Document Document Title
US08695111B2 Video rate-enabling probes for atomic force microscopy
Method for producing a probe for atomic force microscopy with a silicon nitride cantilever and an integrated single crystal silicon tetrahedral tip with high resonant frequencies and low spring constants intended for high speed AFM imaging.
US08695103B2 Apparatus for and a method of copy-protecting a content carrying recording medium
Recording data has content data and navigation control data to enable a legitimate player to navigate the content data. The recording data has a content data set and a spurious data set that is difficult to distinguish from the content data set but will ignored by a legitimate player. The content data is associated with the content data set and the spurious data set. The spurious data set may be associated with control data that inhibit playing or correct playing of the content data. A ghost structure such as a ghost video title set my be provided by causing information in at least one of the video title set information, video manager information and the volume information file structure to reference a non-existent video title set or not reference an existing video title set. The recording medium may be an optical disc such as a DVD or its precursors.
US08695101B2 Data privacy engine
A computer hardware-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product determines an applicability of a data privacy regulation when transmitting data used with an enterprise project. A data privacy regulation describes regulatory restrictions on data being transmitted from a first geopolitical entity to a second geopolitical entity. A set of categorized data is used by an enterprise project, and the data privacy regulation establishes limitations on a transmission of at least one category of data, from the set of categorized data, from the first geopolitical entity to the second geopolitical entity. A first set of binary data and a second set of binary data are processed to determine if transmission of said at least one category of data from the first geopolitical entity to the second geopolitical entity is regulated by the data privacy regulation.
US08695100B1 Systems and methods for electronic fraud prevention
In some embodiments, a phishing detection method includes computing a first phishing indicator of a target webpage; when the target webpage is considered suspicious of phishing according to the first phishing indicator, computing a second phishing indicator of the target webpage, and deciding whether the webpage is a phishing site according to the first and second phishing indicators. Computing the second phishing indicator comprises comparing a word content (semantic content) of the target webpage to a word content of each of a plurality of reference webpages. Comparing the word contents may include counting the number of visible words which are common to the target and reference webpages, and/or computing a ratio of a number of words which are common to the target and reference webpages to the total number of words in both the target and reference webpages.
US08695099B2 Login initiated scanning of computing devices
Embodiments of the invention relate to systems, methods, and computer program products for login initiated remote scanning of computer devices. The present invention detects login to the network via access management systems. The login data provides information that identifies the device so that the device can be checked against a scan database to determine if and when a previous scan occurred. Based on the findings in the scan database determinations are made as to whether to perform a scan. Additionally, the level of scanning can be determined based on previous scan dates and previous scan results, which may dictate customized scanning. In addition, the priority of the impending scan may be dictated by previous scan dates and results. Further embodiments provide for assessing risk, such as risk scoring or the like, concurrently or in near-real-time with the completion of the scan so that alerts may be communicated.
US08695098B2 Detecting security vulnerabilities in web applications
Method to detect security vulnerabilities includes: interacting with a web application during its execution to identify a web page exposed by the web application; statically analyzing the web page to identify a parameter within the web page that is constrained by a client-side validation measure and that is to be sent to the web application; determining a server-side validation measure to be applied to the parameter in view of the constraint placed upon the parameter by the client-side validation measure; statically analyzing the web application to identify a location within the web application where the parameter is input into the web application; determining whether the parameter is constrained by the server-side validation measure prior to the parameter being used in a security-sensitive operation; and identifying the parameter as a security vulnerability.
US08695097B1 System and method for detection and prevention of computer fraud
In a networked computer system, a user accesses a webserver via a web interface presenting credentials comprising a user identification. The webserver is communicatively connected to an application server. If fraud with respect to the user identification is detected, the application server sends a notification or alert to add the user identification to a list of compromised user identifications. The system also comprises a database for storing the list of compromised user identifications on a computer. Another category of user identifications is created referred to as phish phood which is comprised of fabricated user identifications.
US08695093B2 External link processing
A system and method of external link processing is disclosed. The system includes an interface configured to receive a user request to access an encoded external link in networked content. The encoded external link comprises a domain name of an external link server and an encoded portion which is an encoded result of an original external link encoded with an encoding function, wherein the original external link is an address to an external destination. One or more processors determine a safety level of the encoded external link using a criterion. In the event that the determined safety level of the encoded external link is determined unsafe, a warning message is generated indicating that the original external link is unsafe and the user is prevented from directly navigating to the original external link.
US08695092B2 Host IP reputation
Various embodiments described above are directed to identifying abuse-hosting services at their source, rather than using such intermediaries as URLs and associated domains. In one or more embodiments, threats can be blocked by using the Internet protocol (IP) address of an identified attacker that is hosting content associated with abuse.
US08695088B2 Dynamically constructed capability for enforcing object access order
Proposed is a Capability Management System (CMS) in a distributed computing environment that controls access to multiple objects by multiple subjects based upon a specified access order. A capability is dynamically constructed when the capability is needed. After the capability is used to access an object, a new capability is generated. In the alternative, multiple capabilities for enforcing an access order are generated independently of each other. The new capability is then employed by the same or another subject to access the object according to a prescribed access sequence. In this manner, at any particular time there is one capability valid to access the object by the appropriate subject. In addition, the capability includes information for verifying the authenticity of the capability and for specifying an expiration time associated with the capability. The technology may also be enhanced by providing a linkage between capabilities intended for use in a sequence.
US08695083B2 Rule generalization for web application entry point modeling
A security gateway receives messages, such as URL requests, rejected by a message filter based on a set of rules. The security gateway maintains frequencies with which the messages were rejected by the rules. The security gateway finds rejected messages having a high frequency of occurrence. Since messages having a high frequency of occurrences are more likely to represent legitimate requests rather than malicious attacks, the security gateway generates exception rules, which would allow similar messages to pass through the gateway.
US08695080B2 Information terminal apparatus, information processing apparatus and information communication system
When transmitting position/time information calculated by means of a GPS function to a server apparatus, authentication is carried out with the server apparatus. The position/time information may be certified as legitimate measured by a portable apparatus with a GPS reception function employed by a user. When transmitting information related to the position and the time acquired from a portable phone terminal having the GPS function and a network function by means of the GPS function to the server apparatus, authentication is carried out between the portable phone terminal and the server apparatus. The position/time information is transmitted to the server apparatus, only if the server apparatus is authenticated as a legitimate counterpart for connection.
US08695079B1 Allocating shared resources
Disclosed are various embodiments for allocating shared resources. A request to allocate a shared isolating resource is received. The shared isolating resource operates to isolate a plurality of customer resources in a multi-tenant environment. In response to the request to allocate, a least recently deallocated shared isolating resource is removed from a pool of available shared isolating resources. The least recently deallocated shared isolating resource is provided to at least one device using the shared isolating resource.
US08695077B1 Establishing and controlling communication sessions between SIP devices and website application servers
Methods and apparatuses, including computer program products, are described for establishing and controlling communication sessions between SIP devices and website application servers. An access portal computing device is coupled between one or more SIP devices and one or more website application servers. The access portal is configured to authenticate SIP user credentials based upon receipt of a SIP message from a SIP device and determine website user credentials associated with a website application server based on the SIP user credentials. The access portal is configured to receive, from the website application server, a communication services application based upon transmission of the website credentials to the website application server, translate SIP requests received from the SIP device into web-based commands for transmission to the website application server, and translate web-based commands received from the website application server into SIP requests for transmission to the SIP device.
US08695074B2 Pre-authenticated calling for voice applications
Architecture for providing pre-authenticated information from an endpoint for subsequently authenticating a device and/or user associated with the previously-authenticated information. A pre-authentication module of the architecture can be a trust component as part of an application that facilitates the utilization of user information and/or endpoint information in a media session protocol message to replace information that would otherwise be gathered via a dialog. In the context of IP-based voice communications, a call can be made from a client that is pre-authenticable, and no longer requires that an IP-based telephone interact with the phone user to facilitate sign-on.
US08695072B2 User identification method applicable to network transaction and system thereof
A user identification method and a system thereof. A user device delivers a certificate packet with a unique serial number to a certificate server, and receives a reply packet with a password from a password server. The user device then uses the password and the unique serial number to produce a user terminal identification code, and then delivers an identification packet with the user terminal identification code to the certificate server. After receiving the certificate packet, the certificate server delivers an inquiry packet with the unique serial number to the password server, and then the password server inquires about password and expiration time thereof according to the unique serial number. After receiving the identification packet, the certificate server verifies the validity of the user terminal identification code and the expiration time with a database to determine if the user is admitted to proceed to the subsequent transaction.
US08695069B1 Session management between a web application and a CRM system
Embodiments of the present invention provide a system that facilitates session management between a web application and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. During operation, the system receives, at a proxy, a service call intended for a CRM system. Next, the system modifies a header of the service call to include authentication credentials for the CRM system. The system then determines if an available session token for the CRM system exists at the proxy. If so, the system modifies the header of the service call to include the session token. Next, the system forwards the service call with the modified header to the CRM system. The system then receives a response to the service call, which includes the session token. Upon receiving the response, the system stores the session token at the proxy for a subsequent service call. Finally, the system forwards the response to the web application.
US08695062B2 Authentication/authorization protocol for media processing components
A computer-implemented authentication protocol is used to subvert man-in-the-middle-type attacks on communications between software components that are permitted to interoperate within a processing environment, such as a media processing environment, pursuant to one or more licenses. In one exemplary scenario, a particular application transmits to a particular media processing component (“MPC”), among other things, a cryptographically protected message including a reference to a process in which the application is running and/or a GUID that the application used to invoke the MPC. If the received process and/or GUID are verified, it is possible for in-the-clear communication to occur between the application and the MPC without man-in-the-middle subversion.
US08695060B2 System and method for creating secure applications
A method for generating a secure application is described herein. The method can include the steps of obtaining a target application and decomposing the target application into original files that contain predictable instructions. One or more predictable instructions in the original files may be identified. In addition, the target application may be modified to create the secure application by binding one or more intercepts to the target application. These intercepts can enable the modification of the predictable instructions in accordance with one or more policies such that the behavior of the secure application is different from the original behavior of the target application. Modification of the target application may be conducted without access to the source code of the target application.
US08695059B2 Method and system for providing network security services in a multi-tenancy format
An approach is provided for performing cloud based computer network security services. Security policies are established for each of a number of subscribers. The subscribers are provided access to the security services via a common network cloud managed by the service provider. The security services are administered according to a multi-tenancy format, which enables the subscribers' data communications to be separately processed. The security services include network firewalling and filtering of content originating from or destined to one or more networks associated with the subscribers.
US08695053B2 Apparatus and method for multimedia data reception, processing, routing, storage, and access using a web / cloud-computing synchronization of personal multimedia data
An apparatus and a method for multimedia data handling to a web or cloud-computing service are disclosed. A set-top box can generate a pre-encoded stream of digitized data after receiving a raw incoming multimedia signal or after receiving a pre-processed, decoded, decompressed, and/or decrypted incoming multimedia signal from a service provider-specific signal receiver. The set-top box can also generate streams of encoded multimedia data from the pre-encoded stream of digitized data and segmentize the streams of encoded multimedia data into individually-viewable segments for uploading to the web or cloud-computing service, wherein a size of each segment varies based on a current connection bandwidth availability and/or a workload on the set-top box. By automatically segmentizing the streams of encoded multimedia data into individually-viewable segments for the web or cloud-computing service, a user can start viewing the currently-uploading multimedia data faster than a conventional single stream upload.
US08695052B2 Network system and image projection apparatus
A network system includes an image projection apparatus that projects image data; a first terminal; and a second terminal where the first terminal includes an original image data storing unit that stores original image data and a corresponding information generating unit that generates corresponding information in which image identification data of the image data for projection, generated from the original image data, capable of identifying the original image data and terminal identification data for identifying the first terminal correspond with each other, and the image projection apparatus includes a corresponding information sending unit that sends, upon receiving the request for delivering the corresponding information of the image data being projected from the second terminal, the corresponding information stored in the storing unit, to the second terminal.
US08695051B2 Video quality monitoring method, distribution server, and client
A video quality monitoring method includes a distribution server measuring first video quality index values according to a full-reference method by comparing a video, distributed from the distribution server to a client through a network, with a degraded video, generated by causing multiple scenarios of quality degradation due to the network in the video in a pseudo manner, creating characteristic data of first quality degradation values, obtained by causing the quality degradation to vary with the scenarios at regular intervals, and the first video quality index values corresponding to the respective scenarios, and transmitting the characteristic data to the client; and the client measuring a second quality degradation value in the video distributed through the network, and calculating a second video quality index value, equivalent to a value according to the full-reference method, of the distributed video from the measured second quality degradation value and the characteristic data.
US08695048B1 Systems and methods of processing closed captioning for video on demand content
A method includes receiving closed captioning data at a computing device. The closed captioning data is associated with a video on demand asset and is represented in a first format. The method also includes converting the closed captioning data from the first format to a platform-independent format and converting the closed captioning data from the platform-independent format to a second format. The method further includes transmitting the closed captioning data in the second format to a destination device.
US08695047B2 Video stream protection
System and method for protecting video stream quality during transmission over a wireless medium. A plurality of video streams may be transmitted to one or more clients in a wireless manner. It may be determined that a size of a transmit queue is above a first threshold. The plurality of video streams may be differentiated, as part of which a video stream may be selected for penalization in order to protect the other video streams of the plurality of video streams. A scheduling penalty may be imposed on the selected video stream based on determining that the size of the transmit queue is above the first threshold and based on differentiating the plurality of video streams.
US08695046B2 Bilateral control system and method of a vehicle-use front seat audio device and a back seat entertainment device
The present invention is related to a bilateral control system and method of a vehicle-use front seat audio device and a back seat entertainment device according to the present invention, the system includes a vehicle-use front seat audio device, a back seat entertainment device and a connection cable, the control method is provided to copy the signals and pictures of the vehicle-use front seat audio device or the back seat entertainment device and transmit mutually by utilizing the connection cable as the bilateral transmission passageway, the signals and pictures may be mutually bilateral controlled and transmitted via the connection cable by controlling the physical keys or operating on the touch panel.
US08695044B1 Wireless multimedia content brokerage service for real time selective content provisioning
A wireless multimedia content brokerage service can provide for real time selective content extraction in a manner that allows users to easily obtain, at a mobile device, one or more portions of a real time multimedia composite content presentation. The brokerage service ensures that the experience is transparent from the point of view of the user, and additionally does not require any specific interaction between the user and the display, or interaction between the user and the content service provider (or providers). Instead, the brokerage service handles the transactional details involved in subscribing to content and in obtaining, formatting, and forwarding content to the mobile device. Additionally, since the content of interest is not forwarded from the display itself and since some embodiments of the system do not rely on any interactivity at the display to identify the display device or content, relatively unsophisticated display devices can be used.
US08695033B2 Networks and systems for generating and/or delivering hybrid broadcast content
Networks and/or devices for enabling and/or providing live or non-live interactivity with televised programming and/or its viewers and/or fans and/or hosts and/or actors and/or contestants. In certain (non-limiting) embodiments, mobile or handheld devices (e.g., mobile phones or laptops) communicably connected or connectable to networks having platforms thereon for permitting or providing live or real-time interactivity with televised programming and/or its viewers/fans/hosts/actors/contestants. In other embodiments, methods for performing or providing the interactivity described herein. In still other embodiments, software, residing on a data storage device, which directs a processor to perform actions in accordance with and/or to obtain one or more of the objectives of the technologies and methods described herein.
US08695025B2 Media transportation mechanism, method of controlling a media transportation mechanism, and media processing device
A media transportation mechanism has: a storage unit that stores disc-shaped media with a center hole in a stack; a transportation arm that moves vertically and has a gripping member to hold a medium stored in the storage unit, and a separating member that moves radially to the medium from the hole of the medium; and a transportation arm drive member that sets the ascent speed of the transportation arm to a first speed, and to a second speed that is slower than the first speed, when moving the transportation arm vertically up while the gripping member holds the medium.
US08695023B2 Adjustable medium holding unit and medium processing apparatus
A holding portion includes at least three pressing members which are operable to press an inner peripheral of a hole formed on the medium. The pressing members are movable between first positions where the pressing members do not come in contact with the inner peripheral and second positions where the pressing members come in contact with and press the inner peripheral. Each of the pressing members is adapted to interlockingly move with each other when moving toward the first positions and to press the inner peripheral independently from the other members when positioning the second positions.
US08695018B2 Extensible framework for handling different mark up language parsers and generators in a computing device
A computing device programmed with an extensible framework that accepts one or more mark-up language parsers and/or generators, each implemented as plug-ins to the framework, with different plug-ins enabling different kinds of mark up languages to be handled by the device. In this way, the client is no longer tied to a single kind of parser or generator; it can operate with any different kind of parser compatible with the intermediary layer, yet it remains far simpler that prior art clients that are hard-coded to operate directly with several different kinds of parsers and generators.
US08695015B2 Application message conversion using a feed adapter
An indication of a configuration policy of a plurality of configuration policies is received at a feed adapter. The configuration policy of the plurality of configuration policies is selected based, at least in part, on the received indication of the configuration policy. The configuration policy of the plurality of configuration policies specifies a conversion rule from an input message format to an output message format using at least one conversion function of a plurality of conversion functions. The conversion rule specifies types of arguments that the at least one conversion function receives and returns. An application message having the input message format is received in the feed adapter. The feed adapter converts the application message having the input message format to an application message having the output message format according to the conversion rule specified by the configuration policy of the plurality of configuration policies.
US08695014B2 Distributed function execution for hybrid systems
A method includes processing an application by a host including one or more processors and distributing at least a portion of the application to an accelerator for execution. The method includes instructing the accelerator to create a buffer on the accelerator and instructing the accelerator to execute the portion of the application, wherein the accelerator writes data to the buffer. The method also includes instructing the accelerator to transmit the data in the buffer to the host before the application requests the data in the buffer. The accelerator aggregates the data in the buffer before transmitting the data to the host based upon one or more runtime conditions in the host.
US08695013B2 System and method for thread protected testing
A method performed by a system including one or more data processing systems. The method includes receiving a plurality of requesting process calls for a target process from one or more requesting processes, and identifying dependencies between the requesting process calls. The method includes sending the requesting process call to the target process for execution on multiple threads, including sending thread execution parameters corresponding to the requesting process calls. The method includes receiving results, corresponding to the requesting process calls, from the target process. The method includes sending the results to the requesting processes corresponding to the respective requesting process calls.
US08695008B2 Method and system for dynamically controlling power to multiple cores in a multicore processor of a portable computing device
A method and system for dynamically determining the degree of workload parallelism and to automatically adjust the number of cores (and/or processors) supporting a workload in a portable computing device are described. The method and system includes a parallelism monitor module that monitors the activity of an operating system scheduler and one or more work queues of a multicore processor and/or a plurality of central processing units (“CPUs”). The parallelism monitor may calculate a percentage of parallel work based on a current mode of operation of the multicore processor or a plurality of processors. This percentage of parallel work is then passed to a multiprocessor decision algorithm module. The multiprocessor decision algorithm module determines if the current mode of operation for the multicore processor (or plurality of processors) should be changed based on the calculated percentage of parallel work.
US08695006B2 Resource management method
There is provided a method of managing a resource within a computer system using a configuration wrapper, the method comprising: providing a configuration file comprising configuration data for the resource; generating metadata related to the configuration data; and automatically processing the metadata to produce a configuration wrapper for the resource. The configuration wrapper may be a java object with management attributes and methods.
US08695003B2 Method for managing data accessibility by scheduling three types of executable agents associated with pre-defined access rights within a domain
Multiple types of executable agents operating within a domain. The domain includes mutable shared state and immutable shared state, with agents internal to the domain only operating on the shared state. Writer agents are defined to be agents that have read access and write access to mutable shared state and read access only to immutable shared state. General reader agents have read access to both mutable shared state and immutable shared state and have no write access. Immutable reader agents have read access to only immutable shared state and have no write access. By appropriate scheduling of the different types of agents, data races may be reduced or eliminated.
US08695002B2 Multi-threaded processors and multi-processor systems comprising shared resources
An apparatus is provided comprising at least two processing entities. Shared resources are usable by a first and a second processing entity. A use of the shared resources is detected, and the execution of instructions associated with said processing entities is controlled based on the detection.
US08695001B2 Loading services based on a request and setting permission level to enable execution of commands or services exposed based on a role of requester
A service broker for asynchronous execution of software. The broker functions include dynamically loading working modules from a specified directory, publishing the working module commands, receiving service requests from clients, and upon successful authentication and authorization, dispatching the requests to module command queues for scheduling and execution. The modules are invoked in separate domains so that management functions can control the modules independently. A management application facilitates interactive user scheduling of the actions being invoked. This can also be accomplished automatically according to business rules, for example. The management application also facilitates checking the progress on an action that is occurring, displaying errors that occur during the command execution, results of an action can also be displayed, and scheduling of requests.
US08694998B2 Cancellable command application programming interface (API) framework
Embodiments are provided that include the use of a cancellable command application programming interface (API) framework that provides cooperative multitasking for synchronous and asynchronous operations based in part on a command timing sequence and a cancellable command API definition. A method of an embodiment enables a user or programmer to use a cancellable command API definition as part of implementing a responsive application interface using a command timing sequence to control execution of active tasks. A cancellable command API framework of an embodiment includes a command block including a command function, a task engine to monitor the command function, and a timer component to control execution of asynchronous and synchronous tasks based in part on first and second control timing intervals associated with a command timing sequence. Other embodiments are also disclosed.
US08694995B2 Application initiated negotiations for resources meeting a performance parameter in a virtualized computing environment
A hypervisor negotiates to reserve at least one available local resource in a host system that meets a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request by a particular logical partition from among one or more logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources managed by the hypervisor in the host system, wherein the at least one performance parameter is specified by a particular application initiating the reservation request. The hypervisor, responsive to determining that the at least one available resource is not available in the host system, negotiates for offers to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the performance parameter, wherein the at least one other host system is managed by at least one other hypervisor that manages one or more other logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources.
US08694992B2 Traversing memory structures to parse guest operating system instrumentation information in a hypervisor
Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided for acquiring guest operating system instrumentation information in a hypervisor. Embodiments include receiving from a platform management application, by a hypervisor communication module of the hypervisor, a platform request for guest operating system instrumentation information associated with at least one guest operating system executing within the hypervisor; in response to receiving the platform request for the guest operating system instrumentation information, retrieving through shared memory between the hypervisor and the guest operating system, by the hypervisor communication module, the guest operating system instrumentation information associated with the at least one guest operating system; and transmitting, by the hypervisor communication module, the guest operating system instrumentation information to the platform management application.
US08694990B2 Utilizing system configuration information to determine a data migration order
Methods, systems and computer program products for utilizing system configuration information to determine a data migration order. The method includes computer instructions for establishing communication from a source virtual machine to a target virtual machine, the source virtual machine including a memory. The configuration information associated with the source virtual machine is determined and utilized to determine an order of migration for pages in the memory. The pages in the memory are transmitted to the target virtual machine in the order of migration.
US08694984B2 Memory apparatus and method of updating firmware of the memory apparatus
A method of updating firmware that is included in a memory apparatus that includes first and second volatile memories and a non-volatile memory, can be provided by storing new firmware in the second volatile memory when old firmware is loaded into the first volatile memory and determining on a component basis which of a plurality of components of the old firmware is an updated component in the new firmware.
US08694980B2 Efficient egonet computation in a weighted directed graph
An embodiment of the invention pertains to a weighted directed graph comprising multiple nodes and edges that each extends between two nodes. The embodiment includes processing edges to generate a forward and reverse edge corresponding to each edge. Forward and reverse edges are processed to generate indirect edges, each comprising two edge components, and extending between two nodes. One node associated with each forward edge, each reverse edge, and each indirect edge is selected to be the key node of its associated edge. All forward, reverse and indirect edges having a particular node as their respective key nodes are placed into a group. All edges of the group are then selectively processed to provide information pertaining to an egonet of the graph that has the particular node as its egonode.
US08694973B2 Abstracting computational instructions to improve performance
Methods and systems for executing a code stream of non-native binary code on a computing system are disclosed. One method includes parsing the code stream to detect a plurality of elements including one or more branch destinations, and traversing the code stream to detect a plurality of non-native operators. The method also includes executing a pattern matching algorithm against the plurality of non-native operators to find combinations of two or more non-native operators that do not span across a detected branch destination and that correspond to one or more target operators executable by the computing system. The method further includes generating a second code stream executable on the computing system including the one or more target operators.
US08694972B2 System and method for interoperating with foreign objects from a single language computing environment
A mechanism for providing automatic interoperation between native objects created in a single language computing environment and objects created in external virtual machines and foreign class systems is discussed. Embodiments of the present invention provides a class definition syntax for objects created in the single language computing environment that provides the ability to directly subclass external classes and implement external interfaces. One embodiment of the present invention also permits a foreign object system to instantiate native objects and to create foreign subclasses of native classes. More specifically, one embodiment of the present invention provides bidirectional mapping between metadata associated with objects created with each of a plurality of different types of foreign object systems and metadata created in a form supported by the single language computing environment.
US08694970B2 Unified debug system with multiple user-configurable trace volumes and trace buffers
A unified debug system with multiple user-configurable trace volumes is disclosed, including embodiments as a system, a method, and a computer-readable medium. Embodiments of the present invention provide more robust and flexible solutions for introducing configurable trace volumes to firmware, allowing a user to specify firmware system configurations for trace buffers, trace frames, and trace volumes, and offer other advantages over the prior art. One embodiment of the present invention pertains to a system that includes a firmware component comprising firmware, and a firmware interface communicatively connected to the firmware component. The firmware includes a plurality of trace volumes for storing a plurality of trace entries. The trace volumes are user-configurable through the firmware interface. The plurality of trace volumes includes first, second and third trace volumes. The first trace volume includes storing at least some of the trace entries to a trace buffer in a first volatile memory component. The second trace volume includes storing at least some of the trace entries to one or more trace buffers in one or more trace frames in a second volatile memory component. The third trace volume includes storing at least some of the trace entries to one or more trace buffers in one or more trace frames in a non-volatile memory component.
US08694969B2 Analyzing factory processes in a software factory
A method, system, and/or computer-readable medium analyzes problems in a software factory. Factory metrics that describe resources and operations within the software factory are collected and analyzed to detect problems that might have occurred during an execution of a work packet within the software factory. If the detected problems exceed one or more threshold criteria, then a detailed analysis of the detected problems is performed by matching each detected problem to one or more specific root causes through an analysis of the factory process building blocks.
US08694964B1 Managing code samples in documentation
Documentation having code samples is managed. Documentation describing programming code for a software product is received. The documentation references a code sample having an associated test module for determining whether the code sample is valid. The code sample is tested by executing the associated test module to produce a test result indicating whether the code sample is valid. The documentation, code sample, and test result are stored. The documentation, code sample, and test result may be provided to a client adapted to display the code sample and test result to a user of the client. Invalid code samples in the documentation may be identified using the test modules and the invalid code samples may be replaced to make the code samples valid.
US08694963B2 Systems, methods and apparatus for developing and maintaining evolving systems with software product lines
Systems, methods and apparatus are provided through which an evolutionary system is managed and viewed as a software product line. In some embodiments, the core architecture is a relatively unchanging part of the system, and each version of the system is viewed as a product from the product line. Each software product is generated from the core architecture with some agent-based additions. The result may be a multi-agent system software product line.
US08694962B2 Aspect-oriented parallel programming language extensions
Techniques for using one or more aspect-oriented parallelism primitives to implement one or more aspects of a program in parallel are provided. The techniques include using one or more aspect-oriented parallelism primitives to implement one or more aspects of a program in parallel, wherein implementing the one or more aspects of a program in parallel comprises implementing the one or more aspects of a program in parallel on a multi-core processor.
US08694959B2 Multi language editor
The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or method that facilitates creating a portion of an industrial process. An interface component can receive a first portion of data associated with a first programming language and a second portion of data associated with a second programming language, wherein the first programming language is independent and disparate of the second programming language. An editor component can create at least one of a portion of an industrial process or a portion of a mixed language object by enabling the combination of the first portion of data and the second portion of data independent of the respective programming languages.
US08694957B2 Method and apparatus for an XML reporter
An invention is provided for generating an XML test result file. A key parameter and a value parameter are received, wherein the key parameter relates to a tag. A first string is then generated based on the key parameter and the value parameter. Included in the first string is a first beginning tag and a first ending tag, each based on the key parameter. In addition, the first string includes the value parameter positioned between the first beginning tag and the first ending tag. The first string is then inserted into a test results file that stores a second string that has a second beginning tag and a second ending tag. In particular, the first string is inserted between the second beginning tag and a second ending tag. By continuing in this manner, an XML test results file can be generated using the embodiments of the present invention.
US08694948B2 Reconfigurable circuit generation device, method, and program
A reconfigurable circuit generation device comprises: a netlist generation unit that generates as a shared netlist a netlist that can be shared among a plurality of netlists having a common portion, and a resource reduction unit that reduces resources of the reconfigurable circuit where the plurality of netlists are to be implemented, in a range in which the shared netlist can be implemented.
US08694946B1 Simultaneous switching noise optimization
This invention provides methods, computer program products, and systems to guide a user in optimizing the Simultaneous Switching Noise (SSN) of an electronic device by using visual approaches on a graphical user interface (GUI). Also provided is an interactive feedback mechanism that enables the user to evaluate the effectiveness of an optimization method. A matrix representation of the different I/O pins on the device shows the level of SSN at different victim pins caused by switching aggressor pins. The SSN is depicted using different graphical representations. Associated with the SSN of each victim pin is the graphical representation of its accuracy. The accuracy rating denotes the reliability of the SSN and is an indication of how sensitive a victim pin is to errors. In the interactive feedback mechanism, user input on SSN optimization is received and used to calculate the new SSN and accuracy rating of different victim pins on the device. The new data is then updated in a timely manner on the GUI.
US08694944B1 Predicting routability of integrated circuits
Methods, computer program products, and systems are disclosed associated with calculating a routability metric for a second IC design using inputs from the compilation to a first IC design. The first and second IC designs are alternative implementation options for a user circuit design, such as FPGA and structured ASIC options. Information about user design demands on routing resources of one IC design are considered along with information about the projected supply of routing resources in another IC design, to produce a routing metric. The routing metric may be mapped to a degree of difficulty indicator, and either may be used to condition a compile of the user circuit to the second IC design or be used in other ways.
US08694937B2 Implementing and checking electronic circuits with flexible ramptime limits and tools for performing the same
A method of manufacturing an electronic circuit employing a flexible ramptime limit and an electronic circuit are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes: (1) physically synthesizing a logical representation of an electronic circuit employing flexible ramptime limits, (2) performing a timing test on the physically synthesized electronic circuit employing the flexible ramptime limits and a processor and (3) determining if there is a violation of the flexible ramptime limits.
US08694933B2 Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for implementing electronic circuit designs with simulation awareness
Disclosed are methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for implementing electronic designs with simulation awareness. A schematic is identified or created and simulated at the schematic level to characterize the functional behavior of the circuit or to ensure the circuit design meets the required design specifications. Physical data of a component of the design is identified, created, or updated, and the electrical parasitic associated with physical data is characterized. One or more electrical characteristics associated with the parasitic is further characterized and mapped to the simulator to re-simulate the circuit design to analyze the impact of parasitics. Some embodiments re-run the same simulation process incrementally in an interactive manner by accepting incremental design or parameter changes from the design environment.
US08694932B2 Layout determination
A device includes a processor and a computer-readable medium including computer-readable instructions. Upon execution by the processor, the computer-readable instructions cause the device to receive a first request from a second device, where the first request is a layout request that includes an identification of a space. The computer-readable instructions also cause the device to provide a second request to a third device, where the second request includes the identification of the space. The computer-readable instructions also cause the device to receive one or more dimension corresponding to the space, and to provide the one or more dimension to the third device. The computer-readable instructions further cause the device to receive a generated layout from the third device, and to provide the generated layout to the second device.
US08694931B1 Systems and methods for super-threading of integrated circuit design programs
In one embodiment of the invention, a method is disclosed including receiving a netlist of an integrated circuit design; executing a first copy of an integrated circuit design program with a first processor associated with a first memory space to independently perform work on a first portion of the integrated circuit design; and executing a second copy of the integrated circuit design program with a second processor associated with a second memory space to independently perform work on a second portion of the integrated circuit design; wherein the second memory space is independent of the first memory space.
US08694929B2 Method and apparatus for the position determination of structures on a mask for microlithography
A method and an apparatus for determining the position of a structure on a mask for microlithography, in which the position is determined by comparing an aerial image, measured by a recording device, of a portion of the mask with an aerial image determined by simulation. The position determination includes carrying out a plurality of such comparisons which differ from one another with regard to the input parameters of the simulation.
US08694928B2 Pattern selection for lithographic model calibration
The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for test pattern selection for computational lithography model calibration. According to some aspects, the pattern selection algorithms of the present invention can be applied to any existing pool of candidate test patterns. According to some aspects, the present invention automatically selects those test patterns that are most effective in determining the optimal model parameter values from an existing pool of candidate test patterns, as opposed to designing optimal patterns. According to additional aspects, the selected set of test patterns according to the invention is able to excite all the known physics and chemistry in the model formulation, making sure that the wafer data for the test patterns can drive the model calibration to the optimal parameter values that realize the upper bound of prediction accuracy imposed by the model formulation.
