| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US07672981B1 |
Object classification and indexing of very large name spaces using grid technology
For migration or de-duplication of a file system having a large number of files, a utility program traverses the file system to create a log of file-specific information about the file system. For identification of duplicates, the utility program produces a signature for each file. Respective instances of the utility program are started on multiple nodes upon which the file system is mounted. A fully qualified pathname is compiled during transfer of the log to a database. Multiple databases can be produced for the file system such that each database contains the file-specific information for a specified range of inode numbers. The database also maintains classification state for each file. For example, for a migration or replication process, the classification state identifies whether or not the file has been untouched, copied, linked, secondary-ized, source deleted, or modified. |
| US07672974B2 |
System and method to facilitate sharing of information
A method and system to facilitate sharing of information amongst users comprises assessing a degree of commonality between each of the users. Once a degree of commonality between the users is assessed, information is shared amongst the users having an assessed degree of commonality greater than a predetermined degree of commonality. In this way, the information being shared is most likely to be useful because it is being shared by users having common traits and characteristics. The degree of commonality can be assessed by comparing areas of interest of the users. The information on the areas of interest may comprise search criteria independently developed by each user to search for information or utilize resources in a network. The degree of commonality may also be assessed by recording each occurrence when a user accepted or did not accept information obtained from each other user. |
| US07672969B1 |
Context based configuration management system
A computer-based system for configuring and displaying information on changes in, and present status of, a collection of events associated with a project. Classes of icons for decision events, configurations and feedback mechanisms, and time lines (sequential and/or simultaneous) for related events are displayed. Metadata for each icon in each class is displayed by choosing and activating the corresponding icon. Access control (viewing, reading, writing, editing, deleting, etc.) is optionally imposed for metadata and other displayed information. |
| US07672966B2 |
Adding extrinsic data columns to an existing database schema using a temporary column pool
A facility for storing extrinsic data is described. The facility receives data associated with a distinguished extrinsic data item of a specified type. The facility determines whether a flexible column directory table contains an entry mapping the distinguished extrinsic data item to a flexible column pool column. If the flexible column directory table does not contain an entry mapping the distinguished extrinsic data item to a flexible column pool column, the facility creates an entry in the flexible column directory table that maps the distinguished extrinsic data item to an available flexible column pool column of the specified type. The facility then copies the received data to the flexible column pool column mapped from the distinguished extrinsic data item. |
| US07672962B2 |
Methods and systems for managing data
Systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata or indexes of content of files. In one exemplary method, notifications to update a metadata database or an index database are combined into a combined notification. According to other aspects, an order among logical locations on a storage device is determined in order to specify a sequence for scanning for files to be indexed. According to another aspect, a method includes determining whether to index a file based on a path name of the file relative to a plurality of predetermined path names. |
| US07672957B2 |
User interface configured to display mechanical fabric and semantic model of a legacy computer application generated, graphical view navigating links between mechanical nodes and semantic nodes based on relevant business rules
According to one aspect of the invention, a software transformation system is provided that may include a business asset extraction sub-system. The business asset extraction sub-system is typically configured to analyze a legacy computer application and create a mechanical fabric representing computer-implemented operations of the legacy computer application, and to create a semantic model representing operator-perceived meanings attached to interactions with the legacy application. The business asset extraction sub-system is further typically configured to create links between related portions of the mechanical fabric and the semantic model. The mechanical fabric comprises a network of nodes and associations between nodes, the nodes and associations representing one or more system interface objects, computer programs, and data access points, and a physical data model configured to store data records utilized by the legacy computer application. |
| US07672956B2 |
Method and system for providing a search index for an electronic messaging system based on message threads
When a message having at least one attachment is obtained for indexing, it is indexed as N+1 separate documents, where N is the number of attached documents. If the message is part of a message thread, then information regarding the last message in the thread is retrieved, and search index attachment meta data for the last message is extracted. A unique identifier is computed for the newly obtained attachments, and used to search for matches in the attachments for the last message in the thread. If there is a match, then the newly obtained attachment is not indexed, but the unique identifier of the previously indexed matching attachment is added to a body index document for the new message. A unique identifier associated with the new message is also added to a list of parent identifiers associated with the attachment. |
| US07672948B2 |
Centralized data transformation
A method of facilitating transformation of survey data from being in at least one foreign format used by a survey-tool to being in a desired format may include: receiving instances of foreign data from survey-tools, the foreign data being in foreign format used by the survey-tools, respectively; and appending, to the instances of foreign data, service-keys to identify the service tools which gathered the foreign data, respectively, to produce a data block that includes key-and-foreign-data pairs. Another such method may include: receiving such a data block; culling from the block key-and-foreign-data pairs; and operating upon the pairs to transform respective chunks of foreign data from being in respective foreign formats into being in corresponding desired formats according to corresponding service-keys, respectively. |
| US07672947B2 |
Asset attachment device
The present invention performs asset management by giving the user asset information on a regular basis. The customer communicates with a central server via means such has telephone and the world wide web. The central server houses the application specific software to enable the user to manage assets. The central server communicates with the asset attachment device via means such as telephone and the world wide web. When a user accesses the system, the system sends back asset information such as the asset ID, location and status. |
| US07672940B2 |
Processing an electronic document for information extraction
The present invention relates generally to automatically processing electronic documents. In one aspect, features and/or properties of words are identified from a set of training documents to aid in extracting information from documents to be processed. The features and/or properties relate to text of the words, position of the words and the relationship to other words. A classifier is developed to express these features and/or properties. During information extraction, documents are processed and analyzed based on the classifier and information is extracted based on correspondence of the documents and the features/properties expressed by the classifier. |
| US07672936B2 |
Security model using security domains in a security model applied to abstract database
The present invention generally is directed to a method, system and article of manufacture for controlling the access to data granted to a requesting entity based upon data accessed by the entity in the past. Additionally, embodiments of the present invention allow for access control independent from the particular manner in which the data is physically represented. Generally, abstraction layers are provided to represent various data sources available for use by an application and to compose queries used by the application to access and/or update information contained in these data sources. A runtime component is responsible for resolving an abstract query into concrete data access requests to one or more data repositories using information contained in a data repository abstraction component (one of the abstraction layers). Typically, data is organized into a series of domains. Within each domain, data is associated with an account. User activity is monitored, and when data associated with one account is accessed, a user may subsequently be prohibited from accessing data from a related account within the same domain. |
| US07672934B1 |
Method for restoring documents from a database file
Various embodiments of a method and system for accessing an instance of a database file previously created by a secured RDBMS are disclosed. The secured RDBMS is not used to reconstruct tables and records from an unmounted backed up copy of a database file. During backup, a schema file including table and index information is stored along with the database file. During a subsequent restore operation, the schema file may be read for efficiently reconstructing objects from the database file, without having to reload or reinstall the secured RDBMS. For restoring or comparing objects from the backed up database file, a stored procedure in the secured RDBMS may be called. |
| US07672932B2 |
Speculative search result based on a not-yet-submitted search query
Providing a speculative search result for a search query prior to completion of the search query. In response to receiving a search query from a client node, a speculative search result is provided to the client node for the search query prior to receiving an indication from the client node that said search query is completely formed. The speculative search result may be displayed on the same web page on the client node as the search query, while the search query is being entered by the user. As the user further enters the search query, a new speculative search result may be provided to the user. |
| US07672930B2 |
System and methods for facilitating a linear grid database with data organization by dimension
A system and methods for organizing and querying data within a linear grid management system. Data having multiple dimensions is associated with physical locations, where a first dimension is associated with a node and a second dimension is associated with a data storage identifier of a memory storage device. The data may have a third dimension which provides a field for ordering data within the memory storage device. Metadata may be used to map a logical table to data stored in the memory storage device. The data query may be divided into multiple subqueries, wherein each subquery is related directly to one node associated with a data storage identifier related to a memory storage device. A preSQL and postSQL process may be generated to access an external database. A dispatcher may manage data subrequests and a node may generate a unique and efficient parsing process from the received data subrequest. |
| US07672926B2 |
Method and system for updating value correlation optimizations
A method, computer program, and database system are disclosed for executing database queries. The database includes a first table (T1) having a primary key (PK) column and a first correlated value column (CV1) and a second table (T2) having a foreign key (FK) column related to the primary key column of the first table and a second correlated value column (CV2). One implementation of the method includes preparing a database query for execution based at least in part on application of a derived constraint rule (DCR) having the form, (PK=FK)→CV2+C1≦CV1≦CV2+C2, where C1 and C2 are constants and “→” means “implies,” to produce an execution plan. A frequency of errors due to changes in DCRs is taken into account when preparing the execution plan. The plan is then executed. |
| US07672924B1 |
Systems and methods for generating information from a data collection to support decision-making
A collection of data is processed and information arising from the processing can be distributed in a variety of ways to support a decision-making process. A query-analyze-distribute approach can be used, and queries, analysis directives, and distribution directives can be associated into a sequence and shared. Access to interim processing is provided, allowing recipients of information to more easily understand and refine the processing. Unbound queries, unbound analysis directives, and unbound distribution directives can be used and shared so that the queries, analysis directives, and distribution directives can be tailored to a particular situation via binding. The query, analysis, and distribution processing can be loosely-coupled to allow easy interchange and combination of sequence elements. A sequence can be scheduled for periodic execution, and distribution of data can be limited to instances when data falls outside of certain expected values. A decision-making process can be automated by creating an executable workflow. The environment in which the workflow is executed can support a rich set of features, including gating, branching, drill down, and execution tracking. A decision-making process based on a sequence can be refined by employing executable metasequences. |
| US07672922B2 |
Pointer-oriented object acquisition method for abstract treatment of information of AI of AI of a cyborg or an android based on a natural language
The pointer-oriented object acquisition method for abstract treatment of information of the computer system of AI of a cyborg or an android based on a natural language.The pointer-oriented object acquisition method for abstract treatment of information of the computer system of AI of a cyborg or an android based on a natural language, in which three pointers are created in the computer main memory (in RAM) of the computer system of AI of a cyborg or an android in the natural language, in which the computer system is working at this timeframe, at runtime. In this way, the subjective object, the associative object and the abstract object of the computer system of AI of a cyborg or an android are instantiated and are initialized. With these objects, which are implemented in a natural language, one can access to, i.e. manipulate with the element variables, i.e. with the data elements, of a class of the classification tree of the computer system of AI of the cyborg or the android. |
| US07672921B1 |
Systems and methods for automatically determining and/or inferring component end of life (EOL)
The invention relates to a system and methodology for facilitating managing product life cycle. A component that determines relevance of components to a product; an analyzing component that determines, infers or predicts obsolescence, level of risk to EOL of a subset of the components. A substitution component that identifies replacement components and suppliers for the subset of components. A cost analysis component that determines material/components cost savings, and redesign cost implementation and/or redesign cost avoidance. A viability component that measures reliability of a component. A transition component that identifies components that require updating or replacement. A profitability component that determines the expected revenue derived from a component over its projected remaining life. |
| US07672916B2 |
Methods, systems, and media for music classification
Methods, systems, and media are provided for classifying digital music. In some embodiments, methods of classifying a song are provided that include: receiving a selection of at least one seed song; receiving a label selection for at least one unlabeled song; training a support vector machine based on the at least one seed song and the label selection; and classifying a song using the support vector machine. In some embodiments, systems for classifying a song are provided that include: memory for storing at least one seed song, at least one unlabeled song, and a song; and a processor that: receives a selection of the at least one seed song; receives a label selection for the at least one unlabeled song; trains a support vector machine based on the at least one seed song and the label selection; and classifies the song using the support vector machine. |
| US07672910B1 |
System and method for performing non-linear constrained optimization with a genetic algorithm
An augmented Lagrangian genetic algorithm that may be used to generate solutions for optimization problems subject to linear, bound, and non-linear constraints is discussed. The augmented Lagrangian genetic algorithm uses an adaptive mutation operator to separately handle the linear, and bound constraints, and uses an augmented Lagrangian framework to handle non-linear constraints. The non-linear constraints are handled by creating a sub-problem without the linear and bound constraints and solving the sub-problem using Lagrange parameter estimates and a penalty factor. The exclusion of the linear constraints and boundary constraints from the sub-problem allows the sub-problem to be resolved in a more effective manner than is possible using conventional techniques. |
| US07672906B2 |
Randomly generated color grid used to ensure multi-factor authentication
A method and system for ensuring the secure authentication of transactions over a communication network using a validation code 40, wherein the user submits information over a communication terminal and submitting validation code 40 for authentication allows the transaction to be completed, the system comprised of: a substantially transparent alphanumeric cipher card 10 associated with the user information, wherein cipher card 10 contains rows and columns of random alphanumeric characters; and an authentication module for providing validation code 40 to the user whereby a color grid 20 is generated to be displayed on a user terminal, wherein the cells of color grid 20 are randomly filled with one of a plurality of colors and the design of color grid 20 is adapted to cipher card 10 such that upon positioning alphanumeric cipher card 10 over color grid 20, the user can deduce a validation code 40. |
| US07672895B2 |
System and method for simulating an electronic trading environment
Market data is recorded from a real live exchange. The recording data can be played back in real time or delayed, in any manner, to simulate the recorded market. Moreover, one or more users can participate in the simulated market just as if they were participating in a real-live market. The system provides a realistic trading environment without the associated risks of trading in a live-market such as losing money and the cost of making trades. The system may be used for training purposes and for purposes of testing and analyzing various trading strategies. Software developers and testers may also utilize the realistic environment to develop trading products or applications. Additionally, the system provides a means for demonstrating trading application products. |
| US07672892B2 |
Real time network exchange with seller specified exchange parameters and interactive seller participation
A system and method for networked exchange are disclosed. A system for networked exchange comprises an internal proxy; an exchange processor in communication with the internal proxy; a database in communication with the internal proxy; an external proxy in communication with the internal proxy; and, a communications network connected to the external proxy. A method for networked exchange comprises 8 steps. Those steps are (1) specifying a mode of operations for an exchange; (2) identifying a commodity for the exchange; (3) listing information about the commodity; (4) accessing of the listing by a potential purchaser; (5) accessing the network-based exchange by the potential purchaser; (6) processing information generated by the potential purchaser, the information comprising a negotiation; (7) concluding the negotiation; and, (8) clearing the concluded negotiation. |
| US07672891B2 |
Software application portfolio management for a client
An information technology services providing company manages a portfolio of software applications for a client company. A plurality of the applications are preselected along with a recommendation for each. The recommendations have value drivers with parameters. Values for the parameters are received from the client as responses to questions or through collaboration with the client. A business value is then determined for the value drivers using the parameter values. Total cash flow, return on investment, net present value, internal rate of return, or other financial measures may be calculated. The client decides to proceed with the recommendations and the services providing company delivers services and software according to the recommendations. |
| US07672887B2 |
System and method for managing healthcare costs
Disclosed is a system and method for creating a financial index related to healthcare costs. A financial derivative instrument can be created from the index. Using the financial derivative instrument, an entity can hedge against unexpected fluctuations of healthcare costs. |
| US07672882B2 |
Apparatus, methods and computer programs for metering and accounting for services accessed over a network
Apparatus, methods and computer programs provided for metering and accounting in a commercial e-services infrastructure address the requirement for handling composite services in which higher-level services are built using simpler underlying services, each of which may be autonomously owned and operated. Metering records for each service underlying a composite service are correlated by a process associated with the composite service, and then sent to an accounting service where they can be aggregated. The correlation is performed in a distributed manner with correlated usage data provided on a per-request basis. Accounting services can take account of the usage and charges associated with the underlying services to provide accounting and billing on a per-request basis or per customer-provider pair for a billing period. |
| US07672881B2 |
Fee allocator system and method
A system is provided for automatically billing a designated account for fees associated with the costs of tickets and other similar services. Passenger Record Number data and similar data is provided through a Computerized Reservation System and an accounting system to a Fee Allocator program which automatically interprets the data, determines appropriate fees based on the data and a user profile, and bills the fees to an appropriate account based on the user profile. Billing data provided to the account also facilitates the process of reconciling the fees to the travel ticket costs. Enhanced descriptive billing statements can be created simplifying the process of reconciling fees to the travel ticket costs. |
| US07672878B2 |
Consumables supply system
In a consumables supply management system in which clinical test analysis devices (1) in medical institutions (A, B, . . . ) and a computer (2) of a consumables supplier (C) are connected via a communications line (10), operation status data including information on the status of consumption of the consumables in the clinical test analysis device (1) are transmitted to the computer (2) via the communications line (10). The computer (2) has previously stored data on the inventory of consumables in each medical institution, and determines the quantity of consumables consumed in each medical institution based on the operation status data that are received, updates the consumables inventory data, and if necessary, carries out the procedures for supplying an appropriate quantity of consumables. |
| US07672877B1 |
Product data classification
A method and apparatus for associating data with product abstractions is provided. Steps are provided for associating a particular product with a product category, based on a first data set, wherein the first data set includes data that corresponds to an offer to sell the particular product by a particular party and matching the first data set with a product abstraction associated with the product category to which the particular product corresponds. |
| US07672872B2 |
Point-of-purchase display with RFID inventory control
A point-of-purchase (“POP”) display employing RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) technology for inventory control is provided. The POP is preferably fabricated from paper, paperboard and/or corrugated paperboard material, and incorporates one or more shelves and/or cover layers. An RF antenna structure is applied to the surfaces of, or built into, the one or more shelves and/or cover layers. Suitable RF transmitter/receiver circuitry may also be built into the POP, or the POP may simply have suitable connections built in, to permit such transceiver apparatus to be plugged into the POP. The transceiver circuitry is connected in any suitable manner to an inventory control computer, such as the retail store's computer. Each article that is to be displayed in the POP is provided with an RFID tag. Removal of an article from the POP, results in a signal being transmitted to the inventory control computer, corresponding to the removal of the article from the POP, and corresponding adjustment of the inventory records in the inventory control computer. |
| US07672871B2 |
Self-checkout system with anti-theft deactivation device
A self-checkout system for processing an article with an security tag attached thereto includes a self-checkout station, a product code input device, a deactivation device and a prompting system to provide instructions to a user. The system can automatically prompt a user to pass an article within a deactivation region generated by the deactivation device to deactivate an anti-theft tag. |
| US07672869B2 |
Advertisement selection technique
A method for delivering advertising information (AI) from a server site (S) to a client (C). The including steps of 1) maintaining an advertising data base (ADB) comprising advertising records, each advertising record being associated with at least one item and/or category; 2) generating an item list (PL) containing at least one item to be acquired by the client (C); 3) retrieving, from the advertising data base (ADB), at least one advertising record which is associated with at least one item contained in the item list (PL) or a category of the item; and 4) using the retrieved advertising record for delivering advertising information (AI) from the server site (S) to the client (C). |
| US07672868B1 |
Creating an incentive to author useful item reviews
A facility for rewarding the provision of useful item reviews is described. The facility receives a plurality of item reviews, each from a source. The facility publishes each of the plurality of received item reviews, and assesses the usefulness of the published item reviews. Based upon this assessment of usefulness, the facility selects one or more of the published item reviews, and provides rewards to the sources of these selected item reviews. |
| US07672865B2 |
Method and apparatus for retail data mining using pair-wise co-occurrence consistency
The invention, referred to herein as PeaCoCk, uses a unique blend of technologies from statistics, information theory, and graph theory to quantify and discover patterns in relationships between entities, such as products and customers, as evidenced by purchase behavior. In contrast to traditional purchase-frequency based market basket analysis techniques, such as association rules which mostly generate obvious and spurious associations, PeaCoCk employs information-theoretic notions of consistency and similarity, which allows robust statistical analysis of the true, statistically significant, and logical associations between products. Therefore, PeaCoCk lends itself to reliable, robust predictive analytics based on purchase-behavior. |
| US07672861B2 |
Systems, program products, and methods of human resource planning and development
Systems, program products, and methods of human resources planning and development are provided. An embodiment of a system includes a server in communication with a communication network and having a human resource database associated therewith, a plurality of client computers, and a computer medium associated with the server and having program code responsive to preselected manning assumptions to process human resource information from the human resource database for predicting a future number of employees desired within the organization for a preselected period of time, program code responsive to preselected employment development assumptions to process the human resource information for assigning a plurality of employment development activities to participating employees in the organization, and program code responsive to information generated by the employment development plan to revise the human resources manning plan and responsive to revisions in the human resources manning plan to revise the employment development plan. |
| US07672859B1 |
Prescription order position tracking system and method
An economical prescription order tracking system automatically monitors and tracks prescription orders through a conventional pharmacy. The system includes a tracking tag having a unique identifier associated with it secured near the prescription order such that it travels with the order through various locations within the pharmacy. Tag reading devices are positioned at key locations throughout the pharmacy to detect the location of each tag, and its associated attached prescription order. The detected locations are compiled via a computer system and associated with the customer, such that at any given time the location of the prescription order within the pharmacy can be determined, thereby facilitating the efficient operation of the pharmacy. Preferably, filled prescription orders are placed in a large bin having multiple cubbies within it. Each cubby has a displayed number and a tag reading device received therein such that the location of the prescription order within the cubby is easily determined simply by placing the prescription order with tag into an available cubby. The time each prescription order remains at each location and worker identity information at each location can be recorded and compiled to facilitate workflow and worker efficiency monitoring of the pharmacy. |
| US07672858B2 |
Best possible payment expected for healthcare services
A system is disclosed that is useful by hospitals and other healthcare providers for automatically determining the best possible or maximum amount of payments a healthcare provider can lawfully expect to receive for healthcare resources which takes into account various discounts agreed upon by the healthcare provider with various private insurance companies as well as public (i.e., government) insurance providers, which administer managed healthcare plans including Medicare and Medicaid, all payments received against expected payments and a yield measurement approach for determining the providers performance at a given point in time and across various segments of its operations. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, contracts between a healthcare provider and all private insurance companies and public insurance providers may be modeled. Various data including healthcare resources provided to patients up to a given point in time, applicable insurance company, and healthcare resource code are entered into the system. The system is able to calculate the best possible revenue that the healthcare provider can lawfully expect to receive taking into account the various discounts negotiated with the various insurance companies. Indeed, once the data is loaded, the system can provide an accurate snapshot of a healthcare provider's best possible expected revenues at any given time based upon services rendered instead of waiting until the healthcare resources have been billed out to insurance companies, patients, and third party payers. It can also provide an accurate snapshot of all payments received against those expected payments to determine yield across various segments of its operations. |
| US07672851B2 |
Enhanced application of spoken input
Enhanced application of spoken input, in which a single, natural language voice command is accessed. Using a repository that associates multiple operations with natural language voice commands, multiple selected operations that correspond to the received single, natural language voice command are determined and applied to a user interface. |
| US07672850B2 |
Method for arranging voice feedback to a digital wireless terminal device and corresponding terminal device, server and software to implement the method
In one exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method is provided for arranging voice feedback to a digital wireless terminal device, which includes a voice-assisted user interface (Voice UI), wherein the terminal device gives a voice feedback corresponding to its state. The terminal device includes memory devices (PPM) for storing the voice feedbacks. In the method, the following stages take place to arrange the voice feedback in connection with the terminal device: one or more voice feedbacks are generated, the generated voice feedbacks are converted into a digital form, the digitalized voice feedbacks are edited with chosen algorithms (ACELP) in order to reduce their file size, and the edited voice feedbacks are stored in a memory (PPM) arranged in connection with the terminal device. |
| US07672849B2 |
Systems and methods for voice control of a medical imaging device
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing voice control of a device, an ultrasound device for example. One embodiment of the present invention comprises an apparatus for providing voice control of the ultrasound device having a plurality of features. The apparatus comprises a memory device adapted to store a plurality of voice commands for controlling the ultrasound device, where the plurality of voice commands has at least two different voice commands that active a single feature of the ultrasound device; a selection module adapted to selecting at least one of the at least two different voice commands; and a translator module adapted to derive a signal from the selected voice command and transmit it to the ultrasound device. |
| US07672848B2 |
Electronic mail processing apparatus and electronic mail processing method, and program and storage medium
An information processing technique for voice outputting an electronic mail, received by an information processing apparatus capable of voice output, at a sender's intended timing. For this purpose, the information processing apparatus has an electronic mail reception unit (101) to receive an electronic mail, an electronic mail selection unit (102) to select an electronic mail including a code describing voice output timing, from electronic mails received by the electronic mail reception unit (101), and a voice synthesis unit (104) to voice-synthesize the electronic mail selected by the electronic mail selection unit (102) and voice-outputs the result of voice synthesis based on the code. |
| US07672845B2 |
Method and system for keyword detection using voice-recognition
A method and system is provided to monitor speech and detect keywords or phrases in the speech, such as for example, monitored calls in a call center or speakers/presenters using teleprompters, or the like. Upon detection of the keywords of phrases, information associated with the keywords or phrases may be presented to a display device so that a user may dynamically receive new information as context of the speech progresses. This provides dynamic information as the context of the conversation develops. The information may be presented as links, cues, text, or similar formats. The detected keywords or phrases may also be associated with rules that govern the conditions and criteria for processing the detected keyword and presentation of the information. |
| US07672844B2 |
Voice processing apparatus
A voice processing apparatus for performing voiceprint recognition processing with high accuracy even in the case where a plurality of conference participants speak at a time in a conference; wherein a bi-directional telephonic communication portion receives as an input respective voice signals from a plurality of microphones, selects one microphone based on the input voice signals, and outputs a voice signal from the microphone; a voiceprint recognition portion 322 performs voiceprint recognition based on the input voice signal in voiceprint recognizable period, and stores voiceprint data successively in a buffer; and a CPU takes out voiceprint data successively from the buffer, checking against voiceprint data stored in a voiceprint register, specifies a speaker, and processes the voice signal output from the bi-directional telephonic communication portion by associating the same with the speaker. |
| US07672841B2 |
Method for processing speech data for a distributed recognition system
Speech signal information is formatted, processed and transported in accordance with a format adapted for TCP/IP protocols used on the Internet and other communications networks. NULL characters are used for indicating the end of a voice segment. The method is useful for distributed speech recognition systems such as a client-server system, typically implemented on an intranet or over the Internet based on user queries at his/her computer, a PDA, or a workstation using a speech input interface. |
| US07672839B2 |
Detecting audio signal activity in a communications system
A method for detecting the presence or absence of an audio signal in a communications system in which an audio signal is encoded by a delta modulation encoding algorithm, and in which a step size parameter is adapted according to characteristics of the encoded signal, the method comprising determining based on the magnitude of the step size parameter whether the encoded signal represents audio activity, and adapting the operation of the communication system based on that determination. |
| US07672835B2 |
Voice analysis/synthesis apparatus and program
An FFT unit performs an FFT process on high-frequency-eliminated, pitch-shifted voice data for one frame. A time scaling unit calculates a frequency amplitude, a phase, a phase difference between the present and immediately preceding frames, and an unwrapped version of the phase difference for each channel from which the frequency component was obtained by the FFT, detects a reference channel based on a peak one of the frequency amplitudes, and calculates the phase of each channel in a synthesized voice based on the reference channel, using results of the calculation. An IFFT unit processes each frequency component in accordance with the calculated phase, performs an IFFT process on the resulting frequency component, and produces synthesized voice data for one frame. |
| US07672833B2 |
Method and apparatus for automatic entity disambiguation
Entity disambiguation resolves which names, words, or phrases in text correspond to distinct persons, organizations, locations, or other entities in the context of an entire corpus. The invention is based largely on language-independent algorithms. Thus, it is applicable not only to unstructured text from arbitrary human languages, but also to semi-structured data, such as citation databases and the disambiguation of named entities mentioned in wire transfer transaction records for the purpose of detecting money-laundering activity. The system uses multiple types of context as evidence for determining whether two mentions correspond to the same entity and it automatically learns the weight of evidence of each context item via corpus statistics. The invention uses multiple search keys to efficiently find pairs of mentions that correspond to the same entity, while skipping billions of unnecessary comparisons, yielding a system with very high throughput that can be applied to truly massive data. |
| US07672831B2 |
System and method for cross-language knowledge searching
A system and method for cross-language knowledge searching. The system has a Semantic Analyzer, a natural language user request/document search pattern/semantic index Generator, a user request search pattern Translator and a Knowledge Base Searcher. The system also provides automatic semantic analysis and semantic indexing of natural language user requests/documents on knowledge recognition and cross-language relevant to user request knowledge extraction/searching. System functionality is ensured by Linguistic Knowledge Base as well as by a number of unique bilingual dictionaries of concepts/objects and actions. |
| US07672825B2 |
Closed loop control system for controlling production of hydrocarbon fluid from an underground formation
A method is disclosed for controlling production of oil and/or gas from an underground reservoir by means of a closed loop production control system, in which: an assembly of monitoring sensors (4) monitor the physical properties of hydrocarbon and other fluids within the reservoir; a plurality of high order and/or low order mathematical reservoir models (5,7) calculate each an estimate of the physical properties of hydrocarbon and other fluids in the hydrocarbon containing formation and in the wells; the mathematical reservoir models (5,7) are iteratively updated in response to data provided by the assembly of sensors such that any difference between the properties monitored by the assembly of sensors and those calculated by each of the reservoir models is minimized; an optimal mathematical reservoir model (5,7) or an optimal combination thereof is selected during at least one updating step for which an averaged difference between the calculated properties and the properties monitored by the assembly of sensors (4) is minimal; and an optimization algorithm (8) controls, on the basis of data provided by the selected optimal mathematical reservoir model or optimal combination thereof, production control assemblies of a plurality of wells which traverse the formation. |
| US07672824B2 |
Method for shallow water flow detection
The present invention presents a method for determining shallow water flow risk using seismic data. The seismic data can be processed to enhance its stratigraphic resolution by sub-sampling the seismic data to less than a two-millisecond interval. Performing a stratigraphic analysis on the seismic data and evaluating the seismic attributes of the seismic data can be used to select a control location. A pre-stack waveform inversion is applied to seismic data at a selected control location to provide an elastic model, which includes pressure-wave velocity and shear-wave velocity. The shallow water flow risk is then determined using the elastic model by comparing the pressure-wave velocity to the shear-wave velocity. A post-stack inversion can be applied on the seismic data using the elastic model to model a 3D volume to determine the shallow water flow risk across the 3D volume. |
| US07672823B2 |
Computerized method for adherence to physical restriction in the construction of an ITE hearing aid
In a computerized method for adherence to physical restrictions in the construction of an ITE hearing aid, each component to be placed in the shell of the hearing aid has a collision plot associated therewith. The collision plot is generated as a scatter plot by measurement and simulation, and represents the physical extent of the influence of a particular property of the component on other components. When virtual representations of the respective components are moved relative to another in the e-detailing software for determining the physical positions of the components in the ITE hearing aid, the collision plot for a given component is visually displayed, so that it can easily be seen when another component invades that collision plot, thereby representing an unacceptably close relative position of the two components. |
| US07672819B2 |
Spot weld fracture analysis method, program therefor, and analysis apparatus thereof
A spot weld fracture analysis method for a spot weld portion of three or more mutually superimposed plates that are spot-welded at a common welding point comprises an analysis step of executing an analysis by using a finite element model in which each plate is modeled by shell elements, and the shell elements corresponding to a spot weld point position of each plate are individually interconnected via beam elements, and a prediction step of finding an element force of a beam element that acts on a shell element relevant to a middle plate from a difference between the element forces of two beam elements connected to the shell element on a basis of the analysis result, and predicting a possibility of fracture of a spot weld between the middle plate and an adjacent plate by using the difference element force found from the difference. |
| US07672808B2 |
Determining a center of rotation for a component in a computer system
Some embodiments of the present invention provide a system that determines a center of rotation for a component in a computer system. During operation, the system measures a first acceleration of a first location on the component and a second acceleration of a second location on the component, wherein the first location and the second location are separated by a predetermined distance. Then, the system determines the center of rotation using the first acceleration, the second acceleration, and the predetermined distance. |
| US07672804B2 |
Analog signal test using a-priori information
A method and a corresponding system for testing an analog signal under test includes using knowledge of at least one parameter of the signal under test. The method includes generating a reference signal using the knowledge of at least one parameter of the signal under test, combining the generated reference signal with the signal under test, resulting in a combination signal, and evaluating the combination signal for testing the signal under test. |
| US07672800B2 |
Method and system for controlling a delay circuit for generation of signals up to extremely high frequencies
Aspects of a method and system for generation of signals up to extremely high frequencies using a delay circuit are provided. In this regard, a variable delay circuit may be adjusted such that an output signal generated by the delay circuit may be twice the frequency of a signal input to the delay circuit. The adjustment may be via an variable capacitance and/or a variable number of delay elements utilized to generate the output signal. Moreover, the adjustment may be based on a signal strength of the output signal. In this regard, the delay may be adjusted to maximize the signal strength of the output signal. The input signal may be delayed to generate a second signal that is 90° phase shifted relative to the input signal. The second signal and the input signal may be mixed to generate the output signal. The output signal may be filtered by a bandpass filter centered at twice the frequency of the input signal. Accordingly, the center frequency of the bandpass filter may be tunable. |
| US07672798B2 |
Apparatus and method for determining the temperature of a charging power source
A method and apparatus for automatically sensing the temperature of a battery during the testing and charging. The method and apparatus can monitor the temperature of the battery, the charger or both. Additionally, a user can be notified when the temperature is at or exceeds a predetermined level. The temperature data is also used to aid in efficiently charging the battery. |
| US07672796B2 |
Method to evaluate a performance of a control valve and a system thereof
A method for providing a system for establishing a control valve performance in a process operation. The system includes establishing an expected flow rate for a control valve by measuring a differential pressure between an upstream and downstream position of a control valve of interest and using the formula Q = Cv × φ ( x ) × Δ P G , measuring an actual flow rate across the control valve, comparing the actual flow rate with the expected flow rate to determine the difference in value between the actual and expected flow rate, determining if the difference is within an acceptable range of values from the expected flow rate and establishing the performance of the control valve. |
| US07672793B2 |
Method for calculating probabilistic damage sizes in structural health monitoring systems
