Document Document Title
US09352225B2 System and method for providing a multi-player game experience
A system and method for providing a multi-player game experience through a computerized theme-park ride. The system includes a ride control module configured to manage ride control parameters and settings of a computerized theme park ride. The system includes a ride interface module configured to provide an interface to operate and navigate the computerized theme park ride. The ride interface module include a plurality of interface devices. The system includes a ride engine module, including a processor, configured to operate a multi-player game experience. The system includes a communications module configured to bridge communications between the ride engine module, the ride interface module, and the ride control module over a computerized network. The system includes an account module configured to provide player specific information to the ride control module.
US09352219B2 Incorporating player-generated audio in an electronic game
Incorporating player-generated audio in an electronic game is disclosed. Incorporation may include receiving an audio clip from an electronic game player, applying a modification to the audio clip to generate a chant, associating the chant to the execution of an event in the electronic game, retrieving the chant when the event in the electronic game is executed, and initiating the play of the chant upon execution of the event in the electronic game.
US09352213B2 Augmented reality game piece
An augmented reality (AR) game system is disclosed wherein real-world objects are transformed into AR terrain elements and AR events generate real-world impact. The game environment is set up using real-world objects that include everyday objects and game pieces on a field of play. When viewed on the screen of a computing device executing the modules of the game system, the everyday objects are transformed into elements of an AR terrain while the game pieces can be augmented with various controls. Multiple viewing modes, for example, a third person view, a first person view or “POV” view from a selected game piece or a split screen view are contemplated for viewing the field of play. A subset of the augmented controls can be activated by the user to execute AR events some of which can have real-world impact. The AR events are executed based on game rules.
US09352198B2 Multi-material golf club head
The invention provides a golf club head that uses a light-weight material for part of the body and a strong material for a face-to-sole transition to provide a durable face with a high coefficient of restitution. The club head may have a first body part and a second body part. Material of the first body part extends down from a face member, bends around a face-sole transition, and continues into a sole return member to provide at least a portion of a ball-striking face and a sole surface. The first body part also provides a hosel. The second body part provides a significant proportion of the volume of the club head (e.g., at least about a third or even a majority). The low-density of the second body part allows for inclusion of one or more high-density third body parts to optimize mass distribution.
US09352196B2 Golf club
A golf club c1 has a base part 2, a laser discoloration layer 6, and a protection layer 8. The laser discoloration layer 6 is provided on the outer side of the base part 2. The protection layer 8 is provided on the outer side of the laser discoloration layer 6. The protection layer 8 has laser beam transparency. The laser discoloration layer 6 can be discolored by irradiation of a laser beam. Preferably, an undercoat layer 4 is further provided between the base part 2 and the laser discoloration layer 6. Preferably, the undercoat layer 4 is not discolored by the laser beam. Preferably, the laser discoloration layer 6 includes abase material resin and a laser discoloration material.
US09352193B2 Golf ball layers based on polyalkenamer / ionomer/ polyamide blends
Multi-piece golf balls containing a core of at least one layer and cover of at least one layer are provided. At least one component is formed from a rubber composition comprising: i) about 10 to about 65 weight percent of a cycloalkene rubber having a trans-content of about 55% or greater and a melting point of 30° C. or greater; ii) about 30 to about 80 weight percent of an ionomeric resin; and 3) about 5 to about 40 weight percent of a polyamide. The rubber composition may further include other thermoplastic and thermosetting materials such as, for example, polybutadiene, polyisoprene, ethylene propylene rubber, ethylene propylene diene rubber, and styrene-butadiene rubber. The rubber composition helps improve resiliency, durability, scuff-resistance, and feel of the ball.
US09352191B2 Swimming goggles
Swimming goggles include left and right frames each having an inner peripheral face and an outer peripheral face and being assembled with a lens, a connecting element interconnecting the left and right frames, skirt portions being respectively attached to the inner peripheral faces, and head strap apparatuses. Each of the inner peripheral faces is defined with a first arc face and a second arc face, in which the first arc face connected with the outer face, and the second arc face connected with the skirt portion. The first and second arc faces cooperatively form an angle less than 180 degrees so as to enable the skirt portions to be hermetically attached to contours of eye sockets and a nose of a wearer, whereby providing a comfortable wearing of the swimming goggles for the wearer.
US09352190B2 Knee ascender assembly for rope climbing
A secondary ascender system for use in rope climbing and with other rope climbing systems that provides a knee ascender permitting full range of motion and energy capture from two legs by encasing an interior portion of the length of an elastic cord used for tending the knee ascender within a load bearing member. The load bearing member connects a foot attachment to an ascender and transfers loads applied to the foot attachment and via the elastic cord during tending to the ascender to advance up the rope.
US09352186B2 Treadmill with selectively engageable deck stiffening mechanism
A treadmill includes an impact absorption mechanism operatively positioned at least in part between a deck and a base frame of the treadmill so that the impact absorption mechanism enables the deck to move relative to at least a portion of the base frame during impact events on the deck and a selectively engageable deck stiffening mechanism that reduces the amount of movement of at least a portion of the deck relative to the base frame during impact events on the deck. The deck stiffening mechanism includes one or more generally rigid members and an engaging mechanism. The engaging mechanism selectively engages the one or more generally rigid members with the deck to provide support to the deck during impact events on the deck.
US09352182B1 Pneumatic sock exercise device
Embodiments relate to a pneumatic sock exercise device utilizing pneumatic resistance transmitted to a user by a pneumatic sock capable of slidable movement within a pneumatic conduit configured to be removably interfaced with a source of airflow. The pneumatic sock is a tubular structure made of a flexible material that includes various aspects and features. When an embodiment is interfaced with the source of airflow, the pneumatic sock enables airflow within the pneumatic conduit or pneumatic conduit structure to oppose the user and his/her movement of the sock in either direction (with or against airflow) during exercise. Some embodiments may include an extension means and/or an anti-friction means to extend the range of movement of the pneumatic sock. The same or other embodiments may include a housing including a pneumatic conduit structure. A cushion of a resilient material may be included in an embodiment.
US09352175B1 Method and apparatus for prolonging the service life of a collective protection filter using a supplemental bed
A method for extending the service life of a Collective Protection (CP) filter includes: providing at least one CP filter comprising a filter bed; and passing an airstream through a supplemental bed configured to enhance the filter bed by promoting reactions that facilitate the removal of one or more of chemical warfare agents and toxic threat compounds. An apparatus for extending the service life of a Collective Protection (CP) filter, the apparatus including: a CP filter comprising a filter bed; and a supplemental bed configured so as to enhance the filter bed by promoting reactions that facilitate the removal of chemical warfare agents and toxic chemicals.
US09352173B2 Treatment device
A treatment device includes a treatment portion, a transmission portion and a moment shift portion. The treatment portion transmits ultrasonic vibration. The length of the treatment portion is shorter than ¼ of a wavelength of the ultrasonic vibration. The transmission portion has one end at a node position where the first generated node from the distal end of the treatment portion appears, and is located closer to a proximal side than the node position. The length of the transmission portion is ¼ of the wavelength. The moment shift portion is located between the treatment portion and the transmission portion. An average of I1/A12 is greater than an average of I2/A22, where I1 is the second moment of area and A1 is a sectional area in the treatment portion, and I2 is the second moment of area and A2 is a sectional area in the transmission portion.
US09352165B2 Method and apparatus for verifying discriminating of tachycardia events in a medical device having dual sensing vectors
A method and medical device for detecting a cardiac event that includes sensing cardiac signals from a plurality of electrodes, the plurality of electrodes forming a first sensing vector sensing a first interval and a second sensing vector simultaneously sensing a second, determining, for each of the first interval and the second interval, whether each beat of the plurality of beats is one of a match beat and a non-match beat, determining whether each beat of the plurality of beats is one of a high confidence beat and a low confidence beat, determining, for each of the first interval and the second interval, the number of beats determined to be both a non-match beat and a high confidence beat is greater than a non-match threshold, and determining whether to deliver therapy for the cardiac event in response to identifying of each of the first interval and the second interval as being one of shockable and not shockable.
US09352163B2 Electrocardiogram identification
A defibrillating system includes a processor coupled to a memory. The processor and the memory are configured to identify a treatment event associated with treatment of a victim with the defibrillating system, and transmit a representation of a portion of an ECG signal associated with the identified treatment event. In some cases, the processor and the memory are configured to identify the portion of the ECG signal associated with the identified treatment event. In some cases, the portion of the ECG signal is of a predetermined length of time having a start time and an end time based on a time associated with the identified treatment event.
US09352162B2 Power architecture for an implantable medical device having a non-rechargeable battery
An improved architecture for an implantable medical device using a primary battery is disclosed which reduces the circumstances in which the voltage of the primary battery is boosted, and hence reduces the power draw in the implant. The architecture includes a boost converter for selectively boosting the voltage of the primary battery and for supplying that boosted voltage to certain of the circuit blocks, including digital circuitry, analog circuitry, and memory. However, the boost converter is only used to boost the battery voltage when its magnitude is below a threshold; if above the threshold, the battery voltage is passed to the circuit blocks without boosting. Additionally, some circuitry capable of operation even at low battery voltages—including the telemetry tank circuitry and the compliance voltage generator—receives the battery voltage directly without boosting, and without regard to the current magnitude of the battery voltage.
US09352157B2 Intra-oral balance device based on palatal stimulation
A device for vestibular substitution includes a mouthpiece fitting entirely within a person's mouth in a shape that conforms to the palate. The mouthpiece encases a circuit board containing an electronic system that can deliver electrical pulses to electrical stimulators touching the palate based on head movement. The electronic system includes a motion sensor, a control unit; a stimulation circuit; and a battery. The control unit is preferably a microcontroller with a digital Input/Output capability, a Serial Peripheral Interface/Inter-Integrated Circuit protocol, a timer, and an oscillator for sensor interfacing and timing control. The microcontroller enables processing data from the accelerometer to indicate head movement, and controlling each embedded electrical stimulator to deliver electrical pulses with adjustable waveform parameters. The device may also include a wireless transceiver for remote control of the device from outside the person's mouth.
US09352155B2 Chaotic desynchronization of neural populations with non-pulsatile inputs
A method is provided for finding an energy-optimal stimulus which gives a positive Lyapunov exponent, and hence desynchronization, for a neural population. The method is illustrated for three different neural models. Not only does it achieve desynchronization for each model, but it also does so using less energy than recently proposed methods, suggesting a powerful alternative to pulsatile stimuli for deep brain stimulation. Furthermore, we calculate error bounds on the optimal stimulus which will guarantee a minimum Lyapunov exponent. Also, a related control strategy is developed for desynchronizing neurons based on the population's phase distribution.
US09352151B2 Method and apparatus for applying neuromuscular electrical stimulation
A method and apparatus for applying neuromuscular electrical stimulation to an agonist/antagonist muscle pair to move a limb about a joint includes generating a first pattern of neuromuscular electrical stimulation pulses for output through a first channel to a first pair of electrodes and generating a second pattern of neuromuscular stimulation pulses for output through a second channel to a second pair of electrodes. The first pair of electrodes are attached to the agonist muscle of the agonist/antagonist muscle pair, and the second pair of electrodes are attached to the antagonist muscle. A first pattern of electrical stimulation pulses is transmitted through the first pair of electrodes to the agonist muscle at a first intensity level to initiate contraction of the agonist muscle, and then at a second intensity level which is less than the first intensity level to continue contraction of the agonist muscle. A second pattern of electrical stimulation pulses is transmitted through the second pair of electrodes to the antagonist muscle at a first intensity level to reduce the acceleration of the limb, and then at a second intensity level which is less than the first intensity level to regulate the movement of the limb.
US09352140B2 Medical component scrubbing device with detachable cap
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 scrub brush integrally includes both a cleansing portion with a cleansing insert to cleanse a part of a medical device and a protection portion with a cover component to cover and protect the cleansed medical device part from subsequent contamination. The cleansing insert includes a plurality of compliant fingers to ensure adequate cleansing of the medical device part.
US09352138B2 Pre-pierced IV access port
An access port for introduction of a needle cannula tip into an IV tube set includes a rigid tubular housing and a resilient member disposed within an inlet of the housing. The resilient member includes a proximal face exposed to an exterior of the rigid housing and a distal face disposed within the rigid housing. An axial perforation extends through the resilient member, and is normally closed by a resilient character of the resilient member. A depression is defined in the proximal face of the resilient member, and includes sidewalls extending between the proximal face and the axial perforation to guide the needle cannula tip toward the axial perforation as a needle cannula associated with the needle cannula tip is introduced into the access port.
US09352120B2 Catheter with enhanced pushability
Apparatus for enhancing pushability and minimizing kinking of a balloon catheter is provided, wherein a catheter comprises inner and outer tubes, and a balloon that is proximally affixed to the outer tube and distally affixed to the inner tube. The catheter of the present invention further comprises a tubular member imposed on the inner tube which is configured to form a reversible mechanical linkage between inner tube and outer tube while an axially compressive load is applied to the catheter tip.
US09352119B2 Blood control IV catheter with antimicrobial properties
A system and method is provided for applying an anti-pathogenic material to various surfaces of a medical device, wherein the method includes identifying various surfaces of the medical tests which include noncritical dimensions, and limiting the application of the anti-pathogenic material to those surfaces. Some aspects of the invention further include the application of an anti-pathogenic lubricant material to various parts or components of a medical device to reduce friction.
US09352104B2 Syringe barrel adapter and needle assembly
An adapter mountable to a retractable syringe barrel comprises a body that includes a needle portion and a barrel-engaging portion and a needle aperture. The adapter facilitates mounting a needle assembly to the barrel. The needle assembly comprises a needle body and cannula and an immobile, compressible needle seal, wherein the needle body and the needle seal are releasably engaged. The needle seal is engageable with a needle portion of the adapter. The needle body comprises one or more fluid reclaim channels that facilitate efficient delivery of the fluid contents of the retractable syringe. The retractable syringe also comprises dual locking systems to impede or prevent re-use.
US09352099B2 Safety device for a pre-filled syringe and injection device
According to the invention, a safety device for a pre-filled syringe comprises a hollow support body for mounting the pre-filled syringe therein, a hollow needle shield that is slidable relative to the support body and guiding means for guiding the movement of the needle shield relative to the support body. The guiding means comprise a flexible arm with a guide pin, a guide track and a separating wall. The guide pin extends from the flexible arm in a radial direction, and protrudes into the guide track. The separating wall extends into the guide track in a direction parallel to a central axis of the safety device. When the needle shield is slid relative to the support body the guide pin moves along the guide track to deflect the flexible arm in a lateral direction perpendicular to the central axis and the movement of the guide pin along the guide track is guided by the interplay of the flexible arm and the separating wall.
US09352097B2 Spindle for a drug delivery device
A spindle (242; 414; 542; 642) for driving a bung of a cartridge is provided. The spindle includes a generally circular shaft having an outer surface (560). The generally circular shaft extends from a distal end to a proximal end of said circular shaft. A first helical groove (219; 519; 619) is provided along a first portion of the outer surface. The first helical groove having a first pitch. A second helical groove (221; 521; 621) provided along a second portion of the outer surface of the generally circular shaft. The second helical groove overlapping the first helical groove. The second helical groove having a second pitch.
US09352096B2 Syringe assembly with inverse delivery
A reduced profile syringe assembly is provided that includes an overall profile that is substantially similar to a profile of a syringe barrel. The syringe assembly includes a plunger rod that is significantly disposed within the syringe barrel when filled for use, with the plunger rod adapted to be retracted from the syringe barrel during dispensing of contents of the syringe barrel.
US09352090B2 Auto-injector
An auto-injector comprising a tubular chassis, a carrier subassembly comprising a tubular carrier slidably arranged partially inside the chassis, a drive spring and a plunger, the syringe is lockable for joint axial translation with a carrier, a control spring, and a needle insertion control mechanism comprising a first collar biased by the control spring in a proximal direction. At least one resilient beam is proximally arranged on the first collar, wherein respective recesses are arranged in the carrier and case. A transversal extension of a head of the resilient beam is wider than a gap between the carrier and the chassis causing the head of the resilient beam to abut a distal face on the recess in the chassis.
US09352088B2 Auto-injector
Auto-injector for administering a dose of a liquid medicament includes a housing to contain a syringe with a hollow needle and a stopper for sealing the syringe and displacing the medicament (M), the housing having a distal end (D) and a proximal end (P) with an orifice to apply against an injection site. A spring means, upon activation, can push the needle from inside the housing through the orifice and past the proximal end (P), operate the syringe to supply the dose of medicament (M), and retract the syringe with the needle after delivering the medicament (M). An activating means can lock the spring means in a pressurized state prior to manual operation and capable of, upon manual operation, releasing the spring means for injection.
US09352087B2 Indicator arrangement for an auto-injector
Describe is an auto-injector comprising a syringe carrier arranged to retain a syringe, a plunger arranged to displace a stopper within the syringe, a feedback component retainable in a first position and biased towards a second position, a pin disposed on the feedback component, and an exterior component having a bore. The feedback component moves from the first position to the second position when the plunger during displacement of the stopper reaches a predetermined position. The pin enters the bore when the feedback component is in the second position.
US09352081B2 Drip chamber with hydrophobic interior surface
A drip chamber for an infusion tube, including: a first end including a drip tube; a second end including an exit port; and a wall connecting the first and second ends and including an interior surface with a hydrophobic portion. The drip chamber includes a space enclosed by the interior wall and the first and second ends. The hydrophobic portion of the interior surface repels liquid contacting the hydrophobic coating. The hydrophobic portion of the interior surface enables light to refract through the hydrophobic portion and the wall in the same manner as is the case when the hydrophobic portion is not present on the interior surface.
US09352080B2 Burette
A burette (10) to receive liquid from an intravenous supply (29) to deliver liquid to a patient via a tube (30). The burette (10) includes a hollow body (11) that is generally cylindrical configuration and that contains a float valve (24). Liquid level in the chamber (12) of the body (11) regulates liquid level within the chamber (12) by engaging an inlet passage (36) or an outlet tube (25).
US09352079B2 Safety needle accessory
This invention relates to a safety needle accessory sealed within a pack suitable for sealing pre-filled syringes. The safety needle accessory comprises a hub for surrounding a hollow needle having a tip and having a connector for attachment to a syringe, a slidable sleeve adapted to slide over the needle in a first longitudinal direction from a first position in which the needle is fully or partially covered by the sleeve to a second position in which the needle is exposed, and in a second longitudinal direction from the second position to a third position in which the needle is fully covered by the sleeve, and a pack surrounding the hollow needle, hub and slidable sleeve having a closed end covering the needle and an open end exposing the connector of the hub. The safety needle accessory further comprises a first seal attached to the connector of the hub and a second seal between the hub and the pack.
US09352076B2 Negative pressure assisted tissue treatment system
A system for stimulating the healing of tissue comprises a porous pad positioned within a wound cavity, and an airtight dressing secured over the pad, so as to provide an airtight seal to the wound cavity. A proximal end of a conduit is connectable to the dressing. A distal end of the conduit is connectable to a negative pressure source, which may be an electric pump housed within a portable housing, or wall suction. A canister is positioned along the conduit to retain exudates suctioned from the wound site during the application of negative pressure. A controller for automated oscillation of pressure over time is provided to further enhance and stimulate the healing of an open wound. A power management motor control for varying pump drive frequency and managing a portable power supply is provided to increase battery life and improve patient mobility.
US09352070B2 Tissue prostheses for repairing, reconstructing and replacing damaged or diseased biological structures and associated tissue
Non-antigenic, resilient, bioremodelable, biocompatible tissue prostheses that can be engineered into a variety of shapes and used to repair, augment, reconstruct or replace damaged or diseased biological structures and associated tissue.
US09352068B2 Biocompatible polyelectrolyte complexes and methods of use
An article comprising a polyelectrolyte complex comprising an interpenetrating network of at least one predominantly positively charged polyelectrolyte polymer and at least one predominantly negatively charged polyelectrolyte polymer, the polyelectrolyte complex further comprising a plurality of closed-shell pores, the plurality of pores having at least one average transverse dimension between about 100 nanometer and about 1000 micrometers.
US09352066B2 Hemostatic devices
Hemostatic devices for promoting blood clotting can include a substrate (e.g., gauze, textile, sponge, sponge matrix, one or more fibers, etc.), a hemostatic material disposed thereon such as kaolin clay, and a binder material such as crosslinked calcium alginate with a high guluronate monomer molar percentage disposed on the substrate to substantially retain the hemostatic material. When the device is used to treat a bleeding wound, at least a portion of the clay material comes into contact with blood to accelerate clotting. Moreover, when exposed to blood, the binder has low solubility and retains a majority of the clay material on the gauze. A bandage that can be applied to a bleeding wound to promote blood clotting includes a flexible substrate and a gauze substrate mounted thereon.
US09352052B2 Retrograde transport viral vector system having envelope comprising fused glycoprotein
Provided is a lentiviral vector system which sustains a high-frequency retrograde transportation ability in animal brain and has a higher titer. A kit for preparing a retrograde transport viral vector, which comprises: (1) a packaging plasmid containing the gag gene and pol gene of HIV-1; (2) a packaging plasmid containing an accessory gene of HIV-1; (3) a transfer plasmid containing a target gene; and (4) an envelope plasmid containing, as an envelope gene, a gene encoding a fused polypeptide comprising the extracellular domain of rabies virus glycoprotein (RV-G), the transmembrane domain of rabies virus glycoprotein (RV-G) or vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G) and the intracellular domain of vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G).
US09352051B1 Kits containing DLL3 antibody drug conjugates
Novel modulators, including antibodies and derivatives thereof, and methods of using such modulators to treat proliferative disorders are provided.
US09352046B2 Implantation compositions for use in tissue augmentation
A composition of matter and method for preparation of a tissue augmentation material. A polysaccharide gel composition is prepared with rheological properties selected for a particular selected application. The method includes preparing a polymeric polysaccharide in a buffer to create a polymer solution or gel suspending properties in the gel and selecting a rheology profile for the desired tissue region.
US09352023B2 Use of neuregulin-4 for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and necrotizing enterocolitis
The invention provides methods, pharmaceutical compositions and kits for treating, inhibiting and/or reducing the severity of inflammatory bowel disease and necrotizing enterocolitis in a subject in need thereof by administering an effective amount of a composition comprising an activator of ErbB4.
US09352022B2 Peptide toxin formulation
Procedures are described which use solvents to increase the topical insecticidal activity of toxic insect peptides. These procedures comprise drying the peptides, if needed, followed by the addition of either: 1) a polar organic solvent, with or without water, to a dried peptide, or 2) the addition of polar aprotic solvent or other adjuvant to the dried peptide, followed by the addition of either: 1) a polar organic solvent, with or without water, (where a polar aprotic solvent is added first) or 2) a polar aprotic solvent or other adjuvant to the peptide polar organic solvent (where the polar organic solvent is added first), to the peptide formulation.
US09352008B2 Dietary supplements and methods for treating pain and inflammation
The document provides compositions such as dietary supplements. Such compositions can be used to reduce pain, inflammation, stiffness, and/or discomfort associated with inflammatory conditions such as arthritis. The document also provides methods for reducing pain, inflammation, stiffness, and/or discomfort associated with inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.
US09352007B2 Processes for extracting phytochemicals from pomegranate solids and compositions and methods of use thereof
Processes for producing an extract containing phytochemicals from pomegranates are disclosed. The processes generally comprise providing pomegranate solids, such as the pericarp, inner membrane and seeds; creating a mixture comprising the pomegranate solids in an aqueous solution; adding enzymes to the mixture in an amount sufficient to at least partially degrade the pomegranate solids; heating the mixture to a temperature that permits the maximum rate of catalysis of the enzyme; maintaining the temperature of the heated mixture for a time sufficient to allow at least partial degradation of the pomegranate solids; and removing residual insoluble solid materials from the mixture. Compositions containing the extract may be used as a food product, beverage, pharmaceutical preparations, nutritional supplements, vitamin supplements, food additives, and food supplements. The compositions may also be used for preventing or ameliorating disease conditions by administering an effective amount of the composition to a subject in need thereof.
US09352004B2 Muscle-derived cells (MDCs) for treating muscle- or bone-related injury or dysfunction
The present invention provides muscle-derived cells, preferably myoblasts and muscle-derived stem cells, genetically engineered to contain and express one or more heterologous genes or functional segments of such genes, for delivery of the encoded gene products at or near sites of musculoskeletal, bone, ligament, meniscus, cartilage or genitourinary disease, injury, defect, or dysfunction. Ex vivo myoblast mediated gene delivery of human inducible nitric oxide synthase, and the resulting production of nitric oxide at and around the site of injury, are particularly provided by the invention as a treatment for lower genitourinary tract dysfunctions. Ex vivo gene transfer for the musculoskeletal system includes genes encoding acidic fibroblast growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, epidermal growth factor, insulin-like growth factor, platelet derived growth factor, transforming growth factor-1, transforming growth factor-a, nerve growth factor and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist protein (IRAP), bone morphogenetic protein (BMPs), cartilage derived morphogenetic protein (CDMPs), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and sonic hedgehog proteins.
US09351998B2 Methods of nourishing animals
The present invention relates to methods of maintaining, and methods of restoring, a desired calcium homeostasis in a non-human terrestrial animal by administering an effective amount of one or more Calcium-Sensing Receptor modulators (CaSRs) to the animal. The invention further provides methods of reducing foot lesions in chickens. The invention also relates to food compositions useful in the methods of the invention.
US09351986B2 Calicheamicin derivative-carrier conjugates
Methods for preparing monomeric cytotoxic drug/carrier conjugates with a drug loading significantly higher than in previously reported procedures and with decreased aggregation and low conjugate fraction (LCF) are described. Cytotoxic drug derivative/antibody conjugates, compositions comprising the conjugates and uses of the conjugates are also described. Monomeric calicheamicin derivative/anti-CD22 antibody conjugates, compositions comprising the conjugates and uses of the conjugates are also described.
US09351985B2 Topical formulation for pain relief
Described herein are topical pain compositions comprising between 15 and 90% mannitol, for use in the treatment of pain, itch and other cutaneous nerve conditions. The resulting compositions may be in the form of creams, gels, lotions, ointments, foams, suppositories, and sprays.
US09351981B2 Use of PKC-iota inhibitors for the treatment of breast cancer
The subject invention pertains to uses of PKC-iota inhibitors for treatment of breast cancer. In one embodiment, the subject invention provides novel uses of 1H-imidazole-4-carboxamide, 5-amino-1-[2,3-dihydroxy-4-[(phosphonooxy)methyl]cyclopentyl]-,[1R-(1α, 2β, 3β, 4α)] (ICA-1) and related compounds for treatment of breast cancer. The compounds of the subject invention have potent anti-proliferative effects against human breast cancer cells. The compounds of the subject invention also inhibit the phosphorylation of IKK-α/IKK-β, induce chromatin condensation, and/or induce DNA fragmentation in cancer cells.
US09351976B2 Pharmaceutical compositions comprising sorbitan esters
The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition comprising sorbitan esters of carboxylic acids that are useful for the delivery of anti-psychotic drugs.
US09351961B2 Method of treating multiple sclerosis
The invention provides methods for treating multiple sclerosis by administering biotin. The invention also provides methods for treating sequelae after multiple sclerosis attacks by administering biotin.
US09351960B2 Agent for the treatment of viral hepatitis C
The invention relates to medicine and comprises an agent for the treatment of a viral hepatitis C, which is glutaryl histamine or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. This agent can also be administered in combination with a pegylated interferon and ribavirin. The invention further relates to a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of a viral hepatitis C. This invention solves the problem of providing a novel agent, which is effective in the treatment of a viral hepatitis C and makes it possible to produce a sustained virologic response.
US09351957B2 Amorphous form of apremilast
The present invention provides an amorphous form of apremilast and process for preparation thereof. The present invention also provides a pharmaceutical composition comprising an amorphous apremilast and one or more of pharmaceutically acceptable carriers, excipients or diluents used for the treatment of active psoriatic arthritis.
US09351956B1 Pharmaceutical composition comprising an enantiomer of lipoamide and derivatives thereof and method of use
This invention is directed to pharmaceutical compositions comprising substantially enantiomerically pure lipoamide and derivatives thereof and methods of use of such compositions to modulate signaling pathways for the treatment of diseases and disorders.
US09351954B2 Multicyclic compounds and methods of use thereof
Provided herein are multicyclic compounds, methods of their synthesis, pharmaceutical compositions comprising the compounds, and methods of their use. For example, disclosed herein are compounds having formula (IIa) shown below, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt or stereoisomer thereof, wherein the variables are defined herein. The compounds provided herein are useful for the treatment, prevention, and/or management of various neurological disorders, including but not limited to, psychosis and schizophrenia.
US09351950B2 Method for preventing or treating allergic disease using capsiate or salt thereof
The present invention relates to a method for preventing, alleviating or treating allergic diseases using capsiate or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. Capsiate or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof according to the present invention may be used for the purpose of preventing, alleviating or treating allergic diseases.
US09351949B2 Prophylactic/therapeutic agent for influenza virus infection
Provided is a prophylactic/therapeutic agent for influenza viral infection that is effective not only before and at an early stage of infection with influenza virus but also at an intermediate or late stage of the infection and is highly safe for human bodies. A prophylactic/therapeutic drug for influenza viral infection comprising, as active ingredients, 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA), a derivative thereof or a salt of the 5-ALA or the derivative, and an iron compound is prepared. This prophylactic/therapeutic agent can be used for ameliorating (preventing) depression in food consumption, water consumption and body weight, for ameliorating (decreasing) increase in ketone body levels in blood that may otherwise cause ketosis, for ameliorating (preventing) depression in ATP levels in blood, or for ameliorating (increasing) a survival rate and depression in a body surface temperature.
US09351948B2 Amide derivatives of N-urea substituted amino acids as formyl peptide receptor like-1 (FPRL-1) receptor modulators
The present invention relates to novel amide derivatives of N-urea substituted amino acids, processes for preparing them, pharmaceutical compositions containing them and their use as pharmaceuticals as modulators of the N-formyl peptide receptor like-1 (FPRL-1) receptor.
US09351947B2 Use of catecholamines and related compounds as anti-angiogenic agents
A catecholamine or related compound having (S)-configuration at β-carbon, a physiologically tolerated salt thereof, a prodrug thereof, a physiologically functional derivative thereof or any mixture thereof and having a lipophilicity greater than (S)-noradrenaline has use as an anti-angiogenic agent. A catecholamine or related compound in which a β-hydroxy group has been modified are also anti-angiogenic. The anti-angiogenic agent is preferably a compound of formula (I) or (II) a physiologically tolerated salt thereof, a prodrug thereof, a physiologically functional derivative thereof or any mixture thereof.
US09351946B2 MTOR-independent activator of TFEB for autophagy enhancement and uses thereof
The present invention relates to a composition comprising an autophagy enhancement compound. Small molecules that are able to enhance autophagy and lysosome biogenesis by activating the gene TFEB which can prevent the accumulation of toxic protein aggregates in treating neurodegenerative diseases are disclosed.
US09351943B2 Anti-fibroblastic fluorochemical emulsion therapies
The present invention is directed to compositions and methods targeting tissue resident cells, such as fibroblasts, in a subject harboring conditions or at risk for conditions that would benefit from anti-fibroblastic therapy. The present invention relates to the use of fluorochemical compositions and methods of delivery that result in retention of the fluorochemical composition and any bioactive agent delivered in combination with the fluorochemical composition.
US09351928B2 Method of making particles for use in a pharmaceutical composition
A method for making composite excipient particles for use in a pharmaceutical composition comprises a milling step in which particles of an excipient material are milled in the presence of an additive material. The product particles are of small size and the milling requires relatively low input of time and energy. The composite particles are suitable for use in inhalable pharmaceutical compositions.
US09351918B2 Polyglycerol-azelaic acid polyesters for cosmetic applications
A polyglycerol-azelaic acid polyesters and cosmetic compositions that incorporate them as active components in combination with a cosmetically acceptable vehicle. A process for producing esters and polyesters between azelaic acid and glycerol or oligomers thereof containing up to 10 monomer units.
US09351913B2 SPF liquid cleansing compositions and methods of use
The present application relates to a facial and/or body wash composition that after rinsing provides a sun protection factor of at least about 6 comprising (i) red petrolatum; (ii) at least one surface-treated metal oxide pigment that blocks ultraviolet radiation in the wavelength range of from about 290 nm to about 400 nm; (iii) at least one organic sunscreen agent having a log P of greater than about 4.0 that blocks or absorbs ultraviolet radiation in the wavelength range of from about 290 nm to about 400 nm; (iv) at least one lathering anionic surfactant; (v) at least one lathering non-ionic surfactant; (vi) an alkyl silicone; and (vii) a volatile cyclic silicone.
US09351909B2 Compositions for endodontic procedures
An adhesion promoter for endodontic sealant compositions for filling and sealing a root canal.
US09351908B2 Orthodontic composition with polymeric fillers
Orthodontic adhesives are claimed which use polymeric filler particles with defined particle size characteristics. The particle size characteristics are controlled such that these adhesives provide comparable mechanical retention and cohesive strength of conventional orthodontic adhesives when used to bond orthodontic appliances to teeth. Because polymeric fillers are generally softer than inorganic fillers, these adhesives are easier to remove from the tooth than conventional adhesives after debonding an orthodontic appliance. Embodiments of the invention include both self-curing and two-part adhesives, packaged adhesive-coated orthodontic appliances, and methods for removing a cured adhesive from a tooth surface.
US09351903B2 Eye wash device
An eye rinsing device for rinsing at least one eye is embodied as an attachable attachment, which can be connected to a container, wherein the attachment can be placed onto the eye of a person. The eye rinsing device is provided with at least one rinsing opening, which is directed towards the eye by means of which the washing of an eye is carried out in an improved manner. The attachment encompasses a device having wing-like spreading elements which pull the upper eyelid and the lower eyelid apart so as to support the opening of the eye during the rinsing process.
US09351895B2 Spinal surgical table
The present invention relates to a spinal surgical table which is used during spine and spinal-related surgical operations and on which the patient is laid down. The spinal surgical table includes at least one carrying skeleton, at least one carrying connection member, at least one stand, at least six supporting pads, and at least one head rest. The present invention enables to decrease pressure-related complications by leaving the abdominal area on the hole, be connected to any kind of operation table, be accorded with different body sizes and be accorded with the position of the patient. The present invention can also be connected to other apparatuses which help position the patient.
