plurality of signal samples based on the receiver signal. The detection system also includes a detection module configured to identify a plurality of sample offsets for the signal samples, and execute a plurality of autocorrelation functions on the signal samples to provide an output of each of the autocorrelation functions, wherein each autocorrelation function is executed on at least a portion of the signal samples identified by a sample offset of the plurality of sample offsets. The detection module is also configured to compute a sum of the autocorrelation function outputs, normalize the sum of the autocorrelation function outputs, and determine whether a signal of interest is present within the electromagnetic energy based on the normalized sum.
US08676137B2	Mobile wireless terminal, a method of measuring signal strength of a received signal, and a method of searching for a base station A mobile wireless terminal includes a wireless receiving part configured to receive a wireless signal from a base station which belongs to a mobile communication system using a time-frequency conversion for baseband processing; a received signal processing part that includes a time-frequency converting circuit and is configured to process the wireless signal; a setting part configured to successively set central frequencies within regions, wherein a frequency band that the mobile communication system uses is divided into the regions having a predetermined bandwidth; and a received signal strength measuring part configured to measure signal strength of received signals over the regions of the frequency band that the mobile communication system uses based on time-frequency conversion results from the time-frequency converting circuit, the time-frequency conversion results being obtained for the respective regions using the respective central frequencies set by the setting part.
US08676134B2	Highly reliable receiver front-end A receiver front-end for use in a transceiver station of a wireless communication network. The transceiver station is associated with an antenna assembly having a primary and at least a secondary antenna. The receiver front-end is adapted for insertion between the antenna assembly and signal processing sections of the transceiver station. The receiver front-end includes a primary and at least a secondary receiving branch, the primary receiving branch being adapted for coupling to the primary antenna and to the signal processing sections of the transceiver station, the secondary receiving branch being adapted for coupling to the secondary antenna and to the signal processing sections. The primary receiving branch has nonsuperconducting components, including at least a non superconducting filter while the secondary receiving branch has at least a superconducting component.
US08676115B2	Apparatus and methods for testing using modulation error ratio Apparatus and methods are disclosed for testing or qualifying a repeater/transmitter in a multicarrier system by utilizing modulation error ratio (MER). In particular, a disclosed method includes determining an estimated effective modulation error ratio of an output of the repeater/transmitter. The estimated effective modulation error ratio is compared with a predetermined threshold, and the repeater/transmitter is qualified when the estimated effective modulation error ratio is greater than the predetermined threshold. Using an estimated modulation error ratio for repeater/transmitters, which can have non-flat modulation error ratios over a total number of subcarriers, affords an efficient method to test and qualify repeater/transmitters.
US08676112B2	Education monitoring Group-based, periodic education intervention that provides a targeted curriculum selected specifically for each period based on current skill assessment data is described. For example, candidates' skill levels in multiple skills are assessed, and groups are formed based on commonality of skill level. A period-specific curriculum is generated for each group to address the specific needs of the individuals of the respective group. After delivery of the period-specific targeted curriculum over the period, re-assessments of the current skill of the group members are made, and a period-specific curriculum for the subsequent period is generated and delivered. Fidelity of an implementation of the curriculum is analyzed, and alerts, reminders, and reports are provided to improve fidelity of an implementation of the curriculum.
US08676110B2	Hinge apparatus for cover of image forming apparatus A hinge apparatus for a cover of an image forming apparatus has a hinge body with supporting brackets, movably inserted into a coupling hole positioned in a main body of the image forming apparatus, a hinge cam connected to the cover and pivotably connected to the supporting brackets, and a pressure device disposed at the hinge body to press the hinge cam. Accordingly, the hinge apparatus can be implemented with a simple and easy assembly operation, since it is not a complicated structural connection among the component parts of the hinge apparatus.
US08676108B2	Protecting agent supplying member, protective layer forming device, and image forming apparatus To provide a protecting agent supplying member, containing a core, and a foam layer formed on a periphery of the core, wherein the protecting agent supplying member is in the shape of a roller, and wherein the foam layer has concavities regularly arranged in a surface thereof.
US08676107B2	Lubricant applying device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus A lubricant applying device includes a solid lubricant, and a rotatable applying member scraping lubricant off the solid lubricant and applying the scraped lubricant onto an application subject. In the lubricant applying device, a pressing unit applies that applies an applying pressure of pressing the solid lubricant against the applying member and that varies the applying pressure in accordance with a rotation speed of the applying member.
US08676105B2	Fixing device and image forming apparatus using the same In an image forming apparatus for forming a lenticular lens structure when using a light-transmissive recording medium, including: photoreceptor drums; chargers; an exposure unit; developing devices; an intermediate transfer belt unit; and a fixing unit, further includes a resin layer forming device for forming a transparent resin layer on a pressing roller and a controller, and a multiple number of grooves are formed in parallel to each other on the surface of the pressing roller so as to create a lenticular lens structure on the pressing member and, the recording medium is pressed between the fixing roller and the pressing roller so as to form a lenticular lens structure on one surface of the recording medium while an unfixed toner image is fixed to the other surface of the recording medium.
US08676104B2	Fixing device and image forming apparatus A fixing device, including a fixing member; a pressure member; a nip forming member; a reinforcing member; a heating member; and a flange member including a cylinder inserted in an inner circumference at an edge of the fixing member in an axial direction thereof and a flange fixed on a frame of the fixing device, wherein the cylinder of the flange member includes a notch storing the nip forming member at a part on the circumference, has an arc-shaped outer circumferential cross-section at an area corresponding to an area where the fixing member is heated by the heating member, having a predetermined radius equivalent to a radius of the fixing member, and the arc has a center located at an upstream side in a recording medium feeding direction relative to a center line of the nip forming member in the recording medium feeding direction.
US08676097B2	Developing device, assembly, and image forming apparatus with a biasing member A developing device includes a first developing member rotating such that a moving direction of a portion opposing the image carrier is opposite a moving direction of the image carrier. A second developing member is provided on a downstream side of the first developing member in a rotating direction of the image carrier rotating such that a moving direction of a portion opposing the image carrier is the same as the moving direction of the image carries. A distributing member is supported movably relative to a proximal portion where the first developing member is closest to the second developing member so as to distribute developer to the first and second developing members by contact with the developer, and a biasing member biases the distributing member upstream in the rotating direction of the first developing member.