A method for calculating the probable damage size in a structure includes defining a configuration of an array of transducers mounted on the structure. Any pair of the transducers includes an actuator and a sensor, and each pair defines a propagation path in the structure. All propagation paths that are affected by being touched by a damage of the structure, and all adjacent paths that are untouched and thereby unaffected by the damage, are identified. A range of sizes of the damage is determined, and a probability density of the damage versus damage size is calculated on the basis of the transducer array configuration and the affected and unaffected propagation paths identified. On the basis of the probability density, a most probable damage size is determined, and the probability of the damage being greater or less than the most probable damage size is also determined. |
| US07672787B2 |
Electronic hybridization assay and sequence analysis
An electronic hybridization assay implements a hybridization reaction, or a sequence analysis, on sequences representative of the sequences of the molecules under examination to provide an output representative of a chemical hybridization reaction. An electronic hybridization machine implements a correlation algorithm where the correlation output provides information regarding the relationship between the molecules under examination. In one aspect, the degree of similarity between the molecules is indicated by the correlation output value. In another aspect, a locus of similarity between the molecules is indicated by a maximum value in the correlation output sequence. In a particular aspect, the sequences are encoded in an optimized format to optimize the operation of the operation of the electronic hybridization machine. |
| US07672782B2 |
Traffic alert police radar
An enhanced police Doppler direction sensing radar detects possibly dangerous traffic conditions during certain vehicle maneuvers such as U-turns and returns to travel after roadside stops. By monitoring a host or primary vehicle speed, speed transitions, transmission state (e.g. gear selection), and the closing vehicle position, range and speed, a number of selectable conditions are detected, resulting in an alert indication to a primary vehicle operator. User preferences and thresholds allow the traffic alert function to be customized according to a primary vehicle operator's desire to suppress alerts in situations which the user does not deem dangerous. The traffic alert function may be automatically triggered under certain detected conditions, or manually initiated when the primary vehicle operator intends to make a driving maneuver. |
| US07672780B2 |
Navigation system using radio frequency identification system and method for displaying construction area road
Provided is a navigation system using a RFID system and a method for displaying a construction area road. The navigation system includes a RFID tag for storing construction information, and upon receipt of a predetermined command, transmitting the construction information; and a RFID reader for transmitting an information read command to the RFID tag, and receiving the construction information in response to the information read command. A bypass path is re-searched depending on the received construction information, and path guidance is performed. |
| US07672779B2 |
System and method for using universal location referencing objects to provide geographic item information
A method and system for creating and/or using a universal location referencing object (ULRO) with electronic files including electronic maps. ULROs establish traversable links between a file-of-reference and third-party-files. In accordance with an embodiment, the ULRO comprises a universal location referencing code uniquely corresponding to the location, together with several optional components, including: a set of name information; a super-set of coordinates; a file-of-reference pointer field comprising a file-of-reference pointer; a third-party-file pointer field comprising one or more third-party-file pointers; a file-of-reference back-pointer field comprising a file-of-reference back-pointer; a third-party-file back-pointer field comprising one or more third-party-file back-pointers; and a metadata field. ULROs allow recognition of equivalence of features in different maps, and facilitate dynamic combination or linking of multiple maps into one virtual map, with traversable connectivity for a wide variety of map formats. |
| US07672778B1 |
Navigation system with downloaded map data
A system and method are disclosed for providing geographic data to mobile units from a remotely located navigation-services provider. When a mobile unit requests route information, the navigation-services provider transmits an initial set of geographic data representing an area around a current position of the mobile unit. The navigation-services provider calculates a route to the destination and then identifies an intermediate exit point along the route that is located within the initial set of data. The mobile unit calculates an initial portion of the route to the intermediate exit point. The navigation-services provider determines a list of geographic-data groups needed to represent the remainder of the route and transmits this list to the mobile unit. Each geographic-data group is transmitted to the mobile unit along with an intermediate exit point. Using the received data, the mobile unit provides route guidance to a local end user. |
| US07672777B2 |
Moving history conversion apparatus and moving history conversion method
Moving history conversion apparatus making moving history accumulated in an apparatus available in other different-type apparatuses. The moving history conversion apparatus includes: a first map information accumulation unit which accumulates first map information representing a map using a series of first-type IDs for identifying geographical positions; a first moving history accumulation unit accumulating moving history represented as the series of first-type IDs accumulated in the first map information accumulation unit; the first moving history conversion unit converting, into latitude and longitude information, the series of IDs included in the moving history accumulated in the first moving history accumulation unit; a second map information accumulation unit accumulating the second map information which represents a map using a second-type IDs for identifying geographical positions; a second moving history conversion unit converting latitude and longitude information into the series of IDs included in the second map information accumulated in the second map information accumulation unit. |
| US07672773B2 |
Transient engine performance adaptation method and system
The present invention makes it possible to cope with a plurality of standardized transient operation modes in a method for adapting the engine transient characteristic to a required performance targets and a system therefore. When there are a plurality of prescribed standardized transient operation modes, transient testing is conducted in a single transient operation mode that covers changing patterns of control values of control factors of the plurality of transient operation modes. Only data in a data distribution range to be focused on is captured to create a transient engine model. |
| US07672771B2 |
Retarder controlling device and method
There is provided a retarder control device which is simple in constitution and can reliably apply braking. An engine rotational speed detector detects an engine rotational speed, gear step detection means detects a gear step of a transmission, an accelerator operation detector detects the operated state of an accelerator, and a retarder controller previously stores automatic braking amount determination data representing the relation between the engine rotational speed and the automatic braking amount of a retarder corresponding to each gear step of the transmission and controls the retarder according to the automatic braking amount of the retarder calculated from the automatic braking amount determination data based on the detected engine rotational speed and gear step of the transmission when the accelerator is judged to be off from the detected operated state of the accelerator. |
| US07672770B2 |
Deceleration control apparatus for a vehicle
A deceleration control apparatus to achieve the intended level of deceleration performance regardless of whether braking performance is changed by towing an object such as a trailer, and to reduce the possibility that a driver feels uncomfortable due to a change in the level of deceleration performance while the vehicle is running. Vehicle weight is calculated based on the actual running state of a vehicle, and it is determined whether the vehicle is towing an object based on the vehicle weight. When the vehicle is stationary, a deceleration pattern (the rate of change in a target deceleration) is changed based on whether the vehicle is towing an object. Therefore, it is possible to achieve the intended level of deceleration performance that matches the level of driver's request for deceleration, regardless of whether the vehicle weight is changed by towing an object. |
| US07672768B2 |
Operation assist apparatus
An operation assist apparatus includes a display device installed in an operator's cab of a construction machine, at which at least operating procedures for the construction machine are displayed with text and illustrations; an image processing device that generates images; and a control device that engages the image processing device to generate an image of an operating procedure corresponding to an operation of the construction machine and engages the display device to display the image generated by the image processing device. |
| US07672764B2 |
System and method for recording physical response
A physical response record system includes a main unit and various sensors for recording driver's conditions and vehicle operations by a driver. The driver's conditions in combination with the vehicle operations are used to determine a risky situation of the vehicle based on an averaged driver's condition and the like. The risky situation is further analyzed for detecting a risky object and stored as a record for later use. |
| US07672760B2 |
Searchlight
A searchlight (3) on board a vessel (1) arranged for illuminating a point (2p) and maintain said point (2p) illuminated regardless of the movements of said vessel (1). |
| US07672757B2 |
Interface system between human and car
An interface system between a user and a vehicle includes a vehicle information terminal in communication with the vehicle; a VXML server that converts information into voice signals, and receives and transmits the voice signals between the vehicle information terminal and a telephone; an SMS server that converts information into a message, and transmits the message to the telephone; and a WIPI server that receives and transmits vehicle remote control information between the telephone and the vehicle information terminal. |
| US07672755B2 |
Library device
There is provided a library device which can be restored to working order quickly and reliably even when a control board containing information necessary for the operation of the library device is replaced. The library device includes a cell array which consists of an array of multiple cells each of which contains one cartridge containing a magnetic tape, magnetic tape drives in which the cartridges are removably mounted and which access the storage medium contained in the cartridges, a robot which transfers the cartridges between the cell array and the magnetic tape drives, a main control board which controls the operation of the entire library device, a barcode label which represents ID information for identification of the library device, and cell flags which are marks used to recognize the locations of the cells composing the cell array. |
| US07672754B1 |
Balancing of data tape cartridges in tape libraries with pass-through mechanism
A computer-implemented method for balancing data tape cartridge utilization in an automated tape library system identifies a current number of data tape cartridge mounts per library string and identifies a target number mounts per the library string to identify a difference between the target number and the current number as a delta number of data tape cartridges to move. The number of data tape cartridge mounts per data tape cartridge per library string is identified and a data tape cartridge to move is selected by identifying a unique identifier of the data tape cartridge with the highest number of mounts, and having a lowest number of moves, to form a selected data tape cartridge, and creates a move request for the selected data tape cartridge. The move request is sent to the automated tape library for execution, and a move counter for each data tape cartridge moved is incremented. |
| US07672749B1 |
Method and apparatus for hierarchical process control
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for hierarchical process control. The method includes accessing at least one first metric indicative of processing performed on a wafer by a plurality of tool groups. The method also includes providing at least one tool group parameter to each of the plurality of tool groups based on the at least one first metric and accessing a plurality of second metrics. Each second metric is associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of tool groups and is indicative of processing performed on the wafer by the plurality of tools in the corresponding tool group. The method further includes providing at least one tool parameter to at least one tool in each of the plurality of tool groups based on the second metric associated with the tool group and the at least one tool group parameter provided to the tool group. |
| US07672744B2 |
Method and an apparatus for decoding an audio signal
A method of decoding for an audio signal comprises the step of receiving a downmix of an audio signal, an object information, and a mix information, the object information including an object level information, an object correlation information, and an object gain information, generating a downmix processing information using the object information and the mix information, and processing the downmix of the audio signal using the downmix processing information. Various embodiments of the present invention provide a method and an apparatus for decoding multi-object audio signals fast and efficiently by reducing process time, computer resource, thereby relieving the resource requirement like the wide bandwidth. The object parameters according to the embodiments of the present invention can provide backward compatibility in the view of the channel-oriented decoding process. |
| US07672743B2 |
Digital audio processing
A compressed digital audio signal is transmitted from an audio source along a connection wire to an audio receiver. The digital audio signal can encode digital audio data having different sampling frequencies, frames sizes, and other information. The audio receiver that receives the digital audio signal can decode and convert the compressed digital audio signal into multiple synchronized analog signals, which are used to drive multiple speakers. The audio receiver may also synchronize the audio data with associated video data so that the audio playback and video playback are “in sync”, despite delay introduced by the audio signal decoding at the audio receiver. |
| US07672740B1 |
Conditional download of data from embedded historians
Systems and methods that provide for event driven downloading, via defining storage thresholds in an embedded historian (e.g. micro historian). Upon reaching predetermined thresholds (e.g., low/high water marks), stored data in the embedded historians can automatically down load to a central plant historian. An automatic download engine is provided that down loads historian data based on satisfaction of such conditions defined for the download. The download engine can further include a detector component, which detects whether a predetermined condition (e.g., associated with the storage capacity of the micro-historians have been met. Moreover, a notification component can notify the embedded historians that the data have been permanently persisted in the central historian. |
| US07672738B2 |
Programmable controller for use with monitoring device
A programmable controller includes at least one user input interface, and an input register, at least one user output interface, programmable logic hardware and program loading means.The user input interface and input register is for connection to process plant and/or machinery to provide sampled and stored input data in digital form. The user output interface is for connection to process plant and/or machinery and receives output data in digital form. The programmable logic hardware includes a plurality of basic logic elements and electrically configurable interconnections. The interconnections are configurable to interconnect the logic elements as a user control program circuit and to connect the user control program circuit to the input and output interfaces. The program loading means enables the user to configure the programmable logic hardware as a circuit implementing a user control program prior to initiating control of the associated process plant and/or machinery. |
| US07672737B2 |
Hierarchically structured data model for utilization in industrial automation environments
An industrial automation device comprises a data storage component that retains at least a portion of a schema, the schema facilitates usage of a hierarchically structured data model by the industrial automation device. A processor is communicatively coupled to the data storage component and facilitates at least one of receipt, execution, and creation of an object that conforms to the hierarchically structured data model. In another example, the industrial automation device can be employed to execute a workflow. |
| US07672736B2 |
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. |
| US07672732B2 |
Portable apparatus that delivers power and information to implantable devices
An apparatus for powering an implant includes first energy interface elements, a removeably attachable holding device and a first energy source, such as a battery. An energy conversion circuit converts first energy into second energy which is transmitted within the body of the patient to the implant. Also, an apparatus for providing information to an implant that includes first energy interface elements and a housing that includes a processor operatively coupled to the first energy interface elements and an energy source operatively coupled to the processor. The processor is structured to generate an information signal and cause the signal to be transmitted within the body of the patient for delivery to the implant. Associated methods are also provided. |
| US07672719B2 |
Batteries and methods of manufacture and use
An apparatus includes multiple first reservoirs and multiple second reservoirs joined with a substrate. Selected ones of the multiple first reservoirs include a reducing agent, and first reservoir surfaces of selected ones of the multiple first reservoirs are proximate to a first substrate surface. Selected ones of the multiple second reservoirs include an oxidizing agent, and second reservoir surfaces of selected ones of the multiple second reservoirs are proximate to the first substrate surface. |
| US07672718B2 |
Thoracic impedance detection with blood resistivity compensation
This document discusses, among other things, a cardiac rhythm management device or other implantable medical device that uses thoracic impedance to determine how much fluid is present in the thorax, such as for detecting or predicting congestive heart failure, pulmonary edema, pleural effusion, hypotension, or the like. The thoracic fluid amount determined from the thoracic impedance is compensated for changes in blood resistivity, which may result from changes in hematocrit level or other factors. The blood-resistivity-compensated thoracic fluid amount can be stored in the device or transmitted to an external device for storage or display. The blood-resistivity-compensated thoracic fluid amount can also be used to adjust a cardiac pacing, cardiac resynchronization, or other cardiac rhythm management or other therapy to the patient. This document also discusses applications of the devices and methods for predicting or indicating anemia. |
| US07672711B2 |
Method and system for providing tomographic pictures of a patient by using contrast medium injections
A method is disclosed for providing tomographic pictures of a patient with the aid of a tomographic system by using contrast medium injections. The patient is firstly injected with a defined test bolus, while the temporal concentration profile of the contrast medium in at least one body region is determined in at least one scanning plane. The functional parameters of a prediction model that maps or at least approximates the relationship between the profile of a contrast medium injection and the temporal profile of the contrast medium concentration in the body region are determined from the measured profile of the contrast medium concentration in relation to the profile of the test bolus injection. After the specification of a desired contrast in the body region, the profile of a contrast medium injection that is required therefore is automatically calculated in temporal relationship with the scan, and the start of the tomographic scan and the start of the contrast medium injection and the profile thereof are started automatically in a fashion temporally tuned to one another. |
| US07672707B2 |
Sensor for magnetoencephalography meter and supermultichannel magnetoencephalography meter system using the same
This invention relates to a super-multichannel MEG system comprising sensors produced by printing sensor coils on thin films in positions shifted from each other and by laminating multiple thin-film sensor coils together. Intended for use in a multichannel MEG system comprising a dewar, the sensors are arrayed in the dewar to detect biomagnetism and the Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) to detect signals coming from the sensors. These sensors are characterized by the sensor coils being printed on thin films in positions shifted from each other laterally and longitudinally and by their being laminated in the required number. |
| US07672705B2 |
Weighted surface-to-surface mapping
A displacement of a lesion within a patient is determined for the purpose of administering radiation treatment by generating sets of surface elements from three-dimensional images of the lesion taken at different times. Weights are assigned to the surface elements, and based on weights and the proximity of corresponding elements in one set to elements in another set, a displacement is determined. |
| US07672701B2 |
Telephone hands-free system for a mobile telephone
A telephone hands-free system for a mobile telephone, having a holder (1) which has electronics, for holding a mobile telephone which is designed for wire-free communication, and having a control arrangement for controlling at least one hands-free function for the mobile telephone can be designed with a universal holder (1) for different mobile telephones in that the control arrangement is accommodated in the holder, in that the holder is designed for wire-free communication with the mobile telephone, and in that the holder can be adjusted for mechanically holding mobile telephones of different size. |
| US07672700B2 |
Portable information terminal
A portable information terminal includes a first unit, a second unit, an engaging mechanism configured to engage the second unit to be slidable with respect to the first unit, a locking mechanism configured to lock the second unit slid by the engaging mechanism at a intermediate position of a slidable range, a detect unit configured to detect a lock position where the second unit is locked, and a first control unit configured to launch a predetermined function unit in accordance with the lock position. |
| US07672698B2 |
Specific absorption rate reducer, mobile terminal using the same and method therefor
A mobile terminal and a specific absorption rate reducer method are provided, in which a printed circuit board (PCB) is installed in a main-body, a liquid crystal display (LCD) module is installed in a sub-body, a hinge connects the main-body and the sub-body rotatively and generates a current in the opposite direction to a current generated during the operation of the mobile terminal in a calling mode, and a filter controls a frequency pass characteristic of the mobile terminal by controlling the current flowing in the hinge. Accordingly, frequency pass characteristics may be set differently according to frequency bands by controlling the current flowing in the hinge with a filter having a lumped constant circuit. |
| US07672697B2 |
Mobile terminal having a double rotation structure
An apparatus is disclosed for a double rotation structure mobile terminal. The mobile terminal comprising a main body having a plurality of keys for inputting information and operating functions of the mobile terminal, and a folder having a display portion. A connection member is provided having a first connection portion rotatably coupled to the main body and a second connection portion integrally formed within the first connection portion and rotatably coupled to the folder. A locking connection member installed along a side of the main body for selectively controlling rotation of the connection member. |
| US07672695B1 |
Wearable access point
A portable access point comprises a wireless LAN transceiver that selectively establishes a plurality of Ethernet wireless links with a plurality of wireless client devices, respectively. A wireless WAN transceiver establishes an Ethernet data connection with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), receives and forwards Ethernet data packets from at least one of said wireless client devices to said ISP and receives and forwards Ethernet data packets from said ISP to said one of said wireless client devices. A routing device routes Ethernet data packets between said wireless LAN transceiver and said wireless WAN transceiver. A control module controls operation of said wireless LAN transceiver and said wireless WAN transceiver. A first storage device stores operating system and application instructions for said control module. |
| US07672692B2 |
Pointing device having improved operability, its control method and mobile telephone
A pointing device that can be operated to move an operational object on a display screen in any direction comprises a control unit for changing an operation mode of the pointing device according to contents displayed on the display screen and, further, a mobile telephone comprises such a pointing device. |
| US07672689B2 |
Multipath communications receiver
A multipath wideband communications receiver (100) having a plurality of RF signal paths (116, 136) covering different but overlapping frequency bands and a plurality of baseband signal paths (140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190), the paths being re-configurable for sharing of the first and second paths in different ways in order to facilitate processing of received signals in different modes.Also, a rake receiver (800) employs a sigma-delta modulator arrangement (810) and programmable delays to provide fine delay adjustment. The sigma-delta modulator (810) may use sigma-delta circuitry from a sigma-delta A/D converters in a baseband paths of the receiver (100), that this may be achieved with no loss of functionality if in a particular reception configuration that sigma-delta A/D converter is not being utilized. |
| US07672687B2 |
Wireless signal transceiver unit with turning mechanism for adjusting antenna direction thereof
A wireless signal transceiver unit with turning mechanism for adjusting antenna direction includes a base, a rotatable antenna assembly, and a pivot mechanism provided between the antenna assembly and the base for rotatably supporting and connecting the antenna assembly to the base. The antenna assembly includes a plate-shaped body upright located on a circular disk, and is manually turned about the pivot mechanism relative to the base toward a selected direction for best receiving a wireless signal. |
| US07672681B1 |
Method of renaming soft switch controls in all participant's cell phones by an administrator
A method, a combined cellular phone, PDA, GPS communication device and system having specialized software applications for allowing a plurality of combined cellular phone/PDA device users to monitor each other's locations and status, to initiate cellular phone calls by touching a symbol on the touch screen display with a stylus which can also include point to call conferencing calling. Each participant's cellular phone/PDA device includes a GPS navigation receiver with application software for point to call cellular phone initiation to participants and geographical entities including vehicles, persons or events, conference calls and video transfers. An administrator can: (a) create and remotely install new symbology and modify the symbols and nomenclature used in each participant's cell phone screen display for a specific environment such as police and military; (b) create and remotely install screen drawn soft switches used in each participant's cell phone, the activation of which accesses application software; and (c) create and remotely install screen drawn soft switches used in each participant's cell phone, the activation of which accesses a URL address. |
| US07672680B1 |
Web services architecture system and method
The present disclosure is directed to a web services architecture comprising a component operable for rapid development of a web services application, a mobile application. The web services architecture also includes a telecommunications provider system and a service provider. The mobile application is related to the web services application deployable on a mobile device. The telecommunications provider system is operable to host the web services application and to identify the mobile device and federate information related to the mobile device. The service provider is operable to provide a mobile device service associated with the web services application. The service provider is in communication with the web services application and operable to use the federated information related to the mobile device to provide application services to the mobile device. |
| US07672675B2 |
System of utilizing cell information to locate a wireless device
A system is described that utilizes the measured characteristics of a cell site or a plurality of cell sites (100, 102, 104) and the cellular identification to selectively provide a wireless device (118) with location aiding from a cellular network server (120). The system may include a basestation (106, 108, 110) located within the cell site, a cellular measurement unit located in the wireless device (118), and a database (214) containing positional assistance information corresponding to the characteristic information. The system may also include a processing unit in signal communication with the basestation and the database (214) and a positional determination unit in the wireless device (118). |
| US07672674B2 |
Remote radio data communication system with data rate switching
Systems and methods that provide wireless communications are provided. One or more of the systems and methods may include, for example, selecting a lower data rate or a higher data rate based upon at least an evaluation of the operating conditions of a radio network. The evaluation may include, for example, computing a weighted signal strength measurement in which the weighting gives emphasis to the lower signal strength measurements of fading radio frequency signals. |
| US07672661B2 |
Management server and mobile terminal
A management server includes a determination unit and a notification unit. The determination unit determines a communication network to which a mobile terminal connectable to a plurality of the communication networks by one telephone number is connecting. The notification unit issues a notice on the communication network connecting to the mobile terminal based on a result of the determination by the determination unit. |
| US07672660B2 |
Method of performing actions related to handover by a mobile station that is in power saving mode in a wireless mobile communication system
A method of performing actions related to handover by a mobile station (MS) in a wireless mobile communication system is disclosed. More specifically, the MS receives information from a base station (BS), wherein the information includes at least one action for performing handover and at least one condition corresponding to the at least one action. Furthermore, the MS transmits a request message to perform the at least one action based on the received information from the BS and receives a response message in response to the request message. Lastly, the MS performs the at least one action according to the received response message. |
| US07672658B2 |
Frequency-converting circuit and down converter with the same
A frequency-converting circuit and a down converter with the frequency-converting circuit are disclosed. The above-mentioned frequency-converting circuit is used for converting an RF signal into a first baseband signal according to a poly-phase LO signal. The frequency-converting circuit includes a coupler, a first transduction unit and a first switching unit. The coupler is for receiving and splitting the RF signal and delivering a first RF signal via the first output terminal thereof. The first transduction unit is for amplifying the first RF signal. The first switching unit is for performing switching operations on the output signal of the first transduction unit and producing the first baseband signal. |
| US07672653B2 |
Removing interfering signals in a broadband radio frequency receiver
Various embodiments are directed to removing interfering signals in a broadband radio frequency (RF) receiver by implementing a silicon tuner arranged to replicate high quality factor (Q) performance without the advantages of using high Q components available for module tuners. In one or more embodiments, tuned filter elements within a broadband silicon tuner are reused to maximize the attenuation of unwanted signals while minimizing induced undesirable channel ripple. In various implementations, a number of tuned passive inductor/capacitor filter elements are combined as required such that filter elements for an unused frequency band are reconfigured to provide attenuation of and enhanced immunity to unwanted signals. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US07672652B2 |
Coordinator's data transmission method, device's data reception method, coordinator using the coordinator's data transmission method, and device using the device's data reception method in Zigbee system
A coordinator's data transmission method, a device's data reception method, a coordinator using the coordinator's data transmission method and a device using the device's data reception method are provided. In a Zigbee system including at least one device and a coordinator for coordinating the device, in a case where a frame pending bit in a beacon frame is determined to be a value representing a direct transmission method, a beacon frame containing an address of a device to receive data and a data transmission time is generated and data is transmitted from the coordinator at the data transmission time. Data transmission time and power consumption can be reduced. |
| US07672649B2 |
Controller for a radio-frequency amplifier
A controller for an RF amplifier, in particular for a RF amplifier of an MR tomography apparatus, has an IQ control element for adjusting the magnitude and phase an RF signal that is be fed to the RF amplifier. The IQ control element has a signal splitter that splits the RF signal into two partial signals having a 90° phase offset in an I path and a Q path, each having a multiplier for multiplying the partial signal by an I factor in the I path and a Q factor in the Q path. A summing unit recombines the partial signals. A detector determines the actual phase difference and actual amplification between the RF signal fed to the IQ control element and the RF signal amplified by the RF amplifier. An IQ controller determines the I factor and the Q factor from the actual difference and a desired phase difference and the actual amplifier and a desired amplification. The IQ controller has an operating point at which the I factor and the Q factor are the same magnitude if the actual and desired phase differences and the actual and desired amplifications are the same. |
| US07672648B1 |
System for linear amplitude modulation
System for linear amplitude modulation. Apparatus is provided for linear amplitude modulation of an amplifier. The apparatus includes a processing circuit that receives an amplitude modulation signal and produces one or more amplifier control signals that are coupled to the amplifier. The apparatus also includes a feedback circuit that generates a feedback signal from an output of the amplifier that is input to the processing circuit; and a network that controls a bias of the amplifier in response to the feedback signal to linearize the amplifier's amplitude control. |
| US07672646B2 |
Base station and mobile communication system utilizing the same
A hardware is used to perform an SSDT processing, thereby avoiding performance degradation than otherwise would occur due to load increase caused by a software processing, and thereby realizing a base station that can instantaneously perform a transmission control and provide a high speed site selection. In order to perform a site selection diversity power control (SSDT) for the purpose of reducing the amount of interference that would be caused by transmitting the same data to a plurality of cells or antennas during soft-handover, an encode processing part (1) is used to add a transmission control bit to the transmitted data. In response to this transmission control bit, a transmission control signal selecting circuit (206) selects a transmission control signal of destination. An output control circuit (207) receives, as its inputs, a transmission spread signal and the transmission control signal to perform an output control and instantaneously perform a transmission control, thereby realizing a high-speed site selection. |
| US07672645B2 |
Programmable transmitter architecture for non-constant and constant envelope modulation
Transmitter architectures designed to accommodate both constant and non-constant of envelope modulation schemes and capable of providing local oscillator carrier frequencies within any one of numerous desired frequency bands, thus allowing compliance with many different communication standards. One example of a programmable frequency synthesizer includes a plurality of transmitter components and a microcontroller coupled to the frequency synthesizer and to the plurality of transmitter components. The microcontroller is adapted to provide a frequency control signal to the frequency synthesizer to control a frequency of the local oscillator carrier frequency. In addition, the microcontroller is also adapted to provide digital control signals to at least some of the plurality of transmitter components to turn on and off different ones of the plurality of transmitter components based on an operating mode of the transmitter, such that the transmitter can accommodate both constant envelope modulation and non-constant envelope modulation schemes. |
| US07672644B2 |
Method and apparatus for overhead reduction of signaling messages
A method and apparatus to reduce the overhead of frequently sent signaling messages is provided. Various methods are presented which facilitate conveying information that is unchanged from information in the earlier part of the message, or in a previous signaling message, without sending the previous information in its entirety. |
| US07672640B2 |
Multichannel absorberless near field measurement system
A near field microwave scanning system includes a switched array of antenna elements forming an array surface, a scan surface substantially parallel to the array surface and separated by a distance less than about 1 wavelength of the measured frequency, and a processing engine for obtaining and processing near field data, without the use of an absorber. |
| US07672638B1 |
Geosynchronous satellite constellation
A satellite communications system is described for increasing capacity through spectrum reuse by multiple satellites. The system includes a constellation of satellites traveling in a geosynchronous orbit, where the geosynchronous orbit defines a ground track. The satellites operate in a first mode when traveling in a first latitudinal direction on the satellite track and in a second mode when traveling in a second latitudinal direction on the satellite track. By using different operation modes, satellites traveling in opposite latitudinal directions do not interfere with each other. Each of the satellites maintains a minimum spacing apart from other satellites moving in the same latitudinal direction to prevent interference from satellites using the same operation mode. |
| US07672637B2 |
Method and system for delivering from a loudspeaker into a venue
Spread-spectrum technology, either direct sequence or frequency hopping, or a combination of the two, is used for transmitting audio signals one way and control signals two ways over an RF channel(s) to reduce interference with/from other RF transmissions and enabling use of multiple such systems in close proximity without requiring pre-selection of transmission frequencies. Alternatively, multiple channels with appended access codes may be used, wherein interference or loss of clear signal results in automatic switching to another channel. The control signals accompany the transmitted audio signal at some time in the transmission interval, or previous to the beginning of the transmission interval, and constitute a coded control message allowing a unique connection. In some cases the encoding keys may only occur at the beginning of the desired message, while in other cases the two-way control signals may continue throughout the interval of the message link. |
| US07672633B2 |
Fixing roller with conductive inner layers, and fixing device and image forming apparatus being provided therewith
A fixing roller is configured in a manner that a conductive primer layer, a conductive intermediate layer, and a non-conductive outermost layer (a release layer) are coated sequentially onto a surface of an outer circumference of a hollow cylindrical cored bar. The intermediate layer is composed of a non-conductive fluorine resin layer having conductive materials dispersed therein, and a surface thereof is a rough surface having a large number of convex portions and concave portions formed thereon. The outermost layer is composed of a non-conductive fluorine resin only, and a surface thereof is a flat and smooth surface so as to ensure a favorable release property of a recording medium. |
| US07672631B2 |
Fuser assembly having heater element with spaced-apart features
A heater element is provided adapted to heat a belt in a fuser assembly. The heater element comprises laterally spaced-apart first and second features. The first feature may have a first inner surface and the second feature may have a second inner surface facing the first inner surface. Preferably, at least a majority portion of at least one of the first and second inner surfaces is positioned at an oblique angle relative to a reference line extending substantially perpendicular to a path a substrate moves along as it passes through the fuser assembly. |
| US07672630B2 |
Image forming apparatus and image forming method with improved cleaning mechanism
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming mechanism to form a toner image on a recording medium according to image data and a fixing mechanism to fix the toner image on the recording medium. The fixing mechanism includes a fixing member configured to apply heat to the toner image on the recording medium and a cleaning mechanism to clean a surface of the fixing member. The cleaning mechanism includes a cleaning member and a controller. The cleaning member removes contaminants from the surface of the fixing member. The controller controls the cleaning member to cause friction with the fixing member for a time period when a job starts to remove the contaminants from the surface of the fixing member and controls the cleaning member so as not to cause friction with the fixing member after the time period elapses. |
| US07672627B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes: an intermediate transfer body; a plurality of image forming portions; a secondary transfer unit; a recording medium accommodating container; a waste toner accommodating container; a first electrical part; and a second electrical part. |
| US07672626B2 |
Developing roller and image forming method employing the same
An objective is to provide a developing roller in which increase of residual potential is inhibited during repetitive operation without deteriorating interlayer adhesion, and prepared is a layer immediately below the surface capable of preventing fog caused by toner scattering, accompanied with a surface layer capable of preventing stains formed from foreign matters adhered to the surface, as well as preventing image unevenness since toner electrification is even under the presence of appropriate elasticity, and also to provide a image forming method employing the developing roller. Disclosed is a developing roller possessing an elastic layer made of silicone rubber provided around a conductive shaft, and a plurality of resin layers further provided on the elastic layer, wherein an outermost surface layer among the resin layers comprises silicone copolymerization polyurethane; and a layer immediately below the surface layer comprises a polyurethane resin-silica hybrid. |
| US07672619B2 |
Wire bar, method of manufacturing wire bar, and image forming apparatus
A wire bar is formed by winding a wire, which comprises a first flat portion formed along an overall longitudinal length, around a peripheral surface of a metal core such that the peripheral surface of the metal core and the first flat portion tightly contact with each other. Since this increases the area size of a contact portion where the wire and the metal core contact each other, it is possible to increase the force of static friction which fixes the wire to the metal core. Fixing of the wound wire to the metal core by the strong force of static friction effectively prevents the wound wire from getting deviated. |
| US07672614B2 |
Driving apparatus, process cartridge and image forming device having the same
A driving apparatus includes a driving gear connected to a driving motor, a driven gear engaged with the driving gear, and a driving force coupling part coupling the driving gear and the driven gear to not move with respect to each other. The driving force coupling part includes an axle distance maintaining member to maintain a substantially constant distance between axes of the driving gear and the driven gear. The driving apparatus couples the driving gear and the driven gear to not move with respect to each other when a driving force is transmitted from the driving gear to the driven gear, thereby maintaining a substantially uniform distance between axes of the driving gear and the driven gear. Accordingly, a driven gear shaft is substantially prevented from changing position and deformation of a process cartridge is substantially prevented due to a driving torque of the driving gear and a load torque of the driven gear. Thus, a change in a gap between a developing roller and a photoconductive medium is minimized. |
| US07672613B2 |
Photosensitive material drum and image-forming machine equipped with the photosensitive material drum
A photosensitive material drum capable of easily preventing the leakage of the adhesive through the notches which are for confirming the earthing of the flange member. The flange member inserted in an end portion of the drum body includes an annular protuberance covering an end surface of the drum body, and an insertion drum portion forming protruded portions so as to come in contact with the inner peripheral surface of the drum body and recessed portions maintaining a gap relative to the inner peripheral surface of the drum body alternately along the inner peripheral surface of the drum body. An adhesive is applied onto the inner peripheral surface of the drum body facing the recessed portions to prevent the turn of the flange member. Notches are formed in the annular protuberance for exposing the end surface of the drum body, the notches being formed at positions neighboring the protruded portions. |
| US07672611B2 |
Developer cartridge and image forming apparatus
A developer cartridge includes a casing, a development roller, a support member, and at least one transmission gear. The development roller is rotatably disposed in the casing. The support member is provided as a separate member from the casing and is mounted on the casing. The at least one transmission gear is rotatably supported by the support member. The at least one transmission gear transmits a driving force to the development roller. The support member is configured to be dismounted from the casing together with the at least one transmission gear. |