US09351892B2 Percussion therapy system, apparatus and method
A sonic percussion therapy system includes a patient support apparatus and a control module. The sonic percussion structure is attached to the inflatable cell so that the sonic percussion structure moves in response to movement of the inflatable cell. The control module includes a sonic percussion control module and a position control module. The sonic percussion control module independently controls frequency and/or intensity of at least one of the plurality of sonic percussion structures. The position control module selectively raises and lowers at least one of the plurality of sonic percussion structures with respect to a patient surface.
US09351891B2 Stabilized raising wheelchair
A raising wheelchair comprises a wheeled frame and a raising system mounted to the frame and supporting a seat and a backrest. The raising system is configured to be movable between a lowered position and a raised position. The raising system includes at least one double-armed lever including a first lever member and a second lever member, a coupling member fixedly mounted to the frame, wherein the first lever member and the second lever member are pivotally coupled to the coupling member, and a coupling mechanism translationally coupled or pivotally coupled to a second end of the first lever member, pivotally coupled to a second end of the second lever member, and coupled to the backrest. The raising system maintains an orientation of the backrest relative to the ground that is substantially constant throughout substantially an entire range of movement between the lowered position and the raised position.
US09351889B2 Elevated height wheelchair
Embodiments of the present disclosure include a wheelchair configured to reposition an occupant between a lowered and a raised position. The wheelchair can include a frame, a seat moveable relative to the frame, a drive wheel, and one or more pairs of arm assemblies. The arm assembly includes a wheel configured to move from a first spatial location when the wheel chair is operating on flat, level ground to a second spatial location that is different than the first spatial location. Arm limiters can selectively engage the arm assembly based on at least one of a seat position, position of the arm assembly and surface conditions of ground surface. The arm limiters can limit the range of motion of the arm assembly and sometimes other operational aspects of the chair.
US09351881B2 Retractable earplug apparatus for an eyewear assembly
An eyewear temple arm mounted to an eyewear device, wherein a distal portion of the elongated body member defines a parking structure. A distal edge portion of the structure defines an opening into a cavity thereof which is formed and dimensioned for free sliding, peripheral receipt of at least the proximal portion of a functional element therein between an operational condition and a parked condition. A cover member is configured to cooperate with the parking structure for movement between an opened condition and a closed condition. In the opened condition, the functional element can be moved to the operational condition, while in the closed condition, the cover member extends over the parking structure opening to substantially enclose at least the distal portion of the functional element therein.
US09351880B2 Goggle with easily interchangeable lens that is adaptable for heating to prevent fogging
Anti-fog, interchangeable-lens goggle adapted for use with a battery comprising: a body with a flexible posterior portion for engaging a user's face and an anterior portion; a lens having a resistive anti-fog element thereon, the lens adapted for engaging the anterior portion of the body; an engagement mechanism for releasably interconnecting the lens and the body; an interconnection mechanism depending from the body adapted for detachably interconnecting the heating element of the lens and the battery, the interconnection means operable or integral with the engagement mechanism such that interconnecting the heating element of the lens with the battery also reinforces interconnecting of the lens with the semi-rigid anterior portion of the body; and a strap adapted for holding the goggle on one of a user's head and helmet.
US09351876B1 Steerable laser probe
A steerable laser probe may include a handle, an actuation structure of the handle, a housing tube, an optic fiber, and an optic fiber sleeve. The housing tube may have a first housing tube portion having a first stiffness and a second housing tube portion having a second stiffness. The second stiffness may be greater that the first stiffness. The optic fiber may be disposed within an inner bore of the handle, the optic fiber sleeve, the actuation structure, and the housing tube. The optic fiber sleeve may enclose at least a portion of the optic fiber and the optic fiber sleeve may be disposed within the actuation structure and the housing tube. A compression of the actuation structure may be configured to curve the housing tube and the optic fiber.
US09351874B2 Methods and apparatus for delivering ocular implants into the eye
A method of deploying an ocular implant into Schlemm's canal of a human eye including the following steps: inserting a distal tip of a delivery tool within an anterior chamber of the eye through trabecular meshwork of the eye into Schlemm's canal of the eye; and advancing an ocular implant through a curved portion and a distal opening of the delivery tool to place a body portion of the ocular implant in Schlemm's canal and an inlet portion of the ocular implant in the anterior chamber.
US09351867B2 Method of treating prolapse of a vagina
A method of treating prolapse of a vagina includes inserting a shell into the vagina; contacting a convex exterior apex of the shell with an interior apical portion of the vagina; and securing a first portion of an anchor to the shell and securing a second portion of the anchor to a ligament or a sacrum exterior to and separate from the vagina.
US09351862B2 Intragastric device
Devices and methods for treating obesity are provided. More particularly, intragastric devices and methods of fabricating, deploying, inflating, monitoring, and retrieving the same are provided.
US09351858B2 Endovascular graft joint and method for manufacture
A joint and method for producing a joint in an endovascular graft. In one embodiment, a flap of a flexible material portion of an endovascular graft is folded about a portion of an expandable member to form a loop portion. The flap is secured in the loop configuration so that tensile force on the expandable member is transferred into a shear force on the fixed portion of the flap.
US09351851B2 Disc space sizing devices and methods for using the same
Devices and methods are provided for measuring and/or adjusting the distance between two opposing surfaces of a work space, such as two vertebral bodies separated by a disc space. A sizing device may include at least one distraction member, an actuator, and an actuator controller. The actuator controller is movable to move the actuator, with movement of the actuator changing the height dimension of the distraction member. The amount of movement of the actuator controller is generally linearly related to the change of the height dimension of the distraction member. The amount of expansion force applied by the distraction member is also generally linearly related to the amount of movement of the actuator controller.
US09351843B2 Systems and methods for joint repair including subchondral treatment of bone
Systems and methods for the treatment of a joint are provided. These systems and methods may also include a subchondral treatment of bone of the same joint. These joint treatment methods may be non-surgical or surgical. Also provided are devices and instruments associated with the methods.
US09351838B2 Deformable prosthesis
A deformable prosthetic member, including an acetabular shell, can be formed of appropriate materials to engage a liner. The deformable member can include one or more feature to deform and engage a second member, such as a liner, in a selected position. A plurality of deformable features allows for a plurality of possible positions for the second member.
US09351833B2 Dynamic annuloplasty ring sizer
A dynamic, adjustable annuloplasty ring sizer can include an adjustable ring replica, which can be adjusted through a range of sizes corresponding to available prosthetic annuloplasty repair ring sizes. Actuation of an adjustment trigger on a handle portion of the ring sizer can displace tension wires that extend through a malleable shaft and through a plurality of articulating segments that form the ring replica. Displacement of the tension wires causes flexion of the joints between adjacent articulating segments, thereby reducing the overall size of the ring replica. Releasing the tension wires can allow an elastic extension wire to act on the ring replica, enlarging the ring replica to its maximum, at-rest size. In this manner, the appropriate size of annuloplasty ring prosthesis can be determined with a single device, without requiring a plurality of static ring sizers that require individual insertion and placement for the conventional trial-and-error sizing methods.
US09351826B2 Cataract removal using ultra-short pulse lasers
A system and method of replacing a lens to treat a cataract is disclosed. Cataractous tissue is ablated via a multi-photon process using focused, ultra-short laser pulses. Multi-photon ablation requires an energy intensity between 1013 to 1015 W/cm2. Using lasers having femto-second duration pulses, this intensity is achieved with 50 micro-Joules of energy, allowing material disruption with very little heating or shock. The multi-photon ablated material is removed through a micro-channel that leads from the multi-photon ablated region to at least the surface of the eye. Once the material is removed a pre-polymer fluid is injected in to fill the void. This polymerizes into a gel once inside the lens. The polymerized, transformed material matches both the transparency to visible light and the Young's modulus of healthy lens.
US09351823B2 Therapeutic breast implants
A breast implant and process to optimize the treatment of breast cancer patients that offers more effective alternatives in breast reconstruction and simultaneously administers regional therapies in order to minimize the possibility of local recurrences. The breast implant comprises an inner porous core contained by an elastic holding layer with a system of tubes and conducts within it covered with biodegradable chemotherapeutic and attaching layers.
US09351821B2 Removable embolus blood clot filter and filter delivery unit
A blood filter includes a hub, a plurality of legs, and a plurality of arms. Each of the legs includes a hook at a distal end thereof, a first linear segment extending substantially parallel to a hub longitudinal axis, a second linear segment extending obliquely with respect to the longitudinal axis at a first angle, and an intermediate linear segment coupled to the first and second segments, the intermediate segment extending obliquely with respect to the longitudinal axis at a second angle less than the first angle. Each of the arms has a free end closer to the longitudinal axis than the hook of each of the legs. The free ends of the arms are spaced radially transverse to the longitudinal axis at substantially the same radial distance.
US09351820B2 Device for repair surgery of cylindrical organs, particularly ruptured tendons
A device for repair surgery of cylindrical organs, particularly ruptured tendons, is configured as a tubular sheath (T) made of a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer. The tubular sheath comprises an elastic fiber mesh formed by electrospinning of said polymer and has an inner wall surface and an outer wall surface substantially parallel thereto. One of said wall surfaces is comparatively rough (WR) and the other one of said wall surfaces is comparatively smooth (WS), with the tubular sheath having a Young elasticity modulus of about 2 to about 5 MPa and an elongation at break of about 50 to about 1,000%. Preferably, the polymer is a biodegradable polyester urethane block copolymer with poly-hydroxy-butyrate as a hard 10 segment and ε-caprolactone as a soft segment.
US09351819B2 Device and method for treatment of incision or hernia
Devices and methods for treating an abdominal incision or hernia are described. An implant for the restoration or prophylactic treatment of an abdominal wall comprises an elongate element and at least one sheet connected to the elongate element along a longitudinal axis of the elongate element. The elongate element is positioned along the line of incision, and the at least one sheet is secured to the abdominal muscles surrounding the incision.
US09351817B1 Dental anesthetic injection device
Disclosed herein is a dental anesthetic injection device. The dental anesthetic injection device includes a laser generator, a pressure generator filled with a liquid for generating pressure, which expands due to a laser emitted by the laser generator, an anesthetic container which contains an anesthetic for dental use, a separation film disposed between the pressure generator and the anesthetic container and formed to be elastically deformable to transfer expansion energy of the pressure generator to the anesthetic container, and a replacement nozzle detachably coupled with the anesthetic container to be replaceable depending on an oral environment and configured to jet the anesthetic of the anesthetic container toward an oral cavity.
US09351811B2 Orthodontic bracket
Provided is an orthodontic bracket that is capable of a more effective motion on the tooth surface. The orthodontic bracket includes a substrate surface that is bonded to the tooth surface and an arch wire retaining portion that is configured to retain an arch wire with the substrate surface as a bottom surface, the orthodontic bracket being connected by the arch wire and continuously applying a stress to individual teeth to thereby straighten a row of teeth, wherein the orthodontic bracket is in an approximately cambered cross-sectional shape that is orthogonal to the direction in which the arch wire is stretched with the substrate surface bonded to the tooth surface as the bottom surface, and is provided with a plurality of arch wire through holes respectively for inserting the arch wires into the holes and connecting adjacent orthodontic brackets by the arch wires.
US09351809B2 Systems and methods for varying elastic modulus appliances
The present invention provides improved devices, systems and methods for repositioning teeth from an initial tooth arrangement to a final tooth arrangement. Repositioning is accomplished with a system comprising a series of polymeric shell appliances configured to receive the teeth and incrementally reposition individual teeth in a series of successive steps. The individual appliances may be formed from layers having different stiffnesses (elastic moduluses), and the stiffnesses of successive appliances may be different, or both.
US09351801B2 Dental hand instrument having an elongate handle sleeve
A dental hand instrument having an elongate handle sleeve, at the front end of which there is disposed a tool holder for holding a treatment tool, for example a dental drill, there is disposed inside the handle sleeve a driving mechanism for driving the treatment tool, the driving mechanism having at least two rotatably mounted shafts that are coupled to each other, and a sealing element is disposed in the coupling region of the two shafts inside the handle sleeve.
US09351795B2 Medical drape
A medical drape is disclosed. The drape comprises a main portion having a front side, a back side, a first edge, a second edge, a top, and a bottom. The first and second edges are positioned opposite one another. The top and the bottom are positioned opposite one other. The drape further comprises a first and a second fenestration extending completely through the main portion and spaced generally equidistant from a vertical axis. The vertical axis is generally parallel to the first and second edges. The drape further comprises a third and a fourth fenestration extending completely through the main portion and are spaced generally equidistant from the vertical axis. The first and second fenestrations are closer to the top than the third and fourth fenestrations.
US09351783B2 Diagnostic guidewire for cryoablation sensing and pressure monitoring
A method and system for performing pulmonary vein isolation, mapping, and assessing pulmonary vein occlusion using a single device. The device may generally include an ablation element, such as a cryoballoon, and a sensing component slidably disposed within a lumen of the device and bearing one or more mapping electrodes and one or more pressure sensors. The method may generally include mapping cardiac electrical signals within a heart and/or pulmonary vein, positioning a distal portion of the sensing component within a pulmonary vein, advancing the ablation element until it is in contact with the pulmonary vein ostium, recording blood pressure measurements within the pulmonary vein with the one or more pressure sensors to assess pulmonary vein occlusion, and activating the treatment element when the pulmonary vein is completely occluded. The sensing component may have a straight or hooped configuration, or a configuration therebetween.
US09351775B2 Cervical plate with a feedback device for selective association with bone screw blocking mechanism
A bone plate having at least one screw hole adapted to receive a bone screw, a blocker having a blocking end for blocking a bone screw from further backout of bone the blocker being predisposed in a blocking position wherein the blocking end at least partially overlaps a portion of the screw hole, the blocker being moveable from the blocking position by contact with the bone screw during insertion of the bone screw into the screw hole, and a blocker fixation element having an open orientation at which the blocker can move from the blocking position and a closed orientation preventing substantial movement of the blocker from the blocking position. The blocker fixation element cannot be moved to the closed orientation unless the screw head passes the blocker, thereby revealing that the blocker fixation element is in position to prevent substantial movement of the blocker.
US09351772B2 Method and devices for the treatment of nasal sinus disorders
Methods and devices for facilitating the treatment and repair of nasal sinus afflictions utilizing devices that are positioned within proximity of the nasal sinus and the afflicted location. The methods and devices are particularly beneficial for the treatment of sinusitis, broken noses, sleep apnea, cleft palates and deviated septums. In addition, the devices may enhance and expedite patient recovery and reduce or mitigate bleeding.
US09351771B2 Systems, methods, and apparatuses for fusion, stabilization, or fixation of bones
Systems, methods, and apparatuses for fusion, stabilization, or fixation of bones are provided.
US09351770B2 System and method for spinal deformity correction
A system and associated surgical method for the correction of a spinal deformity by derotating one or more vertebrae of the spine, including: a rotation rod; a cephalad extender configured to be rotatably coupled to the rotation rod and coupled to a cephalad vertebra; a caudal extender configured to be rotatably coupled to the rotation rod and coupled to a caudal vertebra; and one or more intermediate extenders configured to be coupled to one or more intermediate vertebrae; wherein, when the rotation rod is rotated, a portion of the rotation rod engages a portion of the one or more intermediate extenders, causing the one or more intermediate extenders to rotate about an axis of the spine, thereby causing the one or more intermediate vertebrae to also rotate about the axis. The extenders are each coupled to their respective vertebra via a pedicle screw or the like.
US09351758B2 Methods and apparatuses for fluoro-less or near fluoro-less percutaneous surgery access
A needle access assembly and method for obtaining percutaneous needle access with little or no fluoroscopy. The method can include selecting a target for percutaneous access, directing a laser guide at a desired needle-insertion angle and in line with the selected target, aligning the needle access assembly with the laser, and inserting the needle into the target.
US09351756B2 Method and system for treating valve stenosis
A valvuloplasty catheter comprises a balloon or other expansible shell which carries a plurality of scoring elements, typically formed in an elastic, self-dosing metal cage. The expansible shell and scoring elements are positioned inside an aortic or other cardiac valve, and the shell expanded to engage the scoring elements against stenotic material which covers the valve leaflets and valve annulus. The scoring elements uniformly districuted force to break up the stenotic material, and the cage further contributes to rapid balloon deflation allowing shortening of the treatment time.
US09351750B2 Devices and methods for treating maxillary sinus disease
Devices and methods are described for improving drainage and/or aeration of maxillary sinuses and for treating maxillary sinus disease. Spacer devices are implanted through natural or man-made openings in the maxillary sinus. In some embodiments, the spacer device is loaded with a therapeutic substance which then exits the device over a desired time period to treat maxillary sinus disease.
US09351741B2 Flexible tissue removal devices and methods
A device for removing tissue from a patient may include an elongate flexible body having a proximal end, a distal end, and a longitudinal axis therebetween, the elongate body having opposed first and second major surfaces with a lateral orientation across the axis, and a plurality of blades distributed laterally across the first major surface. Each blade may have a first end adjacent the first surface and extending to a cantilevered second end, a first edge between the first and second ends of the blade being oriented toward the distal end of the elongate body, a second edge between the first and second ends of the blade being oriented toward the proximal end of the elongate body, a height of the blade between its first and second ends, and an axial length of the blade between its first and second edges.
US09351730B2 Tissue thickness compensator comprising channels
A tissue thickness compensator can comprise a tissue contacting surface and a network of channels defined in the tissue contacting surface. In at least one embodiment, the channels can be configured to store at least one medicament therein. In certain embodiments, the channels can define gripping surfaces configured to grip tissue. In various embodiments, the tissue contacting surface can further comprise ridges extending therefrom.
US09351729B2 Annular support structures
Reinforcing lumen rings are configured and adapted for use in conjunction with a circular endoscopic stapling instrument having a staple cartridge assembly and an anvil assembly. The reinforcing lumen rings maintain anastomotic lumen, e.g. as formed by the circular endoscopic stapling apparatus, in an open condition. The reinforcing lumen rings can include an annular ring having an outer terminal edge and an inner terminal edge, the outer terminal edge having a diameter which is substantially equal to an outer diameter of the staple cartridge assembly and the inner terminal edge having a diameter which is substantially equal to an inner diameter of the staple cartridge assembly.
US09351716B2 Medical device and delivery system for modification of left atrial appendage and methods thereof
Devices, methods and systems are provided for occluding an opening within the tissue of a body, such as a left atrial appendage. In one embodiment, a delivery system for use in occluding an opening in the tissue of a body includes an actuation assembly operatively coupled to a medical device including an anchor portion and an occluder portion. The actuation assembly is configured to move the anchor portion between a deployed state and retracted state while the occluder portion maintains a deployed state. With this arrangement, the deployed occluder portion can be visualized via imaging at a preferred position prior to deploying the anchor portion of the medical device.
US09351708B2 Automated doppler velocimetry using a low-cost transducer
An automatic, stand-alone, hand-held ultrasound blood-vessel examination device includes a reduced number of transducer elements and presents a simplified user interface, without the need for displaying an image of any of the vessels. The probe, in one embodiment, acquires and examines a volume of interest, searches for a target vessel, tests the vessel for normality of blood flow, and reports the diagnosis, all automatically and without need for user intervention. In another embodiment, the probe finds a body vessel in a volume, and extracts a clinical Doppler parameter, all automatically and without need for user intervention.
US09351705B2 Miniaturized photoacoustic imaging apparatus including a rotatable reflector
A reflection-mode photoacoustic endoscope includes a light source configured to emit a light pulse, a signal detection or transmission unit configured to detect or emit an ultrasonic pulse, and a rotatable reflector. The rotatable reflector is configured to reflect at least one of the light pulse and the ultrasonic pulse into a target area of an object, and reflect a response signal to the signal detection unit. The response signal is one of a photoacoustic wave generated by the object responsive to the light pulse and an ultrasonic pulse echo generated by the object responsive to the ultrasonic pulse.
US09351702B2 Ultrasonic scanning probe with a tuning fork-type oscillator and feedback control thereof
A mechanical scanning device is composed of an oscillating beam onto which a transducer is mounted, part of which is flexible such that the beam will oscillate at a frequency between 8 and 15 Hz when mechanically energized. To sustain oscillations, energy is supplied by means of two electromagnetic coils acting on two permanent magnets mounted on either side of the beam. In order to improve the linear performance of the probe, feedback control was employed. A position sensor along with supporting electronics was designed to provide control signal for the feedback system.
US09351700B2 Scanning method and device with reduced scanning dosage
A scanning method and device are provided. The method includes: determining values for a first scanning dosage and a second scanning dosage used in a scanning process based on a trigger condition which varies regularly and attenuation fluctuations of an object to be scanned, wherein the first scanning dosage is higher than the second scanning dosage, and at least one of the first scanning dosage and the second scanning dosage has an inconstant value; and scanning a target position with the determined values. In the present disclosure, a scanning dosage may be reduced and different image noises may be kept consistent.
US09351697B2 Method and system for dimensional analysis of an object
The invention relates generally to the measurement and dimensional analysis of an object and, more particularly, to the correction of distortion in volumetric data of the object using dimensional data of the object. In one embodiment, the invention provides a method of analyzing an object, the method comprising: acquiring volumetric data of an object using an X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging system; acquiring dimensional data of the object using a vision-based system; determining whether the volumetric data include a distortion; and in the case that the volumetric data are determined to include a distortion, correcting the distortion in the volumetric data using the dimensional data.
US09351693B2 Imaging system gantry tilt support
An imaging system (500) includes an annular shaped rotating gantry (504) having an aperture (501) and configured to support at least a radiation source, wherein the rotating gantry rotates about a rotation axis (508) around an examination region, and wherein the rotation axis is located within the aperture in a center region (508) of the examination region. The imaging system further includes a stationary gantry (502), configured to rotatably support the rotating gantry. The stationary gantry includes a gantry base (516), an annular shaped tilt frame (518) that rotatably supports the rotating gantry, and a tilt system (520) affixed to and between the gantry base and the tilt frame, wherein the tilt system defines a tilt axis (522) of the stationary gantry, the tilt axis is located between the gantry base and the rotation axis, and the tilt frame tilts about the tilt axis.
US09351687B2 Intravascular devices, systems, and methods
Intravascular devices, systems, and methods are disclosed. In some embodiments, the intravascular devices include at least one electronic, optical, or electro-optical component positioned within a distal portion of the device and one or more connectors positioned at a distal portion of the device. In some instances, the connectors are flexible coils, such as a ribbon coil, formed of a conductive material. In some particular instances, the conductive coil is embedded within a polymer tubing. Further, in some embodiments the electronic, optical, or electro-optical component is positioned within a flexible element at the distal portion of the device. In some instances the flexible element is a coil. Methods of making and/or assembling such intravascular devices/systems are also provided.
US09351686B1 Tissue oximeter intraoperative sensor
An oximeter probe includes sensor head with a probe face having one or more sensor structures to make measurements, a handle, and an elastic member connected between the handle and the base. A user can hold the handle while measurements are made and the elastic member permits the handle to flex relative to the sensor head with one or more sensor structures.
US09351685B2 Stacked adhesive optical sensor
An optical sensor, having a cover layer, an emitter disposed on a first side of the cover, a detector disposed on the first side of said cover, and a plurality of stacked independent adhesive layers disposed on the same first side of the cover, wherein the top most exposed adhesive layer is attached to a patient's skin. Thus, when the sensor is removed to perform a site check of the tissue location, one of the adhesive layers may also be removed and discarded, exposing a fresh adhesive surface below for re-attachment to a patient's skin. The independent pieces of the adhesive layers can he serially used to extend the useful life of the product.
US09351682B2 Sensor interface system
A sensor interface system for providing a connection between at least one sensor and a maternal-fetal monitor, wherein the interface system converts electrical muscle activity captured by the sensor(s) into uterine activity data signals for use by the maternal-fetal monitor. The sensor interface system of the invention preferably includes a conversion means for converting the signals from the sensor(s) into signals similar to those produced by a tocodynamometer.
US09351680B2 Method and apparatus for a variable user interface
An analyte monitoring system is provided. The system may include a housing (200) and a visual display (206) on the housing (200), the visual display (206) having at lease one visual indicator position next to a corresponding marking (208, 210, 212, 214 and 216) on the housing (200). The system may include a processor (60) driving the visual display (206), wherein the processor (60) runs software that is modifiable to provide a variable user interface on the visual display (206). The system may include a wireless communication to allow applets or programs to be down-loaded by the processor (60).
US09351679B2 Cartridge and meter for receiving the cartridge
The specification describes a cartridge for insertion into a meter, the interior of the meter comprising a boss having a main body and a protrusion extending from the main body. The cartridge comprises an orientation member provided at one end of the cartridge, the orientation member comprising a recess having a cross-sectional shape corresponding to that of the boss and configured to receive the boss therein, the orientation member further comprising a ramp surrounding at least part of the portion of the recess corresponding to the main body, the portion of the recess which corresponds to the protrusion adjoining the lower end of the ramp via a step.
US09351662B2 MRI scanner that outputs bone strength indicators
Described herein are various technologies pertaining to diagnosing and/or prescribing treatment for osteoporosis. A bone of a patient is subjected to an MRI scan, and the resultant signal is subjected to a likelihood function. The output of the likelihood function are values that are parameters that are employed to ascertain connectivity of trabeculae in the bone of the patient and volumetric trabecular density of the bone.
US09351644B2 Medical systems and methods
This disclosure generally relates to medical systems and methods. In one aspect of the invention, a method includes determining a fluorescent light intensity at one or more points on each of multiple recorded images, and producing an image based on the determined fluorescent light intensity at the one or more points.
US09351633B2 Wireless control of laryngoscope system
A Laryngoscope system for controlling and monitoring characteristics associated with airway management and a remote access unit continuously interfacing through instant wireless private direct connectivity to a laryngoscope. The system also includes a plurality of sensors and controllers that measure and control characteristics and provide the remote unit with measurements and control results. In other aspects, the laryngoscope and display unit are sensitive to movement and may power on and off with motion or absence of motion. In another aspect, the laryngoscope is capable of wirelessly communicating with the screen for command and control of the Laryngoscope and laryngoscope system.
US09351631B2 Bending angle adjustment mechanism for endoscope and endoscope having the bending angle adjustment mechanism
A bending angle adjustment mechanism for an endoscope includes a rod member that is disposed along a traveling path of a long member that is connected to a bending portion that is bendable and is pulled, a support member made of metal that is integrally provided to support both ends of the rod member, an adjustment piece that is engaged with the rod member, is movable along the rod member, and restricts movement of the long member, a guide member made of resin having a guide surface for guiding movement of the adjustment piece, wherein the guide member is fixed in a state in which the guide member is sandwiched between the adjustment piece and the support member so that the guide surface is disposed in a position capable of guiding the adjustment piece.
US09351616B2 Apparatus for cleaning a glass window and method for controlling the movement thereof
A window cleaning apparatus includes a first cleaning unit and a second cleaning unit that is attached to both sides of a window, respectively, by a magnetic force and moved on the sides, and a method of controlling a movement of the window cleaning apparatus. The method includes detecting the first initial attachment position of the window cleaning apparatus and moving the window cleaning apparatus close to the detected initial attachment position after cleaning.
US09351615B2 Toilet caddy assembly and method of forming a toilet caddy assembly
A storage caddy for a cleaning implement can include a holder configured to receive a wand or cleaning implement and a storage container having a lid connected to the storage container. The storage caddy can also include a tray for holding a first set of cleaning pads and a sleeve for holding a second set of cleaning pads. The first set of cleaning pads can be arranged in an upper portion of the storage container above the second set of cleaning pads, and the second set of cleaning pads can be located in a lower portion of the storage container. The wand or cleaning implement can be configured to receive one of the first set of cleaning pads from the tray or one of the second set of cleaning pads from the sleeve.
US09351614B2 Quick installation hinge seat of closetool cover plate
A quick installation hinge seat of a closestool cover plate includes two hinge shafts and two support seats. Each hinge shaft has a pin hole for connection of a pin provided on each support seat. A button switch is mounted between the two hinge shafts to control the pin in the pin hole. The button switch includes a hinge pipe, a button seat, a lock control rod slidable in the radial direction of the hinge pipe, a spring, and a button to press the lock control rod. Two ends of the lock control rod are axially inserted in the two hinge shafts respectively and slideable radially. Each of the two ends of the lock control rod has a locking plate and an unlocking plate. The locking plate and the unlocking plate are arranged in a stagger manner. Each pin has a locking groove and an unlocking groove thereon.
US09351610B2 Food processor with shredding and/or slicing functions
Provided is a food processor with shredding and/or slicing functions, including a driving device and a main component; the main component includes a main body, a lid, a transmission axle and a cutterhead component; the cutterhead component includes a fixed cutterhead and a movable cutterhead, a cutter body is disposed on the fixed cutterhead or the movable cutterhead, a cutting channel is formed between a cutting edge of the cutter body and the movable cutterhead or the fixed cutterhead for cut-out food passing through; the main component further includes a height adjusting mechanism configured to adjust a height of the cutting channel, and an operation part of the height adjusting mechanism is disposed on the lid. With the food processor of the present disclosure, the thickness of cut-out food can be adjusted without removing the lid, which is convenient for operating.
US09351607B2 Outdoor grill, oven and fire pit unit
A multi-purpose unit configured for fire usage having a body with an interior volume selectively closable by doors attached to sidewalls spaced between a base and a top. The interior volume contains spaces for grilling, baking, and heating. The heating space houses a grate to support a heat source. The grate is positionable between a first position generally adjacent the base and a second position generally adjacent the baking or grilling space. The intensity of heat in the baking and grilling spaces is adjusted by positing the heat source closer to or further from the space. In one embodiment the heating space may be exposed by selectively opening one or more doors over the space for use as an outdoor fire pit.
US09351603B2 Assembly of flowmeter to PCB in a beverage machine
A flowmeter (1) comprises: an outermost casing (2,4) containing a measuring chamber (10); an outermost face (20) on the casing; a generator (3,36) for generating at the outermost face a signal representative of a flow through the measuring chamber; and a connection arrangement (28) for fastening the outermost casing against a PCB (50) which extends over and beyond the outermost casing and contains a sensor (51) that is located at the outermost face and that is configured to sense the signal from the generator upon connection. The connection arrangement is configured for connection against the PCB, which connection between the PCB and the casing is distinct from the sensor.
US09351601B2 Method for producing a coffee beverage and coffee machine for performing the method
The invention relates to a method for producing a coffee beverage in a brewing chamber (36) of a coffee machine (10) and to a coffee machine (10) for performing a method for producing a coffee beverage. The aim of the invention is to improve the dispensing of coffee, especially in its first phase, in order to avoid undesired splashing due to increased pressure of the coffee beverage at the coffee beverage outlet (47), According to the method of the invention, the brewing water is supplied to the brewing water inlet (35-1) of the brewing chamber (36) at a first volume flow rate during a first period of time (T1) of a first brewing phase (a), and during a second period of time (T2) of the first brewing phase (a), the brewing water is supplied to the brewing water inlet (35-1) of the brewing chamber (36) at a second volume flow rate, wherein the first volume flow rate and the second volume flow rate are both different from zero and wherein the second volume flow rate is lower than the first volume flow rate.
US09351596B2 Disposable beverage container
A disposable beverage cup is provided to be received by a cup holder having a cup engagement means associated with an opening of the cup holder. The beverage cup comprises a base, at least one sidewall extending upwardly from the base to define a cup opening, and at least one projection disposed substantially horizontally on an outer surface of the sidewall a predetermined height above the base, the projection extending a predetermined distance outwardly from the sidewall. The at least one projection is configured to engage with the cup holder cup engagement means to retain the cup in the cup holder such that the cup is twisted a predetermined angle about a longitudinal axis of the cup to release the cup projection from engagement with the cup holder engagement means. In an alternative embodiment, the projection can be replaced by at least one depression disposed substantially horizontally in an outer surface of the sidewall a predetermined height above the base, the depression extending a predetermined distance inwardly from the sidewall so that the at least one depression is configured to engage with the cup holder cup engagement means to retain the cup in the cup holder such that the cup is twisted a predetermined angle about a longitudinal axis of the cup to release the cup depression from engagement with the cup holder engagement means.
US09351594B2 Method and system for wiring a picture frame and generating templates to hang picture frames in various layouts
Disclosed here are methods, devices, paradigms and structures for wiring a picture frame, and for generating user defined templates for hanging picture frames wired using the device in various layouts. The device allows the maker of the frame to install a hanging wire to the frame at a predefined position, for example, at a predefined distance from a top edge of the frame. A spring-loaded peg mounted on a flat slab, at a predefined distance from a wall member of the device, allows wiring the frame such that the apex of the wire is at the predefined distance from the top edge of the frame. The frame is placed in the device with the top edge of the frame adjacent to the wall member. The flat slab is configured to move vertically on a channel guide mounted on the wall member to accommodate varying thickness of the frame.
US09351593B1 Picture/mirror system
A first frame has a top edge and a bottom edge, and a left edge and a right edge, and an exterior face and an interior face. A first picture is on the exterior face of the first frame. A second picture is on the interior face of the first frame. A second frame has a top edge and a bottom edge, and a left edge and a right edge, and an exterior face and an interior face. A first mirror is on the interior face of the second frame. A support leg is pivotably supported on the exterior face of the second frame for resting the system on a horizontal counter top.
US09351587B2 Child support unit for a play yard
A play yard system for infants or small children. They play yard includes a frame, and the system includes at least one child support unit for mounting to the frame of the play yard. The at least one child support unit may take the form of a bassinet and/or a changing table. The play yard frame may be collapsible for storage and transport, and the child support unit may be removable from the play yard frame.
US09351572B2 Bathroom shelf assembly and bathroom shelf having the same
A bathroom shelf assembly and a bathroom shelf having the same are provided. The bathroom shelf assembly includes a tubular member, at least one inserting member, a first rod member and at least one first connecting bar. The tubular member has a tubular wall and an interior channel extending between two ends thereof, and the tubular wall is formed with at least one first through hole. The inserting member is disposed in the tubular channel and has an axial through bore parallel to the interior channel. The first rod member is disposed through the axial through bore in the interior channel. At least one end of each first connecting bar is formed with a first radial slot, and each first connecting bar is disposed through corresponding through hole and spraddled onto the first rod member via the first radial slot.