US08694927B2 Method of designing pattern layouts
A method of designing a pattern layout includes defining one shot area including a plurality of chip areas, generating an initial common layout in the plurality of chip areas, primarily correcting the initial layout to form a primary corrected layout, and secondarily correcting the primary corrected layout independently to form a plurality of secondary corrected layouts.
US08694925B1 Generating customized graphical user interfaces for mobile processing devices
Systems and techniques for producing graphical user interfaces on handheld mobile devices include generating a markup language code defining a graphical user interface component for display on the handheld mobile device and rendering the generated markup language code to produce the graphical user interface component. In some cases, the graphical user interface component includes at least one adaptable attribute based on a selection made by a user. In other cases, a graphical user interface component is generated using static markup language code or a combination of static and dynamically generated markup language code. Graphical user interface components defined by markup language codes can be displayed in an overall graphical user interface along with components that are native to the device and/or that are defined by an application development platform.
US08694920B2 Displaying application information in an application-switching user interface
An application status system is described herein that informs the user about application-specific status updates and notifications through a changing status icon associated with an application-switching user interface displayed by an operating system when the application is running. When an application has focus, there is typically no way for another application to display status to the user without displaying a dialog box or a notification balloon that interrupts the user. The application status system takes advantage of the existing application-switching user interface to display a lightweight status icon overlay on the application-switching user interface itself. Thus, the application status system allows applications to provide application-specific status updates without interrupting a user's activity in another application and without adding additional UI for a user to process.
US08694916B2 Method and apparatus for spatially indicating notifications
An apparatus, method, and computer program product are provided for spatially indicating notifications to a user via display regions that are arranged (e.g., perimeterally) about the display of an apparatus. The apparatus may include a processor and a memory including computer program code which provide for the presentation, in a first display region, of an indication of a notification associated with a first application and provide for the presentation, in a second display region, of a non-pictorial indication of a notification associated with a second application. The first and second display regions may, for example, be arranged along the edges of a polygonal display. As such, a user may be able to quickly discern which application is responsible for a particular notification, and the user's view of an underlying application provided on the display may not be obscured or diminished as a result of the issuance of the notification.
US08694915B2 Enhanced telephony computer user interface allowing user interaction and control of a telephone using a personal computer
Enhanced telephony computer user interfaces seamlessly integrate and leverage the features of personal computers and telephones. The manner in which media is presented at a computing system can also be modified automatically in response to detected telephone operations. These modifications can include pausing media in response to a detected telephone call and/or adjusting a volume of the media presentation. The media presentation/volume can also be resumed/restored upon detecting that the telephone call has terminated.
US08694909B2 Device for analysing variable magnitudes by simultaneous multiple windowing
The device (D) is dedicated to the analysis of time varying quantities. It comprises a tool for managing display windows (MA) each for displaying the representation of a selected quantity and each associated with a first quantity selection tool (01) and a second time reference(s) selection tool (02) coupled to the management tool (MA). The device (D) further includes a third linking tool (03a-03c) which i) allows a user, who has selected several quantities and related time references, to select at least two of the display windows and the selected quantities, and ii) connects together the first tools (01) and/or second tools (02) of the selected display windows so that the selection of a quantity by the user using one of the first related tools (01), or master tool, of a master window results in the selection of the same quantity by the management tool (MA) at each so-called slave display window, and/or so that the selection of a time reference by one of the second related tools (02) results in the selection of the same time reference by the management tool (MA) at each slave display window.
US08694902B2 Device, method, and graphical user interface for modifying a multi-column application
A method includes: displaying simultaneously a plurality of columns in a multi-column application that comprises: a first column that includes user-modifiable content items; and a second column that includes user-selectable items; detecting a first input that corresponds to a request to enter an edit mode for the first column; in response to detecting the first input: entering the edit mode for the first column; and deactivating the user-selectable items in the second column; while in the edit mode for the first column: detecting one or more edit inputs; and in response to detecting the edit inputs, editing one or more of the user-modifiable content items in the first column; detecting a second input that corresponds to a request to exit the edit mode for the first column; and in response to detecting the second input: exiting the edit mode, and reactivating the user-selectable items in the second column.
US08694896B2 Online story collaboration
An online collaborative story system allows multiple people to collaborate on creating a story by contributing content of various types to a server computer, where it is voted on by the collaborators or a designated editor to create the finished story. Additionally, one or more of the collaborators can be rewarded for their participation in the story.
US08694894B2 Streaming graphic method and arrangement data for building control systems
A method for displaying building control system information includes receiving an interpreted program over the Internet using a web-browser. The method further includes executing the interpreted program to display at least a first graphical element, the first graphical element having a fixed element and a variable element, the variable element representative of a first value. The method also includes executing the interpreted program to receive at least a second value over the Internet, the second value comprising non-graphical information, and executing the interpreted program to display the first graphical element such that the variable element is representative of the second value.
US08694887B2 Dynamic contextual shortcuts
Subject matter disclosed herein may relate to dynamically selecting and/or determining terms for use with contextual shortcuts in electronic documents such as, for example, web pages.
US08694882B2 Control device, method of controlling a recording device, and a storage medium
A recording device is made to record text after suitably correlating universal character code characters to font data that is actually stored in the printer. A printer 20 stores a plurality of code pages CP each storing font data for a plurality of characters that is used when recording text on a recording medium. Based on the plural code pages CP stored by the printer 20, a character code conversion table 18 that stores Unicode characters correlated to information identifying a code page CP containing font data corresponding to the Unicode character and information denoting the storage address of the font data on the code page CP is created or updated.
US08694881B2 Viewing file modifications
Upon closing and/or saving a file, a user may view changes made to the file.
US08694879B1 Efficient use of CRC with limited data
An automotive sensor reads from memory previously stored back-calculated diagnostic-code values for which a fixed cyclic-redundancy-check (“CRC”) value is valid and transmits the previously stored back-calculated diagnostic-code values read from memory each paired together with the fixed CRC value.
US08694878B2 Processor instructions to accelerate Viterbi decoding
Viterbi decoding is performed on a microcontroller by initializing a state-metric array by executing load instructions to load state-metric data from a memory module into a set of registers in the microcontroller. Butterfly processing on the state-metric array is performed by executing Viterbi processing instructions fetched from a program storage module to manipulate the state-metric (SM) data in the set of registers for each Viterbi butterfly in a stage of Viterbi decoding to form a final set of state-metric data and trace bits. After completing each stage, a final set of state-metric data is stored in the memory module by executing store instructions.
US08694877B2 Max-log-map equivalence log likelihood ratio generation soft viterbi architecture system and method
A modified soft output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) detector receives a sequence of soft information values and determines a best path and an alternate path for each soft information value and further determines, when the best and alternate paths lead to the same value for a given soft information value, whether there is a third path departing from the alternate path that leads to an opposite decision with respect to the best path for a given soft information value. The SOVA detector then considers this third path when updating the reliability of the best path. The modified SOVA detector achieves max-log-map equivalence effectively through the Fossorier approach and includes modified reliability metric units for the first N stages of the SOVA detector, where N is the memory depth of a given path, and includes conventional reliability metric units for the remaining stages of the detector.
US08694874B2 Circuit and method for parallel perforation in rate matching
A circuit and a method for parallel perforation in rate matching can adopt three selector arrays and three register groups. The first selector array is configured to remove null bits in input data and output the remaining data to the first register group; the second selector array is configured to combine the first register group and the third register group and then output the combined data to the second register group; during the combination, the valid data in the third register group are preferentially selected, and then the data in the first register group are selected; Further, the third selector array is configured to output remaining valid data in the first selector group to the third register group if the valid data in the first selector group are not used out while combining the first register group and the third register group by the second selector array.
US08694871B2 Iterative decoding method for encoded signal and iterative decoding apparatus for encoded signal
A iterative decoding method for iteratively carrying out a decoding process for an encoded segmented and signal transmitted in a plurality of (Ncb) sub blocks for each predetermined block unit includes storing a number of (ncb) sub blocks smaller than the number (Ncb) of the sub blocks; and successively and iteratively carrying out a decoding process for each of the stored (ncb) sub blocks within a specified time period determined based on the number (ncb).
US08694865B2 Data storage device configured to reduce buffer traffic and related method of operation
A method is provided for performing a write operation in a data storage device comprising a storage medium, a processing unit, and a buffer memory storing data to be transferred to the storage medium under control of the processing unit. The method comprises aggregating data in the buffer memory as a strip group comprising multiple data strips, transferring data strips in at least one strip group to the storage medium, calculating a parity strip based on the transferred data strips of the at least one strip group without additional access to the buffer memory, and transferring the parity strip to the storage medium.
US08694861B2 Memory device repair apparatus, systems, and methods
Operations within a memory device to replace one or more selected failing memory cells with one or more repair memory cells and to correct data digits read from other failing memory cells in the memory device.
US08694857B2 Systems and methods for error detection and correction in a memory module which includes a memory buffer
The present systems include a memory module containing a plurality of RAM chips, typically DRAM, and a memory buffer arranged to buffer data between the DRAM and a host controller. The memory buffer includes an error detection and correction circuit arranged to ensure the integrity of the stored data words. One way in which this may be accomplished is by computing parity bits for each data word and storing them in parallel with each data word. The error detection and correction circuit can be arranged to detect and correct single errors, or multi-errors if the host controller includes its own error detection and correction circuit. Alternatively, the locations of faulty storage cells can be determined and stored in an address match table, which is then used to control multiplexers that direct data around the faulty cells, to redundant DRAM chips in one embodiment or to embedded SRAM in another.
US08694856B2 Physically unclonable function with tamper prevention and anti-aging system
Systems for generating an identifying response pattern comprising a memory (120) used as a physically unclonable function configured for generating a response pattern dependent on physical, at least partially random characteristics of said memory may be vulnerable to freezing attacks and to aging. A memory-overwriting device (110) configured for overwriting at least a first portion of the plurality of memory locations to obscure the response pattern in the memory avoids freezing attacks. An anti-degradation device (160) configured to write to each respective location of a second portion of the plurality of memory locations an inverse of a response previously read from the memory reduces the effects of aging.
US08694854B1 Read threshold setting based on soft readout statistics
A method for data storage includes storing data in analog memory cells by programming the memory cells with respective analog input values. After storing the data, respective analog output values are read from the memory cells using multiple read thresholds, which define multiple ranges of the analog output values. Respective numbers of read errors in the data, corresponding to the analog output values falling in the ranges, are assessed. The stored data is recovered based on respective numbers of the read errors assessed in the ranges.
US08694852B2 Nonvolatile memory devices with age-based variability of read operations and methods of operating same
Integrated circuit memory systems include a nonvolatile memory device having an array of nonvolatile memory cells therein and a memory controller, which is electrically coupled to the nonvolatile memory device. The memory controller is configured to apply signals to the nonvolatile memory device that cause the nonvolatile memory device to modify how data is read from the array of nonvolatile memory cells. This modification occurs in response to detecting an increase in an age of the nonvolatile memory device. The age of the nonvolatile memory device may be determined by keeping a count of how many times the nonvolatile memory device has undergone a program/erase cycle.
US08694851B1 Adaptive multiple-input multiple-ouput successive interference cancellation receivers
A system including a first receiver module and a first interference canceller module. The first receiver module is configured to receive a first signal including a first set of codewords and to generate a first set of decoded codewords by decoding at least one of the first set of codewords. The first interference canceller module is configured to measure first reliability metrics of codewords corresponding to the first set of decoded codewords; based on the first reliability metrics, select a second set of decoded codewords from the first set; generate a second signal based on the second set of decoded codewords; and subtract at least a portion of the second signal from the first signal to cancel interference of codewords corresponding to the second set of decoded codewords on the second set of codewords in the first signal.
US08694846B2 Method for receiving and transmitting data blocks
The present invention provides a scalable and reliable feedback suppression method for receiving and transmitting data block. The method comprises receiving at least one initial data packet of the data block which is sent by the transmitter to the multicast group of receivers; and sending at least one NAK packet indicating packet loss to the transmitter by at least one receiver of the multicast group, wherein the at least one NAK packet is sent in a single uplink time slot dedicated to said multicast group of receivers, and wherein the NAK packet is identical for all receivers of said multicast group.
US08694838B2 Cache memory, processor, and production methods for cache memory and processor
A cache memory built in a processor comprising a plurality of independent memory blocks, pass/fail information memory unit memorizing a presence/absence of a failure occurring in each of the memory blocks, and a screening control function substituting a sound memory block for a failed memory block based on a memory content in the pass/fail information memory unit.
US08694835B2 System health monitoring
An apparatus for health monitoring includes a settings module, a field data module, a settings update module, and a monitoring module. The settings module is configured to store health monitoring settings for a plurality of monitored subsystems. The field data module is configured to receive field data, the field data comprising failure data of one or more systems of the same type as at least one of the monitored subsystems. The settings update module is configured to update the health monitoring settings stored by the settings module, wherein the health monitoring settings are updated based at least in part on the field data. The monitoring module is configured to perform one or more health monitoring tasks according to the health monitoring settings.
US08694832B2 Assist thread analysis and debug mechanism
A processor recognizes a request from a program executing on a first hardware thread to initiate software code on a second hardware thread. In response, the second hardware thread initiates and commences executing the software code. During execution, the software code uses hardware registers of the second hardware thread to store data. Upon termination of the software code, the second hardware thread invokes a hypervisor program, which extracts data from the hardware registers and stores the extracted data in a shared memory area. In turn, a debug routine executes and retrieves the extracted data from the shared memory area.
US08694827B2 Job migration in response to loss or degradation of a semi-redundant component
A method of managing the workload in a computer system having one or more semi-redundant hardware components is provided. The method comprises detecting loss or degradation of the level of performance of one or more of the semi-redundant hardware components, identifying hardware components affected by the loss or degradation, migrating a critical job from an affected hardware component to an unaffected hardware component, and performing less-critical jobs on an affected hardware component. Loss or degradation of the semi-redundant component reduces the capacity of affected hardware components in the computer system without entirely disabling the computer system. Jobs identified as critical run on hardware components having the most capacity and reliability, while less-critical jobs use the remaining capacity of affected hardware components. Examples of semi-redundant hardware components include a memory module, CPU core, Ethernet port, power supply, fan, disk drive, and an input output port.
US08694825B2 Protecting storage fabrics from errant device causing single point of failure
A mechanism is provided for protecting storage fabrics from an errant device causing a single point of failure. The mechanism identities a source of the out-of-context traffic, isolates the TAG to prevent further catastrophe, and ensures that device isolation control operations are processed timely allowing device isolation and removing the source of the issue. Should device isolation not solve the issue, the mechanism allows the host to use a binary search method to isolate the device that may be hiding its true identity and sourcing possibly malicious traffic.
US08694824B2 System and method for upgradable remotely deployed intelligent communication devices
In one embodiment, an intelligent communications device for operating in a network is disclosed. The device includes a storage device having a plurality of partitions storing images for performing boot operations. The device also includes a detection module that is operative to detect a boot failure, and a first restoration module that is operative to restore an active image with a first backup image, in response to a detected boot failure from an active image. The device further includes a second restoration module that is operative to restore a second backup image in response to a detected boot failure after restoration from a first backup image. The device also includes a programmable processor that is programmed to cause execution of boot operations and functions performed by the detection module, first restoration module, and second restoration module.
US08694823B2 Querying and repairing data
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to querying and repairing data. In aspects, a component may detect that data on storage has become corrupted. In response, the component may request data from one or more redundant copies of the data and may determine which of the redundant copies, if any, are not corrupted. If a non-corrupted copy is found, the component may send a request that the corrupted data be repaired and may identify the non-corrupted copy to use to repair the corrupted data.
US08694822B2 Disaster recovery in a networked computing environment
In general, embodiments of the present invention provide a DR solution for a networked computing environment such as a cloud computing environment. Specifically, a customer or the like can select a disaster recovery provider from a pool (at least one) of disaster recovery providers using a customer interface to a DR portal. Similarly, using the interface and DR portal, the customer can then submit a request for DR to be performed for a set (at least one) of applications. The customer will then also submit (via the interface and DR portal) DR information. This information can include, among other things, a set of application images, a set of application files, a set of recovery requirements, a designation of one or more specific (e.g., application) components for which DR is desired, dump file(s), database file(s), etc. Using the DR information, the DR provider will then generate and conduct a set of DR tests and provide the results to the customer via the DR portal and interface. In one embodiment, a temporary DR environment can be created (e.g., by the DR provider or the customer) in which the DR tests are conducted.
US08694820B2 Failure recovery method
The reliability is improved at a low cost even in a virtualized server environment. The number of spare servers is reduced for improving the reliability and for saving a licensing fee for software on the spare servers. A server system comprises a plurality of physical servers on which a plurality of virtual servers run, a single standby server, a module for detecting an active virtual server, and a module for switching the correspondence of boot disks of virtualization modules for controlling virtual servers to the physical servers. When a physical server fails, the boot disk of the associated virtualization module is connected to a spare server to automatically activate on the spare server those virtual servers which have been active upon occurrence of the failure.
US08694819B2 System and method for gradually adjusting a virtual interval timer counter value to compensate the divergence of a physical interval timer counter value and the virtual interval timer counter value
A system and corresponding method virtualizes a real-time clock in the presence of a time-disrupting event. The real-time clock is used with physical machines and includes a single time source within each of the physical machines. The system is implemented in one or more programmable devices, which may be hardware and/or software devices, or a combination of hardware and software devices. The physical machines include one or more virtual machines. The system includes an offset module that determines a time difference offset between a virtual interrupt timer counter (ITCV) associated with a virtual machine and a physical interrupt timer counter (ITCP) associated with a physical machine. The system also includes a virtual machine monitor that computes one or more first time adjustments based on the offset and applies the adjustments to eliminate at least a first part of the offset.
US08694811B2 Power management for digital devices
In a digital device, activity of (or load on) one or more processors, peripherals and memory buses are measured. A power management framework operated in the digital device bases power settings in the digital device on the measured loads, and accordingly issues power management commands to change power consumption states of one or more of the processors, peripherals and memory buses. Some user applications (termed power aware applications) in the digital device provide a number identifying their application type to the power management framework, which thereby determines the resources required by the application. The power management commands issued by the power management framework ensure provision of the corresponding resources to the application, while also targeting minimization of power consumption in the digital device. In an embodiment, the digital device corresponds to a mobile phone.
US08694806B2 Power transfer in an inline switch device
An apparatus and method for transferring power in an inline switch device are provided. The method comprises drawing power from an inline power source and transferring, by the powered device subsystem, a portion of the power that is not consumed by the powered device subsystem to one or more connected powered devices. The method further comprises determining a limit of current drawn by the powered device subsystem during transfer of power by the powered device subsystem to the one or more powered devices that results in the transfer of a desired amount of power to the one or more powered devices, and adjusting the limit for the current drawn by the powered device subsystem to the determined current limit.
US08694805B2 System and method for multiple PoE power supply management
A system and method for multiple power over Ethernet (PoE) power supply management. Power supply status signals indicative of an operating condition of a plurality of PoE power supplies are provided to a plurality of power sourcing equipment (PSE) controller chips. Pre-configured combination logic within each of the PSE controller chips converts an indicated operational state of the plurality of PoE power supplies into a powering decision for each of the Ethernet ports served by the PSE controller chip within one microsecond.
US08694804B2 Computer system and power management method thereof
A power management method of a computer system is provided. The method includes the following steps. Health states of a plurality of power supplies are detected to generate a detection signal. Output powers provided by the power supplies are received to calculate a total maximum output power of the power supplies. An interrupt is generated by triggering a configuration management program according to the total maximum output power or the detection signal. The interrupt is processed by an interrupt handler to adjust a power consumption of a central processing unit (CPU).
US08694803B1 Controlling power received through multiple bus interfaces in a portable computing device
The disclosed embodiments provide a system that enables a portable computing device to receive power through multiple bus interfaces at the same time. When the system senses that a first power source is plugged into a first bus interface in the portable computing device, the system determines whether the first power source is a host or a power adapter. Next, based upon whether the first power source is a host or a power adapter, the system uses a first power manager coupled to the first bus interface to limit a first input current received from the first power source to power the computing device. The system also provides the maximum charging current to a rechargeable battery for the portable computing device by chaining together a second bus interface whether power is present on the second bus interface or not.
US08694799B2 System and method for protection of content stored in a storage device
The invention provides a system and method for content protection. A system according to an embodiment includes a media center connectable to a mobile secure and protection keyring associated with an identifier and with a media Key block MKB. The media center includes: a unique identifier identifying the media center MC_UID, a set of device keys DK; storage means for storing files identified by respective file identifiers; and a processing unit comprising file encryption means for encrypting each file before storage in the storage means, using a title key (Kt) computed from the identifier MC_UID of the media center and for encrypting the title key Kt from the set of device keys DK of the media center, and from the identifier and the media key block MKB of the mobile secure and protection keyring, the media center being further provided to write the encrypted title key (eKt) in association with the file identifier of the file to the mobile secure and protection keyring.
US08694798B2 Generating and securing multiple archive keys
A method and apparatus for generating multiple keys for a set of archives or portions of a set of archives. The process includes receiving a passphrase from a user and an indicator of a set of archives to be modified or created. An archive key generation process can be based on a random value generation, an algorithm for generating keys with specific characteristics, an indexing scheme, a progressive enciphering scheme or a shared secret scheme. The generated keys are enciphered using an enciphering algorithm in combination with the passphrase. The archive keys are stored with the archives in their enciphered form. Other intermediate key information is also stored with the archive to enable deciphering of the set of archives using the passphrase as needed.
US08694795B1 Method and apparatus for secure application execution
Systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media are described for securely installing, executing and/or migrating a security sensitive application in a trusted execution environment on a mobile device. For example, techniques described herein allow a mobile device to verify the operating environment of the mobile device, the security sensitive application itself and discover a trusted execution environment on the device to install the security sensitive application. Furthermore, techniques are disclosed for verifying the state of one or more applications on the mobile device against a synchronized copy of the trusted execution environment operating in the cloud and also migrating the state of one or more applications from a trusted execution environment from a first mobile device to a second mobile device in the event that the mobile device is compromised, lost, stolen or being upgraded.
US08694793B2 Biometric access control transactions
Aspects and embodiments of the present disclosure provide devices and methods for biometric authentication of a user during access control transactions. In one aspect, an access control processor device, comprising a biometric input sensor configured to receive user biometric information; a biometric verification processor configured to authenticate the input user biometric information; and a communication element configured to activate when the biometric information entered into the biometric verification system is authenticated and maintain an inactive status for the communication element on the payment processor device when the biometric information entered into the biometric verification system is not authenticated.
US08694792B2 Biometric based repeat visitor recognition system and method
A biometric authorization method, system, and program product Biometric data associated with a subject can be detected and acquired. Thereafter, particular biometric features can be segmented and extracted from the biometric data. These particular biometric features are then compared to biometric data previously stored in a database in order to determine if the particular biometric features match the biometric data previously stored in the database and thereby rapidly and automatically determine if the subject comprises a repeat visitor.
US08694790B2 Storage device and method for communicating a password between first and second storage devices using a double-encryption scheme
A first storage device provides a host device with access to a private memory area by communicating a password between the first storage device and a second storage device via the host device using a double-encryption scheme. In one embodiment, a host device receives a twice-encrypted password from a first storage device, sends the twice-encrypted password to a second storage device, receives a once-encrypted password from the second storage device, decrypts the once-encrypted password to obtain the password, and sends the password to the first storage device. In another embodiment, a first storage device sends a twice-encrypted password to a host device, receives the password from the host device after the twice-encrypted password is decrypted by a second storage device and the host device, and provides the host device with access to the private memory area only if the password matches one that is stored in the first storage device.
US08694789B2 System and method for generating a non-repudiatable record of a data stream
A system and method for generating a non-repudiatable record of a communications data stream is provided, which is applicable to real-time and quasi-real-time data streams. A binary communication data stream is captured and segmented into defined frames. A key frame is generated for each of a number of data frames containing integrity and authentication information. The key frame is inserted into the data stream to provide an authenticated data stream.
US08694781B1 Techniques for providing hardware security module operability
A technique provides hardware security module (HSM) operability which is performed in a computing device. The technique involves running, by processing circuitry of the computing device, a virtual machine monitor to provide a virtual machine environment. The technique further involves running, by the processing circuitry, a security module VM within the virtual machine environment. The security module VM is configured to perform HSM operations on behalf of a set of other VMs. The technique further involves imposing, by the processing circuitry, a requirement that all access between the security module VM and the set of other VMs occur through the virtual machine monitor to isolate and protect the security module VM against tampering.
US08694777B2 Securely identifying host systems
Embodiments of the present invention allow for “end-user” provisioned instances to securely identify themselves beyond a simple user ID and password. Specifically, embodiments of the present invention use a multi-part security approach that includes (among other things): an identifying key (e.g., a shared private key) known by the cloud security system and the instance; and at least one additional security factor such as an identifier found in TCP/IP packets (e.g., an internet protocol address). In a typical embodiment, a request for an instance (e.g., a virtual machine) is received, and a template (e.g., an image) corresponding to the requested instance is identified. From this template, the instance is provisioned. Under the embodiments of the present invention, the instance will be provisioned to include a security key. When a request is thereafter received from the instance, the request is validated using the security key and the additional security factor(s).
US08694776B2 Authenticated memory and controller slave
Systems and methods that can facilitate the utilization of a memory as a slave to a host are presented. The host and memory can provide authentication information to each other and respective rights can be granted based in part on the respective authentication information. The host can determine the available functionality of the memory. The host can activate the desired functionality in the memory and can request memory to perform the desired function(s) with regard to data stored in the memory. An optimized controller component in the memory can facilitate performing the desired function(s) associated with the data to generate a result. The result can be provided to the host, while the data and associated information utilized to generate the result can remain in the memory and are cannot be accessed by the host.
US08694774B2 Method and system for encryption of messages in land mobile radio systems
A method and system for authentication of sites in a land mobile radio (LMR) system and encryption of messages exchanged by the sites. In some embodiments, the method includes transmitting a certificate created by a trusted authority by applying a function to a first site public key using the trusted authority's private key to generate a reduced representation, which is encrypted with the trusted authority's private key. Other sites may receive the certificate, decrypt it using the trusted authority's public key, and authenticate the first site. The method may further include generating a session key, encrypting it with the public key of the first site, and transmitting the encrypted session key to the first site. The first site decrypts the encrypted session key with the first site's private key, and transmits a message encrypted with the shared session key to other sites for decryption using the session key.
US08694773B2 Method of preventing unauthenticated viewing using unique information of secure micro
A method of verifying a validity of a Secure Micro (SM) is provided. The method of verifying a validity of an SM, the method including: storing and maintaining a validity verification message used to verify the validity of the SM, the validity verification message being generated by a Trusted Authority (TA) based on unique information of the SM, and the SM and the TA sharing the unique information of the SM; and verifying the validity of the SM using the validity verification message and the unique information shared by the SM, when an SM client is executed.
US08694763B2 Method and system for secure software provisioning
A method and system for the provisioning of software that enable large scale installation and management of software in computer units in a highly secure manner. The BIOS of the target computer unit is adapted such that upon power up the system attempts to boot from an external media. The BIOS features functions within the code for the implementing a system watchdog for assuring the system remains in a known state, a function for digital signature verification, and loads drivers for a file system. The external media includes the operating system (OS) image and other bootstrap files, each having been digitally signed with an asymmetric private key that corresponds to the public key. A programmable read-only parameter memory on the motherboard is configured to store the public keys and the (failure) state of the system independently of the primary and secondary media enabling reboot from an alternative boot path.
US08694760B2 Branch prediction using a leading value of a call stack storing function arguments
A branch prediction mechanism within an information processing device comprises a call stack where function arguments are stacked when function calls are performed. The call stack stores arguments relating to branch instructions within the function. The branch prediction mechanism stores the branch instruction address, the leading value of the call stack, and the branch destination address at branch instruction execution time, which are in correspondence, in a branch result buffer. A branch prediction unit obtains the branch instruction address and leading value of the call stack when notified of branch instruction execution, searches the branch result buffer for a branch destination corresponding to the address and leading value, and predicts the search result as the branch destination of the executed branch instruction. An instruction fetch unit fetches instructions from the branch destination predicted by the branch prediction unit.
US08694758B2 Mixing instructions with different register sizes
When legacy instructions, that can only operate on smaller registers, are mixed with new instructions in a processor with larger registers, special handling and architecture are used to prevent the legacy instructions from causing problems with the data in the upper portion of the registers, i.e., the portion that they cannot directly access. In some embodiments, the upper portion of the registers are saved to temporary storage while the legacy instructions are operating, and restored to the upper portion of the registers when the new instructions are operating. A special instruction may also be used to disable this save/restore operation if the new instruction are not going to use the upper part of the registers.
US08694754B2 Non-volatile memory-based mass storage devices and methods for writing data thereto
A non-volatile solid state memory-based mass storage device having at least one non-volatile memory component and methods of operating the storage device. In one aspect of the invention, the one or more memory components define a memory space partitioned into user memory and over-provisioning pools based on a P/E cycle count stored in a block information record. The storage device transfers the P/E cycle count of erased blocks to a host and the host stores the P/E cycle count in a content addressable memory. During a host write to the storage device, the host issues a low P/E cycle count number as a primary address to the content addressable memory, which returns available block addresses of blocks within the over-provisioning pool as a first dimension in a multidimensional address space. Changed files are preferably updated in append mode and the previous version can be maintained for version control.
US08694746B2 Loose synchronization of virtual disks
In order to synchronize copies of a virtual disk, a virtualization layer maintains a first record of file system blocks of a first copy of the virtual disk that are modified during an access session by a virtual machine using the first copy of the virtual disk. The file system blocks correspond to a file system of the virtual disk. During an attempt to synchronize the first copy with a second copy of the virtual disk, (i) a second record of file system blocks that are currently used by the file system is obtained from the guest operating system, and (ii) file system blocks in the first copy of the virtual disk that are present in both the first record and the second record are copied into the second copy of the virtual disk.
US08694742B2 Storage system and data management method for mirroring volumes with allocate on use function
A storage system and data management method is provided that improves the reliability and fault tolerance of the hard disks saving data utilizing an AOU function. A storage system comprises a first correlating section for correlating a plurality of RAID groups composed of a plurality of physical disks, and the pool region, a second correlating section for correlating the pool region and the storage regions of the virtual volumes, a first allocation section for allocating first data from the host apparatus to the first storage region of the first RAID group based on write requests from the host apparatus, and a second allocation section for distributing second data from the host apparatus at and allocating the second data to any storage regions of the RAID group, with the exception of the first storage region of the first RAID group allocated by the first allocation section, based on write requests.
US08694741B2 Storage system and method of executing commands by controller
A storage subsystem capable of processing time-critical control commands while suppressing deterioration of the system performance to a minimum. When various commands are received in a multiplex manner via the same port from plural host devices, the channel adapter of the storage subsystem extracts commands of a first kind from the received commands. Then, the adapter executes the extracted commands of the first kind with high priority within a given unit time until a given number of guaranteed activations is reached. At the same time, commands of a second kind are enqueued in a queue of commands. After the commands of the first kind are executed as many as the number of guaranteed activations, the commands of the second kind are executed in the unit time.
US08694738B2 System and method for critical address space protection in a hypervisor environment
A system and method in one embodiment includes modules for detecting an access attempt to a critical address space (CAS) of a guest operating system (OS) that has implemented address space layout randomization in a hypervisor environment, identifying a process attempting the access, and taking an action if the process is not permitted to access the CAS. The action can be selected from: reporting the access to a management console of the hypervisor, providing a recommendation to the guest OS, and automatically taking an action within the guest OS. Other embodiments include identifying a machine address corresponding to the CAS by forcing a page fault in the guest OS, resolving a guest physical address from a guest virtual address corresponding to the CAS, and mapping the machine address to the guest physical address.
US08694737B2 Persistent memory for processor main memory
Subject matter disclosed herein relates to a system of one or more processors that includes persistent memory.
US08694736B2 Satisfying memory ordering requirements between partial reads and non-snoop accesses
A method and apparatus for preserving memory ordering in a cache coherent link based interconnect in light of partial and non-coherent memory accesses is herein described. In one embodiment, partial memory accesses, such as a partial read, is implemented utilizing a Read Invalidate and/or Snoop Invalidate message. When a peer node receives a Snoop Invalidate message referencing data from a requesting node, the peer node is to invalidate a cache line associated with the data and is not to directly forward the data to the requesting node. In one embodiment, when the peer node holds the referenced cache line in a Modified coherency state, in response to receiving the Snoop Invalidate message, the peer node is to writeback the data to a home node associated with the data.
US08694732B2 Enhanced coherency tracking with implementation of region victim hash for region coherence arrays
A method and system for precisely tracking lines evicted from a region coherence array (RCA) without requiring eviction of the lines from a processor's cache hierarchy. The RCA is a set-associative array which contains region entries consisting of a region address tag, a set of bits for the region coherence state, and a line-count for tracking the number of region lines cached by the processor. Tracking of the RCA is facilitated by a non-tagged hash table of counts represented by a Region Victim Hash (RVH). When a region is evicted from the RCA, and lines from the evicted region still reside in the processor's caches (i.e., the region's line-count is non-zero), the RCA line-count is added to the corresponding RVH count. The RVH count is decremented by the value of the region line count following a subsequent processor cache eviction/invalidation of the region previously evicted from the RCA.