US08676095B2	Toner container A toner container includes a main casing, a shutter, and a seal member. The main casing accommodates toner and is formed with a communication hole through which an interior and an exterior of the casing communicate. The shutter is selectively movable between an open position and a closed position for opening and closing the communication hole, respectively, and in either one of an opening direction and a closing direction. A shutter base portion includes edges, one positioned downstream of the other in the closing direction; and a folded portion. The seal member, configured to encircle the communication hole, is disposed between the casing and the shutter in the closed shutter position. The base portion slidingly contacts the seal member when the shutter moves between the open and closed positions. The folded portion is folded at one edge to be positioned opposite to the seal member relative to the base portion.
US08676086B2	Roller cover and cartridge A roller cover, which is to be attached to a housing, the roller cover comprising: a protecting portion, which faces the circumference of the roller when the roller cover is attached to the housing; a first end portion, which is provided at one side of the protecting portion in an orthogonal direction; a second end portion; a first opposite portion, which is formed continuously with the first end portion, wherein the first opposite portion is fitted to one side of the housing in the orthogonal direction; and a second opposite portion fitted to the other side of the housing, wherein a first distance between the first opposite portion and the second opposite portion increases during an attachment operation, and wherein, when the attachment operation is completed, a final distance between the first opposite portion and the second opposite portion is less than maximum value of the first distance.
US08676081B2	Development apparatus and image forming apparatus having the same A development apparatus according to the present invention includes: a stir member that stirs a developer in a development container; a stir gear that rotates the stir member; a stir rotation shaft that connects the stir member and the stir gear to each other; a development member that supplies the developer onto a surface of an image carrier; a development gear that collaborates with the stir gear to form a series of gears and rotates the development member; a development rotation shaft that connects the development member and the development gear to each other; a housing box that houses the stir gear and the development gear, supports the stir rotation shaft and the development rotation shaft, and is provided with an air take-in opening for taking in air and an air discharge opening for discharging the taken-in air; and a wind sending member that takes in the air from the air take-in opening into the housing box and makes the taken-in air pass through the housing box to discharge the air from the air discharge opening.
US08676073B2	Toner transportation device, toner case, image forming apparatus, and method of controlling toner transportation device A toner transportation device includes a toner case and a drive section. The toner case includes a main body containing toner, and an agitating unit rotatably mounted in the main body that agitates the toner. The drive section includes a driving unit driving the agitating unit, a detection unit detecting a driving unit driving state, and a control unit able to transmit a drive instruction signal to the driving unit and receive a detection signal regarding the driving unit driving state from the detection unit. The control unit determines whether the toner case is in an overload state in accordance with a detection signal reception state. The control unit performs a retry control, causing the driving unit to repeatedly rotate the agitating unit forward and backward when the control unit determines that the toner case is in an overload state.
US08676065B2	Method for processing paper jam in image forming apparatus having at least one option cassette, and image forming apparatus that performs the method An image forming apparatus including at least one option cassette, and a paper jam handling method performed in the image forming apparatus are provided. The paper jam handling method includes the operations of detecting whether paper jam occurs in the image forming apparatus, checking whether paper sheets exist on a transfer path of the image forming apparatus and on a transfer path of the option cassette, when the paper jam is detected, and leaving the paper sheet on the transfer path of the option cassette as it is and discharging the paper sheet caught on the transfer path of the image forming apparatus. Accordingly, paper damage or paper consumption may be prevented by not discharging a paper sheet caught on a transfer path of at least one option cassette during paper jam.
US08676064B2	Detecting a developing cartridge A developing cartridge is provided. The developing cartridge includes a housing which accommodates developer therein, a receiving member which receives a driving force output member provided in an image forming apparatus, a developing roller which rotates by the driving force received by the receiving member, and a detectable rotary member including a detectable portion, which is a detection target to be detected by a detection member provided in the image forming apparatus, and a contact portion which is provided away from the detectable portion. The detectable rotary member rotates from a retreat position to an initial position where the detectable rotary member is rotated by the driving force received by the receiving member, by the contact portion contacting an interference member fixed in the image forming apparatus in a process of mounting the developing cartridge into the image forming apparatus.
US08676054B2	Optical transmission receiver and method for the same There is provided an optical transmission receiver includes an optical switch configured to switch between optical transmission channels, the optical transmission channels being gradually switched from one to the other, an optical amplifier configured to amplify a light propagating in the other of the optical transmission channels which is in a state subsequent to switching, and a switching speed controller configured to control a switching speed of the optical switch based on a level of the light amplified by the optical amplifier.
US08676052B2	Image capturing device and activation method therefor An image capturing device includes a first controller operable to control image capturing; an operation section including a switch; a detector operable to detect a change to an image capturing mode and to send a signal representing the change; a second controller operable to monitor and process the sent signal, the second controller having a power consumption less than that of the first controller; and a power supply operable to supply power to the first controller, the second controller, and a functional section of the device. When the second controller receives the signal sent from the detecting section in a power saving state in which power is supplied from the power supply to the second controller, the power saving state is changed to a power supplying state capable of image capturing by supplying power from the power supply to portions of the device including the first controller.
US08676045B1	Studio arrangement Disclosed are various embodiments of a studio arrangement and a method of capturing images and/or video. One embodiment of the disclosure includes a front light source aimed at a background, an image capture position located between the background and the front light source, an elevated platform positioned between the image capture position and the background, and at least one rear light source positioned between the elevated platform and the background. A subject can be photographed and/or filmed on the elevated platform to achieve a desired effect of a substantially seamless background where a rear edge of the elevated platform is imperceptible to an image capture device positioned at the image capture position.
US08676044B2	Dynamic sauna Systems and methods are provided for controlling infrared radiation (IR) sources of a sauna including tuning IR wavelength-ranges and radiated power-levels of IR sources, and directing IR to locations on a user's body. In one illustrative embodiment, a sauna may be provided having adjustable heat sources to emit IR at any wavelength resulting in a desirable radiation treatment for the sauna user. In another illustrative embodiment, a method is provided for tuning IR sources in a sauna.
US08676042B2	Method and apparatus for seeking a frame in multimedia contents A multimedia content frame seeking method and apparatus is provided. The multimedia content frame seeking method may include setting a candidate position for a target frame, the target frame corresponding to a target time, according to an average bitrate of an average bitrate calculation section that is set with respect to frames in the multimedia content, adjusting the candidate position by progressively decreasing a size of the average bitrate calculation section based on the candidate position, and determining the target frame to be a frame having a start time that differs from the target time by a difference within a predetermined allowable range of error, wherein the target frame is determined from among frames of which starting points are closest to candidate positions.