US09351567B2 Prefabricated shelf
Provided is a prefabricated shelf which can be used to display or store various products or items in a shop or a warehouse, and may include, but is not limited to, a vertical frame, a horizontal frame and a shelf panel. A horizontal frame having an engaging slot that is engaged to the vertical frame having a plurality of engaging protrusions in a predetermined arrangement, thus easily and durably assembling the shelf without using a separate engaging member, for example, a screw, a bolt, etc., and if necessary it is possible to freely adjust the height of the shelf panel of the prefabricated shelf.
US09351562B2 Light, foldable and portable standing desk device
A device to set up on a regular work desk—and to extend such a regular work desk—so that the user can work standing up which is healthier than sitting down for extended periods of time as most the nation's work force does. The device has been especially designed for quick adoption in large corporations. The device is easily removable and foldable into a small volume. The device is composed of a foldable base on which is placed a flat top board, itself foldable. The base is configured in an series of elements articulated to form a multi-pointed star. Height adjusting feet are added. Board and base are made of light materials.
US09351561B2 Brush apparatus
A multipurpose brush mechanism featuring an attachment and retainer mechanism to provide ease of use and effective storage for professional painters and consumers alike. The attachment mechanism includes an embedded hook which may be removably attached and may utilize numerous clip mechanisms and magnetic attraction members. The brush functions as an ordinary paint brush but the magnetic attachments allow it hang inside a paint can, or on any other accessory. The multifunctional hook can also allow for easy storage when the project is completed.
US09351560B2 Plumbing fixture cleaning device
A cleaning device for cleaning a plumbing fixture with a solution comprises a vessel, bristles at the bottom of the vessel that extend into the vessel, and a retainer configured to retain the vessel in a working position. The retainer may be a drawstring with a stop to secure the drawstring. The retainer may retain the vessel in the working position by sufficiently narrowing the opening defined by the vessel. In use, the vessel surrounds the fixture and the bristles lie adjacent to the fixture. The vessel holds the cleaning solution to thereby at least partially submerge the fixture in the cleaning solution. The bristles may be used to scrub the fixture.
US09351544B2 Accessory coupling structure
A coupling structure includes: a rod-shaped rod attached to a first end of an accessory; and a receiving portion attached to a second end of the accessory and an insertion hole portion, which receives the rod, and an accommodating portion. The receiving portion includes: a cylindrical slider into which at least a tip end portion of the rod is inserted and which is slidable and rotatable in the insertion hole and the accommodating portion; a guide groove configured to restrict the movement of the slider to switch the position of the slider to a first position or a second position; and a locking pin that inhibits the movement of the rod in the receiving portion in a pull-out direction when the slider is located at the first position and that allows the rod to move when the slider is located at the second position.
US09351543B2 Closure assembly incorporating an easy access tab integrated into hook and loop fastener elements and method for forming the same
A releasable fastener assembly which includes a first panel carrying an area of a first engagement material; and a second panel carrying an area of a second engagement material. The first and second engagement materials are releasably securable to one another. A portion of a perimeter of the area of the second engagement material defines a recess which extends in a direction nonparallel to an edge of the second panel and into the area of the second engagement material. The recess is accessible from the edge of the second panel. Further included is a method for using the releasable fastener assembly.
US09351540B2 Last with retractable pins
A last assembly includes a plurality of retractable pins and a plurality of vacuum holes, both acting to hold footwear segments to the last assembly to facilitate manufacturing of, or modification to, an article of footwear. A method of making or modifying an article of footwear includes placing footwear segments on the last assembly by associating an extension portion of at least one footwear segment with the retractable pins, modifying the footwear segments and then removing the extension portion.
US09351527B1 Mock sleeve
An attachable/detachable sleeve removably secured to the bra strap of the wearer before the wearer puts on the desired article of clothing. The sleeve can be constructed of a sheer fabric, such as, but not limited to, a chiffon-like material, that drapes over the shoulder and gives partial concealment or a veil like coverage as a short sleeve in a fashionable manner. With the article of clothing on the wearer, the sleeve appears as if it was always part of the original design of the clothing and the article of clothing covers the securement of the sleeve to the bra strap. The sleeve offers versatility as it can attach and remove easily from the bra strap and provides a unique fashion accessory that creates a comfortable solution to enhance and transform any outfit from daytime to evening.
US09351523B2 Skirt-type controlling undergarment
A skirt liner 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention is provided with a skirt-type main body 10, and an abdomen and crotch tightening part 20 joined at one end side thereof to a region around a front waist part of the main body 10, extending from the one end side so as to cover an abdominal part and a crotch part, and joined at the other end side thereof to a back lower center of the main body 10, in which the portion of the abdomen and crotch tightening part 20 other than the one end side and the other end side is unjoined to the main body 10.
US09351520B2 Cigarettes and cigarette components containing nanostructured fibril materials
Cigarettes and cigarette components such as tobacco cut filler and cigarette paper, and methods for making cigarette components are provided that comprise nanostructured fibrils. The nanostructured fibrils, which can be formed and deposited in situ on tobacco cut filler and/or cigarette paper by laser vaporization controlled condensation or chemical reaction, are capable of acting as an oxidant for the conversion of carbon monoxide carbon dioxide and/or as a catalyst for the conversion of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide. Cigarettes are provided that comprise tobacco cut filler and cigarette paper, wherein nanostructured fibrils are deposited on, or incorporated in, at least one of the tobacco cut filler and cigarette paper.
US09351517B2 Formulations of water-soluble derivatives of vitamin E and compositions containing same
Provided are compositions that contain water-soluble vitamin E derivative mixtures (compositions), such as tocopheryl polyethylene glycol succinate (TPGS), TPGS analogs, TPGS homologs and TPGS derivatives. The water-soluble vitamin E mixtures contain mixtures that include dimers and monomers of the vitamin E derivative, where the amount of dimer is greater than 12%, such as 29%, 35%, 50%, 60%, and the amount of monomer is less than 87%, by weight, of the water-soluble vitamin E derivative mixture. Also provided are products containing the water-soluble vitamin E derivative mixtures, including concentrates for dilution into aqueous beverages and compositions for direct ingestion.
US09351513B2 Process for reducing oil and fat content in cooked food with animal muscle protein in suspension
A product for cooking a food in oil and/or fat is provided. An adjusted pH protein suspension is produced in an aqueous or dry form and includes myofibrillar proteins and sarcoplasmic proteins substantially free of myofibrils and sarcomeres. The amount of oil and/or fat absorbed by the food during cooking is substantially reduced while the food retains its color and taste.
US09351512B2 Active plastic material in oil
A method is provided of prolonging the shelf life of probiotic lactic-acid producing bacteria formulated in oil, by using a specific moisture absorbing technology.
US09351510B2 Stable thickener formulations
Stable thickener formulations and nutritional compositions having the stable thickener formulations are provided. In a general embodiment, the present disclosure provides a stable thickener formulation comprising from about 0.015% to about 0.05% by weight of carrageenan and from about 1.2% to about 4.0% by weight of starch. The stable thickener formulation can be used in nutritional compositions used to treat a variety of physiological conditions.
US09351506B2 Heat resistant moisture barrier for foods
A food product having at least a first part and a second part, where the water activity of the first part is lower than the water activity of the second part, and a moisture barrier between the first part and the second part, wherein the moisture barrier is formed upon dehydration of an emulsion comprising lipid a biopolymer emulsifier.
US09351505B2 Solvent extraction of oil from distillers dried grains and methods of using extraction products
A process for extraction of crude oil from DDGS and producing corn distillers meal that may be used as a livestock supplement is disclosed. For example, the corn distillers meal may be used as a crude protein supplement for use in a livestock feed diet or a poultry feed diet.
US09351497B1 Meat tenderizer
A meat tenderizer having a handle; a plurality of spaced apart curved blades; a plurality of cross bars; a right side plate; and a left side plate, the convex edges of the curved blades not being sharpened, the blades attached at each end thereof near one end of the side plates, the handle being attached at each end thereof near the other end of the side plates, the cross bars being attached to and across the concave edges of the blades. In addition, a method for tenderizing a cut of meat by rocking a plurality of curved blades into a cut of meat, the convex edges of the blades not being sharpened, the depth of impression of the blades into the meat being limited by a plurality of cross bars attached to and across the concave edge of the blades so that a portion of the fibers of the meat are severed by the impression of the blades into the meat thereby tenderizing the cut of meat.
US09351496B2 Production device and production method for layered food
Provided are a production device and a production method for producing layered food having an outer shape and an inner hole shape formed into a shape different from a circular shape. A production device for layered food (1) includes: a dough supply section (3) for causing liquid dough to adhere to an outer circumference of a spit (12); a dough baking section (4) for baking the liquid dough to form baked dough (11) around the spit (12); conveyance means (5) for conveying the spit (12) between the dough supply section (3) and the dough baking section (4); a forming tool (70) including a forming surface (70A) conforming to a shape of at least a part of an outer shape of the spit (12); and drive means (71) for pressing the forming tool (70) against the baked dough (11) in the shape of the layer that is formed around the spit (12).
US09351489B2 Cyanoenamines and their use as fungicides
The present invention relates to cyanoenamine derivatives, their process of preparation, intermediate compounds, their use as fungicide active agents, particularly in the form of fungicide compositions, and methods for the control of phytopathogenic fungi, notably of plants and in material protection, using these compounds or compositions.
US09351482B2 Mole trap and method of operation therefor
A mole trap includes a molded housing with first and second portions. One of the portions includes two molded posts. A trigger and release plate are each pivotally mounted on one of the two posts, and are substantially encased within the housing. The trap may include a first shaft connected to a trigger pad, and a spring loaded second shaft. The first shaft is slideable with respect to the second shaft, which is connected to a plurality of tines. A release is operative to hold a trigger in a set position, and thereby hold the spring loaded second shaft in the set position. The first shaft is operable to displace the release in response to an upward force applied to the trigger pad, wherein the release is operable to release the trigger in response to the displacement, wherein the trigger is operable to release the spring loaded outer shaft.
US09351478B2 Electronic pet entertainment device
An interactive cat entertainment device wherein light elements are incorporated into a carpet in a pattern. The light elements are controlled through a microprocessor or electronic circuitry that activates the lights sequentially to provide the appearance of a moving object to a cat or similar animal.
US09351473B2 High temperature germinating lettuce seeds
The present invention relates to lettuce plants (Lactuca sativa L.) which may comprise a genetic determinant, which when homozygous present in a seed, provides the seed in an unprimed state with the capability to germinate at a high temperature, which genetic determinant is obtainable from a lettuce plant which may comprise said genetic determinant, representative seed which was deposited with the NCIMB under accession number NCIMB 41914, NCIMB 41915, NCIMB 41916, NCIMB 41917, NCIMB 41918, NCIMB 41919, NCIMB 41922, NCIMB 41923, and NCIMB 41926.
US09351460B1 Maize hybrid X00D864
A novel maize variety designated X00D864 and seed, plants and plant parts thereof, produced by crossing Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. proprietary inbred maize varieties. Methods for producing a maize plant that comprises crossing hybrid maize variety X00D864 with another maize plant. Methods for producing a maize plant containing in its genetic material one or more traits introgressed into X00D864 through backcross conversion and/or transformation, and to the maize seed, plant and plant part produced thereby. This invention relates to the maize variety X00D864, the seed, the plant produced from the seed, and variants, mutants, and minor modifications of maize variety X00D864. This invention further relates to methods for producing maize varieties derived from maize variety X00D864.
US09351459B1 Hybrid corn variety 1374689
The invention provides seed and plants of the hybrid corn variety designated 1374689. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety 1374689, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety 1374689 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to genetic complements of plants of variety 1374689.
US09351457B1 Hybrid corn variety 2643350
The invention provides seed and plants of the hybrid corn variety designated 2643350. The invention thus relates to the plants, seeds and tissue cultures of the variety 2643350, and to methods for producing a corn plant produced by crossing a corn plant of variety 2643350 with itself or with another corn plant, such as a plant of another variety. The invention further relates to genetic complements of plants of variety 2643350.
US09351442B1 Leaf collection apparatus and method utilizing automated raking, blowing and bagging techniques
An apparatus for collecting leaves includes a mobile carrier and a leaf raking mechanism, hollow chute, blower unit and exhaust duct on the mobile carrier. The mobile carrier is movable forwardly over a surface during performance of leaf collection operations. Forced air flow produced by the blower unit is directed through the hollow chute from a rear end to a front end thereof past the leaf raking mechanism so as to create a vacuum effect in the hollow chute that assists the leaf raking mechanism in gathering leaves from the surface and delivering the leaves into the hollow chute where the leaves become entrained in the forced air flow directed to and through an outlet of the hollow chute and through the open top of a leaf collection bag, and into the bag, being disposed below the outlet of the hollow chute.
US09351437B2 Rear folding tool bar implement
A tool bar apparatus has an elongate tool bar having a longitudinal tool bar axis, and ground engaging tools fixed thereto. Wheels are rotatably fixed to the tool bar and roll about a rotational axis parallel to the tool bar. A hitch frame is pivotally attached at a rear end thereof to the tool bar about a hitch pivot axis parallel to the tool bar axis, and has a hitch tongue at a front end thereof. An actuator pivots the tool bar about the hitch pivot axis from an operating position, where the ground engaging tools extend rearward, to a transport position where the ground engaging tools extend upward from the tool bar. The wheels move rearward under the tool bar when the tool bar pivots from the operating position to the transport position such that a downward force is exerted on the hitch tongue when in the transport position.
US09357686B2 Dispensing apparatus having substrate inverter system and clamping system, and method for dispensing a viscous material on a substrate
A dispenser, which is capable of dispensing viscous material on a substrate having a top surface and a bottom surface, includes a frame, a gantry system, and a dispensing unit. The gantry system is configured to move the dispensing unit in x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis directions. The dispenser further includes a substrate support assembly configured to support the substrate in a dispense position to dispense material on the top surface of the substrate and on the bottom surface of the substrate. The substrate support assembly includes a clamping system and an inverter system. The inverter system is configured to rotate the clamping system about an axis that is parallel to the y-axis direction between a first position in which the top surface of the substrate is in the dispense position and a second position in which the bottom surface of the substrate is in the dispense position.
US09357683B2 Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding apparatus including electrically-conductive foam
According to various aspects, exemplary embodiments are disclosed of shielding apparatus or assemblies including electrically-conductive foam frames and covers or lids attachable to the frames. Also disclosed are exemplary embodiments of electrically-conductive foam frames for shielding apparatus or assemblies. Further, exemplary embodiments are disclosed of methods relating to making shielding apparatus or assemblies including electrically-conductive foam frames. Additionally, exemplary embodiments are disclosed of methods relating to providing shielding for one or more components on a substrate.
US09357672B2 Air guidance system
The invention relates to an air guidance system having an air guidance housing and an air passage grating fastened thereto, the air passage grating being held on the air guidance housing by means of a snap-lock connection. In order to simplify maintenance of such an air guidance system it is provided according to the invention that the air passage grating carries at least one latch having a snap-in shoulder that can be engaged in a snap-lock seat of the air passage grating and that the air passage grating pivotally accommodates a handle in a bearing seat, said handle disengaging the latch from the snap-lock seat when set from the locking position to the unlocking position.
US09357671B2 Cooling unit and method
A cooling unit (10) includes a housing (12) having a front (14) and a back (16), one or more fans (28) provided at either the front (14) or the back (16) of the housing (12), and a V-shaped evaporator (30) positioned within the housing (12) and coupled to a source of liquid refrigerant. The V-shaped evaporator (30) has two panels extending from adjacent to the bottom (22) of the housing to adjacent to the top (24) of the housing (12) when positioning the evaporator (30) in the housing (12). The arrangement is such that an inside of the panels of the evaporator (30) faces air being drawn through the housing (12) of the cooling unit (10) by the fan (28).
US09357665B2 Handheld device enclosure
This is directed to an electronic device enclosure. The enclosure includes an outer periphery member forming an outer surface of a device, and to which an internal platform is connected. Electronic device components can be assembled to one or both surfaces of the internal platform. The enclosure can include front and back cover assemblies assembled to the opposite surfaces of the outer periphery member to retain electronic device components. One or both of the cover assemblies can include a window through which display circuitry can provide content to a user of the device.
US09357664B2 Portable terminal
A portable terminal has a main machine body and a cell, one of the main machine body and the cell is arranged a pushing button moving axially, and a compression spring is arranged between the pushing button and the one of the main machine body and the cell, the other has a clamp slot of which a notch extends axially, and the main machine body and the cell is clamped at the axial direction by the pushing button and the clamp slot. The portable terminal also comprises a lock cover connected with the pushing button, and a torsional spring is arranged between the lock cover and the pushing button, so that the lock cover and the pushing button can rotate along the spring-body axis of the torsional spring; when the torsional spring is reset, vertical distance between one end of the lock cover and the cell or the body arranged the compression spring is smaller than the distance that the pushing button inserts into the clamp slot. The lock cover in the present invention can achieve double-clamping at the axial direction for the cell and the main machine body. The pushing button can tightly lock the cell and the main machine body even if the portable terminal is dropped down or impacted. The cell can be taken from the main machine body only by adding certain torque to the torsional spring while in the assembling or disassembling operation, operation is simple and convenient.
US09357655B2 Apparatus for efficient wire routing in a device
Techniques for efficient routing of wires and electrical components within a device are disclosed. A wire can be routed, for example, in the space between two battery cells (or other components/structures) with the use of a bracket inserted between the cells to provide structural support. The electrical tape surrounding a battery may be cut or otherwise breached in order to expose the cavity between distinct battery cells. In some embodiments, multiple brackets may be inserted between the battery cells, creating a trough through which a wire or other component may be routed. After routing a wire through the trough, another electrical part or housing may be fixed above the battery cells.
US09357654B2 Low-profile plug with cam and flexible circuit board
A cable assembly including a connector insert to fit in a connector receptacle in an electronic device, where a back surface of the connector insert is substantially flush with an outside of an enclosure for the electronic device. One example may provide a cable assembly that includes a connector insert formed by wrapping a flexible circuit board at least partially around a housing. The flexible circuit board may be routed against an underside of the electronic device such that it does not obstruct a user, consume space in a display area, or have an undesirable appearance.
US09357647B2 Packaging substrate, method for manufacturing same, and chip packaging body having same
A packaging substrate includes a supporting sheet, a copper foil, a number of connecting pads, a number of solder balls, a resin layer, a wiring layer and a solder mask layer. The copper foil is attached on a surface of the supporting sheet through an adhesive sheet. The connecting pads are formed on the copper foil. The solder balls are formed on the connecting pads. The resin layer infills the gaps between the solder balls. The wiring layer is formed on the resin layer and the solder balls. Terminal portions of the solder balls facing away from the connecting pads are electrically connected to the wiring layer. The solder mask layer is formed on the wiring layer. The solder mask layer defines a number of openings exposing portions of the wiring layer. The portions of the wiring layer exposed through the openings serve as contact pads.
US09357642B2 Circuit board laminate and metal-based circuit board
A circuit board laminate includes a metal substrate, an insulation layer disposed on the metal substrate, and a metal foil disposed on the insulation layer. A metal-based circuit board includes a metal substrate, an insulation layer disposed on the metal substrate, and a circuit pattern disposed on the insulation layer. The insulation layer contains a liquid crystal polyester and 50% by volume or more of an inorganic filler. The inorganic filler is made of boron nitride and at least one of aluminum nitride and aluminum oxide. A proportion of boron nitride in the inorganic filler is within a range of 35 to 80% by volume.
US09357615B2 Method for guiding a human to a reference location, and lighting system comprising a plurality of light sources for use in such method
The invention provides a method for intuitively guiding a human to a reference location, such as an emergency exit, with a lighting system comprising a plurality of light sources along a pathway to the reference location. The lights shine with an intensity dependent upon the distance to the reference location, in particular the intensity of the light increases with decreasing distance to the reference location. The location of the emergency can be determined through emergency sensors, so that the intensity of the light sources is then controlled to lead away from the danger to the nearest safe exit.
US09357612B2 Display device
A lighting portion is attached to a reflective liquid crystal display portion. A first transparent substrate and a second transparent substrate made of a glass substrate etc. are attached to each other with a sealing layer coated on those peripheral portions therebetween. The back surface of the first transparent substrate is attached to the reflective liquid crystal display portion, and an organic EL element is formed on the front surface of the first transparent substrate. The organic EL element is sealed in a space surrounded by the first transparent substrate, the second transparent substrate, and the sealing layer. The organic EL element is formed in a region corresponding to a pixel region of the reflective liquid crystal display portion. A desiccant layer is formed on the front surface of the second transparent substrate.
US09357610B2 LED lighting system and method of controlling the same
A light emitting diode (LED) lighting system may include a plurality of LED modules and a server. The plurality of LED modules can include LED lighting devices and provide a human detection signal and distance information regarding a distance from a human, in the case of human detection, respectively. The server may control the LED lighting devices upon receiving the human detection signal and the distance information from the plurality of LED modules. The server may compare the distance information with a pre-set reference distance and controls brightness of the LED lighting devices according to the comparison results.
US09357609B2 Lighting device
A lighting device has one or more light sources; a primary input power connection; and electronic circuitry for controlling delivery of power from the primary input power connection to the one or more light sources. The electronic circuitry determines an indication of an external electrical loading on a primary power supply network coupled, in use, with the primary input power connection the circuitry varies the power drawn from the primary input power connection in dependence upon the determined indication of the external electrical loading on the primary power supply network. In this way, during times of high demand on the primary supply network, the lighting device can reduce the amount of power drawn from the primary supply.
US09357607B2 LED light source
A LED light source comprises—a full bridge rectifier equipped with a first input terminal and a second input terminal for coupling to output terminals of the phase cut dimmer, —a series arrangement comprising N LED loads, a first and second end of said series arrangement being coupled to a first output terminal and a second output terminal of the full bridge rectifier respectively, —control means for during a period of the rectified AC supply voltage subsequently making the LED loads comprised in the first series arrangement carry a current, one by one and in dependency of the momentary amplitude of the rectified AC supply voltage when the momentary amplitude increases and for subsequently making the LED loads stop carrying a current, one by one, and in dependency of the momentary amplitude of the rectified AC supply voltage when the momentary amplitude decreases, said control means controlling the current through the LED loads at zero when the output voltage of the phase cut dimmer equals zero and controlling the current through the LED loads at a value that is independent from the phase angle of the phase cut dimmer when the output voltage of the phase cut dimmer differs from zero Volt. In order to make the LED light source compatible with a phase cut dimmer, the LED light source is further equipped with—a switchable bleeder current source coupled between the first and second output terminal of the full bridge rectifier, —a latch coupled between the first and second output terminals of the full rectifier bridge and comprising a series arrangement of a resistor and a capacitor to prevent the current through the dimmer from crossing zero after a leading edge generated by the phase cut dimmer, in case the phase cut dimmer is a leading edge phase cut dimmer, —a unidirectional element arranged in series with the capacitor for preventing discharging of the capacitor via the LED loads or the adjustable bleeder current source, and—a clamp circuit coupled to the capacitor and comprising a current source for discharging the capacitor and providing a low ohmic path for the dimmer current when the dimmer is off.
US09357601B2 Light emitting driving apparatus and method of controlling the same
Provided is a light emitting driving apparatus, including a driver configured to drive a light emitting device, a switch configured supply power to the light emitting device, and a controller configured to adjust a switching off time of the switch according to a voltage applied to the light emitting device.
US09357599B2 Lighting control circuit, illuminating lamp using the lighting control circuit, and lighting device using the illuminating lamp
A lighting control circuit for an illuminating lamp includes: a rectifier part that is connected to a ballast to which commercial alternating-current electric power is supplied, and converts the alternating current to direct current; a smoothing capacitor that is provided on an output side of the rectifier part, and removes an alternating-current component included in direct current outputted from the output side; a drive circuit that has a switching element, and performs on-off control on electric current flowing to a plurality of solid-state light-emitting elements connected in series to both ends of the smoothing capacitor; and an inductor that is provided in an electric power supply system between the ballast and the smoothing capacitor.
US09357597B2 Lighting device and vehicle headlamp
A switching circuit includes an active element connected in parallel to a second light source block and having an impedance that varies in accordance with a control signal input into a control terminal, and switches the second light source block between a lit condition and an extinguished condition by switching the active element ON and OFF. The switching circuit adjusts the impedance of the active element so that a current flowing to the active element matches a target value set by a switching control circuit. When the active element is to be switched ON, the switching control circuit varies the target value gradually over time, and therefore an excessive load current can be prevented from flowing while the active element shifts from an OFF condition to an ON condition.
US09357591B2 High-frequency heating apparatus
A resonance type high frequency heating apparatus comprising; a direct current power supply; a series connection circuit consisting of a pair of semiconductor switching elements connected in parallel to the direct current power supply; another series connection circuit having a primary coil of a leakage transformer and a capacitor connected to both ends of one of the pair of semiconductor switching elements; and a drive means for driving each of the pair of semiconductor switching elements; wherein a variable dead time preparation circuit is provided in the drive means, and the variable dead time preparation circuit enables dead time to remain constant at below a predetermined frequency and causes the dead time to increase sharply at a point above a predetermined frequency.
US09357582B2 Simultaneous secondary-cell release for licensed shared access
A 3GPP LTE protocol enhancement realizes the full benefit of dynamic frequency sharing systems by enhancing current Secondary-Cell (SCell) release mechanisms to support Licensed Shared Access (LSA) when LSA frequency bands are reclaimed. An enhanced signaling mechanism to reduces over-the-air signaling overhead in Carrier Aggregated enabled Evolved Node Bs by using broadcast messages rather than generating individual message exchanges with each User Equipment (UE) for release of SCells. A UE comprises a processor and transceiver configured to receive, on a Licensed Shared Access (LSA) frequency band, a broadcast paging message indicating transmission of a System Information Block 2 carrying Radio Resource Control (RRC) information in a next modification period, receive the SIB2 on the LSA frequency band, wherein the radio resource control information comprises a list of excluded SCells, read the list of excluded SCells, and reconfigure RRC connection information to release SCells identified in the list of excluded SCells.
US09357581B2 Providing information to a core network relating to a cache in an access network
Methods and apparatus for a providing information to a core network where a terminal exchanges data with a cache in an access network. The node stores data in the cache. Data is exchanged between the cache and the terminal, and information relating to the exchanged data is provided to the core network. This allows the core network to apply normal core network functions such as LI, charging and policy control, 10 even when the data does not pass through the core network.
US09357579B2 Method and system for a handheld wireless communication device for configuring connection to and use of local and remote resources
Methods and systems for a handheld portable communication device for configuring connection to and use of local and remote resources are disclosed and may include discovering available networks and resources, establishing a route between the handheld wireless communication device and a selected one or more of the available resources via a selected one or more of the available networks based on user preference criteria stored in the handheld wireless communication device, and communicating multimedia data between the handheld wireless communication device and the selected one or more of the available resources via the established route. The established route may be dynamically adjusted, based on network availability and bandwidth. The handheld wireless communication device may communicate utilizing a plurality of wireless protocols. The preference criteria stored in the handheld wireless communication device may be dynamically adjusted. The resources may be local or remote to the handheld wireless communication device.
US09357559B1 Long term evolution base station and wireless resource scheduling method thereof
A long term evolution (LTE) base station and wireless resource scheduling method thereof are provided. The LTE base station receives a transmission period, a tolerable time shift, a start transmission time instant, and a required resource amount from each of a plurality of machine type communication apparatuses. The LTE base station decides a scheduling time length according to the transmission periods, decides a scheduling interval according to a start scheduling time instant and the scheduling time length, decides at least one transmission time instant for each machine type communication apparatus according to the transmission periods, the tolerable time shifts, the start transmission time instants, and the required resource amounts, and transmits each of the at least one transmission time instant to the corresponding machine type communication apparatus so that each of the machine type communication apparatus transmits data according to the corresponding at least one transmission time instant.
US09357557B2 Method and apparatus for enabling channel and interference estimations in macro/RRH system
Aspects disclosed herein relate to channel and interference estimations in a coordinated multi-point (CoMP) environment. In the disclosed aspects, an eNB may be equipped to signal an identifier indicating a plurality of resource patterns, each associated with a resource pattern group, and each including a first resource element pattern for channel estimation and a second resource element pattern for interference estimation. The UE may be equipped to receive the signaling and perform channel estimation based at least in part on the first resource element pattern, and interference estimation based at least in part on the second resource pattern generate at least one channel state report based on the channel and interference estimations, and transmit at least one channel state report to an eNB. The eNB may determine one or more resources for use by the UE based on the at least one received channel state report.
US09357556B2 Automatic guard period adjustment in a base station for time division duplexed wireless communications
A method for adjusting a guard period in a base station for a cellular wireless communication system. The base station is adapted to communicate in a frame structure comprising a downlink frame followed by the guard period followed by an uplink frame. Interference in dependence on time from at least one interfering base station is measured. An uplink frame start time within the frame structure is adjusted based on the measured interference. Also disclosed are a related base station, a related network management entity, a related computer program product, and related method for operating the network entity.
US09357555B2 Apparatus and method for controlling memory clock frequency in wireless communication system
The present invention prevents performance degradation caused by a multiplication frequency of a memory clock in a wireless communication system by changing a frequency of the memory clock so that a multiplication frequency is not sufficiently close to a transmission/reception frequency that will cause noise or interference with a data transmission/reception. A communication apparatus according to the present invention includes a controller comprising at least one processor; and a memory for operating at a clock provided from the controller. The controller checks a communication frequency, determines whether the communication frequency is a value in a range of interference from a multiplication frequency of a memory clock frequency, and changes the memory clock frequency.
US09357552B1 Adjusting wireless coverage area resource assignment based on device altitude
In order to provide better wireless service to wireless communication devices (WCDs) at different altitudes (e.g., on different levels of a high-rise structure), a radio access network (RAN) may include antennas that are configured to provide coverage at these different altitudes. The RAN may assign resources, such as transmit power or frequencies, to wireless coverage areas serving particular altitude ranges in a proportion that is commensurate with the number of WCDs being served by these particular altitude ranges. As a result, RAN and WCD performance may improve.
US09357545B2 Mobile communication system
There is a problem that when a closed subscriber group (CSG) cell available to subscribers is installed in a macro cell area, communication cannot be performed due to the interference between a macro cell and the CSG cell in an area thereof. The CSG cell that is provided in the CSG cell area and transmits a downlink synchronization signal using a radio frame assigns control signals to a first subframe and a second subframe among a plurality of subframes constituting the radio frame, and the macro cell that is provided in the macro cell area and transmits a downlink synchronization signal using the radio frame assigns control signals to a third subframe and a fourth subframe, which are shifted from the first subframe and the second subframe by a predetermined number of subframes, respectively, among the plurality of subframes constituting the radio wave, the CSG cell and the macro cell being configured to perform transmission in synchronization with each other.
US09357535B2 Method and device for transmitting reference signal in wireless communication system
A method for transmitting a reference signal by a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system; and the BS are discussed. The method according to one embodiment includes generating a reference signal sequence; applying an orthogonal sequence to the reference signal sequence; and mapping the reference signal sequence to which the orthogonal sequence is applied to a resource for each antenna port. One antenna port is included any one of first and second antenna port sets, and a configuration of antenna ports contained in each antenna port set is changed according to a number of available resource elements (REs) of a physical resource block (PRB) pair. If the number of available REs is lower than a predetermined threshold value, each of the first and second antenna port sets includes antenna ports corresponding to orthogonal sequences capable of performing despreading using a spreading factor.
US09357533B2 System and method for resource block-specific control signaling
A system and method is disclosed for resource block-specific control signaling in a communication system. Communication data is transmitted using a transmission channel comprising a plurality of resource blocks defined by allocating time-frequency slots in a transmission resource. Resource block control information is transmitted in a “feed-forward” manner to a user end (UE) or group of UEs using channels physically mapped into scheduled resource blocks (RBs) for that user or group of users. Embodiments of the invention provide an RB-specific control channel that comprises RB control elements that are embedded within scheduled resource blocks. The invention, therefore, reduces the amount of control information that must be transmitted by common or shared control channels.
US09357528B2 Wireless communications based on identifying lower power nodes in heterogeneous network deployments
In a heterogeneous network deployment that includes one or more macro base stations and one or more low power nodes, a technique can be provided to encode network operational information using phase differences in synchronization signals transmitted by a network node. The synchronization signals may be one of the first signals that a user equipment (UE) attempts to locate when attempting to join a wireless network. The phase-encoded network operational information indicates to the UE where to locate a geometry indicator transmission from a low power node that is a part of the network, but is not the node that transmits the synchronization signals. The geometry indicator transmission may include identity information for the transmitting node and may be transmitted at a pre-determined nominal transmit power.
US09357527B2 Carrier aggregation scheduling apparatus, carrier aggregation scheduling method, and base station
A carrier aggregation apparatus includes a first carrier aggregation scheduler, which is configured to receive user information of a first user equipment UE, carrier information for carrier aggregation, and information about a first baseband board and to schedule carriers according to the user information of the first UE, the carrier information for carrier aggregation, and the information about the first baseband board. The scheduling result indicates carriers used for the first UE.
US09357517B2 Apparatus and method for wireless baseband processing
Apparatuses and methods for receiving and transmitting signals are provided. A baseband processor includes receiver circuitry including single carrier receiver circuitry for demodulating a received single carrier signal and multi-carrier receiver circuitry for demodulating a received multi-carrier signal. The single carrier receiver circuitry includes a first digital interpolator, and the multi-carrier receiver circuitry includes a second digital interpolator. Symbol timing recovery is executed by adjusting an interpolation phase of the first digital interpolator or the second digital interpolator. The baseband processor also includes transmitter circuitry for encoding a signal to be transmitted. The baseband processor further includes a clock coupled to the receiver circuitry and coupled to the transmitter circuitry. The clock is configured to supply a clock signal that is processed to generate clock sampling frequencies for sending and receiving a single carrier signal and a multi-carrier signal.