US08694728B2 Efficient online construction of miss rate curves
Miss rate curves are constructed in a resource-efficient manner so that they can be constructed and memory management decisions can be made while the workloads are running. The resource-efficient technique includes the steps of selecting a subset of memory pages for the workload, maintaining a least recently used (LRU) data structure for the selected memory pages, detecting accesses to the selected memory pages and updating the LRU data structure in response to the detected accesses, and generating data for constructing a miss-rate curve for the workload using the LRU data structure. After a memory page is accessed, the memory page may be left untraced for a period of time, after which the memory page is retraced.
US08694727B2 First storage control apparatus and storage system management method
An object of the present invention is to allocate a volume to an appropriate tier in a pool in accordance with the performance of the volume. Multiple tiers 1K are created in a pool 1B. A pool volume that matches the performance required by a tier is allocated to each tier. An information acquisition part 1D acquires information related to respective storage apparatuses 1, 2, and information related to the performance of each volume. A tier control part 1E allocates a pool volume to any tier of the respective tiers, based on the performance information.
US08694719B2 Controller, storage device, and method for power throttling memory operations
The embodiments described herein provide a controller, storage device, and method for power throttling memory operations. In one embodiment, a controller is provided in a storage device with a plurality of flash memory devices. The controller determines how much power will be consumed (or heat will be generated) by each of a plurality of commands and dynamically alters when each of the commands operating on one or more of the flash memory devices is performed based on the determination of how much power would be consumed (or heat will be generated), so that performance of the plurality of commands does not exceed a predetermined average power limit over a period of time (or a predetermined temperature). In some embodiments, the storage device also has a thermal sensor, and a reading from the thermal sensor can be used, instead of or in addition to the power or thermal costs of each command, to dynamically alter when the commands are performed.
US08694716B2 Method for writing and reading data in an electrically erasable and programmable nonvolatile memory
A method for writing and reading data in a main nonvolatile memory having target pages in which data are to be written and read, the method including providing a nonvolatile buffer having an erased area, providing a volatile cache memory, and receiving a write command to update a target page with updating data the length of which can be lower than the length of a page. The method also includes, in response to the write command, writing the updating data into the erased area of the nonvolatile buffer, together with management data of a first type, and recording an updated version of the target page in the cache memory or updating in the cache memory a previously updated version of the target page.
US08694711B2 Crosspoint switch for use in video and other applications
A crosspoint selector switch for simultaneously supporting multiple data formats having different switch reconfiguration timing requirements, comprising; a configurable switch section for selectively connecting outputs thereof to receive data from respective inputs thereof in response to operational switch data; and a configuration section operatively connected to provide the operational switch data to the switch section, the configuration section storing switch configuration data supporting multiple different configurations of the switch section, the configuration section being operative to receive different operational update commands each associated with a different configuration for the switch section and update the operational switch data from the stored switch configuration data to reconfigure the switch section in dependence on which of the different operational update commands is received.
US08694704B2 Method and apparatus for congestion-aware routing in a computer interconnection network
The present disclosure relates to an example of a method for a first router to adaptively determine status within a network. The network may include the first router, a second router and a third router. The method for the first router may comprise determining status information regarding the second router located in the network, and transmitting the status information to the third router located in the network. The second router and the third router may be indirectly coupled to one another.
US08694703B2 Hardware-accelerated lossless data compression
Systems for hardware-accelerated lossless data compression are described. At least some embodiments include data compression apparatus that includes a plurality of hash memories each associated with a different lane of a plurality of lanes (each lane including data bytes of a data unit being received by the compression apparatus), an array including array elements each including a plurality of validity bits (each validity bit within an array element corresponding to a different lane of the plurality of lanes), control logic that initiates a read of a hash memory entry if a corresponding validity bit indicates that said entry is valid, and an encoder that compresses at least the data bytes for the lane associated with the hash memory comprising the valid entry if said valid entry comprises data that matches the lane data bytes.
US08694697B1 Rescindable instruction dispatcher
A system and method dispatches commands from multiple instruction streams to processing engines, allowing for some of the dispatched commands to be rescinded before they are executed by the processing engines. The dispatching enables several of the processing engines to execute commands concurrently. Dispatched commands may be rescinded to quickly switch processing from one instruction stream to another instruction stream.
US08694696B2 Detection method and detection device and multimedia device for high-definition multimedia interface
A detection method for detecting connection statuses of a plurality of HDMI ports in an HDMI-compatible multimedia device includes receiving a plurality of electric information of the plurality of HDMI ports, and determining connection conditions of the plurality of HDMI ports.
US08694692B2 Apparatus and method for producing device identifiers for serially interconnected devices of mixed type
A plurality of memory devices of mixed type (e.g., DRAMs, SRAMs, MRAMs, and NAND-, NOR- and AND-type Flash memories) are serially interconnected. Each device has device type information on its device type. A specific device type (DT) and a device identifier (ID) contained in a serial input (SI) as a packet are fed to one device of the serial interconnection. The device determines whether the fed DT matches the DT of the device. In a case of match, a calculator included in the device performs calculation to generate an ID accompanying the fed DT for another device and the fed ID is latched in a register of the device. In a case of no-match, the ID generation is skipped and no ID is generated for another device. The DT is combined with the generated or the received ID depending on the device type match determination. The combined DT and ID is as a packet transferred to a next device. Such a device type match determination and ID generation or skip are performed in all devices of the serial interconnection. With reference to device type provided to the interconnected devices, IDs are sequentially generated. The SI containing the DT, the ID and an ID generation command is transmitted in a packet basis to a next device.
US08694690B2 External evironment sensitive predictive application and memory initiation
An input tracker learns relationships between end user inputs made at a computer and external environment conditions sensed at the computer by external environment sensors integrated in the computer, such as a camera, microphone, hard disk drive motion detector, display ambient light sensor and display orientation accelerometer. An input predictor interfaced with the input tracker applies current external environment conditions sensed by the external environment sensors to the relationships defined by the input tracker to predict future user input and initiates actions by the computer responsive to the predicted future user input before the input is detected to have results responsive to the input prepared for the user upon detection of the input.
US08694688B2 Disk controller for implementing efficient disk I/O for a computer system
A hardware support system for implementing accelerated disk I/O for a computer system. The system includes a bus interface for interfacing with a processor and a system memory of the computer system, a disk I/O engine coupled to the bus interface, and a device interface coupled to the disk I/O engine for interfacing the disk I/O engine with a disk drive. The disk I/O engine is configured to cause a start up of the disk drive upon receiving a disk start up command from the processor. The disk I/O engine is further configured to execute a disk transaction by processing the disk transaction information from a bypass register coupled to the disk I/O engine.
US08694687B2 Computing-system identifier using software extraction of manufacturing variability
A system for generating a computing system specific value comprising, a computing system not comprising any specialized hardware to generate a device specific value, a software product tangibly embodied in a machine-readable medium, comprising instructions operable to cause computing system to perform operations comprising: generating a digital value which is substantially dependent on manufacturing variation among like devices of computing system.
US08694681B2 Dynamic content configuration for serving content to microbrowsers
A microbrowser such as web-enabled wireless telephones and personal digital assistants allows a user to configure types of objects to be blocked from download including object memory consumption, display area, download time, and restrictions on animated images and executable scripts. Microbrowser state conditions such as battery level and network connection mode are considered when providing said limitations such that more restrictions may be placed during low battery periods to maximize battery life. For example, during low battery conditions or analog connection mode, a user may configure an enhanced microbrowser not to download advertisements, run scripts or animated objects in order to maximize remaining battery life. In another example, a user may configure an enhanced microbrowser to block the download of objects containing audio, or which will occupy more than a certain percentage of the available display area.
US08694680B2 Methods and apparatus for enabling use of web content on various types of devices
A method system for interactive communication with a web site using a mobile communicator having the following functionalities: receiving, at a server, an http request from a mobile communicator being used by a user, the http request identifying a website and should the mobile communicator not support a client-side script employed by the website, causing the server to emulate the script so as to enable the user to interact with the website.
US08694679B2 Control device, method and program for deploying virtual machine
A control device includes a storage unit that stores a correspondence relationship between a first information processing device and attribute information of a first virtual machine provided by the first information processing device, and a correspondence relationship between a second information processing device and attribute information of a second virtual machine provided by the second information processing device; and a processor that refers to the storage unit and deploys a deployment object virtual machine to the first information processing device when the number of the first virtual machines with the same attributes as the attributes of the deployment object virtual machine among the first virtual machines provided by the first information processing device is detected to be fewer than the number of second virtual machines with the same attributes as the attributes of the deployment object virtual machine among the second virtual machines provided by the second information processing device.
US08694678B2 Method of providing data to a client
A method provides data to a client by a server and comprises receiving a data update, —sending a duplicate of the data update to the client; incorporating the data update into a revolving data carousel for holding the data, the data comprising a plurality of data items; and sending a data item on the data carousel to the client.
US08694675B2 Generalized dual-mode data forwarding plane for information-centric network
A networking system comprising a content router for an information-centric network (ICN) comprising a content store (CS), a pending interest table (PIT), a forwarding information base (FIB), and a plurality of interfaces, and configured to receive and forward interest from one or more users and data from one or more applications via the interfaces using a dual-mode data forwarding plane, and a plurality of next hop nodes of the ICN coupled to the content router and configured to forward the interest and data to the content router via the interfaces, wherein the dual-mode forwarding plane forwards the interest and data using the FIB without the CS and PIT for conversational traffic and using the CS, PIT, and FIB for content dissemination traffic.
US08694672B2 Method and system for transferring files using file transfer protocols for palm OS mobile computer
A method is disclosed for communicating using a device having a PALM® OS. SMB is used to communicate with a node, and if use of SMB is not possible, FTP is used, and if use of FTP is not possible, BLUETOOTH® is used. If FTP or BLUETOOTH® is selected, file sharing between the device and node that entails a read or write is executed by temporarily copying a file to an internal PALM® OS memory of the device, performing the read or write on the file, and then copying the file back to the node to overwrite a previous version of the file at the node. For non PALM® OS file transfer to the internal memory, the file is wrapped in a PALM® OS stream in the internal memory for executing reads or writes.
US08694668B2 Streaming media software interface to a dispersed data storage network
A client computer streams a digital media presentation from a dispersed data storage network including a plurality of slice servers. A dispersed data storage network access component streams data directly from the dispersed data storage network and passes data to a media player, also residing on the client computer.
US08694667B2 Video data filtering method and system
A filtering method and system. The method includes receiving by a computer processor an audio/video data file and filtering data. The computer processor analyzes the filtering data with respect to the audio/video data file and retrieves specified audio/video data portions comprising data objects within frames of the audio/video data file. The computer processor removes gaps existing in the audio/video data file and receives tags comprising instructions for presenting video data of the audio/video data file, audio data of the audio/video data file, and the specified audio/video data portions. The computer processor stores the video data in a first layer of a multimedia file, the audio data in a second layer of the multimedia file, and the specified audio/video data portions in additional layers of the multimedia file. Each of the first layer, the second layer, and the additional layers comprises a tag layer comprising the tags.
US08694657B1 Real time communications system
A system and method communicating via an Internet network, the system including: a plurality of computers connected to a computer system such that one of the plurality of computers, corresponding to a first of the user identities, and an other of the plurality of computers, corresponding to a second of the user identities, can send communications, and some of the communications are received in real time via the Internet. There can be a determination as to whether some of the communications are allowed.
US08694655B2 Configuring output on a communication device
In one general sense, display of content communicated by a sender communication device to a destination communication device may be enabled by receiving, at a destination communication device, content to be displayed by the destination communication device. Characteristics of a display of the received content by the destination communication device may be algorithmically identified in accordance with display configuration settings for the destination communication device. Based on the identified characteristics, at least one change to be made to capture configuration settings at a capturing communication device used to capture the received content may be identified. At least one alternative capture configuration setting may be communicated to the capturing communication device. Content that is captured by the capturing communication device is received at the destination communications device based on the alternative capture configuration setting communicated.
US08694651B2 Method and system for implementing network proxy
A method and system for implementing network proxy are provided. The method includes: establishing a first connection between a client and a server through a proxy adapter, so as to enable the client to acquire status information of the server through the first connection; and if the status information of the server shows that the server is in a turn-on state, establishing a second connection between the client and the server, so as to enable the client and the server to transmit a data packet through the second connection. Through the method for implementing network proxy, the client acquires the status information of the server through the first connection, and only when the status information of the server is the turn-on state, could the second connection between the client and the server be established, thereby ensuring the reliability of establishing the second connection, and improving the user experience.
US08694649B1 Direct connections to a plurality of storage object replicas in a computer network
A system and method for efficiently accessing replicas of a storage object. A first node may perform a find operation to determine a plurality of nodes that each store a replica of a first storage object. For each node in the plurality of nodes, the first node may establish a direct connection to the node. The first node may then access the replicas of the first storage object using the respective direct connections to the plurality of nodes. In one embodiment, the nodes may be nodes in a peer-to-peer network. Establishing a direct connection to each storage object replica may enable the first node to communicate with each node in a single hop without having to pass messages via intermediate nodes in the peer-to-peer network.
US08694646B1 System and method to anonymize data transmitted to a destination computing device
A method and system for anonymizing data to be transmitted to a destination computing device is disclosed. Anonymization strategy for data anonymization is provided. Data to be transmitted is received from a user computer. Selective anonymization of the data is performed, based on the anonymization strategy, using an anonymization module. Anonymized data is transmitted to the destination computing device over a network.
US08694641B2 Image delivery management server and image delivery management system
An image delivery management server of present invention includes a delivery load amount acquiring portion that acquires a delivery load amount of an image that is delivered to a viewer's terminal connected via a network, and a delivery device determining portion that determines, based on the delivery load amount, a type or a quantity of a delivery device that performs image delivery to the viewer's terminal.
US08694636B2 Method and apparatus for network filtering and firewall protection on a secure partition
A management virtual machine on a virtualization technology enabled platform includes a means for providing a firewall and deep packet inspection. An isolated secure partition is provided to host the management application and network packet filtering and firewall functions to provide a secure and trusted platform for manageability applications. A protected component in the operating system in a user partition moves network traffic to the secure partition for inspection and filtering.
US08694631B2 HTTP streaming with proved service quality
This invention relates to a method for streaming a media file to an end user using a hypertext transfer protocol HTTP, wherein a proxy monitors HTTP messages for detecting a streaming of the media file using HTTP. When a HTTP message is received, the proxy determines bearer parameters required for streaming the media file and determines whether a bearer meeting an appropriate service quality is necessary. If necessary, the proxy triggers a provision of the bearer meeting with said appropriate service quality.
US08694628B2 Wireless communication system
Apparatus identification information about wireless access apparatuses judged to be able to communicate with a monitoring apparatus, among multiple wireless access apparatuses, is stored in a neighborhood database. If there is apparatus identification information that is not stored in the neighborhood database, among apparatus identification information stored in a registration database in which apparatus identification information about wireless access apparatuses registered as monitoring targets of the monitoring apparatus is stored, it is judged again for a wireless access apparatus to which the apparatus identification information is given whether communication is possible, after a predetermined time elapses. On the other hand, if there is no such apparatus information, or if the judgment is performed again for a predetermined number of times, the apparatus identification information stored in the neighborhood database is copied to the registration database.
US08694626B2 Automated characterization of network traffic
Automated characterization of network traffic is described herein. A method may include compiling network traffic data based on received network traffic, preparing a network traffic characterization based on the network traffic data, and generating outgoing network traffic scripts based on the network traffic characterization. A method may also include capturing network traffic and generating test network traffic based on the scripts. A network testing system on which the method may be executed may include one or more chassis and/or computing devices, each having one or more network cards. The chassis and/or computing devices may be connected to one or more networks and to one another. The networks may include a production network and a test network. A system may include a data collector, a characterization engine, a script generator, and a traffic generator.
US08694623B1 Methods and apparatuses for remote caching
Methods and apparatuses are presented for managing remote computers. In one or more embodiments, the apparatus includes one or more management servers comprising a registry of manageable objects. The one or more management servers are capable of being executed on a first machine. One or more management applications are coupled to the one or more management servers. The one or more management applications are capable of being executed on a second machine, where the first and second machines are separate. A first cache connector is coupled to the one or more management servers, where the first cache connector retrieves and stores at least one of the manageable objects listed in the registry. A second cache connector is coupled to the one or more management applications, where the first and second cache connectors form a cache management connection. The processing required to implement the first cache connector is distributed across the first machine.
US08694619B2 Packet classification method and apparatus
A method of handling packets within a packet-based communication system implementing a policy and charging control architecture. The method comprises, at one or more policy and charging enforcement functions within a packet switched access network or networks, monitoring packet flows to determine user usage on a per service class basis, and periodically reporting the determined usage from the policy and charging enforcement functions to a policy and charging rules function. At the policy and charging rules function, the received usage information is used in order to generate one or more one or more rule sets, each rule comprising one or more packet properties and one or more actions for handling a packet. The or at least one rule set is sent to the or each policy and charging enforcement function where they are applied in order to determine an action or actions for handling a packet.
US08694618B2 Maximizing data transfer through multiple network devices
A first computer utilizes a logical connection with a second computer. The logical connection comprises multiple physical network connections using multiple physical network devices on the first computer. Two or more of the physical network devices of a logical connection are used to transfer packets of a single data transfer such as a database request or response. A logical connection can include a single physical network device on the second computer creating a one-to-many logical connection or may also include multiple physical network devices on the second computer creating a many-to-many logical connection.
US08694614B2 Shortcut sets for controlled environments
A method and apparatus for shortcut sets to data sources, such as web sites, is disclosed. The shortcut sets may be associated with a controlled environment. A controlled environment might be a home, corporation, business, etc. As an example, an information technology (IT) manager configures shortcuts for the employees of the company. As another example, a family member configures shortcuts that are common to all family members, when at home. A user may enter a shortcut into a search box of a web browser to be directed to a data source. If the shortcut indicates a search at the data source is desired, then a search is automatically performed at the data source.
US08694613B2 Client device, information processing method, and information processing system
There is provided a client device including a storage section which stores content data, a control section which acquires content identification information for identifying the content data stored in the storage section, and a transmission section which transmits, to a server device, a registration request including user identification information for identifying a user who uses the client device and the content identification information acquired by the control section, and which, when the server device holds the content data identified by the content identification information, causes the server device to hold information obtained by associating the user identification information with the content identification information as user-specific registration information.
US08694612B1 Connecting consumers with providers of live videos
A computer-implemented method includes receiving by one or more computer systems, a request from a client system of a consumer for a live, real-time video having specified attributes of a performance embedded in the live, real-time video; searching by the one or more computer systems a database of attributes of performances associated with live, real-time videos; and causing by the one or more computer systems a connection between the client system of the consumer with a system of a provider of a live, real-time video captured performance based on the specified attributes included in the request for the live, real-time video.
US08694611B1 Podcast audio devices and user interfaces
A system for providing simplified access to podcasts to a user includes one or more personal audio devices, a podcast directory service and one or more podcast sources. Each personal audio device can include a media player configured to play podcasts, a memory source capable of storing podcasts, a podcast directory of available podcasts and a podcast directory module configured to interface with the podcast directory service to receive podcasts for storage or delete podcasts from memory. The podcast directory service includes a mass storage device and a podcast upload module. The mass storage device can store podcasts, directories of podcasts available on the mass storage device or accessible podcasts sources, and a user profile. The podcast upload module is configured to interface with the personal audio device to coordinate the upload or deletion of podcasts from the personal audio device.
US08694608B2 Client application fingerprinting based on analysis of client requests
Processes are disclosed for fingerprinting and identifying client applications based on the analysis of client requests. In an HTTP-based embodiment, a fingerprint is constructed based on the presence and order of HTTP headers included in a request from a client application or device. This fingerprint may then be compared to known fingerprints associated with particular client applications to identify the particular client application and/or to assess whether the client application is malicious. The results of this analysis may, for example, be used to determine how to respond to the current request and/or subsequent requests.
US08694606B2 Rate sensitive packet transfer mechanism over a peer-to-peer network
An apparatus, method and system to improve data transfer across a communications network by employing an acknowledgment independent equalized data packet transfer mechanism on a peer-to-peer basis. The present disclosure teaches how many computers can send data to many other computers, with particularity on a peer-to-peer basis when desired, without requiring acknowledgements of safe receipt by the receiving computer. By aggregating several computers to send data in a collection to a requesting computer, transfer rates may be increased. Further, by not requiring acknowledgment of receipt from the receiving computer, and by treating all data packets with equal utility, the present disclosure teaches a mechanism that reduces file transfer administration bandwidth, increases file transfer scalability on demand, and increases overall network transfer efficiency.
US08694605B1 Systems and methods for disseminating content to remote devices
Certain embodiments of the invention may include systems and methods for disseminating content to remote devices. According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method is provided that can include receiving, at a computer system, registration information for one or more remote devices; registering the one or more remote devices; selecting content to associate with a selected subset of the one or more registered remote devices for presentation; generating a message comprising a primary uniform resource identifier (URI) corresponding to a source for the content; selecting at least one of the one or more registered remote devices for presenting the content; and sending the generated message to the at least one selected registered remote device, wherein the at least one selected registered remote device is configured to automatically retrieve and present the retrieved content from the source identified by the primary URI in the message.
US08694603B2 Geospatial visualization performance improvement for contiguous polylines with similar dynamic characteristics
Techniques are disclosed for rendering geographic information system (GIS) data. A server component responding to a request for GIS data for a given area combines contiguous elements that share the same dynamic characteristics. For example, a map server may combine the polylines of contiguous road segments sharing the same current speed/congestion conditions. Doing so may greatly reduce the number of individual polylines that are sent to a client for rendering.
US08694600B2 Remote monitoring systems for monitoring medical devices via wireless communication networks
A remote monitoring system for monitoring a plurality of medical devices at a patient care or home care facility. The system includes a device integration server in communication with wireless relay modules for receiving data packets from the medical devices including an identifier and data for each medical device. The system also includes a data management system and an outbound web server. The data management system is configured to log data for the medical devices. The web server is configured to provide webpages including the data of the medical devices for display on a remote monitoring computer, subject to authentication of an associated data request from the monitoring computer. The Web server is configurable to look up patient information from a secure source when user has appropriate permissions. In addition, the device integration server is configured to process alert messages received from the wireless relay modules and, in response, to transmit text message information to the wireless relay modules to be relayed to one or more text messaging recipients.
US08694597B1 Mobile device group-based data sharing
A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for sharing data between a plurality of mobile devices is disclosed. In some embodiments, this includes using a processor to associate a first mobile device with a mobile device group, associating a second mobile device with the mobile device group, allowing the second mobile device to access the first mobile device data based on the association of the second mobile device with the mobile device group, and storing the association of the second mobile device with the mobile device group in a storage device.
US08694596B2 Systems and methods for information brokering in software management
Methods and systems consistent with embodiments of the present invention may provide an interface configured to obtain software management information from software applications under management, and provide a central information broker having the software management information.
US08694595B2 Low latency, high bandwidth data communications between compute nodes in a parallel computer
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for data transfers between nodes in a parallel computer that include: receiving, by an origin DMA on an origin node, a buffer identifier for a buffer containing data for transfer to a target node; sending, by the origin DMA to the target node, a RTS message; transferring, by the origin DMA, a data portion to the target node using a memory FIFO operation that specifies one end of the buffer from which to begin transferring the data; receiving, by the origin DMA, an acknowledgement of the RTS message from the target node; and transferring, by the origin DMA in response to receiving the acknowledgement, any remaining data portion to the target node using a direct put operation that specifies the other end of the buffer from which to begin transferring the data, including initiating the direct put operation without invoking an origin processing core.
US08694593B1 Tools for micro-communities
A system and method for associating users with a micro-community that is relevant to an object reference. The object reference is anything that can be perceived either physically or conceptually, such as a location, a document, a calendar entry, a document, a news feed, a biometric key, an image, a news feed, etc. A micro-community engine identifies users who are associated explicitly with the object reference as well as people who would be interested in the object implicitly and associates them with a micro-community. The micro-community engine provides an intuitive and flexible means for communication between members of the micro-community.
US08694590B2 Method and system for formatting messages into stylized messages for print out
Methods for formatting email messages into stylized templates for delivery to a printer. The templates include a variety of different formats to accommodate the various elements of the email message. The available templates can include themed templates, calendars, to-do lists, address books, stationary, and the like. The system and methods format the email message by parsing the elements of the message into component parts and fitting them within a template.
US08694587B2 System and method for transferring a call bridge between communication devices
An improved system and method are disclosed for conference bridging. In one example, the method enables a device engaged in a conference call as a participant to bridge the conference call and to transfer the bridge to another device engaged in the conference call as a participant.
US08694586B2 Maintaining corresponding relationships between chat transcripts and related chat content
A method, apparatus, and system for maintaining corresponding relationships between at least one chat transcript and related chat content in an instant messaging system may include establishing a chat session in the instant messaging system. Corresponding chat content may be displayed synchronously according to a changed address of the chat content. The changed address of the chat content may be inserted into a chat transcript, and the chat transcript may be segmented into at least two segments to create a segmented chat transcript. The segmented chat transcript and corresponding relationship between the changed address of the chat content and corresponding chat transcript segments may be stored.
US08694585B2 Cross-interface communication
Cross-interface communication is described, including generating data associated with a synthetic environment, the synthetic environment comprising one or more communication protocols, converting the data using one of the one or more communication protocols to generate converted data, wherein the converted data is interpreted using another of the one or more communication protocols, and transmitting the data over a communication path between two or more endpoints using one or more communication interfaces, wherein the data, after being interpreted by the another of the one or more communication protocols, is used to present information associated with the synthetic environment on at least one of the two or more endpoints.
US08694579B2 Enterprise network system for programmable electronic displays
A client-server based enterprise network system providing network services and applications to administer, manage, control access to, and use a plurality of programmable electronic display devices and systems is disclosed. The enterprise network system may include client-server network system configurations and methods to enable a plurality of enterprise users to expeditiously, efficiently and securely access and use enterprise network resources and capabilities, including provisioning of graphical display content on a plurality of programmable electronic display systems sited locally, regionally, globally or in combination thereof. The enterprise network system and the network services and capabilities here disclosed, may be accessed through Web-enabled applications with Internet/Web browsers, which enable users to access network services and capabilities from any Internet/Web-enabled computer or workstation from any location.
US08694575B2 Data-intensive computer architecture
A data-intensive computer includes a processing sub-system formed by a plurality of processing servers, a database sub-system formed by a plurality of database servers configured to form a collective database, and a unifying operating system environment. The unifying operating system environment extends across the processing sub-system and the database sub-system to coordinate operation of the plurality of processing servers and the plurality of database servers to act as components in a single data-intensive computer and presents the database sub-system to an application running in the data-intensive computer as a layer in a memory hierarchy of the data-intensive computer.
US08694572B2 Decimal floating-point fused multiply-add unit
A decimal floating-point Fused-Multiply-Add (FMA) unit that performs the operation of ±(A×B)±C on decimal floating-point operands. The decimal floating-point FMA unit executes the multiplication and addition operations compliant with the IEEE 754-2008 standard. Specifically, the decimal floating-point FMA includes a parallel multiplier and injects the addend after required alignment as an additional partial product in the reduction tree used in the parallel multiplier. The decimal floating-point FMA unit may be configured to perform addition-subtraction operations or multiplication operations as standalone operations.
US08694570B2 Method and apparatus for evaluation of multi-dimensional discrete fourier transforms
A device and method for evaluating multidimensional discrete Fourier transforms (DFT) by eliminating transpose operations by transforming every dimension concurrently. At least one computing node is enabled to evaluate a DFT of one of a multidimensional input data set and a subgroup of the input data set, wherein the subgroup comprises groupings of elements taken from a plurality of selected dimensions of the input data set for subsequent multidimensional DFT operations.
US08694569B2 High-speed system having compensation for distortion in a digital-to-analog converter
A method and system for the design and implementation of an inverse-sinc function that can efficiently process signals produced by high-speed systems is presented. An integrated inverse-sinc module accepts multiple data streams that may result from parallel sub-systems and creates multiple outputs that can be interleaved to produce a sequence that has been filtered by an inverse-sinc function. The multiple-input, multiple-output system may be beneficially operated at a low data rate, such as the data rate used by each of the sub-systems.
US08694564B2 Method and system for providing on-demand services through a virtual file system at a computing device
A method of providing on-demand service through a virtual file system is implemented at a computing device. In response to receiving a request for a file associated with an instance of the virtual file system, the computing device checks the metadata of the requested file in the virtual file system to identify a first set of data blocks of the requested file that is not present at the computing device and retrieves the first set of data blocks from at least one of a plurality of storage devices associated with the virtual file system. The computing device generates a copy of the requested file using the retrieved first set of data blocks and returns the generated copy of the requested file to the requesting application or user.
US08694563B1 Space recovery for thin-provisioned storage volumes
Methods are provided to write zeroes to logical blocks of a thin-provisioned volume mapped to a deleted file or a dummy file in the host file system. This causes the thin-provisioned volume to map these logical blocks to a common storage space that contains all zeroes so that storage space previously mapped to these logical blocks is free to be reused.
US08694559B2 Using database content for multiple business data systems connected to one database
A data model specific to a database schema is received in a database system. The received data model may be applied to a first instance of the database schema to generate a data view of the first database schema. The received data model may be applied to a second instance of the database schema to generate a second data view of the second database schema.
US08694555B2 Processing drug data
Computer-assisted methods and systems of processing a drug information source. Characterizing the drug by the set comprising: syntax-parsed drug rule elements, adverse event data, mapped terms, and metadata. A method includes: creating a drug rule syntax; extracting metadata from the drug information source; extracting verbatim adverse event data from the drug information source; identifying drug rule content from the drug information source; mapping terms from verbatim data to a reference source; and parsing drug rule elements from at least one identified instance of drug rule content into the drug rule syntax, retaining associations between those drug rule elements that form a drug rule.
US08694554B2 Cluster storage using subsegmenting for efficient storage
Cluster storage is disclosed. A data stream or a data block is received. The data stream or the data block is broken into segments. For each segment, a cluster node is selected, and a portion of the segment smaller than the segment is identified that is a duplicate of a portion of a segment already managed by the cluster node.
US08694549B2 Dynamic management of multiple persistent data stores
Dynamic management of multiple persistent data stores is disclosed. One or more data objects are retrieved from two or more of a plurality of persistent data stores and provided to the client context in a manner such that the one or more data objects appear to the client context to come from a single source, even if in fact the objects have been retrieved from two or more different persistent stores.
US08694546B2 Optimized fetching for customization object attributes
An attribute of a hierarchical class-based object is received. The attribute in a database is stored both in a first location in a first table at a first level of a hierarchy of database tables which table hierarchy is based at least in part on a class hierarchy associated with the hierarchical class-based object and in a second location in a second table at a second level of the table hierarchy which second level is higher than the first level.
US08694544B2 Layering concept for a repository of a user interface framework for web applications
Various embodiments of systems and methods for a layering concept for a repository of a user interface framework for Web applications are described herein. The content of a repository provided by different parties (e.g., vendor, partner, customer, user, etc.) is separated. The separation is achieved by assigning solutions to the parties that store content in the repository. Simplified access to the repository is achieved by layering the solutions in a stack and implementing a layer strategy for the layers and their order of access.
US08694543B2 Handheld electronic device with assisted text entry using existing message thread, and associated method
A method of facilitating the entry of text into a new message generated by a messaging application of a handheld electronic device is provided that includes receiving a command to reply to or forward a received message that is included within a message thread, scanning the message thread, identifying a plurality of words in the message thread, generating one or more word lists that include the identified words, and displaying the one or more word lists. The method further includes receiving a selection of a selected one of the words from the one or more word lists, and entering the selected one of the words into the new message. Also provided is an improved handheld electronic device that implements the described method.
US08694542B2 Customizing tracking changes to user content in an online social network
Updates to landing pages of users in an online social network are fed from external sources so that content maintained by any one user can be consolidated in a single location regardless of where the changes are made to the content. When an update event occurs, users of the online social network are notified according to various criteria that they have set. With this feature, users can browse through content of other users efficiently.
US08694541B1 Mapping business questions to source system data elements
Various embodiments of the invention can be used to organize and prioritize data to optimize the ability to answer business questions and address business needs. A data mapping system may be used to map value driver data elements to business questions to assess which data sets or sources of data are more important than others when assessing the business questions. This can assist in the process of identifying the most useful and accurate data for assessing a business question.
US08694538B1 Method and apparatus for logging write requests to a storage volume in a network data switch
A method and apparatus for logging write requests to a storage volume in a network data switch is described. In one example, a switch component in a switch receives a write request from a host server. The write request is associated with a destination in the storage volume. A logging element is identified that is associated with the destination of the write request. The logging element may be a switch component in the switch (e.g., a virtualization card), or may be dedicated logging circuitry in the switch. The identified logging element then logs a write intent for the destination in a log.
US08694536B2 Fast matching for content-based addressing
Disclosed are systems and methods for efficient matching for content-based addressing wherein the systems and methods may: accept, at a receiver machine, a query; generate, at the receiver machine, a tree structure ordered by one or more fields of the query; analyze, at the receiver machine, a message from the sender machine; search, by the receiver machine, the tree structure using content from one or more fields of the message; determine, by the receiver machine, if the content values of the message match a content value of the query stored in the tree structure; and accept, by the receiver machine, the message if the content value of the message matches one or more content values of the query.