| US07672608B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus, including an image forming section which conducts image formation on a sheet based on an image data, a tray which accommodates the sheets to be supplied to the image forming section, a humidity detecting unit which detects humidity inside the tray, a dehumidifying device which conducts dehumidification inside the tray; and a control section which controls the image forming section to prohibit image formation when the humidity inside the tray is higher than a predetermined value, the control section further controls the dehumidifying device to conduct the dehumidification inside the tray when the humidity inside the tray is equal to or lower than the predetermined value, and the control section still further controls the image forming section to conduct the image formation on the when the humidity inside the tray has been equal to or lower than the predetermined value. |
| US07672607B2 |
Fixing device to reduce warm-up time and apparatus using same
A fixing device, including a fixing rotary body including a first heat source, a pressing rotary body including a second heat source, and a control device configured to cause, at a time of warm-up of the fixing device, the fixing rotary body to rotate while causing at least one of the first heat source and the second heat source to generate heat, and to allow, after a surface temperature of the fixing rotary body has risen to a preselected warm-up temperature, a sheet pass or a printing to be executed and cause, if a sheet pass is not executed, the fixing rotary body to rotate for a preselected period of time. |
| US07672603B2 |
Image formation control based on printing rate
An image forming apparatus that can realize an image having adequate image quality, density and color, without provoking excessive consumption of a developer and reduction in productivity. Image formation is performed by forming a latent image on an image carrier based on image information, then developing and transferring the latent image. An image for adjustment on a portion is formed other than a portion on which the latent image is formed on the image carrier. The density of the image for adjustment is detected. Image density is adjusted based on the density of the detected image for adjustment. Image formation control is executed whereby density is adjusted when an image is formed. A printing rate that indicates the percentage of the image formation to a sheet used for image formation is calculated. When the printing rate is determined to be within a set range, the image formation control is executed at a set frequency. On the other hand, when the printing rate is determined to be outside the set range, the set frequency is changed and the image formation control is executed. |
| US07672598B1 |
Carrier signal suppression and extraction system
A carrier signal extraction system for suppressing and extracting a carrier signal component and transmitting a double sideband component includes a polarized light source for transmitting a polarized light signal output; a polarization modulator with a first input coupled to the polarized light signal output and a second input for adding a modulation signal to the polarized light signal, thereby generating a polarization modulated light output; and a polarizing element having an input coupled to the polarization modulated light output for suppressing and extracting the carrier signal component and preferentially transmitting a double sideband component of the polarization modulated light output. |
| US07672596B2 |
Optical receiver circuit applicable to multiple transmission rates
An optical receiver circuit is provided which is able to receive optical signals having a variable transmission rate, without loss of data. The optical receiver circuit according to the present invention has a light-receiving section for converting an optical signal with a variable transmission rate into an electric signal. A recovery section recovers a plurality of different clock signals and data corresponding to possible transmission rates. These data are stored into a plurality of memories and at the same time a decision section decides the transmission rate. A switch section reads data from one of the memories selected according to the result of the decision. |
| US07672595B1 |
Optical transmission system architecture supporting migration to electronic compensation of link impairments
An optical communications system for conveying traffic through an optical link between transmitting and receiving nodes. The system comprises, for each node, respective legacy and bypass paths coupled in parallel between the optical link and the node. The legacy path of each node includes an optical dispersion compensation block for compensating a respective portion of dispersion of the link. Thus the present invention provides a system architecture by which an optical communications system can be constructed using conventional modulation and optical dispersion compensation technologies. Once installed, system growth can be accommodated using next generation transmitters (with electronic compensation) without stranding the legacy equipment. Legacy channels can also be upgraded to electronic compensation, as desired. |
| US07672594B2 |
Optical communication system with light guide having variable slidable point of entry or exit
An optical communication system is provided for conveying signals between multiple housing elements of a device, where respective optical detectors and optical light sources interact via a light guide associated with each communication path, where an optical signal produced by the optical light source and received by the optical detector travels a path where at least a first light redirection unit redirects the optical signal between an angle in which the optical signal travels along at least a portion of the length of the light guide, and an angle which allows the optical signal to exit the light guide. In at least some instances, the multiple housing elements correspond to at least a pair of housing elements that are incorporated as part of a communication device having a slider configuration. In some of the same or still further instances, one or more of the light redirection units are diffractive optical elements. In some instances, one or more of the light redirection units are reflectors. |
| US07672590B2 |
Data center with mobile data cabinets and method of mobilizing and connecting data processing devices in a data center using consolidated data communications and power connections
Data processing devices in a data center are more easily relocated by consolidating the data and power connections to the data processing devices within a mobile data cabinet. The mobile data cabinet includes an access switch to consolidate communications and connections among computing devices in the mobile cabinet and to consolidate communications to a central communication service through a main communication cable. A single data communication connection through the main communication cable and a single electrical power connection through a power delivery cable to the mobile cabinet reduces and simplifies number and difficulty of the disconnections and connections that must be made to move the mobile cabinet. |
| US07672586B2 |
Allocating connections in a communication system
Dynamic allocation of connections is performed in a communication network. When a new connection request is received by the network management system this request can be accepted or rejected. In case it is accepted, the connection can be set up by allocating new or reconfiguring existing connection resources. The reconfiguration options are constrained to a set of allowed reconfigurations which is a subset of the set of all possible reconfigurations of the existing connections on the network. |
| US07672584B2 |
Digital device
A digital device which can accommodate a large display yet still have a small overall size is provided. The digital device includes a first body with a lens and a display, and a second body with at least one operation button. The first and second body slide with respect to each other between a first position and a second position. The lens of the first body and the at least one operation button of the second body are exposed as the first body and the second body are slid into the first position. |
| US07672581B2 |
Camera composition guide
A camera and camera insert having an improved crop area either on a crop guide or otherwise provided on a display. The composition guide can be molded into the insert, such as a camera screen, or alternatively printed or painted thereon. The crop area can be horizontal and/or vertically oriented and/or provide an ability to identify both 8×10 as well as wallet sized images depending upon the embodiment utilized. |
| US07672579B2 |
Retractable lens barrel
A lens barrel includes a standard optical element used in a standard photographing operation and an insertable optical element which is selectively inserted into and removed from a photographing optical path. The lens barrel includes an accommodating driving device which moves the standard optical element and the insertable optical element rearward in an optical axis direction from a ready-to-photograph state to a retracted state; an insertable-optical-element drive mechanism which moves the insertable optical element between an inserted position on the optical axis on which the standard optical element is positioned, and a removed position off the optical axis, in the ready-to-photograph state of the lens barrel; and a forced removing device which forces the insertable optical element to move from the inserted position to the removed position independently of the insertable-optical-element drive mechanism when the lens barrel moves from the ready-to-photograph state to the retracted state. |
| US07672576B2 |
Water dispenser with sabbath function
Water dispensers are disclosed which include a Sabbath function. When activating the Sabbath function, water refill of the hot water reservoir tank is prevented and the heating of the water in the hot reservoir tank is modified to provide a constant heating at a less than boiling temperature. |
| US07672575B2 |
Evaporator featuring annular ridge member provided on side wall surface of evaporating chamber
In an evaporator for evaporating mists of liquid raw material to thereby generate start gas for layer-formation, an evaporator body has an evaporator chamber defined therein, and a mist supply throat for introducing the mists into the evaporating chamber. The evaporator chamber is defined by a principal evaporating face which opposes to the mist supply throat. The evaporator body also has a start-gas supply passage which is formed therein between the mist supply throat and the principal evaporating face such that the start gas flows out of the evaporating chamber through the start-gas supply passage. A ridge member is provided on an inner side wall surface of the evaporating chamber between the start-gas is supply passage and the principal evaporating face so that a tip edge of the ridge member is directed to the principal evaporating face. |
| US07672573B2 |
Shared memory architecture and method in an optical storage and recording system
A system includes an integrated encoder comprising an optical storage controller for coupling to an optical storage medium, and a data encoder for coding input data coupled to the optical storage controller, a first external memory coupled to a first memory controller in the integrated encoder, and a second external memory coupled to a second memory controller in the integrated encoder. In one aspect, the integrated encoder further comprises a first memory arbiter for selectively directing access to the first external memory by the optical storage controller and the data encoder, and a second memory arbiter for selectively directing access to the second external memory by the optical storage controller and the data encoder. |
| US07672566B2 |
Recording medium having data structure for managing reproduction of still pictures recorded thereon and recording and reproducing methods and apparatuses
The recording medium includes a data structure with presentation data stored in a data area of the recording medium. The presentation data is divided into still picture units with each still picture unit including at least one still picture and associated related data. |
| US07672561B1 |
Telecommunications patching system with patching modules
A telecommunications patching system includes: a rear panel, the rear panel including a plurality of cutout areas; a series of central compartments mounted to the rear panel, the central compartments being disposed in adjacent, vertically stacked relationship in at least one column, the rear ends of the central compartments being aligned with at least one of the cutout areas; and at least one series of lateral compartments mounted to the rear panel, the lateral compartments being disposed in spaced apart, vertically stacked relationship and laterally positioned from the central compartments, the rear ends of the lateral compartments being aligned with at least one of the cutout areas. The system also includes at least one central patching module with a plurality of connectors, the central patching module residing in one of the central compartments, the plurality of connectors being oriented to receive a communications cable from a lateral direction, a rear end of the central patching module extending rearwardly through a respective one of the cutout areas; and at least one lateral patching module with a plurality of connectors, the lateral patching module residing in one of the lateral compartments, the plurality of connectors being oriented to receive a communication cable from a lateral direction, a rear end of the lateral patching module extending rearwardly through a respective one of the cutout areas. |
| US07672558B2 |
Silicon optical device
An optical device can be fabricated by forming a silicon rib, such as a poly-silicon rib, on a SOI substrate so that a portion of the SOI substrate is exposed, and by forming silicon spacers, such as amorphous or poly-silicon spacers, that round off corners of the silicon rib. |
| US07672549B2 |
Solar energy concentrator
A solar concentrator having a concentrator element for collecting input light, a reflective component with a plurality of incremental steps for receiving the light and also for redirecting the light, and a waveguide including a plurality of incremental portions enabling collection and concentration of the light. |
| US07672548B2 |
Light emitting diode structures
Light emitting diode (LED) structures are described that include a first layer and a light-generating layer, wherein light generated in the light-generating layer generally emerges from the LED structure through the upper surface of the first layer. The coupling out of light generated by spontaneous emission is enhanced by the presence of patterning in the first layer, which may take the form of an embedded photonic quasicrystal, a photonic structure comprising an amorphous array of subregions, or a zone plate structure. The invention provides the benefit of improved light extraction from the LED without undesirable far field illumination patterns. |
| US07672541B2 |
Registration of separations
Separations or images relating to film or other fields may be registered using a variety of features, such as, for example: (1) correcting one or more film distortions; (2) automatically determining a transformation to reduce a film distortion; (3) applying multiple criteria of merit to a set of features to determine a set of features to use in determining a transformation; (4) determining transformations for areas in an image or a separation in, a radial order; (5) comparing areas in images or separations by weighting feature pixels differently than non-feature pixels; (6) determining, distortion values for transformations by applying a partial distortion measure and/or using a spiral search configuration; (7) determining transformations by using different sets of features to determine corresponding transformation parameters in an iterative manner; and (8) applying a feathering technique to neighboring areas within an image or separation. |
| US07672533B2 |
Judging image type with an image scanning device
In the process of control of an image scanning device that creates image data by scanning an image from a recording medium on which the image is recorded, the image scanning device is controlled to acquire first image data by scanning the image at a first scanning resolution; image type is judged on the basis of this first image data; and in the process of controlling the image scanning device to scan the image at a second scanning resolution, second image data is acquired under image acquisition conditions dependent on the image type indicated by the judgment result in the image judgment step. |
| US07672531B2 |
System and method for determining edges of objects in an image
The invention relates to a system and method of identifying an edge of an object in an image. The method comprises: identifying a segment of the image and a central pixel in the segment; identifying a set of mini-vectors as possible edges for the central pixel, utilizing a calculated gradient figure for the center pixel; and producing a reduced set of mini-vectors from the set of mini-vectors by removing mini-vectors that do not generate a continuous edge with an adjacent edge in an adjacent segment in the image. |
| US07672529B2 |
Techniques to detect Gaussian noise
A system, apparatus, method and article to filter media signals are described. The apparatus may include a media processor. The media processor may include an image signal processor having multiple processing elements to determine a level of noise for an image using an internal spatial region of said image, select filter parameters based on the level of noise, and filter the image using the filter parameters. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US07672528B2 |
Method of processing an image to form an image pyramid
A method of processing an image to form an image pyramid having multiple image levels includes receiving a base level image comprising pixel values at pixel locations arranged in rows and columns; determining sample locations for a next level image in the pyramid such that the sample locations are arranged in a regular pattern and the sample locations exceed the range of the pixel locations of the base level image; determining the pixel values of the next level image by interpolating the pixel values of the base level image using an interpolation filter at the sample locations; and treating the next level image as the base level image and repeating steps of determining sample locations and pixel values until a predetermined number of pyramid image levels are generated, or until a predetermined condition is met. |
| US07672527B2 |
Method and apparatus for chromatic correction of Fresnel lenses
Chromatic correction of a Fresnel lens is effected by collecting data at multiple detectors arrayed along the optical axis of the lens and then digitally processing data from each detector to obtain multiple sets of image data corresponding to selected tuned wavelengths associated with the multiple detectors, or to obtain composite multi-color image data. Digital processing includes deconvolving data from each detector with a point spread function (PSF) associated with the tuned wavelength of the detector, and thereby enhancing the image derived from the detector. Two possible techniques are also disclosed for deriving sub-band signal data having a wavelength that falls between the tuned wavelengths of adjacent detectors. |
| US07672525B2 |
Image processing method, program, storage medium, and apparatus for executing a quantization process of image data by error diffusion
An image processing method for executing a quantization process of image data by error diffusion, executes a step of generating first image data by adding a quantization error to input image data, a step of generating second image data by quantizing the first image data by comparing the first image data with a predetermined threshold value, a step of generating third image data by dequantizing the second image data, a calculation step of calculating a quantization error for each pixel on the basis of the difference between the first and third image data, a storage step of storing information indicating a positive/negative sign of the calculated quantization error for a predetermined number of pixels in a storage unit, and a correction value generation step of generating a correction value used to correct at least one of the first image data and the threshold value on the basis of the information which is stored in the storage unit and indicates the positive/negative sign. |
| US07672524B2 |
Quality control for image transcoding
A method and apparatus transcode an image. An encoded input bitstream of the image is analyzed to obtain a structure of the encoded input bitstream, in which the image includes a region-of-interest and a background region, and in which the encoded input bitstream is a stream of packets. A first quality value for the region-of-interest and a second quality value for the background region are determined. An encoded output bitstream is composed from a subset of the packets selected from the encoded input bitstream according to the structure, in which the subset of packets includes a first set of packets corresponding to the region-of-interest having the first quality value, a second set of packets corresponding to the background region and having second quality value, and empty packets. |
| US07672519B2 |
Use of frequency transforms in the analysis of image sensors
A method for detecting and removing noise from an image, the method includes the steps of applying a frequency transform to the image for obtaining a magnitude image; applying a threshold value to values of the magnitude image for obtaining threshold values; setting one or more threshold values to a predetermined value; and reconstructing the image from the magnitude image having the predetermined values for removing noise from the image. |
| US07672517B2 |
Method for encoding image pixels a method for processing images and a method for processing images aimed at qualitative recognition of the object reproduced by one or more image pixels
A method for encoding pixels of digital or digitized images, i.e., images consisting of a set of image dots, named pixels in two-dimensional images and voxels in three-dimensional images, each of said pixels or voxels being represented by a set of values which correspond to a visual aspect of the pixel on a display screen or in a printed image. According to the invention, the pixels or voxels of at least one portion of interest of the digital or digitized image or each pixel or voxel of the set of pixels or voxels which form the image is uniquely identified with a vector whose components are given by the date of the pixels or voxels to be encoded and by the data of at least one or at least some or of all of the pixels around the pixels to be encoded and arranged within a predetermined subset of pixels or voxels included in the whole set of pixels or voxels which form the image. |
| US07672514B2 |
Method and apparatus for differentiating pedestrians, vehicles, and other objects
A method and apparatus for classifying an object in an image is disclosed. Edges of an object are detected within a region of interest. Edge analysis is performed on a plurality of sub-regions within the region of interest to generate an edge score. The object is classified based on the edge score. |
| US07672511B2 |
System and method for lattice-preserving multigrid method for image segmentation and filtering
A method for segmenting a digitized image includes providing a digitized image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points on an N-dimensional grid, defining a weight between each pair of adjacent points in the image based on the intensity difference of each said point pair, marking a subset of points in said image wherein each marked point is marked with one of a plurality of labels, determining the probability that an unmarked point should be marked with one of said plurality of labels using a multigrid method that uses a restriction operator to map said provided image to a coarse-level gird, and a prolongation operator to map said coarse-level image back to a fine-level grid, wherein said restriction operator is an adjoint of said prolongation operator, and wherein a fine-level segmentation is a prolongation of a coarse level segmentation. |
| US07672510B2 |
Vehicle environment monitoring device
A vehicle environment monitoring device identifies objects from an image taken by an infrared camera. Object extraction from images is performed in accordance with the state of the environment as determined by measurements extracted from the images as follows: N1 binarized objects are extracted from a single frame. Height of a grayscale objects corresponding to one of the binarized objects are calculated. If a ratio of the number of binarized objects C, where the absolute value of the height difference is less than the predetermined value ΔH, to the total number N1 of binarized objects, is greater than a predetermined value X1, the image frame is determined to be rainfall-affected. If the ratio is less than the predetermined value X1, the image frame is determined to be a normal frame. A warning is provided if it is determined that the object is a pedestrian and if a collision is likely. |
| US07672507B2 |
Image processing methods and systems
Systems and methods according to the present invention provide techniques to reliably detect edges, lines and quadrilaterals, especially those with low local contrast, in color images. Edges can be detected using a color gradient operator is based on color distance with a non-linear weight determined by the consistency of local gradient orientations, thereby significantly improving the signal/noise ratio. In detecting lines, a variant of the Gradient Weighted Hough Transform can be used employing both the edge strength and orientation. Multiple non-overlapping quadrilaterals can be detected using a process which includes quality metrics (for both individual quadrilaterals and for a set of non-overlapping quadrilaterals) and a graph-searching method. |
| US07672505B2 |
Apparatus, method and program for three-dimensional-shape detection
The present invention relates to three-dimensional shape detection. In the present invention, a plurality of types of pattern lights formed of a series of alternate light and dark patterns are projected onto an object in a time series, an image of the object onto which each pattern light is projected is taken, a plurality of luminance images are generated, a code image having certain codes assigned to the pixels is generated in accordance with a result of threshold processing of the plurality of luminance images with respect to a certain threshold; and the three-dimensional shape of the object is calculated. Further, in the invention, a first pixel that is adjacent to a pixel having a code of interest and that has a code different from the code of interest is detected, in a detection position in a direction crossing the pattern light in the code image, a luminance image having a light-dark boundary in a position corresponding to the first pixel is extracted, from the plurality of luminance images, a pixel area that includes a pixel in a certain area adjacent to the first pixel is determined, an approximate expression that expresses a change in luminance in the extracted luminance image in the pixel area is calculated, a position having a certain luminance threshold in the approximate expression and detecting the boundary coordinates of the code of interest in accordance with the result of calculation is calculated, and the three-dimensional shape of the object is calculated in accordance with the boundary coordinates detected by the boundary coordinate detection unit by using the code image. |
| US07672500B2 |
System and method for monitoring and visualizing the output of a production process
A system for monitoring and visualizing the output of a production process, whose output materials or items are inspected by one or more inspection units, may include a communication module to receive data from the one or more inspection units. The received data may be associated with a measured or extrapolated value of at least one parameter of the inspected materials or items. A comparator module may compare at least one of the measured or extrapolated values against a corresponding stored value to determine a difference value, and a visualization module may generate an image representing the inspected items or materials. An area or section of the image corresponding to an area or section of the item or material associated with the at least one of the measured or extrapolated values which was compared to the stored value may be visually coded to indicate a corresponding difference value. |
| US07672497B2 |
Computer aided disease detection system for multiple organ systems
A computer aided disease detection system and method for multiple organ systems. The method performs computer aided examination of digital medical images. A patient exam type of a digital medical image is determined. Based on the patient exam type, one or more of a plurality of knowledge based anatomical segmentation blocks are invoked, each block performing image segmentation for a single organ or organ system present in the image. Based on the patient exam type, for each successfully segmented organ or organ system, one or more of a plurality of knowledge based computer aided detection blocks are invoked, each block of which is designed to search for and locate potential disease foci in a particular organ or organ system. |
| US07672496B2 |
Forming three dimensional objects using a decision rule in medical image data
A decision rule is used that examines the computer-aided detected (CAD) regions of interest in a computed tomography (CT) slice pair taken from volumetric medical CT scan to determine whether the detected regions of interest are part of the same object is disclosed. Segmentation is performed after initially detecting a region of interest but before calculating features in order to refine the boundaries of the detected regions of interest. Segmentation occurs in the two-dimensional slices by segmenting the region of interest on each slice. Adjacent slices are examined to determine if adjacent objects are actually part of the same structure. If they are not, the objects are split apart. In this way, three-dimensional objects are formed from two-dimensional segmentations. |
| US07672490B2 |
Motion artifacts compensation
Motion is one of the most critical sources of artifacts in helical conebeam CT. By comparing opposite rays corresponding to projection data, the amount of motion may be estimated and, in the following suppression of corresponding motion artifacts may be performed according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The method of motion artifact compensation may be implemented in both approximate reconstruction algorithms and exact reconstruction algorithms. Advantageously, motion during the data acquisition is detected automatically and related motion artifacts may be suppressed adaptively. |
| US07672485B2 |
Method and device for measuring at least a geometric quantity of an optically reflecting surface
A quick, reliable and accurate method and device for measuring an optically reflecting surface, enabling quantifying of the curvatures and/or slopes and raised parts of the optically reflecting surface without risk of deteriorating the measured surface and adapted to measurement of large-dimension surfaces. The system and method for measuring the geometry of an optically reflecting surface to be measured S includes observing with a camera (2) the image of the surface to be measured S set in a measuring space (1), then interpreting the image in quantitative values characterizing at least one geometric quantity of the optically reflecting surface to be measured S. |
| US07672483B2 |
Controlling and customizing access to spatial information
A spatial data handling and map generation system comprises a receiver component that receives a request for information associated with a geographic region and data associated with an initiator of the request. A mapping component renders a representation of the geographic region, the representation is customized according to a role assigned to the initiator of the request, the role is assigned based at least in part upon the received data. |
| US07672482B2 |
Shape detection using coherent appearance modeling
A method of finding an object in an image that consists of describing an object shape by one or more sets of feature points (220); estimating positions of the feature points (310); finding new locations for each feature point based on an appearance model of an aggregate appearance of the object in local neighborhoods of all features points (320); and constraining the positions of the feature points based on a shape model (330). |
| US07672481B2 |
Image information processing system, image information processing method, image information processing program, and automobile
An image information processing system permits stable display of image information regarding an object on an image display device even if an image area of the object recognized through an infrared camera is unstable. In the image information processing system, a first image area recognition unit recognizes a first image area associated with an object on the basis of a second variable based on the position of the object measured through the infrared camera. Further, a second image area recognition unit estimates the first image area on the basis of a first variable and a second variable based on the running mode of an automobile, and recognizes the estimated image area as a second image area. Then, an image information control unit causes a head-up display to display one or both of the first image information associated with the first image area and the second image information associated with the second image area. |
| US07672480B2 |
Method for photographing on board of a flying rotating body and system for carrying out said method
The invention relates to a method for photographing on board of a flying rotating body and system for carrying out said method. According to said invention, pictures (V0, V90, V180, V270) are taken at predetermined angular positions of said flying body by a device which is rigidly fixed to the front thereof and are exposed to an image geometrical transformation required for the display thereof. |
| US07672478B2 |
Spray data acquisition system
A spray data acquisition system includes a spray pump actuator that is capable of providing a pumping force to a pumping device to generate an aerosol spray plume along a spray axis. The system also includes an illumination device that illuminates the aerosol spray plume along at least one first geometric plane that intersects the aerosol spray plume. The system further includes an imaging device that acquires data representative of an interaction between the illumination and the aerosol spray plume along at least one geometric plane. |
| US07672475B2 |
Method and apparatus for verifying a hologram and a credit card
A method for verifying a hologram, comprising the steps of reading at least two images of the hologram, the images being representative of images derived at respective different viewing angles, comparing a characteristic derived from the respective images with a reference characteristic to establish if the hologram is authentic, and outputting a signal indicative of the authenticity or otherwise of the hologram. |
| US07672474B2 |
Electronic watermark embedding device, electronic watermark detection device, method thereof, and program
A digital watermark embedding apparatus of the present invention includes: a block dividing unit for dividing an input image into plural pixel blocks; a digital watermark information spreading unit for obtaining an embedding series having a length corresponding to a number of divided pixel blocks; a block-by-block embedding unit for selecting at least a frequency from predetermined plural frequencies according to a term value of the embedding series corresponding to a position of a pixel block in the image, amplifying amplitude of a waveform pattern corresponding to the selected frequency with an embedding strength value, and superimposing the waveform pattern in which the amplitude is amplified on the pixel block; and an image outputting unit for outputting an image on which a corresponding waveform pattern is superimposed on each pixel block by the block-by-block embedding unit. |
| US07672470B2 |
Audio/video device having a volume control function for an external audio reproduction unit by using volume control buttons of a remote controller and volume control method therefor
An audio/video (A/V) device having a volume control function for external audio reproduction units by using volume control buttons of a remote controller is provided. The A/V device includes speakers, an audio output port for externally outputting an audio signal, an audio signal processing unit for reproducing and amplifying the audio signal and applying the amplified audio signal to the speakers or the audio output port, a memory unit for storing volume control values, and a control unit for applying to the audio signal processing unit any of the volume control values stored in the memory based on whether the external audio reproduction unit is plugged in the audio output port. The control unit controls the audio signal processing unit to adjust the volume control values for the audio output port by the volume control buttons when the external audio reproduction unit is plugged in the audio output port. |
| US07672465B2 |
System and method for synchronization using GPS in home network
The audio speakers in a PLC-based home entertainment network receive GPS timing information. Audio packets from an audio source are timestamped with satellite timing information, so that the speakers can substantially simultaneously play audio using the timestamps and the timing information available at each speaker, thereby avoiding the echo effect caused by inadequate synchronization between speakers. |
| US07672461B2 |
Method and apparatus for creating a virtual third channel in a two-channel amplifier
A method and apparatus for creating a third signal channel from an input signal received in each of a first and second channel involves inverting a predetermined frequency range of signals in the first channel out of phase with a corresponding frequency range of signals in the second channel. Thereafter, the inverted signal in the first channel and the corresponding frequency signal in the second channel may be communicated to a speaker, which is bridged across the first and second channels, as the third signal channel. This speaker produces sound corresponding to the difference (i.e., the frequency range determined by the predetermined bandwidth of the inverted signal) between the inverted signal in the first channel and the corresponding frequency signal in the second channel. |
| US07672458B2 |
Method and system for key insertion for stored encrypted content
An encrypted content transport stream is received by a viewer's device and recorded for subsequent playback. During recording, keys in headers of packets of the stream are stripped and placed in sequence in a table. Also, the table indicates changes in key indicating bits. When it is desired to play the content, start-of-frame indicator bits such as PUSI and/or RAI bits are used to access the table of keys to retrieve the keys necessary to decrypt the transport stream packets sought to be played. |
| US07672456B2 |
Anti-pirate method for the distribution of digital content by pro-active diversified transmission, associated transmitting device and portable receiving object
The invention concerns an anti-pirate method for the distribution of digital content by pro-active diversified transmission, associated transmitter device and portable receiving object. The method, designed to make the same information (Kc) available to several receivers (1) belonging to a group (G) of receivers, each receiver storing information (SAi) specific to it, is characterized in that it includes the following steps: define a relation Kc=f(K, bi, SAi) where (f) is a given function, (K) is information common to all the receivers, and (bi) is information different for each receiver and for each value of the information (K); —enable each receiver to access information (bi) before making (Kc) available; and transmit the information (K) to all receivers, just before making (Kc) available; so that each receiver can calculate information (Kc) using said relation. |
| US07672454B2 |
Method for copy protection of digital content
A method for copy protection of digital content, wherein at least a part of the digital content is an active part enabling the execution of the digital content, includes steps of storing digital content in a storage, choosing reference storage blocks from the storage, creating dependencies between the digital content and the chosen reference storage blocks and executing by way of the active part the digital content only after verification of the dependencies in order to verify the presence of the chosen reference storage blocks. A storing medium also includes a digital content being copy protected according to the method and to a reproducing apparatus executes the steps of the above-described method. |
| US07672450B2 |
Network interface device enclosure
The disclosure describes an active network interface device (NID) enclosure having a modular construction that provides flexibility to a vendor and permits independent access to technician-accessible connections and subscriber-accessible connections while promoting resistance to environmental and security threats. The active NID enclosure includes an electronics enclosure and an access enclosure. The electronics enclosure contains active electronic components for conversion of data carried on a network signal carrier into services for delivery to subscriber devices. The access enclosure includes two separate access compartments, having separate covers, for independent access to either network terminals or subscriber terminals. |
| US07672449B2 |
Multimode xDSL line card adaptive activation method and its system
This invention presents a multimode xDSL line card adaptive activation method, comprising the following steps: A) A master controller is installed and configured with multiple templates based on the modes of operation supported by a line card, and forwards templates to said line card; B) The line card receives templates forwarded by the master controller and activates the line card communications chip; C) The communications chip communicates with the remote CPE and decides on a mode of operation according to a handshake protocol; D) The line card employs a corresponding template according to the mode of operation chosen in Step C, and practices circuit activation with the CPE. This invention solves the existing problems in current multimode xDSL technology of poor compatibility and inability to adapt effectively. |
| US07672448B2 |
Network interface device with a remote power source
Various methods, apparatuses, and systems in which a residential gateway is located at the network interface device and is powered with a remote power source inside the residence. In another embodiment, bi-directional data communication between the residential gateway and the remote power source is also enabled. |
| US07672445B1 |
Method and system for nonlinear echo suppression
Techniques for suppressing large echo due to nonlinearity, instable adaptive filter, and so on. An echo cancellation system includes an echo canceller unit, a nonlinear echo detection unit, and a nonlinear echo suppression unit. The echo canceller unit (e.g., an adaptive filter) receives a reference signal and a near-end signal, derives an echo estimate signal based on the reference and near-end signals, cancels a portion of echo in the near-end signal based on the echo estimate signal, and provides an intermediate signal having residual echo. The nonlinear echo detection unit detects for large nonlinear echo in the echo estimate signal. The nonlinear echo suppression unit suppresses large nonlinear echo in the first intermediate signal based on a variable gain, which may be adjusted lower if large nonlinear echo is detected and higher otherwise. |
| US07672443B2 |
Virtual private network dialed number nature of address conversion
A method and system for handling identical VPN numbers assigned to multiple companies using a nature of address/number identifier initiated as public. The method includes receiving a query from a switch module to determine routing information for a call initiated by a calling party, the query including dialed digits with a nature of address identifier, and a calling party identifier updating the nature of address identifier associated with dialed digits to a private type code if a VPN coding identifier is determined present, looking up routing information associated with the dialed digits in a look-up table corresponding to the calling party identifier if the nature of address identifier includes the private type code, and transmitting the routing information to the switch module. |
| US07672436B1 |
Voice rendering of E-mail with tags for improved user experience
Tags, such as XML tags, are inserted into email to separate email content from signature blocks, privacy notices and confidentiality notices, and to separate original email messages from replies and replies from further replies. The tags are detected by a system that renders email as speech, such as voice command platform or network-based virtual assistant or message center. For example, the system can detect the signature block or privacy notice tags and not render the signature block or privacy notice as speech. The system can render an original email message in one voice mode and the reply in a different voice mode. The tags can be inserted to identify a voice memo in which a user responds to a particular portion of an email message. Preferably, an email server that receives and stored the email message inserts the tags into the email. Alternatively, the tags could be inserted by an email client application. The tags are detected by an email parser, which can be incorporated into the system rendering email as speech, or, alternatively implemented in a separate logical entity. |
| US07672427B2 |
Imaging system
It is disclosed an imaging system comprising: radiation generating means including at least one radiation source for generating radiations; data acquiring means including an detector matrix faced the radiation source for obtaining projection data by receiving radiations penetrated through an object to be inspected; transporting means for making the object to be inspected between the radiation source and the detector matrix linearly moving relative to the radiation source and the detector matrix; and controlling and image processing means for controlling the radiation generating means, the data acquiring means and the transporting means, and for reconstructing an image of the object to be inspected from the projection data. The imaging system according to the present invention achieves a real stereoscopic radiography by using straight-line trajectory scan and reconstructing a tomographic or stereoscopic image through a straight-line filtered back-projection algorithm. The present imaging system has advantages of fast examination speed, no rotation, and out of large cone-angle problem in a circular-orbit cone-beam CT. |
| US07672422B2 |
Radiation scanning of objects for contraband
Systems and methods for the radiation scanning of objects, including large objects such as cargo containers, to identify contraband. |
| US07672417B2 |
Clock and data recovery
A data and clock recovery circuit having a retimer mode and a resync mode. In one embodiment, a receiver circuit includes; a retimer; a clock recovery circuit to provide a clock signal to the retimer; and an adjustable delay to provide a delayed version of an input signal to the retimer. When in a resync mode, the adjustable delay causes a pre-selected delay in the input signal and the clock recovery circuit dynamically selects a clock phase to generate the clock signal. When in a second mode, the adjustable delay dynamically adjusts the delayed version of the input signal and the clock recovery circuit outputs the clock signal having a pre-selected clock phase. |
| US07672411B2 |
Radio receiver
A radio receiver comprising: an antenna for receiving a radio frequency signal amplitude modulated with an audio frequency signal; a digitizer for periodically sampling the radio frequency signal and generating a digital reception signal representative of the amplitude of the radio frequency signal; and a demodulator for demodulating the digital reception signal to generate a representation of the audio frequency signal. |
| US07672410B2 |
Diversity receiver
This invention provides a diversity receiver, which has N branches for receiving M versions of an input signal. The diversity receiver comprises N channel state information estimators, a demodulator and a combining and demapping device. After receiving the M versions of the input signal, the demodulator performs demodulation and then generates M demodulated signals. N channel state information estimators, one channel state information estimator equipped for each branch, respectively fetches the signals from the demodulator to generate M channel parameters related to the M versions of the input signal. The combining and demapping device receives the M demodulated signals, performs signal combining operations and symbol demapping, and finally generate a pre-correcting signal. |
| US07672407B2 |
Mitigation of interference from periodic noise