US09357505B2 Processing digital signal
Described embodiments provide a digital unit for controlling a plurality of radio units to transmit a signal to user equipment. The digital unit may determine whether user equipment is located at an overlapping service area of a first radio unit and a second radio unit and control the first radio unit to transmit a signal to the user equipment using the first antenna and control the second radio unit to transmit the same signal to the user equipment using the second antenna when the user equipment is located in the overlapping service area. A transmission pattern of the first antenna of the first radio unit may be different from a transmission pattern of the second antenna of the second radio unit.
US09357502B2 Method and apparatus for controlling the transmission power of a base station in a wireless communication system
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling transmission power of the base station in a wireless communication system and includes calculating signal-to-noise ratio of a target component carrier and recovering the signal-to-noise ratio to be equal to or greater than a threshold by increasing a transmission power to a predetermined level and requesting, when the signal-to-noise ratio is less than a predetermined threshold, a neighbor base station to decrease the transmission power. According to the present invention, it is possible to suppress the inter-cell interference and improve channel utilization efficiency, resulting in improvement of the throughput of the wireless communication system.
US09357501B2 Method and apparatus of transmitting PPDU in wireless local area network
A method for transmitting a physical protocol data unit (PPDU) in a wireless local area network (WLAN) is provide. The method includes generating a PPDU frame comprising a signal field and a data field and transmitting the PPDU frame, in which a transmission bandwidth for transmitting the signal field is fixed, but a transmission bandwidth for transmitting the data field is variable.
US09357498B2 Method and device with dynamic dormancy
A method (200) and device (300) for saving energy in a wireless communication device configured to maintain a persistent communication session over a wireless network with an application server are disclosed. The method (200) can include: opening (210) a persistent communication session with an application server via a cellular network; measuring (220) a round trip time from sending a message to the application server to receiving an acknowledgement message from the application server; and automatically transitioning (230) the device from a first operating state to a second operating state after an amount of time in the absence of subsequent data traffic exceeding a predetermined threshold, wherein power consumption associated with the second operating state is less than power consumption associated with the first operating state, and the predetermined threshold is a function of the measured round trip time.
US09357497B2 Controlling the power consumption of a receiving unit
An average power consumption of receiving units (3,5,7) for controlling apparatuses (4,6,8) in response to operation control signals from transmitting units (2) may be reduced by introducing devices (1,21) for controlling the power consumption of the receiving units (3,5,7) in response to detections of states of the apparatuses (4,6,8). The devices (1) may comprise controllers (30) for controlling the power consumption in a wireless, non-wireless, physical and/or logical manner. The devices (1) may comprise monitors (33) for monitoring power consumption, currents and/or voltages at the receiving units (3,5,7) and/or the apparatuses (4,6,8). The devices (1) may comprise receivers (40), detectors (41), converters (42) and transmitters (43) for receiving the operation control signals, detecting the states of the apparatuses (4,6,8), converting the operation control signals into converted signals, and transmitting the operation control signals or the converted signals to the receiving units (3,5,7) for controlling the power consumption of the receiving units (3,5,7) via the transmitted signals, wherein the transmitted signals correspond to power control signals.
US09357487B2 Data reception and transmission method and apparatus for power saving in communication system using multiple carriers
The present invention relates to a multi-carrier resource utilization method and apparatus for power saving in a communication system using a multi-carrier, in which the activation of a secondary carrier for transmitting and receiving data traffic between a terminal and a base station is determined according to the QoS (Quality of Service) requirements such as a data traffic status between the terminal and the base station, a maximum sustained traffic rate, a maximum traffic burst size, or the like, and an indication message (Indication) indicating this is transferred to the terminal through a primary carrier to transmit and receive data traffic through the activated secondary carrier.
US09357484B2 Elastic wireless control plane
One or more implementations can include methods, systems and computer readable media for elastic wireless control planes. In some implementations, the method can include evaluating one or more elastic wireless control plane mode factors, and partitioning each of a plurality of access points into one of an active mode group and a sleep mode group based on the evaluating. The method can also include determining a number of wireless control plane instances needed based on the partitioning. The method can further include activating the number of wireless control plane instances and shutting down any excess wireless control plane instances beyond the number.
US09357474B2 Device and method for public land mobile network searching
This disclosure relates generally to public land mobile network searching. A device, method, and/or system may include for each of at least one mobile network identity, each mobile network identity separately associated to a different mobile network, sequentially assessing, with a processor, for each mobile network identity, identity information sets corresponding to one of the at least one mobile network identity for a location code corresponding to the mobile network associated with the one of the mobile network identities, presenting, on a user interface, information related to the mobile network corresponding to the location code as identified. Upon the location code corresponding to the mobile network having been identified, the processor ceases assessing identity information sets corresponding to the mobile network identity for the location code.
US09357467B1 Transmission of radio frequency (RF) measurements to facilitate selection of approved neighboring wireless access node
A wireless communication device to facilitate attachment to a serving wireless access node, the wireless communication device comprises a wireless communication transceiver and a processing system. The wireless communication transceiver is configured to receive a list identifying approved wireless access nodes based on a quality of service level associated with the wireless communication device, and receive a request to report measurements of a plurality of neighboring wireless access nodes. The processing system is configured to process the list identifying the approved wireless access nodes with the plurality of neighboring wireless access nodes to determine a subset of the neighboring wireless access nodes included in the list of approved wireless access nodes, and perform radio frequency (RF) measurements on the subset of the neighboring wireless access nodes. The wireless communication transceiver is further configured to transmit a report of the RF measurements on the subset of the neighboring wireless access nodes.
US09357464B2 Arrangement and method for optimising handling of handovers in telecommunication systems
An apparatus configured to operate in a telecommunications network comprising a first base station configured to serve at least a first cell and a second base station configured to serve at least a second cell, wherein said apparatus comprises a controller configured to receive measurements related to a successful handover of a user equipment from a first cell to a second cell, wherein said measurements relate to measurements being taken before and/or during said handover.
US09357459B2 Method and apparatus for cross link establishment
A method and apparatus for cross link (XL) establishment are disclosed. In the method and apparatus, a XL between a terminal wireless transmit/receive unit (T-WTRU) and a helper WTRU (H-WTRU) is established. The T-WTRU and the H-WTRU may be configured to operate in a plurality of RRC states and a plurality of RRC substates. To establish the XL, neighbor discovery, association information exchange, and a H-WTRU selection may be performed. Radio resource control (RRC) configuration of the T-WTRU and the H-WTRU may also be performed. In the method and apparatus, coverage for a T-WTRU may be handed over between a network and a H-WTRU or between two H-WTRUs.
US09357456B2 Handover control method and apparatus for high speed mobility user equipment
A handover control method and apparatus for limiting handover of a User Equipment (UE) from a macrocell to an underlying small cell when the UE is operating in a High Speed Mobility (HSM) mode in a radio access network. The UE receives an HSM pilot strength threshold offset parameter from the network and initiates handover from a macrocell to an underlying small cell using a first pilot strength threshold value when the UE is operating in a standard mode. The UE initiates the handover using a second pilot strength threshold value when the UE is operating in HSM mode. The second pilot strength threshold value is equal to the first pilot strength threshold value modified by the HSM pilot strength threshold offset parameter.
US09357447B2 Cell handover method and device
Embodiments of the present invention provide a cell handover method and a device. so that the target eNB uses a current serving small node as a user plane serving node after UE is handed over and uses the target eNB as a control plane serving node after the UE is handed over; receiving a handover request acknowledgment sent by the target eNB; and sending offloading configuration information of the current serving small node to the current serving small node, and sending RRC reconfiguration information of the UE to the UE, so that offloading configuration is performed separately by the current serving small node and the UE. This avoids a problem that in a cell handover process, a transmission resource required for transmission increases and a delay is relatively great because the current serving small node forwards a large amount of data to the target eNB.
US09357435B2 Method and system for handling audio packets during a volte call
A method and a system for handling audio packets in a Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) call by a User Equipment (UE) when Robust Header Compression (ROHC) is enabled are provided. The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) layer provides the VoLTE call properties to the ROHC compressor. The TCP/IP layer receives the audio packets from audio engine and sends the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) packets to a ROHC compressor. Further, the ROHC compressor compresses the Internet Protocol/User Datagram Protocol (IP/UDP) headers and a RTP header. The ROHC compressor sends the compressed RTP data along with a payload to the network in the UpLink (UL) data path. During DownLink (DL) data path, ROHC decompressor receives compressed ROHC packet from network. The ROHC decompressor ignores the construction of IP/UDP headers for the compressed data.
US09357419B2 Method for reporting channel state information in wireless communication system and apparatus for same
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for reporting channel state information, the method and the apparatus comprising the following steps: measuring downlink signals from a plurality of base stations; feeding back a first channel state information on a first base station in subband units, wherein the first channel state information includes identification information for indicating a corresponding subband; and feeding back a second channel state information on a second base station in subband units, wherein the subband which corresponds to the second channel state information is set to be identical to the subband which corresponds to the first channel state information, and wherein the second channel state information does not include identification information for indicating the corresponding subband.
US09357418B2 Measurement reporting method of terminal in wireless communication system and apparatus therefor
The present invention relates to a method for processing a signal of a terminal in a wireless communication system. Specifically, the method comprises the steps of: performing a measurement on a first cell in one or more specific subframes; configuring report information which includes the measurement result, together with an indicator indicating that the measurement has been performed in the one or more specific subframes; and transmitting the report information to a second cell, wherein the one or more specific subframes are configured to have different interference levels from other subframes.
US09357417B2 Methods, systems and devices for obtaining system information in a wireless network
System Information (SI) of a second node of a wireless network is obtained for a wireless device that is communicating with a first node of the wireless network. In response to at least one criterion, one or more of the following operations are performed, to obtain the SI of the second node: decoding at least one channel of the second node to obtain the SI of the second node; receiving the SI of the second node from a node other than the second node; and/or inferring at least one component of the SI of the second node based on a corresponding at least one component of the SI of the first node. Related systems, methods, nodes and wireless devices are also described.
US09357415B2 Method and apparatus for monitoring a random access channel
A user equipment for obtaining data for observing performance related to Random Access in a cellular radio system is provided. The user equipment can connect to the system. In order to provide the network/system with data for observing the random access procedure the user equipment measures and stores data needed to compute measurements to be reported to the system. The user equipment further generates a measurement report, and transmits the measurement report based on a trigger event.
US09357412B2 Communication control method and base station
A communication control method that is applied to a mobile communication system including an X2 interface established between a first base station and a second base station, comprises: a step A of transmitting, by the first base station, a first X2 message to the second base station through the X2 interface. In the step A, the first base station adds first measurement information for measuring communication delay between the first base station and the second base station to the first X2 message, and transmits the first X2 message.
US09357400B2 Methods and apparatuses for sharing a radio node
A method and a radio node (RN) shared by operators of separate cellular networks having operator specific tracking area plans. The radio node (RN) broadcasts (1:1) system information with network identities of the cellular networks (PLMN IDs) and multiple operator specific tracking area codes (TACs) valid in respective tracking area plans of the cellular networks, each tracking area code being associated with a corresponding network identity in the system information. Thereby, the operators are enabled to use their own operator specific tracking area codes for their respective operator specific tracking areas that include a cell (100) covered by the radio node.
US09357398B2 Radio base station, radio communication system, and control method
A radio base station (eNB1), which is used in a radio communication system that can autonomously adjust, based on load information transmitted/received between radio base stations, the radio base station parameters used for defining coverage, comprises: a network communication unit (140) that can receive, from another radio base station, first load information indicating the load level of the other radio base station and that can transmit, to the other radio base station, a request for transmission of second load information the information amount of which is greater than that of the first load information; and a control unit (120) that, when the load level of the other radio base station indicated by the received first load information satisfies a given condition, controls such that the request for transmission of the second load information is transmitted to the other radio base station.
US09357395B1 Protecting non-informing incumbent spectrum operations
A Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) is provided that facilitates the protection of a non-informing incumbent spectrum user in a dynamic spectrum sharing environment. The ESC, which consists of a plurality of spectrum sensors, may establish a geographic partitioning strategy within which each partitioned geographic service area may be individually managed according to a finite state machine. Incumbent users may receive radio frequency interference protection without disclosing the details of their spectrum operations.
US09357393B2 Information processing apparatus, communication system, and information processing method
A proper communication service is provided according to use by a user. An information processing apparatus is an information processing apparatus that includes a control unit and a provision unit. At this point, the control unit performs control for lending to a wireless communication apparatus a connection right that is used in providing a specific service, the connection right being for connecting to a predetermined network using wireless communication. Furthermore, the provision unit provides the wireless communication apparatus that is connected using the lent connection right, with the specific service using the wireless communication.
US09357390B2 U-plane and C-plane communications
Methods and apparatus for communicating with the Internet via a gateway are disclosed. The gateway may be a Radio Access Network (RAN) gateway. The gateway may communicate data with at least one user equipment (UE). The gateway may route the data via one or more interfaces. The data may be routed by bypassing a core network.
US09357389B2 Security identity discovery and communication method
The present invention provides a security identity discovery method, through hiding or omitting MAC addresses of the first station and a second station in a frame for identity discovery between the two stations, adopting identity codes to identify the identities of the two stations and authenticating the identities by using a ciphertext, improves the degree of privacy protection during identity discovery of the stations.
US09357388B2 Symbol selection for swipe based authentication
A method includes receiving swipe pattern sensed information from a touchscreen device representative of a user attempting to swipe an authentication pattern to authenticate the user, displaying a set of multiple different symbols including a user known symbol when the swipe reaches a known point in the authentication pattern, receiving a selection of the user known symbol, and authenticating the user based on proper selection of the user known symbol and completion of the authentication pattern.
US09357387B2 Methods and devices for handling encrypted communication
By allowing the option of placing an Logical Link Control (LLC)-entity within the Base Station Subsystem (BSS) an improved system performance in the form of mobile stations experiencing reduced information acquisition times can be achieved by using a cache memory in the BSS. A method in the BSS can include receiving one or more LLC Packet Data Units (PDUs) from a mobile station, and extracting Sub Network (SN)-PDU(s) contained in each LLC PDU and reassembling the SN-PDU(s) to recover a single N-PDU. The N-PDU is determined to include a request for information using an LLC entity in the base station subsystem. Content of a cache memory in the base station subsystem is determined to correspond to the request for information indicated by the N-PDU. A response to the request for information from the mobile station is made using the content of cache memory in the base station subsystem.
US09357385B2 Configuration of a new enrollee device for use in a communication network
An electronic device obtains a device password associated with the new enrollee device to be configured for a communication network. The device password is provided to a network registrar to cause the network registrar to configure the new enrollee device for the communication network. The network registrar performs an enrollment process based upon the device password and provides feedback to the electronic device to indicate whether or not the new enrollee device was successfully added to the communication network. Alternatively, when an electronic device detects the presence of a new enrollee device to be configured for the communication network, the electronic device generates a device password for the new enrollee device and provides the device password to the new enrollee device and to the network registrar, thereby causing the network registrar to initiate an enrollment process for the new enrollee device based upon the device password.
US09357375B2 Telecommunications systems and methods and smart cards for use therewith
In a telecommunications system including a plurality of different networks, terminals and smart cards, each terminal is usable in a particular network in association with one of the smart cards when that smart card is registered with that network. Each smart card carries secret information specific to its registered home network and with which the network can authenticate the smart card and allow use of the terminal with which that smart card is associated. Each smart card may be registered with one of the networks as its home network, selectively de-registered from its home network, and re-registered with a different one of the networks as its home network by obtaining data including an International Mobile Subscriber Identifier for use with that network. The Identifier is transmitted to the smart card, and the secret information relating to a particular network activated when registering or re-registering the smart card with that network.
US09357369B2 Reducing provider costs related to E911 service
In compliance with regulatory requirements imposed on multicarrier wired/wireless network carriers, the disclosed system receives input representing a selection of a street address to be used as a current location associated with a user identity. The system determines an expiration date associated with the street address, designates the street address as a validated emergency contact location for the user identity in response to determining that the expiration date associated with the street address has not expired. The system thereafter permits the establishment of communications between the system and a disparate wireless network device associated with a multicarrier wireless network.
US09357364B2 Function cooperating method and portable terminal supporting the same
A method of linking a function of a terminal includes recognizing a face included in a photo, determining whether there is phonebook information having a photo of a face matched with the recognized face, and generating a gallery-phonebook file. The matched phonebook information is linked with the recognized face. The phonebook information of the gallery-phonebook file is based on the phonebook file stored in the storage unit and a controller determines whether or not to update the phonebook file if a recording date of the phonebook information included in the gallery-phonebook file is older than generation date of the phonebook file stored in the storage unit.
US09357359B2 Dynamic quality of service (QoS) for services over cellular
The disclosure is related to dynamically applying quality of service (QoS) to a call. An aspect determines a packet transmission state of a subscriber on the call, determines whether or not the QoS is allocated to the subscriber, and allocates the QoS to the subscriber based on the QoS not being allocated to the subscriber and the packet transmission state indicating that the subscriber is sending packets.
US09357358B2 Role based system for command, control and communication between team members
A system for enabling tracking and communication between units in a team, typically used for military or rescue operations. The system, known as Command and Control System, has a handheld central unit with a display for showing positions of team units and portable team units having GPS, compass and radio communication function for sending and receipt of positions and alarms and for receiving text messages, a display for showing own positions and bearings. The units have the ability to send data directly or relayed between each other and that each unit can be assigned one or more roles.
US09357357B2 Group owner selection for a peer-to-peer group
A computing device of a peer-to-peer group for a wireless communication protocol may determine that a peer-to-peer connection for the group transports an application flow sourced by a Group Owner to a client of the Group Owner. The computing devices of the group select the client that receives the application flow sourced by the Group Owner to be a new Group Owner for the group. As a consequence, the computing device of the group that receives the application flow is the new Group Owner and, as a result, the Group Owner for the group receives the application flow whereas prior to the selection of the new Group Owner the Group Owner transmitted the application flow.
US09357349B2 Determining a location of a wireless endpoint device in a wireless network
A method, computer readable medium and apparatus for determining a location of a user endpoint device in a wireless network are disclosed. For example, the method receives from each of a plurality of base stations a plurality of signals and a plurality of times of arrival, wherein each of the plurality of times of arrival is associated with a particular signal of the plurality of signals, and determines the location of the wireless endpoint device from the plurality of signals and the plurality of times of arrival.
US09357348B2 Systems and methods for locating a tracking device
The principles described herein provide methods and systems for locating a tracking device. In particular, one disclosed method includes associating a user with a tracking device, receiving an indication that the tracking device is lost, setting a flag indicating that the tracking device is lost, receiving a location within a proximity of the tracking device from one of a plurality of mobile devices associated with a community of users, and providing the location to the user.
US09357347B2 Method and system for aggregating messages based on a point of interest and storage medium
A method for aggregating messages based on a point of interest is provided, the method including: acquiring an instruction to trigger a point of interest; acquiring a region unit in which the point of interest is located from an electronic map which is divided into a plurality of region units in advance, and acquiring a predetermined number of region units including the region unit in which the point of interest is located by taking the region unit in which the point of interest is located as a center; acquiring messages issued within the predetermined number of region units; and generating a message aggregating page including a map indicative of the point of interest based on the acquired messages and displaying the acquired messages on the message aggregating page. A system for aggregating messages based on a point of interest is also provided.
US09357346B2 System and method for indoor location mapping and tracking
Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for indoor mapping. The indoor mapping system may receive wireless signals from wireless devices located in an area and create a wireless signal fingerprint that identifies each signal and the strength of the signal. A user may identify the location that the wireless signal fingerprint was taken on a geo-referenced map. After the wireless signal fingerprints for an area have been mapped, a user may determine a location by taking a wireless signal fingerprint and comparing the wireless signal fingerprint to previously taken wireless signal fingerprints.
US09357343B2 Navigation system with content delivery mechanism and method of operation thereof
A method of operation of a navigation system includes: generating a time fence with a control unit based on a provider location relative to a travel waypoint; generating a notification based on the time fence meeting or below a tolerable time threshold; and communicating the notification based on a delivery type for providing on a device.
US09357340B2 Method of configuring two wireless devices
The invention is a method of configuring a device and a wireless unit. The device is able to operate in tag mode and in wireless reader mode. The wireless unit is able to operate in wireless reader mode and in a card emulation mode. The method comprises the steps of: reading a setting data into the device running in tag mode, the setting data corresponding to a first configuration and being read by the wireless unit which operates in wireless reader mode, activating the first configuration in the unit, writing an acknowledgment data into the device and switching the unit to the card emulation mode, switching the device to the wireless reader mode when the presence of the acknowledgment data is detected in the device.
US09357336B2 Information providing method and mobile terminal therefor
An information providing method using a mobile terminal is provided. The method includes placing the mobile terminal within a communication range of a sensor based Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) device previously registered in the mobile terminal, receiving identification information and sensing information detected by the sensor based BLE device from the sensor based BLE device, extracting notification information corresponding to the received identification information of the sensor based BLE device, comparing a previously set reference sensing information included in the extracted notification information and the received sensing information, and outputting a notification message included in the notification information based on the comparison of the previously set reference sensing information and the received sensing information.
US09357334B2 Method and apparatus for performing network reentry in wireless communication system
A method for performing network reentry by a Machine to Machine (M2M) device in a wireless communication system is provided. In the method, the M2M device receives information associated with an uplink resource for transmitting a ranging request message from a base station and transmits the ranging request message to the base station based on the received information associated with the uplink resource. The information associated with the uplink resource is masked with a random access identifier (RA-ID) and the RA-ID includes an indicator that indicates an M2M device dedicated ranging channel.
US09357333B2 Mobile terminal, application selection server, application installation method, and mobile terminal program
A location information based application is installed on a mobile terminal. The mobile terminal 10 is communicatively connected to an application selection server 200 for selecting an application and an application server 300 for transmitting an application. The mobile terminal 10 receives an activation of a predetermined portal application from a user, identifies a current location of the mobile terminal, transmits the identified location to application selection server 200 in response to the activation of the portal application, receives from the application selection server 200 a data about an application selected by the application selection server 200, determines whether the selected application has been installed on the mobile terminal 10 in response to the data about the selected application, and installs the selected application by accessing the application server 300 when it is determined that the selected application has not been installed on the mobile terminal.
US09357331B2 Systems and apparatuses for a secure mobile cloud framework for mobile computing and communication
Systems and apparatuses for a secure mobile cloud framework (referred to as MobiCloud) for mobile computing and communication are disclosed. Embodiments of MobiCloud transfer each mobile node from a traditional strictly layer-structured communication node into a service node (SN). Each SN may be used as a service provider or a service broker according its capability. Each SN may be incorporated as a virtualized component of the MobiCloud. In some embodiments, MobiCloud mirrors an SN to one or multiple virtual images in the Cloud for addressing communication and computation deficiencies of mobile devices. Virtual images can create a visualized MANET routing and communication layer that can maximally assist the mobile nodes to enable pervasive computing services for each mobile device owner. A secure data processing framework is disclosed for the MobiCloud.
US09357314B2 Automated sound processor with audio signal feature determination and processing mode adjustment
A method includes determining a first feature of a first audio signal at a first location in a signal processing path and determining, using the first feature, a first environmental classification of the first signal. Further, the method includes, based on the first environmental classification, enabling, modifying or disabling one or both of a first signal processing mode at the first location and a second signal processing mode at a second location in the signal processing path. The method also includes determining a second feature of a second audio signal at the second location and determining, using the second feature, a second environmental classification of the second signal. Further, the method includes, based on the second environmental classification, enabling, modifying or disabling one or both of the first signal processing mode at the first location and the second signal processing mode at the second location.
US09357309B2 Orientation based dynamic audio control
Control of audio output characteristics of the device is contemplated. The control may correspond with modifying the audio output characteristics according to an orientation of the device or other positional relationships defined between the device, the output from the device and/or speaker positioning that may vary as a result of user manipulation or an environment within which the device is being used.
US09357307B2 Multi-channel wind noise suppression system and method
A system and method for suppressing noise in one or more of at least first and second channels include obtaining a magnitude difference of signals in the first and second channels, obtaining a magnitude sum of signals in the first and second channels, obtaining a ratio of the magnitude difference to the magnitude sum, generating an attenuation value based on the ratio, selecting an attenuator based on the magnitude difference, and attenuating a signal in a channel by the attenuation value using the selected attenuator.
US09357306B2 Multichannel audio calibration method and apparatus
A method comprising: generating at least one audio signal to be output by at least one speaker for a multi-speaker system; receiving at least two output signals, the at least two output signals provided by at least two microphones and based on the at least one acoustic wave output by the at least one speaker in response to the at least one audio signal; determining a directional component associated with the at least two output signals; and comparing the directional component with an expected location of the at least one speaker.
US09357300B2 Systems and methods for protecting a speaker
In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, systems and methods may include a controller configured to be coupled to an audio speaker, wherein the controller receives one or more signals indicative of one or more operating characteristics of the audio speaker and compares the one or more operating characteristics to one or more speaker protection thresholds, and based on the comparison, processes an audio input signal to generate an audio output signal communicated from the controller to the audio speaker, further wherein the one or more speaker protection thresholds are based on offline reliability testing of one or more audio speakers similar to the audio speaker and the controller generates one or more modeled parameters for the audio speaker and modifies the one or more speaker protection thresholds based on the one or more modeled parameters.
US09357289B2 Three-dimensional air-adsorbing structure
A three-dimensional air-adsorbing structure. The structure has a three-dimensional, unitary, skeletal, porous scaffold, air-adsorbing material particles, and one or more hydrophobic binders that couple air-adsorbing material particles to each other to form agglomerates and couples particles and agglomerates to the scaffold. The structure has structure openings in the agglomerates and structure openings between agglomerates, such structure openings being open to the outside environment. The air-adsorbing material and the agglomerates are coupled to the scaffold by creating a water-based emulsion of air-adsorbing material, agglomerates of the material, and binder, and then impregnating the scaffold with this emulsion. The emulsion is dried at least in part at a temperature below the freezing point of the emulsion.
US09357288B2 Earhealth monitoring system and method IV
A system for monitoring sound pressure levels at the ear includes an ambient sound microphone (ASM) for receiving ambient sounds and an ear canal microphone (ECM) for producing audio signals as a function of ambient sound received at the ambient sound microphone and a sound signal received from an associated personal audio device. A logic circuit is operatively associated with the ASM and ECM calculates a total SPL_Dose experienced by the ear at a time t. The total SPL_Dose is calculated by determining SPL_Dose for periods Δt as measured at the ECM. The logic circuit may select an action parameter in response to the Total SPL_Dose.
US09357275B2 Network streaming of coded video data
In one example, a device configured to receive a first sub-segment of a segment of multimedia data, the first sub-segment comprising a first set of one or more data units and a first header including data indicative of locations of the data units within the first sub-segment, wherein at least one of the data units refers to a data unit of a second sub-segment of the segment. The device is also configured to, after receiving the first sub-segment, receive the second sub-segment, the second sub-segment comprising a second set of one or more data units and a second header including data indicative of locations of the data units within the second sub-segment. The device is also configured to process at least a portion of the segment after receiving the first sub-segment and the second sub-segment.
US09357274B2 System and method for storing multi-source multimedia presentations
A file format design supports storage of multi-source multimedia presentations via the inclusion of indications as to whether a presentation is a multi-source presentation, and for one media type, the tracks of which are from different sources and should be played simultaneously. If a multi-source presentation exists, additional indications may be provided including: an indication of a multi-source presentation type being stored; indications regarding the source of each track and which tracks have the same source; indications of different parties' information such as phone numbers, etc. Thus, a player may play back a recorded presentation in the same or substantially the same manner as it was presented during the actual session, and may automatically manipulate the presentation to be more informative or efficient. The file format design further supports storage of other types of multi-source presentations that render more than one media stream for at least one type of media.
US09357271B2 Systems and method for using closed captions to initiate display of related content on a second display device
In some implementations, a method for using closed captions in a double display scenario includes, obtaining a video stream configured to be displayed on a first display device. The video stream includes closed captions. The method also includes, identifying one or more symbols or words included in the closed captions; and obtaining a set of instructions. The set of instructions includes instructions to display content information relating to at least one symbol or word in the one or more symbols or words. The method further includes, in response to obtaining, and in accordance with, the set of instructions, executing one or more applications based on a type of the content information; and formatting for display, on a second display device, output from the one or more applications. The applications include one of: a web browser, a music application, a feed reader application, a coupon application, and a content viewer.
US09357270B2 System and method for simultaneous broadcast for personalized messages
A system and method for the simultaneous creation, assembly and transmission of synchronous multiple personalized messages to specific targeted individuals or other entities. The system can send rich media distinctly personalized messages such as commercials to a small or large group of selected individuals through any appropriate distribution media. A personalized message is created based on segmenting a message into multiple slots, and providing different selectable segments for each slot. The multiple segments are then simultaneously broadcasted over multiple data streams to a receiver, wherein the receiver switches between the data streams to assemble the personalized message in a just-in-time fashion. Other data including overlays, animation, frame transitions etc. may also be transmitted and used to assemble the personalized message.
US09357269B2 Method and system for providing secure handling of information for complete internet anywhere
An Internet capable set-top-box (STB) may be operable to extend a security boundary from the Internet capable STB to an application server to allow support of web browsing operations from the application server. A secure link between the Internet capable STB and the application server may be established. The Internet capable STB may communicate a request for web page information from a secure web server along with cryptographic credentials to the application server, via the secure link. The application server may be allowed to receive the web page information directly from the secure web server and process at least the unsupported portion of the received web page information. The Internet capable STB may then receive the web page information with at least the unsupported portion processed from the application server, via the secure link, for further processing and rendering.
US09357260B2 Methods and apparatus for presenting substitute content in an audio/video stream using text data
Various embodiments of apparatus and/or methods are described for skipping, filtering and/or replacing content from an audio/video stream using text data associated with the audio/video stream. The text data is processed using location information that references a segment of the text data of the first audio/video stream to identify a location within the first audio/video stream. The location within the first audio/video stream is utilized to identify portions of the audio/video stream that are to be skipped during presentation. The portions of the audio/video stream that are to be skipped are filtered from the audio/video stream, and some of the skipped portions of the audio/video stream are replaced with substitute content. The filtered video stream, including the substitute content, is outputted for presentation to a user.
US09357258B2 Communication system, transmission device, reception device, communication method, program, and communication cable
The present invention relates to a communication system, a transmission device, a reception device, a communication method, a program, and a communication cable, whereby high-speed communication can be executed while maintaining compatibility. In the event that an HDMI® source 71 and an HDMI® sink 72 execute two-way IP communication using a CEC line 84 and a signal line 141, a switching control unit 121 controls a switch 133 to select a partial signal making up the differential signal from a conversion unit 131 at the time of transmitting data, and controls the switch 133 to select a partial signal making up a differential signal from a receiver 82 at the time of transmitting data, and in the case of executing two-way communication using the CEC line 84 alone, the switching control unit 121 controls the switch 133 to select the CEC signal from the HDMI® source 71 or receiver 82 with the switch 133. The present invention may be applied to HDMI®, for example.
US09357250B1 Multi-screen video user interface
Methods and systems for implementing multi-screen video user interfaces. A handheld device is used to search for content to be displayed on a television. The handheld device presents data according to a first user interface, and while searching for content, any changes to the navigation state of the handheld device are sent to the television. The television receives an update and reformats the data according to a second user interface optimized for displaying the data on the television. The first user interface is native to the handheld device and the second user interface is native to the television. The user of the handheld device is able to utilize a familiar format while searching for content while viewers of the television are able to see the same navigation state as the handheld device but in a familiar format on the television.
US09357241B2 Video display apparatus and operating method thereof
Provided is a operating method of a video display device including a display unit. A receiving unit obtains an uncompressed audio and video content. A content recognition configuration management unit receives information of the uncompressed audio and video content based on a characteristic information of the uncompressed audio and video, sets a content reminder based on the information of the uncompressed audio and video content, wherein the content reminder notifies broadcasting information for another content which is related to the uncompressed audio and video content. And reminds the another content while displaying the broadcasting information of the another content based on the setting of the content reminder.
US09357239B2 Converting live streaming content to video-on-demand streaming content
Systems and methods are provided for converting live streaming content or other streaming content to video-on-demand streaming content. In one embodiment, a stream conversion application receives a request to access electronic content from a target stream, such as a live stream. The request identifies the live stream. The request includes at least one time code specifying a start time for accessing electronic content in the live stream. The stream conversion application obtains the at least one time code from the request. The stream conversion application retrieves content segments from the live stream based on the at least one time code during or after publication of the live stream. The content segments include the requested electronic content from the live stream. The stream conversion application generates a video-on-demand stream by combining the content segments. The stream conversion application provides access to the video-on-demand stream.
US09357238B2 Video data extension system and method
A system and method extending mobile video data across multiple display hardware platforms is disclosed. The system incorporates a mobile user interface device (MUD) interacting with a video control unit (VCU) to present display video content (DVC) on a video display unit (VDU). The MUD and VCU coordinate to control their respective display content in real-time based on a specific integrated user interaction context (UIC) provided by the MUD to the VCU. The VCU executes the UIC to control the merging in real-time of primary video content (PVC) and secondary video content (SVC) that are combined to form the DVC. Video content processed by the VCU as PVC/SVC input may be sourced from external video sources (EVS) directly connected to the VCU and/or data sourced from a computer communications network (CCN) via routing through the MUD and/or VCU.
US09357234B2 Image coding method, image decoding method, image coding apparatus, image decoding apparatus, and image coding and decoding apparatus
A dependency indication is signaled within the beginning of a packet, that is, within the adjacent of a slice header to be parsed or a parameter set. This is achieved, for example, by including the dependency indication at the beginning of the slice header, preferably after a syntax element identifying the parameter set and before the slice address, by including the dependency indication before the slice address, by providing the dependency indication to a NALU header using a separate message, or by using a special NALU type for NALUs carrying dependent slices.