US08676033B2	Method and apparatus for extracting key frames from a video The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for extracting key frames from a video. The method includes: dividing the video into multiple levels of video segments, wherein each video segment at a non-lowest level comprises one or more video segments at the next lower level, the multiple levels range from a first level to an N-th level, N is an integer greater than 1, the first level is the lowest level, and the N-th level is the highest level; extracting from video segments of the video at a non-highest level candidate frames at the non-highest level; for each level from a next higher level to the highest level, selecting zero, one or more candidate frames at the level from candidate frames at the next lower level in each video segment at the level; and outputting the candidate frames at the highest level as the key frames of the video.
US08676030B2	Methods and systems for interacting with viewers of video content A viewer interaction system and method receives video data from a video source and identifies object content in the received video data. A video signal is generated that represents the video data. That video signal is communicated to a display device which displays a video image representative of the video signal. The system and method monitor user interaction with the displayed video image and selects an interactive activity based on the user's interaction with the displayed video image and the identified object content in the received video data.
US08676022B2	Adapter for fiber optic connectors A fiber optic connector adapter includes a base, a cap, and an interlock between the base and cap. The base includes surfaces that define an exterior and an interior passage between front and rear openings on opposing sides of the base. The cap is fastened to the base over one of the openings and has a port for a fiber optic connector, which includes a major dimension and a minor dimension narrower than the major dimension. The port includes only a single keyway, which is defined by an interior groove on the side of the port defining the major dimension. The interlock positions and holds the cap with the port oriented in a standard polarity. The interlock is releaseable and reengageable. The cap is configured to be released from the base, rotated 180-degrees, and refastened to the base, via the interlock. The keyway then has a reverse polarity.
US08676010B2	Electrical cable with optical fiber An electrical cable includes a cable jacket extending a length and having an internal passageway that extends along the length of the cable jacket. Twisted pairs of insulated electrical conductors extend within the internal passageway along the length of the cable jacket. Each twisted pair includes two insulated conductors twisted together in a helical manner. At least two optical fibers extend within the internal passageway along the length of the cable jacket. The optical fibers are independently held within the internal passageway of the cable jacket relative to each other.
US08676003B2	Methods and systems for reducing polarization dependent loss A photonics integrated circuit for processing radiation includes a first-dimensional grating coupler for coupling in radiation, a second two-dimensional grating coupler for coupling out radiation and a waveguide structure having two distinct waveguide arms for splitting radiation received from the first grating coupler and recombining radiation in the second grating coupler. A phase shifting means furthermore is provided for inducing an additional phase shift in at least one of the two distinct waveguide arms thereby inducing a relative phase shift of π between the two distinct waveguide arms so as to provide a TE/TM polarization switch for radiation between the first grating coupler and the second grating coupler.
US08676002B2	Method of producing a photonic device and corresponding photonic device Method of producing a photonic device including at least one light source and at least one photodetector on a structure including a waveguide layer, this method comprising the following steps: a) growing successively on a substrate (10), a photodetection structure (11) and a light source structure (12), the photodetection structure and the light source structure being made of a stack of layers, the light source layers being stacked on top of the photodetector layers and both structures sharing one of these layers. b) bonding the structure obtained by step a) to the said waveguide structure (2), the light source structure being in contact with the said waveguide structure (2), c) removing the substrate (10) from the structure obtained by step b), d) etching the structure (3) obtained by step c) to define the at least one photodetector (4), e) etching the structure obtained by step d) to define the at least one light source (5), f) forming electrodes (44, 43; 54, 53) on the least one photodetector (4) and on the least one light source (5).
US08675998B2	Method and apparatus for high frequency component smoothing, and image display apparatus A method and apparatus for processing images, and an image display apparatus are provided that can produce favorable images even when digitized image are partially magnified (enlarged) or reduced (shrunk). The apparatus for expanding or reducing input image data supplied thereto, for each area of the image data, comprises a high frequency (HF) component smoothing processor that generates smoothed-HF-component image data by smoothing HF components of the input image data; a partial magnification/reduction controller that generates partial magnification/reduction control information that designates positions of pixels in image data obtained after expanding or reducing the input image data for each image area; and a pixel data generator that generates pixel data of pixel positions designated by the partial magnification/reduction control information in the smoothed-HF-component image data, by using pixel data in a neighborhood of the designated pixel positions.
US08675987B2	Systems and methods for determination of a camera imperfection for an image Methods and systems for creating an image filter is described. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a first plurality of images captured by an at least one camera with a same setting as a first camera. The method further includes creating an averaged image from the plurality of captured images, wherein the averaged image comprises a measurement value of intensity for each pixel in the averaged image. The method also includes determining an image imperfection in the averaged image. The method further includes creating the image filter to reduce the image imperfection.
US08675986B2	Reducing moiré patterns Among other disclosed subject matter, a computer-implemented method includes receiving illustrated content. The illustrated content includes half-tone content. The method includes blurring at least part of the illustrated content. The blurring is performed according to a blur radius. The method includes downscaling the blurred illustrated content to an output size.
US08675985B2	Apparatus and method for processing image Provided are an apparatus and method for processing an image. The apparatus includes a detector configured to form one group with pieces of pixel information on an edge of a received image, detect line segments, and generate a plurality of curves using the detected line segments, an optimizer configured to apply a weight to a cost function based on the plurality of generated curves according to distance from the center of the image, define a curve having a shorter length than a threshold value as an outlier and a curve having a greater length than the threshold value as an inlier, remove the outlier, and estimate a distortion level parameter, and a corrector configured to correct a position of a pixel with a correction value using the distortion level parameter. Accordingly, it is possible to correct lens distortion of even an image that has not been directly photographed, and to correct images generated by devices equipped with any lens rather than a specific camera or photographing apparatus.
US08675983B2	Method to determine a pixon map in iterative image reconstruction and spectral analysis A method for iterative reconstruction of an object containing noise using the pixon method determines the pixon map from a variable that is used to update the object in the iteration. The updating variable is based on an optimized merit function, and smoothes the updating variable during each iteration. The updating variable depends on the reconstruction method, but is typically a gradient of a merit function or a multiplicative update factor. The updated object can optionally also be further smoothed at the end of the iteration, using the pixon map determined during the iteration.
US08675972B2	Method and device for determining the pose of a three-dimensional object in an image and method and device for creating at least one key image for object tracking The invention relates to a method and a device for determining the exposure of a three-dimensional object in an image, characterised in that it comprises the following steps: acquiring a three-dimensional generic model of the object, projecting the three-dimensional generic model according to at least one two-dimensional representation and associating to each two-dimensional representation an exposure information of the three-dimensional object, electing and positioning a two-dimensional representation onto the object in said image, and determining the three-dimensional exposure of the object in the image from at least the exposure information associated with the selected two-dimensional representation.