A method and apparatus for mitigation of interference from periodic noise. An embodiment of a method includes receiving wireless signal data, where the data includes a periodic noise that varies in frequency over time. The method further includes performing a time-spectrum characterization of the data, and correlating the time-spectrum characterization of the data to determine a period of the periodic noise. The noise is dynamically weighted based at least in part on frequency variation of the noise. |
| US07672402B2 |
Data processing apparatus and method and encoding device
A data processing apparatus able to start decoding at a timing earlier than the conventional timing and able to reduce the storage capacity required for a storing means for storing the encoded data until a decoding side decodes the input encoded data in comparison with the conventional storage capacity, which apparatus selects frame data from frame data f(5) having the last decoding order to frame data f(0) having the first decoding order for processing for calculating a delay time min_delay and calculates the delay time min_delay. It calculates the delay time min_delay indicating the delay time from when the decoding side starts to receive input of the frame data to when the data is decoded based on the specified size and the bit rate of the input of the frame data to the decoding side for each of the frame data for processing. |
| US07672394B2 |
Transmission apparatus and transmission method
A transmission apparatus capable of preventing both degrading of the error rate characteristic and deterioration of throughput caused by repeated retransmissions. In the apparatus, arrangement determination section 103 determines in an initial transmission to perform general constellation mapping, and determines in a retransmission to vary a constellation mapping position or vary a bit arrangement of each symbol according to the number of retransmissions. Data interchanging section 105 interchanges transmission data for each bit on a symbol basis to be in a bit arrangement determined by arrangement determining section 103. Mapper section 106 configures (maps) the transmission data input from data interchanging section 105 in each symbol to be mapped in the constellation mapping position determined in arrangement determining section 103. |
| US07672389B2 |
Method for transmitting symbols through at least a communication channel
The present invention concerns a method for transmitting symbols through at least a channel in a telecommunication system including at least one transmitter (10) provided with at least two transmitting antennas (Antt 1, Antt 2) and at least one receiver provided with at least one receiving antenna (Antr 1), the method includes an encoding step wherein a vector comprising symbols is multiplied by a coding matrix for producing coded symbols to be transmitted over the at least one communication channel established between the transmitter (10) and the receiver (20), wherein the coding matrix is calculated from an eigenvalue decomposition of a matrix obtained by calculating at least the Kronecker product of the identity matrix of size N, N being the time and/or the frequency dimension of the code and a matrix obtained from an estimated correlation matrix of the response of the channel. The invention concerns also the associated device and a method and device for decoding symbols. |
| US07672387B2 |
Multiple input, multiple output wireless communication system, associated methods and data structures
Embodiments of multiple input multiple output wireless communication systems, associated methods and data structures are generally described herein. |
| US07672385B2 |
Radio apparatus
A modem unit inputs a combination, of control signal and data signal, which is to use a plurality of subcarriers. Among a plurality of combinations inputted, the modem unit performs interleaving with a size defined by the first number of subcarriers on a control signal and performs interleaving with the size defined by the second number of subcarriers on a data signal. The modem unit appends additional signals to control signals contained in the second and the subsequent combinations in a plurality of combinations interleaved. The modem unit appends additional signals whose number of subcarriers is equal to the difference between the first number of subcarriers and the second number of subcarriers. |
| US07672382B2 |
OFDM receiving method and apparatus
In order to improve upon a degradation in performances due to inter-carrier interference without loss of transmission efficiency, antennas provided on a mobile body are made directional antennas. An antenna selection unit selects a directional antenna in such a manner that Doppler shift that is caused by movement of the mobile body will keep a constant sign that is positive or negative, a fading-variation calculation unit calculates the average value of fading variation on each path of a multipath environment, and a fading-variation compensation unit compensates the multipath fading variation based upon the average value. |
| US07672381B1 |
Method of multiple-carrier communication within a noncontiguous wideband spectrum and apparatus therefor
A method (20) of orthogonal frequency-division multiplex (OFDM) communication via a plurality of subchannels (30) within a noncontiguous wideband channel (24) is provided. The method (20) determines an SNR for each of the subchannels (30). The method (20) then designates a subchannel (30) as clear (93) when its SNR is greater than a least-SNR threshold (70), as impeded (95) when its SNR is less than the least-SNR threshold and greater than an SNR-evaluation threshold, and as obstructed (111) when its SNR is less than both the least-SNR and the SNR-evaluation thresholds. The method (20) then transmits OFDM data (34) so that each of the clear subchannels receives the OFDM data (34) at a maximum subchannel signal level (40), each of the impeded subchannels receives the OFDM data (34) at an intermediate subchannel signal level (42), and each of the obstructed subchannels receives the OFDM data (34) at zero subchannel signal level (44). |
| US07672378B2 |
Spatio-temporal graph-segmentation encoding for multiple video streams
A multiple video stream capture and encoding apparatus produces compressed data that represents multiple video streams capturing a common scene. Images from multiple video streams are analyzed to identify image color segments that are encoded into a composite graph data structure. Corresponding image segments across the multiple video streams are also identified and represented by one node in the composite graph data structure. The composite graph data structure also includes links between pairs of nodes that describe the relationship between the image segments associated with those nodes. The composite graph data structure is updated to represent changes to the image segments in the multiple video streams over time. The composite graph data structure is used to create compressed encoded data for storage and/or transmission. |
| US07672374B2 |
Image processing apparatus
An image processing apparatus includes an inputting unit for inputting moving image data that is composed of frames each including first and second fields and that is encoded by intra-frame and inter-frame encoding; an instructing unit for submitting a request for outputting a still image; a still image generating unit for generating still image data including first encoded data and second encoded data, each of these encoded data having a prediction error of zero with respect to a reference image; a multiplexing unit for selecting to output either the still image data generated by the still image generating unit or the moving image data input by the inputting unit; a controlling unit for controlling the multiplexing unit so as to select the still image data generated by the still image generating unit; and a transmitting unit for transmitting the image data output from the multiplexing unit in an encoded state. |
| US07672373B2 |
Digital watermarking of a media stream using coded macroblock types
A method and a carrier medium instructing a processor to execute a method. The method includes accepting a compressed video stream compressed by a compression method that uses macroblocks of possibly different macroblock types for each frame predictive encoding frames. The method further includes identifying a sequence of frames that are substantially visually indistinguishable and that include a predictively encoded frame and the at least one reference frame of the predictively encoded frame. The method further includes creating an ordered set of macroblocks, with the macroblock types of different macroblocks in the ordered set used to encode digital watermark information. The method further includes replacing the predictively encoded frame of the identified sequence with a newly-encoded predictively encoded replacement frame that contains the created ordered set of macroblocks, including the encoded watermarking information. |
| US07672367B1 |
System and method for selecting data rates of initialization signals
A system includes a transceiver for communicating over a telecommunication line that is coupled to the transceiver. The transceiver comprises logic configured to measure attenuation of at least one signal transmitted across the telecommunication line. The logic is further configured to automatically select, based on the measured attenuation, a plurality of different data rates for a plurality of initialization signals communicated via the transceiver during an initialization phase that precedes a data phase. |
| US07672366B2 |
Line quality report accuracy measurement device and accuracy measurement method
A channel quality report accuracy measurement apparatus and accuracy measurement method are provided that correctly measure the accuracy of channel quality reported from a communication apparatus. A scheme control section (140) stores coding rates and modulation schemes corresponding to CQIs, and specifies the transmission scheme corresponding to a fixed CQI reported from a CQI statistical processing section (230). A CQI decoding section (220) decodes a reported CQI contained in a received signal. The CQI statistical processing section (230) performs statistical processing of reported CQIs corresponding to test data transmitted prior to an accuracy measurement test, and reports the most frequently reported CQI to the scheme control section (140) as a fixed CQI. A PER calculation section (260) calculates the PER in the communication apparatus from the reported CQI and Ack/Nack corresponding to test data transmitted in accordance with the fixed CQI. A determination section (270) performs threshold value determination for the PER for each reported CQI value, and outputs the reported CQI scheme determination result. |
| US07672364B2 |
Self-calibration method for use in a mobile transceiver
A method is provided for self-calibrating the mismatch and the direct current (DC) offset occurring in a mobile transceiver. The transmitter of the mobile terminal is used as a signal generator and the receiver thereof is used as a response characteristic measurer. The baseband processor calibrates the mismatch and the DC offset for the receiving and transmitting sides using a test signal received from the transmitter. When multiple input subcarriers are used in a mixer present on a reception stage, self-calibration is performed using multiple received test signals obtained from one transmission test signal. |
| US07672356B2 |
Method and apparatus for detection of a frequency coded sequence in the presence of sinusoidal interference
A communication device according to the present invention detects a frequency-hopped signal in an environment including sinusoidal interference. The frequency-hopped signal includes a frequency shift keying (FSK) sequence, where the sequence alternates between frequencies shifted from the carrier signal or hop frequency by positive and negative frequency offsets. The communication device of the present invention uses independent detection paths for each of the shifted frequencies. In the detection path for the upper frequency (e.g., positive frequency shift), a series of filters suppresses signals in the lower frequency band (e.g., negative frequency shift), while the detection path for the lower frequency employs a separate series of filters to suppress signals in the upper frequency band. The filter outputs from each detection path are separately examined to detect the presence of an expected signal. |
| US07672352B2 |
Surface-emitting semiconductor array device, module, light source device, data processing apparatus, light transmitting device, light spatial transmitting apparatus, and light spatial transmitting system
A surface-emitting semiconductor array device includes a substrate, a plurality of light-emitting portions, an electrode pad portion formed on the substrate and disposed through the plurality of light-emitting portions and a dividing groove, and having a plurality of electrode pads formed on an insulating film, and a plurality of metal wirings for connecting each of the plurality of light-emitting portions to a corresponding electrode pad through the dividing groove, the dividing groove has a wave-shaped side wall formed on the substrate. |
| US07672350B2 |
Method and device for using optical feedback to overcome bandwidth limitations caused by relaxation oscillation in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs)
A semiconductor device is provided that includes an optical feedback structure that is monolithically integrated with a VCSEL device and which extends the speed of the VCSEL device beyond the speed to which it would otherwise be limited due to relaxation oscillation. The optical feedback structure does not rely on light emissions from the VCSEL substrate material to produce optical feedback. Consequently, extension of the bandwidth of the semiconductor device through the use of optical feedback is not limited by the absorption threshold wavelength of the substrate material. Furthermore, because the optical feedback structure does not include the substrate, the ability to use optical feedback to extend the bandwidth of the device is independent of the precision with which the substrate thickness can be controlled. |
| US07672347B2 |
Semiconductor light emitting device
A semiconductor light emitting device includes: a substrate; a laminate structure including a first semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a second semiconductor layer; and a current confinement part for limiting a current injection region of the active layer in the second semiconductor layer, or between the active layer and the second semiconductor layer, on the substrate, wherein the current confinement part includes a current confinement layer having a conductive region corresponding to the current injection region of the active layer and a nonconductive region corresponding to a region other than the current injection region of the active layer, and an intermediate layer provided between the current confinement layer and the second semiconductor layer or the active layer in order to prevent a mixed crystal from being formed between the current confinement layer and the second semiconductor layer or the active layer. |
| US07672332B1 |
Map routing technique implemented in access networks
An improved addressing scheme is disclosed for use in access networks. According to a specific embodiment, upstream and/or downstream channels may be grouped together based upon logical associations rather than physical associations. Further, according to at least one embodiment of the present invention, various techniques are described for routing selected channel MAP messages to appropriate channels and/or nodes within the access network. |
| US07672331B1 |
Method and apparatus for initiating routing messages in a communication network
Switches within a telecommunications network exchange so-called available bandwidth messages, each of which advertises how much bandwidth remains unassigned on a respective link. The network is of a type in which circuits are provisioned with various predefined numbers of time slots (equivalent to bandwidth). The sending of an available bandwidth message for a given link is triggered by a change in the number of time slots available on that link if that change results in a change in the number of circuit bandwidths that can be accommodated by that link for a newly provisioned circuit. |
| US07672330B2 |
Methods for sending and receiving network management messages and/or control messages
The present invention provides a method for sending and receiving the network management messages and/or the control messages, that is, using GFP protocol in stead of conventional LAPD protocol, predetermining the mapping relationship between the values of UPI field in GFP protocol and the types of the data including the network management messages and/or the control messages, furthermore, filling the UPI field of GFP protocol based on the corresponding mapping relationship, encapsulating the network management messages and/or the control messages via GFP protocol into SDH/SONET, PDH or OTN, and transmitting the encapsulated data. GFP protocol is a universal protocol, allowing for inter-operation of the network management messages and the control messages between the equipments of different manufacturers. |
| US07672329B2 |
Method and apparatus for multiplexing and demultiplexing data, and computer product
A generating unit generates an apparatus reference frame phase that becomes a reference in a data multiplexing/demultiplexing apparatus, based on a reception frame phase of the data input to a predetermined reception buffer and a predetermined delay amount. A multiplexing/demultiplexing unit reads data from the reception buffer based on the apparatus reference frame phase generated by the generating unit, and multiplexes or demultiplexes the data. |
| US07672328B2 |
WLAN transmit scheduler comprising an accelerated back-off function
This invention can generally be described as an overall transmit (TX) scheduler state-machine that is broken down into two different state-machines: One first TX-scheduler state-machine (FTSM), executed in software, and one second TX-scheduler state-machine (STSM) executed in hardware, which is operating in four different basic states. The functional partitioning between the two state-machines is such that the most constrained real-time requirements are allocated to the STSM, while all complex decisions and non time-critical controls are allocated to the FTSM. The invention also relates to a terminal comprising the invented transmit scheduler. |
| US07672325B2 |
Method and apparatus for improved IGMP group membership messaging
A method and apparatus for controlling a Report message processing load at an IGMPv3 proxy/router. A |
| US07672321B2 |
Data communication in networks comprising a plurality of network nodes and at least one star node
The invention relates to a network comprising a plurality of network nodes. At least part of the network nodes are directly coupled to each other via at least one star node. The star node comprises a plurality of star interfaces which are assigned to at least one network node. In dependence on a respective pilot signal, a star interface conveys a message from the assigned network node to the other star interfaces, or from another star interface to at least one of the assigned network nodes. Also, in the event of simultaneous arrival of at least two pilot signals at the respective star interfaces, a decision circuit releases one star interface for the transmission of data. |
| US07672312B1 |
Connection release in a two-layer communication network
The present invention is a method for releasing at least a part of a connection in a two-layer communication network that includes a first communication network layer adapted to establish or which establishes a communication channel to a terminal, and a second communication network layer adapted to establish or which establishes an application layer connection. The method includes deciding in one of the first and second communication network layers that at least the part of the connection associated with the terminal is to be released, and forwarding the decision from the one of the communication network layers in which the decision has been taken, to the other of the communication network layers via an interface between the first and second communication network layers. |
| US07672303B1 |
Arbitration method and system
A method is provided for performing arbitration in an information packet controller. The method includes transmitting different types of information packets from an initiator to a receiver. One type of information packet has a quality of service requiring a faster transmission time from the initiator to the receiver than another type of information packet having a quality of service having a slower transmission time from the initiator to the receiver. The transmitting of the information packets from the initiator to the receiver is in accordance with priority assigned to the information packet, the quality of service assigned to the information packet, and the age of such information packets having been stored in a queue of the initiator, such quality of service being a function of the speed at which the packets are required to pass from the initiator to a receiver. |
| US07672302B2 |
Router using switching-before-routing packet processing and method of operation
A router comprising: i) a switch fabric; and ii) N Layer 2 modules coupled by the switch fabric, each of the N Layer 2 modules capable of receiving data packets in Layer 2 frames and forwarding the received data packets using Layer 2 addresses associated with the Layer 2 frames, wherein a first one of the Layer 2 modules comprises a Layer 3 routing engine capable of forwarding a first received data packet through the switch fabric directly to a second one of the Layer 2 modules using a Layer 3 address associated with the first received data packet if the first Layer 2 module does not recognize a Layer 2 address associated with the first received data packet. |
| US07672300B1 |
Network device with multiple MAC/PHY ports
A network device comprises a multi-port MAC device that includes N MAC devices and that outputs a port multiplexed and encoded parallel data stream. A first serializer/deserializer (SERDES) serializes the port multiplexed and encoded parallel data stream from the multi-port MAC device. |
| US07672299B2 |
Network interface card virtualization based on hardware resources and software rings
A method for virtualizing a network interface card includes creating a first plurality of virtual NICs, assigning each of a plurality of receive rings on the network interface card (NIC) to one of the first plurality of virtual NICs, and if the number of virtual NICs is greater than the number of receive rings on the NIC, creating a first software ring corresponding to one of the plurality of receive rings on the NIC, creating a first plurality of software receive rings associated with the first software ring, creating a second plurality of virtual NICs, and assigning each of the first plurality of software receive rings to one of the second plurality of virtual NICs, wherein the plurality of receive rings is less than a sum of the first plurality of virtual NICs and the second plurality of virtual NICs. |
| US07672293B2 |
Hardware throttling of network traffic sent to a processor based on new address rates
In an embodiment of the invention, a method and apparatus for hardware throttling of network traffic, includes: receiving a packet; and preventing the packet from being copied, based on a rate field value associated with a new address in the packet information in the packet. The packet is not copied even if a copy rule is triggered. |
| US07672292B2 |
Mobile packet communication system
A radio base station allocates, when performing a real-time Internet-protocol data communication, up-link radio resources, based on basic information of transmission data, so that the transmission data is transmitted in synchronization with a codec cycle of a mobile communication terminal in a concentrated manner, and notifies a result of allocating the up-link radio resources to the mobile communication terminal as an up-transmission schedule. A mobile communication terminal controls transmission of a radio frame based on the up-transmission schedule. |
| US07672291B2 |
Methods for establishing wireless network communication and device utilizing same
Method for establishing wireless networks between devices is disclosed. When a first device is activated to establish a wireless network with other devices, a first activation reference time is recorded. At least one second device that has at least one compatible networking capability is searched for and identified. When the second device is activated to establish wireless network with other devices, a second activation reference time also is recorded. The first and second activation reference times are compared to determine whether they fall into the same time window. The offset between the system time of the first device and that of the second may be factored into the calculation to further enhance the accuracy. If the first and second activation reference times are in the same time window, the authentication of wireless network is established between the devices. |
| US07672290B2 |
Dual-mode mobile terminal and method for displaying time information
A dual-mode mobile terminal that connects to synchronous and asynchronous mobile communication systems and a method for displaying accurate time information in the terminal. The terminal includes a timer and a controller. The timer generates an interrupt signal at a predetermined time. When entering an asynchronous communication mode, the controller starts the timer to generate the interrupt signal at the predetermined time. When receiving the interrupt signal from the timer, the controller connects to the synchronous mobile communication system to obtain accurate time information therefrom and then connects to the asynchronous mobile communication system to switch to the asynchronous communication mode. |
| US07672288B1 |
Arrangement for secure communication and key distribution in a telecommunication system
The invention relates to mobility management of an Internet-type protocol traffic in a mobile communications system. At least one mobile exchange (DXT1, DXT2) in the mobile communications system is arranged to operate as a gateway which interfaces (router 1) the mobile communications system with external data networks. All the mobile exchanges (DXT1, DXT2) are arranged to use a user identity and a data equipment identity for identifying each mobile host and to use an identity of the mobile exchange currently serving the mobile host for defining the location of the mobile host. Each mobile host is dynamically or permanently allocated an IP address which is bound to the user identity, the data equipment identity and the location information of the respective mobile host. The use of the user identity and the data terminal identity provide a unique identification for the mobile host without any relation to the IP network. Also the location information is independent of the IP network. As a consequence, the mobile exchanges are able to route IP datagrams having the allocated IP address from a gateway exchange (DXT1) to the serving exchange (DXT2) according to the location information and further to the respective mobile host according to the user identity and the data equipment identity bound to the IP address by using a mobile network specific routing method instead of mobile IP tunnelling. |
| US07672284B2 |
Throughput in multi-rate wireless networks using variable-length packets and other techniques
In a wireless communication network having a plurality of devices operating at different data rates that contend for access to the network, a method is provided that assigns network access parameters to one or more of the devices so as to control throughput on the network. Examples of network access control parameters are the maximum data packet size and the contention window size. Generally, the network access control parameter for slower data rate users is configured so that they do not occupy the network a disproportionate amount of time compared to faster data rate users. |
| US07672283B1 |
Detecting unauthorized wireless devices in a network
Computer implemented techniques for detecting the presence and identity of unauthorized wireless devices (“UWD”) on a network. The technique is capable of detecting the presence and existence UWDs irrespective whether the UWDs implements encryption in their communication. Furthermore, it is unnecessary for the computer-implemented method to access the management console of a wireless access point for the purpose of determining the identity of the wireless client devices that currently employ the access point to accomplish the wireless communication. The computer-implemented method also does not require any software agent to be installed on the wireless client devices for the purpose of detecting unauthorized wireless communication. |
| US07672279B2 |
Methods for dynamic radio resource management and link control
The present invention relates to transmission and retransmission of packet data in a communications system, where the communications system uses rate switching or channel switching. It provides an interface for information exchange between radio resource management and one or more transport protocol entities in a cellular mobile radio system, particularly a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS, or WCDMA system. |
| US07672277B2 |
Method and device for estimating carrier frequency offset of subscriber terminal
The invention discloses a method of estimating carrier frequency offset for subscriber terminal, including: determining number of effective base stations from which more than one signals are received by a subscriber terminal; combining the signals of each station corresponding to said number of effective base stations; calculating a rough estimation value of the carrier frequency offset based on combined signal. The invention also discloses a device of estimating carrier frequency offset for subscriber terminal, including: decision module, used to determine the number of effective base stations from which more than one signals received by subscriber terminal, combining module, used to combine the signals of the effective base station and output the combined signal to the carrier frequency offset acquiring module; carrier frequency offset acquiring module, used to estimate the carrier frequency offset of the merged signal. According to the invention, the carrier frequency offset for the subscriber terminal will meet system requirement, and improve cell searching success probability. |
| US07672276B2 |
Base station apparatus and mobile communication system
Disclosed is a handover method in radio communication. A base station apparatus monitors the receiving state of a terminal, detects, based upon the receiving state, whether the terminal is one in which there is a possibility that loss of a call or a decline in quality will occur or one in which loss of a call or a decline in quality has occurred, and hands over the terminal to another base station apparatus having a carrier frequency different from that of the present base station apparatus. |
| US07672274B2 |
Mobility support via routing
A communication system is described. In one embodiment, the communication system comprises a mobile station having a transmitter to transmit packets wirelessly according to a protocol and multiple repeaters communicably coupled with the mobile station. Each of the plurality of repeaters receives one or more packets of the wirelessly transmitted packets from the mobile station. Each of the repeaters receives an indication of which of the wirelessly transmitted packets were received without errors by other repeaters and a received signal strength for those packets. The communication system also includes a switch coupled to the repeaters. Each of the repeaters forwards to the switch each packet of the wirelessly transmitted packets that each repeater had received without errors at a received signal strength higher than any other repeater. |
| US07672271B2 |
Method of constructing wireless high speed backbone connection that unifies various wired/wireless network clusters by means of employing the smart/adaptive antenna technique and dynamically creating concurrent data pipelines
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a high-speed wireless backbone connection, Backbone Connection Facilitator (BCF), to create a wireless home network, which may consist of many short-range wired/wireless networks. BCF dynamically creates concurrent data pipelines to meet the data bandwidth demand to transfer packets from one short-range wired/wireless network to another. BCF employs the newly developed antenna technologies (ex. MIMO, SDMA) to minimize the transmit power, to reduce the interferences, and to support the real time communication.BCF contains the BCF-PHY layer, the BCF-Data-Link-Layer, and the BCF-Network-Layer. The BCF-PHY layer consists of antenna array, a PHY Base Band controller, and a digital beam former. The BCF-Data-Link-Layer provides the MAC functionality. The BCF-Network-Layer assembles the packet, provides the source and destination address, and provides the BCF-PHY beam forming information. The BCF-Network-Layer is also responsible for parsing and assembling the packet payloads for the high-speed backbone connection. |
| US07672267B2 |
Intermediary network system and method for facilitating message exchange between wireless networks
Network system and method for facilitating message exchange between mobile subscribers belonging to the same or different public land mobile networks, possibly incorporating different standards. Message exchange between two subscribers of the same or different networks may involve one or more lookups on subscription data, zero or more message transformations, one or more routing decisions including application of costing functions, and, storage and propagation of the message in one or more Core or Intermediary networks. The messages may be of type, among others, SMS (Short Message Service), MMS (Multimedia Message Service), or EMAIL. An aspect of the present invention provides a message routing subsystem that facilitates destination determination and delivery channel selection. |
| US07672264B2 |
Method of pausing keep-alive messages and roaming for virtual private networks on handheld devices to save battery power
Provided is a method for maintaining a connection between a mobile device and a server over a wireless network in a manner that conserves the power supply of the mobile device. The claimed subject matter addresses the transmission of regular “keep-alive” packets to refresh a network address translation (NAT) server and the scanning for and connecting to faster, higher priority network connections. A configurable parameter, or power timeout, specifies an idle time. When a period of time equal to the parameter has passed with no traffic between the mobile device and the server, in either direction, periodic roaming scans and keep-alive messages are halted. As soon as traffic is resumed through the tunnel, the mobile device roams to the highest priority connection and roaming scans and keep-alive messages are resumed. |
| US07672260B2 |
Method of addressing messages and communications system
A target radio frequency identification (RFID) device may include a receiver to receive valid bits common to a first set of random numbers and to receive a signal indicating a change in a number of time slots from a first number of a plurality of time slots to a second number of a plurality of time slots in which the target device may respond. The target device may include processing circuitry to generate a random number, to determine if the random number is in the first set, to generate a random value, and to randomly select a time slot. The target device may further include a transmitter to communicate a response if the random number is determined to be in the first set, and to communicate the random value during the randomly selected time slot. |
| US07672253B2 |
Border router with selective filtering of link state advertisements
An example embodiment of the present invention provides a process relating to the selective filtering of an LSA at a not-so-stubby-sub-area (NSSSA) border router. In one embodiment, the border router receives an LSA from another router inside the NSSSA, which might be in the access layer of the hierarchical network design model and which might use OSPF as its IGP. If the LSA is Type 1 and includes a subnet route or forwarder address, the border router floods it to its neighboring routers, regardless of whether they are inside the NSSSA. If the LSA is Type 7 and includes a host address, the border router floods it to a neighboring router if the neighboring router is inside the NSSSA, but filters the LSA if the neighboring router is outside the NSSSA, for example, in an OSPF area in the distribution layer of the hierarchical network design model. |
| US07672250B2 |
Multi-carrier wireless communication access terminal and data transmission method
A method, apparatus, and system permits an access terminal (“AT”) for a multi-carrier CDMA wireless communication system to concurrently receive data on N different-frequency carriers while restricting one or more parameters that affect data reception rate, so that limited resources of the AT will be sufficient to properly process data packets on the N carriers. The data rate controlling parameter may be “I,” the number of supported H-ARQ channels for one or more of the N carriers. A relationship may be defined between the number of supported forward and/or reverse link carriers, versus the number of supported H-ARQ channels and/or other data rate controlling parameters. Messages may enable identification of AT characteristics, and configuration and/or dynamic re-configuration of AT data communication capabilities that are related to different values of N and corresponding different data rate controlling parameters. |
| US07672249B2 |
Configurable network appliance
An Internet appliance accesses an HTML page on a Web site containing configuration information for the appliance, such as an Internet compatible telephone. Data from the HTML page are downloaded to the appliance to modify its options or settings automatically upon accessing the HTML page, or as directed by the user. The data may be downloaded to a programmable memory in the Internet appliance and the stored data may be used to upgrade the appliance. The upgrade HTML page may include information to alert the user when the new information is available regarding changes to options and settings of the appliance. Alternatively, data from the Internet appliance are placed in an HTML page and the data are then uploaded to the Web site. Additional embodiments provide other functions that may be placed in an HTML page to effect some internal action in the Internet appliance, such as checking e-mail. |
| US07672242B2 |
Traffic management device and method thereof
A traffic management device and the method thereof are disclosed. The traffic management device includes a control logic unit, a first counting unit, and a second counting unit. The traffic management method follows the dual leaky bucket mechanism. A first count value and a second count value are generated by the first counting unit and the second counting unit, respectively, such that the control logic unit controls the average rate by checking whether the first count value falls within the range of a first threshold and controls the peak rate by checking whether the second count value falls within the range of a second threshold. When both the conditions are satisfied, packets in the queue are transmitted. Thus, the network flow is controlled effectively. |
| US07672239B1 |
System and method for conducting fast offloading of a connection onto a network interface card
Techniques, systems, and apparatus for offloading data connections from a kernel onto an associated TNIC are disclosed. Generally, embodiments of the invention are configured to send message packets of a connection to an endpoint at substantially the same time as an associated offload set-up process is performed. A method provides a data connection enabling data exchange between two TCP endpoints. After a determination is made that the connection is suitable for offloading, the kernel sends connection state information and a request that the connection be offloaded to a TNIC. Prior to completion of offload set up, an initial transmission of connection data is sent to an associated TCP endpoint. These principles can be implemented as software operating on a computer system, as a computer system module, as a computer program product and as a series of related devices and products. |
| US07672237B2 |
Node capable of saving a third-layer operation
In a node having first, second, and third layers, a packet (or a cell) is mapped in the first layer. The first layer judges whether the packet (or the cell) is to be dropped at the node or to be hopped to a next node. The first layer transmits the packet to the third layer through the second layer when the first layer judges that the packet is to be dropped at the node. The first layer transmits, when the first layer judges that the packet is to be hopped to the next node, the packet to the next node by making the packet cut through the first layer. |
| US07672230B2 |
Downstream channel change technique implemented in an access network
A dynamic channel change technique is disclosed which may be implemented between nodes and a Head End of an access network. Initially a network device may communicate with the Head End via a first downstream channel and a first upstream channel. When the network device receives a dynamic channel change request which includes instructions for the network device to switch to a second downstream channel, the network device may respond by switching from the first downstream channel to the second downstream channel. Thereafter, the network device may communicate with the Head End via the second downstream channel and first upstream channel. Further, according to a specific embodiment, the dynamic channel change request may also include an upstream channel change request for causing the network device to switch from a first upstream channel to a second upstream channel. |
| US07672229B2 |
Method for distributing dynamic link bandwidth for resilient packet ring
The invention discloses a method for dynamically allocating link bandwidth on resilient packet ring. This algorithm comprises the steps of measuring a group of variables in one advertisement interval, calculating the local fair rate using the measured variables, determining an advertising rate based on the local fair rate, and transmitting the data packets with the advertising rate. Compared with existing fairness algorithms, the new algorithm introduces integration for the idle rate to achieve 100% of bandwidth utilization. It also avoids using the concept of “congestion state” which is essential in the existing fairness algorithm. |
| US07672228B1 |
System and method for network loop detection and recovery
Embodiments of the invention are generally directed to a system and method of network loop detection and recovery. In one embodiment of the invention, a networked node contains a loop detection and recovery agent. The loop detection and recovery agent may include a loop detection module and a loop recovery module. The loop detection module may be independent of a redundancy protocol implemented by the networked node. In contrast, the loop recovery module may be embedded in the redundancy protocol implemented by the networked node. |
| US07672223B2 |
Method and apparatus for replicating a transport layer protocol stream
Network connection switchover is accomplished through a method comprising receiving information defining a first connection between a first network device and a computer; establishing a replication channel between the first network device and a backup device; storing backup control information at the backup device; communicating a message flow between the first network device and the computer on the first transport connection; in response to unavailability of the first network device, communicating messages on the replication channel that cause (a) establishing a second connection between the backup device and the computer; (b) continuing communication of the message flow between the backup device and the computer based on the backup control information. TCP connections, for example, can be switched from an active device to a backup device without reset or re-transmission. |
| US07672222B2 |
Link failures
A data communications architecture employing serializers and deserializers that reduces data communications latency. In an illustrative implementation, the data communications architecture communicates data across communications links. The architecture maintains various mechanisms to promote data communications speed and to avoid communication link down time. These mechanisms perform the functions including but not limited to handling uncertain data arrival times, detecting single bit and multi-bit errors, handling communications link failures, addressing failed link training, identifying and marking data as corrupt, and identifying and processing successful data transactions across the communications link. |
| US07672220B2 |
Apparatus and method of multiple antenna receiver combining of high data rate wideband packetized wireless communication signals
The present invention provides an apparatus and method of multiple antenna receiver combining of high data rate wideband packetized wireless communication signals, where the apparatus includes M receive antennas, receiving M high data rate wideband packetized wireless communication signals, where each of the signals includes N frequency bins. The apparatus, in an exemplary embodiment, includes (1) a joint timing recovery units that perform joint coarse signal timing estimation, joint frequency offset estimation, and joint fine timing estimation on each of the signals, (2) M Fast Fourier Transform units (FFTs) that each convert the digital data for each of the M signals into frequency domain information for each of the N received frequencies and that output Q pilots for each of the signals, where Q is a positive integer, and (3) a combiner that weights and combines the outputs of the M FFTs for each of the N received frequencies. |
| US07672216B2 |
Optical information recording medium, and substrate and manufacturing method for the optical information recording medium
In an optical disk including at least a rewritable phase change material and comprising a recording layer having a reflectivity of more than 15%, an address output value as an address pit signal component occupying in a reproduced signal in a non recording state is prescribed to be 0.18 though 0.27 or a numerical aperture of an address pit signal occupying in a reproduced signal in a non recording state is prescribed to be more than 0.3. |
| US07672214B2 |
Probe, recording apparatus, reproducing apparatus, and recording/reproducing apparatus
A probe (100) is provided with: a substrate (110) having a surface facing a medium (20); and a point electrode (120), formed in the substrate, for performing at least one of detection operation of a state of a domain of the medium and change operation of the state of the domain of the medium, a tip portion, which is an edge portion on a side facing the medium, out of the point electrode being disposed in one point in a plane which is formed in a vicinity of an area portion in which the point electrode is formed by the surface. |
| US07672209B2 |
Hologram recording/reproducing apparatus, hologram reproducing apparatus and method, and computer program
An example hologram recording/reproduction device reproduces recorded information from a holographic recording medium where interference fringes formed by a reference light and an object light corresponding to the recording information are recorded. The example hologram recording/reproduction device irradiates the reference light to a holographic recording medium; generates detection information data (Ddet) according to the detection light generated by irradiation of the reference light; sets a target irradiation position of the reference light on the surface of the holographic recording medium according to the detection information data; and moves the irradiation means with respect to the holographic recording medium along its surface so that the reference light is irradiated to the target irradiation position. |
| US07672208B2 |
Write-once optical disc, and method and apparatus for recording/playback management information on/from optical disc
A write-once optical disc, and an apparatus and method for recording management information on the optical disc are provided. The disc includes at least one recording layer, a plurality of temporary defect management areas (TDMAs) on the at least one recording layer, and a plurality of defect management areas (DMAs) on the at least one recording layer. At least one of the TDMAs includes first and second indicators. The first indicator indicates which TDMA is an in-use TDMA, and the second indicator indicates whether or not the recording medium is closed. |
| US07672202B2 |
Optical pickup apparatus