US08694535B2 Systems and methods for research database management
A computing device includes a processor for receiving data pertaining to a plurality of different items of content. The data for each different item of content including at least one identifier for at least one premise pertaining to the item of content selected from a taxonomy of premises, and including at least one identifier for at least one conclusion pertaining to the item of content. The conclusion is based on the selected premises. A database includes the data pertaining to the plurality of different items of content. The database is searchable upon receipt of a search request based on one or more of the premises. Upon the search request, the processor is constructed and arranged to generate a set of records from the database containing the premises in the search request and generating a set of intersections of conclusions within the database that are based on the set of records.
US08694530B2 Search system with query refinement and search method
A search system and method for searching for electronic documents, and providing a search result in response to a search query. In one embodiment, the search system includes a processor, a user interface module adapted to receive a search query from a user that includes a search query term, a search engine that electronically searches for electronic documents that satisfy the search query term, and a query processing module that identifies at least one alternative term for the search query term, and provides the alternative term to the user interface module for display to the user, and also provides the alternative term to the search engine to search for electronic documents that satisfy the alternative term.
US08694523B2 Analyzing usage information of an information management system
In an information management system, activity data is collected and analyzed for patterns. The information management system may be policy based. Activity data may be organized as entries including information on user, application, machine, action, object or document, time, and location. When checking for patterns in the activity or historical data, techniques may include inferencing, frequency checking, location and distance checking, and relationship checking, and any combination of these. Analyzing the activity data may include comparing like types or categories of information for two or more entries.
US08694519B2 Real estate analysis system
A real estate analysis system that provides an integrated approach for gathering available real estate data and synthesizing the real estate data for various uses by various users. The real estate data may be real time data, historical data, and/or most recent data. The processing of the data utilizes cloud resources in a cloud computing architecture. In addition, cloud resources are used to store various accumulated real estate data in a manner such that the cloud resources can quickly process calculations and have the results returned to an end user who requested the data.
US08694518B2 Method and apparatus for database mapping
A computerized stored library of a plurality of database mappings is provided. Each database mapping represents the manner in which fields of a source database maps to fields of a target database. When a source database needs to be mapped to a target database, one or more of the database mappings are selected from the library and used to perform a mapping. Data transformations may be performed on one or more of the fields of the source database during the mapping.
US08694517B2 Context aware phonebook
A system including: a system control unit; a context aggregator operatively connected to the control unit, where the context aggregator is configured to on predefined events, receive context information about a user from two or more context sensors, calculate an aggregated presence status for the user based on the received context information, wherein a classification algorithm is used to calculate the aggregated presence status; and a user database operatively connected to the control unit, wherein the user database is configures to store user information for plural users, the user information comprising at least a user name, the aggregated presence status, available communications terminals and a probability of reaching the user on each of the available communication terminals, wherein the available terminals and their probability is a function of the aggregated presence status, wherein the system control unit is configured to, on demand distribute at least parts of the user information, including the available communication terminals and their probability, from the user database to a requesting device or application.
US08694515B2 Image search device and image search method
Provided is an image search device which relatively easily searches a large amount of stored images for images that a user wishes to use for interpolation, and which includes: an interpolation range computing unit (103) which computes, as an interpolation range, a range of an area including a first photographing location where a first interpolation target image was taken and a second photographing location where a second interpolation target image was taken; an interpolation image candidate obtaining unit (104) which obtains, as candidate images, images whose photographing location are included in the interpolation range from the plurality of images; and an interpolation image selecting unit (106) which selects, from the candidate images, an image having a greater subject distance, which is a distance between a subject and an imaging device when the image was taken, as a traveling speed between the first photographing location and the second photographing location increases.
US08694513B2 Systems and methods for graphical search interface
Some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a graphical user interface as a means of inputting search parameters to database search engines. In some embodiments, two or three dimensional projections spatially represent relationships between search parameters, located along the periphery of the projections and search hits whose significance are represented by position relative to the center of the projection and comparative distance from each of the search parameters. As the user manipulates the overall shape of the search projection, the weighting of search parameters adjusts, reconfiguring the search. The present disclosure also provides, in some embodiments, an intuitive means of assimilating search parameter weightings based on peer or social network preferences with global search results.
US08694511B1 Modifying search result ranking based on populations
The present disclosure includes, among other things, systems, methods and program products for modifying search result rankings based on populations.
US08694509B2 Method and apparatus for managing for handwritten memo data
A method and apparatus for storing and searching for handwritten memo data in a database in which the handwritten memo data are stored in the form of bit streams representing continuous and discontinuous elements constituting the handwritten memo data are provided. The memo data search method includes receiving an input of memo data, storing the memo data in the form of a bit stream, searching, when a search for the memo data is requested, a memo index database for the memo data, and displaying a search result. The handwritten memo data management method and apparatus stores and searches for the memo data regardless of orientation and size.
US08694503B1 Real-time indexing of data for analytics
The disclosed embodiments provide a system that processes data. During operation, the system obtains, in a buffer, records to be included in a data segment as the records are generated, wherein each of the records comprises one or more metrics and at least one dimension associated with the one or more metrics. After the buffer reaches a threshold size, the system creates a data segment comprising at least one of a forward index and an inverted index for a column in the records. The system then enables querying of the data segment and a set of offline data segments comprising older records of the one or more metrics and the at least one dimension.
US08694502B2 Batch entity representation identification using field match templates
Techniques may be used to match records of a batch file to an entity representation in a universal database. Inputs may include, but are not limited to, a batch file and a universal (or other) database. The technique may compare the records of the batch file to the records of the universal database, and may attempt to create matches between the records in the batch file and the entity representations or records in the universal database. One possible output may include one or more tables that include foreign record IDs of the batch file records, each in association with an entity representation of the universal database. The techniques may include a batch style processing of records.
US08694500B2 Method and apparatus for document matching
Documents written using a markup language such as XML may be decomposed into Path and Parent Associated Node (PPAN) elements, each of which is a linear data structure that includes the content of a node, the parent-child relationship of the node, and the path level of the node. A number of PPAN elements may be grouped together to form A PPAN chain. A PPAN matching process uses the PPAN elements/PPAN chain to search for structured documents that match the PPAN chain. The PPAN matching process is able to perform query and match at the same time to accelerate the PPAN matching process, and also enables complex services to be represented by generic structured documents. Optionally, the PPAN matching process may support wildcard requests so that services may be discovered without prior knowledge of the services.
US08694499B1 Systems and methods for determining query similarity by query distribution comparison
A system determines query similarity. The system determines a volume per unit time of an issued first query over a time period and determines a volume per unit time of issued other queries over the time period. The system compares the volume per unit time of each of the issued other queries to the volume per unit time of the issued first query. The system identifies ones of the issued other queries as similar to the first query based on the comparison.
US08694496B2 Harvesting application metadata
A method for harvesting application metadata includes receiving metadata from a web application and storing the metadata to a metadata collection. The metadata indicates a characteristic of a web application user. The metadata collection identifies the user and may include metadata from other web applications. The advertisement is then characterized. For example, keywords may be associated with the advertisement. An affinity between the advertisement and the user is then determined and an indication of the affinity is recorded. When the affinity exceeds a predetermined threshold, the user may be identified as a potential target of the advertisement. The service provider may then identify the potential targets to the advertiser or provide the advertisement to the targets on behalf of the advertiser. The web application may be compensated for providing the metadata. The compensation may occur in response to the metadata resulting in identifying the user as a potential target.
US08694488B1 Identifying sibling queries
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, in which one or more search query suggestions can be identified based upon the intersection of predicate search groups. A first predicate search group can be compared to a second predicate search group to derive a query map value associated with the intersection of the predicate search groups. The query map value can be compared to a threshold to determine whether to identify different search queries as suggestions for one another.
US08694481B2 Computer product, information processing apparatus, and information processing method
A computer-readable medium stores therein an information processing program that causes a computer to execute a process. The process includes referring to relationship property information records that are stored in a storage device and indicate the type of each relationship property between configuration elements in a system and calculating a total count of configuration elements having a predetermined relationship property with a first configuration element, or a total count of relationship property information records having a predetermined relationship property, among relationship property information records concerning the first configuration element; executing conditional determination concerning the number of configuration elements having the predetermined relationship property with the first configuration element, among the calculated total count of configuration elements or the calculated total count of relationship property information records; and outputting a result of the determination.
US08694480B2 System and method for real-time web page analysis and modification
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.
US08694476B2 Policy-based management of a redundant array of independent nodes
An archive cluster application runs across a redundant array of independent nodes. Each node runs an archive cluster application instance comprising a set of software processes: a request manager, a storage manager, a metadata manager, and a policy manager. The request manager manages requests for data, the storage manager manages data read/write functions, and the metadata manager facilitates metadata transactions and recovery. The policy manager implements policies, which are operations that determine the behavior of an “archive object” within the cluster. The archive cluster application provides object-based storage. It associates metadata and policies with the raw archived data, which together comprise an archive object. Object policies govern the object's behavior in the archive. The archive manages itself independently of client applications, acting automatically to ensure that object policies are valid.
US08694475B2 Method and apparatus for situation-based management
Method and apparatus for situation-based management of natural and artificial systems using event correlation and a situation manager. Input is provided from multiple sources in the form of a collection of events. A first level of processing performs event correlation over the collection of events and infers new events and new qualities of events. A second level of processing manages situations based on the collection of events, where situations are recognized, maintained, and given a degree of confidence. Situations are periodically updated based on incoming events. The assertion of a situation may call for information from external sources, provide information for external sources, and provide control instructions to external sources. Given a current situation, past, and possible future situations are inferred. Additionally, a method and apparatus for bi-directional communication between the event correlator and situation manager.
US08694469B2 Cloud synthetic backups
Synthetic backups are created without accessing previous backup data or retrieving backup data from a cloud storage service. A backup system provides two or more backup data sets to a cloud spanning storage interface for storage in deduplicated form as label maps and data segments in a cloud storage service. A specification defines portions of two or more previous backup data sets to be copied into the synthetic backup. Labels corresponding with the specified portions of previous backup data sets are identified and added to a new label map to create a deduplicated synthetic backup. The completed label map is transferred to the cloud storage service. To provide access to the synthetic backup, the cloud spanning storage interface reconstructs all or a portion of the synthetic backup from the new label map and the data segments created during deduplication of previous backup data sets.
US08694464B2 File system node updates
For each of one or more existing nodes in a file system, pending notifications of updates that have been performed on the node can be identified and sent to one or more other nodes. The file system can be opened for use, and one or more other nodes can be updated in response to the pending notifications while the file system is open for use. For example, this may be done in an operation for recovering from a crash of the file system. Also, a process for dealing with stale data in container nodes in a file system can include processing access requests according to a stale data scheme.
US08694461B2 Systems and methods for interval control element chain architecture
The present disclosure generally relates to accessing data, and more particularly, to systems and methods for improving the efficiency and quality of real-time extracting, transforming, and/or loading data using customer information control system (CICS) interval control element (ICE) chain processing.
US08694459B2 System and method for image recognition and matching for targeted advertisement
The current specification covers various new algorithms, methods, and systems for, e.g., image recognition (e.g., for action, gesture, emotion, expression, biometrics, fingerprint, facial, OCR (text recognition), background, relationship, position, pattern, and object), machine learning, training schemes, feature space, clustering, classification, similarity measures, optimization, search engine, ranking, question-answering system, soft (fuzzy or unsharp) boundaries/impreciseness/fuzziness in language, clustering, and recognition, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computing with Words (CWW), parsing, machine translation, sound and speech recognition, video search and analysis (e.g. tracking), image annotation, geometrical abstraction, image correction, semantic web, context analysis, data reliability (e.g., using Z-number (e.g., “About 45 minutes; Very sure”)), rules engine, control system, autonomous vehicle, system diagnosis, medical diagnosis, biomedicine, large number of images analytics, event prediction, financial forecasting, economics, risk assessment, e-mail management, database management, indexing and join operation, memory management, data compression, and crowd-sourcing (using experts or humans).
US08694451B2 Neural network system
A neural network system that can minimize circuit resources for constituting a self-learning mechanism and be reconfigured into network configurations suitable for various purposes includes a neural network engine that operates in a first and a second operation mode and performs an operation representing a characteristic determined by setting network configuration information and weight information with respect to the network configuration, and a von Neumann-type microprocessor that is connected to the neural network engine and performs a cooperative operation in accordance with the first or the second operation mode together with the neural network engine. The von Neumann-type microprocessor recalculates the weight information or remakes the configuration information as a cooperative operation according to the first operation mode, and sets or updates the configuration information or the weight information set in the neural network engine, as a cooperative operation according to the second operation mode.
US08694449B2 Neuromorphic spatiotemporal where-what machines
In various embodiments, electronic apparatus, systems, and methods include a unified compact spatiotemporal method that provides a process for machines to deal with space and time and to deal with sensors and effectors. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US08694447B2 Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and program
An information processing apparatus is disclosed. The apparatus may include a processing method preparation unit for generating a first processing method. The apparatus may include an evaluator generation unit for generating an evaluator based on a genetic algorithm, using one or more input data sets, each of which may include data and a corresponding evaluation value. The apparatus may include an evaluation unit for calculating, using the evaluator, a first evaluation value using first output data obtained by processing the data using the first processing method. The apparatus may include a processing method update unit for generating a second processing method such that a second evaluation value calculated by the evaluator, using second output data obtained by processing the data using the second processing method, is higher than the first evaluation value. The apparatus may include an output unit that outputs the second output data and the second processing method.
US08694445B1 Triggering attract mode for devices using viewability conditions and detected proximity of human to device
A data processing device may be operable to determine whether the data processing device is in a state of charging a battery. When the data processing device is determined to be in the state of charging the battery, a charging condition of the battery may be analyzed by the data processing device. The data processing device may analyze a viewability condition at a display module. The data processing device may analyze an environmental condition associated with proximity of a human to the data processing device. The data processing device may then choose, based on a result of the analysis of the charging condition, a result of the analysis of the viewability condition and/or a result of the analysis of the environmental condition, display of content in a manner to attract attention to the data processing device.
US08694443B2 System and method for automatically distinguishing between customers and in-store employees
An approach that automatically distinguishes between in-store customers and in-store employees is provided. In one embodiment, there is a learning tool configured to construct a model for an in-store employee; a matching tool configured to match attributes between a particular person and the constructed models for an in-store employee; and a classifying tool configured to classify persons into categories of employees and customers based on amount of matching attributes between a particular person and the model for an in-store employee.
US08694441B1 Method for determining the quality of a professional
A method of predicting a quality of a professional based on quality measures of the professional is provided. The method includes collecting recommendations associated with the professional and determining an independent variable for the professional based on the recommendations received for the professional. Here, the independent variable reflects the quality of the professional. The method also includes comparing the independent variable with quality measures associated with the professional and generating a model based on the comparison between the independent variable and the quality measures. The model associates each of the quality measures with the quality of the professional. Particularly, the model assigns a weight to each of the quality measures based on the probativeness of the quality measure in relation to the quality of the professional. Thus, the quality measure of the professional may be used to determine the overall quality of the professional.
US08694440B2 Consolidation yield management system and method
A consolidation yield management system and method is provided in the present invention, which is applicable to a network system to implement a real-time consolidation. The consolidation yield management system includes at least one skirt server and a hub server. The skirt server chooses whether to build consol of its skirt Master Air Waybill or skirt Master Air Waybill to a hub Master Air Waybill of the hub server, and generates a hub Master Air Waybill number according to the hub Master Air Waybill, thus finishing the operation of building consol.
US08694436B2 Data transfer from a near field communication terminal to a remote server with prior authentication
A method for transmitting data between a mobile communication device and a server. The method includes running a mobile application on the mobile communication device. The mobile application is hosted on the mobile communication device through the server as a Software as a Service (SaaS). The method further includes transmitting data associated with the mobile application between the mobile communication device and the server, in which transmission of the data between the mobile communication device and the server is monitored through the server.
US08694434B1 Techniques for unregistering and transferring software licenses
An automated way for a software customer to upgrade a hardware device and to recover his software license is provided. A software license can be automatically transferred from one hardware device to another hardware device. Software is unregistered from one hardware device by locking the software. When the user unregisters software from a hardware device, a passcode is transmitted to an unregister system. When the unregister system receives the passcode from the user, a license count is incremented. Software is registered on a new hardware device by generating a new unlock code. The unlock code is generated using the passcode and a fingerprint that identifies the new hardware device. The new hardware device receives the unlock code and attempts to match the fingerprint to unlock the software.
US08694432B2 Dual-activation financial products
A system operating in conjunction with a financial account permits joint activation of a card associated with the financial account. An event-detection module detects an event related to the card and an authorization component for permitting certain individuals to use the card. A messaging module generates account-related messages and transmitting these messages to individuals associated with the financial account.
US08694425B2 Method and system for processing internet payments using the electronic funds transfer network
Embodiments of the invention include a method and system for effectuating an electronic payment between a payor and a payee using an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) network. The method is implemented by a system having multiple processors. The payor may hold a payor account at a payor institution and the payee may have a payee account at a payee institution. The method includes generating a payment authorization identifying the payee institution, the payee account, and an amount of the payment and transmitting the payment authorization to the payor institution. The method further includes debiting the payor account by the amount of the payment; transmitting from the payor institution to the payee institution through the EFT network an EFT credit message representing a credit in the amount of the payment; and crediting the payee account in the amount of the payment in response to the receipt of the EFT credit message.
US08694423B2 Systems and methods for brokering data in a transactional gateway
Systems and methods for brokering data are invented and disclosed. A system for producing a data model comprises a message broker, filters, and a data collector. The message broker includes an interface configured to receive client requests from a plurality of communication devices, a transaction request identifier configured to identify a plurality of parameters associated with a client request, and a router configured to distribute the request responsive to at least one of the parameters. The filters are coupled to the router and apply and apply respective tests for determining when the client request should be processed by the system. The data collector is coupled to the message broker and forwards data from the client request to at least one of a plurality of data stores when at least one of the filters indicates that the client request should be processed by the system.
US08694422B1 Method and system for user signup by a network service provider
A system and a method for performing purchase transactions over a network are provided. The system includes a server controlled by a service provider, including a link to a network; a processor circuit, the processor circuit configured to receive purchase requests from a mobile phone, and to transfer funds from a user account to a vendor account; and a memory circuit storing a plurality of mobile phone numbers and a plurality of personal identification numbers (PINs), wherein each mobile phone number and PIN is associated with a user account. A non-transitory machine-readable medium may include a plurality of machine-readable instructions which when executed by one or more processors of a server controlled by a service provider are adapted to cause the server to perform a method as above.
US08694419B2 Methods and systems for utilizing intellectual property assets and rights
A method of utilizing an intellectual property grouping owned by a patent entity to generate income. The method includes acquiring rights in a first intellectual property asset from a seller on behalf of a patent investment entity, providing compensation to the seller in exchange for the first intellectual property asset, granting less than all of the rights in the first intellectual property asset to the seller of the intellectual property asset in exchange for a stream of payments, wherein granting less than all of the rights in the first intellectual property asset creates residual rights in the first intellectual property asset, and utilizing the residual rights in the first intellectual property asset to generate income for the patent investment entity.
US08694413B1 Computer-based systems and methods for determining interest levels of consumers in research work product produced by a research department
Computer-based systems and methods that determine interest profiles of contacts of work product. The contact interest profiles may indicate the contacts' interests in particular topics of research work product and/or analyst teams within the research department that produced the research work product. The contacts' interest profiles may be determined based on research work product accessed by the contacts according to topic and/or analyst team that produced the research work product, the interaction of the contacts with the research department, and any other reliable information indicative of the contacts' topic and/or team interests. Also, research work product items produced by the entity may be rated for each contact based on, for example, the topic(s) of the research work product items and the analyst teams that produced the research work product items, as well as the contacts' topic and/or analyst team interests.
US08694409B2 Using bi-directional communications in a market-based resource allocation system
Disclosed herein are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for distributing a resource (such as electricity) using a resource allocation system. In one exemplary embodiment, a plurality of requests for electricity are received from a plurality of end-use consumers. The requests indicate a requested quantity of electricity and a consumer-requested index value indicative of a maximum price a respective end-use consumer will pay for the requested quantity of electricity. A plurality of offers for supplying electricity are received from a plurality of resource suppliers. The offers indicate an offered quantity of electricity and a supplier-requested index value indicative of a minimum price for which a respective supplier will produce the offered quantity of electricity. A dispatched index value is computed at which electricity is to be supplied based at least in part on the consumer-requested index values and the supplier-requested index values.
US08694405B2 System and method of visual representation of stock exchange transactions
System and method of visual representation of stock exchange transactions which provide additional information for traders when it comes to taking buy/sell decisions for stocks, being oriented towards electronic stock exchange transactions. Specifically, the present invention is aimed at tools for trading of products that can be traded in terms of quantities and/or prices. The method is based on labeling each transaction with a label selected from between initiated buy transaction, when the execution price is equal to or greater than the sell limit price registered in the first sell level of the order book, and initiated sell transaction, when the execution price is equal to or lower than the buy limit price registered in the first buy level of the order book.
US08694401B2 Systems and methods for using online social footprint for affecting lending performance and credit scoring
Provided are apparatuses, computer media, and methods for analyzing data gathered from the online social footprint and determining a credit score to facilitate access to financial services. A credit score is determined based on available personal data and data gathered from the online social footprint and is indicative of a borrower's propensity to pay an owed amount. A credit score is determined from a scoring expression that is associated with a score cluster, typically including a subset of available data gathered from the online social footprint. The credit score can also be affected by means such as endorsements or negative behavior of individuals in a borrower's social network. Corresponding apparatus, systems, programs for computers, and communications mechanisms are also provided to gain access to financial services based upon at least one borrower's request criterion, optimization of reputation in the borrower's online social footprint and performing a lending transaction.
US08694396B1 Systems and methods for episodic advertisement tracking
Methods and systems for an interactive media guidance application to prevent a user from experiencing an episodic advertisement out of order. Each episodic advertisement includes a plurality of advertisements intended to be viewed in an ordered sequence, and each advertisement of the sequence is part of a story that the episodic advertisement tells. The interactive media guidance application determines whether the user's viewing activity may cause the user to experience a particular advertisement of an episodic advertisement out of order, identifies an alternative advertisement of the episodic advertisement to present in place of the particular advertisement, and presents the alternative advertisement so as to prevent the user from experiencing the particular advertisement out of the ordered sequence of advertisements.
US08694393B2 System and method for reconciling one or more financial transactions
A system, method and computer program product for reconciling one or more financial transactions of one or more business units. The method includes capturing transaction data from the financial transactions using a first set of data logics. The capturing further includes extracting the transaction data from the financial transactions using import templates and transforming the extracted transaction data to a predefined format, using a first set of validations. The captured transaction data is then auto-matched with master data as reference, using one or more auto-match logics and a second set of validations. One or more reports are then generated on the auto-matched transaction data. The method further includes providing user privileges for controlling the capturing, the auto-matching, and the generation of the one or more reports according to a first predefined criterion.
US08694387B2 Geolocalized information distribution systems and methods
A method of providing published articles linked to geographical locations, the method including the steps of providing to a user a graphical user interface including a representation of a geographic area, providing selectable identifications of one or more remotely published articles relating to locations within the geographic area, receiving a selection of the one or more remotely published articles, facilitating transmission of the one or more remotely published articles to computer-readable memory, and facilitating display of the one or more remotely published articles.
US08694386B1 Online auction system and method
An online auction system and method comprising a single access fee for participation and allowing participants to place bids free of charge. The system comprises an auction management assembly in communication with a network, an auction event structured to present information pertaining to an auction item, access fee defining entry to the auction event, and at least one bid independent of an associated fee. In some embodiments, the system comprises an entry requirement and entry fee. In some embodiments, the system comprises an auction room having a plurality of auction events, and a single entry fee for access to auction room and its contents. The method comprises receiving, storing, and presenting auction item information, establishing an access fee, receiving indication of payment of the access fee, commencing an auction event, allowing participants to access the auction and place multiple bids free of charge, and facilitating completion of the auction event.
US08694377B2 Method and apparatus for presenting advertisements
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a controller to determine a behavioral profile of an end user from packet traffic generated by activities of the end user, and share the behavioral profile with a network element for distributing targeted advertisements to the end user according to the behavioral profile. Additional embodiments are disclosed.
US08694374B1 Detecting click spam
A computer-implemented method for processing network activities is described. The method includes identifying a model that specifies attributes for network objects, identifying a network object having one or more attributes that deviate from the model, and providing as an input to a ranking algorithm a value associated with the deviance of the one or more attributes of the identified network object.
US08694372B2 Systems and methods for automatic control of marketing actions
A method for automatically performing marketing actions. The method includes receiving consumer input relating to a product and/or service (“Product/Service”) from a service information display, receiving contextual input associated with the consumer input, placing the received consumer and contextual input into one or more segmented data groups, wherein each segmented group includes consumers data and associated contextual data having similar characteristics, and wherein each segmented group has sufficient consumers data and associated contextual data to enable statistical analysis. The method further includes computing for the Product/Service a projected marketing effectiveness corresponding to a change to one or more marketing attributes of the Product/Service, where the change to one or more marketing attributes defines a marketing action specified in a rule associated with one of the one or more segmented groups, and applying the rule in response to the projected effectiveness being equal or exceeding a corresponding pre-defined value.
US08694367B2 Coupon social networking platform
Techniques are provided for allowing a user to access a coupon. In one approach, a social network coupon platform receives a request to display coupon data regarding a particular coupon that is provided by a coupon provider, wherein a user that is registered with a social network provider initiated the request. In response to receiving the request, sending the coupon data is sent form the social network coupon platform to be displayed to the user. Profile data that includes profile information of the user is received at the social network coupon platform from the social network provider. In response to receiving the profile data, the user is allowed access to the particular coupon.
US08694366B2 Locating a product or a vender using a mobile communication device
Systems and methods of using a mobile communication device to locate a product or a vender within a shopping facility. The method comprises receiving, via an input associated with the mobile communication device, a request to locate the product or the vender within the shopping facility, transmitting the request to a remote computer system, and receiving at the mobile communication device from the remote computer system an indication of whether the product or vender is located within the shopping facility, and, if the product or the vender is located within the shopping facility, an indication of the location of the product or the vender within the shopping facility. The remote computer system is configured to determine whether the product or the vender is located within the shopping facility and determine a location of the product or the vender within the shopping facility.
US08694362B2 Taxonomy based targeted search advertising
Campaign creation systems and methods for building taxonomy based targeted search advertising campaigns in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. One embodiment of the invention includes obtaining source data describing a plurality of landing pages, obtaining a list of keywords using the campaign creation server system, where the list of keywords comprises keyword component, building a taxonomy using the source data and the initial list of keywords, where the taxonomy uniquely maps the plurality of landing pages to categories and attributes and maps the keyword components to the categories and attributes, mapping keywords to relevant offers based on the taxonomy, automatically generating adgroups based on the offers and relevant keywords, where each adgroup includes a landing page, at least one creative and at least one keyword, and deploying the adgroups to a search engine provider.
US08694361B2 Identifying and managing strategic partner relationships
Systems and methods that identify and manage partner relationships are disclosed. A third-party trustee collects and processes confidential customer information from more than one interested parties. The third-party trustee acts as a neutral intermediary between the parties. The third-party trustee processes and analyzes the information received from the various parties to identify mutual and/or prospective customers between the interested parties. The processing results may then be used for further analysis to help at least one of the interested parties to improve their marketing efforts, risk management, and servicing of their customers.
US08694360B2 Smart server and smart device
A smart server and smart device are disclosed, by which a new power unit price (hereinafter named a combined power unit price) can be calculated in consideration of an internally generated electricity quantity instead of using an external power unit price as it is. The present invention includes a power demand obtaining unit obtaining a home power demand for at least one electronic appliance including a smart device, a generated quantity detecting unit detecting an internally generated power quantity for at least one home generator, a price information receiving unit receiving power information including external power price information on an external power via a network, and a combined unit price output unit outputting a combined power unit price using an external power demand and the internally generated power quantity and the external power price information, wherein the external power demand is calculated based on the power demand.
US08694357B2 Online marketing research utilizing sentiment analysis and tunable demographics analysis
An online marketing research system where users identify a specific brand and/or competitive brands in which they are interested. An internet crawler engine collects sentiments relating to the identified brands according to a sampling method, which may be created by the user. The results from the internet crawler are refined using a refinement engine. The refined sentiments are then scored by a sentiment engine. Users may view the scored results via a user interface, which itself includes an interactive sentiment modeler. The interactive sentiment modeler provides quantified insights and allows users to select types of charts, the constructs, and timelines that are important to them.
US08694356B2 Augmenting service oriented architecture governance maturity
Augmenting service oriented architecture (‘SOA’) governance maturity including receiving an evaluation of the maturity of the governance of the SOA; identifying, for each governance capability in dependence upon the evaluation of the maturity of the governance capability, one or more predefined risks to the SOA; establishing, for each governance capability in dependence upon the predefined risks to the SOA, a risk value representing the severity of the predefined risks; selecting, for each governance capability in dependence upon the evaluation of the maturity of the governance of the SOA and the predefined risk value, one or more governance work products; and communicating to predetermined stakeholders in the SOA the one or more predefined risks to the SOA identified for each governance capability, the risk value established for each governance capability, and the governance work products selected for each governance capability.
US08694353B2 Event scheduling device and method
A method and device are provided for scheduling an event. Text is detected in a text application of a computing device. The detected text includes at least one keyword from one or more types of keyword. At least one event associated with a user of the computing device to be scheduled based on the detected text is determined. The at least one event is automatically scheduled based on the detected text.
US08694352B1 System and method for providing handheld field force data gathering automation in a big box retail environment
The present invention provides systems and methods for tracking service representative activity and data. Service representatives are equipped with handheld devices that are configured to execute question and instruction sequences during a service call. Worksheets containing such surveys and instruction sequences may be periodically transmitted to the handheld device from a backend server. The handheld device records the times at which the service representative enters and exits a retail location and the times at which particular tasks are started and completed. The worksheets allow service representatives to enter relevant data into the handheld device. Such data may include digital images, signatures and the like. All data collected at the handheld devices may be transmitted via a network or other communication link to a secure backend server, where it stored in a database and made available for query by a reporting module.
US08694350B1 Automatically generating task recommendations for human task performers
Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as via an electronic marketplace acting as an intermediary for task performance. In some situations, the facilitating of the interactions includes automatically matching available tasks to task performer users, such as to automatically generate recommendations for task performer users of available tasks that are appropriate for those task performer users to perform. Such generated task recommendations for task performer users may then be provided to those task performer users in various ways, including via one or more Web pages or electronic communications sent to devices of the task performer users. The task recommendations may be generated in various ways, including based on previous tasks performed by the task performer users and on other prior activities of the task performer users.
US08694349B2 Method and system of transferring a promotion information for social-local-mobile based community
The present invention provides a method for transferring a promotion information for a community. The method includes setting a business region, which has a center and a radius. A landmark building is selected to be the center of the business region. Next, a store data is accessed from a store located in the business region. The store data includes a first GPS location of the store and an associated promotion information of the store. Then, a second GPS location from a wireless communication device is accessed. Finally, a promotion information is sent to the wireless communication device when the first GPS location is closed to the second GPS location.
US08694347B2 Extraction of transaction data for compliance monitoring
A knowledge base and methods for use in connection with a policy compliance monitoring system operative to determine exceptions to policies expressed by computer-executable policy statements. The system allows establishment, codification, and maintenance of enterprise policies, monitors electronic transactions of the enterprise from various and possibly heterogeneous data sources, detects exceptions to established policies, reports exceptions to authorized users such as managers and auditors, and/or provides a case management system for tracking exceptions and their underlying transactions. The knowledge base comprises extractor files that are utilized for extracting information from data sources for utilization in policy compliance monitoring, a mapper for normalizing data from the data sources against a system ontology and storing normalized data in a monitoring database, and computer-executable compliance policy statements used by a transaction analysis engine. The policy statements represent predetermined policies of the enterprise that apply to data stored in the monitoring database.
US08694341B1 Communication of insurance claim data
Aspects of the invention include methods and systems for a vehicle insurance claim management application which improves communication and streamline tasks between a vehicle repair shop and an insurance company system in three general task groups: assignment (comprising work requests, estimates/photos, and reinspections), financial management, and performance measurement. Aspects of the invention also provide interoperability with different types of estimating systems that do not necessarily follow an industry standard. This interoperability is provided through an adapter module with a claim processing system to communicate with the insurance company system and the vehicle insurance claim management application. The invention is preferably accessed by a user over a computer network such as the Internet, from a remote location such as a vehicle repair shop.
US08694340B2 Systems and methods to evaluate application data
The present disclosure introduces systems and methods to evaluate application data. A computer system to evaluate application data is described. In one embodiment, a data module may be used to receive application data and validate the application data against at least one secondary data source. A predictive modeling module may be used to model the application data by applying predictive analytics. Further, a confidence level module may be used to calculate a confidence level factor and at least one aggregate degree of confidence level to evaluate an application. Other embodiments are also described.
US08694334B2 Readmission risk assessment
Readmission risk of patients admitted to a healthcare facility are determined using a generic readmission risk algorithm. The readmission risk assessment of patients may be based on portions of a patient's profile and may be performed before, during, and after their index admission. Based on the readmission risk assessment of patients, those patients that are at a greater risk for readmission may be identified. A readmission prevention worklist may be provide that identifies those patients and facilitates managing the risk of readmission for those patients.
US08694333B2 Cohort driven medical diagnostic tool
A computer implemented method, system, and/or computer program products derives a medical diagnosis for a patient. A current description of a patient is matched to a cohort of persons who each have a substantially similar description as the patient. Possible medical diagnoses, which have been accurate for members of the cohort, are presented for the patient. If one of the secondary medical diagnoses has an unacceptably high potential for an unacceptable outcome if improperly treated, then additional tests are run to rule out that secondary medical diagnosis.