US08675970B2	Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and image processing program An image processing apparatus including: an edge detection processing section configured to generate an edge image by performing edge detection processing on a detection target image from which a target object is to be detected; a segment area setting section configured to segmentalize the edge image into a plurality of segment areas; an index value calculation section configured to calculate, for each of the plurality of segment areas, an edge component index value that indicates an amount of edge components included in each segment area; and a target object determining section configured to determine whether there is an image of the target object in each segment area based on the edge component index value.
US08675962B2	Image correction processing circuit, semiconductor device, and image correction processing device The image correction processing device (100) disclosed in the description is configured by integrating a first external terminal (CAMDI) [7:0] to which digital input image data is inputted from outside of the device, an image correction processing circuit (200) applying predetermined image correction processing on the digital input image to create digital output image data, a second external terminal (CAMDO) [7:0] outputting the digital output image data to the outside of the device, an encoder circuit (300) converting the digital output image data to analog composite video-type output image data, and a third external terminal (VOUT) outputting the analog composite video-type data to the outside of the device.
US08675959B2	Computer-readable recording medium and image processing apparatus A computer-readable recording medium has stored therein an image processing program for causing a computer to execute a process including identifying, on a taken image of a jig having a plurality of first color regions and a plurality of second color regions different in color from the first color regions, the first color regions, comparing each of the identified first color regions with a predetermined convex shape and retracting each of the first color regions until it is determined that each of the first color regions has a similarity in shape to the predetermined convex shape, and determining a feature point of the jig on the image on the basis of a positional relationship of a plurality of first retracted regions on the image, the first retracted regions being obtained from the first color regions as a result of retraction at the retracting.
US08675958B2	Subject determination method, computer program product for determining subject, and camera A photographic subject determination method includes: a binarization step of creating a plurality of binarized images of a subject image, based upon color information or luminance information in the subject image; an evaluation value calculation step of, for each of the plurality of binarized images, calculating an evaluation value that is used for specifying at least one of a position, a size, and a shape of a photographic subject within the subject image; and a photographic subject specification step of specifying at least one of the position, the size, and the shape of a photographic subject within the subject image, based upon the evaluation value.
US08675956B2	Method and system for verifying making time of a file by computer The present invention is providing a method and a system for verifying making time of a file by computer. The method comprises: calling TWAIN protocol interfaces of a scanner for obtaining original color data both of an object file and a sample file, wherein making time of said sample file is known; sampling color points of said original color data of said object file thereby calculating color index data of said object file; and sampling color points of said original color data of said sample file thereby calculating color index data of said sample file; and comparing said color index data of said object file with said color index data of said sample file, and determining making time of said object file based on said known making time of said sample file. In accordance with the present invention, the sample file or the object file can be verified without damaged for the reason of analyzing color of said file by computer. By use of the computer system for sampling, analyzing, carrying out the result the present invention has reduced the influence of man-made factor so that it provides more reliable security to such result.
US08675955B2	Method and system for transparency adjustment and occlusion resolution for urban landscape visualization According to certain embodiments of the present invention, a graphical presentation is generated from a data representation. A lens is applied to reveal a region-of-interest occluded by an occluding portion of an image. The lens includes an extent of the lens, a focal region including a magnification and a transparency to reduce occlusion of the region-of-interest by the occluding portion, and a shoulder region between the extent of the lens and the focal region. The shoulder region provides context for the focal region with respect to a portion of the image outside of the extent of the lens by preserving visibility of information surrounding the focal region. The shoulder region also has decreasing transparency as depth decreases from the focal region to the portion of the image outside of the extent of the lens.
US08675952B2	Apparatus and method to extract three-dimensional (3D) facial expression Provided is a method and apparatus of extracting a 3D facial expression of a user. When a facial image of the user is received, the 3D facial expression extracting method and apparatus may generate 3D expression information by tracking an expression of the user from the facial image using at least one of shape-based tracking and texture-based tracking, may generate a 3D expression model based on the 3D expression information, and reconstruct the 3D expression model to have a natural facial expression by adding muscle control points to the 3D expression model.
US08675933B2	Breast segmentation in radiographic images An image segmentation embodiment comprises generating a start model comprising a set of model points approximating an outline of an object in an initial image, smoothing the image at a first smoothing level, generating a curvature image by applying a second derivative operator, locating second derivative local maxima in the curvature image that are orthogonal to a respective model point and within a search region having a first boundary on one side of the start model and a second boundary on an opposite side of the start model, generating a set of contours, shifting the start model to an outer boundary of the contours, and generating a segmentation mask of the object based on the shifted start model.
US08675925B2	Spoof detection for biometric authentication This specification describes technologies relating to biometric authentication based on images of the eye. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include obtaining images of a subject including a view of an eye. The methods may further include determining a behavioral metric based on detected movement of the eye as the eye appears in a plurality of the images, determining a spatial metric based on a distance from a sensor to a landmark that appears in a plurality of the images each having a different respective focus distance, and determining a reflectance metric based on detected changes in surface glare or specular reflection patterns on a surface of the eye. The methods may further include determining a score based on the behavioral, spatial, and reflectance metrics and rejecting or accepting the one or more images based on the score.
US08675923B2	Providing feedback about an image of a financial document A technique for providing feedback about an image of a financial document to a user is described. During this feedback technique, the user provides the image of a financial document, such as W-2 form. For example, the user may take a picture of or may scan the financial document. This image may be analyzed using predefined information in a set of financial documents (such as different types of income-tax documents), and a quality metric for the image may be determined using the analysis. Moreover, the feedback, which is based on the determined quality metric, may be provided to the user. For example, the user may be instructed to retake the image, and the instructions may include an image of the desired orientation and content. In this way, the user may be advised as to how to improve the quality metric in the revised image.
US08675921B2	Distance measurement method and system, and processing software thereof A distance measurement system and method are provided. The distance measurement method first projects a light beam with a speckle pattern to reference planes and an object to allow the reference planes and a surface of the object each have an image of the speckle pattern, the speckle pattern having a plurality of speckles. Next, images of the speckle pattern reflected by the reference planes are captured to generate reference image information, and an image of the speckle pattern reflected by the surface of the object is captured to generate an object image information. A processing module which may be a processing software can compare the object image information with the reference image information to obtain several similarity scores. If the most the most similarity score is greater than a threshold value, the processing module identifies the corresponding reference plane, thereby computing the position of the object.