An optical pickup apparatus comprising: a diffraction grating including a first grating for diffracting a first laser light beam, and a second grating for diffracting a second laser light beam which is shorter in wavelength than the first laser light beam, the diffraction grating being disposed in a common optical path for guiding the first laser light beam and the second laser light beam to an optical disc; and a photo detector including in a first light receiving area, a main light receiving unit, a front sub-light receiving unit, and a rear sub-light receiving unit that receive reflected light beams, which are reflected by the optical disc, of a main beam, of a front sub-beam, and of a rear sub-beam, respectively, the first laser light beam being diffracted by the diffraction grating into the main beam, the front sub-beam formed in front of the main beam, and the rear sub-beam formed at the back of the main beam, wherein the first grating is set such that the front sub-light receiving unit and the rear sub-light receiving unit in the first light receiving area are disposed at positions which substantially avoid unnecessary diffracted light beam spots which are generated by projecting to the first light receiving area unnecessary diffracted light beams, the unnecessary diffracted light beams generated by the second grating from the first laser light beam. |
| US07672196B1 |
Sound source localizing apparatus and method
A sound source localizer is provided which includes a receiver (41) composed of a plurality of highly versatile microphones (10) each having a predetermined directivity D, a data base (12) which is to calculate a difference in directional sensitivity between one of the microphones (10) of the receiver (41) pointed in one direction and the other directed at an angle of 180 deg. to the one direction and has pre-stored therein information used for determination of an arrival direction and angle of a sound source, and a calculator (11) for calculating differences in level between signals received by the receiver (41) in different directions to determine the arrival direction, angle and sound level of the sound source with reference to the information stored in the data base (12). |
| US07672193B2 |
Methods and systems for processing acoustic waveform data
Methods and systems for taking acoustic measurements related to subterranean formations. The methods and systems provide extracting a portion of the acoustic measurements based on predetermined parameters for selecting reflected arrival waves in the acoustic measurements; generating time projection of the extracted acoustic measurements versus borehole depth; and generating an indication or imaging of acoustic reflectors in the formation based on the time projected acoustic measurements. |
| US07672190B1 |
Input latch circuit and method
A circuit and method are provided that eliminate race conditions in data storage devices. Generally, the circuit includes: (i) an input latch to which an address signal (ADD) is applied; (ii) a multiplexer (MUX) to which the ADD is coupled from the input latch and through which an output is supplied to an output latch; (iii) an address valid signal (ADV) input coupled to the output latch and to which an ADV is applied to close the output latch supplying the output to a circuit output; and (iv) a middle latch coupled between the input latch and the MUX to hold the ADD applied to the MUX until the output latch closes, independent of a change in the ADD applied to the input latch. Preferably, the circuit includes control logic configured to close the middle latch on a rising edge of ADV and reopen it when the output latch closes. |
| US07672188B2 |
System for blocking multiple memory read port activation
A system for blocking multiple memory read port activation including a first memory read port word line driver that includes a first polarity hold latch with an output connected to an input of a first buffer, and a second memory read port word line driver that includes a second polarity hold latch with an output connected to an input of a blocking switch and a second buffer with an input connected to an output of the blocking switch, wherein a second input of the blocking switch is also connected to the output of the first polarity hold latch and the blocking switch is configured to allow or block a signal transmission between the input and the output of the blocking switch dependent on a signal assertion of the second input to the blocking switch. |
| US07672185B2 |
Method and apparatus to monitor circuit variation effects on electrically programmable fuses
A monitor bank consists of test one time programmable memory that is programmed distinctively from functional one time programmable memory in order to determine whether the functional one time programmable memory has or will program successfully. In a specific embodiment, each monitor bank consists of a first eFuse configured to expectedly never blow, a second eFuse configured to expectedly always blow, and at least a third eFuse configured to be more difficult to blow than the first eFuse, but easier to blow than the second eFuse. The method of determining whether functional eFuses have or will be programmed successfully is described: programming a monitor bank; sensing whether the test eFuses have blown; creating a monitor bank bit line blow pattern; determining an anticipated bit line blow pattern; comparing the two patterns; and determining that the functional eFuses will not blow successfully if the patterns do not match. |
| US07672183B2 |
Semiconductor memory device with two-stage input buffer
A semiconductor memory device includes: a pre-amplifying unit configured to amplify a difference between an input signal and a reference signal to output a pre-output signal; a delaying unit configured to delay the input signal to output a delayed input signal; and a main amplifying unit configured to receive the pre-output signal and the delayed input signal as differential inputs to output an output signal. |
| US07672167B2 |
Non-volatile memory device
A non-volatile memory device may include at least one string, at least one bit line corresponding to the at least one string, and/or a sensing transistor. The at least one string may include a plurality of memory cell transistors connected in series. The sensing transistor may include a gate configured to sense a voltage of the corresponding bit line. A threshold voltage of the sensing transistor may be higher than a voltage obtained by subtracting a given voltage from a voltage applied to read the corresponding bit line connected to a memory cell transistor to be read of the plurality of memory cell transistors. |
| US07672165B2 |
Methods for active boosting to minimize capacitive coupling effect between adjacent gates of flash memory devices
A NAND flash memory device incorporates a unique booster plate design. The booster plate is biased during read and program operations and the coupling to the floating gates in many cases reduces the voltage levels necessary to program and read the charge stored in the gates. The booster plate also shields against unwanted coupling between floating gates. Self boosting, local self boosting, and erase area self boosting modes used with the unique booster plate further improve read/write reliability and accuracy. A more compact and reliable memory device can hence be realized according to the present invention. |
| US07672159B2 |
Method of operating multi-level cell
A method of operating a multi-level cell is described, wherein the cell includes a substrate of a first conductivity type, a control gate, a charge-storing layer and two S/D regions of a second conductivity type. The method includes an erasing step that injects charges of a first type into the charge-storing layer and a programming step that includes applying a first voltage to the substrate, a second voltage to both S/D regions and a third voltage to the control gate. The difference between the first and second voltages is sufficient to cause band-to-band tunneling hot holes, and the third voltage causes charges of a second type to enter the charge-storing layer. The third voltage can have 2n−1 different values, for programming the cell to a predetermined state among 2n−1 storage states. |
| US07672156B2 |
Phase change random access memory device
In a phase-change random access memory (PRAM) device, a write operation is performed by applying a set pulse to failed PRAM cells. The set pulse comprises a plurality of stages sequentially decreasing from a first current magnitude to a second current magnitude. The first current magnitude or the second current magnitude varies from one write loop to another. |
| US07672153B2 |
Deglitching circuits for a radiation-hardened static random access memory based programmable architecture
A method for providing a deglitching circuit for a radiation tolerant static random access memory (SRAM) comprising: providing a configuration memory having a plurality of configuration bits; coupling read and write circuitry to the configuration memory for configuring the plurality of configuration bits; coupling a radiation hard latch to a programmable element, the radiation hard latch controlling the programmable element; and providing an interface that couples at least one of the plurality of configuration bits to the radiation hard latch when the write circuitry writes to the at least one of the plurality of configuration bits. |
| US07672152B1 |
Memory cell with built-in process variation tolerance
A Schmitt Trigger (ST) based, fully differential, 10-transistor (10T) SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) bitcell suitable for sub-threshold operation. The Schmitt trigger based bitcell achieves 1.56× higher read static noise margin (SNM) (VDD=400 mV) compared to a conventional 6T cell. The robust Schmitt trigger based memory cell exhibits built-in process variation tolerance that gives tight SNM distribution across the process corners. It utilizes fully differential operation and hence does not require any architectural changes from the present 6T architecture. The 10T bitcell has two cross-coupled Schmitt trigger inverters which each consist of four transistors, including a PMOS transistor and two NMOS transistors in series, and an NMOS feedback transistor which is connected between the inverter output and the junction between the series-connected NMOS transistors. Each inverter has one associated NMOS access transistor. |
| US07672151B1 |
Method for reading non-volatile ferroelectric capacitor memory cell
A non-volatile memory cell and related system utilize ferroelectric capacitors as data storage elements. Circuitry is provided for writing to a single ferroelectric capacitor storage element, as well as to dual storage elements operating inversely. The storage elements are read by use of a sense amplifier in a configuration which automatically restores the original data states, thereby eliminating the need for a subsequent restore operation. Memory systems are described which include circuitry for driving bit lines, word lines and drive lines to accomplish both the write and read operations. |
| US07672150B2 |
Apparatus, embedded memory, address decoder, method of reading out data and method of configuring a memory
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to an apparatus, to an embedded memory, to an address decoder, to a method of reading out data and to a method of configuring a memory. In an embodiment of the invention an apparatus is provided. The apparatus may include a plurality of read-only memory (ROM) cells and an address decoder to access a ROM cell of the plurality of ROM cells, the address decoder further being fuse-programmable to divert an access to the ROM cell to a different memory cell. |
| US07672148B2 |
Controller and method for frequency-varying control of power converter
A controller and method changing a frequency of a control (or carrier) signal in accordance with a waveform that periodically changes within a first frequency range from a frequency fc1 to a frequency fc2, where the frequency fc1 is smaller than the frequency fc2, and a second frequency range from a frequency fc3 to a frequency fc4, where the frequency fc3 is smaller than the frequency fc4. The frequencies fc1 and fc4 satisfy the inequalities (n−1)·fc4≦n·fc2 and n·fc3≦(n+1)·fc1 and/or satisfy an approximate expression n·fc4≈(n+1)·fc1 where n is an integer. The frequencies fc2 and fc3 satisfy the inequalities n·fc2≦fs−Δfs and fs+Δfs≦n·fc3 where fs±Δfs represents a predetermined frequency band. |
| US07672147B1 |
High attenuation filtering circuit for power converters
A power converter includes an output filter circuit including first and second inductive elements; a voltage source coupled to the output filter circuit, the voltage source for generating a voltage across the output filter circuit, the voltage including an alternating voltage component, the alternating voltage component causing the application of an alternating current to the first inductive element of the output filter circuit; and an attenuation filtering circuit. The attenuation filtering circuit includes a first magnetically coupled inductive arrangement for generating a first opposing alternating current in response to the alternating voltage applied to the first inductive element of the output filter circuit; a first combining element for combining the first opposing alternating current with the alternating current to partially cancel the alternating current, thereby producing an attenuated alternating current applied to the second inductive element of the output filter circuit; a second magnetically coupled inductive arrangement for generating a second opposing alternating current in response to the attenuated alternating current applied to the second inductive element of the output filter circuit; and a second combining element for combining the second opposing alternating current with the attenuated alternating current to substantially cancel the attenuated alternating current. |
| US07672146B2 |
Switching mode power supply and driving method
A switching mode power supply includes a switching transistor, coupled to a primary coil at a primary side of a transformer for converting an input DC voltage, supplying power to a secondary and a tertiary coil at a secondary side of the transformer according to an operation of the switching transistor; a switching controller receiving a feedback voltage corresponding to a first voltage generated in the secondary coil and receiving a detection signal corresponding to a current of the switching transistor to generate a switching control signal for controlling the turn on/off of the switching transistor; and a feedback signal generator receiving the first voltage and the switching control signal to set a sampling period, and storing the first voltage, sampled with a last pulse of the first pulse string within the sampling period as a feedback voltage. The output voltage is thereby accurately detected without opto-couplers or shunt regulators. |
| US07672139B2 |
Shelf for electronic plug-in devices
A shelf for electronic plug-in units is provided. The shelf includes at least one support plate that has at least one shaped opening. At least one guide rail is arranged for being mounted on the support plate, which includes a guide groove for receiving the electronic plug-in unit. There is also provided at least one positioning unit arranged on the guide rail, which includes a trunnion insertable form-fittingly into the shaped opening in the support plate to fix a position of the positioning unit relative to the support plate, and a locking element to lock in place an electronic plug-in unit fully inserted into the guide rail. |
| US07672138B2 |
Electronic apparatus
An electronic apparatus include a housing, a circuit board held in the housing, and large electronic components held in the housing and electrically coupled to the circuit board. The housing has a mounting surface, and the electronic apparatus is mounted to an object at the mounting surface. The large electronic components are arranged in a three-dimensional manner with respect to the mounting surface in such a manner that at least one of the large electronic components overlaps at least one of the large electronic components in a direction toward the mounting surface. |
| US07672135B2 |
Heat sink
A heat sink includes a plurality of fins parallel to each other. The fins include a top portion having a flange. The opposite ends of each flange are rounded. Two rounded corners are located below the plane defined by the flange. |
| US07672134B2 |
Apparatus for directing heat to a heat spreader
An apparatus for dissipating heat from a device is provided. The apparatus includes a heat sink having an elongated shape and defining a groove. A heat spreader composed of a non-isotropic thermal conductor is positioned at least partially within the groove of the heat sink and thermally coupled to the heat sink. The heat spreader is oriented such that the thermal conductor propagates heat along a length of the heat sink. A heat channel composed of a non-isotropic thermal conductor is positioned at least partially within the groove of the heat sink and thermally coupled to the heat spreader. The heat channel is oriented to propagate heat towards the heat spreader. |
| US07672131B2 |
Heat sink assembly and method manufacturing the same
A heat sink assembly includes a base plate, a fin group and a heat pipe thermally connecting the base plate with the fin group. The fin group includes a plurality of fins. The heat pipe includes a straight evaporating section contacting with the base plate, a first condensing section extending upwardly from an end of the evaporating section and through the fins, a second condensing section bent downwardly from a free end of the first condensing section and through the fins, and a third condensing section extending upwardly from an opposite end of the evaporating section and through the fins. Periphery walls of at least two of the first, second and third condensing sections substantially totally contact with the fins to increase a contact area between the heat pipe and the fins. |
| US07672130B2 |
Heat dissipating device
A heat dissipating device includes a sealed container having hollow floors and floor-spacing assemblies. Each floor-spacing assembly includes hollow spacing walls. Each hollow spacing wall extends from a respective hollow floor and is spaced apart from an adjacent one of the hollow spacing walls of an adjacent one of the floor-spacing assemblies by an air gap. Each two adjacent ones of the hollow floors are interconnected through the hollow spacing walls disposed therebetween. The sealed container defines a liquid reservoir, a condensate reservoir, and a plurality of fluid passages extending through the hollow spacing walls and the hollow floors that are disposed between the liquid reservoir and the condensate reservoir. |
| US07672129B1 |
Intelligent microchannel cooling
A cooling system for a heat producing component includes a base having two or more cells. The cells may include microchannel passages. A pump system may be coupled to the base. The pump system may circulate fluid independently in each of two or more of the cells. The pump system may include an array of two more magnetohydrodynamic pumps. Each magnetohydrodynamic pump may provide fluid to a different cell. A controller may control a flow rate in each one of cell of the cooling system independently one or more of other cells of the cooling system. |
| US07672127B2 |
Information processing device and manufacturing method of the information processing device
An information processing device includes a housing part; a heating part arranged in the housing part; a cooling unit configured to cool the heating part; an airflow supplying member configured to supply an airflow to the cooling unit; and an airflow limitation member configured to limit the airflow supplied by the airflow supplying member. A part of the cooling unit, the airflow limitation member, and the airflow supplying member are arranged in series. An air intake part is provided in one surface of the housing part so as to intake air into the airflow limitation member. An air discharge part is provided in another surface of the housing part so as to discharge air cooling the part of the cooling unit. An air discharge unit is provided at an air discharge opening provided at one side surface of the airflow limitation member. |
| US07672125B2 |
Electronic apparatus
An electronic component generates heat in an electronic apparatus. The heat of the electronic component is transferred to a thermal conductive plate of a heat receiver in a liquid cooling unit. The heat is transferred to coolant from the thermal conductive plate. The temperature of the coolant rises. The heat exchanger absorbs heat of the coolant. The coolant gets cooled. The heat of the electronic component is also transferred to the printed wiring board. The heat spreads over the printed wiring board through a wiring pattern in the printed wiring board. Since the tank or/and pump is placed at a position outside the printed wiring board, the heat cannot be transferred to the tank or/and the pump. This results in prevention of rise in the temperature of the coolant in the tank or/and the pump. The efficiency of heat radiation can thus be enhanced. |
| US07672119B2 |
Folding user interface
An electronic device interface provides three different physical user interfaces. Users may fold or unfold the device to reveal one interface and hide the other two. A first module includes a first portion of a first interface. A second module includes a first portion of a second interface. A third module includes a second portions of the first and second interfaces. The second and third modules are folded together to hide the second interface and expose the first interface. The first and third modules are folded together to hide the first interface and expose the second interface. The third interface is exposed when the first and third modules and the second and third modules are folded together, hiding the first and second interfaces. The first modules can include a concave portion matching a convex portion of the third module to maintain a flush profile for the first and second interfaces. |
| US07672118B2 |
Electronic apparatus
According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes: a main body that has a bearing hole having a first retaining portion and a second retaining portion; a sub module that has a shaft rotatably coupling with the bearing hole so that the sub module moves between a first position and a second position; and a detent spring that is coupled with the shaft to keep the sub module at the first position and at the second position, the detent spring having a third retaining portion, wherein the third retaining portion couples with the first retaining portion when the sub module is kept at the first position, and wherein the third retaining portion couples with the second retaining portion when the sub module is kept at the second position. |
| US07672116B2 |
Fast terminal box
A fast terminal box includes a casing, a cover, plural wiring sockets, plural metal connection components and a plurality of wiring terminals. The wiring sockets are placed and distributed on a bottom plate of the casing one by one. The metal connection component is provided on the wiring socket for connection purpose. The casing and the cover are combined to each other. The wiring terminals are distributed at sidewall of the casing for receiving corresponding wiring plugs therein. The fast terminal box is characterized in heat sink metal fins are contained in a space around the wiring socket, and heat sink metal fins contact pins of a diode and the metal connection component respectively through corresponding connection portions thereof. Wiring apertures are defined in an outer surface of the heat sink metal fins, thereby improving heat dissipating effect and especially by utilization of heat sink metal fins of covering construction, heat dissipation effect being more effectively improved, and also the heat sink metal fins capable of being mounted conveniently and quickly. |
| US07672114B1 |
Carbon nanoarchitectures with ultrathin, conformal polymer coatings for electrochemical capacitors
A composite having an electroactive polymer coating on a porous carbon structure is disclosed. The composite may be used in capacitor electrodes. The composite may be made by self-limiting electropolymerization of a monomer on the carbon structure. |
| US07672110B2 |
Electrostatic chuck having textured contact surface
An electrostatic chuck has an electrode embedded in a dielectric which is mounted on a pedestal. The dielectric has a contact surface with an average surface roughness of less than about 0.5 μm, a surface peak waviness of less than about 0.12 μm, and a surface peak waviness material ratio of greater than about 20%. The surface texture can be formed by lapping the dielectric surface with a slurry of abrasive particles. |
| US07672109B2 |
Safety switching apparatus for safe disconnection of an electrical load
A safety switching apparatus for safe disconnection of an electrical load in an automated installation has at least one input for connecting a signaling device. The safety switching apparatus has an evaluation and control unit and at least one switching element controlled by the evaluation and control unit in order to interrupt an electrical power supply path to the load. The switching element is a changeover switch having at least two mutually alternative switching paths, with a first switching path being located in the electrical power supply path to the load and with a second switching path leading to a monitoring unit. |
| US07672107B2 |
Current limit control with current limit detector
Devices, such as mobile devices, may be exposed to short circuit and output overload events. To protect against such events, mobile devices typically include circuitry to limit currents so as not to exceed a pre-programmed current limit. Various embodiments of the present invention include devices and methods for detecting pre-programmed current limits and for limiting currents in response to such detection. In some embodiments, both the current limit detector and the current limit controller circuitry include scaled current switches. The scaling may be substantially similar between the programmed-current limit detector and the current limit controller circuitry. |
| US07672101B2 |
ESD protection circuit and method
A system includes a driving device operating at first supply voltage Vdd1 and having a CMOS output. A driven devise operates at a second supply voltage Vdd2 lower than the first supply voltage Vdd1, and has a CMOS input with an NMOS pull-down transistor. A protection circuit includes a first resistor coupled to the CMOS output of the driving device and a gate of the NMOS pull-down transistor. A parasitic NPN bipolar junction transistor has a drain connected to the gate of the NMOS pull-down transistor sad a source coupled to a lower-voltage supply rail VSS. A second resistor connects a gate of the parasitic NPN bipolar junction transistor to Vss. The second resistor has a resistance sized for controlling a trigger voltage of the parasitic NPN bipolar junction transistor for protecting a gate oxide layer of the NMOS pull-down transistor from an electrostatic discharge. |
| US07672098B2 |
Power plug with leakage current detection and protection circuit
A power plug includes a base, an upper cover attached to the base, a base-side cover adjacent the base and removeably attached to the upper cover, an output cord, a leakage current detection and protection circuit for detecting a leakage current in the output cord, and an electrical connection mechanism for electrically connecting and disconnecting an input side and an output of the power plug. The leakage current detection and protection circuit and the electrical connection mechanism are attached to the base and disposed substantially within a space enclosed by the base and the upper cover. A plurality of connecting ends of the circuit extend from the space enclosed by the base and the upper cover into a space enclosed by the base-side cover and the upper cover. Wires of the output cord are connected to the connecting ends, respectively. |
| US07672096B2 |
Switching apparatus and method
An improved switching apparatus and method are disclosed. In at least some embodiments, the apparatus includes first and second ports, a first switching device such as a contactor coupled between the ports, and a second switching device coupled in parallel with the contactor between the ports, where the second switching device can be or include a solid-state semiconductor device. The second switching device is operated to become conductive at a first time prior to a second time when the contactor switches between a conductive state and a non-conductive state, and remains conductive up to a third time subsequent to the second time. In at least some further embodiments, the apparatus also includes one or both of a voltage sensing capability and a current sensing capability and switches the second switching device to become conductive based upon voltage and/or current information. |
| US07672095B2 |
Relay controller
A relay controller for connecting a power source includes at least one relay having at least two contacts. The relay controller includes a processing device operable to selectively switch the relay contacts, and a feedback circuit adapted to identify an actual state of the relay contacts. The processing device is configured to recognize a fault contact condition of a disparity between an expected state of the relay contacts and the actual state of the relay contacts. The processing device is also configured to responsively communicate information relating to the relay fault condition. |
| US07672094B2 |
TMR sensor having an under-layer treated with nitrogen for increased magnetoresistance
A tunnel junction TMR magnetoresistive sensor formed on layers having nitrogen interspersed therein. The nitrogenation of the layers on which the sensor is deposited allows the sensor layers to have very smooth, uniform surfaces. This greatly improves sensor performance by, for example, providing a very uniform barrier layer thickness. |
| US07672092B2 |
Method for manufacturing magnetic field detecting element, utilizing diffusion of metal
A method for manufacturing a magnetic field detecting element has the steps of: forming stacked layers by sequentially depositing a pinned layer, a spacer layer, a spacer adjoining layer which is adjacent to the spacer layer, a metal layer, and a Heusler alloy layer in this order, such that the layers adjoin each other; and heat treating the stacked layers in order to form the free layer out of the spacer adjoining layer, the metal layer, and the Heusler alloy layer. The spacer adjoining layer is mainly formed of cobalt and iron, and has a body centered cubic structure, and the metal layer is formed of an element selected from the group consisting of silver, gold, copper, palladium, or platinum, or is formed of an alloy thereof. |
| US07672091B2 |
Reset device for biasing element in a magnetic sensor
A device resets a biasing magnetization of a biasing element in a magnetic sensor. The device includes a magnetic structure that is magnetically coupled to the biasing element. A conductive element is disposed around at least a portion of the magnetic structure. When a current is passed through the conductive element, a magnetic field is produced that resets the biasing magnetization of the biasing element. |
| US07672088B2 |
Heusler alloy with insertion layer to reduce the ordering temperature for CPP, TMR, MRAM, and other spintronics applications
A spin valve structure is disclosed in which an AP1 layer and/or free layer are made of a laminated Heusler alloy having Al or FeCo insertion layers. The ordering temperature of a Heusler alloy such as Co2MnSi is thereby lowered from about 350° C. to 280° C. which becomes practical for spintronics device applications. The insertion layer is 0.5 to 5 Angstroms thick and may also be Sn, Ge, Ga, Sb, or Cr. The AP1 layer or free layer can contain one or two additional FeCo layers to give a configuration represented by FeCo/[HA/IL]nHA, [HA/IL]nHA/FeCo, or FeCo/[HA/IL]nHA/FeCo where n is an integer ≧1, HA is a Heusler alloy layer, and IL is an insertion layer. Optionally, a Heusler alloy insertion scheme is possible by doping Al or FeCo in the HA layer. For example, Co2MnSi may be co-sputtered with an Al or FeCo target or with a Co2MnAl or Co2FeSi target. |
| US07672081B2 |
Perpendicular magnetic recording head
A perpendicular magnetic recording head which moves in a track direction of a recording layer of a perpendicular magnetic recording medium to write information on the recording layer or read information from the recording layer. The perpendicular magnetic recording head includes: the perpendicular magnetic recording medium including a soft magnetic underlayer and the recording layer; a write head including a main pole that applies a magnetic field to, and writes information to, the recording layer and a return pole having a first end which is connected to the main pole and having a second end which is spaced apart from the main pole over an air bearing surface (ABS) of the perpendicular magnetic recording head which is adjacent to the recording layer; and a permanent magnet formed on at least one side of the write head. |
| US07672078B2 |
Magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus
It is an object of the invention to provide a magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus in which a special motor for driving the head cleaning mechanism is eliminated, and space can be saved with low cost. An end of a tape accommodated in a tape cassette 2 has a coupling element 8, the coupling element 8 is pulled out by a tape-pulling-out element 40 and taken up around a drive reel 20, the magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus comprises a head cleaning mechanism 90 for cleaning a magnetic head 7, the head cleaning mechanism 90 includes a head brush portion for holding a brush portion, and a cam mechanism for changing a position of the head brush portion, the cam mechanism is operated by a tape-pulling-out element moving member 50 and a loading lever 30. |
| US07672075B2 |
Magnetic recording medium, recording/reproducing apparatus, and stamper
In a magnetic recording medium including a servo pattern region having a servo pattern formed of a concave/convex pattern having convex portions and concave portions and a data recording region, the region having a data track pattern, the convex portions are formed in an address pattern region of the servo pattern region such that the maximum opening lengths, which are located in the respective same radius regions of the respective opening lengths along the rotating direction of a substrate of the concave portions constituting the concave/convex pattern are set to first lengths that are double the minimum opening lengths along the rotating direction of the concave portions in the respective same radius regions. With this arrangement, the magnetic recording medium can securely read a magnetic signal and has a servo pattern having excellent surface smoothness. |
| US07672071B2 |
Servo field preamble detector and methods for use therewith
A servo field preamble detector includes an upsampling module that generates a plurality of upsampled read samples by upsampling a read signal by an upsampling factor. An interpolation filter module generates a plurality of interpolated read samples from the plurality of upsampled read samples. A peak detection module identifies a plurality of peak samples from the plurality of interpolated read samples. A magnitude estimation module generates a magnitude estimation signal from the plurality of peak samples. A comparison module compares the magnitude estimation signal to a magnitude threshold and asserts a servo preamble detection signal when the magnitude estimation signal compares favorably to the magnitude threshold. |
| US07672069B2 |
Linear motor and camera module having the same
A linear motor and a camera module having the linear motor are provided. The linear motor includes: a piezoelectric substrate generating a vibration mode in a longitudinal direction on the basis of an applied voltage; first and second shafts coupled to both sides of the piezoelectric substrate with the piezoelectric substrate interposed therebetween; and a moving member coupled to at least one of the first and second shafts to be movable in the longitudinal direction of the first and second shafts and connected to a camera lens on one side. Accordingly, it is possible to remove a dead zone with a simple structure, to prevent an unnecessary increase in thickness, not to cause a stoppage at the time of moving a camera lens, to cause a small amount of tilt to enable a linear control, and to contribute to a decrease in thickness and a compactness of a mobile terminal. |
| US07672067B2 |
Optical device, exposure apparatus, and device manufacturing method
This invention effectively limits light incidence on an adhesive material fixing an optical element. An optical device includes an optical element, a supporting member connected to the optical element through an adhesive material to support the optical element, and a light shielding film formed in an unirradiated region on the surface of the optical element to limit light incidence on the adhesive material. |
| US07672066B2 |
Zoom lens camera and personal digital assistant device
A zoom lens includes, in order from an object to an image, a first lens group having positive refractive power, a second lens group having negative refractive power, a third lens group having positive refractive power, and a fourth lens group having positive refractive power, when varying a field angle from a wide-angle end to a telephoto end, the first lens group and the third lens group being moved to be located on the object side at the telephoto end rather than at the wide-angle end such that a distance between the first lens group and the second lens group increases, a distance between the second lens group and the third lens group decreases, and a distance between the third lens group and the fourth lens group increases. |
| US07672064B2 |
Optical element and optical unit
An optical unit includes one or more optical elements 15 and 25. At least one of the one or more optical elements has an optical functional surface that refracts incident light and rough surfaces 19 and 29 formed on an outer side with respect to the optical functional surface. The rough surfaces scatter the incident light which has been internally reflected. With this configuration, the rough surface formed on the surface located on the outer side with respect to the optical functional surface scatters the light which is incident on the optical element and which may generate ghost due to its internally reflection by the surface located on the outer side with respect to the optical functional surface. Therefore, generation of the ghost is suppressed. Also, since the optical unit includes the optical element having the rough surface, the generation of the ghost is suppressed. |
| US07672061B2 |
Zoom lens and imaging device
A zoom lens comprises: a stationary group that is stationary at the time of variable power; and a variable power group, disposed on an image side of the stationary group, that makes a variable power operation by moving in an optical axis direction at the time of variable power, wherein the stationary group comprises: a first lens group including a negative meniscus lens and a positive lens and having a positive refractive power as a whole; and a second lens group, disposed on the image side of the first lens group, including: a negative lens group including a negative meniscus lens and a positive lens; and a positive lens group including at least one positive lens, in order from an object side, the second lens group having a positive refractive power as a whole. |
| US07672060B2 |
Lens unit
A lens unit includes a lens having a focal length variable responsive to an applied electrical field, and an electrical connector. The electrical connector is a flexible circuit element that connects the lens to an electrical power supply. |
| US07672057B2 |
Microscope objective
A microscope objective having at least four lenses or groups of lenses and which can be used to improve image contrast. According to the invention, a phase plate, aligned concentrically to the optical axis, can be integrated into and taken out of the air space between the first lens and the second lens, as viewed from the object side. The defined arrangement of the phase plate and the associated shift of the real pupil into the air space between the first two lenses or groups of lenses, respectively, of the microscope objective allows a microscope objective, initially designed as a bright-field variant, to be redesigned as a phase contrast variant with relative ease. |
| US07672051B2 |
Optical film and surface light source using it
An optical film 10 has a transparent base film 11 made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a prism made of photo-curing resin such as acryl modified epoxy on an incident surface 12 that is one face of the base film 11, and a hologram similarly made of photo-curing resin on an exit surface 13 opposing the incident surface 12. The prism has grooves or ridges each having a substantially triangular cross section to totally reflect incident light so as to bend the light into a direction perpendicular to the exit surface 13. The hologram anisotropically diffuses light exiting from the exit surface 13, to improve brightness. |
| US07672049B2 |
Telescope and panfocal telescope comprising planoconvex of planoconcave lens and deflecting means connected thereto
The invention relates to a telescope which is used to inject and/or to extract, by reflection, emitting and/or capturing bundles of beams. According to the invention, at least one deflecting means is joined to the planar surface by means of at least one lens of the telescope objective unit, which is embodied as a plan convex or plan concave lens. The lens is used as a lens of the objective unit and as a holder for the deflection means. The number of optical components in the telescope about one of the holders is reduced due to the dual function thereof. |
| US07672048B2 |
Positioning mechanism and microscope using the same
A positioning mechanism capable of decreasing width and size and a microscope using the positioning mechanism are provided.The positioning mechanism is provided with a supporting shaft possessing a spherical surface part at a prescribed position and guides disposed substantially parallel to the supporting shaft and is characterized, on the assumption that of the three-dimensional directions, the axial direction of the supporting shaft constitutes the z direction, by the fact that the supporting shaft is nipped by the guides at the position of the spherical surface part and enabled to oscillate on the spherical surface part as a fulcrum in the xy directions and as well slide in the z direction. |
| US07672047B2 |
Catadioptric projection objective
A catadioptric projection objective for imaging a pattern provided in an object plane of the projection objective onto an image plane of the projection objective comprises: a first objective part for imaging the pattern provided in the object plane into a first intermediate image; a second objective part for imaging the first intermediate imaging into a second intermediate image; a third objective part for imaging the second intermediate imaging directly onto the image plane;wherein a first concave mirror having a first continuous mirror surface and at least one second concave mirror having a second continuous mirror surface are arranged upstream of the second intermediate image;pupil surfaces are formed between the object plane and the first intermediate image, between the first and the second intermediate image and between the second intermediate image and the image plane; andall concave mirrors are arranged optically remote from a pupil surface. The system has potential for very high numerical apertures at moderate lens material mass consumption. |
| US07672035B2 |
Separable modulator
A separable modulator architecture is disclosed. The modulator has a mirror suspended from a flexible layer over a cavity. The flexible layer also forms supports and support posts for the mirror. An alternative separable modulator architecture has a mirror suspended over a cavity. The modulator is supported by supports and support posts. The support posts comprise a flexible layer over support post plugs. A bus structure may be formed upon the flexible layer arranged over the support posts. |
| US07672031B2 |
Hologram recording medium, hologram reproducing apparatus, hologram reproducing method, and hologram sheet
A hologram recording medium includes a first element hologram and a second element hologram. On the first element hologram, main data is recorded such that the main data is converted into a two-dimensional image, object light of the two-dimensional image is interfered with recording reference light, and an interference fringe produced as a result of the interference is recorded on the first element hologram. On the second element hologram, simplified-form data representing the content of the main data using a smaller data size than the data size of the main data is recorded such that the simplified-form data is converted into a two-dimensional image, object light of the two-dimensional image is interfered with recording reference light, and an interference fringe produced as a result of the interference is recorded on the second element hologram. |
| US07672028B2 |
Color target layout
A printer is configured to print a color target that associates colors to which humans are most sensitive to color variance with areas of the color target within which color measurement is less prone to meassurement error. The printer then prints the color target according to the association. In an optional impemementation, measurements of like color elements within the target are average. In a further optional impementation, the averaging is performed using weighted values, wherein the weighting is based on color measurement accuracy within an area within the color target wherein each measured element is located. In a still further implementation, a color look-up table is generated according to measurements made of the color target. |
| US07672027B2 |
Image reading apparatus
An image reading apparatus includes a reading unit, a control unit and a reference color region. The control unit includes a preliminary read processing unit, a first image acquisition unit, a second image acquisition unit and a reprocessing instruction unit. The reprocessing instruction unit specifies a schematic position of a reference region in the sub-scanning direction and instructs the preliminary read processing unit to perform preliminary reading again at the schematic position of the reference region. |
| US07672019B2 |
Enhancing resolution of a color signal using a monochrome signal
An image scanning apparatus includes three color line sensors for outputting red, green, and blue color signals, a monochrome line sensor for outputting a monochrome signal having a higher resolution than the color signals, and a resolution-enhancement processor. The resolution-enhancement processor enhances a resolution of a pixel signal of the color signals, based on a monochrome smoothed value obtained by smoothing a signal of an arbitrary pixel of the monochrome signal and signals of pixels around the arbitrary pixel and a color smoothed value obtained by smoothing a signal of a pixel of each color signal and signals of pixels around the pixel of the color signal, the pixel of the color signal corresponding to the position of the arbitrary pixel of the monochrome signal. The image scanning apparatus can perform high-luminance and high-resolution scanning with a 4-line configuration and can reduce color-misalignment phenomenon due to motor drive. |
| US07672010B2 |
Method and system to generate document templates with resource administration
In a method and system for generating document templates for print jobs, in which a document template is generated in a generation unit using static resource data that are combined into addressable data sets. The document template is registered in a resource administration unit. The resource administration unit generates a resource list in which the resource data sets used by the document template are listed. Using the resource list, the resource administration unit controls a transfer of the used resource data sets to a data processing device in which the document template is supplemented with variable data, whereby the resource administration unit in turn can be controlled via a superordinate program. |
| US07672008B2 |
Image processing device, method and program product for separating character, halftone graphic, and halftone photographic regions
An image processing device including a detector for detecting a characteristic feature formed from image data and a separator for separating halftone dot graphic regions and halftone dot photographic regions from the image data based on the characteristic feature. |
| US07672007B2 |
Information processing methodology
An information processing methodology gives rise to an application program interface which includes an automated digitizing unit, such as a scanner, which inputs information from a diversity of hard copy documents and stores information from the hard copy documents into a memory as stored document information. Portions of the stored document information are selected in accordance with content instructions which designate portions of the stored document information required by a particular application program. The selected stored document information is then placed into the transmission format required by a particular application program in accordance with transmission format instructions. After the information has been transmission formatted, the information is transmitted to the application program. In one operational mode, the interface interactively prompts the user to identify, on a display, portions of the hard copy documents containing information used in application programs or for storage. |