US08694332B2 System and method for processing a prescription
A system for generating a prescription may include a capture module configured to capture information from a plurality of individual cards. At least one of the cards may include medical information including at least a medication and a dosage for a patient. The system may include an information processing module configured to generate a bitmap file associated with the captured information, extract at least a portion of the medical information from the bitmap file using optical character recognition, and assemble the extracted information to generate a prescription data file. The system may include a transmission module configured to transmit the prescription data file to a pharmacy.
US08694330B2 Methods and systems for presenting an inhalation experience
Methods, computer program products, and systems are described that include measuring at least one effect of an inhalation device-dispensed bioactive agent and artificial sensory experience on an individual and modifying at least one of the inhalation device-dispensed bioactive agent or the artificial sensory experience at least partially based on the at least one effect.
US08694328B1 Vehicle customization and personalization activities
Systems and methods are provided that are directed to vehicle pre-acquisition activities, vehicle post-acquisition modification, customization and/or personalization, fleet management, including proactive fleet monitoring fleet services and/or vehicle, vehicle market and related analysis.
US08694327B2 Electronic warranty system and method
An electronic warranty unit and method. In one embodiment the electronic warranty unit includes a programmable electronic memory unit configured for removable insertion into a device and an electronic warranty stored on the electronic memory unit. A method for electronically warranting a device includes removably attaching an electronic warranty unit, capable of storing an electronic warranty for the device, to the device or removably inserting the electronic warranty unit into the device.
US08694324B2 System and method of providing an automated data-collection in spoken dialog systems
The invention relates to a system and method for gathering data for use in a spoken dialog system. An aspect of the invention is generally referred to as an automated hidden human that performs data collection automatically at the beginning of a conversation with a user in a spoken dialog system. The method comprises presenting an initial prompt to a user, recognizing a received user utterance using an automatic speech recognition engine and classifying the recognized user utterance using a spoken language understanding module. If the recognized user utterance is not understood or classifiable to a predetermined acceptance threshold, then the method re-prompts the user. If the recognized user utterance is not classifiable to a predetermined rejection threshold, then the method transfers the user to a human as this may imply a task-specific utterance. The received and classified user utterance is then used for training the spoken dialog system.
US08694322B2 Selective confirmation for execution of a voice activated user interface
A voice-activated user interface for an application is described. The voice activated user interface invokes a speech recognition component to recognize audio input from a user. If the audio input is a command, then a validation component is invoked to determine whether to validate the command prior to execution.
US08694318B2 Methods, systems, and products for indexing content
Methods, systems, and products index content. An audio stream is converted to a stream of phonemes. The stream of phonemes is filtered according to a list of popular phoneme strings. A weighting is computed for the content based on at least one popular phoneme combination occurring in the stream of phonemes. The content is indexed based on the weighting.
US08694317B2 Methods and apparatus relating to searching of spoken audio data
Methods for processing audio data containing speech to produce a searchable index file and for subsequently searching such an index file are provided. The processing method uses a phonetic approach and models each frame of the audio data with a set of reference phones. A score for each of the reference phones, representing the difference of the audio from the phone model, is stored in the searchable data file for each of the phones in the reference set. A consequence of storing information regarding each of the reference phones is that the accuracy of searches carried out on the index file is not compromised by the rejection of information about particular phones. A subsequent search method is also provided which uses a simple and efficient dynamic programming search to locate instances of a search term in the audio. The methods of the present invention have particular application to the field of audio data mining.
US08694308B2 System, method and program for voice detection
A system for voice detection includes a feature value calculation unit that calculates a feature value from an input signal sliced on a per frame basis, a provisional voice/non-voice decision unit that provisionally decides a voiced interval and a non-voiced interval from the feature value calculated on a per frame basis, and a voice/non-voice decision unit that determines a voiced interval duration threshold value or a non-voiced interval duration threshold value, using a ratio of the feature value found on a per frame basis to a threshold value for the feature value and that re-decides the voiced interval and the non-voiced interval, using the voiced interval duration threshold value determined and the non-voiced interval duration threshold value determined. By determining the voiced interval duration threshold value and the non-voiced interval duration threshold value, using the feature value found on a per frame basis and the threshold value for the feature value, the constraint of the shaping rule may be made weaker, or stronger in case the feature value found on a per frame basis can be regarded as being reliable or not, thereby allowing voice detection to be made without dependency upon a noise environment.
US08694307B2 Method and apparatus for temporal speech scoring
A method and apparatus for speech analysis, comprising detecting an at least one temporal characteristic of an at least one speech of an at least one speaker, and deducing an at least one quantitative score from the at least one temporal characteristic, where the at least one quantitative score indicates an at least one extent of an at least one behavioral aspect of the at least one speaker.
US08694298B2 Drill string valve actuator with inflatable seals
Method and actuator system for a Kellyguard valve disposed in a drill string. The actuator system includes a sleeve that includes a cavity; an actuator disposed inside the cavity and configured to rotate the Kellyguard valve; first and second external regions of the sleeve having plural holes configured to receive a medium under pressure for actuating the actuator; a ring provided around the first and second external regions of the sleeve and configured to be fixed, the ring having first and second internal grooves facing the first and second external regions, respectively; and first and second seals provided inside the first and second grooves, respectively, at least one of the first and second seals being configured to not touch the first or second external regions of the sleeve when in a collapsed state and to touch the first or second external regions when in an inflated state.
US08694290B2 Monte Carlo analysis execution controlling method and Monte Carlo analysis execution controlling apparatus
In an embodiment, a confidence interval of a yield is calculated with a set specification of an evaluation item and confidence level and values of the evaluation item obtained in Monte Carlo simulations to determine whether or not a target yield is within the confidence interval of the yield. In a case where the target yield is within the confidence interval of the yield, a Monte Carlo simulation executing unit is instructed to execute a subsequent Monte Carlo simulation. In a case where the target yield is not within the confidence interval of the yield, it is determined that the target yield will be achieved when a minimum value of the confidence interval of the yield is the target yield or larger while it is determined that the target yield will not be achieved when a maximum value of the confidence interval of the yield is below the target yield.
US08694287B2 Method of designing optical systems and corresponding optical system
An optical system including at least one light source, such as a LED source (10), and an optics (30) subjected to aging as a result of exposure to the light source (10) is designed by: defining an aging model for the optics (30), defining a thermal model for the light source (10, 100) as a spatial function representative of the temperature generated by the light source (10, 100), and defining the distance of the optics (30) from the light source (10) as a function of the aging model and the thermal model. The optical overall system (single or multiple reflector and lens) is finally optimised starting from the results achieved in the previous steps.
US08694286B2 Modifying a parametrically defined model with an explicit modeler
A method, system, apparatus, article of manufacture, and computer readable storage medium provide the ability to manage modifications to a solid model between different modeling applications. An original model created using a parametrically-based modeler is obtained. A modified version of the original model that was edited using a history-free modeler is obtained. The original model and the modified version are analyzed to determine differences between them. Based on the differences, a set of parametric-based treatments are determined that, when performed on the original model, affect changes that produce a parametrically-driven version that geometrically matches the modified version. One or more of the treatments are individually selected and applied to produce the parametrically-driven version.
US08694284B2 Part modeled by parallel geodesic curves
The invention provides a computer implemented method for designing a part. The method comprises a step of providing a surface and a base curve lying on the surface. The method also comprises a step of sampling the base curve into a list of base points. The method also comprises a step of determining a grid of points of perpendicular geodesic curves. The points of the grid each belong to a respective level. Each level of the grid corresponds to a respective geodesic distance to the base curve. Each perpendicular geodesic curve lies on the surface and departs perpendicularly from the base curve at a respective base point. The method then comprises a step of computing a plurality of parallel geodesic curves lying on the surface by using the grid of points. Each parallel geodesic curve corresponds to a respective level. A representation of the part is displayed.
US08694281B2 Method and device for determining the outlet cross-section of a component of a gas turbine
A method for determining the outlet cross-section of a component including one or more turbine blades, in particular of a turbine blade twin, of a gas turbine, in which at least one closed outlet cross-section is measured between the turbine blades, and/or respective open outlet cross-sections are measured on the side of the at least one turbine blade, using a measurement device, wherein in order to determine the corresponding outlet cross-section its respective bounding walls are traversed by the measurement device along a measurement line.
US08694279B1 Data center thermal monitoring
A system includes a first computing component and a second computing component. A first measurement indicative of a temperature of a first computing component is received. A second measurement indicative of a temperature of a second computing component is received. A thermal value is calculated for the first computing component based on the first measurement and the second measurement. In response to determining that the calculated thermal value exceeds the threshold, an operational or physical parameter of the system is modified.
US08694278B2 IHS security system
A method for providing information handling system (IHS) security includes providing a plurality of monitored IHSs coupled to a monitoring IHS through a network. A physical lock status is determined for each of the plurality of monitored IHSs using a respective lock sensor located in each monitored IHS. The physical lock status is received by the monitoring IHS for each of the plurality of monitored IHSs over the network. A security report that includes the physical lock status for each of the plurality of monitored IHSs is created. The security report is displayed on a display coupled to the monitoring IHS.
US08694275B2 Method, device and system for calibrating positioning device
Embodiments of the present invention provide not only a technical solution for calibrating a positioning device but also a technical solution for characterizing an area of interest in a space. Specifically, there is provided a system, which may include: a tag capable of emitting ranging signals, placed at location points which are selected as space feature points in the space; a positioning device in the space, configured to obtain relative coordinates of the space feature points in relation to the positioning device based on the ranging signals from the tag; and a server, configured to determine location parameters of the positioning device in the space based on the relative coordinates, so as to calibrate the positioning device. The positioning device can be calibrated automatically, fast and accurately using the system.
US08694273B2 Method and apparatus for adaptive real-time signal conditioning and analysis
The present invention constitutes a method, processes, and apparatus for measurement and analysis of variables of different type and origin. In particular, the invention presents a method and apparatus for real-time signal conditioning and analysis in the presense of impulsive, or sparse interferences. The present invention overcomes limitations of the prior art by providing a novel method for identifying and discriminating between, in real time, the conditions of the signal with and without impulsive disturbances. This method can be implemented without substantial changes in the signal processing chain of a communication or data acquisition system.The present invention also overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art through the introduction of the novel SPART filters, which can replace the corresponding analog linear filters in the signal chain of a device. SPART filters have the ability to sense and discriminate between, in real time, the conditions of the signal with and without impulsive disturbances, and temporarily adjust their behavior in a manner which reduces the power of these disturbances.
US08694272B2 Monitoring power-related parameters in a power distribution unit
A power distribution unit (PDU) disposable in an electrical equipment rack. The PDU has a housing, a power input penetrating the housing, outlets in the housing, a processor disposed in the housing, voltage and current sensors, and a voltage calculation procedure communicable with the processor. The processor samples voltage and current waveforms and calculates RMS values and other power parameters. A method of managing electrical loads each drawing electrical power from a PDU includes repeatedly sampling voltage across and current flowing through each of the loads, calculating raw RMS values of voltage and current, and scaling the raw RMS values to obtain corrected RMS voltage and current values and other power parameters.
US08694269B2 Reducing the ringing of actuator elements in ultrasound based health monitoring systems
A method and apparatus are present for monitoring a structure. A signal is sent into the structure, wherein the signal has a limited duration and a varying frequency. A response to the signal is received and the response is compared to a baseline to form a comparison.
US08694268B2 Device and method of adjusting curtailment strategy for wind turbine, and program
An object is to suppress reduction of energy production as much as possible while ensuring an expected lifetime. There is provided a device of adjusting a curtailment strategy for a wind turbine, the device including: a fatigue equivalent load calculation unit that calculates a fatigue equivalent load for evaluating a fatigue damage of the wind turbine in a predetermined time period by using load data of the wind turbine; and a setting value update unit that compares the fatigue equivalent load with a reference load determined by an expected lifetime of the wind turbine, and, when a difference between the fatigue equivalent load and the reference load exceeds a predetermined threshold value, updates the condition setting value for the curtailment that is currently employed according to the difference.
US08694265B2 Bioinformatic approach to disease diagnosis
A kit and test panel utilizing a multivariate diagnostic method based on optimizing diagnostic likelihood ratios through the effective use of multiple diagnostic tests is disclosed. The Neyman-Pearson Lemma provides a mathematical basis to produce optimal diagnostic results. The method can comprise identifying those tests optimal for inclusion in a diagnostic panel, weighting the result of each component test based on a multivariate algorithm described below, adjusting the algorithm's performance to satisfy predetermined specificity criteria, generating a likelihood ratio for a given patient's test results through said algorithm, providing a clinical algorithm that estimates the pretest probability of disease based on individual clinical signs and symptoms, combining the likelihood ratio and pretest probability of disease through Bayes' Theorem to generate a posttest probability of disease, interpreting that result as either positive or negative for disease based on a cutoff value, and treating a patient for disease if the posttest probability exceeds the cutoff value.
US08694264B2 Mass spectrometry system
(EN) MS analysis, MS2 analysis, . . . , MSP analysis for peptide mixture are sequentially executed to obtain respective mass spectra (S1). At this time, an analysis in which precursor ion is changed or a different cleavage condition is set for the same precursor ion is performed plural times to put together peaks appearing in mass spectra that are obtained respectively. After the number of peaks is increased, a useful peak is extracted using commonality and complementarity of the peaks of MSm spectrum and MSm+1 spectrum and classification is performed for each type of peaks extracted to obtain an appearance frequency for each classification (S3, S4). An evaluation score on whether the extracted peak is a product ion and on a terminal is calculated based on reliability and appearance frequency that are obtained in advance (S8). The evaluation score is used in estimating sequence with the use of the extracted peak to decide and output, for example, the priority of sequence candidates (S8, S9).
US08694263B2 Method of identifying virtual representations of nucleotide sequences
The invention provides oligonucleotide probes that can be used to hybridize to a representation of nucleic acid sequences. Compositions containing the probes such as microarrays are also provided. The invention also provides methods of using these probes and compositions in therapeutic, diagnostic, and research applications. Systems and methods for using a word counting algorithm that can quickly and accurately count the number of times a particular string of characters (i.e., nucleotides) appears in a nucleotide sequence (e.g., a genome) are provided. This algorithm can be used to identify the oligonucleotide probes of the invention. The algorithm uses a transform of a genome and an auxiliary data structure to count the number of times a particular word occurs in the genome.
US08694258B2 Derivative imaging for subsurface object detection
A series of scans is generated for a subsurface and a derivative image is created using the series of subsurface images. One or more tests are performed on the derivative image, and a subsurface object is detected based on the one or more tests. A sensor is configured to generate a series of scans for a subsurface and a processor is coupled to the sensor. The processor is configured to execute stored program instructions that cause the processor to generate a series of images of the subsurface using the series of scans, create a derivative image using the series of subsurface images, perform one or more tests on the derivative image, and detect a subsurface object based on the one or more tests.
US08694255B2 Driver assistance system having reduced data from a digital road map
A driver assistance system for a motor vehicle has a surroundings sensor and an evaluation unit for evaluating the surroundings sensor data. The evaluation unit receives data from a positioning device. Furthermore, a reduced or limited subset of data taken from a digital roadmap is stored in a non-volatile memory, which is provided to the evaluation unit. The reduced data are selected to include only data relevant for the function(s) of the driver assistance system. Thereby the driver assistance system does not need to be connected for data transmission with a navigation system.
US08694254B2 System and method for improved routing that combines real-time and likelihood information
A system and method for improved routing that combines real-time and likelihood information. In accordance with an embodiment, the system comprises a digital map/map information; a likelihood routing information; a route processor; wherein, when a request is received from a user/driver, or from another system, to receive a routing information, the system receives real-time information from a traffic-monitoring device or service providing real-time information; wherein the route processor adjusts the received real-time information based on the system's likelihood routing information; and wherein the routing information based on the combination of real-time and likelihood information can then be provided to the user/driver or other system in response to the original request.
US08694253B2 User-specified route rating and alerts
In some implementations, a user can provide ratings for routes, streets and/or locations. In some implementations, the user can initiate an alert associated with a location. In some implementations, user-specified ratings and alerts can be included in a route determination. In some implementations, route rating and alert information can be transmitted to other users and/or devices.
US08694250B2 Processing multi-GNSS data from mixed-type receivers
Computer-implemented methods and apparatus are presented for processing data collected by at least two receivers from multiple satellites of multiple Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), where at least one GNSS is Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA). Data sets are obtained which comprise a first data set from a first receiver and a second data set from a second receiver. The first data set comprises a first FDMA data set and the second data set comprises a second FDMA data set. At least one of a code bias and a phase bias may exist between the first FDMA data set and the second FDMA data set. At least one receiver-type bias is determined, to be applied when the data sets are obtained from receivers of different types. The data sets are processed, based on the at least one receiver-type bias, to estimate carrier floating-point ambiguities. Carrier integer ambiguities are determined from the floating-point ambiguities. The scheme enables Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS) carrier phase ambiguities to be resolved and used in a combined FDMA/Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)(e.g., GLONASS/Global Positioning System (GPS) centimeter-level solution. It is applicable to real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning, high-precision post-processing of positions and network RTK positioning.
US08694245B2 Methods, devices, and computer program products for exchanging interactive map information
Map information is exchanged between communication devices. A map of a geographical area is received. The map includes embedded interactive links that graphically represent points of interest within the geographical area. An embedded interactive link that graphically represents at least one point of interest is highlighted within the map. Responsive to selection of another embedded interactive link within the map that graphically represents another point of interest within the geographical area, the other embedded link within the map is highlighted. The map is transmitted, with the other embedded interactive link that graphically represents the other point of interest highlighted.
US08694242B2 Traveling information creating device, traveling information creating method and program
A CPU of a navigation device transmits probe information including link traveling information and average vehicle speed information at every predetermined time to an information distribution center. On the other hand, when receiving the probe information, a CPU of the information distribution center reads the road type corresponding to each link ID and user's average vehicle speed during uncongested road traveling from the probe information, and determines the vehicle speed region corresponding to this link ID from a vehicle speed region determination table. Thereafter, the CPU of the information distribution center creates traffic information from this vehicle speed region and the probe information, stores it in a center side traffic information DB and statistically processes traffic information of a certain period to generate a link cost corresponding to a link ID and a time zone of a relevant vehicle speed region of statistical traffic information.
US08694241B1 Visualization of traffic patterns using GPS data
Maps are created that display representations of GPS data generated from a plurality of GPS devices. The GPS data received from the GPS devices is embodied as a representation having descriptive features that visually indicate the location, direction of travel, and speed of travel of the GPS device, and the representation is associated with a road segment on the map. The display of the GPS data from a plurality of GPS devices can be used for editing information about roads on maps and determining preferred routes.
US08694237B1 System, apparatus, and method for generating airport hot spot information
Present novel and non-trivial system, apparatus, and method for generating airport hot spot information system are disclosed. A navigation data source and an airport surface data source provide navigation data and airport surface data to a hot spot information generator (“HSIG”). The hot spot data is representative of locations of vertices corresponding to at least one airport hot spot. The HSIG determines the distance between ownship and each vertex of the vertices, and generates advisory alert data if a threshold advisory parameter has been breached; the threshold advisory parameter is a threshold advisory distance and/or a threshold advisory time, and both are configurable by a manufacturer and/or an end-user. The advisory alert data is provided to a presentation system in which a visual alert and/or an aural alert is presented to the pilot on a visual display unit and/or through an aural alert unit.
US08694236B2 Road environment recognition device and method of recognizing road environment
A radar unit emits beams, and receives a reflection beam reflected by an object. A position of the object relative to a vehicle and an attribute of the object are recognized based on the emitted beams and the reflection beam. A coordinate position of the vehicle in an absolute coordinate is calculated based on a traveling amount of the vehicle, and a coordinate position of the object is calculated based on the calculated position of the vehicle and the position of the object relative to the vehicle. A road environment of the vehicle is recognized based on the coordinate positions and the attribute of the object.
US08694234B2 System onboard an aircraft connected with a flight plan
An evaluation method and an evaluation system onboard an aircraft in communication with a flight management system to access a flight plan stored in memory of the flight management system, where the flight plan defines a cruising level and a minimum fuel reserve to destination objective. The evaluation system comprises circuitry to calculate a fuel consumption deviation between flight at a selected cruising altitude level and flight at an altitude level initially planned by the flight plan, where the selected altitude level is lower than the altitude level initially planned, and to determine a climb limit point from the selected cruising altitude level as a function of the fuel consumption deviation and the minimum fuel reserve objective, where the climb limit point represents the last climb point respecting the minimum fuel reserve to destination objective; and interface circuitry to provide the climb limit point and anticipative information concerning the climb limit point.
US08694229B2 Knock control apparatus for internal combustion engine
A knock correction amount computation portion computes, on the basis of intensity of a knock in a case where the presence of an occurrence of the knock is determined, a knock correction amount by which to move a spark timing of the internal combustion engine to be on a retard side and returns the knock correction amount to be back on an advance side in a case where the absence of an occurrence of a knock is determined. In a case where a value of the knock correction amount to be on the retard side becomes equal to or exceeds a predetermined value, the knock correction amount computation portion limits and holds the knock correction amount at the predetermined value and returns the limited knock correction amount to be back on the advance side in a case where the absence of an occurrence of a knock is determined.
US08694224B2 Vehicle yaw rate correction
A control system or method for a vehicle references a camera and sensors to determine when an offset of a yaw rate sensor may be updated. The sensors may include a longitudinal accelerometer, a transmission sensor, a vehicle speed sensor, and a steering angle sensor. The offset of the yaw rate sensor may be updated when the vehicle is determined to be stationary by referencing at least a derivative of an acceleration from the longitudinal accelerometer. The offset of the yaw rate sensor may be updated when the vehicle is determined to be moving straight by referencing at least image data captured by the camera. Lane delimiters may be detected in the captured image data and evaluated to determine a level of confidence in the straight movement. When the offset of the yaw rate sensor is to be updated, a ratio of new offset to old offset may be used.
US08694221B2 Method for braking a vehicle in critical driving situations
A method for braking a vehicle in a driving situation, in which an automatic braking function is active. The hydraulic pump of the brake control system may be sized to be relatively small and cost-effective, if, in critical driving situations, an additional braking device is automatically switched on or its braking capacity is increased, in order to assist the service brake and further decelerate the vehicle.
US08694218B2 Acceleration based mode switch
The present invention provides a method of selecting and implementing a shift schedule for a transmission in a vehicle that includes an output speed sensor and a controller. The method includes measuring output speed with the output speed sensor and comparing the measured output speed to an output speed threshold. The controller receives throttle percentage and compares the throttle percentage to a throttle threshold. The method also includes calculating output acceleration and transmission gear ratio with the controller. The shift schedule is selected based on the measured output speed, calculated output acceleration, calculated transmission gear ratio, and throttle percentage.
US08694215B2 Control device and control method for continuously variable transmission
A gear ratio control unit is provided to set a target gear ratio on the basis of an operating condition of the vehicle. The gear ratio control unit controls a drive amount of a step motor such that an actual gear ratio converges with the target gear ratio, and when a deceleration of the vehicle exceeds a predetermined threshold, controls the gear ratio by controlling the drive amount of the step motor such that a predetermined gear ratio is maintained. The gear ratio control unit determines the predetermined threshold on the basis of the actual gear ratio upon detection of an operation of a brake.
US08694210B2 Saddle riding type vehicle and steering damper device for use in saddle riding type vehicle
A saddle riding type vehicle that reduces steering pull of a handle caused by a disturbance and also prevents degradation in a steering feeling includes a detector that detects a steering angle of a steering shaft, a steering damper, and a control device. The steering damper is arranged around the steering shaft and includes an electromagnet, a magnetic member, and a magnetic fluid stored in a gap between the electromagnet and the magnetic member. The control device includes a steering angular velocity determiner adapted to determine a steering angular velocity based on a steering angle detected by the detector, an instructor adapted to instruct a supply of current to the electromagnet for a first reference time when the determined steering angular velocity exceeds a first reference velocity and to instruct a stopping or reduction of the current supply after the first reference time elapses, and a driver that supplies the electromagnet with current in response to an instruction from the instructor.
US08694205B1 Multi-zone demist strategy
A system may control demist flow by computing a fogging possibility for a zone of a vehicle using a fogging heuristic according to received inputs, the fogging possibility indicative of fogging risk for vehicle glass in the zone of the vehicle; determining, based on comparing the fogging possibility to at least one fogging risk threshold, whether a change in demist flow for the zone is warranted to at least one of reduce the fogging risk for vehicle glass in the zone of the vehicle and reduce energy usage for the production of demist flow to be provided to vehicle glass in the zone of the vehicle; and selectively providing an output to at least one of the plurality of demist doors associated with the zone of the vehicle to adjust the demist flow to the zone of the vehicle when a change in demist flow for the zone is warranted.
US08694203B2 Method and apparatus for vehicle process emulation and configuration on a mobile platform
A computer-implemented method includes providing an interface on a wireless device corresponding to an interface for vehicle infotainment system control. The method also includes providing simulated functionality of controls on the interface, such that activation of a control informs a user of what would occur if the control were activated on a vehicle interface. Further, the method includes saving at least one user setting input into the interface. The method additionally includes transferring the saved setting to a vehicle computing system (VCS) for use in infotainment system control when the wireless device is in communication with the VCS.
US08694200B2 Apparatus and method for advice provision and driving condition diagnosis
An advice provision apparatus calculates the driving condition of the vehicle for every predetermined travel section, for the purpose of comparison with the driving condition in the previous travel section. The driving condition of the current section is evaluated in a relative manner based on the comparison of at least two travel sections, even when the absolute assessment of the driving condition is difficult. Thus, the advice provision apparatus can accurately and precisely diagnose the driving condition of the driver.
US08694194B2 Vehicular navigation control interface
Systems and methods for providing a vehicular navigation control are disclosed herein. Some embodiments include a navigation system and a vehicle with a vehicle control module (VCM), a navigation control module (NCM), and a navigation control interface, where the VCM receives a manual command from an operator to implement a manual control function. In some embodiments the NCM receives an automatic command from the navigation system to implement an automatic control function via the VCM and the navigation control interface directly connects the VCM and the NCM to facilitate communication between the VCM and NCM for implementing automatic mode and for reporting implementation of a manual mode.
US08694193B2 Determination of routes for arranging automatic control of mobile mining machine
The present invention relates to a method of determining routes for arranging automatic control of a mobile mining machine. A return route is determined computer-aidedly for the mining machine on the basis of data concerning a route taught by driving by executing, by a data processing device configured for generating return routes, at least the following steps: determining a route identifier for the return route, determining as route points of the return route at least some of the route points of the drive route in a reverse order, wherein when determining route point data of the return route on the basis of the route point data of the drive route, deleting additional control data associated with one or more route points of the drive route, and storing the data determining the return route to be used for automatically controlling the mining machine.
US08694189B2 Vibration-inhibition control apparatus for electrically driven vehicle, and vibration-inhibition control method for electrically driven vehicle
Provided is an electrically driven vehicle, wherein unexpected vibration or shock is prevented during interruption of torque transmission. An electric vehicle having an electric motor as its power source is provided with an F/F calculation or operation unit, an F/B calculation or operation unit, an adder, model determination units, and target torque value switching units. The F/F calculation unit calculates a first target torque value by F/F operation. The F/B calculation unit calculates a second target torque value by F/B operation using a model. The adder adds the first target torque value and the second target torque value, to obtain a motor torque command value. The model determination units evaluate whether or not an interruption in the torque transmission to drive shafts occurs. The target torque value switching units stop the F/F- and F/B operations while torque transmission interruption is confirmed.
US08694184B1 Methods, systems, and apparatus for layered and multi-indexed flight management interface
Methods, systems, and apparatus for tab-pane-based flight plan management interface are disclosed. The tab-pane-based flight management interface system (FMIS) is optimally Layered and Multi-Indexed (LMI) such that the management of flight management (FM) functions and associated parameters that affect the airplane's flight are easily and efficiently operable by pilots. The LMI-FMIS provides a flexible tab-pane-based architecture that allows pilots to start a flight plan modification, proceed to engage in other tasks not related to the modification, and return to the pending modification to continue the modification process. The LMI-FMIS also provides task-oriented menu structures that provide pilots tailored options or menus applicable to the task at hand thus efficiently guiding pilots to complete a task while maintaining easy access to information that was displayed prior to the commencement of the task.
US08694183B1 Partial automated alignment and integration system
The present invention is a Partial Automated Alignment and Integration System (PAAIS) used to automate the alignment and integration of space vehicle components. A PAAIS includes ground support apparatuses, a track assembly with a plurality of energy-emitting components and an energy-receiving component containing a plurality of energy-receiving surfaces. Communication components and processors allow communication and feedback through PAAIS.
US08694178B2 Keyless entry device for vehicle
First, “Sync+Wakeup ID” is transmitted form a first vehicle (from a first time to a second time). While a first portable device paired with the first vehicle does not respond to this, when another second portable device has an inverted code coinciding by chance, the second portable device transmits a “Welcome” response (from the second time to a fifth time). During this response, a “Who” command including proper “Sync+Wakeup ID” and “command+additional data” is transmitted, thereby allowing the first portable device to normally respond to “Who” (a sixth time).
US08694173B2 Control of a wind power plant
Methods for controlling a wind power plant that includes a plurality of wind turbines being operatively connected to a plant collector grid a power plant controller, a wind power plant, and a computer program product. The method may include generating an actual power reference signal in response to a determination of the power production of the wind power plant and comparing a desired power reference signal with the actual power reference signal. The method may include either applying a first filter characteristic as part of a generation of a wind turbine power reference if the desired power reference signal exceeds the actual power reference signal, or applying a second filter characteristic as part of the generation of the wind turbine power reference if the actual power reference signal exceeds the desired power reference signal. The first filter characteristic is different from the second filter characteristic.
US08694171B2 Wind-turbine-generator control system, wind farm, and wind-turbine-generator control method
A wind-turbine control system is provided for each of a plurality of wind turbine generators constituting a wind farm, sends wind-turbine data about a controlled wind turbine generator to the wind-turbine control systems provided for the other wind turbine generators, and receives wind-turbine data about the other wind turbine generators from the wind-turbine control systems provided for the other wind turbine generators. Then, the wind-turbine control system controls the controlled wind turbine generator based on the wind-turbine data about the controlled wind turbine generator and the wind-turbine data about the other wind turbine generators. Therefore, the control of the wind turbine generators constituting the wind farm can be changed more swiftly according to the operational condition of the wind farm.
US08694169B2 System and method of controlling a wind turbine in a wind power plant
The invention relates to a central controller adapted for controlling a number of wind turbines. The wind turbines being controlled and monitored by the central controller via a first monitoring and control network and a second monitoring and control network. The term monitoring and control network is in accordance with an embodiment of the invention understood as a data communication network which communicates at least control data for control of wind turbines, but may also communicate monitoring data, i.e. measure data. A typical example of a control of wind turbines is that the central controller sets the power set-point (the power to be produced) of each wind turbine in the wind power plant. The important control signals may be separated from high-bandwidth requiring monitoring data, such as analysis data in the communication network.
US08694168B2 Digital shower system and operating method for water monitoring information thereof
A digital shower system contains a showering equipment including at least one first watering device and at least one second watering device; an input interface including a power key, a knob, an ok key, a return key, and a plurality of outlet switches; a valve unit including a motor, a mixing valve, and a number of outlet valves; a central process unit including a setting module, a time module, a memory module, a calculator module, and a water monitor module; and an indicator so that quantity of water use is known by the user to save water consumption.
US08694164B2 Interactive user guidance interface for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system
The disclosure includes systems and methods of use of an HVAC graphical interface dashboard. In various embodiments the dashboard includes a weather tab, wherein invoking the weather tab advances to a weather screen. The dashboard also includes an indoor humidity tab, wherein invoking the indoor humidity tab advances to a humidity screen which displays at least a current indoor humidity. The dashboard further includes an alerts tab, wherein invoking the alerts tab advances to an alerts screen. The dashboard still further includes a help tab, wherein invoking the help tab advances to a help screen that provides context sensitive help that presents at least one dialog box related to a function of a current screen. A programs tab and a home tab are also provided, and a subnet controller informs said dashboard to display a specific screen and instructs it how to fill in data.
US08694160B2 NC machine tool system
An NC machine tool system includes an NC machine tool (10), a first operation panel (22) and a second operation panel (24) for the NC machine tool, a multi-joint robot (40), a memory (450), and a robot controller (50). The multi-joint robot (40) is disposed above the NC machine tool. The memory (450) stores a wait position return program by which the multi-joint robot (40) is operated. The robot controller (50) controls the multi-joint robot (40) in accordance with the program. Operation panels (22, 24) are respectively provided with switch keys (22c, 24c) operated to execute the wait position return program stored in the memory (450) so as to operate the multi-joint robot (40).
US08694155B2 System for auto-exchanging of electric vehicle battery
A system for automatically exchanging a battery of an electric vehicle, including a horizontal frame of a predetermined area formed at a location higher than the electric vehicle; a plurality of battery stands formed on a bottom surface of the horizontal frame at a predetermined interval; a pair of fixed guide rails arranged and installed on front and rear sides or left and right sides of the horizontal frame, respectively; a variable guide rail adapted to move horizontally along X-axis or Y-axis along the fixed guide rails; a movable rail adapted to move horizontally along Y-axis or X-axis along the variable guide rail and ascend/descend vertically; and a grasping part installed on a lower end of the movable rail and adapted to pick up a battery of the electric vehicle or a battery seated on the battery stand and exchange each other.