US08675920B2	Fall detection and reporting technology Fall detection and reporting technology, in which output from at least one sensor configured to sense, in a room of a building, activity associated with a patient falling is monitored and a determination is made to capture one or more images of the room based on the monitoring. An image of the room is captured with a camera positioned to include the patient within a field of view of the camera and the captured image of the room is analyzed to detect a state of the patient at a time of capturing the image. A potential fall event for the patient is determined based on the detected state of the patient and a message indicating the potential fall event for the patient is sent based on the determination of the potential fall event for the patient. Techniques are also described for fall detection and reporting using an on-body sensing device.
US08675917B2	Abandoned object recognition using pedestrian detection Methods and apparatus are provided for improved abandoned object recognition using pedestrian detection. An abandoned object is detected in one or more images by determining if one or more detected objects in a foreground of the images comprises a potential abandoned object; applying a trained pedestrian detector to the potential abandoned object to determine if the potential abandoned object comprises at least a portion of a pedestrian; and classifying the potential abandoned object as an abandoned object based on whether the potential abandoned object is not at least a portion of a pedestrian. The trained pedestrian detector is trained using positive training samples comprised of at least portions of human bodies in one or more poses and/or negative training samples comprised of at least portions of abandoned objects.
US08675899B2	Front surround system and method for processing signal using speaker array A front surround sound reproduction system which improves the performance of beam steering by using a speaker array arranged geometrically on two or more planes or on one curved surface, and a signal reproducing method of the system. The audio reproduction apparatus to reproduce a multi-channel audio signal by using a plurality of speakers includes a signal distribution unit to duplicate a multi-channel audio signal and to distribute the duplicated signals as one or more groups of multi-channel signals corresponding to one or more speaker array groups, a steering processing unit to form sound beams with steering angles predetermined in relation to each speaker array group, from the groups of multi-channel signals distributed by the signal distribution unit, and a speaker array unit having one or more speaker array groups to reproduce the sound beams of each group formed by the steering processing unit, in the speaker array group.
US08675898B2	Ribbon microphone with automatic protection switch To provide electromagnetic damping without a special output connector for protecting a diaphragm of metallic ribbon foil of a ribbon microphone against shocks. A ribbon microphone operable with a phantom power supply comprises: an acoustic-electric converter 1 including a pair of permanent magnets and a diaphragm of metallic ribbon foil; and a step-up transformer 110 coupled with the diaphragm on a primary winding 111 side and having, on a secondary winding 112 side, an output connector 120 removably connected to a phantom power supply, the step-up transformer 110 increasing a voltage generated by the diaphragm to a predetermined voltage, the voltage then being output to the phantom power supply side through the output connector 120, wherein a switch 141 is connected across the secondary winding 112, the switch 141 being normally closed and being opened by a power supplied from the phantom power supply.
US08675895B2	Microphone assembly with integrated self-test circuitry The present invention relates to a condenser microphone assembly comprising an electro-acoustic transducer element comprising a diaphragm and a back plate, signal processing circuitry operatively connected to the transducer element so as to process signals generated by the transducer element, and a mode-setting circuitry for selectively setting the condenser microphone assembly in a test mode or an operational mode. The electro-acoustic sensitivity of the condenser microphone assembly, when operated in the test mode, is at least 40 dB lower than the corresponding electro-acoustic sensitivity of the assembly when operated in the operational mode. The present invention further relates to a method for determining a performance parameter of a signal processing circuitry mounted inside a housing of an assembled condenser microphone assembly.
US08675892B2	Spectral management system A spectral management system may be used in an audio system to receive and process audio signals having multiple distributed audio channels, such as a right, left, center, right side, left side, right rear and left rear channels. The spectral management system may separate and route a frequency range of audio content included in one or more of the distributed audio channels to other distributed audio channels. The separated and routed frequency range of audio content may be combined with audio content present on the other distributed audio channels to which the separated frequency range of audio content is routed. Separation, routing and combination may include bass audio content routing, mid-bass audio content routing, subwoofer audio content routing and treble audio content routing.
US08675891B2	Power supply unit with noise reduction capability Embodiments of the present invention provide a power supply unit capable of achieving noise reduction while maintaining efficiency under the light load state. A FET driver controls switching elements in either one of a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) mode, an intermittent mode having a lower operating frequency than that in the PWM mode, and a noise-free mode having a higher operating frequency than an audible frequency range. The FET driver operates first in the intermittent mode under the light load state. A microphone collects noise generated from the surroundings of a power supply unit. When the level of an audio signal collected by the microphone exceeds a predetermined level, the FET driver transitions from the intermittent mode to the noise-free mode. In accordance with such an embodiment, the FET driver operates in the noise-free mode only when noise is actually generated.
US08675884B2	Method and a system for processing signals A system for processing sound, the system including: (a) a processor, configured to process a first input signal that is detected by a first microphone at a detection moment, a second input signal that is detected by a second microphone at the detection moment, and a third input signal that is detected by a bone-conduction microphone at the detection moment, to generate a corrected signal that is responsive to the first, second, and third input signals; and (b) a communication interface, configured to provide the corrected signal to an external system.
US08675881B2	Estimation of synthetic audio prototypes An approach to forming output signals both permits flexible and temporally and/or frequency local processing of input signals while limiting or mitigating artifacts in such output signals. Generally, the approach involves first synthesizing prototype signals for the output signals, or equivalently characterizing such prototypes, for example, according to their statistical characteristics, and then forming the output signals as estimates of the prototype signals, for example, as weighted combinations of the input signals.
US08675877B2	Sharing a secret via linear interpolation A method and system distributes shares of a secret among cooperating entities using linear interpolation. In one embodiment, a linear equation is formed using the secret and random elements. The linear equation represents a K-dimensional secret hyperplane, where K is the number of shares to reconstruct the secret. Shares of the secrets are created, with each share containing a point on the secret hyperplane. The shares are then distributed to cooperating entities for secret sharing.
US08675875B2	Optimizing use of hardware security modules Use of cryptographic key-store hardware security modules is optimized in a system having a first scarce high-security key storage device and a second more plentiful low-security key storage device comprising securing a cryptographic key to the higher security level by initially storing the key in the first storage device, then responsive to an event, evaluating the stored key against one or more rules, and subsequent to the evaluation, reclassifying the stored key for relocation, encrypting the reclassified key using a key-encryption key; relocating the reclassified key into the second, lower-security storage device, and storing the key-encryption key in the first storage device.
US08675865B2	Method and apparatus for a high bandwidth stream cipher A method and apparatus for a high-bandwidth stream cipher. In one embodiment of the invention, the stream cipher has an output function that receives secret state bits from a block cipher and generates an encryption mask. In one embodiment of the invention, the encryption mask has a lesser or smaller number of bits than the secret state bits. The stream cipher uses the encryption mask to encrypt a video data stream to generate an encrypted video data stream.