| US07672004B2 |
Format convertible image processing system, and program
An image processing system connects a plurality of clients to an image processing apparatus via a network. The image processing apparatus includes a reading device that reads an image of an original document and generates a prescribed image signal, an image data generating device that applies prescribed image processing to the image signal to generate image data, and a memory that stores the image data. A format converting device is provided to convert an image format of the image data selected from the memory by one of plurality of client apparatuses into a prescribed format in accordance with a format condition designated by the client apparatus. A delivering device is provided to deliver the image data to the client apparatus in the prescribed format. |
| US07672003B2 |
Network scanner for global document creation, transmission and management
A network scanner, communication protocols, and client and server programs and are provided which provide an improved way to transmit legally binding documents, obviating the need for outmoded, legacy fax transmissions. Using the network scanner, a document may be scanned and transferred directly into any shared folder inbox residing on any computer attached to the Internet. Enhanced server systems and network communications and messaging protocols are provided that are more practical to use than email for sending documents such as executed legal documents or other documents requiring robust integrity and authenticatability. Similarly, the inventive network scanner, server systems and communication protocols provide improved ways to perform large file transfers and to manage bandwidth to minimize problems associated with uploading/downloading large files as attachments to/from email servers and for enabling user control over VoIP quality during file transmission sessions. |
| US07671999B2 |
Device for measuring parts by triangulation sensors and an evaluation unit for determining
A device for measuring components by a laser triangulation measuring device includes at least two triangulation sensors for determining the height profiles of components. The component is arranged on a movable support plane in a horizontal moving direction relative to the laser triangulation measuring device, whereby at least two triangulation sensors are arranged in a mutual measuring plane forming a positional offset, for determining the height profile and a cross-sectional profile of the component in the measuring plane. |
| US07671998B2 |
Surface configuration measuring method and surface configuration measuring system
A measuring method, comprising a step of drawing a line on a surface such as ground surface, a step of performing measurement along the line on a predetermined measurement range including the line, a step of acquiring an image of a range including the predetermined measurement range as an image data, a step of superimposing the image data on a measurement data, and a step of calculating a measurement data of the line from line position in the image data and from the measurement data near the line. |
| US07671995B2 |
Method for improving surface plasmon resonance by using conducting metal oxide as adhesive layer
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing technique which provides high specificity and accuracy has been an important method for molecular sensing technology. In the past, in order to affix 45 nm gold film onto glass or silicon substrate, several nanometers of chromium (Cr) or titanium (Ti) has been used as adhesive layer for the attachment of Au film. However, the existence of Cr or Ti thin film deteriorates the performance of SPR sensor due to their characteristic optical absorption. Our experimental results have confirmed the uses of conducting metal oxide, specifically, ITO and Zinc Oxide (ZnO) can be used to replace Cr or Ti for better performance in terms of SPR resonant properties (resonant angle and HMBW) and sensitivity enhancement for 3 to 15 times than traditional ones. It would contribute significantly to the SPR applications in both biosensors and gas sensors. |
| US07671993B2 |
Methods and apparatus for estimating the intensity of one spectrum of light in a mixed light, in response to the sensed intensities of one or more other spectrums of light in the mixed light
In one embodiment, light having a first spectrum is filtered from a mixed light. Light having a second spectrum, different from the first spectrum, is also filtered from the mixed light. An intensity of the light having the first spectrum, and an intensity of the light having the second spectrum, are then sensed. From the sensed intensities of the lights having the first and second spectrums, an intensity of light having a third spectrum is estimated. |
| US07671991B2 |
Handheld colour measurement device
A handheld color measurement device includes a housing in which an optoelectronic measurement unit is located which receives measurement light originating from a measurement object, converts it into corresponding electrical measurement signals and processes these measurement signals into preferably digital measurement data characterizing the color of the measurement object. It further includes passive components required for the realization of different application functions, such as measurement windows and reference standards, which can be selectively positioned into the measurement beam path of the measurement unit. The passive components are positioned in a first housing block (100) and the opto-electronic measurement unit as a whole in a second housing block (200). The second housing block is adjustable into several defined application positions relative to the first housing block, in which application positions respectively one of the passive components is located in the measurement beam path of the opto-electronic measurement unit.This special division into two mutually relatively adjustable housing blocks allows an easy realization of a compact color measurement device suitable for many application functions, which is distinguished by a particular user friendliness. |
| US07671988B2 |
Detection of particles
A device (10) is provided for measuring at least one characteristic (12) related to presence of particles. The device (10) includes a light source unit (16) for emitting light into a region (18) containing particles (20), with the light source being configured to emit light from a plurality of locations in a manner so that the emitted light follows a desired intensity distribution (22), the desired intensity distribution (22) being desired for the measurement of the at least one characteristic (12). In preferred embodiments the intensity distribution is Lambertian. |
| US07671987B2 |
Optical detection system for flow cytometry
An optical detection system for flow cytometry that uses light sources positioned laterally at different distances from the central axis of the flow stream for providing light through different parts of the flow stream. By using two or more light sources, the particle position can be detected, and the alignment and width of the core stream can be monitored and controlled. |
| US07671986B2 |
Spectroscopy apparatus based on hetero-junction phototransistors
This invention discloses a variety of spectroscopy apparatus based on high sensitivity photo detector arrays and image sensors employing sidewall-passivated mesa-structure hetero-junction phototransistors (HPTs). |
| US07671985B1 |
Device for small spot analysis using fiber optic interfaced spectrometers
The present invention is an optical device for small spot analysis by diffuse reflectance using fiber optic interfaced spectrometers. The device comprises a source of electromagnetic radiation and a set of mirrors designed to project most of the radiation from the said source onto a less than 1 mm diameter spot on the sample, collect a portion of the radiation reflected by the sample and refocus this reflected radiation into an optical fiber. The said optical fiber then brings the said reflected radiation into a fiber optic interfaced spectrometer for spectral analysis. A means for the magnified viewing of the sample and the precise selection of the sampling spot for analysis is integrated into the invented device. Adding a digital camera and a laser module to the said device enables nearly simultaneous multimodal analysis of the same sampling spot by diffuse reflectance, Raman, and fluorescence spectroscopy and by image analysis. |
| US07671982B2 |
Systems, circuits and methods for reducing thermal damage and extending the detection range of an inspection system
Inspection systems, circuits, and methods are provided to enhance defect detection by reducing thermal damage to large particles by dynamically altering the incident laser beam power level supplied to the specimen during a surface inspection scan. In one embodiment, an inspection system includes an illumination subsystem for directing light to a specimen at a first power level, a detection subsystem for detecting light scattered from the specimen, and a power attenuator subsystem for dynamically altering the power level directed to the specimen based on the scattered light detected from the specimen. The power attenuator subsystem may reduce the directed light to a second power level, which is lower than the first, if the detected scattered light exceeds a predetermined threshold level. The systems and methods described herein may also be used to extend the measurement detection range of an inspection system by providing a variable-power inspection system. |
| US07671980B2 |
Surface inspection method and surface inspection apparatus
A surface inspection apparatus capable of acquiring scattered light intensity distribution information for each scattering azimuth angle, and detecting foreign matters and defects with high sensitivity. A concave mirror for condensation and another concave mirror for image formation are used to cope with a broad cubic angle. Since mirrors for condensation and image formation are used, a support for clamping the periphery of a lens is unnecessary, and an effective aperture area does not decrease. A plurality of azimuth-wise detection optical systems is disposed and reflected light at all azimuths can be detected by burying the entire periphery without calling for specific lens polishing. A light signal unification unit sums digital data from a particular system corresponding to a scattering azimuth designated in advance in the systems for improving an S/N ratio. |
| US07671976B2 |
Systems and methods of using a flexible imaging surface to capture a rolled fingerprint
Fingers and palms can be optically scanned to produce optical finger or optical palm prints by using one or more flexible imaging members in contact therewith. The palm or finger being scanned is positioned on one side of the flexible imaging member and in contact therewith. One or more optical scanners is positioned on the other side of the imaging member. The sensor(s) then sense incident radiant energy or light indicative of friction ridge patterns and minutiae on the respective finger and/or palm. Alternately, RF or electro-static sensing could be used. |
| US07671973B2 |
Optical analysis system using multivariate optical elements
The present invention provides an optical analysis system for determining an amplitude of a principal component of an optical signal. The principal component is indicative of the concentration of a particular compound or various compounds of a substance that is subject to spectroscopic analysis. The optical signal is subject to wavelength selective weighting and wavelength selective spatial separation specified by a weighting function. The optical signal is preferably separated into two parts that corresponding to a positive and negative spectral band of the weighting function, respectively. The separation provides separate detection of the separated parts of the optical signal without significant loss of intensity, thereby providing an improved signal to noise ratio of the determined principal component. Separation and weighting of the optical signal is realized by two multivariate optical elements. |
| US07671972B2 |
Optical sensing methods and apparatus
A method of sensing movement or proximity of objects by optical reflection is provided. The method includes the steps of transmitting a train of optical pulses towards a destination, sensing optical pulses reflected from the destination, and sensing and evaluating movement or proximity characteristics of objects at the destination with reference to variation in pulse width between transmitted and reflected optical pulses. |
| US07671971B2 |
Electro-optical method for measuring distance and detecting a non-ideal chirp profile
The invention relates to an electro-optical distance measuring method wherein frequency-modulated optical radiation is emitted onto at least one target to be measured. Once the radiation back-scattered to the target is received, the chirp of radiation is modeled by means of a phase function Φ(t) having parameters cj, thereby making description of the deviation of the chirp from the linear profile possible. The parameters used for description are at least partially determined from measurements or are coestimated during numerical signal processing. |
| US07671967B2 |
Exposure apparatus and exposure method
An exposure method includes the steps of (a) calculating a pupil transmittance distribution in a projection optical system based on a first effective light source distribution of the projection optical system acquired by a measuring apparatus of an exposure apparatus, and a second effective light source distribution derived from a pupil plane light intensity distribution measured on a plate plane using light that has passed the projection optical system without a reticle, (b) calculating an imaging performance by using a result of the pupil transmittance distribution calculating step and the first or second effective light source distributions, (c) adjusting at least one of the effective light source distribution or the projection optical system by using the imaging performance, and (d) exposing the plate based on at least one of the effective light source distribution and the projection optical system that have been adjusted. |
| US07671965B2 |
Lithographic projection apparatus, device manufacturing method and device manufactured thereby
A lithographic projection apparatus comprising a radiation system for supplying a projection beam of electromagnetic radiation in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) range, a support structure for supporting patterning structure, the patterning structure serving to pattern the projection beam according to a desired pattern, a substrate table for holding a substrate and a projection system for projecting the patterned beam onto a target portion of the substrate. A space within the apparatus, which space contains a mirror, is supplied with a hydrocarbon gas which forms a protective cap layer on the mirror surface. The partial pressure of the hydrocarbon gas in the space is controlled in response to variations in the background pressure in the space and/or in the reflectivity of the mirror, such that the thickness of the cap layer on the mirror remains within an acceptable range. The partial pressure of hydrocarbon may be increased in order to sputter away the cap layer and/or, if extra multilayers are provided on the mirror, the top layer(s) of the mirror, thus providing a clean mirror surface. The hydrocarbon used may be an alcohol, in which case the cap layer formed is self-terminating. |
| US07671962B2 |
Spacer forming method and spacer forming apparatus
Providing a spacer forming method by which spacers can be securely formed in a predetermined region on a substrate. Ink containing granular spacers is jetted onto a crossing portion of a black matrix 5 in the shape of a lattice. Red pixel R, green pixel G and blue pixel B are formed in the openings of the lattice. The spacer containing ink is jetted onto the spacer forming positions from the nozzle by the ink jetting method. Plural drops of ink 7 are jetted onto each of the spacer forming positions on one of the opposite substrates E. The gap between the opposite substrates E can be securely maintained at a constant for filling with liquid crystal. |
| US07671954B2 |
Liquid crystal display device and method for fabricating the same
A liquid crystal display (LCD) device includes an array substrate; a gate line formed on the array substrate; a data line formed on the array substrate crossing the gate lines; a thin film transistor formed on the array substrate, the thin film transistor being formed at an intersection between the gate line and the data line; a pixel electrode formed on the array substrate and connected to the thin film transistor; an insulating interlayer formed on an entire surface of the array substrate; a common electrode formed on the insulating interlayer and having a plurality of slits; a metal line formed on the insulating interlayer overlapping the data line and the common electrode; a color filter substrate attached to the array substrate; and a liquid crystal layer formed between the array substrate and the color filter substrate. |
| US07671952B2 |
Multi-domain vertical alignment liquid crystal display panel
A liquid crystal display panel is disclosed. The liquid crystal display panel includes a bottom substrate, a plurality of wires disposed on the bottom substrate, a plurality of pixel units electrically connected to the wires, a top substrate disposed opposite to the bottom substrate, a liquid crystal layer disposed between the top and bottom substrates, and at least one protrusion disposed on the top substrate corresponding to the wires formed between two adjacent pixel units. Each pixel unit includes a thin film transistor and a pixel electrode disposed on the bottom substrate. The pixel electrode is electrically connected to the thin film transistor, in which the pixel electrode has a plurality of main slits. |
| US07671949B2 |
Polarizing plate with optical compensation function, and liquid crystal display device using the same
A polarizing plate with optical compensation function, including a polarizing layer and an optically compensating layer, wherein the optically compensating layer includes an optically compensating A-layer including a stretched polymer film and an optically compensating B-layer including a cholesteric liquid crystal layer. |
| US07671947B2 |
Optical film, optical compensation film, polarizing plate, liquid crystal display unit and self luminous display unit
An optical film which has Re(λ) and Rth(λ) fulfilling the following two formulae: 0≦Re(590)≦10 |Rth(590)|≦25 wherein Re(λ) is a retardation value in plane (nm) at a wavelength of λ nm; and Rth(λ) is a retardation value in film thickness direction (nm) at a wavelength of λ nm. |
| US07671938B2 |
Transflective liquid crystal display
The invention relates to a transflective liquid crystal display (LCD) comprising a patterned quarter wave foil (QWF) and having improved chromaticity. |
| US07671934B2 |
Display device and display device stand
According to one embodiment, a display device includes a display module and a stand having a tilt mechanism which adjusts an upright angle of the display module. The tilt mechanism includes a fixed portion provided on the stand, a movable portion provided on the display module, a hinge shaft which pivotably couples the fixed portion and the movable portion together, and a lock member which limits pivoting of the movable portion with respect to the fixed portion. The lock member is movable between a lock position where the lock member engages with the movable portion so as to prevent the display module from falling down through at least a predetermined angle and a release position where the lock member leaves the movable portion so as to allow the display module to pivot freely. |
| US07671933B2 |
Liquid crystal display module
A liquid crystal display module for preventing noise caused by friction between a support main and a light guide plate is provided. In the module, a hole is defined at a support main having at least one of a polygonal shape or a circular shape. A light guide plate is disposed on the support main. A protrusion which protrudes from a side surface of the light guide plate is inserted into the hole. The protrusion has at least one of said polygonal shapes and said circular shape. |
| US07671932B2 |
Active matrix substrate and pixel defect correcting method therefor
An active matrix substrate facilitates correction of a pixel defect and a pixel defect correcting method. A laser target portion of a drain electrode extension portion is irradiated with laser light so as electrically disconnect a TFT from a subpixel electrode. Laser target portions are irradiated with laser light so as to melt an insulating layer, thereby establishing electrical connection between a drain electrode extension portion and a corrective connecting electrode and between a data signal line (13(m+1)) and the corrective connecting electrode. Laser target portions are irradiated with laser light, thereby establishing electrical connection between a drain electrode extension portion of a pixel P(n+1, m) and a corrective connecting electrode and between the data signal line (13(m+1)) and the corrective connecting electrode. Laser target portions are irradiated with laser light so as to separate part of the data signal line (13(m+1)) and use the separated part of the data signal line (13(m+1)) as a detour conductor. |
| US07671931B2 |
Liquid crystal display device and method of fabricating the same
A liquid crystal display device includes a plurality of data lines arranged along a first direction on a substrate, a plurality of gate lines arranged a second direction perpendicular to the first direction on the substrate to define a plurality of pixel regions, each of the gate lines having at least one first set of protrusions and depressions, a driving device within each of the pixel regions, a pixel electrode within each of the pixel regions, and a metal layer overlapping each of the gate lines to create a storage capacitor. |
| US07671930B2 |
Liquid crystal display pixel structure having sub-pixels with particular capacitance
A pixel structure suitable for disposing between a first scan line and a second scan line of a multi-domain vertical alignment liquid crystal display (MVA LCD) panel is provided. The pixel structure includes a first active device, a second active device, a first pixel electrode, a second pixel electrode and alignment members. The first active device is electrically connected with the first scan line and a data line of the LCD panel, and the second active device is also electrically connected therewith. The first and the second pixel electrode are electrically connected to the first and the second active device, respectively, and the first pixel electrode covers a part of the second scan line to form a compensation capacitance. Therefore, there is a voltage difference between the second pixel electrode and the first pixel electrode. The alignment members are disposed on the first and the second pixel electrode. |
| US07671927B2 |
Method for reducing channel switching delay in digital broadcast receiver and digital broadcast receiver using the same
A method and an apparatus for reducing channel switching delay in a digital broadcast receiver are provided. The digital broadcast receiver includes a signal reception unit, which receives a broadcast signal and converts the received broadcast signal into an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, a digital demodulation unit, which retrieves a transport stream from the IF signal, a demultiplexing unit, which extracts a video signal from the transport stream by parsing the transport stream, a video decoder, which retrieves a video image from the video signal by decoding the video signal, and an output selection unit, which prevents a background image from being output and outputs the video image when sensing a first intra frame of the video signal input to the video decoder after the digital broadcast receiver is switched to a new channel. |
| US07671924B2 |
Method and device for scaling a two-dimensional image
A scaling device for video displays includes a limited number of line buffers and produces stable output frames by using a stable clock source to produce the output image clock. The scaling device further includes an error counter for determining an error between an ideal output line length and an actual line length and an error accumulator for keeping a running total of all output line length errors. The error accumulator can signal when the total line error for a given frame is greater than one, indicating that an additional output point should be added to the blanking area of that output line. |
| US07671923B2 |
Digital processing system and method for tracking subcarrier included in video signal
A digital processing system and method for tracking a subcarrier included in a video signal are provided, where a phase comparator tracks the phase of a color burst signal based on predetermined supposed phases, Y/C separation and demodulation are carried out based on a compensation phase that is updated by a phase compensator in response to the tracked phase, and the Y/C separation and demodulation are performed based on a compensation frequency determined by a frequency compensator by checking short-term and long-term variations in the updated compensation phase. |
| US07671922B2 |
Chroma upsampling method and apparatus therefor
A unique method for chroma vertical upsampling used, for example, for conversion of the “4:2:0” format chroma information used in many applications of digital video, to the “4:2:2” or “4:4:4” format, is presented. This conversion is required so that video encoders can effect the display of this chroma information with a minimum of visible artifacts. The present invention carries out chroma vertical upsampling on a pixel by pixel basis. This chroma vertical upsampling is performed as a function of the amount of motion associated with each pixel as detected between 2 or more fields, and the field, frame and progressive sequence characteristics of the incoming video signal data. |
| US07671920B2 |
Camera body of a video system with a handgrip and video system
A camera body of a video system has a housing which is comprised of cover elements. Two of the cover elements which, in an area of the handgrip, are fitted together and which shape a part of the housing, also shape the handgrip of the housing. |
| US07671916B2 |
Motion sensor using dual camera inputs
Motion sensing of a portable device using two cameras. A first camera is directed along a first viewing axis and a second camera is directed along a second viewing axis, different from the first viewing axis. The second viewing axis can be substantially opposite the first viewing axis. A motion processing module determines changes in images from the first camera and changes in images from the second camera. The motion processing module compares the direction of change determined from the first camera images relative to the direction of change determined from the second camera images. The motion processing module determines the motion of the portable device based in part on the comparison. |
| US07671915B2 |
Solid-state imaging apparatus
A solid-state imaging apparatus including: a pixel section having two-dimensionally arrayed unit pixels each having a first pixel and a second pixel respectively containing photoelectric conversion devices that are located at positions regarded as the same position at which image is formed by an imaging optical system; a reset control means for simultaneously resetting respectively independently all first pixels and all second pixels of each unit pixel arrayed in the pixel section; a difference signal output means for obtaining a difference signal between signals of the first pixel and of the second pixel; a control section for rendering control such that a reset is effected of signals of all first pixels of the pixel section and, after a desired exposure time, a reset is effected of signals of all second pixels of the pixel section by the reset control means, and then signals of the first pixel and of the second pixel are read out respectively in a simultaneous or substantially simultaneous manner immediately after the reset of signal of all second pixels by the reset control means so as to output a difference signal between these as imaging signal by the difference signal output means; and a characteristic difference correction means for correcting a characteristic difference between the first pixel and the second pixel. |
| US07671912B2 |
Solid-state imaging apparatus
A solid-state imaging device capable of simplifying a pixel structure to reduce a pixel size and capable of suppressing a variation in characteristics between pixels when a plurality of output systems are provided. A unit cell includes two pixels having upper and lower photoelectric converters, transfer transistors connected to the upper and lower photoelectric converters, a reset transistor, and an amplifying transistor. A full-face signal line is connected to the respective drains of the reset transistor and the amplifying transistor. Controlling the full-face signal line along with transfer signal lines and a reset signal line to read out signals simplifies wiring in the pixel and permits reduction of the pixel size. |
| US07671909B2 |
Method and apparatus for processing Bayer-pattern digital color video signal
Provided are a method and apparatus for processing a Bayer pattern digital color video signal, where the video signal processing apparatus includes a BP detector that generates the pixel information signal PIS representing whether the current pixel is good or bad from the input video data based on the difference between the current pixel data and neighbor pixel data, and an interpolator that interpolates the bad pixel using neighbor pixel data in response to the pixel information signal. |
| US07671908B2 |
Offset correction during correlated double sampling in CMOS image sensor
For correlated double sampling in an image sensor, a comparator receives and compares a reset signal and a sensing signal from a pixel of the image sensor. Also, a controller adjusts a voltage at a controlled input of the comparator to compensate for offset of the comparator from feed-back of an output of the comparator. The controller includes at least one charging current source and at least one discharging current source that are controlled to adjust such a voltage. |
| US07671907B2 |
Image-capturing apparatus
A digital camera enables high-speed zooming operation without use of a zoom lens. Light originating from a fixed-focal-length lens is split into two beams by a beam splitter, to thus form respective images on a first image sensor and a second image sensor. The first image sensor and the second image sensor are equal to each other in terms of the number of pixels, but differ from each other in terms of a pixel size. The first image sensor acquires a wide image, and the second image sensor acquires a telephotography image. An output is produced by means of switching between the first image sensor and the second image sensor, in response to zooming operation. When the image from the first image sensor is recorded, focus detection is performed by use of an image signal from the second image sensor, to thus effect automatic focusing. |
| US07671905B2 |
Image processing apparatus and method for image processing relevant images
An image processing apparatus is provided which includes a memory for storing plural photographic images, an input key for instructing a desired photographic image among the photographic images stored in the memory to be subjected to image processing, a determining section to determine whether a photographic image related to the photographic image which is instructed to be subjected to the image processing by the input key is stored in the memory, and an informing section to inform a user when the determining section determines that the related photographic image is stored. |
| US07671899B2 |
Electronic camera having a focusing circuit for performing a plurality of focusing operations on the basis of an in-focus level and/or an image area
In an electronic camera, during a photographing operation for photographing a white sheet of paper or the like to obtain white balance data, a plurality of distance measuring points provided in an automatic focusing mechanism are restricted to only the one that is located at a central portion of the image plane. Further, a determination level used for determining an in-focus state in the automatic focusing mechanism is set lower than where an ordinary object is photographed. Accordingly, the photographing operation for obtaining white balance data can be completed for a short time. Furthermore, if the automatic focusing operation itself is inhibited during the photographing operation for photographing a white sheet of paper or the like to obtain white balance data, that photographing operation can be completed for a very short time. |
| US07671892B2 |
Image sensing apparatus, and control method, program, and storage medium of image sensing apparatus
An image sensing apparatus according to the present invention includes: an image sensing unit configured to sense an object image and output image signals; a shift amount detecting unit configured to detect a shift amount between two image signals, from the image signals that are sequentially output by the image sensing unit; an image signal synthesizing unit configured to sequentially synthesize the image signals based on detection results of the shift amount detecting unit, and generate a synthesized image signal that has been corrected by the shift amount; and a memory unit configured to accumulate the synthesized image signal, wherein the image signal synthesizing unit performs level adjustment of a signal level, the level adjustment varying for each area of the two image signals that are to be synthesized, and generates the synthesized image signal. |
| US07671890B2 |
Roving camera security system
A covert all-weather roving camera security system includes a monorail track, at least one self-propelled trolley able to move itself back and forth continuously along the monorail track, and a plurality of surveillance cameras attached to the trolley. A housing completely encloses the monorail track and the trolley and has a sunshield on its top to protect the cameras from overheating and a filtered window on its sides and bottom to prevent human eyes from seeing in the housing while permitting the cameras to see out. |
| US07671884B2 |
Rotary drive apparatus, optical scan apparatus, and image formation apparatus
A rotary drive apparatus includes a rotary body with a support portion, a rotor magnet supported by the support portion of the rotary body, a fixation section facing the rotor magnet and rotatably supporting the rotary body, and a winding coil provided in the fixation section, in which an expression E1/E2≦0.75 is satisfied where Young's modulus of the rotor magnet is E1 [GPa], and Young's modulus of the support portion is E2 [GPa]. |
| US07671883B2 |
Image recording apparatus
A laser beam emitted from each semiconductor laser 27 is guided by a step index type multi-mode optical fiber, a graded index type multi-mode optical fiber deformable and movable with movement of a recording head, and a step index type multi-mode optical fiber, to be emitted from a light emitter toward an imaging optical system. |
| US07671878B2 |
Thermal printer and paper recognition method
A thermal printer has a first thermal head, a second thermal head, and a feeding mechanism. The feeding mechanism feeds one of thermal papers which include a double-sided thermal paper having thermosensitive layers formed on both sides thereof and a single-sided thermal paper having a thermosensitive layer formed on one side thereof. The first thermal head is so provided as to be brought into contact with a first side of the thermal paper fed by the feeding mechanism. The second thermal head is so provided as to be brought into contact with a second side of the thermal paper fed by the feeding mechanism. The thermal printer determines whether a mark has been printed at least one of the first and second sides of the thermal paper and controls print operation based on a determination result. |
| US07671876B2 |
Resolution scaler using a decimal part of an accumulator output as a weight for generating scaled pixel data
A resolution scaler of the present invention uses a shift adder instead of a multiplier for scaling an input resolution. The resolution scaler is provided with a counter controller and a pixel scaler. The counter controller outputs a weight to the pixel scaler. The pixel scaler includes a first shift adder for outputting the first shift value by adding a plurality of first shift arguments generated by shifting the current pixel data, a second shift adder for outputting the second shift value by adding a plurality of second shift arguments generated by shifting the previous pixel data, and an adder for outputting the scaled pixel data by adding the first shift value and the second shift value. |
| US07671874B2 |
System for regional data association and presentation and method for the same
A database methodology that concerns the mapping of any arbitrary object into a plurality of regions, enabling the assignment of multiple region-specific attributes thereto and facilitating the concurrent, graphical presentation of any assigned attributes. Attribute storage, manipulation, and presentation are driven by the individual regions and characteristics of the object. |
| US07671873B1 |
Systems for and methods of processing signals in a graphics format
According to one aspect, the invention provides an apparatus for converting data encoded in a graphics signal to at least one output signal. The apparatus includes an input, a plurality of outputs, signal processing circuitry and a controller. The input is adapted to receive the graphics signal where the graphics signal includes a plurality of frames generated at least in part from original data. The signal processing circuitry is adapted to locate, in the graphics signal, data corresponding to the original data, convert the data corresponding to the original data to output data and communicate the output data to the plurality of outputs. The controller is adapted to monitor a capacity of the signal processing circuitry and generate a signal that results in at least one disposable frame being added to the plurality of frames. The signal processing circuitry is adapted to discard the at least one disposable frame. |
| US07671871B2 |
Graphical user interface for color correction using curves
To make an intuitive interface for curves for color correction, a particular color is selected, such as gray, and the effect of each curve on pixels of that color may be displayed as a background image for the curve. A background image also may indicate a color to which tones corresponding to a selected and manipulated point of a curve will be modified or corrected. An image representing a gradient from the color component, through gray, to a complement of the color component may be displayed in association with the displayed function curve to suggest a result of color correction to be applied to the input image by manipulation of the function curve. A background image may suggest to the user what will happen if a point on the curve is moved. For example, if a user takes a point on the green curve that is in the center of the display and moves it to the lower right, the resulting image will have a magenta tint. The background image for the curve for the green channel shows more magenta in the lower right. A user can determine from an image to be corrected and the background image of the curves both which curve to use and approximately which direction to manipulate the curve. |
| US07671870B2 |
Tiling data sets for computer graphics
Data tiles can be combined to form attribute data sets for use in generating computer graphics images. Tiles may be arranged in a regular grid pattern or in arbitrary, irregular positions. Tiles can be overlapped slightly and blended to hide tile boundaries. The value of the combined data set in an overlap region may be a weighted sum of values from the tiles. To compensate for reduced variance and contrast caused by blending, the values in overlap regions can be scaled by a variance correction factor. The variance correction factor is the inverse of the reduction in variance from the source tiles. Tile values can be scaled by their weights and variance correction values at the time they are combined or in advance, if the pattern of tile overlaps are consistent. Data tiles can be comprised of bandlimited noise data or other data types. |
| US07671865B2 |
Refresh of display
A method, apparatus, and signal-bearing medium for sending to a display device only those regions of the display screen that change. A frame buffer is divided into tiles, which may be composed of one or more regions, and data in the frame buffer represents pixels on the display screen. When data representing a pixel is modified in the frame buffer, the region or tile associated with the pixel is marked as dirty, and those tiles or regions that are dirty in the frame buffer are written to the display. |
| US07671864B2 |
Faster image processing
Methods and machines which increase image processing performance by efficiently copying image data from input memory to main memory before performing CPU intensive operations, such as image enhancement, compression, or encryption, and by efficiently copying image data from main memory to output memory after performing CPU intensive operations, such as decryption, decompression, image enhancement, or reformatting. |
| US07671859B2 |
Thin instrument cluster with anti-reflective coating
An instrument display includes a light source that selectively emits light and a light guide that receives the light. One or more optical coating layers are disposed on the light guide. The light guide has a first index of refraction, and the optical coating layer or layers have a second index of refraction that is greater than the first index of refraction of the light guide. The optical coating layer or layers reduce glare from ambient light and increase the light transmitting performance of the light guide. |
| US07671855B2 |
LCD, and driving device and method thereof
Disclosed are an LCD capable of realizing a pre-charging method even in the random data-enable mode, and an apparatus and method for driving the same. In the LCD driving apparatus, a timing controller outputs a vertical sync start signal based on a data-enable signal having an irregular output interval to control the output of the image data. A gate driver sequentially applies both first and second gate-on voltages to a same gate line based on the vertical sync start signal. The first gate-on voltage is to drive a previous line being most adjacent to and having the same polarity as the current line, and the second gate-on voltage is to drive the current line. An LCD panel is first charged with the first gate-on voltage supplied from the gate driver, and then charged with the second gate-on voltage, so that it can display analog image data received from the data driver during the second charging. |
| US07671854B2 |
High-potential output stage
A high-potential output stage includes an output circuit to power a load with a variable high potential when it receives a low-level active input logic signal. It also includes a driving circuit which produces a high-level control logic signal as a function of the input logic signal to drive the output circuit which is powered by a DC high potential. The output stage also synchronizes the input logic signal with variations of the variable high potential. |
| US07671851B1 |
Reconfigurable tactile controls and displays
New methods and apparatus are provided for efficiently and safely providing controls and displays therefore, particularly, but necessarily to be used within the center stack region of a vehicle instrument panel. The apparatus utilizes, in most embodiments, a rear projection display and machine vision sensing of control position and, optionally, finger touch. A very stylistic and easy to use instrument panel results which can be programmed or otherwise provided in many different forms to suit different users or option package designs. |
| US07671846B1 |
Computer system having a pressure-sensitive controller, setup method for a pressure-sensitive controller and recording medium that records this method
In order to minimize differences in a pushing speed of a user pushing control elements of a controller in, for example, an entertaining system, arising from differences in the body weights of users, the gives instructions to a computer running software depending on the pushing pressure of the user on the control element connected to a pressure-sensitive device of the controller. The controller is set up to instruct the user to push the control element with at least a maximum strength. The value obtained when the control element is pushed, is stored as the maximum value. Based on the maximum value and a pressure-sensing value table defined in software or various pressure-sensing values, a new pressure-sensing value table or various new pressure-sensing values are generated. |
| US07671842B2 |
Dual mode input device
A dual mode input device, e.g. an optical mouse, is capable of performing data input function by moving the input device. Alternatively, the dual mode input device can also be an optical trackball. By turning the dual mode input device upside down, a trackball can be mounted to or exposed from the bottom surface to perform data input function by manipulating the trackball so that no movement of the input device is required. |
| US07671841B2 |
Portable terminal with position-variable display and method
A portable terminal with a position-variable display comprising a main body for inputting information and controlling communication, a folder coupled to the main body, a display unit rotationally disposed on the folder for displaying image information, a rotating means for providing angular rotation of the display unit along a plane of the folder, and a sliding means for moving the display unit in a direction along a length of the portable terminal. |
| US07671836B2 |
Cell phone with shiftable keypad
The invention is related to electronic devices (1), preferably cell phones or handhelds, containing a layer (2) and a moving mechanism for this layer (2), so that the layer (2) is extractable out of a rest position from the main casing (10). The described layer (2) usually contains a keypad (3). According to the invention, the moving mechanism allows the layer (2) to be extractable out of his rest position in different directions, preferably in two, three, or four directions. The inventive arrangement allows a more comfortable and flexible use of the device. |
| US07671835B2 |
Image display apparatus and image display method
In an image display apparatus and image display method suppress the degradation of display function and the shortening of service life due to long-term use, measurement of a current value is carried out and the measured current value each time a certain time elapses is stored. The integrated value of the current is calculated, and a comparator compares the integrated value with a reference value stored in a storage section for determining whether or not the result is greater than a prescribed value. If the result is affirmed to differ by prescribed value, a recovery voltage is applied, and it is determined whether or not a recovery time has exceeded a stored recovery time. If the excedance of the recovery time is affirmed, the application of the recovery voltage is terminated. If a negation is given at the determination of the greater difference value, the flow is ended. If a negation is given at the determination of the recovery time, the recovery voltage is applied. |
| US07671826B2 |
Semiconductor device, display device, and electronic device
A display device includes a load, a transistor for controlling a current value supplied to the load, a capacitor, a first wiring, a second wiring, and first to fourth switches. Variations in the current value caused by variations in the threshold voltage of the transistor can be suppressed through the steps of: (1) holding the threshold voltage of the transistor in the storage capacitor, (2) inputting a potential in accordance with a video signal, and (3) holding a voltage that is the sum of the threshold voltage and the potential in accordance with the video signal, in the storage capacitor. Accordingly, a desired current can be supplied to the load such as a light emitting element. |
| US07671824B2 |
Plasma display and driving method thereof
A plasma display panel for adaptively reducing load effect and improving luminescence efficiency and discharge efficiency, and a driving method thereof. A plasma display panel includes a capacitive load; a source capacitor; a sustain voltage source to generate a sustain voltage; a first inductor formed on a first current path where a current flows from the capacitive load to the source capacitor; a second inductor formed on a second current path where a current flows from the source capacitor to the capacitive load; a switch configuration and switch control circuit that controls the switching operations of the switch configuration such that at least two discharges may occur during one sustain pulse cycle. |
