| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US07823047B2 |
Device and method for generating a base band signal and program causing computer to execute the method
There is disclosed a base band signal generation device and others for processing transmission data so that a reception side can restored the data without recognizing whether the data has been subjected to a processing and transmitting the data with an appropriate efficiency corresponding to the communication quality. A transmission device T judges the communication quality of a transmission path L. When the communication quality is preferable, a four-value FSK symbol is generated from the bit of the most significant part of the encoded voice data and the bit of the least significant part. When the communication quality is not preferable, a four-value FSK symbol is generated from the bit of the most significant part of the encoded voice data and a redundant bit of “0”. However, a symbol containing a redundant bit is set to the maximum value or the minimum value of the four values which the symbol value may have. Moreover, each bit of the encoded voice data has a value “0” when indicating that no component corresponding to the bit is present. |
| US07823045B2 |
Error correction apparatus and method thereof
An error correction device includes a decoding unit, an error buffer, an error classifying unit and an error correction unit. The decoding unit reads data from a main memory and performs error detection on the data to generate error values and error addresses. Then, the error buffer temporarily stores the error values and the error addresses. The error classifying unit classifies the error addresses stored in the error buffer into a plurality of subclasses, where error values and error addresses which correspond to the same row of the main memory are classified into the same subclass. Finally, the error correction unit performs an error correction on the data stored in the main memory according to the plurality of subclasses. The error correction device therefore can reduce the amount of the change-row operations of the main memory so that the memory efficiency is increased. |
| US07823041B2 |
Techniques for decoding information from signals received over multiple channels
Techniques are described herein that can be used to decode signals received over multiple channels. The received signals may be processed using noise reducing logic. Signal-to-noise ratio information per channel for signals received over each of the multiple channels may be considered to determine reliability information concerning the slicer input for each channel. Low density parity check codes or other forward error correction (FEC) codes may be used to decode the processed signals from all the multiple channels based on the reliability information. |
| US07823031B2 |
Method and system for testing semiconductor memory device using internal clock signal of semiconductor memory device as data strobe signal
Provided are a method and system for testing a semiconductor memory device using an internal clock signal of the semiconductor memory device as a data strobe signal. The internally-generated data strobe signal may be delayed to synchronize with test data. Because a test device need not supply the data strobe signal, the number of semiconductor memory modules that can be simultaneously tested can be increased, and an average test time for a unit memory module can be decreased. |
| US07823027B2 |
Data processing management apparatus, mode management apparatus and mode management method
A configuration is such as to change a mode setup of other crossbars influenced by an error occurring in one of plural crossbars from a first mode to a second mode for operating each of them independently (i.e., in a singularization mode) in the case of placing plural crossbars (i.e., crossbar units) for connecting incorporated units (i.e., processing units) and operating the plural crossbars in the first mode (i.e., a dualized mode) for dualizing them, thereby continuing an operation of a system by using a normally operable part when an error occurs in a part of the system. |
| US07823025B2 |
Method and apparatus for testing a memory device
Disclosed is a method for testing a memory device with a long-term clock signal by automatically performing precharge only after activation. In this method, a signal for precharging the banks of the memory device is automatically generated only at the falling edge of an external signal when a signal for activating the banks is applied. Accordingly, the present invention ensures a stable test of the memory device, reducing the testing time. |
| US07823021B2 |
Software process monitor
A monitor program executes a set of client processes upon reboot of a computer, starts, stops and monitors client processes running on the computer, and/or detects and recovers automatically from process crashes. The program monitors a client process using a supervisory thread it creates when the client process is started, and uses the process's handle to detect its termination. When process termination is detected, the state table within the monitor program is checked to determine if the client process crashed or was exited normally. If the exit was the result of a crash, the program can automatically execute crash recovery using a preconfigured plan. |
| US07823017B2 |
Structure for task based debugger (transaction-event-job-trigger)
Disclosed is a design structure for an apparatus for a task based debugger (transaction-event-job-trigger). More specifically, an integrated event monitor for a SOC comprises functional cores each having a functional debug logic element. The cores are connected to an interconnect structure that links the functional debug logic elements. Each functional debug logic element is specifically dedicated to a function of its corresponding core, wherein the functional debug logic elements generate a table of function-specific system events. The system events are function-specific with respect to an associated core, wherein the system events include transaction events, controller events, processor events, interconnect structure arbiter events, interconnect interface core events, high speed serial link core events, and/or codec events. |
| US07823012B2 |
Autonomically adjusting configuration parameters for a server when a different server fails
A load balancer detects a server failure, and sends a failure notification message to the remaining servers. In response, one or more of the remaining servers may autonomically adjust their configuration parameters, thereby allowing the remaining servers to better handle the increased load caused by the server failure. One or more of the servers may also include a performance measurement mechanism that measures performance before and after an autonomic adjustment of the configuration parameters to determine whether and how much the autonomic adjustments improved the system performance. In this manner server computer systems may autonomically compensate for the failure of another server computer system that was sharing the workload. |
| US07823011B2 |
Intra-disk coding scheme for data-storage systems
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention comprise a method for the use of an intra-disk redundancy storage protection operation for the scrubbing of a disk. The method comprises initiating a disk scrubbing operation upon each disk of a plurality of disks that are comprised within a storage disk array, issuing a disk scrubbing command for a predetermined segment of the disks that are comprised within the storage disk array at a predetermined time interval, and identifying an unrecoverable segment on a disk. The method further comprises determining if unrecoverable sectors comprised within the unrecoverable segment can be reconstructed, and reconstructing the unrecoverable sectors of the unrecoverable segment and relocating the segment to a spare storage location on the disk in the event that the segment cannot be reconstructed within its original storage location. |
| US07823010B2 |
Anomaly notification control in disk array
In a storage device incorporating a plurality of kinds of disk drives with different interfaces, the controller performs sparing on a disk drive, whose errors that occur during accesses exceed a predetermined number, by swapping it with a spare disk drive that is prepared beforehand. |
| US07822992B2 |
In-place content substitution via code-invoking link
Content including links to behaviors (code which can be executed and return supplemental content for insertion, or can modify existing content) is stored, and at run-time, the links to behaviors are followed and the supplemental content or the modifications to existing comment are used to create a final version of content which will be presented to the user. Security enhancements including a security check ensure that only behaviors which are secure will be run. Default content may be provided, which may be inserted if the security check is not passed, or if the content returned from the behavior is unusable for some reason. |
| US07822991B2 |
Digital combined apparatus, control method therefor, and digital combined apparatus system
This invention relates to a digital combined apparatus including an operation panel, a reader/writer which writes/reads data on/from a recording medium, and a controller which controls the operations of the operation panel and reader/writer. When the reader/writer reads out ID information of the user from the recording medium on which at least the ID information is recorded, the operation panel displays a user authentication window which prompts the user to input a password for identifying himself or herself. |
| US07822990B2 |
Online data encryption and decryption
Systems and methods for providing encryption and decryption of data transmitted on a computer implemented network, preferably user authentication identifier data, such as a password, at the point of entry into the user's computer. The systems and methods enable an end user to mentally select a marker from one of the randomly arranged elements on a first portion of a graphical image. A second portion of the graphical image includes an arrangement of possible elements of any individual authentication identifier sequence, and is positioned adjacent to the first portion. The systems and methods prompt a user to enter each element of the identifier by moving the selected marker and the first portion as necessary to substantially align the selected marker with a chosen element of the authentication identifier appearing on the outer portion. According to one embodiment, the image portions are concentric wheels. According to another embodiment, the image portions are arranged in adjacent rows. |
| US07822988B2 |
Method and system for identity recognition
In accordance with various aspects, the present invention relates to methods and systems for sending an identity information document comprising selecting identity information from a self-identity information store for inclusion in the identity information document. The selected identity information is read from a self-identity information store. The identity information document is generated to include the selected identity information and one or more keys, and signed using a key associated with one of the keys included in the identity information document. The identity information document is then sent to a recipient. Receiving an identity information document comprises receiving a signed identity information document from an originator. A determination is made as to whether identity information in the identity information document is reliable. The identity information is saved in a recognized identity information store if the identity information is determined to be reliable. If the identity information is determined to be unreliable, an identity recognition number retrieved from the sender is compared to an identity recognition number generated by the recipient based on information in the received identity information document. If the identity recognition number is verified, the identity information is saved in the recognized identity information store. |
| US07822987B2 |
Data card verification system
A method of verifying a pair of correspondents in electronic transaction, the correspondents each including first and second signature schemes and wherein the first signature scheme is computationally more difficult in signing than verifying and the second signature scheme is computationally more difficult in verifying than signing. The method comprises the step of the first correspondent signing information according to the first signature scheme and transmitting the first signature to the second correspondent, the second correspondent verifying the first signature received from the first correspondent, wherein the verification is performed according to the first signature scheme. The second correspondent then signs information according to the second signature scheme and transmits the second signature to the first correspondent, the first correspondent verifies the second signature received from the second correspondent, wherein the verification is performed according to the second signature algorithm; the transaction is rejected if either verification fails. The method thereby allows one of the correspondents to participate with relatively little computing power while maintaining security of the transaction. |
| US07822986B2 |
Cryptographic authentication with ephemeral modules
A method enabling a personal computer to be authenticated by a server is provided. The method comprises the step, which includes for the user in launching the execution of a log-on procedure software, introducing personal identifiers providing access to a signature private key for long-term use relative to the duration of the session. The log-on procedure software produces: identification data of the session Id, a public ephemeral module, a public exponent and at least a pair of ephemeral pubic numbers and ephemeral private numbers related by a generic equation of the type: G=Qv (mod n) or G×Qv=1 (mod n), an ephemeral certificate linking, by means of said signature private key, Id and public ephemeral module. The public ephemeral module is of reduced size relative to the signature private key. |
| US07822983B2 |
Physical device bonding
A system and/or method that facilitates the installation and/or authentication of a device by invoking installation protocols and/or authentication protocols for a non-physical connection. A physical interface component provides a physical connection between at least one wireless device and at least one network entity in which the installation protocols and/or authentication protocols can be exchanged. The physical interface component can utilize a token key to establish multiple non-physical connections with multiple wireless devices. Additionally, the physical interface component can utilize a daisy chain scheme to install and/or authenticate a wireless device. |
| US07822982B2 |
Method and apparatus for automatic and secure distribution of a symmetric key security credential in a utility computing environment
Embodiments of the invention provide a method and an apparatus for automatic, secure, and confidential distribution of a symmetric key security credential in a utility computing environment. In one method embodiment, the present invention establishes a symmetric key at a management server, the symmetric key automatically associated with a logical device identifier of a provisionable resource. Additionally, an isolated virtual network is established between the management server and the provisionable resource for providing the symmetric key to the provisionable resource. Then, after the symmetric key is provided to the provisionable resource the isolated virtual network between the management server and the provisionable resource is dissolved. |
| US07822980B2 |
Authenticated identity propagation and translation within a multiple computing unit environment
An authenticated identity propagation and translation technique is provided based on a trust relationship between multiple user identification and authentication services resident on different computing components of a multi-component transaction processing computing environment including distributed and mainframe computing components. The technique includes, in one embodiment, forwarding, in association with transaction requests, identified and authenticated user identification and authentication information from a distributed component to a mainframe component, facilitating the selection of the appropriate mainframe user identity with which to execute the mainframe portion of the transaction, and creating the appropriate run-time security context. |
| US07822979B2 |
Method and apparatus for secure execution using a secure memory partition
A processor capable of secure execution. The processor contains an execution unit and secure partition logic that secures a partition in memory. The processor also contains cryptographic logic coupled to the execution unit that encrypts and decrypts secure data and code. |
| US07822975B2 |
Authentication of data transmitted in a digital transmission system
A method of authenticating data transmitted in a digital transmission system, in which the method comprises the steps, prior to transmission, of determining at least two encrypted values for at least some of the data, each encrypted value being determined using a key of a respective encryption algorithm, and outputting said at least two encrypted values with said data. |
| US07822973B2 |
Authentication key device having media content storage and rendering capabilities
An arrangement is provided in which an authentication key with media content and storage capabilities is configured as a removable module that interoperates with a set top box (“STB”) to enable two-factor authentication to be implemented when authenticating a user to unblock media content recorded by a digital video recorder that is restricted using, for example, parental control or blocking features provided by the STB. The authentication key is also arranged with a memory to store recorded media content that is accessed from the STB which functions as an intermediary, or “proxy” device, to facilitate selecting, receiving, and recording media content from a distribution network. The authentication key is also configured with an onboard video processor that enables the authentication key to perform as a portable media player that can drive, in various illustrative examples, a built-in display device or external presentation devices such as television or monitor. |
| US07822971B2 |
Mobile access to lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) server
A system for handling an LDAP query to an LDAP server for an LDAP service comprises a client program executable on a client system and a handler program executable on a handler system. The client program is operable to generate LDAP query data corresponding to the LDAP service and provide the LDAP query data for transmission from the client system, and further operable to receive LDAP query reply data in response to the LDAP query data. The handler program is operable to receive the LDAP query data transmitted from the client system and execute the LDAP query to the LDAP server, receive LDAP query reply data from the LDAP server during one or more passes, and upon completion of the LDAP service, provide the LDAP query reply data for transmission to the client system in a single pass. |
| US07822970B2 |
Method and apparatus for regulating access to a computer via a computer network
A method and apparatus for regulating access to a computer via a computer network is provided, in which a local computer has an application program, a proxy program, and a firewall program. The proxy program monitors the communication between the application program and the computer network, and is able to detect when the application program requires a remote computer to initiate a new connection to the local computer. Upon detecting such a need, the proxy program changes the settings of the firewall program so that the remote computer is able to establish the new connection. |
| US07822958B1 |
Booting mechanism for FPGA-based embedded system
According to various embodiments of the present invention, a programmable device assembly includes an FPGA coupled to a nonvolatile serial configuration memory (e.g., serial flash memory) and a volatile fast bulk memory (e.g., SRAM or SDRAM). The nonvolatile serial configuration memory contains both the FPGA configuration data and CPU instructions. When a predetermined condition occurs, a serial memory access component that is hard coded on the FPGA automatically reads the configuration data from the nonvolatile serial configuration memory. The configuration data is used to configure the FPGA with various components, including a CPU, a boot ROM with code for a boot copier, and a bus structure. When the CPU boots, code for the boot copier is executed so that the CPU instructions are copied from the nonvolatile serial configuration memory to the volatile fast bulk memory. The CPU then executes the CPU instructions stored in the volatile fast bulk memory. |
| US07822957B2 |
Method for carrying out an information processing in accordance with firmware in a plurality of chips
To enable a start in a short period of time in an apparatus including a plurality of chips. In chip carrying out information processing in accordance with a firmware which is at least a part of the firmware common to the other chip, each of the chips receives the firmware, refers to setting information, and transfers the firmware to the other chip based on the setting information. |
| US07822954B2 |
Methods, systems, and computer program products for recovering from branch prediction latency
A branch prediction algorithm is used to generate a prediction of whether or not a branch will be taken. One or more instructions are fetched such that, for each of the fetched instructions, the prediction initiates a fetch of an instruction at a predicted target of the branch. A test is performed to ascertain whether or not the prediction was generated late relative to the fetched instructions, so that if the branch is later detected as mispredicted, that detection can be correlated to the late prediction. When the prediction is generated late relative to the fetched instructions, a latent prediction is selected by utilizing a fetching initiated by the latent prediction such that a new fetch is not started. |
| US07822951B2 |
System and method of load-store forwarding
A system and method for data forwarding from a store instruction to a load instruction during out-of-order execution, when the load instruction address matches against multiple older uncommitted store addresses or if the forwarding fails during the first pass due to any other reason. In a first pass, the youngest store instruction in program order of all store instructions older than a load instruction is found and an indication to the store buffer entry holding information of the youngest store instruction is recorded. In a second pass, the recorded indication is used to index the store buffer and the store bypass data is forwarded to the load instruction. Simultaneously, it is verified if no new store, younger than the previously identified store and older than the load has not been issued due to out-of-order execution. |
| US07822947B2 |
Aliasing data processing registers
A register data store 20 is provided within a data processing system 2. The register data store 20 may be accessed via registers for which a data processing instruction specifies a register size Q, D and a data element size S16, S8 for the multiple SIMD data elements to be manipulated by that data processing instruction. A given data processing element may be accessed via different registers depending upon the mapping between the register specifier, the register size and the data element size to a particular location within the register data store 20. |
| US07822935B2 |
Methods for data-smuggling
The present invention discloses methods for an application, running on a host system, to access a restricted area of a storage device, the method including the steps of: providing a file system for running on the host system; restricting access, by the file system, to the restricted area; sending an indication, from the application to the storage device, that data being sent by the application to the storage device via the file system is intended for the restricted area; detecting the indication in the storage device; and making the data, residing in the restricted area, available for reading by the application upon receiving an application request. Preferably, the method further includes the step of: releasing wasted areas, of the storage device, for use by the file system. Preferably, the method further includes the step of: copying non-restricted data from a non-restricted area into the restricted area. |
| US07822934B2 |
Multipurpose semiconductor integrated circuit device
There is provided a multipurpose semiconductor integrated circuit device that can connect a variety of appliances to a network at low cost. The multipurpose semiconductor integrated circuit device includes: a plurality of types of input/output interfaces; a memory including a file storage region for storing a script file where processes relating to data inputted and/or outputted though the plurality of types of input/output interfaces are defined using a script language; an interpreter capable of executing the script files; and a file management system that admits accessing the file storage region of the memory thought at least one of the plurality of types of input/output interfaces. By defining user logic relating to input/output data using a script file, it is possible to clearly distinguish between firmware and user logic and user logic can be installed easily. |
| US07822929B2 |
Two-hop cache coherency protocol
The invention facilitates a distributed cache coherency conflict resolution in a multi-node system to resolve conflicts at a home node. |
| US07822927B1 |
Dynamically configurable reverse DNLC lookup
A directory name lookup cache (DNLC) provides a hashed forward mapping for finding the “child handle” associated with a “parent handle” and a “child name.” To provide an efficient reverse lookup capability, a second set of links is added to each cache entry for a “child hash list” indexed by a hashing of the child handle. For dynamically enabling and disabling the reverse mapping, when a new cache entry is added to its parent hash list, if the reverse mapping is enabled, then the new cache entry is also added to its child hash list; otherwise, the new cache entry is marked to indicate that it is not in any child hash list. To save memory, the parent hash lists and the child hash lists may share hash buckets. |
| US07822926B2 |
Cache memory
A data processor includes a cache memory having a plurality of cache rows each row storing a cache line of data values, a memory management unit responsive to a page table entry to control access to a corresponding group of memory addresses forming a memory page, and a cache controller coupled to said cache memory and responsive to a cache miss to trigger a line fill operation to store data values into a cache row. The cache controller is responsive to a cache line size specifier associated with at least one page table entry to vary the number of data values within a cache line fetched in a line fill operation in dependence upon said cache line size specifier. Controlling cache line size on a page basis is more efficient than controlling cache line size on a cache row or virtual address basis. |
| US07822924B2 |
Processing of self-modifying code in multi-address-space and multi-processor systems
A method and system of storing to an instruction stream with a multiprocessor or multiple-address-space system is disclosed. A central processing unit may cache instructions in a cache from a page of primary code stored in a memory storage unit. The central processing unit may execute cached instructions from the cache until a serialization operation is executed. The central processing unit may check in a message queue for a notification message indicating potential storing to the page. If the notification message is present in the message queue, cached instructions from the page are invalidated. |
| US07822923B2 |
Storage control program, storage control apparatus, and storage control method
There is provided a storage control program, a storage control apparatus, and a storage control method capable of improving a random read performance for a logging operation.A storage control program allows a computer to control a storage apparatus and causes the computer to execute: a data write step that logs data to the storage apparatus based on a write request from outside; and a position information control step that can write position information in a cache apparatus connected to the computer through a network. The position information is equivalent to correspondence between a logical position specified by the write request and a physical position in the storage apparatus where the data write step logs data. |
| US07822921B2 |
System and method for optimizing write operations in storage systems
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system, and computer program product for optimizing I/O operations performed by a storage server operating on behalf of multiple clients to access data on a plurality of storage devices (disks). Embodiments of the present invention eliminate the need for selected read operations to write new data to physical data blocks by zeroing the physical data blocks to which new data will be written. Additionally, the need for reading old parity to compute new parity is eliminated. Instead, new parity is computed from the data to be written without the need of old parity or the storage server sends a command to a disk that stores parity. A module implemented at the disk that stores parity executes the command without reading, by the storage server, old parity. Eliminating the need for reading old data and for reading old parity eliminates some rotation latency and improves overall system's performance. |
| US07822916B1 |
Integrated circuit search engine devices having priority sequencer circuits therein that sequentially encode multiple match signals
A search engine device includes a lookup circuit, such as a content addressable memory (CAM) array. This lookup circuit is configured to generate multiple active match signals in response to detecting multiple matches between a search operand applied to said lookup circuit and multiple entries therein, during a search operation. A priority sequencer circuit is also provided. This priority sequencer circuit, which is electrically coupled to outputs of the lookup circuit, is configured to sequentially encode each of the multiple active match signals according to priority. |
| US07822914B2 |
Data protection for non-volatile semiconductor memory using block protection flags
Receiving a request for canceling setting, a control circuit erases data stored in a corresponding block, changes a value of a protection flag, and cancels protection setting. When an overall protection is set for any block, the control circuit prohibits access to all blocks, except when it is an operation mode for activating a memory program contained in the microcomputer. Further, control circuit permits an access to a block M only when partial protection is set, CPU is in the mode for activating a memory program contained in the microcomputer and the access is for reading an instruction code in accordance with an instruction fetch. |
| US07822912B2 |
Flash storage chip and flash array storage system
A flash storage chip including a single circuit board, a microcontroller, a flash memory, and a peripheral component interconnect express (PCI Express) connecting interface is provided. The microcontroller, the flash memory, and the PCI Express connecting interface are embedded on the single circuit board, and the microcontroller has a flash memory interface and a PCI Express interface. When a host writes a data into the flash storage chip, the microcontroller receives the data though the PCI Express interface and stores the data into the flash memory though the flash memory interface. When the host reads a data form the flash storage chip, the microcontroller reads the data from the flash memory though the flash memory interface and transmits the data to the host though the PCI Express interface and the PCI Express connecting interface. |
| US07822909B2 |
Cross-bar switching in an emulation environment
A system and method are disclosed for crossbar switching in an emulation environment. The switch is designed to coordinate scheduling between different crossbars in the system and to be dynamically reconfigurable during operation. In one aspect, a crossbar switch includes a switching matrix and an array of control cells. The control cells use a high-frequency clock to perform high-speed switching and a low-frequency clock in order to initiate a switching sequence. The low-frequency clock initiates the sequence at a time coordinated with other crossbars in the system to optimize scheduling. In another aspect, the control cells include a memory containing control bits for the switching matrix. The memory may be reconfigured without stopping traffic management through the crossbar switch. In yet another aspect, the high-frequency sequence may provide for the ability to loop. In still another aspect, the crossbar switches may receive multiplexed input signals that can be routed to several crossbar outputs without the need for an internal demultiplexing stage. |
| US07822906B2 |
Data flush methods
A bridge capable of preventing data inconsistency without degrading system performance is provided, in which a buffering unit comprises a plurality of buffers, a first master device outputs a flush request to flush the buffering unit, and a flush request control circuit records the flushed buffer(s) in the buffering unit when receiving the flush request and outputs a flush acknowledge signal to indicate to the first master device that the buffering unit has been flushed when all the plurality of buffers have been flushed once after the flush request has been received. |
| US07822901B2 |
KVM switch for controlling computers and method thereof
A system for connecting a console device to computers comprising a graphic user interface menu apparatus for controlling the computers. The system comprises a user-side circuit, a central crosspoint switch, a plurality of computer-side circuits, a menu generating unit and a first switching device. The user-side circuit coupled to the console device receives electronic signals produced by the keyboard and cursor control device and creates a data packet. The central crosspoint switch is coupled to the user-side circuits, receives the data packets and routes the data packets. The computer-side circuits coupled to the central crosspoint switch and the computers receive the data packets from the central crosspoint switch for supplying the data packets to the computers. The menu generating unit generates a menu to be displayed. The first switching device alternately outputs a video signal of the menu data and a video signal from the computers to the video monitor according to a vertical synchronization signal. |
| US07822899B2 |
Data processor and control system
Provided are a data processor, and a control system, in which an interrupt controller and an event link controller are adopted. The event link controller responds to a generated event signal to output a start control signal for controlling start of an operation of a circuit module. The circuit module is able to generate an event signal. The event link controller generates the start control signal according to the correspondences between event signals and start control signals which are defined by event control information. The links between the event signals and start control signals can be prescribed by the event control information. Therefore, operations of circuit modules prescribed by such links can be controlled sequentially. The control neither involves save and return processes by CPU as in the interrupt processing, nor needs priority level control as executed on competing interrupt requests. |
| US07822896B1 |
Electronically configurable connector module
An input/output module includes a device communication connector apparatus for connecting at least one conductor between the module and at least one device and interface apparatus for causing the module to place any of a plurality of signals on any of a plurality of contacts of the device communication connector apparatus. The interface apparatus includes at least one electronic integrated circuit providing a selectable interconnection apparatus to a particular one of the contacts. The interface apparatus is configurable by a user of the module. A method of configuring the module includes providing inputs on a personal computer, communicating with a web server embedded in the module, to determine a specific interconnection apparatus for each of the contacts. |
| US07822894B2 |
Managing storage system configuration information
The present invention unitarily manages the configuration change of a storage system so as to know the latest configuration, and evaluates the reliability in advance when the configuration is changed so that the generation of a failure is suppressed. When the host 1 is connected to the switch 2, the attribute information of HBA 1A and the attribute information of the switch 2 are stored in the connection information storage unit 2C by FDMI (Fabric Device Management Interface) (S1, S2). Each attribute information is associated with each other and is managed as combination information. The storage device 3 acquires the combination information from the switch 2 (S3, S4), and requests the management device 4 to judge the reliability of this combination (S5). The management device 4 judges the combination of the HBA and the switch (S6), and notifies this judgment result to the storage device 3 (S7). When the configuration of the storage system is changed, the reliability of the configuration can be confirmed before starting operation with the configuration after change, and therefore the generation of a failure can be decreased. |
| US07822893B2 |
System and method for data transfer using ATA interface
An Advanced Technology Attachment or AT Attachment (ATA) compatible data transfer system includes a system processor having system memory, the system processor configured to issue a programmed input/output (PIO) type command to effect data transfer between a peripheral device and the system memory through a host controller and an ATA controller. The host controller accesses data to/from the system memory directly. The host controller and the ATA controller complete data transfer between the peripheral device and the system memory by executing the PIO type command without requiring interrupt servicing by the system processor. |
| US07822892B2 |
Managing the copying of writes from primary storages to secondary storages across different networks
Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for managing the copying of writes from primary storages to secondary storages across different networks. Information is maintained on a first group of at least one primary storage, at least one primary device managing Input/Output (I/O) access to the at least one primary storage, and at least one corresponding secondary storage to which writes to the at least one primary storage are copied and a second group of at least one primary storage, at least one primary device managing Input/Output (I/O) access to the at least one primary storage, and at least one corresponding secondary storage to which writes to the at least one primary storage are copied. A failure notification is received from one of the primary devices in the first or second group of a failure to copy a write from the primary device to the secondary device. A freeze command is issued over a first network, using a first network protocol, to the at least one primary device in the first group to stop copying writes to the corresponding at least one secondary device. A freeze command is issued over a second network, using a second network protocol, to the at least one primary device in the second group to stop copying writes to the corresponding at least one secondary device. |
| US07822885B2 |
Channel-less multithreaded DMA controller
A channel-less system and method are provided for multithreaded communications with a direct memory access (DMA) controller. The method accepts a plurality of DMA command messages directed to a fixed port address. The DMA command messages are arranged in a first-in first-out (FIFO) queue, in the order in which they are received. The DMA command messages are supplied to a DMA controller from the FIFO queue, and in response to the DMA command message, data transfer operation are managed by the DMA controller. Following the completion of each data transfer operation, a transfer complete message indicating completion is sent. In one aspect, DMA command messages are arranged in a plurality of parallel FIFO queues, and CD sets are stored in a plurality of context memories, where each context memory is associated with a corresponding FIFO queue. |
| US07822882B2 |
Reconfigurable computing array without chassis
A computing device having a unique form factor and adapted for connecting to an external device is described. The computing device includes external connector(s), computing node(s), a power unit, and a flexible enclosure structure encasing them. The enclosure structure is made of flexible materials so that the computing device forms a physically integrated unit free of a rigid frame and can be mechanically supported by its external connectors without a chassis. At least one computing node has a computing state machine and programs that controls the behavior of the computing nodes at least during a connection event and a disconnection event. The computing device can be hot-swapped and function properly between these events. Also described is a reconfigurable computing system that includes one or more computing devices described above and one or more host computers, as well as programming techniques for accomplishing hot swapping of the computing devices. |
| US07822877B2 |
Network processor integrated circuit with a software programmable search engine communications module
A network processor IC for processing network traffic includes a bus interface and a software programmable search engine communications module. The bus interface of the network processor IC is not specific to a particular search engine and the software programmable search engine communications module enables communications to be conducted between the network processor IC and the search engine via the bus interface according to whatever communications protocol the search engine requires. Using the software programmable search engine communications module, a network processor IC is software programmed to communicate with a particular search engine in a manner that is completely compatible with the search engine. |
| US07822875B1 |
Method for flexible modifications to a packet
A method allowing for flexible modification of a data packet in a data network is presented. A data packet is parsed based on one or more attributes and sent to a buffer memory and a user modifiable lookup table. Using extracted packet data, information required to modify the data packet as desired is located in the lookup table and forwarded to a packet modification engine. Within the packet modification engine, a novel rewrite constructor module generates unique packet rewrite information based on the information forwarded from the lookup table and one or more additional inputs. This unique packet rewrite information is forwarded to a packet rewrite engine, wherein the packet rewrite engine modifies the data packet accordingly. |
| US07822871B2 |
Configurable adaptive global traffic control and management
A framework for delivery of Internet content includes a subscriber server network; and at least one domain name server constructed and adapted to provide policy-based domain name service, wherein, in response to a request to resolve a hostname, the domain name server resolves the hostname to at least one address corresponding a server in the subscriber server network based on at least one policy consideration. The framework may include a content delivery network, distinct from the subscriber server network, wherein, in response to a request to resolve a hostname, the domain name server provides at least one addresses of a server in the content delivery network based at least on the location of the requestor and other policy considerations. An address returned by the domain name server is selected based on one or more of: (a) geographic policies; (b) load share policies; (c) overflow policies; and (d) network aware policies. |
| US07822865B2 |
Federated multiprotocol communication
Methods, apparatus, and business techniques are disclosed for use in distributed communication systems comprising a plurality of communication protocols. In one embodiment a first air interface is used to initiate communication between a wireless client and a remote server at least partially using a first wireless access point. The server sends the wireless client a stub of a distributed object. The stub is used to instantiate an object class. The object class defines an interface that the remote client can use to communicate with the remote server using an upper layer interface. The distributed object stub also provides an implementation of a software radio configuration for a set of lower protocol layers in a second air interface. The wireless client can thereby communicate with a second wireless access point using said second air interface protocol. Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are disclosed that focus on toll-tag and electronic-commerce related highway systems, distributed federated wireless access systems, and wide area wireless system capacity augmentation. |
| US07822864B2 |
Communication apparatus, program product for adding communication mechanism to communication apparatus for providing improved usability and communication efficiency, and recording medium storing program product
A computer program product for, when run on a computer for controlling a second communication apparatus installed inside a firewall including a plurality of service providing mechanisms for receiving a communication request including an operation request from an apparatus installed inside the firewall, and sending a communication response including an operation response to the apparatus, performs a communication function addition method, including the steps of providing the computer with an intermediate mechanism for intermediating communication between a first communication apparatus installed outside the firewall and the plurality of service providing mechanisms, and causing the second communication apparatus to collectively receive and send operation requests to the service providing mechanisms and operation responses, respectively, from and to the first communication apparatus. A computer readable storage medium stores the computer program product. A communication apparatus installed inside the firewall including the plurality of service providing mechanisms is provided with the intermediate mechanism. |
| US07822863B2 |
Personal domain controller
A method of accessing a data resource identifies the data resource, the data resource accessible through a first device and associated with a resource locator, the first device configured to provide access to the data resource responsive to possession of a whitelisted credential. The method includes receiving a second-device credential from a second device by a personal domain controller, the personal domain controller and the first device within a first trusted relationship and provides, by the personal domain controller, the second-device credential to the first device for whitelisting subject to the first trusted relationship. The method uses, by the second device, the second-device credential to access the data resource responsive to the resource locator. |
| US07822861B2 |
System and method for selection of a communication network by a terminal
System for selecting an architecture (15, 16, 17) dedicated to a communications network (40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52) in a terminal (10) including a user interface (11). The connection to the communications network (40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52) is set up by means of a PDP context link via a mobile network. The system controls access to a dedicated architecture manager (19) integrated into the terminal (10) to manage an architecture (15, 16, 17) dedicated to a communications network (40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52) and to process simultaneously the operation of the dedicated architectures (15, 16, 17) of the terminal (10) connected to a plurality of the communications networks (40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52). The system can be used for selecting access to a communications network (40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52) of a set of communications networks each offering a set of services via a dedicated architecture (15, 16, 17) integrated into the terminal (10) which is connected to a public mobile network to which the user is a subscriber. |
| US07822854B2 |
Footprint-providing device and footprint-providing system
A footprint-providing device which can put footprints on Web pages provided by various Web servers. The footprint-providing device is connected via a network to a client terminal that views a Web page with a browser. The footprint-providing device sends footprint data, which can be written on one part of the Web page that has been received by the browser of client terminal, to the browser receiving the Web page from a Web server as a response to a request that is made asynchronously with a view-request for the Web page by the browser. |
| US07822851B2 |
Remote user computer control and monitoring