US08694153B2 Method and laboratory system for handling sample tube racks
A method and laboratory system for handling sample tube racks are disclosed. The laboratory system includes a storage section (14) with a plurality of shelves (110) for storing a plurality of storage racks (SR), a disposal unit (18) for disposing sample tubes from the storage racks (SR), a robotic transfer system (510) for loading storage racks (SR) into the storage section (14), for retrieving storage racks (SR) from the storing section (14) and for bringing storage rack to the disposal unit (18) after a given storage time has elapsed.
US08694152B2 Maintenance access zones for storage and retrieval systems
A maintenance access system for a storage and retrieval system having a storage and retrieval space and automated transport vehicles disposed in the space. The system includes at least one maintenance access control unit associated with a portion of the space, at least one barrier in the space and defining a boundary of the portion of the space and configured to substantially prevent the passage of the vehicles past the at least one barrier, and a controller connected to the control unit, the controller being configured to receive a signal from the at least one control unit for isolating the portion of the space associated with the at least one control unit, where the controller in response to the signal closes the at least one barrier isolating the portion of the space and effects the removal from or shutting down of vehicles within the portion of the space.
US08694149B2 Engagement milling using circularly shaped tool passes
A method for generating a tool path for milling a region of a workpiece is disclosed. The region has a first side meeting at its respective ends a first end of each of a second side and a third side. The method includes the steps of: (1) determining, using a computer, a radius of curvature and a center of each of a succession of circularly shaped tool passes, each successive tool pass advancing into the region from the first side of the region, wherein the radius of curvature and the center of each advancing tool pass is determined such that an engagement of the cutter following the tool path does not exceed a predetermined value of cutter engagement, and (2) generating instructions for controlling the milling cutter to mill the region in accordance with the generated tool path.
US08694148B2 Tracking and marking specimens having defects formed during laser via drilling
A method and system increase processed specimen yield in the laser processing of target material that includes multiple specimens formed on a common substrate. Preferred embodiments implement a feature that enables storage in the laser processing system a list of defective specimens that have somehow been subject to error during laser processing. Once the common substrate has been completely processed, the system alerts an operator to the number of improperly processed specimens and gives the operator an opportunity to run a software routine, which in a preferred embodiment uses a laser to scribe a mark on the top surface of each improperly processed specimen.
US08694146B2 Computer software application to create weaving monogramming of letters and symbols in both graphic and embroidered output
A method of creating embroidery designs with the use of embroidery software to weave overlapping graphemes to imitate monogramming by hand. A user-specified template for letter layout is designed so that letters overlap. Software reads the letters from a True-Type/Open-Type font file in vector form. Each individual letter is distorted to the template using 3rd degree Bezier Surfaces, 2nd degree Bezier curves and line segments are converted to 3rd degree Bezier curves. Software calculates the intersecting areas using 2-Dimensional Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) to determine which letter will be on-top at each letter intersection, and sorts the intersecting areas into zones, wherein the top letter for each zone is toggled, letters within a zone are alternated, and only the top letter segment is shown. Software cuts out letter segments that will be below another letter at each intersection, and fills the weaved letter or grapheme areas with embroidery.
US08694140B2 Data-driven media management within an electronic device
A method and apparatus for intelligently routing and managing audio signals within an electronic device is disclosed. The routing is responsive to a set of logical and physical policies which are stored in data tables which can be updated as needed.
US08694139B2 Information processing apparatus, information processing method, information processing system, and information processing program
An information processing apparatus includes: a storage unit storing content data and first group identification information for identifying first groups in which the content data are arranged in a predetermined unit; a parameter output unit outputting a parameter representing an amount of displacement of an operating object in response to an operation on the operating object which can be displaced in a predetermined range by a user's operation; a selection unit sequentially selecting the content data while the parameter is in a first range and sequentially selecting the first groups by sequentially selecting the first group identification information stored in the storage unit while the parameter is a value in a second range; and a notification unit notifying what content data is selected when the content data are selected by the selection unit and notifying what group is selected when the first groups are selected by the selection unit.
US08694136B2 Performance monitoring devices and methods
We have disclosed devices and methods for monitoring an individual's performance during a physical activity. The devices may include multiple elements such as a mount adapted to releasably secure the device to the individual's wrist during the physical activity, a heart rate sensor coupled to the mount and adapted to obtain heart rate data during the physical activity, a satellite positioning system receiver coupled to the mount and adapted to obtain position data during the physical activity, an acceleration sensor coupled to the mount and adapted to obtain acceleration data during the physical activity, and an output coupled to the mount and adapted to output performance information to the individual during the physical activity.
US08694133B2 Control systems and methods for machining operations
A method is provided for controlling a machining operation wherein a tool performs a machining operation on a workpiece. The method includes providing a tool holder for holding a tool, a workpiece holder for holding a work piece, and a linear slide for linearly moving a linearly moving part that is either the tool or the workpiece. The step of selecting appropriate machining parameters includes the step of selecting an appropriate feed rate for the linear slide move the linear moving part and appropriate rotational speed is selected for the rotator to rotate the rotating part. The set of appropriate machining parameters are incorporated into the digital controller. The digital controller is then used to control the operation of a linear slide, rotator and modulator to execute the machining of the workpiece by the tool in accordance with a selected appropriate set of parameters.
US08694130B2 Reinforced sensing and stimulation leads and use in detection systems
A reinforced medical electrical lead for neurological applications has a reinforced construction for resisting the detachment of electrodes and lead connection terminals, thereby improving the robustness of the lead and extending the life of the lead by reducing the likelihood that a further surgical procedure will be required to remove the lead for repair or replacement thereof. The present reinforced lead construction maintains the integrity of the electrical connection between the conductor and the respective electrode and lead connection terminal by incorporating several reinforcing features in the lead construction in contrast to conventional lead constructions where it is possible to pull the electrodes and lead connection terminals away from their contact points with relatively little force.
US08694129B2 Deployable sensor platform on the lead system of an implantable device
Systems and methods for deploying a sensor assembly onto a cardiac lead are disclosed. The sensor assembly can include a resilient cuff having one or more sensor modules for sensing physiological parameters within the body. The resilient cuff may have a substantially cylindrical shape having an inner diameter that is smaller than an outer diameter of the lead body onto which the cuff is deployed such that the cuff is retained on the lead body by frictional forces. The sensor assembly may be deployed in conjunction with a new lead to be implanted within a chamber of the patient's heart or a body vessel, or may be deployed onto an existing, implanted lead implanted within the patient's body.
US08694126B2 Medical electrical lead for spinal cord stimulation
A medical electrical lead for spinal cord stimulation includes a first column of electrode surfaces and a second columns of electrode surfaces extending alongside and spaced apart from the first column.
US08694125B2 Medical leads having a distal body and an openly coiled filar
Medical leads have one or more openly coiled filars and a distal body coupled to the openly coiled filars. The openly coiled filars provide a lead with compliance and elasticity while the distal body provides the firmness needed for placement and support of the electrodes. The openly coiled filars transition to a linear distal portion that extends to the distal body, and the distal body has proximal tines that fold proximally to a collapsed state. The linear distal portions of the filars pass through the tines when entering the distal body. Placing tension on the linear distal portions causes the tines to be rotated proximally to the collapsed state. Such tension may be created by a stylet pressing distally against the distal body during implantation. Such tension may also be created by applying a force in the proximal direction to the coiled filars during explantation.
US08694124B2 Method for fabricating a neurostimulation lead contact array
A lead includes a lead body defining a lumen extending through the lead body; a conductor disposed in the lumen; a slit extending from an exterior of the lead body through at least a portion of the lead body to the lumen; and a contact strip. A portion of the contact strip is optionally disposed in the slit and is in contact with a portion of the conductor. A second portion of the contact strip is optionally wrapped around the lead body. A method of making a lead includes disposing one or more conductors in a lumen of a lead body; forming a slit from an exterior of the lead body to the lumen to access a portion of at least one conductor disposed in the lumen; coupling a flat contact strip to the portion of the conductor, and wrapping the contact strip around the lead body.
US08694122B2 Symmetrical output neurostimulation device
A method and system of providing therapy to a patient using electrodes implanted adjacent tissue. The method comprises regulating a first voltage at an anode of the electrodes relative to the tissue, regulating a second voltage at a cathode of the electrodes relative to the tissue, and conveying electrical stimulation energy between the anode at the first voltage and the cathode at the second voltage, thereby stimulating the neural tissue. The system comprises a grounding electrode configured for being placed in contact with the tissue, electrical terminals configured for being respectively coupled to the electrodes, a first regulator configured for being electrically coupled between an anode of the electrodes and the grounding electrode, a second regulator configured for being electrically coupled between an anode of the electrodes and the grounding electrode, and control circuitry configured for controlling the regulators to convey electrical stimulation energy between the anode and cathode.
US08694118B2 Variable output ramping for an implantable medical device
A method, system, and apparatus for providing a stimulation signal comprising a variable ramping portion using an implantable medical device (IMD). The first electrical comprises a first ramping portion. The first ramping portion comprises a first parameter selected from the group consisting of an amplitude, a rate of change of the amplitude, a time period of a rate of change of the amplitude, a pulse width, a rate of change of the pulse width, a time period of a rate of change of the pulse width, a frequency, a rate of change of the frequency, a time period of a rate of change of the frequency, and a duration of a time period of the ramping portion, the first parameter having a first value. The first electrical signal is applied to a target location of the patient's body. A second electrical signal comprising a second ramping portion is generated. The second ramping portion comprises the first parameter having a second value that is different from the first value. The second electrical signal is applied to a target location of the patient's body.
US08694117B2 External charger for a medical implantable device using field sensing coils to improve coupling
By incorporating magnetic field sensing coils in an external charger, it is possible to determine the position of an implantable device by sensing the reflected magnetic field from the implant. In one embodiment, two or more field sensing coils are arranged to sense the reflected magnetic field. By comparing the relative reflected magnetic field strengths of the sensing coils, the position of the implant relative to the external charger can be determined. Audio and/or visual feedback can then be communicated to the patient to allow the patient to improve the alignment of the charger.
US08694107B2 Method for eradicating pain of central origin resulting from spinal cord injury
Methods are provided to reliably identify and surgically eradicate aberrant DREZ in patients suffering from spinal cord injury. The methods include identifying potential aberrant DREZ using a combination of mapping techniques based on the location of the patients perceived pain, analysis of the spontaneous electrical hyperactivity in targeted DREZ, and analysis of evoked transcutaneous C-fiber stimulation both in pre-operative and operative conditions. Methods are also provided for identifying potential pain effecters in aberrant DREZ, useful in the preparation of non-invasive therapeutics for central pain characteristic of spinal cord injury.
US08694106B2 Neurostimulator involving stimulation strategies and process for using it
This is a neurostimulator that is configured to treat epilepsy and other neurological disorders using certain stimulation strategies, particularly changing various pulse parameters, during the imposition of a burst of those pulses. The invention includes the processes embodying those stimulation strategies.
US08694102B2 Ionizing radiation-protected active implantable medical device
A radiation protected active implantable medical device includes an ionizing radiation shield disposed over at least one major surface of an electronics package, a microprocessor, or both contained within an AIMD housing. The ionizing radiation shield is made from a high atomic number, high atomic weight, high density material such as led, gold, platinum, iridium, tungsten or tantalum and has an atomic weight of at least 180 and a density of at least 11 grams per cubic centimeter. The ionizing radiation shield has a thickness of at least 0.25 millimeters and is preferably no thicker than 1.05 millimeters and has an overall attenuation of ionizing radiation of at least 0.5 HVL.
US08694099B2 Criteria for optimal electrical resynchronization derived from multipolar leads or multiple electrodes during biventricular pacing
Generally, the disclosure is directed one or more methods or systems of cardiac pacing employing a right ventricular electrode and a plurality of left ventricular electrodes. Pacing using the right ventricular electrode and a first one of the left ventricular electrodes and measuring activation times at other ones of the left ventricular electrodes. Pacing using the right ventricular electrode and a second one of the ventricular electrodes and measuring activation times at other ones of the left ventricular electrodes. Employing sums of the measured activation times to select one of the left ventricular electrodes for delivery of subsequent pacing pulses.
US08694097B2 Multi-channel sensing methods in implantable cardiovertor defibrillators
An implantable medical device uses an implantable sensor for acquiring a physiological signal that is received by a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor is a multi-channel signal processor including a first signal processing channel having a first sensitivity for sensing the physiological signal and a second signal processing channel having a second sensitivity different than the first sensitivity for sensing the physiological signal.
US08694095B2 Configuration of pacing output channels
During auto-threshold, autocapture, or other evoked response sensing, post-pace artifact is reduced by using a smaller coupling capacitor value than what is used when not in such an evoked response sensing configuration. This can be accomplished by borrowing another capacitor for use as the coupling capacitor. The borrowed capacitor can be a backup pacing capacitor from the same or a different pacing channel. The borrowed capacitor can also be a coupling capacitor from a different pacing channel.
US08694093B2 Method and apparatus for recognizing sensed cardiac events using different electrode configurations
A system senses a cardiac signal for diagnostic and/or therapy control purposes using a first set of electrodes and switches to a different second set of electrodes for recognizing cardiac events in the cardiac signal. In various embodiments, the cardiac signal sensed using the second set of electrodes is compared to the cardiac signal sensed using the first set of electrodes, and the cardiac events in the cardiac signal are each recognized using an outcome of the comparison.
US08694087B2 Patient controlled brain repair system and method of use
A method of maintaining an information rate of a Brain-computer interface (BCI) system, implanted in a patient's brain, by regulating arousal level in the patient's brain is disclosed. The method includes selecting a patient with the implanted BCI device configured to receive neuronal activity from one or more electrodes connected to the patient's brain and to establish a communication channel between the patient and an external device controlled by the patient. Accordingly, a rate of information passage through the communication channel from the BCI device is measured, and a region of the patient's brain involved in arousal regulation, is stimulated in response to said measuring, under conditions effective to adjust the rate of information passing from the BCI device through the communication channel. A computer medium for carrying out this method and a BCI Arousal Regulation system are also disclosed.
US08694086B2 Systems and methods for non-invasively recording ECG in conscious ambulatory subjects
An apparatus for non-invasively measuring an electrocardiogram (ECG) in a conscious ambulatory subject includes an electrically conductive platform. The electrically conductive platform establishes an electrical connection with the subject at one of a position forward (e.g., rostral to) or a position rearward (e.g., caudal to) the heart. An additional electrical connection is established at the other of a position forward (e.g., rostral to) or a position rearward (e.g., caudal to) on the subject. The position rearward to (e.g., caudal to) the heart can be the tail of the subject. The additional electrical connection can be established by a movable electrode, an electrically conductive ringlet, an additional electrically conductive platform, a region of conductive material, an electrically conductive dome, a food element, or one or more electrically conductive posts.
US08694082B2 Method and system for detecting and treating junctional rhythms
An implantable medical device is provided for detecting transportless ventricular rhythm of a heart lacking atrial transport and comprises a housing, sensors configured to be located proximate to a heart, a sensing module to sense cardiac signals representative of a rhythm originating from the heart and a rhythm detection module. The rhythm detection module determines a change in AV association and identifies a potential ventricular complex with loss of atrial transport (VCLAT) based on the change in AV association.
US08694079B1 Double membrane prostate glove
Systems and methods are provided herein that generally involve measuring a prostate or other object. In some embodiments, a membrane can be sealed over a digit extension to form a closed volume. The closed volume can be inflated via an inflation tube, and a reference pattern can be disposed within the closed volume along with a measurement assembly. In use, a user can put on the glove, position the membrane in proximity to a rectal wall overlying a prostate, and inflate the membrane. As the user slides their finger across the rectal wall, optical fibers in the measurement assembly can move relative to a reference pattern, and a controller can sense light reflected through the fibers from the reference pattern. The controller can calculate or estimate various attributes of the prostate based on the reflected light, such as the palpable surface width or volume.
US08694076B2 Electroactive polymer radiopaque marker
The invention relates to an expandable marker device having a pre-delivery state, a delivery state and at least one active region. The at least one active region incorporates electroactive polymer material. In addition, the expandable marker includes at least one radiopaque material to enhance observation through a medical imaging device.
US08694073B2 Predicting efficacy of psychiatric treatment
Methods and systems are described for determining, in a patient that suffers from a mood disorder (e.g., depression), a propensity of the patient to manifest reduced symptoms or levels of indicators of the mood disorder in response to a psychiatric treatment. This can involve determining levels of a marker (e.g., a metabolite) indicative of a brain bioenergetic state of the patient that is predictive of whether the patient will response favorably to an antidepression treatment. Such bioenergetic state markers, tending to normalize in response to antidepression therapy, can include, e.g., a pH, a magnesium level, and a phosphorus level. Brain levels of such markers can be determined by, e.g., 31P MRS.
US08694072B2 Continuous mechanical tuning of transformers inserted in RF-safe transmission lines for interventional MRI
A transformer line (46) extends through a catheter or other interventional instrument (30) that is to be used in the examination region (14) of a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (10). The transformer line includes pairs of transformer windings (28) which are tuned in order to adjust the operating frequency and the maximum attenuation frequencies. Eccentric cams or other tuning elements (50, 64) are disposed in the transformer windings. Rotating the eccentric cams mechanically changes the geometry of the transformer windings, changing their inductive properties, and thus the frequency to which each is tuned.
US08694071B2 Image stabilization techniques and methods
Direct optical imaging of anatomical features and structures from within a biological organ in a dynamic environment (where the tissue being imaged is in motion due to cardiac rhythms, respiration, etc) presents certain image stability issues due (and/or related) to the motion of the target structure and may limit the ability of the user to visually interpret the image for the purposes of diagnostics and therapeutics. Systems and mechanisms for the purpose of actively stabilizing the image or for compiling and re-displaying the image information in a manner that is more suitable to interpretation by the user are disclosed.
US08694068B2 Method and system for monitoring oxygenation levels of a compartment for detecting conditions of a compartment syndrome
A method and system for continually monitoring oxygenation levels in real-time in compartments of an animal limb, such as in a human leg or a human thigh or a forearm, can be used to assist in the diagnosis of a compartment syndrome. The method and system can include one or more near infrared compartment sensors in which each sensor can be provided with a compartment alignment mechanism and a central scan depth marker so that each sensor may be precisely positioned over a compartment of a living organism. The method and system can include a device for displaying oxygenation levels corresponding to respective compartment sensors that are measuring oxygenation levels of a compartment of interest. The method and system can also monitor the relationship between blood pressure and oxygenation levels and activate alarms based on predetermined conditions relating to the oxygenation levels or blood pressure or both.
US08694064B2 Case for mobile electronic device with touch screen
A case for a mobile electronic device with a touch screen is provided. The case comprises a base frame and first and second frames. The base frame contacts the back of the mobile electronic device and includes coupling parts at the periphery thereof. The first frame wraps one widthwise side and both lengthwise sides, over a certain distance, of the mobile electronic device. The second frame wraps the other widthwise side and both lengthwise sides, over the remaining distance except the distance of lengthwise sides wrapped by the first frame. The first and second frames comprise guard parts for wrapping part of the periphery of the front of the mobile electronic device. The base frame is coupled to the first and second frames by the coupling parts, thereby wrapping the back, widthwise and lengthwise sides, of the mobile electronic device.
US08694063B2 Radio-frequency device, wireless communication device and method for enhancing antenna isolation
A radio-frequency (RF) device for a wireless communication device includes an antenna disposition area, and a plurality of antennas of a same type, formed in the antenna disposition area by different arrangements, for receiving or transmitting a plurality of wireless signals of a same frequency band.
US08694062B2 Electronic devices having multiple keypads and related methods
A device includes an upper unit having a display screen thereon and a first slidable unit having a first keypad thereon. The first slidable unit is slidably connected to the upper unit on a side opposite the display screen. The first slidable unit is movable between a closed position in which the upper unit generally overlies the first keypad and an open position in which the first keypad is positioned generally adjacent the display screen. A second slidable unit has a second keypad thereon. The second slidable unit is slidably connected to the upper unit and the first slidable unit. The second slidable unit is movable between a closed position in which the upper unit generally overlies the second keypad and an open position in which the second keypad is positioned generally adjacent the display screen.
US08694060B2 Form factor and electromagnetic interference protection for process device wireless adapters
A process device wireless adapter includes a wireless communications module, a metallic housing, and an antenna. The wireless communications module is configured to communicatively couple to a process device and to a wireless receiver. The metallic housing surrounds the wireless communication module and has a first end and a second end. The first end is configured to attach to the process device. In one embodiment, a metallic shield contacts the housing second end such that the metallic shield and the housing form a substantially continuous conductive surface. The antenna is communicatively coupled to the wireless communication module and separated from the wireless communication module by the metallic shield. Preferably, the wireless communications module illustratively includes a printed circuit board that has a length that is greater than its width.
US08694057B2 Mobile terminal with transparent case
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal which can enlarge a transparent portion region, increase design freedoms, provide transparent mounting regions by forming various electronic components of a transparent material, and produce a variety of light emission pattern in particular scenarios by using the transparent portion region.
US08694052B1 Communication device
The communication device comprising a voice communication implementer, an auto time adjusting implementer, a moving picture replaying implementer, a multiple language mode implementer, and a remote control implementer.
US08694047B2 Power control method, apparatus and system
The present invention discloses a power control method, apparatus, and system. The power control method of the present invention includes: when a service runs in a first-standard communication system, determining a transmit power P1 of the first-standard communication system; determining that the transmit power P1 is higher than or equal to a threshold value P2 of power interference of the first-standard communication system to a second-standard communication system; use a power lower than P1 to send data on an interference frequency of the first-standard communication system. According to the power control method in the present invention, a signal transmit power of the interfering frequency of the first-standard communication system can be reduced when it is determined that the first-standard communication system will cause interference to the second-standard communication system, thereby reducing the interference of the first-standard communication system to the second-standard communication system.
US08694046B2 Uplink power control using received reference signal
A user equipment (UE) includes circuitry configured to receive control information on a downlink control channel from a base station. The control information indicates an allocation of an uplink channel and the control information is sent in response to the base station determining that the UE is to send an adaptive modulation and coding report. The circuitry is further configured in response to the control information to transmit a communication in the allocated uplink channel in a time interval including at least one time slot. The communication includes an adaptive modulation and coding report, and a transmission power level of the communication is derived from the control information and a pathloss measured by the UE.
US08694045B2 Radio communication apparatus and transmission power control method having first retransmission phase and second retransmission phase
A radio communication apparatus including: a radio interface; and a processor configured to control the radio interface to transmit a Ranging signal to a base station and to control a transmission power level of the Ranging signal; when the processor controls the radio interface to retransmit the Ranging signal, the retransmission includes a first phase and a second phase, the first phase in which the processor controls the radio interface to retransmit the Ranging signal at substantially a same transmission power level as at the time of initial transmission, or performs substantially a same calculation as that made at the time of the initial transmission of the Ranging signal and retransmits the Ranging signal at the calculated transmission power level, the second phase in which the processor increases the transmission power level and retransmits the Ranging signal at the increased transmission power level.
US08694043B2 Interference-free neighbor cell measurements
A device selects one or more cells in the network, and coordinates transmissions from the selected one or more cells, and transmissions from neighbor cells of the selected one or more cells, so that transmissions of the selected one or more cells do not interfere with reference signals transmitted by the neighbor cells at designated times. The device also receives, from a user equipment served by the selected one or more cells, measurement reports associated with the reference signals transmitted by the neighbor cells, and determines signal strengths of the neighbor cells based on the measurement reports. The device further determines, based on the signal strengths, whether network coverage is sufficient when coverage of the selected one or more cells is reduced or when the selected one or more cells are out of service.
US08694042B2 Method and apparatus for determining a base station's transmission power budget
A base station receives loading information indicative of the loading of other base stations and determines a downlink transmission power budget as a function of the received loading factor information. The base station may decrease/increase a current power budget dedicated to downlink traffic channel segments in response to detecting an increase/decrease in loading at an adjacent base station. Thus, base stations operate in a cooperative manner reducing power output, in at least some cases, where loading at a neighboring base station increases thereby reducing the interference to the base station with the increased load. A base station can consider possible alternative transmission power levels, estimated levels of interference, and/or possible alternative data rates in making trade-off decisions regarding downlink power budget.
US08694028B2 Communication terminal apparatus and computer program
A communication terminal apparatus includes: a communication unit performing communication; a storage unit collecting and storing history information on communication; a registration unit registering at least communication address information on communicating parties and image information that represents the communicating parties; a display unit displaying images, which represent the registered communicating parties, on a display screen; and an arrangement position determining unit determining arrangement positions of the images, which represent the communicating parties, based on the history information on communication with the communicating parties.
US08694025B2 Geographically constrained network services
A method and system arc disclosed for determining the geographic location of a user communicating on a communications network such as the Internet. In one embodiment, a provider of a product or service: (a) receives the user's phone number (or other identification for contacting the user's station), and (b) supplies the user's station with a distinctive identifier. The provider then supplies a location determining service with the user's phone number (or other identification). A phone call is made to the phone number by the location determining service for retrieving the distinctive identifier from the network station having the phone number. If the distinctive identifier is retrieved and the location determining service determines that the user's station is within an appropriate geographical area (or not within an inappropriate area), then the provider can provide the requested product or service to the user.
US08694020B2 Wireless sensor based camera location and orientation
An apparatus a receiver for a camera for signal communication with transmitters in known locations for determining location of the camera, a compass for the camera for determining orientation of the camera, and a device for determining time associated with the determined camera location and orientation.
US08694015B2 Network system, femtocell, femtocell management apparatus, resource allocation method and non-transitory machine-redable medium thereof
A network system, a femtocell, a femtocell management apparatus, a resource allocation method and a computer program product thereof are provided. The network system comprises a piece of user equipment, a femtocell and a femtocell management apparatus. The user equipment is configured to transmit a request. The femtocell communicates with the user equipment and is configured to receive the request and establish an interference figure. The femtocell management apparatus communicates with the femtocell and is configured to receive the request and the interference figure and perform resource allocation to allocate a resource block to the request signal according to the request and the interference figure so that the femtocell and the user equipment may perform signal transmission according to the resource block.
US08694003B2 LTE RRC connection re-establishment requesting method, cause value setting method and terminal
The present invention discloses a method for requesting LTE RRC connection re-establishment and setting cause values as well as a terminal, and the connection re-establishment request method includes: an LTE terminal determines, according to the occurred scenario, which one of the following four types is the failure reason: radio resource failure, handoff failure, bottom layer error or UE-related error; and the LTE terminal initiates an RRC connection re-establishment request to the network side, wherein the RRC connection re-establishment request includes the failure cause value indicating the failure reason. The present invention can make the network side obtain the reason why the UE initiates the RRC re-establishment from RRC connection re-establishment request message, so as to take different subsequent operations with respect to these different failure reasons.
US08694001B2 System and method for obtaining identity number of user equipment in an LTE system
System and method for obtaining identity number of user equipment in an LTE system. An identity number of a user equipment may be obtained at an eNodeB in an LTE network having an MME. In order to obtain the identity number, the eNodeB may receive a first message from the user equipment and extract a first part of an identity number of the user equipment from the received first message. The eNodeB may receive a second message from the MME and extract a second part of the identity number of the user equipment from the second message. The eNodeB may form the identity number of user equipment by combining the extracted first part of the identity number with the extracted second part of the identity number.
US08693995B2 Customized mobile applications for special interest groups
A method and system for customizing a mobile application running on a mobile communication device of a user. In one implementation, the method includes providing the mobile application to the mobile communication device of the user, the mobile application having a generic platform; determining a special interest group (SIG) that is affiliated with the user; and customizing the generic platform of the mobile application based on information specific to the special interest group (SIG) that is affiliated with the user.
US08693992B2 System and method for storage of electronic mail
A method of storage of an e-mail includes either receiving the e-mail at a portable electronic device or sending the e-mail from the portable electronic device. The e-mail is marked for saving at the portable electronic device and transmitted by radio communication for receipt by a server and for storage of the e-mail in a backup database.
US08693981B1 Monitoring persistent client connection status in a distributed server environment
A system monitors the status of persistent connections between a set of servers and a set of clients, and identifies any clients not having at least one active connection with a server. The monitoring system includes a monitoring server, a bind agent, and probe services running on respective servers. Upon receiving a monitoring request from the monitoring server, the bind agent requests each probe service to identify the clients having active connections with the associated servers. The bind agent forms an aggregated list of all clients having active connections with one or more of the servers and based on the aggregated list, the agent identifies any clients not having at least one active connection with a server and notifies the monitoring server of the identified clients. An exemplary implementation of the monitoring system is in a visual voicemail system.
US08693978B2 Methods and systems for emergency call handling with position location over communication networks
Certain embodiments of the present disclosure relate to methods for handling an emergency call along with its position location in the WiMAX network, and for performing a handover of the emergency call for a multi-mode mobile station that supports multiple wireless standards.
US08693974B2 MEMS based multiband receiver architecture
A receiving apparatus is provided. The receiving apparatus comprises a chip carrier including at least one stack of layers, wherein at least one layer in the stack supports radio frequency transmission lines, tunable bandpass filters, wherein each bandpass filter is integrated within an associated radio frequency transmission line, and at least one integrated micro-chip on the chip carrier. The at least one integrated micro-chip couples selected bandwidth regions of received broadband radio frequency signals to the tunable bandpass filters via the associated radio frequency transmission line. The at least one integrated micro-chip outputs each filtered selected bandwidth region to an associated one of a plurality of intermediate frequency modules.
US08693972B2 Down-conversion of multiple RF channels
A method and system is disclosed for designing a radio for down-converting RF signals to IF signals by sampling the signals in a round-robin sampling circuit and multiplying the samples by coefficients that are changed at a fixed rate equal to the rate of operation of each of the sampling circuits. The circuit is able to down-convert multiple channels simultaneously to adjacent positions in the IF band, while rejecting unwanted image signals. The method and system avoids the difficulty and cost of directly digitizing the RF signal, allowing each component to operate at a greatly reduced speed. The coefficients are selected to provide the desired transfer function while keeping the output signal centered at a desired frequency.
US08693969B2 Temperature compensation in a telecommunications device
A communications device, such as a GNSS receiver comprises an oscillator, having a temperature-dependent frequency characteristic, for generating signals at a nominal frequency; receiver circuitry, for receiving transmitted wireless signals using the signals generated by the oscillator; at least one temperature sensor, having a known positional relationship to the oscillator; an estimation device, for estimating a frequency of the signals generated by the oscillator, based on a measurement from the temperature sensor, and based on the temperature-dependent frequency characteristic of the oscillator; and at least one heat source. A change in the temperature of the oscillator is predicted, based on a state of the heat source, and further based on a model of the thermal properties of the communications device, and hence a change in the frequency of the signals generated by the oscillator is predicted, based on the temperature-dependent frequency characteristic of the oscillator. The receiver circuitry uses the estimated frequency of the signals generated by the oscillator, and the predicted change in the frequency of the signals generated by the oscillator, in receiving the transmitted wireless signals.
US08693968B2 Very low intermediate frequency (VLIF) receiver
A very low intermediate frequency (VLIF) receiver comprising a first and second mixer circuits, characterised in that receiver comprises a means of estimating the energy in a desired signal band; a means of estimating the energy in a band of frequencies comprising the desired signal band; and a means of altering a VLIF of the receiver according to the ratio of the energy in a desired signal band and the energy in the band of frequencies comprising the desired signal band.
US08693966B2 Method for base stations for overall cell signal decoding
A method for filtering out a useful signal of a mobile radio terminal from a plurality of superimposed signals having a signal quality received by base stations in a cellular mobile radio network. The superimposed signal of the mobile radio terminal is detected by base stations that are reached and the signal quality of the received and superimposed signal of every base station reached is determined. The signal quality of a selected base station is then transmitted to a decision element and a selection of a selected base station is made by the decision element to decode the useful signal of the mobile radio terminal. The invention also relates to a device for filtering out a useful signal of a mobile radio terminal from a plurality of superimposed signals received by base stations in a cellular mobile radio network.
US08693963B2 Tunable microwave devices with auto-adjusting matching circuit
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a variable impedance circuit including an antenna having a tunable component. The tunable component can be operable to receive a variable signal to cause the tunable component to change an impedance of the antenna. The tunable component can include a first conductor coupled to the antenna, a second conductor, and a tunable material positioned between the first conductor and the second conductor, where at least one of the first conductor or the second conductor, or both are adapted to receive the variable signal to cause the change in the impedance of the antenna. Additional embodiments are disclosed.
US08693953B2 Optimizing use of network resources by small cells and/or user devices of a venue
A device receives first information about a wireless communication service within a venue. The device further receives, from one or more small cells within the venue, second information about traffic load of the one or more small cells. The device generates third information based on the first information and the second information. The third information assigns network resources to one or more services provided to mobile devices, within the venue, via the small cells. The device transmits the third information to configure the one or more small cells.
US08693950B2 Method and system for transmit power control techniques to reduce mutual interference between coexistent wireless networks device
Aspects of a method and system for transmit power control techniques to reduce mutual interference between coexistent wireless networks are provided. A coexistence terminal comprising a WLAN radio and a Bluetooth radio operating as a master device may transmit signals to one or more remote controllers comprising a slave Bluetooth radio to increase transmission power when the isolation between the coexistence terminal's WLAN and Bluetooth radios is below a threshold. Link manager protocol (LMP) signals may be utilized for changing the transmission power. When the isolation increases above the threshold, signals may be generated to reduce the remote controllers' transmission power. In some instances, in addition to increasing the transmission power of remote controllers, the transmission power of the Bluetooth radio or the WLAN radio may be reduced. The reduced Bluetooth or WLAN radio transmission power may be increased when the radio isolation in the coexistence terminal increases.