US08675862B1	Method and apparatus of a certain cell phone case with a universal decorative pattern layer A protective case discloses an electronic device protective casing, comprising the main protective shell body and the universal decorative pattern layer, the said main protective shell body layer has a pattern opening corresponding to the pattern of the universal decorative pattern layer to snugly fit in, and the said decorative pattern layer disposed on the said protective shell body layer via fixed plate. And the said fixed plate area is greater than the said decorative pattern layer. Since the said universal decorative pattern layer and the said protective shell body are manufactured separately, the universal decorative plate will be able to use for different electronic devices, therefore it will reduce the cost to make such case in term of reproduction of molding, and thereby the cost of the electronic device protective case will be as well reduced.
US08675860B2	Training optimizer for contact center agents The present disclosure describes various ways of monitoring the needs of a contact center in real-time and pushing training to a number of agents to address those needs. In determining to push training to agents, the short-term efficiency of the agent is balanced with the long-term efficiency of the contact center. When agents receive and then complete training events designed to address the monitored contact center needs the attributes associated with the agents are updated to allow them to handle the contacts requiring training.
US08675851B1	System and method for call routing management in a telecommunication network Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computer program products and the like for managing calls in a telecommunication network. In one example, the systems and methods involve passing information into a standard signaling flow in order to obtain a unique routing for customers sharing a single interface.
US08675847B2	Scalable conference bridge In one embodiment, a conference bridge receives a call initiated by a first caller endpoint. The conference bridge identifies a conference to which the call requests entry and determines whether the conference bridge has available resources to process the call. The conference bridge enables the call to join the conference via a second conference bridge associated with a second caller endpoint participating in the conference according to whether the conference bridge has available resources to process the call.
US08675846B2	System and method for providing voice messaging with dynamic content A system and method for creating and distributing messages including dynamic content is provided. In one form, an entity provides a plurality of content segments for use in building a dynamic message. The entity also provides a listing of end users to receive a message and information associated with the user, such as demographic or prior purchasing information. In an alternate form, the service connects to the user in a communication session and collects information from the user directly. The service then uses this information, whether provided by the entity or the end user, as the basis for selection of various content segments which will make up a dynamic message for presentation to the user.
US08675840B2	System and method for using a prepaid card A system and method for transferring money by use of a prepaid card account is disclosed wherein two cards are issued to the user accountholder, one of which is provided to another user, and either user may add value to the prepaid account so that the other user may use the card and that value in a financial transaction.
US08675838B2	Intercom unit for providing a status alert for a movable barrier An access control system is provided for a movable barrier. A main communication unit grants access to a movable barrier operator. The movable barrier operator controls movement of the movable barrier. A remote communication unit has an input device to receive an access request and to transmit a corresponding access signal to the main communication unit and to transmit a status indication to the main communication unit in response to detecting a predetermined event.
US08675833B2	System and method for managing messages A system and method for managing messages, such as, but not limited to, voicemails and text messages, is presented. For example, in one embodiment, the method includes identifying a caller associated with a message for a callee. The method determines whether at least one other new message for the callee is from the caller. In response to at least one other new message for the callee is from the caller, the method groups the message with the at least one other new message.
US08675828B2	Authentication of a user to a telephonic communication device The invention provides a method, system, and program product for authenticating a user to a telephonic communication device. In one embodiment, the invention includes obtaining a reference sample of an authorized user's voice, storing the reference sample of the authorized user's voice, collecting a sample of the voice of a user of the telephonic communication device, comparing the sample of the voice of the user to the reference sample of the authorized user's voice, determining whether the user is the authorized user, and in the case that the user is determined not to be the authorized user, prohibiting use of the telephonic communication device.
US08675801B2	Clock generating circuit, transceiver and related method A clock generating circuit includes: a phase detector for detecting a phase difference between an input clock and a reference clock to generate a control signal corresponding to the phase difference; a controllable oscillator for generating a plurality of output clocks according to the control signal, wherein the plurality of output clocks correspond to an oscillating frequency and correspond to a plurality of different phases respectively; a phase selector for selecting an output clock as a feedback clock from the plurality of output clocks according to a phase select signal; a feedback circuit for generating the input clock according to the feedback clock; and a phase difference comparator for comparing the plurality of phases corresponding to the plurality of output clocks respectively with a data phase of a data signal to generate a compared result, and generating the phase select signal according to the compared result.
US08675795B2	Apparatuses for adjusting a bandwidth and coefficient values of a receiver in a wireless network A receiver has a bandwidth. The receiver includes paths, a first receiver module, an enable module, and a second receiver module. The paths are configured to be enabled to receive signals. The first receiver module is configured to, prior to the receiver receiving the signals, detect a number of the paths that are enabled to receive a signal. The enable module is configured to, based on the number of the paths detected to have been enabled (i) determine if the signals to be received by the receiver are receivable by a number of the paths less than the number of the paths detected to have been enabled, and (ii) disable, based on a result of the determination, one or more of the paths detected to have been enabled. The second receiver module is configured to, based on the number of the paths enabled, adjust the bandwidth of the receiver.
US08675791B2	Method and an apparatus for deconvoluting a noisy measured signal obtained from a sensor device The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for deconvolving a noisy measured signal obtained from a sensor device (100), said noisy measured signal (y(t)) being the sum of the convolution product (x(t)N(t)) of an input signal (x(t)) of the sensor device, representative of a feature of physical quantity, by a convolution kernel (N(t)) defined by the response function of the sensor device (100) and a noise which interfere with the measure. The method is characterized in that said method comprises an estimate computation step (400) in the course of which a minimal estimate (xmin(t)N(t)) of the convolution product of the input signal by the convolution kernel of the sensor device is computed in order that said minimal estimate stays below the noisy measured signal (y(t)) and has at least one point in common with the noisy measured signal (y(t)).
US08675790B2	Adaptive digital signal processing of a receive signal A receiver is provided with a digital signal processing circuit to process a receive signal. In addition, the receiver includes an interference detector to detect an interference scenario affecting reception of the signal by the receiver. Depending on the interference scenario detected by the interference detector, the digital signal processing circuit is adapted.
US08675783B1	Low complexity distance metrics for maximum likelihood receivers Systems and methods are provided for determining a data value for a bit of interest in a received data signal. A closest 0-bit symbol candidate is selected from a plurality of 0-bit symbol candidates using a symbol selection distance approximation. A closest 1-bit symbol candidate is selected from a plurality of 1-bit symbol candidates using the symbol selection distance approximation. A 0-bit distance between the received data signal and the selected 0-bit symbol candidate is determined, and a 1-bit distance between the received data signal and the selected 1-bit symbol candidate is determined. A log likelihood ratio is calculated for the bit of interest using the determined 0-bit distance and the determined 1-bit distance.