In a method of computer usage monitoring, a user computer monitors for the input of predetermined keywords or phrases into an application running thereon, the presence of the keywords or phrases in a file received via a computer network, or the launching of one or more predetermined applications or programs. In response detecting the input of one or more of the predetermined keywords or phrases, the presence of one or more of the predetermined keywords or phrases in a file received via the computer network, or the launching of one or more the predetermined applications or programs, the user computer records a digital form of at least one visual image appearing on a video monitor of the user computer. The user computer dispatches the digital form of the recorded image to the server computer via the computer network. |
| US07822845B2 |
Monitoring device used for producing compositions
The present invention is directed to a monitoring device for producing a target composition, such as an automotive paint or an architectural paint. The device includes a client computer in communication with a host computer and means for dispensing required items for making a desired amount of the target composition. The computer readable program code means in the computers identify one or more formulas associated with identification criteria of the target composition and dispense through means for dispensing the required items listed in the formula. The code means search for the required items in the various inventories, including updating the inventories if required. The device can be also used to control the inventory by shipping just in time any components required to produce target compositions, such as refinish tints used in automotive refinish paints. |
| US07822844B2 |
System and methods for monitoring application server performance
A monitoring system monitors the amount of time spent by specific application components, such as Java components, during execution of specific web site transactions. A probe that runs on an application server initially instruments these components (preferably at component load time) to add code for tracking execution start and stop times. When a monitored transaction is executed by the application server, the probe measures the execution times of the invoked components—preferably at the component method level. The resulting measurement data is reported to a reports server, and is used to provide transaction-specific breakdowns of the amount of time spent by each instrumented component, and optionally each instrumented method within such components. In one embodiment, the probe only monitors transactions initiated by agent-generated transaction request messages that are marked or “colored” for monitoring, and thus ignores transactions initiated by actual users. |
| US07822842B2 |
System of managing connection to web services and method thereof
The present invention relates to a system and method for managing connection between web services. The system includes an external web service connection setup server for determining an external web service to which connection is to be made, and establishing and verifying connection rules, and an external web service connection management server for conducting tests on connection to the external web service and storing the results of the tests. The system may further include a component for searching a connection target DB in which connection results are stored, and transmitting connection results to a main web service server, a component for removing a hyperlink to a failure page, and a component for sensing a sudden increase in a connection failure ratio. Accordingly, external web services belonging to all fields desired by a network manager can be easily, rapidly and efficiently connected. |
| US07822841B2 |
Method and system for hosting multiple, customized computing clusters
A computer system for hosting computing clusters for clients. The system includes clusters each including a set of computing resources and each implemented in custom or differing configurations. Each of the configurations provides a customized computing environment for performing particular client tasks. The configurations may differ due to configuration of the processing nodes, the data storage, or the private cluster network or its connections. The system includes a monitoring system that monitors the clusters for operational problems on a cluster level and also on a per-node basis such as with monitors provided for each node. The system controls client access to the clusters via a public communications by only allowing clients to access their assigned cluster or the cluster configured per their specifications and performing their computing task. Gateway mechanisms isolate each cluster such that communications within a cluster or on a private cluster communications network are maintained separate. |
| US07822839B1 |
Method and system for accessing network services
A method and system for accessing network services. A client sends a request for a service. The request includes an address of the client. One or more resolvers receive the request for a service. The one or more resolvers determine at least one service location to return to the client based at least partially on the service requested and the address of the client. The at least one service location is then returned to the client. The service locations returned to the client may also be based on a policy, user preferences, client preferences, or client characteristics. |
| US07822838B2 |
System, method, and network elements for providing a service in a communication network
The invention provides a system, method, network elements, and computer program products, for providing a supplementary service such as an advice of charge, AoC, service requested by a user equipment at a session set-up or during a session of a communication service. For setting up a session of the communication service, a signalling message may be transmitted or received which signalling message comprises a request for a supplementary service and an indication on whether the session setup is to be suspended until said supplementary service has been provided. When detecting that said setting up the session of the communication service is to be suspended until said supplementary service has been provided, the session setup is suspended until after the requested supplementary service has been provided. The setting up of the session is resumed after determining that said supplementary service has been provided. |
| US07822837B1 |
Adaptive correlation of service level agreement and network application performance
Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to adaptive monitoring of network application performance. In one implementation, the present invention improves processes used by enterprises to track, manage, and troubleshoot performance of network applications across distributed networks. In one implementation, the present invention allows for a network application performance monitoring scheme that tracks end-to-end performance of selected network applications on a passive basis, while selectively engaging more invasive (synthetic) approaches to tracking performance and troubleshooting issues when needed. |
| US07822832B2 |
Method for controlling operations of computing devices
The present invention provides a process to establish or configure a mode of operation for computing devices through the use of affinity groups, policy guidelines, and priority graphs. An affinity group is a group of peer devices identified by a network to which a target device is connected as being similar to the target device. Policy guidelines are parameters describing mode or configuration policies for a group of users and reflecting users' identified needs and requirements. A priority graph is a decision tree, which may or may not be graphically represented, describing hierarchically the organization of policies governing the mode or configuration of device operation and capturing the relative priorities of different policies. A key aspect of the present invention involves the sharing of information within an affinity group. |
| US07822830B2 |
Dynamic portal assembly
The present invention provides a Dynamic Portal Assembly for Portals which provides the function to manipulate whole topology tree of a Portal at runtime. Topology Fragments, that are partial topology trees, are computed by software components called Adapters and are merged with existing trees at run time. The Adapters themselves can base the computation on the states of External Systems, e.g. Workflow Systems. The introduction of an Independent Adapter Interface allows for easy deployment of new Adapters into the Portal. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the Dynamic Portal Assembly is adapted to integrate Workflow into Portal without giving awareness to the Portal user. |
| US07822828B2 |
System for using non-standard transfer protocol from software received at in-vehicle communications gateway for exchanging data with client device
Methods and apparatus are provided for transmitting data to a client device from a computer module in a vehicle. Data is transmitted from the computer module over an in-vehicle network to an in-vehicle communications gateway module. The data from the computer module is destined for the client device. A request for a software component is transmitted to the client device from a standard port of the in-vehicle communications gateway module. The software component comprises a non-standard transfer protocol module. The in-vehicle communications gateway module loads the non-standard transfer protocol module, and the data is exchanged between the in-vehicle communications gateway module and the client device according to the non-standard transfer protocol. |
| US07822822B2 |
Instant messaging system configured to facilitate event plan management
An instant messaging service is operated in cooperation with an event plan manager system. Information is received regarding a planned event from an instant messaging client with which an event organizer is associated and, based thereon, information is provided indicative of the planned event to the event plan manager system. Information is received from the event plan manager system indicative of the planned event, as maintained by the event plan manager system. Invitation instant messages are caused to be provided to instant messaging clients with which invitees of the planned event are associated, wherein the invitation instant messages are correlated to the information indicative of the planned event as maintained by the event plan manager system. |
| US07822818B2 |
Methods and systems for detecting and preventing the spread of malware on instant messaging (IM) networks by using automated IM users
Methods and systems for reducing the spread of malware in communication between an instant message (IM) client and an IM server are described. A malware trapping system (MTS) creates and registers a set of virtual IM users with an IM server. The virtual IM users include account names by which other users of the IM server can communicate with the virtual IM users. The MTS publicizes the account names of the virtual IM users, which causes sources of malware to illicitly acquire the account names of the virtual IM users. The MTS identifies any IM user sending a message to one of the virtual users as a source of malware. The MTS also identifies such a message as a malware message and collects information about the sources of malware and malware messages and stores the information in a database. An IM filter module, accessing the information stored in the database, identifies and blocks malware messages based on the information. |
| US07822816B2 |
System and method for data management
A method for the management of data collected from a remote computing device including the steps of: creating a questionnaire; transmitting the questionnaire to a remote computer; executing the questionnaire in the remote computer to prompt a user for responses to questions of the questionnaire; transmitting the responses to a sever via a network; making the responses available on the Web. Preferably, computers used in connection with the inventive method are loosely networked in that network connections between computers are not always available and, when a connection is not available, data is stored at a node of the network and transmitted at the earliest time when a connection is available. In one preferred embodiment, the inventive method is used to collect survey data and to make the responses to the survey available to a client in virtually real time over the Internet. |
| US07822815B1 |
Unified messaging feature that plays greetings based on the received calling party number
A messaging system is provided for playing a messaging prompt in response to a request for execution of a messaging operation. The request contains calling party number information. The messaging system includes an application runtime environment configured for retrieving for playback as the messaging prompt, a personalized voice message based on a match of the received calling party number information with calling party number information stored in an Internet Protocol (IP) based database server. The personalized voice message corresponds to the matched, stored calling number information of the calling party. Hence, a subscriber can record personalized greeting for preferred callers such that when a preferred caller reaches the subscriber's voice mail, the personalized greeting for that caller is played. If the caller is not a preferred caller, a generic greeting is played. |
| US07822811B2 |
Performance enhancements for video conferencing
A conference server may request a key frame from a conference participant in response to determining that the conference participant should become a most active participant, and the conference server may make the conference participant the most active participant in response to receiving the key frame from the conference participant. |
| US07822805B1 |
Method and apparatus for screening a potential customer and assigning an account number to the potential customer across a global computer network
A system and method for screening a potential customer and assigning an account number to the potential customer prior to permitting the potential customer to purchase products or services from an automated seller facility over a computer network, such as the Internet, is disclosed. The potential customer enters customer data into a user interface to be received by the seller in the automated seller facility so that the seller can check the potential customer's qualifications. The invention includes performing an initial screening to determine whether the potential customer is qualified to purchase the products or services from the seller. If the potential customer passes the initial screening, an account number is issued to the potential customer. The account number allows the potential customer further access to the automated seller facility so that the potential customer may make an offer to purchase products or services while the automated seller facility performs a complete screening. |
| US07822803B2 |
Testing using asynchronous automated virtual agent behavior
A method and computer program product for testing using asynchronous automated virtual agent behavior is presented. A communication including one of a web-based communication and a telephony-based communication is received at a contact center. The communication is responded to by a virtual agent simulating actions of an agent in a coordinated, asynchronous manner. The virtual agent is capable of providing a response to the web-based communication and to the telephony-based communication. At least one parameter of said contact center is measured and the results are presented to a contact center manager. |
| US07822802B2 |
Apparatus and method for merging wireless data into an established process control system
A method and system of communicating between a wireless network and a process control system communicatively coupled to a server via a process control system interface, such as OPC or a proprietary API. The wireless network may be a mesh network and the server may be a mesh server. The server receives data from the wireless network, where the data is generated from an input/output data point within the wireless network. The server maps the data between the input/output data point and a data point placeholder within the process control system. The server writes the mapped data to the corresponding data point placeholder of the process control system via the process control interface, and the mapped data is provided to the process control system as process control data native to the process control system. Process control data may also be provided to the server, mapped between a data point placeholder of the process control system and an input/output data point of the wireless network, and the mapped process control data is written to the corresponding input/output data point. |
| US07822801B2 |
Subscription propagation in a high performance highly available content-based publish/subscribe system
The present invention is directed to a publish/subscribe system containing a plurality of brokers, a plurality of subscribers and plurality of brokers including publisher connecting brokers, intermediate brokers and subscriber connecting brokers. Subscriptions are introduced into the system by the subscribers through associated subscription brokers. New subscriptions are aggregated, assigned a virtual start time and propagated through the system toward the publishers. Each broker maintains subscription information in the form of a directed acyclic graph and a broker vector. Messages are published through the system by the publishers through their associated publisher connecting brokers. Each message is assigned a message vector associating subscriptions to that message. The published messages are routed through the brokers toward the subscribers in accordance with comparisons of message brokers and vector brokers conducted at each broker. |
| US07822795B2 |
Apparatus and methods for displaying and determining dependency relationships among subsystems in a computer software system
A method is provided for managing, in a computer system, design of a database system having a set of schemata. The method includes, in a first computer process, extracting dependencies from the database system and identifying the set of schemata. The method further includes, for each specific schema in the set of schemata, creating in a second computer process a partition that, in turn, contains a further partition for each element of the specific schema, so as to establish a hierarchy of partitions in accordance with the structure of the set of schemata. The method also includes storing a representation of the database system including subsystems, dependency relationships among the subsystems, and the hierarchy of partitions. Finally, the method includes providing a graphical output from the computer system, based on the stored representation, in which appears a display of the subsystems in a hierarchy of partitions within a dependency structure matrix, such matrix graphically indicating the dependency relationships among subsystems. Related apparatus and computer products are also provided. |
| US07822792B2 |
Administration of planning file entries in planning systems with concurrent transactions
After a transaction modifying a planning area in a planning system is initiated, it is determined whether there are any change objects in a consistent view of the transaction that are associated with the planning area. If there is a single change object associated with the planning area, then, the logical state of such change object is read. Alternatively, if there is more than one change object for the planning area, it is determined that the planning area must be replanned. Related apparatus, systems, methods, and articles are also described. |
| US07822791B2 |
Method and apparatus for flash memory reclaim
Machine-readable media, methods, apparatus and system for flash memory reclaim are described. In some embodiment, a system may comprise a flash memory having a plurality of flash memory blocks, and a managing logic to manage a file operation on the flash memory. The managing logic may, during a foreground reclaim of the flash memory which is triggered by the file operation, select a foreground reclaim block from the plurality of flash memory blocks; search the foreground reclaim block for valid data; and copy the valid data from the foreground reclaim block to a flash memory block of the plurality of flash memory blocks, if the valid data is found. The managing logic may further erase the foreground reclaim block during a next reclaim of the flash memory. |
| US07822790B2 |
Relative positioning and access of memory objects
A garbage collector including a bit mapper operative to designate a plurality of regions within a memory, associate any of a plurality of objects with any of the regions if the start address of the object to be associated lies within the region, and record the relative location of a group of objects within any of the regions, a mover operative to relocate any of the groups of objects found within a source region from among the regions to begin at a destination address, and a fixer operative to record the destination address at an index corresponding to the source region. |
| US07822787B2 |
Method of reconfiguring NAS under GNS
Provided is a file management method for a computer system having: one first server; a plurality of second servers; and a plurality of storage subsystems, the file management method including: providing, by the second server, as at least one file, data stored in the storage subsystem; executing, by the second server, at least one first program; obtaining, by the first server, from the second server, a utilization state of the first program executed by the second server; judging, by the first server, from the obtained first program utilization state, whether or not migration of the file group is necessary; and instructing, by the first server, the second servers to migrate the file group in a case where it is judged that the file group needs to migrate. Accordingly, programs stored in NAS constituting GNS can be used efficiently. |
| US07822784B2 |
Data cells and data cell generations
Data cells are described containing an entity identifier (“O”), an entity type (“E”) an attribute type (“A”), and an attribute value (“V”). Cells with identical O and E values constitute a cell set. Pairs of synapse cells relate cell sets, each synapse cell having O and E values of one cell set and A and V values equal to the E and O values of the other cell set. Cell generations store information about attributes, entities, relationships, constraints, and default data formats in the same cell listing as the cells containing the actual real-world data. As a result, the data in a data cell can be considered self-identifying. The present invention also provides a way to normalize data using data pool cell sets. The data cells themselves can be stored in multiple, co-existing storage trees that are specialized for increased data query efficiency. |
| US07822779B2 |
Method and apparatus for scalable transport processing fulfillment system
A scalable fulfillment system is presented that supports business processes, manages the transport and processing of business-related messages or documents between a business entity and clients, such as customers, vendors, and business partners, and generally supports business document processing. The system intelligently manages the transportation of files from clients, through processing of files, to generating responses that return to the clients. To accommodate a heterogeneous interfacing and processing with different clients in a central system, a file normalization technique is used that captures a common meta-data format from the numerous heterogeneous file types used by numerous clients. The meta-data files, also referred to as messages, contain links to their associated data files and are processed separately. Once the messages are entered into the system, an intelligent queue scheduler (IQS) is used to schedule the processing of messages across a scalable resource of processing engines based on normalized file meta-data parameters. |
| US07822778B1 |
Extended UDDI with item registry functionality
A method for extending Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (“UDDI”) registry is disclosed. Information of at least one item provided in a UDDI registry is published by a Web Service provider utilizing an item data structure. An item in the UDDI registry may them be searched utilizing at least one Application Program Interface (“API”) associated with the item data structure. |
| US07822776B2 |
Multidimensional dynamic clustering (MDDC)
This document discloses a software method, data structure, apparatus, and article of manufacture that dynamically and symmetrically clusters multidimensional data onto linear storage mediums. The disclosed embodiments provide methods to store, maintain, and retrieve multidimensional space based on dimensions and possibly dimension groups of two or more dimensions. These methods dynamically access, add, update, or remove dimension key values from any dimension or any group of dimensions while simultaneously enforcing the symmetry from all combinations of all dimensions and dimension groups. Further, this document discloses data structures herein that map the multidimensional data to one-dimensional storage mediums. |
| US07822775B2 |
Method and system for managing complex database information
Methods and systems are described for storage and retrieval of complex data. An example method may store a first data item in a first data table included in a database. An aggregated data object may be generated based on preprocessing the first data table based on satisfying a predefined retrieval query. The aggregated data object may be stored based on a preprocessed format in a cluster table included in the database. The first data table may be updated, and the aggregated data object may be updated in the cluster table based on the update of the first data table. |
| US07822774B2 |
Using link structure for suggesting related queries
An approach is provided for determining related queries for a given search query based on the linking structure of electronic documents within a document set. Document titles are used to represent potential search queries and links between the electronic documents are used to determine relationships between the potential search queries. As such, the document set may be represented as a directed graph in which document titles (which represent potential search queries) are nodes and links are edges between the nodes. When a particular search query is received, a corresponding node is identified and related queries are determined by identifying other nodes having connections with that node. |
| US07822769B2 |
Analysis of financial and business information based on interactive data
Systems and methods are provided for analysis of financial and business information based on interactive data, such as XBRL data. According to one embodiment, a method is provided for mapping extended taxonomy elements to base taxonomy elements. A list of base taxonomy elements is displayed on a display device. A taxonomy map is displayed on the display device. The taxonomy map includes information regarding one or more extended taxonomy elements of a reporting entity that are not mapped to any base taxonomy elements. Responsive to one or more user input events corresponding to a selection of a base taxonomy element and corresponding to a request to map an extended taxonomy element to the selected base taxonomy element, the compatibility of the selected base taxonomy element with the extended taxonomy element is validated. If the compatibility is affirmed, then an association is formed between the extended taxonomy element and the selected base taxonomy element. |
| US07822767B2 |
Modeling and implementing complex data access operations based on lower level traditional operations
A system, method and article of manufacture for data processing and, more particularly, for managing execution of complex data access operations in a data processing system. One embodiment provides a method of managing execution of query operations in a data processing system. The method comprises issuing, by a requesting entity, a request to perform a composite query operation defining an initial query operation and a subsequent query operation to be executed against a data repository of the data processing system, executing the initial query operation, determining an operation status of the initial query operation, and managing execution of the subsequent query operation on the basis of the determined operation status. |
| US07822761B2 |
Groupware system with improved contact data handling
A groupware computer system comprising a groupware server, a groupware client coupled to the server over a network, a contact information repository configured to store contact data of users in personal contact lists associated to individual users, a messaging system database configured to store statistical information about exchange of messages, a contact management module coupled to the contact information repository and configured to create, modify and retrieve contact data of users, a functional component for automatic determination of contact information (ADCI), and a groupware server computer, groupware client computer, a method, data processing program, computer program product, and computer data signal therefore. |
| US07822760B2 |
Search engine for video and graphics
A method of selecting graphic or video files having corresponding locators used to locate such graphic or video files using a computer. Identifiers are created by searching an area within a web page near a graphic or video file for searchable identification terms and searching an area within a web page near links to a graphic or video for searchable identification terms. The identifiers are stored in a database. User requests for graphic or video file content are received and the database of identifiers is searched to find graphic and video files corresponding criteria of the user. Graphic or video file content is then provided to the user. |
| US07822758B1 |
Method and apparatus for restoring a data set
A method of operating a storage server includes executing a process of restoring a data set in an active file system of the storage server from a persistent point-in-time image of a data set, and during the process of restoring the data set, servicing input/output requests directed at the data set by a client of the storage server. |
| US07822753B2 |
Method for displaying search results in a browser interface
A level of affinity between a first user and many other users is considered when prioritizing content display when browsing, and ratings display when searching for programs in an electronic program guide or in a browser interface of a playback software application. Ratings from users who have high affinity with the first user are shown with priority over ratings from users who have low affinity with the first user. And, when browsing, programs rated highly by users having high affinity with the first user are shown with priority over programs rated poorly by the users having high affinity with the first user, and programs rated highly by users having low affinity with the first user. |
| US07822752B2 |
Efficient retrieval algorithm by query term discrimination
Described is an efficient retrieval mechanism that quickly locates documents (e.g., corresponding to online advertisements) based on query term discrimination. A topmost subset (e.g., two) of search terms is selected according to their ranked importance, e.g., as ranked by inverted document frequency. The topmost terms are then used to narrow the number of rows of an inverted query index that are searched to find document identifiers and associated scores, such as computed offline by a BM25 algorithm. For example, for each document identifier of each important term, a fast search within each of the narrowed subset of rows (that also contain that document identifier) may be performed by comparing document identifiers to jump a pointer within each other row, followed by a binary search to locate a particular document. The scores of the set of particular documents may then be used to rank their relative importance for returning as results. |
| US07822751B2 |
Scoring local search results based on location prominence
A system may identify a first document associated with a geographic location within a geographical area and identify a second document associated with a geographic location outside the geographical area. The system may also assign a first score to the first document based on a first scoring function and assign a second score to the second document based on a second scoring function. |
| US07822750B2 |
Method and system to compare data entities
The present invention relates in general to methods and systems for comparing and maximizing the appropriateness of a first set of one or more data objects to a set of second data objects. In one embodiment, the first set of data objects represent one or more tasks to be fulfilled by a set of capabilities represented by the second data objects. In one embodiment, this invention provides an effective and accurate method and system to compare and maximize the appropriateness between the requirements of a task and the second set's capabilities, while these capabilities and requirements are contained, even if only latently, in data objects such as written documents, electronic databases or other sources of data and information. In one embodiment, topic modeling techniques are utilized to compare the data objects. |
| US07822747B2 |
Predictive analytic method and apparatus
A computerized project management analytical system and method that develops and manages an ontology that links objects and is capable of being mined. The ontology is comprised of a project ontology framework, a matching engine and a project status matrix that illustrates a multi-relational view of the project status, of confidence levels, or interdiction points and/or positions on project timelines. |
| US07822746B2 |
System and method for tagging images based on positional information
A system and method for suggesting keywords for tagging a digital image are provided. In general, a requesting node is communicatively coupled to a keyword service via a network. The requesting node sends a request to the keyword service requesting suggested keywords for a digital image. The request includes information relating to the digital image such as positional information. Based on the information, the keyword service generates a list of suggested keywords and provides the list of suggested keywords to the requesting node. At the requesting node, the list of suggested keywords is displayed to a user, and the user selects one or more of the suggested keywords for tagging the digital image. |
| US07822745B2 |
Keyword set and target audience profile generalization techniques
A variety of techniques are described by which keyword sets and target audience profiles may be generalized in a systematic and effective way with reference to relationships between keywords, profiles, and the data of an underlying user population. |
| US07822743B2 |
System and method for real-time web page context analysis for the real-time insertion of textual markup objects and dynamic content
A technique is described for delivering contextual information to end users of a data network which includes at least one client system associated with an end user. According to a specific embodiment, the technique of the present invention provides a contextual-based platform for delivering to an end user in real-time proactive, personalized, contextual information relating to web page content currently being displayed to the user. |
| US07822735B2 |
System and method for saving browsed data
A system saves browsed data in a database in response to a user request by assigning a predetermined index to the data, wherein the user is not requested for any index. The system sorts indices of the data in the database and displays the sorted indices, then the system retrieves, in response to a selection of an index from the displayed indices by a user, the data corresponding to the selected index from the database. Accordingly if a user wants to save a data currently browsed, he can make store the data in the database easily only by issuing an instruction to save without specifying any index. |
| US07822732B2 |
Method and system to enable domain specific search
A method and a computer system to enable domain specific search is disclosed. The present invention enables creation and sharing of domain specific search scripts, where search intelligence relating to domain and search engines is encapsulated in a parameterized domain specific search script. The system provides a customizable knowledge base to be used to configure the parameters specific to a chosen domain. Users can parameterized search scripts and configure search scripts according to their search needs. Users can use search scripts to perform complex domain specific searches by specifying input search string and without having to worry about refining results. The system uses the parameterized search scripts and configuration information along with user input search string to build search engine independent and search engine dependent queries from one or more search engines to provide relevant results to user. |
| US07822730B2 |
Systems and methods for sequential modeling in less than one sequential scan
Most recent research of scalable inductive learning on very large streaming dataset focuses on eliminating memory constraints and reducing the number of sequential data scans. However, state-of-the-art algorithms still require multiple scans over the data set and use sophisticated control mechanisms and data structures. There is discussed herein a general inductive learning framework that scans the dataset exactly once. Then, there is proposed an extension based on Hoeffding's inequality that scans the dataset less than once. The proposed frameworks are applicable to a wide range of inductive learners. |
| US07822727B1 |
System and methodology for performing read-only transactions in a shared cache
A database system providing high performance database versioning is described. In a database system employing a transaction log, a method for restoring databases to a consistent version comprises steps of: providing a shared cache storing database blocks for use by multiple databases; for a read-only transaction of a given database, creating a cache view of the shared cache using the given database's transaction log, the cache view comprising particular database blocks of the shared cache that record a view of a particular version of the database at a given point in time; creating a shadow cache for storing any database blocks that overflow the cache view; and in conjunction with the cache view and the shadow cache, preserving a logical undo operation for the read-only transaction of the given database, so as to allow the given database to be restored to a transactionally consistent version. |
| US07822724B2 |
Change audit method, apparatus and system
A method for facilitating management of a data processing environment is disclosed. In various embodiments, the method may include facilitating homogeneous monitoring of a plurality of heterogeneous data processing nodes of the data processing environment, the homogeneous monitoring including facilitating detecting one or more changes of one or more elements of the plurality of heterogeneous data processing nodes. In various embodiments, the method may further include facilitating performing one or more actions in response to detecting the one or more changes. Other embodiments of the present invention may include, but are not limited to, apparatuses and systems adapted to facilitate practice of the above-described method. |
| US07822720B2 |
Method and system of detecting keyword whose input number is rapidly increased in real time
A method and a system of detecting a keyword whose input number is rapidly increased in real time which can estimate a search number at a future point in time by reflecting an input trend of the keyword in real time at a present point in time and can immediately detect the keyword whose input number is rapidly increased according to a criterion value calculated by the estimated search number. Specifically, the method and system of detecting a keyword whose input number is rapidly increased in real time which can estimate the search number for each keyword at the future point in time in real time and can immediately detect the keyword whose input number is rapidly increased according to a criterion value calculated by the estimated search number. |
| US07822719B1 |
Multi-protocol lock manager
A method for managing locking requests for a computer file is disclosed. A plurality of locks is maintained for the file, the plurality of locks having locks of different types. Constraints are tracked on the plurality of locks of different types. A request for a requested lock is received. A determination is made if the requested lock violates any of the constraints on the plurality of locks. The requested lock is granted if there is no violation of any constraint on any of the plurality of locks. The requested lock is denied if the requested lock violates any constraint on any of the plurality of locks. An action disposition set having bit positions which define each lock of the plurality of locks is maintained. Bit-wise logic using the action disposition set determines if a requested lock violates any constraint on any of the plurality of locks. |
| US07822715B2 |
Data mirroring method
A system includes a primary storage unit connected to a secondary storage unit such that data written to the primary storage unit is replicated on the secondary storage unit. The primary storage unit in at least one exemplary embodiment includes the capability to intercept input/output instructions for routing to a buffer and/or directly to the secondary storage unit. The system in at least one exemplary embodiment includes a backup storage unit for backing up data from at least the secondary storage unit offline and the capability to update the secondary storage unit once it returns to an online status. |
| US07822714B2 |
Extending configuration management databases using generic datatypes
A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for allowing users with minimal database skills to produce efficient, extended configuration management databases. Input is received from a user to extend a configuration management database, wherein the input includes a generic data type. The generic data type is mapped to a database data type of the configuration management database. An SQL statement is then generated to create the database data type in the configuration management database. Responsive to a successful execution of the SQL statement, the tables in the configuration management database are updated with the database data type to reduce a number of tables created for the database data type. |
| US07822710B1 |
System and method for data collection
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for extracting data from multiple sources and loading data into a central repository. One embodiment of a method of the present invention includes extracting a first set of data from one or more data sources, correlating the first set of data with a second set of data contained in a central repository, comparing the first set of data with the second set of data, determining a set of operations to be applied to the second set of data and applying the set of operations to the second set of data. |
| US07822708B1 |
Global attribute mapping data in an enterprise information system
Methods and systems for identifying and maintaining relationships in a network of peer-to-peer enterprise information systems that include a unified entity-relationship system that has a number of entities, each of which has a number of attributes. Subsumed entity-relationship systems are coupled to the unified entity-relationship system, and the entities of the unified entity-relationship system are mapped to one another and to entities and attributes of entities of the subsumed entity-relationship systems. A join engine is coupled to the unified entity-relationship system for performing joins and splits to form related entities and an object model that is coupled to the join engine is available globally throughout the network. The object model contains the mapped relationships and is deployed in conjunction with a join model, the join model specifying transformations and queries required for forming an entity from a set of related entities. |
| US07822704B2 |
Text explanation for on-line analytic processing events
A method and structure for analyzing a database having non-text data in data fields and text in text fields. The invention first selects a subset of the database based upon criteria. The subset includes data field(s) and associated text field(s). The invention searches for data matching the criteria within structured data fields of the database. If the invention searches multiple databases, the invention creates shared dimensions for databases that do not share common attributes. The invention automatically selects a relatively short text phrase from the text fields that helps to explain the underlying meaning (i.e. unique text content) of a data subset selected using the non-text data fields. |
| US07822703B1 |
Automatic verification of a user
A system and method are described for verifying a user. More specifically, a user contacts a goods or service provider and gives that provider information about himself or herself in order to register for receipt of goods or services. The provider then uses this information along with other information detected from another source, such as a network provider, to verify that the user is providing accurate information. Once the provider has determined that the information provided by the user is accurate, the user is allowed to register for certain services or purchase goods. A component of these systems and methods is to perform format and frequency of usage checks on the received data from the user and/or the network provider. |
| US07822702B2 |
Creating a session log for studying usability of computing devices used for social networking by filtering observations based on roles of usability experts
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for creating a session log for studying usability of one or more computing devices used for social networking that include: receiving, by a usability engine from at least one usability expert, usability observations observed by the usability expert during a usability session for studying interaction support provided by one or more computing devices to a plurality of users interacting within a social network through the computing devices; recording, by the usability engine, the usability observations in a session log; detecting, by an event listener on at least one of the computing devices, an event generated by the computing device as a result of an interaction among the plurality of users within the social network; notifying, by the event listener, the usability engine of the event; and recording, by the usability engine, a description of the event in the session log. |
| US07822701B2 |
Lexicon generation methods, lexicon generation devices, and lexicon generation articles of manufacture
Lexicon generation methods, computer implemented lexicon editing methods, lexicon generation devices, lexicon editors, and articles of manufacture are described according to some aspects. In one aspect, a lexicon generation method includes providing a seed vector indicative of occurrences of a plurality of seed terms within a plurality of text items, providing a plurality of content vectors indicative of occurrences of respective ones of a plurality of content terms within the text items, comparing individual ones of the content vectors with respect to the seed vector, and responsive to the comparing, selecting at least one of the content terms as a term of a lexicon usable in sentiment analysis of text. |
| US07822700B2 |
Method for using lengths of data paths in assessing the morphological similarity of sets of data by using equivalence signatures
A method for finding sets of data (SDDs) for presentation in one-dimension, which are similar to a target SDD, is invented. The method leverages a new category of signatures, called equivalence signatures, to characterize the SDDs and is applicable to all types of data with special interpretation for data that may be presented in two-dimensions. These signatures have the salient feature that, at worst, they change in a bounded manner when small changes are made to the SDDs and when used to find SDDs that are similar to a target SDDs, they allow for a significant reduction in the number of SDDs to be compared with the target. This is an improvement over the state of the art wherein the computational expensive process of performing a complete search against the entire corpus must be applied. |
| US07822694B2 |
Neuro-mimetic control systems and methods
A control system and method base on a model of a neurological structure such as the inferior olive of the brain. In one embodiment, individual inferior olive neurons are modeled in hardware, such as in an integrated circuit, and interconnected to form an artificial inferior olive. The artificial inferior olive thus formed can be used in a universal movement control system. An exemplary system for controlling the operation of a six-legged walker is described. The degree of coupling between neurons can be varied. A model is also provided which mimics the interaction between neurons of the inferior olive, the cerebellar nuclei and Purkinje cells via collateral axons. The model accurately describes the qualitative dynamics of cluster formation and spike-train generation in the olivo-cerebellar system. A universal control system (UCS) based on the olivo-cerebellar system is described. |
| US07822693B2 |
Logic arrangement, data structure, system and method for multilinear representation of multimodal data ensembles for synthesis, recognition and compression
A data structure, method, storage medium and logic arrangement are provided for use in collecting and analyzing multilinear data describing various characteristics of different objects. In particular it is possible to recognize an unknown individual, an unknown object, an unknown action being performed by an individual, an unknown expression being formed by an individual, as well as synthesize a known action never before recorded as being performed by an individual, synthesize an expression never before recorded as being formed by an individual, and reduce the amount of stored data describing an object or action by using dimensionality reduction techniques, and the like. |