US09357227B2 Image coding method, image decoding method, image coding apparatus, and image decoding apparatus
An image coding method includes: deriving a candidate for a motion vector predictor from a co-located motion vector; adding the candidate to a list; selecting the motion vector predictor from the list; and coding a current block and coding a current motion vector, wherein the deriving includes: deriving the candidate by a first derivation scheme in the case of determining that each of a current reference picture and a co-located reference picture is a long-term reference picture; and deriving the candidate by a second derivation scheme in the case of determining that each of the current reference picture and the co-located reference picture is a short-term reference picture.
US09357225B2 Method for inducing a merge candidate block and device using same
The present invention relates to a method for inducing a merge candidate block and a device using same. An image decoding method involves decoding motion estimation region (MER) related information; determining whether or not a predicted target block and a spatial merge candidate block are included in the same MER; and determining the spatial merge candidate block to be an unavailable merge candidate block when the predicted target block and the spatial merge candidate block are included in the same MER. Accordingly, by parallely performing the method for inducing a merge candidate, parallel processing is enabled and the computation amount and implementation complexity are reduced.
US09357214B2 Advanced merge/skip mode and advanced motion vector prediction (AMVP) mode for 3D video
Techniques are described where if an inter-view predicted motion vector candidate (IPMVC) and an inter-view disparity motion vector candidate (IDMVC) are derived based on a shifted disparity vector, where the amount by which the disparity vector is shifted for the IPMVC and IDMVC is different. The techniques also prioritize the inclusion of the IPMVC over the IDMVC in a candidate list, and prune the IPMVC and the IDMVC if there is a duplicated IPMVC or IDMVC in the candidate list.
US09357212B2 Advanced residual prediction in scalable and multi-view video coding
In an example, a method of coding multi-layer video data includes determining, for a first block of video data at a first temporal location, whether one or more reference picture lists for coding the first block contain at least one reference picture at a second, different temporal location. The method also includes coding the first block of video data relative to at least one reference block of video data of a reference picture in the one or more reference picture lists, where coding includes disabling an inter-view residual prediction process when the one or more reference picture lists do not include at least one reference picture at the second temporal location.
US09357209B2 Luminance correction system and method
Luminance correction systems and methods capable of reducing or removing luminance mura of display devices are provided. One luminance correction system includes: a display device including a plurality of pixels, the pixels including a plurality of sub-pixels, each of the pixels comprising at least two of the sub-pixels; an image capturing unit including a plurality of charge-coupled device (CCD) image capturing elements, an n×n arrangement of the image capturing elements corresponding torn of the pixels, n and m being natural numbers greater than or equal to 2; and a luminance correction device configured to generate a representative luminance value with respect to the m of the pixels based on luminance values measured by the n×n arrangement of the image capturing elements, and calculate a correction value with respect to the m of the pixels according to a difference between the representative luminance value and a target luminance value.
US09357205B2 Stereoscopic image control apparatus to adjust parallax, and method and program for controlling operation of same
A natural stereoscopic image is displayed and eye strain is mitigated. A face image is detected in a stereoscopic image composed of a left-eye image and a right-eye image. The left-eye and right-eye images are shifted in such a manner that visual disparity of the detected face image is removed. Furthermore, a display area containing the face image is calculated. The calculated display area is enlarged so as to be displayed over the entirety of the display screen. Since a double image that appears in front of the face image is excluded, the strain upon the eyes of the observer is mitigated.
US09357202B2 High resolution imaging devices with wide field and extended focus
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a high-resolution imaging device with wide field and extended focus comprising a beam generator for generating a plurality of nondiffracting beams and a scanning mechanism for moving the plurality of nondiffracting beams relative to the object to illuminate a volume of the object. The high-resolution imaging device also comprises surface element and a body having a light detector layer outside the surface element. The light detector layer has a light detector configured to measure light data associated with the plurality of nondiffracting beams illuminating the volume of the object. In some cases, the high-resolution imaging device also includes a lens inside of the light detector layer. The lens is configured to focus the light on the light detector surface.
US09357200B2 Video processing device and video processing method
A video processing device overlays appropriate presentation data over video images, even if the size of the display area for 3D video images differs from the size of the display area for presentation data that is to be presented with the 3D video images. The video processing device generates left- and right-view images from a 3D video stream, enlarges presentation data obtained from a relevant data stream to scale its display size to match the display size of video images, applying an offset value, which is determined to cause a specific parallax, to the thus enlarged presentation data to generate left- and right-view presentation data, and overlays the left-view presentation data over the left-view images and the right-view presentation data over the right-view images to display video images resulting from the overlaying.
US09357198B2 Digital broadcast receiving method providing two-dimensional image and 3D image integration service, and digital broadcast receiving device using the same
A digital broadcast receiving apparatus for providing an integrated service of a 2D image and a 3D image. The apparatus comprising a demultiplexing unit configured to demultiplex a received digital broadcast signal; a PSIP or PSI/SI processor configured to extract at least any one of 3D service information related to a 2D image channel or service and 2D service information related to a 3D image channel or service from the demultiplexed digital broadcast signal; a decoder configured to decode an extension view video stream and a base view video stream from the demultiplexed digital broadcast signal; and an output formatting unit configured to format the extension view video stream and the base view video stream based on at least any one of the 3D service information and the 2D service information.
US09357196B2 Method and device for transmitting/receiving digital broadcast signal
The present invention relates to a device and a method for transmitting/receiving a digital broadcast signal having a three-dimensional image. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a device for receiving a digital broadcast signal comprises: a tuner which receives a digital broadcast signal of a transport packet that contains signaling data and a video stream for implementing a three-dimensional image; a demodulation unit which demodulates said received digital broadcast signal; a decoding module which extracts mode conversion information from said demodulated digital broadcast signal; and an output formatter which outputs a decoded image signal on the basis of said mode conversion information.
US09357191B2 Image processor, image processing method, and image projector
According to one embodiment, an image processor includes: an acquisitor; a predictor; a corrector. The acquisitor acquires information regarding shape of a projection surface on which a first image is projected, information regarding position of a viewpoint for observing the first image projected on the projection surface, and information regarding position of a projection point for projecting the first image. The predictor predicts a viewable region in which the first image projected on the projection surface is viewable from the viewpoint based on the acquired information regarding the shape, the acquired information regarding the viewpoint, and the acquired information regarding the projection point. The corrector corrects a second image to generate the first image, the second image being set within the viewable region.
US09357174B2 System and method for avatar management and selection
A video communication system that replaces actual live images of the participating users with animated avatars. A method may include selecting an avatar, initiating communication, capturing an image, detecting a face in the image, extracting features from the face, converting the facial features to avatar parameters, and transmitting at least one of the avatar selection or avatar parameters. The system is configured to allow a user to select a new avatar during active communication with a remote user.
US09357172B2 Video conference virtual endpoints
A method and a device providing one virtual endpoint dedicated to serve one particular real endpoint, and the virtual endpoint is typically installed on a server in the same local network as the associated real endpoint, where an MCU or a fraction of a distributed MCCJ also is installed. In the upstream direction, the virtual endpoint includes at least an upstream decoder, a scaling unit and an upstream encoder. In the downstream direction, the virtual endpoint includes at least a number of decoders, a composing unit and a downstream encoder.
US09357168B1 Facilitating video conferences
Implementations generally relate to facilitating video conferences. In some implementations, a method includes enabling a video conference having a plurality of participants. The method further includes determining one or more primary speakers from the participants. The method further includes modifying video streams of one or more participants based on the determining one or more of the participants as primary speakers.
US09357161B1 Motion vector interpolation for motion compensation
A method of performing motion compensation includes identifying a set of candidate motion vectors for a block in an intermediate frame from a set of motion vectors from a previous and current frames, performing block-level analysis for each candidate motion vector, selecting an interpolation motion vector, and using the interpolation motion vector to interpolate the intermediate frame between the previous and current frames, wherein the number of intermediate frames depends upon a conversion to a faster frame rate. A method of determining background and foreground motion vectors for a block in an interpolated frame includes comparing a first motion vector that points to a previous frame to a second motion vector that points to a next frame to produce a difference, and designating one of the first and second motion vectors as a background motion vector and the other as a foreground motion vector depending upon the difference.
US09357157B2 Video transferring system, video transmission apparatus, video reception apparatus and video transferring method
In a transmission side, a layer adjusting unit performs an adjustment to store a scalable encoded video data in a memory, select and output a scalable data of a base quality as a real-time video, read from a memory a scalable data of an enhancement quality based on the designation of a enhancement quality and a transmission period of time, and output the scalable data of an enhancement quality together with a real-time scalable data. In the receiving side, a layer synthesizing unit synthesizes and outputs a real-time video at normal times, and lowers the real-time video to a quality of the base layer if there is an enhancement quality video of a designated period of time, thereby reading the base quality layer data corresponding to the designated video from the memory (153) and synthesizing the data with the enhancement quality video to output the resulting data.
US09357154B2 Apparatus, systems and methods for accessing missed media content
Systems and methods are operable to retrieve at least a portion of a missed media content event. An exemplary embodiment detects an occurrence of a failed recording of at least a portion of a media content event of interest; transmits a notification of the detected occurrence of the failed recording of the at least the portion of the media content event of interest from a media device to a replacement content device; and receives, at the media device, at least a portion of missed media content corresponding to at least the portion of the media content event of interest that failed to record.
US09357151B1 Shared counter circuit with low-voltage signal output for a column-parallel single slope ADC
A shared counter circuit for a column-parallel single-slope ADC includes an n-bit counter; n low-voltage (LV) drivers connected to receive respective counter output bits and to provide a logic high or logic low output signal which tracks the received bit, the voltage difference between the logic high and logic low output signals being less than Vdd; and a plurality of sets of regenerative latches powered by a supply voltage Vdd, each of which receives an output from a respective LV driver and latches and regenerates the received output as a rail-to-rail CMOS signal upon the occurrence of a trigger event. One typical trigger event occurs when a periodic ramp voltage exceeds an input voltage provided to the ADC which may originate, for example, from the columns of a photodetector array.
US09357150B2 Image sensor with integrated power conservation control
An integrated image sensor circuit with multiple power modes is disclosed. The integrated circuit comprises a pixel array, an analog block to process analog signal associated with the pixel array, where the analog block comprises an analog to digital convertor (ADC), and a first control circuit to enable/disable the analog block or to configure the analog block to a high/low-power mode depending on whether the pixel array is in a readout frame or in a reset frame with no active readout. The integrated image sensor circuit may further comprise a post-processing block and a second control circuit to enable/disable the post-processing block or to configure the post-processing block to the high-power mode or the low-power mode depending on whether the pixel array is in the readout frame or in the reset frame with no active readout.
US09357148B2 Solid-state imaging device and electronic apparatus
A solid-state imaging device includes a layout in which one sharing unit includes an array of photodiodes of 2 pixels by 4×n pixels (where, n is a positive integer), respectively, in horizontal and vertical directions.
US09357135B2 Image display device and method
An image display device that displays image information includes an image retrieving unit that retrieves image information; a device status identifying unit that identifies a status of the present device; an image condition specifying unit that specifies an image condition that indicates a condition which the image information needs to satisfy to be displayed, based on the status identified by the device status identifying unit; and a display unit that displays the image information retrieved by the image retrieving unit if the image information satisfies the image condition specified by the image condition specifying unit.
US09357133B2 Digital photographing apparatus, auto-focusing method, and computer-readable storage medium for executing the auto-focusing method
An apparatus, computer readable medium, and method for auto-focusing, the method including reading out a live-view signal from first group pixels; reading out an auto-focusing detection signal from second group pixels; and auto-focusing using the live-view signal and the auto-focusing detection signal, wherein the first group pixels and the second group pixels do not substantially overlap.
US09357128B2 Information processing terminal, information processing method, and program
The present technology relates to an information processing terminal, an information processing method, and a program capable of naturally suppressing camera shake with a target object being arranged at a certain position on an image. An information processing terminal of an aspect of the present technology includes an imaging unit that takes an image; a display unit that displays the taken image; a measuring unit that measures a motion occurring in the terminal itself; and a display control unit that displays an indicator composed of a plurality of components arranged in a nested structure on the image and varies a position and a size of each component in accordance with the motion. The present technology is applicable to a mobile terminal provided with a camera and a display unit.
US09357121B2 Image capturing apparatus and control method thereof
An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor having first pixels used except for generating image signals and second pixels used for generating the image signals, the first pixels included in a first area, and a signal processing unit configured to perform interpolation processing on signals output from the first pixels in the first area. The signal processing unit performs the interpolation processing on the image signals output from the second pixels in an area other than the first area using a pattern based on an arrangement of the first pixels in the first area.
US09357114B1 Dual camera fifth wheel system
A dual camera system for viewing a coupling of a hitch to a trailer, such as on a semi tractor truck, includes a camera housing having two video cameras. The housing includes two doors that open automatically by a motor, arms and linkages when the vehicle is shifted into reverse. A split screen view is shown to the driver rearward toward the trailer and forward toward the hitch plate. The motor, arms and linkages automatically close the doors after the vehicle is shifted out of reverse, such as after a delay to determine if the hitch latch is secure. The linkages are sliding linkages with a spring so that the doors can be opened manually for cleaning the lenses of the cameras. A heating element is inside the housing.
US09357105B1 Artifacts measurement on video decomposable properties by dynamic fuzzy reasoning
To determine if a pixel exhibits artifacts, statistics are generated for the pixel and its neighbors. These statistics are compared with thresholds. If the comparison of the statistics and the thresholds suggests that the pixel exhibits a pixel artifact, then recourse can be taken, either to adjust the pixel value in some way, or to reject the angle of interpolation used in computing the value for the target pixel.
US09357099B2 Image processing apparatus and image processing method for appropriately processing and unnecessary text area or image area
Provided is an image processing apparatus including an area determination unit, an area processing unit and an area adjustment unit. Upon acquiring multiple image data, the area determination unit is configured to determine whether a text area or an image area of one image data matches an initial text area or an initial image area that has initially appeared in another image data. When the text area or image area of the image data matches the initial text area or initial image area as a result of the determination, the area processing unit is configured to execute processing of reducing the image data of the matching text area or image area. The area adjustment unit is configured to generate image data which is a composite of the data-reduced area resulting from the processing, and a mismatched text area or image area.
US09357090B2 Image processing device
An image processing device according to one aspect of the present disclosure includes a moving body, a housing, a support portion, and a first contact portion. The moving body is composed of a resin member and has a surface on which a holding plate which holds an electric component used for image processing is mounted. The housing includes a pair of side walls between which the moving body is housed therein. The support portion is provided to the housing and configured to support the moving body such that the moving body is movable in a predetermined moving direction. The first contact portion is provided to the moving body, and is configured to be contactable with a contacted portion within the housing prior to the holding plate when the moving body reaches a contact position where it is possible to contact with the contacted portion.
US09357079B2 Optimal use of multiple concurrent internet protocol (IP) data streams for voice communications
Examples are disclosed for hosting a communication session between a hybrid mobile device and a second communication device in an Internet Protocol (IP) based packet data network. A communications server functions as a bridge service between the hybrid mobile device and the second communication device enabling the exchange of multiple concurrent IP packet data media streams over multiple different IP based networks between the hybrid mobile device and the communications server. The hybrid mobile device determines a packet quality for each corresponding packet in the multiple concurrent IP packet data media streams and creates a blended IP packet data media stream by selecting the highest quality packet from among the multiple concurrent IP packet data media streams. On the send side, the hybrid mobile device fully and partially encodes an IP packet data stream to be sent out over the multiple different IP based networks to the communications server.
US09357076B2 Load balancing of distributed media agents in a conference system
A load balancer controls a cluster of media agents each configured to perform media packet processing operations in a conference session. The load balancer receives a Session Traversal Utilities for Network Address Translation/Translator (NAT) (STUN) request from a caller to establish media. The STUN request includes a conference identifier (ID) for the session. The load balancer determines an availability of each of the media agents in the cluster, selects a media agent for the caller based on the conference ID and the determined media agent availabilities, forwards the STUN request to the selected media agent, and routes media packets between the caller and the selected agent for the session.
US09357075B1 Conference call quality via a connection-testing phase
Before a party is admitted into a conference call, the party's communication connection to the conference bridge is tested for quality. If the quality is acceptable, the party is admitted into the conference. If the quality is not acceptable, an attempt is made to improve the quality. If the attempt fails, the party is given the choice of either hanging up and calling back or being admitted into the conference in a restricted mode that limits the adverse effects of the poor connection on the conference.
US09357074B2 Communication apparatus
A communication apparatus includes a telephone communicator, a detector, a data communicator, and a controller. The telephone communicator is configured to perform communication through a telephone network. The controller is configured to perform: a data receiving process of controlling the telephone communicator to receive data; a storing process of storing, in a storage device, the data received in the data receiving process; a determining process of determining whether a mobile terminal is detected by the detector; and a data transmitting process of, in response to determining that the mobile terminal is detected in the determining process, controlling the data communicator to transmit the data stored in the storage device to the mobile terminal.
US09357070B2 Recovery of established emergency calls
A system, method and apparatus for re-establishing a call received at a public safety answering point are described. A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call establishment request is received at an emergency call answer node. The call establishment request has an indication of a previously established emergency call to re-establish. The emergency call answer node searches a call recovery queue for a previously received call establishment request having a matching indication for the previously established emergency call to re-establish. The emergency call answer node bridges a call leg for the received call establishment request and a call leg for the previously received call establishment request having the matching indication for the previously established emergency call to re-establish when a match is found.
US09357067B2 Systems and methods for using caller data to electronically disseminate a message
Disclosed herein are systems and methods for using caller data to electronically disseminate a message. In one aspect, a method involves (i) a phone switch receiving a phone call and corresponding caller data, (ii) the phone switch sending to a record manager, the caller data, (iii) the record manager receiving the sent caller data, and (iv) responsive to the record manager receiving the sent caller data, the record manager (a) retrieving from a data storage, a school identifier corresponding to the received caller data, and (b) causing a notification system to electronically disseminate a message, wherein the message indicates that an updated operational-status of a school identified by the retrieved school identifier is expected soon.
US09357062B2 Message routing using location routing numbers
Various embodiments provide for a way of routing messages using location routing numbers. More specifically, some embodiments can route calls on different legacy networks by using features of existing telecommunication policy and databases. For example, a location routing number can be registered in a number portability administration center database. The location routing number may be in a native number block of a facility carrier and a company registering the location routing number in the number portability administration center database may not be the facility carrier. The destination switch of the facility carrier can be programmed to accept traffic associated with the location routing number. As a result, components of the network can route the message for the company to a destination switch of the facility carrier.
US09357060B2 Telecommunications system and method which makes it possible to establish telecommunications with a vehicle user by means of the number plate
A communication system and method is disclosed which makes it possible to establish telecommunications with the vehicle user by the vehicle number plate code, making it possible to establish telecommunications with the vehicle owner by the public number and unique identification, thereby linking them to a communication system of the owner's choice (a mobile telephone number, e-mail, web profile or personal analog communication means), which is hidden from third parties, as well linking the users to certain pre-established communication functions (functionality codes), which respond to concrete needs of the users.
US09357047B2 Method and system for a multitenancy telephone network
A method and system for operating a multitenancy telephony system including a call queue that stores call requests received from a plurality of users; an expandable and contractible telephony resource cluster that establishes call sessions for call requests; a analysis system that calculates capacity requirements of the system; a resource allocator that manages the scaling and operation of the telephony resource cluster; and a plurality of telephony network channels that are used as telephony communication channels for call sessions.
US09357045B2 Control circuit of mutual capacitance type electrostatic capacitive sensor and electronic device using the same
An electrostatic capacitive sensor includes a plurality of transmitter electrodes, a plurality of receiver electrodes, and a control circuit. Further, the control circuit includes: a transmitter circuit configured to apply a periodical transmission signal to each of the plurality of transmitter electrodes; and a receiver circuit configured to generate, based on a reception signal generated in each of the plurality of receiver electrodes in response to the transmission signal, a detection signal indicating a change in electrostatic capacitance formed at each of intersections of the plurality of transmitter electrodes and the plurality of receiver electrodes, wherein the transmitter circuit is configured to switch between a first mode where the transmission signal is sequentially applied to the plurality of transmitter electrodes and a second mode where the plurality of transmitter electrodes are grouped and the same transmission signal is applied to a plurality of transmitter electrodes belonging to the same group.
US09357040B2 Transmitting system and method for transmitting digital broadcast signal
A transmitting system and a method of transmitting digital broadcast signal are disclosed. The method of transmitting digital broadcast signal includes generating signaling data including a transmission parameter, wherein the transmission parameter includes a protocol version field identifying between a first transmission mode and a second transmission mode, forming a data group including mobile service data and the signaling data, forming mobile service data packets including the mobile service data and the signaling data in the data group, transmitting the digital broadcast signal including the data group.
US09357036B2 Methods and systems for chip-to-chip communication with reduced simultaneous switching noise
Systems and methods are described for transmitting data over physical channels to provide a high speed, low latency interface such as between a memory controller and memory devices with significantly reduced or eliminated Simultaneous Switching Output noise. Controller-side and memory-side embodiments of such channel interfaces are disclosed which do not require additional pin count or data transfer cycles, have low power utilization, and introduce minimal additional latency. In some embodiments of the invention, three or more voltage levels are used for signaling.
US09357034B2 System and method for orchestration of services for use with a cloud computing environment
A system and method for orchestration of services for use with a cloud computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a cloud platform enables provisioning of enterprise software applications within a cloud environment, including packaging enterprise applications as service definition packages (SDP), and instantiating the services using service management engines (SME). In an embodiment, an orchestration engine communicates with a plurality of SMEs to control the flow of service creation, provider dependency resolution, association of services and providers, and the life-cycle management of services within the cloud platform.
US09357013B2 Client-side script to application communication system
A method of activating external application logic from a script embedded in client-side rendered markup. The method can include establishing a communicative link with an application interface to the script. A pre-configured message can be received from the application interface over the communicative link. In response to receiving the pre-configured message, at least one operation can be activated in a process address space which is separate from a process address space used to render the markup and to process the script. Importantly, in a preferred aspect of the present invention, data can be retrieved from a data source remote to the client computing device. Subsequently, the retrieved data can be used to populate at least one user interface field in separately rendered markup.
US09357012B2 Relay communication system
A center terminal includes a target terminal list storing unit that registers a target terminal and an operator list storing that registers an operator ID and a password. Each of the maintenance terminal and the target terminal includes a center terminal information storing unit that registers a center terminal. The center terminal makes a connection job that associates a predetermined target terminal with the operator ID and registers the connection job to the center terminal. One of maintenance terminals receives the specific operator ID and the password from a connected client terminal and sends the center terminal an indication whether or not the maintenance terminal can log in to the center terminal, and, if the logging-in is granted, the maintenance terminal is configured to receive the connection job assigned to the operator ID from the center terminal and notify the operator. If the maintenance terminal receives a selection of the connection job from the operator, the maintenance terminal sends an inquiry to the center terminal whether or not the maintenance terminal can execute the connection job. If the connection job is allowed to be executed, the maintenance terminal can be connected to the target terminal included in the connection job.
US09357011B2 System and method for information handling system image network communication
A system for manufacture of information handling systems is disclosed. The system includes an image analyzer operable to accept an image and generate an image traits definition wherein the image traits definition has a manifest of the image's software characteristics and customization settings, a remote image rebuilder distal to and interfaced with the image analyzer through a network wherein the remote image rebuilder operable to apply the image traits definition to an image components library to rebuild the image, and an information handling system burn rack proximate to the image rebuilder and operable to copy the rebuilt image to a manufactured information handling system.
US09357005B2 Method and system for synchronized distributed display over multiple client devices
Portable interactive devices of audience members are remotely operated to substantially “simultaneously” respond to a signal from an origin, e.g., a central server, despite variation in latencies among the devices in order to produce a shared experience. The audience members are reached through varying communication links. Latencies vary among portable interactive devices and among carriers. A firing time for the portable interactive devices is selected to occur at a time in the future. An execution time at which a respective portable interactive device is commanded to operate is a function of the firing time minus the latency control signal reaches clients in a venue in an audience or at a remote location simultaneously despite the varying latencies.
US09357003B1 Failover and migration for full-offload network interface devices
A method and apparatus are provided for communication of a host having a first network interface device and a second network interface device coupled thereto. The first network interface device is configured to operate a transport layer network connection between the host and a peer. The host is configured to, while the first network device is operating the transport layer network connection with the peer, independently determine connection information that describes the transport layer network connection being operated by the first network interface device. The second network interface device is caused to operate the transport layer network connection with the peer based at least in part on the connection information maintained by the host.
US09357001B2 Location aware mass information distribution system and method
A system, node and method for location aware mass information distribution to peers. The method includes overlaying a distributed hash table (DHT) network over an existing physical communication network to which the peers are connected, wherein the DHT network is a peer to peer (P2P) network; providing at least one application layer multicast (ALM) protocol over the overlayed DHT network to form an ALM tree topology for the peers, wherein the ALM tree topology is based on location information of the peers; using the ALM tree topology for establishing logical connections within a group, between a leader of the group and peers of the group; and using the overlayed DHT network for establishing connections, between the leader and the peers, to be followed by a message to be distributed to the peers.
US09356997B2 System and method for sharing unsupported document types between communication devices
An improved system and method for sharing a document between two communication devices that do not have an application that can display the document. In one example, the document is sent by the communication device that is sharing the document to a document server for processing into pages of one or more different document types, and both communication devices retrieve the stored pages as needed for display. The sharing communication device updates the other communication device when a new page is to be retrieved from the document server.
US09356996B2 System and method for providing an adjunct device in a content distribution network
A cache server receives content and an instruction indicating an event associated with the content that causes a processor to invoke a call out to an adjunct device. The instruction further indicates an operation that the adjunct device is to perform. The cache server detects the event associated with the content, halts a flow of the content in response to detecting the event associated with the content, passes via the call out the content to the adjunct device to perform the operation, receives from the adjunct device a response and resulting data from the operation, and performs an additional operation on the resulting data based on the response from the adjunct device.
US09356985B2 Streaming video to cellular phones
A method, system, and computer program product for deploying data to a web server for streaming video to a mobile device. The method can include receiving a request for streaming video from a mobile device upon the resolving of the request by a DNS. The method can further include simultaneously sending both a request to a database for the video requested and a playlist for the video to the mobile device. The method can then include receiving the video from the database. The video received is sent as a sequence of blocks, where each block can further be comprised of a sequence of chunks. The method can even further include decompressing each block and storing each chunk on a web server. The method can further include an exchange of a security credential.
US09356983B2 System and method for adaptive content rendition
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer readable-media for adaptive content rendition, the method comprising receiving media content for playback to a user, adapting the media content for playback on a first device in the user's first location, receiving a notification when the user changes to a second location, adapting the media content for playback on a second device in the second location, and transitioning media content playback from the first device to second device. One aspect conserves energy by optionally turning off the first device after transitioning to the second device. Another aspect includes playback devices that are “dumb devices” which receive media content already prepared for playback, “smart devices” which receive media content in a less than ready form and prepare the media content for playback, or hybrid smart and dumb devices. A single device may be substituted by a plurality of devices. Adapting the media content for playback is based on a user profile storing user preferences and/or usage history in one aspect.
US09356981B2 Streaming content over a network
Disclosed are embodiments for streaming content over a network. First content segments are generated such that the time durations of at least a subset of the first content segments progressively increase with respect to time. Second content segments are generated that are configured to be played subsequent to the first content segments. The second content segments have time durations that are substantially the same with respect to each other. The first content segments and the second content segments are transmitted to a client device.
US09356977B2 Acquiring online meeting data relating to an online meeting
A technique acquires online meeting data relating to an online meeting. The technique involves running, by processing circuitry, a set of programs (e.g., an operating system, a slideshow application, a word processing program, other programs, etc.) to carry out an online meeting which shares online meeting content among a set of users. The technique further involves performing, while the processing circuitry runs the set of programs to carry out the online meeting, a set of information collection operations by the processing circuitry. The set of information collection operations collects online meeting data from the set of programs. The collected online meeting data includes non-bitmap text-based information extracted from the set of programs (e.g., keywords, phrases, etc. obtained via procedure calls using standard APIs to the set of programs). The technique further involves storing, by the processing circuitry, the collected online meeting data in a designated location of computer memory.
US09356974B2 Systems and methods for establishing a Wi-Fi display (WFD) session
Systems, methods, apparatus, and techniques are provided for establishing an application layer communications session over a layer 2 (L2) communications connection. In particular, a discovery request frame is transmitted from a first device. A discovery response frame is received at the first device, where the discovery response frame is transmitted from a second device in response to having received the discovery request frame. An application layer communications session is established between the first device and the second device while maintaining an existing L2 communications connection between the first device and the second device.
US09356956B2 Preventing network tomography in software defined datacenter networks
Technologies are provided for preventing abuse of software-defined datacenter networks. In some examples, an SDN abuse prevention module within a control layer of an SDN may use graph analysis rules and monitor network paths over time to detect and prevent abusive network conformation change command series. Instance-generated network paths may be analyzed to determine if the paths attempt to repeatedly traverse one or more sensitive network paths. If so, the paths may be implemented or denied based on, among other things, the time scale within which they attempt to repeatedly traverse the sensitive network paths.
US09356951B2 Responses to server challenges included in a hypertext transfer protocol header
Example embodiments relate to verification of client requests based on a response to a challenge (135; 235) included in an HTTP Header. In some embodiments, a server computing device (100; 300; 350) may generate a challenge (130; 230) in response to receipt of a request from a client (200; 330; 380) and may include a random nonce with the challenge. In some embodiments, the server computing device (100; 300; 350) may then verify that a second request includes, in an HTTP header, a response to the challenge (135; 235) that corresponds to the random nonce. Additional example embodiments relate to transmission of a response to a challenge from a client computing device (200; 330; 380) to the server (100; 300; 350).
US09356936B2 Method and apparatus for managing access to electronic content
According to at least one example embodiment, a method and corresponding content protection server for managing access to electronic content comprise retrieving access policies, or permissions, associated with a content item from a corresponding content sharing application, or rights issuer. The access policies are translated into a format recognizable by a digital rights management (DRM) engine, and forwarded to the DRM engine. The translated access policies are then provided by the DRM engine to a client device where the translated access policies are enforced in managing any potential access to the content item.
US09356928B2 Mechanisms to use network session identifiers for software-as-a-service authentication
Techniques are provided for authenticating a subject of a client device to access a software-as-a-service (SaaS) server. A network access device receives a request from a client device to establish a network session and transfers identity information of the subject, the client device and the network session to a session directory database. A request is sent to access an application on a SaaS server. If it does not contain an identity assertion that identifies the subject, the request is redirected to an identity provider device, to provide identity assertion services to the subject. A network session identifier is inserted into the request by a network access device and the request is forwarded to the identity provider device. The identity provider device uses the network session identifier to query the session directory database for the identity information to be used for a security assertion of the subject to the SaaS server.
US09356924B1 Systems, methods, and computer readable media for single sign-on (SSO) using optical codes
Automated systems, methods, and computer readable media for single sign-on (SSO) to a plurality of websites using optical codes. A login server communicates with a user computer browser and a user mobile device to validate the user. When the user goes to a website, the website presents an optical code to the user computer browser. The user mobile device reads the optical code and communicates with the login server to automatically log the user in.
US09356918B2 Identification delegation for devices
A first communication session is conducted between a media device and a mobile device. The first communication session includes requesting an authorization code from the mobile device and receiving the authorization code from the mobile device. The mobile device acts as an intermediary for obtaining authentication from a content server. The mobile device initiates a second communication session with a provider authorization service of the content server. The second communication session includes obtaining a token from the provider authorization service using the authorization code. The media device initiates a third communication session with the content server. The third communication session includes utilizing the token to obtain content from the content server. The system automatically attempts to renew the token in response to an expiration of the token.
US09356915B2 Enhancing privacy by obscuring traversal using relays around network address translator (TURN) connections, and related methods, systems, and computer-readable media
Enhancing privacy by obscuring Traversal Using Relays around Network Address Translator (TURN) connections, and related methods, systems, and computer-readable media are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method comprises obtaining, by a TURN client, one or more candidate addresses comprising a TURN relayed transport address of a TURN server. The method further comprises generating a camouflaged candidate list, based on the candidate addresses, in which the TURN relayed transport address is obscured; generating a connection setup message comprising the camouflaged candidate list; and sending the connection setup message to a TURN peer executing on a computing device. In another embodiment, a method comprises receiving, by a TURN server, a request for a provision of a first TURN service from a TURN client to connect to a TURN peer. The method further comprises masking a presence of the TURN server to the TURN peer, and relaying communications based on the masking.
US09356913B2 Authorization of joining of transformation chain instances
The authorizing of transformation chain instances of different transformation chain classes to join so as to act as a compound transformation chain instance. Class-level authorized dependencies are identified between transformation chain classes. Then, instance-level authorization is performed in accordance with one or more joining criteria, presuming that the instances are of appropriate classes that may be joined. The joining allows the instances to act as a single compound transformation chain whereby data is permitted to flow across the boundaries of the constituent transformation chain instances. New transformation chain instances may be joined to the compound transformation chain instances, and transformation chain instances may be removed from the compound transformation chain instance, thereby dynamically changing the compound application.
US09356908B2 Method and system for causing a client device to renew a dynamic IP address
A method includes terminating a connection between (a) a wireless network supported by a network device and (b) a client device. The method further includes rejecting one or more requests to establish the connection between the wireless network and the client device based at least on the one or more requests being received from the client device within a first period of time subsequent to the terminating operation and accepting a particular request to establish the connection between the wireless network and the client device based at least on the particular request being received from the client device after the first period of time subsequent to the terminating operation.
US09356907B2 Messaging system having multiple number, dual mode phone support
A social messaging hub provides communication services for a data enabled device having Internet network access capabilities. The social messaging hub communicates with the data enabled device over the Internet or cellular data networks, and interfaces with a message infrastructure including mobile carriers, message aggregators, message exchanges and various specialized social messaging services to enable bi-directional messaging communication. The user is given a registered phone number and unique IP addressable identification which serve as a source and destination identifier of the associated data enabled device. Messages may originate in or be delivered to other users' mobile telephones or in similarly equipped and provisioned IP data enabled devices. An application operating on the IP enabled device determines in conjunction with the social messaging hub a mode of transmission as a function of parameters including device location and destination of a message.