US08693949B2 Near-field RF communicators having a low-energy pre-polling process
A near-field RF communicator which is operable to perform a polling process to initiate communication with another near-field RF communicator in near-field range, wherein the near-field communicator is configured to perform a detection process, having a lower energy requirement than a polling process, to determine whether a near-field RF communicator is present in near-field range, and to perform the polling process in the event that the detection process indicates that a near-field RF communicator is present in near-field range.
US08693942B1 Method and apparatus for evaluating educational performance
An improved method and apparatus for evaluating the performance of an individual. In one aspect, the invention includes a method of encoding questions used in an examination in order to accurately identify and evaluate deficiencies in an individual's knowledge. In another aspect, an improved method of evaluating responses to the encoded questions is disclosed. Adaptive structuring of subsequent exam questions and/or topics is also provided. A computer program and associated apparatus for administering and evaluating performance is also described.
US08693940B2 Control apparatus, control method for control apparatus, and storage medium
A control method for a control apparatus includes obtaining an amount of a recording material applied on a first area of a sheet and an amount of a recording material applied on a second area of the sheet on the basis of image data recorded on the sheet stacked on a stacking unit; and performing control, in a case where a plurality of sheets are stacked on the stacking unit, so that a difference between a total amount of the recording material applied on the first area of the sheets and a total amount of the recording material applied on the second area of the sheets does not exceed a predetermined value on the basis of the obtained amount of the recording material. With this method, a limit of the number of stacked sheets is relieved while stability of the stacked sheets is maintained.
US08693939B2 Fixing device and image forming apparatus having an anti-tack agent applicator
A disclosed fixing device includes a fixer application unit configured to apply a fixer containing a softener, capable of softening resin by dissolving or swelling at least a part of the resin, and water to resin particles formed on a recording medium such that the resin particles are fixed on the recording medium. The fixing unit may further include an anti-tack agent application unit configured to apply a liquid anti-tack agent immiscible with the softener to surfaces of the resin particles that are mixed with the softener by the application of the fixer containing the softener.
US08693938B2 Apparatus and systems for high pressure fusing electrostatic offset mitigation
A fusing apparatus includes a fusing roll and a backing roll that define a nip at which toner applied to marking material is fixed to paper under high pressure. A surface of the fusing roll includes a semi-conductive metal-oxide surface. Grounded conductive guides are arranged at the entrance and at the exit of the nip defined by the fusing roll and the backing roll.
US08693936B2 Fixing device and image forming apparatus incorporating same
A fixing device includes a heat pipe, a fuser belt, a heater, a fuser pad, a pressure member, and a coupling mechanism. The heat pipe is formed of a sheet of metal bent into a generally cylindrical configuration with a pair of opposed longitudinal edges thereof spaced apart from each other to define a longitudinal slot therebetween. The fuser belt is looped for rotation around the heat pipe. The heater is disposed within the heat pipe to heat the heat pipe to conduct heat to the fuser belt. The fuser pad is accommodated in the longitudinal slot of the heat pipe inside the loop of the fuser belt. The pressure member is disposed parallel to the heat pipe with the fuser belt interposed between the fuser pad and the pressure member. The coupling mechanism includes a pair of first coupling portion and a pair of second coupling portions.
US08693930B2 Image formation device and image correction method
An image formation device comprises imaging units creating toner images in a corresponding color; an intermediate transfer body where the toner images are overlaid in a primary transfer; a secondary transfer unit performing secondary transfers of the overlaid toner images onto a recording sheet; a first misregistration correction unit operable to cause each imaging unit to form a reference pattern, execute a first misalignment reading acquisition process of acquiring a misalignment reading for each pattern, and adjust the imaging units to correct the readings; a storage unit storing the readings; and a second misregistration correction unit operable to cause an imaging unit subset to form reference patterns, execute a second misalignment reading acquisition process of acquiring readings for the subset of patterns and estimating readings in colors for which no pattern is formed from the acquired readings and the stored readings, and adjust the imaging units to correct all readings.
US08693929B2 Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus for forming a toner image on a print medium with a developer composed of toner and carriers, wherein when the first distance is longer than the second distance, an average gap between the first peripheral surface and a member that faces to the first peripheral surface in an area with a length of the first distance extending upstream from the closest point with respect to the specified direction is smaller than an average gap between the first peripheral surface and a member that faces to the first peripheral surface in an area with a length of the first distance extending downstream from the closest point with respect to the specified direction.
US08693928B2 Development device and image formation apparatus
A development device includes an image carrier configured to develop an electrostatic latent image by using a developer, a development member configured to supply the developer to the image carrier, a developer supply member configured to supply the developer onto a surface of the development member, and a developer restriction member including a contact portion configured to form a developer layer on the surface of the development member while being in contact with the surface. A curvature radius R [mm] of the contact portion of the developer restriction member is 0.17 [mm] to 0.28 [mm], both inclusive, and an ASKER F hardness [°] of the developer supply member is 181.82×R+9.09≦F≦−250×R+130.
US08693926B2 Developer supply container and developer supplying system
A developer supply container detachably mountable to a developer receiving apparatus and settable in a developer receiving apparatus by a setting operation including at least a rotation toward a setting position, includes a containing portion for containing the developer; a rotatable discharging member for discharging the developer out of said containing portion; drive transmitting means, engageable with a driving gear provided in said developer receiving apparatus and rotatable in a direction opposite the setting direction, for transmitting a rotating force from said driving gear to said discharging member.
US08693925B2 Powder container and image forming apparatus for causing restraining portion to contact restrained portion
A powder container includes a containing portion having an opening and including: an opening/closing member movable between an open position and a closed position, an opening restrained portion on one of the opening/closing member and the containing portion, an opening restraining portion on the other of the opening/closing member and the containing portion at a position corresponding to the opening restrained portion when the opening/closing member is at the closed position, the opening restraining portion restraining movement of the opening/closing member toward the open position by contacting the opening restrained portion, an urged portion on one of the containing portion and the opening/closing member, and an urging portion on the other of the containing portion and the opening/closing member at a position corresponding to the urged portion when the opening/closing member is at the closed position, the urging portion making the opening restraining portion contact the opening restrained portion.
US08693923B2 Developing apparatus
A developing apparatus is provided in which, with reference to a middle position in a developer conveyance direction, an average friction coefficient between an inner wall of the developing chamber and the developer, is smaller at an upstream side than at a downstream side in the developer conveyance direction.
US08693921B2 Charging device and image forming apparatus
A charging device includes a charging member that charges an outer peripheral surface of a cylindrical image carrier; an electrode member that has the shape of a plate having a longitudinal direction in an axial direction of the image carrier and that is disposed above the charging member; an attachment member that has a curved surface which is curved along the outer peripheral surface of the image carrier, the electrode member being attached thereon; and a pushing member disposed between the electrode member and the image carrier, the pushing member pushing the electrode member toward the curved surface so that the electrode member is curved to follow the curved surface.
US08693916B2 Stabilizer, image forming apparatus, and stabilizer mounting method
According to one embodiment, a stabilizer includes a jaw portion which contacts a bottom of an apparatus, a fastener to fasten the stabilizer to a lateral side of the apparatus, and a foot portion extending from the bottom of the apparatus toward far side and in obliquely downward.
US08693915B2 Image forming apparatus including chargers around which air passes
An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of process cartridges and a pair of frames. Each of the plurality of process cartridges includes a photosensitive drum, a charger and a charger supporting wall. One of the pair of frames has a plurality of first openings such that air outside the pair of frames is sucked between the pair of frames through the first openings. The other of the pair of frames has a plurality of second openings such that air between the pair of frames is discharged outside the pair of frames through the second openings. The first openings are positioned on an opposite side of the charger supporting wall from the photosensitive drum. The second openings are positioned on the same side of the charger supporting wall as the photosensitive drum.
US08693914B2 Developing cartridge
A developing cartridge includes a case having a first sidewall and a second sidewall opposite to the first sidewall, and a developing roller disposed between the first sidewall and second sidewall. The developing roller can include a developing roller shaft and a developing roller member configured to carry a developing agent thereon, the developing roller member disposed around the developing roller shaft. Also, the developing cartridge can include an electrode disposed on the first sidewall adjacent to the developing roller shaft, the electrode electrically connected to the developing roller member, and a driven coupling disposed on the second sidewall. The electrode can include, an extending portion extending in a direction away from the first sidewall. An outermost periphery of the driven coupling defines a projection plane projecting in a direction towards the electrode, wherein at least a part of the extending portion is disposed within the projection plane.
US08693908B2 Image forming apparatus and image forming method
An image forming apparatus of the invention includes; a cleaning member that collects liquid developer by cleaning a developer carrier; a first transporting path that moves the liquid developer collected by the cleaning member; an oscillating member that applies vibration to the liquid developer transported from the first transporting path; a developer supply unit that stores the liquid developer transported from a first transporting mechanism; a second transporting mechanism that includes a second transporting path that transports the liquid developer stored in the developer supply unit to a developer storage in a developing unit; and a control unit that adjusts a toner charge current applied to the toner charging unit and controls vibration applied to the oscillating member on the basis of the adjusted toner charge current.
US08693906B2 Dual toner printing with charge area development
Methods for printing are provided. In one aspect a primary imaging member having a pattern of engine pixel locations with image modulated differences of potential and with first toner having a first toner difference of potential is moved to a second development station. A second development difference of potential of the first polarity at the second development station forms a second net development difference of the second development difference of potential less any image modulated difference of potential at the individual engine pixel location and less any difference of potential relative to ground of any first toner at the individual engine pixel location. The second development difference of potential is greater than the first development difference of potential so that second toner that is different from the first toner is developed onto the first toner using the second net development difference of potential.
US08693905B2 Systems and methods for reducing reload image quality defects
An image forming apparatus includes a sensor that detects a property of a developer material, a transport unit that contacts the developer material and moves the developer material toward a recording medium, and a controller that receives the data regarding the property of the developer material from the sensor unit and sets both a voltage and a velocity of the transport unit, wherein the voltage and the velocity is determined based on data regarding the detected property of the developer material received from the sensor.
US08693904B2 Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus may include a first and second mode. In the first mode, the image forming apparatus uses a second charging member to charge toner that remains on an intermediate transfer member and then transfers the charged, remaining toner to an image carrier in a primary transfer portion. In the second mode, the image forming apparatus transfers the remaining toner adhered to the second charging member in the first mode to the intermediate transfer member. Also in a second mode, the image forming apparatus controls so that a surface potential of the image carrier that reaches the primary transfer portion at a timing at which the remaining toner transferred to the intermediate transfer member passes through the primary transfer portion has a same polarity as that of a surface potential of the image carrier in the first mode and also has an absolute value smaller than that thereof.
US08693900B2 Image forming device
An image forming device includes a carrying part, an image forming part, a fuser, a fusion temperature controller, a winding part, a storage part and a controller. The controller stops a carrying of recording medium by the carrying part and heating by the fusion temperature controller, after the carrying part carries the recording medium by a predetermined length while the fusion temperature controller heats the fuser, when printing is started in a state where the recording medium is not wound on the winding part, and resumes the carrying of the recording medium by the carrying part and the heating by the fusion temperature controller upon detection that the time measured by the measurement part has reached the stop time for the recording medium stored in the storage part.
US08693899B2 System and method for providing a message on a replaceable printing component
A method for providing a message on a replaceable printing component of a printing device includes detecting a trigger event, retrieving a message from a memory associated with the replaceable printing component in response to the trigger event, and forming the message on an imaging member of the replaceable printing component, wherein the trigger event includes an end of a print job, and wherein the message remains on the imaging member after completion of the print job.
US08693895B2 Signal transmission and reception device and method
A signal transmission and reception device and method are provided. The transmission method comprises generating multiple optical carriers from a basic optical carrier; modulating optical carriers, except for a predetermined optical carrier, in the optical carriers by using multiple data signals respectively, to generate multiple optical modulated signals; and synthesizing the multiple optical modulated signals and the predetermined optical carrier into a single optical signal, and transmitting the signal. The reception method comprises separating an optical signal into multiple optical carriers, the optical carriers having different frequencies and including a predetermined optical carrier; generating from the predetermined optical carrier multiple optical waves, frequencies of which correspond to frequencies of optical carriers, except for the predetermined optical carrier, in the multiple optical carriers; and demodulating the optical carriers, except for the predetermined optical carrier, in the multiple optical carriers by using the multiple optical waves respectively.
US08693892B2 External modulator monitoring device and external modulator monitoring method
This invention relates to external modulator monitoring device and method for monitoring an external modulator. The external modulator monitoring device includes a mixing unit for mixing optical signals modulated by the external modulator and optical signals not modulated by the external modulator, so as to obtain multiple branches of mixed optical signals; an electrical differential unit for converting the multiple branches of mixed optical signals into corresponding multiple branches of electrical signals, and performing a differential processing on voltages of the multiple branches of electrical signals to obtain differential signals; and a power detection unit for detecting power of the differential signals.
US08693890B2 Look-up table and digital transmitter based architecture for fiber nonlinearity compensation
Systems and methods are disclosed to process an optical signal with a pre-processing module to populate a non-linearity compensation look-up table based on a set of predetermined rules in a non-real-time off-line mode; and a transmitter applying said predetermined rules in real-time to multiple channel input data to generate a real-time symbol pattern, searching the look-up table with the real-time symbol pattern to determine a non-linearity compensation output, and modulating the optical signal with the compensation output.
US08693887B2 Optical transmitter and optical transmission system
An optical transmitter of the invention phase modulates an output light from a light source according to data using a phase modulator, and then supplies it to an intensity modulator. The intensity modulator performs pulse carving of the output light from the phase modulator in accordance with a clock signal in which a duty cycle is changed to a value different from 50% by a waveform transformation circuit, with an operating range being a slope from a trough to a crest in the photoelectric response characteristics. As a result, it is possible to realize, at the same time, duty cycle and chirp characteristics that enable excellent transmission characteristics to be obtained.
US08693884B2 Optical transmission system
An optical transmission system includes transmitter 100 and receiver 200. Transmitter 100 adds state information for identifying a state of transmitter 100, to a signal and transmits the signal to receiver 200. Receiver 200 obtains the state information added to the signal transmitted from transmitter 100 and identifies a state of transmitter 100 based on the obtained state information.
US08693881B2 Optical hetrodyne devices
An optical heterodyne device includes an optical meta-material exhibiting non-linear behavior. The optical meta-material mixes an input signal and a local signal to produce a heterodyne signal.
US08693880B2 Wavelength path communication node apparatus, wavelength path communication control method, and recording medium
A wavelength path communication node apparatus includes a wavelength path demultiplexer (321) which demultiplexes branched optical signals input to wavelength multiplexing ports into wavelength path signals, and outputs the wavelength path signals from wavelength demultiplexing ports corresponding to the respective wavelengths, a wavelength path multiplexer (322) which outputs wavelength path signals input to wavelength demultiplexing ports from wavelength multiplexing ports corresponding to the wavelengths of the wavelength path signals, a plurality of transponders (331) each of which converts a wavelength path signal input to a wavelength path transmission port into a client transmission signal to transmit the client transmission signal, and converts a received client reception signal into a wavelength path signal of a wavelength to output the wavelength path signal from a wavelength path reception port, a demultiplexing system optical matrix switch (323) which switches and connects the wavelength demultiplexing ports of the wavelength path demultiplexer and the wavelength path transmission ports of the transponders, and a multiplexing system optical matrix switch (324) which switches and connects the wavelength demultiplexing ports of the wavelength path multiplexer and the wavelength path reception ports of the transponders.
US08693876B2 High speed signal generator
A high-speed signal generator. A digital signal processing (DSP) block generates a set of N (where N is an integer and N≧2) parallel digital sub-band signals, each digital sub-band signal having frequency components within a spectral range between 0 Hz and ±Fs/2, where Fs is a sample rate of the digital sub-band signals. A respective Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) processes each digital sub-band signal to generate a corresponding analog sub-band signal, each DAC having a sample rate of Fs/2. A combiner combines the analog sub-band signals to generate an output analog signal having frequency components within a spectral range between 0 Hz and ±NFs/2.
US08693873B2 Apparatus and method for improved distributed compensation of filtering effects mitigation in an optical network
The present disclosure describes a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer. The reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer includes a first optical equalizer to precompensate a received optical signal for optical filtering effects to produce a first compensated optical signal. A first interleaver, coupled to the first optical equalizer, separates the first compensated optical signal into an odd optical signal and an even optical signal. A plurality of wavelength selective switches processes the odd optical signal and the even optical signal. A second interleaver, combines the odd optical signal and the even optical signal to produce a combined optical signal. A second optical equalizer, coupled to the second interleaver, postcompensates the combined optical signal for optical filtering effects to produce an output optical signal.
US08693872B2 Wavelength adjusting method, apparatus, and system
A wavelength locking method, apparatus, and system are provided. The wavelength locking method includes modulating, by using scrambling signals with a same frequency and different phases, each one of a plurality of optical channel signals respectively; processing, by a combiner, a splitter, and a wavelength locker, the modulated optical signals, so as to acquire photoelectricity detector (PD) signals; performing phase discrimination on the PD signals to acquire wavelength information of the optical channels; determining different shift values corresponding to the different wavelength information; and adjusting wavelengths of the optical channels according to the corresponding shift values.
US08693871B2 System for routing and wavelength assignment in wavelength division multiplexing optical networks
A method for routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) in an optical network with improved heuristics for reducing the computational times required for the RWA. The method minimizes the number of wavelengths by packing the lightpaths using a minimum number of bins in a bin packing problem. Computational efficiency is enhanced by using several novel methods to determine shortest paths and eliminate arcs in a graph that represents the network topology.
US08693870B2 Control apparatus, polarization multiplexing light modulator, light transmitting apparatus, and method of controlling polarization multiplexing light modulator
The present invention provides a control apparatus including: an output monitor which monitors polarization-multiplexed output light output from a polarization multiplexing light modulator which modulates light of two systems independent of each other, polarization-multiplexes light signals of the two systems subjected to the light modulation, and outputs the polarization-multiplexed light signals; and a control unit which controls a delay time difference at a stage where the light signals of the two systems forming the polarization multiplexing light modulator are polarization-multiplexed based on a monitor result of the output monitor. The control apparatus controls a delay time difference between polarization channels easily or surely.
US08693863B2 Exchangeable lens
An exchangeable lens includes a camera lens mount unit having a mount center point, to which a camera body, with twelve body connector terminals disposed near a camera body mount unit at the camera body, is attached; a holding portion where a plurality of lens connector terminals, each including a contact area to come into contact with a body connector terminal, are disposed; an optical system that includes a drive target member which can be driven; a drive unit that drives the drive target member; and a control unit to be engaged in data communication with the camera body. The drive unit and the control unit include a common ground portion.
US08693858B2 Electric water heater having filtering device
An electric water heater having a filtering device includes an electric water heating device and a filtering device. The filtering device communicates with the electric water heating device, and includes a shell having at least an accommodating area, an inlet connecting to one end of the shell and communicating with the accommodating area, an outlet connecting to the other end of the shell and communicating with the electric water heating device and the accommodating area, a porous magnetic resin film located inside the accommodating area, and a calcium sulfite filter membrane in the accommodating area and between the outlet and the porous magnetic resin film. With the combination of the porous magnetic resin film and the calcium sulfite filter membrane respectively for the absorption of metallic impurities in water and chlorine removal, the scales can be avoided from generating after the electric water heating device heats the water.
US08693857B2 Irradiance pulse heat-treating methods and apparatus
A method of heat-treating a workpiece includes generating an initial heating portion and a subsequent sustaining portion of an irradiance pulse incident on a target surface area of the workpiece. A combined duration of the initial heating portion and the subsequent sustaining portion is less than a thermal conduction time of the workpiece. The initial heating portion heats the target surface area to a desired temperature and the subsequent sustaining portion maintains the target surface area within a desired range from the desired temperature. Another method includes generating such an initial heating portion and subsequent sustaining portion of an irradiance pulse, monitoring at least one parameter indicative of a presently completed amount of a desired thermal process during the irradiance pulse, and modifying the irradiance pulse in response to deviation of the at least one parameter from an expected value.
US08693854B2 Vacuum heating device and vacuum heat treatment method
A uniform voltage is applied to loads even to other than a multiple of three loads made of heating lamps connected in parallel to each other, without causing any burden on a primary side. The number of loads is divided into a multiple of three and a multiple of two. A three-phase AC voltage is applied to three primary windings, which are connected as a Y-connection or a Δ-connection. Secondary windings, which are each magnetically coupled to a primary winding of a plurality of three-phase transformers and have the same number of turns, are connected with the multiple of three loads.
US08693851B2 Reproduction apparatus, reproduction method, recording method, program and data structure
Disclosed are a reproduction apparatus, a reproduction method, a recording apparatus, a recording method, a program and a data structure which can rapidly read a plurality of files from a recording medium at the same time. A reproduction apparatus 22 continuously reads interleaved data from a disc 21 which records a file of an ISO base media file format. The file includes interleaved data which is physically and continuously recorded on the disc 21 by dividing each data stream of files B and D into interleave units and by interleaving the interleave units, and position information which indicates, using the interleave unit as a chunk of the ISO base media file format, the position of the interleave unit which forms the chunk. Further, the reproduction apparatus 22 de-interleaves the interleaved data into the interleave units of each of the files B and D, on the basis of the position information.
US08693850B2 System and method for video summarization and navigation based on statistical models
The disclosed method calculates video time density functions based on inter-frame mutual information or other similarity measures. The method includes acquiring a video sequence from memory, computing mutual information or other similarity measures between two consecutive frames of the video sequence, and constructing a video temporal density function based on the mutual information or similarity measures. The method enables fast navigation of the video sequence by performing a temporal quantization of the video time density function to determine a set of quanta. The video sequence can be navigated using the nearest neighbor video frames to the set of quanta. The method enables thumbnail extraction of a video sequence using statistical modeling by performing a temporal quantization of the video time density function to segment video sequence in time domain and using mixture (such as Gaussian mixture and ICA mixture) vector quantization to find the sample frames for each temporal segment.
US08693848B1 Mobile device with smart buffering
Methods for automatically buffering and displaying video feeds associated with a live event are described. The video feeds displayed on the mobile device may comprise live video feeds or replays associated with the live event. A replay may comprise a playback of one or more buffered video feeds in a particular sequence and at a particular playback rate. The particular sequence may be determined based on the viewing behavior of the end user of the mobile device and/or the viewing behaviors of one or more other end users using other mobile devices at the live event. In some cases, the replay may comprise a shared replay in which a group of end users attending the live event may interact with each other while sharing a common replay.
US08693847B2 Contents processing apparatus and method
There is provided a contents processing apparatus including: a contents data acquisition unit that acquires data of contents; a section detection unit that detects from the acquired data of the contents a cross-fade section that includes a plurality of frames constituting a portion where a final picture of a predetermined scene is gradually changed and replaced with a picture of the next scene; a scene specifying unit that specifies a retrospective scene, where a plurality of scenes are changed in a predetermined interval, based on the detected cross-fade section; a similar scene searching unit that searches for scenes similar to the plurality of the scenes included in the specified retrospective scene from data of different contents acquired by the contents data acquisition unit; and a digest generation unit that generates a digest of the different contents by combining the searched scenes.
US08693846B2 System and method for dynamic video placement on a display
There is provided a video playback device for providing adjustable display coordinates and for playing a video on a display. The video playback device comprises a memory storing a plurality of video streams each associated with one of a plurality of different display coordinates and a processor configured to determine a first input display coordinate for displaying the video on the display, select a first coordinate of the plurality of different display coordinates corresponding to the first input display coordinate, and output a first video stream of the plurality of video streams associated with the selected first coordinate on the display.
US08693843B2 Information processing apparatus, method, and program
An information processing apparatus includes: accepting means for accepting user's input of specification of a remarkable scene during playback processing of a video content to be recorded on a recording medium or a video content already recorded on a recording medium; setting means for setting a scene corresponding to a timing of accepting the input of specification by the accepting means to a user's remarkable scene; acquiring means for acquiring additional information for generating a display indicating the remarkable scene contents; and display controlling means for controlling generation of the display indicating the remarkable scene contents on the basis of the additional information and display of a list screen including an arrangement of the display indicating the remarkable scene contents for each remarkable scene.
US08693841B2 Video reproducing apparatus, method, and computer readable medium
There is provided with a video reproducing apparatus, including: an access unit configured to access a storage medium holding a plurality of video scenes; an external device search unit configured to search for an external device which can communicate; a scene selecting unit configured to select a video scene from the storage medium based on information of the external device found by the external device search unit; and a video reproducing unit configured to read the selected video scene from the storage medium using the access unit and reproduce the video scene.
US08693837B2 High resolution near field scanning optical microscopy
An optical fiber including a surface including a non-covalent multilayer including a light-absorbing material can be used to develop fluorescence microscopy with a lateral resolution of about 5 nm and possibly lower. The non-covalent multilayer can be a highly absorptive thin film, for example a film based on J-aggregates, which can be used with conventional Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy.
US08693830B2 Data-center cable
The present invention relates to a data-center cable having good attenuation performance both at room temperature and during temperature cycling, as well as good resistance to compression.
US08693814B2 Flexible optical interconnect
A flexible optical interconnect and method of forming the interconnect is disclosed. The optical interconnect includes a waveguide base formed from a flexible dielectric material. A three-sided channel is formed in the flexible material. Each side of the channel is coated with a reflective metallic coating. A cover piece is formed from the flexible material and coated with a reflective metallic coating on an underside. The cover piece is coupled to the waveguide base to form a flexible optical bus having at least one hollow metallized waveguide. The hollow metallized waveguide is configured to carry an optical signal. A transverse slot is formed in the cover piece and the waveguide base to form an aperture bisecting the hollow metallized waveguide to enable the optical signal to be detected and/or redirected.
US08693808B2 Providing a digital copy of a source image
The present invention relates to a method for an automatic alignment of digital image layers, implemented in specific software on a computing device (e.g. a personal computer (1)) which drives an image scanner (3) and aligns the multiple scanned image layers (25) in such a way, that of these layers (25) one resulting image (10) will be created, which has—by a statistical calculus based on multiple sampling and averaging of these multiple scanned image layers (25)—a decreased random distributed noise spectrum compared to single scanned images (25) and by the automatic alignment avoids a decrease in sharpness using statistical comparison of the multiple layers (25), especially deviation and cost functions, aiming to compensate a misalignment (6), e.g. mechanical mismatches of the scanner's (3) scanning carriage, between multiple scans (25).
US08693803B2 High linear dynamic range imaging
A method for digital processing comprises receiving a first set of image data corresponding to a first time and a second set of image data corresponding to a different time. Intensity values for each of a first pixel and second pixel are extracted from each of the first and second set of image data. Substantially linear values in a plurality of intensity values are identified for each of the first and second pixels. For each of the first and second pixels, regression is performed on each of the substantially linear values in the plurality of intensity values. The regression may calculate an intensity level as a function of exposure time. The regression may generate slopes corresponding to the linear values for each of the first and second pixels. These slopes more accurately represent the actual ratio of intensity values. The ratios are useful in applications, such as, for example, polarization.
US08693802B2 Fluoroscopy apparatus, fluoroscopy system, and fluorescence-image processing method
A fluoroscopy apparatus including: an illumination unit having a light source radiating illumination light and excitation light onto an observation target, a fluorescence-imaging unit acquiring a fluorescence image by imaging fluorescence generated at the observation target by the excitation light, a white-light-imaging unit acquiring a reference image by imaging light returning from the observation target by the illumination light, and an image-correction unit obtaining a correction fluorescence image by raising the luminance value of the fluorescence image to the power of a reciprocal of a first and second exponent obtained by a power approximation of a distance characteristic of luminance versus observation distance, for the fluorescence image, and that obtains a corrected fluorescence image by dividing the correction fluorescence image by the correction reference image.
US08693790B2 Form template definition method and form template definition apparatus
Disclosed are a form template definition method and a form template definition apparatus. The form template definition method comprises a cell extraction step of analyzing an image of a form so as to extract one or more cells from the image of the form; a cell classification step of classifying the extracted cells; and a cell attribute definition step of defining attributes of the extracted cells class by class. If an attribute of a first cell in one class is defined, then other cells in the class automatically copy the attribute of the first cell. As a result, the work amount of form template definition may be dramatically reduced by employing the form template definition method and form template definition apparatus.
US08693789B1 Face and expression aligned moves
Systems, methods and articles of manufacture for generating sequences of face and expression aligned images are presented. An embodiment includes determining a plurality of candidate images, computing a similarity distance between an input image and each of the candidate images based on facial features in the input image and the candidate images, comparing the computed similarity distances, selecting a candidate image based on the comparing, and adding the selected candidate image to an image sequence for real-time display. Embodiments select images from the image sequence as they are being added to the image sequence and scale, rotate and translate each image so that a face appearing in a selected image is aligned with a face appearing in a subsequently selected image from the image sequence. In this way, embodiments are able to render arbitrarily large image collections efficiently and in real time to display a face and expression aligned movie.
US08693788B2 Assessing features for classification
Among other things, a degree is determined to which values of a feature that characterizes cases correctly predict classes to which cases belong, the degree depending on a combination of at least two factors that include: (a) uncertainty about the values that the feature will have depending on knowledge about classes to which cases belong, and (b) comparison of one or more first values of the feature that are associated with cases that belong to a first class with one or more second values of the feature associated with cases belonging to a second class.
US08693785B2 Image matching devices and image matching methods thereof
Provided is an image matching method of matching at least two images. The image matching method extracts feature points of a reference image and feature points of a target image, changes a feature point, selected from among the feature points of the reference image, to a reference point in the target image, sets a matching candidate region on the basis of the reference point, in the target image, and performs a similarity operation between the selected feature point in the reference image and a plurality of feature points included in the matching candidate region among the feature points of the target image. The image matching method decreases the number of similarity operations performed in the image matching operation, thereby guaranteeing a high-speed operation.
US08693784B2 Eyelid detection device and program
An eyelid detection device that, based on first order differential values and second order differential values of vertical density change at an eyelid boundary in an eye image, shifts the second order differential values upwards by ¼ of the cycle of density change frequency of an eyelid boundary and combines the first order differential values and the second order differential values to compute upper eyelid feature amounts. The eyelid detection device detects a boundary between an upper eyelid and eyeball based on peak points in the vertical direction of the computed upper eyelid feature amounts. Consequently, the boundary between an eyelid and eyeball can be accurately detected even when the eyelid has been applied with makeup.
US08693782B2 Image based spam blocking
A fingerprint of an image identified within a received message is generated following analysis of the message. A spam detection engine identifies an image within a message and converts the image into a grey scale image. The spam detection engine analyzes the grey scale image and assigns a score. A fingerprint of the grey scale image is generated based on the score. The fingerprint may also be based on other factors such as the message sender's status (e.g. blacklisted or whitelisted) and other scores and reports generated by the spam detection engine. The fingerprint is then used to filter future incoming messages.
US08693781B2 Marker generation device, marker generation detection system, marker generation detection device, marker, marker generation method, and program therefor
Provided is a marker generation device which has a feature comparison means and a marker pattern generation means. The feature comparison means disposes feature points extracted from an image in a predetermined space, sets parts in which the number of feature points in the predetermined space is equal to or less than a predetermined number as singular features, disposes feature points extracted from an identifier in the predetermined space, and counts the number of feature points that coincide with the singular features. The marker pattern generation means converts the structure of the identifier and extracts the feature points from the converted identifier. The feature comparison means disposes the feature points extracted from the converted identifier in the predetermined space, counts the number of feature points that coincide with the singular features, and selects, as a marker for detection, an identifier having the most counts from among identifiers before conversion and one or two or more identifiers that have been converted.
US08693779B1 Segmenting printed media pages into articles
Methods and systems for segmenting printed media pages into individual articles quickly and efficiently. A printed media based image that may include a variety of columns, headlines, images, and text is input into the system which comprises a block segmenter and an article segmenter system. The block segmenter identifies and produces blocks of textual content from a printed media image while the article segmenter system determines which blocks of textual content belong to one or more articles in the printed media image based on a classifier algorithm. A method for segmenting printed media pages into individual articles is also presented.
US08693774B2 Image accessing apparatus and image data transmission method thereof
A method for transferring image data by using an interface with at least two transfer pipes to transfer from an image accessing unit to a computer is disclosed. The method includes: obtaining image data in response to a control command from the computer; converting the image data to sampled structure data and transferring the sampled structure data to the computer through at least one of the data transfer pipes; and providing information to the computer to recover the received sampled structure data.
US08693770B2 Apparatus and method for processing images
Provided are an image processing apparatus and method for restoring a high resolution of an image based on acquired image data using color information. The image processing apparatus selects at least one pixel from among pixels corresponding to narrow-band color information of image data, and estimates wide-band color information of the selected pixel.