| US07822691B1 |
Method for determining house prices indices
A method for estimating a real estate price index based on a repeat sales model. The method includes the steps of eliminating corrupt portions of data used to determine price indices; regressing a difference in a log price of a second sale minus a log price of a first sale for a property on a set of dummy variables, eliminating the observations with zero residuals for estimating the dispersion function; using a quadratic formula to model a dispersion of residual values with respect to time interval; using the quadratic formula to solve for a dispersion for each time interval starting with a minimum positive value; determining a minimum dispersion value that is a value calculated from the quadratic formula; determining a maximum dispersion value that is calculated from the quadratic formula for each time interval starting with a minimum positive value, wherein the dispersion values are prevented from decreasing with increasing time intervals; repeating the step of regressing using the inverse of the square root of fitted values from the quadratic formula as weights; identifying and selecting the time periods and associated data for estimating a price index that covers a particular time period; excluding the index values which are determined to be unreliable; and obtaining an index series for a lower geographic level by using the index series of a higher geographic level. |
| US07822690B2 |
Paperless process for mortgage closings and other applications
According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic document processing system and method including an electronic document generation mechanism, an encrypted digital certificate generator, a tool for coordinating the processing of electronic documents, a packaging mechanism for finalizing and authenticating electronic documents, a tracking log for recording relevant electronic document information, and a transferring protocol for transferring the ownership of electronic documents. The present invention also provides an electronic authentication system including an electronic document authentication watermark seal or signature line for confirming a document's signing within the view. Preferably, the present invention is directed towards a system, software program, and method for generating electronic documents, coordinating the signing of said electronic documents, digitally authenticating and certifying said electronic documents, and organizing said electronic documents for retrieval and transfer in the mortgage closing/financial services field. |
| US07822688B2 |
Wireless wallet
A mobile phone system and method of initializing, at a secure transaction server (STS), a mobile payment software with a software authentication parameter, as an authentic mobile payment software; providing an STS correlation between a personal identification entry (PIE) and the authentic mobile payment software; installing, in a mobile phone, the authentic mobile payment software; and inputting, by a user, the PIE to the installed authentic mobile payment software to generate according to the PIE and the software authentication parameter a transformed secure authenticable mobile phone cashless monetary transaction over the mobile phone network, as a mobile phone wireless wallet of the user of the mobile phone. The mobile phone authenticable cashless monetary transaction is performed according to an agreement view(s) protocol. |
| US07822687B2 |
Jukebox with customizable avatar
A digital downloading jukebox system including a mechanism for delivering custom services to a recognized user is provided. For example, information specific to a recognized user may be stored and optionally may include a recognized user avatar representative of the recognized user. The user avatar may be an image, video, and/or animation, which may be displayed on and/or played through the jukebox. The user avatar may be associated with transactions associated with the user. For example, an avatar may be displayed when a playlist of the recognized user is played, when a message is sent, etc. In other examples, the avatar may introduce instances of media by playing an audio and/or video message, and the avatar may sing, dance, etc. while an instance of media is playing. |
| US07822686B2 |
Processing system for recording media content
A method and system are provided in which a user is enabled to record, for example, a song or other radio and/or video content, on demand, and to account for and process appropriate payment for the use of the recorded content. The recorded material is saved and indexed by title and is retrievable for subsequent review, tabulation and/or playing at the user's convenience. In one example, a user is enabled to record received media content by pressing a single “ADD” button at any time while a favorite song is being received and played. The song then being played together with the title of the song or video presentation are then saved to memory for subsequent retrieval and playing. The received content is accounted for and tabulated and a payment for the use of the recorded song is processed by the user in accordance with a predetermined payment schedule. |
| US07822685B1 |
Method and system for digital rights management brokering and digital asset security transcoding
A computer-implemented method and system for DRM brokering and digital asset security transcoding comprising utilizing a broker for converting content from one format into one or more alternative DRM-protected formats for distribution to end-users. The broker operates an escrow system for securing and tracking the content and information about the content and encryption keys associated with a plurality of DRM content formats. The broker further provides a common inter-DRM log format for receiving usage transaction logs and payment logs associated with transcoding and distribution the content in one or more DRM-protected content formats. |
| US07822684B2 |
Personalized bank teller machine
A system and method is provided for an ATM having a display, a logic server coupled to the display, and a memory coupled to the logic server. The logic server dynamically controls the functions available to the users including messages and coupons. A host contains a profile of a user. The memory, which is accessible to the logic server, may contain a profile of at least one user. A user card may contain a profile of the user. In operation, the ATM detects the a user's card and requests the profile of the user whose card was detected from a host. The ATM then receives the user's profile and stores the user's profile in the ATM. The system and method also provides a cardless ATM in which a user logs on without a card. Additionally, system and method also provides ATM services via a personal device. |
| US07822679B1 |
Method and system for conducting a commercial transaction between a buyer and a seller
A system for conducting a commercial transaction between a buyer and a seller is disclosed. The system includes a transaction processing system for facilitating payment for a transaction between the buyer and the seller. In addition to the buyer and the seller, the transaction processing system also interacts with an issuer and an acquirer. An electronic invoice relating to the transaction is first posted to the system by the seller or another system. Upon accepting the electronic invoice, the system creates a payment instruction. Each time a payment instruction is created, the system applies certain pre-negotiated payment terms and conditions between the buyer and the seller to the payment instruction. After the payment instruction is created, the system seeks approval from the buyer. Upon approval of the payment instruction by the buyer, the system schedules the payment for the specified date in the payment instruction. |
| US07822678B2 |
Systems and methods for trading actively managed funds
The invention provides systems and methods for intra-day trading of actively managed exchange traded funds (AMETFs). The invention provides creation and redemption structures for AMETF shares that allow arbitrage, intra-day value estimations for AMETF shares, and hedging portfolios for hedging risks associated with trading AMETF shares, all without requiring disclosure of the specific assets underlying the AMETF. |
| US07822676B2 |
Systems and methods relating to the formulation of a multi-party contract
Methods and apparatus which deal with the management of risk relating to specified, yet unknown, future events are disclosed.‘Sponsor’ stakeholders specify a particular product relating to an event or phenomenon for which there is a range of possible future outcomes.‘Ordering’ stakeholders then offer contracts relating to the predetermined phenomenon and corresponding range of outcomes. The offered contracts specify an entitlement or (pay-off) at the future time of maturity for each outcome, and a consideration (or premium) payable, in exchange, to a ‘counter-party’ stakeholder.Independently of the offered contracts, the ‘counter-party’ stakeholders input data as to their view of the likelihood of occurrence of each outcome in the predetermined range into the future, or specifically at the predetermined date of maturity.Each offered contract is priced by the processing units by calculating counter-party premiums from the registered data, and a match attempted by a comparison of the offered premium with the calculated premiums.Matched contracts can be further traded until maturity, and at-maturity processing handles the exchange of entitlement as between the matched parties to the contract. |
| US07822670B2 |
Performance risk management system
The embodiments of this invention relate to methods for developing risked budgetary performance estimates by analyzing commodity price risk(s) utilizing cash-flow-at-risk assessments in combination with Monte Carlo simulations. This automated method for risk analysis, includes modeling assets of a portfolio as derivatives; collecting pricing data and volatility surfaces related to the derivatives; calculating and scaling simulated cash-flow-at-risk (CFAR) values to generate a risk profile; and evaluating the risk profile to determine if the risk profile meets predetermined risk characteristics or requires modification. |
| US07822668B1 |
Tool for hedging real estate ownership risk using financial portfolio theory and hedonic modeling
A method for optimizing risk-adjusted returns of a composite portfolio having a non-variable portion containing at least tangible residential real estate property investments and a variable portion containing other assets having a liquidity profile that is more liquid than the non-variable portion of the portfolio. The other assets in the variable portion of the portfolio are optimized in order to diversify and/or hedge risks associated with the non-variable portion of the portfolio. The optimizing is performed by calculating a mix of assets in the variable portion of the portfolio that maximizes expected returns for the composite portfolio while minimizing risks for the composite portfolio. |
| US07822667B1 |
Distribution of cash deposits and withdrawals in multi-style managed client investment accounts
An investment account is managed having associated assets, including shares of different securities, transacted in accordance with a plurality of different investment styles. A cash deposit into such a multi-style investment account and a request for a cash withdrawal from the multi-style investment account are handled differently but efficiently across the different investment styles in the investment account. When cash is deposited into the investment account, the cash deposit is placed into a temporary “cash bucket” in the investment account common across different investment styles. The cash is then distributed individual “cash buckets” each associated with an investment style in the investment account in accordance with a selected cash deposit allocation. When cash is to be withdrawn from the investment account, the cash amounting to the requested amount from individual “cash buckets” each associated with an investment style in the investment account is withdrawn in accordance with a selected cash withdrawal allocation. As a result, the cash can be deposited into the investment account or withdrawn from the investment account with proper allocation across different investment styles. |
| US07822666B1 |
Secure single-use transaction numbers
Methods for producing and applications for single-use transaction numbers. The transaction numbers are single-use in that the numbers are only valid for a single transaction. The transaction numbers can be generated just prior to being used, minimizing the amount of time during which they can be lost or stolen. The transaction numbers can be generated using encryption technology such as dynamic password technology. The encryption technology makes it very difficult if not impossible to predict what the next transaction number generated will be. The transaction numbers are unique to the user and can be validated or authenticated by an issuing institution that maintains an ability to generate the same transaction numbers issued to the user. |
| US07822665B2 |
Using commercial share of wallet in private equity investments
Commercial size of spending wallet (“CSoSW”) is the total business spend of a business including cash but excluding bartered items. Commercial share of wallet (“CSoW”) is the portion of the spending wallet that is captured by a particular financial company. A modeling approach utilizes various data sources to provide outputs that describe a company's spend capacity. Private equity firms and other investors of small businesses can use the CSoW/CSoSW modeling approach to more accurately evaluate small and privately held companies, both during investment and for evaluating prospective investments. Over-the-counter securities trading systems can also use this modeling approach to provide more accurate information and/or rankings of listed companies to their customers. |
| US07822657B2 |
Automated accounting system
An automated accounting system for an entity, such as an individual or business is provided in which at least one file is established for the entity and a plurality of data inputs are provided to the file. The data inputs include electronically recorded transactions made between the entity and other entities. Access is provided to the file for agents of the entity so that one of the agents can perform one or more activities related to the data inputs such as entering, deleting, reviewing, adjusting and processing. |
| US07822652B2 |
System and method for handling pre-picked invoices in order fulfillment
A system of order fulfillment. The system includes a pre-picking unit and a matching engine. The pre-picking unit picks orders and WIP (Work-In-Process) lots with forecast finishing dates to generate a pre-picked invoice including the designated orders and WIP lots. The matching engine generates a real invoice corresponding to the pre-picked invoice for one designated order and the matched WIP lot that reaches completion, and generates a new pre-picked invoice containing remaining orders, WIP lots, and corresponding settings. |
| US07822650B2 |
Product search system, product search method, and product search program
The present invention makes it possible to narrow down desired products comfortably and efficiently while comparing products and checking a combination of products for compatibility on an EC site. An EC site screen containing a list screen of a product group, fitting platform, keep box, and the like is displayed on a client terminal accessing the EC site. When a user drags and drops thumbnail images of one or more products of interest from the list screen to the keep box, information about the products is held in the keep box. To view detailed information including the held images of the products, the user drags and drops the thumbnail images from the keep box to the fitting platform. Mannequin images and are provided on the fitting platform, and the user can compare products and check a combination of the products for compatibility by placing the images of the products (apparel products) on the mannequin images. |
| US07822647B1 |
Method and system for providing real time offers to a user based on obsolescence of possessed items
In a remote communication environment, a method for real-time presentation of information to one or more users accessing one or more websites using an electronic communications device. Various aspects of the method comprise at least the following. Communication is established via the electronic communications device between the user and the website to conduct one or more primary transactions. One or more electronic identifiers associated with the user are obtained. One or more further or additional data elements related to the user are obtained from a third party using the at least one electronic identifier. Based at least on the electronic identifier and the further data element, the information is selected for presentation to the user in real time with the primary transaction. The information is presented to the user in real time with the primary transaction. |
| US07822646B2 |
Social-network enabled review system with subject-owner controlled syndication management
The embodiments of the present system include a review engine that is connected to support modules and databases that receive, store, and retrieve reviews, based upon the subject and the users' relationship to the authors of the reviews. The review engine comprises a social network engine, a rate and rank engine, a credentials engine and a privacy engine. These engines allow reviews to be sorted, filtered and ordered in terms of relevance when presented to the user. Numerous methods are also provided by the system that receive, store and retrieve reviews. |
| US07822645B2 |
Method and system for ordering a consumable for a device
A method for ordering one or more consumables for a device includes selecting one or more of the consumables used in the device to order using the device and submitting the order for the selected consumables using the device to one or more suppliers. A device for ordering one or more consumables for the device includes an ordering system in the device and a communication system in the device. The ordering system providing a menu of one or more of the consumables to select to place an order. The communication system submits the order for the selected consumables when completed. |
| US07822644B2 |
Methods and devices for establshing and processing payment rules for mobile commerce
Disclosed are methods and devices for automatically selecting which mobile communication device among two or more related mobile communication devices may establish communication or authorize a transaction for particular services or goods with an unrelated third communication device. The described method includes a first mobile communication device detecting the presence of a related second mobile communication device and authorizing a communication with a third unrelated entity, such as that of a vendor, based on the presence of the related second mobile communication device. Also described is a method of a first mobile communication device including detecting the presence of a related second mobile communication device and restricting wireless communication with a unrelated third communication device, such as that of a vendor. |
| US07822642B2 |
Network facsimile apparatus
A communication management report is produced from communication management information stored, and is transmitted to predetermined destinations via electronic mail when a predetermined requirement is met. |
| US07822634B2 |
Work role yields management system and method
A system and method to diagnose, design, deploy, and manage a work role in the context of the complex modern relationship or affiliation existing between the organization and worker. Universally applicable organizing principles, process and software are combined to make a practical approach to the diagnostics, design and deployment of work roles inclusive of worker/talent relations, and predictably determine, reveal probabilities, address causation factors and uncover issues that may lead to success, failure, remedy or improvement in forming and maintaining productive, mutually-satisfying work role relations. |
| US07822631B1 |
Assessing content based on assessed trust in users
Techniques are described for managing content by identifying content that has attributes of interest (e.g., content that is useful, humorous and/or that otherwise has a sufficiently high degree of quality) and by determining how to use such identified content. In some situations, a piece of content is automatically assessed in a manner based on automatically assessed levels of trust in users who are associated with the content, such as a user who authored or otherwise supplied the content and/or users who evaluated the content. For example, an automatically assessed level of trust for a user may be based on prior activities of the user and be used to predict future behavior of the user as a supplier of acceptable content and/or as an acceptable evaluator of supplied content, such as based on prior activities of the user that are not related to supplying and/or evaluating content. |
| US07822628B2 |
System and method for a planner
A planning system and method is disclosed. The planning system includes at least one business rule remote from at least one client, a meeting editor, and at least one tracker communicatively connected to the meeting editor, wherein the at least one tracker tracks at least two data items selected from the group consisting of invitees to at least one of the at least one meetings, respondents to invitations to the meeting, at least one speaker of the meeting, at least one host of the meeting, finances of the meeting, and a venue of the meeting, and wherein the at least one tracker communicates the at least two data items with the meeting editor. |
| US07822626B2 |
Structured data authoring and editing system
The present invention offers an extensive suite of tools that facilitate and enhance the capability within a healthcare institution to establish and maintain an evidence-based best practice approach to providing patient care. Using evidence, term vocabulary and default structured content (order sets) embodiments of the invention enable the localization of said content in a well structured environment. |
| US07822625B2 |
Networked system for interactive communication and remote monitoring of individuals
A system for remotely monitoring an individual. The system includes a server system for generating a script program from a set of queries. The script program is executable by a remote apparatus that displays information and/or a set of queries to the individual through a user interface. Responses to the queries that are entered through the user interface together with individual identification information are sent from the remote apparatus to the server system across a communication network. The server system also includes an automated answering service for providing a series of questions from a stored set of questions for an individual at the remote apparatus to respond to, storing responses to each provided question in the series of questions and providing a service based on the individual's response to the questions. |
| US07822624B2 |
Healthcare eligibility transactions
Methods and systems permit registration of a service provider and permit eligibility information to be provided to the service provider. Registration information is received over a financial network from a point-of-sale terminal. The registration information has an identifier associated with the point-of-sale terminal and an identification of the service provider. The identifier is associated with information identifying a device disposed at a location of the service provider in a database, permitting a communication path to the device to be established. A confirmation of registration of the point-of-sale terminal is transmitted to the device over the communication path. |
| US07822620B2 |
Determining website reputations using automatic testing
An aspect of the present invention relates to methods and systems involving automatically generating a third party assessment of a website's reputation, and storing an indicia of the assessment in a format and location that may be accessible by a client computing facility attempting to interact with the website. |
| US07822619B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing context-sensitive community links
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that provides a context-sensitive “community link,” which enables a system or application user to easily access a community forum related to a specific system or application feature. During operation, the system provides a user with access to the system or application feature. While providing such access, the system displays a community link to the user, wherein the community link is directed to a community forum associated with the system or application feature. When the user selects the community link, the system navigates the user to the community forum associated with the system or application feature, so that the user can exchange information with other users about the system or application feature. |
| US07822618B2 |
Home delivery box and home delivery baggage collecting/delivering system and method therefor
Customers corresponding to a consignor sending a package and a consignee receiving the package install home delivery boxes at their homes, respectively. Information can be transmitted and received through a network between customer terminals and a terminal of a home delivery carrier delivering the package. In the manner described herein, even if the consignor and the consignee are not at their homes, the home delivery carrier can unlock the home delivery boxes by using a memory card to pick up the package from and put the package into the boxes. |
| US07822610B2 |
Use of multiple speech recognition software instances
A wireless communication device is disclosed that accepts recorded audio data from an end-user. The audio data can be in the form of a command requesting user action. Likewise, the audio data can be converted into a text file. The audio data is reduced to a digital file in a format that is supported by the device hardware, such as a .wav, .mp3, .vnf file, or the like. The digital file is sent via secured or unsecured wireless communication to one or more server computers for further processing. In accordance with an important aspect of the invention, the system evaluates the confidence level of the of the speech recognition process. If the confidence level is high, the system automatically builds the application command or creates the text file for transmission to the communication device. Alternatively, if the confidence of the speech recognition is lower, the recorded audio data file is routed to a human transcriber employed by the telecommunications service, who manually reviews the digital voice file and builds the application command or text file. Once the application command is created, it is transmitted to the communication device. As a result of the present invention, speech recognition in the context of a communications devices has been shown to be accurate over 90% of the time. |
| US07822609B2 |
Voice browser with integrated TCAP and ISUP interfaces
A voice browser configured to process voice markup language documents can include a voice processing application and an integrated communications interface for interacting with a voice processing system. The voice browser can be configured to load the voice processing application independently of a received telephone call. The integrated communications interface can include at least one of an integrated transaction capabilities application part component for receiving a transaction capabilities application part query and an integrated ISUP component for receiving a telephony control signal. |
| US07822606B2 |
Method and apparatus for generating audio information from received synthesis information
Methods and apparatus for providing enhanced audio are described. In some embodiments speech synthesis information is used to provide user control of attributes of received broadcast speech, such as language, tone, speed, gender, and volume. In other embodiments, speech synthesis information is transmitted prior to a broadcast audio signal, allowing the receiving node to substitute synthesized speech for the broadcast audio signal if there is an interruption in the audio signal. Still other implementations allow for the synthesizing of speech that is different than the broadcast audio signal, such as background information, associated local information, title, author, etc. Other embodiments allow for the simultaneous transmission of multiple speech programming in a single transmission stream, allowing the user to select one program from the transmitted set of programs for synthesizing speech representative of the selected program. |
| US07822599B2 |
Method for synthesizing speech
The present invention relates to a method for analyzing speech, the method comprising the steps of: a) inputting a speech signal, b) obtaining the first harmonic of the speech signal, c) determining the phase-difference Df between the speech signal and the first harmonic. |
| US07822597B2 |
Bi-dimensional rewriting rules for natural language processing
A linguistic rewriting rule for use in linguistic processing of an ordered sequence of linguistic tokens includes a token pattern recognition rule that matches the ordered sequence of linguistic tokens with a syntactical pattern. The token pattern recognition rule incorporates a character pattern recognition rule to match characters contained in an ambiguous portion of the ordered sequence of linguistic tokens with a character pattern defining a corresponding portion of the syntactical pattern. |
| US07822596B2 |
Flexible display translation
A user interface for displaying source data and a translated copy of a segment of the source data is provided. The user interface includes a first display portion for displaying at least a subset of the source data on the display. The user interface includes a second display portion for displaying a translated copy of a selected segment of source data on the display. |
| US07822594B2 |
Service-oriented infrastructure management
A method for computing includes specifying a data processing system using a logical system definition, which defines logical system components having respective functionalities and a topology for interconnecting the logical system components. The logical system components are represented using respective logical objects in a hierarchical object model. Physical resources of a grid computer system are represented using physical objects in the hierarchical object model. The logical objects are automatically mapped to at least some of the physical objects, so as to allocate the physical resources to carry out the respective functionalities of the logical system components. The allocated physical resources are configured and activated so as to cause the grid computer system to function as the data processing system, in accordance with the logical system definition. |
| US07822589B2 |
Method and apparatus for automatic generation of multiple integrated circuit simulation configuration
A software-based development tool is operative to automatically determine an appropriate simulation configuration for a multistage switch fabric or other multiple circuit element electronic system. The development tool includes an interface permitting user control of one or more configurable parameters of the electronic system, and automatically generates a simulation configuration for the electronic system based on current values of the configurable parameters. The simulation configuration is advantageously generated without requiring further user input, and specifies interconnections between the circuit elements which satisfy the current values of the configurable parameters. |
| US07822585B2 |
System and a method for numerical simulation of wave propagation in homogeneous media
The present invention provides a method to construct stable, high-order explicit discretization for the wave equation based on the discretization of the evolution formula. The present invention provides independent computation of discretization in one, two, or more spaces for bulk propagation, near boundaries propagation, and discretization of a projection operator to enforce boundary conditions. More specifically, the method includes an act of discretizing propagation operators LΔt by using an identity that is derived using central differencing in time. The method also includes an act of providing a high-order discretization of a boundary projection operator that enforces boundary conditions independent of the discretization of the propagation operators LΔt. Additionally, the method includes an act of alternating an application of a discretization of an evolution formula having a spatial filtering operator L0 with a boundary projection operation for stepping forward in time to determine wave propagation in the media. |
| US07822578B2 |
Systems and methods for predicting maintenance of intelligent electronic devices
Predictive maintenance systems and methods are described. A method includes measuring environmental conditions using a plurality of sensors within the IED, processing the environmental measurements to determine long-term exposure factors representing historical operating conditions of the IED, applying a reliability model to the long-term exposure factors, determining a numerical measure of IED life based on the long-term exposure factors and the reliability model, comparing the numerical measure of IED life to preselected boundary values, and signaling if the numerical measure of IED life is outside of the preselected boundary values. |
| US07822577B2 |
Methods and systems to develop an experience-based probabilistic lifing process
A method of facilitating a probabilistic lifting process is provided. The method includes obtaining operational data for at least one turbine engine, defining a plurality of cool-down curves for the at least one turbine engine, identifying a plurality of different start types of the at least one turbine engine, and developing a formula for the at least one turbine engine. The method also includes determining an operating strategy and establishing a design useful life for the at least one turbine engine, developing at least one histogram and a probabilistic model using the operational data, and determining a mission mix for the operating strategy by performing a simulation of the probabilistic model combined with cyclic life expenditure data of the at least one turbine engine. |
| US07822575B2 |
Tilt-angle detecting method and apparatus for a motorcycle
A vehicular tilt-angle detecting apparatus includes a steering-angle sensor, a vehicle speed sensor, a lateral-G sensor, a turning-radius calculation unit, a base tilt-angle calculation unit, a transient tilt-angle calculation unit, and a transient tilt angle calculation unit. The turning-radius calculation unit determines a turning radius corresponding to a steering angle based on a predetermined relationship between a steering angle and a turning radius. The base tilt-angle calculation unit calculates a current instantaneous tilt angle of a vehicle body during short-term steady-state turning based on the turning radius and the vehicle speed. The transient tilt-angle calculation unit corrects the initial calculated tilt angle of the vehicle body based on a transient turning radius when a variation of the steering angle is equal to or greater than a predetermined value. When the variation is less than the predetermined value, the transient tilt-angle calculation unit calculates the lateral-G corrected transient tilt angle. |
| US07822574B2 |
Substrate measuring method, computer-readable recording medium recording program thereon, and substrate processing system
In the present invention, substrates in a plurality of lots are successively processed in a coating and developing treatment system, and line width measurement is performed for some of substrates of the substrate which have been through processing in each lot. The line width measurement of two successive lots is performed such that the last line width measurement in the previous lot of the two successive lots has been completed at the time of completion of processing of a substrate which is first subjected to the line width measurement in the subsequent lot. According to the present invention, the measurement of product substrates can be performed without decreasing the throughput of the product substrates. |
| US07822571B2 |
Calibration device and calibration method for range image sensor
A calibration device for calibrating a range image sensor, detecting a distance of each direction within a detection range and generating a range image data, in a state where the range image sensor is attached at a mobile body, the calibration device includes a data receiving portion for receiving a calibration-subject data including a calibration target, which is set within the detection range and includes a first plane surface and a second plane surface, from the range image sensor, a plane surface specifying portion for specifying each of the first and second plane surfaces in a three-dimensional reference coordinate system, a normal vector calculating portion for three-dimensionally calculating a normal vector of each of the first and second plane surfaces, and a rotation calculating portion for three-dimensionally calculating a rotation of the range image sensor on the basis of an already-recognized posture information and the normal vector. |
| US07822565B2 |
System, method, and apparatus for monitoring characteristics of RF power
A system and method for monitoring RF power is described. In one embodiment the system samples RF power that is generated by an RF generator to obtain RF signals that include information indicative of electrical characteristics at a plurality of particular frequencies that fall within a frequency range. The RF signals are digitized to obtain a stream of digital RF signals that include information indicative of electrical characteristics at the plurality of particular frequencies, and the information indicative of electrical characteristics is successively transformed, for each of the plurality of particular frequencies, from a time domain into a frequency domain. |
| US07822562B2 |
Removing air wave noise from electromagnetic survey data
Method for removing air wave noise from shallow water controlled source electromagnetic survey data, using only the measured data and conductivity values for sea water (140) and air. The method is a calculation performed numerically on CSEM data and resulting in an estimate of those data that would have been acquired had the water layer extended infinitely upward from the seafloor. No properties of the sub-sea sediments are used. Synthetic electromagnetic field data are generated for (a) an all water model (141) and (b) an air-water model (146-147) of the survey region. These simulated results are then used to calculate (148-150) electromagnetic field values corresponding to a water-sediment model with water replacing the air half space, which represent measured data adjusted to remove air wave noise. |
| US07822560B2 |
Methods and apparatuses for wind turbine fatigue load measurement and assessment
Techniques and apparatuses for wind turbine component fatigue load measurement and assessment are disclosed. In one embodiment the component is a tower, fore-aft and side-to-side signals from a two-axis accelerometer attached to a bedplate of a wind turbine are used to measure tower fatigue loads. A yaw axis azimuth position signal can also be used for tower fatigue load measurement and assessment. |
| US07822559B2 |
Methods and systems for detrending signal intensity data from chemical arrays
Methods, systems and computer readable media for removing trends in signal intensity values from features on a chemical array. Inputted signal values from features on the array are surface fitted to calculate a surface approximation. The surface approximation is normalized and used to de-trend the signal intensity values from the features. |
| US07822556B2 |
Expression data analysis systems and methods
Methods and applications of Global Patter Recognition (GPR), including a system for analyzing the results of real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) experiments employing micro-titer and/or microarray plates and robotic plate readers is described. The system employs a set of self-normalizing housekeeping primers or oligonucleotides on the plates/arrays and an algorithmic approach to normalizing expression data from all primers on the plate based on the reaction products of several of the self-normalizing gene primers oligonucleotides. Normalization is accomplished using simplex reactions involving these self-normalizing primers/oligonucleotides; the normalization parameters are then useable across all control and experimental reactions of the plate/array. A ranked list of genes whose amount of change is statistically significant can be determined. The accuracy of this list is enhanced by the data normalization aspect of the system. Other applications of GPR are also disclosed herein. |
| US07822555B2 |
Methods for identifying DNA copy number changes
Methods of identifying allele-specific changes in genomic DNA copy number are disclosed. Methods for identifying homozygous deletions and genetic amplifications are disclosed. An array of probes designed to detect presence or absence of a plurality of different sequences is also disclosed. The probes are designed to hybridize to sequences that are predicted to be present in a reduced complexity sample. The methods may be used to detect copy number changes in cancerous tissue compared to normal tissue. The methods may be used to diagnose cancer and other diseases associated with chromosomal anomalies. |
| US07822554B2 |
Methods and apparatus for analysis of downhole compositional gradients and applications thereof
A method and system are provided for characterizing a reservoir of interest by comparing measured downhole fluid analysis measurement data with predicted downhole fluid analysis measurement data for the corresponding depth within the reservoir. The downhole fluid analysis measurement data may comprise the results of compositional analysis, gas-oil ratio measurements, and spectrophotometry measurements. The compositional analyses may be delumped to characterize the compositional components of the downhole fluid and equations of state may be used to predict compositional gradients and fluid properties with depth. The method and system enable the user to characterize a reservoir as to its states of compartmentalization and equilibrium. |
| US07822552B2 |
Control devices for controlling the position of a marine seismic streamer
A control device or “bird” for controlling the position of a marine seismic streamer is provided with an elongate, partly flexible body which is designed to be electrically and mechanically connected in series with a streamer. In its preferred form, the bird has two opposed wings which are independently controllable in order to control the streamer's lateral position as well as its depth. |
| US07822548B2 |
Navigation apparatus, vehicle lending system, and vehicle lending method
A navigation apparatus of the invention includes a display portion that displays a guidance screen and a removably installed recording medium, the navigation apparatus being provided in a vehicle and guiding the vehicle along a guidance path. When candidate site data created in an external apparatus has been stored on the storage medium, a screen for selectively setting the end point of the guidance path based on the candidate site data is displayed in the display portion, and when setting the end point, a guidance path that arrives at the end point is calculated. The candidate site data includes information related to one or a plurality of locations that have been designated in advance by a user of the navigation apparatus, and the end point is selected from the one or plurality of locations. |
| US07822547B2 |
Apparatus and method for enhancing the utilization of distance measuring devices
Systems, apparatuses and methods for enhancing the utilization of distance measuring devices using electronic communication devices. A route(s) presentable via a map or map segment may be presented via a mobile device. A distance walked, jogged, or otherwise traveled by a user of the mobile device can be determined using a distance measuring device, such as a step counter. The resulting distance traveled is associated with the presented route to indicate an approximate location of the user on the presented route. The route may be any imaginary or virtual route, whereby the user's actual distance traveled on his/her actual route is depicted on the map/map segment as traveling on the virtual route. Communication tools allow data to be obtained, messages to be communicated, and other services to be performed at certain times and/or in connection with reached locations along the route. |
| US07822546B2 |
Travel guide and schedule-based routing device and method
A navigational aid device is provided that includes a GPS module, a processor, and memory. The device is configured to automatically determine a route to a destination and to account for, in its determination of a route, a plurality of modes of public, private, or both public and private transportation. Some of these configurations may also be configured to recommend a mode or modes of transportation to take to get to a destination, and/or accept user preferences in recommending a route or the mode or modes of transportation to take to get to the destination. |
| US07822544B2 |
Method and system of providing navigation information
A method and system of providing navigation information is provided. The method comprises obtaining (105) a communication requirement of a user and determining (110) at least one navigation route for the user based on the communication requirement dependent upon network considerations along the route. The method further comprises providing (115) the at least one navigation route to the user based on the communication requirement. |
| US07822542B2 |
Location information exchange apparatus and location information exchange method
A location information exchange apparatus includes an information acquisition unit 4 for acquiring point information indicating an exchange point whose location is to be exchanged from a map database 6 according to an instruction from outside the apparatus; an information conversion unit 3 for converting this point information into location information comprised of specific point information 3 indicating a specific point which exists in common among map databases and related information 9 indicating a relative location with respect to this specific point; and a communications unit 2 for transmitting point exchange information 29 including the location information to outside the apparatus. The communications unit further receives point exchange information from outside the apparatus, and the information conversion unit converts location information included in the received point exchange information into point information, and determines an exchange point on the map database on the basis of the point information. |
| US07822536B2 |
Start-up control device for internal combustion engine
In a speed transition period from when an internal combustion engine is started to when an engine speed settles down to a certain speed, a compression top dead center of a cylinder first operating is set as a reference crank angle and compression top dead centers of the cylinders arriving successively after said reference crank angle in the speed transition period are set as judgment use crank angles. Reference crank angle advancing times are detected and stored in advance, wherein the reference crank angle advancing times are crank angle advancing times when a reference fuel is used, and the crank angle advancing times are times required for the crank angle to advance from the reference crank angle to the judgment use crank angles. The actual crank angle advancing times are detected. When an actual crank angle advancing time is shorter than the reference crank angle advancing time, the ignition timing is retarded by an amount corresponding to a difference of the actual crank angle advancing time from the reference crank angle advancing time. When the actual crank angle advancing time is longer than the reference crank angle advancing time, the ignition timing is advanced by an amount corresponding to the difference. |
| US07822531B2 |
Stratified charge gasoline direct injection systems using exhaust gas recirculation
An aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method and system for reducing emissions and improving knock-tolerance in an engine. Air, including exhaust gas present at levels greater than 20% by total air mass, may be introduced into a combustion chamber having a volume including a piston and a cylinder head. A first amount of fuel and a second amount of fuel may be directly injected into the combustion chamber at various points during the cycle, wherein the ratio of the air, including the exhaust gas, to the first and second amounts of fuel is 14.0:1 to 15.0:1. The first and second amounts of fuel may then be ignited. An electronic control unit may be utilized to time the injections and control the introduction of exhaust gas. |
| US07822530B2 |
Gas-fueled internal combustion engine and control method for gas-fueled internal combustion engine
In a gas-fueled internal combustion engine, an ignition device (16, 6O, 62, 64, 66) is arranged in a moving direction of a stream of the gaseous fuel injected from an in-cylinder injection valve (40) in a combustion chamber. The ignition device can directly ignite the fuel stream and diffusive combustion of the gaseous fuel can be executed by sequentially injecting the gaseous fuel toward a flame created by the ignition. Further, premix combustion of the gaseous fuel can also be performed by igniting an air-fuel mixture after the gaseous fuel injected from the in-cylinder injection valve has been sufficiently mixed with the air. As an operation mode of the engine, a lean premix combustion operation is selected when the engine is operated in a prescribed operation region, and the operation mode is changed to a diffusive combustion operation when the engine is operated in a higher load operation region than the prescribed operation region. |