US08675781B2	Radio frequency receiver system for wideband signal processing Wireless communication is ubiquitous today and deployments are growing rapidly leading to increased interference, increasing conflicts, etc. As a result monitoring the wireless environment is increasingly important for regulators, service providers, Government agencies, enterprises etc. Such monitoring should be flexible in terms of the networks being monitored within the wireless environment but should also provide real-time monitoring to detect unauthorized transmitters, provide dynamic network management, etc. Accordingly, based upon embodiments of the invention, a broadband, real-time signal analyzer (RTSA) circuit that allows for the deployment of RTSA devices in a distributed environment wherein determination of policy breaches, network performance, regulatory compliance, etc. are locally determined and exploited directly in network management or communicated to the central server and network administrators for subsequent action. Beneficially the RTSA exploits a broadband RF front end in conjunction with parallel direct down conversion and FFT techniques.
US08675777B2	Programmable if frequency filter for enabling a compromise between DC offset rejection and image rejection A center frequency of an adjustable filter is controlled to achieve a compromise between DC offset rejection and image rejection.
US08675776B2	Majority detector apparatus, systems, and methods Apparatus, methods, and systems are disclosed, including, for example, a data receiver to receive a calibration voltage and a reference voltage to calibrate the data receiver. The output of the data receiver is provided to a first ripple counter that counts the outputs from the data receiver and provides an output count. The ripple counter may count either ones or zeros. A second ripple counter counts the number of a clock signals over the same period of time. The output count is either multiplied by two or the count of clock signals is divided by two. A ripple comparator may then compare the outputs and adjust the reference voltage based upon the comparison results.
US08675770B1	Transmitter circuit with integrated power control An integrated circuit device, set forth by way of example and not limitation, includes an IC package provided with a plurality of leads and enclosing: a) a buffer amplifier, b) a switching-mode power amplifier having an input coupled to the output of the buffer amplifier and having an output coupled to at least one of the plurality of leads, and c) a digital controller. A method, set forth by way of example and not limitation, for controlling the power output of a RF transmitter circuit without the need for an attenuator includes developing a signal source, applying the signal source to a buffer amplifier to provide an amplified signal, applying the amplified signal to a switching-mode power amplifier to provide a power output signal, and controlling a gain of the switching-mode power amplifier in response to a digital command.
US08675769B1	Constellation map optimization for highly spectrally efficient communications A method and system for optimizing symbol mapping in partial response based communications that are based on use of pulse-shaping that incorporates a predetermined amount of inter-symbol interference (ISI). Optimizing symbol mapping symbol mapping may comprise configuring optimized constellation mapping for use in mapping and/or de-mapping data communicated using the partial response pulse-shaping. In this regard, the optimized constellation mapping may be based on a reference constellation mapping that is utilized for reference modulation scheme, and the configuring comprises applying adjustments to one or more constellation points in the reference constellation mapping. The optimized constellation mapping may be configured to optimize an applicable minimum distance for one or more selected error patterns for a given spectral compression applied during partial response based communications. The configuring of the optimized constellation mapping may be based on feedback information provided during communication of data.
US08675764B2	Method and apparatus for generating a precoding matrix codebook group A method and an apparatus for generating a precoding matrix codebook group are provided by the present invention. The method includes: a step for generating a channel matrix set; a step for generating a performance parameter matrix; and a step for generating a precoding matrix codebook group: based on the generated performance parameter matrix, according to contribution of every precoding matrix to the performance parameter of the communication system, ranking the precoding matrices in precoding matrix universal set, so as to achieve an ordered precoding matrix universal set as the precoding matrix codebook group. A method for assigning a precoding matrix for a multi-antenna communication system, a method for transmitting data for a multi-antenna communication system, a base station and a mobile station thereof are provided by the present invention.
US08675761B2	Allocating antennas for cyclic delay diversity transmission Methods and apparatus of allocating antennas for cyclic delay diversity (CDD) transmission are disclosed. One method includes estimating a transmission channel of a transceiver having a plurality of antennas. A subset of a plurality of transceiver antennas is selected based on the estimated transmission channel. A single transceiver antenna of the subset is identified based on a channel quality of a transmission path of the single transceiver antenna. Cyclic delay diversity (CDD) signals are transmitted from the subset of the plurality of antennas, wherein a minimally delayed CDD signal is transmitted from the identified single transceiver antenna of the subset of the plurality of transceiver antennas.
US08675759B2	Wireless transmission system, and wireless station and method used for same A wireless transmission system performs multi-station simultaneous transmission of data. The wireless transmission system includes wireless stations for transmitting and receiving data. Transmitter-side wireless stations, a multipath channel, and receiver-side wireless stations constitute a system for path diversity. At least one wireless station among the wireless stations determines, depending on a response packet with respective to a multi-station simultaneous transmission request packet transmitted by itself or other stations, delay amounts from a reference timing during multi-station simultaneous transmission in the wireless transmission system, and symbol waveforms that are a basis for a modulated waveform. A difference between each delay amount is set to be larger than or equal to a predetermined delay resolution for each symbol waveform, and a difference between maximum and minimum values of the delay amounts is set to be smaller than or equal to a predetermined maximum delay.
US08675757B2	Digital television transmitting/receiving system and method of processing digital broadcast data in digital television transmitting/receiving system A digital television (DTV) transmitting/receiving system and a method of processing digital broadcast data in the DTV transmitting/receiving system are disclosed. The DTV transmitting system includes a randomizer for randomizing enhanced data, an encoder for encoding each bit of the randomized enhanced data at a coding rate of ½ in order to output data symbols, a symbol to byte converter for converting the data symbols to data bytes, a deinterleaver for deinterleaving the data bytes, a Reed-Solomon (RS) encoder for RS-coding enhanced data packets including the deinterleaved data bytes to add RS parity data, a data interleaver for interleaving data of the RS-coded enhanced data packets, a trellis encoder for trellis coding the interleaved data at a coding rate of ⅔, and a transmitting unit for transmitting a digital broadcast signal including the trellis-encoded data.
US08675743B2	Feedback scheduling to reduce feedback rates in MIMO systems In a closed-loop wireless communication system, a codebook-based feedback control mechanism is provided where feedback from each of a plurality of receivers is scheduled to control the feedback so that the receiving devices do not needlessly feed back precoding information to the transmitting device. The feedback may be controlled by establishing and distributing a schedule to control when each receiver feeds back precoding information, or by establishing and distributing a metric-based feedback threshold that must be satisfied before feedback is permitted.