| US07671823B2 |
Multi-angle mirror
Multi-angle mirror methods and related systems. |
| US07671821B2 |
Image signal generating apparatus, image signal transmission apparatus, image signal generating method, image signal transmission method, image display unit, control method for an image display unit, and image display system
An image signal generating unit supplies a single image signal to multiple image display units having different unit numbers. Embedded in the image signal is an index signal designating the image display units on which the image signal is to be displayed. Each image display unit compares its unit number with the index signal to select displayable frames of the image signal, preferably storing and displaying the most recent selected frame. Each image display unit can thereby display a different image. The image signal may have a standard format. |
| US07671819B2 |
Antenna assembly
An antenna assembly includes an antenna. The antenna assembly includes at least one interrupted loop or rod of electrically conducting material and a printed circuit board (PCB). At least a part of the PCB together with the at least one interrupted loop or rod of electrically conducting material forms the antenna. |
| US07671818B2 |
Antenna device with integrated connection cable, and radio apparatus
The objective of the present invention is to provide a connection cable that serves as an external antenna for a radio apparatus, and whose antenna performance is not deteriorated in the use state by an adverse affect attributable to the near proximity of a human body.According to the present invention, an antenna device, integrally formed with first connection means, which is to be connected to a radio apparatus, second connection means, which is to be connected to a peripheral device, and a connection cable and an antenna element, which are located in between and which transmit a plurality of signals from the radio apparatus to the peripheral device, includes: first relay means, located at a middle position in the connection cable, for relaying the plurality of signals; the antenna element, located between the second connection means and the first relay means; and a coaxial line, located between the first connection means and the first relay means for transmitting, to the radio apparatus, an antenna reception signal that has been received at the antenna element and has been extracted by the first relay means, wherein the antenna element serves as an external antenna for the radio apparatus. |
| US07671817B2 |
Wideband antenna
An antenna arrangement for a communication device is provided that may include a monopole antenna element having a bottom side joined to a first lateral side and joined to a second lateral side. The bottom side may be joined to each lateral side at an angle less than 90 degrees for forming an antenna element area defined at least by the bottom side and the first and second lateral sides. The antenna element area may include an central part arcuate around a longitudinal axis in a conical fashion, so that at least a part of the bottom side is provided half a turn around the longitudinal axis. |
| US07671816B2 |
Low frequency antenna
An antenna includes a core formed of a high-permeability material and a coil wire wrapped around at least a part of the core. In one embodiment, the high-permeability material includes ferrite material. |
| US07671813B2 |
Earphone antenna and wireless device including the same
An earphone antenna is provided in which two pairs of audio/high-frequency signal lines respectively corresponding to left and right earphone units are connected to a balun. The left and right earphone units are connected to terminals of the two pairs of audio/high-frequency signal lines remote from the balun via loading coils, respectively. The terminals of the two pairs of audio/high-frequency signal lines remote from the balun are further connected to each other by a pair of conductive lines via audio blocking means. The earphone antenna having such a structure can eliminate high-frequency adverse effects on a wireless device transmitted from a human body via an earphone. |
| US07671812B1 |
Wind noise reducing mounting bases for antenna assemblies
An antenna assembly is provided that includes an antenna element depending from an antenna mounting base. The mounting base includes a shaft portion that uniformly tapers from a mounting end portion to a projecting end portion. The shaft portion includes grooves, or flutes, that each extends from the mounting end portion toward the projecting end portion, and that each has a curvature about an axis of the shaft portion. The grooves provide the shaft portion with an asymmetrical cross-sectional area that causes airflow impinging on the shaft portion to generate turbulence and scatter low air pressure regions that tend to form locally around the shaft portion. As a result, small vibrations generated by the low pressure regions are suppressed, and whistling sounds, noises, etc. associated with the vibrations may be reduced. |
| US07671811B2 |
Antenna device with ground plane coupled to conductive portion of an electronic device
Disclosed is an antenna device arranged inside a display module of an electronic device with a conductive portion. The antenna device includes an antenna element with a ground plane and a signal feeding end for transceiving a wireless signal, an antenna signal feeding line coupled to the signal feeding end of the antenna element for feeding the wireless signal transceived by the antenna element. At least one mounting element for fixing the antenna element onto the casing and forcing the ground plane of the antenna electrically contacting with the conductive portion of the casing, so that the conductive porting serves as an extended ground for the ground plane of the antenna element. |
| US07671810B2 |
Antenna structure for a notebook
An antenna structure for a notebook with four radiation members, the antenna structure has an elongate supporting rack having thereon a first radiation member, a second radiation member, a third radiation member and a fourth radiation member; each radiation member is planar, and is integrally connected with the supporting rack. Thereby, when the notebook uses a plurality of antennas, the costs of mold developing and time for processing can be reduced, and in designing, the space of the antenna will not waste by having the structure, and a better effect in function can be obtained. |
| US07671806B2 |
Antenna system for a radar transceiver
In an antenna system for a radar transceiver, in particular for measuring distance and/or velocity in the surroundings of motor vehicles, having at least one antenna, which includes at least one first part situated on a chip and a second part situated at a distance from the first part and beam-coupled to the first part, the second part of the antenna is situated on an antenna substrate or another chip, which is attached over the first part by flip chip bonds. |
| US07671804B2 |
Tunable antennas for handheld devices
A compact tunable antenna for a handheld electronic device and methods for calibrating and using compact tunable antennas are provided. The antenna can have multiple ports. Each port can have an associated feed and ground. The antenna design can be implemented with a small footprint while covering a large bandwidth. The antenna can have a radiating element formed from a conductive structure such as a patch or helix. The antenna can be shaped to accommodate buttons and other components in the handheld device. The antenna may be connected to a printed circuit board in the handheld device using springs, pogo pins, and other suitable connecting structures. Radio-frequency switches and passive components such as duplexers and diplexers may be used to couple radio-frequency transceiver circuitry to the different feeds of the antenna. Antenna efficiency can be enhanced by avoiding the use of capacitive loading for antenna tuning. |
| US07671795B2 |
Wireless communications device with global positioning based on received motion data and method for use therewith
A circuit includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver that receives a GPS signal and that generates GPS position data based on the GPS signal. A wireless receiver converts an inbound RF signal into an inbound symbol stream. A processing module converts the inbound symbol stream into inbound data that includes a motion parameter and generates position information based on at least one of the GPS position data and the motion parameter. |
| US07671793B2 |
Positioning system, terminal apparatus, method of controlling terminal apparatus, program for controlling terminal apparatus and computer-readable storing medium for storing program for controlling terminal apparatus
A communication base station has: a communication signal sending device for sending a communication signal including base station position information indicating a position of the communication base station and sending direction information indicating a sending direction from the communication base station, and the terminal apparatus has: a communication signal receiving device; a base station pseudo range information generating device; a satellite orbital position information generating device; a satellite pseudo range information generating device; a candidate position information generating device; and a positioning location information generating device for designating one position out of positions on the circumference indicated in the candidate position information on the basis of the sending direction information to generate positioning location information, and so on. |
| US07671790B2 |
Positioning system, positioning device, communication base station, control method, and recording medium storing program
A communication base station includes a propagation time evaluation section which determines whether or not a propagation time required for a communication radio wave to propagate between the communication base station and a positioning device is within a predetermined allowable time range, a code phase calculation section which calculates a code phase of each satellite signal, a difference calculation section which calculates a difference between the code phase calculated by the communication base station and a positioning-side code phase, a difference evaluation section which determines whether or not the difference is within a multipath range which is a difference range when the positioning-side code phase is affected by a multipath, a correction value transmission section which transmits the code phase calculated by the communication base station to the positioning device when the difference evaluation section has determined that the difference is within the multipath range, and the like. |
| US07671788B2 |
Apparatus and method for suppression of unnecessary signals in a radar system
By pulsing transmission radio waves of continuous wave radar, clutter components included in a reception signal are suppressed.In a radar system that emits into space pulsed transmission radio waves being generated based on a frequency-modulated reference continuous waveform, acquires a reception signal by receiving the pulsed transmission radio waves reflected from an external object, and computes distance thereto and velocity thereof from the frequency of a beat signal obtained by mixing the acquired reception signal with the reference continuous waveform, the radar system includes a frequency-band selector 19 for classifying, on the basis of a spectral spread corresponding to the pulse width of the pulsed transmission radio waves, frequency components of the beat signal, and a distance/velocity calculator 20 for computing, on the basis of the classified results from the frequency-band selector 19, relative distance to and velocity of a moving object, or relative distance to a stationary object. |
| US07671785B1 |
Dual mode weather and air surveillance radar system
A radar system having first and second modes of operation comprising a dual antenna assembly comprising first and second antennas having respective first and second antenna waveguides coupled to a waveguide switch operable to divert RF energy to or from either said antenna waveguide, said waveguide switch coupled to a common waveguide, said dual antenna assembly mounted to an antenna support assembly, said first and second antennas being designed for use in said first and second modes respectively and operable for coupling said RF energy to a transmit medium, and for coupling reflected RF energy from transmit medium to said first or second antenna waveguide; and a control processor configured with control logic operable to control the functions of said radar system wherein said first and second antennas are mounted generally perpendicularly in the vertical plane with respect to each other and wherein said radar system operates in only one of said modes of operation at any time. |
| US07671784B2 |
Computerized tomography using radar
Techniques for detecting contraband are described, as are techniques for generating an image of living tissue. A location of interest relative to a target space is received, and a radar signal is transmitted in the direction of the location of interest. Portions of the radar signal are detected with multiple receiving structures. The detected portions are processed to generate information corresponding to dielectric or loss properties, the properties corresponding to particular positions within the target space. A determination is made as to whether contraband is present in the target space based on the determined properties. |
| US07671780B2 |
Method and device for processing an incident signal, in particular for frequency transposition
A method is for processing an incident signal, in which the incident signal is delivered to a transconductor stage, and a current output of the transconductor stage is coupled to an output capacitor so as to deliver to the output capacitor a current signal lasting for at least part of the first half-period of each period of a periodic signal and to thus obtain a frequency-transposed signal at the output capacitor. Upon the occurrence of each part of the first half-period, the voltage of the current output, seen from the output capacitor, is reset to a value equal to that of the voltage of the output capacitor. |
| US07671774B2 |
Analog-to-digital converter with integrator circuit for overload recovery
Apparatus and methods are provided for overload recovery in high order sigma-delta feedback topologies. An apparatus is provided for an analog-to-digital converter. The analog-to-digital converter comprises a first integrator having a first input, wherein the first integrator is configured to produce a first integrated output. A first switched resistance element is coupled between the first input and the first integrated output, wherein the first integrated output is altered when the first switched resistance element is activated. A quantizer is coupled to the first integrated output, the quantizer having a digital output wherein the quantizer converts the first integrated output to a digital value. A digital-to-analog converter is coupled between the digital output and the first input, wherein the digital-to-analog converter converts the digital value to an analog value. |
| US07671770B2 |
Single pass INL trim algorithm for networks
A single-pass method of trimming a network, and a network manufactured according to the method, uses the assumption that the peak INL value is minimized by trimming all the structures in the network to a same target value based upon the boundary conditions of the discretely adjustable elements that make up the structures. Using this assumption, the number of targets that need to be simulated, can be greatly reduced making estimation of peak INL possible in a reasonable amount of testing or manufacturing time. The trim algorithm produces results that are optimum or substantially close to optimum and is guaranteed not to deteriorate the Peak INL compared to the untrimmed Peak INL. An auto-calibration system using the trim method is also provided so that the method can be used in a product in real time if desired. |
| US07671769B2 |
Multistage analog/digital converter and method for calibrating said converter
A multistage analog/digital converter for converting in multi-step cycles an input signal into respective digital codes, each cycle step resolving at least one bit of a respective digital code. The converter includes: a sampling circuit inputting the signal and outputting a first sequence of analog samples; a generation block of a pseudorandom sequence of samples; a summing node, such as to input the first sequence and the pseudorandom sequence, obtaining in output a second sequence of analog samples including non-pseudorandom samples; a converter having a controllable digital gain receiving the second sequence and outputting bits of the digital codes; a feedback loop with a loop gain and including an analog amplifier; a digital calibration block to match the digital gain to the loop gain and including a prediction block to produce a digital estimation of said input signal starting from the bits resulting from converting the non-pseudorandom samples. |
| US07671767B2 |
LIFO radix coder for electrical computers and digital data processing systems
Embodiments described herein may include example embodiments of a method, article and/or apparatus for coding data which may be used for communicating between two or more components connected to an interconnection medium (e.g., a bus) within a single computer or digital data processing system, and/or for communication between computing platforms via a network or other interconnection medium. |
| US07671766B2 |
Method and apparatus for signal processing and encoding and decoding method, and apparatus therefor
Data coding and entropy coding are performed with interconnection, and grouping is used to enhance coding efficiency. The present invention includes the steps of hierarchically extracting identification information indicating at least three or more data coding schemes. The identification information indicating two coding schemes having high frequencies of use for the identification information are extracted from different layers. |
| US07671765B2 |
Apparatus and method for input of ideographic korean syllables from reduced keyboard
Systems and methods for input of text symbols into an electronic device comprising a reduced keyboard having keys representing a plurality of characters are disclosed. Possible symbol variants are identified based on character inputs received from the reduced keyboard. Each identified symbol variant is grouped into one of a plurality of groups of symbol variants, each group having an associated priority, according to a type of the symbol variant. Within at least one of the groups, the symbol variants are ranked in decreasing order of frequencies of use of the symbol variants. A list of symbol variants comprising the plurality of groups of symbol variants in order of decreasing priority is then displayed, and an input symbol is selected from the list of symbol variants. The symbol variants of the at least one of the groups of symbol variants are thereby sorted by both priority and frequency of use. |
| US07671764B2 |
Method and system for using traffic flow data to navigate a vehicle to a destination
Methods and systems are provided for selectively using traffic flow data to provide routing options for a vehicle traveling to a destination point. There is provided a method comprising setting a threshold traffic flow data availability level, receiving traffic flow data from traffic flow sensors placed along one or more routes to the destination point, and determining whether the traffic flow data for each route meets the threshold availability level. The method further comprises enabling a flow-based route guidance for those routes for which the traffic flow data meets the threshold availability level. In one embodiment, the flow-based route guidance comprises utilizing the traffic flow data to calculate an estimated time of arrival at the destination point along each route. |
| US07671761B2 |
Method and system for calculating altitude above runway for an aircraft
The system contains a receiver in communication with a programmable device. The receiver receives a first horizontal distance from the aircraft to a threshold of the runway, an angle of a glide path, and a threshold crossing height. The programmable device determines a projected ground distance from the aircraft to the threshold. The programmable device determines a projected ground distance from the threshold to a glide path intercept point. The programmable device determines a vertical value along the glide path relative to a projected ground distance between the aircraft and the glide path intercept point. The programmable device determines a synthetic altitude above runway for the aircraft. |
| US07671760B2 |
Traffic signal system
A traffic signal system for utilizing an efficient and simplistic structure to regulate vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The traffic signal system includes a support member including at least one receiver member and at least one light module including a plug member extending outwardly from the light module, wherein the plug member is positionable within a cavity of the receiver member. |
| US07671756B2 |
Portable electronic device with alert silencing
In some embodiments, audible alerts issued by a portable electronic device can be silenced in response to user smacks on the body of the device. These audible alerts are initiated by applications running on the device, such as email, phone, alarm, and/or timer applications. In some embodiments, the device includes one or more accelerometers that detect and signal the user smacks. In some embodiments, the alert response mode of the device (such as whether it rings or vibrates to signal an alert) can be changed in response to predefined patterns of user smacks. |
| US07671755B2 |
Battery current sensor for a motor vehicle
A battery current sensing device for the battery of a vehicle includes a current sensor, a substrate having a measuring circuit, and a connecting element having first and second ends. The current sensor is connected to the battery to receive current flow of the battery. One end of the connecting element is electrically and mechanically connected to the substrate and the other end of the connecting element is electrically and mechanically connected to the current sensor such that the connecting element electrically and mechanically connects the substrate in a fixed position to the current sensor with the measuring circuit being electrically connected to the current sensor. The first end of the connecting element includes a press-fit contact for establishing the connection to one of the current sensor and the substrate. |
| US07671751B2 |
System and method for conducting pet death, and other pet related transactions over a computer network
A business method for conducting pet, death, DNA and other related transactions over a computer network is disclosed. A one-stop site on the Internet permits remote users to establish accounts, run user sessions, obtain information, and order pet, death, DNA and other related products and services from a variety of sources and vendors. The one-stop site performs multiple services that are ordinarily done by many both for the initial user and for subsequent related users that are referenced to the site. Charges for all transactions are made to user accounts and payments need only be made to the one-stop site. |
| US07671749B2 |
System and method for startling animals
A device is disclosed which is configured to startle certain pests which may cause a variety of problems in certain areas of a home or workplace. By limiting the action of the pests, or removing the pests from the area, the invention may prevent the destruction of property, minimize animal droppings, and minimize the spread of disease. The invention includes an external shell in the shape of any desired animal, wherein the external shell also covers internal mechanical, electronic and electrical components. The components are configured to move parts of the animal shell and move other items attached to the shell. The movement may be a result of a motion detector detecting an undesirable pest, programmable timer, a remote control device operated within the safety of a home or by other sensors. |
| US07671741B2 |
Anti-theft security device and perimeter detection system
A security tag in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes a housing, a membrane operable for attachment to merchandise, wherein the housing is connected the membrane, a monitoring device operable to monitor whether a party removes or attempts to remove the housing from the membrane and an alarm operable to emit a tamper signal when the monitoring device indicates that a party has removed or attempted to remove the housing from the membrane in an unauthorized condition. A security system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes a security tag operable for connection to merchandise to be secured, a monitoring device operable to monitor whether a party removes or attempts to remove the security tag from the merchandise and an alarm operable to emit a tamper alarm signal when the monitoring device indicates that a party has removed or attempted to remove the security tag from the merchandise in an unauthorized condition. |
| US07671736B2 |
Wireless electromagnetic parasitic power transfer
A wireless system including an antenna, an electrical energy storage unit connected to the antenna, the energy storage unit receiving power via electromagnetic coupling of the antenna with an RF field generated by a master unit, and an electronics package. The electronics package is powered by the energy storage unit, and it includes a sensor, a processor that is capable of acquiring data from the sensor, and a transmitter connected to the processor and to the antenna, wherein the energy storage unit is capable of storing sufficient energy to supply power for the processor to format a message containing data acquired from the sensor and for the transmitter to transmit the message wirelessly via the antenna. |
| US07671729B2 |
System and a method for remote monitoring customer security systems
There is provided a system for remote monitoring a plurality of security systems connected to the Internet, the security systems being assigned dynamic IP addresses, each of the security systems comprising a remote monitoring server module, the system comprising a central alarm monitoring service connected to the Internet for periodically communicating with the plurality of security systems and determining a status thereof to generate an alarm signal as a function of the status, the alarm monitoring service storing a current IP address of the plurality of security systems in an IP address database, and a remote monitoring gateway providing authenticated or unauthenticated dynamic domain name service (DDNS) server functionality to connect a given remote monitoring client to a desired one of the security systems, the gateway being connected to the IP address database and to the Internet. There is further provided a method of remote monitoring a security system. |
| US07671728B2 |
Systems and methods for distributed monitoring of remote sites
Rules are applied to video surveillance data to detect events. Localization of the events is achieved by decomposing events into distinct components, each of which can, in some embodiments, be defined at different locations and by different users. |
| US07671726B2 |
Apparatus for improving reception in a wheel monitoring system and manufacturing the same
A wheel position detecting apparatus comprises transmitters, a triggering device, and a receiver. The transmitters are attached to the plurality of wheels respectively. Each transmitter transmits a frame responsively to a triggering signal from the triggering device. The frame includes data indicating a reception intensity of the triggering signal. The triggering device is disposed in a vehicle body and outputs the triggering signal toward the transmitters attached to the plurality of wheels. This triggering device is positioned nearest to a specified wheel among the plurality of wheels to which the triggering signal is outputted, the specified wheel being influenced most heavily by noise generated in the vehicle. The receiver, disposed to the vehicle body, receives the frame and uses the data indicating the reception intensity of the triggering signal to detect positions of the wheels by determining which transmitter is attached to which wheel. |
| US07671722B1 |
Pill storage system
A pill storage system includes a housing that with a bottom wall and a peripheral wall is attached to and extends upwardly from the bottom wall. The peripheral wall has an upper edge defining an opening into an interior of the housing. A cover is removably positioned over the opening and closes the housing. At least one loop is attached to an outer surface of the bottom wall. A bracelet for being worn by a user of the housing extends through the at least one loop. The bracelet removably secures the housing to the user. |
| US07671721B2 |
Remote sensor, device and method for activating selected remote sensor components
This publication discloses a remote identifier, a reader, and a method for activating a desired remote identifier. The remote identifier (2) includes a microcircuit (7), in which there is a memory and means for processing a radio-frequency signal, an antenna (6) connected to the microcircuit (7), by means of which both the signal and also electric power for the operating voltage of the microcircuit (7) can be received. According to the invention, a component (3), the electrical properties of which change due to the effect of infrared, or visible light, is electrically connected to the microcircuit (7) of the remote identifier and in the microcircuit (7) there are means, by which the combined effect of a change in the radio-frequency signal and the electrical component (3) can be expressed by a correlation method for the signals, in order to activate the remote identifier (2) for two-way data transmission. |
| US07671711B2 |
Linear actuator for circuit breaker remote operation device
A remote operation includes an electromagnetic linear actuator that has a moving part linked to a handle of a circuit breaker, and drives the handle according to a remote operation command to perform change-over operations on the handle to ON, OFF, and RESET positions. The electromagnetic linear actuator is composed of permanent magnet type linear pulse motors each including a field section having a plurality of permanent magnets arranged in a row and a coil section having a three-leg type magnetic yoke and actuation coils wound around the legs of the magnetic yoke and opposing the field section. Electric current in the actuation coils is controlled by sequentially changing-over excitation patterns during the operation process, and the moving part is driven in a stepwise motion to drive the handle of the circuit breaker to the end position of the changeover operation process. |
| US07671709B2 |
Substrate and substrate module
A substrate module includes a first substrate and a second substrate. The first substrate comprises a base material; a transmission line in which a signal line is sandwiched between two ground patterns, on the surface of the base material; a ground pattern on the rear surface of the base material; and an exposed portion in which the ground pattern on the substrate surface is exposed by partially cutting out the base material and the ground pattern on the substrate rear surface. The second substrate comprises a base material and a transmission line in which a signal line is sandwiched between two ground patterns, on the surface of the base material. In connecting a transmission line of the first substrate and that of the second substrate, the ground patterns of the first and second substrates are fused with each other at the exposed portion and fixed. |
| US07671706B2 |
High frequency multilayer bandpass filter
In a multilayer bandpass filter, capacitances are produced between a ground electrode provided in a ground electrode formation layer and capacitor electrodes provided in a capacitor electrode formation layer. A plurality of inductor electrodes are defined by via-electrodes and line electrodes such that loop planes of inductor electrodes at least partially overlap each other when seen in a direction in which the inductor electrodes are arranged. The direction of the loop of the inductor electrode of the LC parallel resonator located (at a first stage) at an input end is set to be opposite to the direction of the loop of the inductor electrodes of the LC parallel resonator (at a second stage) adjacent to the inductor electrode of the LC parallel resonator located at the input end. Similarly, the direction of the loop of the inductor electrode of the LC parallel resonator located (at a fifth stage) at an output end is set to be opposite to the direction of the loop of the inductor electrodes of the LC parallel resonator (at a fourth stage) adjacent to the inductor electrode of the LC parallel resonator located at the output end. |
| US07671705B2 |
Surface acoustic wave filter and resonator utilizing a branch electrode with an electrically opened end
A SAW filter comprises an IDT disposed on a piezo-electric substrate, wherein the IDT includes comb-shaped electrodes having a plurality of interdigital electrodes arranged in a propagation direction of surface acoustic waves and bus bars for connecting these interdigital electrodes, arranged in opposition, and the interdigital electrodes are crossed with one another. The IDT comprises one or more branch electrodes branched from the interdigital electrode and positioned in a non-overlap zone between an overlap zone at which the interdigital electrodes overlap and the bus bar, and the branch electrode includes a branch electrode body extending in a direction substantially orthogonal to the propagation direction of surface acoustic wave. The SAW filter can be applied to any of a longitudinally coupled multi-mode filter, a ladder type filter, a resonator, a filter having a resonator connected in series to a longitudinally coupled multi-mode filter, and the like. A SAW filter and a SAW resonator highly resistant to damages to the electrodes with high Q and low insertion loss can be provided. |
| US07671701B2 |
Method and device for providing broadband over power line communications
A transmit and receive circuit for use in power line communication devices is provided. One embodiment of the circuit includes a receive channel with a first delay circuit coupled to a first switch having an open configuration and a closed configuration a first switch. The circuit also may include a transmit channel coupled to the receive channel at a node and including a second delay circuit coupled to a second switch having an open configuration and a closed configuration. When the switch of either channel is closed, the switch of the other channel is open. Data signals traversing either channel when that channel's switch is closed, are phase shifted approximately three hundred and sixty degrees and conducted back to the node. |
| US07671700B1 |
Hollow waveguide directional coupler
A hollow waveguide directional coupler comprises two hollow waveguide sections that are coupled to each other by a plurality of coupling openings formed in a wall extending between the hollow waveguide sections. Two adjacent coupling openings have a distance of 3λg/4. from each other, λg being the wavelength of the nominal center frequency of the operating frequency range of the directional coupler. |
| US07671696B1 |
Radio frequency interconnect circuits and techniques
A multilayer circuit board assembly includes one or more radio frequency (RF) interconnects between different circuit layers on different circuit boards which make up the circuit board assembly. The RF interconnects can include one or more RF matching pads which provide a mechanism for matching impedance characteristics of RF stubs to provide the RF interconnects having desired insertion loss and impedance characteristics over a desired RF operating frequency band. The RF matching pads allow the manufacture of circuit boards having RF interconnects without the need to perform any back drill and back fill operation to remove stub portions of the RF interconnects in the multilayer circuit board assembly. |
| US07671682B2 |
Variable gain power amplifier
A variable gain power amplifier includes a power amplifying unit and a signal generating unit. The power amplifying unit includes a control terminal, and a gain of the power amplifying unit is variable by a control signal provided through the control terminal. The signal generating unit generates the control signal to be provided to the control terminal. The signal generating unit includes a switching circuit to be turned on and off by a binary signal, a constant current source that generates a constant current, and a variable current source that generates a variable current. Also, the signal generating unit generates, when the switching circuit is on, a control signal of a magnitude that turns on the power amplifying unit and depends on a magnitude of a sum of the constant current and the variable current. When the switching circuit is off, the signal generating unit generates a control signal of a magnitude that turns off the power amplifying unit. |
| US07671681B2 |
Gigabit ethernet transceiver with analog front end
Circuitry to remove switches from signal paths in integrated circuit programmable gain attenuators. Programmable gain attenuators and programmable gain amplifiers commonly switch between signal levels using semi-conductor switches. Such switches may introduce non-linearities in the signal. By isolating the switches from the signal path linearity of the PGA can be improved. |
| US07671676B2 |
Continuous time common-mode feedback module and method with wide swing and good linearity
A continuous time common mode feedback module is capable of operating in a wide range of input voltages. The common mode feedback module includes a common mode detector and an amplifier for computing and amplifying the difference of a reference voltage and a common mode voltage of a first input signal and a second input signal. The common-mode feedback module includes a common mode resolver and a control voltage generating module coupled to each other to provide a common mode feedback voltage. The common mode feedback module provides a good linearity and a wide bandwidth, without compensation requirements. The common mode feedback module also provides small process corner dependence of bias current and a common mode offset. |
| US07671674B2 |
Amplifier circuit with automatic gain correction
The present invention relates to an amplifier circuit and system, and to a method of compensating a gain imbalance generated in a complementary amplifier stage with first and second amplifier means (22, 24) in a bridge configuration. A compensation offset current is generated in response to the values of input signals supplied to respective inputs of said first and second amplifier means, and the compensation offset current is injected to a junction node between the inputs of the first and second amplifier means (22, 24). Thereby, it can be ensured that the gain of the first and second amplifier means does not depend on the kind of input signals, i.e. balanced or unbalanced input signals. An automatic gain correction can thus be achieved and the requirement of additional control signals or control terminals for selection of gain control circuits depending on the kind of input source or input configuration of the amplifier circuit can be dropped. |
| US07671673B2 |
Class-D amplifier
A PWM modulator adds first and second input signals to each other, and performs PWM modulation processing for outputting a PWM-modulated pulse whose pulse width is modulated according to a result of addition. A shift register delays a bit stream acquired from a ΔΣ modulator, thereby generating two bit streams having a time difference which is one-half a period of PWM modulation processing, and the bit streams are supplied at first and second input signals to the PWM modulator. |
| US07671672B2 |
Baseband noise reduction
An active circuit includes (a) a first chopper circuit that receives an input signal and a chopping signal of a frequency higher than a base band of the input signal, and that provides a modulated input signal; (b) an amplifier that receives the modulated input signal and that provides an amplified signal resulting from amplifying the modulated input signal; and (c) a second chopper circuit that receives the amplified signal and the chopping signal to provide an output signal. The chopping signal has a frequency that may be dynamically adjusted to accommodate changes in impedance and signal spectrum as a result of the operations of the chopper circuits. The active circuit further includes a low pass filter that receives the output signal and that attenuates components of the output signal above the base band of the input signal. In this manner 1/f noise introduced by the amplifier is eliminated or reduced. |
| US07671669B2 |
Device and method for reducing input noise
A device and a method for reducing input noise providing at least a microcontroller. The microcontroller comprises: at least a noise reduction device, at least an analog switch and at least a signal output unit. The noise reduction device connected to the ground or a voltage is turned on to charge or discharge a stray capacitor existing on a turned off analog switch so that the amount of charge stored in the stray capacitor is zero or a specific value. Thereby, the noise in a touch switch is reduced and the cost of layout on the PCB is saved. |
| US07671668B2 |
Core voltage generation circuit
A core voltage generation circuit includes a comparator configured to perform a differential comparison of a reference voltage and a feedback core voltage. An amplifier is configured to amplify the external power supply voltage in response to an output signal of the comparator to generate the core voltage. A control switch is configured to form a current path of the comparator using different switch units according to a voltage level of an external power supply voltage input to the core voltage generation circuit. |
| US07671665B2 |
Constant-ON state high side switch circuit
An electrical switching circuit for controlling current flow to an electrical load from a primary power source with a first electrical potential difference relative to a circuit ground comprising a primary energy storage device with a low side coupled to the electrical load, a secondary electrical energy storage device with a high side and a low side, a controllable electrical switch that toggles the low side of the secondary energy storage device from the circuit ground to the low side of the primary energy storage device, a primary unidirectional current gate coupled between the high side of the secondary energy storage device and the high side of the primary energy storage device to let current flow from the secondary energy storage device to the primary energy storage device when the potential difference of the high side of the secondary energy storage device is higher than the high side of the primary energy storage device, a secondary unidirectional current gate coupled between a secondary power source with an electrical potential difference of at least the predetermined potential relative to the circuit ground and the high side of the secondary energy storage device to let current flow from the secondary power source to the high side of the secondary energy storage device when the potential difference of the secondary power source is higher than the high side of the secondary energy storage device, wherein periodic operation of the secondary electrical switch charges the secondary energy storage device when the secondary switch toggles its low side to the circuit ground and the secondary energy storage device charges the primary storage device when the secondary switch toggles its low side to the low side of the primary energy storage device. |
| US07671664B1 |
Charge pump control circuit and method
A charge pump control circuit that four main parts: a clock control circuit; a clock switch and driver circuit; a pump stage; and a dynamic load control circuit. The clock control circuit has a dynamic load that is controlled by the dynamic load control circuit. When the charge pump control circuit is enabled, the dynamic capacitive load is applied which incorporates a delay allowing the high frequency clock to control the pump stage and quickly charge the output to the desired boosted voltage. This provides a very fast boosted output voltage during a startup condition. Once the desired output voltage is realized, the dynamic capacitive load is disabled and the low frequency clock takes over the operation. During each low frequency clock cycle, the high frequency clock is enabled for several cycles per cycle of the low frequency clock. |
| US07671662B2 |
Thermally stable semiconductor power device
A semiconductor power device includes a circuit to provide a gate signal wherein the gate signal has a negative temperature coefficient of gate driving voltage for decreasing a gate driving voltage with an increase temperature whereby the semiconductor power device has a net Ids temperature coefficient that is less than or equal to zero. In an exemplary embodiment, the gate voltage driver includes a diode that has a negative forward voltage temperature coefficient connected between a gate and a source of the semiconductor power device. In another embodiment, the gate voltage is integrated with the semiconductor power device manufactured as part of an integrated circuit with the semiconductor power device. |
| US07671659B2 |
Clock control circuit and voltage pumping device using the same
A clock control circuit is provided. The clock control circuit includes a voltage supplier for supplying a first voltage in response to a first clock signal, a voltage booster for boosting the first voltage in response to the first clock signal input to the voltage booster, and a clock generator for generating a second clock signal having a voltage level equal to the boosted first voltage in response to the first clock signal. |
| US07671657B1 |
Voltage level shifter with voltage boost mechanism
A voltage level shifter with voltage boost mechanism is disclosed for interfacing two circuit units having different operating voltage swings. The voltage level shifter includes a first inverter, a second inverter, a first capacitor, a second capacitor and a plurality of transistors. The input and power ends of the first inverter function to receive an input voltage and a first voltage respectively. The output end of the second inverter functions to provide an output voltage. When the input voltage is a ground voltage, the output voltage is also a ground voltage; meanwhile, the switches are controlled for charging the first and second capacitors to a second voltage and a third voltage respectively. When the input voltage is the first voltage, a sum voltage of the first, second, and third voltages is furnished to the power end of the second inverter for providing the sum voltage as the output voltage. |
| US07671653B2 |
Dual edge triggered flip flops
An implicitly pulsed dual edge triggered pulsed latch. The implicitly pulsed latch includes an overlapping clock generator and a transparency circuit designed to cause a transparent latch circuit to become transparent on each edge of a clock signal. A logic value on the input node of the latch is transferred to the output node of the latch in response to each clock edge transition. An explicitly pulsed dual edge triggered pulsed latch including a pulse generator and a transparent latch circuit. The explicitly pulsed latch includes a symmetrical pulse generator designed to cause the latch circuit to pass a logic value from the input node of the latch to the output node of the latch in response to a pulse on the clock node. |
| US07671651B2 |
Duty cycle correction circuit of delay locked loop and delay locked loop having the duty cycle correction circuit
A duty cycle correction circuit and a delay locked loop (DLL) including the duty cycle correction circuit, are capable of controlling their operation in order to correctly analyze the cause of generation of a duty cycle error when the duty cycle error is generated in the DLL. The duty cycle correction circuit selectively outputs to a DLL core duty cycle offset information for controlling a duty cycle of an internal clock signal synchronized to an external clock signal under the control of a switching control signal. The DLL corrects the duty cycle of a reference clock signal according to the duty cycle offset information, thereby outputting a reference clock signal having a 50% duty cycle. |
| US07671650B2 |
Timing vernier using a delay locked loop
A method for synchronizing a plurality of programmable timing verniers with a reference pulse signal, each of the verniers being programmable to one of a plurality of timing steps within a delay range determined by a control signal applied to a bias input. A first and second control vernier is selected from the plurality of verniers, the first control vernier is programmed to a first delay, and the second control vernier is programmed to a second delay. The first and second control verniers are triggered together to generate respective first and second delay signals. A difference pulse signal is generated with a duty cycle corresponding to a difference between the generated first delay signal and second delay signal. The duty cycle of the pulse signal is compared to a duty cycle of the reference pulse signal to generate a difference signal pulse. The difference signal pulse is coupled to the bias input of the verniers to adjust the delay range, such that the duty cycle of the difference signal approaches the duty cycle of the reference pulse signal. In one embodiment there is provided a circuit for implementing the method. |