| US07822527B2 |
Method and device for transmitting an identifier for the type of a generator to a control unit of a motor vehicle
A method for transmitting an identifier for the type of a generator from the regulator of the generator to a control unit of a motor vehicle having the following steps: detection of a starting process of the motor vehicle and automatic transmission of the identifier from the regulator via an analog signal line to the control unit following the detection of the starting process. Furthermore, also described is a device for transmitting an identifier for the type of a generator, having a generator, a regulator provided for regulating the generator and a control unit connected to the regulator via an analog signal line, the regulator being provided so as to transmit automatically the identifier via the analog signal line to the control unit following a detection of a starting process. |
| US07822526B2 |
Vehicle headway maintenance assist system and method
A vehicle headway maintenance assist system is provided that provides a haptic notification to an accelerator to alert the driver under prescribed conditions. The system changes a drive force/accelerator actuation relationship between an accelerator actuation amount and a target drive force or torque under the prescribed conditions. In particular, system changes a first drive force/accelerator actuation relationship to a second drive force/accelerator actuation relationship based on a vehicle running condition that was detected so that the driver more readily notices the haptic notification (e.g., an accelerator actuation reaction force) when the haptic notification is being applied to the accelerator to alert the driver under the prescribed conditions. |
| US07822523B2 |
Seat apparatus for vehicle
A seat apparatus for vehicle includes a vehicle state detecting device detecting a vehicle state, at least one position changing device changing a position of a seat, a controlling device controlling the position changing means on the basis of the vehicle state detected by the vehicle state detecting device, and the position changing device tilts an entire or a portion of a right portion of the seat and a left portion of the seat in a forward direction. |
| US07822522B2 |
Adaptive energy absorption system for a vehicle seat
An adaptive energy absorption system for a vehicle seat is disclosed, utilizing an adaptive energy absorber or variable profile energy absorber (VPEA) for mitigating occupant injury due to extreme vehicle movement (e.g., during a vehicle shock event), and/or for mitigating vibration experienced by an occupant of the vehicle seat during normal vehicle operating conditions. The adaptive energy absorption system achieves the aforementioned objectives for a wide range of occupant weights and load levels. Various configurations of dual-goal energy absorption apparatuses that enable both shock mitigation and vibration isolation are disclosed. |
| US07822513B2 |
System and method for monitoring a mobile computing product/arrangement
Described is a mobile computing arrangement having a sensor detecting first motion data of the arrangement and a memory to store second motion data, the second motion data including a threshold value. A comparison module compares the first motion data to the second motion data and an actuation module initiates an action for the arrangement when the first motion data exceeds the threshold value. |
| US07822512B2 |
Methods and systems for providing real-time comparison with an alternate control strategy for a turbine
A method for controlling and modeling a turbine is provided. The method may include modeling the turbine by a primary adaptive turbine model that includes at least one primary operating parameter and modeling the turbine by an alternate adaptive turbine model that includes at least one alternate operating parameter. The method may also include determining a first output value from the primary adaptive turbine model that corresponds at least in part to the operation of the turbine based on a primary control strategy and adjusting the alternate operating parameter or parameters based on an alternate control strategy and based at least in part on the first output value. The method may further include determining comparison data based at least in part on a comparison between the primary control strategy and the alternate control strategy. |
| US07822510B2 |
Systems, methods, and products for graphically illustrating and controlling a droplet actuator
Systems for controlling a droplet microactuator are provided. According to one embodiment, a system is provided and includes a controller, a droplet microactuator electronically coupled to the controller, and a display device displaying a user interface electronically coupled to the controller, wherein the system is programmed and configured to permit a user to effect a droplet manipulation by interacting with the user interface. According to another embodiment, a system is provided and includes a processor, a display device electronically coupled to the processor, and software loaded and/or stored in a storage device electronically coupled to the controller, a memory device electronically coupled to the controller, and/or the controller and programmed to display an interactive map of a droplet microactuator. According to yet another embodiment, a system is provided and includes a controller, a droplet microactuator electronically coupled to the controller, a display device displaying a user interface electronically coupled to the controller, and software for executing a protocol loaded and/or stored in a storage device electronically coupled to the controller, a memory device electronically coupled to the controller, and/or the controller. |
| US07822502B2 |
Method of calculating coordinates at cutting work completion in shoulder cutting by means of rotating tool
Using parameters such as diameters of a rough cutter and a finishing cutter, a position of a tool at cutting work completion in a rough work, a finishing cutting area, specifications of a rotating tool (the number of cutting edges, a cutting force eigenvalue, a compliance transfer function), etc., a cutting force acting on a cutting edge of the rotating tool is found, and results thereof are made use of to analyze a characteristic equation being a loop transfer function of a vibration system composed of the rotating tool and a work, whereby it is possible to predict presence of generation of self-excited vibration of the finishing cutter performed after a rough work in a shoulder cutting work. Thereby, the rotating tool operates stably in a finishing work and besides shoulder cutting of a work can be performed in a high work efficiency. |
| US07822501B2 |
Embroidery data creation apparatus and computer readable recording medium including embroidery data creation computer program
An embroidery data creation apparatus for adjusting the density of needle drop points, and a computer readable recording medium having an embroidery data creation program recorded therein which includes instructions for adjusting the density of needle drop points. The embroidery data creation apparatus may include a device for judging whether a needle drop point is a turning point, a device for determining a reference point, a device for determining whether a turning point is within a predetermined area from the reference point, and a device for changing a coordinate of the turning point, deleting the turning point, or maintaining of a coordinate of the turning point. |
| US07822499B2 |
Production design support facility, production design support program, production design verification device and production design verification program
Cooperation management means for cooperating and managing an assembly procedure data formed by showing a combination of assembly enabled components and an assembling order thereof and a component object data for displaying the components in a virtual space as a component object; object display means for displaying the component object in the virtual space based on the component object data; coordinate data acquisition means for acquiring coordinate data of the component object displayed in the virtual space by the object display means; and element working time output means for outputting the element working time required for an assembly of the components, based on assembly procedure data related to the above objects and cooperatively managed by the cooperation means are provided. |
| US07822496B2 |
Audio signal processing method and apparatus
An audio signal processing method and apparatus in which the apparatus includes a plurality of digital filters, each supplied with an audio signal, and a speaker array. Outputs from the digital filters are supplied to speakers included in the speaker array to form a sound field. A predetermined delay time is set in each of the digital filters, to thereby form, in the sound field, a point where the sound pressure is higher than in the surrounding and a point where the sound pressure is lower than in the surrounding. A low-pass filter characteristic is given to the frequency response of the digital filters and a pseudo pulse train is used to enhance the setting resolution of the delay time. |
| US07822491B2 |
System for improving timekeeping and saving energy on long-haul trains
A method and system for the operation of trains on a rail network, and particularly in the context of long-haul rail networks. The invention provides a method and system which monitors the progress of a train on a long-haul network, calculates efficient control profiles for the train, and displays driving advice to the train crew. The system calculates and provides driving advice that assists to keep the train on time and reduce the energy used by the train by: (i) monitoring the progress of a journey to determine the current location and speed of the train; (ii) estimating some parameters of a train performance model; (iii) calculating or selecting an energy-efficient driving strategy that will get the train to the next key location as close as possible to the desired time; and (iv) generating and providing driving advice for the driver. |
| US07822489B2 |
Electronic device control apparatus, method for controlling electronic device, electronic device control program, and computer-readable recording medium having recorded electronic device control program
A device communication portion receives operational status data, and an operational status accumulation portion accumulates the operational status data. A link information management portion manages operational status link information containing trigger device information to specify the operational status of a single home appliance among plural home appliances and linked device information to specify another home appliance that activates in association with the operational status of the single home appliance. An operational status read portion extracts operational status data corresponding to the operational status in the trigger device information and extracts operational status data corresponding to the linked device information. An associated control information setting portion generates associated control information containing the operational status of the single home appliance and used as the condition to start the associated control of a single electronic device and another electronic device and the content of control on the another home appliance. |
| US07822485B2 |
Method and apparatus for spinal cooling
A method for exchanging heat with a patient's spinal column incident to spinal surgery or to relieve a patient for a hypoxia condition of the spine. A closed loop heat exchange catheter is percutaneously advanced into the retroperitoneal space of the patient, and then heat exchange fluid is circulated through the catheter to cool the spinal column. |
| US07822483B2 |
Electrical and activation field models for configuring stimulation therapy
The disclosure describes a method and system that generates an electrical field model of defined stimulation therapy and displays the electrical field model to a user via a user interface. The electrical field model is generated based upon a patient anatomy and stimulation parameters to illustrate which areas of a patient anatomical region will be covered by the electrical field during therapy. In addition, a neuron model may be applied to the electrical field model to generate an activation field model. The activation field model indicates which neurons will be activated by the electrical field in the anatomical region. These field models may be used by a clinician to determine effective therapy prior to stimulation delivery. In particular, the field models may be beneficial when programming non axi-symmetric, or three-dimensional (3D), leads which allow greater flexibility in creating stimulation fields. |
| US07822482B2 |
Electrical stimulation lead with rounded array of electrodes
An implantable electrical lead may include a rounded array of electrodes. The array of electrodes may be distributed across a rounded surface to position the electrodes in various positions and orientations relative to a target stimulation site. The lead may be useful in a variety of applications such as spinal cord stimulation to alleviate chronic pain, gastrointestinal stimulation to alleviate gastroparesis or obesity, pelvic floor stimulation to alleviate incontinence or sexual dysfunction, or deep brain stimulation to alleviate neurological disorders. |
| US07822478B2 |
Compressed neural coding
An embodiment of the present invention takes masking effects into consideration when determining stimulations signals for neural stimulation. These masking effects may be modeled using user-specific models determined by taking measurements for an implant system of an implant recipient. Or, the model may correspond to a group of individuals sharing a common characteristic or the population as a whole. These models may be, for example, psycho-physical or electrophysiological models. |
| US07822476B2 |
Electrode line and terminal part for an implantable heart stimulator
A terminal part for an electrode line for connection to an implantable heart stimulator, the terminal part having multiple annular, electrically conductive contacts of equal external diameter having insulation sections of the same external diameter situated between them in the longitudinal direction, of which the electrically conductive contacts are each electrically connected to an electrically conductive terminal line, the terminal part being formed by multiple insulating adapters and by electrical contacts held thereby having terminal lines fastened thereon, which are plugged together and connected using a thermoplastic injection molding compound after being plugged together, the terminal part otherwise being implemented in such a way that it is to be connected as an independent unit to a remaining electrode line. |
| US07822470B2 |
Method for determining the left-ventricular ejection time TLVE of a heart of a subject
In order to reliably determine the left-ventricular ejection time TLVE of a heart of a subject, at least two different measuring methods are employed. This includes in any case the derivation of a first waveform related to thoracic electrical bioimpedance or bioadmittance. A second waveform can be determined by using pulse oximetry, Doppler velocimetry, measurement of arterial blood pressure and measurement of peripheral electrical bioimpedance or bioadmittance. Depending on signal quality, the results obtained by each method are weighted and then averaged. The weighted average for left-ventricular ejection time is used as an input variable for cardiovascular monitoring methods, which determine objective measurements of cardiovascular function and performance. Such measurements include, but are not limited to, left ventricular ejection fraction, stroke volume, cardiac output, systolic time ratio, and indices of ventricular contractility. |
| US07822468B2 |
Method and an arrangement for the determination of the optical properties of a multi-layered tissue
The present invention relates to a method and an arrangement for the determination of the optical properties of a multi-layered tissue. More specifically, the invention relates to a method for the detection and characterisation of tumors in a tissue. |
| US07822467B2 |
Method for producing CT images of a cyclically moving object to be examined
A method is for producing CT images of at least one second organ cyclically excited to move by a first organ moving on its own, or examination area with rest phases and activity phases of a patient. The second organ or the examination area is scanned, preferably spirally. A three-dimensional image of the absorption coefficient is determined with the aid of a multiplicity of cutting planes on the basis of the data obtained by scanning in the rest phase of the second organ or examination area, and the movement information required to determine the rest phase is collected from the first organ. |
| US07822463B2 |
Method for delivering a device to a target location
An autonomous device that may include for example a camera, a transmitter for transmitting a signal from the camera and a storage compartment for retaining a substance in the device. A method of delivering a medicament to a patient including imaging a gastro intestinal tract with an autonomous device, identifying a target location in such tract, and releasing a medicament from the device at the target location. |
| US07822461B2 |
System and method for endoscopic path planning
A system and method for endoscopic path planning is provided. The method comprises: identifying a target in a lung, wherein the target is located in a peripheral airway of the lung; generating an endoscopic path to the target, wherein a peripheral artery is used as a surrogate for the peripheral airway; and viewing the endoscopic path. |
| US07822460B2 |
MRI-guided therapy methods and related systems
A system and method for using magnetic resonance imaging to increase the accuracy of electrophysiologic procedures is disclosed. The system in its preferred embodiment provides an invasive combined electrophysiology and imaging antenna catheter which includes an RF antenna for receiving magnetic resonance signals and diagnostic electrodes for receiving electrical potentials. The combined electrophysiology and imaging antenna catheter is used in combination with a magnetic resonance imaging scanner to guide and provide visualization during electrophysiologic diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. The invention further provides a system for eliminating the pickup of RF energy in which intracardiac wires are detuned by filtering so that they become very inefficient antennas. An RF filtering system is provided for suppressing the MR imaging signal while not attenuating the RF ablative current. Steering means may be provided for steering the invasive catheter under MR guidance. |
| US07822457B2 |
Compression paddle membrane and tensioning apparatus for compressing tissue for medical imaging purposes
Apparatus for compressing tissue to be scanned for medical imaging is provided. The apparatus may comprise a compression membrane and a tensioning apparatus coupled to the membrane to apply a tensile force to the membrane to place the membrane in a taut condition during an imaging process. In one exemplary application that combines ultrasound scanning with X-ray mammography, the compressing apparatus enables accurate, reproducible ultrasound images reducing distortion and attenuation, which may otherwise be introduced as a consequence of such a combination of imaging processes. |
| US07822456B2 |
Locating a mid-sagittal plane
Volumes of interest may be defined, within a three-dimensional brain image, for each of three orthogonal directions. Measures, which may, for example, be energy or entropy measures, are determined for slices of the volumes of interest in the three directions. The volume of interest corresponding to the sagittal direction is then identified. The slice, among the slices in the volume of interest corresponding to the identified sagittal direction, having the optical measure is used to define a first estimate of the mid-sagittal plane. The first estimate of the mid-sagittal plane may then be used to build an input to an optimization technique, which operates until a convergence criterion is satisfied, at which point a final estimate of the mid-sagittal plane may be produced.125 |
| US07822450B2 |
Optical-based sensing devices
The present invention provides an electro-optical sensing device for detecting the presence or concentration of an analyte. More particularly, the invention relates to (but is not in all cases necessarily limited to) optical-based sensing devices which are characterized by being totally self-contained, with a smooth and rounded oblong, oval, or elliptical shape (e.g., a bean- or pharmaceutical capsule-shape) and a size which permits the device to be implanted in humans for in-situ detection of various analytes. |
| US07822448B2 |
Protective apparatus for a portable device
The invention provided a protective apparatus for a portable device and accessories of the portable device. The protective apparatus includes a sleeve housing for accommodating the portable device, a cable retainer for coiling at least part of a cable portion of the accessory of the portable device, and a receptacle for receiving at least part of a bulky portion of the accessory of the portable device. The cable retainer is fixed on a back panel of the sleeve housing includes a cable holder for coiling the cable portion therearound, and a slidable ring movable relative to the cable holder and configured for securing the coiled cable portion in position around the cable holder. The protective apparatus has a simple design for easy manipulation and removal of the cable portion as well as the bulky portion. |
| US07822446B2 |
Portable electronic device with compliant sliding hinge
A portable electronic device including electronic circuitry; and a housing having the electronic circuitry mounted therein. The housing includes a first housing section movably connected to a second housing section by a compliant hinge arrangement. The compliant hinge arrangement includes at least one living hinge. The first and second sections are adapted to longitudinally slide relative to each other. |
| US07822444B2 |
Cellular phone
A plurality of operation portions are arranged at a surface on a sub-display side of a cellular phone with a camera so that various kinds of setting, selection and control can be performed without opening the cellular phone in its folded state, and the cellular phone can achieve improved operability and convenience. Cellular phone includes a first display portion at a surface of a first body opposed to a second body in the folded state, and includes a second display portion, an image taking portion and a plurality of operation portions arranged at a rear surface of the first body remote from the first display portion. |
| US07822443B2 |
Mobile communication terminal and information display method thereof
An information display method in a mobile communication terminal. The method includes displaying information on a display unit of the mobile terminal, generating a scrolling start signal, and scrolling the information with a positive acceleration based on the generated scrolling start signal. |
| US07822442B2 |
Method and system for partitioning an antenna array and applying multiple-input-multiple-output and beamforming mechanisms
A system and method are provided for configuring an antenna array having a predetermined number of antennas. After providing an antenna correlation matrix for all antennas with regard to a mobile terminal, the antenna array is virtually partitioned into two or more sub-arrays based on the antenna correlation matrix such that correlations among antennas within each sub-array are higher than correlations among antennas belonging to different sub-arrays. One or more beamforming weights are generated corresponding to each antenna within the sub-arrays for applying to one or more signals transmitted therefrom, and at least one predetermined multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) mechanism is further applied among the sub-arrays by treating each sub-array as a virtual antenna. |
| US07822440B2 |
Method and apparatus for operating a communication station
A method for operating a communication station in a communicating environment includes: (a) monitoring the environment to ascertain whether the station is receiving an unintended sensed signal not intended for the station from at least one signal source; (b) if the station has not received a predetermined number of unintended sensed signals during a predetermined time interval, operating the station in an omni-directional mode; and (c) if the station has received a predetermined number of sensed signals during the predetermined time interval, saving an indication of a reception direction from which arrived each unintended sensed signal; and operating the station in a directional mode. While in the directional mode, the station is sensitive to receiving signals arriving from a sensing direction other than from a reception direction, and the station transmits signals toward the sensing direction. |
| US07822435B2 |
Communication terminal unit capable of receiving a message and method for identifying a message sender in the same
A communication terminal unit capable of identifying a message sender by comparing a source address attached to a received message with an address registered in a memory of the unit in advance, which can identify the message sender even if the source address has an error by regarding the erroneous source address to be the same as the registered address when the difference between these two addresses is within a predetermined permissible range. |
| US07822428B1 |
Mobile rich media information system
A system and method is described for providing an interactive rich media information service to users of mobile devices. The rich media information is presented to users in a plurality of interactive rich media channels. A subscriber-specific data stream is received at the mobile device containing channel data for each of the rich media channel that the user has subscribed to. The channel data is separated and stored corresponding to each such subscribed-to channel. An interactive multimedia runtime container (iMRC). is executed on the mobile device for each subscribed-to channel. The rich media channels are played on the iMRC and displayed on the display of the mobile device. Using the user interface elements of the mobile device, the user may navigate through the information on the channels, navigate between different channels, subscribe or un-subscribe to channels, and enter user preferences for further tailoring the information presented in the subscribed-to channels. |
| US07822426B1 |
System and method for snapping a user location to a landmark of known location
In one embodiment, an initial estimated location of a mobile electronic device is determined using a location determination method (LDM). An accuracy for the LDM is determined. An initial set of landmarks is determined based upon the initial estimated location and the determined accuracy. For each landmark in the initial set of landmarks, a likelihood is calculated that the mobile electronic device is located about that landmark. A landmark from the initial set of landmarks is selected based on the likelihoods. The location of the mobile electronic device is set to a known location of the selected landmark. |
| US07822424B2 |
Method and system for rangefinding using RFID and virtual triangulation
A wireless system (20) and method for determining the location of a fixed or mobile target (31, 32, 33 . . . ) configured to have a transponder (31, 64) on the target (31, 32, 33 . . . ), a transceiver (21, 44) monitoring the target location, communicating between the transponder (31, 64) and transceiver (21, 44), and a processor (40) for finding the target by virtual triangulation based on values of received position information. The processor (40) is configured to determine virtual triangulation based on successive values of the position information using at least three points (P1, P2 and P3) of the transponder (31) respective of the transceiver (21). The present invention discloses methods for finding with virtual triangulation by: (a) finding with virtual triangulation by generating position information in real-time, in the case of (i) stationary and moving target, and or (ii) in the case of the presence of obstacles; (b) finding with virtual triangulation relating to the average speed of the motion of operator; and or (c) finding with simplified virtual triangulation. |
| US07822422B2 |
Wireless communication system for improved transmission priority control
A wireless communication system is composed of a client station, and a base station adapted to communicate with the client station through a wireless medium. The client station is designed to defer a transmission of a packet to the base station for a period of time when the wireless medium is busy. The period of time is controlled in response to a communication protocol used for communications between the base station and the client station. |
| US07822418B2 |
Device playback using radio transmission
Implementations related to media playback and storage devices are presented herein. |
| US07822408B2 |
Methods of recording voice signals in a mobile set
Systems and methods for processing information are disclosed and may include comparing a plurality of signals having identical time stamps. The method may further include identifying which of the plurality of signals comprise voice signals and which of the plurality of signals comprise corresponding non-voice signals based on the comparison. Data, which includes the voice signals and the corresponding non-voice signals, may be sequentially arranged for storage. The data, which includes the voice signals and the corresponding non-voice signals, may be arranged in a single file. The data, which includes the voice signals and the corresponding non-voice signals, may be recorded to a single file in memory element. The voice signals may be arranged so that the data including the corresponding non-voice signals is sequential. The non-voice signals may include video data, text-messaging data, and/or e-mail data. |
| US07822401B2 |
Apparatus and method for down-converting electromagnetic signals by controlled charging and discharging of a capacitor
Methods, systems, and apparatuses for down-converting and up-converting an electromagnetic signal. In embodiments, the invention operates by receiving an electromagnetic signal and recursively operating on approximate half cycles of a carrier signal. The recursive operations can be performed at a sub-harmonic rate of the carrier signal. The invention accumulates the results of the recursive operations and uses the accumulated results to form a down-converted signal. In embodiments, up-conversion is accomplished by controlling a switch with an oscillating signal, the frequency of the oscillating signal being selected as a sub-harmonic of the desired output frequency. When the invention is being used in the frequency modulation or phase modulation implementations, the oscillating signal is modulated by an information signal before it causes the switch to gate a bias signal. The output of the switch is filtered, and the desired harmonic is output. |
| US07822397B2 |
Method and apparatus for frequency hopping medium access control in a wireless network
A method and apparatus for medium access control in a receiver is shown, involving frequency hopping through each of a plurality of channel frequencies for the receiver, monitoring a baseband section of the receiver using a data quality detector (DQD) circuit configured to assert a DQD signal when valid data is sensed at the output of a demodulator of the receiver, waiting a first preset period of time after changing the channel frequency for each frequency hop and monitoring whether the DQD signal is asserted, resuming frequency hopping if the DQD signal is not asserted within the first preset period of time, and maintaining a current channel frequency in order to receive a data packet if the DQD is asserted. |
| US07822393B2 |
Transmission apparatus and communication apparatus
The transmission apparatus according to the present invention can reduce transmission output noise leaking into the receiving apparatus even when the transmission apparatus is applied to wireless equipment using the W-CDMA scheme. Transmission apparatus (100) has bypass circuit (101) and bypass control circuit (103) that inputs an RF phase signal to power amplifier (14) via amplitude adjustment circuit (16) when bypass circuit (101) and power amplifier (14) are operated in non-saturation mode, and that inputs the RF phase signal to power amplifier (14) via bypass circuit (101) when power amplifier (14) is operated in saturation mode. |
| US07822389B2 |
Methods and apparatus to provide an auxiliary receive path to support transmitter functions
Methods and apparatus to provide an auxiliary receive path to support transmitter functions are disclosed. An example transceiver includes an antenna and a duplexer coupled to the antenna. A transmitter is coupled to the duplexer to output a transmit signal at a transmit frequency. A receiver is coupled to the duplexer to receive a received signal at a receiver frequency. A signal processor is coupled to the transmitter and receiver. An auxiliary receiver is communicatively coupled to the signal processor to receive the transmit signal output from the transmitter and send an auxiliary receiver signal to the signal processor. The signal processor adjusts the transmit signal based on the auxiliary receiver signal. |
| US07822383B2 |
Semiconductor integrated circuit and wireless communication device
The present invention relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit and a wireless communication apparatus that can be reduced in size without deteriorating a receiving sensitivity and a transmission efficiency. Communication with an external reader/writer and an external non-contact IC card is carried out through a common antenna 211. The signal received from the external reader/writer or the external non-contact IC card through the antenna is supplied to an ASK demodulation circuit 149 and demodulated. The signal received from the external reader/writer is full-wave rectified and smoothed by an full-wave rectification and smoothing circuit composed of diodes 231, 232 and a capacitor 233, and the power obtained from the full-wave rectified and smoothed signal is supplied to respective units of a semiconductor integrated circuit 101. The present invention can be applied to a mobile phone. |
| US07822378B2 |
Sheet finisher and image forming system using the same
A sheet finisher for performing preselected processing with a sheet or a sheet stack conveyed thereto of the present invention includes a cutter unit configured to cut the sheet or the sheet stack in a direction perpendicular to a direction of sheet conveyance. A guide member is positioned upstream of the cutter unit in the direction of sheet conveyance for guiding the sheet or the sheet stack being conveyed. A moving device moves the guide member in a direction parallel to the direction of sheet conveyance. |
| US07822377B2 |
Cover assembly of image capturing device
A cover assembly of an image capturing device is provided. The image capturing device includes a housing having a platen for supporting the document. The cover assembly includes a buffer, a background sheet and a stretching-compressing mechanism. The cover is pivotally connected to the housing and has an inner surface facing the platen. The buffer is disposed on the inner surface, and the background sheet is disposed on the buffer. The stretching-compressing mechanism connects the buffer and the inner surface for being compressed or stretched to apply a force on the buffer and the background sheet to make the buffer and the background sheet press the document on the platen or to make an end of each of the background sheet and the buffer part raised from the document and the other parts of the background sheet and the buffer press the document on the platen. |
| US07822376B2 |
Sheet feeder and copying machine including the same
A sheet feeder includes: a sheet-length detection member for detecting a length of a sheet; a transfer-length detection member for detecting a transfer length of the sheet; a double-feed detection member for detecting double feed of the sheets when the sheets are transferred while being overlapped with one another; and a control member for controlling the sheet-length detection member, the transfer-length detection member and the double-feed detection member; wherein the control member determines that double feed of the sheets has occurred, when the transfer length of the sheet is greater than the length of the sheet and a length obtained by subtracting a difference between the transfer length of the sheet and the length of the sheet from the length of the sheet is substantially equal to a double-feed length detected by the double-feed detection member. |
| US07822371B2 |
Toner container and image forming apparatus
A toner container includes a longitudinal container body, a held portion, and a standing inhibiting unit. The container body has a first end and a second end distal to the first end in length direction of the container body. The held portion is attached to the first end and has a toner outlet for discharging the toner contained in the container body. The held portion is held by the toner-container holder. The standing inhibiting unit is provided in the held portion and inhibits the toner container from being stood on a horizontal plane with the held portion directed vertically downward with respect to the container body. |
| US07822370B2 |
Toner cartridge
The invention provides toner cartridges that deliver toner in a metered fashion to an image forming apparatus. The cartridges have a delivery mechanism comprising a toner delivery member that delivers toner to the supply port as it is rotated. Depending upon the orientation of the delivery mechanism, the toner delivery member can at least partially block or at least partially allow the free flow of toner out of the supply port, as desired. The delivery mechanism of the invention can be used to deliver toner, developer, or any such powder out of a container. |
| US07822369B2 |
Developer supplying apparatus
A developer supplying apparatus of the present invention includes a toner bottle, a bottle supporting member that is in the shape of substantially a cylinder, and a shutter mechanism for opening and closing a toner discharging opening formed on the bottle supporting member. The shutter mechanism includes (i) a shutter member which is slidably provided on the bottle supporting member and opens/closes the toner discharging opening, and (ii) a protruding portion which is provided on the toner bottle, and when the shutter member is located at such a position that the toner discharging opening is closed, engages with a part of the shutter member so as to stop rotation of the toner bottle. Thus, it is possible to realize the developer supplying apparatus which can stably supply a toner to a development device at high speed. |
| US07822366B2 |
Image forming apparatus and developing unit thereof
An image forming apparatus to enhance a user's convenience by adequately designing developer storage capacities of developing devices in consideration of an amount of consumed developer includes an image carrier, and plural developing devices arranged along a rotational direction of the image carrier to supply a developer to the image carrier. The plural developing devices include a first developing device having a largest developer storage capacity, and a second developing device disposed in a most downstream side with respect to the rotational direction of the image carrier. The second developing device has a second largest developer storage capacity. |
| US07822364B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes an apparatus main-body and a process cartridge. A female connector is arranged on a developing roller shaft in the process cartridge. The female connector has an open-ended ring-like space formed between an outer ring and an inner ring. A plurality of track grooves are arranged on the circumference of at least one of the outer ring and the inner ring. One end of a cartridge driving shaft is supported in the apparatus main-body, while the other end thereof facing the process cartridge is movable in a radial direction. A male connector is arranged on the movable end of the cartridge driving shaft. A front portion of the male connector is a cylindrical spherical-body holding portion that rotatably holds a plurality of spherical bodies. When the spherical-body holding portion enters into the ring-like space, the spherical bodies slide along the track grooves. |
| US07822362B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes: an apparatus body; a first rotating body having a first end supported on the apparatus body rotatably about an axis so that the first rotating body is rotatable between an adjacent state and a distant state in which a second end is more distant from the apparatus body than the adjacent state; an arm having a first end rotatably supported on the apparatus body, and a second end connected to the first rotating body to be slidable in a direction perpendicular to the axis; and an urging member having a first end connected to the arm, and a second end connected to the first rotating body at a position between the axis and a connecting portion to which the arm is connected, the urging member urges the arm in a direction of drawing the second end of the arm toward the axis. |
| US07822361B2 |
Image forming apparatus having two fixing devices with sheet-paths of differing lengths
An image forming apparatus includes: an apparatus body; an image forming unit; a first fixing device; and a second fixing device, the first and second fixing device being selectively attached, and the apparatus body including: a first attaching region that is formed by detaching the first fixing device; a sheet-discharging region in which, in a case where the first fixing device is attached to the apparatus body, a sheet subjected to a fixing operation by the first fixing device is discharged into an upper portion of the apparatus body while downwardly directing a face on which the fixing operation is performed; and a second attaching region to which the second fixing device is attached, and that includes the first attaching region and the sheet-discharging region. |
| US07822359B2 |
Image forming apparatus having a control device which is rotatably linked
An image forming apparatus that can improve the workability during maintenance, and the compactness and neatness of the signal line and the power source line, and moreover can lower the cost by eliminating the fall preventing member. The image forming apparatus has: an engine main body which has an image forming device, a transfer device, a fixer, and a transporter. There is a rear surface unit which has housed items such as a power source device, a control device, and an exhaust device, and which is configured to be detachable from the engine main body. One end of the control device is rotatably linked to the engine main body while the other end thereof is rotatably linked to the unit main body. |
| US07822356B2 |
Image forming apparatus
The present invention provides an image forming apparatus in which the cleaning performance of a cleaning brush is preserved over time while affording a smaller apparatus main body. During a print job, toner recovered from a charging roller to a cleaning brush is transferred from the cleaning brush to a cleaning auxiliary roller, thereby preventing excessive accumulation of toner in the cleaning brush. During non print job times, toner accumulated in the cleaning brush is transferred to the charging roller directly and via the cleaning auxiliary roller, whereby the cleaning brush becomes clean while preserving its cleaning performance. Also, toner transferred to the charging roller is transferred to a photosensitive unit is recovered into a developing device, which does away with the need for a dedicated recovery toner holding portion for recovering residual toner, thereby reducing the size of the apparatus main body. |
| US07822350B2 |
Reconstruction and restoration of two polarization components of an optical signal field
Digital compensation of the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) effects experienced by an optical signal in a transmission link is achieved. A digital representation of the optical fields of two orthogonal polarization components of an optical signal, defined by a polarization beam splitter (PBS), is first obtained. The fiber transmission link is treated as a concatenation of multiple virtual PMD segments, each having two specific principle-state-of-polarization (PSP) axes and causing a differential group-delay (DGD) and a phase delay between two signal components that are polarized along the two PSP axes. The best guesses of the parameters of the PMD segments and the relative orientation between the PSP axes of the last PMD segment and the characteristic polarization axes of the PBS are dynamically obtained. The digital representation of at least one generic component of the field of the optical signal is then computed through matrix operations by using the best guesses. |
| US07822338B2 |
Camera for electronic device
An electronic device includes a support structure and a camera carried by the support structure and including a detector surface and a lens having an optical axis, and having a field of view. A display is carried by the support structure in a fixed relation to the camera. The display has a normal viewing angle perpendicular to a surface of the display. The field of view of the camera has a main line of sight extending at an acute angle to the normal viewing angle of the display. |
| US07822332B2 |
Imaging apparatus and lens apparatus
An imaging apparatus to which a lens apparatus is detachably attached includes an image sensor configured to generate an image signal by photoelectrically converting an object image, a first acquisition unit configured to acquire a contrast value of the image signal acquired by the image sensor, a second acquisition unit configured to acquire lens position information at a predetermined time interval, and a focus detection unit configured to detect a focal position based on outputs of the first acquisition unit and the second acquisition unit, wherein the focus detection unit selects the lens position information that corresponds to the contrast value acquired by the first acquisition unit from a plurality of pieces of the lens position information acquired by the second acquisition unit at the predetermined time interval, and detects the focal position. |
| US07822328B2 |
Method for controlling digital photographing apparatus and digital photographing apparatus adopting the method
A method for controlling a digital photographing apparatus and an apparatus adopting the method, which include obtaining first information of a subject at a time t1 at a first sensitivity, obtaining second information of the subject at a time t2 that is different from time t1 at a second sensitivity, and obtaining an image of the subject using the first information and the second information, wherein at least one of the obtaining of the first information and the obtaining of the second information is performed in a state in which a position where an image of the subject is formed on a photographing element of the photographing apparatus is maintained constant despite shaking of the photographing apparatus. |
| US07822324B2 |
Load lock chamber with heater in tube
Embodiments of the invention include a heated load lock chamber. In one embodiment, a heated load lock chamber includes a chamber body having a plurality of lamp assembles disposed at least partially therein. Each lamp assembly includes a transmissive tube housing a lamp. The transmissive tube extends into the chamber body and provides a pressure barrier isolating the lamp from the interior volume of the load lock chamber. In another embodiment, an open end of the transmissive tube extends through a sidewall of the chamber body. A closed end of the transmissive tube is surrounded by the interior volume of the chamber body and is supported below a top of the chamber body in a spaced apart relation. The open end of the tube is sealed to the sidewall of the chamber body such that the interior of the tube is open to atmosphere. |
| US07822318B2 |
Smart random media object playback
An electronic equipment is provided that includes a playlist with a plurality of media objects, each associated with a ranking from a hierarchy of rankings, ranging from a highest ranking to a lowest ranking. The electronic equipment includes a media player section configured to play the plurality of media objects. The media player section has a random play function, which is operable to randomly access media objects associated with the highest ranking for play by the media player section. The media player section also includes a tracking function to lower the ranking associated with the randomly accessed media objects from the highest ranking to a lower ranking. If there are no media objects associated with the highest ranking, the tracking function is operable to raise the ranking associated with each of the plurality of the media objects until at least one media object is associated with the highest ranking. |
| US07822317B2 |
Broadcast program recording apparatus and program for executing a broadcast program reproducing process