US09356899B2 System and method for transmission of data
A system and method for data communication connecting on-line networks with on-line and off-line computers. The present system provides for broadcast of up to the minute notification centric information thereby providing an instant call to action for users who are provided with the ability to instantaneously retrieve further detailed information. The notification centric portions of information is wirelessly broadcast to wireless receiving devices which are attached to computing devices. Upon receipt of the information at the personal computer, the user is notified through different multimedia alerts that there is an incoming message. Wirelessly broadcasted URL's, associated with the data, are embedded in data packets and provide an automated wired or wireless connection back to the information source for obtaining detailed data.
US09356894B2 Enabled and disabled menu choices based on presence state
A computer implemented method for intelligently enabling menu choices includes rendering, on a client system, an address book user interface comprising information related to one or more contacts, selecting a contact from the address book user interface, determining an online presence state for the selected contact, enabling one or more menu options based upon the determined online presence state, with the menu options enabled for a first online presence state differing from the menu options enabled for a second online presence state, and presenting the enabled menu options to a user in a user interface.
US09356891B2 Voice messaging interface
Systems and techniques for transferring electronic data include enabling instant messaging communication between a sender an at least one recipient through an instant messaging host. In addition, voice communication is enabled between the sender and the recipient through the instant messaging host.
US09356883B1 Allocating cloud-hosted application resources using end-user metrics
At least one workflow comprising end-user interactions with an application implemented using provider network resources is identified by a resource allocation service of the provider network. The service collects performance metrics associated with the end-user workflow. If a performance metric meets a threshold criterion, a re-evaluation of the resources assigned to the application is initiated. Configuration changes to modify the set of provider network resources assigned to the application are implemented in accordance with a result of the resource re-evaluation.
US09356882B2 Streamlined system for the transmission of network resource data
A client system of a network resource service, the network resource service administering a plurality of distributed network resources, the client system comprising: a computer processor for executing stored instructions to: receive over a proximity based wireless communication a network resource identifier of a network resource of the plurality of network resources and a service identifier of the network resource service, the service identifier defining a network address of the network resource service on a communications network configured for non-proximity based communication; and transmit application data to the network resource addressed to the network address on the communications network for subsequent processing by the network resource.
US09356876B1 System and method for classifying and managing applications over compressed or encrypted traffic
System and methods for identifying and managing applications over compressed or encrypted traffic in a network are described. The first and second embodiments, which provides a method for managing applications over compressed or encrypted traffic respectively, comprise identifying applications on the traffic, saving the application classification per connection, and propagating the application classification to the network. A method for providing application identification over compressed or encrypted traffic is also disclosed, which includes an application recognition module configured to, among other functions, determine an application classifier for compressed or encrypted traffic without applying an application classification process, and utilize the application classification for previous packets originating from the connection for the current packets from the same connection.
US09356873B2 Backbone channel management method and backbone channel management apparatus
A backbone channel transmits first through third channel packets among Advanced eXtensible Interface (AXI) 5 channel packets. The backbone channel is managed by dividing the backbone channel into a first sub-channel and a second sub-channel, transmitting the first channel packet through the first sub-channel, transmitting the second channel packet through the second sub-channel, and transmitting the third channel packet through both the first sub-channel and the second sub-channel.
US09356869B2 VoIP bandwidth management
A computerized method of optimizing audio quality in a voice stream between a sender and a receiver VoIP applications, comprising: defining by the receiver time intervals; determining by the receiver at the end of each time interval whether congestion exists, by calculating (i) one-way-delay and (ii) trend, using double-exponential smoothing; estimating by the receiver a bandwidth available to the sender based on said calculation; sending said estimated bandwidth by the receiver to the sender; and using by the sender said bandwidth estimate as maximum allowed send rate.
US09356857B1 Double experimental (EXP) quality of service (QoS) markings for MPLS packets
Techniques are described for applying double experimental (EXP) quality of service (QoS) markings to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) packets. According to the techniques, an edge router of an MPLS network is configured to map a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) marking for customer traffic to at least two EXP fields of at least two different labels included in a MPLS packet encapsulating the customer traffic. In this way, the edge router may map the full DSCP marking across the first and second EXP fields to provide full resolution QoS for the customer traffic over the MPLS network. The techniques also include a core router of an MPLS network configured to identify a QoS profile for a received MPLS packet based on a combination of a first EXP field of a first label and a second EXP field of a second label included in the MPLS packet.
US09356854B2 Method and system of enhancing signal processing in a shared medium network
A method implemented in a device is disclosed for networking through signals transmitted across a shared medium network. The method starts with monitoring for a first signal on a shared medium of the shared medium network. The first signal is processed after it is received and while the first signal is being processed, a set of one or more signals is received on the shared medium. Then a set of one or more amplitude increases is determined, where each amplitude increase is from an earlier received signal to a later received signal. The set of one or more amplitude increases is compared to a threshold value and at least partially in response to the comparison, the device discards one or more signals from the first signal and the set of one or more signals.
US09356843B2 Flow systems and methods
Systems and methods for process flow tracking are presented. In one embodiment, a flow method comprises collecting records associated with flow for post analysis; performing a flow connection process associated with the flow, wherein the flow connection process examines information in a hash table and connects flow segments based upon connect ID; and performing a presentation process in which the flow is visualized, searched and traversed. In one exemplary implementation, a flow connection process utilizes a hash table that draws a correlation between the connect ID and a connect-start record or a connect-end record.
US09356837B2 Electronic device having network auto-switching functions and network auto-switching method utilized in electronic device
The disclosure provides an electronic device having network auto-switching functions and a network auto-switching method utilized in an electronic device. The electronic device comprises: a first network connecting unit having a first network transmission specification; and a second network connecting unit having a second network transmission specification different from the first network transmission specification. The network auto-switching method comprises: utilizing a detecting unit for detecting network connecting statuses of the first network connecting unit and the second network connecting unit to generate a detecting result; utilizing a network access unit for determining to select the first network connecting unit or the second network connecting unit to perform a network connecting operation or to not perform the network connecting operation at least according to the detecting result.
US09356836B2 Administration device, administration control method, and program
An administration device in a system in which a first device group and a second device group are connected to a network. The administration device acquires first communication history of the first device group and second communication history of the second device group, compares first specific information which specifies communication source and communication destination of the first communication history and second specific information which specifies communication source and communication destination of the second communication history while referring to relating information and detects a setting error of the second specific information set in the devices of the second device group based on a result of the comparison.
US09356825B2 Method and system for managing user preference profiles in a network
A method includes creating a plurality of user preference profiles. Each user preference profile includes at least one of a profile format without active user preference profile indication, a profile format including an active user preference profile indication, and a profile format specific to each device of a user. The plurality of user preference profiles are stored in a shared server. One or more user preference profiles corresponding to a plurality of devices are activated. The one or more user preference profiles are provided to an application server. The application server implements preferences included in corresponding user preference profile. A system includes a plurality of devices of the user, a plurality of clients corresponding to the plurality of devices, an application server corresponding to the plurality of clients, and a shared server for storing a plurality of user preference profiles.
US09356817B2 System and method for mitigating multicast message duplication in a wireless network
According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for mitigating duplication of multicast data streams to wireless client devices. The method comprises the operations of detecting, by one or more network devices, a multicast message, and controlling, by the one or more network devices, a forwarding of information within the multicast message to a network device handling multicast data transmissions. The forwarding is controlled based on information within the multicast message and the presence of such information in prior established data structure.
US09356812B2 Wireless communication apparatus
A wireless communication apparatus includes multiple antennas, a receiver for performing diversity reception using the antennas, a transmitter, a selector circuit connected to the antennas, a divider, and a phase shifter. The divider is located in a transmission line which connects the selector circuit to the transmitter and distributes a signal outputted from the transmitter among the antennas during transmission. The phase shifter is located in at least one of multiple transmission lines, each of which connects the divider to a corresponding one of the antennas.
US09356808B2 System and method for adaptive channel estimation based on data activity
A station performing a method to toggle a channel estimation setting between a full channel estimation that includes estimating the channel based upon a predetermined number of received reference symbols prior to a current subframe and a partial channel estimation that includes estimating the channel based upon a subset of the predetermined number of received reference symbols. The method includes changing the setting from full to partial when a predetermined number of consecutive subframes immediately prior to the current subframe had no downlink allocated and a reliability value indicates that control signals are capable of being reliably received. The method also includes changing the setting from partial to full when the current subframe had a downlink allocated thereto or the reliability value indicates that the control signals are incapable of being received to estimate the channel using the partial channel estimation.
US09356806B2 Prioritizing messages within a message network
A system and a method are disclosed for recommending electronic messages in a message sharing system. Users can post messages to the message sharing system. These messages from posting users are received by the system and sent to receiving users that have subscribed to the posting users. The receiving users interact with the messages in various ways, such as by sharing the messages with other users. Interaction information is received for each of the electronic messages. The interaction information includes an indication of the number of interactions with the electronic message by receiving users. A score is determined for each electronic message based on the interaction information. Electronic messages are selected for being recommended to a user or a group of users based on the scores. The recommendations are then sent to the users, enabling users to better focus their attention on messages that are likely to be interesting.
US09356798B2 Alarm system IP network with PSTN output
Alarm customers on VoIP may use an adapter for conversion to Internet Protocol (IP) signals or may have an alarm system that uses IP signals to transmit alarm signals over the Internet. IP signals from alarm customers may go to any monitoring center for alarm system monitoring. IP signals from alarm systems using IP conversion equipment can go only to monitoring centers with specialized receiving equipment specific to the type of transmitting equipment in use at the customer's premises. There is a pool of customers, whose dealers would convert to IP and stay with the current monitoring center if the center invested in receiving equipment. For the many small centers who will not or cannot invest in receiving equipment, the present invention will take IP signals from any or all brands of IP transmitting equipment, to a central server then retransmit to any center over POTS to the alarm monitoring center. Thus, an alarm monitoring center need not invest in a number of different IP monitoring systems in order to be IP monitoring compliant.
US09356789B1 Robust control plane assert for protocol independent multicast (PIM)
Techniques are described for providing robust control plane asserts in a network using Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) or other routing protocols for controlling delivery of multicast traffic. In one example, a router includes a control unit having a hardware-based processor executing a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) protocol. The control unit, when executing the PIM protocol, initiates an election process for selecting, from a plurality of routers, a forwarding router to forward multicast traffic to a shared media computer network. In addition, the control unit determines whether the multicast traffic has been received by the router and outputs, in association with the election process, a PIM assert message that includes an indication as to whether the router has successfully received the multicast traffic.
US09356783B2 Method for ciphering and deciphering, corresponding electronic device and computer program product
In one embodiment, it is proposed a method for ciphering a plaintext M belonging to a group of prime order p, such method being performed by an electronic device. The method is remarkable in that it comprises: encrypting said plaintext M in function of a public vector Z=(Z1, . . . , Zl)εl of l elements of said group , where l≧2 log2(p), and a one-time private vector K comprising l binary elements (K[1], . . . , K[l])ε{0,1}l, said encrypting delivering a first ciphertext belonging to a group k1 for an integer k1≧1; encrypting said l binary elements delivering a second ciphertext in a group k2, for an integer k2>1.
US09356778B2 Secured communication for local area network
A method and system for distributed security for a plurality of devices in a communication network, each of the devices being responsible for generating, distributing and controlling its own keys for access to the communication network and using the keys to establish a trusted network, each device's membership to the communication network being checked periodically by other devices by using a challenge response protocol to establish which devices arc allowed access to the communication network and the trusted network.
US09356776B2 Key managing system and method for sensor network security
Disclosed are a key managing system and method for sensor network security. The key managing system includes a secret key transmitter configured to transmit a portion of a secret key map, stored in a node, to a correspondent node, and transmit the secret key map of the node to the correspondent node by using the transmitted portion of the secret key map and an authenticator configured to acquire a trust level of the correspondent node which indicates a ratio of a total size of the secret key map of the node and a size of the secret key map transmitted to the correspondent node, compare the acquired trust level of the correspondent node and a threshold value, and authenticate the correspondent node and a message acquired from the correspondent node by using the comparison result.
US09356773B2 Time-to-digital converter, all digital phase locked loop circuit, and method
The present invention discloses a time-to-digital converter. The time-to-digital converter includes: a phase interpolation circuit and a time-to-digital conversion circuit. The phase interpolation circuit is configured to receive a first reference clock signal and a second reference clock signal; perform phase interpolation on the first reference clock signal and the second reference clock signal to generate a third reference clock signal; and output the third reference clock signal to the time-to-digital conversion circuit. The time-to-digital conversion circuit is configured to receive the third reference clock signal and a fourth clock signal, where a phase difference between the third reference clock signal and the fourth clock signal is less than a phase difference between the first reference clock signal and the fourth clock signal; measure the phase difference between the third reference clock signal and the fourth clock signal; and convert the measured phase difference into a digital signal for outputting.
US09356768B2 Phase detecting circuit for interchain local oscillator (LO) divider phase alignment
Certain aspects of the present invention provide methods and apparatus for detecting phase shift between signals, such as local oscillating signals in adjacent transceiver paths. One example circuit for phase detection generally includes a mixer configured to mix a first input signal having a first frequency with a second input signal having a second frequency to produce an output signal having frequency components at the sum of and the difference between the first and second frequencies; a filter connected with the mixer and configured to remove one of the frequency components at the sum of the first and second frequencies, thereby leaving a DC component; and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) (e.g., a comparator) connected with the filter and configured to determine whether the first input signal is in-phase or out-of-phase with the second input signal based on a comparison between the DC component and a reference signal.
US09356766B2 Enabling half duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) operation of user equipments in full duplex frequency division duplex (FD-FDD) network
The current invention provides simplifications to the user equipment (UE) radio front end module for the cellular handset or dongle through modification of the existing 3GPP specifications for LTE and WCDMA/HSPA+ in order to support half duplex (HD) operation. The option to support HD operation is provided without mandating upgrades to all existing base stations that have already been deployed. The instant invention further prevents HD UEs from attaching to any base stations which do not support HD operations. The instant invention further provides inter-frequency cell search periods for enabling HD UEs to communicate with any base stations/cells supporting the HD operations. The instant invention further enables the HSPA+ system to support the HD-FDD mode.
US09356764B2 Hybrid joint processing for use in a radio access network
A method of joint processing of data in a radio access network (RAN) that includes a plurality of radio nodes each associated with a cell and a services node operatively coupled to the radio nodes is provided. The services node provides connectivity to a core network. The method includes determining that a plurality of first UEs (User Equipment) each being serviced by a selected set of the cells is to operate in accordance with a hybrid joint processing scheme. Information is transferred between the plurality of first UEs and the radio nodes in accordance with the hybrid joint processing scheme by performing L1 layer processing on the radio nodes and L2 layer processing at the services node.
US09356763B2 Timer management in wireless communication
This invention relates to techniques for managing a timer used in transmission or reception of data units in wireless communication. To better use the resources in a transceiver, one timer is used. Depending on how the data units being handled, the timer can be used to control a transceiver to retry transmission of data units or purge data units.
US09356761B2 Methods, apparatuses and systems facilitating management of airspace in wireless computer network environments
According to one embodiment, a particular network device that comprises at least one hardware processor is described. The network device is configured to perform operations including operating in a first mode by communicating wirelessly with at least one wireless client device to provide the at least one wireless client device access to one or more resources, where the operating in the first mode comprises receiving packets transmitted by the at least one wireless client device and forwarding the packets to the one or more resources. Furthermore, the network device performs operations, including switching from operating in the first mode to operating in a monitoring mode and operating in the monitoring mode by decoding data packets addressed to network devices other than the particular network device.
US09356759B2 Reassignment of unused portions of a transmission unit in a network
One embodiment includes signaling, by a first network node to a transmission unit owner node, identifying one or more remaining wireless time slot-frequency pairings of a current transmission unit assigned to the first network node that will not be used by the first network node during the current transmission unit. The transmission unit owner node reassigns one or more of the remaining wireless time slot-frequency pairings to a second network node in the network to use during the current transmission unit. One embodiment includes communicating information between a first network node and a second network node using a particular time slot-frequency pairing, including a particular frame time from the second network node to the first network node, a particular acknowledgement time from the first network node to the second network node, and a particular acknowledgment of the acknowledgment time from the second network node to the first network node.
US09356758B2 Method of channel assessment and channel searching in a wireless network
A method of channel assessment and channel searching in a wireless network is disclosed. The wireless network separately performs a channel assessment procedure and a channel searching procedure for channel change or another object. The channel assessment procedure is to measure a status or quality of a channel which is currently used in the wireless network. A coordinator of the wireless network designates a time interval for the channel assessment to notify other device of it. The channel assessment procedure may be performed periodically, and is preferably scheduled to allow other devices not to use the channel for the time interval which at least one device performs channel assessment.
US09356755B2 Radio communication device and constellation control method
A base station is provided for receiving an acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signal, including a transmitting unit configured to transmit a control signal using one or a plurality of CCE(s). The base station also includes a receiving unit configured to receive an ACK/NACK signal, the ACK/NACK signal being multiplied by an orthogonal sequence, by a sequence defined by a cyclic shift, and by either a first value or a second value, wherein the first value rotates a constellation of the ACK/NACK signal by 0 degrees and the second value rotates the constellation of the ACK/NACK signal by N degrees, which is different from 0 degrees.
US09356748B2 System and method for scalable digital communications with adaptive system parameters
A method for operating an adapting device includes selecting a first access mode out of a plurality of access modes for a first transmission between a first communications device and a second communications device, wherein the selection of the first access mode is made in accordance with an access mode criterion, and at least one of communications system information, and user equipment information, and determining sparse code multiple access (SCMA) parameters from the first access mode in accordance with a SCMA parameter mapping rule. The method also includes providing information about the first access mode to at least one of the first communications device and the second communications device.
US09356745B2 Method for transmitting enhanced control channel in a wireless communication system and apparatus therefor
The present invention relates to a method for transmitting a downlink control channel in a wireless communication system, and an apparatus therefor. Specifically, the method for transmitting an enhanced a physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) from a serving cell comprises the steps of: forming a plurality of enhanced resource element groups (EREGs) by dividing available resource elements, comprised in one physical resource block (PRB) pair, into a predetermined number; forming an enhanced control channel element (ECCE), which is a resource allocation unit for the EPDCCH, by selecting one or more EREGs from among the plurality of EREGs; and transmitting the EPDCCH by means of the transmission resource allocated, for each ECCE, for the EPDCCH, wherein one or more EREGs forming the ECCE is selected on the basis of a cell identifier of the serving cell and/or an index of the one PRB pair.
US09356741B2 Method and system to improve link budget of a wireless system
A method and system to improve the link budget of a wireless system using fast Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) protocol. In one embodiment of the invention, the Medium Access Control (MAC) logic in a base station determines whether the quality of the communication link with a mobile station is bad. When the MAC logic in the base station determines that the quality is bad, the base station uses a fast Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) protocol to indicate to the mobile station to send identical information to the base station in each of a plurality of successive or consecutive communication intervals before processing any received identical information from the mobile station. The fast HARQ protocol reduces the latency of receiving the identical information correctly, as compared with the current HARQ protocol.
US09356731B2 Method and apparatus for low complexity compression of signals employing differential operation for transient segment detection
Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to techniques for low-complexity encoding (compression) of broad class of signals, which are typically not well modeled as sparse signals in either time-domain or frequency-domain. First, the signal can be split in time-segments that may be either sparse in time domain or sparse in frequency domain, for example by using absolute second order differential operator on the input signal. Next, different encoding strategies can be applied for each of these time-segments depending in which domain the sparsity is present.
US09356727B2 Method and system for intelligent jamming signal generation
Detecting and jamming a wireless network using an intelligent jammer comprises determining that a signal source is an unlicensed signal source, synchronizing the intelligent jammer with the unlicensed signal source, determining a time and a frequency of a protocol signal associated with the unlicensed signal source, and transmitting a jamming signal according to the time and the frequency of the protocol signal. A system for detecting and jamming a wireless network comprises a first intelligent jammer, and an Intelligent Detection and Jamming Server (IDJS) coupled to the first intelligent jammer.
US09356723B2 Method for transmitting uplink signals from a user equipment to a base station in a wireless communication system and method for the same
A method for transmitting uplink signals from a user equipment to a base station in a time division multiplexing wireless communication system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of transmitting a first uplink signal on an uplink subframe or a special subframe that precedes the uplink subframe, by preceding a first timing advance value at a reference time; and transmitting a second uplink signal on the uplink subframe by preceding a second timing advance value at the reference time, wherein the first timing advance value is greater than the second timing advance value, and the first uplink signal is transmitted for an uplink pilot time slot (UpPTS) period of the special subframe if a difference value between the first timing advance value and the second timing advance value is greater than a preset value.
US09356717B1 Device and method of selecting a channel
A device for selecting a channel comprises a speed detector configured to detect a speed of a channel selecting mechanism; a controller connected to the speed detector; and a frequency deviation detector connected to the controller and is configured to receive an input signal. The controller selects a wideband channel searching mode for the frequency deviation detector if the speed is higher than a speed threshold, or a narrowband channel searching mode if the speed is lower than the speed threshold. The frequency deviation detector detects an existence of a channel when either an actual frequency deviation of the input signal is lower than a first wideband frequency deviation threshold when the wideband channel searching mode is selected, or the actual frequency deviation is lower than a narrowband frequency deviation threshold when the narrowband channel searching mode is selected.
US09356713B2 Detection of faulty radio oscillator or faulty mobile timing measurements
Detection of a faulty radio oscillator is provided herein. Also provided herein is detection of faulty mobile timing measurements. Timing measurements, as observed by a mobile device, and an identification of primary scrambling codes associated with the timing measurements are captured. The primary scrambling codes match each timing measurement with a particular radio. The mobile device can also report its location information. Radios for which timing measurements have been received are paired. Based on the paired radios and an associated observed time delay derived from the timing measurements, comparisons can be made between paired radios having at least one common radio. Radios exhibiting an expected timing value can be removed from the analysis in order to isolate a radio that has a faulty radio oscillator.
US09356707B2 Method to trigger in-device coexistence interference mitigation in mobile cellular systems
A method to trigger in-device coexistence (IDC) interference mitigation is provided. A wireless device comprises a first radio module and a co-located second radio module. The first radio module measures a received radio signal based on a plurality of sampling instances. A control entity obtains Tx/Rx activity of the second radio module and informs Tx/Rx timing information to the first radio module. The first radio module determines a measurement result based on the obtained timing information. The first radio module triggers an IDC interference mitigation mechanism if the measurement result satisfies a configurable condition. In one embodiment, the first radio module reports IDC interference information and traffic pattern information of the second radio module to a base station for network-assisted coexistence interference mitigation. The IDC triggering mechanism prevents unnecessary and arbitrary IDC request from the device and thus improves network efficiency.
US09356698B2 Method and module for processing a request for transmitting a radio signal in an ROF system
A method and apparatus for processing a request to transmit a radio signal emitted by a radio terminal to a radio management module. The radio management module authorizes the radio terminal to emit the radio signal to a radio module associated with the radio terminal. The radio module has optical processing elements connected to one end of an optical link via which the radio signal modulated on the optical carrier is to be transmitted. The method includes the following steps, applied by an optical management module connected to the radio management module: generating an activation request to activate the optical processing elements of the radio module associated with the terminal by transmission-related parameters included in the transmission request, the transmission-related parameters being transmitted to the optical management module by the radio management module, and emitting, to the associated radio module, the activation request to activate the optical processing elements.
US09356697B2 Distributed antenna system and method
A system for the distribution of radio-frequency signals includes a main unit associated with a first radio communication set, a remote unit associated with a second radio communication set installed in a preset area, for radio coverage of the area, and a communication channel associated with the main and remote units, wherein the main unit and remote units have analogue modulation elements of signals to be sent on the communication channel. The remote unit includes a selective amplification unit associated with the second radio communication set and having analogue/digital conversion elements of signals coming from the main unit, through the communication channel, and/or of signals coming from the second radio communication set, digital filtering elements of digital signals coming out of the analogue/digital conversion elements and amplification elements of signals coming from the main unit, through the communication channel, and/or of signals coming from the second radio communication set.
US09356695B2 Automatically aligning photobeam arrangement
A method of aligning an optical beam includes transmitting a first beam from a first optical transceiver to a second optical transceiver. A position of the second optical transceiver is adjusted based upon the received first beam. A second beam is transmitted from the second optical transceiver to the first optical transceiver. A command signal is transmitted from the second optical transceiver to the first optical transceiver. In response to the command signal, a position of the first optical transceiver is adjusted based upon the received second beam.
US09356694B2 Method and apparatus for changing a mode in an optical network
A method at a transmitter of a tunable laser of controlling a mode change of the laser during a transmission of data to a receiver of a terminating node is based on the determination of a time instance for initiation of the mode change on the basis of the state of the tunable laser. In addition, buffer occupancy and/or the state of the data transmission may be considered when determining such a time instance. In addition, data of the data transmission is buffered during the mode change, such that data loss is avoided during the change of mode. A transmitter is also provided which can execute the suggested mode changing method.
US09356684B2 Uplink power control method and apparatus for satellite communications networks
An Uplink Power Control method of adjusting an operating point of a High-Power Amplifier (HPA) of a ground-to-satellite emitter (GWj, GWk, GWl) as a function of propagation attenuation, characterized in that the method includes the steps of: a) determining an optimal Output Back Off value of the High-Power Amplifier which, for an operational propagation attenuation level, maximizes a Signal over Noise plus total interference ratio at the satellite taking into account contributions from cochannel and cross-polar interferences, intermodulation interferences and thermal noise; and b) setting the operating point of the High-Power Amplifier at the optimal Output Back Off value. A ground-to-satellite emitter comprising a High-Power Amplifier (HPA), a control means (PROC) for adjusting an operating point of said High-Power Amplifier by carrying out such a method.
US09356679B2 Methods and apparatus for adaptive receiver diversity in a wireless network
Apparatus and methods for implementing “intelligent” receive diversity management in e.g., a mobile device. In one implementation, the mobile device includes an LTE-enabled UE, and the intelligent diversity management includes selectively disabling receive diversity (RxD) in that device upon meeting a plurality of criteria including (i) a capacity criterion, and (ii) a connectivity criterion. In one variant, the capacity criterion includes ensuring that an achievable data rate associated with a single Rx (receive) chain is comparable to that with RxD.
US09356677B2 Method and apparatus for correcting errors in a multiple subcarriers communication system using multiple antennas
A method for correcting errors in a multiple antenna system based on a plurality of sub-carriers and a transmitting/receiving apparatus supporting the same are disclosed. The method includes determining a phase shift based precoding matrix phase shifted at a predetermined phase angle, initially transmitting each sub-carrier symbol to a receiver in a packet unit by using the phase shift based precoding matrix, reconstructing the phase shift based precoding matrix to reduce a spatial multiplexing rate if a negative reception acknowledgement (NACK) is received from the receiver, and retransmitting the initially transmitted sub-carrier symbol by using the reconstructed phase shift based precoding matrix or by changing the phase shift based precoding matrix using offset information fed back from the receiver or random offset information.
US09356676B2 System and methods for adaptive per-user multipath control for spatial multiplexing gain in MIMO systems
Disclosed herein is a system, apparatus, and method for adaptive per-user multipath control for spatial multiplexing gain in MIMO systems. Transmission parameters relating to Cyclic Shifts and/or Radio Frequency (RF) antenna beams are modified and tested to find optimal transmission parameters that enable better exploitation of multipath RF propagation and therefore better spatial multiplexing gain.
US09356672B2 Apparatus and methods for adaptive antenna diversity in a multi-antenna system
Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for determining a dominant figure-of-merit for an antenna system comprising a primary antenna, and at least two diversity antennas. The dominant figure-of-merit is determined from at least two figure-of-merit types related to performance of the primary antenna when paired with one or the other of the at least two diversity antennas. The disclosed apparatuses and methods include switching to one or the other of the at least two diversity antennas, to obtain the dominant figure-of-merit, in response to a signal quality metric's relationship to the at least two figure-of-merit types.
US09356671B1 MIMO communication method and system using the block circulant jacket matrices
Provided herein is a fast block circulant generated Hadamard matrix which is called jacket matrices of orders N=2p,4p,4kp,np, wherein k is a positive integer. The block Toeplitz circulant jacket matrices possess many properties of Walsh-Hadamard Toeplitz transform and also have the construction of block circulant, which can be applied to fast algorithms for decomposition easily. The matrix decomposition is of the form of the products of block identity I2 matrix and block Hadamard H2 matrix. The block Toeplitz circulant jacket matrices can be applied to the Kronecker MIMO channel.
US09356670B2 Method and apparatus for efficient feedback in a wireless communication system supporting multiple antenna
A method for transmitting channel status information (CSI) via uplink in a wireless communication system includes transmitting a first precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and a second PMI at a subframe. A subsampled codebook for each of a precoding codebook for Rank-1 and a precoding codebook for Rank-2 is determined based on at least the first PMI or the second PMI. In case of the Rank-1 or the Rank-2, a number of elements for the first PMI is 8.
US09356655B2 Method of operating communication networks, corresponding communication network and computer program product
A method of operating a Power Line Communications (PLC) network including a plurality of nodes having wirelines extending therebetween for propagating PLC signals between said nodes over said wirelines. The method includes coupling to a set of nodes of the PLC network respective partitioning filters, which can be activated for countering propagation of the PLC signals through the nodes to which said partitioning filters are coupled. The method also includes selectively activating filters chosen from among said partitioning filters, so that said PLC network is partitioned into a plurality of sub-networks with the propagation of PLC signals between the various sub-networks countered by the activated partitioning filters.
US09356651B2 Method for self-adaptively demodulating quasi-orthogonal signals, demodulation unit and radio signal receiver
A method for decoding a data symbol carried by a signal received by a receiver of a communication system, the data symbol being modulated by a spread code sequence selected from a plurality of spread code sequences being quasi-orthogonal to each other to differentiate the symbol from other data symbols, and being received as a set of modulation bits, the method including a step of correlating the modulated data symbol received with each of the plurality of spread code sequences, and the correlating step is preceded by a step of sub-sampling the modulated data symbol received to mask one or more of the modulation bits therein, such that the step of correlating the sub-sampled data symbol received is carried out only for the non-masked modulation bits. It extends to a demodulation unit configured for the implementation of this method, and to a receiver integrating such a unit.
US09356647B2 Device and method of feeding back channel information
Provided is a channel information feedback method for a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system. A terminal may provide feedback information generated by manipulating estimates of downlink channels using a plurality of spreading sequences. A base station may processes the feedback information provided from the terminal, and recognize channel information for each downlink channel.
US09356644B2 Wireless circuit and frequency pair determination method
A wireless circuit that can be used in a plurality of frequency bands even if its duplexer is formed of current variable frequency filters is provided. The circuit includes a transmission-reception antenna 911, a variable frequency duplexer 131, a double-pole six-throw switch 923, an RFIC 180, and a controller 190 which executes switching operations in accordance with control signals. The RFIC 180 determines a pair of frequency bands for transmission and reception signals input to the variable frequency duplexer 131 and generates and sends the control signals to perform switching control operations to connect a transmission port corresponding to the determined transmission frequency band with the transmission terminal of the variable frequency duplexer 131 and to connect a reception port corresponding to the determined reception frequency band with the reception terminal of the variable frequency duplexer 131 and to perform a frequency switching operation of the variable frequency duplexer 131.
US09356641B2 Protective case and electronic device using same
A protective case includes a main housing and a cover. The main housing includes a wire arranging portion with a first frame, a second frame, and a third frame. The first frame and the second frame are diagonally positioned each other, and the third frame are positioned at one side of the second frame. The cover is detachable from the main housing for covering the wire arranging portion.
US09356638B1 System and method for detecting rated maximum system deviation (RMSD) and alleviating RMSD mismatch
An FM audio receiver can include a mono/stereo detector that causes the audio receiver to output either a monophonic or a stereophonic signal based on a received pilot tone energy. An accurate operation of the receiver, including but not limited to correct decoding of monophonic/stereophonic reception, can be based on the receiver operating with the same rated maximum system deviation (RMSD) as the received signal itself. Aspects of the disclosure describe a system and method of detecting and matching a receiver's RMSD to that of a received signal by demodulating a carrier bearing a an input signal over a first bandwidth, extracting a pilot energy signal from the input signal, and demodulating the carrier bearing the input signal over a second bandwidth if the pilot energy signal is within a pilot energy range for a first predetermined amount of time.
US09356636B1 RF-to-BB-current-reuse wideband receiver with parallel N-path active/passive mixers
A single-ended-input current-reuse wideband receiver comprising (1) a stacked Radio Frequency to Baseband (RF-to-BB) front-end with an 8-path active mixer realizing RF amplification, harmonic-recombination (HR) down-conversion, and BB filtering in the current domain for better linearity and power efficiency; (2) a feedforward 8-path passive mixer enabling LO-defined input impedance matching without external components, while offering frequency-translated bandpass filtering and noise cancelling; (3) a single-MOS pole-zero lowpass filter (LPF) permitting both RF and BB filtering at low voltage headroom consumption, while easing the tradeoff between the in-/out-of-band linearity; and (4) a BB-only two-stage HR amplifier boosting the 3rd and 5th harmonic rejection ratios (HRR3,5) with low hardware intricacy.
US09356634B2 Down-conversion circuit
A down-conversion circuit for a receiver circuit is disclosed, the down-conversion circuit comprises a first passive switching mixer arranged to down-convert a received radio frequency, RF, signal with a first local oscillator, LO, signal (LO1) having a first duty cycle for generating a first down-converted signal at an output port of the first passive switching mixer. The down-conversion circuit further comprises a second passive switching mixer arranged to down-convert the received RF signal with a second LO signal (LO2) having the same LO frequency as the first LO signal (LO1) and a second duty cycle, different from the first duty cycle, for generating a second down-converted signal at an output port of the second passive switching mixer. In addition, the down-conversion circuit comprises a passive output combiner network operatively connected to the output ports of the first passive switching mixer and the second passive switching mixer and arranged to combine the first and the second down-converted signals such that harmonically down-converted signal content present in the first down-converted signal and harmonically down-converted signal content present in the second down-converted signal cancel in a combined output signal of the down-conversion circuit. The passive output combiner network is tunable to adjust magnitudes and phases of the first and the second down-converted signals. A related quadrature down-conversion circuit, a related receiver circuit, a related communication device, and a related calibration method are also disclosed.