US08675740B2	Hypothetical reference decoder Disclosed is a system and method of controlling a video decoder, including a reviewing channel data representing coded video data generated by an encoder to identify parameters of a hypothetical reference decoder (HRD) used by the encoder during coding operations. A parameter representing an exit data rate requirement of a coded picture buffer (CPB) of the HRD is compared against exit rate performance of the video decoder. If the exit rate performance of the video coder matches the exit rate requirement of the HRD, the coded video data is decoded, otherwise, a certain decoding degradation scheme can be applied, including disabling decoder from decoding the coded video data.
US08675733B2	Polymorphic codec system and method An input module obtains a media signal to be communicated to a destination system, after which an identification module identifies a plurality of segments within the media signal. A codec includes a selection module that automatically selects different compression methods to respectively compress at least two of the segments. The compression methods are automatically selected to produce a highest compression quality for the respective segments according to a set of criteria without exceeding a target data rate. A compression module within the codec then compresses the segments using the automatically-selected compression methods, after which an output module delivers the compressed segments to the destination system with an indication of which compression method was used to compress each segment.
US08675730B2	Macroblock grouping in a destination video frame to improve video reconstruction performance A method of video reconstruction includes providing a hardware accelerator to a video processing component of a video processing system, and a driver for the video processing component. In addition, the method includes segmenting macroblocks of a destination video frame in a raster order into groups based on reference parameters thereof using the driver, where the reference parameters define compensation needs of macroblocks of the destination frame. The method also includes constructing an indexed array of linked-lists using the driver, with each linked-list representing macroblocks of a group having the same reference parameters. The hardware accelerator may be programmed to accelerate motion compensation by reconstructing macroblocks of the destination frame group-wise in the indexed order of the array of linked-lists.
US08675726B2	Method and encoder for constrained soft-decision quantization in data compression A method of encoding a video using constrained soft-decision quantization. The soft-decision quantization includes first performing hard-decision quantization to obtain hard quantized coefficients and, then, obtaining a soft quantized coefficient using a rate-distortion calculation over a search range of quantization levels for a transform domain coefficient, wherein the search range of quantization levels for that transform domain coefficient is constrained within a number of quantization levels of a corresponding hard quantized coefficient. The search range may be based upon a fixed threshold, the coefficient position, the hard quantized coefficient magnitude, a threshold value less accumulated distortion, or other factors, including combinations of these factors. The accumulated distortion may be measured by an L1 norm.
US08675725B2	Integrated circuit, communication unit and method for improved amplitude resolution of an RF-DAC An integrated circuit comprises a digitally-controlled power generation stage (DPA) for converting an input signal to a radio frequency (RF) carrier, the DPA comprising a plurality of selectable switching devices capable of adjusting an envelope of the RF carrier; and a pulse width modulator (PWM) generator arranged to generate a PWM control signal and operably coupleable to the plurality of selectable switching devices of the DPA. The PWM generator inputs the PWM control signal to a subset of the plurality of the selectable switching devices such that a PWM signal adjusts the envelope RF carrier output from the DPA.
US08675722B2	Methods and apparatus for snapshot-based equalization of a communications channel Equalization techniques for compensating distortion associated with a communications channel are provided. In one aspect of the invention, a method/apparatus for equalizing an input signal received from a communications channel includes the following steps/operations. At least one sampling is generated from the received input signal based on a clock signal unrelated to a clock signal used to recover data associated with the received input signal. Distortion associated with the communications channel is then compensated for based on at least a portion of the at least one generated sampling.
US08675719B2	Multi-domain test and measurement instrument A test and measurement instrument including a time domain channel configured to process a first input signal for analysis in a time domain; a frequency domain channel configured to process a second input signal for analysis in a frequency domain; and an acquisition system coupled to the time domain channel and the frequency domain channel. The acquisition system is configured to acquire data from the time domain channel and the frequency domain channel. Time domain and frequency domain data can be time aligned.
US08675710B2	Chirp receiver A method of synchronizing the frequency and timing of a receiver with a synchronization chirp signal from a transmitter, comprising: receiving the synchronization chirp signal, the synchronization chirp signal comprising a sequence of symbols, the sequence of symbols including at least a first symbol having a first gradient g1 and a second symbol having a second gradient g2, wherein the magnitudes of the first gradient and the second gradient are both greater than one, and the magnitude of the first gradient is different to the magnitude of the second gradient; correlating the sequence of received symbols with expected symbols to form a correlator output; determining timing and frequency offsets between the transmitter and the receiver from the correlator output; and adjusting the timing and frequency of the receiver by the determined timing and frequency offsets.
US08675709B1	Externally frequency-converted CW hybrid MOPA A hybrid CW MOPA includes an OPS-laser resonator delivering radiation in a plurality of longitudinal lasing-modes or wavelengths. The multiple longitudinal mode output is amplified in a fiber-amplifier. Amplified lasing-modes from the fiber-amplifier are frequency-converted by an optically nonlinear crystal in a ring-resonator having the same length as the laser resonator, such that the ring-resonator is resonant for all of the amplified lasing-modes.
US08675705B2	Diode laser and laser resonator for a diode laser having improved lateral beam quality A diode laser and a laser resonator for a diode laser are provided, which has high lateral beam quality at high power output, requires little adjustment effort and is inexpensive to produce. The laser resonator according to the invention comprises a gain section (GS), a first planar Bragg reflector (DBR1) and a second planar Bragg reflector (DBR2), wherein the gain section (GS) has a trapezoidal design and the first planar Bragg reflector (DBR1) is arranged on a first base side of the trapezoidal gain section (GS) and the second planar Bragg reflector (DBR2) is arranged on the opposing base side of the trapezoidal gain section (GS), wherein the width (D1) of the first planar Bragg reflector (DBR1) differs from the width (D2) of the second planar Bragg reflector (DBR2).
US08675700B2	Laser system and laser light generation method A laser system in this disclosure may include: a master oscillator configured to output pulsed laser light, a coherence reduction optical system configured to reduce coherence of the pulsed laser light from the master oscillator, and a controller configured to control the coherence reduction optical system so that a speckle of the pulsed laser light varies.
US08675698B2	Green laser system A green laser is made by constructing a laser cavity that includes within it a laser diode, a non-linear crystal such as KTP, and a lens. The boundaries of the cavity are not defined by the ends of the diode itself, but are instead defined by the ends of an apparatus that includes the lens and the KTP or similar crystal.

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