A recorded broadcast program including CM portions is reproduced with CM portions skipped. When an instruction to execute a fast forward operation is entered at the beginning of CM portion and an instruction to execute a reproducing operation is entered at the termination of CM portion while the recorded broadcast program data including CM data is read out and reproduced from a recording unit 111, CPU 110 stores in the recording unit 111 a time length obtained by subtracting a time at which the instruction to execute a fast forward operation is entered from a time at which the instruction to execute a reproducing operation is entered, an image which is being reproduced at the time at which the instruction to execute a fast forward operation is entered, and a title of the image. CPU 110 further compares an image which is being reproduced with the image stored in the recording unit, and skips a reading position on the recording unit 111 based on the time length stored in the recording unit 111, when the compared images coincide with each other. |
| US07822313B2 |
Fiber optic termination system with retention mechanism
A fiber optic telecommunications frame is provided including termination modules positioned on left and right sides of the frame. The frame further includes left and right vertical cable guides. The frame includes a horizontal passage linking the left and right panels and the cable guides. The termination modules hold fiber optic modules with front termination locations. The fiber optic modules can house couplers, such as splitters, combiners, and wave length division multiplexers. A retention mechanism retains each fiber optic module in a partially removed position from the termination module. |
| US07822311B2 |
High density telecommunications chassis with cable management structure
A telecommunications chassis is disclosed herein. The chassis includes a housing defining a front end, a rear end and an interior, the chassis housing telecommunications equipment within the interior, cables connected to the telecommunications equipment configured to exit through the rear end. The housing is configured for mounting to a telecommunications rack and being movable relative to the rack between a closed position and an open position. A cable management structure is mounted between the housing and the rack, the cable management structure configured to move the cables exiting the rear of the housing upwardly, out of the way of the housing when the housing is moved from the open position toward the closed position. |
| US07822307B1 |
Optical fiber ribbon for wiring of equipment and connector-attached optical fiber ribbon for wiring of equipment
When a glass fiber and an inner fiber coating layer are to be attached to a connector by removing an outer fiber coating layer while leaving the inner fiber coating layer as it is, a collective coating and the outer fiber coating layer can be removed at a stretch so that the inner fiber coating layer can easily and satisfactorily be exposed. In the ultraviolet curable resin coating layer of a coated optical fiber 17 of an optical fiber ribbon 11 for wiring of equipment, the inner fiber coating layer 15 has a Young's modulus of 600 MPa to 1000 MPa, and the outer fiber coating layer 16 has a Young's modulus of 10 MPa to 300 MPa. The material of the outer fiber coating layer 16 is made by mixing 100 weight parts of base resin, 1-30 weight parts of silicone-based additive, and 0.5 to 40 weight parts of long chain fatty acid ester compound, wherein the base resin is a material made of a urethane metha acrylate oligomer, a mono-functional or multi-functional reactive dilution monomer, and an optical initiator. |
| US07822304B2 |
Laser beam multiplexer
A laser beam multiplexer capable of easily multiplexing a plurality of laser beams is provided. A laser beam multiplexer includes a multiplexing element having a hollow portion with a sectional elliptical shape, in which the multiplexing element includes: a plurality of light-incident apertures guiding laser beams from outside toward one of two focal points of the hollow portion, a reflective layer arranged on a wall surface of the hollow portion, and multiplexing a plurality of incident laser beams while reflecting the plurality of laser beams, and a light-emitting aperture guiding laser beams multiplexed by the reflective layer toward outside. |
| US07822301B2 |
Simple fiducial marking for quality verification of high density circuit board connectors
A printed circuit board with a printed pattern of fiducial marks on a first side of the printed circuit board including a first indicia including a right triangle with its base parallel to a first edge of the board and an alignment mark adjacent thereto, and a second indicia including a right triangle with its base parallel to a second edge of the board opposite said first edge, and an alignment mark adjacent thereto. |
| US07822300B2 |
Anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide for imager light pipe
An anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide structure for reducing optical crosstalk in an image sensor and method of forming the same. The method includes forming a trench within a plurality of material layers and over a photo-conversion device. The trench is vertically aligned with the photo-conversion device and is filled with materials of varying refractive indices to form an anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide structure. The anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide structure has a core and at least two cladding structures. The cladding structure in contact with the core has a refractive index that is higher than the refractive index of the core and the refractive index of the other cladding structure. The cladding structures act as Fabry-Perot cavities for light propagating in the transverse direction, such that light entering the anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide structure remains confined to the core. This reduces the chance of photons impinging upon neighboring photo-conversion devices. |
| US07822296B2 |
Data processing apparatus, image processing apparatus, and method therefor
There are provided a data processing apparatus which makes an I/F for data processing modules (processors) versatile to facilitate addition/modification on a data processing module basis in accordance with processing contents, an image processing apparatus, and a method for the apparatuses. A data processing module (3) includes a read address generator (11), read FIFO (7), write address generator (13), write FIFO (9), and arbiter (10) and is connected to a host arbiter (4) through a 1-channel port. The read address generator (11) and write address generator (13) generate interrupts upon acceptance of final access requests so as to control activation of each data processing module (8-1-8-m) in accordance with the state of each data processing module in interrupt processing. Note that data transfer among the respective data processing modules is performed on a RAM (6). |
| US07822294B2 |
Method and apparatus for producing three-dimensionally structured surfaces
In a method for producing three-dimensionally structured surfaces of objects as a reproduction of an original surface, the topology of the original surface is determined, and the data are used for controlling a machining tool. The determined topology and a random topology of a reproduction surface are brought closer to one another via a series of proximity comparisons until all items of height information of the reproduction surface are successively replaced by items of height information from the original surface, and that once an established similarity between the topologies of the reproduction surface and the original surface is obtained, the items of height information of the reproduction surface are provided for controlling the machine tool serving to machine the surface of the object. |
| US07822292B2 |
Rendering images under cylindrical projections
Systems, methods, and apparatus, including computer program products, are provided for forming composite images. In some implementations, a method is provided. The method includes receiving a set of component images for forming a composite image, defining a projection for the set of images transforming each component image into a projected component image, and rendering the projected component images to form the composite image. The rendering of each component image includes decomposing a rotation of the projection into separate rotations for each axis, rotating the component image along a first axis, separately identifying pixel values for each row and each column of the projected component image, and rotating the image along a third axis to form a rendered component image. |
| US07822291B2 |
Non-rigid multi-modal registration using statistical learning methods
A computer-implemented method for non-rigid multi-modal registration, includes providing trained data corresponding to previously registered images captured by different modalities, receiving two or more images captured by the different modalities, and registering the two or more images according to context information determined based on the trained data. |
| US07822290B2 |
System and method for processing images with leaky windows
Disclosed is a method and system for processing image data, which may be generated by a scanning subsystem, and the segmentation and treatment of leaky windows or segments within the image. In addition to the identification of window regions or segments having leaky boundaries, the method and system include the subsequent control of enhancement and other image processing techniques applied to such images so as to reduce or eliminate artifacts that result from the processing of leaky window regions. |
| US07822285B2 |
Methods and systems for locally adaptive image processing filters
The present disclosure provides methods and systems for image processing by locally adaptive filters that preserve the edges while smoothing the image. In the exemplary method, a filter adjusts image pixel values utilizing a locally adaptive weighted average method. To adjust the value of a target pixel, the filter uses the data corresponding to some of its surrounding pixels and modifies the weights in an inverse relation with both their distance from the target pixel and the difference between their data. Various embodiments present different schemes for selection of surrounding pixels and computation of weighted average values. |
| US07822284B2 |
Spatial scan replication circuit
In an image replication circuit, the improvement of replicating a given element at a certain location with the most similar of surrounding sets of image elements. |
| US07822280B2 |
Epipolar geometry-based motion estimation for multi-view image and video coding
Described is fast motion estimation based upon epipolar geometry, which can be used in compressing multi-view video. An epipolar line is computed based on a point (e.g., a centroid point) in a macroblock to be predicted, and a temporary starting point in an image is determined, such as a median predicted search center. A search starting point is further determined based on the temporary starting point and the epipolar line, e.g., a point on the epipolar line corresponding to an intersecting line that is projected orthogonally from the temporary point to the epipolar line. A motion estimation mechanism searches the search space to produce a motion vector. The search may be conducted starting at the search starting point in a reduced search area located around the epipolar line, e.g., a local diamond search and/or rotated unsymmetrical rood-pattern search. |
| US07822275B2 |
Method for detecting water regions in video
A computer-based method for automatic detection of water regions in a video include the steps of estimating a water map of the video and outputting the water map to an output medium, such as a video analysis system. The method may further include the steps of training a water model from the water map; re-classifying the water map using the water model by detecting water pixels in the video; and refining the water map. |
| US07822271B2 |
Method and apparatus of false color suppression
A false-color suppression method for correcting a pixel value of a target position of an output frame corresponding to a target field is disclosed. The false-color suppression method includes determining whether the target position has motion; determining whether image corresponding to the target position meets a predetermined condition; and if the target position is determined to have motion and the image corresponding to the target position meets the predetermined condition, performing at least one false-color suppression operation to correct the pixel value of the target position of the output frame. |
| US07822265B2 |
Ghost artifact reduction for rendering 2.5D graphics
An image processing system for performing a transformation of an input image associated with an input viewpoint to an output image associated with an output viewpoint. The input image is a pre-filtered 2D representation of 3D objects as seen from the input viewpoint, and comprises for each input pixel an associated input pixel value and an associated input pixel depth. Additional to the input image a hidden image is received, being another 2D representation of the 3D objects and comprising information, which information is occluded from the input viewpoint.The system comprises a video processor being operative to create the output image by transforming each input pixel to a transformed input pixel. The transformation is a function of the input pixel depth. The output image is created, based on the transformed input pixels, using hidden image pixels for filling de-occluded areas and for at least one pixel position adjacent to the de-occluded areas. As a consequence ghost line artifacts, caused by transformation of the pre-filtered input image, are prevented. |
| US07822264B2 |
Computer-vision system for classification and spatial localization of bounded 3D-objects
The invention relates to a system and method for recognition, classification and spatial localization of bounded 3D-objects. In particular it relates to a computerized method for recognition, classification and localization of objects. The method comprises generation of a training database based on a large number of training views recorded by a camera or constructed using a CAD representation of an object. Characteristic curves are derived from the training views, and primitives of the curves are detected. Intrinsic and extrinsic descriptors of features are stored in the database together with data about the object class and pose of the view. Finally the recognition takes place in two stages: First the intrinsic descriptors of the recognition view are compared with those of the database. Second, among the best matching features it is explored which features agree mutually in the sense that they suggest the same object class at the same pose. |
| US07822262B2 |
Outer surface-inspecting method, master patterns used therefor, and outer surface-inspecting apparatus equipped with such a master pattern
The invention is to provide an outer surface-inspecting method, a master pattern and an outer surface-inspecting apparatus, which can eliminate severe positional alignment of the master pattern, avoid erroneous judgment taking acceptable products as unacceptable ones and suppress increase in number of standard pattern portions to be prepared as a master pattern. In the method and the apparatus, an outer surface of inspection areas 16a to 16i having repeated patterns are inspected through comparison with the predetermined master pattern. The inspection area is divided into a plurality of matrix-like view areas 16a to 16i. Mutually different standard pattern portions 17a to 17i are used depending upon different edge shapes of the divided inspection areas 16a to 16i contained in the inspection area, respectively. The present invention is suitable for inspecting the outer surface of a semiconductor chip such as a memory or a CCD (charge-coupled device). |
| US07822259B2 |
Method for positive identification of inner surface and outer surface of sample flakes
A method for determining the inner surface and an outer surface of a sample flake through the use of digital image photography wherein digital images of a sample flake first surface and second surface are compared to a known inner surface and known outer surface of a reference flake. |
| US07822256B2 |
Method for rendering digital radiographic images for display based on independent control of fundamental image quality parameters
A system for enhancing a digital image. The system includes: means for providing a digital image; means for decomposing the provided digital image into a multi-frequency band representation of four frequency bands as follows: a lowest frequency band image which represents large-sized features in the digital image; a low-to-mid frequency band image which represents mid-sized features of the digital image; a mid-to-high frequency band image which represents the small-sized features in the digital image; and a highest frequency band which represents very fine detail in the digital image; means for manipulating said low-to-mid frequency band image to produce a contrast effect without affecting the overall dynamic range of said digital image; means for multiplying each of said high-frequency band images with a gain factor; means for summing together said unmodified low frequency band image and said modified high-frequency band images to produce a reconstructed digital image; and means for mapping said reconstructed digital image through a tone-scale look-up table to map said reconstructed digital image to optical densities. |
| US07822254B2 |
Automatic positioning of matching multi-planar image reformatting (MPR) views of multiple 3D medical images
A computer-implemented method is disclosed for comparing three dimensional (3D) digital medical images. The method uses a reference MPR to position subsequent MPRs in one or more other 3D digital medical images so their content matches the reference MPR. The matched MPRs may then be used by a medical professional to diagnose a patient condition. The ability to quickly and automatically position matching MPRs for multiple 3D images eases the medical staff workload and shortens diagnostics time. Matching MPRs provides an effective way to view the 3D volumes for anatomical changes over time and to monitor medical conditions such as stenosis and tumors. |
| US07822253B2 |
Methods and apparatus for BMD measuring
A method includes scanning a patient without a BMD reference present to obtain data, and performing a BMD analysis on the obtained data. |
| US07822251B2 |
Variational approach on whole body SPECT/CT registration and zipping
A method and a system for implementing the method for simultaneously registering and zipping a multiple scan whole body SPECT/CT image. The method includes the steps of simultaneously registering and zipping multiple input images and re-sampling the registered images. The step of simultaneously registering and zipping multiple input images is accomplished by initially aligning the images to be registered with each other, aligning the images with a reference image, and adjusting the alignment of the images with each other. |
| US07822243B2 |
Method and device for image reconstruction
In a method and processing device for image reconstruction from raw data acquired with a medical imaging examination apparatus, in particular from data of magnetic resonance tomography, an algorithm to be used for the image reconstruction is loaded into at least one reprogrammable FPGA, the reprogrammable FPGA, accesses via a data connection, the acquired raw data as well as calculation parameters provided for the image reconstruction and reconstruction image data are calculated from the raw data by the FPGA, dependent on the calculation parameters. |
| US07822239B2 |
Fingerprint sensing device having flexible printed circuit board serving as signal transmission structure and the method of manufacturing the same
A fingerprint sensing device includes a chip substrate, first connecting pads and a flexible printed circuit board. The substrate has fingerprint sensing cells. The first connecting pads are respectively disposed on the fingerprint sensing cells and exposed from a top surface of the substrate. The printed circuit board is disposed above the substrate and has signal transmission structures exposed from a bottom surface of the printed circuit board. The fingerprint sensing cells are respectively electrically connected to the signal transmission structures, and a top surface of the printed circuit board serves as a contact surface for a finger so that sensed fingerprint signals of the finger are transmitted to the fingerprint sensing cells through the signal transmission structures. The numbers of the first connecting pads, the fingerprint sensing cells and the signal transmission structures are equal to one another. A method of manufacturing the fingerprint sensing device is also disclosed. |
| US07822237B2 |
Image matching apparatus, image matching method, and image matching program
When two images are matched, a partial image S is registered in advance, mutual relative position is obtained when the partial image S and an image I indicate the largest overlap. Based on the relative position, the relative position between the image T and the image I is determined. Thus, it is determined whether or not the image T and the image I match. |
| US07822232B2 |
Data security system
A data security system comprises a host processor, and a plurality of remote computers. Each remote computer provides biometric authentication of a user prior to responding to the user request for data access. The remote computers are handheld when in operational mode. A sensor in the handheld computer captures a biometric image while the remote computer is being used. The biometric sensor is positioned in such a way that the sensor enables the capture of the biometric image continually during computer usage with each request for access to secure data. The biometric authentication occurs in a seamless manner and is incidental to the data request enabling user identity authentication with each request to access secure data. |
| US07822230B2 |
Image measuring system, image method and computer readable medium storing image measuring program having a nonstop measuring mode for setting a measurement path
An image measuring system comprises a measurement point acquire, a measurement direction calculator, a synthesized direction calculator operative to calculate a synthesized direction resulted from synthesis of movement directions before and after the measurement point, a fore/aft-running point calculator operative to calculate a forerunning point at a position spaced a certain distance backward in the synthesized direction from the measurement point and to calculate an aft-running point at a position spaced a certain distance forward in the synthesized direction from the measurement point, a way point calculator operative to calculate a plurality of way points arranged on a path smoothly connecting the aft-running point to the forerunning point, and a measurement path setter operative to set a measurement path following the synthesized directions and passing through the calculated way points and the measurement points. |
| US07822229B2 |
Measurements using a single image
A method used in broadcasts of events is disclosed for identifying the coordinates of an object in world space from a video frame, where the object is not on the geometric model of the environment. Once the world coordinates of the object are identified, a graphic may be added to a video replay showing the object. The method may also be expanded in a further embodiment to identify a trajectory of an object over time moving through world space from video images of the start and end of the trajectory, where the object is not on the geometric model of the environment. Once the trajectory of the object in world space is identified, a graphic may be added to a video replay showing the trajectory. |
| US07822228B2 |
System and method for analyzing video from non-static camera
A system and method of treating the output of moving cameras, in particular ones that enable the application of conventional “static camera” algorithms, e.g., to enable the continuous vigilance of computer surveillance technology to be applied to moving cameras that cover a wide area. A single camera is deployed to cover an area that might require many static cameras and a corresponding number of processing units. A novel system for processing the main video sufficiently enables long-term change detection, particularly the observation that a static object has been moved or has appeared, for instance detecting the parking and departure of vehicles in a parking lot, the arrival of trains in stations, delivery of goods, arrival and dispersal of people, or any other application. |
| US07822226B2 |
Perceptual modeling of media signals for data hiding
The present invention relates generally to embedding auxiliary data and data hiding. One claim recites a method including: calculating with a processor or electronic circuitry characteristics of a media signal comprising audio or video; based at least in part on calculated characteristics of the media signal, providing a map of the media signal, wherein the map identifies at least one portion of the media signal in which plural-bit data should be steganographically encoded; transforming at least some portions of the media signal into a transform domain; and steganographically encoding with a processor or electronic circuitry auxiliary data in data representing at least the one portion of the media signal in which the plural-bit data should be steganographically encoded, and wherein at least said act of transforming or said act of steganographically encoding utilizes the map of the media signal. Other claims and combinations are also provided. |
| US07822225B2 |
Authentication of physical and electronic media objects using digital watermarks
A content watermarking method derives a watermark key from data representing content. In one particular method, a plural symbol message is algorithmically transformed in dependence on the derived watermark key. In another arrangement, the key specifies how or where the message is embedded in the content. A variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed. |
| US07822224B2 |
Terrain map summary elements
Method and system for image data analysis, by making use of a Terrain Map Summary Element (TMSE) data structure, in which a Terrain Map data structure provides processed primitive data about each 2×2 kernel of pixels from an original image. The new TMSE is a hierarchical multiple-level or tiered structure of such Terrain Map elements, in which each successive Terrain Map level summarizes, for example, 16 lower level elements or member. By providing such a hierarchical nature of the map elements, richness is enhanced by each higher element because every element of each successively higher level map summarizes the data from elements of the lower level map. For example, in a five-level Terrain Map Summary Element structure according to the disclosure, each element or member of the fifth level contains information summarizing data about 256K pixels. |
| US07822218B2 |
Electroacoustic transducer mounting in shells of hearing prostheses
A hearing aid and a receiver for use therein, the receiver being tip-mountable in a chamber of a housing. The back chamber of the receiver is acoustically connected to the chamber of the housing. The receiver is a dual-diaphragm receiver providing no or very little vibrations, whereby the receiver is fixedly but removably mounted to the housing. Electrical connections are provided between the receiver and housing using solderless, biasing electrical contacts, whereby removal of the receiver is facilitated. |
| US07822211B2 |
Stereo decoding system capable of reducing the phase shift during the signal transforming
A stereo decoding system comprises an oscillator, a bandpass filter, a PLL unit and a stereo decoder. The oscillator generates a first signal with a center frequency. The bandpass filter receives a stereo multiplexed signal and the first signal to filter out a pilot signal. The PLL unit receives the pilot signal to generate a PLL output signal. The stereo decoder receives the stereo multiplexed signal and the PLL output signal to separate a left channel signal and a right channel signal from the stereo multiplexed signal. |
| US07822210B2 |
Configurable recursive digital filter for processing television audio signals
A television audio signal encoder includes a device that sums a left channel audio signal and a right channel audio signal to produce a sum signal. The device also subtracts one of the left and right audio signals from the other to produce a difference signal. The encoder also includes a configurable infinite impulse response digital filter that selectively uses one or more sets of filter coefficients to filter the difference signal. The set of filter coefficients is applied to the difference signal by a single multiplier in a recursive manner to prepare the difference signal for transmission. |
| US07822207B2 |
Key protection mechanism
A method of protecting secret key integrity in a hardware cryptographic system includes first obtaining an encryption result and corresponding checksum of known data using the secret key, saving those results, then masking the secret key and storing the masked key. When the masked key is to be used in a cryptographic application, the method checks key integrity against fault attacks by decrypting the prior encryption results using the masked key. If upon comparison, the decryption result equals valid data, then the key's use in the cryptographic system can proceed. Otherwise, all data relating to the masked key is wiped from the system and fault injection is flagged. |
| US07822205B2 |
Multiple matching control method
The aim of this invention is to pair a security module with one or more host apparatuses in an environment in which the host module has no connection with the management centre.This aim is achieved thanks to a pairing control method between a first device such as a removable security module and a second device such as a host apparatus, this pairing consisting in securing data exchanges with the aid of a unique pairing key, this method consisting in: verifying the pairing between the two devices and using the unique pairing key if the pairing has been already carried out, if not, searching for a free location among the locations reserved for the pairing data in the first device and in this case, initiating a pairing procedure by transmitting a cryptogram contained in the second device and that contains an identifier belonging to this device, this cryptogram being encrypted by a secret key common to all the first devices, decrypting this cryptogram using the first device and extracting from this cryptogram the identifier of the second device, generating a pairing key based on this identifier, storing in the first device the pairing data with the second device. |
| US07822204B2 |
Encryption method, cryptogram decoding method, encryptor, cryptogram decoder, transmission/reception system, and communication system
An encryption technique allowing use of classic Y-00 scheme performed using classic physical random numbers instead of quantum fluctuation in electrical communication and data storage in recording media, including a first modulation step for multilevel-modulating input data by associating with specific state pairs determined by physical random numbers, a second modulation step for outputting the output of the first step by irregularly associating with another signal by physical random numbers, and a channel coding step for channel-coding the output of the second step into desired codeword and outputting it as encrypted data, wherein the decoded signal obtained by channel-decoding the encrypted data can be discriminated which of specific state pairs the signal corresponds to and demodulated into the input data, and output by the first modulation by state pairs other than the specific state pairs and the second modulation by a physical random number different from the physical random number. |
| US07822203B2 |
Method, apparatus, and program for processing information
An information processing apparatus decrypts, using meta data, encrypted data obtained by encrypting stream data including successive frames according to an encryption method in which, when the stream data is sequentially encrypted on a frame-by-frame basis, a key used for encrypting each frame is updated according to a predetermined rule. The meta data includes the plurality of keys used for encrypting the stream data and update information for identifying update timings of the keys. The apparatus includes a decrypter for acquiring the encrypted data and decrypting each frame using the key used for encrypting the frame and a meta data acquirer for acquiring the meta data and delivering one of the keys corresponding to the frame to the decrypter in accordance with the update information. The meta data acquirer includes a corrector for detecting an error in the update information and correcting the update information if an error has occurred. |
| US07822202B2 |
Method and device for processing a sequence of video images
The invention discloses a new modulation scheme to prevent illegal copy in movie theaters. None of the existing modulation schemes make the right assumptions to modelize a camcorder device. In such classical schemes, camcorders are always considered as sampling devices without taking into account the effects of shutter speed. The shutter of the camcorder is classically compared to a low-pass filter. As a result, modulation effects can be easily removed by setting up shutter speed to low values (low cutoff frequency). The right mathematical modelization of the shutter effect shows that, in the spectral domain, the behavior of the camcorder is close to a cardinal sine function with a main lobe and sidelobes. Consequently, according to the invention, it is proposed to select a modulation frequency that not only generates visual artifacts once recorded by the camcorder under shutter-free conditions, but that can also generate artifacts despite low shutter speed settings by going through sidelobe of the shutter spectrum. |
| US07822196B2 |
Block cipher apparatus using auxiliary transformation
It is desired to share one circuit by an encryption unit 200 and a decryption unit 500. A normal data transformation unit (FL) 251 and an inverse data transformation unit (FL−1) 273 are located at point symmetry on a non-linear data transformation unit 220, and a normal data transformation unit (FL) 253 and an inverse data transformation unit (FL−1) 271 are located at point symmetry on the non-linear data transformation unit 220. Therefore, the encryption unit 200 and the decryption unit 500 can be configured using the same circuits. |
| US07822191B2 |
Multi-modal address book
A method is provided for synchronizing disparate customized address books which each include contact information including an email address for a customer. The method includes storing identification information for each communications partner. Each communications partner is associated with a different disparate customized address book. The identification information is used to update the disparate customized address books when the contact information of the customer is changed to changed contact information. The method also includes determining when the contact information of the customer changes to changed contact information. The method further includes updating each of the disparate customized address books to include the changed contact information when the contact information of the customer is changed to the changed contact information. |
| US07822187B2 |
Telephone system with emergency override for caller to bypass telephone answering device and cause phone of called party to ring
A telephone system allowing a caller whose call is intercepted by a telephone answering machine (TAD) to hear an alternate outgoing message from the TAD with instructions allowing the caller, who feels his/her call is an emergency, to override the TAD and cause the user's phone to ring anyway. This invention being applicable to wired and cellular phones and to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and cable system phones. |
| US07822186B1 |
Methods and systems for time-based delivery of calls
Methods and systems are provided for managing the scheduling of calls and automating the process of making and delivering such calls. Any endpoint (e.g., telephony-enabled) device can be used with a PSTN, cellular, and VoIP network. Different types of devices and interfaces may be used for provisioning users, conferring calling events, scheduling events, and/or delivering calls. Among other things, this increases user mobility. Also, automated retrying and rescheduling of calls, which may use updated data, reduces the likelihood of missed calls. |
| US07822185B2 |
Instant conference method and apparatus
A system for establishing a conference call is provided. The system includes a handset operable to send a message containing a list of prospective participants for the conference call. The system also includes an application server operable to receive the message and invite at least some of the prospective participants. The application server is further operable, in response to receiving an acknowledgement from at least one of the prospective participants to participate in the conference call, to include the at least one of the prospective participants in the conference call. |
| US07822182B2 |
System and method for communicating with an out of service telephone number
A method for communicating with a subscriber having a first telephone number that is out-of-service comprises providing a database that is accessible at least through a second telephone number, and allowing the subscriber to access the database to post a message. The message is made available to an interested party. A system for a subscriber to communicate with an interested party is also provided. |
| US07822179B2 |
Apparatus and method for processing radiation image
The invention relates to an apparatus and method for processing a radiation image. For a subject area, a radiation image signal corrected for leak charge is obtained by subtracting, from a GateOn signal obtained by turning on a transistor switch of a detecting element of a radiation detector, a GateOff signal obtained by turning off the transistor switch. A threshold value is less than or equal to a pixel saturation value. For an unblocked area where the radiation image signal is greater than the threshold value, the GateOn signal is utilized as the radiation image signal. |
| US07822172B2 |
Method for hardening correction in medical imaging
The invention relates to a method for beam hardening correction in medical image. Beam hardening within the context of medical imaging projection image profiles are split up into a basic profile which is assigned to a homogeneous object area and into a detailed profile which is assigned to an inhomogeneous object area. On the basis of the basic profile and of the difference profile the mass occupancy of the different components in the object to be examined can be approximately determined. On the basis of the approximately determined mass occupancy the correction of the beam hardening can then be performed directly on the projection data. |
| US07822169B2 |
Noise reduction in dual-energy X-ray imaging
It is described a method for reducing noise of X-ray attenuation data related to a first and second spectral X-ray data acquisition. The method comprises the steps of (a) acquiring data representing the X-ray attenuation behavior of a region of interest, (b) determining a first and a second attenuation-base line integral for the first and the second X-ray acquisition, respectively, and (c) calculating expected first and second signal to noise ratios for the first and the second attenuation-base line integral based on given signal to noise ratios for the first and second spectral X-ray data acquisition, respectively. The method further comprises the steps of (d) repeating the above mentioned steps of determining the attenuation-base line integrals and calculating the expected signal to noise ratios for a further first spectral X-ray data acquisition and (e) selecting improved spectral X-ray data acquisitions in order to enhance the overall signal to noise ratio of a final X-ray image. |
| US07822167B2 |
Nuclear facility and method for operating a nuclear facility
A technical installation, especially a nuclear power plant, has a number of system components that are respectively supported by a number of beams, and a number of pressurized conduits. The technical installation is designed in such a way that secondary damage occurring in the surroundings of pressurized conduits are kept particularly low even if the pressurized conduits rupture. This is achieved in that at least one of the beams is embodied in a segmented manner in an area that is expected to be affected if a pressurized conduit ruptures, adjacent segments preferably being connected to each other via screw connections. |
| US07822164B1 |
Protective screen for the screening off of a suction space
A protective screen for the screening off of a suction space and a suction duct connected to it in a cooling system, include at least one screen wall element which has a suction side and an outflow side. The screen wall element is built up from a plurality of modular rectangular cassette units, which respectively contain a plurality of suction pockets open towards the suction side, with the screen pockets being surrounded by outflow gaps which are open towards the outflow side. |
| US07822162B2 |
Current mode differential signal transmitting circuit sharing a clock outputting unit
A current-mode differential signal transmitting circuit is disclosed, including a transmitter having a first transmitting module and a second transmitting module. The first transmitting module includes a plurality of first outputting units to output first data and a clock outputting signal. The second transmitting module includes a plurality of second outputting units for outputting second data, and the first and second transmitting modules share this clock outputting unit. |
| US07822157B2 |
Acquisition and tracking of burst code signals
A digital communication system includes a generator for generating a plurality of pulse trains, each having a different timing, and pre-compensation circuitry for synchronizing the plurality of pulse trains to a timing signal. The system also includes comparison circuitry for simultaneously comparing a received burst code signal to each of the plurality of pulse trains, where the burst code signal is synchronized to the timing signal, and a detector for detecting which of the pulse trains is a closest temporal match to the burst code signal. The pre-compensation circuitry operates to reduce acquisition time and keep PN code uncertainties within the range of the comparison circuitry. |
| US07822156B2 |
Channel estimation
A receiver including a channel estimation function in which an initial channel estimate is filtered to increase receiver operation, particularly when the receiver may only have a limited number of channel estimation symbols with which to form the channel estimate. In some embodiments the filtering is performed by transforming the initial channel estimate to the time domain, zeroing some of the samples to filter the time domain channel estimate, and transforming the filtered time domain channel estimate to the frequency domain for use in channel compensation. |
| US07822155B2 |
Interference estimation in CDMA systems using alternative scrambling codes
Methods and apparatus that improve interference (I) estimation in CDMA systems in which the DPCH is sorted under a scrambling code different from the scrambling code of a channel such as the CPICH are described. In such systems, DPCH I-estimation cannot be done by measuring on the CPICH and transforming to the DPCH due to the different interference situations on the two channels. Instead, the DPCH interference is estimated by using knowledge of empty channelization codes in the alternative or secondary scrambling code that can be used for I estimation, or using symbols (e.g., control symbols on the DPCCH) on the DPCH, or searching for an empty channelization code and using a found empty code for I-estimation. These techniques improve the SIR estimate in comparison to prior techniques and hence also improve the performance of power control, increasing the system's capacity. |
| US07822154B2 |
Signal, interference and noise power measurement
Systems and methods are presented for measuring power levels of primary and interfering signals as well as noise, particularly for satellite transmitted signals. A typical method comprises the steps of receiving a signal comprising a primary signal, an interference signal and noise, demodulating the primary signal to remove a carrier frequency, decoding the primary signal to obtain symbols, estimating a power level of the primary signal based upon the demodulated and decoded primary signal. Additionally, an ideal primary signal can be generated from the carrier power and frequency and the symbols and subtracted from the received signal to produce the noise and interference signal. The noise and interference power is then estimated from the noise and interference signal. |
| US07822153B2 |
Automatic gain control apparatus and method in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access system
An automatic gain control (AGC) apparatus of a wireless mobile terminal, and method, in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system. A gain amplifier controls an amplification gain of received analog symbols. An analog-to-digital converter converts the received analog symbols into a digital signal. A fast Fourier transform (FFT) unit converts the digital signal into a frequency-domain signal. A power measurer measures power in the frequency domain in units of sub-carriers. A sub-carrier power accumulator detects a sub-carrier carrying a signal, and accumulates its power value. A sub-carrier average power measurer estimates an average power value transmitted per sub-carrier from the accumulated power value. A control means compares the estimated average power value with a reference power value, and generates a control signal used for controlling a gain of the gain amplifier according to the comparison result. |
| US07822152B2 |
Symbol timing detection method and apparatus, and preamble detection method and apparatus
A symbol timing detection method, executed in a processor, is provided where, upon detecting a symbol timing from a received signal composed of a packet having a preamble with periodically allocated symbols placed at a head of data, correlation results indicating a correlation between the received signal and a fixed pattern of the preamble are obtained, a maximum value in the correlation results are updated and held, and a timing of the maximum value is determined as a symbol timing on a condition that a maximum value currently held by the correlation peak detection unit is not updated in a symbol timing determination period having a predetermined length from the timing and that a number of occurrences of a correlation result exceeding an error detection determination threshold is smaller than a predetermined number in an error detection determination period defined within the symbol timing determination period. |
| US07822150B2 |
Spherical decoder for wireless communications
A decoding scheme for determining the information within a coded transmission includes a spherical decoder candidate search that reduces the number of candidate symbol combinations from a much larger number of possibly transmitted combinations. In one example, the spherical decoder uses an upper triangular matrix representation of the channel matrix as part of a recursive, cumulative cost function that provides the results of the candidate search. The candidate search includes considering symbols in a hierarchy or tree structure that represents the possibly transmitted combinations. The cost function incrementally accumulates a cost of a possible combination as the search progresses through the hierarchy. As soon as a symbol is determined to not be a valid candidate, all possible combinations including that symbol are discarded without considering them, directly. |
| US07822149B2 |
Method to enable single frequency network optimization
Additional data may be added to the current SDARS satellite signals as a phase and/or amplitude offset from the legacy quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulated data and transmitted by the SDAR terrestrial repeaters. However, in the case where a legacy receiver architecture for a differential modulation system outputs angular/phase differences between carriers, the phase and/or amplitude information appears as distortion to the legacy receiver. The present invention provides a method for optimizing the SDARS infrastructure more efficiently by allowing independent adjustment of the phase and/or amplitude offset (610) at each terrestrial site. The present invention provides a method for adjusting the performance of each signal together or separately as needed. |
| US07822147B2 |
Self-calibrating multi-port circuit and method
The invention provides a type-based method to compensate for distortions in circuits operating on a plurality of input modulated signals to form one or more output modulated signals. Steps of the method include low-rate sampling of the output signal to obtain a statistical characteristics thereof, and adjusting parameters of the circuit to introduce a controlled degree of cross-coupling between the signals until the statistical characteristics of the output signal approximates a reference characteristics defined by the used modulation formats. Another aspect of the invention provides a self-calibrating multi-port circuit implementing the method. |
| US07822146B2 |
System and method for digitally correcting a non-linear element
System and methods for a digital linearization of a non-linear element. Preferred embodiments provide digital predistortion methods and circuitry that addresses long or “memory” effects and separately shorter duration effects, these two predistortion functions are operated together in an adaptive fashion with a non-linear element to provide a highly linear system. A long predistortion block comprises a plurality of configurable parallel coupled memory blocks, each further comprising a programmable nonlinearity, variable delays, digital filters, and signal combiners. These parallel blocks are selectively configured to provide a parallel filter, a Hammerstein filter and a compound Volterra filter. The parallel coupled memory blocks include programmable parameters that enable real time adaptation of the predistortion; the delay elements also include variable delays. The combined system of the predistortion circuitry and a non-linear element has a linear input-output signal response. Methods for initializing, parameterizing and adapting the system are disclosed. |