US08693767B2 Method and device for generating partial views and/or a stereoscopic image master from a 2D-view for stereoscopic playback
Image data, in particular a three-dimensional image master, is generated for stereoscopic playback via an auto-stereoscopic playback device. Image data are generated for playback that evokes a three-dimensional visual impression in a human observer by: receiving and/or importing 2D image data of an original view, deriving a plurality of further partial views that represent the information shown in the original view from different viewing angles. For each pixel of the 2D image data of the original view, color values are determined and a control value dependent on the color values is automatically assigned to each of the pixels. Each control value represents disparity information, and while deriving the plurality of partial views, which represents different viewing directions of an original scene represented by the 2D image data of the original view, the individual pixels of the original image are shifted pixel-wise relative to one another according to a displacement vector pre-set for the respective view and corresponding to the control value assigned to the individual pixel, and the pixels of the respective view are derived on the basis of the shifted pixels.
US08693760B2 Medical imaging apparatus
There is provided a technique for, in a medical imaging apparatus enabling imaging of an arbitrary plane in a three-dimensional space, enabling automatic calculation of a slice position and automatic calculation of an extracting slice in MPR, without prolonging examination time. Two-dimensional scout scan similar to that used for manual setting of a slice position is performed, and the obtained scout images are processed to calculate a recommended slice position. Algorithms for the processing and various image processing procedures used for the processing are stored beforehand for every type of imaging region and every type of examination.
US08693759B2 Image processing device and image processing method
Provided is an image processing device capable of effectively displaying the details of a plurality of different branches included in a structure that is divided into a plurality of branches. An image processing device 100 reads the entire image of a coronary artery region, extracts a coronary artery region A from the read image data, displays the coronary artery region A, calculates cores 41, 42, and 43 of three coronary arteries A1, A2, and A3, and calculates the lengths of blood vessels. In addition, when an operator uses a GUI 33 that is displayed in parallel to the entire image of the coronary artery region A to designate an arbitrary scale position on the GUI 33, a CPU 101 calculates positions on the blood vessels A1, A2, and A3 corresponding to the designated scale position. The CPU 101 displays vertical tomographic images 321, 322, and 323 at the calculated corresponding positions in a detailed image display region 32.
US08693756B2 Automatic reduction of interfering elements from an image stream of a moving organ
Apparatus and methods are described for imaging a portion of a body of a subject that undergoes a motion cycle. A plurality of image frames of the portion are acquired. The image frames are enhanced with respect to a first given feature of the image frames, by (a) image tracking the image frames with respect to the first given feature, (b) identifying a second given feature in each of the image frames, and (c) in response to the identifying, reducing visibility of the second given feature in the image frames. The image frames that (a) have been image tracked with respect to the first given feature, and (b) have had reduced therein the visibility of the second given feature, are displayed as a stream of image frames. Other embodiments are also described.
US08693755B2 System for adjustment of image data acquired using a contrast agent to enhance vessel visualization for angiography
A system provides a roadmap image displaying a vessel structure using an imaging system to acquire data representing multiple temporally sequential individual images of vessels of a region of interest of patient anatomy in the presence of a contrast agent. An image data processor generates multiple sequential cumulative images corresponding to the individual images and an individual current cumulative image corresponds to a current image of the individual images. The current cumulative image comprises cumulative pixel luminance values and an individual cumulative pixel luminance value is generated from luminance values of pixels, spatially corresponding to the individual cumulative pixel and present in images comprising a subset of the individual images. The subset comprises contiguous images of the temporally sequential individual images acquired preceding the current image and including the current image. An output processor provides the multiple sequential cumulative images to a destination.
US08693753B2 Medical image processing device, method and program
A medical image processing device for extracting an endocardium of a left ventricle from 3D image data representing the left ventricle is provided. The device includes: a blood region extracting unit to extract a blood region in the left ventricle from the image data; a convex and concave points identifying unit to find a convex hull from sample points on a contour of the extracted blood region and identify convex points forming the convex hull and concave points, which are sample points other than the convex points; and an endocardium determining unit to deform the contour of the blood region by moving at least a part of the concave points outward from the blood region by an amount determined based on a positional relationship among each concave point and the convex points located around the concave point and determine a deformed contour of the blood region to be the endocardium.
US08693747B2 Radiological image noise reduction system and method
A method for controlling a X-ray radiography system includes acquiring data from a digital X-ray detector, characterizing electromagnetic interference based upon the acquired data, selecting an electromagnetic interference compensation algorithm based upon the characterized electromagnetic interference, acquiring X-ray imaging data via the digital X-ray detector based upon the selected electromagnetic interference compensation algorithm, and processing the X-ray imaging data to produce image data capable of reconstruction in a user viewable form.
US08693745B2 Methods and computer program products for quantitative three-dimensional image correction and clinical parameter computation in optical coherence tomography
Methods and computer program products for quantitative three-dimensional (“3D”) image correction in optical coherence tomography. Using the methods and computer program products, index interface (refracting) surfaces from the raw optical coherence tomography (“OCT”) dataset from an OCT system can be segmented. Normal vectors or partial derivatives of the curvature at a refracting surface can be calculated to obtain a refracted image voxel. A new position of each desired refracted image voxel can be iteratively computed. New refracted corrected voxel positions to an even sampling grid can be interpolated to provide corrected image data. In some embodiments, clinical outputs from the corrected image data can be computed.
US08693743B1 Analysis and display of multiple biomarker co-expression in cells and tissues
A method for analyzing a tissue specimen that includes obtaining a first digital tissue sample image and a second digital tissue sample image showing a first and a second tissue sample, respectively. The first tissue sample and the second tissue sample are stained for a first biomarker and a second biomarker, respectively. Both digital tissue sample images are analyzed to identify portions of the first tissue sample positive for the first biomarker and for the second biomarker, respectively. A co-expression analysis to create a biomarker co-expression profile. The co-expression analysis identifies at least a portion of the tissue specimen positive for both the first biomarker and the second biomarker, at least a portion of the tissue specimen positive for only the first biomarker, and at least a portion of the tissue specimen positive for only the second biomarker. The biomarker co-expression profile is displayed.
US08693739B2 Systems and methods for performing facial detection
Various embodiments are disclosed for detecting facial regions in a plurality of images. In one embodiment, a method comprises assigning at least one of the possible facial regions an assurance factor, forming clusters of possible facial regions based on a connection factor between the facial regions, and determining facial regions from the possible facial regions based on the assurance factor and the clusters of possible facial regions.
US08693737B1 Authentication systems, operations, processing, and interactions
Systems and methods for biometrically identifying an individual for purchasing a product and/or service without a need for the individual to input authentication data into a system/device are described. Data representative of a scanned iris of a customer desiring to make a purchase may be made. The customer may be identified based upon the scanned iris. A determination may be made as to whether the identified customer has a plurality of accounts at a financial entity. Information of a selected account to make the purchase may be received. Sufficient funds in the selected account to make the purchase may be determined. If insufficient, a different account may be identified to make the purchase. Sufficient funds in the different accounts may be determined and funds in the different accounts may be decreased by the associated payment amount.
US08693736B2 System for determining the motion of a fingerprint surface with respect to a sensor surface
A fingerprint motion tracking method and system is provided for sensing features of a fingerprint along an axis of finger motion, where a linear sensor array has a plurality of substantially contiguous sensing elements configured to capture substantially contiguous overlapping segments of image data. A processing element is configured to receive segments of image data captured by the linear sensor array and to generate fingerprint motion data. Multiple sensor arrays may be included for generating directional data. The motion tracking data may be used in conjunction with a fingerprint image sensor to reconstruct a fingerprint image using the motion data either alone or together with the directional data.
US08693727B2 Image processing device and image processing method thereof
An image processing device and an image processing method thereof. The image processing device comprises a memory module, an object detection module and a processing module. The memory module is provided for storing a plurality of images captured by a camera module, and the image comprises at least one object. The object detection module retrieves one of the images as a reference image and compares the remaining images with the reference image to locate a region where the object with corresponding contour and color is situated. If the object detection module compares and determines that the object with the corresponding contour and color is situated in different regions of the reference image and the remaining images, the processing module will remove the corresponding object in the reference image or superimpose each corresponding object in the reference image simultaneously.
US08693723B2 Single magnet coaxial loudspeaker
A coaxial loudspeaker for reproducing an electrical sound signal is provided. The loudspeaker has a magnetic driver assembly with a first annular slot and an opposed, coaxial second annular slot, each establishing a permanent magnetic field therein from a single magnet. Independently driven first and second voice coils are positioned within the respective one of the first and second annular slots, each being connected to a transducer element.
US08693722B2 Magnetic sound box device
A magnetic sound box device comprising a sound box and an antimagnetic plate is disclosed, wherein the sound box has at least one speaker and the sound box is for receiving sound source signals from an electronic device and transmitting the sound source signals to the speaker to play the sound source signals, and the lateral side of the sound box is disposed with a coupling portion; a plurality of magnets is disposed on the coupling portion so that the sound box can be magnetically attracted to any objects capable of being attracted by the magnets; the antimagnetic plate is disposed on the sound box for covering the coupling portion for blocking the magnetism of the magnets on the coupling portion, thereby preventing other storage devices with magnetic materials from being affected and damaged by the magnetism of the magnets when the magnetic sound box device is carried.
US08693720B2 Wireless earplug with improved sensitivity and form factor
An improved wireless communications earplug for use with a magnetic field transmitter. The wireless earplug has a receiver made of a coil of wire on a magnetic bobbin, mounted in close proximity or in contact with a magnetic case of a speaker. The magnetic case of the speaker serves to increase the magnetic flux through the receiver and improves the efficiency of the earplug. The speaker is acoustically coupled to an eartip, and the earplug may be molded into a custom earplug body.
US08693718B2 Receiver tube, receiver and hearing aid instrument with a receiver tube
A receiver tube for connecting a receiver to a hearing aid instrument and a hearing aid instrument with a receiver tube, include a connection which ensures good acoustic stability and low feedback tendencies, can be produced in an uncomplicated manner and has high impact and shock strength. The receiver tube includes a receiver connector constructed as a cup at least partly holding a receiver when connected together. The receiver connector includes a form-locking mechanism for a receiver and a flexible element for locking the receiver. The form-locking connection simplifies installation of the receiver during production or replacement by requiring neither application of a force, as when pretensioning or expanding force-locking connections, nor establishment of an adhesive connection. The locking mechanism can be opened/closed by the flexible element. The cup-shape of the receiver connector contributes to increased rigidity and reliability of the form-locking connection to the receiver and an acoustic shield.
US08693717B2 Method for compensating for an interference sound in a hearing apparatus, hearing apparatus, and method for adjusting a hearing apparatus
A novel system prevents surrounding sound to enter through a hearing apparatus, for instance through a ventilation opening, and reach an eardrum of the wearer in the form of interference sound. Contrary to auditory accessories designed especially to protect against noise, it is not possible for many hearing apparatus to compensate for such an interference sound by means of active noise cancellation. The hearing apparatuses do not have the special components needed. No compensation sound signal can therefore form with a correct phase. In accordance with the invention, a compensation sound is only generated for a relatively narrow spectral band. This spectral band is determined as a function of a hearing ability of the wearer of the hearing apparatus and/or as a function of a spectral distribution of the energy of the interference sound or a sound producing the interference sound. The improvement is particularly suited to compensating for an interference sound in a hearing device.
US08693716B1 Hearing device with analog filtering and associated method
A hearing device includes: a microphone for converting audio into an audio signal; a preprocessing unit for analog processing of the audio signal and having an input and an output, wherein the input is connected to an output of the microphone; an A/D converter for converting the processed analog audio signal into a digital audio signal, the A/D converter having an input and an output, wherein the input of the A/D converter is connected to the output of the preprocessing unit; and a processing unit for digital processing of an output from the A/D converter, wherein the processing unit is connected to the preprocessing unit, and is configured to apply a first transfer function to the audio signal in a first mode of operation, or a second transfer function with a cutoff frequency to the audio signal in a second mode of operation, depending on a control signal.
US08693715B2 Hearing assistance system and method
A system for providing hearing assistance to at least one user, having: at least one audio signal source (16, 20) for providing audio signals; a transmission unit (10) for wireless transmission of audio signals; at least one receiver unit (12, 14) for wireless reception of audio signals from the transmission unit; a device (42, 82) for stimulating the hearing of the user according to audio signals supplied from the at least one receiver unit. The transmission unit has both an analog transmitter (26) for applying an analog modulation scheme and a digital transmitter (28) for applying a digital modulation scheme in order to transmit the audio signals from the audio signal source (16, 20) simultaneously via an analog audio link (34) and a digital audio link (40).
US08693713B2 Virtual audio environment for multidimensional conferencing
The disclosed architecture employs signal processing techniques to provide audio perception only, or audio perception that matches the visual perception. This also provides spatial audio reproduction for multiparty teleconferencing such that the teleconferencing participants perceive themselves as if they were sitting in the same room. The solution is based on the premise that people perceive sounds as a reconstructed wavefront, and hence, the wavefronts are used to provide the spatial perceptual cues. The differences between the spatial perceptual cues derived from the reconstructed wavefront of sound waves and the ideal wavefront of sound waves form an objective metric for spatial perceptual quality, and provide the means of evaluating the overall system performance. Additionally, compensation filters are employed to improve the spatial perceptual quality of stereophonic systems by optimizing the objective metrics.
US08693711B2 Capacitive transducer and fabrication method
A capacitive transducer and fabrication method are disclosed. The capacitive transducer includes a substrate, a first electrode mounted on the substrate, a cap having a through-hole and a cavity beside the through-hole, a second electrode mounted on the cap across the through-hole. The second electrode is deformable in response to pressure fluctuations applied thereto via the through-hole and defines, together with the first electrode, as a capacitor. The capacitor includes a capacitance variable with the pressure fluctuations and the cavity defines a back chamber for the deformable second electrode.
US08693708B2 System for operating a device for producing an audible alarm
A backup alarm for producing an audible warning signal which warbles or beeps, at selected audible output power (Db) levels includes a computer which drives a speaker by switching drive voltage to the speaker with above audible, high frequency pulses in packets repetitive at audible frequency. The high frequency pulses are pulse width modulated at different ratios selected from tables in memory of the computer in accordance with the voltage from a battery power source which provides the drive voltage so that the audible output power remains constant at the selected level over a wide range of power source voltage. By providing for warning/alarm signal generation by means of an operating system which provides both high, above audible frequency and audible frequency switching, power conservation and warning signal output power control are accomplished without interference.
US08693707B2 Signal processing circuit
A signal processing circuit includes: an AD converter configured to quantize an input signal, whose amplitude changes in accordance with temperature, within a set voltage range and convert the quantized input signal into a digital signal; and a setting circuit configured to set the voltage range so as to be wider when the input signal is greater in amplitude in accordance with the temperature and so as to be narrower when the input signal is smaller in amplitude in accordance with the temperature.
US08693701B2 Audio device
Existing ANC headsets have active noise reduction circuitry and a power supply in the headset. Alternate ANC headsets rely on ANC circuitry in the player and have non-standard connectors meaning that they cannot be used with any other players. An audio headset (90) having an encoder (54) and active noise cancellation audio processing device (80) having a decoder (32) are described. The encoder (54) enables the audio headset to be used in enhanced (ANC) mode when connected to a compatible audio processing device and in normal mode when connected to a non-compatible audio processing device since a standard audio jack plug can be used. Similarly the decoder (62) in the active noise cancellation audio processing device (80) enables the active noise cancellation audio processing device to be used in enhanced mode when connected to a compatible audio headset and in normal mode connected to a non-compatible audio headset since a standard audio socket can be used.
US08693695B2 Systems and methods to securely generate shared keys
A method for secure bidirectional communication between two systems is described. A first key pair and a second key pair are generated, the latter including a second public key that is generated based upon a shared secret. First and second public keys are sent to a second system, and third and fourth public keys are received from the second system. The fourth public key is generated based upon the shared secret. A master key for encrypting messages is calculated based upon a first private key, a second private key, the third public key and the fourth public key. For re-keying, a new second key pair having a new second public key and a new second private key is generated, and a new fourth public key is received. A new master key is calculated using elliptic curve calculations using the new second private key and the new fourth public key.
US08693694B2 Information recording device
A data storage unit may store an encrypted medium device key Enc (Kcu, Kmd_i), and a medium device key certificate (Certmedia). A controller further includes: an information recording unit configured to store a controller key (Kc) and first controller identification information (IDcu). A key generation unit executes a one-way function calculation based on the controller key and the first controller identification information to generate a controller unique key (Kcu). An identification information generating unit executes a one-way function calculation based on the controller key and the first controller identification information to generate second controller identification information (IDcntr). A key encryption unit encrypts the medium device key (Kmd_i) by the controller unique key (Kcu) to generate encrypted medium device key Enc (Kcu, Kmd_i). A key exchange unit executes an authentication key exchange process with a host device using the medium device key (Kmd_i) and the medium device key certificate (Certmedia).
US08693690B2 Organizing an extensible table for storing cryptographic objects
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and apparatus, including a client and security token, for managing cryptographic objects, such as public key cryptography standard (PKCS)#11 objects, in a computer system. A storage table for the cryptographic objects is established including rows for the cryptographic objects and columns corresponding to available attributes capable of being associated with the cryptographic objects. Actual attributes of the cryptographic objects are stored in ones of the plurality of columns corresponding to respective ones of the available attributes. The storage table is extensible such that additional columns are added corresponding to new attributes capable of being associated with the cryptographic objects.
US08693689B2 Location brokering for providing security, privacy and services
Location brokering technique embodiments are presented that employ sensor data captured by a user's mobile device to determine the device's location, encrypt the location data and store it in a database. The location data is encrypted in such a way that it is possible to determine when a user's mobile device is currently in the same vicinity as another user's mobile device who is a member of the same group. However, the actual location and relative mobility or immobility of the users cannot be ascertained except by the users themselves via a decryption procedure or by trusted components. Services are provided can read the stored encrypted location data, processes it to determine if group members are in the same vicinity, and either respond to user queries about the location of other members of a group the user belongs to, or push this information to appropriate users.
US08693687B2 Method and apparatus of processing three-dimensional video content
The present invention introduces methods and apparatus of encrypting/decrypting three-dimensional (3D) video content. The inventive methods and apparatus can achieve a flexible payment/authorization mechanism for the 3D video content. A user can choose to view only 2D images corresponding to the video content, or pay an authorization fee that allows the user to view the entire 3D video content.
US08693683B2 Cryptographically secure authentication device, system and method
An electronic device generates identifying values which are used in authenticating the electronic device. The device comprises an interface, a private key generator for generating a private key, a non-volatile memory for storing at least the private key, an index source, a hash engine, and a logical interconnection between the private key generator, the non-volatile memory, the index source, the hash engine and the interface. The hash engine generates identifying values provided to the interface via the logical interconnection. The identifying values are provided to a verifying device for use in authenticating the electronic device. Alternatively or in addition, devices may be paired to share a root key to cryptographically communicate between each other and/or to authenticate each other.
US08693682B2 Data encryption
A system for encryption, and subsequent decryption, of encoded data allows for transcoding of the encrypted data. The data is encoded in such a way that different packets have different importance levels, so that some or all of the packets at the lower importance levels can be discarded or truncated in order to reduce the data rate. This is achieved by introducing dependencies into the encoding process. The packets at the highest importance level are encoded with reference only to other packets at the highest importance level, while the encoding of packets at lower importance levels also depend on the encoding of the packets at the highest importance level. The encoded data is then encrypted in such a way that the encryption process has dependencies that correspond to the dependencies in the encoding process. Packets at the highest importance level are encrypted with reference to other encrypted packets at the highest importance level, while the encryption of packets at lower importance levels also uses the results of encrypting the packets at the highest importance level.
US08693675B2 System and method of providing voice communication
A method includes receiving, at a device, a request to initiate a call with respect to a contact and a communication device associated with a caller. In a particular embodiment, the method may further include initiating presentation, at a display device, of a selectable call placement indicator to initiate the request. In another particular embodiment, the method may further include sending display data to the display device, where the display data indicates that the call has been placed to the contact.
US08693674B1 Providing agent availability for an outdial application
A system, method, and computer readable medium for utilizing agent availability by an outdial application are provided. A routine may be periodically run by an outdial server that evaluates agent availability in a call center backend. If any agents are available, the routine may schedule a pre-defined number of calls per available agent. A number of phone numbers corresponding to the number of scheduled calls may then be fetched by the routine from a phone number database. Once calls are initiated by the outdial server, the routine again checks if any agents are available. In the event that an agent is available, a scheduled phone number is retrieved, and a call is placed thereto and connected with an available agent. After a successful call connection is made, the outdial application may again check the agent availability. If no agent is available, the outdial application may reschedule itself.
US08693671B2 Network predictive customer service queue management
A communications portal for interfacing with a carrier network, a contact center, and a user is disclosed. Telecommunications links are connected to the communications portal to receive inbound calls and place outbound calls. A gateway signaling proxy containing an application server and a reverse automation subsystem is connected to the telecommunications links to recognize and store user selections, detect answer supervision, and execute scripts as configured in the user interface.
US08693667B2 Systems and methods for processing telephone calls
A system includes a switching device. The switching device is configured to process a call request as a 12-digit telephone number in a first situation. The 12-digit telephone number includes an area code and 9 digits after the area code. The switching device is further configured to process the call request as a telephone number including less than 12 digits in a second situation.
US08693663B2 System and method for implementing do-not-disturb during playback of media content
A system and method for implementing do-not-disturb during media content. Do-not-disturb is implemented during playback of the media content in response to a selection of media content. An incoming communication is received. The incoming communications is sent directly to voice mail during the playback.
US08693662B2 Method and apparatus for providing ringback tones
A method of providing a ringback tone to a calling party. The method includes receiving a call directed to a subscriber from the calling party. At least one of an adaptive ringback tone and an actionable ringback tone is provided to the calling party. The adaptive ringback tone is based on state data.
US08693658B2 Method and apparatus for network maintenance and supervision of a controlled display portion
A method for controlled display on a telephone, the method constituted of: downloading a display portion from a first network to the telephone; detecting a call instance; displaying on the telephone the downloaded display portion responsive to the detected call instance; in the event the data communication module is in communication with the first network, requesting, via the data communication module, a new display portion from the first network; and in the event the data communication module is not in communication with the first network, creating a time stamp and storing the time stamp on a memory of the telephone.
US08693657B2 Method, system and apparatus for implementing multimedia ring back tone service
A method, system and apparatus for implementing a Multimedia Ring Back Tone (MRBT) service are provided. The method includes: receiving a call request originated by a calling terminal; parsing a tone playing policy specifying whether to play a caller tone or a callee tone or whether to filter a tone; performing caller tone media negotiation or callee tone media negotiation, or performing no tone negotiation according to the parsing result; and playing the caller tone or the callee tone to the caller, or playing no tone. With the technical solution of the present invention, the caller tone service can be implemented in the IMS domain. Whether a caller tone or a callee tone is played to the caller is determined according to a preset policy. Furthermore, the tone filtering service is also implemented. This gives a user freedom in experiencing the MRBT service.
US08693656B2 Method, system and apparatus for implementing multimedia ring back tone service
A method, system and apparatus for implementing a Multimedia Ring Back Tone (MRBT) service are provided. The method includes: receiving a call request originated by a calling terminal; parsing a tone playing policy specifying whether to play a caller tone or a callee tone or whether to filter a tone; performing caller tone media negotiation or callee tone media negotiation, or performing no tone negotiation according to the parsing result; and playing the caller tone or the callee tone to the caller, or playing no tone. With the technical solution of the present invention, the caller tone service can be implemented in the IMS domain. Whether a caller tone or a callee tone is played to the caller is determined according to a preset policy. Furthermore, the tone filtering service is also implemented. This gives a user freedom in experiencing the MRBT service.
US08693655B1 System and method for provisioning temporary telephone numbers
Systems, methods, and computer program products for provisioning a temporary disposable number are described. A user can be provided with a pool of available temporary disposable numbers that have a limited shelf life. The user can select one of the available temporary disposable numbers while submitting a permanent phone number associated with a communications device (e.g., mobile phone, home phone, business phone, etc.). Prior to activating the selected temporary disposable number, the temporary disposable number is linked to the permanent phone number. After activation, when an incoming call to the temporary disposable number is received, the permanent phone number is identified to be associated with the temporary disposable number being called. The incoming call is then forwarded to the communications device on which the permanent phone number is established.
US08693648B1 Providing backstage support for online video communication broadcasts
The present disclosure comprises systems and methods for broadcasting video communications including video conferences or hosted programs by providing a capability for easily moving participants in and out of the video communications, as necessary. Video communications may be “aired” or broadcast to viewers. The present systems and methods designate at least two stages in the video communication broadcasts, including a “front” stage and a “back” stage. Users who are immediate (e.g., current) participants in the video communication broadcast are provided access to the “front” stage of the video communication broadcast. Those users who are initially “guests” (e.g., will be, but are not yet, immediate or current participants in the video communication broadcast) are provided access first to a back “stage” of the video communication broadcast. A filter imposes restrictions on the back stage to prevent any broadcast of activities that may occur in the back stage to viewers.
US08693637B2 Apparatus and method for generating X-ray using electron cyclotron resonance ion source
An apparatus for generating X-ray may include: a plasma chamber; a magnet unit for applying a magnetic field to the plasma chamber, the magnet unit configured to allow the control of the magnitude of the minimum magnetic field in the plasma chamber without change in structure; a microwave generator for applying microwaves to the plasma chamber; a reaction gas injected into the plasma chamber for generating X-ray through electron cyclotron resonance by the magnetic field and the microwaves; a variable guide for focusing the generated X-ray; and a variable extractor for outputting the focused X-ray from the plasma chamber.
US08693636B2 Method and X-ray device to determine the value of the tube voltage
In a method and x-ray device to determine the value of an x-ray tube voltage to generate at least one image of defined tissue to be examined, at least one provided parameter is used that establishes or describes the desired image quality; based on the dependency of the contrast of the defined tissue to be examined on the spectrum of the x-ray radiation or on the value of the tube voltage of the x-ray tube. The tube voltage is determined also based on a contrast-to-noise ratio that is constantly maintained under consideration of the aforementioned parameter such that the dose of x-ray radiation applied to the patient is optimally low upon setting the value of the tube voltage at the x-ray tube and the acquisition of at least one x-ray projection of the defined tissue.
US08693633B2 Systems, devices, and methods including implants for managing cumulative x-ray radiation dosage
Systems, devices, and methods are described including implantable radiation sensing devices having exposure determination devices that determines cumulative exposure information based on the at least one in vivo measurand.
US08693632B2 Adaptive X-ray control
Controlling the timing of acquiring x-ray images based on target movement.
US08693628B2 X-ray system
To reduce X-ray exposure while improving image quality, an area of interest is selected in the image. The image of the selected area is updated frequently, comparable to a rate of updates used today for the whole image. The rest of the image is updated at a significantly lower rate. Since the area of interest normally is a small part of the overall area, the total exposure is reduced significantly. A fast X-ray shutter, placed near the X-ray source, blocks the radiation from areas outside the area of interest. The shutter automatically retracts when the complete image is updated. The area of interest can be selected by the user or automatically selected based on activity in the image. Since most of the exposures are taken at a reduced collimation angle, limited by the area of interest, the area of interest is imaged at reduced scatter and better quality.
US08693627B2 Intensifying screen for X-ray detector, X-ray detector, and X-ray inspection apparatus
In an embodiment, an X-ray detector has a transmissive fluorescence generating portion, and a reflective fluorescence generating portion. The transmissive and reflective fluorescence generating portions have at least one of an intensifying screen having a phosphor layer that contains praseodymium-activated gadolinium oxysulfide phosphor particles in which a ratio of particles having a particle diameter falling in ±30% of a center particle diameter is 45% by volume or more and their filling rate is 60% by volume or more, and an intensifying screen having a phosphor layer that contains europium-activated barium fluorochloride phosphor particles in which a ratio of particles having a particle diameter falling in ±30% of a center particle diameter is 45% by volume or more and their filling rate is 45% by volume or more.
US08693625B2 Dynamic shaping time modification in X-ray detectors
Methods and apparatus for adapting the shaping time and/or other pulse processing parameters of an x-ray detector (114) in accordance with the elemental composition of a sample and/or energy resolving requirements. X-rays (104) are directed from a source (102) onto a sample (110) and the radiation (108) responsively emitted from the sample (e.g., fluoresced radiation characteristic of the sample's elemental composition) and detected by an x-ray detector (114) that generates pulses representative of the energy and intensity of the incident radiation. Based upon initial analysis of elemental composition, the shaping time and/or other pulse processing parameter (s) are set to optimize count rate subject to constraints of energy resolution in a spectral region of interest.
US08693621B2 Source and/or detector positioning system
A medical imaging system includes a generally stationary gantry (102) and a rotating gantry (106), rotatably supported by the generally stationary gantry (102), that rotates about a longitudinal axis around an examination region. The medical imaging system further includes a radiation source (112) that emits a radiation beam that traverses the examination region. The radiation source (112) is moveably affixed to the rotating gantry (106) so as to translate in a direction of the longitudinal axis with respect to the rotating gantry (106) while scanning a subject in the examination region. The medical imaging system further includes a detector array (120) that detects the radiation beam that traverses the examination region and generates a signal indicative thereof. The detector array (120) is moveably affixed to the rotating gantry (106) so as to move in coordination with the radiation source (112) while scanning the subject in the examination region.
US08693618B2 Scanner device and method for computed tomography imaging
A scanner device for computed tomography imaging of an object, includes a measurement device including a source device arranged for irradiating the object with at least one beam and a detector device arranged for detecting radiation transmitted through the object, wherein the source device has a fixed position relative the detector device, and a carrier device accommodating the object in a position between the source device and the detector device, wherein the measurement device and the carrier device are capable of a scanning movement relative to each other, and the measurement device and the carrier device have a fixed spatial orientation during the scanning movement. Furthermore, a scanning method for computed tomography imaging of an object is described.
US08693617B2 Pulse signal output circuit and shift register
An object is to provide a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit. A pulse signal output circuit according to one embodiment of the disclosed invention includes first to tenth transistors. The ratio W/L of the channel width W to the channel length L of the first transistor and W/L of the third transistor are each larger than W/L of the sixth transistor. W/L of the fifth transistor is larger than W/L of the sixth transistor. W/L of the fifth transistor is equal to W/L of the seventh transistor. W/L of the third transistor is larger than W/L of the fourth transistor. With such a structure, a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit can be provided.
US08693610B2 System and method for implementing unified computer-based management of fire safety-related risk and compensatory measures management in nuclear power plants
A computer-implemented system and method for managing operations in a nuclear power plant generates an electronic request for a permit to perform work in the plant, performs a risk assessment using a rules engine to determine a level of fire risk posed by the work, automatically determines one or more compensatory measures to provide protection against the level of fire risk posed by work, generates a risk score based the probabilistic assessment, and generates electronic authorization for the permit based on the risk score.
US08693608B2 Frequency synchronization using clock recovery loop with adaptive packet filtering
An endpoint or other communication device of a communication system includes a clock recovery loop having a phase error estimator. The communication device is operative as a slave device relative to another communication device that is operative as a master device. The clock recovery loop is configured to control a slave clock of the slave device responsive to a phase error estimate generated by the phase error estimator so as to synchronize the slave clock with a master clock of the master device. The phase error estimator comprises a plurality of filters each configured to generate a different estimate of master clock phase using at least a subset of a plurality of packets received from the master device, and control logic for adaptively selecting at least a particular one of the plurality of filters for use in generating the phase error estimate to be processed in the clock recovery loop.
US08693603B2 Semiconductor devices, methods of operating semiconductor devices, and systems having the same
A semiconductor device includes a selection circuit and a phase detector. The selection circuit, in response to a first selection signal output from a controller, outputs as a timing signal a first clock signal output from the controller or an output signal of a PLL using the first clock signal as a first input. The phase detector generates a voltage signal indicating a phase difference between a second clock signal output from the controller and the timing signal output from the selection circuit. The semiconductor device further includes a data port, a memory core storing data, and a serializer, in response to the timing signal output from the selection circuit, serializing data output from the memory core and outputting serialized data to the controller via the data port. The controller generates the first selection signal based on at least one of the voltage signal and the serialized data.
US08693601B2 Self-correcting multirate filter
A system includes a polyphase multirate filter and a controller which, responsive to detecting a data stream: measures a current phase relationship between a current resampling filter input clock signal and a current multirate output clock signal; identifies, based on a mapping of the measured phase relationship within a pre-generated quantized mapping table, an initial polyphase filter coefficient index corresponding to the measured phase relationship; selects, based on the initial polyphase filter coefficient index identified, a corresponding polyphase filter component from within the multirate filter; configures the multirate filter to pass data from the data stream through the corresponding polyphase filter component to generate an initial output data sample; updates the initial polyphase filter coefficient index to a calculated next polyphase filter coefficient index value, in response to a request for generation of a next output data sample; and self-corrects the multirate filter responsive to a pre-identified error condition.
US08693600B2 Phase excursion/carrier wave frequency excursion compensation device and method
A phase excursion/carrier wave frequency excursion compensation device has a signal dividing unit, a preprocessing compensation circuit, post-processing compensation circuits, a signal combination unit, a correction amount calculation unit, and a signal correction unit. The preprocessing compensation circuit and the post-processing compensation circuits calculate a phase compensation amount with respect to the input signal, and output the phase compensation amount, and a compensation circuit output signal such that the input signal can be compensated accordingly. The signal combination unit acquires compensation circuit output signals from the post-processing compensation circuits and, based on order of input to the signal dividing unit, outputs rearranged signals. The correction amount calculation unit calculates a correction amount based on the phase compensation amount acquired from the preprocessing compensation circuit and the post-processing compensation circuits, and a signal correction unit corrects the phase of the rearranged signals using the correction amount.