| US07671645B2 |
Chipsets and clock generation methods thereof
Chipsets capable of preventing malfunction caused by feedback clock distortion are provided, in which a phase frequency detector generates a control voltage according to a first reference clock and a first feedback clock, a voltage-controlled oscillator generates an output clock according to the control voltage, a frequency divider performs a frequency-division on a second feedback clock to obtain the first feedback clock, and a frequency filter estimates swings and frequency of a third feedback clock from an external unit and selectively outputs one of the third feedback clock or the output clock to serve as the second clock. |
| US07671642B2 |
Amplitude controlled sawtooth generator
A sawtooth voltage generator has a first capacitor that is charged with a variable feedback control current to provide a sawtooth output signal with a controlled amplitude. A feedback loop includes a comparator that compares a version of the sawtooth output signal with a fixed voltage reference to provide a comparator output signal to a phase frequency comparator, the output of which controls a source of the variable feedback control current. A method includes controlling the amplitude of a sawtooth output signal by charging a capacitor in a sawtooth voltage generator with a variable feedback control current; comparing a version of the sawtooth output signal with a fixed reference voltage to provide a comparator output signal; processing the comparator output signal in a phase frequency comparator to provide up/down control signals; and controlling the variable feedback control current with the up/down control signals from the phase frequency comparator. |
| US07671640B2 |
Direct injection-locked frequency divider circuit with inductive-coupling feedback architecture
A direct injection-locked frequency divider circuit with inductive-coupling feedback architecture is proposed, which is designed for integration to a high-frequency circuit system with a high operating frequency such as 24 GHz (gigahertz), for providing a frequency-dividing function. The proposed frequency divider circuit comprises an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) circuit module and a pair of buffer-stage circuits, wherein the ILO circuit module further includes a signal-injection circuit, a cross-coupled switching circuit, and a variable-capacitance tuning circuit. The proposed circuit architecture is characterized by the circuit arrangement of a direct-injection architecture and an inductive-coupling feedback architecture by coupling the inductive elements of the buffer-stage circuits to the inductive elements of the variable-capacitance tuning circuit in the ILO circuit module. These features allow the proposed frequency divider circuit to have higher operating frequency with wider frequency locking range, low power consumption, and small integrated circuit layout area. |
| US07671639B2 |
Electronic circuit
In the case of an electronic circuit, comprising a drive unit, which generates at least one drive signal, two or more power semiconductor switches each having a first and a second main terminal, which power semiconductor switches can be switched synchronously by the drive signal, the first and the second main terminals of the power semiconductor switches in each case being electrically connected in parallel among one another, for each of the power semiconductor switches a first and a second electrically conductive connection for connection to the drive unit, a uniform dynamic current division between the power semiconductor switches is achieved according to the invention by virtue of the fact that a first inductance is provided in each of the first electrically conductive connections, and a second inductance is provided in each of the second electrically conductive connections, the first inductance being coupled to the second inductance for each of the power semiconductor switches. |
| US07671638B2 |
Negative N-epi biasing sensing and high side gate driver output spurious turn-on prevention due to N-epi P-sub diode conduction during N-epi negative transient voltage
A high-side driver in a driver circuit for driving a half-bridge stage having high- and low-side power switching devices series connected at a switched node, the high-side driver driving the high-side power switching device. The high-side driver including first and second complementary switched MOSFET series connected at a high-side node, driving the high-side power switching device, one of the MOSFETs having a parasitic bipolar transistor formed between the substrate, an N+ epitaxial region connected to the high-side driver supply voltage and the switched node, with the parasitic transistor having a base electrode formed by the N+ epitaxial region, an emitter electrode formed by the substrate and a collector electrode formed by the switched node, such that if a transient voltage that is negative with respect to the substrate is present at the high-side driver supply voltage, the parasitic transistor will conduct a short circuit current between the switched node and the substrate; a first circuit for controlling the conduction of the first and second MOSFETs to switch the high-side switching device ON and OFF; a diffusion in the N+ epitaxial region in which a terminal connected to the switched node is provided by the diffusion forming the collector of the parasitic transistor; and a second circuit coupled to the diffusion for sensing the high-side driver supply voltage at the epitaxial region and providing a signal to the first circuit to prevent turn-ON of the high-side power switching device. |
| US07671636B2 |
Switching circuit and driving circuit for transistor
A switching circuit includes: a transistor having a first electrode, a second electrode and a control electrode; a zener diode; and a capacitor. A connection between the first electrode and the second electrode is capable of temporally switching between a condition state and a non-conduction state by switching a control voltage of the transistor. The zener diode and the capacitor are coupled in series between the first electrode and the control electrode of the transistor. The first electrode is a drain or a collector. |
| US07671635B2 |
Frequency synthesizer, coupled divide-by-N circuit, current-reuse multiply-by-M circuit
A frequency synthesizer is provided in the present invention. The frequency synthesizer includes a single phase-locked loop having a reference frequency signal input, a first output, a second output and a pair of divide-by-N circuits coupled with each other and electrically connected to the second output; a multiply-by-M circuit having a first input electrically connected to the first output and a third output; and a combination of a buffer and a mixer having a second input electrically connected to the second output and a third input electrically connected to the third output generating a frequency signal output. |
| US07671629B2 |
Single-supply, single-ended level conversion circuit for an integrated circuit having multiple power supply domains
A circuit comprises first, second, third, and fourth transistors. The first transistor has a first current electrode, a control electrode for receiving an input signal, and a second current electrode. The second transistor has a first current electrode coupled to the second current electrode of the first transistor for providing an output signal, a control electrode coupled to the control electrode of the first transistor, and a second current electrode coupled to a first power supply voltage terminal. The third transistor has a first current electrode coupled to a second power supply voltage terminal, a control electrode, and a second current electrode coupled to the first current electrode of the first transistor. The fourth transistor has a first current electrode coupled to the control electrode of the third transistor, a control electrode coupled to the control electrodes of the first and second transistors, and a second current electrode coupled to the control electrode of the first transistor. |
| US07671627B1 |
Superscale processor performance enhancement through reliable dynamic clock frequency tuning
In the case of a pipelined processor, a performance gain is achievable through dynamically generating a main clock signal associated with a synchronous logic circuit and generating at least one backup register clock signal, the backup register clock signal at the same frequency as the main clock signal and phase shifted from the main clock signal to thereby provide additional time for one or more of the logic stages to execute. Error detection or error recovery may be performed using the backup registers. The methodology can further be extended, to design a system with cheaper technology and simple design tools that initially operates at slower speed, and then dynamically overclocks itself to achieve improved performance, while guaranteeing reliable execution. |
| US07671625B1 |
Omnibus logic element
Disclosed is an LE that can provide a number of advantageous features. For example, the LE can provide efficient and flexible use of LUTs and input sharing. The LE may also provide for flexible use of one or more dedicated adders and include register functionality. |
| US07671624B1 |
Method to reduce configuration solution using masked-ROM
A packaged PLD solution includes a first die having a masked-Read Only Memory (ROM) that is programmed during its fabrication to store configuration data, and includes a second die having a PLD including a number of configurable resources collectively configured to implement a circuit design embodied by the configuration data. The first die is electrically connected to the second die, and both the first die and second die are stacked and encapsulated together to form the packaged PLD solution. The configuration data is programmed into the masked-ROM by a manufacturer of both the masked-ROM and the PLD. |
| US07671623B2 |
Device for managing the consumption peak of a domain on each powering-up
A device is provided for managing the current consumption peak on each powering-up of a domain in an electronic circuit. A plurality of domains are present and a global power supply grid provides power. Each domain is selectively supplied by a local supply grid connected to the global supply grid via a plurality of commanded switch transistors. A pre-charge transistor is used to pre-charge a domain at powering-up. A command circuit controls operation of the switch transistors through an analog command signal whose slew rate is controlled to ensure that switch transistor conduction is delayed to enable the pre-charge circuit to charge the domain to a sufficient degree that activation of the switch transistor will not draw excessive current. A detection circuit is configured to compare the instant value of the supply voltage with a fixed reference supply voltage and/or to compare, with the value of a fixed command voltage, the instant value of the differential voltage between the global supply voltage and the command voltage. |
| US07671622B2 |
On-die-termination control circuit and method
On-die-termination control circuit includes a mode detecting unit for detecting a power-down mode and a power-down delay configured to delay an on/off control signal in the power-down mode. On-die-termination control circuit provided a shift register configured to delay an on/off control signal in synchronization with shift clocks in a non-power-down mode, and transfer the on/off control signal as received without delay in a power-down mode, a power-down delay configured to delay the on/off control signal in the power-down mode, and not to delay the on/off control signal in the non-power-down mode and a controller configured to control enabling/disabling of an on-die-termination operation according to information about enable/disable timing of an on-die-termination operation provided by the on/off control signal that have passed through the shift register and the power-down delay. |
| US07671621B2 |
Closed loop feedback control of integrated circuits
Systems and methods for closed loop feedback control of integrated circuits. In one embodiment a plurality of controllable inputs to an integrated circuit is adjusted to achieve a predetermined value of a dynamic operating indicator of the integrated circuit. An operating condition of an integrated circuit is controlled via closed loop feedback based on dynamic operating indicators of the integrated circuit's behavior. |
| US07671614B2 |
Apparatus and method for adjusting an orientation of probes
Probes of a probe card assembly can be adjusted with respect to an element of the probe card assembly, which can be an element of the probe card assembly that facilitates mounting of the probe card assembly to a test apparatus. The probe card assembly can then be mounted in a test apparatus, and an orientation of the probe card assembly can be adjusted with respect to the test apparatus, such as a structural part of the test apparatus or a structural element attached to the test apparatus. |
| US07671613B1 |
Probing blade conductive connector for use with an electrical test probe
A conductive connector includes a flexible-deflectable extension having a probing end and a head connection end. A conductive transmission path extends between the probing end and the head connection end. A pogo-rotational-action pin is electrically connected to the transmission path at the head connection end of the flexible-deflectable extension. |
| US07671606B2 |
Portable line impedance measurement method and system
A technique is disclosed for determining capacitive, inductive, and resistive components of power line impedance via a portable line impedance measurement system. The measurement system includes a circuit that switches a burden resistor between power line conductors to cause a droop in a voltage waveform. The voltage waveform is sampled prior to inclusion of the resistor in the circuit, as well as after to identify the droop. The short circuit between the power lines is then removed by opening the circuit and a first effective capacitance in the test circuitry causes a resonant ring due to the inductive component of the power line impedance. The process is repeated a second time with a second effective load capacitance enabled in the test circuitry to cause a second resonant ring. Based upon the frequency of the rings and the voltage measurements, the individual impedance components of power line impedance can be computed. |
| US07671604B2 |
Nanoscale fault isolation and measurement system
Disclosed is a fault isolation and measurement system that provides multiple near-field scanning isolation techniques on a common platform. The system incorporates the use of a specialized holder to supply electrical bias to internal circuit structures located within an area of a device or material. The system further uses a multi-probe assembly. Each probe is mounted to a support structure around a common reference point and is a component of a different measurement or fault isolation tool. The assembly moves such that each probe can obtain measurements from the same fixed location on the device or material. The relative positioning of the support structure and/or the holder can be changed in order to obtain measurements from multiple same fixed locations within the area. Additionally, the system uses a processor for providing layered images associated with each signal and for precisely aligning those images with design data in order to characterize, or isolate fault locations within the device or material. |
| US07671602B1 |
Method and apparatus for cross-point detection
A method and apparatus for cross-point detection in devices have been disclosed where each leg of a differential signal is compared to a reference voltage and time lags for each are noted in crossing the reference voltage and this information is used to identify characteristics of the differential signal. |
| US07671595B2 |
On-coil switched mode amplifier for parallel transmission in MRI
Example systems, apparatus, circuits, and so on described herein concern parallel transmission in MRI. One example apparatus includes at least two field effect transistors (FETs) that are connected by a coil that includes an LC (inductance-capacitance) leg. The apparatus includes a controller that inputs a digital signal to the FETs to control the production of an output analog radio frequency (RF) signal. The LC leg is to selectively alter the output analog RF signal and the analog RF signal is used in parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) transmission. |
| US07671594B2 |
Magnetic resonance imaging interference immune device
A medical apparatus includes a medical assist device to process signals to relating biological functions. A first lead is operatively connected to the medical assist device, the first lead having a distal end and a proximal end. A second lead is operatively connected to the medical assist device, the second lead having a distal end and a proximal end. The first electrode is operatively connected to the distal end of the first lead, and a second electrode is operatively connected to the distal end of the second lead. A filter circuit is operatively connected near the distal end of the first lead and the distal end of the second lead. A compensation circuit, operatively connected to the first lead, provides a compensation voltage to enable the filter to effectively block changing magnetic fields induced current in the second lead from passing through the second electrode of the distal end of the second lead. |
| US07671590B2 |
Method and apparatus of multi-echo MR data acquisition with non-discrete flip angle train
An imaging technique is disclosed to reduce ringing artifacts from amplitude decay in MR multi-echo acquisition. A flip angle train is determined to match scan parameters for an MR scan to acquire MR data from a given tissue. Reducing the effects of amplitude decay in the echo signal reduces ringing artifacts and thereby improves image quality. |
| US07671589B2 |
Calibrating pMRI with cartesian continuous sampling
Example systems, methods, and apparatus control a pMRI apparatus to produce a pulse sequence having an extended acquisition window, and overlapping phase-encoding gradients and read gradients. One example method controls a pMRI apparatus to produce a trajectory having Cartesian and radial segments that sample in a manner that satisfies the Nyquist criterion in at least one region of a volume to be imaged. The pMRI apparatus is controlled to apply radio frequency energy to the volume according to the pulse sequence and following the trajectory and to acquire MR signal from the volume in response to the application of the RF energy. The MR signal includes a first component associated with the Cartesian segment of the trajectory and a second component associated with the radial segment of the trajectory. The example method includes calibrating a reconstruction process using Nyquist-satisfying data from the second component. |
| US07671586B2 |
Apparatus and method for non-symmetric magnetic field balancing in an inspection scanner
An inspection system positions a balancing shim to asymmetrically balance a magnetic field generated by an inductive sensor, which forms part of the inspection system. Additionally, relays and capacitors used to tune the inductive sensor to a desired resonance frequency are geometrically arranged to minimize electrical interference generated by operation of the relays and capacitors. A shielding device, which may be formed on a printed circuit board, protects a magnetic field generated by the inductive sensor from external electromagnetic interference. A slot positioned in the inductive sensor may be used to tune a resonant mode of the inductive sensor to accurately and particularly detect metallic shanks and/or other metallic objects in shoes, socks, and/or clothing. |
| US07671584B2 |
Rotation angle detection device
The present invention attains downsizing of a permanent magnet with a simple structure to reduce a manufacturing cost thereof. Provided is a rotation angle detection device, including: a cylindrical magnetic circuit mounted to a shaft; and non-contact sensors provided in an inner void of the magnetic circuit, in which the magnetic circuit is composed of a first yoke and a second yoke formed of a magnetic material and having a pair of flat portions parallel and opposed to each other, and a pair of permanent magnets whose magnetic poles are aligned in the same direction so that magnetic fields whose magnetic fluxes are parallel to each other are generated in the void between the flat portions, and the non-contact sensor detects a rotation angle of the shaft by detecting a change in the direction of the magnetic fluxes. |
| US07671581B2 |
Magnetic pulse generator for measuring wheel revolutions on bicycles
A magnetic pulse generator for measuring wheel revolutions of bicycles includes a magnet and an attachment device for attaching the magnet to a component (or spoke) of a wheel. Damage to the component to which attachment is to take place is to be prevented, and the installation expenditure during attachment is to be reduced. Furthermore, the magnetic pulse generator known from practical application is to be improved in that it is applicable to components of various geometric shapes, in particular to round components of various diameters and to flat components spokes of various widths. This object is met with an attachment device that includes a housing that encompasses the component, and that is formed as a longitudinally slit tubular piece. Ends of the housing forming the longitudinal slit can be connected to each other in a positive-locking and/or non-positive manner, and a spacing (A) therebetween is variable. |
| US07671577B2 |
Method for locating objects enclosed in a medium, and measuring device for carrying out the method
A method for locating objects enclosed in a medium, comprising the steps of generating a measurement signal correlated with an enclosed object; using the generated measurement signal to produce a signal which represents a difference between at least a first state which is “object detected” and at least a second state which is “no object detected”; switching from the first state “object detected” to the second state “no object detected” if a magnitude of the measurement signal being measured currently falls below a previously measured local maximum value of the measurement signal by a predefined first percentage. |
| US07671576B2 |
Ratiometric AC wire tracer
An implementation of an apparatus and method for sensing electrical wiring, for example, hidden behind a surface such as a wall is provided. The apparatus and method use multiple sensor signals, which may measure electric fields or changes in a dielectric. Pairs of signals are combined and compared to a sensed reference signal. Multiple sensors help in determining a direction or gradient to electrical wiring. Combining or averaging sensed signal before comparing the combined signal to a reference single helps to make the detection of electrical wiring less dependent on the relative orientation between the sensor and the electrical wiring. |
| US07671574B1 |
Ground voltage drop reduction circuit for a buck DC-DC converter
A buck DC to DC converter is arranged to more accurately regulate an output voltage by substantially eliminating a ground voltage error caused at least in part by parasitic resistance during low side conversion/regulation. During high side conduction of the high side switch, the converter employs the output voltage for error correction. And during low side conduction of the low side switch, the converter employs a sampled and held version of the output voltage for error correction which enables the converter to eliminate the ground voltage error caused by parasitic resistance. |
| US07671572B2 |
Voltage boost circuit and voltage boosting method using voltage boost clock signal with varying frequency
A voltage boost circuit and a method of boosting voltage using a voltage boost clock signal with varying frequency, in which the voltage boost circuit includes a boost voltage generator that responds to a voltage boost clock signal in order to boost an input voltage and outputs the boosted input voltage as an output boost voltage; and a boost voltage frequency control unit that responds to the result obtained by comparing a level of the output boost voltage and a level of a target boost voltage so as to change the boost voltage frequency of the voltage boost clock signal and outputs the voltage boost clock signal having the changed boost voltage frequency. The voltage boost circuit and the voltage boosting method can prevent a waste of the operating current during the boosting of the voltage. |
| US07671570B2 |
Systems and methods involving operating variable speed generators
A method for operating an asynchronous generator comprising receiving an indication that a power grid frequency is reduced. Responsive to the receiving the indication, reducing a speed of the asynchronous generator from a first speed to a second speed for a first time period, wherein the reduction of the speed of the asynchronous generator results in a momentary increase in a total power output of the asynchronous generator. Increasing the speed of the asynchronous generator from the second speed to a third speed responsive to the end of the first time period. |
| US07671569B2 |
Arrangement and method for monitoring and controlling a plurality of series-connected capacitors
A method for monitoring and controlling a plurality of series-connected capacitance, wherein at least during the discharge of the capacitances, there is determined a voltage of every capacitance, and in the instance of a drop-off of a voltage of one of the capacitances below a first threshold voltage of this capacitance, the capacitance is bridged over to at least the end of the discharge. Also provided are devices for determining every voltage of every capacitance, devices for symmetrizing voltages among the capacitances, and devices for the deactivation of at least one of the capacitances. |
| US07671566B2 |
Method for predicting remaining capacity of a battery
A method for predicting remaining capacity of a battery includes: (a) determining an initial battery capacity; (b) measuring a second voltage; (c) calculating a maximum possible battery voltage and a minimum possible battery voltage according to the second voltage, a maximum possible battery current and a minimum possible battery current, and an internal resistance; (d) calculating a maximum possible battery remaining capacity and a minimum possible battery remaining capacity according to the maximum possible battery voltage, the minimum possible battery voltage, and the voltage-remaining capacity table; (e) comparing the maximum possible battery current with the minimum possible battery current; and (f) calculating a remaining capacity of the battery according to a comparison result in step (e), the maximum possible battery remaining capacity, and the minimum possible battery remaining capacity. |
| US07671562B2 |
Safely removable battery pack
A battery pack for an electric appliance has a base body, a locking unit for locking the base body to the electric appliance, an actuating element for unlocking the base body, which element is intended to be actuated by a user in an actuating direction, and a removal direction in which it is possible to remove the base body after it has been unlocked from the electric appliance. The actuating direction has at least one component oriented counter to the removal direction. |
| US07671561B2 |
Host machines for battery charging system
Various embodiments of the present invention are directed at a method and system for recharging batteries for wireless electronic devices. According to one embodiment, a host machine for recharging rechargeable batteries for wireless devices is disclosed. The host machine includes a plurality of wireless devices coupled to and powered by a first plurality of rechargeable batteries and a plurality of charging slots configured to couple with a second plurality of rechargeable batteries. The host machine is adapted to provide power to charge the second plurality of rechargeable batteries and to hold in standby a third plurality of rechargeable batteries comprising the second plurality of rechargeable batteries that have been fully charged. According to an embodiment, the host machine is further adapted to join a network of host machines and to share the batteries in standby with each other. |
| US07671556B2 |
Image sensing apparatus
An image sensing apparatus, which has a constant-voltage driven stepping motor, comprises a PWM waveform generation part that generates pulse signals to be applied to switching devices; and a PWM waveform determination section that determines a PWM waveform to be generated by the PWM waveform generation section. The PWM waveform determination section determines, in accordance with the determined rotation speed value and output torque value of the stepping motor, a duty ratio range that is a range extending from the minimum to the maximum of the duty ratio of the pulse signals. It is designed that the higher the rotational speed value is, the wider the duty ratio width is. |
| US07671554B2 |
Motor driving system
The present invention relates to a motor driving system. The motor driving system includes a motor, a transmission member, a follower member, a position-detecting light emitter, a position-detecting light receiver, and a positioning-status sensing element. The positioning-status sensing element includes a plurality of notches or openings. The positioning-status sensing element is moved between the position-detecting light emitter and the position-detecting light receiver such that a light beam emitted from the position-detecting light emitter is successively penetrated through the notches or openings to be received by the position-detecting light receiver. According to the light-receiving status of the position-detecting light receiver, the speed of the motor is reduced. |
| US07671553B2 |
Servo controller
In a servo controller according to the invention, a position feedback correction unit (3) calculates a first-axis position feedback signal (pmfb1) based on a first-axis position (pm1) as a self-axis position, and a second-axis position (pm2) as an other-axis position; and a deviation between a model position (pa1) and the first-axis position feedback signal (pmfb1) is inputted from a subtracter (5) to a position control unit (4), which performs positional control to output a velocity command. A velocity feedback correction unit (6) calculates a first-axis velocity feedback signal (wmfb1) from a first-axis velocity (wm1) as the self-axis velocity, and a second-axis velocity (wm2) as the other-axis velocity; and the velocity control unit (8) adds a model velocity (wa1) and the velocity command outputted from the position control unit (5), and subtracts the first-axis velocity feedback signal (wmfb1) therefrom, and outputs a feedback torque command (Tfb1) based on the corrected velocity command. |
| US07671549B2 |
Method and apparatus for quiet fan speed control
An AC motor speed controller includes a plurality of capacitors that may be selectively switched, by means of controllably conductive switches, into series electrical connection with an AC motor and an AC voltage source to control the speed of the motor. To change the speed of the motor, a control circuit renders a first switch conductive, in response to a first detected AC voltage zero crossing, to charge a first capacitor to a predetermined voltage. The control circuit then renders a second switch conductive, in response to a subsequent second detected AC voltage zero crossing, to charge a second capacitor to the predetermined voltage. The control circuit then renders both switches simultaneously conductive at a predetermined time after a subsequent third detected AC voltage zero crossing. The capacitors will thereby be charged to the same voltage prior to being switched into series with the motor, thereby resulting in reduced acoustic noise when changing motor speeds. |
| US07671546B2 |
Voltage division resistor for acceleration tubes, acceleration tube, and accelerator
To provide a voltage division resistor for acceleration tube, an acceleration tube, and an accelerator capable of reducing the cost of the acceleration tube and enhancing the operation efficiency. An acceleration tube (1) for accelerating ions (charged particles) I by applying an acceleration voltage V comprises a tubular acceleration tube body (2) made of synthetic resin, a plurality of ring-like acceleration electrodes (3) arranged in a row on the inner circumferential surface (2a) of the acceleration tube body (2) at predetermined intervals in the axial direction of the acceleration tube body (2), a plurality of voltage division resistors (voltage division resistors for the acceleration tube) (5) wound spirally on the outer circumferential surface (2b) of the acceleration tube body (2), and a plurality of terminal bolts (terminal member) (4) provided in close contact with the acceleration tube body (2) while penetrating the acceleration tube body (2) radially and having a forward end (front end) (4a) connected electrically with the acceleration electrodes (3) and a head (rear end) (4b) connected electrically with each connector (connection point) (16) of the voltage division resistor (5). |
| US07671544B2 |
System and architecture for controlling lighting through a low-voltage bus
A system and architecture for managing lighting through a seamless low-voltage bus network is disclosed. The system comprises a plurality of control units that serve as nodes for integrating devices, such as light fixtures, control switches and sensors into the bus. Each of the control units preferably includes a printed circuit board and node interconnects for assembling the low-voltage bus and for integrating the devices. Alternatively, the system comprises a central hub with a master printed circuit control board and a plurality of interconnects for assembling the bus and for integrating the devices. |
| US07671542B2 |
Color control of multi-zone LED backlight
The present invention relates to a light emitting diode (LED) backlight having a plurality of LED strips, in which driving current supplied to each of the plurality of LED strips is adjusted according to measured differences in chromaticity coordinates between the actual light chromaticity and brightness output by each LED strip and a desired light chromaticity and brightness of each LED so that the LED backlight generates light of a desired color with a uniform brightness, and methods of operating the same. |
| US07671539B1 |
Systems and methods for generating optical energy using a light-emitting diode
Systems for providing optical energy comprise an LED, a detector of optical energy, such as a photodiode, that measures the intensity of optical energy emitted by the light-emitting diode, and a controller. The controller adjusts the intensity of the optical energy emitted by the LED based on the intensity measurement provide by the photodiode, to maintain the intensity of the emitted optical energy at a desired level. |
| US07671537B2 |
Metal halide lamp
A metal halide lamp includes a discharge vessel surrounded by an outer envelope with clearance and has a ceramic wall which encloses a discharge space filled with a filling comprising an inert gas, such as xenon (Xe), and an ionizable salt. In the discharge space, two electrodes are arranged whose tips have a mutual interspacing so as to define a discharge path between them. The ionizable salt comprises NaI, TlI, CaI2 and X-iodide wherein X is selected from the group comprising rare earth metals. |
| US07671531B2 |
Organic electroluminescent device with enhanced light emission
An organic electroluminescent device is provided which includes a colored polarizer to reduce power consumption requirements for desired levels of brightness. The organic electroluminescent device includes a substrate, an anode electrode layer, an organic layer, a cathode electrode layer, and a colored polarizer provided on a surface of the substrate opposite a surface of the substrate on which the anode electrode layer is formed such that the colored polarizer polarizes light incident from the outside. The colored polarizer increases transmission of a given color of light based on the color(s) included in the polarizer to thereby decrease total current required by the organic electroluminescent device. |
| US07671530B2 |
Organic electroluminescence display device and method of fabricating the same
Provided are an organic electroluminescence display device and method of fabricating the same. An organic electroluminescence display device according to the present invention includes a first substrate; a plurality of data lines arranged in a first direction on the first substrate; a plurality of gate lines arranged in a second direction on the first substrate; a plurality of pixel regions defined by the gate lines and the data lines, wherein a first pixel line is defined as a line of the pixel regions arranged in the first direction and a second pixel line is defined as a line of the pixel regions arranged in the second direction; a thin film transistor in each pixel region; a plurality of first connecting lines electrically connecting the thin film transistors of the first pixel lines with each other; and a second connecting line electrically connecting the thin film transistor of at least one of the second pixel lines. |
| US07671526B2 |
Light emission device and display device including the light emission device
A light emission device and display device including the light emission device are provided. The light emission device includes a first electrode located on the first substrate and extending in a first direction. A second electrode is arranged above the first electrode and extends in a second direction crossing the first direction. An insulation layer is interposed between the first and second electrodes. A plurality of electron emission regions are electrically connected to the first or second electrodes. A light emission unit is located on the second substrate. Furthermore, one or more cut-away portions are formed in the second electrode at a crossed region between the first and second electrodes such that an overlapping area between the first and second electrodes is reduced. |
| US07671524B2 |
Flat light source having phosphor patterns in an edge region
A flat light source having a main region and an edge region around the main region is provided. The flat light source includes a first substrate, first electrodes, dielectric patterns, a phosphor layer, first phosphor patterns, a second substrate, and a sealant. The first electrodes are disposed on the first substrate and arranged within the main region and the edge region. The dielectric patterns cover the first electrodes. The phosphor layer is disposed between the dielectric patterns in the main region and the edge region. The first phosphor patterns are disposed on the phosphor layer within the edge region. The second substrate is disposed above the first substrate, and the sealant is formed out of the edge region between the first and second substrates so as to bond the two substrates. |
| US07671521B2 |
Spark plug with multi-layer firing tip
A spark plug having a multilayer firing tip that minimizes the amount of precious metal used and a method of assembling a spark plug with a multilayer firing tip. The firing tip includes a discharge end and a weld end, with the weld end being connected to a center electrode, and more specifically to a base electrode on the center electrode. The weld end has a coefficient of thermal expansion, which is not between the values for the coefficients of thermal expansion for the discharge end and the base electrode. More specifically, the weld end has a coefficient of thermal expansion which is greater than the coefficients of thermal expansion for the discharge end and base electrode. The weld end is formed from Nickel and Chromium with a limited amount of additional elements. The spark plug is assembled by providing a first elongated material formed from the material used for the discharge end and a second elongated material formed from a material used for the weld end. The two materials are then joined to form a single joined material and are severed to create a firing tip. The firing tip is welded to the center electrode of the spark plug and more specifically, the base electrode. |
| US07671518B2 |
Piezoelectric vibrator, method for adjusting piezoelectric vibrator, piezoelectric actuator, timepiece, and electronic device
Piezoelectric vibrators provided with an electrode that includes a drive electrode and adjustment electrodes formed in advance on part of the electrode; the drive electrode and adjustment electrodes that are initially electrically connected to each other are electrically cutoff and insulated from each other by cutting conductive parts between the drive electrode and adjustment electrodes, or the mutually insulated drive electrode and adjustment electrodes are electrically connected using solder, a wire, or another electrically conductive member, whereby the characteristic frequencies are adjusted. |
| US07671517B2 |
Piezoelectric electroacoustic transducer
A piezoelectric electroacoustic transducer includes a substantially rectangular piezoelectric diaphragm, a case having supports to support the four corners of the bottom surface of the piezoelectric diaphragm, terminals fixed to the case, each including an inner connection portion exposed near the supports, a first elastic adhesive disposed between the periphery of the piezoelectric diaphragm and the terminals, a conductive adhesive disposed between electrodes of the piezoelectric diaphragm and the terminals across the top surface of the first elastic adhesive, a second elastic adhesive filling and sealing a gap between the periphery of the piezoelectric diaphragm and an inner portion of the case, and an overamplitude-preventing receiver provided on a bottom wall of the case to limit the amplitude of vibration of the piezoelectric diaphragm to a predetermined range. The overamplitude-preventing receiver is disposed closer to the center of the piezoelectric diaphragm than the supports. |
| US07671515B2 |
Microelectromechanical devices and fabrication methods
There are many inventions described and illustrated herein. In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a MEMS device, and technique of fabricating or manufacturing a MEMS device, having mechanical structures encapsulated in a chamber prior to final packaging. An embodiment further includes location of a piezoelectric material as part of a semiconductor sensing structure. The semiconductor sensing structure, in conjunction with the piezoelectric material, can be used as a sensing device to provide an output signal associated with a sensed event. |
| US07671513B2 |
Piezoelectric motor allowing at least two degrees of freedom, in rotation and linear displacement
A motor (1) includes a stator (4) and a rotor (6), the stator including piezoelectric actuators (11,12,21) for maneuvering staples (30A, 30Z) maintaining the stator and its linear displacement (L) along a guide (2), the actuators serving to drive the rotor in rotation (R). |
| US07671509B2 |
Rotor and stator assemblies for permanent magnet electric generator
A permanent magnet electric generator includes a rotor assembly and a stator assembly. The rotor assembly has axially disposed annular outer and inner rings concentric with an axis of rotation. A plurality of magnets is disposed on the outer ring, each magnet having a north pole and a south pole. The permanent magnets are aligned with the axis of rotation, and adjacent magnets have alternating polarity. The stator assembly includes a plurality of stator blocks aligned to form an annular ring-shaped stator member retained by a stator frame. The stator member is configured to be at least partially disposed inside the rotor assembly and is circumferentially encircled by the rotor assembly. |
| US07671507B2 |
Brush bag for a dynamo-electric machine
A brush bag, a brush and a current transfer unit for a dynamo-electric machine comprising a commutator, in particular for an electromotor. The current transfer unit comprises at least the brush, which is embodied, in particular, as a multi-layer carbon brush, and a brush bag. The brush bag is configured in such a manner that the distance between the brush and the brush bag in a front guiding area is smaller than the distance in a rear guiding area. Beating of the brush on the brush bag is visibly reduced due to the configuration thereof and noise caused by the beat is avoided. |
| US07671504B2 |
Electric motor with multilayered rhombic single coils made of wire
An electric motor is disclosed with an air-cored winding which is composed of a plurality of single coils made of wire, wherein the single coils overlap each other in an imbricated manner and the single coils are preformed to form an offset at least in the region of two opposite corners, so that half of the legs are located in a first plane and half of the legs are located in a second plane. A more inexpensive and more robust assembly of air-cored windings for electric motors can thereby be achieved. |
| US07671503B2 |
Rotating electric machine and electrically driven vehicle
A rotating electric machine whose output characteristics can be easily and freely adjusted and varied even in operation. The rotating electric machine is received in a housing of an electrically driven two-wheeled vehicle. A rotating shaft is connected to a rotor so as to form an axle. A stator is positioned opposite a rotor. A movable member is connected to a rotating member rotated about the rotating shaft by a regulating motor. The movable member is moved in the axial direction of the rotating shaft by the rotation of the rotating member. This movement causes the rotor to be rotatingly moved in the axial direction of the rotating shaft, changing relative position of the rotor and the stator. |
| US07671502B2 |
Driving apparatus
A rotating electric machine comprises a stator having stator salient poles, three-phases windings would around said stator salient poles, a rotor rotatable held inside the said stator, and permanent magnets inserted into said rotor and positioned opposite to said stator salient poles. The three-phase windings are concentratively wound around each of the stator salient poles, with windings of each phase wound around at more than one stator salient pole. The windings of each phase have a phase difference of voltage between at least one of the windings and the other. |
| US07671499B2 |
Fan, motor and bearing structure thereof
A bearing structure, which is cooperated with a shaft, includes a housing, a bearing, an elastic element and a blocking element. The shaft passes through the bearing. The elastic element presses against the bearing to provide a pre-stress to the bearing. The blocking element is apart from the bearing by a predetermined distance. |
| US07671492B1 |
Repelling magnetic field engine
A repelling magnetic field engine. An illustrative embodiment of the engine includes a cylinder, a piston reciprocally mounted in the cylinder and emitting a static magnetic field, a magnet assembly provided in the cylinder and emitting a dynamic magnetic field having the same magnetic polarity as the static magnetic field and a crankshaft drivingly engaged by the piston. |
| US07671488B1 |
Voltage substitution device and method of use thereof
A voltage substitution device and method of use thereof, wherein the voltage substitution device may include at least two voltage meter modules, a variable DC to DC converter, at least two leads, a switch, a variable resistor and at least two power supplies. One power supply provides power to the voltage meter modules, while the other power supply provides power for the variable DC to DC converter. The leads may be attached to alarm sensor wires, and one voltage meter module displays the voltage across the sensor wires. The output voltage of the variable DC to DC converter may be displayed on the second voltage meter module. The variable resistor may be adjusted to vary the output voltage of the DC to DC converter to match the voltage across the sensor wires. Once the voltages are matched, the switch may be closed to place the output voltage of the DC to DC converter onto the leads and in parallel with the sensor wires. |
| US07671487B2 |
Uninterruptible power supply and method for controlling same
An uninterruptible power supply and method for controlling same are disclosed. The controlling method includes the steps of bypassing the first AC power to the output terminal via the bypass loop and the switch and converting a second AC power having a voltage, phase and frequency substantially equal to that of the first AC power by an inverter when the first AC power is normal; and switching the second AC power to the output terminal via the switch when the phase or frequency of the first AC power is changed so as to generate a difference value between the first AC power and the second AC power and the difference value is larger than a predetermined difference value. |