| US07822145B1 |
Method and system for generating synthetic wavefront phase/time delta of arrival
A system and method for generating signals providing a synthesized wavefront phase to at least one receiver is disclosed. The system includes a buffer having a length of registers and a controller that sequences data through the length of registers. The controller determines at least two dynamically assignable registers along the length of registers to output the data. First and second signal generators are configured to receive the data from respective dynamically assignable registers. Using a clocking signal to sequence the data through the length of registers, the first and second signal generators provide the synthesized wavefront phase, based on the data received from the two dynamically assignable registers. |
| US07822144B2 |
Communication system having reduced delay time
A communication system includes a transmitter having a signal generator for generating a signal for transmitting data, a transmission delay unit for repeatedly delaying the signal from the signal generator for a predetermined delay time within a symbol period and generating corresponding delayed signals, and a selector for selectively providing one of the delayed signals from the transmission delay unit to an antenna; and a receiver having a reception delay unit for receiving the signal from the transmitter and delaying the signal as long as the delay time of the transmission delay unit, and a data judgment block for discriminating data bits of the signal from the transmitter by comparing the signal from the transmitter with the delayed signal from the reception delay unit. According to the communication system, the delay time can be accurately adjusted even if the delay line is shortened, and the data bits of the communication signal can be accurately judged in the receiver side. |
| US07822140B2 |
Multi-antenna communication systems utilizing RF-based and baseband signal weighting and combining
A receiver operatively coupled to an antenna structure capable of receiving a first plurality of RF signals is disclosed herein. The receiver includes an RF processing network operative to perform weighting and combining operations within the RF domain using the first plurality of RF signals so as to produce a second plurality of RF signals. Also provided is a downconverter configured to downconvert the second plurality of RF signals into a second plurality of down-converted signals. In alternate implementations certain of the weighting and combining operations are performed at baseband and the remainder effected within the RF domain. A transmitter of corresponding architecture is also disclosed. |
| US07822139B2 |
Apparatus, systems, methods and computer products for providing a virtual enhanced training sequence
A system, method, apparatus and computer code for communicating a training sequence for initializing an equalizer in a digital receiver are provided including receiving a digital signal containing data to be broadcast from a digital RF transmitter and inserting the training sequence into the digital signal deterministically such that a predetermined sequence of symbols are communicated to the receiver. |
| US07822135B2 |
MIMO transmitter and method for transmitting an OFDM symbol in accordance with an IEEE 802.11 communication standard over a plurality of spatial channels
A multiple-input-multiple output (MIMO) transmitter for transmitting an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) symbol over a plurality of spatial channels using a plurality of antennas is described. The transmitter includes encoding circuitry to encode blocks of input bits in accordance with a variable encoding rate to generate blocks of encoded bits and a spatial-frequency parser to parse the blocks of encoded bits into spatial-frequency groups. The transmitter also includes subcarrier modulators to modulate each spatial-frequency group of encoded bits on one of the OFDM subcarriers to generate symbol-modulated subcarriers. Spatial-frequency groups having a greater number of encoded bits are modulated at higher-order modulation levels and spatial-frequency groups having a lesser number of encoded bits are modulated at lower-order modulation orders. |
| US07822134B2 |
Digital broadcasting system and method of processing data
A digital broadcast system and method of processing digital data is disclosed, including a digital broadcast transmitter and digital broadcast receiver and methods thereof. |
| US07822133B2 |
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver, OFDM reception method and terrestrial digital receiver
In an OFDM receiver, one of a plurality of antennas is selected based on a ratio X of two moving average integration values (first moving average integration value and second moving average integration value) that are calculated from a non-delay symbol and a delay symbol. It could be said that the second moving average integration value represents excessive false information (that is, whether the state of the transmission line is good). Accordingly, determination of the ratio X between the second moving average integration value and the first moving average integration value and selection of one of the plurality of antennas based on the ratio X enables judgment on whether the state of the transmission line is good even during a period other than a guard interval period Tg, that is, during an effective symbol period Tu. |
| US07822131B2 |
Reducing a peak-to-average ratio of a signal
Methods and corresponding systems for reducing a peak-to-average signal ratio include determining peak and null samples of a symbol. Thereafter, an error signal is calculated that is responsive to the peak and null samples. In one embodiment the error signal has values corresponding to differences between the peak samples and a high threshold and the null samples and a low threshold. In response to the error signal, a reserved tone set of time-domain samples are produced and added to a user data set of time-domain samples. The error signal can also be used to adapt a filter for filtering samples of a symbol. |
| US07822130B2 |
Apparatus and method for simultaneous testing of multiple orthogonal frequency division multiplexed transmitters with single vector signal analyzer
Apparatus and method for testing signals from two or more OFDM transmitters simultaneously with a single VSA. |
| US07822125B2 |
Method for chroma deblocking
The invention is related to decoding of block wise coded video pictures. The determination of using de-blocking filtering between coded chroma blocks is based on alternative characteristics compared to the characteristics used in H.264/AVC. |
| US07822121B2 |
Method and/or apparatus for implementing global motion compensation in a video system
An apparatus comprising a video decoder, a video memory and a global motion circuit. The video decoder may be configured to generate a decoded video signal in response to a coded video signal. The video memory may be connected to the video decoder. The global motion circuit may be configured within the video decoder circuit. The global motion circuit may be configured to (i) receive one or more warp points and (ii) generate one or more warping addresses presented directly to the video memory. |
| US07822120B2 |
Moving picture encoding method, moving picture decoding method, and recording medium
In coding a picture to be used as a reference picture by another picture, a motion vector used in inter picture predictive coding is stored into the motion vector storage unit (116). However, the storage of a motion vector is controlled by the coding control unit (110) in such a way that motion vectors of pictures, fewer in number than the number of reference pictures, are stored into the storage unit (116). In the case where direct mode is used in coding a B-picture, if the motion vector to be referred to in coding in direct mode is stored in the motion vector storage unit (116), coding is performed using such motion vector. Further, in the case where the motion vector is not stored in the storage unit (116), coding is performed with the motion vector as “0”, and using a motion vector of a neighboring block. |
| US07822118B2 |
Method and apparatus for control of rate-distortion tradeoff by mode selection in video encoders
A Method And Apparatus For Control of Rate-Distortion Tradeoff by Mode Selection in Video Encoders is Disclosed. The system of the present invention first selects a distortion value D near a desired distortion value. Next, the system determines a quantizer value Q using the selected distortion value D. The system then calculates a Lagrange multiplier lambda using the quantizer value Q. Using the selected Lagrange multiplier lambda and quantizer value Q, the system begins encoding pixelblocks. If the system detects a potential buffer overflow, then the system will increase the Lagrange multiplier lambda. If the Lagrange multiplier lambda exceeds a maximum lambda threshold then the system will increase the quantizer value Q. If the system detects a potential buffer underflow, then the system will decrease the Lagrange multiplier lambda. If the Lagrange multiplier lambda falls below a minimum lambda threshold then the system will decrease the quantizer value Q. |
| US07822116B2 |
Method and system for rate estimation in a video encoder
Described herein is a method and system for rate estimation in a video encoder. The method and system use estimation metrics that can also be part of motion estimation and spatial prediction. A rate controller may utilize the system for rate estimation in two ways. The rate controller may supply a quantization parameter and receive a bit estimate from the rate estimator. Alternatively, the rate controller may supply a bit estimate and receive a quantization parameter from the rate estimator. |
| US07822111B2 |
Receiving apparatus and method thereof
Example embodiments relate to a receiving apparatus and method thereof. In an example, the receiving apparatus may include a clock generating unit generating a plurality of internal clock signals based on a received external clock signal and an equalization receiving unit receiving the plurality of internal clock signals and an input signal. The equalization receiving unit may determine an offset value and an equalization coefficient in an initial setting mode and may adjust the received data signal based on the determined offset value and equalization coefficient. |
| US07822105B2 |
Cross-correlation removal of carrier wave jamming signals
A receiver capable of receiving a spread spectrum signal and having a crosscorrelator that enables a carrier wave (CW) jamming to be identified, tracked, replicated and removed from the received spread spectrum signal after demodulation of a weak signal has occurred. |
| US07822104B2 |
Averaging a delay profile in a limited delay range
Multipath components of a signal transmitted through a time-varying digital radio channel are received with individual delays (τ) within a range of possible delay values. An instantaneous delay profile indicating an instantaneous magnitude (g(τ)) for each of a number of individual delays (τ) is calculated repetitively, and an averaged delay profile indicating an averaged magnitude for the individual delays is generated from a number of repetitively calculated instantaneous delay profiles. The averaged delay profile is limited to comprise only delay values in a subset (W1, W2, W3) of the range of possible delay values. The delay of each individual multipath component is estimated from the averaged delay profile; and at least some estimated delays are used for RAKE combining. In this way, the benefits of an averaged delay profile are achieved without the need for the additional storage and computational resources normally required by a general averaged delay profile image. |
| US07822102B2 |
Method and system for an efficient channel quantization method for MIMO pre-coding systems
Aspects of a method and system for an efficient channel quantization method or MIMO pre-coding systems may include quantizing channel state information in a MIMO pre-coding system onto a codebook, which comprises one or more unitary matrices, using a cost function; selecting a quantization function that enables the quantizing based on a number of receive antennas and a number of transmit antennas associated with the MIMO pre-coding system; and selecting the cost function from a set of cost functions based on the number of receive antennas and the number of transmit antennas. The channel state information may be a matrix Ĥ. The set of cost functions may comprise function f(A), which may be defined by the following relationships: f ( A ) = ∑ i = 1 N ∑ j = 1 , j ≠ i N a i , j 2 and / or f ( A ) = ∑ i = 1 N ∑ j = 1 , j ≠ i N a i , j 2 - ∑ i = 1 N a i , i where A is a matrix of size N by N and aij is element (i,j) of matrix A. |
| US07822100B2 |
Phase mapping for QPSK/QBL-MSK waveform
A method of pulse shaping a spread signal of serially formatted in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) waveforms, where each waveform includes a predetermined number of chips per symbol, includes (a) examining adjacent chips of the I and Q waveforms at a symbol boundary; and (b) determining that one of the I or Q waveforms, includes two adjacent first and second chips separated by a single chip period, where the first chip belongs to a previous symbol and the second chip belongs to a present symbol. If the chips are of the same value, the method extends a peak value between the first and second chips, and zeros the other waveform of the I or Q waveform during the extended duration. If the chips are of opposite values, then the method zeroes one of the chips and inserts a chip into the other waveform. |
| US07822099B2 |
Digital Gaussian noise simulator
A Gaussian noise is simulated by discrete analogue ri,j. A first parameter α and pluralities of first and second integers i and j are selected. A plurality of points i,j are identified and a magnitude si,j is calculated for each point based on α, i and j. The discrete analogue ri,j is based on a respective si,j. Examples are given of α = 2 B - A 2 B and D>i≧0 and 2C>j≧0, where B≧0, 2B>A>0, C≧1 and D≧1, and magnitude s i , j = 1 - α i + α i · 1 - α 2 C · j or s D - 1 , j = 1 - α D - 1 + α D - 1 · 1 2 C · j . In some embodiments, a segment is defined based on α and i. The segment is divided into points based on respective values of j, and the magnitude is calculated for each point of the segment. The defining and dividing segments and calculating the magnitude is iteratively repeated for each value of i. |
| US07822098B2 |
Transmitting signals for time of arrival estimation
A method generates a radio signal to be used for ranging. For each of one of multiple frames to be transmitted as a ranging symbol, a first time interval and a second time interval are allocated. The ranging symbol is then transmitted as a set of pulses in each of the frames only during the first time interval, and the second time interval has a length to reduces inter-frame interference. |
| US07822097B2 |
Devices and methods for ultra-wideband communications
A method for generating an ultra-wideband communications signal is described. The method includes generating a piecewise linear ultra-wideband baseband signal comprising at least one pulse, based on an inputted data signal; generating a carrier tone having a carrier frequency suitable for wireless transmission; and upconverting the baseband signal with the carrier tone to the carrier frequency. A method for interpreting a received ultra-wideband communications signal, the signal having a center frequency in the RF domain, is also described. The method includes generating at least one local signal template, synchronized with the received ultra-wideband communications signal and having substantially the same center frequency; correlating the received ultra-wideband communications signal with each of the local signal templates in the analog domain, obtaining at least one ultra-wideband baseband signal; and interpreting the at least one ultra-wideband baseband signal to generate a data signal. Devices for implementing these methods are also described. |
| US07822096B2 |
Alignment and wavelength selection in external cavity lasers
A method of operating a laser projection system is provided. The projection system comprises an external cavity laser, an optical intensity monitor, laser projection optics, and a controller. The external cavity laser comprises a laser diode, an intra-cavity wavelength conversion device, and a wavelength selective element. According to the method, the position of the wavelength selective element is adjusted relative to an optical axis Z of the external cavity laser to optimize output intensity. Specifically, the position of the wavelength selective element is adjusted by (i) tilting the wavelength selective element about its wavelength selective axis Y to reflect a wavelength of interest along an optimum path in an XZ plane of the external laser cavity and (ii) tipping the wavelength selective element about its wavelength insensitive axis X to reflect the wavelength of interest along an optimum path in a YZ plane of the external laser cavity. Additional embodiments are disclosed and claimed. |
| US07822092B2 |
Laser system
A method and apparatus may comprise a line narrowed pulsed excimer or molecular fluorine gas discharge laser system which may comprise a seed laser oscillator producing an output comprising a laser output light beam of pulses which may comprise a first gas discharge excimer or molecular fluorine laser chamber; a line narrowing module within a first oscillator cavity; a laser amplification stage containing an amplifying gain medium in a second gas discharge excimer or molecular fluorine laser chamber receiving the output of the seed laser oscillator and amplifying the output of the seed laser oscillator to form a laser system output comprising a laser output light beam of pulses, which may comprise a ring power amplification stage. |
| US07822091B2 |
Inverted composite slab sandwich laser gain medium
The present invention pertains to a composite slab laser gain medium with an undoped core and at least one doped gain medium section disposed on at least one side of that core. The gain medium is constructed so as to mitigate the effects of thermal and mechanical stresses within it and also allow for impingement cooling of the doped gain medium section. |
| US07822088B2 |
Nitride semiconductor light emitting device and method for manufacturing the same
A nitride semiconductor light emitting device operating on a low voltage and excelling in reliability and performance is to be provided. It has a multi-layered p-type clad layer of at least two layers of a first p-type clad layer and a second p-type clad layer, wherein the second p-type clad layer contains a p-type impurity in a higher concentration the first p-type clad layer does, has a thickness ranging from 2 to 20 nm, and is formed of AlYGa1-YN whose Al content has a relationship of X≦Y to the first p-type clad layer doped with a p-type impurity containing at least an AlXGa1-XN (0 |
| US07822077B2 |
Thulium doped fiber configuration for enhanced high power operation
An optical fiber amplifier includes a laser pump source for generating laser pump light; a fiber including an inner cladding layer optically coupled to a laser pump source for receiving laser pump light; a large mode area (LMA) core surrounded by the inner cladding, the LMA core including a confined region having a predetermined doping concentration of rare-earth ions for undergoing excitation to generate laser light when pumped by the laser pump light; and an outer cladding layer surrounding the inner cladding layer for substantially confining the laser pump light to the inner cladding and the LMA core. In a method of forming the optical fiber amplifier, a ratio of an area of the confined region to an area of the LMA core, and the predetermined doping concentration of the rare earth ions are selected so as to achieve a quantum efficiency (QE) gain factor of approximately 2, but such that the heat dissipation per unit length can be controlled by adjusting the area of the confined region. |
| US07822076B2 |
Apparatus for multiplexing signals through I/O pins
One embodiment of the present invention provides an apparatus that selectively multiplexes a plurality of signal lines through an I/O pin on a semiconductor chip. This apparatus includes an I/O pin, for coupling a signal line within the semiconductor chip to a signal line outside of the semiconductor chip. A transmitting circuit is configured to selectively multiplex the plurality of signal lines onto the I/O pin. A receiving circuit is configured to receive multiplexed data from the I/O pin, and to reverse the multiplexing so that values originally from the multiplexed signal lines are separated into distinct signals in the receiving circuit. Note that the transmitting circuit and the receiving circuit are driven by a common clock signal. The apparatus additionally includes an initialization circuit that selectively configures the transmitting circuit and the receiving circuit to multiplex at least one of the plurality of signal lines through the I/O pin. |
| US07822068B2 |
System and method for seamless switching through buffering
A method of preparing data streams to facilitate seamless switching between such streams by a switching device to produce an output data stream without any switching artifacts. Bi-directional switching between any plurality of data streams is supported. The data streams are divided into segments, wherein the segments include synchronized starting points and end points. The data rate is increased before an end point of a segment, to create switch gaps between the segments. Increasing the data rate can include increasing a bandwidth of the plurality of data streams, for example by multiplexing, or compressing the data.The present invention can be used, for example, with MPEG or AC-3 encoded audio and MPEG encoded video segments that are multiplexed into MPEG-2 transport streams.Also included are specific methods for preparing MPEG video streams and multiplexing MPEG video with MPEG or AC-3 audio streams to allow a receiver to create seamless transitions between individually encoded segments. |
| US07822066B1 |
Processing variable size fields of the packets of a communication protocol
Approaches for processing packets having variable size fields. In one approach, an extraction circuit determines a size of a variable size field in the packets. A plurality of operation circuits access fields of the packets, and each operation circuit includes a control circuit that determines positions of fields in the packets. The position of an accessed field in a packet varies according to changes in size of the variable size field. A reconfiguration circuit is coupled to the extraction circuit and to the control circuit of each of the operation circuits. The reconfiguration circuit is responsive to a change in size of the variable size field from one packet to the next and reconfigures the control circuit of an operation circuit to correctly determine the field positions in the next packet. |
| US07822065B2 |
Open wireless architecture (OWA) medium access control (MAC) processing architecture for future mobile terminal
A software architecture for future open wireless architecture (OWA) mobile terminal providing an open and secured software platform supporting various wireless air interfaces with multi-dimensional mobility handovers and maximized spectrum efficiency for the truly service-oriented fixed, mobile and wireless communications convergence. |
| US07822064B2 |
Backhaul-level call admission control for a wireless mesh network
One embodiment includes tracking utilization of the backhaul wireless bandwidth of a mesh network related to time sensitive packet data, receiving a call admission request for a call from a client station of a first mesh access point of the mesh, ascertaining using the tracked utilization whether to approve the call admission request using a backhaul call admission control method, and approving the call by sending a positive call admission response if the backhaul call admission control method approves the call and if an access level call admission control method ascertains to approve the call admission request at the access level. |
| US07822063B2 |
Bandwidth allocation method and system for data transmission in EPON
A method for efficiently allocating a bandwidth at an optical line terminal (OLT) for upstream transmission in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) system. An optical network unit (ONU) divides data to be transmitted into at least two groups that include a group with a constant bit rate (CBR) and a group with a variable bit rate (VBR), and requests a required bandwidth for each of the divided groups. The OLT allocates the requested bandwidth to the group with the CBR within a first bandwidth among an allocated bandwidth including the first bandwidth and a second bandwidth. The ONU transmits data using bandwidth allocated to the divided groups by the OLT. |
| US07822061B2 |
Method and system for power control of fibre channel switches
A method and system for controlling power consumption in a fiber channel switch element having a plurality of ports and plural links to communicate over a network is provided. The switch element includes, a power control module that is used to provide power to only active ports after firmware of fiber channel switch element determines the active ports. The method includes, determining active ports of the fiber channel switch element, after all the ports are shut down in a known state; and providing power to only the active ports. All ports are powered up during fiber channel switch element reset and then powered down (except a common port) so that the ports are shut down in a known state. |
| US07822059B2 |
Managing contention-free time allocations in a network
A method and corresponding system for communicating between stations in a network are presented. The method includes providing repeated beacon transmissions from a coordinator station for coordinating transmissions among a plurality of the stations; transmitting from a first station to a second station during a time slot assigned to the first station by at least one of the beacon transmissions; and transmitting from the first station information that grants permission to the second station to transmit during at least a portion of a time slot assigned to the first station. |
| US07822053B2 |
Apparatus and method for TCP buffer copy distributed parallel processing
A TCP buffer copy distributed parallel processing apparatus includes: a TCP reception processing section (TCPRPS); one or more TCP buffer copying sections (TCPBCS); a socket processing section; a reception packet buffer (RPB); and an application buffer. The TCPRPS executes packet receiving and TCP protocol processes. When packet receipt order matches transmission order from a counter host, the received packets are stored in an in-order queue provided in the RPB. Copy destination regions in the application buffer are determined based on TCP sequence numbers of the received packets. A buffer copy request is issued to copy the received packets from the RPB into the application buffer. Any TCPBCS is selected to send the buffer copy request to the selected TCPBCS, such that buffer copy of the received packets is executed as a distributed parallel process. Out-of-order received packets are stored in an out-of-order queue provided in the RPB. |
| US07822047B2 |
Method and arrangement for processing management and control messages
In a processing management or control messages in a packet or cell switched data network, a protocol packet (131) is provided with a selection identifier that indicates the sub-system (145) of the receiving network element (102), which sub-system operates the management and/or control session connected to said protocol packet. Now that sub-system (144) of the receiving network element that receives said protocol packet (131), is capable of conducting the information contained in said protocol packet to the appropriate sub-system (145) of the receiving network element (102) on the basis of said selection identifier. |
| US07822045B2 |
Routing key interpreter
A method of providing a routing key interpreter for a signalling gateway, the method comprising the steps of generating an input file comprising a plurality of input expressions and a plurality of routing keys corresponding to the input expression, supplying the input file to a lexical analyser generator to generate a lexical analyser, and implementing the routing key interpreter using the lexical analyser. |
| US07822044B2 |
Radio link parameter updating method in mobile communication system
A radio link (RL) parameter updating method of a high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) system in a mobile communication system is disclosed. According to a radio channel situation of a terminal, an RL parameter applied to transmission and reception of control information between the terminal and a base station is dynamically controlled. For this purpose, the RL parameter updating method includes: a step in which the base station determines whether to update an HSDPA related parameter and transmits the parameter update information to the RNC to trigger updating of the RL parameter; and a step in which the RNC updates the HSDPA related parameter and transmits it to the terminal. The parameter update information is delivered through an RL parameter update response message, and the RNC is a serving RNC. |
| US07822043B2 |
Supporting applications sensitive to data loss on switched virtual circuits (SVCs)
An edge router receives datagrams to be forwarded an SVC. If the SVC is not already set up, the edge router buffers the datagrams until the SVC set up is complete. The buffered datagrams are forwarded once the SVC set up is complete. According to another aspect of the present invention, different buffering requirements are supported for different user applications. A policy table may be configured by a service provider specifying the requirements associated with potentially each flow (e.g., combination of source/destination IP addresses, source/destination port number), and the datagram on each flow may be buffered accordingly. |
| US07822036B2 |
Method and system for policy-based routing in a private network-to-network interface protocol based network
A method for policy-based routing of calls between nodes in a network, comprising: entering policy constraint indices for selected addresses in respective entries of an address translation table, the address translation table for accessing by a first node of the network to selectively translate attributes of calls based on respective addresses prior to transmission over the network to a second node, the policy constraint indices pointing to respective policy constraints for routing calls between the first and second nodes; receiving a call at the first node, the call including an address; accessing the address translation table using the address to determine whether the call requires assignment of a policy constraint by presence of an entry for the address in the address translation table and by presence of a policy constraint index in the entry; and, if the call requires assignment of a policy constraint, identifying a policy constraint with the policy constraint index, assigning the policy constraint to the call, and routing the call between the first and second nodes in accordance with the policy constraint. |
| US07822032B1 |
Data structures for supporting packet data modification operations
A processor readable medium storing a data structure for supporting one or more packet modification operations is provided. The data structure has a pointer to a sequence of one or more commands stored in a first memory area and implementing one or more packet modification operations. The data structure also has a pointer to a burst of one or more data or mask items stored in a second memory area for use by the one or more commands. A method of performing one or more packet modification operations on a packet is also provided. This packet is associated with a data structure link. In this method, a data structure corresponding to the data structure link is retrieved. This data structure has the format described above. A packet modification system utilizing a data structure having this format is also provided. |
| US07822028B1 |
Method and systems for infiniband networks
Method and system for transferring a packet in an Infiniband network is provided. The method includes configuring a connection to connect a first network device to a second network device in the Infiniband network using a first path with a packet timeout duration and a second path with a packet timeout duration, the packet timeout duration of the first path being less than the timeout duration of the second path; attempting to transfer a packet using the first path; and using the second path to transfer the packet if a number of retries using the first path exceeds a maximum number of retries for the first path. |
| US07822021B2 |
Systems, processes and integrated circuits for rate and/or diversity adaptation for packet communications
A media over packet networking appliance provides a network interface, a voice transducer, and at least one integrated circuit assembly coupling the voice transducer to the network interface. The at least one integrated circuit assembly provides media over packet transmissions and holds bits defining reconstruction of a packet stream having a primary stage and a secondary stage. The secondary stage has one or more of linear predictive coding parameters, long term prediction lags, parity check, and adaptive and fixed codebook gains. The packet stream has an instance of single packet loss, and the reconstruction includes receiving a packet sequence represented by P(n)P(n−1)′, [Lost Packet], P(n+2)P(n+1)′, and P(n+3)P(n+2)′, obtaining as information from the secondary stage one or more of the linear predictive coding parameters, long term prediction lags, parity check, and adaptive and fixed codebook gains, and performing an excitation reconstruction utilizing said packet sequence thus received. |
| US07822020B2 |
VoIP monitoring system and VoIP monitoring method
A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system includes two or more VoIP terminals, a monitoring server (30), and a soft switch device (10). The soft switch is capable of determining whether or not phone number associated with at least one of the two or more VoIP terminals is predetermined to be monitored, amending information associated with communication between the two or more VoIP terminals, and establishing the communication between the two or more VoIP terminals through the monitoring server. The monitoring server is capable of reading voice data packets sent between the two or more VoIP terminals. |
| US07822019B2 |
Direction of communications sessions to contact centers
A communications session directed at a group of contact centers is held outside the contact centers at an IVR server, while the requirements of the session are determined. A request is formulated specifying the requirements, and this request is sent to a web services provider agent exposed by the group of contact centers. The request is forwarded to the contact centers which collectively respond with an identification of an address associated with a specific endpoint to which the communications session should be sent in order that it will receive the specified handling. The IVR server holding the call can thereby direct the session to a suitable endpoint without having any need to remain aware of the state of the contact centers or the agents within those centers. |
| US07822017B2 |
Secure voice signaling gateway
Systems and methods of providing secure signaling for voice communications over a public switched voice network (PSTN) are described. The call signaling is received at a first secure voice signaling gateway (SVSG) in which it is encrypted utilizing a security key. The encrypted payload is tunneled from the first SVSG to a second SVSG at a destination network element. The destination SVSG decrypts the payload and passes it on to the destination. According to the invention the communication can be either masqueraded in which the address of the first SVSG is given as the origin or non-masqueraded in which the actual original of the voice communication is retained. |
| US07822013B2 |
System and method to redirect calls in a telecommunications network
The invention relates to a method for call diversion in a telecommunication network, comprising a data network (1), a voice network (2), for the transmission of speech, a network server (7), for the speech network (2) and a management server (6), for the data network (1). According to the invention, the management server is interrogated about the state of a call from the user terminal (8) to the data network (1) and where an error in said call occurs a call transfer to a stored address is carried out by the network server (7). |
| US07822012B1 |
Sliced crossbar architecture with inter-slice communication
A method and apparatus includes identifying an address portion of a first message in an address slice of a switch, the first message associated with a first priority, the address portion of the first message including a first routing portion specifying a network resource; identifying an address portion of a second message in the address slice, the second message associated with a second priority, the address portion of the second message including a second routing portion specifying the same network resource; identifying a non-address portion of the first message in a non-address slice of the switch; identifying a non-address portion of the second message in the non-address slice, wherein neither of the non-address portions includes a routing portion specifying the network resource; selecting, independently in each slice, the same one of the first and second messages based on the first and second priorities; transferring the address portion of the selected message to the network resource specified by the routing portion of the address portion of the selected message; sending the routing portion of the address portion of the selected message from the address slice to the non-address slice; transferring the non-address portion of the selected message to the network resource specified by the routing portion of the address portion of the selected message. |
| US07822011B2 |
Self-synchronized streaming architecture
Synchronization of downlink streaming data is performed by estimating the likelihood of an underflow or an overflow in an output buffer upon receipt of each encoded data frame to determine if synchronization will be needed. After each encoded data frame is decoded it is then synchronized if the estimate indicated synchronization would be needed. Synchronization of uplink steaming data is performed by estimating the likelihood of an underflow or an overflow in an input buffer upon sending of each encoded data frame to an output modem for transmission to determine if synchronization will be needed. If needed, synchronization will be performed later on a portion of data samples taken from the input buffer that are used to form a frame of un-encoded data samples. |
| US07822010B2 |
Reservation request improvements
Methods and apparatuses are presented for conducting communications over a shared communication medium involving (a) sending a request from a first node, the shared communication medium organized to include (i) a request signal space including a plurality of request segments each having a different location within the request signal space and (ii) a scheduled transmission signal space including a plurality of scheduled transmission segments each having a different location within the scheduled transmission signal space, the request sent in a request segment, (b) obtaining an assignment associating the request with a scheduled transmission segment, (c) from the first node, sending a data transmission in the scheduled transmission segment associated with the request, and (d) wherein a collection of request segments in the plurality of request segments is separated by a guard zone from an adjacent collection of scheduled transmission segments in the plurality of scheduled transmission segments. |
| US07822007B2 |
Transmitter in FDMA communication system and method for configuring pilot channel
The present invention relates to a transmitter in a frequency division multiple access communication system. The transmitter generates a plurality of pilot symbols, and groups the plurality of pilot symbols into a plurality of groups according to a location of a subcarrier. In addition, the transmitter inverse fast Fourier transforms the pilot symbol in each group, and sequentially outputs a first pilot symbol sequence corresponding to each group. The transmitter generates a plurality of pilot blocks respectively corresponding to the plurality of groups, and converts the first pilot symbol sequence of each group into a second pilot symbol sequence of a corresponding pilot block among the plurality of pilot blocks. |
| US07822002B2 |
Dynamic address redemption by proxy in statically addressed wireless personal area networks
Described herein are one or more implementations for a mesh, peer-to-peer, cluster-tree, hierarchical wireless personal area network (WPAN) technology that uses a new approach to the static network address allocation scheme. As described herein, the new approach employs dynamic redemption or reallocation of free addresses from existing static allocations to other router-nodes in a WPAN. |
| US07821987B2 |
Wireless wide area network (WWAN) mobile gateway with communication protocol management
A wireless wide area network (WWAN) mobile gateway is configured to execute a selected communication protocol from a plurality of communication protocols to communicate with a connected WWAN modem card connected through a WWAN device interface. The connected WWAN modem card is one of a plurality of WWAN modem cards where each of the WWAN modem cards is configured to communicate using one of the plurality of communication protocols and includes a WWAN transceiver for exchanging WWAN signals with a WWAN communication system. |
| US07821986B2 |
WLAN infrastructure provided directions and roaming
In one embodiment, a method for facilitating maintaining wireless connectivity and roaming in wireless networks includes estimating a current location of the wireless client and determining a physical route and a wireless access point route based on the current location and a destination. |
| US07821978B2 |
Initiation of packet-based services in a public mobile communication system
A mechanism and method for initiating a packet-based service session in a public mobile communication system, especially a service session for a group of users are disclosed. In order to accomplish a service initiation even if the terminals of the users are in a disconnected state with respect to the packet-switched domain of the mobile communication system, a triggering message is sent from one user terminal to the other terminals of the group. The triggering message includes information about a packet-based service session to be started, and it may be a message that can be sent via the mobile communication system to a mobile terminal that is in a disconnected state with respect to the packet-switched domain. In response to the reception of the triggering message, the other terminals are brought to a state allowing reception of packets belonging to the packet-based service session. When necessary, this feature involves establishing a connection from the other terminals to the packet-switched domain. |
| US07821977B2 |
Determining data amounts for scheduled and autonomous transmission with a user equipment
A method includes (1) receiving with a user equipment (UE) information related to an allowed power for autonomous transmission on at least one logical channel mapped to an uplink channel, the uplink channel being set up with a base station and dedicated for packet data transmission, (2) determining, with the UE and in accordance with a scheduling grant received from the base station, an allowed power of scheduled transmission on the uplink channel, (3) determining a total data amount allowed to be transmitted, (4) determining a data amount for the autonomous transmission on the logical channel, the determined autonomous transmission data amount being not greater than an allowed autonomous transmission data amount corresponding to the allowed autonomous transmission power, and (5) determining a data amount for scheduled transmission on the logical channel, the determined scheduled transmission data amount being not greater than an allowed scheduled transmission data amount corresponding to the allowed scheduled transmission power. |
| US07821974B2 |
UMTS RIL extension
A UMTS extension to the GSM/GPRS RIL is disclosed. The UTMS RIL provides an API set interface for the support of UMTS features such as 3G QoS, secondary PDP contexts call, priority service, voice group call and voice broadcast services, etc. The API set is based on the UMTS AT command interface as defined in 3GPP specification TS 27.007. The architecture of the UMTS RIL is designed as a standard interface with APIs and callback mechanisms that can be used across different platforms and multi-radio hardware such as GSM, GPRS, WCDMA, and HSDPA. The UTMS RIL may enable various applications running on mobile platforms in 2G, 2.5G, and 3G cellular radio stacks to issue commands without knowledge of underlying radio hardware structure. |
| US07821968B2 |
Network map creating method
By synthesizing the map of an entire network, it provides a method for detecting OSI Reference Model layer-2 switches and evaluating the status of the inter-connection of the layer-2 switches. The NMT (102) which implements the SNMP manager queries the specified management IP-addresses and receives responses from the SNMP agents implemented on the layer-2 switches (103,104,105). From the management information in the responses, the existence of the layer-2 switches is confirmed and the MAC address and port information mapping table MvP table is constructed. Based on the MvP table the inter-connection information of the layer-2 switches is detected. |
| US07821967B2 |
Apparatus and a system for remote control and a method thereof
Disclosed is a remote control system which includes a remote control apparatus on a network, a control packet transmitter which is on a sub network and connects with the remote control apparatus via a network interconnecting apparatus, an operation terminal which can connect with the remote control apparatus, and a control target on the sub network of the control packet transmitter. The operation terminal transmits information which includes a control content of the control target to the remote control apparatus. The remote control apparatus includes a table including an address of the control packet transmitter and an address of the control target. The remote control apparatus transmits a control request packet including the acquired address of the control target and control content to the control packet transmitter. The control packet transmitter transmits a control packet including a control content designated by a control request packet to the control target. |
| US07821965B2 |
Managing packet voice networks using a virtual switch approach
A method for managing packet voice networks using a virtual switch approach and abstract information model approach is disclosed. A virtual switch object represents a virtual switch having a media gateway controller and one or more associated media gateways. User input specifies a configuration operation on the virtual switch and one or more parameter values. One or more configuration instructions are automatically issued to both the media gateway controller and the media gateway, resulting in configuring both the media gateway controller and the media gateway as specified in the user input. As a result, a user can configure or operate on a virtual switch as an atomic entity, for example, in a network management application, without involvement in complicated details of the actual network devices that provide a particular packet voice service. |
| US07821963B2 |
Method for a root path calculation in a shortest path bridge
A method for root path calculation in a shortest path bridge, including: in the case that there are a plurality of equivalent paths whose total path cost to a root bridge is equal, determining a root path corresponding to the root bridge based on the minimum/maximum value of bridge ID in the plurality of equivalent paths. The method can generate symmetric paths for different root bridges under a multiple spanning tree circumstance of shortest path bridge. |
| US07821961B2 |
Method for generating /changing transport connection identifier in portable internet network and portable subscriber station therefor
A terminal including a packet detecting unit, a user input/output unit, a CID managing unit, and a data storing unit is disclosed. The packet detecting unit determines whether a packet can be classified by a pre-established packet classification rule or a packet cannot be classified by the rules. For packets that cannot be classified, the user input/output unit receives QoS information from a user. The CID managing unit generates a new packet classification rule for the unclassified packet, checks a CID in a data storing unit, the CID having the same QoS class as that of the QoS parameter input through the user input/output unit, and determines whether to generate a new CID or to add the new packet classification rule to the pre-established CID. The data storing unit storing unit Stores the new packet classification rule generated by the CID managing unit and information on the CID. |
| US07821959B2 |
Bandwidth measuring method and device