US09356629B2 Method and apparatus for improving transmission of data on a bandwidth expanded channel
A method and apparatus for providing transmission of data on a channel in a network. For example, the method determines a ratio of a number of channel uses of the channel to a number of source samples, divides a channel bandwidth into a plurality of subbands of equal bandwidth in accordance with the ratio, receives a source sample block, determines a channel input for each of the plurality of subbands from the source sample block in accordance with a hybrid coding scheme, and transmits, for each of the plurality of subbands, the channel input that is determined over the network.
US09356624B2 Encoding method, and decoding method
An encoding method generates an encoded sequence by performing encoding of a given coding rate according to a predetermined parity check matrix. The predetermined parity check matrix is a first parity check matrix or a second parity check matrix. The first parity check matrix corresponds to a low-density parity check (LDPC) convolutional code using a plurality of parity check polynomials. The second parity check matrix is generated by performing at least one of row permutation and column permutation with respect to the first parity check matrix. An eth parity check polynomial that satisfies zero, of the LDPC convolutional code, is expressible by using a predetermined mathematical formula.
US09356616B1 Pipelined interpolating sub-ranging SAR analog-to-digital converter
A multi-bit per cycle successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) may sample an input signal, successively approximate the sampled signal with a shrinking sub-range containing the signal, and output coarse digital codes corresponding to the sub-range. A sub-ranging stage may continue quantization over the sub-range by sampling and interpolating between a pair of zero crossing signals that bound the sub-range. The zero crossing signals may be taken from the SAR preamp output. The sub-ranging process may be pipelined recursively in multiple stages to increase throughput and efficiency.
US09356615B1 Systems and methods for comparator calibration
The present invention is directed integrated circuits and methods thereof. More specifically, an embodiment of the present invention provides a comparator calibration loop where a digital integrator stores a running sum based on the output of a comparator. A DAC converts the running sum and generates an offset calibration voltage, which is filtered by a low-pass filter module, and the filtered offset calibration voltage is used to cancel out the intrinsic offset voltage and low frequency noise of the comparator. There are other embodiments as well.
US09356614B1 Thermometer code converter
A code converter is provided. The code converter includes a plurality of serial shift registers arranged to convert an input to a thermometer output. The code converter further includes a plurality of clock control circuits each configured to provide a clock to a corresponding one of the shift registers. A method of generating a signal in thermometer code is provided. The method includes enabling a subset of a plurality of shift registers and converting an input to a thermometer output by the plurality of shift registers. Another code converter is further provided. The code converter includes means for converting an input to a thermometer output. The means for converting includes a plurality of shift registers. The code converter further includes means for enabling a subset of the shift registers.
US09356612B2 Method and apparatus to calibrate frequency synthesizer
Aspects of the disclosure provide a circuit that includes a detector, a loop filter and a controller. The detector is configured to generate a first signal indicative a timing difference between a reference clock signal and a feedback clock signal. The feedback clock signal is generated based on an oscillating signal from an oscillator. The oscillator includes a first tuning circuit and a second tuning circuit to tune a frequency of the oscillating signal. The loop filter is configured to filter out a portion of frequency components from the first signal to generate a second signal for tuning the first tuning circuit of the oscillator. The controller is configured to tune the second tuning circuit based on the first signal and the second signal.
US09356610B1 Clock data recovery circuit and semiconductor device
A clock data recovery circuit is configured to receive an input data signal formed of a series of input data pieces synchronized with a reference clock signal, and to generate a regenerated clock signal. The clock data recovery circuit includes a regenerated clock generating circuit; a latch circuit; a comparison circuit; a logical sum signal generating circuit; and a charge pump.
US09356601B2 Programmable logic device
A PLD in which a configuration memory is formed using a nonvolatile memory with a small number of transistors and in which the area of a region where the configuration memory is disposed is reduced is provided. Further, a PLD that is easily capable of dynamic reconfiguration and has a short startup time is provided. A programmable logic device including a memory element, a selector, and an output portion is provided. The memory element includes a transistor in which a channel is formed in an oxide semiconductor film, and a storage capacitor and an inverter which are connected to one of a source and a drain of the transistor. The inverter is connected to the selector. The selector is connected to the output portion.
US09356593B2 Distributed virtual-ground switching for SAR and pipelined ADC
Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided for analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), such as successive-approximation-register (SAR) ADCs and pipelined ADCs that utilize distributed virtual-ground switching (DVS). DVS circuits and systems receive reference signal inputs that are provided to input signal buffers at the input side of the buffers via reference switches. The input signal buffers and corresponding switches are distributed into scaled replicas that each receive an analog input signal via input signal switches during a first operational phase and are connected to top plates of corresponding distributed capacitors. The bottom plates of the capacitors are sampled to provide analog input signal representations. Based on the value of the signal representations, a state machine controls each of the switches to apply reference signals to the input buffers, during a second operation phase, and to iteratively generate additional signal representations and provide a digital signal that corresponds to the analog input signal.
US09356590B1 Production test trimming acceleration
Systems and methods for production test trimming acceleration. In an illustrative, non-limiting embodiment, a method may include providing a first trim code to a reference circuit, where the reference circuit is configured to output a first signal in response to the first trim code; integrating a difference between the first signal and a target voltage value into a first integrated value; providing a second trim code to the reference circuit, where the reference circuit is configured to output a second signal in response to the second trim code; integrating a difference between the second signal and the target voltage value into a second integrated value; and adjusting at least one of the first or second trim codes in response to a comparison between the first and second integrated values.
US09356585B2 Image pickup device
An electronic device according to one or more embodiments of the present invention comprises an output line, a current mirror circuit and a comparator. Current signals from a plurality of signal sources are output to the output line. The current mirror circuit is electrically connected to the output line. The comparator is configured to compare a mirrored current signal from the current mirror circuit with a reference current signal. The comparator is configured to output a signal representing a comparison result of amplitudes of the mirrored current signal and the reference current signal.
US09356584B2 Level shifter
A level shifter for high-speed level shifting includes a first P-channel transistor, comprising a gate coupled to a drain, and a source coupled to a system voltage; a second P-channel transistor, comprising a gate coupled to the gate of the first P-channel transistor, and a source coupled to the system voltage; a first N-channel transistor, comprising a drain coupled to the drain of the first P-channel transistor, and a source coupled to a ground level; and a second N-channel transistor, comprising a drain coupled to a drain of the second P-channel transistor, and a source coupled to the ground level; wherein the first N-channel transistor and the second N-channel transistor are low-threshold-voltage transistors or native transistors.
US09356583B2 Flip-flop circuit
A flip-flop circuit includes a first latch, a trigger stage and a second latch. The first latch is configured to latch a selected signal in response to a first state of a clock signal, and provide a first output signal. The trigger stage receives the clock signal and the first output signal to provide a trigger signal. The trigger signal does not toggle as the clock signal transits. The second latch is configured to latch the trigger signal in response to a second state of the clock signal, and provide a second output signal. The first state and the second state of the clock signal are complementary to each other.
US09356581B2 Data output circuit of a semiconductor apparatus
A data output circuit of a semiconductor apparatus is provided. The data output circuit may include a pull-up driver including a plurality of leg units configured to provide respective resistance values which are selected based on code signals, provide a total resistance value which is selected in response to one or more of the plurality of leg units being selectively activated based on selection signals, and configured to apply an output voltage with an output voltage level selected according to the selection of the total resistance value among a plurality of output voltage levels, to a data output pad. The data output circuit may include a control block configured to generate the selection signals in response to mode register signals. The data output circuit may include a code generator configured to generate the code signals based on a comparison of a reference voltage to a replica output voltage which varies according to an external resistance.
US09356579B2 Waveform generation
A predetermined waveform is generated using a lower frequency clock signal (16) and a higher frequency clock signal (18). The waveform transitions between first and second states (12, 14) in synchrony with timing signals (18-1 to 18-11) of the higher frequency clock signal (18). The higher frequency clock is operated if the waveform will transition between the first and second states (12, 14) before the next timing signal (16-2) of the lower frequency clock. The higher frequency clock is powered down if the waveform will not transition between the first and second states (12, 14) before the next timing signal (16-3) of the lower frequency clock. The predetermined waveform can thus be generated having higher resolution but with lower power consumption.
US09356564B1 Broadband linear amplifier architecture by combining two distributed amplifiers
A broadband linear amplifier including an input, a first distributed amplifier coupled to the input and having a bias for one of Class A or Class AB operation, the first distributed amplifier including a first plurality of field effect transistors and having a first output, a second distributed amplifier coupled to the input and having a bias for Class C operation, the second distributed amplifier including a second plurality of field effect transistors and having a second output, and a summed output coupled to the first output and the second output, wherein gate widths of the first plurality of field effect transistors monotonically decrease from the input to the first output, and wherein gate widths of the second plurality of field effect transistors monotonically decrease from the input to the second output.
US09356556B1 Circuits for and methods of implementing a dual-mode oscillator
A circuit for implementing a dual-mode oscillator is disclosed. The circuit comprises a first oscillator portion having a first inductor coupled in parallel with a first capacitor between a first node and a second node; a first pair of output nodes coupled to the first and second nodes; a second oscillator portion inductively coupled to the first oscillator portion, the second oscillator portion having a second inductor coupled in parallel with a second capacitor between a third node and a fourth node; a second pair of output nodes coupled to the third and fourth nodes; and a control circuit coupled to enable a supply of current to either the first oscillator portion or the second oscillator portion. A method of implementing a dual-mode oscillator is also disclosed.
US09356552B1 Motor drive system data interface system and method
A motor drive system includes a motor drive processor, a motor drive memory component, a server, and a display that displays a machine readable code, wherein the motor drive forms a secure wireless connection with a smart device once the smart device has scanned the machine readable code.
US09356550B2 Motor controller having abnormality detection function of power transmission unit between motor and main shaft
A motor controller includes: a motor rotation angle acquisition unit acquiring the rotation angle of the motor; a main shaft rotation angle acquisition unit acquiring the rotation angle of the main shaft; a one-rotation signal acquisition unit acquiring a one-rotation signal output every time the main shaft rotates once; a motor rotation speed calculation unit calculating the rotation speed of the motor from the rotation angle of the motor; a main shaft speed calculation unit calculating the rotation speed of the main shaft from the rotation angle of the main shaft; and an abnormality determination unit in which, when a change amount of the rotation angle of the motor or when the difference between the rotation speed of the motor and the rotation speed of the main shaft deviates from a second range, it is determined that an abnormality has occurred in the power transmission unit.
US09356548B2 Vibration damping control apparatus for vehicle, vibration damping control system for vehicle, and vehicle motion control apparatus
A vibration damping control apparatus for a vehicle is applied to a vehicle that includes: a generator that is driven by an internal combustion engine to generate electric power; a regulator that controls field current passing through an excitation winding of the generator, so that generated voltage of the generator turns to an externally instructed adjusting voltage; and a battery that charges generated voltage of the generator. The vibration damping control apparatus for a vehicle includes an adjusting voltage setting means for setting the adjusting voltage based on a charge supply power request value required for controlling a residual capacity of the battery and a drive torque request value for the generator required for suppressing vibration of the vehicle.
US09356547B2 Method and device for operating an operating table
The invention relates to a method and a device for operating an operating table (30) comprising a plurality of components (32 to 46) which are adjustable by means of control elements. By actuating at least a first control element (14 to 24), a first action of at least a first drive unit for adjusting at least a first component (32 to 46) is performed. By actuating a second control element (26), the first action performed by actuating the first control element (14 to 24) is automatically completely reversed.
US09356540B2 Method for automatically controlling an electrohydraulic pressing tool
In the case of a method for automatically controlling an electrohydraulic pressing tool, in particular for producing pipe connections, to actuate the pressing tool a hydraulic piston is moved, in that fluid is pumped into a hydraulic cylinder by a hydraulic pump driven by an electric motor. When a limiting pressure in the hydraulic cylinder is reached, a pressure relief valve opens, and so the hydraulic fluid can flow into a reservoir. With the aid of a control device, a current drop at the motor is detected when the valve opens. The electric motor is switched off when the current falls by a predetermined value (ΔI) and/or decreases over a predetermined time period (Δt) after reaching a limiting current.
US09356538B2 Multiaxial driving apparatus
A part of bus-voltage smoothing capacitors within a multiaxial driving apparatus is usable as a power-assisting electric storage device for storing regenerative power. This makes it unnecessary to additionally provide a power-assisting electric storage device, which has been required in order to obtain a power-assist function. Therefore, the multiaxial driving apparatus can be obtained, which is equipped with the power-assist function of achieving effective use of regenerative power easily at low cost without resulting in an increase in complexity and high cost.
US09356528B2 Switching converter and AC adapter using the same
Disclosed herein is a switching converter capable of preventing a period in which a switch SW of a primary side is turned on and a period in which a synchronous rectifying switch SR SW of a secondary side is turned on from being overlapped with each other. The switching converter includes: a transformer T inducing primary energy to secondary side; a switch SW connected to a primary coil of the transformer T to switch a primary voltage; a synchronous rectifier SR connected to a secondary coil of the transformer T to rectify a secondary voltage; and a delay locked loop connected between the secondary coil and the synchronous rectifier SR, wherein the delay locked loop generates a signal synchronized with a turn-on control signal of the switch SW and outputs the generated signal to the synchronous rectifier SR to control a turn-off operation of the synchronous rectifier SR.
US09356524B2 Power conversion apparatus
A power conversion apparatus, including a transformer, a switch, an analog controller, a digital controller, and a voltage converter-based feedback circuit, is provided. The primary side of the transformer is coupled to an input voltage, and the secondary side of the transformer is coupled to an output voltage provided to a load. The switch intermittently transmits the input voltage to the primary side of the transformer. The analog controller is disposed at one of the primary side and the secondary side of the transformer and configured to control the operation of the switch in response to an analog feedback signal. The digital controller is disposed at the other one of the primary side and the secondary side and configured to generate a digital feedback signal. The voltage converter-based feedback circuit is configured to convert the digital feedback signal to the analog feedback signal based on a voltage conversion characteristic thereof.
US09356505B2 Power consumption management of a switching voltage regulator
A power supply circuit (106) for a switching voltage regulator (108) connectable to a load (110) is described. In order to manage a power consumption of the switching voltage regulator (108) and in particular to minimize a power consumption of the switching voltage regulator when being operative, the power supply circuit (106) is configured for selectively supplying the switching voltage regulator (108) with one of a first input voltage and a second input voltage in response to a control signal indicative of an operative state of the load (110) such that the switching voltage regulator (108) is switched between a working state in response to the first input voltage and a standby state in response to the second input voltage.
US09356504B2 Power supply with interference suppression, and method for operating a power supply
A switched-mode power supply is disclosed, which includes a transformer with a primary winding and a secondary winding. A switch is coupled in series with the primary winding and configured to repeatedly interrupt a current through the primary winding. An inductor is located differently with reference to magnetic fields that the primary and secondary windings are configured to induce. A connection exists between the inductor and a circuit that contains one of the primary and secondary windings. The connection is configured to connect from the inductor to the circuit a first voltage that has a waveform representative of and a polarity opposite to a second voltage induced in the switched-mode power supply by leakage flux of the transformer at a switching moment of the switch.
US09356499B2 Electromagnetic generator
An electromagnetic generator includes a magnet assembly having permanent magnets magnetized in a direction of stacking so that surfaces thereof corresponding to the same pole face each other. A solenoid coil is positioned around the magnet assembly so that a position of the solenoid coil relative to the magnet assembly can be changed. Holding parts hold the solenoid coil so that a center of the solenoid coil in a winding axis direction corresponds to a plane position where the surfaces of the permanent magnets corresponding to the same pole face each other at a stop position. Repulsive magnets generate magnetic repulsive forces that maintain the magnet assembly separated from the repulsive magnets. A length of an end face of each permanent magnet in a direction perpendicular to the winding axis direction is equal to or larger than double a length of the permanent magnet in the winding axis direction.
US09356497B2 Variable-output generator for downhole power production
Methods and systems of downhole power generation are disclosed. The method includes the steps of rotating a magnet assembly about an axis relative to a coil assembly at a first rotational velocity, axially moving the magnet assembly to a first position on the axis with a configurable actuator so as to adjust a magnetic interaction between the magnet assembly and the coil assembly, and providing a power output from the coil assembly at a first power output level corresponding to the first position while the magnet assembly is rotating at the first rotational velocity.
US09356494B2 Electronic control device
An electronic control device including two housings coupled to each other, a first circuit board disposed in one of the two housings, a first terminal disposed on a side of the other of the two housings, and a second terminal disposed on the first circuit board in an opposed relation to the first terminal, wherein the first terminal and the second terminal are brought into direct connection with each other at a time at which the two housings are coupled to each other.
US09356492B2 Electric machine with liquid cooled housing
An electric machine having a stator, a rotor and a housing assembly with two end caps and inner and outer axially extending members. The outer housing member is disposed about the inner member. Ribs extend from one housing member and engage the other housing member in an interstitial space. The other housing member may be a tubular sleeve. The ribs define axially extending fluid path segments within the interstitial space and the end caps close the opposite axial ends of the interstitial space and define an inlet and an outlet for a liquid coolant. The liquid coolant path may be serpentine. The housing member with ribs may include a sleeve portion with at least some ribs having a width greater than the radial thickness of the sleeve portion. Threaded fasteners can attach the end caps to the enlarged width ribs. The inner and outer housings are advantageously extrudable.
US09356488B2 Laminated core for a magnetic bearing having individual laminations with at least one physical interruption and method for constructing such a laminated core
The core of a combined radial-axial magnetic bearing is stacked with coated laminations each equipped with at least one radial cut (9). These cuts (9) prevent the induction of circulating currents caused by varying axial control fluxes through the central hole of the lamination stack. Magnetic symmetry is preserved by rotating every lamination with respect to the previous one.
US09356486B2 Position sensing techniques
An apparatus includes a housing which defines a longitudinal axis; a positioning element which, relative to the housing, translates linearly along the longitudinal axis; and a rotational member which, relative to the housing, rotates about the longitudinal axis as the positioning element translates linearly along the longitudinal axis. The rotational member defines a helix to receive torque from the positioning element as the positioning element translates linearly along the longitudinal axis. The apparatus further includes a first sensor assembly to detect minor angular displacement of the rotational member (e.g., less than 360 degrees). The apparatus further includes a second sensor assembly to detect major angular displacement of the rotational member (e.g., a number of full 360 degree rotations). Such detection is capable of identifying a full angular displacement of the rotational member in response to linear translation of the positioning element from an initial position to a sensed position.
US09356484B2 Low profile pump motor lead protector
A low profile pump motor lead protector with a head guard and a trailing guard, the head guard including a front section with a front end and a rear section with a rear end, the trailing guard having a pin end for insertion in a head guard socket, the lead protector for protecting a motor lead of a pump and motor assembly of a downhole production string for surfacing fluid from a reservoir such as a subterranean oil well.
US09356480B2 Electric motor having rotor structure for avoiding defect due to strain generated by temperature change, and production method thereof
An electric motor having a rotor structure and a production method thereof, wherein a strain due to temperature change does not occur and a manufacturing problem does not occur. Each permanent magnet does not contact each other, and a deformable intervening member is positioned between the end surfaces of the magnets. Intervening member is an elastically or plastically deformable member, and the thickness of the intervening member in the direction of the rotation axis of the rotor is determined so that the neighboring permanent magnets, which are bonded to a rotor core within a manufacturing temperature range of the rotor, do not contact each other at a lower limit of an operating temperature of the electric motor.
US09356476B2 Electronic device and power supplying method and wireless power supplying system thereof
An electronic device, and a power supplying method and a wireless power supplying system thereof. The electronic device includes a wired electric power receiving module, a wireless electric power receiving module and a switch. The wired electric power receiving module is connected to an external power supply by wired transmission. The wireless electric power receiving module receives the wireless electric power from an external wireless electric power transmitting device. The switch is coupled to the wired electric power receiving module and the wireless electric power receiving module and is used to switch between the wired electric power receiving module and the wireless electric power receiving module, to supply the operating voltage. The electronic device can operate in the wireless power supplying mode or the wired power supplying mode, so as to facilitate a user to use.
US09356471B2 Power supply circuit
Power supply circuit comprises an under voltage protection module and a voltage conversion module electrically connected to the under voltage protection module. The under voltage protection module is electrically connected to a first power supply and a second power supply. The voltage conversion module is connected to the first power supply. When a voltage of the first power supply is in a normal range, the under voltage protection module offers the second power supply to power the voltage conversion module. The voltage conversion module converts the voltage of the first power supply into an operational voltage, and outputs the operational voltage. When the voltage of the first power supply is less than a threshold voltage, the under voltage protection module does not offer the second power supply to the voltage conversion module, and the voltage conversion module does not operate.
US09356469B2 Storage battery device and storage battery system
According to one embodiment, a storage battery device includes a battery unit, a charging unit, a terminal, and a first circuit breaking unit. The battery unit includes a lithium ion battery and is connectable in parallel to other storage battery device that charges an external lithium ion battery. The charging unit is supplied with electric power from an external electric power source and charges the battery unit. The terminal is connectable to a wire connecting the other storage battery device with the battery unit. The first circuit breaking unit is connected between the battery unit and the terminal, and blocks an electric current flowing from the terminal to the battery unit.
US09356467B2 Charge balancing circuit for series connected chains of charge storage elements
There is disclosed a charge balancing circuit (CBC) and method (10, 20) for balancing charge storage elements (CSE1_1, CSE1_2, CSE2_2) of a charge storage device (CSD). The charge storage device comprises at least two series connected chains (CHN1, CHN2) of charge storage elements. The charge balancing circuit (CBC) connects a first charge storage element (CSE1_1) of a first chain (CHN1) in parallel with a first charge storage element (CSE1_2) of a second chain (CHN2) during a first period of time (φ1), and connects the first charge storage element (CSE1_1) of the first chain (CHN1) in parallel with a second charge storage element (CSE2_2) of the second chain (CHN2) during a second period of time (φ2).
US09356466B2 Temperature regulation of inductive charging devices in extreme vehicle environments
A thermal conditioning system for an inductive charging system. An open enclosure charging unit includes at least one surface generating an electromagnetic field for inductively charging a portable device. A primary conduit coupled to the open enclosure charging unit. The primary conduit outputs conditioned air to the open enclosure charging unit. The conditioned air output by the primary conduit maintains a temperature of the portable device at a predetermined temperature range within the open enclosure charging unit.
US09356458B2 Switch-controlled energy cycling apparatus
A switch-controlled energy cycling apparatus having two or more energy storage units; a control board that controls the status of each of the energy storage units and selectively cycles each between an inactive state, an active-discharging state, providing energy to a load outside of the apparatus, and an active-recharging state; and at least one sensor configured to monitor the apparatus and, at a first time period, sets the first energy storage unit to the active-discharging state and the second energy storage unit to the active-recharging state, where energy is also delivered to and recharges the second energy storage unit. At a second time period, the board automatically and in response to receiving a signal sent from the sensor indicating that one of the sensed values has reached a preprogrammed set point, cycles the charging state of the first and second energy storage units to different charging states according to a looping pattern.
US09356451B2 Battery control circuit having multiple adjusting units
A battery control circuit includes a voltage detection circuit for measuring voltages of electric cells, balancing circuits for balancing the voltages or SOCs of the electric cells, a signal input/output circuit for communicating with the outside, a power supply circuit having two modes: a normal mode and a low consumption mode, and a time management circuit. It receives a signal containing a period of time until the shift of the power supply circuit from the normal mode to the low consumption mode, and stores it in the time management circuit. If a command from the outside has not been sent for a predetermined period of time or when an operation stop command has been sent from the outside, the time management circuit causes the power supply circuit to continuously operate in the normal mode. Then, the battery control circuit monitors an operation continuation period in the normal mode, and causes the power supply circuit to shift to the low consumption mode when the operation continuation period matches the stored period of time.
US09356450B2 Power supply circuits with discharge capability and methods of operating same
A power supply circuit includes a sequence control circuit configured to generate at least one control signal in response to a main power source, a voltage regulator circuit configured to be coupled to the main power source and to selectively generate at least one power supply voltage for a chipset from the main power source in response to the at least one control signal and a discharge circuit configured to discharge the voltage regulator circuit responsive to the at least one control signal.
US09356438B2 Wire cable assembly having a terminal with an encapsulated wire end
A wire cable assembly includes a terminal having a termination segment attached to an end of a wire cable, a connection segment configured to attach to a mating terminal, and a transition segment intermediate the termination segment and the connection segment. The transition segment of the terminal has a generally rectangular cross section and a recess defined in at least one distal edge and preferably both distal edges of the transition segment. The recess may alternatively be characterized as a concavity, notch, hollow, or indentation. A sealant is applied to the transition segment and a sleeve encloses at least a portion of the termination segment, the end of the wire cable, and at least a portion of the transition segment. The sealant fills the recess(es) and blocks a leak path between the sleeve and the distal edge. The sleeve may be a section of dual wall heat shrink tubing.
US09356436B2 Cable trough system and method
A telecommunications cable management system includes trough elements including a planar top surface and sides for cable routing and management. The trough elements are made from separate parts assembled together with a mating arrangement. The mating arrangement allows assembly of the system on site, such as by snapping the parts together. The trough elements are then assembled together to form the cable management system.
US09356433B2 Ignition coil captured resistor
A motor vehicle ignition assembly. The assembly includes a high voltage tower, a retention clip coupled to the high voltage tower, and a resistor mounted within the retention clip.
US09356428B2 Nitride semiconductor surface emitting laser and method of manufacturing the same
A surface emitting laser in which a plurality of nitride semiconductor layers including a lower reflector, a plurality of active layers causing a gain by current injection, and an upper reflector are provided on a substrate, includes an n-type spacer layer formed between the lower reflector and an active layer closest to the lower reflector in the plurality of active layers, a p-type spacer layer formed between the upper reflector and an active layer closest to the upper reflector in the plurality of active layers, and an intermediate layer arranged between the plurality of active layers. The intermediate layer is configured from an Mg-doped layer including at least Mg, and a nitride semiconductor layer including In, and the Mg-doped layer and the nitride semiconductor layer including In are provided in that order from a side of the substrate.
US09356427B2 Multi-wavelength surface plasmon laser and optoelectronic integrated circuit including the same
A multi-wavelength surface plasmon laser that simultaneously emits surface plasmons having a large number of wavelengths and includes an active layer whose thickness changes with position, and a metal cavity whose length changes with position so that light of different wavelengths is emitted according to position. Surface plasmons are generated at the interface between a metal layer and a semiconductor layer in response to the light of different wavelengths. The surface plasmons having different wavelengths may be resonated in the metal cavity whose length changes with position and may be emitted to the outside.
US09356421B2 Narrow line-width laser characterization based on bi-directional pumped Brillouin random fiber laser
A method and apparatus for launching optical pump signals into a disordered gain medium at two points thereby producing a narrow line-width random fiber laser within the disordered gain medium. The optical pump signals are propagated in a direction through the disordered gain medium towards one another. The apparatus may comprise an optical gain fiber having a first end configured to receive a first fiber pump signal and a second end configured to receive a second fiber pump signal such that the first fiber pump signal and the second fiber pump signal propagate within the optical gain fiber in a direction towards one another. An optical loss device is coupled to the optical gain fiber, wherein the optical loss device isolates a narrow line-width random fiber laser signal from a signal generated within the optical gain fiber.
US09356418B2 All fiber low dynamic pointing high power LMA fiber amplifier
High power fiber lasers include large or very large mode area active fibers. Mode preserving pump combiners are situated to counter-pump the active fiber using one or more pump sources. The mode preserving pump combiners preserve single mode propagation in a signal fiber, and such combiners can be identified based on optical spectra, beam quality, or temporal response. Active fibers can also be included in a pump combiner so that the active fiber is splice free from an input end that receives a seed pulse to an output end. Peak powers of over 100 kW can be obtained.
US09356416B2 Suppression of stimulated brillouin scattering in higher-order-mode optical fiber amplifiers
An HOM-based optical fiber amplifier is selectively doped within its core region to minimize the presence of dopants in those portions of the core where the unwanted lower-order modes (particularly, the fundamental mode) of the signal reside. The reduction (elimination) of the gain medium from these portions of the core minimizes (perhaps to the point of elimination) limits the amount of amplification impressed upon the backward-propagating Stokes wave. This minimization of amplification will, in turn, lead to a reduction in the growth of the Stokes power that is generated by the Brillouin gain, which results in increasing the amount of power present in the desired, forward-propagating HOM amplified optical signal output.
US09356413B2 Laser source apparatus and laser microscope
Provided is a laser source apparatus including a single laser source that emits an ultrashort-pulse laser beam; a wavelength conversion mechanism that generates a plurality of pulsed laser beams having different wavelengths by converting at least a part of wavelength of the ultrashort-pulse laser beam; a dispersion adjusting section that adjusts the amount of frequency dispersion for each of the pulsed laser beams; and an introducing optics that emits the plurality of pulsed laser beams whose frequency dispersion amounts are adjusted by the dispersion adjusting section. The dispersion adjusting section adjusts the amount of frequency dispersion for each of the pulsed laser beams so that each of the pulsed laser beams introduced to the irradiation optics of the optical apparatus from the introducing optics to excite a specimen is close to a substantially Fourier-transform-limited pulse.
US09356403B1 SATA hard disk drive connector
A SATA hard disk drive connector includes a body connected to a SATA hard disk drive; a signal pin unit disposed at the body and having signal transmitting/receiving pins and first grounding pins; a power pin unit disposed at the body and having power pins and second grounding pins; four micro coaxial cables each having a conducting wire, insulating layer, shielding layer and insulating coating, with the conducting wires connected to the signal transmitting/receiving pins at one end and to an external cable at another end; a first grounding unit disposed at the body and connected to an end of each shielding layer and the first grounding pins; a second grounding unit disposed at the body and connected to the second grounding pins, another end of each shielding layer, and external cable; and an electrical connection unit disposed at the body and connected to power pins and external cable.
US09356399B2 Aircraft ground power connector
An aircraft ground power connector for use in an aircraft ground power support system providing electrical power from a ground power unit through a ground power cable to the ground power receptacle of a parked aircraft. The axis of the portion of the connector housing which engages the aircraft ground power receptacle is angled relative to the axis of the portion of the housing which receives the ground power cable to minimize mechanical stress on the aircraft ground power receptacle when the connector is installed therein and to render the connector easier to insert and remove from the aircraft receptacle. Additionally, the ground power connector includes a capacitor connected to an electrical circuit within the connector supplying do voltage to the aircraft ground power receptacle to mitigate momentary voltage drops at the receptacle resulting from momentary surges in current demand by the aircraft.
US09356397B2 Connector and electronic system using the same
A connector and an electronic system using the same. The electronic system (100) comprises a first electronic device (102), a second electronic device (200), and a connector (104), the connector being used for connecting the first electronic device and the second electronic device. The first electronic device has a first plane (P10). The second electronic device has a second plane (P20). The first plane and the second plane are not coplanar. The connector comprises multiple terminals (110, 120, 130), electrically connected to the first plane and the second plane respectively. In the connector, a signal terminal is located between a first ground terminal and a second ground terminal, which is beneficial to transmission of a low-noise high-frequency signal in a shielded environment. The connector and the electronic system using the same may transmit a signal between different planes by connecting junctions in different planes.
US09356390B2 Latch assemblies for connector systems
A connector system includes a cartridge having at least one cavity configured to hold connector modules therein. The connector system also includes at least one slider latch housed in the cartridge. The at least one slider latch is movable in a longitudinal direction and has at least one groove configured to receive a cam of a corresponding connector module to secure the connector modules to the cartridge. The at least one slider latch has a biasing member operably coupled thereto. The biasing member biases the slider latch in a biasing direction. The biasing member forces the at least one slider latch to return to a latched position after the cam is received in the profiled groove. The connector system also includes a discharge mechanism configured to move a discharge slider.
US09356386B2 Connector
A connector includes a rib provided in a male terminal housing chamber of a male connector and configured to suppress a relative displacement of a male terminal to the male terminal housing chamber by being brought into contact with the male terminal and a rib provided in a female terminal housing chamber of a female connector and configured to suppress a relative displacement of a female terminal to the female terminal housing chamber by being brought into contact with the female terminal. The rib is formed so as to start to come into contact with the male terminal at a tab exit port side position than a position where a required insertion force becomes maximum. The rib is formed so as to start to come into contact with the female terminal at a tab insertion port side position than a position where the required insertion force becomes maximum.
US09356385B2 Connector with drainage grooves
A connector C is configured so that terminal fittings (10) extending from a rear surface of a housing (20) are connected to a board (50) and a casing (60) for covering the board (50) is mounted on the side of an upper surface (20U) of the housing (20), and drainage grooves (37) which extend in a width direction of the housing (20) and opposite ends of which reach opposite side surfaces (20S) of the housing (20) are provided on the upper surface of the housing (20).
US09356384B2 Telecommunications patch panel with angled connector modules
A telecommunications patch panel is provided having a plurality of connector modules rotatably mounted to a frame member. Each connector module has a front face and an opposite facing rear face, and each front face includes a plurality of connector jacks. Each rear face includes a plurality of wire termination blocks. The wire termination blocks are electrically connected to the connector jacks. Each connector module is rotatable about a rotation axis relative to the frame member. A lock selectively locks each connector module to the frame member as desired. The connector jacks and the connector modules are arranged in linear arrays perpendicular to the axis of rotation.
US09356383B2 Transmitter module for use in a modular power transmitting system
A modular power transmitting system comprises multiple transmitter modules being connected together for transmitting power inductively to a receiver. The transmitter module is connected with other transmitter modules for transmitting power inductively to the receiver, wherein the transmitter module (40) comprises at least one transmitter cell (30), each transmitter cell having one transmitter coil (33) by which the transmitter cell transmitting power to the receiver, the transmitter module having an outer periphery (45) being shaped so as to fit to neighboring transmitter modules for forming an power transmitting surface, the at least one transmitter cell being arranged such that the power transmitting surface is constituted by an uninterrupted pattern of adjacent transmitter coils extending in said surface, and interconnection units (110,111) for connecting with neighboring transmitter modules for sharing a power supply.