In a bandwidth measuring method and device for grasping a traffic general and local trends in consideration of a packet loss, without continuously capturing packets, a simulation is executed by determining a bandwidth limit based on a buffer length, a transmission bandwidth, and a mean packet length collected in an adjoining node or its own node and information of a preset allowable packet loss rate, and by determining an initial value of a transient evaluation type queue simulation for a packet loss rate. An optimum short time interval when the packet loss rate by the simulation approaches the allowable packet loss rate is determined as a packet continuous capture time. Furthermore, packets are continuously captured in the short time interval, and a mean bandwidth of the packets is calculated, so that a general mean bandwidth, or an upper bandwidth or a peak bandwidth is determined from an overall mean bandwidth by repeating the continuous capturing at random within a fixed section. |
| US07821956B2 |
System and method for controlling the flooding of information in a network environment
An apparatus for communicating packets in a network environment is provided that includes a first network element that includes a first neighbor list, the first network element being coupled to a second network element and a third network element. The first network element is operable to receive a second neighbor list from the second network element and a third neighbor list from the third network element. The first network element is further operable to determine one or more overlaps provided by the second and third neighbor lists when compared to the first neighbor list, the first network element relaying an update that it receives based on the one or more overlaps. |
| US07821953B2 |
Dynamically selecting CODECS for managing an audio message
A system, method, and apparatus are directed towards a system, method, and apparatus for managing a communication session by dynamically selecting a CODEC. A client device requests a communication session with a receiver device. If available, historical information may be used to establish an initial CODEC and its associated sampling frequency for the communication session. Signals, such as a white noise signal, and/or a ring tone may be sent between the client device and the receiver to determine a metric for the communication session. The metric may be used to adjust the CODEC and/or its sampling frequency for the communication session. In one embodiment, if it is determined that the sampling frequency is less than a minimum determined value, a message may be sent to the client device advising that the current communication session be terminated. |
| US07821951B2 |
Communicating risk information within a multi-domain network
A method for communicating risk information within a network including a plurality of domains connected to one another at the border nodes of said domains, characterized by steps consisting of: determining a connection path within a first domain (2), said path running between a border node (N21) of the first domain connected to a second domain and a recipient node, determining a set of shared risk groups of the first domain which the connection path crosses, assigning a shared risk identification code to said connection path, storing, within a shared risk group management device (28) associated with the first domain, a data structure associating said shared risk identification code with said set of shared risk groups. |
| US07821947B2 |
Automatic discovery of service/host dependencies in computer networks
An activity model is generated at a computer. The activity model may be generated by monitoring incoming and outgoing channels for packets for a predetermined window of time. To generate an activity model, an input and an output channel are selected. A probability distribution function describing the observed waiting time between packet arrivals on the selected input channel and the selected output channel is generated by mining the data collected during the selected window of time. A probability distribution function describing the observed waiting time between a randomly chosen instant and receiving a packet on the selected input channel is also generated. The distance between the two generated probability distribution functions is computed. If the computed distance is greater than a predefined confidence level, then the two selected channels are deemed to be related. Otherwise, the selected channels are deemed to be unrelated. The activity model is further generated by comparing each input and output channel pair entering or leaving a particular computer. |
| US07821944B2 |
Optimal interconnect utilization in a data processing network
A method for managing packet traffic in a data processing network includes collecting data indicative of the amount of packet traffic traversing each of the links in the network's interconnect. The collected data includes source and destination information indicative of the source and destination of corresponding packets. A heavily used links are then identified from the collected data. Packet data associated with the heavily used link is then analyzed to identify a packet source and packet destination combination that is a significant contributor to the packet traffic on the heavily used link. In response, a process associated with the identified packet source and packet destination combination is migrated, such as to another node of the network, to reduce the traffic on the heavily used link. In one embodiment, an agent installed on each interconnect switch collects the packet data for interconnect links connected to the switch. |
| US07821943B2 |
Data transmission
Audio-visual data is provided to a network-connected terminal. First audio-visual data containing first information encoded at a first data rate and second audio-visual data containing first information encoded at a second data rate that is more than the first data rate are received. The first audio-visual data is provided to the network-connected terminal. A condition is identified to the effect that the amount of data being sent to the terminal is less than the available bandwidth. The difference between the data rates of the first and second audio-visual data is calculated, additional data packets are sent to the terminal to determine whether the available bandwidth is large enough to provide the first audio-visual data to the terminal; and if it is determined that the available bandwidth is large enough, provision of the first audio-visual data to the terminal is stopped and the second audio-visual data is provided instead. |
| US07821942B2 |
Controlling data flow through a data communications link
Controlling data flow through a data communications link, the link operating according to a data communications protocol in which a receiver of data communications on the link can suspend data communications on the link for a period of time determined by the receiver, including specifying for the sender a duration for flow control periods; specifying for the sender a number of corrupt communications control packets to be transmitted from the sender to the receiver during a flow control period; determining by the sender whether a flow control message is received from the receiver during a flow control period; altering, in dependence upon whether a flow control message is received from the receiver during a flow control period, the number of corrupt communications control packets; and transmitting, among normal data communications during a subsequent flow control period, the altered number of corrupt communications control packets from the sender to the receiver. |
| US07821941B2 |
Automatically controlling operation of a BRAS device based on encapsulation information
A technique controls operation of a BRAS device. The technique involves extracting encapsulation information from a communications exchange between a CPE device and an external server device (e.g., a DHCP server). The communications exchange passes through the BRAS device and a DSLAM device. The technique further involves storing the encapsulation information in local memory of the BRAS device, and controlling a flow of a downstream communication passing through the BRAS device and the DSLAM device toward the CPE device based on the encapsulation information stored in the local memory of the BRAS device. Accordingly, the BRAS device is well suited for performing ATM overhead accounting as well as shaping and policing downstream traffic. |
| US07821940B2 |
Transmission of maintenance information of an active packet connection through employment of packets communicated over the active packet connection
A maintenance component of an apparatus in one example employs one or more packets that are communicated over an active packet connection to evaluate the active packet connection. |
| US07821938B2 |
Adaptive coding and modulation for synchronous connections
A method for communication includes accepting input data from two or more data sources, one or more of which include continuous synchronous tributaries, for transmission over a wireless communication link having a variable data rate. Relative priorities are assigned to the respective data sources. A currently-available data rate of the communication link is determined. The input data accepted from the data sources is multiplexed to produce a composite data stream. The input data of at least one of the tributaries is selectively omitted from the composite data stream based on the respective relative priorities, in order to match the data rate of the composite data stream to the currently-available data rate of the communication link. The composite data stream is transmitted over the communication link. |
| US07821937B1 |
Network protocol with damage loss resilient congestion control algorithm
Various embodiments of a network protocol that utilizes a congestion control algorithm that distinguishes between congestion loss and damage loss are described. In response to a packet loss on a network, a delay-based detection algorithm may be performed based on RTT (Round-Trip Time) information to determine whether the network is congested. If the delay-based detection algorithm does not determine that the network is congested then a consistency-based detection algorithm may be performed based on packet loss rate information. If either the delay-based detection algorithm or the consistency-based detection algorithm determine that the network is congested then the rate of data transmission may be reduced, e.g., by reducing a congestion window size. |
| US07821935B2 |
Apparatus for and method of managing a routing table in a multi-hop system
A method of managing a routing table by interoperating with a routing block and a radio resource management (RRM)/scheduling block in a plurality of nodes of a multi-hop system, the method including computing a traffic load rate of each path which transmits traffic and updating the routing table with the computed traffic load rate via the routing block; and updating a plurality of metrics included in the routing table based on the traffic load rate and information transmitted from a neighbor node via the RRM/scheduling block. |
| US07821932B2 |
System and method for intelligent signal routing in a television production studio
A system for signal routing in a television production studio includes a core router operatively coupled to a plurality of peripheral routers, each of the plurality of peripheral routers having an associated control system, and a core router control system coupled to the core router and to coupled to the plurality of peripheral routers, the core router control system configured to allow any peripheral router to communicate with any other peripheral router through the core router and irrespective of the control system associated with each peripheral router. |
| US07821931B2 |
System and method for assembling a data packet
Disclosed is a system and method for assembling a data packet. The system can be implemented as four memory elements associated with one or more processors. The first memory element stores a sequence number and a sub-channel identifier for an incoming data packet. The second memory element stores a revised packet fragment. The third memory element stores an unrevised packet fragment. The fourth memory element stores a starting address. In the system, the starting address may be the starting address of the revised packet fragment or the unrevised packet fragment wherein the first memory element identifies portions of the fourth memory element associated with the sequence number. The one or more processors are configured to create a modified data packet by combining the unrevised packet fragments and the revised packet fragment, wherein the modified data packet is associated with the sequence number and sub-channel identifier. |
| US07821930B2 |
Fault-tolerant communications in routed networks
A method for providing fault-tolerant network communications between a plurality of nodes for an application, including providing a plurality of initial communications pathways over a plurality of networks coupled between the plurality of nodes, receiving a data packet on a sending node from the application, the sending node being one of the plurality of nodes, the data packet being addressed by the application to an address on one of the plurality of nodes, and selecting a first selected pathway for the data packet from among the plurality of initial communications pathways where the first selected pathway is a preferred pathway. |
| US07821927B2 |
Methods and apparatus for reducing undeliverable server-initiated IP traffic in a wireless network
A host server is operative to control the pushing of user data messages to a plurality of mobile communication devices adapted to communicate in a wireless communication network. In particular, the host server is adapted to cause, for each one of the mobile communication devices operating in the wireless communication network, user data messages to be pushed to a mobile communication device via a packet data connection; receive, from a serving node in the wireless communication network, an IP notification message having an IP destination address of the host server and including an identification or address that identifies one of the mobile communication devices, the IP notification message being produced in response to a termination of packet data connectivity for the identified mobile communication device; and in response to receiving the IP notification message, at least temporarily refrain from pushing user data messages to the identified mobile communication device. The IP notification message may be formatted and communicated based on an existing protocol, such as Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), or any other suitable protocol. |
| US07821922B1 |
Fault isolation and handling in a packet switching network
A packet switching network having a plurality of nodes and a network having: a plurality of switches couples to the nodes and links interconnecting ports of the plurality of switches. Each one of the switches has a normal routing table for routing packets from a source one of the nodes to a destination one of the nodes through the network in according to the normal routing table and, for, upon such upon such source one of the nodes detecting a fault in transmission of such packet, routing such to a predetermined designated fault one of the ports of such switch. |
| US07821921B2 |
Reliable and resilient end-to-end connectivity for heterogeneous networks
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to connectivity management in a heterogeneous network and provide a method, system and computer program product for resilient and reliable end-to-end connectivity in a heterogeneous network. In one embodiment of the invention, a method for resilient and reliable end-to-end connectivity in a heterogeneous network environment can be provided. The method can include creating an instance of an abstracted network resource model (NRM) for a heterogeneous network environment of different network resource nodes. The method further can include binding an application endpoint in the instance of the abstracted NRM with a connectivity endpoint for a first of the different network resource nodes. The method yet further can include detecting an outage in the first of the different network resource nodes. Finally, the method can include re-binding the application endpoint to a second of the different network resource nodes in response to detecting the outage. |
| US07821913B2 |
Method and apparatus for data and pilot structures supporting equalization
Techniques for transmitting data in a manner to facilitate equalization at a receiver are described. Guard intervals are appended to data blocks such that each data block has a guard interval at the beginning of the data block and a guard interval at the end of the data block. Each guard interval may be discontinuous transmission (DTX), a polyphase sequence, or some other known sequence. Pilot is appended to each set of at least one data block. The data blocks, pilot, and guard intervals may be sent using various slot structures and are processed for transmission. The processing may include mapping the data blocks to at least one physical channel, channelizing the data blocks for each physical channel with a channelization code, combining all physical channels, and scrambling the combined data, pilot, and guard intervals with a scrambling code. |
| US07821912B2 |
Information recording medium having substrate with microscopic pattern and reproducing apparatus therefor
A recording medium includes a substrate having a microscopic pattern, which includes a shape of continuous substance of approximately parallel grooves formed with a convex shaped section and a concave shaped section alternating on a surface of the substrate. A recording layer is formed on the microscopic pattern and a light transmitting layer has a thickness of 0.05 mm to 0.12 mm formed on the recording layer. The microscopic pattern satisfies a relation of P≦λ/NA, wherein P is a pitch of the convex shaped section, λ is a wavelength of a reproducing light beam and NA is a numerical aperture of an objective lens. The microscopic pattern also includes modulated address information formed on both side walls of the convex shaped section viewed from the light transmitting layer as a wobble, both the side walls being parallel to each other, and furthermore wherein the address information is modulated by the phase-shift keying modulation system. A reproducing apparatus is particularly suited for the recording medium. |
| US07821910B2 |
Optical disc, optical disc drive, optical disc recording/reproducing method, and integrated circuit
A big pattern for a run-in area which allows data reproduction to be performed stably even when the recording density of an optical disc is increased is provided. An optical disc according to the present invention includes tracks, each of which divided into a plurality of recording blocks. Each of the plurality of blocks includes a run-in area and a data area. In the run-in area, a prescribed run-in bit pattern is recordable; and in the data area, bit patterns having a plurality of bit lengths obtained by modulating data as a recording target in accordance with a prescribed modulation rule are recordable. In this optical disc, at least one of spatial frequencies corresponding to the bit patterns having the plurality of bit lengths is higher than a cutoff frequency. The run-in bit pattern recordable in the run-in area includes the bit patterns having the plurality of bit lengths, from which the bit pattern corresponding to the frequency higher than the OTF cutoff frequency has been excluded. |
| US07821905B2 |
Optical pickup device and optical disk device
An optical pickup device is disclosed. The device includes: a light source that emits a light beam of a predetermined wavelength of about 405 nm; an objective lens being a plastic lens provided with, on at least one surface, diffraction means of a zone diffractive structure suppressing generation of aberration to be caused by a temperature change, and has a numerical aperture of 0.82 or larger for gathering the light beam emitted from the light source with respect to an optical disk; and a collimator lens disposed between the light source and the objective lens, and derives a substantially-collimated light by converting an angle of divergence of the light beam emitted from the light source. |
| US07821901B2 |
Optical pickup device for supporting a plurality of types of optical disks
The optical pickup device includes a semiconductor laser for emitting laser light of 650 nm and 780 nm in wavelengths, a semiconductor laser for emitting laser light of 400 nm in wavelength, and an optical sensor which is provided in sequence with a first light receiving surface divided into four areas in a matrix manner, a second light receiving surface divided into four areas in a matrix manner, and a third light receiving surface divided at least into two areas aligned inline. Reflected light of three beams of 400 nm in wavelength and reflected light of three beams in 780 nm in wavelength are received on the first to third light receiving surfaces respectively, and a main beam of reflected light of 650 nm in wavelength is received on the first light receiving surface on one side out of the three light receiving surfaces. |
| US07821897B2 |
Information recording/reproducing apparatus and information recording method
An information recording method using a read modify write operation includes determining whether a write command is inconsistent or not, on the basis of a unit of a cluster. When the write command onto the rewritable type optical disk needs verification and the read modify write operation is executed, then a verify process is conducted only upon a part of the information, which is written through the read modify write operation. The method achieves an increase in recording speed and an improvement on reliability of recorded information through the read modify write, even when the verify process is unnecessary. |
| US07821896B2 |
Data recording/reproduction for write-once discs
A recording method of the present invention includes the steps of: receiving a write instruction which specifies at least a logical sector in which data is to be written; determining whether the logical sector specified by the write instruction corresponds to a recorded physical sector or an unrecorded physical sector (S1111); when it is determined that the logical sector specified by the write instruction corresponds to an unrecorded physical sector, writing the data into the unrecorded physical sector (S1112); and when it is determined that the logical sector specified by the write instruction corresponds to a recorded physical sector, writing the data into an unrecorded physical sector other than the recorded physical sector (S1113), generating a remapping table including remapping information which remaps an original address of the recorded physical sector to a remapping address of the selected physical sector, and writing the remapping table on the write-once disc (S1114). |
| US07821894B2 |
Method and apparatus for recording information onto and reproducing information from a recording medium and managing a defective area in a recording medium
The method and apparatus can register defective areas in a recording medium not having a dedicated sparing area. A data recording area and a sparing area are not preliminarily divided. When a defective area is found, data is transferred to another area in the recording area, and the defective area is registered as being in a recorded state in a table for managing the recorded state in each of the recording areas. |
| US07821893B2 |
Method for analyzing an abnormal region on an optical recording medium
The present invention relates to a method for analyzing abnormal regions on an optical recording medium. The method includes the steps of: detecting the abnormal region; determining the type of the abnormal region; and measuring the length of the abnormal region. Before playback or recording of an optical recording medium inserted in an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to optical recording media the apparatus determines the positions, lengths and types of abnormal regions on the optical recording medium. The obtained information can then be used, for example, to avoid that during playback or recording a pickup for reading and/or recording unexpectedly encounters an abnormal region. This makes the operation of the apparatus more reliable. |
| US07821878B2 |
Wearable electronic device with multiple display functionality
A wearable electronic device for conveying information in an analog manner at least in part by the use of at least one display hand positioned on the dial side of a dial, wherein the wearable electronic device uses the display hand(s) to convey information that is stored in the controller of the device and/or provided by sensors and/or an external transmitter. An actuation mechanism, preferably a stepper motor, is used to rotate the display hands in the clockwise and/or counterclockwise directions in predefined increments to convey the information. |
| US07821873B2 |
Method and apparatus for the treatment of incontinence
The present invention includes a method, a kit and an apparatus for prompting a user of an urination event. The present invention includes a portable incontinence prompting apparatus having a timer mechanism for timing an interval disposed within a housing and a time interval selection mechanism in communication with the timer mechanism for selecting a preset time interval. The apparatus includes a prompting mechanism in communication with the timer mechanism for issuing a prompting signal in response to a signal from the timer timing mechanism. |
| US07821871B2 |
Switching circuit for an electromagnetic source for the generation of acoustic waves
A switching circuit for an electromagnetic source for generating acoustic waves has at least one first capacitor connected in parallel with a series circuit formed by a second capacitor and an electronic switch. The switching circuit is connected to a coil of the electromagnetic source, and the first and second capacitors are switched so as to both discharged into the coil, thereby supplying the coil with current. |
| US07821865B2 |
Nonvolatile memory device using variable resistive elements
The nonvolatile memory device includes a plurality of memory banks, each of which includes a plurality of nonvolatile memory cells. Each cell includes a variable resistive element having a resistance varying depending on stored data. A plurality of global bit lines are included, and each global bit line is shared by the plurality of memory banks. A plurality of main word lines are arranged corresponding to one of the plurality of memory banks. |
| US07821863B2 |
Voltage supply circuit and semiconductor memory
Each of first and second differential amplifiers has a function of increasing a bias current in response to the activation of a drivability control signal. A first driving circuit connects an output node to a high power supply line in response to the activation of an output signal of the first differential amplifier, and connects the output node to a low power supply line in response to the activation of an output signal of the second differential amplifier. Only during the activation period of the drivability control signal, a second driving circuit connects the output node to the high power supply line in response to the activation of the output signal of the first differential amplifier, and connects the output node to the low power supply line in response to the activation of the output signal of the second differential amplifier. |
| US07821861B2 |
Memory device and refresh method thereof
A memory device and a refresh method are provided herein. The memory device includes a memory array having memory rows. When an array refresh strobe (ARS) signal is received, it is determined whether the memory rows are required to be refreshed according to tag flags and reset statuses corresponding to the memory rows. When a row refresh strobe (RRS) signal is received, it is determined whether to refresh one of the memory rows according to a plurality of parameters including a value of a row to refresh counter, a value of a refresh deadline counter and/or a queue. When it is decided to start a refresh operation, one of the memory rows is selected according to the tag flag and the status, and the status of the selected memory row is updated after the selected memory row is refreshed. |
| US07821859B1 |
Adaptive current sense amplifier with direct array access capability
A current sense amplifier can include an active load circuit having a first load device and second load device coupled in parallel to a first power supply node. A first load device and second load device can provide an impedance that varies according to a potential at a load control node. A reference current circuit can be coupled between the first load device and a second power supply node that includes a current reference section that provides an impedance according to a bias voltage. A data current circuit can be coupled between the second load device and a plurality of memory cells. An adaptive bias circuit can be coupled between the first power supply and the second power supply node and can include a bias section coupled to the load control node that provides an impedance according to the bias voltage. |
| US07821854B2 |
Semiconductor memory
Address comparison circuits each compare the defect addresses programmed in the redundancy fuse circuits with an access address and output a redundancy signal when a comparison result is a match. A switch circuit is controlled to switch according to a redundancy selection signal output from a selection fuse circuit, and validates in response to the redundancy signal either a corresponding regular redundancy line or the reservation redundancy line. By dividing the redundancy lines into the regular redundancy lines and the reservation redundancy line, each of the redundancy fuse circuits can be made to correspond to one of the plurality of redundancy lines with the simple switch circuit. Therefore, a difference in propagation delay time of a signal can be made small and a difference in access time can be made small between when relieving a defect and when there is no defect. |
| US07821850B2 |
Semiconductor digital circuit, FIFO buffer circuit, and data transferring method
A FIFO buffer circuit is provided which, in data transmission between two circuit areas having different combinations of a power supply voltage and an operation clock frequency, can perform voltage level and clock rate conversion at the same place and time. In an input side area are a plurality of data entry registers, a write entry management circuit and a full signal generating circuit. In an output side area are a read entry management circuit, an empty signal generating circuit and an output selector. On the boundary between the input and output sides are entry management flag circuits that manage the presence or absence of effective data in the respective data entries; and voltage level converting circuits that convert voltage levels of the outputs of the data entry registers to the voltage levels of the output side. In this way, the clock rate replacements and voltage level conversions are performed. |
| US07821848B2 |
External clock tracking pipelined latch scheme
A flash memory including a first latch having at least one external input to receive at least one command, at least one memory address, and a plurality of data bits, a command decoder coupled to the first latch output; a command latch including a first command latch input, a second command latch input, and a command latch output, the first command latch input to couple to the command decoder output, and the second command latch input to couple to a write command output of an internal clock control generator; and a command register including a first command register input and a second command register input, the first command register input to couple to the command latch output, and the second command register input to couple to an internal latch command output of the internal clock control generator. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed. |
| US07821845B2 |
Write driver circuit of an unmuxed bit line scheme
A write driver circuit of a semiconductor memory to provide an unmuxed bit line scheme which reduces a height of an unmuxed Y-path so as to reduce an area of a chip in the memory. The write driver circuit can include an input latch circuit which latches input data, in response to an input enable signal; a first write driver which receives write data output from the input latch circuit, in response to a write enable signal, and outputs data to a bit line; and a second write driver which receives inverse data of the write data output from the input latch circuit, in response to the write enable signal, and outputs data to a complementary bit line, wherein the first and second write drivers have a NAND gate type structure and function as a write driver and a precharge driver. |
| US07821842B2 |
Synchronous memory devices and control methods for performing burst write operations
Synchronous memory devices and control methods for performing burst write operations are disclosed. In one embodiment, a synchronous memory device for controlling a burst write operation comprises a first buffer circuit for buffering a first control signal requesting an exit from the burst write operation in synchronization with a clock signal associated with the burst write operation, and a latch circuit for performing a reset in response to the first control signal forwarded by the first buffer circuit, wherein the reset triggers the exit from the burst write operation. |
| US07821841B2 |
Method of detecting a light attack against a memory device and memory device employing a method of detecting a light attack
A memory device having a plurality of memory cells employs a method to detect a light attack on the memory device. The method utilizes at least one memory cell to detect a light attack when the memory cell is in an inactive state, and outputs a signal indicating whether a light attack is detected. In one case, the method includes turning off all of the memory cells of memory blocks of the memory device that are not currently being accessed for a read/write operation; sensing a leakage current of at least one of the memory cells of the memory blocks that are not currently being accessed for a read/write operation; and detecting a light attack on the memory device when a leakage current of the one of the memory cells of the memory blocks that are not currently being accessed for a read/write operation is greater than a threshold. |
| US07821835B2 |
Concurrent programming of non-volatile memory
One embodiment of the present invention includes applying a first value to a bit line, boosting word lines associated with the bit line and a common selection line to create a first condition based on the first value, and cutting off a boundary non-volatile storage element associated with the common selection line to maintain the first condition for a particular non-volatile storage element associated with the bit line and common selection line. A second value is applied to the bit line and at least a subset of the word lines are boosted to create a second condition for a different non-volatile storage element associated with the bit line and common selection line. The second condition is based on the second value. The first condition and the second condition overlap in time. Both non-volatile storage elements are programmed concurrently, based on their associated conditions. |
| US07821834B2 |
Nonvolatile memory devices that utilize dummy memory cells to improve data reliability in charge trap memory arrays
A charge trap flash memory device includes a flash memory array having at least a first page of charge trap memory cells therein electrically coupled to a first word line. The first page of charge trap memory cells includes a plurality of addressable memory cells configured to store data to be retrieved during read operations and a plurality of immediately adjacent non-addressable “dummy” memory cells configured to store dummy data that is not retrievable during the read operations. The plurality of dummy memory cells include at least one auxiliary dummy memory cell that operates as a buffer against lateral hole transfer within a charge trap layer of the array. |
| US07821832B2 |
Flash memory device having shared row decoder
A flash memory device includes at least two mats and a row decoder shared by the mats. Each mat includes multiple word lines, bit lines, and blocks that share the bit lines. The row decoder includes a block decoder that generates a block selection signal for selecting a block, a block word line boosting circuit that generates a high voltage block word line signal in response to the block selection signal, a word line driver that drives word line drive signals driving the word lines of the selected block using drive voltages according to an operation mode and the word lines of an unselected block using a first bias voltage, and a string selection line driver that drives a string selection signal of the selected block using a drive voltage according to the operation mode and the string selection signal of the unselected block using a second bias voltage. |
| US07821830B2 |
Flash memory device with redundant columns
Apparatus and methods are disclosed, such as those involving a flash memory device. One such apparatus includes a memory block including a plurality of columns. Each of the columns includes a bit line and a plurality of memory cells on the bit line. The plurality of columns include a plurality of groups of regular columns and a plurality of groups of redundant columns. The apparatus also includes a plurality of data latches. Each of the data latches is configured to store data read from a respective one group of regular columns. The apparatus further includes a plurality of redundant data latches. Each of the redundant data latches is configured to store data read from a respective one group of redundant columns. The apparatus also includes a multiplexer configured to selectively output data from the plurality of data latches and the plurality of redundant data latches. |
| US07821826B2 |
Memory cell readout using successive approximation
A method for operating a memory (20) includes storing analog values in an array of analog memory cells (22), so that each of the analog memory cells holds an analog value corresponding to at least first and second respective bits. A first indication of the analog value stored in a given analog memory cell is obtained using a first set of sampling parameters. A second indication of the analog value stored in the given analog memory cell is obtained using a second set of sampling parameters, which is dependent upon the first indication. The first and second respective bits are read out from the given analog memory cell responsively to the first and second indications. |
| US07821822B2 |
Read/write elements for a three-dimensional magnetic memory
Read/write elements for three-dimensional magnetic memories are disclosed. One embodiment describes an array of integrated read/write elements. The array includes read conductors formed proximate to one of the layers (i.e., storage stacks) of the three-dimensional magnetic memory. The array also includes flux caps formed proximate to the read conductors, and read sensors formed proximate to the flux caps. The array also includes a magnetic pole having a first end contacting the read sensor and a second end opposite the first end. First write conductors are fabricated between the magnetic poles, and second write conductors are also fabricated between the magnetic poles orthogonal to the first write conductors. The first write conductors and the second write conductors form current loops around the magnetic poles. |
| US07821806B2 |
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory circuit utilizing a MIS transistor as a memory cell
A memory circuit includes a latch having a first node and a second node to store data such that a logic level of the first node is an inverse of a logic level of the second node, a MIS transistor having a gate node, a first source/drain node, and a second source/drain node, the first source/drain node coupled to the first node of the latch, and a control circuit configured to control the gate node and second source/drain node of the MIS transistor in a first operation such that a lingering change is created in transistor characteristics of the MIS transistor in response to the data stored in the latch, wherein the MIS transistor includes a highly-doped substrate layer, a lightly-doped substrate layer disposed on the highly-doped substrate layer, diffusion regions formed in the lightly-doped substrate layer, a gate electrode, sidewalls, and an insulating film. |
| US07821804B2 |
Semiconductor integrated circuit
In a large scale integrated DRAM in pursuit of micro fabrication, data line-word line coupling capacitances are unbalanced between paired data lines. An imbalance in data line-word line means generation of large noise when the data lines are subjected to amplification, which is highly likely invite deterioration of very small signals on the data lines and erroneous amplification of data. One or a few each of a plurality of word lines connected to a plurality of memory cells connected to one data line are alternately connected to subword driver arrays arranged on the opposing sides of a memory array. Positive and negative word line noise components cancel each other in the subword drivers when the data lines are subjected to amplification, so that the word line noise can be reduced. Therefore, signals read out by sense amplifiers can be prevented from deterioration thereby to increase the reliability of memory operation. |
| US07821797B2 |
Isolated DC-DC converter
A switching circuit arranged to switch the input of an input power supply is connected to a primary winding of a transformer at a primary side of the transformer. A digital control circuit including a switching controller arranged to output control pulses to the switching circuit and a rectifying/smoothing circuit connected to secondary windings of the transformer are disposed at a secondary side of the transformer. The digital control circuit outputs the control pulses via a pulse transformer, calculates the input power-supply voltage on the basis of the on-duty cycle of the control pulses, the output voltage, and the ratio of the number of turns of the primary winding to the number of turns of the secondary windings of the transformer, and performs converter control in accordance with the calculated input power-supply voltage. |
| US07821796B2 |
Reference plane voids with strip segment for improving transmission line integrity over vias
Reference plane voids with a strip segment for improving transmission line integrity over vias permits routing critical signal paths over vias, while increasing via insertion capacitance only slightly. The transmission line reference plane defines voids above (or below) signal-bearing plated-through holes (PTHs) that pass through a rigid substrate core, so that the signals are not degraded by an impedance mismatch that would otherwise be caused by shunt capacitance from the top (or bottom) of the signal-bearing PTHs to the transmission line reference plane. In order to provide increased routing density, signal paths are routed over the voids, but disruption of the signal paths by the voids is prevented by including a conductive strip through the voids that reduces the coupling to the signal-bearing PTHs and maintains the impedance of the signal path conductor. |
| US07821791B2 |
Housing for a power module
A circuit arrangement includes a power module combined with a printed circuit board. The power module and the printed circuit board are disposed between a heat sink and a pressing device and are contact-connected to one another by pressure contact elements. The power module has at least one module board element and a housing formed with shafts for the pressure contact elements. The shafts open out from the housing base facing printed circuit board at opening orifices. The base is formed with orifice sealing ribs around the opening orifices. Moreover, the base of the housing may have a peripheral edge sealing rib along its outer edge. Furthermore, a sealing area element can be provided between the printed circuit board and the base of the housing. |
| US07821789B1 |
Heat dissipating apparatus for chips
A heat dissipating apparatus includes a heat sink, a blower, and a fan. The blower and the fan can be mounted together via a connection element. The heat sink defines an accommodating space. The blower and the fan can be positioned to the heat sink via the connection element, with the blower being accommodated in the accommodating space. The heat dissipating apparatus can achieve an optimal heat dissipating effect. |
| US07821788B2 |
Heat dissipation device
A heat dissipation device for dissipating heat from a plug-in electronic component, such as a memory is provided. The heat dissipation device includes a base frame, a moving frame, and a retaining cover. The base frame is disposed at one side of the electronic component. The moving frame is movably mounted on the base frame. A heat dissipation fan is mounted on the retaining cover, and the retaining cover is also movably mounted on the moving frame. In this manner, the heat dissipation fan has at least a retraction position where the heat dissipation fan is not overlaid above the electronic components so as to plug or remove the electronic component, and a heat dissipation position where the heat dissipation fan dissipates heat from the corresponding electronic component. Furthermore, the heat dissipation position changes in accordance with actual heat dissipation requirements, thereby providing an optimal heat dissipation mode. |
| US07821787B2 |
System and method for cooling using impinging jet control
A system (50) for cooling a target element (56) includes a structure (52) having an opening (62) extending through the layer (52), a pumping device (32) positioned behind the structure (52), and a target element (56) positioned in front of the structure (52). Transducers (58, 60) are positioned at opposing ends (74, 76) of the opening (62) between the structure (52) and the target element (56). The pumping device (32) drives a jet (70) of coolant through the opening (62) toward the target element (56). The transducers (58, 60) produce output signals (84, 86) that perturb the jet (70) to control oscillation of the jet (70) in order to stabilize the jet (70) for impingement with a predetermined location (96) on the target element (56). The jet (70) uniformly spreads from the location (96) to provide cooling over a surface (100) of the target element (56). |
| US07821785B1 |
Heatsinks and a spring in a baffle slot between adjacent components
A baffle has a slot, with the slot positioned between first and second adjacent components when the baffle is installed above the components. A pair of heatsinks are inserted into the slot, with at least one heatsink having a heat dissipating portion that remains above the slot after insertion into the slot. A spring is inserted into the slot between the pair of heatsinks. |
| US07821784B2 |
Electronic apparatus
According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes a housing, a battery pack, an ODD unit having a thickness smaller than the battery pack, and an additional device contained in the housing. The battery pack is arranged in a back section of the housing. The ODD unit is arranged to be one-sidedly shifted to a front section in the housing, and includes a front end portion opposed to the front section, and a back end portion opposed to the battery pack. The additional device is away from the front end portion of the ODD unit, and overlaps the back end portion of the ODD unit in the vertical direction. |
| US07821780B2 |
Dual screen presentation notebook computer
A dual screen presentation notebook having components that are integrally connected together to allow easy viewing of presentation materials without the users having to sit side by side craning their necks close together facing the same direction but instead can face opposite one another. When the dual screen presentation notebook is switched on, users can either (i) view identical or mirror images of the presentation materials or (ii) different images on the two monitor screens. The dual screen presentation notebook can be easily converted into a tablet computer and can also be used for other applications such as viewing electronic book, electronic photograph and images, videos, movies, etc. |
| US07821778B2 |
Monitor assembly for diagnostic device
A monitor assembly includes a monitor, for displaying output of a diagnostic device such as a fluoroscope, to which is operationally attached a bracket that is operative to secure (preferably reversibly) the monitor to the diagnostic device so that an operator of the diagnostic device can view the output while operating the diagnostic device and without interrupting the operation of the diagnostic device. Preferably, the monitor is attached to the bracket by a joint assembly that allows the monitor to be translated and rotated relative to the bracket. |
| US07821776B2 |
Tamper resistant meter assembly
An electrical meter is provided that includes a cover configured for securement onto a base. The meter includes features that resist meter tampering, and features that provide evidence of meter tampering. |
| US07821765B2 |
Ion generating light assembly
A light to plug into a wall socket having a negative ion generator in the form of a pin. The pin design can be easily cleaned with a swab and cleaning solution such as rubbing alcohol, eliminating the need to trim or clean a brush electrode when corrosion or deposits form. The negative ion generator is always on and produces the negative ions to purify the air. The device can have a light sensor to activate the light when light is low. The device can also come with light emitting diodes which can be set to indicate the status of the various systems of the device. The device can come equipped with an air freshener that disperses vaporized perfume into the air. |
| US07821763B2 |
Device for preventing electrically induced fires in gas tubing
The present invention provides a device for preventing electrically induced gas fires involving gas tubing such as Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST) and gas appliance connectors (GAC). Connectors for coupling the gas tubing to gas lines and appliances are affixed at each end of the tubing. These connectors are made of a conductive material. Conductive wire (i.e. mesh surrounding the gas tubing) provides a direct electrical contact between the end connectors. If an electrical charge goes to ground via the gas tubing, such as from a lightning strike or an appliance short, the current is carried between the end connectors by the conductive wire instead of the gas tubing itself, thereby preventing damage to the gas tubing from the current. |
| US07821760B2 |
Counter electromotive force prevention unit
A counter electromotive force prevention unit for batteries is provided that can prevent occurrence of noise due to the counter electromotive force generated by loads of a battery and turning on and off of the charging generator, that can suppress noise emanating from the car audio speakers which are electrical equipment and malfunctioning of electronic equipment, and that can be easily attached to an existing battery. A blocking diode (104) and a fuse (105) that fuses with overcurrent are serially connected between the positive lead wire (102) and negative lead wire (103) that are respectively connected to the positive terminal and negative terminal of the battery which is the direct-current supply source, and a capacitor (106) is connected in parallel to the blocking diode (104). |
| US07821759B2 |
Surge absorption circuit
A surge absorption circuit according to an embodiment comprises (a) an input terminal, (b) an output terminal, (c) a common terminal, (d) a mutual inductive element having a first inductive element and a second inductive element which are electromagnetically coupled to each other so as to increase each inductance, wherein one terminal of the first inductive element is connected to the input terminal, one terminal of the second inductive element is connected to the output terminal, and the other terminal of the first inductive element and the other terminal of the second inductive element are connected to each other, and (e) a surge absorption element having one terminal connected to the other terminal of the first inductive element and the other terminal of the second inductive element and the other terminal connected to the common terminal. |
| US07821753B2 |
DC high power distribution assembly
A DC high power distribution system provides power to a load in parallel with one or more storage capacitors. The system includes a hot-swap controller and an array of parallel-connected transistors connected in series between a DC source and the capacitors/load. A power contactor is connected in parallel to the transistor array, both of which are connected to control outputs of the controller. The controller monitors various circuit conditions of interest, such as input over-voltage, input under-voltage, and over-current. If the circuit conditions meet designated parameters, the controller activates the transistors for charging the capacitors, for limiting inrush current. After charging, the controller activates the power contactor for shunting the transistors and carrying the 150+ ampere current during ongoing operation. If any of the monitored circuit conditions fail to meet designated parameters, the controller halts operation of the circuit by deactivating the power contactor and/or transistors. |
| US07821750B2 |
Voltage converter for preventing switch device from being damaged by voltage spike by utilizing protection circuit
A voltage converter includes an electronic induction device, a switch device, a protection circuit, and a control circuit. The switch device, electrically connected to the electronic induction device, is utilized for selectively establishing an electrical connection between the electronic induction device and a predetermined voltage level according to a control signal. The protection circuit, coupled to the electronic induction device, is utilized for selectively establishing an electrical connection between the electronic induction device and the predetermined voltage level, wherein the protection circuit is enabled to establish the electrical connection when a current passing through the switch device exceeds a predetermined current limit. The control circuit, coupled to the switch device, is utilized for generating the control signal. |
| US07821749B2 |
Arc flash elimination apparatus and method
An arc crowbar with electrodes separated by a gap in a protective case. Each electrode is connected to an electrically different conductor of a circuit. A sensor detects an arc flash condition on the circuit and signals a trigger circuit to send an electrical pulse to an arc-triggering device in the arc crowbar gap. The triggering device ionizes a portion of the gas between the electrodes, initiating a protective arc between the electrodes that absorbs energy from the power circuit and trips a breaker, eliminating the arc flash condition. The triggering device may be a plasma gun, especially one that injects plasma of an ablated material into the gap. The sensor may signal a circuit breaker to open in the power circuit. Arc flash sensor types may include a differential current sensor and/or an optical sensor. |
| US07821746B2 |
Magnetic head device including heat-conducting layer for transferring heat to slider body
A magnetic head device includes a TMR sensor or a CPP GMR sensor. Shield layers are disposed in contact with the top and bottom of a sensor body. A sensing current is supplied to the sensor body through the shield layers. Lead layers are connected to the shield layers and extend to below conductive pads. Ends of the lead layers are electrically connected to the conductive pads via lifting layers. Heat-conducting layers are disposed below the ends of the lead layers. An insulating layer is formed between the heat-conducting layers and an end surface of a slider body to such a thickness that it does not obstruct heat transfer. Heat applied from a molten solder to the lead layers is released to the slider body through the heat-conducting layers. This prevents the shield layers from being heated to high temperature. |
| US07821743B2 |
Micro-actuator for use in small platform disk drive devices, and method of making the same
A micro-actuator for use with an HGA and/or disk drive device (e.g., a small platform disk drive device) with the micro-actuator having a reduced mass suitable for improving shock performance, and/or methods of making the same are provided. In certain example embodiments, the micro-actuator may comprise a substantially U-shaped frame including a cavity capable of receiving a slider, with the frame including two side arms and a bottom support arm at least partially defining the cavity. The bottom support arm may have a reduced mass capable of providing improved shock performance and capable of conveying a high resonance frequency response at a low gain. The bottom support arm may be, for example, substantially rectangle shaped, substantially I-shaped, toothed, etc. Also, the bottom support arm may be less thick than the side arms. |
| US07821742B1 |
High stroke sensitivity suspension with laminate load beam for additive laminated and other interconnect support
A high stroke sensitivity microactuated disk drive suspension includes a microactuator, a laminate of first and second outer layers and a plastic inner layer that define a base portion, a spring portion and a beam portion. The base portion has proximate and distal regions coupled by a segment of an outer layer and fixed to the microactuator for relative shifting of the beam portion to the base portion. The segment has a part that is locally arcuate and readily bendable during said shifting for low resistance to shifting giving the suspension high stroke sensitivity. |
| US07821740B2 |
Ramp made of polyoxymethylene resin
A ramp for hard discs which is obtained by molding a resin composition containing (A) a polyoxymethylene resin, and (B) at least one polymeric lubricant selected from the group consisting of (b-1) a polyolefin resin, and (b-2) a polymer obtained by polymerizing an isocyanate compound and a polyalkylene oxide, and which has an excellent sliding property and no deterioration of sliding property due to solvent washing. |
| US07821738B2 |
Magnetic recording medium, stamper recording/reproducing apparatus and method of measuring a parameter
Data track pattern regions, in which data track patterns are formed by concave/convex patterns, and servo pattern regions, in which servo patterns are formed by concave/convex patterns, are provided on a magnetic recording medium so as to be alternately disposed in a circumferential direction. At least one predetermined region that differs to the data track pattern regions is provided between two servo pattern regions that are adjacent in a circumferential direction. A concave/convex pattern including a plurality of first convex parts formed continuously in a radial direction is formed in each predetermined region. |
| US07821736B2 |
Shaped trailing shield of a perpendicular recording write element
Write elements are discussed having a write pole and an associated trailing shield. A leading side of the trailing shield faces a trailing side of the write pole. The leading side of the trailing shield has a shape such that a center portion of the leading side has less of a separation from the trailing side of the write pole than track edge portions of the leading side of the trailing shield. An exemplary shape the leading side of the trailing shield may be a convex shape when viewed from the ABS. The shape of the leading side of the trailing shield causes the trailing shield to shunt less of the magnetic field from the trailing side of the write pole at the track edges so that the written transition at the track edge will not lag behind the written transition at the track center allowing for a straighter transition. |
| US07821730B2 |
Systems and methods for compensating baseline wandering in perpendicular magnetic recording
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for reducing low frequency loss in a magnetic storage device. For example, a data processing circuit is disclosed that includes a digital filter that receives a series of digital samples and provides a filtered output. The filtered output is provided to a data detector that performs a data detection on the filtered output to create a detected output. A first summation element subtracts the filtered output from the detected output to create an error signal, and a second summation element subtracts the error signal from the filtered output to create a wander basis signal. A baseline correction feedback circuit receives the wander basis signal and provides a wander compensation signal. A derivative of the wander compensation signal is provided as feedback to the digital filter. |
| US07821724B2 |
Photographing optical lens assembly
The present invention provides a photographing optical lens assembly comprising, in order from the object side to the image side: a first lens element with positive refractive power having a convex object-side surface and a concave image-side surface, the object-side and image-side surfaces thereof being aspheric; a second lens element with negative refractive power having a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface, the object-side and image-side surfaces thereof being aspheric; and an aperture stop located in front of the first lens element; wherein an Abbe number of the first lens element is V1, an Abbe number of the second lens element is V2, and they satisfy the relation: |V1−V2|<15; and wherein the number of the lens elements of the photographing optical lens assembly is limited to two. Such an arrangement of optical elements can effectively reduce the volume of the lens assembly and the sensitivity of the optical system and enable the lens assembly to obtain a higher resolution. |
| US07821716B2 |
Method for producing a multilayer body and corresponding multilayer body
There is described a process for the production of a multi-layer body (100) having a partially shaped first layer (3m), wherein it is provided that in the process a diffractive first relief structure (4) with a high depth-to-width ratio of the individual structure elements, in particular with a depth-to-width ratio of >0.3, is shaped in a first region (5) of a replication layer (3) of the multi-layer body (100) and the first layer (3m) is applied to the replication layer (3) in the first region (5) and in a second region (4, 6) in which the relief structure is not shaped in the replication layer (3), with a constant surface density, and the first layer (3m) is partially removed in a manner determined by the first relief structure so that the first layer (3m) is partially removed in the first region (5) or in the second region (4, 6) but not in the second region (4, 6) or in the first region (5) respectively. |
| US07821712B2 |
Thin film tunable optical filter
The tunable optical filter is provided, comprising an optical means for separating an input optical signal into a tunable drop optical signal and an output optical signal, wherein the output optical signal is directed back along the same path as the input optical signal. One embodiment of the invention comprises an optical circulator, a pair of polarization beam splitters, a pair of half-wave plates, an optical thin-film filter, a rotatable mirror, a spatially fixed mirror. Optical wavelengths are selected by making angular adjustments to the optical thin-film filter and the rotatable mirror, which are rotated by the same angle. A corresponding method for spectrally splitting and spatially separating an input optical signal into an output optical signal and a drop optical signal is also provided. |
| US07821709B2 |
System and method for viewing projected light from portable devices
An apparatus is disclosed which may include a sheet of reflective material suitable for forming a display screen; a screen control mechanism operable to move the reflective material into extended and retracted positions, wherein the apparatus is portable and configured to receive image data from a hand-held projection device. |
| US07821707B2 |
Drive system useful in a night vision device
A drive system for optical components particularly useful with night vision devices. The drive system uses a single motor to rotate a selected one of two components between its operative and inoperative positions while retaining the other component in its inoperative position. |
| US07821704B1 |
Compact, tunable, efficient IR laser and IR guiding silica fibers
An IR laser source providing light in the IR spectrum, the laser source comprising a pump laser operating at a frequency equivalent to wavelength shorter than 2 μm and at a predetermined power, and an optic fiber coupled to the pump laser. The optic fiber has at least a section of a hollow core photonic crystal fiber, the at least a section of hollow core photonic crystal fiber being designed to have at least a passband in the IR spectrum and being filled with a molecular gas for triggering at least one Stoke's shift in the light entering the at least a section of hollow core photonic crystal fiber for the particular power of the pump laser, the at least one Stoke's shift be selected to cause the light entering the at least a section of hollow core photonic crystal fiber to shift in frequency into the passband in the IR spectrum of the hollow core photonic crystal fiber. |
| US07821703B2 |
Laser drawing method and apparatus
A method of laser drawing includes steps of causing laser light from a light source to be incident to an acousto-optical diffraction element, and deflecting the light incident to the element by changing a frequency of a high frequency signal to be inputted to the element to diffract the light, thereby changing a diffraction angle of the diffracted light, and condensing the diffracted light emerging from the element on an object to be processed as an optical spot, thereby scanning the object with the optical spot. A diffracted light intensity control table for controlling a light intensity of the diffracted light so as to be constant independent of the diffraction angle of the diffracted light is prepared in advance, and in the deflecting step, the light intensity of the diffracted light is controlled based on the diffracted light intensity control table. |
| US07821692B2 |
Method of and apparatus for recording/reproducing data on/from holographic storage medium
A method of and apparatus for recording/reproducing data on/from a holographic storage medium. The method of recording data on a holographic storage medium in which holograms containing data by interference between a signal light and a reference light are recorded in pages includes modulating additional information including information about a page so as to keep the rate of 0s or 1s in binarized data of the additional information constant and recording the page having the modulated additional information added thereto on the holographic storage medium. |
| US07821691B2 |
Zero-order diffractive filter
A Zero-order diffractive filter comprising a first layer (1) with a periodic diffractive microstructure, forming a waveguide, and at least one adjacent second layer (2, 4, 5), wherein said first layer (1) has a refractive index that is higher than the refractive index of said second layer (2, 4, 5) by at least 0.2. At least one of said second layers (2, 4, 5) is a porous layer comprising nanopores. The period Λ of the diffractive microstructure is between 100 nm and 3000 nm. |
| US07821689B2 |
Mapping an input color value in an input color space to an output color value in an output color space
A method and system for mapping an input color value in an input color space to an output color value in an output color space comprising a lookup table mapping an input value to an output color value, the lookup table having n number of possible values for a first fixed color component and q number of possible values for a second fixed color component, wherein q and a number m of possible values for t color components in the input color space are less than n. Surrounding input values are determined in the lookup table in a t dimensional space, wherein each surrounding input value has a same value for the fixed color component(s). Surrounding output values to which the surrounding input values map are determined. The determined input and output surrounding values and the input value are used to estimate an output value corresponding to the received input value. |
| US07821687B2 |
Method for dynamically compensating for a faulty pixel in a scan line generated by a scanner
A method for dynamically compensating for a faulty pixel in a scan line of a scanner having an image sensor with a plurality of sensor pixels includes generating digitized scan data; processing the digitized scan data to compensate for any faulty pixels of the plurality of sensor pixels to form compensated scan data; processing the compensated scan data to apply offset and gain correction to the compensated scan data to form calibrated scan data; processing the calibrated scan data to adjust the calibrated scan data to compensate for human visual perception to form final scan data; and storing the final scan data in a scanner image memory. |
| US07821684B2 |
Circuit module integrating a light driver and an optical
A circuit module integrating a light driver and an optical scanner is capable of sensing an image of a document and driving a light source. The circuit module comprises a printed circuit board, an optical sensor and a light driver. Both the optical sensor and the light driver are mounted on and electrically connected with the printed circuit board. The optical sensor is capable of sensing the image and the light driver is capable of driving the light source. |
| US07821683B2 |
Document transport device and image forming apparatus
A document transport device includes a transport unit that transports documents one by one to a position where an image is read by an image reading unit and transports the document at a speed at which the image reading unit can read the image at the image reading position, and a controller that determines, based on an instruction from an image forming apparatus to which the document transport device is mounted, the number of sheets transported per unit time when plural documents are transported by the transport unit, and controls the transport unit to transport the documents at the determined number of sheets transported per unit time. |
| US07821679B2 |
System and method for electronically combining images taken by two or more adjacent image sensors
A camera system for imaging a document, the camera system including at least 2 adjacently disposed image sensors with coupling optics. The adjacently disposed image sensors are configured to acquire respective image frames of at least a portion of the document, thereby obtaining a set of corresponding two-dimensional image frames. The system further includes a processor for processing the corresponding two-dimensional image frames. The processor is facilitated to combine the corresponding two-dimensional image frames into a single image frame. |
| US07821670B2 |
Image processing apparatus, image reading apparatus, image forming apparatus, and methods therefor
An image processing apparatus comprises: a first calculation section that calculates a plurality of spectral reflectances at a plurality of wavelengths based on intensities of light irradiating an object and reflected from the object, the light having a certain spectral energy distribution; a second calculation section that calculates color descriptor values of the object based on the spectral reflectances calculated by the first calculation section; a third calculation section that calculates a set of factors when the color descriptor values are expressed using a linear combination of a predetermined plurality of eigenvectors, factors associated with the respective eigenvectors, and either spectral energy of a reference light or theoretical spectral energy of a virtual light; and an output section that outputs the factors calculated by the third calculation section. |
| US07821654B2 |
System for scatterometric measurements and applications
Instead of constructing a full multi-dimensional look-up-table as a model to find the critical dimension or other parameters in scatterometry, regression or other optimized estimation methods are employed starting from a “best guess” value of the parameter. Eigenvalues of models that are precalculated may be stored and reused later for other structures having certain common characteristics to save time. The scatterometric data that is used to find the value of the one or more parameter can be limited to those at wavelengths that are less sensitive to the underlying film characteristics. A model for a three-dimensional grating may be constructed by slicing a representative structure into a stack of slabs and creating an array of rectangular blocks to approximate each slab. One dimensional boundary problems may be solved for each block which are then matched to find a two-dimensional solution for the slab. A three-dimensional solution can then be constructed from the two-dimensional solutions for the slabs to yield the diffraction efficiencies of the three-dimensional grating. This model can then be used for finding the one or more parameters of the diffracting structure in scatterometry. Line roughness of a surface can be measured by directing a polarized incident beam in an incident plane normal to the line grating and measuring the cross-polarization coefficient. The value of the one or more parameters may then be supplied to a stepper or etcher to adjust a lithographic or etching process. |
| US07821648B2 |
Measurement method, a measurement apparatus, and a computer-readable recording medium
A measurement method for measuring a shape of a target using an interference pattern includes the steps of converting a first interference pattern into a first shape of the target (S103 to S105), obtaining a second interference pattern at a position where the target moves in an optical axis direction of the reference surface (S107, S108), unwrapping the second interference pattern after aligning a phase of the first interference pattern with a phase of the second interference pattern (S109), converting the unwrapped second interference pattern into a second shape of the target (S110), determining whether or not the first shape of the target coincides with the second shape (S111), and calculating the shape of the target by adding the integral multiple of a wavelength of the light source to the unwrapped second interference pattern if the first shape does not coincide with the second shape (S112). |
| US07821647B2 |
Apparatus and method for measuring surface topography of an object
An apparatus for measuring surface topography of an object includes an optical arrangement capable of directing a first light beam at a surface of the object, providing a second light beam coherent with and spatially phase-shifted relative to the first light beam, and generating an interference beam from the second light beam and a reflection of the first light beam from the surface of the object. The apparatus further includes at least one line scan sensor for detecting and measuring the interference beam. |
| US07821644B2 |
Apparatus for visual inspection
An apparatus is provided which reduces the dependency of the direction of polarization on channels of an image sensor so as to improve the sensitivity of inspection. In the apparatus, the direction of an illumination beam incident on a polarizing beam splitter is made to be substantially parallel to the longitudinal direction of a field of view of an image sensor projected on the polarizing beam splitter. |
| US07821640B2 |
Method and device for reconstructing a three-dimensional fluorescence optical tomography image by double measurement
To examine a plate-shaped object comprising fluorophores and having a first face and an opposite second face, the method comprises a first sequential illumination step of the first face of the object with a fluorophore excitation light and a first sequential acquisition step of a first series of images by detecting light emitted by the second face of the object. The density of the lighting points is lower than the density of the detection points and the method further comprises a second sequential illumination step of the second face of the object with a fluorophore excitation light and a second sequential acquisition step of a second series of images by detecting light emitted by the first face of the object. Reconstruction of the three-dimensional fluorophore distribution image in the object is performed by means of the first and second series of images. |
| US07821638B2 |
Alignment mark
An alignment mark on a substrate includes a first pattern and a second pattern. The first pattern has a substantially planar upper surface by which parallel light is specularly reflected. The second pattern forms an interface with the first pattern and has a plurality of fine patterns. Parallel light is irregularly reflected by the second pattern. |
| US07821634B2 |
Laser-triggered plasma apparatus for atomic emission spectroscopy
Multiple energy sources, such as a laser and electrical current, are employed, in close coordination, spatially and temporally, to clean a sample, vaporize its material and excite vapor atoms for the purpose of atomic emission spectroscopy. These methods permit better monitoring and control of the individual processes in real time, lead to higher consistency and higher quality optical emission spectra, and enhance the measurements of non-conducting solids, liquids and gases. Additionally, a portable instrument is provided with both laser source and spectrometer optically coupled to a hand-holdable unit. |
| US07821630B2 |
Device for monitoring a turret in a cryomagnet
A device for monitoring blockage of a turret in a cryomagnet, at least one monitoring unit that functionally interacts with a state of the inside of the turret of a cryomagnet is provided to monitor the inside of the turret. |
| US07821628B2 |
Mask defect inspection computer program product
A mask defect inspecting method comprises preparing detection sensitivities of defects on a plurality of portions of a mask pattern on a photomask, the detection sensitivities being determined according to influences of the defects upon a wafer, and inspecting defects on the plurality of portions based on the detection sensitivities. |
| US07821624B2 |
Tracking system with excited state atomic line filter
A tracking system utilizing an excited state atomic line filter. The filter includes a metal vapor cell having an optical entrance port and an optical exit port and containing a metal vapor having a first excited energy state with a resonant frequency, and a second excited energy state. The cell has an absorption line, at or near a desired filter wavelength. The platform to be tracked, which could be an un-manned aerial vehicle has a beacon laser system located on it for producing a beacon laser beam at a wavelength within the narrow spectral band. The present invention solves the problem of lack of ground state resonant lines in at wavelengths substantially longer than those of visible light. Atomic line filters of the Faraday or Voigt crossed polarizer type are provided in which alkali metal atomic vapor in a vapor cell is excited with a pump beam to an intermediate excited state where a resonant absorption line, at a desired wavelength, is available. A magnetic field is applied to the cell producing a polarization rotation for polarized light at wavelengths near the resonant absorption lines. Thus, all light is blocked by the cross polarizers except light near one of the spaced apart resonant lines. However, the polarization of light at certain wavelengths near the resonant is rotated in the cell and therefore passes through the output polarizer. |
| US07821622B2 |
Optical refractometer for measuring seawater salinity and corresponding salinity sensor
An optical refractometer is provided for measuring the refractive index of a liquid. Such a refractometer includes a first optical block having a transparent material whereto is secured a light source, a second optical block having a transparent material whereto is secured a position sensor. The optical blocks are arranged on either side of a conduit wherein the liquid flows. |
| US07821619B2 |
Rapid scan LADAR 3D imaging with compact digital beam formation
A LADAR system for coherently imaging a target within a volume has a modulated laser transmitter at a frequency and a receiver. The receiver has a plurality of lenses, each with its own detector. Each detector is supplied by a centrally located local oscillator tuned to the frequency. The paths from the local oscillator to each detector, as well as the delay within each lens/detector combination are measured during a calibration. A calibrating reflector reflects a test signal during the calibration at many frequencies, temperatures and accelerations. Measurements of paths and delays obtained during the calibration are stored, and used to phase compensate subsequent target reflections for coherent processing. |
| US07821617B2 |
Exposure apparatus and device manufacturing method
An apparatus that includes an exposure system for exposing a substrate to an energy pattern, a vacuum chamber having an outside wall including first and second units which can be separated from each other, and a first anti-vibration mount being supported by the first unit, and for supporting a first constituent element of the exposure system. The first anti-vibration mount is disposed outside the vacuum chamber. The apparatus further includes a second anti-vibration mount, being supported by the second unit, for supporting a second constituent element of the exposure system. |
| US07821616B2 |
Resist pattern forming method, semiconductor apparatus using said method, and exposure apparatus thereof
In immersion exposure, a resist pattern forming method suppressing resist pattern defects comprises mounting a substrate formed a resist film thereon and a reticle formed a pattern thereon onto an exposure apparatus, supplying a first chemical solution onto the resist film to selectively form a first liquid film in a local area on the resist film and draining the solution, the first liquid film having a flow and being formed between the resist film and a projection optical system, transferring the pattern of the reticle to the resist film through the first liquid film to form a latent image, supplying a second chemical solution onto the resist film to clean the resist film, heating the resist film, and developing the resist film to form a resist pattern from the resist film. |
| US07821613B2 |
Display device and manufacturing method thereof
In a semi-transmission liquid crystal display device, two resist masks are required to form a reflective electrode and a transparent electrode; therefore, cost is high. A transparent electrode and a reflective electrode which function as a pixel electrode are stacked. A resist pattern which includes a region having a thick film thickness and a region having a thinner film thickness than the aforementioned region is formed over the reflective electrode by using a light exposure mask which includes a semi-transmission portion. The reflective electrode and the transparent electrode are formed by using the resist pattern. Therefore, the reflective electrode and the transparent electrode can be formed by using one resist mask. |
| US07821612B2 |
Color filter array panel and liquid crystal display including the same
A color filter array panel includes a panel having a display area and a peripheral area surrounding the display area, the display area including a plurality of color filters. A first spacer is formed in the peripheral area and is constructed from the same material as that of at least one of the color filters. |
| US07821609B2 |
Display device
In a liquid crystal display device, each pixel region formed over a liquid crystal side of one substrate out of respective substrates which are arranged to face each other with liquid crystal therebetween includes pixel electrodes to which a video signal is supplied from a drain signal line through a switching element driven in response to a scanning signal from a gate signal line and capacitive elements which are formed between the pixel electrodes and a capacitive signal line by way of a dielectric film. In such a constitution, the pixel region is divided into a plurality of regions, and video signals are supplied to respective pixel electrodes and capacitive elements in respective regions through paths which are branched from the switching element. |
| US07821608B2 |
Liquid crystal display device and the method thereof
Disclosed herein is a liquid crystal display device which can control a viewing angle in up/down and left/right directions without need of forming white subpixels. In the liquid crystal display device which includes a first region having liquid crystal molecules aligned in a slanted direction, and a second region having the liquid crystal molecules aligned in up and down directions or in left and right directions. Voltage is independently applied to the second region from the first region. |
| US07821607B2 |
Liquid crystal display device
A liquid crystal display device is provided which includes first and second substrates with liquid crystal therebetween. Gate lines and drain lines are formed on the first substrate with pixel regions defined by the gate signal lines and drain signal lines. Each pixel region includes a pixel electrode and a counter electrode formed in different layers from one another, with the counter layer being formed in a layer closer to the liquid crystal layer than the pixel electrode. |
| US07821606B2 |
LCD device having common and pixel electrodes on first substrate and shield electrode, resin color filter layer with resin overcoat layer on second substrate
A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel which is configured to hold a liquid crystal layer between an array substrate and a counter-substrate. The array substrate includes, on an insulating substrate, a switching element which is disposed in association with each of pixels, a pixel electrode which is connected to the switching element, and a common electrode which is separated from the pixel electrode and is common to the pixels. The counter-substrate includes a shield electrode disposed on an inner surface of an insulating substrate, which is opposed to the liquid crystal layer, and a dielectric layer disposed between the shield electrode and the liquid crystal layer. |
| US07821605B2 |
Electro-optical device and electronic apparatus
An electro-optical device includes a contact hole with a channel-region adjacent portion next to the channel region of the semiconductor film and a first extending portion that extends from the channel-region adjacent portion along the first partial region of the semiconductor film when viewed in plan. |
| US07821598B2 |
Method of manufacturing polarizer, polarizer, polarizing plate, and image display
A method of manufacturing a polarizer is provided that makes it possible to manufacture a polarizer prevented from curling even when a liquid is brought into contact with a hydrophilic polymer film by being sprayed. A method of manufacturing a polarizer includes a swelling step A for swelling a hydrophilic polymer film 1 by bringing it into contact with a swelling liquid 2, a dyeing step B for dyeing the hydrophilic polymer film 1 by bringing it into contact with a dye liquid 3 containing a dichroic material, and a crosslinking/stretching step C for crosslinking the hydrophilic polymer film 1 by bringing it into contact with a crosslinking liquid 4 and further stretching it. In the method, the contact with the swelling liquid in the swelling step A is carried out in the gas phase by spraying the swelling liquid 2 onto both surfaces of the hydrophilic polymer film 1. |
| US07821592B2 |
Liquid crystal display module having top case with an IC spaced within a hole therein and wherein a contact surface between a support main and a first substrate overlaps a second substrate of the LCD
A liquid crystal display module includes a bottom cover, a support main over the bottom cover, a backlight unit surrounded by the support main, a liquid crystal panel over the backlight unit and including first and second substrates and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the first and second substrates, a driving unit including a first driving integrated circuit (IC) that is mounted on a first side of the first substrate, and a case top covering edges of a front surface of the liquid crystal panel and combined with the bottom cover, the case top including a first hole corresponding to the driving IC. |
| US07821587B2 |
Display device and manufacturing method of display device
It is an object of the present invention to realize thinning, low power consumption, and improvement of an yield at the time of manufacture of a display device capable of double-sided display which is used for a piece of portable informational terminal equipment such as a cellular phone. A liquid crystal display device, including a first substrate 1a and a second substrate 1b, has a transmission type active-matrix first liquid crystal display device 3001 and a reflective type active-matrix second liquid crystal display device 3002, where the first substrate has a TFT region of the first liquid crystal display device and an opposite region of the second liquid crystal display device, and the second substrate has an opposite region of the first liquid crystal display device and a TFT region of the second liquid crystal display device. |
| US07821581B2 |
Fully integrated tuner architecture
An integrated receiver with channel selection and image rejection substantially implemented on a single CMOS integrated circuit is described. A receiver front end provides programmable attenuation and a programmable gain low noise amplifier. Frequency conversion circuitry advantageously uses LC filters integrated onto the substrate in conjunction with image reject mixers to provide sufficient image frequency rejection. Filter tuning and inductor Q compensation over temperature are performed on chip. The filters utilize multi track spiral inductors. The filters are tuned using local oscillators to tune a substitute filter, and frequency scaling during filter component values to those of the filter being tuned. In conjunction with filtering, frequency planning provides additional image rejection. The advantageous choice of local oscillator signal generation methods on chip is by PLL out of band local oscillation and by direct synthesis for in band local oscillator. The VCOs in the PLLs are centered using a control circuit to center the tuning capacitance range. A differential crystal oscillator is advantageously used as a frequency reference. Differential signal transmission is advantageously used throughout the receiver. |
| US07821580B2 |
Contour free point operation for video skin tone correction
A method for a color tone correction is disclosed. The method generally includes the steps of (A) generating a plurality of first intermediate components by scaling a plurality of first color components towards a first ideal color, wherein the first color components (i) are for a first plurality of pixels in an input video signal and (ii) fall inside a first region of a color space, (B) generating a plurality of first corrected components by adjusting the first intermediate components such that a first mapping of the first color components to the first corrected components is both (i) continuous in the color space and (ii) non-overlapping in the color space and (C) generating an output video signal by combining the first corrected components with a plurality of unaltered color components, wherein the unaltered color components (i) are for a second plurality of the pixels and (ii) fall outside the first region. |
| US07821575B2 |
Image processing apparatus, receiver, and display device
According to one embodiment, an image processing apparatus includes a receiver, a display device, and a transmission module. The receiver includes a video receiver, a video processor, a graphics processor, and a multiprocessor. The video processor converts the video signal received by the video receiver to a moving image with a first resolution. The graphics processor outputs a still image with a second resolution higher than the first resolution according to an instruction. The multiprocessor divides the still image into divisional still images with the first resolution. The display device includes a display module, a scaling processor, a restoration processor, and a blend processor. The scaling processor scales the moving image with the first resolution. The restoration processor restores the divisional still images to the original still image. The blend processor displays the moving image and the still image with the second resolution on the display module. |
| US07821573B2 |
Time setting system, imaging device, video-device, and time setting method
An imaging device outputs video data with an image signal obtained from imaging an object, records video data onto a record medium, reproduces video data therefrom, outputs first time information from a clock section, communicates with another device through a first communication interface according to a predetermined protocol, and exchanges video data with the other device. A video-device automatically obtains second time information as reference from the outside of the video-device, processes a video signal, communicates with the other device through a second communication interface according to the protocol, and exchanges video data with the other device. When connected through the first and second communication interfaces, the video-device transmits the second time information to the imaging device. The imaging device receives the second time information and sets a time for the clock section with the received second time information. |
| US07821571B2 |
Solid-state imaging device, method of driving solid-state imaging device, and imaging apparatus
A solid-state imaging device includes: a pixel array section having a plurality of unit pixels, each including a photoelectric conversion element, arranged therein; driving means for performing a shutter operation for removing charge stored in the photoelectric conversion element and a read operation for reading the charge of an electric signal that is obtained by the photoelectric conversion of the photoelectric conversion element and is then stored in the photoelectric conversion element; and control means, when a unit pixel driving mode is changed from a first driving mode to a second driving mode in the units of frames, for changing the shutter operation to the second driving mode while keeping the read operation in the first driving mode for a period corresponding to one frame in the current frame, and changing the read operation to the second driving mode in the next frame. |
| US07821570B2 |
Adjusting digital image exposure and tone scale
A method of adjusting exposure of a digital camera based on range information, including a digital camera capturing a first digital image at a selected exposure of a scene having objects; providing range information having two or more range values indicating the distance from the digital camera to objects in the scene; using the range information and pixel values of the captured digital image to determine an exposure adjustment amount for the selected exposure; and applying the exposure adjustment amount to the digital image to produce a second digital image with adjusted exposure. |
| US07821562B2 |
Portable terminal equipped with camera and adapted for self-imaging
The present invention relates to a portable terminal provided with a camera to take a picture of a subject comprised of a lens, and an image pickup device. The invention is aimed to provide a portable terminal in which a mirror image or information about photographing status is displayed on a first display which can be seen from the object side when an object is photographed using the portable terminal, and the image is displayed on a second display which can be seen from the to-be-taken subject so that a person to be photographed can easily check his/her image or photographing status. To this end, the first display is provided on the surface on which the lens is provided and the second display is provided on a side different from the side on which the lens is provided. Provision is made of a display unit that displays the image, photographed by directing the lens to the subject, on the first and the second displays. |
| US07821556B2 |
Amplifying solid-state imaging device, and method for driving the same
By providing dummy pixels separately from effective pixels, the total number of pixel rows is equalized with the number of horizontal sync signals included in one frame interval (which is called an “HD number”). A period during which a reset signal for an electronic shuttering operation is being supplied to an arbitrary pixel row overlaps with a period during which another pixel row is selected to perform a readout operation thereon. Thus, it is possible to suppress a variation in reset potential among effective pixels. |
| US07821554B2 |
Image sensor with cooling element
An image sensor includes a base an image sensor chip, and a cooling element. The base includes an opening disposed in the base. The image sensor chip is connected electrically to the base and covers the opening. The cooling element is received in the opening and is connected thermally to the image sensor chip. Heat produced by the image sensor chip can be dissipated in time by the cooling elements in the image sensor. The cooling elements maintain the image sensor chip works under a temperature no more than the rated working temperature of the image sensor chip and therefore extend the life of the image sensor, and improve the image quality of the image sensor chip. |
| US07821553B2 |
Pixel array, imaging sensor including the pixel array and digital camera including the imaging sensor
A pixel array in an image sensor, the image sensor and a digital camera including the image sensor. The image sensor includes a pixel array with colored pixels and unfiltered (color filter-free) pixels. Each unfiltered pixel occupies one or more array locations. The colored pixels may be arranged in uninterrupted rows and columns with unfiltered pixels disposed between the uninterrupted rows and columns. The image sensor may in CMOS with the unfiltered pixels reducing low-light noise and improving low-light sensitivity. |
| US07821552B2 |
Imaging apparatus provided with imaging device having sensitivity in visible and infrared regions
An imaging apparatus includes: a first pixel which receives both visible light and infrared light, and a second pixel which receives infrared light, both pixels being formed on an imaging device; an infrared light component estimation unit which estimates, based on spectral characteristics of light received by the first pixel and spectral characteristics of light received by the second pixel, a magnitude of an infrared light component contained in a signal outputted from the first pixel from a signal outputted from the second pixel; and a subtraction unit which subtracts the estimated infrared light component from the signal outputted from the first pixel. |
| US07821550B2 |
Remote image-pickup system, camera device, and card substrate
A remote image-pickup system includes a camera device including an image-pickup unit for capturing an image of a subject and generating picture signals and a card slot; and a plurality of types of card substrates which are selectively inserted into the card slot and which convert the format of the picture signals so as to output the converted signals to an external device. By inserting different card substrates into the card slot, a plurality of formats of picture signals can be output from the camera device. Accordingly, the format of the picture signals output from the camera device can be flexibly expanded. Further, since many circuits for converting the picture signals need not be incorporated into the camera device, an increase in the size and price of the camera device can be prevented. |
| US07821548B2 |
Temporal image buffer for image processor using compressed raw image
A system and method for capturing and storing digital images. Instead of processing images on the fly or storing images in a raw format, the present invention involves the compression of captured images before the images are stored. When it is desirable to display an image, the particular image can be decoded and processed as necessary. The present invention reduces the amount of storage space necessary for each image. A variety of compression algorithms and systems can be used in conjunction with the present invention. |