US09356377B2 Electrically conducting terminal
An electrically conducting terminal having capabilities to facilitate electrically connecting to one or more connectors is disclosed. The electrically conducting terminal may include a recessed end to receive a connector. The recessed end may include a resilient element, such as but not limited to a female contact, to facilitate electrical conductivity between the connector and the terminal. The electrically conducting terminal may include an end cap, end piece, or other feature to facilitate retaining the resilient element within the recessed end.
US09356371B2 Connector
A connector comprises a first connector and a second connector. The first connector includes a first connector main body and a plurality of first terminals mounted side by side in the longitudinal direction of the first connector main body on both sides in the transverse direction of the first connector main body. The second connector includes a second connector main body for mating with the first connector main body and a plurality of second terminals mounted side by side in the longitudinal direction of the second connector main body on both sides in the transverse direction of the second connector main body. Each first terminal includes a first contact portion and a second contact portion facing each other. The first contact portion and the second contact portion overlap the corresponding second terminal. The amount of overlap is greater than the amount of clearance in the transverse direction of the first connector main body. Each second terminal is inserted between the first contact portion and the second contact portion of the corresponding first terminal and contacting the first terminal when the first connector main body is mated with the second connector main body.
US09356367B2 Electrical connector having compliant contacts and a circuit board assembly including the same
Electrical connector having a plurality of compliant contacts coupled to a connector body. Each of the compliant contacts includes a base portion and first and second legs extending from the base portion to respective distal ends in a mounting direction. Each of the first and second legs includes an inner edge and an outer edge. Each of the inner edges extends from the base portion to a corresponding inflection area. A gap between the first and second legs decreases as the inner edges approach the corresponding inflection areas in the mounting direction. The inflection areas of the inner edges directly interface with each other at a contact zone.
US09356366B2 Cable connector assembly for a communication system
A cable connector assembly includes a carrier having an insulative sheet with a substrate side fixedly mounted to a substrate and a contact side opposite the substrate side. A first conductive contact is secured to the contact side of the carrier. The first conductive contact has a pad coupled to a center conductor of a cable and a spring beam extending from the pad of the first conductive contact. The spring beam of the first conductive contact is resiliently deformed against a corresponding printed electronic on the substrate. A second conductive contact is secured to the contact side of the carrier. The second conductive contact has a pad coupled to an outer conductor of the cable and a spring beam extending from the pad of the second conductive contact. The spring beam of the second conductive contact is resiliently deformed against a corresponding printed electronic on the substrate.
US09356360B1 Dual polarized probe coupled radiating element
An electronically scanned array radiating element includes a ground plane layer having a pair of conductive probes. A metallization layer is coupled with the ground plane layer and includes a first asymmetric cluster including HOF scattering members and impedance-matching dipoles. A first electrically-large impedance-matching dipole is coupled with one of the conductive probes and is associated with the first asymmetric cluster. The first electrically-large impedance-matching dipole and the first asymmetric cluster may cooperate with one another to produce a signal. A second asymmetric cluster includes HOF scattering members and impedance-matching dipoles. A second electrically-large impedance-matching dipole is coupled with the other conductive probe and is associated with the second asymmetric cluster. The electrically-large impedance-matching dipole and the asymmetric cluster may cooperate with one another to produce a second signal having a polarization orthogonal to the polarization of the first signal.
US09356358B2 Architectures and methods for novel antenna radiation optimization via feed repositioning
An antenna system comprises: multiple antenna elements; and multiple beam forming networks configured to produce radiation patterns for both receiving and transmission functions configured to be optimized by re-positioning said antenna elements, wherein said beam forming networks comprise a receiving beam forming network configured to combine multiple first inputs from said antenna elements into at least a first output, and a transmission beam forming network configured to divide a second input into multiple second outputs to said antenna elements.
US09356349B2 Micro antenna feeder for wide band, with a quad scheme antenna orthogonally installed to a cross dipole antenna
Provided is a micro wideband antenna feeder, and more particularly, to a micro wideband antenna feeder in which a quad scheme antenna and a cross dipole antenna are coupled to each other. The micro wideband antenna feeder includes: a quad scheme antenna; and a cross dipole antenna installed orthogonal to the quad scheme antenna and irradiating current distribution orthogonal to current distribution irradiated from the quad scheme antenna. Since phases 0, 90, 180, and 270 can be shifted by being designed as a feeding network PCB, a circularly polarized wave can be implemented.
US09356339B2 Planar antenna array and article of manufacture using same
A planar antenna array and articles of manufacture using the same are disclosed. In one embodiment, close-packed antenna elements, disposed on a substrate, number N where N=3x and x is a positive integer. Each of the close-packed antenna elements includes a substantially continuous photonic transducer arranged as an outwardly expanding generally logarithmic spiral having six turns. Each of the outwardly expanding generally logarithmic spirals may be a golden spiral. As an article of manufacture, the planar antenna array may be incorporated into a chip, such as a cell phone, or an article of clothing, for example.
US09356338B2 Antenna apparatus and feeding structure thereof
An antenna apparatus includes: a radiator; a feeding structure including a feeding unit to provide a signal to the radiator, a ground unit to ground the radiator, and a resonance applying part between the feeding unit and the ground unit; and a contact part to connect the radiator with the feeding structure.
US09356335B2 Electrophoretic display device having integrated NFC antenna
The present invention relates to near field communication technology. Specifically, disclosed is an electrophoretic display device having integrated an NFC antenna. The NFC antenna is arranged on a display screen of the electrophoretic display device, where the NFC interface is equipped with an output circuit of the display screen and is connected to a control mainboard of the display screen. The present invention combines the display screen and NFC antenna features into one, and has the NFC antenna provided directly on the electrophoretic display device, thus preventing the problem of signal quality deterioration and reception failure due to wearing of the NFC antenna interface and inaccurate alignment. In addition, a solution is provided for facilitating reception of an NFC signal from a display panel of the display device or for when the NFC signal must be received from the display panel of the display device.
US09356333B2 Transmission line resonator, band-pass filter and branching filter
A transmission line resonator includes distributed coupled lines including first distributed constant line which one ends are connected to a short-circuit grounding portion and second distributed constant line which is disposed in parallel to the first distributed constant line while being separated therefrom by a predetermined distance and which one ends opposing the short-circuit grounded one ends of the first distributed constant line are connected to the short-circuit grounding portion, and a single transmission line which both ends are connected to the respective other ends of the distributed coupled lines.
US09356328B2 Apparatus for voltage supply
An arrangement for supplying power, particularly for supplying power to a motor vehicle, includes a cell module having several storage cells arranged between a first and a second plate-type element. The cell module further includes a plate-type cooling element thermally conductively connected with the bottom sides of the storage cells, and a cooling duct system being provided in the interior of the cooling element. The cooling duct system is in a fluidic connection with at least one coolant/refrigerant inlet and at least one coolant/refrigerant outlet. The at least one coolant/refrigerant inlet and the at least one coolant/refrigerant outlet are arranged in the area of a top face of the first and/or the second plate-type element.
US09356320B2 Lithium battery having low leakage anode
A lithium battery comprises a support, and a plurality of battery component layers on the support, the battery component layers including a cathode having a cathode area with a plurality of cathode perimeter edges. An electrolyte is on the cathode, and an anode is on the electrolyte. The anode comprises an anode area with a plurality of anode perimeter edges, each anode perimeter edge having a corresponding cathode perimeter edge that lies adjacent to and below the anode perimeter edge. The anode area is sized so that at least one anode perimeter edge is terminated before its corresponding cathode perimeter edge to define a gap between the anode perimeter edge and the corresponding cathode perimeter edge, the gap having a gap distance G.
US09356313B2 Solid electrolyte for lithium battery, comprising at least one zone of lithium-containing glass ceramic material and method of production
At least one zone made of lithium-containing glass-ceramic material, in a solid electrolyte for a lithium battery, is formed from a lithium-containing ceramic material, advantageously in the form of a layer such as a thin film. It is obtained by melting of at least a part of the lithium-containing ceramic material, followed by a recrystallization heat treatment. Melting is obtained by a laser beam irradiation operation, which enables fabrication of the solid electrolyte to be performed directly on a multilayer stack comprising certain active components of the lithium battery.
US09356312B2 Method for preparing secondary battery and the secondary battery prepared by using the same
Disclosed is a method for producing a secondary battery in which an electrode assembly comprising a cathode, an anode and a separator interposed between the cathode and the anode is accommodated in a battery case, the method comprising inserting the electrode assembly into the battery case, injecting an electrolyte into the battery case accommodating the electrode assembly to obtain a secondary battery, storing the secondary battery at a SOC of 1 to 20 for 3 hours to 10 days, removing gas present in the secondary battery, and sealing the battery case, wherein the anode comprises lithium titanium oxide (LTO) represented by the following Formula 1 as an anode active material: LiaTibO4−cAc  (1) wherein a, b and c are determined according to an oxidation number of M′ within ranges of 0.5≦a≦3, 1≦b≦2.5, and 0≦c<0.2; and A is at least one monovalent or bivalent anion. Disclosed is also a secondary battery produced by the method.
US09356310B2 Method for forming a microbattery
A method for forming a microbattery including, on a surface of a first substrate, one active battery element and two contact pads, this method including the steps of: a) forming, on a surface of a second substrate, two contact pads with a spacing compatible with the spacing of the pads of the first substrate; and b) arranging the first substrate on the second substrate so that the surfaces face each other and that the pads of the first substrate at least partially superpose to those of the second substrate, where a portion of the pads of the second substrate is not covered by the first substrate.
US09356309B2 Prismatic battery
Provided is a prismatic battery resistant to the development of short circuits. The prismatic battery has a structure in which a flat electrode including a positive electrode collector with a positive electrode substrate exposed portion and a negative electrode collector with a negative electrode substrate exposed portion is accommodated in an outer can. At least one of the positive electrode collector and the negative electrode collector has a rib. The rib is provided with an easily bendable part (a thin wall, groove, opening, or notch). The rib is bent at the easily bendable part when force is applied to the tip of the rib to prevent the tip from reaching the outer can by means of an insulation sheet to avoid the development of short circuits between the negative electrode collector and the outer can.
US09356308B2 Cable-type secondary battery
The present invention relates to a cable-type secondary battery having a horizontal cross section of a predetermined shape and extending longitudinally, comprising: a core for supplying lithium ions, which comprises an electrolyte; an inner electrode, comprising an open-structured inner current collector surrounding the outer surface of the core, and an inner electrode active material layer formed on the surface of the inner current collector; a separation layer surrounding the outer surface of the inner electrode to prevent a short circuit between electrodes; and an outer electrode surrounding the outer surface of the separation layer and comprising an outer electrode active material layer and an outer current collector.The core disposed in the inner electrode having an open structure, from which the electrolyte of the core for supplying lithium ions can be easily penetrated into an electrode active material, thereby facilitating the supply and exchange of lithium ions.
US09356306B2 Plated photopolymer based fuel cell
A fuel cell component includes a first fluid distribution layer, a second fluid distribution layer, a cap layer, a third fluid distribution layer, and a pair of fluid diffusion medium layers. The individual layers are polymeric, mechanically integrated, and formed from a radiation-sensitive material. The first fluid distribution layer, the second fluid distribution layer, the cap layer, the third fluid distribution layer, and the pair of fluid diffusion medium layers are coated with an electrically conductive material. A pair of the fuel cell components may be arranged in a stack with a membrane electrode assembly therebetween to form a fuel cell.
US09356304B2 Anode recirculation pump control strategy
A control strategy for controlling how much current can be provided by a fuel cell stack to a system load during a power up-transient. When a power up-transient command is given, the control strategy limits the amount of power or current that the stack can provide to the load based on how fast an anode exhaust gas recirculation pump can meet the exhaust gas recirculation demand so that the ratio between the recirculated anode exhaust gas and the fresh hydrogen remains substantially constant. Thus, during the power up-transient, the relative humidity provided by the combination of the fresh hydrogen and the anode exhaust gas maintains the membranes in the stack at the desired humidity level. Any difference between the commanded stack power and the limited stack power during the power up-transient can be provided by a system battery.
US09356301B2 Flat tubular solid oxide fuel cell stack
Provided is a flat tubular solid oxide fuel cell stack, and more particularly, a flat tubular solid oxide fuel cell stack in which a connection member is interposed between a plurality of fuel cells to smoothly supply air and increase a contact area, in order to enable a stable electrical contact.
US09356292B2 Radical composition and battery using same
The present invention provides a radical composition capable of suppressing elution of electrode components in an electrolyte solution when used in an electrode for a secondary battery, and a battery using the radical composition. The present invention relates to a radical composition including a pyrroline nitroxide polymer and polyethylene glycols.
US09356284B2 Active material for secondary battery
An active material for a secondary battery whose lifetime characteristics are improved is provided. The active material for a secondary battery includes a first active material represented by Lip[M1mM22-m-nM3n]O4, wherein M1 is at least one selected from Ni, Cr, Fe, Co, and Cu; M2 is at least one selected from Mn, Ti, and Si, and contains Mn; M3 is at least one selected from Li, B, Mg, Al, Na, and Ca; and 0≦p, 0
US09356281B2 Intercalation electrode based on ordered graphene planes
An intercalation electrode includes an electron current collector and graphene planes deposited normal to the surface of the current collector substrate. The graphene planes are deposited on the current collector substrate from a carbon-precursor gas using, for example, chemical vapor deposition. In an embodiment of an anode for a lithium-ion battery, the graphene planes are intercalated with lithium atoms. A lithium-ion battery may include this anode, a cathode, and a non-aqueous electrolyte. In repeated charging and discharging of the anode, lithium atoms and ions are readily transported between the graphene planes of the anode and the electrolyte.
US09356280B2 Lithium ion secondary battery electrode, method of manufacturing the same, and lithium ion secondary battery
A lithium ion secondary battery electrode according to the present invention includes (A) a non-fluorinated polymer; (B) an active material; (C) a thickener; and (D) a conductive auxiliary agent. An elution ratio of (A) the non-fluorinated polymer in an electrolytic solution solvent at 60° C. is equal to or less than 1.0 mass %, and a swelling ratio of (A) the non-fluorinated polymer in the electrolytic solution solvent at 60° C. is equal to or more than 10 mass % and equal to or less than 50 mass %.
US09356277B2 Battery pack including spacer receiving conductive member
A battery pack that has one or more batteries and a protection circuit module. The battery pack includes protection tab members that connect to the batteries and the tab members include a tab that has a coupling component that extends towards the batteries. The battery pack also includes a conductive member that connects the connection tab member to the protection circuit module. The battery pack also includes spacers that receive the connection tabs and that couple to the coupling component of the connection tabs and are interconnected to the conductive member and the spacers.
US09356273B2 Nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery and separator
A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a positive electrode, a negative electrode, and a separator disposed between the positive electrode and the negative electrode. The separator includes a substrate layer and a surface layer formed on at least one principal plane of the substrate layer, the surface layer contains polyvinylidene fluoride and an inorganic material particle, and an amount of deformation against pressure of the surface layer is larger than that of the substrate layer.
US09356265B2 Battery pack
In a battery pack (1), first and second battery stacks (3, 5) are connected to each other via a connection member (7), each battery stack being formed by arranging multiple individual batteries (11) in a row direction. The connection member (7) is formed by repeatedly connecting a first connection part (13) and a second connection part (15), the first connection part (13) extending from the first battery stack (3) to the second battery stack (5) in an orthogonal direction, in which one end portion (13b) thereof supports the first battery stack (3) and another end portion (13a) supports the second battery stack (5), the second connection part (15) extending from the end portion (13b) of the first connection part (13) on the first battery stack (3) side toward the second battery stack (5) in a direction oblique to the orthogonal direction in a plan view.
US09356261B2 Light emitting device with light path changing structure
The inventive concept provides light emitting devices and methods of manufacturing a light emitting device. The light emitting device may include a transparent substrate including a first region and a second region, a first transparent electrode disposed on a first surface of the transparent substrate, a second transparent electrode facing and spaced apart from the first transparent electrode, an organic light emitting layer disposed between the first and second transparent electrodes, an assistant electrode disposed between the first and second transparent electrodes and selectively masking the second region, and a light path changing structure disposed on a second surface of the transparent substrate and selectively masking the second region.
US09356256B2 Flexible display device and manufacturing method thereof
A flexible display device includes: a display substrate which is divided into a first region corresponding to a within-cell region of an integrated devices sheet from which the flexible display device is cut and into a second region corresponding to an outside-the-cell region of the integrated devices sheet, where within the first region there is provided a display unit including a light emitting element layer; a patterned inorganic film layer formed to be substantially continuously present within the first region of the display substrate and to be not present or not substantially continuously present within the second region of the display substrate; and a thin film encapsulation layer formed on the inorganic film layer to encapsulate the substantially continuously present portion of the inorganic film layer that is within the first region and the display unit, wherein an outer boundary of the thin film encapsulation layer is located more inwardly and toward an outer boundary of the display unit than is an outer boundary of the substantially continuously present portion of the inorganic film layer.
US09356253B2 Organic electroluminescent element and method for manufacturing organic electroluminescent element
An organic electroluminescent element including: a lower electrode; an organic functional layer on the lower electrode; and an upper electrode on the organic functional layer, wherein profile of an upper surface of the upper electrode has a skewness of between −0.5 and 0.7 inclusive.
US09356245B2 Carbene metal complexes as OLED materials
An organic light emitting device having an anode, a cathode and an organic layer disposed between the anode and the cathode is provided. In one aspect, the organic layer comprises a compound having at least one zwitterionic carbon donor ligand.
US09356244B1 Aminoferrocene derivative and tandem organic light-emitting diode containing the same
An aminoferrocene derivative is represented by the formula (I): wherein Ar1 and Ar2 independently represent a substituted or unsubstituted C6-C10 aryl group. The aminoferrocene derivative is useful for forming a p-type carrier generation layer of a tandem OLED so that the tandem OLED has superior luminous efficiencies in terms of maximum luminance, maximum external quantum efficiency, maximum current efficiency, etc.
US09356233B2 Memristor with nanobridge structure
A nanobridge or microbridge comprising a non-magnetic alloy of at least a first and second metal, the metals being selected from Group 8, 9, 10 and 11, wherein the first metal is present in a range of 50-95 wt. %, and memristors comprising one or more of same.
US09356227B2 Method for manufacturing a piezoelectric element
A piezoelectric element includes a support body having a displacing part capable of undergoing displacement, a lower electrode layer having a lower main electrode body and a lower electrode wire part with the lower main electrode body being formed on the support body and provided within the displacing part in a plan view and the lower electrode wire part being connected to the lower main electrode body and provided across an interior and an exterior of the displacing part, a first piezoelectric layer provided on the lower main electrode body, an upper electrode layer provided across the interior and exterior of the displacing part with at least a part of the upper electrode layer being layered on the first piezoelectric layer and insulated from the lower electrode layer, and a second piezoelectric layer provided on the support body to cover at least a part of the lower electrode wire part.
US09356225B2 Actuator using electro-active polymer and electronic device therewith
An actuator using an electro-active polymer is provided. The actuator includes a vibration plate fixed to an electronic device; at least one electro-active polymer attached to the vibration plate, and activated when electric voltage is applied thereto; and at least one mass joined to at least one a combination member disposed on the vibration plate.
US09356224B2 Thin film bismuth iron oxides useful for piezoelectric devices
The present invention provides for a composition comprising a thin film of BiFeO3 having a thickness ranging from 20 nm to 300 nm, a first electrode in contact with the BiFeO3 thin film, and a second electrode in contact with the BiFeO3 thin film; wherein the first and second electrodes are in electrical communication. The composition is free or essentially free of lead (Pb). The BFO thin film is has the piezoelectric property of changing its volume and/or shape when an electric field is applied to the BFO thin film.
US09356220B2 Extremely low resistance composition and methods for creating same
The invention pertains to creating new extremely low resistance (“ELR”) materials, which may include high temperature superconducting (“HTS”) materials. In some implementations of the invention, an ELR material may be modified by depositing a layer of modifying material unto the ELR material to form a modified ELR material. The modified ELR material has improved operational characteristics over the ELR material alone. Such operational characteristics may include operating at increased temperatures or carrying additional electrical charge or other operational characteristics. In some implementations of the invention, the ELR material is a cuprate-perovskite, such as, but not limited to YBCO. In some implementations of the invention, the modifying material is a conductive material that bonds easily to oxygen, such as, but not limited to, chromium.
US09356218B1 Internally heated concentrated solar power (CSP) thermal absorber
A system and method are disclosed for internally heated concentrated solar power (CSP) thermal absorbers. The system and method involve an energy-generating device having at least one heating unit. At least one heating unit preheats the energy-generating device in order to expedite the startup time of the energy-generating device, thereby allowing for an increase in efficiency for the production of energy. In some embodiments, the energy-generating device is a CSP thermal absorber. The CSP thermal absorber comprises a housing, a thermal barrier, a light-transparent reservoir containing a liquid alkali metal, at least one alkali metal thermal-to-electric converter (AMTEC) cell, an artery return channel, and at least one heating unit. Each heating unit comprises a heating device and a metal fin. The metal fin is submerged into the liquid alkali metal, thereby allowing the heating device to heat the liquid alkali metal via the fin.
US09356204B2 Using quantum dots for extending the color gamut of LCD displays
A light emitting diode system, with an LED junction, energized to emit light, and a lens cap, covering the LED junction device and receiving the light. The lens cap can be formed in a shape to focus the light, for example. The material forming the lens cap has quantum dots mixed in with the supporting material, which can be in multiple colors. The supporting material can also have particles of glass or other crystalline material mixed therein. There can also be an outer casing over the supporting material, and the outer casing can also have glass or other crystalline particles mixed in.
US09356203B2 Phosphor particle group and light emitting apparatus using the same
Provided is a phosphor particle group of divalent europium-activated oxynitride green light emitting phosphor particles each of which is a β-type SiAlON substantially represented by a general formula: EuaSibAlcOdNe, where 0.005≦a≦0.4, b+c=12, d+e=16, wherein 60% or more of the phosphor particle group is composed of the phosphor particles in which a value obtained by dividing a longer particle diameter by a shorter particle diameter is greater than 1.0 and not greater than 3.0. A high-efficiency and stable light emitting apparatus using a β-type SiAlON, which includes a light converter using the phosphor particle group, and a phosphor particle group therefor are also provided.
US09356200B2 Light emitting device package
Disclosed is a light emitting device package including a package body having at least one cavity, at least one light emitting device mounted on the cavity, and a molding member disposed on the light emitting device to fill the cavity. The package body has at least one first recess formed at an upper portion than a bottom surface of the cavity, and the molding member is disposed to an inner edge of the at least one first recess.
US09356196B2 Method of manufacturing light emitting element
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor light emitting element includes providing a semiconductor stacked layer body; forming an insulating layer on a portion of the semiconductor stacked layer body; forming a light-transmissive electrode covering an upper surface of the semiconductor stacked layer body and an upper surface of the insulating layer, and on a region at least partially overlapping a region for disposing an extending portion in a plan view; forming a light reflecting layer in each of the openings of the light-transmissive electrode; forming a protective layer on a main surface side of the semiconductor stacked layer body; forming a mask on an upper surface of the protective layer except for the region for forming the pad electrode; etching the protective layer to form an opening in the protective layer; and forming a pad electrode in the opening of the protective layer.
US09356188B2 Tensile separation of a semiconducting stack
A stressor layer is applied to a semiconducting stack in order to separate the semiconducting stack at a predetermined depth. Tensile force is applied to the stressor layer, fracturing the semiconducting stack at the predetermined depth and allowing the resulting upper portion of the semiconducting stack to be used in manufacturing a semiconducting end-product (e.g., a light-emitting diode). The resulting lower portion of the semiconducting stack may be reused to grow a new semiconducting stack thereon.
US09356179B2 Display panel integrated with photoelectric device
A display panel comprising a substrate, a meshed shielding pattern, a plurality of light-emitting devices and a solar cell is provided. The substrate has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, the substrate comprises a first circuit layer disposed over the first surface and a second circuit layer disposed over the second surface. The meshed shielding pattern is disposed on first surface of the substrate to define a plurality of pixel regions over the substrate. The light-emitting devices are disposed on the first surface of the substrate and electrically connected to the first circuit layer, and at least one of the light-emitting devices is disposed in one of the pixel regions. The solar cell is disposed on the second surface of the substrate and electrically connected to the second circuit layer.
US09356174B2 Roofing flashings and roofing systems and photovoltaic roofing systems using the same
The present invention relates more particularly to improved flashings for use in integrating specialized roof-mounted structures, such as photovoltaic devices for the generation of electrical energy, with conventional roofing materials on a roof. In one aspect, the invention provides a flashing element having a cross-sectional shape comprising a laterally-extending flange, the flange having an edge, a first end and a second end, the side flashing element comprising a return hem disposed at the edge and comprising a folded-over strip of material disposed over the top surface of the flange at the edge, the return hem having a first end disposed toward the first end of the edge, and a second end disposed toward the second end of the edge, wherein the total thickness of the return hem at its second end is no greater than the interior thickness of the return hem at its first end.
US09356173B2 Dynamically reconfigurable photovoltaic system
A PV system composed of sub-arrays, each having a group of PV cells that are electrically connected to each other. A power management circuit for each sub-array has a communications interface and serves to connect or disconnect the sub-array to a programmable power grid. The power grid has bus rows and bus columns. A bus management circuit is positioned at a respective junction of a bus column and a bus row and is programmable through its communication interface to connect or disconnect a power path in the grid. As a result, selected sub-arrays are connected by selected power paths to be in parallel so as to produce a low system voltage, and, alternately in series so as to produce a high system voltage that is greater than the low voltage by at least a factor of ten.
US09356166B2 Cooled optical light guide for low-level light detectors and method of temperature stabilization for imaging detectors
A cooled optical light guide is provided having a conduit having a translucent top and a translucent bottom wherein at least a portion of the translucent top of the conduit is in alignment above at least a portion of the translucent bottom of the conduit. A fluid medium that is preferably cooled flows through the conduit. The optical light guide is placed between a scintillator array and an array detector. The temperature of the light that is emitted by the scintillator array is stabilized, and preferably cooled, as it passes through the translucent bottom of the conduit and through the translucent top of the conduit for detection by the array detector. A method of temperature stabilization for photomultiplier based detectors is disclosed.
US09356163B1 Structure and method of integrating waveguides, photodetectors and logic devices
A method for monolithically integrating semiconductor waveguides, photodetectors and logic devices, i.e., field effect transistors, on a same substrate is provided. The method includes the use of a double semiconductor-on-insulator substrate that includes from bottom to top, a handle substrate, a first insulator layer, a first semiconductor material layer, a second insulator layer, and a second semiconductor material layer. The waveguides, photodetectors and logic devices can be formed in different regions of the substrate and are present atop a first insulator layer of the double semiconductor-on-insulator substrate.
US09356159B2 Three-dimensional semiconductor memory devices
Three-dimensional (3D) nonvolatile memory devices include a substrate having a well region of second conductivity type (e.g., P-type) therein and a common source region of first conductivity type (e.g., N-type) on the well region. A recess extends partially (or completely) through the common source region. A vertical stack of nonvolatile memory cells on the substrate includes a vertical stack of spaced-apart gate electrodes and a vertical active region, which extends on sidewalls of the vertical stack of spaced-apart gate electrodes and on a sidewall of the recess. Gate dielectric layers extend between respective ones of the vertical stack of spaced-apart gate electrodes and the vertical active region. The gate dielectric layers may include a composite of a tunnel insulating layer, a charge storage layer, a relatively high bandgap barrier dielectric layer and a blocking insulating layer having a relatively high dielectric strength.
US09356152B2 Semiconductor device, electronic device, and method of manufacturing semiconductor device
To provide a semiconductor device and a display device which can be manufactured through a simplified process and the manufacturing technique. Another object is to provide a technique by which a pattern of wirings or the like which is partially constitutes a semiconductor device or a display device can be formed with a desired shape with controllability.
US09356145B2 Electronic device with asymmetric gate strain
The use of strained gate electrodes in integrated circuits results in a transistor having improved carrier mobility, improved drive characteristics, and reduced source drain junction leakage. The gate electrode strain can be obtained through non symmetric placement of stress inducing structures as part of the gate electrode.
US09356140B2 Semiconductor device
A device comprises a substrate, an n-layer and a p-layer, an n-electrode, and a p-electrode. A step is formed at an outer circumference of the device. A protective film is formed so as to continuously cover a side surface and a bottom surface of the step. A field plate electrode connected with the p-electrode is formed on the protective film. When a distance from the pn junction interface to the surface of the protective film on the bottom surface of the step is defined as h (μm), a dielectric constant of the protective film is defined as ∈s, and a thickness of the protective film at the pn junction interface on the side surface of the step is defined as d (μm), (∈s·h)/d is 4 or more, and ∈s/d is 3 (1/μm) or more.
US09356139B2 Power MOSFETs and methods for forming the same
Power Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) and methods of forming the same are provided. A power MOSFET may comprise a first drift region formed at a side of a gate electrode, and a second drift region beneath the gate electrode, adjacent to the first drift region, with a depth less than a depth of the first drift region so that the first drift region and the second drift region together form a stepwise shape. A sum of a depth of the second drift region, a depth of the gate dielectric, and a depth of the gate electrode may be of substantially a same value as a depth of the first drift region. The first drift region and the second drift region may be formed at the same time, using the gate electrode as a part of the implanting mask.
US09356128B2 Semiconductor power device
A semiconductor power device, comprising: a substrate; a first semiconductor layer with a first lattice constant formed on the substrate; a first grading layer formed on the first semiconductor layer and comprising a first portion; a second grading layer formed on the first grading layer; a second semiconductor layer with a second lattice constant formed on the second grading layer; a first interlayer formed in the first grading layer and adjacent to the first portion of the first grading layer; and a second interlayer formed in the second grading layer; wherein the first interlayer comprises a first superlattice including a series of Alx1Ga1-x1N/Aly1Ga1-y1N alternate layers, (x1-y1)≧0.2, and the second interlayer comprises a second superlattice including a series of Alx2Ga1-x2N/Aly2Ga1-y2N alternate layers, (x2-y2)≧0.2, wherein the average of x1 and y1 is larger than that of x2 and y2.
US09356121B2 Divot-free planarization dielectric layer for replacement gate
After formation of a silicon nitride gate spacer and a silicon nitride liner overlying a disposable gate structure, a dielectric material layer is deposited, which includes a dielectric material that is not prone to material loss during subsequent exposure to wet or dry etch chemicals employed to remove disposable gate materials in the disposable gate structure. The dielectric material can be a spin-on dielectric material or can be a dielectric metal oxide material. The dielectric material layer and the silicon nitride liner are planarized to provide a planarized dielectric surface in which the disposable gate materials are physically exposed. Surfaces of the planarized dielectric layer is not recessed relative to surfaces of the silicon nitride layer during removal of the disposable gate materials and prior to formation of replacement gate structures, thereby preventing formation of metallic stringers.
US09356120B2 Metal gate transistor and method for tuning metal gate profile
A semiconductor device having arrays of metal gate transistors is fabricated by forming a number of dummy gate structures including a first gate dielectric layer and a dummy gate material layer overlying the first gate dielectric layer, depositing a tensile ILD layer between the dummy gate structures, stressing the tensile ILD layer, removing at least the dummy gate material to form a number of trenches, and depositing a metal gate material in the trenches, which have a tapered profile.
US09356119B2 MOSFETs with reduced contact resistance
A method and structure for forming a field effect transistor with reduced contact resistance are provided. The reduced contact resistance is manifested by a reduced metal semiconductor alloy contact resistance and a reduced conductively filled via contact-to-metal semiconductor alloy contact resistance. The reduced contact resistance is achieved in this disclosure by texturing the surface of the transistor's source region and/or the transistor's drain region. Typically, both the source region and the drain region are textured in the present disclosure. The textured source region and/or the textured drain region have an increased area as compared to a conventional transistor that includes a flat source region and/or a flat drain region. A metal semiconductor alloy, e.g., a silicide, is formed on the textured surface of the source region and/or the textured surface of the drain region. A conductively filled via contact is formed atop the metal semiconductor alloy.
US09356112B2 Charge trapping dielectric structures
A dielectric structure may be arranged having a thin nitrided surface of an insulator with a charge blocking insulator over the nitrided surface. The insulator may be formed of a number of different insulating materials such as a metal oxide, a metal oxycarbide, a semiconductor oxide, or oxycarbide. In an embodiment, the dielectric structure may be formed by nitridation of a surface of an insulator using ammonia and deposition of a blocking insulator having a larger band gap than the insulator. The dielectric structure may form part of a memory device, as well as other devices and systems.
US09356111B2 Nonvolatile semiconductor memory device and method of manufacturing the same
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device of an embodiment includes: a semiconductor layer; a tunnel insulating film that is formed on the semiconductor layer and includes a first organic molecular film including first organic molecules each having an alkyl molecular chain as the main chain; a charge storage layer formed on the tunnel insulating film, the charge storage layer being made of an inorganic material; a block insulating film formed on the charge storage layer; and a control gate electrode formed on the block insulating film.
US09356109B2 Metal gate transistor and integrated circuits
A transistor includes a gate dielectric structure over a substrate and a work function metallic layer over the gate dielectric structure. The work function metallic layer is configured to adjust a work function value of a gate electrode of the transistor. The transistor also includes a silicide structure over the work function metallic layer. The silicide structure is configured to be independent of the work function value of the gate electrode of the transistor.
US09356105B1 Ring gate transistor design for flash memory
A memory device includes a semiconductor body having a first conductivity type, a first terminal in the semiconductor body having a second conductivity type, a channel region having the first conductivity type surrounding the first terminal, and a second terminal having the second conductivity type surrounding the channel region. A connector is in contact with the first terminal, and can be connected to a bit line in an overlying patterned conductor layer. Memory material is disposed over the channel region, and can include a dielectric charge storage structure. A control gate surrounds the first terminal and is disposed over the memory material. A conductive line surrounds the control gate and is in contact with the second terminal. The control gate and the conductive line can be ring shaped.